after surprise visit.

In an abrupt about face, no doubt based on being spurned by his own party, the President, visibly upset, and screaming at his own staff, demanded he be flown to a secret meeting being held by Republican Leadership. Marine One was armed with laser cannons and was seen shortly thereafter flying to a location in Northern Maryland. Upon arriving at the scene, witnesses report the President, who was hanging on to the bottom rail of the helicopter, lept free with at least fifteen feet left to descend, and tore off his shirt, leaving on only belts of ammunition, assault weapons, and a trenchcoat.

He then proceeded to enter the complex, pulling out of his trenchcoat several more automatic weapons he had only a few days previously declared "dangerous and ill advised".

Shots rang out shortly after the President entered the complex and screamed "Can we pass legislation without 60 votes??!!!11, YES WE CAN!!@!!"

The scenes that followed were chaotic, with some reporting Mitch McConnell dove for cover but hit his turtle-shaped head on a desk, knocking himself unconscious. John Boehner reportedly hid behind Eric Cantor who reportedly hid behind incoming Senator Rand Paul, who was already hidden under Mitch McConnell.

The President then mercilessly slaughtered the entire Republican leadership and was seen feasting on their entrails by overhead MSNNBC helicopters.

Victorious against the party of no, the President was last heard screaming "I'm still going to Govern from the middle, you sons of bitches.... THE MIDDLE OF JOHN BOEHNER'S COLD DEAD BODY"

More on this developing story as bizarro world turns.

I just have to push back on this one.

The one thing the media and the GOP and to some extent the idealistic left (as opposed to those of us who consider ourselves pragmatic) all seem focused on this week... is this idea of a meek President too afraid of conflict. That this focus on compromise and bipartisanship betrays a soul that dares not jump into the fire when there are those who need to be rescued.

I challenge this assertion as complete and utter horse-shit.

There are a lot of people that are threatened by Obama, the mere suggestion of his name, his policies, the fact that he maneuvered to the Presidency when they could not. There are a whole bunch of racists around the country threatened by the image of him as our Commander in Chief.

I remember, one of the many other times this meme percolated to the surface, an encounter took place at a Republican leadership get-away. Our President.... our first African American President, walked into a room of wealthy white men and women and told them to their face where he would work with them and where he would not. He was not in the slightest intimidated, and it was clear he had the upper hand against the entirety of the Republican caucus.

These people are horribly afraid of our President. That they are trying so hard to cast him as weak, betrays their fear of him quite blatantly, in my opinion.

I remember another time they raised his lack of "Decider"-ness. The oil spill. The were going on and on about how he needed to take the bull by the horns and this was his Katrina and.... whatever. He took the bull by the horns by winning almost unconditional surrender from BP, billions for the damage, and was instrumental in pulling together the team that ultimately capped the well, including his own Secretary of Energy.

Just today more were complaining around these parts on his lack of job creation, and what a spectacle he is making by even thinking about going overseas as our head of state. Then it is announced he has landed a 15+ billion dollar export deal that could mean almost 60,000 jobs back home.

Yeah, he frets every day about how weak he is.

The guy came from nothing to be our President... he could barely even afford a room for the 2000 Democratic Convention when no-one knew his name.

Ya'll should give him a little more credit.

So my mother calls me yesterday morning basically in tears. She sounds relieved to hear my voice. I wonder who died. She then relays to me what is spreading through my office like wildfire, a plane just crashed into another office building across the highway. She assumed it was my building.

I assure her I am OK as our office phones begin to light up with similar calls as we start looking for details on the web. Wait, screw the web, we realize, and walk down to the edge of the highway and look across at a burning building that I pass by every day. That my wife drives next to every morning on her way into work right around the same time (she had gone in early for once).

I am writing this not to call attention to myself, but rather the reaction I had to seeing a building that had just been hit by a plane.

I worked for a national broadband provider during 9/11. I remember watching the buildings come down and having to get right back to work to make sure people could call their loved ones. I remember my immediately bursting into tears when I saw the first tower fall. I could feel all of those people dying in that moment, and it was too much.

Yesterday, staring at what should not have been such a huge swath of destruction for such a small plane, I just felt empty. There was shock value for sure, but I felt nothing like I did on 9/11.

I realized, I have become de-sensitized to mass violence. I have built a shield to protect myself from the pain I know others are feeling. In a lot of ways, it is necessary in order to carry on, but part of me feels a sense of loss that such a horrific image less than a quarter mile from me could have such little impact. Hell, I took a tax class in that building many years ago when I tried to start my own business (film production). We walked to the class from the apartment complex we lived in just down the road.

We were all of course relieved that it seemed there were relatively few casualties, and that we ourselves had been spared such a horrifying moment.

And there we stood, looking at a burning building.... safe. And I felt... very little other than some relief.

And I turn now to Mr. Stack.

I never met him, although I know the area where he lived very well. He sounds like a fairly typical semi-political Austinite, perhaps latching on to ideas from the left and right, with his own very real beef with some tax code that kept him from being all that he could be (in his somewhat twisted opinion). Honestly he strikes me like someone who would latch on to Ron Paul as many in this town do.

Of course, most of us are not the mass murdering types. I can think of one other Austinite, who had a large tumor lodged in his brain, that shot up a bunch of University students back when my mother lived in this town (from the UT Tower).

Why he did what he did will be talked about and analyzed for years. But I will tell you this. I am not qualified to make statements about his sanity. What I can tell you is those people who want to latch on to his last blog post as evidence of a tortured soul, whom nobody listened to should hold your fire. We don't know all about Joe Stack yet. For those who believe Zombie Joe Stack should be our next President, I am prepared to call you crazy.

People talk about him rationalizing his views into his actions. I do not see his statement as a rationale at all. It reads as a justification for his past and present actions. He does not strike me as someone who believed he was wrong in the slightest for what he was doing. As an ex meth-addict, I know all about rationalizing and justifying crazy behavior. This was a (unfortunately) well written "justification" for the act of mass murder, period. We don't know if he tried to seek help. We don't know if he ever even tried to hire a tax attorney. We only know that it seems like he felt big brother did not want him to be able to run his business. So after a possible fight with his wife (most likely over taxes) he lit his house on fire, jumped in his car and drove on tax-payer funded roads on the way to the airport on his death mission. He jumped in his plane, flew over my office and crashed into one across the highway.

And he was all over TV. And that building. And all I can think is, hey, I took a tax class in that building when I tried to start my own business. My business failed. So did Joe's.

And there he is in the smoldering ruins, and here I am feeling empty at the site of it all.

In the words of Vonnegut.... and so it goes.

The President has an awesome responsibility, which is outlined very well in the Constitution. I recommend reading it to fully understand what the President can and cannot do.

On the topic of words:

Lately, many here have been dredging up the old saying "actions speak louder than words," which is a great saying, and has a very nice ring to it, especially in the current political/economic climate. It is hard to imagine the use of this phrase, being shouted from the rooftops by many who now find themselves (or always have been) opposed to the President, is not a cynical attempt to undercut his strength... his unmatched oratory skills.

Here is my request. Recognize that a key function of the President is communicating with the people. In my opinion he has spoken more clearly, more directly, and more succinctly than any President in modern history. His words are important not just because they inspire (young & old alike), but because they can set the tone. You see this in the bump not only he receives after a speech, but also his policy positions receive every time he speaks. That's right before they go through the woodchipper and come out the other side of the "translation" via the media/gop, usually resulting in angry interest groups.

I wholly appreciate people do not like or even respect this President. I encourage you, however, to not participate in taking away his voice, which has brought hope to so many, and very real help now to many many more. There is a reason they call it the Presidential soap box.

Take that away, and all of the actions you are hoping for, working for, impatiently screaming for..... gone.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_...

Thelma Moore, an 80-year-old retired nurse from West Roxbury, said she voted for Coakley because "you vote the party when you get to this stage in life," said Moore, a registered Democrat.

"I'm surprised that it's so close," she said of the race. "But then again, in this day and age, I'm not surprised by anything that happens. Hopefully things will turn out alright."


At Boston City Hall, a steady of stream voters were casting ballots.

Bill Luke, a 62-year-old chief financial officer who lives downtown, voted for Coakley because he said he cares about health care and would "hate to see us lose the majority," in the US Senate.


http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/201...

SPRINGFIELD – Voter turnout here, as in a number of Western Massachusetts communities, is higher than expected.

As of about 12:30 p.m., more than 2,700 of Springfield’s 89,045 registered voters had cast their ballots in the special election to fill the Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy, said Gladys Oyola, acting election commissioner,

“It’s probably on par with the election in November,” Oyola said, referring to voter turnout.

Oyola, before Election Day, predicted that a very close race between Democrat Attorney General Martha M. Coakley and Republican state Sen. Scott P. Brown, could draw 20 percent of the vote. The third candidate is Libertarian Joseph L. Kennedy.

Judging from turnout so far, Oyola said turnout could reach as high as 25-30 percent.

Some people still live in boxes. Some people never escaped that war to have 12 homes. There's more and more of them now with John McCain's current war.

I have been thinking about McCain' selection of Sarah Palin to be his Vice President, and potential next President of the United States.

Watching reactions in the media and listening to folks talk, I have been struck by this pick in a way that has surprised me. My reaction is not dissimilar to many others: it frightens me on multiple levels. She has less experience than George W. Bush did, she is more socially conservative than he (at least outwardly), and has not even been vetted as he was (so weakly) in 2000. Being the Governor of a large state (as was George W. Bush) has not always translated into the temperament or judgment to be a good Commander in Chief. See the last eight years. Her foreign policy experience is nil. What are her thoughts on torture, Darfur, trade, immigration and China (to name a few)? Has she even thought about these things? We don't know.

In short, I think Sarah Palin is more like George W. Bush than John McCain, who just picked her, on his 72nd birthday, to be a heartbeat from the Presidency.

This is why I think it is our job to quickly prepare to do combat with the collapsing circular rhetoric coming from the McCain camp -- primarily that if Sarah Palin is not experienced enough -- neither is Obama. The obvious path here is to reinforce and expand on Obama's rigorous vetting by the American electorate, the media, and his triumph in the Democratic Primaries in spite of the experience argument. We choose Presidents based on how they fare in a very thorough discussion of who they are, what they have accomplished, and how they have accomplished it. We test them. We watch them manage a crisis. We look under every rock and polish it clean. At least that is what we have done for Obama... and his case has been different. Being the first African American with the potential to be President has made the spotlight that much more intense. Going up against some of the brightest and most formidable candidates in American History has made the spotlight that much more intense. Going up against Hillary Clinton who has light years more gravitas than Sarah Palin and emerging victorious has only shown the spotlight more and more on Barack Obama's temperament and judgment as potential Commander in Chief. His address, in front of 75,000 people on Thursday proved, in my opinion, without a reasonable doubt -- that Barack Obama is best suited to be President at this moment in time.

Sarah Palin was selected, in an action much like the Supreme Court selecting George W. Bush, to be a heartbeat from the Presidency. She has not been tested, she has not been vetted, she met John McCain once, and she could very easily be our President within the next year.

There has been much discussion about how the first important decision a President makes is picking his or her Vice President. There has also been an unwritten (although maybe it should be written) rule that a vice presidential selection should be based first and foremost on that person's ability to take over the awesome responsibility of being President of the United States.

Comparing these "selections" Obama wins hands down. Again, he has shown the temperament and the judgment that a President should -- not a reckless and risky choice like McCain has made -- that seems far more calculating than wise. In fact Obama faced some criticism for his choice, but there was always an implicit understanding that Joe Biden is prepared to be President. This is the most important test.

Is Sarah Palin ready to be President? Is she prepared to get us out of Iraq? Does she even understand the middle east? We just don't know.

Here are my responses to the talking points. Please share your own.

1) "She is the most popular Governor in America"

Then why have I never heard of her

2) "She has more experience than Obama at an executive level"

Their resumes are not even close. She has not been vetted. She has not been tested. She has not been put under a microscope and dissected like Barack Obama. We do not know Sarah Palin, but we do know Barack Obama. He has proven he has the temperament and judgment and desire to lead -- like other great leaders before him whom also appeared to have limited experience. Has Sarah Palin been compared to any great leaders? Does she even want to be President? Does she have the desire and drive to lead this great country? Does she have the temperament and knowledge to work with foreign leaders? Where does she stand on the issues? We do not know. Does she even understand the awesome responsibility she may very likely inherit?

3) "She has been tough on members of her own party, worked across the aisle and has high ethical standards. She is seen as a new kind of Republican"

They said the same thing about George W. Bush. And isn't she to the right of him on many issues? Is mainstream America ready for a President that is as socially conservative as Dick Cheney? And how can you say she has ethical standards when she is currently under an ethics investigation?

4) "She appeals to women"

she is NO Hillary Clinton. She is NOT a feminist. She may appeal to some women, but not those in the mainstream who believe in progress, choice, and equality for women.

5) "She is a game-changer"

This is not a game. The campaign for President is a test to see who is ready for the most important job on the planet. Sarah Palin was a risky choice by a man who has proven over and over again that he does not have the temperament or judgment to be President. She is an unknown quantity now potentially a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Dear X

Barack Obama is about to make one of the most important decisions of this campaign -- choosing a running mate.

You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be the first to know his choice.

Sign up today to be the first to know:

http://my.barackobama.com/vp

*Warning, if you are a pundit and have been getting calls from Karl Rove, you are a hack. A tool that is being manipulated. You are, most likely, a fool, and probably realize it by now. You can keep that sort of thing on super duper secret background for only so long. That is all*

Back in 2003 I wrote an article about Karl Rove and the "Big Bad GOP" here at DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/artic... -

In it I predicted a collapse of the GOP spin machine, led by Rove. I said if it looks like an Enron and acts like an Enron... it's probably an Enron. Unfortunately it didn't happen before the election, but what can you do... it takes time for people to wise up.

Now that the collapse is approaching an Enronesque free-fall, I thought it would be a good idea to remember what it is that Rove built with a simple fear manipulation strategy employed repeatedly over the years. In recognizing the new media paradigm, where the 24 hour news cycle crushed real journalism and replaced it with the talking-head-shark-attack missing-white-girl circus... Rove, more than anyone previously, took the immoral yet effective whisper campaign to criminal levels.

Previously we witnessed the spectacle of Ann Richards possibly being a lesbian. Max Cleland loved Osama Bin Laden. John McCain had an illegitimate black child, and was probably crazy from his Vietnam experience. Al Gore had multiple personalities and was a serial liar. John Kerry lied about his war injuries and experiences. And all of them hated America.

Having perfected this we've got nothing else to run on so lets appeal to voter bigotry strategy via mass leafleting, mailings and eventually media manipulation, he, like his masters, became spectacularly drunk with the power it brought him... and did not realize it might not be such a good idea to use this approach in the marketing of the Iraq War. Not to mention, the whisper campaign gets a little more treacherous in the policy realm. See social security, etc.

Had he just planted the possibility that Joe Wilson was gay, rather than bringing his wife out of the CIA closet, he might have struck gold. Too late now. Unfortunately for Rove, Joe Wilson had street cred, having been lauded by the President's own father for his service in Iraq... so he had to look for someone close to the ex-ambassador to attack. Guilt by association. His wife was the only available target, and... viola! A conspiracy is born. Two annoying birds with one stone! Call Tim Russert! Call Chris Matthews! Call Novakula!

Having crossed over from slander to treason (in my mind at least), Rove has found himself naked at last (sorry for the imagery). The house he built on innuendo is gone, and all that is left is the legal squirming against those he duped into doing his bidding. In the end, I am certain Rove will find himself in a position he never thought possible: the confirmed source of lies, disinformation and sleazy, criminal manipulation - all to the detriment of his country, his political party, and his very freedom.

How ironic that the GOP, billed as the patriotic, honor and integrity filled party of family values and real Americans-- will be destroyed by the very men that brought it to the brink of dominance. Men whom have turned out to be nothing but the very worst we have to offer the world. Petty, vengeful people who put power and money before their country-- and damn near destroyed it in the process.

Karl, hack whisperer extraordinare, there are two words all of your work spreading lies and innuendo over the years have inscribed on your forehead. Two words everyone whose lives you have destroyed to win an election can see every time they look at you in disgust. Two words Patrick Fitzgerald sees glaring above your shifty eyes every time you tell another obvious lie. And those words, which you once used to describe Valerie Wilson:

"Fair Game."

Seeing as how you guys need to keep making money, and how the way you make your money is by blowing people and buildings up... I'd like to propose the following so as to stabilize the world a bit, and make it easier for me to live my life without constant rage.

My proposal: A lottery system for carpet bombing neighborhoods in America.

Hear me out. Each week, an independent commission made up of people of all races, genders and political persuasions would gather and pick a neighborhood out of a hat. This neighborhood would then immediately be carpet bombed. Think of the jobs created here at home rebuilding that neighborhood, caring for it's wounded, and burying it's dead. It's the perfect fuel for a stagnant economy.

There are many more reasons for a neighborhood carpet bomb lottery, but I thought I'd just throw it out there for now, and let you mull it over before you bomb Iran and they nuke Israel and we all die because you had to make a buck.

Thanks again.