What next? Is candidate Obama going to say he’s against war again too? I recall some event last week which was held to be the kickoff of President Obama’s presidential campaign, but today’s statement confirms it, Candidate Obama is in the house, he’s for whatever you’re for, until it turns out, any expectations you had were too damn high, a president is powerless to do anything but what you’re against. President Obama rededicating May Day to be Loyalty Day leaves no words.

Do you remember that Colorado Representative Doug Lamborn had a nickname before he pinned the latest on his sorry tail? Before Tar Baby, Lamborn was known for another remark whose meaning he insists he hadn’t intended, when he left a telephone message with a local couple, threatening “consequences” if they failed to cede to his demand. The couple had questioned the propriety of two campaign contributions, accusations which proved to be true, but Lamborn warned there would be consequences if they did not agree to meet with him privately to discuss a retraction. The couple felt unsettled by a congressman threatening them with “consequences” but Lamborn laughed it off as a misinterpretation, just as he did again with “tar baby”. Lamborn explained he didn’t mean it like that, he wanted them to understand that, you know, there are consequences to telling untruths. But theirs weren’t, in fact Lamborn’s protestations were untrue. And very unjustly, he has yet to suffer for it. Yet. Throwing your weight around like a mobster is one thing, calling the president a Tar Baby might prove stickier.

I am so sorry all you Dem Chicken Littles, but GOP candidate Michele Bachmann is not going to depose your precious Recidivist Obama. She’s a straw man and as desperate a bogeyman as the corporate bad-cop party can muster. Bachmann was fleeing a contentious audience at the Iowa Straw Poll but PAUSED because who can resist the obviously ribald photo-op with a foot-long corn-dog? And she gave her gay hubby the first bite. This ensured press, take your pick, salacious or God-awful horrific, whatever, from media followers who look to the vacuous debutante for inspiration. Stupid? Or savvy as a FOX-coached bimbo?

How fortunate that the corporate media is pretending a Michele Bachmann presidential candidacy has legitimacy. Who’s going to dispute your prospects? Yes, YOU, I don’t care who you are. Or what about …ANY third party contender? A truly unelectable Republican will not be bogeyman enough to circle the wagons around Obama. An idiot on the one hand and a bullshitter on the other, both certifiable — literally, leaves an opening between them for someone rational.

We the electorate have been warned that “REPUBLICORP” will be unveiled as the dreaded merger of the GOP and corporate masters. Unconcatenated into the spiffy boo-word is mention of the Democratic Party, a wholly-powned subsidiary. Sure they’re the voices sounding the alarm, and they will certainly blame the victim where voters fail to elect Dem incumbents. Or WHAT will befall us? The sky falls apparently, if the Republicans regain the majority in Congress. Although Dems won the majority during Bush’s term, but couldn’t subpoena squat. And those were the halcyon days before super majorities and the virtual filibuster. I bet Washington Democrats can’t wait to be delivered from their put-on-the-breaks personas and resume unabashedly rolling in the loot of unfettered capitalist rape.

Read more »

I’ll show you an absentee ballot. As the election looms, the Klieg lights intensify on the TP bogey-persons, TV talking heads harp about what a nail-biter this will be, pollsters dance with them that brought ‘em, Michael Moore does his usual U-turn, to urge us to suck it up for the Dems, Medea Benjamin defends her eternal faith that activism “might” still move Obama, and ever multiple emails presume Obama’s options must be preserved at all costs, usually a donation. Again I anticipate hearing from a friend who monitors local precinct printouts and calls to whip his charges to the polls. I’ve lost count of how many Facebook prompts I’ve gotten to pledge to vote — but this time I’m going to make my ballot count. No amount of corporate-sponsored fear-based gap-closing civic-enthusiasm is going to coerce me to play this game. I will not support war, lack of health care, and class war unchallenged. The beasts unleashed by Citizens United will not buy my participation.

Read more »

Strike three. Obama’s out. Stop war? Nope. Address climate change? Sorry no. Reform health care? In the insurer’s interest only. I’m hearing Obama’s failure to deliver real health care being blamed on Americans themselves, for not building a movement to support it. WTF. In fact Dems are being asked to root for Obama’s duplicitous health care legislation, or hinder the change-meister’s momentum. Momentum for what? Not one issue remains for which Democrats can claim to deliver America from the GOP. Isn’t it time to uproot all incumbents and side with the majority of voters? Teabaggers can have their Palin, the Dems can sink their last hope in Obama, Americans need to claim the largest constituency of recent past elections, the independents.

She’s got a book tour, so what? But Oprah is willing to suffer her for two couch sessions, now Hillary Clinton wants to grant her a beer summit. Foreign leaders can’t get an audience without preconditions. Why is Sarah Palin accorded such stature?

Read more »

It could be confused for being contrarian or reactionary, but how else do you build upon what you learn? Instead of letting life buffet you while you strap yourself to a mast to drift to a predestined shore, why not sail a bit? You’ve got a rudder and centerboard to limit your drift. Let those who live back in the age of the square sail think that weather can only lead downwind.

Read more »

The more they replay it, the more Barack Obama’s Grant Park speech comes off like bad theater. From Obama’s lips, I’m not sure the faithful have the skepticism to critique it. But his election night address may be the surest indication of what his centrism is going to look like, political communication for folks across the aisle: exposition and pandering.

Read more »

Obama’s victory has called into doubt the improbable Bradley Effect, but MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pointed to the re-election so far of Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska, a result which rings off-key with his pre-election eight point deficit in the polls, as suggesting a reverse-type Bradley Effect: voters misrepresenting their inclination to vote for a felon.

Read more »

South Park this week lent its usual on-the-spot spot-on insight to the Obama victory. The South Park plot suggested Tuesday’s triumph was the result of McCain colluding with Obama to seize the White House, solely to access a presidential escape tunnel which runs under the Smithsonian, putting them within grasp of the HOPE Diamond (get it?). An Obama-McCain Oceans-08 Mission Impossible heist might be stretching it, particularly with Palin cast as the technical mastermind, but would it be entirely a fiction?

Read more »

Mark Lewis recorded some white-people desperation at the mostly African-American Hillside Center polling place. Here’s his account:

Read more »

Parts of the country which favored McCain/Palin, by how much. El Paso County in no position to make fun of hicks in Kentucky or Tennessee.
Mississippi, Oklahoma 66%; Wyoming 65%; Idaho, Utah 63%
Alaska 62%; Alabama 60%
Arkansas, Louisiana 59%
EL PASO COUNTY 58%
Kentucky, Tennessee 57%
Nebraska, Kansas 57%
Texas, West Virginia 56%
Arizona, South Carolina 54%
North Dakota, South Dakota 53%; Georgia 52%; Montana 50%

Read more »

If the McCain-Palin ticket survives Tsunami Obama, to reconstitute a GOP win or draw in the late hours of election eve, several options are availing themselves for the American people’s political baptism. In the event of a need for an RU468, Colorado activists will be gathering 9am at the Capitol steps in Denver. For locations nationwide, or to learn what contingency plans are being prepared near you, check Liberty Tree, The Foundation for a Democratic Revolution.

COLORADO SPRINGS- How’s this for polling place trouble, and it happened to our own Dennis Apuan. The peace community’s own Apuan, Filipino-American and Democratic candidate for state House District 17, (1) hadn’t receive his absentee ballot in the mail, so (2) was given a provisional ballot on election day. When he discovered HIS NAME WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, election workers eventually noticed (3) they were using ballots for District 19.

COLORADO- The unions mounted a very visible opposition to the proposed Colorado Amendments 47, 49 and 54. Vote NO, their posters and stickers urged, in support of Colorado’s firefighters, police and teachers. I might have agreed more if they’d mentioned better reasons.

Read more »

EL PASO COUNTY, COLO.- I visited the Board of County Commissioners today to seek their intervention with problems developing with the upcoming election. They’d already voiced their support for Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink’s voter intimidation of Colorado College students. In light of national criticism of vote suppression tactics such as the fewer early-voter stations, longer wait times, and the possibility of running out of paper ballots, I wanted to give the commissioners a chance to reassure voters of El Paso County. Long lines? They’re all for them. In their own words:

Read more »

MONDAY NOV. 3RD brings another chance to see Sarah Palin. Can we pray it please be the last? Palin will hold court to the Colorado Springs’ Holy War freaks in the same private airplane hanger she used before, so that her campaign can splice footage from the previous rally.
Jet Center Aviation,
1575 Aviation Way.
Event starts at 5:15pm,
doors open at 3:30pm.
(Meet outside earlier.) Let’s bid them ALL best success with their God/guns/greed elsewhere.

Read more »

PUEBLO, COLO- Here are pictures of Saturday’s Obama campaign rally in Pueblo, which his family wedged in between appearances the same day in Nevada and Missouri. Our peace contingent positioned early at the rally entrance on Main and C Street and greeted absolutely every of the over 25K attendees, from the Orange Pass-holders to the public whose line extended over the horizon.

Read more »

Read more »

ISN’T THIS JUST SO EMBARRASSING? On Monday Sarah Palin returns for a third engagement in Colorado Springs. The Republicans have no safe haven for their “rogue” governor but America’s bastion of militant evangelism we call home. Obviously in their eyes we’re a beacon of nothing brighter than idiocy. And McCain’s campaign strategists dare not expose Palin in a public venue, but in a private airplane hanger located well within military contractor grounds. On election eve, the GOP needs to show Palin with a crowd of supporters who won’t be booing or laughing or trying to slip out in horror. We need to tell Palin to go back to Wasilla, and take her new fans with her.

Read more »

Memorable moments from the 2008 presidential debates? After not making eye contact with Obama for the entirety of the first debate, McCain refused Obama’s outreached hand, directing his opponent to shake hands with his wife Cindy instead.

Read more »

Sarah Palin is now pointing out that what she’s wearing is from her “favorite consignment shop in Anchorage Alaska.” Are GOP campaign stylists now stocking the store in Alaska? Stocking it for Sarah Palin? Couldn’t a consignment collection be the ultimate slush fund in miniature, a wardrobe based on the soft money concept? It’s literally political rally wardrobe-laundering!

Read more »

PUEBLO- NOV 1st.
It may be the last Colorado whistle stop on the way to the White House. Come see Candidate Obama and make sure he hears what you expect from him. No more wars period. Not in Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, Bolivia, or Haiti. No more economic war of attrition against America’s own people.

Read more »