Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

kdka.com – McCain Campaign Volunteer: Attack Story Snowballed Out Of Control.

A campaign worker who claimed she was the victim of a politically-motivated attack in which she was beaten, kicked and cut, now admits that she made the whole story up.

[Update: CNN is reporting on this as well. Glad to see it making the MSM.]

The ‘real’ America, really – Los Angeles Times.

The GOP code isn't hard to crack: There's the America that might vote for Obama (a suspect America populated by people with liberal notions, big-city ways and, no doubt, dark skin), and then there's the "real" America, where people live in small towns, believe in God and country, and are … well … white.

Yep. That’s pretty much what I thought Palin was saying…

Ex-ACORN worker: ‘I paid the price’ for voter registration fraud – CNN.com.

Ex-GOP operative tells cautionary tale about ‘how to rig an election’ – CNN.com.

Read both articles, and then you tell me which entity had a greater impact on actual votes cast, which is what really matters when it comes to voter fraud and voter repression.

The answer should be obvious. ACORN’s issues did not lead to a single vote being cast fraudulently. In fact, the only entity to actually suffer was ACORN, which paid workers for registrations that turned out to be faked. They were the victims in that ordeal.

For the GOP operative? Not so much. What he did – that is voter fraud, and that is how elections are stolen, and that is how democracy dies.

I love it!

YouTube – Ain’t Funny – Vice President. Vote Obama-Biden..

Obama to leave campaign trail to visit ailing grandmother – CNN.com.

Anybody want to take a shot at guessing how long it will take before somebody tries to paint Obama as a villain for visiting his grandmother, or tries to accuse him of going on a tropical vacation in a foreign, exotic land?

So this may be a huge-normous “duh,” but I just want to make sure I’m keeping up. When Sarah Palin says “real America,” she means “white,” right?

I mean, what else could she mean? “Fake America” is where all the people live.

Pam’s House Blend:: The Right’s ACORN head fake unleashes more evil.

More insight as to just how ridiculous this whole ACORN thing really is.

McCain Employing GOP Operative Accused Of Voter Registration Fraud.

So let’s ask ourselves – what is worse: 1) Some invalid registrations being submitted (as they are required to by law) and rejected, or 2) Valid registrations deliberately being thrown away rather than submitted, so that people who believe they are registered show up to the polls and are turned away?

Which is more likely to result in voter disenfranchisement? Which is actually fraudulent?

Michigan Republicans admit to illegal scheme to disenfranchise voters using foreclosure lists

Pam’s House Blend:: Michigan Republicans admit to illegal scheme to disenfranchise voters using foreclosure lists.

Big surprise there.

The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports – News – More W.Va. voters say machines are switching votes .

But of course, all the Republicans want to say is, “Hey, look over there at that ACORN!”

The fabric of democracy, indeed. How scared do you have to be of losing to actually rig the machines so people’s votes flip?

Think you’re getting your fair share of McCain’s tax breaks? Think again.

Ben Smith’s Blog: Purging Joe the plumber? – Politico.com.

The greatest irony? If the GOP had its way, “Joe the Plumber” – that uber-conservative GOP plant – would not be allowed to vote at all. Why? There is a one-letter typo on his name in the voter rolls. That is the kind of mistake the GOP wants to use to block voters. And they’re talking about things that undermine the fabric of democracy?!

…and boy, did they let her off easy. They didn’t give her a chance to wow America with her superior script-reading, word-parroting skillz, but they also didn’t really give her room to mess it up for herself. They pretty much wrote her a few snarky lines, and let her off the hook. Frankly, I’m kind of disappointed. I would have loved to see her trying to do improv or something.

Tina Fey, though, was hilarious, as usual. “The real one? Byee!” I wonder if they talked after the show, because onstage they barely made eye contact.

Okay… I SUCK at geography, but even I know that you can’t really go much farther east than New Hampshire unless you want to wind up in a) the Atlantic Ocean, or b) Canada. (Or okay, Maine or Vermont – but I had to consult a map for that one). But seriously, folks… North WEST? SERIOUSLY?

Wow. At least the people in New Hampshire actually
reacted to her gaffe, unlike those who just let McCain go on and on about sharing his plans with “my fellow prisoners.”

Wow… seriously?

YouTube – SNL: The REAL Sarah Palin.

Watch it while ya can, ’cause you know it won’t be up long! She wasn’t awful, but then again, she had a script. I still say Tina Fey is way, way hotter – and more intelligent, and better in unscripted moments…

The National Republican Trust is running ads trying to link Obama to Mohammad Atta and the other 9-11 terrorists, by claiming that Obama wants people like them to have driver’s licenses. Their advertising graphic shows a picture of Mohammad Atta’s “driver’s license,” which, they claim, could now happen as a result of Obama’s plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Of course, they’re counting on the fact that you won’t know the truth about the 9-11 hijackers, which is that none of them were illegal immigrants!

Let’s clear some of this up, because this ad campaign is absolutely ridiculous.

1) Requiring drivers to be licensed and insured is a good thing. If you’ve ever found yourself in a car accident with no recourse because the other driver had no insurance, then you know this. It is to the benefit of public safety to encourage ALL drivers to become licensed through the DMV and obtain insurance. Further, aren’t we better off having a state database of people residing here, rather than have millions of people flying completely under the radar?

2. Every one of the 9-11 terrorists – every single one – was in the country on valid visas. They had full permission to be in this country. People with valid visas can already obtain driver’s licenses.

But they don’t want you to know that.

Even the Orange County Register has come out against Prop 8. Yay! I just hope its readers will listen!

A great editorial from the NY Times…

Obama camp calls for special prosecutor in fraud investigation – CNN.com.

My favorite quote from the Republican team:

"Rest assured that, despite these threats, the McCain-Palin campaign will continue to address the serious issue of voter registration fraud by ACORN and other partisan groups, and compliance by states with the Help America Vote Act's requirement of matching new voter registrations with state data bases to prevent voter fraud," Porritt added.

Yeah. And OJ Simpson will keep trying to find the real killer.

Biden lashes out at Palin’s ‘pro-America’ comment – CNN.com.

Sarah Palin says:

“We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.”

Yeah. Um. Opposed to like… where all the people live?

Secret Service denies someone yelled ‘Kill him’ at Palin rallies. Interestingly, the Secret Service agents they interviewed were NOT there on security. My guess is they were attending to show support for Palin. So what exactly would be their motivation to admit to hearing death threats levied at Obama? And why did their investigation only include interviews of other Secret Service agents? How about interviewing the other reporters? But no – they might actually get information they don’t want, if they do that!

Secret Service starts helping McCain/Palin keep secrets, blocks journalists from crowds. I have to agree with Dan Savage: If Sarah Palin isn’t going to talk to journalists, the media should either demand access, or even better, just put a freeze on any story related to Sarah Palin. If she doesn’t want to be covered in the media, then they should obey her wishes, and she should be excised from it.

Then again… America needs to see how out of touch she is.

Meanwhile, over at the Department of Justice, which has played Bush Lackey in the past, is stepping up to the GOP plate again with its “investigation” of ACORN. OR IS IT? Who really knows? At least they recognize that this is a highly partisan conflict: ACORN wants underrepresented portions of the American electorate to vote… and the GOP does not. Highly partisan.

I think we all know where this is leading – the GOP wants some excuse, any excuse, to invalidate more than one million registrations submitted by ACORN – even though only a couple thousand of them were invalid. 1) ACORN is required by law to submit all registrations it receives. Invalid registrations won’t be verified, so no voter fraud will take place. Estimates are that no more than 2% of them are likely to be invalid, and not one of the invalid registrations will actually be approved. 2) Can we just review here, for a minute, the real voter fraud that occurs every day by GOP operatives? For more details, review my previous post on GOP voter fraud. This whole ACORN business is one giant “Hey, look over there!”

I seem to recall that at LEAST a few thousand signatures were dropped from the Prop 8 signature count because they were invalid. Wait, did I say a few thousand? More like a few hundred thousand.

Here is the random sample signature data for Prop 8 (PDF). Let’s look at some interesting details:

TOTALS
Raw count: 1,120,801
Random sample (full check): 43,191
Now, JUST in the random sample data – that is, ONLY out of the 43,191, we have these statistics:
Valid signatures: 36,560
Invalid signatures: 6,621
Duplicate signatures: 236

Therefore, projected count of valid signatures: 781,873
Percent accuract: 79.51%

Let’s do a tiny bit of math here: If 781,873 signatures were projected to be valid by the random sample check, that means that 338,928 signatures were projected to be INVALID. The real number could be much higher than that.

If we’re going to have a conversation about mass voter fraud, let’s start there. Hey FBI – I’ve got an investigation for ya.

ACORN, my ass. The Republican party is all about voter fraud – they are just pulling the “hey, look over there” bullshit they always pull. Hopefully with breaking stories like this one, in which voters say they were duped into registering as Republicans, people will start seeing through their lies.

McCain faces uphill climb in campaign’s final weeks:

My favorite line:

"Unless there is something really dramatic that happens externally, like Osama bin Laden is brought home in chains, or there is some sort of really dramatic foreign crisis where Obama stumbles, it's not likely McCain can climb back," Hinshaw said.

Bin Laden’s body should be coming out of the freezer in Dick Cheney’s undisclosed bunker any minute now… watch for it, folks. Watch for it.

No, like, seriously.

YouTube – No on 8 PSA: FAMILY Molly Ringwald.