go johnny go!

i am really excited about john mccain crushing all opposition in the republican primaries and caucuses today, on super tuesday, and becoming the republican nominee. why? check this out:



see? ann coulter would campaign for hillary clinton if john mccain is the nominee! and she is not the only rabid right-winger who hates john mccain! rush limbaugh (the drug addicted radio talk show host who hates drug addicts), tom delay (the former majority leader of the republicans in the house of representatives who redistricted texas and had a “k street project” to make an unholy alliance between republicans in congress and all the washington lobbyists), and plenty of other ultra-right-wing republicans are up in arms about the prospect of john mccain as the republican nominee. check out the new york observer and the washington post.

and currently on the drudge report is a quote from newt gingrich telling ultra-right-wing neo-fascists to suck it up:

Gingrich: 'We need to shrug off McCain... he is likely to be the nominee... McCain is well positioned as reformer against a machine politician like Hillary... Obama most left wing candidate to run since McGovern'...

obama most left wing candidate? helloooooo? what about my main man dennis kucinich? are you pretending dennis kucinich does not exist, newt gingrich? sure he may have dropped out of the race, but he was running for president for quite some time, and he ran in 2004 as well. seriously, some people are completely nuts, and this includes both newt gingrich as well as all the rabidly anti-mccain people in the republican party. and if barack obama is so “left wing”, why is it that so many independents and republicans are voting for him, many changing their party registration to do so, as happened in iowa? if he is some ultra-left-wing radical, you would think that he would not be getting the support of so many senators and governors from red states, and would not be winning the rural areas with low population density in every primary and caucus so far. i mean sure, barack obama does not think we should be using cluster bombs or land mines against innocent civilians, unlike a certain female presidential candidate who shall remain nameless. wow! what a left-wing radical! to be “strong on national security”, we need a president who supports using cluster bombs and land mines against innocent civilians, who will not take a nuclear first strike against iran off the table, who will refuse to negotiate with any of our enemies unless they give into all our demands before negotiations even begin. yes! hillary clinton is so smart on matters of foreign policy and defense compared to barack obama. she voted in favor of invading iraq, but still refuses to call that vote a mistake, just saying if she knew then what she knows now, she would have voted differently. look... if people want to vote for a republican, they should vote republican, instead of voting for a democrat who is republican-lite. sure hillary clinton is against the iraq war... now. it only took her several years before she realized public opinion was strongly against the war... it only took her being booed by antiwar crowds when she was running for re-election to the senate before she realized she had to change her position. how convenient... like how mitt romney changes his mind on major issues to suit the mood of whatever electorate will be voting next. of course, she comes nowhere near to mitt romney’s level of expediency and lack of core convictions. nobody could possibly beat mitt romney at that game, since it is obvious the man does not have any firm views on any policy matters, but rather says whatever he thinks voters want to hear, which explains why his policies as a republican presidential candidate are a polar opposite to those when he ran for governor of massachusetts. since he is a master bullshitter, it is clear why the republican pundits in talk radio love him so much compared to all the others: he is one of them. they are in the same business as him: bullshit.

now, i surely do not want john mccain or any other republican as president... at this point, i doubt any of them are even qualified to be dogcatcher. but i sure do marvel at how willing the republican party right-wing hacks in the media are to go after a decorated war hero... no wait... they did it to john kerry in 2004 so it is no surprise. but still... this time, the decorated war hero is actually a member of their own party, but they treat him like he were from the other party, like john kerry. it is just amazing to me to see these republicans act so insane when it comes to john kerry. i will gladly vote for hillary clinton or any other democratic nominee... in the general election. sure, she might not be as great as barack obama, but she is still pretty good, and much better than any republican. i might not agree with her on everything. and people did say that out of all the democratic candidates running in 2008 (back before any of them dropped out of the race) she was the most conservative, the most like a republican.

now what was the basis for ralph nader’s candidacy in 2000? the one that cost al gore the election by making him lose florida? ralph nader claimed that there was no difference between democrats and republicans. well, if the candidates end up being hillary clinton and john mccain, this will make his claim actually have some merit, this time around. there will still be some difference, of course. but not very much. there would be the standard differences between any possible democrat-republican face-off with the exception of one involving ron paul: the democrat would want to end the war in iraq and the republican would want to continue it indefinitely with no exit strategy. the democrat would support the continued legality of abortion, while the republican would want to make abortion illegal (even rudy giuliani would appoint anti-abortion judges to the supreme court in the mold of antonin scalia and clarence thomas). the democrat would bring about universal healthcare and the republican would try to gradually dismantle existing welfare programs such as social security and medicare. but you know what? hillary clinton and john mccain actually agree about a lot of things, like voting in favor of war with iraq, voting in favor of cluster bombs and land mines against innocent civilians, etc. barack obama, on the other hand, could provide a clear contrast to the republicans on issues of war and peace and foreign policy. the contrast between democrats and john mccain is not as stark as between democrats and some of the other republicans. for instance, republican pundits hate campaign finance reform because they are opposed to transparency and accountability in government and are in favor of corruption. john mccain, along with the vast majority of democrats, supported campaign finance reform, and rightfully so. republican pundits hate illegal immigrants, and would probably like to massacre all of them, killing even more people than hitler killed in the holocaust, if there were the political will and if genocide was not considered a taboo and politically incorrect to propose. other groups they would probably like to massacre might possibly include homosexuals, muslims, atheists, liberal democrats, black people, and everyone living in the continents of asia, africa, and south america. now most republican pundits (or should i say, conservative pundits, since some claim not to be republicans) are probably not such genocidal maniacs, but there are plenty of talk show hosts like michael savage (real name michael weiner) and ann coulter (whose real name is “she who must not be mentioned”) who do make genocidal comments from time to time. anyway, the point is, deporting people to another country is the 2nd best alternative to actually massacring them in concentration camps, in the minds of these types of people. making homosexual acts illegal and throwing gay people in jail is the 2nd best alternative to stoning them to death or beheading them according to a literal interpretation of the bible. so, when john mccain supports letting illegal immigrants actually be able to become u.s. citizens, even if it is through a long, difficult, expensive process, this really pisses off the genocidal maniac demographic of the republican party, the group who thinks we should be carpet-bombing the muslim holy city of mecca with thermonuclear bombs right during the time of year when all muslims are supposed to flock there for the annual pilgrimage. and i can tell you, from reading lots of comment threads for news stories and blog postings on the internet, there are plenty of genocidal maniacs out there posting their genocidal trash talk on the internet. and despite his talk of staying in iraq for 100 years, john mccain does not really seem to appeal to the genocidal demographic because of his stance on illegal immigration. another issue that they are pissed about is global warming. ultra-right-wing nutcases think global warming does not exist and is a complete hoax, just like darwinian evolution, the moon landing, and the earth orbiting the sun. (yes, some right-wing religious nutcases think the sun actually orbits the earth. here is proof.) so, although it is mostly harmless if someone thinks that the sun orbits the earth, or the moon landing was faked, or evolution is wrong and “intelligent design” or “creation science” is correct, since this crazy belief will not actually cause the person to take any actions that have real negative consequences, it is dangerous when people do not believe in global warming. why? if we do nothing to stop global warming, and continue to make it worse, we could wipe out more and more species of life forms on earth: plants, animals, fungi, and single-celled organisms. and one of the species of animal that would be threatened is called homo sapiens in latin, or human in english. rising ocean levels would bury all of the coastal cities and other communities along coastlines. hurricanes and other severe weather storms would get much worse and cause a lot more damage. the polar ice cap on the north pole would end up melting completely every summer, and the one on the south pole would get smaller but not go away completely. jungles in equatorial regions of the planet would be replaced with vast deserts, like the sahara desert in africa that has already expanded quite a bit. people would end up having to move to places like canada and russia! oh, the horror of having to move to canada or russia! but the biggest threat from global warming is that it would wipe out other species (not us humans), species which we are somehow dependent upon without realizing exactly how. like the plants that the animals we eat eat. or something like that. anyway, i do not quite understand everything that would happen under global warming, but it would probably be quite bad, and politicians who would do nothing about it are no good. so john mccain and the democrats all want to do something to try to stop global warming. that is considered heresy among republicans! none of the other republicans would do anything at all to stop global warming, and they would continue the wise policies of george w. bush with regards to global warming. of course, bush and some portion of republicans now claim that they would be willing to sign on to a global warming treaty if it required an equal amount of sacrifice from nations like india and china, and every other nation, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. this is just a political ploy to pretend they care about global warming when really they are trying to prevent any action being taken, since behind the scenes they will be perfectly willing to screw up negotiations of any global warming treaty on purpose in order to stop anything from getting accomplished. that is what george w. bush is currently doing and it is what mitt romney would do. another faction of the republican party is in complete denial about global warming and refuses to do anything at all about it, and publicly denounces the theory of global warming, and this faction includes talk show host rush limbaugh as well as senator james inhofe (r-oklahoma), who led the committee in the u.s. senate that had oversight over the environment until the democrats took over the senate in january 2007. this faction is up in arms about someone like john mccain who would actually be willing to fight global warming alongside the democrats. you see, on a very small number of key issues, john mccain realized his party was dead wrong and the democrats were entirely correct, and chose to align himself with the democrats on those issues. and thus he is hated by the true believers in the republican party, those who believe their party leaders are infallible and can do no wrong, who agree with their party leaders on every single issue, who are incapable of thinking for themselves. this includes pundits like rush limbaugh and ann coulter, who are both incapable of original thought or critical thinking, and would probably both score lower on an iq test than terri schiavo when she was alive and in a “chronic vegetative state”.

one last note: barack obama is not a muslim, nor were either of his parents. he is a christian, having gone to the same black church in chicago for over 20 years. as for his parents, his white mother and black father were both atheists, the same religion as me! now, barack obama’s mom was very open-minded and did teach him about all the religions of the world from the perspective of a sociologist or anthropologist. and he ended up deciding to be christian, even though she did not agree with any religion. anyway, barack obama’s parents did not work out together as a couple, for whatever reason, and barack never saw his father again, after his father left when he was 2. but what i say here is not really the original source of information, so look at snopes.com to see the truth about barack obama without having it first filtered by my brain. and as for hillary clinton? yes, i would vote for her in a general election, but she is not as close to me in her positions on the issues as barack obama. and i do not think as many other people would vote for her as a democratic nominee compared to the vast numbers who would vote for barack obama in a general election. he has an amazing effect on people when they hear him speak. i think the vast majority of people who voted for other candidates so far have never seen a single speech he delivered, because if they had, they would support him. that is why c-span is much better to get unfiltered video footage of the candidates than any other channel on television. and c-span’s videos of the candidates are available on the internet at campaignnetwork.org. just imagine if he were president and could deliver speeches and have the networks all carry the speeches live and unedited. he would be able to sway public opinion and congress would have no choice but to do what he asks because he would be so popular that the public would demand it from congress. hillary clinton believes in politics from the top down, with a single leader or small number of leaders making all the important decisions, while barack obama believes in politics from the bottom up, with mass popular movements organizing and demanding change from whatever “leaders” happen to be in power, and if those leaders fail, to replace them with ones who will carry out the will of the people. to be fair, most other politicians have the same top-down view of how politics should operate, including all of the republican candidates except ron paul. ron paul is one of the bottom-up crowd, like barack obama. anyway, top-down leaders such as our current president george w. bush tend to have a disrespectful view towards the will of the people, and love to ignore the will of the people if they think they can get away with it. and john mccain is also part of the top-down crowd. the top-downers believe in having strong, visionary leaders who are smarter than everyone else, who can make the tough decisions, who know better than the vast teeming masses of poorly educated losers known as the “public”. and so top-down-style politicians tend to market themselves in this fashion. it is obvious that john mccain will ignore the will of the people when it comes to the war in iraq, since he has made it very clear since the beginning of the “surge” strategy over a year ago. john mccain would be the kind of president who would do the exact opposite from what the american people want him to do for 4 years, and then probably ask them to re-elect him to continue ignoring their wishes for another 4 years. mitt romney, on the other hand, would agree to do whatever anyone asks of him if it means they might vote for him, including making promises to magically bring back manufacturing jobs lost to mexico, china, and india. once in office, he would break all of his promises to everybody. if hillary clinton were president, we would make some progress in the right direction, but it would be slow progress, held up by republican obstructionists in the congress, and a lack of political will in congress to get things done. why would the choice of president affect congress? simple. the choice of a presidential nominee helps determine the outcome of all the other races on the ballot, and the media coverage of a presidential nominee or president helps determine how that president will interact with congress and who will have the upper hand. even with democratic majorities in both houses of congress and a democrat as president, the republicans can stop anything from getting accomplished by using the filibuster in the senate, requiring 60 votes out of the 100 senators to get anything done. things like media coverage play a crucial role in determining whether it is politically viable to use the filibuster in the senate or not. since barack obama seems to do a much better job with media coverage than hillary clinton, he could more easily sway the pundits in the media, who would, in turn, sway the “moderate” republicans in the senate through their commentary. politicians pay very close attention to the media, and so, if a politician is able to exert some degree of control over media coverage through some factor such as likability, the media can be used to persuade politicians who could not otherwise be persuaded. that is why george w. bush was so successful in pushing through his agenda throughout his first 3 years in office: the media coverage was very favorable towards him and this gave him incredible leverage to control congress. in his second term, dubya lost control of congress even before the democrats won majorities in both houses, because he lost the support of the media establishment, and when the media says “jump”, most politicians say “how high?” you know who it was that prevented comprehensive immigration reform from being passed in congress like president bush and the democrats both wanted? pundits like lou dobbs at cnn. people fail to realize that the pundits in the media have grown more powerful than the politicians we elect to run the country, since the pundits shape the debate and they decide things for the moderate wishy-washy politicians. now that rush limbaugh and ann coulter have fallen off the republican party bandwagon, we are seeing the ill effects that happen to pundits who for years have been under complete republican party mind control, but are now finding themselves completely lost, unable to recognize their own party anymore as it is nominating someone whom they find anathema. i am not suggesting that the democrats engage in a similar level of brainwashing of the pundits, because then no thinking person would trust the pundits, and the pundits would behave like insane brainwashed cultists, and mislead their followers in the public in a variety of ways. i think the media ought to start some sort of self-regulation of the punditocracy. each media outlet, like cnn or fox news or the new york times or whatever, would be able to set its own standards, but basically, it would involve being correct a certain high percentage of the time on statements you make about objective facts, and being correct a certain lower percentage of the time on predictions you make about the future, and limiting statements that people find to be offensive or outrageous to a certain low number every month. so then someone like william kristol, editor of the weekly standard, fox news pundit, and the newest columnist for the new york times editorial page, would be out of a job because he would be unable to meet the performance benchmarks for pundits, since he is continually wrong about objective facts and even more often wrong about predictions for the future and occasionally says offensive/outrageous things. and of course there would be ethics standards, to keep out unethical pundits like robert novak who publish the secret identities of cia agents. we have to find some way to hold pundits accountable, something similar to the voting records we have of politicians, or the way politicians make promises and we can see if they keep them or not. pundits also have to be held accountable, and they ought to have their employment premised not on whether their opinions are ones other people agree with, but on whether their facts are correct and whether they have any sense at all about what is going to happen in the future and are able to make accurate predictions more often than inaccurate ones. as for opinions, a wide variety of them is good, as long as they are all grounded in facts and reality and logic and reason.

anyway, back to the main point... i am really glad that john mccain is making the ultra-right-wing nutcases like ann coulter and rush limbaugh finally go completely insane and lose the last vestiges of their sanity. i hope he continues to make their lives a living hell. and i hope mike huckabee continues to help john mccain beat mitt romney, by defeating mitt romney in states where john mccain is not competitive. things would be more interesting if it were a race between mccain and huckabee, rather than a race between mccain and romney. mike huckabee actually has some interesting ideas. and if rush limbaugh and phyllis schlafly hate mike huckabee, he can’t be that bad, although there is a lot of legitimate concern that mike huckabee is a theocrat. the only thing better than john mccain making the republican pundits hate their own party would be to have ron paul completely reshape the republican party into something unrecognizable to anyone, into a much larger version of the libertarian party. ron paul has a much better record than john mccain of doing the exact opposite from every other republican in congress. just imagine how nuts he could drive the pundits if he were the republican nominee! rush limbaugh, ann coulter, and the rest of them would probably organize a mass suicide for their neocon death cult. it would be just like the mass suicide of the heaven’s gate cult, except funnier. oh well. we can still hope that rush limbaugh, ann coulter, or another of their ilk finally goes off the deep end completely. no, wait, they already all have. but what i mean is, go off the deep end even more than they already have. but that is probably impossible. they are already as crazy as you can possibly get. they could not possibly go any further with their descent into utter insanity. hopefully john mccain will be able to push them off the deep end for good.