A New Direction

Yes, yes, yes. Tuesday was a great day for democrats. But, now we must turn to how to run the country. I feel that this video truly sets the tone, and offers a clear path. The Republicans have Ted Harrard. We have Rev. F.P.

Spread the word

If you don't have good ideas, then try your best to piss people off. Instead of trying to wow the voters with positive rhetoric, the Republicans have resorted to some nasty tricks. They are using robo-calls to continually harass undecided voters under the assumption that the Democratic party is making these calls. Here is an example of how they work:

Apparently the call starts with something along the lines of "Diane Farrell has some information for you," then pauses, waiting for annoyed people to hang up, and then delivers a negative message about Farrell. The canvassers say the call has hit some people as much as 6 times, and at 5 - 6am as well. Presumably, the intent is to annoy people and stick Farrell with the negative name ID as somebody who keeps robo-calling them.

Also from the post:

What we're seeing is an apparent coordinated effort from the NRCC -- the House GOP committee -- to place calls that appear to be from the local Democratic candidate and then automatically call the same number back as many as seven or eight times each time the caller hang-ups. If the caller listens to the whole message it goes on to bash the Democratic candidate. But if the caller hangs up prematurely, the computer calls right back. Hang-ups are the achilles heal of robo-calls. So this seems to be an attempt to cover for that weakness by making those who hang up think the Democratic candidate is basically harassing them with phone calls. The GOP wins either way.

The Republicans are doing this all over the country, all in races that are too close to call. It makes you wonder how far they will go to destroy all that we hold dear. It is beyond trying to win elections, it is about subverting the democratic process. Our only hope in stopping this kind of trash is to make sure the press hears about it and gets the word out.

Crickets...

Spread the word

If you don't have good ideas, then try your best to piss people off. Instead of trying to wow the voters with positive rhetoric, the Republicans have resorted to some nasty tricks. They are using robo-calls to continually harass undecided voters under the assumption that the Democratic party is making these calls. Here is an example of how they work:

Apparently the call starts with something along the lines of "Diane Farrell has some information for you," then pauses, waiting for annoyed people to hang up, and then delivers a negative message about Farrell. The canvassers say the call has hit some people as much as 6 times, and at 5 - 6am as well. Presumably, the intent is to annoy people and stick Farrell with the negative name ID as somebody who keeps robo-calling them.

Also from the post:

What we're seeing is an apparent coordinated effort from the NRCC -- the House GOP committee -- to place calls that appear to be from the local Democratic candidate and then automatically call the same number back as many as seven or eight times each time the caller hang-ups. If the caller listens to the whole message it goes on to bash the Democratic candidate. But if the caller hangs up prematurely, the computer calls right back. Hang-ups are the achilles heal of robo-calls. So this seems to be an attempt to cover for that weakness by making those who hang up think the Democratic candidate is basically harassing them with phone calls. The GOP wins either way.

The Republicans are doing this all over the country, all in races that are too close to call. It makes you wonder how far they will go to destroy all that we hold dear. It is beyond trying to win elections, it is about subverting the democratic process. Our only hope in stopping this kind of trash is to make sure the press hears about it and gets the word out.

Crickets...

Just in case you were wondering...

Patriotic Americans Won't Vote for Democrats

Patriotic Americans will not vote for the Democrat Party. They will come out in droves and vote for the party that supports the troops. Because of their sacrifice, America is safer. They are performing a noble and exemplary job in Iraq and Afghanistan. God bless America, our awesome troops, and President G. W. Bush, an honorable man who will not abandon Iraq and the Iraqi people.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up...

From the Huffington Post...

Colorado Springs' New Life Church just announced that it has fired Pastor Ted Haggard for his "sexually immoral conduct." The much publicized meth and gay hooker scandal has elicited a little bit of soul searching and a lot hemming and hawing from Haggard's fellow Evangelical leaders, but perhaps the most ridiculous response came yesterday from Pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hills mega-church-wannabe.

Writing in his personal blog, Driscoll offers his fellow pastors "some practical suggestions" on how to avoid the type of temptation that consumed Pastor Haggard. And near the top of his list?

"Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him either."

Uh-huh. Leave it to a fundamentalist Evangelical preacher to have such a profound understanding of human sexuality. Or as the inimitable sex columnist Dan Savage so aptly put it:

"I'm sure Ted Haggard is saying something along these lines to his wife right now: 'Oh, honey... I wouldn't have been having those meth-fueled ass-banging sessions with that gay hooker if you hadn't have let yourself go like that!' "

I'm a sap

Every time I see this video, I think it would be a lot of fun to be hanging out on Disco's porch drinking a Black Butte Porter and just chat...

I love Philly, but nothing beats the west coast.

Haggard confesses....

[T]he board of overseers has met with Pastor Ted. It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true. He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation.

Some might read this and think "this is not news, this is fluff." To which I say, "no way." I read this with extreme satisfaction. I have a seething rage for all these holier-than-thou religious conservatives who gay-bash. These people, like Dobson, make me want to puke. I have so much satisfaction in seeing them exposed for what they are, morally corrupt. Not for being gay, but for being so anti-gay. This is one of the biggest religious leaders in the country, featured in an earlier blog [here and here] as having direct access to the white house on a weekly basis. He has been spearheading an anti-gay amendment in Colorado. He has called homosexuality immoral and something that "excludes one from the Kingdom of God." Reaction Formation anyone?

Richard Dawkins Questions Evangelical Pastor

Interesting video of Ted Haggard.

Would have been nice to hear this 3.5 years ago

The press pisses me off, a lot.

While in some sense I appreciate their honesty in this article. It is the type of thing that they should have brought to our attention when it happened. Take this little nugget:

Anne Garrels
NPR

People were shocked that the U.S. did nothing, and they will forever remember that virtually the only building — it wasn’t the only building but one of the few buildings — that was protected was the oil ministry; that just summed up to so many Iraqis why the U.S. was there, and confirmed their worst fears. And it also played to the utter naïveté of the Americans, because it wasn’t just Iraqis letting off steam, as Rumsfeld said. It was Baathists going around destroying documents — making Iraq ungovernable: destroying drivers’ license records, all of the things that make a city able to be governed. And it was the beginning of the insurgency.

Years from now when we retell the history of this era, the media will ask about the failings of the government and the military. However, they will never bring up how they were perfectly complicit in all of this and are, perhaps, the party most responsible for this mess.

Sanctimonious BS

By all mainstream media accounts, John Kerry is the worst person to ever live. Why? Because he 'botched a joke' about George W. Bush. His comments were intended to point out that Bush's horrible actions have led to the needless deaths of thousands. Instead the right wing machine and their gimp's in the regular media jumped all over the fact that it seemed like he was insulting the troops.

Yet when the President unapologetically joked about sending thousands of young men and women to needlessly die? That's comic gold:



These people are sick S.O.B's and need to be thrown out of office.

Balanced Reporting

This article presents both the A and not A as true. I think this is what counts for balance now.

The banner on the front page of MSNBC: MAKING GAINS: Poll shows Bush, GOP closing gap with Dems

The article? Well...not so much:

As the race for Congress enters the homestretch, the Republicans find themselves limping to the finish line, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll. President Bush’s approval rating continues a slow but steady climb—from an all-time NEWSWEEK-poll low of 33 percent three weeks ago to 37 percent today. But it may be too little, too late: if the midterm elections were held today, 53 percent of those likely to go to the polls would vote for the Democratic candidate in their Congressional district versus just 39 percent who would vote for the Republican.

Oy.

We Care About You

We at Discomo truly care about you, our religious conservative readers. Hell, I mean Heck, it's been a rough time. Here you thought that you could vote for a Republican administration that was inherently good because Bush prays like you pray. I mean sure, to date he has sent almost 50,000 civilians in Iraq to their death. Sure, he cut programs to help the poor, supports the death penalty, and actually doesn't take you seriously [here and here]. It's all ok, he's against abortion. Then, your Grand Old Party gets found protecting pedophiles.

Well buck up, you bible-belters! There's a cool new game for you, Left Behind: Eternal Forces. Now you don't even have to leave your couch to proselytize!

1) Start Spreading the News In addition to points for standard attributes like Health, Strength, and Attack Speed, each avatar accumulates Spirit points, which help players convert the heathens. Pray regularly for more Spirit points – if one of your teammates runs low, they're susceptible to sinful temptations.

2) Shout at the Devil It's bad enough that the Antichrist commands a UN-like international army – he also has devil-worshipping heavy metal on his side. Get too close to satanic rock stars and the game warns, "Beware of musicians! They may play their screaming guitars to influence you to their side."

3) Surrender to Jesus According to the book series this game is based on, all this maneuvering by mere mortals is ultimately moot anyway, for the Lord returns to Earth, vanquishes his foes, and takes the faithful to heaven. Sorry, Lucifer, no power-up can help you defeat this final boss!

Prediction

I have determined to put my money where my mouth is by offering a prediction for the upcoming elections. I believe the following will occur:

• The Democrats will take the House of Representatives by five seats.
  
• The Democrats will not take the Senate, but will be within one.
  
• We will pick up Senate seats in PA, MT, OH and RI.
  
• We will maintain all Senate seats currently held by Dems
  
• We will lose in TN and VA.
• Howard Dean will not get any credit for our successes.

This last prediction is particularly irksome, if there is one person who is responsible for the change in the Democratic party it is the good doctor. He has employed a brilliant strategy in going back to the local level, as more districts were in play than ever before. This strategy will continue to play huge dividends in the coming years.

Why won't he get the credit he deserves? Because he went outside the Beltway. To the mob of political insiders, the idea of actually building a base at the community level is like putting ketchup on Cheerios. In their view, the way to build political movements is to meekly put your points across on the Sunday talk shows.

Underrated

I have meant to post this for a while, but have never gotten around to it. So here it is...

Philly is a pretty terrific place and you would probably have to be a freedom hater to not visit.

More proof

In my last post I talked about having class. Interestingly enough, the Republicans go on to show that they lack any sense of decency. What a bunch of losers.

A lesson to learn

When I was in high school, my favorite coach told our soccer team that no matter what you do, you always play with class. There is a lesson here for the Republican Party, as they are running racist and sexist ads in Tennessee



The Dems response? Here is Senate Candidate Harold Ford Jr.



Which one do you think is playing with class?

Sometimes listening to the President is like drinking sulfuric acid

On ABC's This Week yesterday morning, George Bush gave this response to a question by George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George. We have been — we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly.

You know, it wouldn't be all that hard to expose this lie. All you would need is some visual evidence that the President used that exact terminology. Where could you find such evidence? Oh, I don't know...maybe here?



Perhaps the folks who put this movie together could work for CBS or the AP, as they obviously need someone who can check the public record.

Heaven Help Us

From AmericaBlog, this is a link to a BBC documentary that is following a US Army unit in Iraq. It is absolutely horrifying to watch, as it lays out in no uncertain terms that we are, unfortunately, doomed to fail.

Why?

As you can see in the video, the US Army has an impossible task. They are supposed to a) protect themselves from harm and b) encourage the Iraqis to 'stand up'. When they attempt a) they almost certainly fail at b) & when they try b) they put their own lives at risk, thus negating a). You also cannot blame the Iraqis for this, they are just doing what they can to stay alive. In a perfect world, they would be able to work with the Americans without worry. Instead, they live in communities with people who are determined to harm them if they cooperate with the US.

In watching this video, I can't help but seethe with anger. Four years ago, the airwaves and newspapers were saturated with 'serious' thinkers who saw our involvement in Iraq as a realistic and rational foreign policy. Anyone who deviated from the accepted hawkish view on Iraq was seen as an unhinged moonbat. Anyone who asked what the long term plan was going to be was labeled an alarmist. Yet, time after time we were proven right and it is not fun to be right about such matters.

Bush is drinking again! (Late Late Show)

Don't step to Jeff Tweedy

So, basically the best songwriter in the country had a fan come up and try to hug him when they were playing a show in Springfield, MO. Here are a few rules on how to deal with the band:

Rule One, don't mess with Wilco, cuz they will provide the beat down-



Rule Two, don't mess with Wilco, cuz if you do, Jeff Tweedy will get really sad-



Hat tip to the most Irish person on the planet.