Politics

Recently, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” appeared with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly. “You know what’s really frightening?” O’Reilly teased Stewart. “You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it’s true. You’ve got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote.”
A recent Annenberg survey finds that some of the best-informed voters are those that watch late-night comedy. While Leno and Letterman viewers scored slightly higher than average on Annenberg’s election-season quiz, the runaway winners were those who watched “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. While part of the explanation for their high score is that the show’s audience tends to be “more educated, younger, and more liberal than the Average American or than Leno or Letterman viewers,” the study’s director found that the program itself had an unambiguously educational impact. According to the study’s director, “Daily Show viewers have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers — even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration.”

Typical Bush supporter calls in to C-Spans Washington Journal. Check out what she had to say using Real Player (click on link to September 23 show and fast-forward to 1:56:43), or just read the transcript below:

PETER SLEN, HOST: Kenner, Louisiana, good morning.
CALLER: Good morning. I’m going to vote for President Bush because, after all, you know, God made us there, you know, in His image, free from any black color and all [Host looks up, surprised]. The only church that Kerry can go to is where they say the Black Mass, and that is in the Merriam-Webster Pocket Book dictionary, where it says that that is the devil worshippers. [Host looks uncomfortably off-camera, at producer?] So, definitely, I would never vote for, you know, Senator Kerry.
And that isn’t the only reason. Also, in the Bible, God said … God … that, uh, also, like (unintelligible) and faggots, that he says, anybody that lays down with another man and has sex with his own sex, and any woman that lays down with another woman and has sex should be put to death and their blood upon them. It also says that about interracial marriages and everything. So that’s the reason why I’m voting for my president, Bush.
SLEN: What do you do in, uh …
CALLER: And that isn’t the only reason. They also have other reasons also. The other reason is political, because like the political terrorists, they’ve been out there for eight months, and they’ve been out on the road, and they’ve been talking about … they’ve talked against our president. They put him down in every way. And God knows that that is wrong. He’s out there doing God’s work. He’s taking care of all our children.
Like when Clinton was in, he made – he tried to make whores and faggots out of our little girls – whores out of our little girls. He put the pornography in the schools. And God’s gonna condemn him for that.
SLEN: What do you do in Kenner?
CALLER (talking over question): And that’s the reason why … he even went to the hospital and everything.
SLEN: Caller, what do you do in Kenner, Louisiana?
CALLER: Pardon me?
SLEN: What do you do in Kenner? Do you have a job?
CALLER: I’m a housewife.
SLEN: A housewife? Where do you go to church?
CALLER: I go to different churches. I go to, sometimes, in New Orleans, I go to the Cathedral. And I believe in my God, and I know that God is here to protect everybody. And if Kerry comes in … God helped the whole world, because God loved … Kerry … oh, that’s another thing …
SLEN (cutting her off): Thanks, caller. I’m afraid – I’m afraid we’re out of time. I wish I could let you go on, but I’m afraid we’re out of time.

Examining Kerry’s actual statements about the Iraq war from the beginning, it becomes apparent that he has never changed position on the Iraq war, and that in fact, Bush has changed his several times.

Bob Morris noticed some coincidences between Florida voting patterns and hurricanes. So he overlaid a map of how the Florida counties voted with the path of hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan, and discovered that God is punishing people for voting Republican. Let that put you on notice.

from Steve Earle’s new album “The Revolution Starts Now” I just bought this song this morning, and it kicks ass. I can’t wait to blast this out the open windows of my truck, along with the Green Day song I posted about below.
I used to listen to the radio
And I don’t guess they’re listenin’ to me no more
They talk too much but that’s okay
I don’t understand a single word they say
Piss and moan about the immigrants
But don’t say nothin’ about the president
A democracy don’t work that way
I can say anything I wanna say
So fuck the FCC
Fuck the FBI
Fuck the CIA
Livin’ in the motherfuckin’ USA
People tell me that I’m paranoid
And I admit I’m gettin’ pretty nervous, boy
It just gets tougher everyday
To sit around and watch it while it slips away
Been called a traitor and a patriot
Call me anything you want to but
Just don’t forget your history
Dirty Lenny died so we could all be free

Blog Active is a site that outs gay Republicans who have voted against equal rights protections for gay people. I’m sorry, but nothing is more comedic that exposing right-wing hypocrisy.
And Michelangelo Signorile has a great article on how the Gay Republicans avoided him like the plague at the Republican National Convention.

A great letter from Michael Moore is here, and here are some excerpts:

My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead — and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling “likely voters.” “Likely” means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.
3. Traveling around the country, as I’ve been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers — everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).
4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on “9/11” (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that “job,” you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain’t the one who sent those kids to their deaths — and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the “service” he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be “won.” All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.

credit goes to Outlet Radio
Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
1) given documents he thought were true
2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
4) when confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an investigation
5) number of Americans dead: 0
6) Fox News thinks he should be fired as CBS News Anchor
George W. Bush, President of the United States
1) given documents he thought were true
2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
4) when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and stonewalled an investigation
5) number of Americans dead: 1100
6) Fox News thinks should be given four more years as President of the United States