Why Is Obama Still Campaigning?

Yesterday, it was reported that Barack Obama’s grandmother was “gravely ill.”  Obama spokesman, Robert Gibbs issued this statement:

“Senator Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life. Along with his mother and his grandfather, she raised him in Hawaii from the time he was born until the moment he left for college. As he said at the Democratic Convention, she poured everything she had into him. Recently, his Grandmother has become ill, and in the last few weeks, her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious. It is for that reason that Senator Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her. He will be returning the the campaign trail on Saturday.”

First of all, she raised him “from the time he was born until the moment he left for college?”  So he never went to Indonesia, now?  Second, is she “ill,” “seriously ill,” or “gravelly ill?”  According to Chicago Tribune, two out of three:

Barack Obama will suspend campaigning for a day and a half so that he can fly to Hawaii to be at the side of his gravely ill grandmother, a campaign aide said late Monday.

Madelyn Dunham, 86, was released from the hospital at the end of last week and returned to her home in Honolulu with a health condition the aide described only as “very serious.”

At any rate, why is he still campaigning?

But Obama’s decision to cancel campaign events “underscores the seriousness of the situation,” communications director Robert Gibbs told reporters during an evening flight following a campaign event in Orlando.

Uh, Bobby, the seriousness of the situation would be underscored had he left yesterday, when those stories came out.  Campaigning for 2 full days after such an announcement underscores something else.  Obama’s great-uncle, Charles Payne, explains the situation this way:

Barack Obama’s 85-year-old grandmother broke her hip recently and is “gravely ill,” her brother said Tuesday.

Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped to raise Obama, “has not been well for a long time. Then she fell and broke her hip fairly recently,” Charles Payne said in a telephone interview from his home in Chicago. “She’s unhappy with the condition that she’s in, I can tell you that.”

Payne, who is Obama’s great-uncle, said his sister was hospitalized briefly but is back home in her Honolulu apartment, where Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, cares for her. Obama plans to suspend campaigning later this week to visit his grandmother, and Payne is planning to fly there for her 86th birthday, which is Sunday.

While my prayers go out to the Dunham, Payne and Obama families, I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I find Obama’s foot dragging in this situation, as it has been described, puzzling.  Given his reported lead in the polls and his record-breaking fundraising, it doesn’t seem like he should be desperate to squeeze in as many campaign stops as possible before dashing off to tend to his “gravelly ill” grandmother.  With so many news outlets issuing testimonials to her life, as if the end is imminent, Obama’s behavior doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Unless…

Joe And Sarah Together At Last, Sorta

Here’s audio of Joe [Urkel (Did I Say That?)] Biden’s “you sure you wanna vote for this guy?” Seattle moment.  If anyone has video, or knows where I can find it, please let me know.

And here’s Sarah Palin’s “gee, thanks for the endorsement, Senator Joe (Have You Been Drinking Again?) Biden!” Reno, Nevada response.

McCain Supporters Not Exactly What You Think

Michelle Obama Tapes To Fox News?

Will the now famous Michelle Obama “I’ve got a bug up my butt about the way my husband’s been portrayed in the media” phone call to African Press International soon be available via Fox News?  That’s what API says:

API has an ongoing discussion with FOX NEWS on the best way forward in the process of releasing Michelle Obama tapes to the American people.

API hopes the negotiation will be completed as soon as possible so that the tapes can be made available to FOX NEWS in the next few days and specifically before the voting day – the 4th of November.

API will make use of Legal Representation in the US when finalising the hand-over of the tapes and on any�legal matters that may arise after the contents of the tapes become public.

Got my popcorn ready.  You?

Furiouser and Furiouser

This is a rant.

It will be filled with expletives, swear words, cursing, cussing and every other way to fucking say I’m going to use the word “fuck” a lot.  I’m fucking sick of this election and just about everybody associated with it.  I’m furious at both major political parties, the mainstream media, the blogger bullies, and all the self-interested entities masquerading as being “compassionately concerned” about our “rights” and “freedoms” and “well-being” when all they really want is the post masturbatory good feeling that comes from the greaseless rape-by-proxy butt fucking of the electorate for profit.

The Democrats force-fed us an unacceptable novice whose running mate thinks is a clueless jerk, yet the rah-rah boys employed to keep us informed think it’s a-okay to pump and prop him up because he’s black and if they don’t people might think they’re “racist,” and Lord help us if that happens because all those just-shy-of-savage black folks who never had a president before might get mad and riot.

The Republicans basically washed their hands of the whole affair from the beginning and figured they might as well give their least favorite perennial loser a shot since they don’t have a chance in hell to win anyway given the fact that their last “shoot first and ask questions later” standard bearer is a total bungler and just slightly more popular than herpes.

The mainstream “infotainment” media abandoned all pretense of journalistic objectivity in favor of leg-tingling partisanship, gleefully fudging inconvenient facts whenever well-aimed mud-slinging wasn’t enough, while the misogynistic bullies of the blogosphere adopted a “by-any-means-necessary” mindset to promote the candidate they flipped a coin to decide to promote over the qualified candidate they hated for being born female.

Then there are the fucking fringe elements, disguised as relevent, nobodies, pushing their personal career agendas down the throats of the “let’s get Mikey, he hates everything” minded public in an attempt to secure their extraneous phony-baloney jobs, whether we like them or not.

And let’s not forget the corporate rapists-turned-extortionists holding our global finances for ransom, boldly demanding 7, 8, 9 hundred billion dollars a pop or they won’t let us borrow any of our own money back from them so we can pay too much for things we need, and their fox in the hen house government homeboys who laid the foundation and greased the wheels and paved the way for the scheme to work.  But fuck us, what do we know?

African Press International, Larry Sinclair, Joe the Plumber, Keating 5, William Ayers, Fannie, Freddie, and all the “spaghetti against the wall” distractions that have been thrown out to divert attention from the fact that we are being asked to choose a fucking president from a 2 man pool of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, piss me off too.  When a guy can’t form whole sentences without help, who cares if he was born in a manger or in a Muslim country, and who cares if a man called his wife a “cunt” when people can wear t-shirts calling his running mate the same thing, and everything’s hunky-dory?

The head-in-the-sand public is no better.  Don’t you guys get it?  When you hear a candidate say, “vote for me early, you never know what might happen,” doesn’t that set alarm bells off in your head?  When somebody raises enough money to bail out Wall Street, but won’t name his donors, doncha get at least a little bit suspicious?  When one side says. “you’re cheating,” and the other side says, “no I’m not, I’m winning so your guys might as well stay home,” don’t you see the game on both sides?

Vote for the best loser.

Fuck me.

And God help us all.

The Most Bizarre Campaign Story Yet

If you’ve been following the presidential election at all, you know there have been some, odd, shall we say, stories from both sides of the aisle, hell, from everywhere, since the beginning of the primaries til today.  But nothing is as sadly weird as this one from North Carolina:

Dead bear covered with Obama signs found at school

CULLOWHEE, N.C. – Police at Western Carolina University and wildlife officials were investigating the discovery early Monday of a dead bear cub draped with a pair of Barack Obama campaign signs.

Leila Tvedt, associate vice chancellor for public relations, said Monday night that maintenance workers found the 75-pound bear cub shot to death in front of the school’s administration building at the entrance to campus. The Obama yard signs were stapled together and placed over the bear’s head, Tvedt said.

The bear had been shot in the head, Tvedt said.

“Western Carolina University deplores the inappropriate behavior that has led to this troubling incident,” Tvedt said. “We cannot speculate on the motives of the people involved nor who those people might be. Campus police are cooperating fully with authorities to investigate this matter.”

University police called in state Wildlife Resources officials to remove the body and help in the investigation.

Bear season is under way in western North Carolina.

What the hell is the point of that?  What the hell could a person be trying to prove by shooting a baby bear?  And what’s up with the Obama signs?  Political protest is one thing, but this, this is on a whole ‘nother level. No innocent animal deserves to die to make a political point.  That’s just wrong.

Things are getting completely out of hand.  People are actually afraid to speak their minds, for fear that some nut is going to harm them for backing the “wrong” candidate.  Have we all lost our minds?  Physical violence against people who hold different political views is as unacceptable as physical violence should always be.  It’s inexcusable:

CALEDONIA, Wis. — Police in Caledonia are investigating the assault of a campaign volunteer as she was canvassing for Senator Barack Obama Saturday afternoon.In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner.“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.”

No matter who’s doing it:

Politico’s Ben Smith got confirmation from the Manhattan DA’s office about an incident last month where a female McCain supporter was assaulted at Lexington Avenue and 51st Street. According to conservative blog The Silent Majority, a man–without provocation–grabbed the woman’s McCain sign, ripped it up, and hit her with it, bruising her face. The victim followed him into the 6 train subway station and found police officers on the platform; she added that he was only arrested after she showed the cops her bruised face. The assailant allegedly said, “I don’t know why I did this. It’s just those signs, and this election, it has me so upset.” Smith reports that the man, Bernard Feuerman, was charged with second degree assault and has a January 23 court date.

Like I said, this stuff’s inexcusable.