Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

10. I’ll no longer be getting five phone calls a day from phone-bank volunteers who want to know my political views.

9. I’ll no longer be getting six phone calls a day from phone-bank volunteers who want me to become a phone bank volunteer.

8. I will be able to park near a Catholic church without having my car leafleted with photos of partial-birth abortion.

7. I will be able to park near a Baptist church without having my car leafleted with photos of gay men tearing up Bibles.

6. I will be able to park near a school without having my car leafleted with photos of Osama Bin Ladin threatening my children.

5. Kerry won’t get blamed for the messes Bush made in his first term. (Clinton will have to keep on taking the blame.)

4. The prayers that made George Bush a “miracle” President might
bring us miracles that I’d like too.  (Peace in the Middle East
would
be
really nice…)

3. I’ll get another $600 check in the next round of payback tax breaks for millionaires.

2. Jokewriters would be so lost without George Bush.

And the number one best thing about this election:

1. Millions of Democrats around this country are hugging and kissing to
make each other feel better–so nine months from now, we’ll have
millions more Democrats!

“First of the nation” NH voters have spoken.

In 2000, these two tiny very Republican towns gave Bush 38 votes vs Gore’s 18…

Their 2004 votes were all in and counted minutes after midnight. Bush got 34 and Kerry got 22, so Republicans are trumpeting this as a Bush “victory.”

But think about it–four Republican voters in Republican neighborhoods
decided they wanted to vote for Kerry instead. Now multiply that choice
in towns all over this country.

NH has spoken, and this election is OVER.

Michigan voters in African-American neighborhoods are getting strange automated phone calls–one of them taped the message for reporters:

Republicans say they don’t know anything about these phone calls, or
about other robocalls to the same neighborhoods telling people their
polling places have moved.

On Halloween, Fort Lauderdale churchgoers waiting in line for early voting got
bottled water, folding chairs, and candy from various activists–plus
sign displays from young Republicans pretending to be far-left
Democrats. Joshua Bearman talked with the ringleader, who had a big Kerry/Edwards sign topped with an even bigger sign proclaiming “Support gay adoption.”

Yeah, right. This is *exactly* how gay activists talk. [End sarcasm]

Once Bearman started photographing these “Democrats”, they quickly gathered their signs up and ran away.

Tomorrow, enthusiastic but inexperienced Rob Republicans and Don
Democrats will show up to monitor polling places in swing states.

Rob has been warned that Democrats plan to “steal” the election from Bush by sending fraudulent voters to the polls.

Don has been warned that Republican plan to “steal” the election from
Kerry by using challenges and intimidation to discourage legitimate
voters.

We’ve been listening to Rob and Don on the Internet, for months now,
and all of us have higher blood pressure as a result. (Lisa Williams blogged about this in a way worth reading.)

Thank heaven, the real world isn’t the Internet. I saw this with my own
eyes in NH yesterday, as Bush supporters outside a Kerry rally and
Kerry supporters encountering Bush supporters on the street treated
each other with good-natured decency.

In the real world, Rob and Don look at each other and see human beings.
OK, maybe Rob looks like the jerk who once dated Don’s sister’s
roommate, and maybe Don sounds like Rob’s least-favorite-ever guidance
counselor… but Don doesn’t sound like a guy who wants to do
partial-birth abortions on live two-year olds and Rob doesn’t look like
a guy who would murder Iraqi babies to get their oil fields.

At least, that’s how I’m hoping this will turn out. I’ll be so glad when this election is over.

Oh, those pesky missing Iraq explosives…

Drudge, October 26 , 3 p.m.  Cache of explosives vanished before US troops arrived
Drudge, October 26, 5:30 p.m. Crew embedded with troops moved in to secure explosives on April 10, 2003.

Drudge, October 27 11 p.m. Official claims Russians may have taken Iraq explosives.

Drudge, October 28, 3:30 a.m. Iraqis may be overstating amount of  missing material.

Drudge, October 29, Major: We removed 250 tons from facility.

So Drudge’s Major says his crews removed 250 tons on April 13 from a
facility that originally contained only 3 tons of material, or maybe
zero tons because it had all been removed by the Russians already, and
yet on  April 18 film crews from Minnesota filmed hundreds of barrels of explosives at the Al-QaQaa site, many with the IAEA seals intact.

I’m so glad Drudge was able to clear this up for me.

“This is so much more fun than those old debates. And Carl says we’ve got folks believing that I’d make them safer than that big Kerry guy–well, the point is to scare ’em enough so they don’t think straight.”

Wondering about those hundreds of Republican challengers? They’ll be standing outside your voting booth going “How-oooooooooo–lllll”

Q How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to change a light bulb?

A It takes 10:

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed.
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed.
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb.
4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either “for” changing the light bulb or “for” darkness.
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb.
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing
on a step ladder under the banner: “Light bulb Change Accomplished”.
7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark.
8. One to viciously smear #7.
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along.
10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

If you’re coming in late to the NH phone-jamming scandal, no jars of
jelly or marmalade were involved.

Multiple hang-up phone calls were the tool used to stop NH
Democrats (and Manchester
firefighters) from running their usual ride-to-the-polls services on election day in 2002: 
summary
here.

Political columnist John
DiStaso played a major role in getting the Justice Department to investigate. After a very slow start, the Feds handed down two indictments in July 2004. 
The feds questioned but didn’t indict (or publicly identify) a
highly-placed member of the Bush-Cheney campaign who helped Defendant
#1 find Defendant #2 for the purpose of interfering with the election.

I’m amazed that nobody in the national press is pursuing this name of
this person, but right now John DiStaso is the only reporter covering
it.

NH Democrats, unsatisfied by the Justice Department’s work so far,
filed a civil suit to try to get more information. Republicans
succeeded in getting the civil suit postponed until criminal sentencing
was completed.

Now it seems their cover-up will be continued until after the presidential election–they just got the sentencing postponed as well.

If only more press and more bloggers covered this story, maybe the bad guys here would be the ones in a jam.

I’m part of a class known as “taxpayers”–aren’t you? Check out these Bush campaign web pages our dollars are buying…

Office of Management and Budget main page

“President Bush has focused on winning the war on terror, protecting the homeland and strengthening the economy to create jobs. He has built an impressive record of accomplishments. His FY2005 budget built on that record with important proposals to support our national priorities”.

“eGov” home page

Contains no useful information but features a big photo of Bush taking credit for “E Government”. Links to articles promoting Bush role in E Government are central and prominent; a few small text links in the sidebar target online government information.

The US government’s official web portal

“FirstGov” contains exactly two “Also of interest” banner ads–both link to pro-Bush pages described above.

“The President’s Record of Achievement” hosted on the official White House website

“Such times demand a leader of clear convictions and determination, hope and vision, integrity and the courage to act. These qualities are the hallmarks of the Bush Presidency. There is much that remains to be done….”

How can we fix campaign financing when tax dollars get sucked into one campaign’s treasure chest?

And how can we have campaign fairness when that candidate gets a free hourlong TV ad by claiming he plans a “major policy speech“?

I guess those are the kinds of tricks you have to try when your candidate needs all the help he can get.