Today’s opining on the public discourse.

My outrage factor is down, but my amusement factor is through the roof today. I’ve got images of bumbling clowns spilling from tiny cars and falling all over each other, and I likes it.

If presidential campaigns are numbers games, McCain might as well just fucking fold:

The McCain campaign scored some favorable headlines yesterday when it announced that it had raised $27 million in July. How’d the Obama campaign do over the same time period? Obama’s team sent out this press release this afternoon:

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced today that more than 65,000 new donors contributed to the Obama campaign during the month of July, bringing the total raised for the month to over $51 million. More than 2 million people have now contributed to the campaign.

“The 65,000 new donors to the Obama campaign demonstrate just how strongly the American people are looking to fundamentally change business as usual in Washington. We are proud of the millions of volunteers and more than two million donors to the Obama campaign who will provide the backbone of our campaign to put America back on track and reject the old politics and failed Bush policies, which is all John McCain is offering,” said David Plouffe, campaign manager of Obama for America.

McCain’s $27 million was the best month for his campaign to date, but it was nevertheless about half of Obama’s total. What’s more, given that Obama spent a week in July overseas, when he held no fundraisers, his total is all the more impressive.

I think Obama could spend a month in a cave, and still beat McCain’s fundraising totals. McCain, in fact, would be desperately screwed if it wasn’t for his good buddies Big Bidness:

The Hill reports that the CEOs of the 100 biggest Fortune 500 corporations have given approximately 10 times as much to John McCain as they have to Barack Obama. McCain has received $208,200 from these chief executive officers; meanwhile, Obama has taken in $20,400 from the same group of people…

Something to do with the billions and billions in tax breaks for the richest companies and people, I think. Kinda sad that all those rich buggers still can’t beat Obama’s fundraising totals, innit?

Where else are McCain’s numbers suffering? Well, this should give you some indication of the humiliation to come:

This is old news, but it’s utterly hilarious:

Ron Paul is moving his so-called Rally for the Republic from the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena to the Target Center in Minneapolis.

In an e-mail to supporters, Paul said he made the move after measuring the excitement and enthusiasm of his supporters. That means the campaign expects 15,000 people to fill the arena, 4,000 more than could have attended at the university.

“We would not have put all of our cards on the table if we weren’t very very confident that we would fill the Target Center,” said Jesse Benton — the spokesman for Paul’s Campaign for Liberty group.

Why is this hilarious? Because the 15,000 figure given in the MPR piece is almost certainly an underestimate. In reality, the Target Center can hold more people than the Xcel Center, which is the venue where the Republican National Convention will be held at the same time as the Paul rally.

Yup. A strange little Libertarian can outdraw McCain. That’s just pathetic.

The hilarity continues on the energy front. Republicons have gone completely round the bend, up the river, and are now trying to paddle up bullshit creek with their bare hands:

The conservative periodical American Spectator has published a piece by Andrew Cline, editorial page editor of the Manchester Union Leader, which argues that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium would “lower oil company profits“:

But Republicans have a golden opportunity here to turn the tables back on the Democrats. All they have to do is give a basic economics lesson every chance they get. The American people aren’t stupid; they will get it. The lesson is this:

If the Democrats really wanted to cut the profits of Big Oil, they would vote to…increase the supply of oil! Oil company profits are so high because the price of oil is so high. The price is so high because demand is so much higher than supply. Allowing oil companies to drill for more oil will increase supply, which will lower prices, which will lower oil company profits!

I wonder what it feels like to be so utterly fucking stupid. I mean, we’re talking serious, IQ-in-the-low-60s stupid here. Think Progress debunks this little nugget nicely, and the only sad thing is that some Americans are so stupid that they’ll need it spelled out for them in nice clear block capitals. Allow me to indulge: INCREASING THE SUPPLY OF OIL WILL NOT LOWER OIL COMPANY PROFITS. THEY WILL JUST SELL MORE, WHICH WILL MAKE THEM LOTS OF MONEY. ASK WAL-MART HOW THAT WORKS.

But the more money they make, the more the Big Oil companies suffer. Just ask Bob:

And speaking of Colorado, the campaign of Democratic Senate nominee Mark Udall is sending around this tracker audio of Republican nominee Bob Schaffer complaining that the federal government is taking too much money from the oil companies. “But because prices are soaring, the reality is the federal government is raking in a bunch of cash right now on the backs of energy producers,” Schaffer says — perhaps not the most popular message this year…

Not so much, no. Seems to me oil companies should be paying an assload of taxes on their spectacular profits. After all, they get us into wars, muck up the environment, and fight renewable energy tooth-and-nail. If cigarettes can be taxed for being murderous blots on the human condition, Big Oil can pony up a little cash, too.

Anyway, speaking of Colorado and unpopular messages, you remember that slight lead McCain managed over Obama in Colorado? Pucker up – it’s going bye-bye:

If they repolled today, chances are very good that slim gain would be gone. Because there’s one thing you do not mess with in Colorado, and that’s water.

In an interview yesterday with the Pueble Chieftan, McCain committed what could amount political suicide in the state by saying that the 1922 water compact negotiated between seven western states should be renegotiated to give Arizona, Nevada, and California (the Lower Basin states) more water. That’s unlikely to make Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico (the Upper Basin states) any happier than it’s made Colorado.

There’s nothing more controversial in the West than water, and the single water issue that is most pressing is what happens as the Colorado drainage continues to experience drought and demand continues to grow….

What does Bob have to say about that cunning plan of McCain’s?

“Over my cold, dead, political carcass,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer said.

Well, then. And what he said was actually rather mild compared to what the Denver Post says:

Memo to: John McCain.

From: Five million thirst-crazed Coloradans.

Subject: Forget about winning our nine electoral votes next November. We don’t vote for water rustlers in this state; we tar and feather them! …

Something tells me McCain’s popularity just took a stunning nosedive. I have no idea where I got that impression. Must be that feminine intooisshin o’ mine.

I’m actually starting to feel a slight hint of optimism about November. Don’t burst my bubble – I know the fuckers will probably find a way to steal the election, but for now, I just want to bask in the sensation of believing they’re going to be just that little bit too stupid to manage it.

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Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Are you liquored up enough for your daily dose of Republicon insanity? No? The bar’s over there. I’d suggest you take the cap off a bottle and begin pouring now.

Let’s start things off with the musings of the saner of McInsane’s foreign policy advisers:

Speaking on the Russia-Georgia crisis at an American Enterprise Institute panel yesterday, John McCain foreign policy adviser/military fetishist Ralph Peters delivered this bit of straight talk:

The Russians, on whom I have wasted far too much of my life, are drink-sodden barbarians who occasionally puke up a genius.

As anyone who has read Peters’ work knows, Ralph’s world is full of barbarians who need killin’. In October 2006, as part of a column calling on the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, he declared:

If we can’t leave a democracy behind, we should at least leave the corpses of our enemies. The holier-than-thou response to this proposal is predictable: ‘We can’t kill our way out of this situation!’ Well, boo-hoo. Friendly persuasion and billions of dollars haven’t done the job. Give therapeutic violence a chance.

We are all, of course, deeply impressed by pundits who bravely call for “therapeutic violence” from the safety of their home offices.

There’s more of his frothing fuckery over at Think Progress. Remember, my darlings: this is the sane one. McCain’s surrounded hisself with people even the Bush administration finds too extreme to associate with.

McCain is clearly the world’s foremost foreign policy expert. He’s surrounded himself with bleeding insane tough, bellicose fuckwits vocal advocates of suicidal tough approaches to difficult conflicts. He has a first grader’s geographical IQ unique understanding of geopolitical realities. And he’s not afraid to parade his ignorance knowledge:

Speaking at the Aspen Institute in Colorado yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that recent Russian aggression in Georgia is the “first…serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War.” McCain seemingly ignored the Gulf War, 9/11, and the Iraq War, to name a few:

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

Not to get sarcastic or anything, but I think he’s either been living in an alternate reality since 1989 or he’s got a serious problem with the definition of “serious crisis.” Carpetbagger would like to bring McCain’s attention to a partial list of what the rest of us considered “serious crises:”

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has fought (or is fighting) two wars in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, and two conflicts in the Balkans. There have been multiple crises in Israel. There was a burgeoning nuclear crisis with North Korea. There is, and has been, a crisis in Darfur. There have been multiple, shall we say, tense moments between Pakistan and India, nuclear powers both. One could make the argument that the attacks of Sept. 11 were, themselves, a serious international crisis.

And yet, there’s John McCain, describing a regional conflict between Russia and Georgia as the first “serious crisis internationally” since the end of the Cold War. Do the other crises simply not count? Or does McCain not remember them?

I myself would just like to point out to CB that it’s a little useless to ask such questions of a man whose campaign spent this morning attacking Obama for taking his shirt off at the beach. This is how desperate they are that attention be drawn away from McCain’s utter lack of sanity on foreign policy, health care, the economy, energy, technology, the environment, or anything else of any concern to citizens with two functioning brain cells. They have to attack their rival on his popularity (because McCain hasn’t got any), his charisma (because McCain hasn’t got any) and his removal of an encumbering piece of clothing at the beach (because if McCain stripped at the beach, people would think a butt-ugly Great White Shark had just entered the water and flee in a panic).

I’m wondering if Shirtgate will take on the same broken-record quality as current Republicon grandstanding on coastal drilling. Here’s the new meme: Nancy Pelosi’s a great big meanie:

Conservative members of the House have been frothing that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) adjourned the lower chamber of Congress for its traditional August summer district work period — branding it a “five-week vacation” — instead of letting them dictate the agenda. They wish to pass their drilling-centric energy bill, after having blocked numerous other pieces of energy legislation in June and July. Their strategy is to brand Pelosi as a dictator, with pro-drilling conservatives representing the will of “average American people”:

– Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI): “This is the people’s House. This is not Pelosi’s politiburo.”

– Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): “She’s gonna bring us back and not deal with it? The American people are gonna hang her.”

– Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC): “When the people of France were starving, they went to the queen and said, ‘The people have no bread.’ The queen’s answer was, ‘Let them eat cake.’ That is not the kind of answer we expect from the leader of the people’s house in the United States of America.”

– Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ): “There’s going to be a change in this policy, Nancy Pelosi notwithstanding. She can’t repress us forever.”

– Rep.
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO): “I can’t answer why she’s acting like a dictator.”

– Rep. Denny Rehlberg (R-MT): “Nancy Pelosi should not hold the American people hostage.”

– Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX): “In your mind, do you believe America is a democracy or a dictatorship?”

Two points. One: Are these idiots robots? Because it sounds like some lazy fucker just programmed them to all say the exact same thing, looped it, and buggered off for a beer.

Two: This is a summer district work period. Why are these fools not back in their districts, working, rather than playing infantile games in D.C.? If I was one of their constituents, I’d be pissed. Especially in light of this:

In fact, when they are not crying in the dark, it is conservatives who are acting like dictators. Conservatives in the Senate have filibustered an energy agenda supported by the majority of the American people — and of the Congress — over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Bush has declared his intent to veto such legislation over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Somebody fucked over the country on energy policy. Hint: they’re sitting in a dark House pretending they’re working.

And while the big fat lying liars play the victim on Capitol Hill, McLame’s busy playing Preznit:

It was obviously a slip of the tongue, but it was a gaffe that underscored an important point: John McCain seems to think he’s already the president.

Standing behind a lectern in Michigan this week, with two trusted senators ready to do his bidding, John McCain seemed to forget for a moment that he was only running for president.

Asked about his tough rhetoric on the ongoing conflict in Georgia, McCain began: “If I may be so bold, there was another president …”

He caught himself and started again: “At one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan who spoke very strongly about America’s advocacy for democracy and freedom.”

Another president? As in, President McCain harkening back to one of his presidential predecessors?

Now, truth be told, I don’t much care about a verbal slip-up like this. The point, however, is that, after weeks of palaver about Barack Obama being “presumptuous,” John McCain has taken this week to play Pretend President, in large part because he felt like the conflict in Georgia gave him a good excuse to do so.

In this case, it goes well beyond referring to himself as the president, and includes near-constant direct discussions with a foreign head of state during a military conflict, and dispatching campaign surrogates to a war zone.

“We talk about how there’s only one president at a time, so the idea that you would send your own emissaries and really interfere with the process is remarkable,” said Lawrence Korb, a Reagan Defense Department official who now acts as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. “It’s very risky and can send mixed messages to foreign governments…. They accused Obama of being presumptuous, but he didn’t do anything close to this.”

No, he didn’t. But McCain’s a former POW, which according to his campaign excuses every last bit of stupidity, lying, mud-slinging, misogynistic, insane fuckery he demonstrates.

To my readers in other countries: if this man gets elected, please have a couch ready. There’s just no fucking way I can live in a country stupid enough to put assclowns like this in charge.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I’m really starting to worry about the mental health of many Republicons. Now some are delusional enough to believe crude oil grows on trees:

Rep. Bill Sali (R-ID), who is participating in the GOP’s ongoing “Drill Now” energy stunt, has a unique idea about how to bring down gas prices: extracting oil from trees. In a meeting in his Capitol Hill office, Sali reportedly told a candidate for Idaho’s House of Representatives, Byron Yankey, that there “‘could be up to 40 barrels of oil‘ in a single tree.” Yankey wrote on his campaign blog:

Congressman Sali informed us that a solution to the high price of gasoline was to make petroleum from “all those trees in our forests.” … He continued by saying there “could be up to 40 barrels of oil” in a single tree.

Um…. Mr. Sali, some trees do indeed have oil in them, but it’s the wrong fucking kind of oil.

Think Progress was kind enough to devise a simple tutorial for the Congressman:

Sali is apparently confusing cellulosic ethanol with oil, so let’s review the differences for the representative:

– Cellulosic ethanol is a renewable fuel “derived from the stalks and stems of plants.” Sali voted against cellulosic ethanol tax credits.

– Oil is a nonrenewable fuel found in the ground. Sali received $35,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies since January 2007.

If this doesn’t help, I’d advise kind friends and family members ensure he gets good psychiatric help as soon as possible – or get him into a remedial education program asap.

Other Republicons who need mental health care include John McCain, whose memory problems seem to get worser and worser with every passing day:

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) begins his Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “We Are All Georgians” with a warning about the seriousness of the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia:

For anyone who thought that stark international aggression was a thing of the past, the last week must have come as a startling wake-up call.

Perhaps McCain is giving himself a wake-up call, since just yesterday he seemed to have thought that “stark international aggression was a thing of the past.” In a press conference with reporters, he said, “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.”

He can’t remember what he said yesterday. On top of this, he seems to have forgotten the small fact that in the 21st century, a nation indeed invaded another nation – that would be America invading Iraq. A war he voted for and supports, no less. So either he’s forgotten what century we invaded Iraq in, or he doesn’t think Iraq’s a nation. Either way, that makes him the last fucking person we need as President of the United States.

And then there’s Jerome Corsi, Swift Boat Veterans veteran, lying sack of shit, and author of a new “book” full of lies, vitriol and smears on Obama. Let’s see how mentally stable he is:

And as long as Corsi is renewing his disgusting efforts, his own credibility is, unlike four years ago, getting some attention. The Politico’s Kenneth Vogel noted that Corsi has “a trail of wild theories, vitriol and dogma that have called into question his credibility.”

Jerome Corsi, who rose to prominence as the co-author of a book attacking 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, penned another tome asserting oil is a nearly infinite resource that continues to generate naturally, and posted a series of online comments through 2004, including suggestions that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a lesbian and Muslims worship Satan.

In an interview with Politico, Corsi pointed out that he’s apologized for Internet postings ripping Muslims and Catholics, and said they don’t undermine the integrity of his new book.

“I wrote those to be provocative and I said I would not use that kind of politically incorrect language again, and I don’t believe I have,” he said. […]

Failure on a myriad of fronts. Failure to recognize the difference between reality and his own deranged fantasies, failure to realize that you can only spew so much easily-debunkable shite before people realize you’re full of – well, shite – and get wise, and failure to realize that what he’s doing is using “that kind of politically incorrect language again.”

Yup. Definitely another candidate for the psychiatric ward.

Is it just me, or does it seem like nearly every nationally prominent Republicon is a raving lunatic?