Unless you’ve been living inside of a cave with poor tv reception or perhaps under a rock, you’re probably aware that tomorrow is election day in the United States. Any and all issues that could possibly be discussed have been thoroughly dissected by the candidates, the media, and the blogosphere. Therefore, unless you’re still squeezed in to that increasingly small piece of the pie chart labeled “undecided” (and are therefore likely also categorized as a moron, racist, ignorant, or all of the above), it’s time for you to go out and vote. If you are still undecided at this point, after what seems to have been the longest election campaign ever, you might be better off staying home so that whichever candidate wins, you can still say “it’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for him!” when you disagree with future policy changes. Obviously I’m hoping you vote for Barack Obama, but because this is a democracy, it is important that whoever you support, be it Barack Obama, John McCain, or even if you plan on writing in Optimus Prime, your vote matters. That isn’t to say this isn’t a flawed and corruptible system, as demonstrated in the 2000 election, but when more voices are heard it is harder to corrupt the process.

So whatever you have to do tomorrow, find time to go to your local polling place and vote. If you still aren’t sure where you vote, the following website will help: VoteForChange.com

I got home today to a rather unpleasant message on my answering machine. I looked around and hadn’t seen it online yet, so I recorded it and now it’s online for all to hear. Sorry about the crappy quality, it’s recorded from my answering machine’s crappy speaker to my laptop’s crappy mic.

You might not know this, because it hasn’t yet officially aired, but today’s Meet The Press, currently taping and airing in less than an hour, will be big. MSNBC, CNN, and most other major news sources are already reporting that Colin Powell has officially endorsed Barack Obama. It’s uncertain exactly what this will mean in the polls and how it will effect the race, but this certainly isn’t a good omen for John McCain. To say this is the final nail in the coffin is probably premature and Barack Obama supporters shouldn’t get cocky (as Obama has been saying himself in his stump speeches), but this is a huge bonus to his campaign, especially at such a late date.

Here’s the clip from Meet The Press:

If you watched last night’s debate, you probably saw John McCain claim that he isn’t President Bush. Well, it’s true, they do have different DNA, but here’s the Obama campaign’s response:

I’m not normally one to encourage John McCain to make a change that would help his campaign, as I’ve made it pretty clear to regular readers here that I lean left, but he desperately needs to stop using the phrase “my friends”. It comes out of his mouth in just about every other sentence during his stump speeches and, frankly, I shudder every time he says it. During last night’s debate, for example, McCain uttered the words “my friends” nineteen times. He said “my friends” more than he mentioned the middle class, health care, energy, deficit, debt, and change — combined. I know he isn’t going to read my humble and insignificant blog, but someone needs to get across to him, for the sake of his dwindling political career, that referring to his audience as “my friends” makes him come across as sleazy. It is the kind of phrase you expect to hear at a used car dealership, flea market, or pawn shop, where someone is trying to sell you something whose value is clearly less than the price they’re pushing. The argument can be made that what the presidential candidates are doing is selling themselves to the American people, but any good salesman knows that you don’t get happy repeat customers with sleazy tactics. That said, for the sake of his stump speech and so that I can stop cringing whenever I watch the news, someone close to him needs to tell John McCain to stop saying “my friends”. In fact, I have typed the words “my friends” fewer times in this post about John McCain excessively using the term “my friends” half as many times than he said “my friends” in last night’s debate.

He’s visibly full of shit when he refers to voters as his friends, so do you want to know who his friends really are? Here’s the answer:

Although the registration information is hidden, if you swing by the domain VoteForTheMILF.com (Creation Date: 30-aug-2008) you will notice that without passing go and without collecting two hundred dollars, you will be instantly redirected to JohnMcCain.com. If you’ve never been before (or if you cleared your cookies) it will first direct you to Palin’s intro video.

Sure, this could just be some crazy supporter’s idea, so here’s the proof:

• The URL was registered within about two days of McCain’s decision to select Palin.
• The dot net and dot org counterparts also redirect to the McCain site.
• The URL is held by the same registrar as JohnMcCain.com.
• A simple trace route shows that voteforthemilf.com/net/org and johnmccain.com are hosted on the same IP: 64.203.107.149

This campaign never ceases to amaze me with its underhanded political tactics.

I’ve talked before about how McCain’s attempt to paint Obama as an elitist is a joke, and I just found the following picture elsewhere on the web and just had to post it here.

No idea where this originated, so if you have the original link feel free to reply with it.

To be fair to McCain, if I had that many homes worth that much money, I wouldn’t be able to comprehend what is going on in today’s housing market either.

If you’ve ever heard John McCain talk about his time in a POW camp in Vietnam, or read his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers, you’re likely aware of a story in which McCain tells of being interrogated and in lieu of naming his actual squadron mates he lists the defensive line of the Green Bay Packers at the time. Not just any Packer team, but the team that won the first Super Bowl. To be precise, here’s what he writes in the book:

Once my condition had stabilized, my interrogators resumed their work. Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.

This is a story that he not only wrote about in his book, but has told it publicly several times and was even documented in a 2005 movie of the same name. This story has time and time again been a mainstay of McCain’s biography, but has been told by him numerous times to support his opposition to torture, noting that he gave false information under pressure.

McCain, however, must have hoped that no one would catch him playing the game of underhanded politics when, while campaigning in Pittsburgh on the 9th of this month, a local TV reporter asked him what he first thinks of in relation to Pittsburgh. His response? “The Steelers really made a huge impression on me, particularly in my early years.” He then continued blowing hot air out his ass saying, “When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup – defensive line – of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!”

So that’s how you’re going to play it, McCain? Stabbing your fond history with the Packers in the back? Next time you’re in Wisconsin, I hope one of our local reporters has the chutzpah to throw this back in your face and watch you flop around for an answer.

Most of the following McCain ad is garbage that you can ignore, but watch extremely closely at about the 25 second mark and try to identify the shirt that the woman shaking John McCain’s hand is wearing.

Did you catch it? If you did, you’re probably chuckling to yourself right now if not actually laughing out loud. If you didn’t, she’s wearing an Obama campaign shirt. Someone clearly wasn’t paying close enough attention when they put that commercial together. If this is the level of effort they are putting in to their campaign ads, I can’t wait to see what else we have to look forward to.

Still straining to see it? Here’s a freezeframe: