"McBain To Base: Under Attack From Commie Nazis!"

The Huffington Post showed this photograph of a billboard in Iowa as an example of right-wing nutjobs comparong Obama to Hitler:

The Huffington Post clearly takes issue with such comparisons. It's not at all clear, however, whether they mind a bit when someone compares Lenin to Hitler. Well, I object to it. And I think Stalin was much, much worse than Lenin, but I also object when someone compares Stalin, or Mao, to Hitler. (Comparisons of Pol Pot and Hitler are valid. If you can find a Marxist or a Leninist who thinks Pol Pot was just great, please let me know. If you know of any Stalinists still living, that also would be news to me.) If you think Stalin was as bad, or worse, than Hitler, I've said it before, I'll very likely say it again: get Stalin: A Political Biography by Isaac Deutscher, the 2nd edition from 1966, read pages 566 through 569and then get back to us, and if you haven't changed your mind, tell us where you think Deutscher is wrong. (Go ahead and read the whole book while you're at it, and other things by Deutscher, it will do you no harm.) If you think either I or Deutscher is praising Stalin as a glorious hero and role-model, well, you just haven't been paying attention, and I'm mostly likely going to shift my attention to people who are paying attention.

And if you're one of those people who believe that Communist regimes have murdered 100 million people -- or if you believed it a decade ago and have revised that round number upward since then -- read this.

Hey There, Paul Krugman!

You didn't endorse Obama, didn't campaign for him, criticized him during the campaign with no apparent thought at all about whether the criticism came at politically inopportune moments, and the only Presidential administration you have worked for was Reagan's, that's right, REAGAN'S!

And now that Obama has managed to get re-elected by a wide margin even without you getting your hands dirty by helping him, you've got some advice for him.

Well I've got some advice for you too: sit back, relax, enjoy a nice steaming-hot mug of STFU and stop constantly stepping on the dicks of the political pros as they try to actually accomplish something. Because that's what politics is about, it's the part you never could handle, never wanted to have anything to do with: accomplishing things, doing what is possible, dealing with what is rather than lecturing the world about what should be. The latter is your job. Just please don't confuse it with politics. And please stop telling Obama what will and won't work politically. It's like a man blind from birth grabbing Picasso's brush arm as he tries to paint and lecturing him about art. Obama knows what he's doing, and it's difficult enough as it is. With "advisors" like you, he really doesn't need saboteurs. Please, Paul, at long last, take your appropriate place in politics: work for the Green party. Be Ralph Nader's successor, the Great Stupid Third-Party Hope. Unless and until the US gets proportional representation. Then working for the Greens won't be silly and useless at all anymore, and you'll have to find something else to do, something appropriate to your talents, as they say.

The Wrong Monkey Endorses Obama/Biden 2012, And The Straight Democratic Ticket

-- just in case that wasn't already perfectly clear to everyone.

Like some others on the Left, I am a bit disappointed in the current administration for a few things: ramping up the insane, inhumane War on Drugs; being a little too cozy with some big businesses, and too accommodating with Republicans, most of whom have made it clear they have absolutely no intention of reciprocating.

Unlike those few turnips who are voting Green or Socialist or another party to the left of the Democrats, besides grasping the concept of proportional representation, and the fact that we don't have it yet in the US, as I explained in my previous post, I understand that politics means compromising to achieve something rather than sticking strictly to my ideals and accomplishing nothing, or worse than nothing, as that nincompoop Ralph Nader and his nincompoop followers did when they helped W take the Presidency in 2000. (Nota bene, as usual, I did not say that W was elected President, because I don't think he was.) And unlike them, I can see the huge obvious differences between Obama and Romney, and between Democrats in general and Republicans in general. Democrats actually want government to help people who need help. Republicans want to work people to death at sweat-shop wages and let them die in the streets -- or the ER's, as the case may be. Democrats respect women. Republicans say that their "religious freedom" includes their right to push women's rights back to the 19th century. Many of them, let's be clear, are not only against all abortion, they're against all birth control. Romney and Ryan won't go on the record with this last bit, but neither will they call out and denounce the whackos in their party who are the record in this way. Romney and Ryan also won't distance themselves from the birthers and the racists. Decent people who are more than half-witted need to send the Republicans a real message here. Not just in the Presidential race but all the way down the ticket.

Get out and vote! I know that many of you already have: help get others to the polls. Let's do this, hard. Let's show the whackos that the grown-ups are still in charge.

(And then after the election we can start to get on Obama's case to end the Drug War, and to be more serious about financial and corporate regulation and the environment and so forth. And we can promote a change to proportional representation. After the election. One thing at a time. I repeat: politics means compromising to achieve something rather than sticking to your ideals and thereby accomplishing nothing or worse than nothing. Vote Democrat.)

2012 Presidential Election Forecast

It's much the same as 4 years ago: I'm not worried, and I'm wondering why so many of my fellow Democrats, and others horrified by Republicans, and ex-Republicans, and so forth, are so worried. I don't think this is going to be close. A lot of people seemed to be really worried in 2008 that McCain-Palin could win. I told them they were being ridiculous, and of course I was right.

Maybe Barackwon't get as many electoral votes in 2012 as he got in 2008 -- maybe -- he got 365 by the way, a little more than twice as many as McCain -- but I'm studying the polls, and I can't see how his chances of carrying every single state he carried in 2008 are any slimmer than Mitt's chances of getting 270.

Could this simply be an example of my autism allowing me to do the math much more easily and correctly than most people? I don't like math, and I can't do it as well as Rain Man or that nice young British man Steve Kroft interviewed on "60 Minutes" who's both an Asperger and a real big deal in the world of math, who has memorized pi to a very unusual number of digits and associates numbers with colors, and on the show he was obviously -- obviously to me -- made very uncomfortable by the surf crashing onto a seawall where Kroft wanted to stop and interview him, although Kroft seemed completely clueless about what it could possibly be which was bothering the young fellow, sorry I can't track down his name -- but I can easily handle the math involved in Presidential elections, without a calculator. Obama has at least 240 electoral votes locked up. At least. That's being very kind to Romney, and saying for the sake of argument that Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida are all toss-ups. That makes 107 tossup electoral votes, of which Obama needs 30 to be re-elected, and Romney needs 79 to beat him.

Which means Romney won't beat Obama. Okay, fine, be worried. Whatever. I'm right.

And things keep getting worse for the Republicans. They are splitting into two parties, the Tea Party whackos and the regular Republicans, many of whom like Obama better than they like the Tea Party. There are growing cracks in the usual disciplined Republican unity. The fury directed from the Right toward Chief Justice Roberts is just the latest of many such stories this year. Usually it's the Democrats in disarray in election season, savagely attacking each other while the Republicans come together and put aside their squabbles until after November. Other way around this time. Sure, there are the usual Democratic or ex-Democratic or otherwise Leftist nincompoops claiming they were deceived and that now they see that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, because their disappointment over one issue has rendered them blind to all of the obvious things in the rest of the world -- but there is no Ralph Nader gathering them together and leading them this time. No King of the Leftist Nincompoops in 2012, as far as the eye can see. No significant third-party madness on the Left, no serious Democratic competing with the POTUS for the nomination.

And on the Right, even if Paul and Santorum and Gingrich and Bachmann and Pawlenty and Huntsman and Perry don't run on any third party tickets they're still all going to get significant numbers of write-in votes from wingnuts who hate Romney, except of course in the case of Huntsman who will get significant numbers of protest votes from moderate Republicans who hate Romney. They're going to get together in Tampa and nominate somebody everybody hates! Romney's a poster boy for party dysfunction.

And the Libertarian party is running a former Governor of New Mexico. In short: there is great disarray on the Right, even if you don't hear much about it, or about other very significant things like how severely and obviously skewed the polls from Rasmussen and others are, from the big media outlets.

Don't worry. Obama 2012. Take it to the bank. If you want to worry about something, worry about why the broadcast networks and CNN keep trying to present this as a close race. If they're really that dumb then that's something to worry about. If they're not that dumb then they're fundamentally dishonest, another thing worth worrying about.