Stickybuffalo.com

so i do this thing sometimes, for perverse reasons i don’t fully understand, where i email spammers back. i doubt anybody ever reads them, but i get some jollies out of it.

i think this is the first time i’ve written one of these emails back to a list that i willingly signed up for.

stimulus:

from Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com info@barackobama.com
reply-to info@barackobama.com
to josh@stickybuffalo.com
date Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:05 AM
subject Now, it’s our turn

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com wrote:

>
> Joshua –
>
> Last night, President Obama called on our representatives to pass health reform that brings stability and security to Americans who have insurance, affordable coverage to those who don’t, and reins in the cost of care.
>
> Now, it’s our turn. After last night’s speech, members of Congress have no doubt about where the President stands. But to win this fight, we must show that Americans from every state and every background support his plan — and we need Congress to do the same.
>
> Click here to call your representatives, and then tell us how it went. According to our records, you live in Iowa’s 2nd congressional district. Please call:
>
> Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Cedar Rapids office at (319) 363-6832
> Sen. Tom Harkin’s Cedar Rapids office at (319) 365-4504
> Rep. Dave Loebsack’s Iowa City office at (319) 351-0789
>
>
> (Not your representatives? Click here to look yours up.)
>
> Call your representatives, and tell whoever answers where you are from and that you watched the President’s address.
>
> Then tell them that you want your representatives to support the President’s plan, ask them where they stand — and thank them if they already clearly support it.
>
> Don’t forget to click here to let us know what they said.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of folks will be calling, so please try again if you get a busy signal.
>
> This movement has brought us to a historic moment where reform is within reach. Now your energy and commitment are needed to get us the rest of the way.
>
> Please call today:
>
> http://my.barackobama.com/CongressCall
>
> Mitch
>
> Mitch Stewart
> Director
> Organizing for America
>
>Donate
>
>
> Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee — 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
>
> This email was sent to: josh@stickybuffalo.com
>
> To unsubscribe, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/unsubscribe

response:

From: josh@stickybuffalo.com
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:39 PM
Subject: No, it’s still HIS turn
To: info@barackobama.com

Mitch,

You guys have some solid brass cojones on you. You follow up the defining capitulation of Obama’s first (only?) term by trying to rally the faithful, mindless beasts of burden that we are, once more unto the breach. For what? You just punted on the one proposal that had a snowball’s chance in hell of addressing the problem he so eloquently outlined last night, a proposal he campaigned and won on — which, by the way, still has broad majority support among the public, despite the summer’s barrage of insane demagoguery that you guys utterly failed to anticipate or respond to.

If the President isn’t willing to fight, or even put up the pretense of willingness to fight, for the public option, where does that leave us? Where does he get off asking “us” to sacrifice more time and energy to help America swallow whatever nuggets of “reform” might be coaxed from the suppurating, campaign-contribution-lubricated asshole of Max Baucus? Maybe if we work real hard we can get ourselves mandated into buying private insurance with no provision for making it affordable — that’s one big bowl of shit I can’t wait to dig into! I’ll be sure to call my congressman right away.

Brass fucking balls. If only you’d show the same testicular fortitude in confronting the insurance lobby and the shrieking idiots, instead of pissing on the people who worked to get you elected, maybe we’d get some real reform. Until that day comes, good luck with this turd of a presidency — I’m sitting out 2012.

Josh

P.S. My favorite touch is how you remembered to include the “Donate” link at the bottom of the email. You guys are friggin’ adorable! Sorry, I need that money to pay my exponentially increasing health insurance premiums.

At approximately 9:20 a.m. Mountain Time tomorrow morning, I will be boarding a commercial jetliner bound for Washington’s Dulles airport. My final destination, however, is the eastern end of the Mall in our nation’s capital, which I should be reaching sometime Tuesday morning ceremony ticket in hand.

I’m absolutely certain this rather expensive trip will be memorable — though I’m not wholly convinced those memories will be fond, given the crush of humanity and security I’ll be dealing with while there. I have a pretty full agenda from arrival to departure: staying with a friend (and sort-of-ex-coworker) Sunday night playing Wii; picking up my two “silver” tickets from Sen. Udall’s office; meeting up with old high school, college, and graduate school friends; attending the Netroots Nation “Yes We Can” party; introducing myself in person to a potential, deep-pocketed client; biking across the Potomac to the Jefferson memorial on Tuesday.

Stay tuned to this space to follow my exploits. You may learn whether it’s possible to trade or sell a spare ceremony ticket; you may vicariously experience what it’s like to bike through an urban area swarming with tourists in 15-degree weather; you may see photos of the swearing-in of Barack Hussein Obama taken with my brand-new Nikon 70-300mm VR lens. Or you may discover that I’m far too busy running around Washington to actually post anything.

Wish me luck!

(more…)

doesn't that look just say it all?

and with that, another miserable old fraud goes down, and a filibuster-proof senate majority becomes a legitimate possibility.

standard disclaimer about complacency and premature celebration, etc., but with obama’s prospects looking the way they do at the moment, is the presidential race is becoming just a little bit… boring? anybody else finding themselves more interested in the senate all of a sudden?

with stevens on ice, these seem to be the hot contests:

- Franken/Coleman in MN

- Lunsford/McConnell in KY

- Udall (my old congressman)/Schaffer in CO

- Merkley/Smith in OR

- Shaheen/Sununu in NH

- Hagan/Dole in NC

these are all tight contests, and most narrowly favor the democrat. assuming a sweep of all of the above, and one or two longshot flips like Martin in GA or maybe Musgrove in MS, a supermajority could happen. 

my guess is that november 4th will go down one of two ways:

obama will win, but by a relatively narrow margin — say, 5% or less in the popular vote — that will startle us with the realization of how much closer it was than everybody thought; in this case, we’ll be doing well to reach 56 in the senate, and president obama will have to contend with the semi-plausible impression of a divided electorate and the attendant, too-predictable gridlock and bipartisan half-assedness. (nevermind that bush got away with claiming a mandate on the strength of barely 51% — that was different.)

or, it will be seismic. obama wins with 300+ electoral votes, including some states like indiana that nobody thought would flip in a million years. in this scenario, we win all the close senate races and at least one or two surprise states. in which case, let’s just say that joe lieberman is going to find out what his colleagues really think of him.

if i had to guess, i’d say scenario A is more likely. but either way, it feels sooo gooood to see a corrupt motherfucker like ted stevens get some comeuppance. i’m pretty sure it makes me a bad person, but knowing that old crook is probably going to die in prison just makes me smile.

if there’s one thing that might have made a clinton supporter out of me, it would’ve been this:

[Obama] ended up voting for what he called “an improved but imperfect bill” after backing a failed attempt earlier in the day to strip the immunity provision from the bill through an amendment… Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, who had battled Mr. Obama for the nomination, voted against the [FISA] bill.

of course, had she won the nomination, i’m guessing hillary too might have felt differently about FISA — especially knowing she’d be next in line to take those fancy new executive powers out for a spin. still, at least she’s able to mimic the basic postures of leadership, which is more than i can say today for the other guy. “improved but imperfect”?? way to set the bar higher, mister reform candidate.

obama won’t take the oath of office for another six months — it is way too early for buyer’s remorse to be setting in.

From the C-SPAN homepage:

Pres. Bush’s request for Iraq war supplemental funds was defeated 141-149, with 132 Republican members voting “Present.” 

Those special-election losses that keep adding up for the GOP must have them really scared if they don’t even have the balls to endorse their President’s budget. But voting against it would just be too strong a statement, apparently.