I haven’t cried on an election night since 1992. But I’m crying now. Just like my fellow former resident of Hyde Park/Kenwood, Jesse Jackson.

Election Night 1992 was the end of a twelve-year nightmare. Election Night 2008 ended eight years of unimaginable hell. It began that nightmarish day in December 2000 when the Supreme Court caused me to lose my respect for every single legal institution in the United States. Since then, it’s been suffering. Constant, utter suffering.

I still stand by what I said in 2001: there would have been no September 11th had Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al Gore been elected as he should have been. Most of the decade, our brave men and women in the military have been involved in two wars that should never have happened. Thousands of our people killed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis dead, JJ Botter with a couple of Purple Hearts… I felt a lot of guilt for helping send guys down to Gulf War: The Prequel. If I’d still been in (and I would have; I would have only reached my Twenty earlier this year), a noose might have been an option. Then came the skyrocketing gas prices; I remember almost vomiting seeing the first three-buck-a-gallon gas back in Kansas (well, first time in the US, anyway; I certainly saw it in Europe). Then Katrina and the unimaginable, deadly screw-ups that accompanied it; it shocks me, absolutely shocks me, that Lousyana went for McCain. Then Wall Street going tits-up. Every time you reach the bottom of the barrel, there’s a new bottom to be found.

And I told you that this would happen. I told you back in 2000. I reiterated it in 2004. You didn’t listen. You are a bunch of morons.

But now it’s over.

It really ended at 8:36PM Central Standard Time. That was the minute that CNN called one of my former states of residence, Ohio, for Obama. People bitch and moan about the Kennedys and their power in Brady Fellation Land, not to mention about my home in re the Daleys. Why doesn’t anyone complain about the Tafts in Ohio? Even though Ohio elected Republican presidents before the Tafts came around, the power of that family coalesced the GOP there and has lasted for a century, ever since the Tafts gave us the fattest president in US history on Election Night exactly one hundred years ago. Four generations of stranglehold for the Republicans, culminating in Kenneth Vote-Fraud’s screwing of John Kerry four years ago. And now it’s broken. God bless you, Cuyahoga County. God bless you, Tuscawaras County. When I lived near there eight years ago, I’d never have imagined that you hicks would have ever gone Demo. God bless you, C-Bus, the home of the best Anon chalkers in the business. You did it.

Same with you, Virgins. Without you, Obama couldn’t have claimed at 10:00PM Real American Time when CaliNeptune closed their polls. The last time you voted for a Demo, I was still four weeks from being born. Now, if those idiots in Indiana can follow suit, maybe I can go there Sunday to buy cigarettes with a clear conscience. But I’ll probably submit this before those results come in.

You want a quick translation of McCain’s concession speech? “Blame the n*ggers. It’s their fault.” Blame the spics too. They went 2-1 for Obama, you know. And there are a lot of them here now who are, somehow, eligible to vote. And did you catch Tina Fey’s body language on that stage? Oh, did she not want to be there. She’s going to get her ass back to Juneau tout suite and try to fight the ethics charges that she’ll face until her time to face the voters. Buh-bye, honey. For now, that is.

I went to the polls around 10:30AM. There were about twenty booths made available. Nineteen were filled after I got my ballot. A few minutes later, my vote for Obama was registered. In fact, the parking lot at the church/polling place was so crowded that it took me longer to get inside the polling area than it did for me to vote. I definitely felt better than I did during the last election. Four years ago, I was in Kansas. Voting for Kerry and for the Senate candidate was definitely equivalent to micturition in that backwater. Dubbaya and Brown-Nose were going to take those races no matter what I did short of assassination, and maybe not even then. But this time? You know, twelve years ago, if I was living in the middle of DuPage County like I am now, it would have been another trip to the toidy to whip it out and let loose. Not now. Twelve years ago, it would have been a sea of fat white old faces in that polling area who would rather have had genital piercings than voted for a Democrat. Today, I actually represented the median age of the group inside. Young professionals, mothers and fathers bringing in their children, faces that ran the Pantone Chart all the way from Ivory to Chocolate with no break in between. The demographics are changing. No longer are the Chicago suburbs lily-white conservatives. That diversity makes me more comfortable living here.

This was reflected in one of the few competitive races on the ballot here, US House of Representatives Illinois 13th District (it was quite saddening to see all of those unopposed Republican criminals on my ballot, let me tell you). Judy Biggert, the incumbent, is highly-respected, even by me. She’s a moderate Republican, definitely old-school. No religious pandering from her, just a solid pragmatic conservativism. She’s still a reasonable reflection of the population of her district. She was opposed by a gentleman named Scott Harper, a local product with an MBA from The University Of Chicago, so obviously he had my vote regardless of party affiliation. And, as I’m writing this, it’s a close race, within a couple percentage points. Normally, Biggert would have taken it without breaking a sweat. In fact, Harper would have probably won without those yahoos in Will County. We simply can’t wait until the 2010 census to incorporate Joliet into the Chicago area. It must be done now to turn them into proper Democrats.

And things must be done to the Red States to turn them into proper Democrats. The Oklahomos, for instance. They re-elected that repulsive little troll James Inhofe, who needs to be castrated like a steer, then chained up at the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City and gang-sodomized by truckers. You all know my plan for Kansas. And as for Nebraska…oh, I don’t know. Remember, their new senator Mike Johanns used to be my boss when he was Secretary of Agriculture. I lived in Lincoln when he was governor, and found out that he had a pretty wicked sense of humor. Republican, yes, but possibly worthy of survival in the New World Order, if only as court jester.

And there will be changes. It’s not only Democrats taking over. It’s Chicago Democrats. We don’t tolerate Republicans in our territory. And on January 20th, that territory will be the United States of America. Regrettably, we cannot take over as much as we need to. We couldn’t make the nut on the filibuster-proof Senate, although it looks pretty good right for Al Franken as I write this. If Ann Coulter’s head explodes from that little fact, I want it on YouTube now. It’s going to be a fun four years, watching Fat-Ass Limbaugh and his persuasion flailing impotently, raging against the dying of their night. I want them impotently flailing against the universal health care that will definitely be passed this time around. I want the New Deal-style programs that will be necessary to lift this country out of the recession. I want the Joe The Plumbers taxed to pay for these programs. I want more government regulation of everything, because, hey, I’m a trained government regulator. Socialism? No problem by me. My Marxism does tend toward Groucho, but I can see the benefits. And you’ll get to see them to, shoved in your faces if necessary. Rod the Mod can start the process in Illinois by appointing Rahm Emanuel to Obama’s seat. Oh, do the Republicans hate his guts big-time.

Excuse me while I continue crying while giggling intensely. I just can’t help it.

Okay, now that the partisanship is over, I know you want to know. How do some of the national figures of la belle femme persuasion rate on the Hot For Teacher Scale? For those of you who are new, the Hot For Teacher Scale came about when I was resident in Kansas and saw the true MILF potential of Governor Kathleen Sebelius. She is still the gold standard, rating a 100. How do others rank?

Senator-Elect Jeanne Shaheen: 70
Senator-Elect Kay Hagan: 87
Former Senator Elizabeth Dole: Used to be a 90, now firmly in GMILF territory
Mary Landrieu: 90, going up to 95 during Mardi Gras after the third drink
Hitlary: Dropped from a 60 to a 45 in the midst of this campaign. But Chelsea has really blossomed into a semi-hottie.
Michelle Obama: Not my type, but objectively, let’s face it, high 70s.
House Speaker For Life Nancy Pelosi: 25. She’s a battle-ax, but I’m glad she’s on my side. I think she’ll actually go for my program of denuding Kansas of all life and using it as a concentration camp for registered Republicans.
My Representative Judy Biggert: A very strong 60
The Udall cousins…they’re male? Really?
Sarah Palin: Not with five condoms, seven proxies, and MOPP 4

Just a few other observations:

Hope that you enjoyed seeing a lot of Grant Park. It’s really beautiful, isn’t it? The weather’s been wonderful here the last week. It’s a very warm night for November (around sixty degrees). I hope, I hope, I hope, that members of the International Olympic Committee were watching. This is how truly lovely my city is, and if they recognize that, then we’ll be hosting the 2016 Olympics. And, no, you can’t stay at my place.

Bochephus should never, ever do an acoustic version of “Born To Boogie”. That song deserves as much electric power as possible behind it. Especially when the other side has all the great beats.

Does Bryan Singer, an out-and-proud gay man, know exactly what Tom Cruise’s cult says about gays? If he had known, he’d never have been involved in Valkyrie. And if you don’t know, Google the phrase “eliminate, quietly and without sorrow”. Of course, knowing some of you, you’ll probably be more attracted to Scientology due to that. Ungrateful bastards. Don’t you know that I’m attending these protests for you? And it’s expected to rain on Saturday here in Chicago. Great. We got saturated during the September protests.

Another ad observation: DividedWeFail.org actually strikes a chord with me. Nine years ago, I was forced to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills after my HMO coverage decided that the three surgeries I had weren’t really necessary. Yeah, right. If I hadn’t had them, someone would have had to pay for in-patient addiction treatment in re Vicodin and Hillbilly Heroin for me. So, support these guys. Besides, I’m less than a dozen years away from AARP myself.

And now, let the 2012 campaign begin. We’ve already seen the preliminaries. Sarah Palin has already positioned herself as Mike Huckabee 1.5. Hopefully, Joe Biden will die within the next four years so someone real can become Veep, or at least send him back to the Senate (he won re-election to his seat). Me, for instance. I’m four years younger than Obama, have a lot of charisma…okay, I’ll accept Governor Hot For Teacher, like I told Obama to do a few months ago. But the campaign never ends. There are evil Republicans in the House and Senate already preparing their mudslinging for 2010. My lord and master Hunter Thompson once said that politics is better than sex. It may or may not be better, but it sure lasts longer.

It’s Republican Senator John McCain vs. Democratic Senator Barack Obama to determine the next President of the United States… and we’ll post results here once the major news organizations start calling it… in the meantime, feel free to comment below!

This week’s Dustinland was inspired by all the nasty things McCain supporters have been saying about Obama lately – particularly that he’s a terrorist. I mean, does that word even have a meaning anymore? If you asked these people to define “terrorist,” I wonder what they’d come up with, besides just saying “Obama” or “someone who hates freedom” or some other meaningless bullshit. Because it’s not about truth or logic with these people. It’s about us or them. And it has been that way for a long, long time. The people who today call themselves “conservatives” have been around forever. I’m not talking about Ron Paul supporters or people with brains who choose to support the Republican party for some reason. I’m talking about the people who wish that McCain would step down and let Palin run for office herself. These people are angry. They’re afraid. They don’t want something different. They don’t want something new. They don’t want change: It scares them. So they look at the thing they fear, and they label it, they debase it, they hate it, and they try to destroy it. And the Republican Party today needs these people to win, so it has become a cult of mean, angry, raving lunatics. And to see them together in large groups can be a frightening thing.

.:: Dustinland 10.13.08 ::.

To prove my point, remember how they were saying 100 million people would watch the debate last week? Only 50 million tuned in. What about the rest of America? Too busy watching UFC?

.:: Dustinland 09.29.08 ::.

Now, when John Kerry went back and forth on a few issues in 2004, conservatives skewered him. They even showed up to the RNC wearing flip-flops. Now McCain is proving to be the champion of the flip-flop, so I’m wondering, where are all the Republicans who crucified Kerry for the same thing last time around?

And speaking of McCain quotes, today he went on the record saying the US economy is fundamentally strong – on a day when the Dow dropped 500 points. I wish I had a little more time to work up a comic on that – not McCain’s quote but the sad state of our economy, but Monday nights aren’t what they used to be for me, so you’ll have to settle for this strip that I churned out on Sunday.

.:: Dustinland 09.15.08 ::.

The 44-year old governor of the 49th state, Palin is relatively unknown, but being painted as a very traditionally-conservative VP choice, with a McCain-esque maverick bent, and was apparently called Sarah Barracuda when she led her Wasilla high school basketball team to a championship.

So it’s set: Joe-Bama vs. … Jon-Rah (pronounced genre)? Looks liks business is about to pick up.

From JibJab, the folks behind 2004′s awesome “This Land” political satire video, comes a customizable e-card – “Time For Some Campaignin’” – which I’ve already forwarded around to everyone I know:

Oh, and here’s a trailer for the unrelated but very promising, upcoming battle between Obama Girl and McCain Girl:

Have a good weekend!

The Supreme Court correctly ruled on the DC gun ban, calling it unconstitutional based on the text of the 2nd Amendment. The majority decided that the historical narrative both preceding and following the amendment indicated the founders did not intend guns to be regulated.

Writing dissents were both John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer.

Stevens said the majority: would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.

and Breyer: In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.

Stevens is flat out and disturbingly wrong. He assumes that the framers of the Constitution wanted the ability to regulate every little bit of people’s lives. They didn’t. They had just come from a government where the monarch regulated every little bit of the people’s lives. They wanted the people to be in control of the government, not vice versa. They created 10 guarantees of people’s rights that the government could never and should never be taken away. This bastardized, bloated government that we’ve turned in to isn’t what they wanted. I believe they’d be horrified if they knew we were talking about socializing health care. Clinton’s appointees forget that. It is completely and totally outlined in Stevens’s quote. They didn’t want the state to regulate people’s access to weapons because they realized that law-abiding people don’t just go out and kill people when they feel like it.

Breyer, on the other hand, presumes there is no untouchable constitutional right to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden, urban areas. Why? What is hard to understand about the line: the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. What’s the gotcha in that line? And why single out urban areas? Isn’t urban areas where you most need people to be able to protect themselves? Are people in inner cities going to somehow not be able to get illegal guns? Could this be a gentle form of liberal “we know better” racism? I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

Of the three justices who voted with the minority, two were appointed by Bill Clinton, one by Gerald Ford, and one by George HW Bush. Of the majority, two were appointed by George W Bush, two by Ronald Reagan’s handlers, and one by Bush 1. With Gerald Ford’s appointee approaching 90 (and there should be an age limit on justices), I think that the new president will quickly have a Supreme Court appointee. For everything bad you can say about the Republicans (a lot, I admit), their Justices do still stick to the Republican ideal of small government and stricter interpretation of the Constitution. I like that. Obama would appoint a person who would have voted with the minority in this case. I don’t like that. Democratic nominees have a tendency to increase the function of government and erode property rights. Republican nominees tend to do the opposite.

And, elected officials do have the tools to regulate civilian uses of weapons: they’re called murder laws.

Point: McCain (1-1 McCain).