I expect this to be my last posting of the 2008 election cycle. There are two principal reasons for this decision. The first is quite selfish; turning out a posting every day is very difficult as I do my own research and try, while strongly supporting Obama, to be fair to the opposition, and it is not easy without a copy editor to catch my errors. I also think that I’ve made as much impact as possible on readers; everyone on the list – and I hope those to whom it has been forwarded and those who stumbled onto the site - can’t help but be clear that I support Obama and why.
My other reason for ceasing is that Virginia is a battleground state, among the closest of these. Therefore, I’m going to spend as much time and energy as possible in making telephone calls around the Commonwealth in support of Barack Obama, Mark Warner – the Democratic party candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia - and the various Democrats running for House seats in the jurisdictions that I call.
I think that personal contact can make huge difference in whether voters turn out on Election Day, so on a cost benefit basis, I think I can do more good for Obama by making these calls in Virginia than by preaching to the choir on my blog. I know that there are McCain supporters who can’t wait for the daily post and that I was close to converting most of them to Barack’s camp, but with daily time to ponder what I’ve said over the past six or eight weeks, they’ll finally see the light and vote the correct way anyway.
I’m convinced that this is the most important election since 1932. The country is facing economic and political problems unprecedented in my adult lifetime, and this will be the third epochal change that I have lived through. The first was the New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society periods that culminated with the great legislative achievements of Lyndon Johnson that transformed America but unfortunately ended with the Vietnam War.
The second great change was the conservative whirlwind led by such folks as Barry Goldwater and Newt Gingrich but most exemplified by Ronald Reagan. It had a run of more than thirty years and did much good in its early days. Sadly, it ended in hubristic overreach during the last eight years leading up to the election to be held twelve days hence.
The election of Barack Obama will represent not only an epochal change in policy direction but a new day for America. A black American will be the first leader of this generation long shift coming, but he will be followed by women and perhaps representatives of other racial and ethnic groups. Of course white men will preside again, but they will be elected by a very diverse and different pool of voters than those we’ve known.
America will soon be restored to prosperity and to an honored place among the nations of the world. It will be great just like always – but different.
Now it can be told: ****, the one who really goofed it is George W. Bush who, thank goodness, has only 89 days let to serve in the White House. And ^^^^ ^^^^^^ the guy who guided **** down the garden path is - I'll bet you guessed it - Darth Vader - I'm sorry, Dick Cheney.
I hope I’m around for the next election cycle as this is really fun for me.
And I ain’t b.s n’ ya.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
He loves you not
Are you the owner of a small business? If so, you are revered by President **** and worshipped by Senator McCain, just ask him; no, don’t bother, he’ll reach out to tell you that you’re an American hero. You’re one of the people he’s trying to protect from the socialist ideas of Barack Obama. McCain says that Obama wants to tax you out of business and destroy your ability to create jobs for your equally worthy neighbors.
In 1997, the Congress mandated that the federal government set aside 23% of its procurement dollars for small businesses. They realized that you and yours are the engine of employment in the nation’s economy and wanted you to get a share of the tax dollars that you paid in to Uncle Sam. That’s in addition to other set asides for small firms owned by minority and other disadvantaged people. Isn’t that super; your government has a heart. You didn’t know?
When **** assumed the presidency, helped greatly by your contributions and leadership, you must have been salivating. Imagine a government headed by folks that loved you and who were committed to sending at least 23% of the huge federal pie to you. It would be for work that you could do well, so there was every reason that this would be a symbiotic relationship as well as patriotic one. How about that?
It was all bovine waste. You think you’re tight with these folks and that they love you and the ground you walk on. Wrong buffalo breathe, that policy is for show and not for go. It turns out that if you make pencils, erasers, coffee mugs or any number of products not produced by some of the nation’s largest and most powerful companies, you were welcome to apply for the crumbs. If on the other hand, you wanted to play in the sandbox occupied by the real people, it was time to cover your eyes as you were going to have the sand kicked in your face.
The Washington Post did an analysis and today ran an expose that shows the depth of the **** administration’s love for you. It’s kind of like the love that the sons of the robber barons had for upstairs maids, it kind of meant a different kind of love; you love and they shaft. The cavalier treatment was most striking with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security where the money’s big and the purchases are high tech, you know somewhere you might actually have a chance of becoming a big business if you could produce.
Some of the nation’s and world’s biggest firms such as British Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Science Applications International Corp., Lockheed Martin, Dell Computer and others got the lion’s share of your dough. Both the Post and the government make it clear that it wasn’t the fault of these firms. The contracting agencies simply didn’t care whether they followed the rules.
So when you hear John McCain sing his love song to Joe the Plumber, just remember as long as Joe doesn’t mind fixing toilets, he’s a hero, but if he – or you - want to cut out a big high tech firm, he’ll find himself in an outhouse.
Here’s the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/21/AR2008102102989.html?hpid=moreheadlines
I ain’t b.s.n’ ya; you gottta be big to be loved by these guys.
In 1997, the Congress mandated that the federal government set aside 23% of its procurement dollars for small businesses. They realized that you and yours are the engine of employment in the nation’s economy and wanted you to get a share of the tax dollars that you paid in to Uncle Sam. That’s in addition to other set asides for small firms owned by minority and other disadvantaged people. Isn’t that super; your government has a heart. You didn’t know?
When **** assumed the presidency, helped greatly by your contributions and leadership, you must have been salivating. Imagine a government headed by folks that loved you and who were committed to sending at least 23% of the huge federal pie to you. It would be for work that you could do well, so there was every reason that this would be a symbiotic relationship as well as patriotic one. How about that?
It was all bovine waste. You think you’re tight with these folks and that they love you and the ground you walk on. Wrong buffalo breathe, that policy is for show and not for go. It turns out that if you make pencils, erasers, coffee mugs or any number of products not produced by some of the nation’s largest and most powerful companies, you were welcome to apply for the crumbs. If on the other hand, you wanted to play in the sandbox occupied by the real people, it was time to cover your eyes as you were going to have the sand kicked in your face.
The Washington Post did an analysis and today ran an expose that shows the depth of the **** administration’s love for you. It’s kind of like the love that the sons of the robber barons had for upstairs maids, it kind of meant a different kind of love; you love and they shaft. The cavalier treatment was most striking with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security where the money’s big and the purchases are high tech, you know somewhere you might actually have a chance of becoming a big business if you could produce.
Some of the nation’s and world’s biggest firms such as British Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Science Applications International Corp., Lockheed Martin, Dell Computer and others got the lion’s share of your dough. Both the Post and the government make it clear that it wasn’t the fault of these firms. The contracting agencies simply didn’t care whether they followed the rules.
So when you hear John McCain sing his love song to Joe the Plumber, just remember as long as Joe doesn’t mind fixing toilets, he’s a hero, but if he – or you - want to cut out a big high tech firm, he’ll find himself in an outhouse.
Here’s the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/21/AR2008102102989.html?hpid=moreheadlines
I ain’t b.s.n’ ya; you gottta be big to be loved by these guys.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
McCain must be defeated
There are two new wrinkles to the McCain campaign. The first calls for us to vote for McCain in order to assure divided government, something that even I have advocated for many years, and the second actually denounces the **** administration and says that McCain can provide the change needed for us to overcome the damage wrought by ****.
The problem with the call for divided government is that the power of the presidency has grown so great that the constitutional checks and balances cannot be easily overcome with the wrong division of power. By that I mean a change in philosophy is needed in the executive before we can adjust the problem by electing the out party to head up the Congress. If Obama is elected and assumes the many powers grabbed by the presidency since Ronald Reagan, I will almost certainly switch parties and support a Republican, but that means that I would actually have to come to see a pattern of abuse such as that practiced by **** and ^^^^^^. I do not foresee such an outcome at this time.
I was born and raised a Democrat. Over the course of my adult life, I came to examine my support of my party and concluded that I was becoming a moderate with more than a little sympathy for republican positions. I came to see Richard Nixon as a very good president until his character flaws tipped me against him personally but not philosophically, but it was not until Gerry Ford’s run for president that I was able to break my lifelong party affiliation and vote Republican.
Much as I have maligned ****, I will admit to having voted for him in 1980. Frankly, I was quite satisfied with him in the very early days of his presidency and it was not until I was horrified by the prospect of waging a preventive war against Iraq that I turned on him with a vengeance. The folly of the venture and the radical call for massive spending and cuts in taxes turned me back into a Democrat – a moderate one.
Initially I supported Hillary Clinton in this year’s primary campaign. The centrist presidency of Bill Clinton with its moderate approach to governing – even though I had not voted for him – led me to conclude that Hillary was the one. Over the course of the campaign I became attracted to Obama and by the time of the North Carolina primary – and after some very bad campaigning by Clinton – I came to support him.
The McCain proposal to vote for divide government is based in artful but ridiculous logic. McCain clearly supports the hubristic foreign policy of the **** administration and he publicly supports retaining the **** tax cuts even on the wealthiest Americans. He supports deregulation, except in the most exceptional circumstances, and on and on. What he proposes is simply more of the same but with a promise of better management and a better outcome. In reality it is a desperate effort by Republicans to maintain power. In my view **** could not have done this rotten job all by himself or even with the exclusive the support of ^^^^^^.
This fiasco that we are experiencing came about through the concerted efforts of the administration, the Congress and Republican donors and voters. They were wrong and are now all pointing their fingers at ****. Of course, he’s a fool; of course ^^^^^^ is obsessed with imperial power for the country. But the party and its voters and sympathizers forced this mess on us. As **** and ^^^^^^ must be sent away in disgrace, so must their enablers in Congress be turned out of office.
The argument for divided government is just as bad. McCain proposes to maintain all of the powers captured from the Congress and the courts by the ****/^^^^^^ administration, only he says he’ll use them benignly, except of course for the ability to wage war unilaterally and to appoint radically out of step rightists to the courts. It won’t wash; he has to be defeated as a lesson to all enablers that they cannot step away from calamities such as those we face and that he enabled without some adverse consequence.
It’s time for a change. Vote for Barack Obama!
I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
The problem with the call for divided government is that the power of the presidency has grown so great that the constitutional checks and balances cannot be easily overcome with the wrong division of power. By that I mean a change in philosophy is needed in the executive before we can adjust the problem by electing the out party to head up the Congress. If Obama is elected and assumes the many powers grabbed by the presidency since Ronald Reagan, I will almost certainly switch parties and support a Republican, but that means that I would actually have to come to see a pattern of abuse such as that practiced by **** and ^^^^^^. I do not foresee such an outcome at this time.
I was born and raised a Democrat. Over the course of my adult life, I came to examine my support of my party and concluded that I was becoming a moderate with more than a little sympathy for republican positions. I came to see Richard Nixon as a very good president until his character flaws tipped me against him personally but not philosophically, but it was not until Gerry Ford’s run for president that I was able to break my lifelong party affiliation and vote Republican.
Much as I have maligned ****, I will admit to having voted for him in 1980. Frankly, I was quite satisfied with him in the very early days of his presidency and it was not until I was horrified by the prospect of waging a preventive war against Iraq that I turned on him with a vengeance. The folly of the venture and the radical call for massive spending and cuts in taxes turned me back into a Democrat – a moderate one.
Initially I supported Hillary Clinton in this year’s primary campaign. The centrist presidency of Bill Clinton with its moderate approach to governing – even though I had not voted for him – led me to conclude that Hillary was the one. Over the course of the campaign I became attracted to Obama and by the time of the North Carolina primary – and after some very bad campaigning by Clinton – I came to support him.
The McCain proposal to vote for divide government is based in artful but ridiculous logic. McCain clearly supports the hubristic foreign policy of the **** administration and he publicly supports retaining the **** tax cuts even on the wealthiest Americans. He supports deregulation, except in the most exceptional circumstances, and on and on. What he proposes is simply more of the same but with a promise of better management and a better outcome. In reality it is a desperate effort by Republicans to maintain power. In my view **** could not have done this rotten job all by himself or even with the exclusive the support of ^^^^^^.
This fiasco that we are experiencing came about through the concerted efforts of the administration, the Congress and Republican donors and voters. They were wrong and are now all pointing their fingers at ****. Of course, he’s a fool; of course ^^^^^^ is obsessed with imperial power for the country. But the party and its voters and sympathizers forced this mess on us. As **** and ^^^^^^ must be sent away in disgrace, so must their enablers in Congress be turned out of office.
The argument for divided government is just as bad. McCain proposes to maintain all of the powers captured from the Congress and the courts by the ****/^^^^^^ administration, only he says he’ll use them benignly, except of course for the ability to wage war unilaterally and to appoint radically out of step rightists to the courts. It won’t wash; he has to be defeated as a lesson to all enablers that they cannot step away from calamities such as those we face and that he enabled without some adverse consequence.
It’s time for a change. Vote for Barack Obama!
I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Trickle this
Let’s be clear, federal deficits are going to grow big time no matter who wins the election. The United States is going to embark on a huge public works program centered on roads, highways, bridges and other public infrastructure. It can’t be otherwise; it’s the fastest way to jump start the creation of jobs and for getting money – lots of money - flowing again. These programs will begin even before the new president is inaugurated, and a special session of Congress to implement such a push after the election is already being discussed – and lamented by republicans.
This doesn’t mean that John McCain has turned democrat or that Barack Obama is a hopeless leftist. It means that your new president and the Congress understand that this is a crisis and that they better get cracking. If you’re looking for a government job, start at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving; they’ll be cranking out greenbacks faster than Michael Phelps swims laps.
Tonight John McCain has to jump start his campaign if he’s to win the election, but he signaled earlier this week that he represents four more years of the **** presidency. He told the world that he’s no maverick and that his main economic thrust would be to cut taxes, all taxes. He was very clear that he supports the policies of the past eight years and would rely on the rich to create the jobs – beyond the public works program that is coming regardless of how painful it will be for him to endorse it.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, will embrace the spending on infrastructure and he will think up or go along with other measures to get money into the hands of the middle class. His tax cut proposal that was unveiled even before the meltdown of the financial market is a great example of how he thinks that the economy must grow from the bottom up. On this, his policy couldn’t be much clearer.
McCain is very clear that trickle down economics is still his game. And, of course, there’s more than a little something to the trickle down theory, if you like working as housekeepers and groundskeepers on neo-golden age mansions on the Hamptons and in Newport. For the last decade middle class wages have been stagnant at best while the rich have gained a far greater share of the national wealth, and they showed a great willingness to spend it on bashes on Long Island and in Steamboat Springs. So if you look good in a uniform and don’t shake while pouring, there’ll be work out there for you.
Make no mistake, this election is about power, naked power. As all the wags in the swamp on the Potomac know, government is about who gets and who pays. John McCain sheds tears over the class warfare symbolized by taking money from the top one percent of earners and giving it to you in the form of the tax refunds proposed by Barack Obama. If you haven’t figured out that you’re not in the group favored by McCain stop reading and go check your latest retirement account statement.
The republicans have been geniuses at convincing middle class people they’re part of the ruling elite. Get with it; they’ve been playing footsie with the masters of the universe on Wall Street who’ve been getting rich while you thought that you were, too. Sorry about that; it’s sad to realize that as you were using your house as an ATM machine to pay for what appeared to be an increase in your standard of living, they were selling all your paper to parties unknown and pulling their bonuses as the storm was building and which pumped up your 401- but not forever.
So if John McCain can convince you that every small business owner makes more than a quarter of a million dollars a year and that if Barack Obama is elected you’re mother will be laid off down at the local Dunkin Donuts, go for it. Me, I already voted for Obama and won’t need any more convincing why I did.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
This doesn’t mean that John McCain has turned democrat or that Barack Obama is a hopeless leftist. It means that your new president and the Congress understand that this is a crisis and that they better get cracking. If you’re looking for a government job, start at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving; they’ll be cranking out greenbacks faster than Michael Phelps swims laps.
Tonight John McCain has to jump start his campaign if he’s to win the election, but he signaled earlier this week that he represents four more years of the **** presidency. He told the world that he’s no maverick and that his main economic thrust would be to cut taxes, all taxes. He was very clear that he supports the policies of the past eight years and would rely on the rich to create the jobs – beyond the public works program that is coming regardless of how painful it will be for him to endorse it.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, will embrace the spending on infrastructure and he will think up or go along with other measures to get money into the hands of the middle class. His tax cut proposal that was unveiled even before the meltdown of the financial market is a great example of how he thinks that the economy must grow from the bottom up. On this, his policy couldn’t be much clearer.
McCain is very clear that trickle down economics is still his game. And, of course, there’s more than a little something to the trickle down theory, if you like working as housekeepers and groundskeepers on neo-golden age mansions on the Hamptons and in Newport. For the last decade middle class wages have been stagnant at best while the rich have gained a far greater share of the national wealth, and they showed a great willingness to spend it on bashes on Long Island and in Steamboat Springs. So if you look good in a uniform and don’t shake while pouring, there’ll be work out there for you.
Make no mistake, this election is about power, naked power. As all the wags in the swamp on the Potomac know, government is about who gets and who pays. John McCain sheds tears over the class warfare symbolized by taking money from the top one percent of earners and giving it to you in the form of the tax refunds proposed by Barack Obama. If you haven’t figured out that you’re not in the group favored by McCain stop reading and go check your latest retirement account statement.
The republicans have been geniuses at convincing middle class people they’re part of the ruling elite. Get with it; they’ve been playing footsie with the masters of the universe on Wall Street who’ve been getting rich while you thought that you were, too. Sorry about that; it’s sad to realize that as you were using your house as an ATM machine to pay for what appeared to be an increase in your standard of living, they were selling all your paper to parties unknown and pulling their bonuses as the storm was building and which pumped up your 401- but not forever.
So if John McCain can convince you that every small business owner makes more than a quarter of a million dollars a year and that if Barack Obama is elected you’re mother will be laid off down at the local Dunkin Donuts, go for it. Me, I already voted for Obama and won’t need any more convincing why I did.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Drool radio
By now you must realize the service I provide by listening to conservative talk shows for you. Running my single daily errand to a doctor’s office, pharmacy, liquor store, donut shop or barber shop – that’s what old men do to fill the day – provides ample time to sample the reason de jour the country is going to hell in a hand basket, according to those who love freedom and liberty and checking on your roommates. Surely you know that for every hour spent in this quest for knowledge hidden from you by the mainstream media I age two, a great sacrifice that I make gladly.
Yesterday, guilt by association was the topic of choice across the right wing airways. Stung by the lack of traction in attempting to connect Barack Obama with William Ayers, the bloviaters are sputtering about the unfairness of it all. Obama’s campaign has created a video that describes John McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal and the windbags cannot fathom how it is unfair for them to be charged with dirty politics while Obama’s poll numbers rise, apparently unhurt by such unfair tactics.
I listened as one blathering blowhard lamented that Obama was getting away with past associations with a terrorist while McCain’s connections with a `banker’ was killing him. Naturally, the callers screamed their support for the show’s host and that poor innocent, John McCain, and they frothed over the unethical and near criminality of the dastardly Barack H. Obama. (The `H.’ is now the snide and winking shorthand smear after being chastised for using the full middle name of Obama.)
Let me stipulate that Obama’s connections with Ayers were not smart, especially if Barack had any inkling that he wanted a career in politics that might one day land him in Washington. But it is obviously silly to attempt to connect the terrorist activities of Ayers with an eight year old Obama living more than a continent away, and the public is not having any of it thus far. There can be no doubt that Obama’s explanations of the contacts and his present association with Ayers have been bought by the voters or at least trumped by the frightening economic situation. Still, young politicians should learn from this episode.
While Obama hasn’t made a great deal of the connection between McCain and Charles Keating, it is very clear that relations between the two men are far more relevant to voters today than the smear efforts being made against Obama and his connections with Ayers. McCain’s handlers can rail about the mainstream media’s greater concern with Keating than with Ayers, but there’s no getting around the fact that McCain’s poor judgment in connection with Keating bears on his views on banking, the only topic of the election at this moment.
Keating wined and dined five U.S. Senators, including John McCain, in an effort to get them to exert pressure on federal bank regulators to permit his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association to invest in very risky and highly leveraged investments. These investments, far in excess of regulatory maximums, ultimately failed bankrupting the S&L and resulting in the losses of billons of dollars in investments by unsuspecting depositors.
McCain paid back the tens of thousands of dollars in questionable perks from Keating but has admitted that his appearance in front of regulators gave the appearance impropriety. Since Senator McCain supported deregulation of S&Ls that led to an earlier financial debacle that cost taxpayers billions, and since he has many times supported similar deregulatory efforts of the financial sector since, and since even in the present presidential race he has called for the government to get out of the way of people trying to bring prosperity to the country, his views on regulation past and present is very relevant to his candidacy.
The illogical connection of the banker and the terrorist in presidential race is having little or no traction. The importance of the financial crisis has focused the attention of the mainstream media on what is truly the issue that is of concern to most voters, the economy. My only question is, if 100% of the callers on right wing talk shows drool their agreement that Obama and Ayers are a twosome, do you think this is a random sample of those actually dialing up the chatterers? Your humble servant is beginning to so think.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Yesterday, guilt by association was the topic of choice across the right wing airways. Stung by the lack of traction in attempting to connect Barack Obama with William Ayers, the bloviaters are sputtering about the unfairness of it all. Obama’s campaign has created a video that describes John McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal and the windbags cannot fathom how it is unfair for them to be charged with dirty politics while Obama’s poll numbers rise, apparently unhurt by such unfair tactics.
I listened as one blathering blowhard lamented that Obama was getting away with past associations with a terrorist while McCain’s connections with a `banker’ was killing him. Naturally, the callers screamed their support for the show’s host and that poor innocent, John McCain, and they frothed over the unethical and near criminality of the dastardly Barack H. Obama. (The `H.’ is now the snide and winking shorthand smear after being chastised for using the full middle name of Obama.)
Let me stipulate that Obama’s connections with Ayers were not smart, especially if Barack had any inkling that he wanted a career in politics that might one day land him in Washington. But it is obviously silly to attempt to connect the terrorist activities of Ayers with an eight year old Obama living more than a continent away, and the public is not having any of it thus far. There can be no doubt that Obama’s explanations of the contacts and his present association with Ayers have been bought by the voters or at least trumped by the frightening economic situation. Still, young politicians should learn from this episode.
While Obama hasn’t made a great deal of the connection between McCain and Charles Keating, it is very clear that relations between the two men are far more relevant to voters today than the smear efforts being made against Obama and his connections with Ayers. McCain’s handlers can rail about the mainstream media’s greater concern with Keating than with Ayers, but there’s no getting around the fact that McCain’s poor judgment in connection with Keating bears on his views on banking, the only topic of the election at this moment.
Keating wined and dined five U.S. Senators, including John McCain, in an effort to get them to exert pressure on federal bank regulators to permit his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association to invest in very risky and highly leveraged investments. These investments, far in excess of regulatory maximums, ultimately failed bankrupting the S&L and resulting in the losses of billons of dollars in investments by unsuspecting depositors.
McCain paid back the tens of thousands of dollars in questionable perks from Keating but has admitted that his appearance in front of regulators gave the appearance impropriety. Since Senator McCain supported deregulation of S&Ls that led to an earlier financial debacle that cost taxpayers billions, and since he has many times supported similar deregulatory efforts of the financial sector since, and since even in the present presidential race he has called for the government to get out of the way of people trying to bring prosperity to the country, his views on regulation past and present is very relevant to his candidacy.
The illogical connection of the banker and the terrorist in presidential race is having little or no traction. The importance of the financial crisis has focused the attention of the mainstream media on what is truly the issue that is of concern to most voters, the economy. My only question is, if 100% of the callers on right wing talk shows drool their agreement that Obama and Ayers are a twosome, do you think this is a random sample of those actually dialing up the chatterers? Your humble servant is beginning to so think.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
He did it
The conspiracy against you and me is clear now. Until the last few days all of my sources for information about the worldwide financial meltdown came from the mainstream media. I had no idea that such entities as Time Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, CNN, NBC, PBS, NPR, and hundreds of other sources that I had trusted were out to elect Barack Obama and ignore the truth.
Quite by accident, while out and about doing ordinary old man errands, I came upon conservative talk radio, apparently a medium being suppressed by the mainstream media and unavailable to ordinary people such as total innocents like me – and you.
Until I heard the truth from right wing luminaries I was under the impression that the financial meltdown was caused by entities pointed to by that same mainstream media. Their culprits of choice are hedge fund managers, Wall Street tycoons, **** administration regulatory officials, investment banks (now gone to hell, deservedly), mortgage giants like Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other similar villains in Europe and Asia.
My guess is that most of you were complaining about these institutions and the men and women who ran them. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! If you would only tune in to your local right wing talk radio outlet, the answer is right there for you to learn and to hate. But no, you insist on watching CNN, reading Newsweek and listening to NPR as you go about your ordinary almost traitorous, LIBERAL lives.
Like me, some of you probably claim to be moderates but in the black and white world of conservative talk there are no such beings, so get over it; if you’re not a conservative, you are by definition a LIBERAL. A LIBERAL is far worse than a communist or socialist. I don’t really know why yet, but now that I have found the source of the information, I’ll continue to tune in and let you know in good time.
So for a couple of hours last week I tuned in and found out the name of the person who really caused the multi-trillion dollar meltdown of the global financial system. This person is the most powerful man who has walked the earth since Joe Stalin and is truly far more dangerous. A simple statement of what this person desires is enough to cause the government of the United States to completely change direction, to cause panic on the Asian stock exchanges and to bankrupt small countries like Iceland and Ireland.
The meltdown of the world financial system goes back to a time when this man was masquerading as a minor official in the United States government but spoke up and damned a proposed bill by the majority party in the U.S. Congress, the Republicans, and President ****** *.**** that would have forestalled all of the problems we now face, including acne and ingrown toenails. But this person said, “No!”
What could they do? If he said it shouldn’t pass, what could they do? You really have to understand wasn’t just `no’ it was a LIBERAL `no’. They were obviously powerless, so the leaders of the free world had no choice but to forget about preventing what they knew would be a worldwide financial meltdown and panic.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the man who said `no’ to reining in some of the free market regulatory proposals of the Republicans caused it all single handedly, the most powerful and evil man on the planet is Barney Frank, Democrat Congressman from that LIBERAL bastion, Massachusetts. And you know what; he’s mean to Republicans and sarcastic, too. So tune in conservative talk radio and you’ll find out how you have to vote to stop this powerful enemy of freedom. Darn right!
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Quite by accident, while out and about doing ordinary old man errands, I came upon conservative talk radio, apparently a medium being suppressed by the mainstream media and unavailable to ordinary people such as total innocents like me – and you.
Until I heard the truth from right wing luminaries I was under the impression that the financial meltdown was caused by entities pointed to by that same mainstream media. Their culprits of choice are hedge fund managers, Wall Street tycoons, **** administration regulatory officials, investment banks (now gone to hell, deservedly), mortgage giants like Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other similar villains in Europe and Asia.
My guess is that most of you were complaining about these institutions and the men and women who ran them. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! If you would only tune in to your local right wing talk radio outlet, the answer is right there for you to learn and to hate. But no, you insist on watching CNN, reading Newsweek and listening to NPR as you go about your ordinary almost traitorous, LIBERAL lives.
Like me, some of you probably claim to be moderates but in the black and white world of conservative talk there are no such beings, so get over it; if you’re not a conservative, you are by definition a LIBERAL. A LIBERAL is far worse than a communist or socialist. I don’t really know why yet, but now that I have found the source of the information, I’ll continue to tune in and let you know in good time.
So for a couple of hours last week I tuned in and found out the name of the person who really caused the multi-trillion dollar meltdown of the global financial system. This person is the most powerful man who has walked the earth since Joe Stalin and is truly far more dangerous. A simple statement of what this person desires is enough to cause the government of the United States to completely change direction, to cause panic on the Asian stock exchanges and to bankrupt small countries like Iceland and Ireland.
The meltdown of the world financial system goes back to a time when this man was masquerading as a minor official in the United States government but spoke up and damned a proposed bill by the majority party in the U.S. Congress, the Republicans, and President ****** *.**** that would have forestalled all of the problems we now face, including acne and ingrown toenails. But this person said, “No!”
What could they do? If he said it shouldn’t pass, what could they do? You really have to understand wasn’t just `no’ it was a LIBERAL `no’. They were obviously powerless, so the leaders of the free world had no choice but to forget about preventing what they knew would be a worldwide financial meltdown and panic.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the man who said `no’ to reining in some of the free market regulatory proposals of the Republicans caused it all single handedly, the most powerful and evil man on the planet is Barney Frank, Democrat Congressman from that LIBERAL bastion, Massachusetts. And you know what; he’s mean to Republicans and sarcastic, too. So tune in conservative talk radio and you’ll find out how you have to vote to stop this powerful enemy of freedom. Darn right!
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Choice made - vote cast
I voted Barack Obama today. By casting my absentee ballot I have decided that no matter what kind of October surprise occurs, at least one vote will be in the bank for my candidate.
I am convinced that the times are too perilous to entrust our most important office to someone too rash, impulsive, and angry and who despite his self proclamation of being a maverick has been in almost lock step with the leaders who brought us to the edge of the abyss in both foreign and domestic arenas.
John McCain’s two heroes, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, do not fit the mold of the types that give great comfort in what could be the desperate hours that face us today. T.R. was as impulsive and reckless as McCain and Reagan was the most important American leader who set us on the course that brought us to where we are today.
During the campaign, Obama has exhibited the qualities of my political hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he has been cool, calm and resolute in the face of the problems he will inherit from what has been an incompetent and reckless administration headed by President ****** *. **** and Vice President ^^^^ ^^^^^^. Barack Obama is the man of this hour, our hour. The times look bad and we need an intelligent and resolute hand on the tiller. The Civil War made Lincoln. The Great Depression and World War II gave FDR his stage. Barack Obama is the man for this crisis.
**** attacked Iraq based on poor intelligence. More importantly, the information used to justify the preventive war was controversial even within his intelligence community. Almost six years later, we find our selves with more than 4,000 army, navy, air force and marine dead and 30,000 wounded, many disabled to the point of damaging their ability to lead productive and happy lives when they return to civilian life.
The economic and financial situation that has become obvious to all over the last few weeks can be traced directly to the philosophy, policies, actions and inactions of the **** administration, directly aided, abetted and championed by John McCain. Even today, McCain’s most important message harkens back to Reagan’s view that the government should be moved aside and let the markets bring us unlimited bounty.
Yesterday, I listened to the radio as conservatives swore that the prosperity of the past twenty-five years was unprecedented in human history and that we should stay the course with Reaganism. That the house of cards on which that prosperity was created, deficit spending and a deregulation policy that virtually assured abuse by clever and overly greedy people is now crumbling about us and that the measures of prosperity – using the market as indexes – have given back virtually all of the gains of the years of the **** administration.
Our housing values are retreating and will soon have given up virtually all recent gains – with millions of American destroyed in the process. Retirement plans of millions have been altered, postponed and many millions will die before they can recover anything like what has escaped their desperate clutches.
All of this was enabled by John McCain. His self proclamation of being a maverick is completely unconvincing. The Republican Party has been captured by fools. They must be turned out in droves to lick their wounds and to contemplate what they have done to the nation. Only when they can demonstrate that they are true conservatives – fiscally and in foreign affairs – can they be worthy of our trust again. And it is going to take many years.
Be gone, you fools!
And I ain’t b.sn’ya.
I am convinced that the times are too perilous to entrust our most important office to someone too rash, impulsive, and angry and who despite his self proclamation of being a maverick has been in almost lock step with the leaders who brought us to the edge of the abyss in both foreign and domestic arenas.
John McCain’s two heroes, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, do not fit the mold of the types that give great comfort in what could be the desperate hours that face us today. T.R. was as impulsive and reckless as McCain and Reagan was the most important American leader who set us on the course that brought us to where we are today.
During the campaign, Obama has exhibited the qualities of my political hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he has been cool, calm and resolute in the face of the problems he will inherit from what has been an incompetent and reckless administration headed by President ****** *. **** and Vice President ^^^^ ^^^^^^. Barack Obama is the man of this hour, our hour. The times look bad and we need an intelligent and resolute hand on the tiller. The Civil War made Lincoln. The Great Depression and World War II gave FDR his stage. Barack Obama is the man for this crisis.
**** attacked Iraq based on poor intelligence. More importantly, the information used to justify the preventive war was controversial even within his intelligence community. Almost six years later, we find our selves with more than 4,000 army, navy, air force and marine dead and 30,000 wounded, many disabled to the point of damaging their ability to lead productive and happy lives when they return to civilian life.
The economic and financial situation that has become obvious to all over the last few weeks can be traced directly to the philosophy, policies, actions and inactions of the **** administration, directly aided, abetted and championed by John McCain. Even today, McCain’s most important message harkens back to Reagan’s view that the government should be moved aside and let the markets bring us unlimited bounty.
Yesterday, I listened to the radio as conservatives swore that the prosperity of the past twenty-five years was unprecedented in human history and that we should stay the course with Reaganism. That the house of cards on which that prosperity was created, deficit spending and a deregulation policy that virtually assured abuse by clever and overly greedy people is now crumbling about us and that the measures of prosperity – using the market as indexes – have given back virtually all of the gains of the years of the **** administration.
Our housing values are retreating and will soon have given up virtually all recent gains – with millions of American destroyed in the process. Retirement plans of millions have been altered, postponed and many millions will die before they can recover anything like what has escaped their desperate clutches.
All of this was enabled by John McCain. His self proclamation of being a maverick is completely unconvincing. The Republican Party has been captured by fools. They must be turned out in droves to lick their wounds and to contemplate what they have done to the nation. Only when they can demonstrate that they are true conservatives – fiscally and in foreign affairs – can they be worthy of our trust again. And it is going to take many years.
Be gone, you fools!
And I ain’t b.sn’ya.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
401 Blues
This is going to be short. I got my quarterly 401(k) report this morning and have been in bed ever since. My intravenous Budweiser input and my catheter are in perfect balance so don’t worry about me. My ****/McCain tax obligation just went up again at exactly the same rate as the retirement account and the value of my house went down. That I’m paying a higher rate than many millionaires is damn disturbing. Thank goodness the report cut off on the last day of September as it's been in free fall ever since.
It’s absolutely startling how I – and millions of other Americans who are in our houses using the most conservative of purchasing methods and who invested in securities, again through the most conservative ways of diversifying our mutual fund accounts as recommended by the folks walking away from their failed hedge funds with tens of millions of dollars in severance packages suggested – got sent to bed. But now I find that the whole shebang was a house of cards.
That it was a house of cards was bad enough but that it was well known to all these big timers long ago is what is so galling. That the Wall Street crowd knew all the time that after they withdrew their millions – billions if you add them up – that their reps in Washington – that’s short for the **** administration and their enablers like John McCain – would have to bail out the entire system.
Now one of their chief representatives in Washington, their loyal servant in deregulating them so they could speculate beyond their fondest fantasies and dreams of avarice, John McCain, is running for president under the banner of punishing the greedy evil doers. Way to lock that barn door, John Boy, but that horse was stolen so long ago that we can’t remember its name.
As I was typing this in bed, I had to turn up the input, so before it overwhelms the output, I’ve got to go. But I know damn well who I’m blaming for my new tax and for my condition; you’ve got it: ****/McCain – no third term for taxers like them.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
It’s absolutely startling how I – and millions of other Americans who are in our houses using the most conservative of purchasing methods and who invested in securities, again through the most conservative ways of diversifying our mutual fund accounts as recommended by the folks walking away from their failed hedge funds with tens of millions of dollars in severance packages suggested – got sent to bed. But now I find that the whole shebang was a house of cards.
That it was a house of cards was bad enough but that it was well known to all these big timers long ago is what is so galling. That the Wall Street crowd knew all the time that after they withdrew their millions – billions if you add them up – that their reps in Washington – that’s short for the **** administration and their enablers like John McCain – would have to bail out the entire system.
Now one of their chief representatives in Washington, their loyal servant in deregulating them so they could speculate beyond their fondest fantasies and dreams of avarice, John McCain, is running for president under the banner of punishing the greedy evil doers. Way to lock that barn door, John Boy, but that horse was stolen so long ago that we can’t remember its name.
As I was typing this in bed, I had to turn up the input, so before it overwhelms the output, I’ve got to go. But I know damn well who I’m blaming for my new tax and for my condition; you’ve got it: ****/McCain – no third term for taxers like them.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
It all Depends
OK it’s official; I’ve put on my Depends, and I’m scared stiff. These morons in the **** administration and the Republican Party have officially driven all of us into a ditch and the whole world is frightened. Listen up; it’s my blog and I make all of the official declarations of scared.
John McCain, one of the chief enablers of this economic fiasco, who is running on the new and exclusive idea of directly bailing out those who bought houses they couldn’t afford while his running mate whose only job is to damn Barack Obama for guilt by association, associations she was unable to comprehend only a week ago, has now abandoned reason and is begging for your vote based on fear, mostly fear of Barack Husein Obama, whose very name they've turned into a smear.
Fear is me, and I’m for sending every Republican office holder in the country into the Gobi Desert for forty years – or longer if they don’t put the old time conservatives back in power or until I get over it, whichever is longer. The neocon wing with its imperial aspirations and the evangelicals with their intent to get into your bedrooms have got to have their butts kicked - hard.
I used to be a Republican, a cloth coat Eisenhower, Ford Republican. I have no desire to run the world or to look over the transom as you breathe heavily doing whatever you do – don’t even tell me what it is; I don’t care. I just want America to be a place where all children are above normal and where people mind their own damned business.
To me the bad guy is Ronald Reagan. He’s the guy who through his political genius forged the coalition of neocons, evangelicals and real old fashioned republicans. I bought into it until it became obvious that the **** Doctrine of preventive war and the ^^^^^^ Doctrine that Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter debased what was probably a far more benign view of the country and the world in the hands of a simpler and definitely kinder man.
Whatever psychological failings drove **** to prove that he was tougher and smarter than his daddy are no longer important. We attacked a country that did not have weapons of mass destruction to topple a very bad man and party who were doing very little harm to us. We quickly substituted our idea of what an Iraqi government should look like and it hasn’t been pretty. The prime minister of Iraq is making kissy face with a truly dangerous foe of the U.S., Iran, and we’re having to adjust to getting pushed out of the country.
Reagan and his girlfriend, Dame Peggy, bought into an economic system that has proven – at least in the hands of the less talented zealots who followed him – to not work to the benefit of our citizens and the country, indeed the world. These lesser pols were simply not flexible enough to simply invoke the great one’s name and not be slavish to the foolishness of carrying on in the face of obvious crises.
McCain is a warrior who proclaims day after day that he knows how to win wars and to solve our economic problems. One of his former favorite themes was to hold folks accountable for their failures. George Will compared McCain quite unfavorably with the Queen of hearts whose only response to bad news was to cry, “Off with his head.”
So McCain demanded the head of the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission without a clue as to whether the official had acted responsibly. Fire this one and that one – some obviously quite correctly in the case of Don Rumsfeld but others not. Yet McCain does not want to held accountable himself. That he was wrong on leading us into Iraq while Afghanistan was not finished and thus permitting Osama bin Laden get away with most of his leadership cadre should not be held against him. That’s looking backward.
That he chose an unqualified and very nasty vice presidential candidate who cannot string two sentences together that do not call for an affirmation of `darn right’ and whose only role is to feed red meat to the evangelical base is to be ignored as looking backward. McCain’s judgment on selecting a running mate who is the laughingstock of the country and who with a wink and a nod attempts character assassination and spreads hate and fear wherever she stops is beyond poor.
McCain has no philosophy. “I know how to win wars.” “I know how to solve the economic crisis.” He wants to be president to outdo his father and grandfather. We can’t stand four more years of presidents who simply want to outdo others.
It’s not good for the country and I’m scared silly. McCain has aided and abetted **** in virtually every decision that got us in these fixes, and it’s time for a change. Speaking of change, my Depends are calling.
Aside from a few thousand hedge fund managers and CEOs, how many of you – the very big you out there – are better off today than four years ago? OK, you two vote for McCain and the rest of you start working your butts off for Barack Obama.
I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
John McCain, one of the chief enablers of this economic fiasco, who is running on the new and exclusive idea of directly bailing out those who bought houses they couldn’t afford while his running mate whose only job is to damn Barack Obama for guilt by association, associations she was unable to comprehend only a week ago, has now abandoned reason and is begging for your vote based on fear, mostly fear of Barack Husein Obama, whose very name they've turned into a smear.
Fear is me, and I’m for sending every Republican office holder in the country into the Gobi Desert for forty years – or longer if they don’t put the old time conservatives back in power or until I get over it, whichever is longer. The neocon wing with its imperial aspirations and the evangelicals with their intent to get into your bedrooms have got to have their butts kicked - hard.
I used to be a Republican, a cloth coat Eisenhower, Ford Republican. I have no desire to run the world or to look over the transom as you breathe heavily doing whatever you do – don’t even tell me what it is; I don’t care. I just want America to be a place where all children are above normal and where people mind their own damned business.
To me the bad guy is Ronald Reagan. He’s the guy who through his political genius forged the coalition of neocons, evangelicals and real old fashioned republicans. I bought into it until it became obvious that the **** Doctrine of preventive war and the ^^^^^^ Doctrine that Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter debased what was probably a far more benign view of the country and the world in the hands of a simpler and definitely kinder man.
Whatever psychological failings drove **** to prove that he was tougher and smarter than his daddy are no longer important. We attacked a country that did not have weapons of mass destruction to topple a very bad man and party who were doing very little harm to us. We quickly substituted our idea of what an Iraqi government should look like and it hasn’t been pretty. The prime minister of Iraq is making kissy face with a truly dangerous foe of the U.S., Iran, and we’re having to adjust to getting pushed out of the country.
Reagan and his girlfriend, Dame Peggy, bought into an economic system that has proven – at least in the hands of the less talented zealots who followed him – to not work to the benefit of our citizens and the country, indeed the world. These lesser pols were simply not flexible enough to simply invoke the great one’s name and not be slavish to the foolishness of carrying on in the face of obvious crises.
McCain is a warrior who proclaims day after day that he knows how to win wars and to solve our economic problems. One of his former favorite themes was to hold folks accountable for their failures. George Will compared McCain quite unfavorably with the Queen of hearts whose only response to bad news was to cry, “Off with his head.”
So McCain demanded the head of the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission without a clue as to whether the official had acted responsibly. Fire this one and that one – some obviously quite correctly in the case of Don Rumsfeld but others not. Yet McCain does not want to held accountable himself. That he was wrong on leading us into Iraq while Afghanistan was not finished and thus permitting Osama bin Laden get away with most of his leadership cadre should not be held against him. That’s looking backward.
That he chose an unqualified and very nasty vice presidential candidate who cannot string two sentences together that do not call for an affirmation of `darn right’ and whose only role is to feed red meat to the evangelical base is to be ignored as looking backward. McCain’s judgment on selecting a running mate who is the laughingstock of the country and who with a wink and a nod attempts character assassination and spreads hate and fear wherever she stops is beyond poor.
McCain has no philosophy. “I know how to win wars.” “I know how to solve the economic crisis.” He wants to be president to outdo his father and grandfather. We can’t stand four more years of presidents who simply want to outdo others.
It’s not good for the country and I’m scared silly. McCain has aided and abetted **** in virtually every decision that got us in these fixes, and it’s time for a change. Speaking of change, my Depends are calling.
Aside from a few thousand hedge fund managers and CEOs, how many of you – the very big you out there – are better off today than four years ago? OK, you two vote for McCain and the rest of you start working your butts off for Barack Obama.
I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Champagne Music
John McCain has one really difficult job tonight. Imagine being the front man for the republican brand at this time? Now that’s a selling job for you. But I’ve got the music down. Lawrence Welk playing his Champagne Music will be the theme with bubbles bursting all over the stage at Belmont University in Nashville.
McCain will be quick to point that last year’s leading man, ****** *. ****, is not to be confused with his personal hero, the host of TV’s Death Valley Days, Ronald Reagan. There’ll also be some confusion about McCain’s relationship to the Republican Party since while it is technically correct that he is that party’s nominee, he’s actually running against them, except for the part that calls for campaign donations and votes. He’s a maverick, you know.
McCain’s mantra of saving $18.5 billion annually in earmarks kind of pales in the face of the $10 billion a month be burned up in Iraq, especially since about a $100 billion in tax breaks for business and earmarks is what it took to bring his republican congressmen on board with ****’s bailout of the financial sector last week. He’s going to name names of the culprits, but only if he’s elected.
He’s also caught by the format of the debate, a town hall meeting in which the inmates ask and expect something akin to answers to their questions asked as compared to Sarah Palin’s total kiss off of the need to even listen to the question before spouting the next talking point on her pad. She’s a maverick too, you know.
It’s going to take some doing to twist questions about the economy into links between Obama and Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, but John’s going to do his best. I suppose it would go something like, “Yes, the stock market’s in the tank, but Barack Hussein Obama’s pal, Bill Ayers, hates the market and all it stands for and his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, prayed for the fall.”
But McCain has to keep in mind that Obama has a list of talking points in his hip pocket about the much older candidate’s poor judgment in dealing with the Savings and Loan crisis in which he was charged with exercising poor judgment in dealings with Chuck Keating, the felon whose methods were not far too different than those used by the bad boys in the present debacle.
Speaking of old, Obama is being tagged with unfair campaign practices in pointing out the differences in the ages and physical condition of the two major candidates. It is a fact that McCain is seventy-two years old and has had four bouts of serious cancer and that Obama is forty-seven and in good health. What’s unfair about stating those two facts? While McCain is just a kid to me, I’m not running for president – at least until 2012, at which time the republican nominee, Sarah Palin will probably call my rheumatism to the attention of voters. Darn right that would be unfair.
That old elephant logo sure is an endangered species. If McCain and Palin get beat in November, McCain won’t be the only one trying bag it. There’ll be all out war within the party and the neocons and evangelicals better watch their backs as the geriatric crowd of cloth coaters still surviving from the Daddy ****, Gerry Ford and even the Eisenhower days will be spitting mad and looking to kick some butt. Darn right.
Tune in tonight and see if John McCain can reach into that bag of republican manure and pull out the pony he’s been looking for since he was a young ’un. He’ll be tryin’; darn tootin’.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya
McCain will be quick to point that last year’s leading man, ****** *. ****, is not to be confused with his personal hero, the host of TV’s Death Valley Days, Ronald Reagan. There’ll also be some confusion about McCain’s relationship to the Republican Party since while it is technically correct that he is that party’s nominee, he’s actually running against them, except for the part that calls for campaign donations and votes. He’s a maverick, you know.
McCain’s mantra of saving $18.5 billion annually in earmarks kind of pales in the face of the $10 billion a month be burned up in Iraq, especially since about a $100 billion in tax breaks for business and earmarks is what it took to bring his republican congressmen on board with ****’s bailout of the financial sector last week. He’s going to name names of the culprits, but only if he’s elected.
He’s also caught by the format of the debate, a town hall meeting in which the inmates ask and expect something akin to answers to their questions asked as compared to Sarah Palin’s total kiss off of the need to even listen to the question before spouting the next talking point on her pad. She’s a maverick too, you know.
It’s going to take some doing to twist questions about the economy into links between Obama and Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, but John’s going to do his best. I suppose it would go something like, “Yes, the stock market’s in the tank, but Barack Hussein Obama’s pal, Bill Ayers, hates the market and all it stands for and his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, prayed for the fall.”
But McCain has to keep in mind that Obama has a list of talking points in his hip pocket about the much older candidate’s poor judgment in dealing with the Savings and Loan crisis in which he was charged with exercising poor judgment in dealings with Chuck Keating, the felon whose methods were not far too different than those used by the bad boys in the present debacle.
Speaking of old, Obama is being tagged with unfair campaign practices in pointing out the differences in the ages and physical condition of the two major candidates. It is a fact that McCain is seventy-two years old and has had four bouts of serious cancer and that Obama is forty-seven and in good health. What’s unfair about stating those two facts? While McCain is just a kid to me, I’m not running for president – at least until 2012, at which time the republican nominee, Sarah Palin will probably call my rheumatism to the attention of voters. Darn right that would be unfair.
That old elephant logo sure is an endangered species. If McCain and Palin get beat in November, McCain won’t be the only one trying bag it. There’ll be all out war within the party and the neocons and evangelicals better watch their backs as the geriatric crowd of cloth coaters still surviving from the Daddy ****, Gerry Ford and even the Eisenhower days will be spitting mad and looking to kick some butt. Darn right.
Tune in tonight and see if John McCain can reach into that bag of republican manure and pull out the pony he’s been looking for since he was a young ’un. He’ll be tryin’; darn tootin’.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya
Monday, October 6, 2008
The past is prologue
Tell you what; I want to look back – in anger. John McCain does not want us to; his mantra is that we have to clean up the problems and not look back as fixing blame is so old fashioned.
Call me old fashioned then because I want to hold people accountable for what’s happened to the country over the last eight years. If the buck stops in the Oval Office, I want to hold ***** *. **** responsible for the mess we’re in. Naturally, even someone as incurious and thoughtless as **** could not accomplish these fantastic feats of folly without help. In some respects Vice President ^^^^ ^^^^^^ made **** do it, but **** is the president, so he’s numero uno. It’s now a solid smash; he’s crushed the granite floor that James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover set in establishing their claims of being the worst presidents ever.
^^^^^^ appears to be the main man in telling **** that deficits don’t count. ^^^^^^ also gave personal guarantees on the weapons of mass destruction that were known to be all over Iraq and that our troops would be welcomed as liberators. I could list lots of other high level neocons and big time administration operators who seconded these items and many more fantasies along the way, but we’re just trying to decide who will be the next president.
**** also had help from the Congress and members on both sides aided and abetted him in Iraq and enabled him when it came to the economy. I shouldn’t forget the Federal reserve, but there are only so many people we can tar and feather with only one goose and one pot of tar. Naturally, since I’m for Obama I blame the republicans far more than the democrats, but I’ll stipulate that neither party was pure in driving the ship of state aground.
The job of voters is to determine if we’re really on the rocks and for whom to vote if we are or aren’t. Since we’ve been in a war that **** proclaimed the mission accomplished nearly six years ago and yet it still chews up bodies and treasure and since **** has spent the last ten days begging both parties to pass the largest financial bailout package since the Great Depression or the economy and the country will be – to mix my metaphors – in the toilet. I find conclusively that we’re in bad shape.
Since McCain was one of ****’s great champions on the war and now takes almost full responsibility of the success of the surge that he says is winning the war, should he be held to be without blame? As for going to war, there can be no doubt that he was one of ****’s principal enablers. I will stipulate that the surge worked, but the war never ends and there are other major causes for the reduction in violence in Iraq.
The war is not ending in victory; it appears now that the end game is an agreement being forged by **** and the Iraqi government that will call for a withdrawal of American forces in some sort of reasonably short time frame. One of the few major political operatives not on-board with this is John McCain. In the vice presidential debate, Joe Biden said flat out that Obama would end the war. His opponent called that the waving of the white flag of surrender and there was almost no fallout. Obama wins.
Obama is among the relatively few high profile people in the country who can claim good judgment in the sad process that took us to war. But I’ll stipulate that he was less than prompt in seeing on the ground improvement as a result of the surge. But there is really no contest on the war. Obama has been far clearer and better in his positions on the war and world affairs in general than McCain.
The democrats do not have entirely clean hands on the economy. Their lobbying and voting records on Fannie May and Freddie Mack over the past years contributed to the mortgage mess and the overall economic problems. But they were pikers next to the **** administration and the republicans in Congress in failing to regulate the financial community, in seeking to deregulate it even further and in bowing to the financial forces they serve as part of their economic philosophy.
The country is in bad shape in the world at large and worse in domestic economic matters. The major fault lies in the simplistic, virtually religious and thoughtless approach to government set by Ronald Reagan. While Reagan might well have been an adroit enough politician to steer away from the shoals we’re foundering on, the people who followed him were truly fools unable to do anything but blindly carry on in his name.
So, in looking back - and forward – while I find that my scales are not completely empty on one side or full on the other, there is no doubt in my mind that they are tipped against the republicans and their leader ****** *. ****. They are primarily responsible for the foundering of the ship, and therefore they must pay by being sent away from Sin City. John McCain is their candidate and he bears significant responsibility for both the foreign and domestic problems cited and therefore should be sent packing.
Vote for Obama!
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
P.s. I’m attaching a cartoon sent to me by a reader of this rag that I had actually sent to others earlier. Both of us thought it summed things up quite nicely.
http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/nq/
Call me old fashioned then because I want to hold people accountable for what’s happened to the country over the last eight years. If the buck stops in the Oval Office, I want to hold ***** *. **** responsible for the mess we’re in. Naturally, even someone as incurious and thoughtless as **** could not accomplish these fantastic feats of folly without help. In some respects Vice President ^^^^ ^^^^^^ made **** do it, but **** is the president, so he’s numero uno. It’s now a solid smash; he’s crushed the granite floor that James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover set in establishing their claims of being the worst presidents ever.
^^^^^^ appears to be the main man in telling **** that deficits don’t count. ^^^^^^ also gave personal guarantees on the weapons of mass destruction that were known to be all over Iraq and that our troops would be welcomed as liberators. I could list lots of other high level neocons and big time administration operators who seconded these items and many more fantasies along the way, but we’re just trying to decide who will be the next president.
**** also had help from the Congress and members on both sides aided and abetted him in Iraq and enabled him when it came to the economy. I shouldn’t forget the Federal reserve, but there are only so many people we can tar and feather with only one goose and one pot of tar. Naturally, since I’m for Obama I blame the republicans far more than the democrats, but I’ll stipulate that neither party was pure in driving the ship of state aground.
The job of voters is to determine if we’re really on the rocks and for whom to vote if we are or aren’t. Since we’ve been in a war that **** proclaimed the mission accomplished nearly six years ago and yet it still chews up bodies and treasure and since **** has spent the last ten days begging both parties to pass the largest financial bailout package since the Great Depression or the economy and the country will be – to mix my metaphors – in the toilet. I find conclusively that we’re in bad shape.
Since McCain was one of ****’s great champions on the war and now takes almost full responsibility of the success of the surge that he says is winning the war, should he be held to be without blame? As for going to war, there can be no doubt that he was one of ****’s principal enablers. I will stipulate that the surge worked, but the war never ends and there are other major causes for the reduction in violence in Iraq.
The war is not ending in victory; it appears now that the end game is an agreement being forged by **** and the Iraqi government that will call for a withdrawal of American forces in some sort of reasonably short time frame. One of the few major political operatives not on-board with this is John McCain. In the vice presidential debate, Joe Biden said flat out that Obama would end the war. His opponent called that the waving of the white flag of surrender and there was almost no fallout. Obama wins.
Obama is among the relatively few high profile people in the country who can claim good judgment in the sad process that took us to war. But I’ll stipulate that he was less than prompt in seeing on the ground improvement as a result of the surge. But there is really no contest on the war. Obama has been far clearer and better in his positions on the war and world affairs in general than McCain.
The democrats do not have entirely clean hands on the economy. Their lobbying and voting records on Fannie May and Freddie Mack over the past years contributed to the mortgage mess and the overall economic problems. But they were pikers next to the **** administration and the republicans in Congress in failing to regulate the financial community, in seeking to deregulate it even further and in bowing to the financial forces they serve as part of their economic philosophy.
The country is in bad shape in the world at large and worse in domestic economic matters. The major fault lies in the simplistic, virtually religious and thoughtless approach to government set by Ronald Reagan. While Reagan might well have been an adroit enough politician to steer away from the shoals we’re foundering on, the people who followed him were truly fools unable to do anything but blindly carry on in his name.
So, in looking back - and forward – while I find that my scales are not completely empty on one side or full on the other, there is no doubt in my mind that they are tipped against the republicans and their leader ****** *. ****. They are primarily responsible for the foundering of the ship, and therefore they must pay by being sent away from Sin City. John McCain is their candidate and he bears significant responsibility for both the foreign and domestic problems cited and therefore should be sent packing.
Vote for Obama!
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
P.s. I’m attaching a cartoon sent to me by a reader of this rag that I had actually sent to others earlier. Both of us thought it summed things up quite nicely.
http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/nq/
Friday, October 3, 2008
Dressed debates
Even as she winked at me, Sarah Plain did not brag about dressing a moose last night. She has shot and killed a number of these large beasts and assures us that she has dressed – that is, butchered - them, but last night she killed and butchered the American Presidential Debates as we’ve known them since 1960. In front of what will be the most people ever to watch the vice presidential candidates square off, she ended these hokey dog and pony shows for all time, and nobody seemed to care. Certainly, I don’t give a moose’s butt.
While the demise of the debates looked like just one woman in a moose blind, it was the cynical McCain campaign that held the beast as spunky Sarah put one between its eyes.
Ever since the nation was transfixed as John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon battled it in an overheated TV studio, candidates have worked to undermine the system and deliver their messages de jour. But always these corruptions of the system could be written off as gaffs, unintended mistakes or lapses. Last night was different. Sarah Palin flat out said that she had no intention of abiding by these silly, hoary rules.
Governor Palin told her opponent, `Joe’, moderator, Gwen Ifill, the live audience in St. Louis and the mega-millions watching in TV land that: “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people.” AND SHE DID for ninety minutes – and effectively at that.
Sarah Palin had no intention of debating Joe; she was going to check off her talking points one by one and the debate system be damned. AND SHE GOT AWAY WITH IT.
Actually, if she hadn’t killed off the system, she would have been a joke, but as she blasted away, it became clear that this was a successful strategy. Obviously, the dam has failed and whenever it suits the purposes of future candidates for president or VP, they no longer have to even pretend that they’re in a debate. Just let it rip and to hell with the commission that runs those silly talk shows anyway.
Both candidates satisfied their bases – draw. Back to the top of the tickets for the main event.
I had only one quarrel with Palin’s talking points. Her rant on global warming was completely ridiculous, illogical and stupid. I would hope that whoever wrote this element would try again, but it’s not likely since she got away with that one too.
The governor acknowledged global warming was real. She then said that it might well be simply a product of normal cyclical climate factors. So far so good; this is the normal argument for those who do not acknowledge the human impact on warming. After stating her reservations about human impact, she then said that we had to do something about carbon emissions. Why?
If our power plants, cars, furnaces, etc. and their obvious emissions are not adversely impacting global climate change, why on God’s green earth would you care how many tons of CO2 we’re blowing into the sky? Isn't it harmless? And why would you spend trillions to stop the emissions or clean up coal or whatever? So if the handlers are among the tens of thousands reading this electronic rag, please re-write that little section of the speech. It would help me sleep. Thanks.
Frankly, these debates don’t serve much of purpose, and after last night, they’ll e even less useful. No heroic resuscitation efforts, please.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
While the demise of the debates looked like just one woman in a moose blind, it was the cynical McCain campaign that held the beast as spunky Sarah put one between its eyes.
Ever since the nation was transfixed as John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon battled it in an overheated TV studio, candidates have worked to undermine the system and deliver their messages de jour. But always these corruptions of the system could be written off as gaffs, unintended mistakes or lapses. Last night was different. Sarah Palin flat out said that she had no intention of abiding by these silly, hoary rules.
Governor Palin told her opponent, `Joe’, moderator, Gwen Ifill, the live audience in St. Louis and the mega-millions watching in TV land that: “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people.” AND SHE DID for ninety minutes – and effectively at that.
Sarah Palin had no intention of debating Joe; she was going to check off her talking points one by one and the debate system be damned. AND SHE GOT AWAY WITH IT.
Actually, if she hadn’t killed off the system, she would have been a joke, but as she blasted away, it became clear that this was a successful strategy. Obviously, the dam has failed and whenever it suits the purposes of future candidates for president or VP, they no longer have to even pretend that they’re in a debate. Just let it rip and to hell with the commission that runs those silly talk shows anyway.
Both candidates satisfied their bases – draw. Back to the top of the tickets for the main event.
I had only one quarrel with Palin’s talking points. Her rant on global warming was completely ridiculous, illogical and stupid. I would hope that whoever wrote this element would try again, but it’s not likely since she got away with that one too.
The governor acknowledged global warming was real. She then said that it might well be simply a product of normal cyclical climate factors. So far so good; this is the normal argument for those who do not acknowledge the human impact on warming. After stating her reservations about human impact, she then said that we had to do something about carbon emissions. Why?
If our power plants, cars, furnaces, etc. and their obvious emissions are not adversely impacting global climate change, why on God’s green earth would you care how many tons of CO2 we’re blowing into the sky? Isn't it harmless? And why would you spend trillions to stop the emissions or clean up coal or whatever? So if the handlers are among the tens of thousands reading this electronic rag, please re-write that little section of the speech. It would help me sleep. Thanks.
Frankly, these debates don’t serve much of purpose, and after last night, they’ll e even less useful. No heroic resuscitation efforts, please.
And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Always wear clean underwear
“Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?
YES!
How about a dollar?
What kind of a person do you think I am?
We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price."
This of course, was the famous George Bernard Shaw observation to his lovely dinner companion.
We are about to determine if Shaw’s observation can be stood on its head in America. Today or tomorrow our representatives in the halls of Congress – at least twelve of them – are going to be examined as if at the Pearly Gates to see if they are principled or if they are available for filthy lucre.
More than one hundred of our beloved republican representatives stood on principle earlier in the week and rejected the bailout of evil, greedy Wall Street – on, I repeat, principle and only principle.
What do we take these paragons for? Communists? Socialists? Populists? Not on your life, they are republicans and believers in freedom, liberty and the free market system. That is why when their president, ****** * ***, and their leaders called on them to vote for the bailout – and only partly because Nancy Pelosi said mean things about them – they voted `no’ with a vengeance.
Their leaders – after properly blaming that meany, Nancy - went back to the drawing board and re-crafted that unprincipled piece of legislation. As you know, re-crafting is shorthand for adding money to the bill for their favorite causes. It’s sort of like adding the earmarks that people like John McCain abhor.
Nancy and the even meaner Barney Frank are waiting for the these principled folk to carefully consider this great piece of legislation so that they may assure themselves that the bill has been re-crafted in a manner that will permit them to vote for it. It is said that Frank is going to install a jumbotron screen in the House Chamber with up to the minute market figures and futures from around the world scrolling for our fiends to weigh as they vote. He wouldn’t do that would he?
So, in the caucus of the House Republicans, those very same arguments in favor of ever smaller government and ever freer markets will be tossed around and examined from every conceivable angle to assure that no taint of communism, socialism, nationalization or any other evil word could be attached to the re-crafted bailout bill.
While cynics might opine that the only changes to the bill they voted against earlier is the addition of more and bigger government and greater spending, these principled beings who were not swayed earlier by rabid call from back home demanding that they remain true to their principles – because they always were - and who have since been inundated by even angrier demands from those watching from afar to pass the damned thing.
So as every car dealer, restaurateur, teachers’ union chief, financial advisor and 401(k) holder back home watches their own principled republican live on C-Span as he or she casts that very principled vote, there's really little to sweat for the truly principled. Right?
My only advice to each of these souls is to smile while they’re on Candid Camera for we’ll all know what to take them for.
And I ain’t b.sn’ ya.
YES!
How about a dollar?
What kind of a person do you think I am?
We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price."
This of course, was the famous George Bernard Shaw observation to his lovely dinner companion.
We are about to determine if Shaw’s observation can be stood on its head in America. Today or tomorrow our representatives in the halls of Congress – at least twelve of them – are going to be examined as if at the Pearly Gates to see if they are principled or if they are available for filthy lucre.
More than one hundred of our beloved republican representatives stood on principle earlier in the week and rejected the bailout of evil, greedy Wall Street – on, I repeat, principle and only principle.
What do we take these paragons for? Communists? Socialists? Populists? Not on your life, they are republicans and believers in freedom, liberty and the free market system. That is why when their president, ****** * ***, and their leaders called on them to vote for the bailout – and only partly because Nancy Pelosi said mean things about them – they voted `no’ with a vengeance.
Their leaders – after properly blaming that meany, Nancy - went back to the drawing board and re-crafted that unprincipled piece of legislation. As you know, re-crafting is shorthand for adding money to the bill for their favorite causes. It’s sort of like adding the earmarks that people like John McCain abhor.
Nancy and the even meaner Barney Frank are waiting for the these principled folk to carefully consider this great piece of legislation so that they may assure themselves that the bill has been re-crafted in a manner that will permit them to vote for it. It is said that Frank is going to install a jumbotron screen in the House Chamber with up to the minute market figures and futures from around the world scrolling for our fiends to weigh as they vote. He wouldn’t do that would he?
So, in the caucus of the House Republicans, those very same arguments in favor of ever smaller government and ever freer markets will be tossed around and examined from every conceivable angle to assure that no taint of communism, socialism, nationalization or any other evil word could be attached to the re-crafted bailout bill.
While cynics might opine that the only changes to the bill they voted against earlier is the addition of more and bigger government and greater spending, these principled beings who were not swayed earlier by rabid call from back home demanding that they remain true to their principles – because they always were - and who have since been inundated by even angrier demands from those watching from afar to pass the damned thing.
So as every car dealer, restaurateur, teachers’ union chief, financial advisor and 401(k) holder back home watches their own principled republican live on C-Span as he or she casts that very principled vote, there's really little to sweat for the truly principled. Right?
My only advice to each of these souls is to smile while they’re on Candid Camera for we’ll all know what to take them for.
And I ain’t b.sn’ ya.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Statistics are so unfair
In surveying the many hundreds of readers of this blog today, I made a startling discovery. To a person, they believe that this week’s polls that showing President ****’s approval rating of 23% is the lowest ever, and that’s simply not true. This rating is simply the lowest ever since polling of this type has been conducted in the United States. No matter how I try to explain this, they just don’t buy into it and they declare **** the worst ever.
I’ve come at it from many directions. We do not have records on just how unpopular James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover were during their sad days in the White House. Several readers countered that historians rate this pair at the bottom of the forty-three man pack, and I, no matter how forcefully I defend ****, am unable to persuade them that despite their obvious incompetence, accurate polling data that would solidify their claim to the bottom did not exist and **** is stuck.
Since I was born in the depths of the Great Depression to a family in which each member until their last breaths swore to me that Puddin’ Face Hoover was the most evil man who ever walked among civilized people, I took this as a slightly biased view of Herby. Sadly, while these same wonderful folks were fairly well read in history, none of them ever shared their deepest feelings about Buchanan. While I’ve read bad things about the poor fellow, I’m not about to say that he was more unpopular than ****. It simply wouldn't be fair to either man, especially if this is important to ****.
So let me try one last time to straighten this out. **** polls out as the least competent and least popular president ever. End of story, It doesn’t matter that Herb or Jim might have won these titles had there been modern scientific polling; there wasn’t and **** is stuck with the Oscar, Emmy or whatever they award for this one.
It’s also very unfair to **** in the waning days of his presidency to see virtually his entire party, the Republican Party, turn against him as they seek to extend their reign while on the one hand praising supply side economics which he pursued with a vengeance in keeping with the first and greatest of them all, St. Ron. That the house of cards collapsed under **** seems so unfair. He was doing what the Gipper would have done – or so he thought.
Vice President ^^^^^^ told **** and the world that St. Ron proved that deficits don’t matter. It sounded good to **** and if it was good enough for St. Ron and Dame Thatcher it was good enough for him. But they did matter, and **** got stuck holding the bag and the poll ratings. How sad; how unfair.
Now John McCain is seeking to rally the party faithful and independents to elect him as an endorsement of the eight long years of the **** White House. But even most republicans are having a difficult time with this and have had to twist their brains in such a fashion that John McCain never had anything to do with **** or any of his failed policies. Sadly, independents just can’t get by the fact that John McCain sided with Bush MORE than 90% of the time.
Poll numbers be damned! Bush may well not be the least popular president in history. I think the republicans should stand by their man. Let **** be **** and say you were with him all the way. It couldn’t be any worse. Could it?
Would I b.s. those poor folks?
I’ve come at it from many directions. We do not have records on just how unpopular James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover were during their sad days in the White House. Several readers countered that historians rate this pair at the bottom of the forty-three man pack, and I, no matter how forcefully I defend ****, am unable to persuade them that despite their obvious incompetence, accurate polling data that would solidify their claim to the bottom did not exist and **** is stuck.
Since I was born in the depths of the Great Depression to a family in which each member until their last breaths swore to me that Puddin’ Face Hoover was the most evil man who ever walked among civilized people, I took this as a slightly biased view of Herby. Sadly, while these same wonderful folks were fairly well read in history, none of them ever shared their deepest feelings about Buchanan. While I’ve read bad things about the poor fellow, I’m not about to say that he was more unpopular than ****. It simply wouldn't be fair to either man, especially if this is important to ****.
So let me try one last time to straighten this out. **** polls out as the least competent and least popular president ever. End of story, It doesn’t matter that Herb or Jim might have won these titles had there been modern scientific polling; there wasn’t and **** is stuck with the Oscar, Emmy or whatever they award for this one.
It’s also very unfair to **** in the waning days of his presidency to see virtually his entire party, the Republican Party, turn against him as they seek to extend their reign while on the one hand praising supply side economics which he pursued with a vengeance in keeping with the first and greatest of them all, St. Ron. That the house of cards collapsed under **** seems so unfair. He was doing what the Gipper would have done – or so he thought.
Vice President ^^^^^^ told **** and the world that St. Ron proved that deficits don’t matter. It sounded good to **** and if it was good enough for St. Ron and Dame Thatcher it was good enough for him. But they did matter, and **** got stuck holding the bag and the poll ratings. How sad; how unfair.
Now John McCain is seeking to rally the party faithful and independents to elect him as an endorsement of the eight long years of the **** White House. But even most republicans are having a difficult time with this and have had to twist their brains in such a fashion that John McCain never had anything to do with **** or any of his failed policies. Sadly, independents just can’t get by the fact that John McCain sided with Bush MORE than 90% of the time.
Poll numbers be damned! Bush may well not be the least popular president in history. I think the republicans should stand by their man. Let **** be **** and say you were with him all the way. It couldn’t be any worse. Could it?
Would I b.s. those poor folks?
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