Do Votes Count?

So the Democratic Rules Committee gave Michigan and Florida half voting rights... not the best of circumstances, but not a terrible adventure in Presidential politics. Honestly, those two states shouldn't have any delegates sitting in the national committee because they broke the rules. But this is Presidential politics and Florida is involved so some shit was expected to come out of the process.

Most people predicted that each state would get half, and that's what happened.

What's interesting is that Puerto Rico is having a primary, because those people -- while I believe are US Citizens -- don't get to vote in the November General Election. So it's kind of stupid to have them vote in the primary, but I don't make the rules.

Did you see the HBO TV Moive "RECOUNT"? It was an interesting look at the debacle that was the 2000 Election... you would think that a movie about voting discrenpancies would be less entertaining than it was, not to say it didn't take me two viewings to get through it (as I nodded off the first time near the end). What it did do was shed some light on that main event that eventually led to the posting Prescott Bush's Grandson into the Oval Office and enabled him to take on the moniker of "The Nero of the Pax Americana" -- yeah, that's how he's going to be seen in the history books, the out of touch leader who not only led the country into a war that he knew never had a remote change of being completely under his watch or as easily or cheapily as he was told. Yes, as he was told, but didn't listen to effectively to those people.

I had an opportunity to read the new Oliver Stone movie called "W", a semi-trenchant look at George W. Bush's years in the White House and how that idiot got there in the first place. It's not going to be what you expect from Stone, because it's not a scathing lashing out attack of the worst president ever... no, it paints the man as a woefully incompetant manager, who could never live up to his parents' expectations.

Smear & Fear

I gotta give it to The GOP… as much as I hate their whole style, they are good at bushwacking the psyche of the American people and getting them to react on negative emotions, namely fear and anxiety. The Smear & Fear Election-Stealing Tactics that Karl Rove perfected for the GOP (they’ve been running this game to perfection since Willie Horton provided them with the means to take the 1988 election) has enabled John McCain to gain ground in this most important national election (not just for president but for Congress as well).

Government here in America is the best money can buy, that’s why so many will spend so much money for positions that on paper pay so little. Republicans understandably never tire of feathering their own nest. But the data are irrefutable: their policies damage the economy, grievously. Another eight years of such policies and we will be a full fledged colony of the Middle Kingdom… China that is for all you less-read readers..

My big issue with McCain and the GOP is that they tend to scare the shit out people who ARE NOT rich into thinking that Democrats are going to tax & spend – they’ll tax the uber-rich, yes, – and mount all these deficits. McCain and the GOP claim that taxing the rich flunks the economy, because taxing the poor and the middle-class over the last eight years (both directly and indirectly - through skyrocketing education, medical and energy expenses) has done so much good for the American economy!! Before it's too late, the GOP need to get ushered off stage.

Now let’s get this straight though… There's nothing wrong with being rich. But there's a LOT wrong with being greedy and hypocritical. And that pretty much sums up the Republican Party, remember what Bush memorably said? "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores."

Conservatives whine, whine, whine about entitlements. Social Security is probably one of the most successful programs ever put in place - or would have been had Congress kept their hands out of the cookie jar. Medicare could have probably been fixed except Bush put in the Trojan Horse of prescription drug benefits, and to smear dog-shit in our face, disallowed Medicare to bargain with the drug companies. I always hear the NeoCons ranting about destroying FDRs legacy of entitlement programs and they almost have gutted them all, now what?

But the thing about the GOP is, it took the reins of power after Newt Gingrich’s sadistically oxymoronic “Contract with America” (more like Contract to Rape & Pillage America) and has served up a culture of arrogance, corruption and scandal! Remember that one congressman who was looking to suck the dick of the young Congressional pages? The fool who was actually championing a protection of minors bill in Congress?

The biggest trick the GOP have pulled off is making a huge swath of its base believing that McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona are okay: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry Right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

Where does all this asinine anger come from, I wonder? To a degree a substantial portion of it is cultivated by the confounding cultural and religious conflicts that rage within this country (for no good reason): fundamentalist Christians are actively outraged by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the schools. However, careful observation of the GOP stand-in for a cross burning in St. Paul over the past week will uncover that a health percentage of the Right’s “I Won’t Stand for This” attitude is based not on the claim that Democrats have done evil deeds (leave that to the GOP), but on the perception — with no credible or even semi-credible evidence to speak of — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Like that is EVER the case… the GOP have sold to the proudly ignorant chumps that populate the Americana that we lament over that you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. The GOP has established a cultural cult since the era of Nixon, a cult foisted Dubya Bush up in the White House, a cult that celebrated his anti-intellectualism and made much of the supposed fact that the “misunderestimated” C-average student had proved himself smarter than all the fancy-pants experts (and what the FUCK is wrong with fancy pants?). If your measuring stick for being proved smart is letting the people that you pledge to protect go it alone, then Dubya should be a card-carrying member of Mensa.

Is it outlandish as fuck that the “party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray itself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Yeah, that’s what McCain and the GOP are trying to do… and unless people get up off their asses and get Black registered to vote and make them vote in Florida, Michigan and Ohio on Election Day, then we’re in for SOME SHIT!

The Man Doesn't Care About You

This is the NEWFace of the All-Time Moneygrab... just because he isn't a public stooge for Haliburton and the economy of the rich south, doesn't mean he ain't out to bilk you for all you is worth.

Mark my words... the country don't need a war monger, don't need anybody from that WHOLE generation runnin' shit no mo'! They done fucked-up the future for the foreseeable future, and I can't see why a lot of muthafuckas, muthafuckas that need to be voting, don't see that GOP translates into: FUCK YOU! I GOT MINES!

The one thing about Barak Obama is that he is an incarnation of what is best about the (false) spirit of this country, in that you can be born with little prospects and rise to the pinnacle of public life. McCain came from a history of wealth (which is why he should be a shoe in, if the wealth mongers didn't rape the country with no vaseline!)

Gustav Smacks Around The GOP

Looters of New Orleans
Originally uploaded by Phalanx.

So New Orleans evacuated itself over the weekend... smart move in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Ray Nagan wasn't about to get faded a second time without the proper precautions.

The funny thing about Hurricane Gustav is that it's taken the wind from the sails of the GOPs convention in St. Paul.

Truth be told this is actually the best thing that could happen to McCain and the GOP... they have NO platform to speak of, and what can they really run on? The dynamics of GOP politics over the last 8 years has been so shameful on a moral level, economic level, social level.

All the tough talk since the End of the VietNam Conflict about how the GOP are down with patriotism, fiscal conservatism, national defense and uplifting society through "trickle down economics" has turned out to be the biggest bag of horseshit that anyone is selling.

During Dubya's time on the throne, the economy has gone to shit -- except for the core uber-rich constituency of the GOP, the national defense is nearly crippled, we couldn't defend the country in another war if it meant the security of the nation -- unless a draft was put into effect.

I just don't see how McCain can make a case for his candidacy? Can someone tell me?

I mean if Anderson Cooper is more inclined to have rain whipped at him at 100 mph instead of putting a mic in the face of the GOP faithful (a term that translates into complete idiots who are out for the money-grab and play the "I got mine, so fuck you" brand of American politics and socio-economic behavior), then the entire country has to question the efficacy of the GOP in this election.

The only reason why Barak Obama is the ahead by 20 points IN THE NATIONAL POLLS is the because those 20 to 30% of people are bigots, racists, dumbfucks.