What’s love got to do with it?

Hurricane Ike is ravaging Texas.

Quick aside; best joke I’ve heard in a while:

“Ike is coming, better run for it, Tina.”

Hah.

Anyway…Why do I have the feeling that FEMA’s response is going to be whole lot better than Katrina? I don’t think Bush is going to let a bunch of chaw-chewing, back-assed-woods cracker white boys drown.

As long as it’s decent white people who vote republican and hate gay people, the full faith and credit of the federal government is at your disposal. Otherwise, you are on your fucking own.

I’m supremely annoyed at my country right now. While many people are weighing the careful decision of voting for John “Grandpa” McCain or Barack “It’s probably a good idea if I run my campaign exactly like John Kerry and Al Gore” Obama, I find myself weighing the decision of voting or not voting.

I’m serious. The idea of pulling a George Carlin and dropping out of this sick mess appeals to me. I’m on the verge of losing faith in my countrypeople. People around me are seriously considering voting for Grandpa because his twit of a VP has spent a large amount of her downtime shooting animals and having children.

This country is very nearly beyond all hope. We are sinking because we have rejected science, reason, and economics and replaced it with Jesus. It’s a strange version of Jesus though. (Full disclosure, I was raised by God-fearing conservative Christians and I probably know the Bible better than most churchgoers.)

This version of Jesus is all about exclusion, hatred and conformity. This Jesus is all about judgment and very little about love and acceptance. In my churchgoing days, those were the qualities that made me think Christianity was a pretty great religion.

Jesus hung out with the poor and the sick. He healed them. His followers were whores, cowards and tax collectors. For those of you not in the know, Matthew (yes, he wrote one of the gospels), was a tax collector for the Romans. Essentially he was a Nazi sympathizer.

If Jesus showed up today the conservative Christians would rally. Specifically, they would rally to kill him again. That’s what annoys me about today’s religious right. They are entitled to their beliefs, of course, but they’re wrong. They don’t even get the basics of their own religion down. They use is it as an excuse to hate.

And those people are winning. That’s why I want to drop out. I can’t change them and there’s no point in trying. Let the American Taliban turn this country into a third world country. Who am I to stand in their way?

 

A monopoly of two.

Gotta hand it to Dr. Dobson. This guy really has that compassionate conservative thing down.

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite, but all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

article here.

Another one:

“Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect,”

Article here.

He’s really getting behind McCain-Palin. He now claims he’s ready to vote for them.

This is a guy who was extremely vocal about not supporting John McCain. His exact words were that he would not support McCain “under any circumstances.”

Why the big change, Jimmy boy? I thought Christians were steadfast; God is unchanging and his rules are forever. You know, like those rules about gay people. If it was good enough for an ancient nomadic society, it’s good enough for us.

There’s other rules in the Bible as well. Rules about not eating pork. And rules that require killing the children and infants of your enemies (1 Samuel 15-3.) Hmm…maybe we don’t exactly follow every single rule….However it does make one think why conservative Christians don’t support abortion for liberals. I mean, they are the infants of your enemies.

Anyway, I digress.

The question is why Dobson has changed his tune. He is easily the most important man on the Christian Right and he’s singing the praises of an unwed, teenage mother.

The answer is simple. He’s scared Obama will win. Dobson wants his followers to vote for McCain. Otherwise the Supreme Court will become stacked with pro-choice judges. Then the fire and brimstone will start.

Essentially Dobson is making the exact same calculation that I am. He’s voting for the lesser of two evils. We are just diametrically opposed on who the lesser evil is.

I imagine I could sit down with Dobson and have a chat about politicians. I bet we could find that we have many things in common. We could complain about politicians that pander to us but are really beholden to their contributors. We could complain about our support being taken for granted. We could complain about being ignored the day after the election.

You hear the ‘lesser of two evils’ comment all the time in the media. Is it really any wonder why over 40% of people don’t vote in presidential elections. Why is it I can walk into a grocery store and find seven varieties of flour, but our country can only manage two candidates?

The two party system is the culprit. The Dems and the GOP rely on each other more than their own constituencies. They work hard to keep third party candidates out of debates and other events. Then they work extra hard to scare us to death about the other guy.

No one is actually voting for someone. We’re all voting against someone else. The only vote that I have cast that was for someone was in 2000. I voted for Nader.

Since then I have voted against Bush and will vote against McCain.

The mountains win again.

 

Hanging in the balance.

I found these on one of the PUMA-associated websites. Slate also ran an interesting article about Clinton supporters who are planning to sit this one out or vote for John McCain. This story has been kicking around for quite some time now, but I find very little discussion about the worst legacy of a McCain administration; The Supreme Court.

Listen up PUMAs; there are 9 Supreme Court Justices and they break down like this:

Crazy Right Wing

John “Big Chief” Roberts: Age 53

Sam “Scalito” Alito:  Age 58

Clarance “I Don’t Like Black People. At All.” Thomas: Age 60

Antonin “Big Tony” Scalia: Age 72

Middle Of The Pack

John Paul “George & Ringo” Stevens: Age 88

David “Hackett-Jacket” Souter: Age 68

Anthony “Little Tony” Kennedy: Age 72

Crazy-Out-Of-Touch-Elitist-Tax-And-Spend-I-Hate-America Liberals

Steven “Tyler” Breyer: Age 70

Ruth “Who’s Bader Than Me?” Ginsberg: Age 75

OK, for those of you who still think voting for McCain is a good idea, let me simplify. All the young dudes are on the right. The old people are all in the middle or the left. Look at Kennedy. That poor bastard’s been cheating death just to see a president elected who can read something more complicated than “My Pet Goat.”

This means campaign finance, environment, civil rights, government wiretapping, war powers, detainees, gay rights, gun control, all of it can get blown up if the court decides to take the case.

The Democratic congress will roll over for McCain. They will confirm his appointees. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

If you’re a woman and thinking about voting for McCain you are, in effect, saying “Please John McCain, this is my uterus, and I want you to tell me what to do with it.” 

If that’s what you’re really after, knock yourself out. It doesn’t matter to me because if Grampa gets elected, I’m getting a vasectomy.

 

Winning by default

The Dems have picked up another traditional G.O.P. seat. This makes the third one in a couple of weeks. Many pundits are seeing this as a leading indicator for a Democratic landslide in November. I tend to agree. Now that Obama is running against Grandpa McCain instead of Hillary, I think the voters are going to come around. Grandpa doesn’t have a whole lot to offer the electorate. He wants to continue the failed policies of Bush in Iraq, he still can’t tell the difference between the Shi’a and the Sunni, and is still preaching ’small government-free market’ policies that have driven this country into the ditch.

In addition, the evangelicals are splitting and the G.O.P. base isn’t really interested in McCain.

Listen up, Dems. You don’t have to win in November, all you have to do is not lose. There is a major strategic difference between those two. What do I mean by ‘not lose’? OK, a few helpful suggestions

1) Fire everybody who worked on Gore’s campaign and Kerry’s campaign. Don’t let them within 100 miles of Obama. Seriously, these are the people who told Gore to wear khakis to improve his image. This is not what we need.

2) Remember the old Clinton mantra: “It’s the economy, stupid”. This is your ticket to victory. I have a very hard time believing that voters in Mississippi just forgot about God, Guns & Gays and joined the ACLU and the Sierra Club. I’m sure God, Guns & Gays are still important, but now it’s Fuel, Food and Falling Home Prices.

3) Obama, please don’t pander. Please don’t offer a silver bullet for everything. Admit these are difficult problems, explain your plan clearly and listen to what the voters are telling you. I believe this country is ready for a leader. An actual FDR-style leader. FDR never claimed to have all the answers. He said, very simply, we’ve got problems and we’re gonna try to fix ‘em like this, and if that don’t work we’re gonna try something else, but we’re not going to stop trying to fix ‘em.

4) Take a page out of JFK’s book. Don’t be ashamed to ask people to serve their country, not just in the military, but in other ways. Ask them to conserve, ask them to change some habits to save our planet. Don’t tell them to go fucking shopping after a disaster. We are all in this together. Don’t be afraid to say that.

This campaign should be a piece of cake. It really should. If the Dems mess this one up…there is no hope for the party.

 

Al Sharpton is right too

I generally agree with Rev. Sharpton more than George Bush, so not as strange as the previous post. His comments on Hillary:

“As you know, I’ve been in the ministry of civil rights all my life, but had dealings with entertainers because of James Brown,” Sharpton said. “The worst thing in the world is when an entertainer doesn’t know when the show is over. The audience is gone, the lights are down, you’re getting ready to cut the mics off and you are still on the stage singing. It’s over, it’s all right, it’s over. Come sing another day, but this show is over for Sen. Clinton”

more here

He’s actually be far more gracious than I would be. My comment would be something like….

“PLEASE QUIT NOW. YOU RACIST, PANDERING HARPY.”

People don’t say ‘harpy’ nearly enough….

 

“Full-speed on to the White House”???

How embarrassing is this going to get???

*sigh*

UPDATE 5/8/09: Pretty embarassing is obviously the answer. Pretty offensive, too.

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

I think Hillary is shithouse rat crazy most of the time, and even I’m going, “Humina-humina-WHAAA? Did she just SAY that?”

I’ve never denied my own elitism, and I think claims of Barack being elite are watery at best. (This really refreshing article from Slate shows that as recently as four years ago, the Obamas’ combined salaries were less than twice mine and TeemKuntz’s.)

In any case, if she’s trying to prove that ignorance and racism are the opposite of elitism, then bring us all some Grey Poupon.

Full article here.

 

Things that needed to be said.

And are said here better than I probably could.

So you wanna fight dirty?

 

Bring me some cattle.

Oh jolly days of wishy washy pundits! I know this is all old news for most of you, but this is the first primary I’ve actually followed and had minor salivation over, so pardon my naivety.

A few days ago, all anyone could talk about was Obama’s “momentum”; closing the gaps in recent polls, Hillary being on her last stand, or legs, or something upright.

Now they’ve apparently switched teams (again), joining Hillary and saying voters are “taking a closer look” at Barack. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the term “free ride” thrown around. We’re all agreeing now that he’s all hat and no cattle.

Okay, saddle up. Let’s go cattle hunting. I’m going to try to spend my (limited) free-time over the next week or so and try to get elbow deep in policy, not only for Barack, but for all three who are still White House hopefuls.

I did a quick search trying to find out about John McCain’s ideas healthcare. The only thing close to actual policy I could find was that he wants to raise cigarette taxes. Hmmm. ‘Kay.

TeemKuntz, are you ready for a roundup? (Should I stop with the cattle analogy now?)

Oh, and can anyone get me a finer point on the origin of said phrase than just “Texas”?

 

For women.

It seems the “older women” contingency of voters that make up the largest and most vocal part (generally speaking) of Hillary’s voter base say they sympathize with her because she’s a woman. They support her because of the “gender issue.”

What issue is that, exactly? The fact that the United States is one of the only countries in the world that has never before had a woman at the helm? Okay. I guess that is kind of a problem. It really makes us look bad, and recently, looking good is an American value.

So, it’s time for a woman president. Past time, even. I agree.

But don’t you want the best? Shouldn’t she be the most capable? As a woman — more importantly, as an adult, tax paying, (mostly) law-abiding citizen — I want to represented by someone at least solid, not just someone with a pair of ovaries.

Hillary seems to be, in the minds of her fans, some paragon of women. But I’d like to point out her total lack of a political career prior to being First Lady. And hell, while she was First Lady. Sure, I know they ran as “two-for-one”, supporters say she was just like any other advisor.

But she wasn’t hired as any other advisor would have been, and likewise no one voted her into office. She didn’t get to any of these positions because of her merit.

This is a bit of a slippery slope, I realize, for someone who’s writing a blog with her boyfriend as co-author. But belief in someone’s abilities and talents are, presumably, only part of the reason you’re with them or love them. It also has to do with your chemistry with them, how they make you laugh, how great a lay they are. Or, more cynically perhaps, if they knocked you up. Or how much money they have. It’s a lot of different things to different people and it doesn’t amount to the same as a job interview or being an actual candidate.

And you know what? I’m gonna go one step further and say Hillary never would have been senator, never had the public appeal to get that far if her husband hadn’t gone bed hopping.

As in the Texas debate, she constantly makes jokes and references to her suffering as the betrayed wife. Her slogan-meisters must have advised her that it somehow lends credibility to her image as a “fighter.”

For the last time: sticking with someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit about your emotional state doesn’t make you a fighter. It makes you a) ignorant b) ambivalent about or out of touch with that person and / or c) proves you still need something from them other than their love.

Hillary is many things, but dumb ain’t one of ‘em. And she may have been out of touch with her relationship at the time, but I would hope certain events would have snapped it into focus pretty fast. So it seems to me that she felt she still had more to gain — namely, momentum for her own political career — from Bill.

I’m sure it’s a hard line for any politician, especially female, to walk. I think a divorce would have made her appear empowered, in control of her life. But she might have appeared “weak” to voters with more traditional familial ideals.

So she stayed, and reaped buckets of sympathy from older women who also don’t have the guts to leave their husbands.

There’s a great episode of Futurama (go with me here) where Leela gets drafted to a Blurnsball (futuristic baseball) team, making her the first woman in the Major Leagues. She’s totally oblivious to the fact that she was put on the team as a publicity stunt until outraged female athletes rise up against her, saying she’s set them back, blown away their legitimacy.

I want to see a woman in the White House. There’s no question.

But I don’t want our first female president to have coasted halfway there on her husband’s coattails and, more importantly, Monica Lewinsky’s dress hem.

Maybe this isn’t news to many. But no one seems to want to mention it. And I’m not saying she’s the inventor of gold digging (er, vote digging?), but let’s call things what they properly are and not get swept up in the “Evita”-ness of it all.

The bottom line is, I’m anti-Hillary for the same reason a lot of women say they’re pro-Hillary.

Because I have to be. For women. As a woman, how could I feel otherwise?