Alan Grayson’s remarks are not the same as Republican Death Panels

More fake disdain from the Republican Party and political fat-ass pundits today.

Recently in an after hours session of the House, Democrat Alan Grayson help up a sign that said “Die Quickly”.  His verbal assault went further.  He said that the Republican answer to health care is “don’t get sick, and if you do, die quickly”.

While we all now this was a joke and a bad one at that, he was simply trying to make a point.  Let’s face it, the Republicans still can not come up with a health care plan but the are clairvoyant because they know that Democrat plan is wrong.  Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, NO, NO, NO.  But don’t ask them what the right plan is, they have no idea.  So I understand Alan Grayson’s opinions and tactics.

However, Republicans are comparing this to Joe Wilson’s “YOU LIE” comment at a joint session of congress.  Republicans are saying that Grayson should be censured or reprimanded in some way.  They say it is an unacceptable outburst of hate and misinformation.

Hmm.  Let’s think.  Wilson was the first person EVER in the history of the Congress to interrupt the President by yelling out disagreeable remarks during a joint session.  There are rules of conduct in Congress and Wilson stepped way over the line by yelling out “YOU LIE”.  He owed the President an apology and owed the Congress one as well. 

Alan Grayson merely put up a sign in a late night session of Congress when almost nobody was there.  None of the Republican leaders in Congress stuck around to hear all of the debates and to listen to “the juniors” like Grayson when it was his turn to speak.  It was below them.  The place was almost empty.  If it weren’t for C-SPAN catching it on tape, I’m not convinced many would have noticed Grayson’s remarks.  Bringing theatrics and visual aids is a long-standing tradition in Congress.  Grayson was trying to make a point.  Maybe Republicans don’t want you to die quickly, maybe they do, but it was a joke.  Not a funny joke, more of a ploy to get some attention.  A tactic to expose Republicans for what they are: in the pockets of the health care industry, and doing everything they can to maintain the status quo.

Alan Grayson’s sign CAN NOT be compared the Republican’s “Death Panel” crusade.  Republicans flooded the airwaves, both on talk radio and television, trying to convince the American public that Obama’s health care plan includes Death Panels and that they want to kill off grandma.  That tactic was real, scary, and many people truly believed it.  This is the perfect spot for a comment about the ignorant, hate-filled Republican base but I’m going to rise above it).   The words “Death Panel”  became part of the Republican mantra for weeks on end, and even when they knew it wasn’t true, Republicans still would not come right out and admit it there was no such thing.  They would talk in circles so as not to have to blatantly admin THERE ARE NO DEATH PANELS IN THE HEALTH CARE BILL.  I’ve heard them on political talk show saying things like “well there’s no real proof but if you read between the lines. yadda, yadda, yadda, and “government takeover of healthcare” blah, blah, blah.

Alan Grayson was trying to get people to WAKE UP.  For some reason, many politicians don’t understand, or just don’t want to understand, that without OPTIONS from which American’s can choose for their own healthcare, then there is no reform.  Covering pre-existing conditions isn’t going to cut it for people who DON’T HAVE INSURANCE anyway.  For people who don’t have insurance, or are under-insured, everything is a pre-existing condition.

The public option needs to be nothing more than an extension of Medicare or Medicaid to everyone who want it or needs it.    Placing some puny little rules on insurance companies doesn’t stop those insurance companies from jacking up prices and forcing Americans through miles of red tape to get the coverage they are due.  There is no way to enforce the “new rules” that might be imposed on insurance companies.  If an insurance company wants to cancel your policy, they will now cancel an entire line of business.  For example, they could easily say “Healthcare Plan A is being discontinued because it is no longer profitable”.  This is well within their rights.  If they can’t cancel individual policies, what is to stop them from cancelling insurance on a wide-spread basis using loop holes in the legislation.  Nobody can force an insurance company to continue a product that they are losing money on; so they will just discontinue it.  It happens every day.

And here’s one last thought:  My tax dollars pay for Federal Employees healthcare, yet I don’t have adequate healthcare myself.  What if we take away all healthcare for Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court until Congress can figure out a way to give  all Americans the same health coverage that they have.  Then they can apply for it and fill out all the paperwork just like the rest of us.  If a federal employee is single, he will pay about $160 a month (or $77 dollars per semi-monthly paycheck) for his insurance.  But he will get one of the richest plans in this country.  I pay about that for myself and have a $3,000 deductible before my “insurance” even kicks in.  Yet, I am paying for this sample employee’s health insurance.  We could have the same illness and he will live, and I will die, because I don’t have $3,000.

Do you folks even begin to get this yet?

Back to Healthcare – Max Baucus should just become a republican

Oh, the intrepid Max Baucus.  If he weren’t such a complete idiot he wouldn’t be good at anything.  Yesterday the Senate Finance Committee, led by the fearless Baucus voted against the “Public Option” twice, based on two separate amendments by two different Senators, Chuck Schumer, and Jay Rockefeller.  Although Schumer’s amendment received more “Yes” votes, Democrat Senators with backbones were hard to find within the remaineder of the 23 panel committee.  For Democrats to vote “No” on a public option at this point is ridiculous.

Baucus tried to defend himself by saying:

It is my job to get a bill through with 60 votes and because nobody has proved to me that a bill with a public option in it can get 60 votes I must vote against it.”

No, that is not your job, MAX.  It is your job to help PASS a bill that the American People WANT.  And at this point almost 70% of Americans want an option outside of the classic employer-provided healthcare.  How can you write a bill that includes a public option and then vote against your own bill because you don’t think you have enough votes to pass it.  That makes NO SENSE.  You are a complete idiot who gets far too much in campaign contributions from big Insurance companies.

So in essence Max Baucus is trying to get us to believe that he LOVES the bill, it’s fantastic, I would totally vote for a public health insurance option.  If only he knew that everybody else would vote for it, he would have voted for it too. 

So, American People, are you buying this?

The Birthers – most not born in the U.S.

Who knows where all the Birthers were born.  Does it matter?  We’ll just make shit up.  It seems to work for them.

If case you don’t know what a Birther is (meaning you live under a rock and don’t partipate in society),  a Birther is someone who believes Barack Obama was not born in the United States (yes, Hawaii is a state) and therefore, has no legal right to be President.

If during George W. Bush’s Presidency, you know, those god-awful years between 2001 and 2008 when the world hated us and still does, someone had told me W. wasn’t born in this country and therefore was not legally the President, would I have believed them? You bet your ass I would.

I despised Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, the whole ugly bunch.  I would have looked for any reason to start a movement to get rid of any one of them.  So in some ways I understand why the radical right wing conservative movement in this country is perpetuating the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., is not a U.S. Citizen, and therefore, not legally the President of the United States.  It is brilliantly simply.  If you are not a natural U.S. citizen, you can’t be President.

Let’s not get too confused about this, however.  The Obama Birther movement was born out of extreme hatred which is based on extreme racism.  There is some scary kind of hatred involved in this.  The birther movement is a cover for racism.  Birthers hate Barack Obama and is blackness so much that they will scratch the bottom of any barrel to get rid of him.

I felt the same way about the Bush Administration; not the racism part, but the willingness to do anything necessary to get rid them.

However, if someone on the Democrat, or Liberal, or Progressive side of the map who I trusted or believed said to me “Hey, don’t be an idiot.  As much as we want to believe this stuff, it is simply not true”.  I would have had no choice to throw my hands in the air and give up the fight.  I would have tried other tactics but why spend so much time dealing in lies.

So why is it that few, if any, radical conservatives can’t utter the words “Hey folks, it’s just not true”.  From Limbaugh to Glenn Beck to the halls of Congress, these people and their “believers” can’t bring themselves to say “This is stupid and it’s not true”.  Even when they pretend to debunk the myth, they say things like “Barack Obama is a citizen” but won’t actually say the words “he was born in this country” leaving a sliver of room to back out and re-interpret what they said at a later date.

On the surface the Birther movement appears almost harmless because it is so ridiculous.  The following is what they want you to believe:  In 1961 Barack Obama was born in Kenya and secretly shipped on a cargo tanker (I guess) to Honolulu, Hawaii where someone who knew that he would run for and win the Presidency some day, planted a birth announcement in the Honolulu newspaper all so that in 2009, a forged birth certificate could be disproved by said newspaper announcement.   Hmm.  Sounds plausible to me; you?

Chris Matthews on MSNBC the most trustworthy G. Gordon Liddy (ahem!) as a guest,  so that Matthews could show Liddy all of the facts and copies of the paperwork first hand proving Obama’s birth and citizenship.  Matthews hoped that the irrefutable evidence would convince Liddy to go back to the listeners of his radio show and say “OK guys, I know we want this to be true, but it simply isn’t; Enough is Enough”.  However, Liddy stared at the evidence in what can only be described as an Alzheimer Haze, twitching and mumbling something about wanting to see originals and some woman in Kenya and an affidavit about seeing Obama being born in Kenya and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  It would have been funny if it wasn’t one of the saddest things I’ve even seen on Television.  Search for the video on Google, it’s easy to find.  I do question Chris Matthew’s motives in bringing on one of the most famous liars in the world in an effort to reform him on conspiracies.  But I guess Matthews was trying to start with someone on the radio who had a following.  Liddy was probably the only conservative talk radio host who would accept an invitation from Mr. Matthews.

Some believe that the birther movement is harmless.  But if you undersand that the people involved in the movement are using it as a cover to hide (and not so well) their extreme racism and hatred of Black America then you won’t think it’s so harmless anymore.

It is time now for those of us who are adults with working brain stems to call our Senators and House Representatives demanding that they speak out on this issue and put the Birthers in their place.  Force your legislators to have a spine by speaking out against the fringe right wing.  I’m all for freedom on speech, but when you are inciting riotous and violent acts based on your speech or actions, i believe you forfeit some of those rights.  The Birthers are full of hatred and are trying to spread it around.  That’s just plain wrong.  Nobody should have the freedom to do that.

There are two trains of thought on debunking lies.  First is to never address is; therefore not giving the idea any traction.  You don’t dignify the accusation by responding to it.  The second method is to nip it in the bud.  You run the risk of drawing out the amount of attention the lie gets but you look strong in your defiance.

The Democrats, and in fact the White House itself, have chosen option one.  Ignore the accusation and you won’t give it any traction.  Let’s see.  How did that work our for John Kerry and the Swift Boaters?

The wheels on the Republican bus have officially fallen off

I didn’t think that the Republican Party could fall out of favor any further than it has.  But in true Republican fashion, they never let you down when it comes to disappointment.

I would not have believed if I didn’t see it.  Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher blamed Barack Obama for the violence and death on the streets of Iran.  He said that if Obama had spoken up and denounced the violence three days ago, the violence would have been avoided.  That woman who was shot and died on live television would be alive if it weren’t for Barack Obama.  Yes, this guy actually said it.

And what if John McCain was our President.  According to his recent remarks, we would be at war with another Islamic country; further degrading the standing of the United States around the world.  And thousands upon thousands more would be dead.  McCain couldn’t even answer this question:  Is Barack Obama on the side of Majmud Ahmadinajad or is he on the side of the factions that are protesting an unfair election.  McCain said “Well I know what side I”M on” insinuating that Barack Obama was on the side of the tyranical President.  He’s kidding right?  No he’s not.

Then, Republicans like radio host and columnist Mark Savage, and a Maryland Republican women’s group, and many others too numerous to mention, have been, just in the last few days, comparing Barack Obama to Hitler.  They are litterally trying to make direct comparisons between Obama’s actions and policies to Hitler’s reign of terror.  It is amazingly ridiculous and hateful, and so far off base that I can’t figure out who these people are trying to convince to join or support their party.  They should have stuck with the idea that Barack’s birth certificate is a fake.  At least that is a conspiracy theory the right wingers can REALLY get behind. 

And now Mark Sanford, South Carolina Governor, admits to infidelity with an Argentinean woman, which explains where he was over Father’s Day Weekend when neither his wife, his sons, nor his administration  knew where he was.  And all the while they thought he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.  He was lost in the woods, alright, metaphorically speaking.  I can’t wait to see how Sanford’s close friend, Joe Scarborough handles this tomorrow morning on “Morning Joe”.  Will he defend Sanford using tax payer money to go to Argentina for a booty call?  Just this morning (Wednesday) Joe was defending Sanford’s behavior.

This is like a bad plot in a bad daytime soap opera.  Even Luke and Laura knew when it was time to give up the Ice Princess plot line.

So Mark Sanford goes on TV today and gives a very long list of all the people he hurt; beginning with his sons.  The young people behind him in his news conference were giggling.  I don’t know who they were or why they were there.  But it was sad, demeaning, and even somewhat humorous.  If there were ever a reason to have a pre-planned speech or tele-prompters, that news conference was it.  This is a man who said President Clinton should resign for such sexually deviant behavior.  Well, Mr. Sanford, will you now resign, because you should based on your own moral compass.

Is it any wonder why the Republican Party is falling apart.   What comes next; calling Barack Obama a extra-terrestrial being while some other Republican congressman gets arrested for molesting pre-school boys. 

Barack Obama is poised to strike and get whatever he wants out of Congress; Republicans or Democrats.  Now is the time Barack.  DO IT!  Get health care passed.  Clean up the environment, Get all the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, create millions of jobs, send America over into the financial abyss; finance our asses off.  Who cares?  It can’t possibly be worse than anything that brain trust we call the GOP can come up with.

And just yesterday, the GOP had begun to lay out plans to take back Congress in 2010.  Sorry guys, I don’t think so.

And the cherry on top?  Rush Limbaugh said about Sanford – “he could have been our JFK”.

I can’t even keep up anymore with the train wreck and casualties that make up the GOP.

It’s time to Fade to Black.

Why Obama is the right person, right now

We know the economy is a mess.  In a way I feel lucky because I lost my job in April of 2007, lost everything, was out of work of 18 months, without any programs to help me.  I’m now back to work making half of what I did before.  I am still struggling to stay afloat after those 18 months, for most of which I did not receive unemployment compensation.  And while I am working now, it is for a small business with 13 employees.  So I can’t count on anything going forward.

Lucky?  You ask quizzically.  Yes, because I already went through what many people are going through now and will continue to go through.  I don’t have a car payment anymore because I lost my car to the repo man.  I don’t have a mortgage because even before all this happened I didn’t make enough to own a home.  Some would say I did.  Many tried to convince me that a single person like me making the kind of money I made, should be investing in a home.  I’m glad I didn’t.  Rent is just fine with me.  And while I almost lost my apartment, the kindness of friends, family, and an understanding landlord have helped me hang on.

I watched President Obama (I still love writing that) last night in his non-State of the Union Address.  Have you ever in your life heard a President be so bold to tell the truth?  He told the truth about the current condition of our country and gave us hope that we can get through it.  There is an awful lot to be said for having the right attitude.  And Barack Obama has it.  I get the sense he truly does believe we can turn this situation around. 

The President is not letting the “party of NO” stop him from going forward.  The American public spoke.  They spoke in November of 2006 and in November of 2008.  One party is in charge right now for a reason.   Can you really imagine John McCain being the President right now.  Really?!  For Christ’s sake he’d still be talking about “the surge”.  And while I have learned a new respect for Hillary Clinton, I don’t think she would have the same oratory skills required for the job.  Not to mention that Bill Clinton would be an incredible distraction.  The Clinton’s would have been skewered by the neo-cons and so much distraction and shell-gaming would be going on that the country wouldn’t have a chance.

When they call the GOP the “party of NO” they mean it.  Republicans are so out of touch with the pulse of America right now that they should all be sued for malpractice”.  And soon-to-be former-presidential-candidate Bobby Jindal with his insinuations last night that Barack Obama’s message included something about America ‘s best days are behind her.  What is that all about?  Did you, or he, hear something I didn’t?  I watched the President and listened to what he said.  THAT, my dear Jindal, is NOT what he said.

What I am about to write is not an original idea but it keeps popping into my head.  Democrats will tell you what the are FOR, and Republicans will tell you what they are AGAINST.  That is one of the major differences between the two parties right now.  The GOP has no leaders, no platform, and has lost the trust of the American people.  Average Americans are not even listening to what Republicans have to say, because all that comes out of their mouths is blame, finger pointing, the word “NO”, or nothing at all.

There’s no question that I am a Barack Obama supporter.  I don’t agree with many things he has said or done.  The one thing I have to hold on to is that I trust him.  Unlike the Bush Administration,  Barack Obama is in this for the American people, the Americahe loves.  The Bush Administration was in it for their own egos, their own power, and in many cases, their own pocket books.  (Can you say “Halliburton”?).

And one last thing.  Karl Rove didn’t show up AGAIN for his testimony to Congress.  It’s time to hold him in contempt and throw in him jail.  That’s what we do to criminals, don’t we.  Barack Obama said last night, unequivocally, “The United States does not torture”.  But if Rove doesn’t want to play by our rules, let’s play by his.  Anybody have an extra water board lying around?

So back to my original premise. Barack Obama is the right man for the job.  There’s another Democrat (and certainly not a Republican) who has the balls to do what he is doing right now.  And as for these Republican Governors who lambaste the stimulus package and then want some of the money, you can’t have it both ways.  Grow a backbone already.  And if you don’t know how, ask Obama.

Racism in the 2008 Election

The latest statistics I’ve heard indicate that 15% of voters admit that race will still play a role in their decision for President.  The statistics don’t say whether or not it will be a positive role or a negative role, just that 15% will take race into consideration.  I was not raised to consider race in anything, so it is something I don’t understand.  I didn’t know what racism was until at least high school and even then I didn’t hang around with a crowd that was racist so it wasn’t something I thought about.

In the early 1970’s I was in grammar school at Verplank Elementary School in Manchester, Connecticut. I learned how to jump rope, Double Dutch style, from my friends Janet Cooper and Audrey Gaines.  I got so good at Double Dutch that I was better than they were.  But they weren’t mad.  The were proud of me.  We were friends.  I knew that they came to school every day on a bus.  I knew that they lived in Hartford and that is where the buses took them home to every night.  But I didn’t know why, or think about why.  I didn’t care why, I didn’t even question why.   I think I just assumed that there weren’t enough schools in Hartford.  It certainly wasn’t something that I thought was out of the ordinary.  In fact, I was jealous that they got to ride the bus (until I got older and actually rode a bus to school every day).  My parents never mentioned anything about busing and it wasn’t talked about in school.  It wasn’t until many, many years later when busing kids from the inner city out to the suburbs became an issue again sometime in the 1990’s that I even realized that my grammar school was part of desegregation.

My 3 older brothers went to a vocational technical school in Manchester as well.   My oldest brother had a best friend named Eric Coke.   They were much older than I was back then.  My oldest brother and I are only 6 years apart but back then it seemed like generations.  Eric lived in Hartford.  Eric would often stay at our house on weeknights when they boys had a night game or something and it was just easier for Eric to stay with us rather than have his parents or mine drive back and forth to Hartford.  He would come to our house for things like Halloween and dress up with all of us.  We used to laugh because back then with the Polaroid instant cameras, the quality was so bad, and Eric had such a dark, very dark, complexion, he would disappear in the picture unless he smiled.  It wasn’t something racist to us, it was just a funny matter of fact.  We laughed, he laughed, we went trick-or-treating, and that was just another normal day at our house.  I was the youngest of 6 and we’re all about a year apart.  So having one more, or two more people around wasn’t unusual.

Many years after my father died in 1984, my mother and I met for lunch somewhere.  We got to talking about the old days.  I was still in my “I’m going to write a novel” phase.  So I started asking a lot of questions about my father, his past, his upbringing, etc.  My mother told me a story about how my Dad helped the one and only black family in our neighborhood get a mortgage.  He spent weeks going from bank to bank with this man until somebody would give him a mortage.   I didn’t know any of this.  And I certainly didn’t know that banks could be so blatantly racist as to not give a black man a mortgage for a house in a white suburb.  Of course it happened right before I was born.  But it wasn’t something my father bragged about and it wasn’t part of our family story.  It was just something my father did because that’s the kind of man my father was.  He didn’t brag about it because he didn’t want to teach his children that people were different and those differences led to people being treated differently.  I think he wanted to shield us from the evils of life as long as he could.

I am somewhat of a loner.  I don’t like people all that much.  I have always hand-picked the people who are an integral part of my life.  There are a lot of reasons to hate people.  They are crazy.  They are selfish. They are self-centered.  They are dumb, racist, bigoted, loud, misinformed, uncaring, childish.  The list goes on an on.  I can’t image that of all the reasons there are to hate people, someone is going to go with color????  I was raised better than that.

I did not have the best of childhoods and I never really identified with my parents.  They never truly understood me and I did not understand them.  I don’t recall them being very affectionate and loving and I don’t recall really loving them all that much.  Of course that has changed and I have re-evaluated many things over the years.  I learned to understand my mother better and I learned that I am so much like my father that it’s scary.  The big difference between me and him is I don’t have a problem telling people how I really feel.  But when I look back and think about all the things my parents did, and didn’t do, I thank them because I was not raised to hate anybody.  I was not raised to hate those who were different; different from me, or different from the norm, or different from what society said they should be.

I know I am probably living in a fantasy world about the subject of racism.  When I first heard Barack Obama give a speech at the 2004 DNC, I was in awe of him.  I thought, “what a great President he would be”.  And I never even gave race a minute of thought.  I just thought to myself, “Finally, someone who is smart and can inspire me and others to be proud Americans”.

So to me, even if one person refused to vote for a man or woman for President simply because of skin color, that’s one too many.

What the hell is going on: Palin, McCain, Bay Buchanan, ugh!

Sarah Palin has withdrawn from testifying on the “Abuse of Power” case against her.  The others involved, including her husband, are ignoring subpoenas, refusing the testify.  Can you refuse a subpoena?  I know I can’t, why can they?  It was George Bush and his administration who used “Executive Privilege” as an argument against testifying.  They even used the argument for people who were appointed; you know the “non-elected” people.  If you are not ELECTED, then you certainly have no argument for exectuvie privilege.

So that’s my first beef.  Second, what is up with John McCain these day.  He said “The fundamentals of our economy are strong”.  He and half the world have used that expression and when called on the carpet for it this past Monday, he suddenly changed the meaning of fundamentals to mean people.  Have you ever heard of anyone using the word Fundamentals in the context to mean people?  I doubt it.  But his campaign spun it to mean people so that McCain wouldn’t look like such a buffoon.  And people bought it?  Then he said, in the midst of the AIG bailout, among others, that if he were President he would “fire the head of the FEC”.  First of all, it’s not the FEC, it’s the SEC.  The FEC is the Federal Elections Committee.   I guess he could try to fire them, it wouldn’t bother me much.  But anyway, the President does not have the authority to fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  So he wants to just fire people at random even if he doesn’t have the authority to do so.  He is turning into a grandfather whom you wheel out on holidays and pray he doesn’t fart at the dinner table.

Third is Bay Buchanan.  Who is this hag.  She looks exactly like Sarah Palin will look in about 20 years.  A bit jowly, a furrowed brow, and most importantly, constipated.  She is like a bad imitation of an old Joan Rivers stand-up routine.  OH, OH.  I mean, come on, she’s Pat Buchanan sister. That should tell you something right there.

Gay gene convinces Palin to abort child

“In recently released medical records, Governor Sarah Palin had tests done while she was early along in one of her pregnancies.  Records indicate that one test, for the supposed “gay” gene, came back positive and Mrs. Palin decided to abort the fetus”

This story is fiction but one might imagine that it could be true. 

I haven’t written much lately about the Republicans, McCain, their convention, or Sarah Palin because, to be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted to say.  I did not feel like researching and quoting all the ridiculous lies that John McCain and his campaign are spouting, and I didn’t feel like researching the books that Sarah Palin wanted to ban from her local library when she was the mayor.  It was just too much work to substantiate fact when it really all comes down to my gut feeling.  

Let’s start with the fact that I finally made my first donation ever to a political candidate.  I sent money to Barack Obama.  No big deal to you, but it was to me.

Every time I hear a GOP candidate, a Republican Congressman or Senator,  a Republican “strategist”, or a run-of-the-mill, everyday republican, complain about what “pundits” say, they can’t quite seem to say the word correctly.  Maybe they have all been hanging around George W. Bush too long now to be able to speak English anymore, but if you notice, they say “pundints”.  What the hell is a pundint?  I have been bitching about this for weeks and finally last night, I saw Keith Olbermann mention it as well.  Thanks, Keith for also noticing how so-called educated people can’t speak properly.  The real issue here is that republicans just repeat what they hear from other republicans.  They don’t do their own research, have their own opinions, or have their own independent thoughts.  So when one starts saying “pundints”, they all do.  Just like when one say to “drill” they all do, and when one says McCain is a “maverick” they all do.  It only takes one republican to come up with an attack idea, or a talking point, and the rest follow.  How very efficient of them.  Only one person in the whole Republican party actually has to come up with an idea.

But anyway, the Republican party base and the republican “pundints” HATED John McCain and said horrible things about McCain during the primaries, right up until McCain was all they had left.  Now he’s their maverick messiah.  Their magical, irreverent, P.O.W., republican dragon-slayer.  (Insert retching and heaving here.)

We need to talk about the McCain camp and the press.  Let’s start with Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesperson.  In typical Republican fashion he refused to answer a simple question from CNN’s Campbell Brown when asked directly:  “Can you give me one example of a foreign policy decision that Governor Palin made?”  It is a simple question, right?  Just give me one example.   As I sat there and watched this interchange, Bounds talked in circles, was rude, refused to answer the question, and acted like a 5 year old on the playground who was taking his ball and going home.  Bounds tried to say that Palin was the head of the Alaska National Guard, to which Campbell Brown said, “Well, the Pentagon would give orders to the Alaska National Guard if they were going to a war zone, I”m asking what direct foreign policy does Governor Palin have”.  Ms. Brown asked a simple question and got no answer.  Then, the McCain camp expressed their displeasure to CNN.  How dare CNN ask Tucker Bounds such questions and how dare they make him uncomfortable.  WHAT?  Since when does John McCain, or anyone else, control journalists and what questions they should ask.  The same thing happened on Tuesday when a CNN reporter in Alaska was chastised by a republican commentator, Republican Bill Bennett, for reporting about reaction to Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy.  It may have been tabloid reporting but it’s called “freedom of speech” and “freedom of the press”.  If the Republicans had it their way, they would control the media.  In fact, they think they should control the media. George Bush and his Administration tried it and in some ways, was successful.  I’m not going to cite the examples, again, too much trouble.  But if you consider the behavior of the Rep’s and wrap it up into a neat little package, it’s called Fascism.  If you watch carefully the Republicans are trying to control the media.  They are hooked in with big business and trying to control the media.  That is Fascism.

Palin’s speech last night she took shots at the media for being biased against her.  Yes, all of her poor judgement calls and abuses of power are the fault of the media.  Didn’t you know that?  Didn’t you know you’re not supposed to question the Republicans, their viewpoints, their talking points, or their deicsions?  Didn’t you know that republicans don’t have to be accountable for their actions?

Pelosi starts new PAC called “My-Face-won’t-MoveOn.Org”

I don’t like taking pot shots atpeople just for the fun of it.  I’ll do it if somebody said or did something blatantly stupid, or if somebody takes pot shots at people who don’t deserve it (payback is a bitch), but I don’t do it just for the sport.

However, every time I see Nancy Pelosi on TV, only parts of her face move.  He forehead is so full of Botox that if she got bitten by a mosquito there, it would die of food poisoning.  The odd part is that other parts of her face do move and she has very deep wrinkles around her eyes.  She was on Meet the Press last Sunday and it was quite comical to watch.  She was fired up at times, other times angry, and still other times she was smiling which was accompanied by squinting eyes.  These squints revealed some not-so-flattering cavernous lines around her eyes.  But her forehead?  That looked like the plastic wrap pulled tightly over the leftover ambrosia salad.  It was so tight and unmovable it made you wonder if her mouth woud open if she crossed her logs.

I honestly don’t know if she is open about the work she’s had done.  Maybe she is.  But sometimes, and it is true with her, people get a little too much Botox, which creates a face that seems unreal, unsymmetrical, and a bit scary.

OK, that’s my catty little remark for today.  Sorry about that.

What would MLK do?

You’ve heard that before, haven’t you? Although it wasn’t what would MLK do, it was “what would Jeses do?” I’ve turned the protagonist of this story from a man in antiquity who died for his beliefs to a man from 1968 who died for his beliefs.

What would Marting Luther King Jr. say about what is going on today in American politics? I can’t say for sure. I never knew Martin Luther King Jr. and when he was gunned down on the fateful day in Memphis, Tennessee, I was only 3 and a half years old.

On November 4, 2008, in the wee hours of the morning, or even beyond that, as recent elections have made seem possible, Barack Obama may become the next President Elect of the United States of America. And on January 20, 2008 when Barack Obama takes the oath of office with his hand, his head, and his heart held high, swearing to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution and to protect all of us within its borders, Martin Luther King Jr., I believe, would be proud.

Not because after all these years, an African American has become President of the United States “even though” he is black. Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud because Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, and the fact that he is black makes no difference at all.