Oh, One More Thing, 2010 Year End Thingee

Why our nation is screwed, Evidence #4,718.  The media does not have any accountability for their partisan bullshit.  From Conor Friedersdorf, covering for Sully:

There's a guy named Juan Carlos Vera. He worked at an ACORN office in San Diego, California. One day, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles walked in with a hidden video camera, and pretended to be a pimp and prostitute. They asked for help smuggling underage girls across the Mexican border so that they could work in a brothel. Confronted with what appeared to be a sex trafficking plot, you'd hope that someone would play along, get as much information as possible, and call the police. And guess what? That's exactly what Mr. Vera did! Unbeknownst to O'Keefe or Giles, he called his cousin, a police officer, shortly after they left his office.
Perhaps you know what happened next. Having cut his teeth editing The Drudge Report and its notoriously misleading headlines, Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart published the ACORN videos, which fooled me at the time – I praised them, and even encouraged Breitbart to pressure attorneys general into investigating the organization. I've never felt like such a fool. Some of the ACORN tapes reflect very badly on that organization, but taken as a whole, they are misleading in a lot of ways...
After publishing videos of Vera that made him look like a sex trafficker and costing the man his job, did Breitbart explain how the mistake happened, apologize and correct the record? Did he alert his readers to the truth? Having expressed outrage at the media on countless occasions for trafficking in serious accusations that weren't grounded in facts, did he behave better after realizing that he'd done exactly the same thing?
Nope. As far as I know, neither an apology nor a correction has ever appeared. The vast majority of his readership remains misinformed. The San Diego videos remain posted at Big Government, misleading as ever. I've attempted to get Breitbart and O'Keefe to address this. No luck...

Brietbart Delendus Est.

So What Will 2011 Hold In Store For Us?

If 2010 was any indication, the coming year is going to be batshit crazy.

The Republicans' priorities at the federal level - now that they control the House of Representatives, and have demonstrated how they can bully their way about the Senate - are going to be 1) Screw Obama, 2) Demonize Obama, 3) Pillory Obama, 4) Cut Taxes for the Rich, 5) Shovel More Federal Money to the Rich, 6) Impeach Obama, 7) Take As Many Vacation Breaks As Possible While Railing Against the Lazy Poor and Unemployed, 8) Prepare for 2012 Elections, Because Elections are More Important Than Actual Governance.

The Republicans' priorities at the state level - considering they have a majority of state legislatures and governorships to play with, especially here in my home state of Florida - are going to be worse.

Already here in Florida, incoming Governor Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD, YOU IDIOT VOTERS HE COMMITTED MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott has already spoken openly about eliminating corporate taxes altogether, privatizing our entire school system, cutting state jobs which would affect social services at a time of massive unemployment and poverty, arguing against ANY regulations that would, you know, PROTECT PEOPLE FROM INJURY OR CRIMINAL ACTS, and not really offering any kind of works programs or incentives to businesses to grow and add jobs.

"I'm going to run this state like a business," Scott promises.  Considering he ran his businesses into law-breaking acts that led to massive fines, THIS IS NOT A GOOD SIGN.

What's worse?  I worry for the state of Texas.  There, the state legislature has 2/3rds Republican majority in the state legislature, meaning they could pass anything requiring supermajority vote... like amend the entire state constitution to whatever wingnut obsession tickles their fancy.  Meaning you Texans are going to say goodbye to whatever abortion rights you have, to whatever rights to privacy you have in your bedrooms and sexual lives, to whatever freedom of religion you thought you had, to any sane fiscal policy, and say hello to a secession amendment contingent on whether or not Obama gets impeached before 2012.

So, yeah, here comes 2011.

My predictions for the coming year?

Obama gets impeached right out the gate.  Instead of wasting time investigating Obama for his Hawaiian birth certificate, the House will admit into evidence whatever crazy shit Orly Taitz has and use that as grounds for impeachment.  It won't go anywhere in the Senate, as there are enough Republican Senators there with enough sanity to know how insane the House's move will be, but the real purpose - get Obama embarrassed early and often before the State of the Union speech - will be served.

Speaking of the State of the Union, it's already established that Justice Alito would like to excuse himself from appearing.  The question will be who among the Republican Far Right will excuse themselves along with him?  A half-empty audience will look bad on the television screens, no matter how petulant and childish the Republicans will be pulling this stunt.  That's because no one will hold them accountable for their childish stunts.  Hell, pulling these stunts was why they won in 2010, right?

Obama will then get impeached for the Health Care Reform bill, as it was an act of treason instituting such an obvious communist plot against America.  Never mind the final bill nearly matched the Republicans' proposals from 1994.

The state of Florida will pass legislation firing every state employee and then contracting out to private corporations to cover all services.  Never mind the fact that privatizing all state services - including law enforcement - is actually going to ADD another layer of bureaucracy and will most likely make things MORE expensive.  But hey, privatizing everything (except corporate welfare) is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Oh, and in Texas, half the population is going to flee for Oklahoma and New Mexico before April because their state lege is going to destroy every sane provision and law in their desire to create a Christianist Old Testament nation/state.

Enjoy.

The Only Good News In a Bleak Winter

At least Congress was able to get this mess cleaned up before the Republicans got back in charge of things:

This morning, a bipartisan group of 57 Democrats and six Republicans broke a GOP filibuster, allowing the Senate to vote up or down on a standalone bill to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." This afternoon, the Senate finished the deal -- the legislation passed 65 to 31.
The legislation is identical to the one that passed the House a few days ago, so its next stop is the White House, where President Obama will gladly sign it into law, officially removing DADT from the books and relegating the discriminatory policy to the trash heap of history.

For those who don't know, Don't Ask Don't Tell was a compromise plan put into play back in the 1990s to allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military.  As long as the gays and lesbians didn't publicly state their orientation, nobody was (supposed to) ask what that orientation was.

Problem was, the opponents to having gays in the military (social conservatives reading a very narrow and inflexible interpretation of the Bible) quickly figured out loopholes to that: for example, having a third party report someone suspected of gay/lesbian leanings.  And then using either the soldier's silence on the matter to remove them for insubordinate behavior, or force the soldier to admit their orientation and get drummed out for Telling.  What was meant to protect gays had instead been used to push even more of them out of service than before.

It took time - younger and more tolerant generations getting into the military, growing public awareness that a majority of straight soldiers had no problem serving with gays, the problem of pushing out highly qualified officers at a time of war and manpower shortages - but today, after years of conservative obstruction and flat-out fear-mongering (that homosexuality in the armed forces would lead to body art, adultery, bestiality, and waaaaaay too much make-up girlfriend), the Senate voted on the repeal of DADT.  Basically, gays and lesbians should be able to serve in the military same as straight people.

The Religious Right are going to have a conniption over this.  "Oh noes" they will scream "God will PUNISH us for not adhering to Leviticus!  Our military's gonna be filled with flamers and anal rapists and cow lovers!  Our nation is DOOMED (unless you buy my book about it, for only 29.99 directly from my website!)"

Problem for those "righteous" screamers is this: the ones yelling about it the most are the most hypocritical of all with their own sins (draft dodging, adultery, war-mongering).  So screw them.

The average soldier is not gonna have a problem serving with gays.  If there's a hassle, you take it to the MPs.  The military can maintain discipline in the face of ANYTHING, dammit (The US Armed Forces are quite possibly the most organized, prepared and adaptive military force since the Romans or the Mongols), and we ought to be able to trust all of them on that.

I have no problems with gays in the military.  If an American wants to serve in the armed forces, as long as they are fit and capable, as long as they accept the challenges before them, I don't care of their ethnicity, their religion, their gender, their statehood, their sexual orientation, their foot size, their hat size, their favorite color.  I never served, but that's me, and I'm not about to begrudge those who did with honor, and love of home and family.

This is a good day to be an American.  One more bigotry defeated.  One more right confirmed for those who want to serve this nation.

Tomorrow is gonna feel like a sunny day.

Two Year Anniversary of Unemployment

Dec. 18, 2008... I lost my full-time job.

It's been two years since then.

During that time I've looked for work.  Both full-time and part-time.

The full-time job interviews have been few and far between.  Just one in 2009.  Just one this year 2010.

The part-time jobs had been more frequent... Two part-time job interviews in 2009 and three in 2010.

Out of... lessee.  At least one hundred applications sent in for work through... lessee... twelve different job agencies, four technical corporations, nine colleges and universities, tons of government offices, and seven different job fairs.

I did have part-time employment.  One was for an inventory counter position that wasn't getting a lot of business during a recession.  Even when I made myself more available for hours, they weren't calling me in for a lot of work.  The other job was with the U.S. Census, counting houses and the people who weren't living in them anymore.  That lasted a bit more than a month.  Nothing since.

Not much out there for a librarian.

Not much out there for someone with computer training, computer troubleshooting, and computer repair skills.

The story is that there's currently five applicants per position in this high-unemployment era.  Under normal circumstances it's supposed to be three per position.  The truth?  I'm hearing stories about 150 to 300 applicants per position.  'Cause it's not just the unemployed competing for work, it's also the employed people too, ones who are looking for better job security in an uncertain market.

But, say the naysayers, there are jobs to be had after all!  True.  But when you're one out of one-hundred, the odds are AGAINST you being even on a list of five to get through the door for interviews.

But, say the naysayers, you can ALWAYS find work at a retail or fast food business!  Not really.  I've put in for retail jobs and they never call me back.  And the pay these jobs give out WILL NOT COVER MY MORTGAGE, MY HEALTH CARE NEEDS, or anything else a full-time job would.  I *am* putting in for the part-time jobs anyway, just to have something, but still...  No calls.  Nothing.

But, say the naysayers, you're being too picky about what jobs to put in for!  You're just being too lazy about your job hunting!  Put in for every job and you're bound to get one!  Like a librarian will have qualifications to work in sales?  And like I mentioned earlier, I've put in for jobs where I'm qualified, and I even follow up on them to show my interest for them... and I still never hear a word back!

I'm at that point my depression is getting the better of me.  Convinced that it's not the overwhelmed job market, that it's me.  That for all my intellect, skills, work experience, all that... it's ME that people just don't want to hire.

I'm too young to retire, even if I could.  I'm too poor to have any investments or capital to afford starting my own business.

And this is, for what I know, the last week I have any unemployment benefits at all.  Even all the new benefits extensions that Obama just wrangled out of an obstructionist GOP isn't going to help me.  It's going to help the millions after me who have yet to use up their 99 weeks of unemployment.  All the ones I'm competing with for a handful of jobs.

Meanwhile, Congress is about to get taken over by a Republican Party whose idea of jobs creation is to cut social benefits, test the unemployed for drug abuse, and cut more corporate taxes that DON'T CREATE JOB GROWTH.  The state of Florida is about to get taken over by a MEDICARE FRAUD openly pledging to slash jobs, with a GOP-held state legislature obsessed with cutting state-level taxes to zero while wasting millions on pork-barrel projects.

I am totally serious about running for office.  Getting elected may be the only chance I have to ever seeing paid employment ever again.  "Vote for Wartenberg.  I Need The Work."

Happy New Year.

Damage Done: December 2010 Florida Update

That Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott and the GOP-majority state lege would go after our state's educational system (all to destroy the teachers' unions, never mind the damage done to our kids) was pretty much a given.

It's how they're going to go about doing it that ought to make state residents regret their votes.

Not ONLY will Scott and the Pork Barrel GOP go after massive property and corporate tax cuts that will hinder school systems' ability to PAY FOR ANYTHING (just remember, parents, this was the year the schools started asking you to provide all supplies for your kids, including toilet paper!), they will pursue the most radical attempt ever on pushing their wingnut obsession with school vouchers.  They will make vouchers universal (from the St. Pete Times' opinion section):

It is clearer than ever that Republicans intend to mount a frontal assault next year on Florida's public schools. Legislators show no interest in building consensus on efforts to abolish teacher tenure and create a merit pay system. Gov.-elect Rick Scott also pledges to slash school property taxes even as declining property values and tax revenues have forced deep spending cuts in education. But those misguided approaches are small potatoes compared with their pursuit of a radical plan to give all students tuition vouchers. 

The whole thing about vouchers is that it's a feel-good proposal by conservatives: a means of introducing "choice" into a public educational system they despise.  Vouchers are meant to give parents money to afford sending their kids to different schools outside of walking distance that can provide better opportunities (say, if your kid is gifted in fine arts but the best art school is on the other side of the county).  But vouchers are an illusion of choice: schools are still limited by how many students they can enroll, and there's no guarantee your kids will get into the school they need or you prefer because - guess what - everyone else is trying to enroll there too.  The push for Vouchers is also a con game: the proponents want them available for private (read: Christian) schools as well, meaning they want tax-funded moneys to pay for something that violates the rules of Separation of Church And State.

To refer back to the Times' article:

It is unclear how much universal vouchers would cost the state and how they would be financed. Taking a portion of the per student funding for public schools and allowing families to spend that amount as they wish would not leave enough money for public education. And presumably, the hundreds of thousands of students already in private schools would receive public money as well.The state already faces a budget deficit of more than $2.5 billion. On top of that, Scott wants to cut school property taxes 19 percent and eliminate the corporate tax. That would be the same corporate tax that companies can avoid paying now by earmarking the money for vouchers. How does this possibly add up?

Again, take a good look at the con game.  The REAL OBJECTIVE here by Scott and the Pork Barrel GOP is to cut corporate taxes ALTOGETHER.  Never mind that 19 percent cut to your property tax, citizen: home owners will still be stuck paying a bill with whatever is left of your millage rate, while corporates get to pay NOTHING toward our state and our families.  And again, no guarantee that all that money saved to the corporations will go back into their workers, their businesses, or anywhere else that would help our depressed economy.

The Republicans are really only interested in one thing when it comes to fiscal policy: Tax Cuts.  Everything else - balancing a budget, paying for social services, KEEPING PEOPLE ALIVE, ALERT AND HEALTHY - is meaningless to them.  They want their tax cuts.  They don't want to pay for anything, and all the while they'll take all the public money they can in state-level pork barrel projects, corporate payouts, and everything else they can get away with because YOU VOTERS DO NOT PAY F-CKING ATTENTION TO WHAT HAPPENS IN TALLAHASSEE.

Please, Floridians.  Please for the LOVE OF GOD.  Try to get this into your heads.  Tax Cuts is just another phrase for Snake Oil.  You are getting conned by political hacks and corporate criminals into buying a product that does not work.  Please, please, learn this now.

The Saturnalia Wish List of 2010

Heya!  Once again, dear seven readers from China spawning spam mail in the Comments section, as part of our effort in the WAR ON BILL O'REILLY'S CHRISTMAS we here at this blog celebrate the life-affirming pagan holiday known as Saturnalia! The day where we look for any back issue of Batman comics involving the lame-ass supervillain Calendar Man.  Yes, he did exist and yes Calendar Man had one of the WORST costumes in comic book history...

Anywho. As part of tradition, I'm posting my wishlist to The Roman Lord of Time (hi there!) in the mad hopes that the pagan gods will once again after thousands of years notice us tiny insignificant lifeforms and smite our enemies. And hoo boy, has this year produced a sh-tload of enemies for smiting...

The wishlist is as follows:

1) That when - not if - Rick Scott breaks the law while serving as Governor (HOW THE HELL COULD YOU VOTE FOR HIM, FLORIDA?), I be given the power to visit each and every 2.5 million who voted his criminal ass into office so I can tap each one on the shoulder and yell in their ear "WE TOLD YOU!"

2) That I find a full-time job starting right on January 2011.  That hopefully the job will be getting hired by Obama to walk up to the doors of the Congress every morning, knocking on said doors, and shouting "HAVE YOU CREATED JOBS FOR 20 MILLION AMERICANS YET?"  As long as I've got water and throat lozenges I should do well...

3) That I get this novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo finished for real, edited, and submitted for publication somewhere.

4) That when the House GOP starts their all-too-obvious Impeachment hearings on Obama over his Hawaiian birth certificate, everyone in the nation finally groks just how stupid, insane, and criminal the Republicans they've elected into power actually are.

5) That when the Republican Party at the national level completes their war on social services and the damage starts hitting the Tea Partiers in their own lives, that they fucking wake up to the reality that they just got suckered by the uberwealthy bankers and CEOs... again.  And that the Tea Partiers grok just how stupid, insane, and criminal the Republicans still are.

6) That when the Republicans in charge of all these state legislatures mismanage things to hell - creating even more state-level deficits with their obsessive need for tax cuts - while busying themselves with passing anti-health care bills, anti-gay bills, anti-immigrant bills, anti-evolution bills, anti-fetus bills (they claim to be pro-life, but the way they'll enforce it will end up causing MORE damage, not less), anti-teacher and student bills, anti-higher learning bills, anti-everything that's not Rich and White... ahem, what was the point?  Oh, right.  When the GOP-controlled state leges mismanage things to hell, I hope that the voters try to remember it was the REPUBLICANS who are stupid, insane and criminal, and who deserve to get kicked out of office.

7) I just hope there's still an elective system still in place by 2012... I worry that our elections offices might get slashed in the mad dash for "balancing the budgets" so that billionaires can get million-dollar tax cuts.

8) I hope that there's more than one arrest warrant for Dick Cheney being processed as we speak...

9) That every time the U.S. Senate holds up the unemployment benefits extension, there's another chain forged in Hell for the goddamn soulless bastards who are playing political games with peoples' lives.  WE ARE NOT LAZY OR DRUG ABUSERS, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!  WE CAN'T FIND FULL-TIME JOBS OUT HERE IN THE REAL WORLD!  Gah!

10) The Tampa Bay Bucs NOT make the playoffs this 2010 season.  I'm serious.  While it's nice the Bucs are winning this year, they are still a team with serious gaps of talent at key positions.  The more likely they make the playoffs, the more likely they will drop too low in the rookie draft status to get a half-decent DE, MLB or S/CB to bring the defense back to 1999-2003 dominance.  While this isn't a high priority, it would be nice to just have the Bucs go 10-6 and just miss the postseason.  It will keep the kids on the team (oh God, I've gotten old, some of these players weren't even born when I got into college...) hungry for next year...

And so to you, Lord Saturn, upon this festive time of Saturnalia, I ask of ye for these small favors.  And I just hope that 2011 is a saner, calmer year... (financial institutions collapse again in February 2011) AW GODDAMMIT...

Oh, one more thing.  Brietbart Delendus Est.

From Balloon Juice, All You Need To Know About Our Corporate Overlords

This is from a comment posted on a thread at Balloon Juice.  The bold text was my addition:

The last election cycle demonstrated that even if you allow Wall Street and the corporations dictate a large portion of the policy, they will still fund campaigns to destroy you because they don’t want their share or ten times their share, they want it all, all the time.They are never going to stop going after social security. They want every single dollar of the education budgets. They do not want to pay any taxes for anything. They do not want any regulation that ties their hands with respect to their workers, the environment, or any other external costs imposed upon the public by their business activities. Oh yeah, and if they screw up and take the economy down, they want the government to bail them out.

I concur.

Until the Greedheads responsible for all the disasters we've suffered over the last three eight thirty years are held accountable and shipped to jail... until all the goddamn Supply-siders get sued for Fraud and selling snake oil to the nation... we are well and truly fucked as a country.

Screw It. Here's more Lost Battalion Badges

This day has gone to hell real damn quick and I have no other recourse but to ignore the stress and mess around on my CorelDraw 9 to create more Badges for TNC's Lost Battalion:

Revamped GAMER Badge: for all those who Discuss the Value and High Priority of Video Gaming in these troubled times.

 Also known as the Rock of Chickamauga Appreciation Badge.  I found a photo of Gen. George "Pap" Thomas and mixed it with a concrete fill pattern available on CorelDraw.  What, you think I'm gonna use confederate flags for artwork? HA!

The LIKE Badge.  Awarded to those who click at least five LIKES.






The REPLY Badge.  Awarded to those who REPLY to at least five Posts.  To make it harder to get, the REPLY must be a first-tier Reply, NOT a Reply to a Reply.






What do you think, sirs?

There Are Many Things To Discuss... But Not Today

I am inconsistent with posting entries to this blog as is.  Making it worse is the NaNoWriMo effort this month, the massive depression I have regarding my failing job hunts, and the fact that the political landscape is batshit insane now and will be for the next two years.  Even the distraction of making logos for Ta-Nesihi's Lost Battalion will have to wait...

Lost Battalion Gamer Badge

It's not much to look at:

The artwork software I'm using is 12 years old (CorelDraw 9).  If anyone's got a better idea for the badge, and a better means of crafting one, feel free to design your own...

For TNC's Lost Battaltion

Ta-Nehisi Coates is patient and forgiving enough of us commenters to give us daily space to drop issues and compliments and grievances.  He's taken to labeling us as The Lost Battalion (with the added tag of Platonic Conversationalists) and the group of regulars have taken to it.

This past week, however, TNC had taken to calling us Team Commie (there had been trolls going after us using such insults), but it caused some rifts among the chatters (myself included).  So when he went back to calling us the Lost Battalion I posted "Does this mean we can break out the t-shirts again?"

After a few LIKES and some LOLs following, I decided to see about creating a logo for a Lost Battalion t-shirt.

This is just a suggestion.








MASSIVE UPDATE (3:26 PM EST 11/15/2010): so far the response to this logo has been overwhelming... but I'll leave it to TNC to place it on Cafe Press or such like, as it's his blog we're just dancing there.

Although the other demand is now for Badges to go along with the t-shirts.  The list so far is:

• Civil War Badge,
• Gaming Badge,
• Music Culture Badge,
• History Nerd Badge,
• Poetry Badge,
• Troll Hunter Badge,
• Graduate Student Accountability Badge,
• and now that I'm thinking about it, LIKE and REPLY Badges.

Any other suggestions before I start messing on CorelDRAW?

For Veterans Day: A Thought On Armistice

Oh to hell with it, here's the last scene of the BBC Comedy Blackadder Goes Forth:




Everything you need to know about war in 5 minutes.
That this was the closer of a comedy series remains heart-rending, only less so than the real-life madness that World War I really was.  England lost over 800,000 of their young men to that war: entire towns wiped out of a generation of sons and husbands.  In some ways, this war and not World War II - which in itself was a "Good" or necessary war and thus accepted with some cheer and satisfaction - is the more painfully remembered war in England.  Because of the insane loss of life over a war involving treaties and the lust for empire (Britain's to defend, Germany's to win).
As for this show... in England this episode was shown originally on Armistice Day... It's called Remembrance Day there (Veterans Day stateside).  They only had one complaint.  Everyone else was probably too busy crying as the poppies rise up from the debris of No-Man's Land...

The Damage Done. The Damage To Come.

Well.  Elections 2010 is over.

The damage is done.  Republicans reclaimed a majority in the House.  More disastrous - for a reason - is that the Republicans gained control of a majority of state legislatures and governors' seats.  Worse of all, it's obviously emboldening the teabagger wingnut crowd into thinking the World is Theirs.  WORST of all: the state of Florida now has as our governor a well-established, well-known MEDICARE FRAUD CEO in Rick Scott, the one person in the state most likely to crash and burn a financial institution with massive acts of fraud and embezzling.  Nice job breaking the state, voters.  /fume

So.  What is the damage to come?

At the state level for Florida, tons of damage is coming.  Remember that "Kill Tenure" bill - SB 6 - the State Lege passed last April that Crist vetoed?  With the anti-teachers Republicans still in charge of the state legislature and with a new governor willing to sign such a bill into law, the fear that an even harsher version of SB 6 - which killed tenure and job protection, shortened teachers' contracts, eliminated salaries based on degrees or experience, rewrote evaluations based on standardized testing which by the way isn't helping our students learn, and was basically an attempt to break the teachers' unions - will pass the second everybody gets sworn in at Tallahassee.  How quickly it will wreck our already wobble educational system isn't certain, but given the horrified response from a majority of citizens (even Republicans) back in April suggest this isn't a way to go.

There's also the fact that voted back into power was a Republican majority in the state legislature that was led by crooks and pork-barrel spenders, a majority that had little true interest in balancing the budget outside of cutting social programs down to practically nothing.  Having a hard core social conservative like Scott with his own history of financial criminal misdeeds holding the veto pen as Governor (and most likely ignore using it to cut wasteful projects) is going to make our budget woes worse.  Considering the state of Florida has 1) massive unemployment and 2) massive underemployment, anything that threatens our social safety nets is NOT A GOOD THING.

Looking at the national level, with Congress divided with a GOP-held House and a smaller Democrat-controlled Senate, creates an even bigger headache.

On the national level, the Republicans were elected with one mandate: Get Rid of Obama.  Seriously.  There is nothing else the Republicans have planned.  Anything they've claimed about balancing the budget?  When confronted to give specifics - "which programs would you cut first?  by how much?" - the party leadership waffled.  The ones who DID give any specifics tended to threaten cuts for things like Social Security and Defense that are still Third Rail issues both inside the Beltway and outside it.

So what should we expect from the Republican-led House?  We already know Congressman Issa is going to press for hundreds if not thousands of subpoenas to investigate Obama's White House on any useless issue, any hairbrained "scandal" that does not really exist merely for the purposes of embarrassing Obama.  And that will be minor league stuff to what Issa and the House are apt to do: Impeach Obama for being born in Kenya Hawaii by going after his Long Form birth certificate.  Hell, the Republican Party and their media cohorts with Limbaugh and FOX Not-News have spent the last two years decrying Obama as "illegal" - an illegitimate fraud who doesn't qualify for the Presidency - and getting millions of their Far Right voters to buy into that bullshit.  And now that they've got a branch of government that can "investigate" (aka harass) Obama on that "issue", they are going to have to appease a voting base that's been convinced Obama is a Socialist Boy From Kenya threatening our freedoms.  The Republican leadership created this fake meme: now they have to live or die by it.

The other campaign "pledges" of the GOP was to balance the budget and reduce the deficit.  And guess what?  Even this week after their massive win it's showing that the Republicans realize it's going to be harder than their campaigning suggested it would be.  There's already a struggle over the issue of the debt ceiling - an artificial cap on the amount our government can officially borrow - and while the Republicans are making noises that they will use the issue to force a deal with the Democrats in the Senate and White House, there's solid evidence that the large number of incoming Republicans (with their Teabagger agenda of "Damn All Hazards") are going to rail against the debt ceiling no matter what.  There's a good possibility that the GOP leadership that wants the compromise knowing that hitting the debt ceiling is disastrous is already losing their newcomers who find themselves obligated to defy the "corrupt old ways of bipartisanship"... something the GOP already defied the last two years just to get here...

Not to mention the fact that the Republicans are still stuck in the ideological mode of "Kill All Social Programs", "Kill Social Security", "Kill All Furriners", et al, and you've got a hard two years coming up until the 2012 elections.

Wanna hear something scary?  The state of Texas is now so solidly Republican, that they got not only the Governorship but also 2/3s majority in both their state houses, that they could easily pass state amendments all over the place.  Get ready to see Texas turn into a Right Wing "Utopia" of anti-choice, anti-woman, anti-workers rights, anti-regulation, anti-human decency inside of 5 minutes... 4... 3... 2...

And you know what?  Considering that our electoral system has been industrialized and turned into a $4 billion cash cow, we're never going to see an end to campaigning and calls for fund raising and all that.  We've already got jokers lining themselves up (even on the Democratic side, damn them) for the 2012 Presidential primaries.  STOP POLLING FOR 2012, GALLUP!  We don't need that crap right now...

On second thought, odds are the way our economy's gonna be the next two years - crappy and painful - I might as well get in on that action.  I'm gonna go get myself signed up to run for Congress in 2012.  I already got my slogans.  "Vote for ME.  I Need The Work."  Plugging away...

Election Day Update 4: Two-Point-Five Million Floridians Just Voted a Crook Into Office

Sink Concedes To Scott.

The governorship of Florida is now in the hands of a man who committed such outrageous amounts of Medicare Fraud at his HMO business that the company had to force him out and pay $1.7 BILLION in settlements and fines.

The governorship of Florida is now in the hands of a man whose idea for creating jobs is to cut state employees off the payroll, deregulate across the board, and eliminating a corporate income tax that brought $1.8 billion in revenue to the state budget and claiming that will go toward creating jobs (even though history has shown TAX CUTS DON'T CREATE JOBS).

The governorship of Florida is now in the hands of a man with a track record of mismanagement, corruption, obsessive adherence to ideology even in the face of facts.

Considering that an investigation into Solantic's Medicare overbilling (GEE WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THAT BEFORE) is possible, how soon are we going to see policemen knocking at the Governor-Elect's door with a warrant?

To the 2,553,634 registered voters of Florida who went with Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott: this wasn't a secret.  This wasn't hidden on the bottom column of page 14 of the newspaper.  You saw a crook with the Royal GOP Seal (tm) tattooed on his ass and you still voted for him.  Out of some willful ignorance, some blind rage, or other unexplainable excuse.  Your neighbors had been screaming for months, hadn't they, about the damage this guy could do in office.  And you still voted for him.

I'm making a prediction here: I give it a year.  Scott is going to do something monumentally stupid and corrupt while in office.  It's gonna cause a massive investigation and there will be recrimination and tears and utter horror.  It will most likely damage this state's financial standing the way a sinkhole damages a car dealership.  And we are ALL going to get stuck with the bill, you sons of bitches.

Election Day Update 3: The Morning Sun Found Me No More Wise No Less Troubled

I woke up this morning dreading the dawn.  Mostly because I went to bed knowing the Florida Governor's race between Alex Sink and A GODDAMN CROOK was not then resolved, but with that GODDAMN CROOK holding a slim lead.

This morning, about the same: GODDAMN CROOK at 2,553,434, Sink at 2,500,510.  There's a ton of absentee ballots to count, and right now there's a 53,000 vote difference between sanity and HELL.

I'm staring at that voter count.  There is a part of me that absolutely refuses to comprehend how 2,553,434 of my fellow Floridians got suckered in by the GOP BULLSHIT that Rick Scott was qualified and ethical enough to serve as this state's Governor.

This is why you don't let GODDAMN CROOKS win any primaries, people.  This is why you don't live or die with a Two-Party system when one of the parties goes BATSHIT INSANE.

I want it noted for the record: If Rick GODDAMN CROOK Scott wins, and the state of Florida does indeed suffer in Hell with his bullshit rule (I will bet you within a year there will be a financial scandal in a Scott administration), I want those 2,553,434 to suffer for it, and not the rest of us.

And as for you GODDAMN DEMOCRATS.  There's 4.8 million registered in this state, and only 2.5 million bothered to show up?!  There's 2.3 million Democrats who ought to be FUCKING ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.  Where the HELL WERE YOU?!

(NOTE: The entry title is a quote from Issue 3, page 22 of Watchmen.)

Election Day Update 2: The Long Night

I had traveled to St. Pete to attend the Crist rally at the Savoy, took my laptop with me to see if they had free wifi.  Yeah, I know, it's a hotel, ain't nothing free, but you never know.  And yeah, you were right, it weren't free and besides I had no place to set down with it, so moot point...

Anyway, to report in... the Senate race was called pretty early for Rubio, still currently tracking about 50 percent of the overall vote, with Crist at 29 percent and Meek at 20 percent.  That most of the voters of the state went with a Far Right conservative with a history of pork barrel spending and a plan that unmistakably increased the deficit by $3 TRILLION... I cannot understand that.

In fact the whole damn state is disappointing me at the moment.  As of 10:20 pm EST, Rick "What Part of MEDICARE FRAUD DID YOU GODDAMN VOTERS OVERLOOK" Scott has a 50 percent to 45 percent lead over Alex Sink for the Governor's office.  There are no words for the combined levels of rage and despair I have for my state right now, and can only pray to God that the remaining ballots lean so far in Sink's favor to secure her victory over an OPENLY DOCUMENTED AND WELL-ESTABLISHED FRAUD.

I know my fellow residents of Florida are crazy.  We're renowned for it.  It's why we got our own FARK tag.  But for the love of GOD people, crazy AND ignorant DOES.  NOT.  HELP.

If there are any bright spots tonight, considering the Republican "Screw Everybody Under $250,000" Party is running rampant across this state and this nation?  At least Amendments 5 and 6 - the Fair Districts - are on pace to make over 60 percent of the votes (I hope that's enough, for some reason the news sources have not checked them off as wins and I am afeared these amendments might need 67 percent or 2/3rds to pass.  Oh Gods help us...)  Also, a good friend from the 1992 campaign, Trish Muscarella, seems to have won the Circuit Judge, 6th Circuit Group 18 election.

I hope the next update has me in a better mood.

Election Day Update 1: I Remember

This ad just got shown on Sullivan's site.  It's a perfect summary of why the Republicans CAN'T be trusted with our budgets, our health, our safety, our need for jobs.

Election Day November 2 2010

Lemme just say.  DOOM?

As of right now, I don't care for poll numbers. 

All I care about is getting everybody out to vote. 

All I care about is getting people to vote for Charlie Crist.

All I care about is getting people to vote for Amendments 5 and 6 for the state of Florida: we need those Fair Districts and bring an end to the damn gerrymandering.

All I care about is getting people to avoid Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD!  HE COMMITS MEDICARE FRAUD!  THAT'S PRESENT TENSE, IT'S HAPPENING AT HIS SOLANTIC BUSINESS TOO!" Scott at all costs.

All I care about is that the voters do the right thing and DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.  If the Republicans get control of the US Congress WE ARE SCREWED.

I'll be updating as often as needed.  I'm gonna see if I can bring a laptop to the Crist Celebration party tonight.

Wish us luck.  May GOD have Mercy on us all!

All I Want This Election Day Nov. 2 2010

I want everyone who's a registered voter to get up and vote.  I despair that the overall voter turnout is always so meager.  We're supposed to be a vibrant democracy but barely half the nation even bothers to register to vote...

I want my fellow Floridians to Vote FOR Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate.  Of the three major choices, Crist is the one who's had the better, more honorable career.  Yes, he's changed his position on certain votes, but that was because a vast majority of Floridians begged him to do so.  Changing one's mind when it becomes clear that a political stance is wrong-headed DOES NOT make one a flip-flopper.  And getting driven out by the party with all those outside Far Right deep pockets is NOT being a traitor either.  A vote for Crist is a vote FOR Florida.  I seriously believe that.

I want my fellow Floridians to Vote AGAINST Rick Scott.  Scott is a goddamn crook with a history of Medicare Fraud.  There's now more evidence that his more recent health care endeavor, Solantic, has the same problem of Medicare overbilling that they had when Scott was CEO of Columbia/HCA.  The crook hasn't even stopped his bad habits!  What the hell do you think someone like that is gonna do in the Governor's office?  Here's a clue: he's gonna take all the money he can grift and make the rest of us suffer for it!  For the LOVE OF GOD, FLORIDA, DO NOT VOTE FOR HIM!  If you don't want to vote for Sink, fine, there's two other choices on the ballot.  Just... NO SCOTT.

I want my fellow Floridians to Vote FOR Amendments 5 and 6.  The Fair Districts ballots.  Of all the amendments on the ballot, these two are of major import to me: a serious and genuine attempt to stop the political gerrymandering that has favored one party over the rights of the voters, and has allowed incumbents to carve out safe districts to the detriment of honest representation.

I want my fellow Floridians... I want my fellow Americans across this nation to Vote FOR Democrats across the board.  All the Republicans will offer between now and 2012 are questionable impeachment investigations, a refusal to be serious with deficit reduction, and an upfront desire to shut down the federal government first chance and every chance they get.  I mean, the Republicans are the ones who blocked and obstructed and refused to compromise for the last two years... and THEY'RE the ones the voters want back in power?  Don't the voters have kids: any time their kids throw a tantrum and hold their breath and all, do these voters give their unruly kids more toys and candy?  Or do they send them to a corner for well-deserved Time Outs?  The collective GOP has acted like a spoiled 5-year-old brat... AND THEY ARE GETTING REWARDED FOR THEIR BAD BEHAVIOR.  What.  The.  Hell?!

I want to be able to go to bed Tuesday night in a good mood.  I want to be able to post here Wednesday morning that we're going to have responsible, sensible leadership in elected office between now and 2012 that might actually do something about our unemployment and our weak economy.

I want... I want... I want to... Put on my Sunday clothes...
There's lots of world out there
Get out the Brillantine and dime cigars
We're gonna find adventure in the evening air
Girls in white in a perfumed night
Where the lights are bright as the stars!
Put on your Sunday clothes, we're gonna ride through town
In one of those new horsedrawn open cars

We'll see the shows
At Delmonico's
And we'll close the town in a whirl
And we won't come home until we've kissed a girl!

...what?

Oh, right.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE FOR CRIST.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE FOR SCOTT.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE FOR AMENDMENTS 5 AND 6.

One Last Week To Try And Convince Florida That Rick Scott As Governor Is a REALLY BAD IDEA

Seriously, people.  43 to 46 percent of likely voters WANT to vote for Rick "1.7 BILLION IN MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott?  Do you WANT me to go to each and every one of your homes to SLAP SOME GODDAMN SENSE INTO YOU?!

Sigh.  I know, I shouldn't resort to physical violence, BUT SERIOUSLY HOW THE HELL ELSE ARE WE SANE PEOPLE GONNA CROWBAR SOME GODDAMN SENSE INTO YOU VOTERS' SKULLS?

Okay.  Okay.  Calming down a bit.  Let's try a little bit of logic here:

Experience as a CEO of a company DOES NOT automatically mean a person will have experience running an elected office.  In Rick Scott's case, his experience as a CEO isn't even good: he mismanaged a major Health Care firm - Columbia/HCA - into such a sorry state that the board of directors FORCED HIM OUT and left the health care firm to pay off $1.7 BILLION in fines, court costs, and settlements related to the massive amount of Medicare Fraud the company performed during Scott's tenure.
Let's take a moment to review his work history here: Scott as CEO did massive damage to his own corporation.  This happened either because A) the Medicare fraud happened outside of his knowledge (Scott's excuse), which means that Scott was incompetent and incapable of keeping track of his own business, or B) the Medicare fraud happened with Scott's knowledge (the whistleblowers' contention, with some evidence backing that claim), which means that Scott was (and very well IS) a corrupt and greedy bastard.  There is no third explanation here.  Either way, Scott is an inept manager or a corrupt bastard.  This is who you want for our state's Governorship?
Add to this Scott's experiences running businesses after his getting the boot from Columbia/HCA haven't been all sunshine either.  Mostly bouncing around as a venture capitalist starting a series of health-related businesses including a planned Health Network that didn't seem to go anywhere after Discovery Channel bought up the rights by 2001.  Scott tried another health care business called Solantic, a chain of "urgent care" clinics... and THAT is a source of headaches involving lawsuits covering discriminatory hiring practices among other questions of mismanagement.  If Scott's had any success post-HCA, it's been running a lobbyist firm opposed to Obama's Health Care Reform laws: successful in that he's raised tons of cash and getting his name out there for, guess what, running for Governor.

The scary thing for me is how blind the voters seem to be of Scott's actual track record.  The voters seem only interested in one thing: that Scott has the Republican(tm) Seal of Approval having won the August primary over McCollum.  Pity there is, given the voter turnout (1 million) for the Primary compared to the actual number of registered Republicans (over 3 million) in the state, Scott didn't even really win a majority of the Party.  He just won with the more obsessed (Teabagger) and dedicated (Wingnuts) elements of the Party that even tried to show up and vote.  Which on its own is a sad state of affairs: did a majority of Republicans just not even care in the end who represents the Party for the Governor's seat?

What is worse is the overall voter turnout: compared to Presidential election cycles, the so-called Midterm elections have fewer voters.  Basically, only Teh Crazies come out to vote.  Which ought not to be the case here: in Florida at least there is the VERY REAL DANGER that a corrupt bastard like Rick Scott could end up in control of:

• Our state's budget: he can veto and line-item veto things at his pleasure.  And while the Legislature legally has control of passing the budgets, the Governor would have a lot of influence in pushing which programs to fund or defund.  And this is a guy with a history of FRAUD on his resume...  Seriously?
• How the state's legislative districts and Congressional districts are drawn based on this decade's 2010 Census numbers.  While Amendments 5 and 6 to the State Constitution can pass and could well assure that partisanship won't gerrymander everything to hell and back, there's any number of political maneuvers that could delay that effort of fair redistricting... and Rick Scott as Governor will influence the redistricting to his benefit.
• Our public and social services.  For all the bullshit Scott is saying about "Let's Get To Work," like he has the solutions for curbing the unemployment crisis our state is suffering (12-14 percent Unemployment!), Scott is openly threatening to cut state-employed jobs.  And someone like him isn't going to stop at 6,000 jobs... or 60,000 jobs.  Any cuts he can find to justify massive tax breaks for his business and corporate buddies will do.  Even if it means closing every library, every child care service, every poverty-fighting program that is staving off the disaster this state is currently suffering.  Someone like Scott will slash first and never question the consequences: let the poor people worry about that...

Just on those three points alone, the whole of the state's registered Democratic population (over 4 million) ought to be rising up out of their seats to rush to the local early voting polls and putting their vote in AGAINST SCOTT.  Alex Sink is a goddamn SAINT compared to Scott... and you Democrats aren't showing up in droves yet?

GET OUT THE GODDAMN VOTE, DEMS!

WAKE UP FLORIDA!

For the LOVE OF GOD, ANYONE BUT RICK SCOTT!  Just.  DON'T.  VOTE.  For that crook!