As the GOP Primaries Race Toward Destruction...

It's pretty much turned into a two-horse race.

It's a race between Mitt Romney.

And with whomever the Teabagger wingnut division of the GOP likes instead of Romney.

Currently that is, shockingly, Herman Cain.  Which kind of caught me off-guard because Cain's resume was one lacking in campaigning history, campaigning skills, campaigning savvy.  Something he still demonstrates even today.

But a lot of it had to do with how each of the Far Right wingnut candidates - Santorum, Bachmann, Newt, Paul, and then Perry - just flamed out too quickly or never had a serious chance.

I originally thought Bachmann had the wingnut vote all to herself.  But somehow Bachmann failed to win over her own crowd, leaving room for Perry to sneak in and steal her theocon base.  When Bachmann tried to sell a plan where as President she'd cut gas prices down to $2, she lost everyone (seriously, if a President had that kind of power, why didn't Dubya use it back in 2007 when the gas prices went to $5-$6?).

And then it was Perry as "the Savior" candidate (saving the Far Right from Mitt, that is).  But then Perry faltered when it came time for him to do something he'd NEVER DONE BEFORE: Debate.  He came across as more incoherent than Dubya ever did: Considering Perry has to overcome the impression of him being a Dubya clone when a majority of the electorate still hates the Bush The Lesser Years, that was pretty much that.

Newt Gingrich had run a sloppy, lazy campaign from the get-go.  Whatever wunderboy qualities he "had" back in the 1990s (which were overinflated anyway), he doesn't have anymore.  And on the matter of "Family Values" he's a proven hypocrite: all it will take is Bill Clinton making an ad saying "Hey, this boy was committing adultery when he tried impeaching me for adultery!" and Newt will be finished.

Ron Paul has his devoted followers, sure, but like any libertarian cult idol he's only of interest to fellow libertarians, who by the by ARE NOT THE MAJORITY EVEN IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

And I'm pretty sure Santorum never had a snowball's chance in the Flames of Perdition to begin with.

So why not Romney?  Well, I've mentioned it before: Mitt has an electoral history he can't openly support (a health care plan that Obama duplicated for Obamacare); Mitt has a terrible history of flip-flopping so much he could work with Cirque Du Soleil; and Mitt is Mormon in an evangelical-led party that views his religion as a cult.

So it's become a race of Mitt vs. Not-Mitt: simply because Mitt is the party establishment's preferred choice (he's rich, he knows how to campaign, he's not scary to the moderate and independent bases), but he's not the preferred choice for the Far Right voting base that dominates the primary system.

This is where Cain re-enters the stage.  Because what happened a few weeks back, when Cain offered up a simplified flat-tax plan he called "9-9-9".  While the commentators, economists, and sane people reviewed the plan's basic details, they quickly determined it was a tax plan that would 1) make the federal deficit worse and 2) kill the economy.  But for the voting base of the GOP - the Teabagger crowd, the ones who can't cope with concepts larger than what can fit a bumper sticker - that plan struck a chord.  Mostly because it was a plan.  Who cares if it worked?  Cain got his surge by doing something the other candidates hadn't done, and because he was the first to propose a flat-tax plan that could fit a bumper sticker, he's getting all the attention now.

Even though Cain himself has changed the "9-9-9" plan to appease the critics (into something more horrific).  Even though Cain doesn't even know how his tax plan really works.  And even though Cain is now the subject of an erupting scandal surrounding a past history of sexual harassment when he worked for a lobbying firm.

Just try to remember: the "sane" ones in the GOP - Huckabee, Daniels, Christie - stayed out of this race even though they could knock Mitt off the podium inside of 10 seconds.  It's because they know they'd have to cope with the Not-Mitt wingnut candidate as well: and the wingnut base of the GOP is behind the steering wheel, not Karl Rove or the campaign managers.

You know, they say you watch time moving faster as you get older.  But I swear these election cycles are putting the brakes on...

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Current Political Mood

I'm just not inclined to think much about politics these days.

Even with the sudden uptick in the Occupy Wall Street news - and the Far Right blowback to something that can successfully counter their Teabagger movement - for some reason I'm neither thrilled nor contemplative.

There's still a lot of protesting and military action going on in the Middle East for example.  Meh.

There's the economic meltdown in Europe still happening in slow motion.  Meh.

There's the anti-voting BS the Republicans are attempting at the state level to suppress minorities, the poor, and college-age voters.  Meh.

Just not feeling connected to the world at the moment, that's all.

Too much outrage burn-out?  Too much stress coping with unemployment?  Dunno...

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A Repost of A Remembrance

I posted this back in 2009.  This is the tenth anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11.

I was at the main library in downtown Ft. Lauderdale meeting with other librarians in the tech lab (computers) departments. The library was switching to a new email system (groupwise) and they wanted us to perform the in-house training. Meeting started at 9 am. One of my coworkers was late, coming in and saying there was news a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers...
...When we finished the meeting, we left the classroom and walked out into the foyer area and up the escalator to the library’s main floor. They had dragged out a TV on a cart and was trying to get a signal. For some reason, TV reception was lousy in that building, and they didn’t have cable connection. I saw an old boss of mine who was also at the library for a meeting and approached her, asking what was going on. “Oh my God,” she told me. “There was another plane hitting the other World Trade Center tower.”
It took a few seconds. It took a few seconds to realize that one plane was an accident. Two planes, one right after the other… hitting each tower…
I knew then it meant war...

Not much has changed since 2009.  Except that our fighting in Iraq is lessened now that our military and political presence there has dropped.  The fighting in Afghanistan has increased, mostly through an attempt to finish the nine and a half years we've been there trying to keep the allies of Bin Laden from regaining power there.

A lot has changed since 2001, but most of it is due to political partisan BS that isn't appropriate to note during this somber moment.  The one thing I can note is that Bin Laden is dead, answering for his part in the attacks ten years ago among some of the other sins he'd committed the years before.  It may have been a bloody justice without the courtroom, but this was a man who admitted to his part and sought to commit more acts of war to prove himself mighty rather than decent.  It was a bloody justice but it was done.

We are as a nation today opening memorials at the ground of the World Trade Center, and near Shanksville PA.  There will be remembrances and muted celebrations across the country today.  There isn't much more to do other than mourn the dead and build again...

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What I Want To Hear From Obama On His Jobs Speech

Obama is set to appear tonight before a Joint Session of Congress to present a plan for doing something about the horrendous unemployment numbers that are miring our economy in the most prolonged recession this nation's ever seen (it's getting into Depression-type numbers, which is never good).

These are some of the things I'd like to hear Obama say:

"There is growing evidence that businesses and corporations are intentionally overlooking the long-term unemployed.  They are refusing to hire anyone who's been out of work longer than six months.  Even if that unemployed candidate has years of relevant experience.  This is wrong.  This is unacceptable.  It is prolonging our nation's economic woes by creating and expanding our unemployed population and putting more of a burden on our nation's social safety net already facing tight budget restrictions.  This is creating a self-fulfilling belief that the long-term unemployed are unemployable because, well, you're keeping them that way.  We need to look at this as discriminatory hiring practices, and we need to enforce hiring laws to tell corporations they need to hire more people who have been out of work for longer than six months, for longer than a year, for longer than two years.  Hire the long-term unemployed first before even thinking about hiring people who already have a job.  If we catch you hiring people who already have employment over people who've been begging and praying for work for years, we will fine your sorry corporate HR asses so much you'd think filing for bankruptcy will be cheaper."

"The vast long-term unemployed WANT to work.  They want to make something of their lives.  They want to earn a paycheck so they can feed their own families and pay for that roof over their heads.  There's not a one of them who prefers sitting at home doing nothing and earning unemployment benefits that barely covers the cost of weekly groceries or rent.  If any of you politicians even THINK of accusing the long-term unemployed as drug abusers or welfare queens, I will personally escort you to your district's or state's unemployment offices and have you sit there for six months so you can see how hard-pressed and desperate the unemployed REALLY ARE to find any work."

"That said.  FUCK YOU JIM DEMINT.  FUCK YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT FANTASIES ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED BEING LAZY."  (NOTE: Yes, I want Obama to say this.  After the Joe Wilson "You Lie" crap, why pretend civility is a part of Congress anymore?)

"There is no evidence that cutting taxes creates jobs.  There is no evidence that cutting regulations creates jobs.  What we do know is that cutting taxes INCREASES the federal deficits to unsustainable levels.  What we do know is that cutting regulations or ignoring regulations to make profits leads to increased pollution, unsafe work areas, and people dying.  So to my Republicans opponents: STOP SHILLING TAX CUTS AND DEREGULATION AS JOB-CREATORS.  You're selling snake oil, you fuckers."

"What we need in this country is another WPA.  We need to get construction jobs up and running.  We need to repair bridges and roads that haven't been fixed or upgraded in 40 years.  We need to repair and upgrade nuclear reactors that are 20 years past their expiration date, and yes while nuclear reactors carry enormous risk our energy needs rely on them right now, so we need to upgrade them to newer safer models than the old-style reactors from 40 years ago that aren't as safe against earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.  We need to replace schools older than 20 years, make them compatible with today's technologies, so we can start teaching our children on the tools of today and tomorrow.  We need to get people working: for every one person who was hired back during the WPA of the 1930s, that job created two other jobs in response."

"All we need is a construction-jobs program that hires people across this nation.  The WPA of the 1930s hired 8 million people.  We don't need to go that big.  We can hire 4 million people, and if one WPA job creates two more that can translate up to 12 million Americans getting jobs, cutting more than half of our unemployment numbers right there.  IT WORKED BEFORE AND IT CAN WORK AGAIN."

"And we can pay for this new WPA.  We can look at our budgets and make the adjustments needed to make budget room for this jobs program.  We can eliminate some of the tax credits on billionaires that won't hurt their wallets but will pay back into this jobs programs FOR ALL AMERICANS to benefit.  IT WORKED BEFORE AND IT CAN WORK AGAIN."

"Our nation's economy is struggling.  We can't ignore that.  One of the two reasons our economy is struggling is because we lack the jobs to hire the unemployed.  We can solve that with a jobs bill.  But we can't ignore the other reason our economy is struggling, and that is the household debt our citizens are fighting.  And the largest form of household debt are mortgages.  Too many families are struggling at too-low incomes paying off mortgages on houses whose values have gone underwater.  Our housing industry is facing another series of destructive foreclosures and abandoned properties.  Each foreclosure lowers the property values of everyone else's homes surrounding them.  This is making it hard for people to sell their homes if they have to move to new jobs.  This is making it hard for people to pay off their mortgages, period.  And this is shuffling their debts from one thing to another like their overdrawn credit cards or unpaid college loans.  Above all, paying off all this debt is making it impossible for our citizens to pay for anything else like products and services that would boost our consumer-driven economy.  We need to look into resolving some of these debt issues.  Instead of bailing out banks, bail out the mortgage holders.  Help them pay off their mortgages to where their homes are no longer underwater.  Help pay off their mortgages so none of them fall into foreclosure.  By helping them, we free up the banks overwhelmed with foreclosures to begin making safe loans that can stabilize our housing market."

"And again, I cannot stress this enough, FUCK YOU JIM DEMINT.  FUCK YOU SIDEWAYS WITH A CHAINSAW."

"Thank you, God Bless to all the families across our nation, God Bless the United States of America."

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A Red Letter Day

August 30, 2011.  I just want to make this official.

Getting a haircut this afternoon for a job fair in Tampa tomorrow, and I noticed that the double-crown at the top of my head is showing more skin than hair.

I have every reason to believe I am finally going bald.  It may take years to fully see the damage done, but I am officially having a mid-life crisis.  Or I would be having one, if I had a life...

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Because It's August 20, You Get This

An update to the Republican Primary field for the 2012 Presidential Run!

(What.  I did my homage to Woodstock already.  Stop begging for mercy...)

I previously listed what was in April an already crowded field of wanna-bes and coulda-beens.  Since then, the marquee name of Donald Trump fell flat on his ass when he obsessed too much with Obama's birth certificate and flamed out after the one-two punch of getting mocked at the Correspondents Dinner and having Bin Laden's death overshadow his shtick.  As for Daniels and Huckabee, I was right about Daniels deciding to stay out... and shocked that Huckabee decided to stay out as well (considering the polls had him as the one constant threat to Obama).  It seems that both of them are smarter than they look...  Palin never announced either, but has developed this annoying habit of showing up at caucuses and announcements in some odd attempt to steal the spotlight.

With regards to the primaries, the only major development since April has been the addition of one more major name to the candidate list, one that had been floated earlier but not taken too seriously... until the last two weeks, during which the new candidate burst onto the scene and taken the early momentum (even away from the current pack leaders Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachmann).  So, to update you all to the terrors that await us:

Rick Perry - Governor, Texas
Positives: Has a long political career, and has a national profile of sorts being the governor of one of the largest states in the Union.  His political and personal (religious) beliefs are shared by the voting base of the Republicans, and especially the Tea Partier faction.  In terms of getting the voting interest of the party base, he outshines the likes of Bachmann and definitely trounces Romney.  If he stays on-message and avoids screw-ups, Perry could win the primary portion of the 2012 contest.
Negatives: While his emergence last week for the Ames Iowa Straw Caucus created a lot of positive feedback from the base, most of the party leadership pushed back (especially the likes of Karl Rove, who hit Perry unapologetically in ways he never attacked Bachmann or Palin), and he's not the savior candidate (New Jersey's Christie still has that mojo) the elites were hoping for.  In a field crowded with Far Right reactionary religious types, Perry isn't helping in the long term when it will come time to appeal to moderate and independent voters who are turned off by Social Conservatism.  Especially considering Perry just finished being the headlining politician at a Prayer Fest.  Perry's political ideas - for example, crippling the Supreme Court, eliminating the direct vote for U.S. Senators, and amendments to outlaw gay marriage and abortion - will be toxic come October-November '12.  While Perry's a two-term governor, his first election was in a four-way race where he won only 39 percent of the popular vote: not exactly a ringing endorsement from 61 percent of his own state (if Perry won in 2010, it's because he was in Texas and for some godawful reason they stopped voting Democrat in that state).  And all of this pales to the biggest problem Perry has: he's a Social Conservative governor from the state of Texas who's primary platform is "faith-based government, tax-cut, and deregulate".  Sound familiar?  I'll give you a clue: one of Perry's supporters called him "(George W.) Bush On Steroids".
Perry is going to be running with the national perception that he is essentially following in Dubya's footsteps.  It doesn't help that Perry (along with the rest of the Republican field) is going to run on the idea that Obama has been worse to America than Bush the Lesser was.  And worse, that Bush's agenda - massive tax cuts, massive business deregulation, massive incompetence - was all good.
Chances: Chances of winning the primary cycle?  Oddly enough, not so good.  While he's got the current vibe of "Savior/White Knight" since he's the latest flavor for the media to drool over, Perry's coming in with some disadvantages: the Party leadership prefers someone else, and all the other candidates - especially Romney and Bachmann, his major opponents - have been getting things in place for months and have a huge head start in fund-raising, ground troops, and political backing.  Perry's best chances depend on Romney failing to win over the Deep South and Religious Right (who still have a bias against Mormons), and on Bachmann doing something crazier than usual and flaming out before the primaries hit Florida.  But if Perry does win the nomination?  ...Remember what I said about "all Obama has to do against Jeb Bush is morph a photo of him into his brother George and Jeb is finished?"  Perry is in the same boat because he has the same background as Dubya, and the same disregards...

You might notice that in my April listing of primary candidates, I didn't include two who are in it as of now: Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman (there are others, but these two are honestly the more serious candidates).  However, I'm not going into greater detail for either one because:
1) consider "To Google Santorum".  Yes, To Google is a verb (can't wait for the Latin translation).  And if you Google Santorum as a search term, you may run into something akin to "Two Girls One Cup."  And no, I am NOT going into further detail than that.  Santorum's been a national joke for years.
2) consider that Huntsman is A) formerly employed by Obama as an Ambassador to China, B) Mormon like Romney, and C) reasonably sane in supporting evolution and climate change science, and you've basically got a candidate who doesn't have a snowball's chance in drought-ravaged Southwest U.S.

As for the Democrats' situation?  While Obama has been and still is polling negatively for some time, most of that is due to an upset and unhappy Far Left base that's been abandoned during the struggles over the Debt Ceiling fiasco.  Like it or not, the Party will come back to their incumbent... especially if the Republicans succeed in nominating a Social Con like Bachmann or Perry.

As of right now, who's GOP nomination is it to lose?  I gotta go with Bachmann: she's got momentum, solid backing by enough in the Far Right base, and is crazy enough to stay with it until the convention.  To be honest this is wide open: it all depends on if the remaining moderate base of the GOP turns out to support Romney (who has the best appeal to moderates, if any).

We'll see by South Carolina.  That tends to be the breaking point for GOP campaigns.

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It's Time For Another Woodstock Post

For some reason, the YouTube I found for this time doesn't have an embed option.  Ah well, here's Country Joe McDonald!

What the hell, here's an embed.  It's Not Safe For Families and God-Fearing Baptists.  God-Loving Baptists hopefully will have a sense o' humor about it.




So how was your summer?

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