Archive for the Elections Category

Bill/Melinda and Warren, It Is Time To Get Into The Game (January 25, 2010)

Posted in Elections, Political Parties, Politics, Society, Supreme Court on January 25, 2010 by e-commentary.org

Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country.  Bill/Melinda and Warren are still playing at the margins.  Now is the time to get off the sidelines and get into the game.  Funding vaccines is commendable in particular because preventive medicine is the exception in our society.  However, the body politic is sick.

The Supreme Court recently decided that democracy is a commodity to be sold in the market place to the highest bidder.  The United States of Exxon (USE).  You need to join the bidding.  The next presidential election will cost over a billion dollars.  Now is the time to invest $50 – $100 million dollars into each of six senatorial campaigns this year and elect half a dozen senators who commit to occasional independent thinking.  Political activities are not as tidy or as pretty as traditional charitable giving.  However, at this time, your country needs aid.

Bumper sticker of the week:

The best democracy money can buy.

A New Day (January 26, 2009)

Posted in Elections, O'Bama on January 26, 2009 by e-commentary.org

There is real joy in watching others experiencing joy.  A great speech?  Perhaps.  Sacrifice was mentioned.  Some truths were uttered.

Geithner is problematic.  He will be confirmed.  His tax obligation was simple.  He was obligated to pay.  There were no buts, ands or ifs.  He did not pay.  When he was to directed to pay, he did not.  The statute of limitations provided a convenient defense.  Now he finds religion and pays.  Perhaps every taxpayer should be nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury for fifteen minutes.  The bigger concern is that he did not tell “. . . the whole truth . . .” to the Senate when the members asked for an explanation.  Business as usual.  [See the e-ssay dated February 20, 2006 entitled “Perjury, the American Way.”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Our long national nightmare is not over.

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Hope

Democrats Behaving Like Republicans

U.S.A. – 1 (Won); World – 1 (Won) (November 10, 2008)

Posted in Elections, O'Bama on November 10, 2008 by e-commentary.org

We have met our friend and he is us.  Pogo.

McCain very likely would be President-elect of the United States of America today if the first wave of the Bush Depression had not crashed ashore in mid-September.  September 15 may be the high water (or low water) mark when McCain proclaimed:  “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”  Americans were not fooled.  They were afraid, very afraid.  It was the stupid economy.

Obama’s guerdon and lagniappe — the privilege to deal with the Great Tsunami, the “Bush/Greenspan/Gramm Depression,” and World War III now festering in at least two theaters on a planet in ill health.

Reverend Wright incited the Right and left others feeling that something was not right; seems that everyone on the national stage sports a Rev. John Hagee in their entourage.  Some white Republicans could accept an African-Thai-American named Tiger but were not ready to accept an African-Saxon as the Lion.  However, others conquered their fears and anxieties and played through them.  Many Americans had gotten a preview by watching two different African-Americans play the President OTUS on the television show “24.”  In this episode, Alexander “Scotty” Scott goes to the White House.  Illinois finally sends Adlai Stevenson to the Casa Blanca.

Obama may be the Transformative Candidate or the Transitional Candidate, yet he is clearly the Technological Candidate.  The toxic a.m. radio shows and the venomous robo-calls from the Franchise Republicans marketing fear were matched and exceeded by a relentless stream of e-mails from Team Obama offering hope, promising change and soliciting funds.  Intimidation for your ears; inspiration for your eyes.  The Internet won handily.

Money talks; McCain walks.  McCain-Feingold has been replaced by Obama-Plouffe.  The billion dollar Presidential race in 2012.

Washington presided when the country was forming; Lincoln when the country was dissolving; Roosevelt when the country was segregated and disintegrating economically.  The man from Hope brought some semblance of prosperity and peace and now the man promising hope confronts the Bush Depression and World War III.  Obama will preside in one of the dozen most uncertain periods in American history.  He appears to be up to the challenge.  One can only hope.

A profound development.  The first African-Irish-American in the White House.  Barack Hussein “Steve” O’Bama.

Bumper stickers of the week:

Hope and Money and Fear

Esperanza

Si, se puede

Yes he/we can (maybe)

Do It (November 3, 2008)

Posted in Elections on November 3, 2008 by e-commentary.org

It’s the thing to do on the first Tuesday in November.  Vote.  Hope over Fear.

Bumper sticker of the week:

THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S WOES

BY CHARLEY REESE

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?  Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget.  The president does.  You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.  The House of Representatives does.  You and I don’t write the tax code.  Congress does.  You and I don’t set fiscal policy.  Congress does.  You and I don’t control monetary policy.  The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices – 545 human beings out of the 235 million – are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress.  In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.  They have no legal authority.  They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing.  I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.  The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY

Don’t you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians?  Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault.  They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.  No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget.  He cannot force the Congress to accept it.  The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

O’Neill is the speaker of the House.  He is the leader of the majority party.  He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want.  If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.

REPLACE SCOUNDRELS

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.  If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.  If the Marines are in Lebanon, it’s because they want them in Lebanon.

There are no insoluble government problems.  Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible.  They and they alone have the power.  They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses – provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

[This article was taken from the Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper.]

Hope Triumphs (November 13, 2006)

Posted in Elections on November 13, 2006 by e-commentary.org

God bless the American voters.  Enough voters last Tuesday said that enough is more than enough.

The public witnessed looting in Baghdad and looting in Washington.  The Republicans emphasized national security and the Democrats focused on the failed war in Iraq.  Exit polls indicate that the public elected to challenge “corruption” among those in Washington who got America involved in Iraq and enmeshed in other scandals domestic.

Fear almost always triumphs over hope.  On Tuesday, the fear of Bush triumphed over the fear pandered by Bush.  Bush could not even muster the image of the devil incarnate, Osama bin Laden, to triumph over the public’s fears of him and his failed policies.  Bush was not even able to muster fear by raising the specter of the antichrist, a granny named Nancy Pelosi, assuming a position of power.  Hope triumphed.

The good people of Minnesota’s Fifth District made an election heard ’round the world.  Endorsing Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, is a compelling statement to the world of America’s fundamental decency and inclusiveness.

Harold Ford, Jr. and Tammy Duckworth, stay in the fray.  You are still needed.

After the thumpin’, the most incompetent Commander-in-Chief in American history relieved the most incompetent Secretary of Defense in American history of his mismanagement of the worst foreign policy blunder in American history.  Progress happens.

Bridges should not be burned; bridges to nowhere should not be built.  The Democrats are reaching out and building bridges to the Republicans.  The Republic will benefit from that political infrastructure.

The Supreme Court may be safe.

The Democrats now have an opportunity to fail or flourish.  Time will tell.

Bumper sticker of the week:

A woman’s place is in the House
. . . and in the Senate

Vote (November 6, 2006)

Posted in Elections on November 6, 2006 by e-commentary.org

George Carlin, the comedian and political philosopher, refuses to vote.  Samuel Beckett, the dramatist, novelist and playwright, rarely if ever voted.  Anthony Downs, the political theorist and economist, suggested that it may not be rational for an individual to vote. 

Is voting a joke, absurd or irrational?  Some recent elections have been rigged.  One of the vote counters–Diebold, the manufacturer of the voting machines–is run by a Bush supporter.  Support efforts to unrig elections.  And vote so that the only way to steal an election from the populace is to steal it.  Stealing all elections is much harder to accomplish than stealing a few.

Many VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) posts observe that “Freedom Is Not Free.”  Thomas Jefferson, the guy on the two dollar bill, observed that the “price of freedom is constant vigilance.”  Voting is vigilance.  Pay the price to be free.  Vote. 

Election Day should be a holiday.  Vote.  And vote to celebrate Veterans Day every even-numbered year on Election Day to celebrate the veterans who made and make it possible to vote.  As the Canadian philosopher Wayne Gretzky once observed:  “You miss 100 % of the shots you don’t take.”

Bumper stickers of the week:

My vote cancels your vote

Don’t blame me, I voted for __________

Boycott Red America (January 3, 2005)

Posted in Blue States / Red States, Boycott Series, Economics, Elections, Immigration, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Society, Spending, Taxation on January 3, 2005 by e-commentary.org

The U.S.A. is engaged in an uncivil civil war, a war between the states of mind. At core, the dispute is between urban and suburban/rural Americas, although the voting boundaries are crudely demarcated by state and region. America revealed its true colors once again in the tragic events surrounding 11/2. Cooperation and compromise, albeit usually virtues in these situations, are now futile, counterproductive and self-destructive. A condominium divided against itself can stand. Appomattox condemns unilateral secession but condones voluntary realignment. We as a nation must summon the honesty and courage to hoist a national white flag and agree to realign the red states and the blue states. The blue states should form three Azure Provinces known as the United Provinces of America (U.P.A.). The red states should form the United States of Aggression or perhaps the United States of Fear, Ignorance and Greed (U.S.G.). The red states will demure when they realize that the reds cannot subsist without the massive subsidies funneled to them via the tax dollars confiscated from the blue states. Without a worldwide boycott of red America and diplomatic recognition of blue America, realignment is not possible.

After the realignment, reds can continue to live, work, travel and own property in blue country, and vice versa. Anyone uncomfortable living and working in Paris (Illinois) can travel to Rome (Georgia) and buy property; vice versa for those forced to relocate from Paris (Kentucky) to Rome (New York). For those of us who are out of place, relocating will be wrenching and discomforting. Everyone will be afforded dual citizenship and provided two passports. A red flag with 31 white stars in the field; a score of white stars on a field of blue. “In God we trust” versus “In reason we trust.” Clergy versus clerisy.

Creative individuals can move to U.P.A. and design energy-efficient transportation modules. Pedestrian ones can move to U.S.G. and drive gas-guzzlers in circles. Reds can continue to sell bazookas and grenade launchers at their local pharmacies and hardware stores so that the terrorist at the end of their cul-de-sac can arm himself without delay or an inconvenient background check. Blues remain free to take granddad’s 30.06 from the safe each Fall and wander in the woods in pursuit of the elusive white tail. God knows gays have already suffered enough, but if they really want to get married, they can move to U.P.A. and spark the most massive urban renewal ever accomplished in the history of humankind without visiting the exchequer. U.S.G. can ban with abandon even secular civil unions because everyone knows that queers woke up one Tuesday morning and elected to be that way of their own volition and not because of God’s design.

The blues can reaffirm basic libertarian principles and allow each citizen to control the person’s person. The reds insist on more government dictating personal decisions for others. As soon as a baby crawls out of the hospital and makes a misstep, the reds dispatch the human being with extreme prejudice. Government in the bedroom is far more corrosive of individual rights than in the boardroom. The blues get the original Bill of Rights, because the reds would not even recycle the paper. Custody of the Constitution is joint, although in a few legislative sessions there will be scant resemblance between the two amended versions. Without realignment, the entire U.S.A. will continue to decay and fester to second world status within a generation. With realignment, the Michigan-Ohio State football game immediately becomes an international event of epic proportions. Go Blue.

On March 19, 2003, George Bush triggered World War III. Sans casus belli. America cannot win it, America alone cannot stop it. A group of radical Christian extremists declared war on a group of radical Islamic extremists who were eager to reciprocate. Those who would rather be red and dead should not be afforded the opportunity to absolve the rest of us of our mortality. Bush is skillfully recruiting terrorists for the cause, although he soon will not be able to recruit his own palace guard. U.S.G. will be free to impose a front door Draft on its populace allowing the reds to prosecute the doomed Second Crusades for the next one hundred years. Operation Iraqi Liberation alone will bestow thousands of American deaths, seven-fold that number of disfiguring and dismembering casualties, and a direct economic cost of half a trillion in two years. More than 150,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and brave red-blooded Iraqi freedom fighters will die doing what any red- or blue-blooded American would do if our country were invaded without provocation. Each Iraqi death produces a hydra effect because two more Iraqi patriots commit their lives to the cause.

The reds delude themselves into believing they hate us for who we are; they hate us for what we are doing. The current version of the Constitution does not say: “We must destroy the village to save it.” However, America is deploying tax dollars to destroy the villages and then committing tax dollars to rebuild them. The “Economics of Destruction and Reconstruction 101” is an emerging field. The cost of reconstruction will be twenty-fold the still escalating and untold cost of destruction that we are not being told. Both Fallujah and Flint (Michigan) are being destroyed for no purpose, although Fallujah is slated for urban renewal with a modern subway system and above ground swimming pools. The Secretary of Offense is not astute enough to take one of the few insightful pages from the Vietnam playbook by declaring victory and getting out. With the fires ignited by the U.S.A., the current Dien Bien Phu III will be a mere sideshow and a forgotten incident in a conflagration that the U.S.A. will not be able to lose gracefully.

Use by the U.S.A. of tactical nuclear weapons in the form of spent uranium threatens to beget more nuclear activity. Individuals in the physics departments and in the biology departments of this planet pose a far more devastating threat than kids throwing stones at invaders using nuclear weapons to destroy their homes. At home, the systematic and willful conspiracy to bankrupt the public fisc is a high crime and misdemeanor that does little “to promote the general welfare.” A ten trillion dollar debt should be unconstitutional and alone grounds for immediate impeachment. Taxing to match spending is at least balanced and responsible. Only the reds seem charmed by these prospects.

By contrast, U.P.A. can reaffirm international law and the Geneva Conventions, issue a statement of non-participation in the Second Crusades, and execute a formal memorandum of re-engagement with the world. U.P.A. can assume one of the permanent seats on the Security Council without objection because the reds want nothing to do with U.N. pantywaists. U.P.A. must be liberated and divested to participate with and compete against the two rising colossuses that will define and dominate this century China and the European Union. U.P.A. will “provide for the common defense” by undertaking actions that contribute to the security and well being of the Provinces and the stability of the world. The Blue Provinces could unite with the E.U. to create the Transatlantic Alliance. With a mix of carefully calculated battles cum exeunt and a few shrewd modus vivendi, U.P.A. and the other two political empires may be able to limit or eliminate the causes of dissatisfaction that lead a desperate and rational person to employ terrorist techniques.

The U.S.A. has rarely been more vulnerable or the world less secure. The ruling ayatollah and his cabal of radical religious fundamentalist fanatics in Washington will not tolerate free elections, peaceful regime change or geographic realignment in America. Their devoutly anti-intellectual and anti-intellectually devout fans are in lockstep. However, they say that freedom is on the march. Little Napoleon motivated his own [al] Queda, his base, to continue on the path to world domination or destruction, whichever comes first. The world can and must just say no to the war criminal and his clutch of chicken hawks. Uniting one’s foes and dividing one’s friends (and countrymen) is not sagacious. With a few exceptions, the McMedia of every hue in America are effete, craven, servile and unavailing, but they are pretty. The last hope is for private citizens to unite the world and enlist its assistance to conduct a world economic plebiscite.

The world must boycott red America for one year. No visits to red states or contributions directly or indirectly to their economies. No vacations or holidays or conferences or conventions. Cranberries from the Eastern Province (Massachusetts and New Jersey), the Central Province (Wisconsin) and the Western Province (Washington and Oregon) should be imported and served once a day to support the peace movement. Washington apples but not Virginia apples. California oranges but not Florida oranges. Don’t mix apples and oranges. Oregon pinot but not Tennessee mash. Minnesota corn but not Iowa corn. Wisconsin beer but not Colorado or Missouri beer. Skip Alaska and explore New England and then Hawaii next year. Tour Washington D.C. and find lodging in the city or in Maryland. Spend too much time and money in New York. Circumnavigate the Adirondacks and the Sierras and circumvent the lower Appalachians and the eastern Rockies.

Tender Euros, the peace chits, to blue businesses to symbolize Europe’s permission slips for peace. After some initial resistance, blue Americans may adopt the Euro as their currency. English is the emerging medium of communication for the E.U.; the Euro rightly should emerge as the medium of exchange for the U.P.A. By 2006, the Euro will be the new two dollar bill. Vote for peace in the three Azure Provinces. We can all use Euros to buy the “English/Mandarin” and the “English/Cantonese” dictionaries and launch them to the top of The Beijing Times Best Seller List. Demand that all imported produce and products from the U.S.A. include a state of origin stamp. Provide your kinder with outline maps of the U.S. and crayons of rojo y azul, rouge et bleu, rosso e azzurro, or rot und blau to teach them the boundaries of the two Americas. Send letters and e-mails to the respective secretaries of state and convention bureaus and inform them that you are boycotting the red states.

On a grander scale, if the central banks in Europe (ECB), Japan and China create a true Coalition of the Willing and demand that the U.S.A. withdraw from its international excursions or face complete withdrawal of all financial support for and funding of the U.S.A., there will be change. Those who carefully save in Frankfurt (Germany) can save those who spend wildly in Frankfurt (Kentucky). The Coalition must implement this new and improved version of the Marshall Plan and impose a revised Containment policy to restrain and quarantine the red menace in this rogue nation. International economic sanctions will succeed against the American war machine impatient to unleash more of its weapons of mass destruction against the world. A trillion dollar (Euro?) economic impact in one year likely will garner some attention.

During its glory days, America was a generous and magnanimous Republic that came to the world’s aid in times of need and trouble in so many ways. We sane Americans now must ask the rest of the world to come to our aid. Diplomatic recognition of blue American is critical. You can save blue America and the rest of the world, and red America. Boycott red America now. Billions of lives and livelihoods are at stake. In due course, the boycott can be finessed to focus on the specific enterprises that advance the apocalypse. Thank you kindly in advance for your assistance and sacrifice in saving the world.