As I was leaving my polling site, I actually ran into a candidate I voted for…that’s twice in the last two elections. Am I on a roll, or is a black cat about to cross my path?I don’t know what to make of this election, other than maybe this is exactly what the nation needed. Perhaps a few unqualified crazies let loose on Congress might wake voters up to take the process a bit more seriously, or at the very least get rural America to quit voting against their own interests. Nancy Pelosi is out as Speaker of the House, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing either. Let’s be honest, she just couldn’t get anyone to come together. It was nice to see so many women candidates win, but I would rather they be on our side. In short, this is really not the end of
the world. President Obama couldn’t get obstructionist Republicans to budge on anything anyway, so losing a few seats isn’t gonna change much. And Democrats, take heed…you lost because you failed to use the misguided anger and ignorance gripping this country to your advantage. Taxes are lower, the stimulus worked and didn’t cost us anything because the loans have been repaid, the health care bill is also gonna cover the idiots who voted against it, and we are slowly but surely getting out of two misguided wars. These things I already know, but the rest of the country does not. And why? Because Democrats didn’t sell it. They were so busy assuming that the public knew things were improving they forgot to remind them. And reminders are what voters need. How do you expect to win an election if you don’t run on your own record of achievement? Remember we are dealing with people that misspell their own protest signs and tell the Government to keep their hands off Medicare, a government 
program. When dealing with a voting public that is 23rd in the world in education and working with an attention span of a fucking squirrel, it would be wise to keep reminding them of the goings on in government. And since fear seems to work, why not remind these people that we have no reason to wave the big, foam “We’re number 1” finger anymore? China has faster super computers, a better railroad infrastructure and a rapidly increasing economy. Brazil is energy independent, and the chicks are considerably hotter. France, yeah France, those snail eating assholes have a better healthcare system than we do. There is a lot we can learn from the rest of the World, and the less we are willing, the further we fall behind. Let’s start with the cessation of celebrating stupid.And just after writing that, California chimes in with these little gems…One woman candidate did win for the Democrats. State Senator of California Jenny Oropeza got 58.4% of the vote over her Republican challenger, but didn’t respond when I called to congratulate her. Probably because she has been dead for about a month due to a blood clot in her abdomen. It’s not the fact that she was still on the ballot that bothered me, I guess they couldn’t get her name off on time, and
it isn’t the fact that she got some votes. It is however, the fact that 58.4% of that district’s voters are brain dead. Wow, maybe these nitwits just aren’t ready for legalized pot. Proposition 19, the measure that would have legalized pot for personal use, was also defeated. Of all the props in this election, this one clearly had the best argument (remember how well prohibition worked?), and democrats were just too afraid to make it. Don’t wonder why you lost.
On a positive note, that Zack Galifa-whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is lighting one up on Realtime with Bill Maher was pretty hysterical
SPORTS
I don’t know if you can count me calling the Giants “the most interesting team” in the playoffs (JB Random Report 10/7/10) qualifies as me making a prediction, but I’m still glad they won. Being a baseball fan, not someone who only knows their own era, I couldn’t help thinking about all the great players that never won a title with the San Francisco Giants, but spent their prime career years there. There must be something great about a city that keeps great players there when they could be winning titles somewhere else. Think about it, when was
the last time a great player in his prime actually left the Giants to play somewhere else? Last I checked, Barry Zito, Jeff Kent, and Barry Bonds didn’t flee from the Giants, they went to the Giants. Then think of the Hall of Fame players that spent their entire significant career years in the city by the bay without winning a title. Guys like Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Gaylord Perry and the great Juan Marichal. There must be something about that place. I have visited it a few times
and can tell you it really is one of the most beautiful cities in the country, but even that comes second to the appreciation this team gets from its loyal fan base. I will always remember the Giants as a team that always had great players, but could never win a World Series. That was true before I was even born, but remember 1993? The year when John Burkett and Billy Swift both won 20 games and Rod Beck and his insane moustache combined for 48 saves? Barry Bonds and Matt Williams combined for 84 homeruns and the Giants ended up losing a heartbreaking one game playoff to the Dodgers that year. Then 2002 when they were one game away from winning it all. Like everything in life, I guess it really was their time.As for the Yankees, everyone already seems to have penciled in Cliff Lee to the roster, as if there is no way he would go anywhere else. I would rather the guys they already have step it up a bit. It wasn’t the Yankees' $210 million payroll that won last year; it was the desire to win after 9 years of losing.
THIS WEEK’S REASON WHY TERRORISTS WANNA KILL US
OK I have no fucking idea who Demi Lovato is, but apparently she is some former Disney Channel star who has now entered rehab for some reason? Usually I could give two shits but then I thought maybe it was for drugs and alcohol, or a really cool sex addiction? Imagine my disappointment when this idiot cited, “issues with my childhood” because she threw a temper tantrum at a back up dancer. Yeah…I’m sure Charlie Sheen and Keith Richards are shitting themselves. Why do we continue to make people famous who have done nothing? And when is this waste of space finally gonna release a sex tape?
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well dude i believe people in the states cant really spell in pamphlets or follow party platforms becuase they are more interested in why Demy Lovato got sent to rehab... if u think about it, the most important and higher selling thing in this country is celebrity gossip or why else would there be like 5 shows on celebrities around 5 o clock every day... TMZ is getting richer by the minute because the village idiots (more than half of the population) would rather know if Ricky Martin still speaks to the egg donor of his kids and whether or how he likes to do it! a complete shame really!
ReplyDeleteThis seems more like a personal blog than a news outlet, but a friend referred me here and this is the internet, so I thought I'd engage you about a couple of things...
ReplyDelete1) I'm not trying to be an apologist for Nancy Pelosi, or any Democrat for that matter, but to claim she didn't build a consensus amongst her party is factually iffy. Harry Reid couldn't build a consensus, so 400(ish) bills that Pelosi got through the house on a pretty liberal streak got stuck in the Senate.
(http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2044-The-Bills-Left-Behind)
She was actually really good at getting shit done, which is why Republicans hated her so much. Plus, she's a powerful woman in a largely male institution, so she's an easy target in that way as well. So, yeah, losing her is actually not so great if you're down with a Dem agenda...
2) The stimulus didn't work as well as anyone wanted it to. I think it's cause we didn't spend as much as economists were saying we would need to (ie Pelosi's stimulus vs Reid's stimulus), but others disagree. To suggest the stimulus didn't cost anything though is not true. Its estimated cost was somewhere around 814 billion dollars by the CBO, but a google search will give you all kinds of figures...
What loans are you referring to when you say the loans were repaid? If you mean TARP, that was a separate piece of legislation from the stimulus and has not been fully repaid. Small sums are coming back as the companies from whom we bought assets from do better, but no one expects us to make back what we spent. The headlines sound nice, basically, but the articles usually clarify that point...
3) I want to say it's an insensitive understatement, but really it's a falsehood to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were misguided. The people who started them and are making money from them knew and know damn well what they're doing. The public was misled, perhaps, but I seem to recall people pretty hungry for blood post-9/11. As a matter of fact, people still seem pretty pissed at Muslims in general around here. Didn't Oklahama just outlaw Sharia law on Tuesday? Try explaining that to a Muslim in Oklahoma who can probably now be justifiably harassed for practicing their religion with "people are just dumb, man, sry"...
4) There are SO many more reasons why Democrats lost than the fact that they didn't "sell their achievements". The people who voted against them voted that way because they HATE their achievements and made that very clear at rallies and other kinds of things people do when unemployed, which they certainly have the right to be pissed about. Not to mention more than half of the country doesn't vote because they don't feel like either party represents their interests, and you'd be hard pressed to prove them wrong.
There's alot of oversimplification here, which may very well be the tone you're going for with yr blog, but these statements stuck out to me as just plain wrong, being someone who's interested in these kinds of things, and in how the media distorts facts with a lack of them...
OK this is gonna take a while...
ReplyDeleteYeah it is a personal blog, and a popular one at that.
1- If Nancy Pelosi was so good at bridge building she might still be Speaker. It was the House she couldn't bring together, not her own party. Never said she didn't get anything done, just not popular. Tip O'Neil was popular even with a Republican President, that's one of the reasons the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was possible.
2- Maybe you should read more articles since you are such a big Google fan. The stimulus sans $50 billion is already paid for, and this Government spends that on lunch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/business/economy/31taxpayer.html?_r=4&partner=rss&emc=rss
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-20/buffett-opposes-obama-bank-tax-plan-he-tells-cnbc-update1-.html
3- An insensitive falsehood to say the wars were misguided? I hope you served longer in uniform than I did, I know a few parents and widows who might disagree with you on that one. If you are just nitpicking the words I used, then I'm really not gonna waste time.
Want "misguided?" Make a statement that Oklahoma represents the entire United States. I spent time there, I assure you it does not.
4- Thanks for listing all the reasons Dems lost. I'm sure if I wanted to do that I'd bore the shit out of my readers. And hating their achievements when their achievements are going to keep them alive, can certainly be interpreted as ignorance. Dems would have been smart to remind them of that.
My statements are opinions based on my view of the facts, which I have never distorted no matter how much nit-picking might go on with anyone who reads it. I'm glad you are interested in these things, now go learn how to distinguish fact from opinion, generalization from oversimplification, so that you can have a better grasp of them.
1) Maybe her lack of popularity had something to do with the fact that Republicans (and some Democrats) spent so much time on the air ranting about the "Obama-Pelosi-Reid" agenda and how it was destroying America, or the countless attack ads. She pushed a liberal agenda that Republicans didn't like, which maybe is something Dems weren't willing to do in 1986, which conveniently, is the most recent time the income gaps between the very wealthy and the poor started widening even more (great Tax Reform guys, thanks!)
ReplyDelete2)You know that the Times article you linked to is talking about the Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP), right? Not the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus). I'm going to quote the article for you:
"These early returns are by no means a full accounting of the huge financial rescue undertaken by the federal government last year to stabilize teetering banks and other companies.
The government still faces potentially huge long-term losses from its bailouts of the insurance giant American International Group, the mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the automakers General Motors and Chrysler. The Treasury Department could also take a hit from its guarantees on billions of dollars of toxic mortgages."
The second article from Businessweek says the same thing. A couple firms paid back their loans. Not all of the firms did, though. And not everything we paid for through TARP was a loan. Alot of it was stock we bought up that isn't expected to turn a profit for us.
This is what I said in my original post, no? The headlines sound nice, but the article makes it clear we're still facing a HUGE loss. Also, it's TARP, not the stimulus. The stimulus cost 814 billion dollars. Here's a link to that info:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/25/mark-tapscott/did-stimulus-cost-more-war-iraq/
This is still Ryan A, but I guess you have to use an ID or the site won't let you post more than once in a row...
ReplyDeleteYou have too much time on your hands, get a girlfriend. I'm not going to defend every nit picking point. Like it or not, "facing potentially" huge losses (possibility) and "incurring" huge losses (fact) are two different things. The jury is still out on the last $50 billion, but you do realize that TARP, like it or not, was associated heavily with the stimulus.
ReplyDeleteThe Recovery Act is just that, and ACT which like everything else, cost money, but has long term benefits. Look you can quote articles wonderfully, but you have still not presented any real point other than you like to see your words on a screen.
You are nit picking like someone who gets mad when they use the word "Band-Aid" for an adhesive strip of another brand. I recommend you start smoking pot you will feel better.
I guess I figured that's how you'd reply. You seem like that kind of guy. But, in all honesty, wouldn't you prefer to know if something you thought was true wasn't, so that you'd be better equipped to argue your points with actual truth and not have to pretend?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, though. Work is kind of quiet right now so I have some free time and am probably wasting it here. But weed won't fix all of our problems, though. And while my girl is wonderful, I still think it's important for people to engage those outside their circle and not limit themselves to the echo chamber of family and friends.
Your blog wouldn't let me finish my reply, so I'll leave an abbreviated version here:
I'm against war in all its forms, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think a lot of young and innocent people are dying to line the pockets of a lot of old and guilty people here. I respect soldiers, many of whom are friends and family, but I don't respect the billionaires who send them to die and kill. This is the story of war and the capitalism that feeds it. I think claiming that the wars are "misguided" ignores these facts by pretending that the people at the top simply didn't know what they were doing. They did, and what they did was horrible. They should be held accountable, not let off the hook because they were "misguided".
I also think there are many more reasons the Dems lost than I can or did provide you with. (Sorry for boring you, though, readers!) You know just as well as I do, though, that even the strongest logic can't change a stubborn and made up mind. Fox News doesn't help either.
If you don't want to discuss these things, though, you don't have to. Like I said, I was shown your blog and this was my reaction. I don't really feel inclined to stick around except to finish the convo I started, though, so if you're done I'll dip out.
If you think I used the word misguided to let anyone off the hook you are considerably more inept at the English language than I though you were. Maybe a dictionary or a closer reading of the article might serve you well. Given your love of nit-picking I'm sure you will find it fun.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, you provided no actual truth, just different opinions on the same facts. Your opinion is no more truth than anyone else's. I can't help it if you come across as someone with too much time on their hands, so desperate to make a point that you nit pick to the brink of exhaustion and outright boredom.
I was giving my opinions, since you made it clear that providing facts was "nitpicking". I can't help it if you come off like a cranky old guy who thinks he knows everything and then gets pissed off when it's proven that he doesn't. You post this on the internet so people will read it, no?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't seem like there's much happening here, though, so in the grand tradition of ultimately inconsequential comment section conversations like this, this is my "i get the last word and tell you yr blog sux as i leave 4EVR!" post....feel free to reply with your "no way i get the last word yr a loser dnt come back" and i won't read it so that we can keep the tradition alive
Whatever, I can't help it if you have no grasp of the English language.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with anyone's opinion, as I come on here presenting mine. I can't help it if you have no real argument and spend all day looking for online articles to disprove a point no one was trying to make anyway. Those seem more like the actions of not only a cranky old man, but one with no stable means of employment. You can't blame that on me either.
If this guy Ryan wasnt so stupid he would see that he is making the same argument as the author just from a different angle
ReplyDeleteYo if your response is going to be longer than his whole blog you need to be right but you are not get a life
ReplyDelete