Odd that nobody seems to be talking about this latest fiasco from our completely corrupt and financially incompetent friends in Congress led by the botox-riddled corpse of Nancy Pelosi.

Another bailout. Except this isn’t for an important part of the financial infrastructure, nor is it for an industry that has been over-regulated by Congressional acts and presidential ineptitude. NO, this is purely as a political favor for the U.S. automakers; a group that has long resisted modernization, demanded protection from better managed foreign companies, and continually pumped out inferior products.

This will be an interesting test of the nascent Obama presidency. Clearly, the Pelosi-led Democrats are floating this bailout balloon to see how Obama reacts. If he’s going to be a presidential ATM for Congress, he’ll approve it without a second look. If he’s going to start out to be a slave to the polls, he’ll bide his time and make non-committal public statements about “looking into the issue”. Or if he might say “Enough is enough” and squelch this obvious political kickback.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone outside of Michigan or Capitol Hill actually thinks this bailout proposal is a good idea. Obama is around my age, so he surely remembers when the Japanese car manufacturers squeezed into the US market and quickly proved how archaic and antiquated American car manufacturers really were. Toyota, Datsun/Nissan, and Honda cars were better, more reliable, and more economical than the dinosaurs produced in Detroit.

Rather than actually IMPROVING their cars, the US automakers have long argued for protection from the Japanese in the form of tariffs. Consumers can see through this and have been willing to pay a premium for the better cars. But now Congress is not considering tariffs, they’re actually considering just a straight, no-strings-attached, taxpayer-funded DONATION to these corporate troglodytes.

Kind of a nice perk, don’t you think?. Run an entire industry into the ground with decades of incompetence and get a big check from the taxpayers.

Listen, I can understand propping up the banking industry. We don’t want a run on the banks to expose the fact that our currency is essentially an illusion. We don’t want the world economy to come to a screeching halt because the dollar collapses. I got that when I took Macroeconomics in my freshman year. Plus, a lot of the problems can be attributed to some government programs that failed. Fine, I GET IT.

But Ford, GM, and Chrysler? Those are businesses that could disappear TODAY and have no effect on the worldwide economy. People would just buy Toyotas and Nissans and Hyundais and Hondas and Mercedes and Volvos and Saabs and BMWs . Pretty much like we’ve been doing for the last 30 years.

Nancy Pelosi must be stopped! And Obama will hopefully be the guy who stops her.

OK, now that the dust is settling on the election and the media is already cooling on their anointed one, I’m ready to give the President-elect a chance to prove that he won’t be a socialist lapdog for Nancy Pelosi. But other matters are more pressing than even our faltering economy.

The Russians are already posturing with new weapons.

Israel and Palestine have already abandoned the cease-fire.

Kim Jong-Il might be dying. And dying insane dictators with nuclear ambitions tend to want to go out with a bang.

All you Americans that thought the economy was going to be the biggest problem for Obama were wrong. It’s international relationships, whether the “war on terror” or the new Cold War or the perpetual unrest in the Middle East or the rapidly deteriorating situation in China and Korea.

These are life and death.

The economy is just fucking money. Comparatively, no big deal.

There are already rumors that John Kerry is politicking to become Secretary of State. Oh, good lord, don’t let it happen. I would rather see Bill Clinton get the job. Granted, he might take huge bribes speaking fees for each appearance, but at least he wouldn’t be laughed at for being a complete douche. Do even Democrats consider Kerry to be a suitable representative of the country at this point?

Put Colin Powell in. Now. Gain whatever international cred we lost during the Bush years.

The economy can wait. Seriously.

Welcome to Day One of the Welfare States of America!

Now that the American people have overwhelmingly shouted their love of government financing for everything and handouts to the ineffectual and useless, it’s time to put down our cardboard signs asking for food and/or money… and celebrate!

Once again, my fundamental faith in the stupidity of the American voter has been proven to be gospel as the media-worshipping sheep successfully voted in a Senator who has accomplished absolutely nothing in his two years of active Senate service, except for publishing two autobiographies.

Congratulations to the Obama machine, CNN, CBS, CNBC, ABC, and all of Europe. The media’s unprecedented adoration of your candidate resulted in the most lopsided media coverage since… well, ever. And we all learned another fundamental truth about the American people: they will believe what they see on television. And this might ultimately be the lesson that the world takes from this debacle.

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." – Ben Franklin


Other thoughts on this post-election day:

o Sun came up… check. I’m relatively healthy… check. Wife and kids are healthy… check. Work sucks… check. Life goes on.

o OK, like I said before, I really don’t care if gays get married, but the law is the law. Gay marriage has been voted down TWICE in California, of all states! Take a hint, people.

o The amazing thing is that Proposition 8 lost in a state where Obama completely obliterated McCain 61%-37%. Even if one assumes that every single McCain vote = a “Yes” vote, that means about a quarter of the Obama supporters joined them in voting against gay marriage. Think about that. Oh, and I know at least one person who voted for McCain and against Prop 8.

o Equally amazing is the overwhelming success of Prop 2, what I call the Chicken Liberation Act. Apparently, chickens and pigs in California felt neglected and cramped in their cages before they were slaughtered to make delicious KFC buckets and yummy bacon slabs. So, in an appeal to the bleeding hearts, pictures of chickens in itty-bitty cages were shown as evidence of the cruelty towards our future meals, and it worked.

Now, here’s where it becomes pretty clear that these liberal whiners don’t think things through. What do you think will happen to those chickens now? Do you think that the chicken and livestock farmers will suddenly spring for chicken condos and pig apartments to follow the law? Or do you think they’ll just pack up their undersized coops and pigsties and mosey on over to a less humane state? One thing for sure, the price of those whole fryers just got a whole lot higher. And not one single chicken was spared. Imagine that.

o Last night on HBO, I watched a documentary about the US Olympic Hockey team’s transcendent Gold Medal victory in 1980. They pointed out just how far down America was during the financially disastrous Carter administration with double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Cold War, and a nationwide malaise. And they pointed out how this scrappy band of hockey unknowns was needed to raise the spirits of an entire nation by beating our mortal enemy of the time, and the best hockey team in the world, the USSR.

So, watch out for the US Diving Team against the Chinese in 2012!!

o Nancy Pelosi won her seat in the House of Representatives. Considering she oversaw the biggest financial collapse in 80 years, her re-election shouldn’t have been so easy, but San Francisco liberals are funny that way.

o Al Franken is neck-and-neck in Minnesota to be elected to the Senate. HHH, Mondale, Jesse the Body, and now Al Franken? What…, was Joe Piscopo busy?

o Just so you know, I received at least two write-in votes for Vice-President.

One last plea for sanity...

OK, I'm just going to say this one more time.

George W. Bush has not been a very good president and probably deserves most of his bad press and dismal approval ratings.

Congress has also been abysmal and deserves their bad press and dismal approval ratings.

Why would people re-elect their liberal (and conservative) Congresspeople then? Shouldn't the House flip over completely?

And why in God's name would people want to elect a rubber-stamp Presidential/Congressional pairing when nobody likes Congress to begin with?

Whatever happened to checks and balances?

Anyone who votes for an incumbent Congressperson and Barack Obama is an idiot. If you think the economy was FUBAR under Bush (and it was), it'll be 1,000 worse with a spend-happy Congress and a liberal rubber-stamp President.

If all of the rhetoric about "change" was legitimate, there's no way in hell you should be re-electing the Pelosi's and Frank's of the world. In other words, anyone who votes for Obama in the name of change, and still votes to re-elect their incumbent (whether liberal or conservative) is a hypocrite and/or an idiot.

Here’s something that’s been bugging me (among other things)…

OK, we all agree that GW isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and that the War in Iraq was ill-conceived and mostly mismanaged….

And, we all agree that this whole financial cluster fuck is a bad thing, with the banks collapsing and the stock market tanking…

But why is everyone putting the economy on Bush’s back, when it’s CONGRESS that screwed up the banking regulations and put the Community Reinvestment Act on the books? If Bush is to blame for the War in Iraq, isn’t Congress equally culpable in the financial collapse and subsequent bailout?

So… we know Bush is out of a job in January… Shouldn’t we boot EVERYONE out of Congress, including the Democratic majority? After all, the financial collapse occurred under THEIR watch. Just as much as 9/11 occurred under Bush’s watch.

Am I the only person who notices the discrepancy in how the media handles these situations?
Am I the only person who notices that the liberals are horribly inconsistent in how they place blame in the case of a crisis?

Am I the only person who asks himself rhetorical political questions?

Here’s a question that bears asking half the electorate:

Is the United States of America the greatest country in the world, full of freedoms and liberties and technologies and opportunities that the rest of the world envies?

If the answer is “Yes” (and it should be), why would we vote for “Change”?

What’s worse?

a) Chief Executive of a state paying for sex from a prostitute who is earning a living…

Or

b) Chief Executive of a country sexually harassing an intern ostensibly working for him?

Or

c) Chief Executive of a state sexually harassing a state employee ostensibly working for him?

The guy in (a) is resigning. The guy in (b) and (c) is running for his third term in the White House.

God Bless the Democrats.

Only they could take the most easily won election in recent memory... and screw the pooch.

For those incapable of connecting the dots, this little peccadillo will re-invigorate discussions of sexual escapades from lecherous public servants. Which will lead to more discussions of how completely immoral the Clintons are...

How many democrats does it take to screw up a slamdunk election?

Ahahahahahaha!

I’m pleased to say that the Democratic party is every bit as stupid and shortsighted as I thought they were. After Super Tuesday Redux tilted the board back over to Hillary’s side, the Democrats assured themselves of a colossal cluster fuck of a fight for the nomination. With Hillary just slightly behind Obama, all they gained for their time and money was an increasingly negative campaign, which gladdens Republican hearts everywhere.

And the Democrats only have themselves to blame for the entire mess. Here you have a desperately ambitious political tiger (Hillary) chasing down a free range gazelle (Obama) in the open field. Now, with the delegate momentum behind her, you’ve basically tied a raw steak to the gazelle’s tail. She smells blood and will come out trying to rip out Obama’s heart. Expect increasingly vitriolic rhetoric from the tiger, possibly attacking the gazelle’s soft underbelly, AKA his wife.

For her part, Michelle Obama continues to say the wrong things to the wrong people espousing the wrong ideas. This is a NATIONAL campaign and she is promulgating rhetoric targeted to her husband’s base. THEY ALREADY LIKE HIM! All she’s doing is alienating the moderates and the possible crossover voters with her "America is mean" pablum.

Even so, the Democrats have exacerbated this infighting by playing semantic games with delegate rules and primary dates. Michigan and Florida delegates aren’t being counted by the Democrats because of some arcane scheduling issue. Super Delegates are the 2008 buzzwords, with most of the power in their hands. Given Clintonian history, most of those will end up in Hillary’s column, which can only hurt the party.

When Hillary wins the nomination, the Republicans will have a field day with the entire nomination process, pointing to the machinations of a power-hungry shrew who began pulling strings for her own presidency as soon as her horndog of a husband took office. It stinks of cronyism and manipulation, from a party that purports to be of the people.

When Obama wins the nomination, the Republicans will have a field day simply by using Hillary’s ads leading up to the primary. She’s been the Republican’s most effective campaigner, resorting to slash-and-burn politics to gouge at the pristine Obama image. Two weeks ago, people were speculating about her (hoped for) graceful exit from the race. Now, with the scent of blood in her pinched little nostrils, she is clawing and scratching at the Obama exterior and voters will remember all these scars come November.

In 2004, Bush was re-elected because the Democrats were stupid enough to put an empty suit up as their standard bearer. "I’m not him" proved to be an ineffective campaign slogan for Kerry. I really can’t remember anything else he said.

In 2008, McCain will be elected because the Democrats will be stupid enough to allow their two standard bearers to rip each other to shreds just to get the nomination. Rather than an empty suit, the Democrats will nominate a bloody mess. And they’ll curse the American public for not electing their candidate, when it’s really their fault for not choosing their poison months earlier.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the possibility that the Democrats would be stupid enough to put Hillary Clinton on the ticket as their Presidential candidate. I honestly can’t fathom that any group would be so shortsighted and idiotic to present such a divisive, unelectable person as their standard-bearer. But here they are.

On some level, I can excuse their hatred of George W. Bush and his various questionable policies and actions. This hatred has mobilized and energized the left who now have two putative candidates, both of whom represent a stark contrast to the likely Republican candidate. So, if both Clinton and Obama are the front-runners and both seem to poll reasonably closely to McCain, what motivates the various camps?

Well, the Obama-ites are focusing on the message of hope, the positive feelings that the candidate seems to engender among all races. It’s almost as if Obama is tapping into all of the negative feelings towards Bush and telling the voters what they want to hear; the world is a good place and we need to emphasize what’s good.

The simple fact about Obama is that he isn’t qualified to run a country… yet. We have no track record on this guy. He’s made a lot of really energetic, positive speeches, and accomplished very little on a national scale. This is like a company taking their top salesman and making him CEO of the entire operation. This is almost a vote for change… for change’s sake.

On the other side, you have Hillary Clinton. She IS qualified (or so her supporters would have you believe) because of her “years in public service”. I guess First Ladies are now considered public servants. I find it interesting that Hillary-ites want it both ways: they are trying to separate Hillary from Bill’s administration so they don’t get any of the blame for things that went wrong, but they want to count her work on the (failed) Universal Health Plan and her spousal influence as positives for her public experience.

So, while she has more experience in national politics than Obama, she also has much more negative baggage. At this nascent point in his career, Obama has no really big political red flags, while Hillary has her health plan, Whitewater, her carpetbagging to New York, Vince Foster, her law practice in general, her newfound riches (where does a First Lady get $5M of her own money to plow into her campaign?), all kinds of little “details” the Republicans are surely stockpiling for an October advertising blitz.

But the Clinton machine keeps chugging along, steamrolling through the big states, piling up the electoral votes. This is like a company taking their corporate attorney who has skeletons (and knows where everyone else’s skeletons are) and making her CEO of the entire operation. This is almost a vote for the villain… just so they don’t piss her off.

So, when choosing between the known (Clinton) and the unknown (Obama), half of the liberals are hanging their hats on the known evil, the other half are betting on the new guy who has never done anything. Which side is right? Or are they both wrong?

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

I love stuff like this. By answering a series of fourteen questions on political hot topics and weighing them, you'll get your top candidate spit out for you.

Not surprisingly, my top six selections were Republicans with the moderates up top.
Giuliani
McCain
Hunter
Thompson
Huckabee
Romney

On the opposite end, my political Luthor is Chris Dodd. Out of the democratic frontrunners, Obama edges Hillary, but it's not like either of them will ever get my vote.