The Survivalist Cockroach: There are two news stories one state and one federal (links below). One article has to do with Texas, the deepest red of the southern states and to me one of the most fearful because of its size and population, which wants to refuse to distribute Medicaid funds. The other article in the NYT is about Republicans in the newly empowered very red House wanting to dismantle "Obamacare" piece by piece. It is not so much the now I am worried about but it is the later. This is, in my opinion, the absolute worst time on the American political scene I have EVER experienced. Even during WWII, a dangerous era to be sure, there was, for the most part, a relatively united humane USA -- at least in doctrine -- accompanied by strong solid leadership.

The rancid RepublicRATS now feel empowered because of their House and even state legislatures big win. I have read that some wingnuts who were elected to the House cannot even read or barely so. It would not surprise me if this were true. Our country has elected the UNREASONED or a good chunk of it. I NEVER on planet earth would have thought I would say that if you told me this when I was 21 I would have moved PERMANENTLY to Canada. Now it is too late. If I had done that I would be, of course, worried about my neighbor to the south which now is slowly going insane.

Lindsey Graham, a rather powerful senator from South Carolina, yesterday called for a military strike on Iran. Does he REALLY think this country which has not prosecuted a war successfully, with the exception of WWII, could now take on three wars (or four if you consider Pakistan) with a volunteer overstretched army in the tinderbox Middle East and against Iran yet a huge nation that really DOES have a patriotic nationalist fervor unlike Iraq and Pakistan? If Iran acquired nukes maybe it would protect the world now from the cerebral synaptic disconnect of the US. Who EVER thought I would say that? I'm being facetious BUT when there is a truly fascistic extremist right in power in, at least for now, one branch of the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth compounded with a shaky global economy the entire world is at risk. Fate forbid red state whack-jobs here gain even MORE power.

These religious fanatics want Armageddon, see it in their binoculars and will sit around in New Testament Revelation form waiting for Jesus to come out of a cloud and save the believers. Keep voting in tea bagger wingnuts and other Republicans you just may get that WITHOUT the Jesus part of course! I hope we have ALL bought cemetery plots. Hey, with what they want to do we do not even need that! The cockroaches, nature's premier evolutionary survivalists, will inherit the earth. I think they will clean up the mess and do a MUCH better job than us.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40053289/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

LOVE: Click on this link. This woman is 106 years old soon to be 107. She is a lesson to all of us. The power of love and the power of music....incredible. She is the oldest living Holocaust survivor and there is not one ounce of hate in her. She is a survivor of Theresienstadt because she could play music. She plays her music still all day long. It is such a wow video. It is maybe the most poignant thing I have ever seen! I urge you to listen to all of it. It's only 12 minutes long but boy does humanity need to hear her song!

http://www.youtube.com/user/AliceTheFilm

Count Me in on Countdown: I could not disagree more with the The Boston Globe's November 5, 2010 editorial "Cable News: the Worst Segment in the News" criticizing cable news network's political programming (Link Below). For me it becomes a restoration of my sanity to listen to Keith Olbermann, and other MSNBC commentators with their their guests. They provide refreshing, informed and often brilliant commentary to critique toxic conservative politics most especially Fox News in the form of O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck and others polluting the airwaves often with bold face lies.

Fox News is a huge empire and will not go away anytime soon. The MSNBC line up is necessary opposition to the Fox insanity which, in my opinion, will drive this country into the ground. My day consists of either taping or listening to Dylan Ratigan, The Ed Show, Hardball's Chris Matthews, most especially Keith Olberman, the brilliant Rachel Maddow and now, the latest addition, the political expert Lawrence O'Donnell. I look forward to the day when MSNBC adds Cenk Uygur an inspiring voice for the left, and the wonderful civil liberties expert Glen Greenwald to its list of commentators. We need ALL of them now more than ever!

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/11/05/cable_news_the_worst_segment_in_the_world/

The Truth, the Whole Truth: Excellent article in the NYT link below. "How Obama Saved Capitalism" by Timothy Egan. It is WELL worth reading.
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)



http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage

The Truth, the Whole Truth: Excellent article in the NYT link below. "How Obama Saved Capitalism" by Timothy Egan. It is WELL worth reading.
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)



http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage

Simple Solutions: I was saddened to see the president so cowed, so serious and seemingly almost defeated when he commented upon the election at his afternoon press conference. He should be anything but defeated. He accomplished much BUT it is IMPOSSIBLE to get one's message out when one tries to compromise with a party who is at the corporate pigs’ electoral feeding trough and do not want to share their bounty with you. The president’s policies HAVE worked. Repeal of health care should NOT be an option and neither should repeal of financial reform. What should be an option is a LESS seemingly aloof disconnected president and a RETURN to the positive president who gave that electrifying speech before the 2004 Democratic convention and whom we witnessed earn a STUNNING victory in 2008. Barack Obama did his BEST to compromise with a party yearning –sometimes literally -- for his lynching. The elephant (pardon the pun) in the room is a racist white majority that saw its power slip and decided to organize with BILLIONS of WHITE corporate bucks to get their vote out NO MATTER how unqualified the candidate was. Some of the Tea Bag Republican candidates who THANKFULLY lost were a gut-wrenching embarrassment and bordered on pathological personality disorder.

While it is true that the people have voted change for economic reasons it is NOT true that the Hoover Republican approach to government will be the highway to heaven. It will not. It will plunge this country further into the ditch and that has been proven time and time and time again through MANY economic travails in the history of this country. BIG corporations and the oligarchy they bring do NOT care about you. They care about showing a profit. That is ALL they care about. It is true in health care as it is true in making toaster ovens. I do NOT want to entrust my health to General Electric! I do not want either big corporate power controlling elections nor do I want it collecting huge bonuses made possible by taxpayer dollars. I believe the greatest impediment to our economic recovery was not the stimulus but not ENOUGH stimulus. The public anger was not so much about the corporate bailouts because they are being paid back with interest but it was the corporate BONUSES about which the average American was apoplectic.

I have ALWAYS thought FDR made the correct policy about face after the 1929 crash. It was a HUGE philosophical shift because Herbert Hoover KNEW something had to be done to help the American people but he did NOT know how to do it and he COULD NOT bring himself to involve government in the process. Involving government in recovery went against everything for which the country heretofore stood. “After all,” said President Coolidge “the chief business of the American people is business.” He and all those before and after him up until FDR were consummately wrong.

I have always thought NYT editorialist Paul Krugman showed the correct path OUT of our Great Recession. The Rand Pauls of the world are WRONG and it will be proven with the tears of those who think is right. He is NOT. Government needs to CREATE more jobs WHILE raising money on the backs of those who have BILLIONS and can afford it while cutting spending which gets us into never-ending foreign entanglements. Fair is fair and justice is justice. Man works better when we all work together and help each other out. Health care is NOT a privilege it is a RIGHT and those who have more SHOULD pay more. It really is that simple!

An Angry Rant: I got 4 hours sleep so here is my Stream of Conscious. THANK GOD Harry Reid won and he won soundly!!!

I woke up to THIS good news. I KNEW the House would go but that crud Angle if she won I was going to take the first flight to China and STAY there and watch manufacturing soar because the Chinese are the wave of the future and that country KNOWS how to run things ... except pollution but they will get that right too. This country is FILLED with those who do not know their posterior from the elbow. So the party of the big business rancidness is the one to try to push forward our economy?? I DON'T THINK so..the others who follow that pied piper swill MANY are ALSO racist and they just couldn't stand to see a black man in office. Well I got news for them, this country is demographically ultimately going brown and I a white woman cannot WAIT to see it. That will be the best thing that ever happened to this sad nation as that part of this nation with their bigotry takes it down to the toilet!!

The only way to get jobs is for government to spend to get them and put a TAX on those swine who are 2% richest and own 70% of the wealth JUST like Krugman said but this country is too ideologically DUMB to realize it! The ones, the Republicans, who took us to the economic free fall dance are the ones who are going to cure the country's economic ills??.... I THINK NOT! At LEAST my wonderful state Massachusetts stayed BLUE and for that I am thankful. Take THAT you tea bag morons!

The Senate and the presidency are still in Democratic hands .... for now. Good luck with STALEMATE and a stale, mean, nasty, Ayn Rand the emotionally challenged jerk with her philosophy. I see a crystal ball of DOOM as Republicans will do what they have always done...be the party of the top 2% who leaves us all in the dust! Good job Tea Baggers you will get what YOU deserve!

Polling Place Patriots: I was a poll watcher for the Democratic party in my precinct. That means for several hours I kept track of a list of Democrats who had not voted. Others give the ones who did not vote a reminder call or a lift to the polls if needed. Being disabled it gave me a chance to simply sit at my polling place and do something useful! The sights and the interactions can be interesting. The polling place comprises some wealthier districts and some poorer ones.

I saw people walk up a HUGE flight of stairs who were elderly, infirm and significantly disabled. One woman who was both elderly AND had just come out of a hospital for heart surgery climbed up those stairs just to vote. Several people including a very nice police officer were there to help her as she struggled to breath. Another elderly white-haired man showed up bent over. His head came up to his belt buckle and he walked looking at the floor while he used a cane. He MADE IT THOUGH HE VOTED!! I don’t care for WHOM he voted it could even have been a Republican (well I hope not but it could have) the man VOTED. Kudos to him. Those were examples of the TRUE patriots who took their vote seriously enough to literally risk their lives to get to the polls. I was moved to tears. Next time when I feel sorry for myself I will think of these BRAVE patriots and realize there is a LOT for which to be thankful and those two people knew it because they used the only weapon they could to express their opinion — their vote.

Then I came home. I have about four Democratic signs on my lawn. Someone possibly who realized I would not be home — I have a sneaking suspicion who it was but cannot prove it — decided he (or she) would bend all of my signs. Naturally, I was furious and would not let that go so I walked over and tried to bend the signs back into place. One was difficult and being disabled I lost my balance and fell to the ground.

I was shaken naturally as I am not young and I have from childhood suffered from a malady that has left me with a severely compromised femur bone. I was very frightened. When I composed myself and thought about the two different experiences on election day I saw an opinion letter in the making.

One experience was saturated with a patriotic spirit that defines the very essence of who we are as a people and the other was committed by probably the most hate filled anything-but-patriot low life who thought that bending a few Democratic signs showed their power.

In reality it showed their weakness and their fear. It was the epitome of bullying at its primitive reptilian core. But the bullies only win if we let them. The next time anyone knows of a healthy able bodied person who is not voting tell them about the severely impaired elderly woman in my district who by shear determination voted and tell them about the white haired elderly man who was stooped over but with great difficulty voted nonetheless.

Patriots have given their lives so that we have the precious ability to vote and put signs on our lawn IF we choose. The vote can be taken away by the bully who must have felt so powerful twisting the little Democratic signs on the lawn of a disabled woman. I would bet HE would call himself a patriot. I call him a criminal and the police whom I called after I fell thought so too!

Dickens’s Day and the Jew: This is an email exchange I had with someone from a Dickens’s reading group to which I belonged. Someone brought up the Old Testament etiology of some of the Dickensian names such as Uriah Heep from “David Copperfield.” Another talked about the name of Ebenezer Scrooge from the very well known Dickens’s favorite “A Christmas Carol” I tied them both together and added the name Fagin from Dickens “Oliver Twist.” I discussed these names and associated it to the sometimes debated anti-Semitism of Dickens and even of Shakespeare.

Dickens's view that there is a difference between the Old and New Testament by giving his more scurrilous characters Old Testament names makes me wonder about accusations of anti Semitism that I have heard hurled at Dickens from time to time. Of course Fagin the Jew in Oliver Twist comes to mind as well.

He would not be the first British author to harbor the prevailing hatred of the Jew and manifest the characteristics which anti Semites have used for centuries in character development. Shakespeare's Shylock is remembered as well. The antiSemitism of Shakespeare has long been argued. Some say the character Shylock the Jew proves it and some say Shylock's own words exonerate Shakespeare from the accusation as he writes in the "Merchant of Venice" Act 3 Scene 1.

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that."

While antiSemitism in England was, perhaps, not as virulent as in other countries of the Jewish Diaspora it did nonetheless exist. Wiki states: "The Edict of Expulsion, given by Edward 1 in 1290, that expelled all Jews for 350 years" is proof of that. Curiously enough by the time Shakespeare wrote his character Shylock there were NO Jews in England. It proves one does not need Jews to have antiSemitism. Of course, Dickens would have probably consciously or unconsciously been subjected to the same stereotypical characteristics of scorn levied against the Jew.

Another interesting site I found with Google regarding the name Ebenezer: It stated:

"Ebenezer in Hebrew means "stone of help." Samuel took a great stone, named it Ebenezer or "Stone of Help," as a memorial of when the Lord helped Samuel and the rest of the Israelites against the Philistines. 1 Samuel 7:12 Or in other words symbolic of Christ, who is literally our Stone of help."

Yet again, Ebenezer, in Dickens's "A Christmas Carrol" must change if he is to realize life's true meaning. That is in and of itself characteristic of the prevailing ideological competition between the Old Testament showing a furious, punishing even greedy god and the New which offered a more advanced, true, benevolent, kind god through Christ who offers another way even to Ebenezer.

Clearly, from a Christian perspective one systematic belief system is more advanced and kindly than the other. Dickens' "A Christmas Carrol" indeed, I would submit, reflects just that. Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the entire Cratchit clan are made nearly angelic while we know pre-conversion evil Ebenezer has to earn his forgiveness by rejecting cold cruel miserly greed, attributes accorded to Jews by Christians for over two thousand years. Moreover, the true malevolence of Ebenezer can be seen when he says:

"If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas!” on his lips would be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

Those are pretty strong words coming from the anti-conversion Ebenezer. It is only when he finds the true spirit of Christmas does he, in essence, defeat death and become human. I have NO doubt that Dickens would have absorbed the prevailing religious doctrine of his time which invariably made clear the true superiority of the New Testament over the Old. In the competition Christians win and Jews lose. Uriah, Ebenezer and Fagin are all names either relating to the Old Testament or names used by Dickens ascribing contemptible characteristics often attributed to Jews.

It is ironic, indeed, that the prevailing belief and threat that Judaism posed to Christianity could have been ultimately responsible for the horrendous mistreatment of Jews for over two thousand years existing to this day when synagogues even in this country must lock their doors and install security systems lest some anti Semite come and destroy its peaceful sanctuary. Anti-Semitism lived in Dickens's era as it lives today. It is the longest and most universal world-wide hatred whether in Dickens's time or our own.

ONE LAST THING to my Florida friends and others who have Florida family/friends. Alex Sink is a WONDERFUL candidate for governor. She is SO much better than the corrupt Medicare/Medicaid fraud Scott it is astounding how the media say they have them in a close race. THAT is hard to believe since Scott according to Politifact:

"Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public and before the depth of the investigation became clear. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.
At issue, Scott says, is that he wanted to fight the federal government accusations. The corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle.

And settle, Columbia/HCA did.

In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced what it called the largest government fraud settlement in U.S. history when Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines and civil damages and penalties.
Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement, which all apply to when Scott was CEO:

* Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or ordered by physicians;
* The company attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals;
* The company illegally claimed non-reimbursable marketing and advertising costs as community education;
* Columbia billed the government for home health care visits for patients who did not qualify to receive them."

Scott wants to be governor? COME ON FLORIDIANS--VOTE Alex Sink Democrat for governor. She is a wonderful candidate!

To My Florida family and friends: I have a favor to ask of you. I have never in my life voted Republican NOR have I voted Independent. I always vote Democratic and have since Age 18. I am now 62. HOWEVER, in the Florida race, for the first time, I am endorsing the Independent Charlie Crist. There are several things admirable about Charlie Crist. First, he is an Independent but says he will caucus with the Democrats; Second, he has gravitas which phenomenal experience in government has given him. He is VERY bright and is on the correct side, in my view, on most issues including, the important to me, social issues; Third, Kenrick Meek while I agree with his positions does not have a CHANCE not one CHANCE to win. Reality dictates that Crist is the man of the hour for progressives and for those who care about the direction of the country. Republicans do NOT get it and you will absolutely get more of the same if they take Congress which some think they will. I don't because they are almost to a man in lockstep with corporate America. They are NO different then the potential speaker Boehner and Senate potential leader McConnell two of the BIGGEST acceptors of powerful lobbying money ever.

So in order not to throw the Florida senate to the most awful Republican Tea Partiers hands I implore to you vote for Charlie Crist and to get all your friends and family you can persuade to do so as well.

You will be getting a GOOD senator and sending a message to Washington that the Tea Baggers, while a force in politics today, are NOT the force they think they are and are DUPED by big Republican money. They are DESTRUCTIVE to the American body politic and will create further stalemate and division more of which we surely do NOT need.

I am holding my breath. I have some worry but I am HOPING that Democrats and progressives nationwide will step up to the plate and VOTE. If we VOTE we cannot lose. That is the variable because we have the numbers. But we cannot just have the numbers if we do not vote. Florida is slightly different because Charlie Crist has said he will vote with the Democrats and you will, if you elect him, be getting a VERY capable leader in the Senate!

Floridians, VOTE CHARLIE CRIST for Senate!

My Dad's Wise Thought -- Doing the Right Thing: Paul Krugman in his editorial today in the NYT entitled "Divided we Fail" is VERY pessimistic on the upcoming mid term election. He ends the article by saying "Be afraid be VERY afraid!"

I SAY NO NO NO NO! Do NOT be afraid that is the LAST emotion we need. My father who went through the Great Depression AND an entire world at war that put world Jewry and everyone else at risk had a GREAT faith and love for this country. I used to ask him weren't you afraid. He always said NO. When I asked why he said it was because he ALWAYS ALWAYS had faith in this country that it would get out of the economic difficulty and also that it would win the war. I said to him but you were Jewish and Europe was burning Jews. He said he was HERE in this country and that THIS country he KNEW would do what needs to be done.

In keeping with my father's always positive view (lucky I had part of him in me however recessive a gene it is) we MUST remain hopeful that as difficult as it seems the goodness of this country will show through. We MUST hope that the people of this land do NOT want hate. They want a balanced budget and jobs. We must HOPE that they see that the one who brought us to this horrible time and mess was the party who wants to get back into the power they lost. We MUST HOPE they see the one getting us out slowly is a Democratic president and a Democratic philosophy. We MUST HOPE that our country is good at heart and when push comes to shove our American people WILL be color blind and NOT choose hate.

If my father could be positive in a world of nothing but sorrow then at this time which, I think, pales by comparison, I can TRY to be positive too. The voters have the fate of the country in THEIR OWN hands. We can secure our own selves IF WE GET OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC. There is NOTHING difficult about understanding that. It's up to you to do ANYTHING you can to ensure the pundits and pollsters wrong. GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE and prove my dad correct that in the end the country does the right thing!

This is a response to Joan Vennochi's 10/28/10 column in the Boston Globe entitled "A star on the GOP stage" which proclaims the virtues of the Republican governor of New Jersey and big mouth in chief, Chris Christie.

Really, Ms. Vennochi, you are calling the puffed up chauvinist Chris Christi a STAR? Why because he may be able to "NAIL the SNOOKY vote!” Oh now that is a claim to fame I can admire -- someone who captures the Snooky vote! I cannot wait until we have a president who appeals to those brilliants who watch "Jersey Shore." You say "Christie has what other politicians desperately seek: AUTHENTICITY?" Is authenticity a euphemism for charismatic BOAR. I thought we just got rid of a macho strutting dolt in 2008 who nearly ran the ship of state aground and who by his moronic policies buried thousands of our young. So the thing you admire is Christi's charismatic straight talk telling it just like it is. Please explain to me how New Jersey is going to recoup the money ALREADY spent for a tunnel half completed but now stopped.

While your at it please ask him what magazines he reads and see if he stumbles answering that brain tickler just like Sarah Barracuda genius did. You say Republican consultant Todd Domke says "He's no less appealing because he's a big guy. In fact it sort of goes with his Everyman persona. He is not out bicycling like John Kerry ... He' busy cutting the fat out of state government." Isn't that special and ironic! Now he's just like Everyman and wow he may even be ME. No I don't think I identify with THAT type of Everyman. Bicycling, though, it is true is oh so sheik, elitist and intelligent. It's certainly not at all what the American Everyman does and absolutely NOT what Americans want their politicos to be -- INTELLIGENT. They LOVE guys who wolf down burgers dripping in fat and drenched in cheese who can take up the cudgels finger-pointing and threatening an elderly man merely asking a question that Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, cannot answer. What a guy if only ALL of our elected officials were just like that.

Maybe Chris Christie should THINK about cutting is own PLETHORA rolls of fat rather than cut programs of a state in desperate need of services before a myocardial infarction stops his cost cutting adventure in its tracks or would that be just too elitist to do -- READ A BOOK on nutrition. While your proclaiming this latest Republican blowhard's ever-so-American characteristics I have JUST the book for you to read: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce.

Night and Day: I read Glen Greenwald from Salon.com. He is critical ... very critical of the president and his editorial today which in part is about the election is no different. "College Events and Other Matters." Scroll down to No. 4 (link below).

My post was done quickly and, perhaps, is not the most articulate I have written. It gets, however, the point across. I disagreed with his sentiments.

Sorry Glen, BUT

This does not take away from the fact that I look to Glen Greenwald as one source when I formulate my own ideas. He is brilliant and I am thrilled he is on our side. Having said that I think he does what SO many on the left do and that is indict the president for not being LEFT enough.

Why the Democrats MAY lose Congress has more to do with the state of the economy and MUCH more to do as well with the fact that SO many in this country would not know their posterior from their elbow where things political are concerned. They simply do not get it. The nature of this electorate has been a McDonald's generation for quite some time. If they do not get what they want when they want it -- IMMEDIATELY if not sooner -- then to heck with you we will vote for the other side not understanding squat what getting the other side REALLY means.

Either you want to help this country, care about humane causes or you don't. When you criticize president, and I have been guilty of doing that sometimes as well, you throw the election into not just the opposition's hands but an opposition that is even MORE right wing nutty than the one that came before it if that is possible. They are irrational, ignorant, fanatically religious and mean. Read Charles P. Pierce's book "Idiot America: How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" with George Washington on the cover riding a saddled up dinosaur -- just what some of the religious wingnuts think. This is part of the face of the Republican Party!

Part of the left errs to think that both parties are the same. HOW on earth can one look at those who comprise the extremist Republican party now and say that the two parties are no different?

The two parties could not be MORE different. The president supported TARP but he did so WITH RESTRICTIONS. Bush wanted NO restrictions. Are you kidding me? The banksters really could have taken the money and run without payback kind of like Bonnie and Clyde without the guns.

Republicans are the same re: the social issues. What universe do YOU live in? Sure gays did not get all that was wanted BUT they got a hate crimes bill AND they got an administration that employs more gays who are open than at any time in US history including in the Clinton Administration.

My father used to say. What do you want eggs in your beer? I never knew what he meant but now I THINK I do. What do you want the WHOLE enchilada? You WILL NEVER get it if politics is the art of compromise. You WILL get worse and it is possibly happening right now.

My professor, mentor and often email friend Professor Howard Zinn used to say that change comes from the bottom up and it does not matter who is in the White House. I loved him BUT I disagreed with that. It matters A LOT who is in the White House. The Tea Party is the bottom so is that what he meant by the great grass roots? I suspect not.

Thousands of bodies lie in graves because of Bush II policies. They would have been alive today IF Gore had assumed the presidency like he should have. There probably would have been NO 911 and NO invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan.

The parties are both the same? My leftist compatriots you are living, I believe, in an alternative universe. Harry Reid was not the most exciting fire cracker in the bunch but Sharon Angle??? This is who you think is just the same as a Democrat? Think again when you criticize our president.

In 1968 we were ALL fired up on the left. Millions of us were going to change the landscape. What did we get? Richard Nixon. Republicans and Democrats are different as night is to day. Be careful whom you criticize you could and now MIGHT end up with something INFINITELY worse--a Halloween horror show! Anyone going out as Sharon Angle? Her face is like a mask in one episode of The Twilight Zone and she is JUST as frightening as those faces who were behind the masks because the content of their character and hers is so utterly disgusting.

Have fun, Glen, it's going to be a bumpy ride and it WILL give you infinitely more to write about. Try criticizing the REPUBLICANS who need it and NOT the president.

HOPE or a Moral Sewer: This is what you have to look forward to IF Republicans take over the House and/or Senate. See the article from mediaite.com (Link below) about Republicans impeaching our president if they take the reins of power: Is that what you want? Impeachment hearings for the president who has committed NO impeachable offense whatsoever and who was OH SO CAREFUL to try to reach out to the other side who kicked dirt in his face every time!

Bush/Cheney war criminals who took a nation to war based on lies, tortured, killed HUNDREDS of thousands, maimed hundreds of thousands more driving MILLIONS into exile destabilizing a Middle East and did so with impunity, get away scot free. Bush's ONLY regret: That he did not privatize Social Security. Now I ask you in what moral universe to these Republican sewer dwellers live? The fact that Cheney has NO pulse and is kept alive solely by the advances of machinery is a GOOD metaphor for what he is ... the walking dead! His policies while he was in power made hundreds of thousands of innocents walking dead as well.

We CANNOT let them get away with some of the MOST egregious injustices ever perpetrated by a political party in power. There STILL is hope. THERE IS STILL TIME. DEMOCRATS GET OUT TO VOTE. INDEPENDENTS, GET OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC. STOP this never ending sewer and rancid money machine that is the Republican party. GET OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC NOVEMBER 2!

http://www.mediaite.com/online/a-gop-house-will-lead-to-impeachment-claims-new-republics-jonathan-chait/

Remember Democrats vote on November 2 and Republicans on Nov. 9 to avoid armed Second Amendment Conflict:

Okay so it's a fib we all vote Nov. 2 but I can play the same Republican game telling Hispanics not to vote. Republicans LIE all the time!

The races for the Senate are tightening. This will HOPEFULLY not be a walk in the park for the Republicans with their tea bag side kicks. Tea Baggers don’t realize it but guess what? The Republican party is NOT about them. They are angry at the bailouts even though it saved the nation and the world from economic collapse and they think Republicans will be the ones to pull us all the way out of the ditch Republican unethical behavior made. Let’s hope stupidity does not reign.

Joe Miller of Alaska was ordered to show his employment records. There are ETHICAL issues and possible breaches. I have also read from different reputable sources that Miller was a difficult person with whom to work. Few wanted to be involved with him and most were glad when he left. Big surprise that is — NOT. Scott McAdams is the Democratic underdog in Alaska. Help him if you can. Emails urging his support would be good as well.

Big surprise tea baggers are corrupt…NOOO you don’t say? From corrupt Miller to dunce O’Donnell to Republican congressional candidate from Ohio, Rich Iott, who said that he did nothing wrong by wearing a Nazi uniform while participating in World War II re-enactments to Sharon Angle who wants women to have babies conceived EVEN in rape or incest by one’s father, grandfather, uncle or brother why because GOD just knows exactly what he is doing and after all you women who get impregnated by mentally deranged relatives just need to “make lemonade out of lemons” as Angle put it. She told voters to just “follow god’s path.” That should help ya after delivery of babies conceived through incest. This is SICK.

As if the aforementioned could not get worse, it does by the likes of NY Gubernatorial Tea Bag candidate Carl utterly crazy Palladino who sends racist email about the president and worse — if there can be worse but hold on there is — I am sure you have heard if not seen (IF you can stomach it) pornographic emails sent by Palladino which include bestiality. He emailed porno pics to his good old boys friends. After all he said he is in the construction trade and its understandable. He says boys will be boys doncha know! I’m sure construction workers everywhere were so thrilled to hear THAT.


These tea bag Republican candidates are beasts of burden to our body politic and this is NOT a joke. There is NO kidding when these people will, IF ELECTED, have a say in the life and death decisions of our nation and its SERIOUS issues. How these utter horrors even got to the position on the Republican ticket is ASTOUNDING and an EMBARRASSMENT to our nation.

There used to be a time when racist comments would ruin a candidate. NO more. That has become just another ho hum moment since it is part of the Republican/Tea Bag program — yes, states rights is such a handy philosophy to use to perpetuate racist policy and use it they do. I thought we fought a civil war over that? No matter. Republicans are about retrieving the power they lost in 2008 and want to takeover Congress so that the president can get NOTHING passed. They are hoping THAT will defeat him in 2010. DO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN!

If you Google to see who these tea baggers Republicans in various states are and help to defeat them either through contributions to Democrats or other ways a Democratic candidate may need help please do.

AND OH yes, DON’T forget to VOTE DEMOCRATIC ON NOV. 2 and tell everyone you know who is registered to vote to do so as well. I doubt if you ever will vote in a more imperative election again because the candidates in the Republican party are SO NOXIOUS, MORONIC and INSANE it defies description. Their election will LITERALLY kill us!

Citizens Disunited: Each day when I log on some new nightmare awakens me from the haze of an eight hour sleep. What is today's nightmare? If any of you watched Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann last evening or go on to MSNBC this morning you will have heard and will see the unmitigated insane curse a systemically SICK "conservative" Supreme Court majority by fiat placed upon our nation through its decision of Citizen’s United.

For those of you who do not know, in essence, that decision made the corporation the same as a person with respect to campaign contributions for political advocacy. It RADICALLY and in ACTIVIST fashion, which conservatives CLAIM to loath, overturned decades of law and precedent.

This means that the corporation, heretofore limited as to what monies it could contribute to political campaigns for advocacy, is now free to contribute MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars to any candidate it chooses. Worse, those same corporations do NOT have to disclose who they are. So, even one man, under the guise of numerous corporations, could give HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars in campaign ads and buy an election. Worse STILL, foreign corporations in foreign nations like China, or anywhere for that matter, can contribute as well. Supreme Court "conservative" faux Justice Samuel Alito when our president at the State of the Union address last year called this rancid decision out for the oligarchcal corporate money capture of our political institutions it is, insultingly mouthed the words "that's not true." Does it SURPRISE you that conservatives lie? In the oft quoted words of the "great" RepublicRAT minority leader John Boehner "HELL NO!" It does not surprise me AT ALL.

This is without a doubt in the forty years that I have been politically conscious, the worst election I have ever experienced. Not only do the RepulicRATS have a chance of taking the House and maybe even the Senate but the composition and MEAN-SPIRITED CHARACTER of many individuals under the Republican umbrella will be the ones who could win. THAT my fellow humanitarian friends is not ONLY unacceptable but WILL spell the doom of our democratic nation IF it occurs. It means that our republic WILL turn into the oligarchy that many have said it already is by the corporate money capture of the process. Well, if it is now, as the Great Depression era entertainer Al Jolson used to say, "You ain't seen nothin yet!"

The ONLY way we can HOPE to stem this possible hemorrhaging of Democratic seats is TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC on NOVEMBER 2, 2010. If you want to read more about this horrendous muck of cash coursing through the veins of our body politic attempting, like a myocardial infarction, to KILL it go to Rachel Maddow's and/or Keith Olbermann's site and watch their programs from last evening. They will tell you what you SHOULD know about this DISGUSTING phenomenon of our electoral reality in 2010. Money talks we all know that but talking is one thing corporate filibustering an entire process is quite something else. The RepblicRATS through their corporate lackeys have outspent Democrats 7 to 1. They are injecting, through Carl Rove’s cohorts and others, hundreds of millions of dollars to literally BUY a Republican takeover and put those in charge who will do not the people’s bidding but the CORPORATE bidding. Republicans are NOT for the majority of us! They are using even the tea bag anger to capture power for themselves and return us to the Bush years that got us into this dysfunctional MESS.

DO NOT LET THEM DO THIS TO WHAT IS LEFT OF OUR COUNTRY. They are the toxic brew we all worried about and the minions of Justices Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Scalia and the swing vote Kennedy installed by various Republican presidencies put this CORRUPT house in order. They and it are poison to our system. The ONLY weapons we have to FIGHT against this horrible reality are our own contributions to Democrats which I URGE you to keep making contributions if you can AND our VOTE. VOTE VOTE VOTE for Democrats on November 2. If you want a country left for the middle class VOTE like your economic life depends upon it because, as I have said many times, IT DOES!


Onward -- we are STILL a free republic -- FOR NOW. Forward this to anyone you like.

VOTE: Okay, I sound repetitive but it is because I KNOW how I feel when I hear the media's gloom and doom for Dems. I feel down and want to throw my hands up. Then I say to myself DON'T DON'T DON'T do that! DON'T fall into the trap of believing that which they want us to believe and to ramp up the pessimism to defeat our HUGE block of voters who voted for a president unlike any other in US history.

DESPITE some progressives who have been critical, sometimes I have even been one, our president KNOWS what he is doing and I believe DOES have the interests of those who are middle class and the powerless in our nation at heart. He will DO well for us if given a chance. GIVE HIM A CHANCE and by VOTING DEMOCRATIC you will do just that. Don't let him down, do NOT let us down and DON'T let the country down by putting it again in EVEN more vicious hands than those of the Bush era IF THAT IS POSSIBLE. It is. Those crazy tea baggers and Republicans are NOT about us. NEVER be duped for one minute that they are. They are NOT and are propped up by a few who have carloads of CASH to get them to win and save their BILLIONS.

Do NOT BE AFRAID of them and SHOW your power and VOTE for Democrats. Again and again tell ALL those you know and most especially those in OTHER STATES like Nevada to VOTE Democratic so they cast a vote for themselves. Sharon Angle and her mean racist ilk MUST be stopped. The HORROR of a Republican smashing victory is really too much for my brain to comprehend so I BEG YOU and others you know to SPREAD THE WORD and VOTE. VOTE DEMOCRATIC so our president can show what he can do! He has done a LOT even with an UNCOMPROMISING, intractable and anything-BUT- bipartisan Congress. He can and WILL do more IF he has a Congress interested in us with which to work.

Do not give up, do not falter and DO NOT FAIL. VOTE DEMOCRATIC. Our lives are literally at stake!

Onward!

My Idol: Maureen Dowd: Dowd's piece today "Making Ignorance Chic"(link below) was so good and so on target with what I have been reading and about which I have thinking that I sent a letter to the New York Times below.

Maureen Dowd's excellence never ceases to astound me. Who writes better and more eloquently, incorporating great literature, music and art in her editorials than she? I salivate with jealousy at this astoundingly intelligent interesting woman. I try ALWAYS to read what she writes. Her editorial today "Making Ignorance Chic" on the Palin paucity of intellect and the national pride it evokes is no exception, indeed. It was brilliantly written. Beyond that it is chilling.

In keeping with the content of her article may I make a reading suggestion to both her and others who read and love learning as I do. A book was recommended to me by my ever so astoundingly brilliant physician and friend. It is entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce. I have begun to read it and cannot put it down. I think both Ms. Dowd and the rest of us who cannot learn enough each day and wish the hours would stretch to be able incorporate the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Toni Morrison and Shakespeare all one day will LOVE it. This book speaks to the issue of the screaming ignorance of a part of the American public. It is both profound and sad that this nation of 350 million has such an overabundance of ignorance and worse it is proud that it does!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&hp

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!: Yet another FABULOUS book recommended by my friend who is a brilliant physician (Link Below). This one is entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce. You can order it on Amazon or probably find it at Barnes and Noble. If you happen to have a Kindle you can even download a sample of it instantaneously to see if it appeals to you as computer science, chemistry and physics work their rational miracles!

If you are in love with rational academic thought, reason, science and the PROOF it delivers as I am, then you will LOVE this book. I cannot put it down. I wonder still how this nation has DEVOLVED into an Alice In Wonderland world where up is down and down is up speaking Jabberwocky that passes as truth. Have we gone Mad Hatter Mad as some try to make a case for a literal unerring biblical truth and think Noah tamed the dinosaurs a mere six thousand years ago which appear at the Creation Museum in wax form with saddles on their backs sitting comfortably with humans on Noah's ark? At times I suspect insanity in this nation rules the day!

http://www.amazon.com/Idiot-America-Stupidity-Became-Virtue/dp/0767926145/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1