Showing posts with label 2012 Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012 Elections. Show all posts

Thursday, November 8, 2012

A Strange Lurch

It grew upon me Tuesday night as I watched the results roll in, no one, I thought, remembers their predictions and their discussions after the election is over. Tuesday night I was in a hotel room watching the returns with my best bud but she gradually lost interest and passed out in the glare of the television. I was still convinced President Obama would win a second term, as I had bee throughout the two billion dollar election campaign farce. Cheyenne snored.

Generally I find the Key West Citizen's editorials to my taste, on local issues at least. On national matters they suck, witness this endorsement.

Aside from the fact that The Candidate Who Believes In Magic Underwear never found a position or political plank he could believe in for longer than five minutes consecutively, Romney announced to the world at large hat he doesn't give a fog about the poorest half of our nation. That doomed his candidacy, whether or not the Citizen was paying attention. Anyone who was paying the least bit of attention noticed there was a massive and coordinated and extremely well funded bid to oust President Obama. The Grand Old Party announced its sole purpose in life was to get rid of the African American President, the one they labeled a socialist. It mattered not too them what they did to the economy or the country, or what lies they propagated as long as the black man was removed from the White Man's House. Not because he's black but because he's a socialist. Except he isn't (a socialist, he is still black!)

Reading the rubbish in the Citizen editorial I despair of anyone ever understanding what the hell is going on. How could anyone believe Romney could reduce our dependence on foreign oil? To reduce dependence on foreign oil we would have to nationalize oil production. If we keep the current system of free market capitalism the oil brokers will always buy the cheapest oil and sell it to the highest bidder and they don't give a toss whose oil it is or how foreign it might be. Try convincing a Republican loyalist the only way to reduce consumption of foreign oil is to undermine the spot market by "socializing" it! Their heads would explode. And the notion that "strengthening the military" is consonant with reducing the deficit is ludicrous on its face. Try telling a Republican the source of our annual deficits is a bloated military fighting two unnecessary wars with 700 worldwide bases and their heads will...explode! Public Broadcasting subsidies consume two minutes worth of federal military spending! Facts are stubborn things and privatization requires paying stockholders dividends out of profits instead of plowing profits back into the enterprise as employees soon discover when wages are cut and benefits annihilated by Romneys free market economy. Privatization does nothing for innovation! It just feeds the one percent.

To further muddy the waters the mainstream press is avaricious enough to ignore the illegal nature of the advertising begging us to vote (state) in support of Biblical Values (church) a conjunction expressly forbidden by the constitution. Never mind, the value-free followers of the Magic Sky Wizard lost on all fronts and were roundly ignored by deadly humanist values voters who supported affordable health care, living wages, freedom of choice and in favor of allowing poofs wreck traditional marriages by allowing them to marry too. The Republic is dead. Actually no, the republic is more alive than it has been ever since Ronald Regan proclaimed a new day in America and since Richard Nixon declared a War On Drugs. The fact is though that President Obama is no socialist.

He has pissed off the Evangelical voters easily enough even though our Affordable Health Care is operated through and by insurance racketeers, the banksters who robbed us and wrecked our economy remain at large and even though his Department of Homeland Insecurity is putting out a bid for 30,000 drones to monitor our beleaguered Homeland, President Obama remains our best hope for a better future. Oh dear, I voted for him though I am no fan. I can only hope the other believer in magic underwear, the Redoubtable Harry Reid, leader of the Senate, will do as he promises and stands up to the bullies of the Right.

Every time I feel ready to give up on this experimental representative government some small thing keeps feeding me the hope that things will get better that a brighter future awaits. I honestly expect more of the same, a gradually declining economy, restricted civil rights, more work for less pay for those of us at work, and diminished expectations all round. How can it be otherwise when one percent of the US population, under President Obama's socialist leadership, rakes in 93 percent of the income in the land of the free and home of the brave. I know what a real socialist would do with that statistic, and that ain't part of President Obama's plan to make things better for the majority of us.

 

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Democrat Monroe County

While the Presidential drama gets drawn out on the mainstream press, which ignores the substantial number of votes to be counted in heavily Democrat Dade and Broward, little Monroe County at the bottom of the state has gone blue. Which is odd considering registered Republicans number 19,000 and Democrats are at 18,000 and declined to state are around 15,000. Yet the returns show our Congressional Representative will be Joe Garcia who beat his Republican rival handily. No surprise as David Rivera the Republican has a politica past mired in scandal and Garcia is a solid uninspired citizen, I will be delighted to be represented by a Democrat in Congress though I expcthe won't be radical enough to suit my New Deal tastes.

State Attorney Catherine Vogel will be back in town in January, no longer second-in-command of the state prosecutor's office but in charge of prosecuting crime in Monroe County. She left town after she lost the last election when she was number two in the office. Earlier this year she beat incumbent Dennis Ward in the primary because he prosecuted corruption and didn't flinch when facing down Conch notables in court. The locals proved their power and ousted Ward. It will be interesting to see how hard core Vogel will be when faced with prosecuting the offspring of local power brokers.

Dwight Bullard won the State Senate seat which like the congressional seat is only partly in Monroe County and thus is in the sway of Dade County which has so many more voters. Bullard is the scion of a powerful African American family in South Florida and his win was a given. Like so many who come to power by inheritance he may be a Democrat but he will be no great shakes in the energy or dedication departments when it comes to taking care of the Florida Keys. It's sucks to be a small County sometimes.

Holly Raschein, she of the shiny blonde forehead has restored the State Representative's seat to the Republican party kicking the bearded young Ian Whitney in the goulies. Seat 120 was held by Republican Ken Sorensen for years as he slowly fossilized in office. Then when he was timed out local hero Ron Saunders won office once again and represented the Keys in Tallahassee rising to be minority leader in the gerrymandered Republican state house. Saunders timed out this election and he appears to be headed toward lobbying for gambling for Indians which seems like a morally elastic life choice for the good old boy.

The mainstream press is waving around a big excited woody about the close Florida race for the Electoral College at ten pm Eastern time. I'm sticking my unimportant neck out and predicting an unarguable win for the President when the blue heavily populated counties across the state finish counting their votes.

I have long since argued the one percent like Obama, he has given them everything they want and despite the pathetic accusations of communism thrown at the First Black President by the uneducated sheeple, the President will win reelection. If he will subsequently survive assassination attempts a la E Howard Hunt, remains to be seen. As long as he gives the one percent what they want he will be fine, and he knows it.