Category: Politics

In Which We Learn to be Careful What We Wish For

The sun set on today’s festivities with the parade drawing to a close. As a random major state university marching band gave way to a random high school marching band from an even more random state gave way to a random branch of our esteem (and may I hasten to add damned near broken) branch of the armed forces, I found that I had had enough pomp and circumstance and started peering behind the curtain of the elaborate show that had been put on in the interest of flaunting our nation’s seamless transition of power. Upon seeing not a whole hell of a lot other than the usual Event Planning stuff and a whole bunch of money that perhaps could have found a better purpose behind said curtain, I decided to get on with my day and ponder what tomorrow might bring.

I really wonder how much all those millions (and millions, (Johnson, D)) of people thought about what happens AFTER the party was over.

Yeah, you thought the ride here was a long time in coming…It hasn’t even gotten interesting yet.

 

Let there be NO question, folk.

 

The Stakes is HIGH. This is not a game where you can slide in one or two chips and think you are going to keep up with the pot. You better ante up like you want to win, or you’re just wasting your own time and everyone elses.

 

Barack Hussein Obama did not throw the life of three four wonderful Black Women/Girls into absolute turmoil for shits and giggles. He did that because he felt the call to serve this country at a time where CLEARLY we were in desperate need of change(hope, too).

 

The man sensed that we were ready NOW and jumped in 8-12 years ahead of any reasonable man’s timetable knowing full well the risks that came along with it.

 

He bet on US, not the other way around.

 

We need to not let him down.

 

 

Party up and sleep soundly folk…tomorrow starts the real work.

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Georgia’s not on my mind

Time says…not a whole bunch…but a whole lot…

Some political observers think Tuesday’s Senate runoff in Georgia is a big deal, because a victory by underdog Jim Martin over incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss would keep alive the Democratic Party’s dreams of a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority to move its agenda successfully through the Senate. Other experts see the race as a big deal for the opposite reason; Democrats with a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority as well as control of the House and White House could overreach, leading to a conservative backlash in 2010.

But really, there’s no such thing as a “filibuster-proof 60-seat majority,” even if Martin pulls off an upset and Al Franken wins his recount against Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota and Joe Lieberman still counts as a Democrat. Senators don’t always vote in partisan lockstep; President Obama could succeed in recruiting Republicans on some issues with a 58-seat Democratic majority, and he could find himself stymied by defections on some issues with a 62-seat Democratic majority. In the Senate, even one determined naysayer is capable of grinding the institution to a halt.

And that’s why the Martin-Chambliss race actually is a big deal: Chambliss is a textbook Bush-Cheney Republican — and every vote counts. Sixty seats would be better for the Democrats than 59, which would be better for the Democrats than 58. Six years is also a long time. In fact, Georgia is still an extremely conservative state, so if Chambliss can win at a time when the Republican Party is at its lowest ebb, he can probably hold his seat as long as he wants — which would be good news for Bush-style Republicans and bad news for Obama-style Democrats, no matter who is in power.

They shoulda quit while they were ahead.

Ain’t a whole lotta difference between 57 and 59.

If the mojo is workin…the 60 will come. There aren’t enough wack jobs left to really hold up progress (although Chambliss is pretty much King of the wack jobs on the senate side)

There just aren’t enough Black folk in GA to turn it blue…or is it that there are too many? Black folk?

THIS is why Obama didnt do much more than spit a lukewarm 16…while everyone except Barry Goldwater is on the stump for Chambliss.

They cannot afford to lose, while Obama doesnt NEED it…and can do without the negative momentum that would come with a big effort followed by a Martin loss.

Your thoughts?

Dont Judge a Cover Story by its Cover.

tny 11.17.08 cvr.inddGreat Cover.

Great Journalist writing the cover story.

But the article?  Yawn.

Barack Obama could not run his campaign for the Presidency based on political accomplishment or on the heroic service of his youth. His record was too slight. His Democratic and Republican opponents were right: he ran largely on language, on the expression of a country’s potential and the self-expression of a complicated man who could reflect and lead that country. And a powerful thematic undercurrent of his oratory and prose was race. Not race as invoked by his predecessors in electoral politics or in the civil-rights movement, not race as an insistence on tribe or on redress; rather, Obama made his biracial ancestry a metaphor for his ambition to create a broad coalition of support, to rally Americans behind a narrative of moral and political progress. He was not its hero, but he just might be its culmination.

No.

No. No. No.

This is not the end of the damn journey.

No, it isn’t the beginning, but it damn sure ain’t the end.

It better not be, because I got about 6 or seven more stops to ride before I get where I wanna go.

Looking at the Clock.

Sixty Minutes longer.

 

AND THEN we watch and count and watch people who have already proven they are two days late and four dollars short on getting stuff right in this election. 

 

I thought I would take this opportunity to say that I am just glad THIS part of it is over. And that I am looking forward to getting on with the next stage.

Now we wait for Virginia.

*Looks back at the clock…waits*

Caution: Shiny Objects ahead.

The game is winding down.

It has been a LONG time coming, and the last 4 weeks will fly by but seem like an eternity as the mud flows down thicker and stinkier than ever from the mythical moral high ground.

We..and I do mean WE…need to stick to the game plan.

and a LARGE part of the game plan is to ensure that we EXECUTE.

The PA has a post, as does BMore’s finest, TNC, about the nitty gritty of this event.

TNC’s commenter is allllllll over it.

The Times ran a story on voter caging a few weeks ago, and few people picked it up. They also brought up problems with voter registration. There is clearly one party that is getting out the vote, and another that is working on keeping it in. And when the vote is kept in, poor people and people of color are disproportionately affected.

End of the day, we can get all caught up in the mud, or we can focus on the REAL crime being attempted.

We need to let Admiral Cranky-Pants and Winky McMoosekiller do what they do.

The mainstream media will keep up with that.

WE need to focus on what REALLY matters.

Scoreboard.

The machinations are in place, yall and it won’t just be in Florida, or in Ohio this time.

And on November 5, it will be too late to complain.   We need to get on this NOW, folk.

We need to ignore their shiny objects and focus on whats REALLY going on.

And just what, do you ask, is going on???

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.

Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately. The screening or trimming of voter registration lists in the six states — Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina — could also result in problems at the polls on Election Day: people who have been removed from the rolls are likely to show up only to be challenged by political party officials or election workers, resulting in confusion, long lines and heated tempers.

THAT is the game folk…THAT is whats REALLY going on.  Tell your folk…Get your business straight.  Have your ID…have your card…KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING…KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

We said never again…WE SAID THAT SHIT TWICE….

Well again is HERE…what are we going to do?

The Bottom Line

Here is the deal.

You have a rabidly unpopular bailout plan that 33% of folk hate because they feel like they are getting stuck paying for a party they weren’t even allowed to attend and 33% of folk hate because someone told them too, even though they have only a passing idea of what it actually means.

John McCain made a BIG deal this morning about how he saved this thing and got it done.

Except it ain’t done.

Barack Obama made a point of layin low and trying to stay out of the foolishness,  supporting it tepidly at best, because near as I can tell, he KNEW it was ricketty and after watching McCain run out on the plank so far, he decided the safest plan was to simply mind his Ps and Qs and stay on his grizzle.

So, here we are, no bailout, Dow down 700 600 575, a Jewish holiday tomorrow, and pretty much nothing good has come from this so far.

And whose fault is this?

Pick a name out of a hat, and you would probably be right.

More Change we can Believe in.

Remember all that fuss about Obama’s Father’s Day speech?

No, probably not.  It was foolishness anyway, so let’s move on.

 

In this article by the American Prospect, you can find a good idea of the kind of weight that Obama wants to put behind the rhetoric.

 

Whatever the cultural or political reasons for Obama’s high-profile Father’s Day speech, behind the rhetoric is a new way of thinking about fatherhood. Obama is advocating for a specific agenda designed to remove barriers that discourage fathers from paying child support, eliminate policies that punish married couples who are working to get off public assistance, and grant public funding to proven nonprofit organizations that help men transition into better jobs, including those re-entering society from incarceration.

I read articles like this ne and I get almost apopleptic (yes, literally) about the overall discourse that exists in ths campaign.

I don’t need 24 blog posts about how YT don’t like me and my cousin.

I NEED folk to REALLY cut through the foolishness and get into the TRUE substance of it all.

It is out there, I promise you.  Let’s get after it, people.