The Time to Have Done Something Was 30 Years Ago

It's like people never get a fucking clue what has happened over the past three, three-and-a-half decades.  They act like the jobs "crisis" is anything new.  Well, what the fuck did they expect?  They kept voting GOP election after election, while the neoliberal economic policies they espoused was screwing these people over and over and over.

I really don't give a shit about them anymore, especially the white dudes who thought they were owed "family wage" jobs when they graduated out of high school.  Now they actually have to get off their asses and work to make themselves employable.  Now if the  younger ones would lay off the porn and video games and actually do something, they might have less to complain about.  Other people, meaning other workers, are not profiting off their misfortune.  Only the economic elite are.

The "middle class" has long since been "hollowed out."  There is NO return of "family wage" jobs which were entirely sexist and discriminatory.

The fact is the Democrats can't do squat about the aggrieved white dudes.  They simply need to fortify support among their base and go after the non-voters.

The Moore Things Change Department

The asshole GOPers like Mitch McConnell want to ram through their idiot tax bill before Doug Jones can be seated.

Of course Jones won't be seated until next month, I believe.

It was so good to hear sanity prevailed last night, but the vote shouldn't even have been close in Alabama. Defeated Roy Moore has been pushing for a recount, but he was rebuffed at least officially.

Jones may wind up being only a two-year senator, as the seat opens again in 2020. Luther Strange might run again for the GOP.

A replacement for Al Franken is in the works, assuming Franken actually does leave the Senate. The replacement will be Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith.

When she is seated, Minnesota will have two female senators.

Moore is Less

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Democrat Doug Jones was elected to the Alabama U.S. Senate seat that had been vacated by Jeff Sessions. He defeated controversial GOP opponent Roy Moore. Almost everybody, including yours truly, thought that despite all the allegations against Moore, he would still eke out a win because of how right-wing the electorate is in that state.

After all, Trump carried the state last year by more than a two-to-one margin.

However, Jones did pull it off:

The results of a special Senate election in Alabama on Tuesday will carry immense national implications for President Trump and both parties, after a strange and ugly campaign left voters exhausted by the politicking and confused at the polls.

A victory by the Republican candidate, Roy S. Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, would illustrate the enduring limitations of Democrats in the deeply conservative South. A win by his Democratic rival, Doug Jones, to fill the seat left vacant when the president appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general, would shrink Republicans’ Senate advantage to a single seat, putting their majority in play.

Why the GOP Bigwigs are Backing Roy Moore

It finally dawned on me today why Trump and so many of the GOP are holding their collective noses and supporting Roy Moore, and it is for the exact same reasons why Al Franken was forced out though he is taking his time resigning.

If Moore is elected Tuesday, which is expected by most observers, he can always be forced out by the GOP. Since Alabama's governor is a Republican, Kay Ivey, she can appoint a successor to Moore. It is a win-win for the GOP despite Moore's obvious unfitness.

Luther Strange, the current temporary senator, lost the primary to Moore to fill Jeff Sessions' seat. Since Moore is running against Democrat Doug Jones, the GOP feels it has to give support to Moore to keep the seat GOP. They can worry about ditching Moore later.

As for Franken, the idiots in his party who pressured him to resign had the same idea. Since the governor there, Mark Dayton, is a Democrat, he can appoint a Democrat to fill in the rest of Franken's term. Franken for his part is staying in until at least the tax bill goes through Congress or doesn't without a huge makeover.

I get kind of sick of the political gamesmanship that goes on.

Don't You Love a Mud Fight?

I should be paying more attention to the 2016 presidential race if I weren't so cynical anymore. I probably will post a lot more about the campaign as time goes by, but I just feel whoever gets in the White House will be beholden to the same neoliberal/billionaire/Wall Street interests who are raping this country economically.

Perhaps it is because I am getting older and am less and less tolerant of bullshit.

Anyway, the Hair Apparent, aka Donald Trump, is still making an ass of himself, but somehow he is ahead of his opponents in the polls of GOP candidates. He will flame out, of course, because of his big mouth.

If he knocked Jeb Bush out of the way, I would be happy as hell because Bush is the only one I can see of the GOP who can steal the election for the party. It is my belief the Republicans really don't want the White House; they would have to make good on all of the bullshit they have spewed to their supporters for decades if all three branches of government were GOP. They don't have anybody else who could beat Hillary Clinton, who I still believe, despite some real or fabricated recent controversies, will be elected president. Bush is a crook, and he is not beyond thievery.

Getting back to Trump. Fellow candidate Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was being critical of Trump over Trump's remarks about John McCain, and Trump turned around and gave out Graham's phone number publicly. Trump is a loose cannon, to say the least:

The reason? A feud between the two White House hopefuls that’s been kicked into a higher gear.


Speaking at a rally Tuesday in Graham’s home state of South Carolina, Trump began criticizing Graham, calling him a “lightweight” and an “idiot.” Trump hurled the insults after Graham on Monday called Trump a “jackass” and said Trump’s recent comments about Sen. John McCain not being a war hero were the beginning of the end of the billionaire’s candidacy.

Trump later read out the phone number and said “Give it a shot.”

Sanders Is In As Of Yesterday

I don't expect him to get the nomination, and I don't think he does, either, but he will keep the discussion honest for a change with our candidates.

At 73 he's a bit long in the tooth for the job, and that's probably the biggest hindrance.

Avoiding the fanfare that several Republicans have chosen so far when announcing their candidacies, Mr. Sanders issued a statement to supporters that laid out his goals for reducing income inequality, addressing climate change and scaling back the influence of money in politics.

“After a year of travel, discussion and dialogue, I have decided to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president,” Mr. Sanders told his supporters.

The official website is here.

Does It Even Matter?

Does it really matter who runs for the presidency or any federal office these days since both parties are such blatant sellouts to the elite and criminal classes?

Just the return of the brazenly crooked Jeb Bush to the national spotlight is enough to make one sick.

A Bernie Sanders candidacy is about the only one that would knock me out of the stupor of cynicism.

The American People Have Long Voted Against Their Own Economic Interests

It was pure genius for the GOP to keep blathering on and on about abortion, gay marriage, gun control, and all of the other utterly minor issues but effective in getting people to vote against their own economic interests, while the GOP want to continue to screw them over economically.

However, the Democrats haven't been acting like Democrats for too damned long, and in 2008 we got an absolute fake carrying the Democratic Party banner while at the same time ruining the brand.

People deep down know the system is heavily rigged against them, but they are at a loss as to what to do about it.

Thomas Frank:

The point of the Tea Party movement, back in 2009 and 2010, was to attach this anger to the free-market philosophy. Tea Partyers figured out a way to oppose the bailouts even though Republicans had passed them. They mimicked the protest fashions of the 1930s even though that was a period uniquely lousy for Republicans. They screamed about what they called “the ruling class” even though their bad ideas would only empower our economic rulers. And taking the novels of Ayn Rand as inspiration, they hijacked the populist sensibility on behalf of the “job creators” — the poor, disrespected billionaires, your comrades in suffering.

In their mission of rescuing free-market orthodoxy after free-market orthodoxy had crashed the global economy, the Tea Party succeeded. They don’t hold protests in parks anymore, but their distinctive species of cultural theft persists nevertheless; it will go on until economic conditions on the ground improve or until the genuine owners of the populist tradition finally take it back from them.

Referendum on Obama

That's the long and short of the midterms, and of course innocent and guilty Democrats are paying the price for this stupid shit in the White House. The GOP is deliriously happy with the results, but of course they don't REALLY want to govern, for no thinking person would put up with the shit they have been running on. The divided government suits these clowns just fine, and they will continue on their lazy asses "working" three days a week with at least nine months off during the year to prove "government" doesn't work for the "people" anymore.

Of course it doesn't. It's government of, by, and for the tiny number of financial elites.

I told readers of my misgivings of Obama way, way back in 2006 or 2007, and unfortunately I have been proven right.

The 2016 elections can't come soon enough for me, provided death doesn't come to me sooner. I'll be fucking 61 at that point. However, we may get a pair of dynastic types for the major two parties if that goddamned Jeb Bush becomes the GOP nominee.

You'd think people would learn after two president Bushes (actually one, since Cheney was the puppetmaster of the younger one) not to repeat the mistake a third time. But the landscape is totally different now. The GOP doesn't have to rig elections since both political parties are owned by the same crooks and billionaires and will do the same thing anyway to screw over the rest of us.

Election Etc.

Democrats are expected to take a big hit today in the midterms although I am not too fretful because I am pretty much onto the game those D.C. clowns in both parties are playing.

The GOP is going to be next to worthless so as to tell voters the next time around, "see, our government is the problem and it doesn't work," to justify even more laziness on their part while at the same time collecting their big pensions for doing nothing. The GOP WANTS a Democrat in the White House, even a faker like Obama, so that they don't actually have to do ANYTHING to carry out their poisonous platform.

Something MUST be done about the fact a handful of people are actually running both political parties and wrecking the country.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is one "Democrat" who shouldn't get another term, but he will. The trash talking of teaching and public education is proof he is nothing but a shill for the top one percent of the top one percent.

I Was an Election Observer Today

This was the first time I have volunteered for anything political since moving up here in 2010. As readers know, I was involved in northern Nevada elections for a number of years, with volunteering in the fall 2004 presidential election, and with being a delegate for the 2006 and 2008 Democratic county and state conventions. I had been too penniless to really get out and do anything up here, but this opportunity came up, so I took advantage of it.

There were of two of us observers there during the four-hour shift. The other person was a Republican observer. She had done it before, so she didn't need to have the orientation. The Jackson County Clerk, Chris Walker, showed me around the area and gave me a rundown on what I was supposed to do. She showed me the main areas where the election officials work.

It is a LOT of work, especially with Oregon having nothing but mail-in voting. After the envelopes with the ballots are batched, all of them are run through a machine which copies the signatures on the outside envelope. A group of officials check via computer those signatures against the signatures already on file when voters register to vote. They check every single signature of every single envelope to make sure they are comparable. They are further verified by two other officials so that each signature is checked THREE times. Those that appear not to match, or those that are believed to be forgeries, or those that aren't signed get put aside and the voter is called to come in and re-register or sign his or her ballot. None of these officials are forensic experts, but they have quite a bit of experience in handwriting analysis.

In the largest area are where the envelopes containing the ballots are brought in on USPS mail trays, with about a hundred to a tray, and are processed to prepare to be run through the tabulating machines. Today there were a total of 36 election officials at 18 tables, with two people at each table. The two people are of different parties, one Democrat and one Republican, although I noticed there was at least one independent in the mix. That way it ensures there is no fraud involved in the preparation of the ballots. One of the two goes and picks up one of the trays to bring to their table. At that point, the envelopes in the tray are divided in half so that each person has an equal stack of envelopes and ballots to work with. They first take out the secret envelopes from the mailing envelopes. Then when they finish with that, they rubber band those and put them in the tray. Then they open the secret envelopes and take the ballots out, which are stacked and set aside. Those envelopes are then rubber banded and put in the trays. Then the officials check each ballot to make sure that there are no unusual marks or they are damaged in some fashion. Those that are are put in a file in the middle of the table to be worked on later. When the official is done checking his or her stack of ballots, that person switches with the other person to double-check to make sure nothing was missed. When the pair of officials are finished with the ballots, they put them in a box that will be sent to the tabulating room so the ballots are tabulated. The ballots that are torn or damaged are recopied on a new ballot with a red marker, with one official reading off who or what the voter voted, and the other person using the marker to make a new copy. The person reading off the original ballot checks while the other person is marking a new ballot. When that is done, those ballots are put in the box with the other ballots. If there are markings that may not be counted by the machine, the official puts a tape over it and makes the correction. If there are questions about how that person voted, those ballots get set aside for further research. The trays with the envelopes are put on a long table, and the boxes with the ballots are also put there. Then the officials get another tray and the process starts all over again.

The tabulating room has four machines. These machines remind me of scaled-down versions of optical card readers (OCRs) like the one I used when I worked at Harry & David many, many years ago to read time cards and packing slip items. The tabulating operators take a box with the completed ballots (the boxes are numbered), pull some out of the box, stack them into a hopper ala a photocopy machine, pushes a button, and the ballots are run through this machine very quickly, unless, of course, there is a paper jam, which invariably there is. There are also some ballots that the machine rejects. Those ballots are put aside for further research and put in a separate envelope. When the ballots are completed, they are put back into the box, marked with a # sign to show they were tabulated, and are brought back into the room where all of the ballot boxes are kept.

Almost all of the election officials are retirement age, and the vast majority are women. If I am still around the valley in 2016, I would like to be able to do this job. It does require quite an eye for detail, however.

Our Glorious Election System

It's the same old shit, different election year.

The 2016 elections promise to be more of the same, especially if we wind up with dynastic types like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.

It's whoever the people calling the shots want. The process is more and more of a sham, but people are at a loss what to do about it.

Last week, the New York Times Magazine published a cover story on the role of billionaires backing rival candidates in the Florida gubernatorial election. This was followed by a report in the daily Times on so-called “dark money,” funds that go unreported to the Federal Election Commission that now comprise half of all outside campaign expenditures.

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” NBC journalists Chuck Todd and Luke Russert chatted about the “group of modern-day oligarchs” funding the 2014 campaigns.

These conditions make a mockery of claims that the US elections embody genuine democracy. The United States has been transformed into a plutocracy, a country where government of, by and for the wealthy is openly admitted, and in some quarters, celebrated.

The U.S. continues on its downward spiral.

What If They Held an Election and Nobody Came?

I am glad to see I am not the only person in the country who is completely indifferent to this election.

It sucks the GOP could well take over the Senate, but no matter who gets in, the country is going down a shithole fast.

At least in Oregon Democrats Merkley and Kitzhaber have safe seats. I don't care for Kitz at all, for I don't think he is that bright, but there really isn't anybody else to vote for.

Whatever the outcome of elections in the United States, the political apparatus as a whole moves steadily to the right. Since coming to power nearly six years ago, Obama has embraced and extended the major policies of the Bush administration, particularly in the area of foreign policy and attacks on democratic rights. The doctrines of the Bush administration to justify torture have been resurrected under Obama to argue for presidential power to carry out the assassination of US citizens without any due process.

In domestic social policy as well, Obama carried forward the most important initiatives of his predecessor, above all the bailout of the big banks and financial institutions in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street crash. Obama intensified the attacks on public education, reached several deals with congressional Republicans for austerity measures to cut public spending on other social programs, launched an assault on health care programs under the guise of reform, and arrested and deported more immigrants in six years than Bush did in eight years.

All of it true because Obama is really one of "them."

Is the Party Over?

George Will is being melodramatic, but there is the distinct possibility that the GOP might deliberately throw the election to Obama like it in 2008. This way once Obama screws up even more, this will give them plenty of time to field an electable candidate in 2016.

We know, or should know, the neolibs control both political parties, so if they decide Mitt isn't good enough, they will cast their lot with the more dangerous and destructive Obama, who is willing to do their bidding anyway.

They can't lose. It's the American people who will lose.

The only way Mitt will win the general election--and I think he can--is that he will not be the issue but Obama will be the issue. Obama's lack of doing anything about the economy, his destructive education policies, his willingness to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to "reach across the aisle" (or is it "isle"), his complete ineptitude, could and should kill his re-election chances.

It all hinges on how badly the GOP wants to win this fall.

Etc.

The double murder trial of Dana Chandler, 51, accused in the 2002 killings of her ex-husband Mike Sisco and his fiancee Karen Harkness, will start in five days. I am hoping the national media will report it because it is such an interesting case. Some have compared Dana Chandler to Betty Broderick, and the comparisons are apt.
_____

Mitt has won the Arizona primary and is ahead in Michigan.
_____

Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine has decided to hang it up because she is sick and tired of the garbage going on in Washington.

She is one of the few remaining Republicans of the old school.
_____

A perfectly good teacher found herself smeared in the media because of faulty teacher ratings.

Etc.

As somebody who has had two Lhasa Apsos in my life, I know of the breed's tendency to do what they want whenever they want to do it.

This dog was lucky to have survived:

Around 9 a.m., a train crew led by conductor Chris Myron and engineer Erik Carey pulled into the BNSF rail yard in Bend. The train, 80 cars long and bound for Pasco, Wash., from Barstow, Calif., was scheduled for a crew shift change. Members of the crew that had been driving the train through the night were planning to head to a local hotel for a few hours of sleep, according to BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas.

Instead of going to the hotel, the crew took a detour out to the Brosterhous Road trestle to check on the dog they'd seen on the tracks coming into town. Myron climbed up on to the trestle and made his way toward Jazzi. The dog wasn't moving. But when Myron touched her, she began wagging her tail and was soon licking his face.

"The crew was shocked that the dog was alive," Melonas said. "They were gratified. They've indicated they couldn't have had a better start to the new year."

_____

The hunt is over for a presidential candidate despite the fact he was the man most likely to beat Obama in the fall.

Lotsa Luck Dumping Obama

in favor of Hillary Clinton, but it's too little, too late.

"We are going to take our fight to write in Hillary Clinton to the South Carolina Secretary of State, and if necessary, to the South Carolina Supreme Court," said Steve Rosinski, creator of the national petition to draft Clinton. "We feel that South Carolina voters must be given a choice in this democratic process. Otherwise, it will be just another case of voter disenfranchisement," he said.

Rosinski is pressuring Hammond to change the rule. He is threatening to sue if Hammond doesn't act.

I'll believe it when I see it.

ALL Elections Are Exercises in Cynicism,

but this year is more obvious than previous election years.

I have never been so disinterested in a presidential election since I first followed them beginning in 1968, some five years before I was old enough to vote.

It's just that the power grab by the elite few over both political parties is so nakedly obvious now.

Despite the electoral trappings—caucuses, primaries, debates, rallies, conventions—and the accompanying onslaught of media coverage, there is not a shred of genuine democratic content in the selection of the next American president. The election provides the illusion of choice, but there are no fundamental differences between the two corporate-controlled political parties. Both the Democrats and the Republicans defend the wealth of the super-rich and the worldwide interests of American imperialism.

From the standpoint of working people, it does not matter in the slightest whether Barack Obama is reelected to a second term in the White House or replaced by any of his Republican challengers. The next president, whatever his name or party, will function as the representative of the political, military and corporate elite that controls all the levers of power.

I am not going to feel guilty when I write Elizabeth Warren's name in the blank for president. I am going to exercise my opposition to neoliberalism in all its forms.

Because the GOP Has Offered the Crappiest Field in Memory,

Iowa voters or would-be caucus goers have a hell of a decision to make.

This political promiscuity is a little embarrassing, for people who picture themselves in a state-sized Norman Rockwell painting: America’s sober, decisive First Voters. Now, many Iowans can’t stop changing their minds.

They are ready-made for Mitt Romney, but they don't know it yet.

Unlike Iowa, whereby voters have a rich sort of embarrassments, Virginia doesn't even get a choice on which idiot to pick:

After a scramble to gather the requisite number of signatures in his homestate, Newt Gingrich failed to make it on the ballot in the state of Virginia.
Texas Governor Rick Perry also failed to submit enough signatures to qualify for the Virginia ballot. Perry’s spokesman Ray Sullivan released a statement indicating that the campaign plans to review Virginia state law and decide whether or not to challenge the Virginia GOP’s ruling.

It makes one think the GOP is trying to deliberately throw the election.

The Wonders of Ratf*cking

You would think the GOP would have learned from Watergate all those years ago that what Donald Segretti memorably called "ratfucking" would go into disrepute. Not a chance. Even today there are websites allegedly catering to supporting an alternative to Obama, usually peddling Hillary Clinton for president despite her complete lack of interest in such an idea anymore.

Come to think of it, Obama's campaign and presidency are in and of themselves ratfucking operations.