Ballots and BS

We're heading into the last week before the midterm elections and the GOP is making good on their promise. Ninety million deep-pocket dollars are being invested in negative campaign ads, many of which started airing late last week.
One of the first, and a harbinger of the nasty campaign to follow, attacks Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford who is in a in a tight race for the Senate seat against GOP candidate Bob Corker. The ad casts Ford as a playboy with connections to the porn industry and, in one particular vignette, plays the miscegenation card pretty heavily. Thankfully, the national news media and both Republican and Democrat spokespeople have condemned the ad as racist and have demanded it be pulled from circulation.
Ford, when questioned a couple of weeks ago about his attendance at a Playboy sponsored football party to which the ad alludes, said "Hey, I like football and I like girls", or words to that effect. You go, guy.
It remains to be seen how much impact the upcoming barrage of negative advertising will have on the election. Traditionally, Americans claim to be turned off by negative advertising, but previous polls and election results indicate that the ads remain effective, so politicians continue to lambast each other and lower the level of discourse.
I'm still not calling this election, though I remain hopeful of a Democratic victory.
I like football and I like girls too. Okay, I don't really like football.

One Vote

My county offers an opportunity for early voting, so this morning I did my part to stem the tide of totalitarianism in America and voted a straight Democratic ticket.
We'll see on November 7th if the majority of the country agrees with me, and while I'm far from counting my proverbial unhatched chickens, I'm cautiously optimistic that some balance of power will be restored to the government.
The GOP continues to fight for their collective lives using fear tactics, their only real weapon, as seen in their newest, and most pathetic, television ad. At least they've dropped the pretense and are now unashamedly using Bin Laden as their spokesman.
At any rate, perhaps after the election we'll begin to see some positive changes in this country like an adoption of the suggestions of the 9-11 Commission, a minimum wage hike that doesn't cynically require a tax cut for the wealthy, a plan to save Social Security rather than a plan to destroy it, and some movement towards a viable universal healthcare program.
We may even see some accountability forced on the current administration in the form of hearings or, if we get really lucky, impeachment proceedings.
Hopefully, on November 7th, after the chickens have been counted, a great many of them will finally come home to roost.

Oh Boy, Obama

Barack Obama mentioned on this morning's news shows that he is considering a 2008 presidential bid.
This is good news for Democrats who don't see Hilary Clinton as a vehicle for a Democrat victory, or even see her as a significant change from the current pro-war and pro-big business agenda that has been foisted on the country by the Bush crime family.
Obama might bring some excitement back into a tired party and a mind-numbing political process. He's an articulate, thoughtful man who could raise the level of discourse on the campaign trail. As an added bonus, he really is a Democrat, unlike Hilary or her ex-pres husband who never met a corporation he didn't like.
Here's hoping for an Obama run.

RIP Habeas Corpus

This week the Decider-in-Chief took another step toward despotism by signing into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a law that denies people deemed to be "enemy combatants" the right to an attorney, a speedy trial, or even the right to know why they've been arrested. Said "combatants" can be held indefinitely and incommunicado, joining the thousands of the third world "disappeared". And you thought it couldn't happen here.
Who qualifies as an enemy combatant? Pretty much anyone that our illustrious president or secretary of defense decides fits the bill. Based on past statements, this could conceivably include reporters, bloggers, or anyone else that doesn't toe the Bush line on perpetual war. It's a sad day for freedom in this country, but save for a few scathing editorials the act passed largely unnoticed by the public.
Keep an eye peeled for the jackboots and brown shirts that are sure to come out of the administration's closets soon.
Can martial law be far behind?

October Surprise

It's been reported that the Eisenhower carrier group is sailing it's way to the Persian Gulf this week in order to be in position around the 21st of October. Why doesn't this surprise me?
The Republican house of cards is collapsing.
Bush's Iraq debacle is based on nothing but his megalomaniacal desire to be "The War President" and earn political capital, and he has all but abandoned his earlier product, the Global War On Terror TM. Americans are finally beginning to notice that he and his administration are incompetent, pathological liars, but it isn't the growing roster of crooks and scumbags under investigation or indictment that has wised up the public. It isn't the body bags coming home from the Gulf, or the gutting of the Constitution, or the debate over torturing prisoners, or the illegal wiretapping, or the ever expanding gap between the haves and have nots, or the lack of affordable healthcare, or the threat to ransack Social Security, or any other manner of piracy this confederacy of charlatans hs attemted to perpetrate. No, what finally got everybody's attention was finding out that the GOP leaders of the House of Representatives were aiding and abetting child molestors and kiddie porn freaks.
So, people are finally hip to the fact that Bush and his cronies are bad guys. This bunch aren't misinformed and they aren't misguided. They're just bad guys, plain and simple, and they've been behaving like bad guys behave. But you ain't seen nothing yet, I'm afraid.
With little chance of holding a majority in the House, and a possibility of losing the Senate, Bush and his boys can look forward to two years of investigations and payback, maybe even impeachment proceedings, if the Dems take over. So the administration needs to do something drastic like start another war (with let's say, oh, Iran) and hope the public will trot out more yellow ribbons and wrap their flag blindfolds over their collective eyes in a show of support, and not "play politics" while we're at war, and just "stay the course" and reelect the very idiots that got us into this hole in the first place.
Will it work again? Who knows, but these scoundrels have to try something, so why not send a carrier group over there to launch an attack? Or maybe to draw fire so we can retaliate? Or maybe even something more sinister. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin? Remember the Maine?
Stand by. And don't forget to duck and cover.

Let the Blogging Begin

Since I've always had a tendency to shoot off my mouth, especially around friends, I've had a couple of suggestions that I start blogging.
We'll see how it goes.
Rather than stick to any particular subject (although the current political climate has been on my mind a lot lately), expect this project to be rambling, and every bit as self indulgent as any other blog you've ever taken the time to peruse.
See you 'round!