Observations on the 2012 Election 11.7

Doug Mills/The New York Times

I'm so tired after a long but historic day yesterday, still some thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. To start Barack Obama won a second term as President of the United States. I really don't know what else to say at the moment. I was sure he would win, again I told you so, but still it's just such a totally amazing thing to be able to say that. One thing it does mean is the country really does have a health care plan for all Americans now. Also we can finally now say that the white male political establishment will never again be the same again, never. Never again will a party win the presidency with just white men, they will need a mix including those 'brown people' and women and poor that the current Republican Party so despises. Welcome to the 21^st Century.

This is something I have been thinking for some time. The Republican side is now for all practical purposes politically bankrupt. For the past four years their only plan was to deny President Obama a second term and they failed. There is no plan B for them. That realization was highlighted last night by an epic meltdown on Fox News and Donald Trump's tweeting for revolution, tweets that he quickly deleted when it was brought to his attention that what he was saying was legally treason. In his concession speech the candidate himself rose above that and showed that he probably is a good man and was brought down by his own party with their archaic ideas. Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts, might have won yesterday.

So where are we now? Hard to tell, a cynic will expect nothing to change. The thing is a second term president is a totally different beast who really has nothing to worry about but his or her legacy. There are no more elections down the road for Obama. The Republicans will have to work with him now or watch their once great party slide into that proverbial dustbin of history. Perfect time for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln to be in theaters.

The American people proved something too. We might disagree on so many issues but don't ever say we cant't vote and don't think you can buy the Presidency of the United States. Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, and all the others could have just thrown all their millions of dollars into a dumpster for all the good it did them.

How historic was yesterday? I'll get back to you, that question has to wait until I have some coffee and ponder it some.

Observations 10.13.1

This week in the Party of Lincoln, Part 2 ....

In Thursday night's VP debate the final question from moderator Martha Raddatz was on abortion. At one point during his answer Paul Ryan said; "We don't think that unelected judges should make this decision; that people, through their elected representatives and reaching a consensus in society through the democratic process, should make this determination." My translation would be 'we don't think what is constitutional, legal, or what a woman chooses to do matters. We think conservative, religious, wingnut men should decide this issue.' Suckit Ryan. For the record ABC's Raddatz was totally awesome.

To Ryan's credit earlier in the week he revoked his endorsement of Wisconsin state Rep. Roger Rivard after Rivard's challenger, Stephen Smith, revealed that 10 months ago Rivard had said "some girls rape easy." Rivard claims his comment was taken out of context.

Now, for the main part of this post, I give you Republican Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri who is running for the Senate seat held by Democrat Claire McCaskill. After Akin made his comments about the female body being able to shutdown in cases of "legitimate rape" Republicans all called for him to drop out of the race. At the time McCaskill stayed away from the issue unless she was asked. Anybody who follows politics knew why, she was waiting for the day McCaskill could no longer drop out and the GOP was irrevocably stuck with him as their candidate.

Wednesday was a day all political freaks were waiting for as McCaskill dropped the proverbial hammer and released three new ads in a 'it ends now' moment. All three ads feature women who were raped, two of which say they are pro-life, and one who says she is a Republican. The videos speak for themselves so I'm posting one video here with links to all three below it.

link Diana
link Rachel
link Joanie

Published on Oct 10, 2012 by ClaireMcCaskill2012

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.

Observations 10.11

This week in the Party of Lincoln, Part 1 ....

It's just weeks until the election and the Republicans are suddenly becoming security conscious as they attack the President over his handling of the Libyan Consulate attack. Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, suddenly called called his committee back from recess to look into so called lapses in Libya and the lack of more funding for security there. But from yesterday's Washington Post; "For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012." Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah and outspoken member of the committee, attacked the Obama administration even though he admitted to voting for these embassy security cuts.

Elsewhere in the party of Lincoln, oh wait, Arkansas state Rep. Loy Mauch called Abraham Lincoln a Marxist. But that wasn't the best part as Mauch also defended slavery; "If slavery were so God-awful, why didn't Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn't there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity." Along with Lincoln Mauch called Grant, Sherman, Custer, and Sheridan Marxists too so evidently the man has a 150 year old chip on his shoulder.

Now if you think those are just the rants of a lone wingnut you would be wrong. Here is the comment of a reader to an article on Mauch in the Arkansas Times; "Actually, when you get right down to it. Lincoln wasn't a Marxist so much as he was a war criminal. He suspended Habius Corpus. He killed more civilians than any other war we have ever fought in. More people over all died in the War of Northern Aggression than any other war the US ever fought in by far. Lincoln had his troops come to the south to beat and rape the women (both black and white). And, he locked up anyone who disagreed with him, journalist and preacher. There is nothing that Assad in Syria has done that Lincoln didn't do."

What the hell is the War of Northern Aggression? I seem to have missed that one in school or overslept or skipped class that day, I have no idea.

You just can't make this shit up.