Observations 11.18

I really try not to take one side or the other in the whole Palestine, Israel, Jewish, Muslim historical mess. You really can't win no matter what you say and anybody that knows me can figure out how I feel. Last night an Israeli jet bombed a building housing international journalists and an Israeli missile killed 11 civilians bringing the current death toll in Gaza to over seventy. Another 660 have been injured including well over 200 children. As far as I can tell four Israelis have been killed so far by the dreaded Hamas rocket barrage.

You can call them terrorists, victims, innocents, or anything in between but it doesn't matter in the end. Dead is dead. These are the names of the Palestinian dead as of Sunday morning with their age where it was available. Also children under ten years old are italicized. As to what it means, make and up your own mind.

Abdula Muzanar, Amina Muzana, Suhaila Dalou, Raneen Al Dalou (22), Son of Suheil Hammad, Suheil Hammad (45), Hussam Abu Shaweesh (37), Abdallah Al-Mzannar, Tahani Al-Dalou (46), Samah Al-Dalou (25), Sulifa Al-Dalou (50), Nawal Abdelaal (52), Ahmad Essam Al-Nahhal (25), Tasneem Zuheir Al-Nahhal (13), Eyad Abu Khusa (18 months), Muhamed Abu Nuqira, Tamer Salamah Abu Sufyan (3), Gumana Salamah Abu Sufyan (1), Omar Mohammad Hmeid (26), Tamer
Al-Hemry, Samaher Qudieh (33), Mohammad Al-Louji, Awad Hamdi
An-Nahhal, Mokhlis Adwan, Hasan Isaed, Abdulrahman Al-Masri, Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52), Osama Abdel Jawad, Ashraf Darwish, Ali Al-Mana’ma, Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Ahmad Abu Musameh, Ayman Saleem, Khalid Khalil al-Shayer (28), Walid Abadleh (4), Hasan Salim al-Hulei (27), Ziad Farhan Abu Jalal (23), Majd Abu Jalal (33), Abu Jalal (43), Mahmoud Sa’ad-Allah (3), Tahrir Suleiman (22), Ismail Qandil (24), Fares al-Bassiouni (5), Oday Jamal Nasser (16), Tareq Jamal Naser (14), Haneen Tafesh (10 months), Walid al-Abadleh (18 months), Khaled Abu An-Nasr, Rami Hamamd, Hisham Mohammad Al-Ghalban, Wael Haidar Al-Ghalban, Habes Masbah (30), Mahmoud Abu Sawaween (65), Omar Jihad al-Mash-Harawi (11), Heba Adel
al-Mash-Harawi (18 and pregnant with twins), Essam Mahmoud Abu
al-Ma’za (19), Mohammad Hani Kaseeh (18), Ranaan Yousef Arafat (3), Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52),
and Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52).

11:00PM update - I'm not going to keep doing this but after an early Monday morning (Gaza time) airstrike leveled two homes I thought I would continue the list till the end of my day. The new names include five more children: Hussein Nasr (7), Jalal Naser (39), Ahmad Abu Amra, Samy Al-Ghfeir (22), Jamal Al-Dalou, Ibrahim Mohammed Jamal 
Al-Dalou (1), Yousef Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (10), Jamal Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (7), Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou, Mohammed Bakr Al-Of (24), Mohammed Salama Jundeya, Hussein Jalal Nasser (8), Nabeel Ahmad Abu Amrra, Nawal Abed al-Ali, Saadiyya al-Theib,
and Atiyyeh Mubarak (54).

Sunday Observations 11.18

Thanksgiving is Thursday so I suppose it is officially the holiday season now. It's cold enough in the Village and I went ice skating last night but something still seems to be missing. Oh yes, the NHL is still pretending to be a league on the level of the NFL and there is still no major league hockey. Some Philadelphia Flyers players are going to play some of the hated Rangers in Atlantic City Saturday night to raise money for Sandy victims and my brother has tickets. This now makes my Thanksgiving dinner goal talking him into taking his loving older sister to the game instead of his girlfriend, something that could be interesting with her sitting there. We shall see, I'll just have to keep their wine glasses full.

Another sign of the season is that I have turned on my iTunes playlist of 500 Christmas tunes. Yeah I know, so not me and I sometimes really don't like the season at all. It's just that same old love/hate thing I have going with Christmas.

There was another bit of election news, this time from Oregon. Democrat Tina Kotek was elected state House Speaker by the state's Democrats on Thursday. She will be the first open lesbian to lead a state legislature. Openly gay people will lead the legislatures of five states now, up from two before the election.

Not much news on the secessionist front but there is this very important petition on the White House website now that I will post below. It has been there for a couple days now and the White House doesn't seem in any rush to remove it. Must be something about the Hostess CEO raising his yearly salary to $2.25 million than filing for bankruptcy and putting 18,000 out of work.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Nationalize the Twinkie industry
"We the undersigned, hereby request Barack Obama to immediately Nationalize the Twinkie industry and prevent our nation from losing her sweet creamy center."
Created: Nov 16, 2012
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY DECEMBER 16, 2012
TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 22,125

I would scream "save the Twinkie" to finish but to be quite honest I hate the damn things. It would make a good sign for the Walmart Black Friday strikes though so I better get that copyrighted quick.

Observations 11.17

I don't know if I have ever done a post that contained just a single quote before but given the state of the world yet again it seemed perfect dream for a gorgeous sunny morning.

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, 'Mother, what was war?'"
 Eve Merriam (1916-1992)

Observations from the Window 11.16

Age can be a tricky thing in politics. I remember when I first saw Willard's motto "real change" and thinking sure vote for the old rich white guy for real change. Yesterday I had the exact opposite feeling when Luke Russert was rude enough to ask Nancy Pelosi if not stepping aside as Democratic leader in the house was keeping the party from grooming new leaders. Pelosi, who is 72, said she found the question offensive and as much as I like Debbie Wassermann Schultz I would agree, what has age got to do with the job? Russert, who I also like, quieted down like a spanked puppy.

Now I give you Arizona Senator John McCain who at the age of 76 seems to have just lost it completely. First McCain trashed UN Ambassador Susan Rice over what she had said at the start of the Benghazi mess even though Rice was just passing on what the CIA had told her. Evidently CIA Director Petraeus was too busy screwing his biographer that day to appear himself. McCain's outburst prompted this from an obviously pissed off President Obama; "If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after someone they should go after me. When they go after the U.N. ambassador apparently because they think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me."

But it got even better yesterday when McCain held a press conference demanding more information on what happened in Benghazi. The thing is McCain gave his presser at the very same time the Senate Homeland Security committee was being given a classified briefing on that very subject. When questioned about it by a CNN reporter later in the day McCain went into a meltdown worthy of Fox News on election night. From the CNN article ....

"'I have no comment about my schedule and I'm not going to comment on how I spend my time to the media," McCain said. Asked why he wouldn't comment, McCain grew agitated: "Because I have the right as a senator to have no comment and who the hell are you to tell me I can or not?" When CNN noted that McCain had missed a key meeting on a subject the senator has been intensely upset about, McCain said, "I'm upset that you keep badgering me.'”

Where will McCain go next? Maybe, as The Daily Kos noted, he will demand a hearing into which hearings he should have attended while demanding more hearings.

Observations on Amerika 11.13

Not long after President Obama's reelection the spirit of Jefferson Davis infected some people and they have filed petitions to secede from the union on the White House website. Now you can argue the merits of just letting Texas secede and be done with them but I have this fear of it becoming a narco-terrorist haven. A small country filled with religious zealots, a wacko leader in Rick Perry, and flooded with guns. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe we should just call it Texistan.

But this is the United States of America and if we can't have fun with secession who can? This is an official petition filed yesterday with the White House. I think it is courtesy of our friends at The Daily Kos but I'm not sure, maybe just its rogue editor David Waldman. It only has 25 signatures so far so please do your part to help this fledgling country.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Peacefully grant the State of Herp-a-Derp to withdraw from the United States of America & create its own NEW government
As the founding fathers of the United States of America made clear in the Declaration of Independence in 1776:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one neighbor to secretly let his dog crap on the lawn of another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Therefore, herp-a-derp-derp, but please keep sending my Social Security check. I earned that, yo.

Created: Nov 12, 2012
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY DECEMBER 12, 2012
TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 24,975

11/14 update - Due to the seriousness of the secessionist cause I wanted to update this with some links. The first is a self-proclaimed epic rant by David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement. Read his article and you will learn that wingnuts in 42 of the 50 states have started petitions to secede, "The Only States That Don’t Want To Secede Are The Ones With Gay Marriage."

On The Huffington Post I found something that's too funny. It seems somebody in Texas started a petition to have the city of Austin secede from Texas and remain part of the union. So far that petition has over 4,000 votes. But also in this article you will see that the Hardin County Republican Party Treasurer, Peter Morrison, called Obama backers maggots. That should give you a pretty good idea what kind of people these are.

From The New Republic comes the best of all, "Go Ahead and Secede, Texas. I Dare You," and the one you need to read if you read any of them. If you do read it you have to read it all from beginning to end. It gets a bit serious in the middle and you'll start to think that maybe Texas would be better off but the finish is totally awesome. I don't want to ruin it but I will finish with the final line from that column ....

"Don’t mess with us, Texas. You just might get what you want."

11/16 update - Sorry for this bit of sad news but the petition for the State of Herp-a-Derp to secede from the union was removed from the White House website because it violates the site's terms of service and is in fact fictional. Really? I never would have guessed. At this writing petitions to deport anybody who signs a petition to secede remain on the site. Probably just wishful thinking on everybody's part.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.12

Gloat: to exhibit a conspicuous sense of self-satisfaction, often at an adversary's misfortune ....

I started to gloat but as we know I never finished, than I was reading an article about the movie Lincoln and saw a quote from Daniel Day-Lewis that changed my mind about gloating. "There’s a tendency now to deconstruct and analyze everything and I think that’s a self-defeating part of the enterprise." Although it was about his acting style, and not politics, I decided to trash what I had started to just sit back and enjoy the moment. Instead of gloating I thought I'd just share some results.

President Obama was elected with 51% of the popular vote making him the first Democratic President to win two Presidential elections with over 50% of the vote since FDR. I have been reminded that Bill Clinton is the only other Democrat who has even won two elections since FDR, it still sounds good. Obama also won the electoral vote by a wide margin (332-206) so the wingnuts have no possible argument on the results. By the way, have you noticed that a Democrat has won four of the last six presidential elections?

Until now a marriage equality referendum had never passed by a popular vote but this year it did in three states (Maine, Maryland, and Washington) and in Minnesota a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was defeated.

Some firsts; Tammy Baldwin will be the first openly gay person to serve in the Senate, Mazie Hirono the first Asian American woman to serve in the Senate, Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth the first disabled woman to serve in the house, Tulsi Gabbard the first Hindu American to serve in Congress, and Kyrsten Sinema the first openly bisexual woman to serve in the House. As I have mentioned before there will be a record twenty women Senators in the next Congress, only four will be Republicans.

In another first the state of New Hampshire's entire Congressional delegation (2 Senators and 3 Representatives) is made up of women and as a bonus the state elected Maggie Hassan as its Governor. Also in New Hampshire Stacie Laughton was elected to the State House, the highest office ever held by an out transgender person.

In something not totally related to the election MSNBC beat Fox News in the ratings game each of the three nights following the election. Who knows the reason, maybe the Fox News meldown on election night or a Fox anchor calling Rachel Maddow "an angry young man" that same night. As with the election results and the failure of every member of the GOP's rape caucus results sometimes speak louder than words.

I never even got to Karl Christian Rove and his millions of lost dollars.

Finally all too sweet quote from Speaker of the House John Boehner. When asked if, given the election's result, his goal was still the repeal of President Obama's healthcare reforms he answered simply;
"Obamacare is the law of the land."

No, I have no possible reason to gloat.

Sunday Observations 11.11

To be honest nothing much happened this past week that didn't involve the election or the wingnut meltdown that followed. Before you ask, yes I'm still working on that final election post.

After reading this thought provoking article on ThinkProgress I have managed to rediscover the beauty of Buffy's sixth season. I think I've seen every episode of Buffy at least once but I haven't watched any in years, I really did miss her. I should add that 'thought provoking' are the words I use when I personally think the writer thinks too much.

Its probably a bit early for this but Christmas is on the way so I thought I should post my Christmas list in photo form. Don't you think it's much easier that way? It so rarely happens but by posting this I can call myself a fashion blogger too.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.9

The record twenty women who will be serving in the U.S. Senate at the start of the 113th Congress with the newly elected in bold:

Kelly Ayotte (D-NH)
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Diane Feinstein (D-CA)
Deb Fischer (R-NE)
Kirsten Gillbrand (D-NY)
Kay Hagen (D-NC)
Heidie Heitkamp (D-ND)
Mazie Hirono (D-HA)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.8

It's about time to retire the Election 2012 headline but I said I would get back to how historic the day was. Maybe we need to wait a couple years to really say but there are some simple facts that made the day historic and some not so simple ideas. I think I'm going to break this into two parts though. First a few thoughts on the Republican Party, which I may have sent to the dustbin of history a bit early, and than some outright gloating about the winners on Tuesday.

I heard something yesterday that is just dead on, the right wing media runs the Republican Party and not the other way around. They set the tone and the wingnuts run with it and enforce what the talking idiots say. On top of that they get all their news from the same place, Fox News, so it's gotten to the point that they believe everything they say to each other and really can't comprehend that maybe their stands on issues are just way out of line with where the country is going. Tuesday night they were collectively stunned by the results because they do believe all their own bull shit.

The Republican Party itself has to realize this country isn't just changing, it has already changed in many ways. Every month 50,000 Hispanic children turn 18 and they vote. As much as I hate to say it Dubya, because he was Governor of Texas, actually thought out an immigration policy and got almost half the Hispanic vote while Willard got just a quarter of it. Simply trotting out Mark Rubio as the token Hispanic VP candidate would't have mattered even though Bill O'Reilly seems to think that's all it would have taken to win. Another interesting thing is this, have you ever noticed how the wingnuts always talk in code about Hispanics and African-Americans? They like to say that all blacks are on welfare and want free things while all Mexicans are illegals. Now the percentage of Asian Americans who voted for Obama was higher than the percentage of Hispanics but the talking heads never mentioned this fact. Maybe because it doesn't fit their code as they like to say all Asians are hard working and probably don't want to acknowledge that this group is largely turned off by the Republicans too.

But there are so many other problems for the wingnuts and Republicans. Seventy percent of unmarried women voted for Obama and as high as ninety percent of gays voted for him. They may still make the most noise on the subject but it does seem EWS (Evangelical Wingnut Conservatism) is beginning to lose its own culture war. Enough said.

This is just too funny to leave out. Paul Ryan lost his home state of Wisconsin and Romney not only lost his home state of Massachusetts but every state in which he currently owns a home. There are just too many of those to list here.

So could the Republicans have defeated President Obama? Honestly I don't think so but I do think there were two candidates that might have have had a chance. Jeb Bush, the Bush who should have been president before and was smart enough not to run this time, and John Huntsman, a conservative on economic issues but a moderate on social ones he was devoured early in the GOP primary season. Huntsman was the only candidate that actually scared me early in the campaign, the wingnuts took care of that.

Maybe the best and shortest description of the election result came from Charles M. Blow in "Picket Fence Apocalypse" a New York Times opinion on Wednesday. "No, you cannot have your country back. America is moving forward," he began. And than finished with this line; "Republicans are trying to hold back a storm surge of demographic change with a white picket fence. Good luck with that."

Before I finish I need to say this. I hope you saw some of the Fox News election coverage Tuesday night. The epic on air meltdown when their own people called the election for Obama was nutjob theatre at its awesome best, it just had to be seen.

Next up, and my final election post, let the gloating begin.

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 on Election Day 2012

I'm not sure how much I'm going to do here tonight, I seem to be spending too much time on twitter, but I have one thing for you to keep an eye on. The Republican attempt to limit voting in Florida may have backfired as there are reports of record turnout in that state. People don't like being told they can't do something that they have every right to do. Florida covers two time zones so even though the polls close at 7 PM it will be 8 PM EST until we know anything from there. A win by President Obama in Florida would be huge because it might make Ohio, and any possible recount there, a little less crucial.

8:50PM - With pro-choice Independent Angus King replacing Republican Olympia Snowe in Maine and Democrat Chris Murphy easily defeating Republican Linda McMahon, who spent $77 million, in Connecticut it seems the Senate will stay safely Democratic. Still early though. The Connecticut seat was Joe Lieberman's who was Independent but leaned Republican so the King win is a good trade.

10:00PM - SENATOR Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin becomes the first openly gay member of the United States Senate. No matter what else happens tonight it has been a historic election.

11:12PM - With wins in Ohio and Iowa President Obama declared winner of the 2012 Presidential Election. I told you so ...

Observations on Election Day

Generation Vote

link

Published by IVOTEnation
We ARE knowledgeable, we ARE passionate, and we WILL vote.
On November 6th, it's Our Turn.

Please Vote

When I first voted in the Village a few years ago I was a little uncomfortable, I was never quite sure why. Either it was a feeling I didn't belong there or the fact that after years of voting in a firehouse I was now voting in St. Anthony's Church, it just didn't seem right. I was up early today to vote before the lines got too long and I didn't have that feeling at all but I was uncomfortable for another reason. After a seemingly endless campaign it's finally over but I'm not sure a majority of Americans have any idea what it was about or just how important this election is. The winner of today will in all likelihood appoint more than one Supreme Court Justice, four of the current justices are 74 or more years old, and decide the direction of this country for generations to come. The addition of just one more conservative member to the court would completely tip the balance of the court and women, minorities, and the poor could say goodbye to any rights they once had.

So please go vote, it really is that important.

For the record I voted for President Obama and Senator Gillibrand.

Observations on Election Day 11.5

My brother sent me a text today saying he saw a billboard truck driving around in Pennsylvania that said "Be Ready To Show Your Photo When Voting." That just shows how ugly this election could become because the court ruled that you can be asked for the photo ID but you don't need to show one to vote. My brother and sis have come up with a little family protest and are going to be sure they don't have any approved ID when they vote. That is going to go over awesomely in our small conservative hometown. I really wish I could be there.

Donald Trump tweeted that you should be sure to vote (for Romney) because we need real change this time. Yes for real change cast your vote for the rich old white man, that always seems to work. I think the first thing I do after the election is remove the 'real Donald Trump' from any of my twitter lists he happens to be on. He doesn't even entertain me anymore but just shows how ignorant some Americans can still be. And while I'm at it I might have to purge my twitter of people that just complain but wont vote for this reason or that. I don't have the time or patience for the ignorance or poor spelling.

Something to keep in mind; in the key states of Colorado, Florida, and Ohio if the winning margin is less than .5 percent an automatic recount is triggered. The recounts are overseen by each state's Secretary of State who in each case just happens to be a Republican.

Considering its not yet election day it's probably early to picking a quote of the day but it will be hard to top this from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn't conservative enough I’m going to go nuts. We’re not losing 95% of African Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough."

Polls open in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire at midnight and New York City at 6 AM.

late update - Tonight Jeff Greenfield of Yahoo! News made a heartfelt plea to undecided voters that I totally agree with, please just stay home.
"And after all this time, you’re still trying to make up your minds. The overwhelmingly likely reason is this: You have the reasoning power of a baked potato."

12:15AM - The long awaited Dixville Notch vote ended in a 5-5 tie. Get some sleep people, it's going to be one hell of a long day.