Republicans!! – WHY YOU LOST!

Just take a look at the NRCC “Issues” page on the economy.

Hello?  Today is Jan. 24, 2009.

Why would HBO censor this?

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

I haz an Inauguration

I’ve been ignoring this blog.  Not ignoring, exactly… but just looking at it out of the corner of my eye, sizing it up.  There was post-election come-down.  Work madness.  Holiday madness.  But the truth is that I never really believe I have anything to say that someone else isn’t saying better.  And who really wants my humble opinion on the state of life, the universe, and everything?  Lord knows my life isn’t of much interest to anyone outside of a small circle of friends.  I know that doesn’t stop a skillion eighty-eight other people, but I do have my pride and I don’t trust entirely in the anonymity of the interwebs. 

But, I did find out today that I get to go to the Inauguration, as a guest of my Congressman-elect, thanks to my boss.    That will be something to blog about!

YouTube – Nick Cave – Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow

LieberHistory

I’m proud that I never once voted for Joe Lieberman.  I recall his first campaign for Senate.  I’d taken my kids to see Dukakis speak in Bridgeport, and picked up a LWV handout that spelled out each candidate’s position on major issues.  I was puzzled as I read it; the Republican supported traditionally Democratic positions, while the Democratic candidate — Lieberman — was clearly a Republican in his positions.  Our Senator at the time was Lowell P. Weicker, a liberal Republican.  Conservative Republicans hated him, and they supported Joe’s campaign against Weicker.  

Lieberman’s “liberal Democrat” rep is a carefully crafted lie.  It was back then, too.  Listen to William F. Buckley in the National Review, Oct. 14, 1988:

I went down to a Rotary Club meeting in Stamford to hear Lowell Weicker’s Democratic opponent, Joseph Lieberman, hold forth. Lieberman is the attorney general of the state of Connecticut and he has a reputation for being an eat-’em-alive liberal. He certainly didn’t act that way in speaking to the Rotarians, and though it is natural to change emphases just a little depending on what group you are speaking to, one walked away from the Sheraton Hotel doubting that Joe Lieberman deals in forked tongues.

On abortion (Lowell Weicker will be satisfied only when the Federal Government provides a bonus to any woman who aborts her child), Lieberman looks and sounds genuinely distressed by the subject. It is, he says, a profound moral question. He opposes abortion. But he would not outlaw it. And then he points out that Roe v. Wade, which turned the country’s laws around on the subject of abortion, recognized the right of the state at some point during pregnancy to extend protection to human life. He was saying, in effect, that although it developed under Roe v. Wade that anyone can get an abortion at any time, in fact, the Supreme Court only meant to license it for early in the pregnancy.

When William F. Buckley loves ya, I don’t think you can call yourself a liberal Democrat.  You betcha.

I voted for Weicker, recalling the evolution of his position on the Vietnam conflict, among other things.  And over the years, Lowell Weicker has proven to be a man who stands for what’s right.

Lowell Weicker & Ned Lamont

So thanks to Harry Reid and the rest of the DINO old boys’ club in the Senate, I think the Change ship has sailed — and we ain’t on it.

 

Tomorrow is KICK THE CRAP OUT OF LIEBERMAN DAY

But sadly, I don’t think it’s going to happen.  

Here we are, the loyal Democrats of Connecticut, getting TRAITOR JOE shoved down our throats again — despite our wishes and our vote.  

What I want to know is, just who the hell does Harry Reid think he is?  I don’t think he’s a voter in Connecticut.  Isn’t he from Nevada — the state we should seriously consider as a storage site for our nuclear waste?   Hell, Harry; if you’re going to stick us with the toxic waste that is Joe Lieberman, it’s only fair you take some of ours.  

The heart of the matter is that Harry Reid is saying that the will and the vote of Connecticut Democrats does not count.  And Harry Reid, Senator from Nevada, should NOT get to disenfranchise the Democratic voters of Connecticut.  

The Democratic voters of Connecticut decided, in 2006, that Joe Lieberman was not the man we wanted to represent us as our Senator from Connecticut. A candidate was put forward to challenge Senator Lieberman in a primary race; that candidate, Ned Lamont, beat Joe Lieberman in that primary.  The Democrats in Connecticut, in a free and fair election, chose the man we wanted to represent us, and that man was the Democrat Ned Lamont.

Joe Lieberman, in his arrogance, didn’t want to lose his job and decided he was entitled to scorn the decision of Connecticut Democrats and run anyway.  That was his right.  He created his own party and ran as a candidate of that party.  He was elected as a member of that party.  Joe Lieberman is the Connecticut for Lieberman Senator from Connecticut.  Joe Lieberman is NOT the Democratic Senator from Connecticut.

It is offensive enough that Joe Lieberman, CFL Senator from Connecticut, was allowed to caucus with OUR party for the past two years.  It is even more offensive that Joe Lieberman, CFL Senator from Connecticut, was given the Chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs Committee, where for two years he FAILED to perform the oversight that a Chairman from OUR party would have performed as regards the corrupt and immoral Bush administration.

Joe Lieberman, Senator of the CFL party, then turned completely and 100% against the Democratic party, not only supporting the Republican candidate for President, but actively, publicly and repeatedly denigrating the Democratic candidate with the most repulsive of lies against his capabilities and his honor.  Joe Lieberman stabbed long-time friend and colleague Joe Biden in the back in favor of Sarah Palin, the Alaskan Idiot.  Joe Lieberman actively campaigned for other Republicans.

Yet Harry Reid continues his insulting ass-kissing of Joe Lieberman, continuing to let him caucus with OUR party and hold a Chairmanship that should be reserved for a member of OUR party.  Harry Reid says we need Joe in the Democratic caucus.  The truth is, we don’t need Joe.  We’re close enough to 60, and we’ve got a few friends on the other side of the aisle who will vote our way more reliably than Joe will.  And honestly, if Holy Joe is truly the bipartisan he says he is, and is truly a Democrat at heart, he’ll vote with us no matter who he eats lunch with.  So Reid needs to stop letting Joementum blackmail him.

I dunno.  Maybe Holy Joe is using some of that mysterious slush fund money from his dirty campaign to pay Harry to be his pal.

Harry Reid should immediately stop overriding the wishes of the Democratic party voters of Connecticut.  Our vote means something, and Harry Reid should stop spitting on it.

We aren’t kiddin’!!

I’ve met Harry Reid.  He talks a good game.  But talk is all it is.  At the end of the day, Harry Reid treats the Senate like his personal country club, not the representative body it is.  And in so doing, he is in direct opposition to the Democrats of Connecticut.

There’s a reason that the American people don’t think the Congress is doing a good job.  But they were willing to give the Democrats a chance on Election Day.  It sucks that, right off the bat, after stellar wins in the election, Harry Reid and the Old Boys Club are going to throw away that chance to prove they aren’t just a bunch of buddies covering each other’s asses.  

 

  Hopefully, tomorrow’s secret vote will surprise me.      Hopefully, the Democrats in the Senate will listen to   men of  honor like Senators Patrick Leahy  and Bernie Sanders of Vermont,  Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, who understand what party loyalty is and that the wishes of the voters should be  honored.  

Hope.  Me and this kitteh haz it.  We’ve had eight years of being let down.  We voted for change.  We’re hoping the guyz in the Senate were listening.

 

And if they don’t, maybe we Democrats of Connecticut can stand up and make the change we want.  

 A petition has gone to our State Central, urging censure of the traitor Joe.

Loyal Democrats are urging their local DTC’s to support the censure.

After all, this is the Constitution State.  We know how this America idea works.

The President we NEED

 

The last eight years have been so difficult.  On our finances.  Our jobs.  Our cities and towns and states.  Our military.  On everything.  Our psyches… our souls… whatever you choose to call the spark that keeps us going.  It’s been living under a cloud, slogging through mud with a weight on our shoulders.  Looking behind us.  BushCo made us afraid.  Angry.  Suspicious.  They poisoned the American well.  I’m so so sick of it.   

When I see 100,000 people and more coming out to see and hear Barack Obama, I see people who are as sick as I am of the black cloud we’ve been living under.  When you see those crowds, you know that Obama is what this country NEEDS right now.  When you hear him speak, you know things can turn around.   

We need light and hope and healing.  We need to come together. We NEED Barack Obama. 

If John McCain were any kind of man, he’d address the nation, apologize for his filthy hate-mongering campaign, and step aside for the better man.  Quite honestly, that is the only thing that can save his reputation now.

$4,716.49 To Put Lipstick on the Pig

Not to mention about $150,000.00 in clothes.

Read that again.

$150,000.00 for clothes.  $4,716.49 for hair and makeup.

Just like people do in small town REAL America.

Just like Joe-the-kinda-plumber does for his wife, I’m guessing.  Hey Mrs. Kinda-Plumber!  How high is your bill at Saks 5th Avenue?? 

Can’t you just see the Wench of Wasilla throwing a fit in the Straight Talk Express?  “I’m NOT going out there dressed in this old thing!  Everyone will make FUN of me!!  I can’t stand on that stage with Cindy McCain standing behind me keepin’ her eyes on me and starin’ daggers into my back, and she’s all wearin’ that dress she paid $300,000.00 for and I’m lookin’ like some hayseed in this J.C. Penny crap from Anchorage.  If you want me to get on the stage with John McCain, you’d better buy ME some $500.00 shoes!  If I don’t get some shoppin’ here, I’m not going out there to talk to real America one more time.  I can go back to Alaska right now.  So you’d better pull that bus over right there, in front of that big store… what’s it called?  Saks Fifth Avenue?  Are we in New York now?  I didn’t know buses could fly!!  Oh. Well.  Anyway.  You pull right in there for some shoppin’ or I’m gonna hold my breath until I turn blue and then I’m going to tell the liberal media why Cindy is so glassy-eyed.  Yes I will!  We know about that kind of thing in Wasilla, you betcha!  So you’d better give me a credit card RIGHT NOW!”

Nobody will ever say McCain acted with dignity and honor

From now forward, McCain’s name is synonymous with sleaze and gutter politics.  

Watching McCain lately is like watching one of the great tragedies unfold.  The hero consumed by his weakness until there is nothing left of what once made him a hero.  If McCain loses, he won’t even have the solace of honor.  And if he wins, he’ll have done it not by showing us how worthy he is, but by crawling into the gutter to drag down his opponent.  As regards this Ayers thing, and McCain’s sleazy robocalls, he doesn’t have an accusation.  There’s no fire, not even any smoke.  Watch and listen… it’s nothing more than innuendo of the cheapest kind. (“Do you still beat your wife?”)  And just look at him — he knows what he’s doing is wrong but he simply cannot help himself.  His… lust for power? pride? greed? … forces him to justify what he knows can’t be justified.  

Nobody is ever going to say John McCain acted with dignity and honor.  He spit on his own reputation and dragged his own name through the mud.

 

“Going negative” hasn’t helped McCain; if anything, it has hurt his campaign.  So what does he do?  HE GOES LOWER!

Josh Marshall has a thoughtful piece over at TPM.

The Poor Man puts his spin on it.

kitteh funz!

  

 McCain and the Wench of Wasilla are rolling around in the gutter, apparently reveling in it like some dogs love rolling around in shit.                            

It’s disheartening to see people actually buying into it. (Dear god, look at those morons.)  I don’t think the people cheering Mc & WW along the low road were ever for a moment going to vote for Obama.  I think McCain’s strategy is to give all those racists out there some cover under which to come out of the closet.  

I’m afraid they’re playing with fire and something terribly ugly is going to happen.

 

 

So, I don’t want to think about the evil that men do right now.  Bring on teh kitteh funz!  

Simon Tofield has drawn some brilliantly funny cat animations called Simon’s Cat.  I love “Cat Man Do.”