Will 2018 Be Canceled? You Can Bet On It!

It's obvious to me that most politicians enter that carrier to either make money or to make more money.  It's a sweet deal provided you have what it takes; a lot of narcissism and a little bit of sociopathy.  Having said that, there must be someway to make lots of money from politics without having to become a politician.

 And a friend of mine  has figured out a way.   While most everyone else argues and bets on whether or not the Democrats will flip the House and impeach the president, my friend, Junebug, sees a whole different set of issue. "The Man be doing all kinds of weird shit and getting away with it," he told me.  "And if the Democrats win the House, the president will be impeached and there will be all kinds of investigations and other shit hitting the fan.  If that's the case, lot of rich white dudes gonna go to jail and become somebody's bitch.  Now do you really think those other rich white dudes in Washington are gonna let that happen?  And that's something I'm taking bets on."  Granted, my friend Junebug may be a crazy, but he's crazy like a fox and thinks like a sociopath.

Blue Team Leaders: Listen Up!

It took Wally several days to recover from the dramatic ass-kicking that his blue team took in the midterms.  Initially, he was pissed at the people who didn’t bother to vote.  And the more he thought about it, the more pissed he became.  “I guess it’s an undisputed fact now,” he said.  “Poor folk and progressives don’t give enough of a shit to get up off their asses and vote.”

But as time passed and he got more of a grip on himself, he realized that it wasn’t the voters fault.  “Simply put,” he said, “poor folk and progressives had only two choices last election.  We could have voted either Republican or Republican-lite.”

It only makes sense that Republicans are better at being Republicans than are Democrats.  Somehow, the GOP always end up defining the situation and the Dems always end up buying into whatever the Republicans say is real.    And instead of running on their successes, Team Blue runs from them. 

“Worse yet,” according to Wally, “party leadership either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the people who have close to an unconditional love for their blue team.”  Instead, our politicians go chasing after red team people who will never vote blue.  “As a result,” says Wally, “their friends lose interest and find better things to do then vote.  Why bother?”

But mainly, the Dems need to talk about the banks, Wall Street and hedge funds.  Most every citizen knows that paying a huge tax deductible fine, for cheating Middle America out of billions, just doesn’t cut it.  As long as no one ever goes to jail, there is no reasons for the perpetrators to do anything different.  Most of us already know that, in the end, big banks, Wall Street and hedge funders will somehow end up with our money.  “And while we’re at,” says Wally, “we may as will privatize social security and give what little we have left to them.  Make it a total wash.”

Democrats Get Bitch Slapped!

There’s no way around it, us Democrats got our asses kicked this past Election Day.  “And once again,” according to Wally, “our president forgot who his friends were and, as a result, his friends forgot about him.”

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By stalling on a promised executive order relating to emigration and deportation, Obama pissed off his base and failed at ass kissing his adversaries.  “You think he would have stopped that shit by-now,” Wally asserted.  “And I’m starting to wonder if he’ll ever learn?” 

Had he signed the damn thing, it would have been over and done with by now and one less heartache yet to deal with.

But now, with all the kumbayas going around, it’s highly likely that in an attempt to show sincerity, Obama will make a deal and use immigration as a bargaining tool.  “Although he insists that he’s not going to, he’ll cave,” said Wally.  "But after all is said and done, Republicans won't do as they promised, anyway."

And then there’s the financial sector.  If the economy is doing so well, why aren’t most of us feeling the results?  Simple, all the fat and most of the lean goes to banks, Wall Street and hedge funders; rich people getting richer.

Worse yet, while those folks are gobbling up all the money and tax breaks, cutting no one any slack and foreclosing on mortgages, only a handful of politicians ever really speak of it.

Who knows what the political environment might be in 2016?  Likely, we 99 percenters may have figured a few things out by then, and it might be Elizabeth Warren vs. Ran Paul as opposed to Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush.

And if that’s the case, hold onto your hats folks!

#DemocratsGetBitchSlapped

Note to Democrats: What Goes Around Comes Around.

“If you’re a Democrat running for office and trying to figure out what Republicans are up to,” Wally suggested in a recent tweet, “you might give a listen to Undecided, an old Ella Fitzgerald song from back in the late 30s.”  And if the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished,” has any truth, according to Wally, “Democrats are being both screwed and betrayed.”  

As part of their Ryan budget, Republicans are in favor of cutting the social safety-net, and Social Security benefits are at the top of their list.  But if you watch their latest television ads, you’ll surely believe that it’s the Democrats who are out to screw over your grandmother and other seniors.  Take this ad, for instance, put out by Georgia Republicans saying that Rep. John Barrow wants to cut Social Security benefits and raise the retirement age to 69.  Another ad, put out by Karl Rove’s Cross Roads GPS accuses Kay Hagen (D), Arkansas of also wanting to cut benefits and raise the retirement age.   There are also a ton of other Republican ads accusing Democrats of wanting to do-away with mortgage deductions and other middleclass tax relief as well.  Meanwhile, Lori Montgomery’s article in The Washington Post, goes into this Republican flip-flop quite well and it is worth a read.

What Republicans say and what Republicans do are two very different things.  Back in the day when everyone was talking deficit, the Ryan Budget favored the slashing and eventual privatizing of Social Security.  And the free market was their answer.

Now, with the election only days away, the GOP still wants to cut and eventually privatize Social Security.  But you’d never know it if you only pay attention to their ads.  They’re trying to come off as champions of seniors and the middleclass, but they aren’t.   Worse yet, they are not even being honest about their beliefs on abortion and contraception.

Meanwhile, Wally wonders what’s up with Colorado’s candidate for U.S. Senate, Cory Gardner.  Although he is sponsoring the personhood bill,  the Life at Conception Act, Gardner denies that he is totally against birth control and shamelessly pro-life.  But that’s a story for another time.

What If Republicans Take Control?

Wally recently had lunch with several left leaning friends and every one of them, Wally included, were down in the dumps.  “There’s no getting around it,” said one.  “Republicans ran a better campaign and put the Dems on defense.”

“I’m starting to think that they’re just smarter than us,” said another.  “After the way she dissed Obama, I know a lot of my sisters and brothers back home won’t come out for Ms. Allison Lundergan Grimes, the bitch.”  Update, Kentucky’s two largest newspapers have recently endorsed Ms. Grimes, but that may not be enough.

Then there was the Bruce Braley campaign in Iowa.  If nothing else, they all agreed, you don’t tell folks in Iowa that they’re not capable of understanding something because they’re just farmers and not attorneys.  “And what’s up with Massachusetts Democrats and Martha Coakley,” Wally asked.  “She can’t relate yet they keep running her for office.  Shit, she was the one who created Scott Brown, the asshole.”

But all agreed, bad times are ahead for Democrats and others of the 99%.  And although, if Republicans win, they will not have the 60 votes needed for a veto proof  congress, but between the House and the Senate, they can create a lot of havoc and stalemates. 

And the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, will constantly be under attack in hopes of an eventual kill.  Consumer Protection, financial regulation and oversight, environmental protection, voting rights and that all makes this country what it is, will likely be diminished, if not totally taken out.

Meanwhile, every crazy idea that the Republican House tried to pass, might eventually pass the Senate, causing a Presidential veto and once again, there will be obstruction and blame.  “Only this time,” said Wally, “we’ll all be watching.  And better yet, we’ll know who all the players are and which team the're playing for.  Just in time for 2016”

Should You Believe Americans for Prosperity or Your Own Lying Eyes?

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Although it’s been a few years since Wally was in college and he was never a member of any fraternity, he remembers reading about some of their “pranks” in the campus newspaper.  At most, they may have caused some minor inconveniences but were pretty harmless.  “In a few cases,” he said, “I was even amused and enjoyed their creativity.”  In the case of a recent election prank perpetrated by the Koch brothers’, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), however, the prank was neither amusing nor creative and Wally says he is highly pissed.

“It’s bad enough they think us Democrats are composed of stupid minorities and single young women who are easily fooled,” Wally wrote in another of his unpublished letters to the editor.  “But the fact that those arrogant Republican assholes think that they can trick us with a third-rate fraternity prank is pretty damn insulting.”

Recently, the Democratic Party of North Carolina filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections that AFP sent out mailers to targeted groups riddled with lies and misinformation.  In short, the mailers instructed people to wrong voting places, on wrong days and then, directed those with questions to an incorrect phone number and address.  Such actions are illegal and are currently being investigated by the North Carolina Board of Elections.   

Meanwhile, AFP is saying the mistakes are unintentional and Democrats are insisting that the mailers were a voter suppression tool.

“Seems like the Koch brothers think they’re cops and are probably expecting to get away with committing felony crimes by either taking the life or rights away from, what they seriously see as, lesser and undeserving people."

Republicans Must Learn: What Goes Around Comes Around

Wally has seen his share of elections and with each cycle they seem to get worse.  And now that we have a black president, things have really gone over the top.  And instead of working together towards common goals, a few politicians have turned things into “us vs. them” and boiling everything down to simple black and white.  Only problem is, according to Wally, “that old fashioned politics don’t work no more.”

Ever since Nixon’s successful use of evangelicals in his presidential campaigns, Republicans have catered to them and their issues, such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage, which often swept them into office.  As a matter of fact, Wally remembers how Republicans worked hard to get abortion and gay related issues on the ballot most every election.  If nothing else, it brought the evangelicals, along with some other very angry people, out to the polls and they were usually single issue Republican voters.

In 1988, the George H.W. Bush campaign discovered that racism, if subtle enough, was another way of getting very angry people to the polls and Willie Horton became the face of the Bush Campaign. Between the evangelicals and xenophobes, the Republicans had grabbed most all of the voting public, and Wally was highly pissed about it.  On the other hand, and he knew neither how nor why, but they were practicing bad medicine and bad medicine will eventually guarantee a bad outcome.

And with the exception of a glorious eight years which ended with a significant budget surplus and economic growth, things pretty much sucked.  But Clinton was an exception to the rule and Wally saw the second Bush elected.  This time, however, the Republicans added a new paradigm with their image, “compassionate conservatism,” which itself, became an oxymoron.  But few, including Wally, could actually have defined compassionate conservatism, until George W. Bush’s response in Hurricane Katrina of 2005.

It was with heavy heart that Wally lived through the Bush era, but a financial meltdown brought a new Kind of president to Washington.  What will this new kind of president be like, people asked?  “Just like the old kind,” Wally loved to say.

But things are changing.  Even the evangelicals are now insisting, “God don’t make no trash,” and are seeing gays as actual children of God.  “And besides,” sez Wally, “Jesus loves them.”  And as many evangelicals come to accept things like global climate change and gay and lesbian marriage, they are leaving the GOP and shrinking its base even more.  No longer can local, state or federal elections be won by simply putting gay marriage on the ballot.

Even President Obama, of late, has been acting like a new kind of president and a lot less like the old kind.  And although Wally wishes he would do more to even out the economic inequality situation, Wally is starting to hope again.  And it seems like the bad medicine of divisiveness and negativity practiced by the GOP for the past forty years, is coming back around and biting them in the butt.  And the pox is now upon their own house.

And what was once hidden is now being revealed and Wally wonders what else will come to light before the November Elections.  “If the past year or two is any indication, we’re all in for a very revealing, but ugly ride,” Wally is rumored to have told the GOP fund raiser who phoned him.  "After all, what goes around, comes around and God still don’t like ugly.”  But Wally still can’t understand how his name and number got on a GOP fund raising list in the first damn place.