You know...that one!

My mom is seventy eight years old and she has lived through the Great Depression, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, the killings of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and put up with kids and a Navy husband.

Basically I am saying she's suffered through some serious shit.

But when my mom, who's body may be broken but her spirit far from it, says that McCain looked so old last night that she felt sorry for him, well that says something.

My seventy eight year old mother thinks McCain is too old to be president and yet, she may well still vote for him because he served in the Navy and, well, she says "you know those Navy men."

I've reminded her all to well considering our father, her late husband, was in the Navy for over 30 years. And during that time, we had great healthcare benefits. When my father was dying, we didn't have to worry about paying medical bills; his benefits paid for it all. So when McCain acts as if he knows something about going without healthcare (as he claimed a few weeks ago), I know he is full of shit.

The man, when he left the Navy, had the same retirement benefits that my father did...except he had a bigger benefit check. And as a son of a Navy man, he always had good coverage. And as a senator, he has even better benefits.

So help me understand something...how does McCain empathize with the middle class that is struggling with higher copays or just "no pay" as it applies to some people's benefits?

Sigh....

He's out of touch; we're out of his mind. If I were Obama's campaign manager, I would create an ad of a dottering McCain at the debate, wondering around in a circle with the old Hall and Oats song playing, while pointing over to Obama saying "that one."

Unless Obama does something stupid, or the polls are lying, we may have seen one of the last bitter gasps of the McCain campaign last night. The polling numbers clearly show that people thought McCain looked bitter and mean. And although Obama didn't give a knock out performance last night, he was sure and steady...and that usually wins the race.

I think I would rather have "that one" be my president than the one who seems frustrated and angry and has no clue that we are going through out here in the wilderness.

Still not convinced?

So, are you sitting there...shaking your head...wondering why McCain keeps getting slammed on the news and wh, oh why is he falling behind in the polls after his brilliant Palin pick? Could it be you are the last ignorant, arrogant, jerkweed out there who hasn't figured out yet that the "fundamentals" of our economy is, well, fundamentally weak?

Do you live in such a secluded bubble that you do not know one person that is suffering from the eight year clusterf**k? Seriously? What is holding you back from supporting Obama? Why the hell are you supporting McCain who claims to be able to stand up to those "bigwigs" on Wall Street?

Go ahead...do the research yourself...and see what companies are McCain's biggest doners and guess who you will find near the top? That's right! Those same "bigwigs!" So we are supposed to believe that he is going to stand up for us? We are supposed to believe that he is the "original" Maverick? Sorry, to me the original Maverick is James Garner.

The funniest thing is, for a man who always believed in a free market economy, suddenly (as in today) he sees nothing wrong with the government bailing out AIG. Wow. And yet when people lose their jobs because of their companies stupidity (think Enron), the government refuses to help.

Unless you are just completely idiotic, I am assuming the only reason you are supporting McCain is because you will make huge money from a McCain administration or you are just flat out racist. Seriously...give me a reason...a real reason that you will not support Obama. I hear some of you say you do not trust him and yet you do not give me a reason. I can give you, and have given you, several reasons I do not trust McCain.

If you think the same old solutions will resolve what is going on in our economy right now, then you deserve to live through another eight years of this mess. I, for one, am tired of the same old Republican b.s.

You want 4 more years of this?

Sorry if this blog sounds angry however, what I've seen over the past few days has really pissed me off.

I keep hearing people everywhere...work, the grocery store, the gas line...saying how they want to see change. They want our country to change. When are things going to change? And yet, when I ask them who they are voting for or what do they think about Obama, I get similar answers "I don't trust him" or "I don't know if I will vote."

Well, here's what I think...if you do not vote for Obama, you will not be getting the change you want. If you vote for McCain, then you are just validating the last 8 years of bullshit. If you vote for McCain, you are basically saying, "Ok, I want the status quo."

Have all of you forgotten what it felt like in the days after 9-11 when we felt unified? We were scared yes, but supportive of each other. And then what happened? Two bullshit wars: the invasion in Iraq and the crazy culture war brought to you by the same white wing wackjobs that are trying to get you to focus more on lipstick on a pig than inflation, foreclosures, and the fact after 7 years, we still have yet to catch or kill Bin Ladin!

Do yourself a favor...think back...are you better off now than you were 8 years ago? And ask yourself, if you knew that Bush was lying to get into Iraq, would you have agreed to the war, especially knowing that it was going to stretch our troops thin and thus, disable our search for Bin Ladin?

Tonight, I saw an ad on MSNBC from the McCain camp that said that Obama was disrespectful to Palin. Wait...where do they get that from? Now they are just making shit up, trying to get you to avoid paying attention to what you are paying at the pump or the fact you haven't gotten a decent raise in 5 years and can't pay those medical bills or pay off those credit cards (that you paid some of those medical bills on if you were like me).

If you vote for McCain, you get what you deserve...you deserve 4 more years of bullshit.

It's A Trap!

If you think that John McCain picked Sarah Palin just to get the white, middle class vote or the Hillary vote, think again. In the words of the great Admiral Ackbar at the Battle of Endor, “It’s a trap!”

Here is what the McCain campaign is trying so desperately to do: they want you to forget the last eight years. It’s sort of like in “Wayne’s World” when Wayne and Garth do their flashback sequences. Imagine Republican hands waving in front of you and they do “dad a doo, da da a doo” (translation questionable!) and suddenly…voila! The past eight years of foreclosures, high gas prices, inflation, and unemployment never happened, the GOP elephant roars! Well except for 9-11. By God! Don’t you forget 9-11!

Do yourself a favor: avoid the crazy hype from the last few weeks of conventions and look at what has been going on in our economy over the past eight years and ask yourself “is the country better off than it was eight years ago?” Only someone in the upper income bracket will answer yes. The past eight years were a disappointment. And I have every right to be angry about the last eight years because I was idiotic enough to vote for Bush twice!

That’s right, I voted for the man twice. In 2000, I voted for Bush because like most people that live in Tennessee, I disliked Al Gore and his Senator Palpatine twin, Joe Liberman. In 2004, I voted for Bush again because I actually believed that we were doing the right thing in Iraq; there had to be WMD’s in Iraq! Of course, just a mere few weeks after the election, I found out how wrong I really was. The damn war was just a way for Cheney and his friends to make more money while thousands of young Americans die. The whole hocus pocus of “the terrorists are coming through Iraq” was brought to you by Bush, Inc.

I wish I could take my votes back but unlike Wayne and Garth, I can’t force a flashback. And unlike the Republicans and the people that are following them, I have learned my lesson. Unfortunately for the Republicans, I can not forget how Bush and crew betrayed my trust. My vote showed my trust in them to make things right. They never made things right; instead, they just followed the “right” ideology.

If you believe that McCain is a “maverick” think again! This is a guy that over 80% of the time has agreed with President Bush on the issues! When he spoke Thursday night, what did he say that he would do to help the American economy? Can you even remember? How is he going to help curb the over 7,000 foreclosures that are going on each day in this country? How is he going to help those families keep their homes? And pray tell, what did he say he was going to do to help the Veterans of this current war? Did he, a former Navy man and POW, even mention the Veterans? And were any of you McCain supporters smart enough to catch that it wasn’t Walter Reed hospital in the background but another building (it turns out it was a school).

What the Republicans have tried to do is get the Middle Class and Independent voters forget that we have had eight straight months of job losses and rising prices at the grocery store. Salaries are not keeping up with inflation and many Americans, while employed full time, have Healthcare plans that are expensive or lacking in coverage. With companies planning to increase the deductibles their employees have to pay and the possibility that the economy will continue to slow down through 2009 (no matter who gets elected), why would we even want four more years of the same old solutions?

Don’t fool yourself: drilling in Alaska and offshore is not going to help ease the oil crisis. The only way that will be solved is if we change our way about energy consumption. And despite what the Republican vice presidential nominee says, there is no way to cleanly burn coal.

The same old thinking has not worked in Washington and Republicans have another thing coming if they believe they are not in trouble. Republican congressmen know this; they hear it from their constituents. Just recently, in my district, first term Republican Congressman David Davis failed to get his party’s nomination after stories of his pandering to big business and standing by President Bush, right or wrong.

For years Republicans have been preaching “trickle down economics” and “thousand points of light” helping the middle and lower classes. And yet Palin slapped so many people in the face with her snarky remark concerning community leaders. What cracked me up was that many in the audience were laughing at her comment. Hmmm…and so many of them are community organizers themselves!

Both parties need to quit pointing fingers at each other and need to focus on how they are going to fix this economy and the mess we face overseas. Right now though, I get the feeling that Republicans are in the same bubble they were in during the reelection runs of Bush, Sr. in 1992 and Hoover in 1932. In both times, the middle class was in crises. And both times, their struggle was ignored.

Finally, ask yourself this…what kind of world do we live in where a bunch of rich white people like to refer to Barak Obama as elitist? Wait a second…a black man raised by a single mother is elitist? Just because he made something of his life and attending the same schools many of these same people attended? Honestly, I don’t get it.

But I do get it when Admiral Ackbar yells “It’s a trap!"

Trap indeed.