the rix mix

My final electoral map prediction, from about two weeks ago,  had Obama over Romney 284 to 254. I considered it sufficiently pessimistic. I  could not give Mitt Ohio. I thought the "Mitt momentum" was bogus, that he had stalled short of a winning tally. I gave Mitt Virginia, Florida & Iowa, although I had pretty good gut feeling about Virginia, nothing rational. If Mitt had won Ohio, he would have lost when Obama carried Virginia. I feared another messed up recount situation like 2000; I could see that potential in my map, likely focused on Ohio.

Obama had emphatic majorities in all the states he carried except Ohio & Virgina. Both of those states reelected Democratic senators.

Last I looked, Obama had run up a three million popular vote majority. It's not 2008, but Repugs never conceded that was any kind of mandate. I think a lot Americans wanted to send Obama home, with no real hard feelings. But Repugs, as currently constituted, cannot come up with candidate via primaries capable of cutting into a Democratic coalition that contains the vast majority of Hispanic voters, young voters, as well as women who do not want social safety nets eliminated or hear outrageous statements from men (&  some women) about rape, right to choose, & matters  intimately conditional on personal circumstances. The Repugs gave away two senate seats, in Missouri & Indiana, because of their misogynist   candidates.

The bad news is we still have a crazy right wing obstructionist House. The good news is Repugs can't do what they said they would do if they controlled the White House & senate. Obama made conciliatory overtures last night, but he no longer believes it is  really possible. He's  a tougher, more realistic  politician now.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

Labels: human rights, music, THE election, video

The bus downtown today stopped in front of a small store called Toy Gamelan. I was so astonished I didn't notice a tree limb was covering the "d" until the bus moved.

I don't like downtown. Forced to go there on occasion to buy stuff. High point is library. Then ugly, over-heated crowded stores looking  for some quality  item I need from among the crap.

Rather odd comment by Mitt during last night's "debate." For many years I kept a journal/scrapbook. At the end of each year I moved it from a three ring binder to a two hole cardboard binder & began a new one. The journals petered out with the Internet & especially after I began a blog. I make a few intimate entries each year into a file titled "diary." It doesn't get much. Some of the old journals have a good deal of obsessive writing following breakups with girlfriends, as I tried to write out of my broken hearts & disappointments. I doubt it helped much. I think I combed all the drafts of good  poems out of them.  But maybe there was a woman hiding in them somewhere. Maybe I'm not living alone. I searched. Alas, no women, only a lot of writing about women.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, THE election

I treat Republicans & Democrats the same. Except that I always have a disposable latex glove in my pocket in case I have to shake hands with a Republican.

Labels: THE election

Joe Biden won the  debate with Paul Ryan & enraged Republicans in doing so. Today they tell us why he didn't "win" the debate.  Includes being "disrespectful" to Ryan.  Ryan has been trying to hide behind Romney's sudden new "moderate" image, just as Romney used Ryan to firm up his "conservative" rep. Romney & Ryan have a kind of yin/yang of complementary lies.

It's  not  the first time an experienced VP candidate has taken a  "kid" opponent to the woodshed.  Senator Lloyd Bentsen did it to Dan Quayle with the legendary "I knew Jack Kennedy. Sir, you are no Jack Kennedy" retort.  Biden himself did it to  Sarah Palin in 2008. She was easy.  By contrast, Ryan is a cold-blooded wonk. But he has two problems   1. He doesn't know his own numbers.  2. He's pretending to be a "moderate."

There's also the  mainstream media characterization of Joe Biden as a love/hate type, belligerent, tripping over his own words.  Biden (& his educator wife,  Dr. Jill) is a very popular figure out on the campaign trail; down-to-earth, accessible, comfortable outside the "beltway." He's the kind of politician those old Reagan Democrats (now mostly extinct) liked.  Biden knows how to work a crowded diner.   He's no where near as belligerent as Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

I predicted the meeting of these two Irish-American, Catholic politicians would be interesting.  I wish Ryan had shoved back more when Biden pushed him.  Biden never stopped pushing. He tried to get Ryan;'s goat.   Despite it all, Ryan did not come across as the more polite, more even-tempered of the pair.  He came across as one more Republican VP candidate not ready  to be No. 1 backup.  The result  helps President Obama only in that Biden pleased most of the party base, made a decent  impression on the "undecideds," & set Obama up in a  better position for next week's meeting with Romney.  But the President will have to deliver. I'm not certain how he will do that.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

Former congresswoman Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords,  right, after leading the Pledge of Allegiance Thursday at the Democratic National Convention. Accompanied by her friend, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. For me, the most moving moment of the week. Gabby radiated joy to be there, to stand on her own, to make the most touching recitation of the  Pledge I've ever heard, every word meaning what it means & even more.

Labels: THE election

Sorry to say this, & hope I'm wrong, but Elizabeth Warren strikes me as the kind of candidate who has all the goods except what you need to be a winner, whatever that is. Why is she not trouncing Scott Brown in the polls? Because she's Mrs. Landingham.

OK Bill, I'm being distracted now, time to start bringin' it on home.

Madam secretary, we're proud to say New Jersey has more made guys as a percentage of population than any other state. Trenton makes, America takes pork roll. Home of the Lakewood BlueClaws. Jon Bon Jovi. I just wanted to mention him while I have the mic. The first state with a magazine & hardcover book dedicated solely to being weird. WFMU, it's never too late to make a pledge. Some says it's the devil, some a Big Foot that got lost. I'll have two slices & a cherry coke. This sh*t I bought outside the hotel is some awful smoke, making me paranoid. What? We're doing that tonight?

Wait a minute, my phone battery is dead. You Jersey guys, just line up & take the microphone & say whatever you texted me to say.

WTF, who picked Ohio? F*ck you. f*ck all of you. We're f*ckin Jersey. You don't f*ck with us.

Wait a minute, who is that guy? He staying in a better hotel? Hey you gimme that mic back or I'll twist yer dam head off right here.

Labels: New Jersey politics, THE election

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

Akin rebuffs Romney, Republican, calls to quit Senate race 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressman Todd Akin, under fire for controversial remarks on abortion and rape, insisted on Tuesday he would not leave the Missouri Senate race, despite pressure from fellow Republicans and talk of who might replace him on the November 6 ballot.Akin - a staunch abortion opponent - vowed to stay in the contest against Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, indicating he represents a conservative movement that must be heard.

To the dismay of many Republicans, Akin's woes have cast a spotlight on a part of the platform party members again endorsed on Tuesday: a call to oppose abortion with no mention of exceptions in cases of rape and incest.

Why would Akin feel compelled to quit? He can win this election anyway, & he knows it. Missouri is now a red state, Sen. McCaskill's election in 2006 flukey.

Akin may have "misspoken," but his views are those of the Republican Party, & of Paul Ryan (a hypocrite when he says otherwise), & endorsed in the past by Romney himself.

The problem for the Repugs is that the Missouri senate race now has a national spotlight, & Akin's positions - the same as the Republican platform - will not play well to the few hundred thousand white suburban women I claim will largely decide this election in swing states. He's a Naked Republican: No abortion option for victims of rape & incest. Women receiving an illegal abortion under proposed Republican law would be subject to prosecution along with their rapists.

We could be in the middle of the second Great Depression instead of a stubborn recession (excepting the "1%") & I think you'd have to be fucking crazy to vote for Romney/Ryan if you cared at all about civil rights, that you'd sell out the rights of women, gays, minority voters, all under attack by Repugs. Democrats bought into most of the National Security State excesses, but we got something to hang on to.

Labels: THE election

Right wingers tell me I'm an ideologue. But some dope over at Kos dredged up a four year old comment of mine where I expressed disappointment with both the Obama & Clinton primary campaigns, proving I'm not an ideologue, & therefore contemptibly inconsistent. The Kossack forgets that in April 2008 Clinton & Obama were bashing each other so badly there was serious anxiety the party couldn't unify. Hillary won the Feb 6 2008 NJ primary popular vote by 10 points. I voted for Obama. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have voted for Clinton. I'll still vote Obama in November. But I think I represent a large, grumbling part of the party base. Ironically, we get attacked by partisans because we now believe Hillary is more "liberal." When I've published a poem I later wished I hadn't, that bothered me.

Labels: THE election

Being a professional politician with a government paycheck & benefits was Paul Ryan's first & only choice of a career. I find that very strange in conservatives, especially so in one who loves Ayn Rand. Wasn't Ryan supposed to work in a marble quarry or something for awhile as he became increasingly enraged?

When Paul Ryan said today, "America is more than just a place, though. America is an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not from government," I thought, whoa, knock me down with a feather, fella. What president or presidential candidate going back to George Washington wouldn't sign on to that? I wouldn't call it a rationally defensible statement, although I happen to believe most of  it myself.*   But they are rights in the abstract until  a sword is put - literally or figuratively -   to the  neck of the tyrant claiming divine rights for himself &/or the exclusive right to grant them & take them away at will.   Rights are guaranteed by legal code, which require a government strong enough & representative enough to protect them, not by nature or God, or a king who says, "Just trust me."  Our Constitution springs entirely  from the minds of humans. There's no precedent for it in nature or The Bible.

* There are many other nations in existence right now founded on ideas. The ideas are mostly bad ones.

I'm of the opinion that vice presidential candidates are a wash. They have a job to do in the campaign & they do it. That job is usually to help hold the party base in place while the boss mines the center for votes needed to win. Even poorly vetted mistakes like Thomas Eagleton & Palin didn't effect the ultimate outcome. Someone on Mitt's team convinced him that his party base neither likes nor trusts him. This is a problem. Mitt can't waste his time campaigning in red states he's going to win anyway, just to smack down homosexuals & remind Southern Baptists he loves Jesus. He has to go to Virgina, Ohio, PA, Florida, Colorado, appear in televised debates, & sound like a sane human being to the several hundred thousand independent white middle class suburban women who will probably decide this election. Right now, Mitt reminds them of their first husbands. As for Ryan, he's a good spotlight guy, articulate, & a  right wing screwball.  But I looked up his election history: He hasn't had to run against a strong Democrat, he hasn't had a close election, & most intriguing, he's never faced off against another Irish-Catholic, much less one as wonky as him but with a pugnacious, battle-tested personality. Ever see Irish-Americans of opposing political views fight?  Right wing Irish-Americans  are often lunatics with fascistic sympathies & are outrageously anti-union. I mean shoot the fucking strikers kind of loony. You gotta push the right buttons to bring it out of them.

There is something particular about Paul Ryan, though: He comes to the ticket with his own agenda, one he has loudly advocated: The Paul Ryan Budget Plan. Mitt either avows this plan in whole or in part. If in part, Ryan must disavow it in part, & both the avowed & disaowed parts will be scrutinized by the right & left. We're getting a Romney/Ryan Plan, & it's the one Ryan has to sell to the faithful. He can try to do so with a wink.

Labels: THE election

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase.

Labels: art, THE election

Labels: music, THE election, video

"Jack-in-the-Pulpit IV." My Mitt's art gallery series is mildly amusing, but pointed in its one point. A couple of conservatives I know take the bait. Why, I don't know.   They react like I'm terribly unfair.  I'm not taking words out of context or manipulating statistics.  Something effective here.

Labels: art, THE election

This presidential election will be decided by a few hundred thousand white suburban women in Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio & Florida. If Mitt starts reminding them of their first husbands, he's a goner. Just a thought.

 Anyway, this young guy whizzed by me earlier on a small electric motor scooter. It was pretty nice, quiet,  sit down model, about 15 mph, even had a tail light. Functional. Looked sturdy enough.  But it was totally illegal. There's no way it could be brought up to legal standard.  The scooter & moped laws here are very strict:  You need a legal moped, you need registration, you need insurance,  you need a helmet, you have to pass a  written test & road test if you don't have a driver license.  No electric skateboards or razor scooters. Even those slow electric toy cars you see children driving on the sidewalk as their parents walk behind are technically illegal. A legal scooter without pedals requires a motorcycle license.

The guy didn't reason through why there aren't hundreds of electric scooters like his on the streets here. Maybe he's stupid enough to think it was his original idea.  Or  the dealer sold him lies.  One of three things will happen to him soon. He'll be in an accident. The scooter will break & either no one can repair it or repairs will cost as much as he paid for it. Most likely the police will just stop him & confiscate it. They could cite him for a half-dozen violations, if not more, some quite serious,  but probably won't. They'll insinuate  they will nail him if he tries to retrieve it from police custody. The police have a large garage somewhere filled with various illegal motorized vehicles, from electric skateboards to funky homemade gasoline engine mopeds like a guy in my building had for about a week.  Unlike unclaimed bicycles they can't auction them off to the general public.

Labels: count the yoyos, Elizabeth NJ, THE election

Labels: art, culture, sex with a Republican, THE election

"He [President Obama] says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."

 Mitt Romney

I would love for President Obama to get Mitt to say during a debate that America needs fewer firefighters, police officers & school teachers. It would not go over well with the demographic that will likely decide this election: independent white women. Listen for them demanding,  "Yeah, let's make America more dangerous for our families as we make our children dumber. What could be more helpful for America?"'

Governor Walker's reaction: He had exempted police & fire unions from collective bargaining restrictions, & responded to Miit's statement, " I know in my state our reform allowed us to protect firefighters, police officers and teachers; that's not what I think when I think of big government."

Labels: count the yoyos, THE election

America 1930












America 2012

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, culture, media madness, religion, THE election

Listen Trump, Mitt Romney seems to think he can beat the President on the President's record as President. Right now I don't think he's gonna do it, but I also think it's the only way it can be done. You, on the other hand, won't win a single vote for Romney, because even people who like your stupid show consider you an a-hole. That's your image in America: Donald Trump, Professional A-hole. Enjoy your moments rubbing up against Mitt; come September he won't know you anymore.

Labels: THE election

Remember when Tony Soprano was explaining the Bust Out* racket to a victim who thought the Sopranos were his friends? Tony illustrated it with an old African folk tale of the frog & scorpion, where the scorpion hitches a ride across a river on the frog's back, stings the frog anyway, & as they both sink the frog asks "Why did you do it when you said you wouldn't?"  The scorpion replies, "It's my nature." Think of Mitt Romney as a Tony Soprano engaged in massive, legal Bust Out rackets through Bain, & having the nature of the scorpion. The scorpion may have believed it was telling the truth when it said it wouldn't sting the frog, the way Romney always seems to believe he's telling the truth when facts contradict him.

How Mitt spends his money isn't the issue. People spend their money in all kinds of damned fool ways. Mitt's "nature" is in how he makes money, & to that end he doesn't give a crap whether or not you have a job. He'll bust you right out of it, just like Tony, if the opportunity is there.

Thanks to everyone who already used the Tony Soprano Bust Out comparison. I thought I could state it more succinctly.

*In a bust-out scheme, the identity and credit line of a business are used to obtain loans and goods with no intention of repayment. In some instances, businesses are created for this sole purpose; in others, legitimate businesses are acquired  and used for the fraud.

Labels: THE election