[Willie Bee]

Blogging towards the election

Though not particularly blessed with good looks or athletic ability, God did make sure I had the best family and friends that a person could ever hope for. So why is it so many of them seem to lose all sense of logic and understanding when an election approaches?

24 June 2008 - - - We’re getting closer and closer to the big election this November. Looking at the calendar, we are 19 weeks out today, T-minus 133 days left until Americans go to the polls and elect a new president and a bunch of other people who are bound to screw with my life, my livelihood, my liquor or all of the above.

Even if I didn’t have a calendar handy to count the days and weeks up, I could still tell we’re drawing nearer to November 4 if only because the number of stupid e-mails I’m getting from family and friends letting me know who are the good guys and bad guys are picking up. Stop me if you’ve seen this one already:

A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2½ year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.

Yeah, that poor, misunderstood George W. Bush. The e-mail makes him out to be akin to Kid Gleason, the manager of the 1919 Chicago White Sox who missed out on his shot to be a champion because of a bunch of crooks on his team. The war in Iraq? Congress’ fault. The utter contempt so much of the rest of the world holds for the US? Congress caused that as well. The cost of gas? Yep, you guessed it, Congress is responsible. Never mind that Bush’s own Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman recently blamed it on the Saudi’s for restricting their spigot. Of course, all Bush did was nominate Bodman. It was obviously Congress' mistake for confirming his appointment.

The past two elections I’ve hated the e-mail crap I’ve received from my family and friends, the biggest abuser being my father who is so far right he makes Ronald Reagan look like a New Dealer. A lot of people will tell you I’m conservative like my father, and for the most part I will agree with that observation. But understand that while I may be conservative like dear ol’ dad, I’m far from being as Republican as my father.

Back to the e-mails. I delete about 80% of messages that include FW: in the subject line. There are two reasons I do this starting with the fact I picked up a computer virus about six years ago from a forwarded e-mail. The second reason I have for doing so is two fold: A) Chances are very good I’ve seen whatever joke or photo you’re sending me, or; B) if I haven’t, it can’t be that good if you’re simply forwarding it instead of saving to your hard drive and sending from a fresh e-mail.

Think about it…how many times before e-mail did you receive a letter from your mother that also had a photo of your new little nephew, and your initial thought was you needed to run down and make 20 copies of not only the photo but the letter as well to mail out to your closest friends? Nowadays I hit Reply All on a lot of the crap I'm sent, much to the chagrin of my father whose distribution list includes a lot of judges and CEO types. Leading up to the '04 election, a few of them ended up asking my dad to not include them on any e-mails that also had me in the distribution. So he masked his addresses, something that just makes it a bit more difficult, but not impossible, to reply to the group.

Whether a friend of mine that sends me political stuff is a hard-donkey or a hard-elephant, one of the first things that I wonder is whether they truly believe all of one party would really be a good thing. Would having all donkeys in power or all elephants in power solve anything? Is the only reason for political graft, corruption and the simple ineptitude of DC because one party or the other doesn’t have complete control?

The e-mail contents above came from an elephant backer, of course. And it starts off on the wrong foot as far as I’m concerned with the note about consumer confidence. To begin with the main reason consumer confidence stood at a recent high was because most of the consumers were finally coming out of post-September 11th fears and had given up on any justice being served to the multitude of offenders in all of the accounting/insider trading scams from shortly after that dreadful day. Not only that, aren’t these the same consumers who voiced their displeasure at the polls and gave a bunch of elephants their walking papers in '06? If we can’t trust them enough to vote GOP, can we really trust their confidence before the 2006 elections when Bill Frist was on duty and the shadow of Tom DeLay was still a haunting figure at the Capitol?

Gas was too cheap at $2.19 a year ago. We’ve probably had it too cheap here for a long time, and the real shock to most Americans is how it’s gone up so sharply, not that it’s nearly $4 a gallon (for me at least). That’s just my opinion.

But what is fact is that 18 months of the donkeys having the majority in Congress has very little, if anything, to do with why you and I are paying more at the pump today. And if it really is the fault of a donkey-controlled Congress, then it was an elephant majority from 1994-2006 that simply didn’t do the right things when they were in charge.

Now a little lesson for the Einstein the elephants hired to do their math. If unemployment was 4.5% in 2006 and is 5.0% now, that is an increase of 11.1%. If it had been the other way, 5.0% to 4.5%, that’s where your 10% cipherin’ would’ve come in as a decrease. Pretty simple math, actually. Sort of makes me wonder if I can really trust any numbers in the report.

But let’s say the rest of the numbers are correct. The $2.3 trillion in stocks and bonds and $1.2 trillion in home equity are drops in the proverbial bucket compared to how much has gone up in smoke since January 2001 when Dubya was sworn in. And if the economy wasn’t in the tank due to the drain this administration has proven to be, or this administration had overseen the recent mortgage crapola that took place with something more than a "how can we line our pockets?" attitude, the foreclosures wouldn’t have happened.

Will it get better under either Obama or McCain? Maybe, but I seriously doubt either will be the reason. After all, like the e-mail said, the president is really only as good as Congress.

[cosmiccowgrl]

if I haven’t, it can’t be that good if you’re simply forwarding it instead of saving to your hard drive and sending from a fresh e-mail.

Copy and paste people. Copy and paste. Get rid of all the hooplah attached, too, dammit.

Okay, Willie, about your article--well written. My opinion is that just about 99% of politicians are professional bullshitters.
The other 1% (Ron Paul and those like him) don't get listened to because they MAKE FREAKING SENSE.

And I agree about the Prez being only as good as his Congress. Bunch of freaking doodieheads!

You may all find me at the

Good job on the article. Dude.

[Willie Bee]

Do the elephants have a Miss Congeniality up their sleeve?

It’s starting to eat the talking heads and their respective flocks alive, this question about just who will be the anointed running mates the donkeys and elephants choose. From the e-mail bag this week comes news that the GOP might have a "fire and nice" choice for McCain to make who is also "drop dead gorgeous to boot." Sound like a promo for next year’s American Idol? Well, maybe it is.


I’m diving right back into the e-mail bag this week for news and notes about the upcoming election. Compliments of an uncle comes this little bit about a possible VP running mate for the elephants:

At 44, Sarah Louise Heath Palin is both the youngest and the first female governor in Alaska's relatively brief history as a state. She's also the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating that has bounced around 90 percent. This is due partly to her personal qualities. When she was leading her underdog Wasilla high school basketball team to the state championship in 1982, her teammates called her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her fierce competitiveness.

Two years later, when she won the "Miss Wasilla" beauty pageant, she was also voted "Miss Congeniality" by the other contestants.

Sarah Barracuda. Miss Congeniality. Fire and nice. A happily married mother of five who is still drop dead gorgeous. And smart to boot.

The e-mail goes on with other info about why she might make a good choice to be Sen. John McCain’s choice for his VP running mate this fall. Primary on that list of reasons is the fact she is a woman. A white woman, in fact, as the e-mail points out. I sort of figured that out from the photo that accompanied the e-mail.

Sen. Barack Obama’s support among white women, the e-mail claims, has plunged, so Gov. Palin would be the answer to coming in and scooping all of them up and give the elephants a landslide in November presumably.

Here’s another snippet from the e-mail:

Running mates usually aren't named until the convention. But if Sen. McCain should name Gov. Palin earlier, it would give America more time to get to know this extraordinary woman.

Oh great. Here’s a guy, McCain, who has been involved in adulterous affairs in the past and the GOP thinks giving him more time "to get to know" the Alaskan governor is a good thing?

Now don’t get me wrong; there’s a lot I like about Gov. Palin, and the claim that she’s "drop dead gorgeous" isn’t one of them. Or at least it’s way down the list. Honest.

For instance, any woman who is a lifetime member of the NRA and also fishes, I don’t care if she’s only got seven teeth in her head, breasts sagging past her waist, a flat ass and skinny thighs, she’s already drop dead gorgeous to me. If she also owns both an RV and the boat, Divorce Court here I come.

Gov. Palin has done a pretty damn good job in Alaska from what I can tell, truly acts like a fiscal conservative instead of just claiming to be a fiscal conservative like that elephant living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue presently. She’s for opening up parts of Alaskan wilderness to drilling, like me, and I’m betting that if she remains the governor way up yonder in what one of my buddies always liked to tease a Texan such as myself was the first and second largest state in the US, she’ll fight for every dollar that comes out of the ground for her fellow Alaskans, just like I would.

If this sounds something like a marriage proposal, well it is and it isn’t. It isn’t because of all that bigamy stuff out in West Texas lately, and I sure as hell don’t want to be confused with those nut cases. And it is except for the part that I don’t rightly know what to do with the fact she’s got a husband and I have a wife. Any ideas that aren’t illegal, at least not felonious in legal stature, please leave your ideas below.

Editor’s Note: Also, if anyone has shots of Gov. Palin when she was Miss Wasilla, please post. This is strictly for historical purposes, naturally. Besides, if the elephant backer who sent the original e-mail thinks she’s drop dead gorgeous now, the readers have the right to know just how hot she was to start with.

Unfortunately, there are also a few things working against Sarah, uh, I mean Gov. Palin, with regards to getting this chance to serve under, er, alongside, uh, as the Vice President of the United States. One is she’s the Governor of Alaska. There generally isn’t a strike up the band, the election is in the bag atmosphere when a candidate realizes they are getting all three of those nods from the Electoral College.

She also pretty much made it clear that she agrees with the legal standing of same sex couples with her very first slash of the pen as governor. That won’t sit well with the ultra-right at a time that the GOP is no doubt being pressured to pair someone with McCain who can quiet his opponents who say he doesn’t represent the born again hypocrites. I’m sorry, I mean the evangelical part of the elephants.

Then there is the experience factor. Now as the Veep, her primary job duties would be domestic in nature, though I am hesitant to use the word ‘domestic’ to describe a woman who is a lifetime member of the NRA. Of course, domestic in this sense just means serving as the chief bouncer in the Senate. But if something should happen to McCain, she would be expected to step in and take over a ton of international duties at a time when America ain’t exactly highly held abroad. Not that we can ever do right by some countries, but it’s definitely at an all-time low since I’ve been hanging around in this life.

In the end, I think she’s a far better choice for McCain than Mitt Romney, her Massachusetts contemporary that’s being touted. Palin’s lack of experience is a much easier hurdle to clear in my opinion than Romney will bring in pacifying some of the far right. I don’t have any doubt that the press would have a field day with her as a VP candidate and chew her up some. But I also think she’d play well with the voters, especially the moderate white females from 18-118.

Besides, she hunts and fishes, and the fact she’s hot is the proverbial gravy on the biscuit. I e-mailed her and will update if I hear back.

[cosmiccowgrl]

I found an old photo of her. I sent it to you via email, Mr. Bee.

[Willie Bee]

You're aces, cowgirl

And now I see why the good governor won a beauty pageant along the way...I'm guessing this was the early 80s when the photo was taken. If her hair was straight instead of curly, she'd have a little Pat Benatar look to her. Wonder if she wore the spandex?