All Republicans have a favorite talking head

They like to call him "my guy". I have never met a Republican who doesn't have one. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've never met one.

Yesterday I caught a few tortured minutes with good ole Rush Limbaugh. Rushie was incredulous that anyone (especially a Republican) would say that foreclosures should be halted by law and that they want to save the banks. This exposes two of Rush's favorite things to resonate his great voice over: stupidity and hypocrisy. According to Rush's logic banks are doomed to failure if they are prevented from foreclosing on people who are behind on their mortgages. This logic is so stupid I'm not going to count the ways it is wrong, but it did make me think. It made me wonder what planet are Republicans living on. I really don't know.

A few years ago I had a right-wing radio guy that I liked to listen to during afternoon drive time. Jay Severin was a local guy in Boston at the time, I'm not sure what he is doing now. I liked listening to him because he was funny and cute about his wrong-headed ideas. He crossed my line on the first day of the Iraq invasion of 2002. Jay was so excited and happy and the bombs being dropped that he cheered and laughed loudly on the air at the reports of dead Iraqis piling up and the glorious explosions. I guess he thought he was trying to make death and destruction entertaining. That's a tough job to do, but it seemed a bit much to me when he came out against the war in just a few short months time and blamed his enthusiasm on Bush and Coling Powell's lies.

Maybe I just take politics more seriously than the average radio talk listener. Or maybe I'm just an elitist pinko. I can take either insult, they don't seem particularly insulting to me.

Dear President Obama,

Please name your nominee for TREASURY SECRETARY!
NOW!!!!

Thank you in advance,
Jeff

Added later in the day: Geithner = good. Thank you sir.

Reaganites and their rewrite of history for partisan political reasons

This takes me back to my freshman year in college. Reagan had just assumed power and the effective lies they told the American people were starting to hurt my country. The video below (from this week) is a very nice example of how the Reaganite Republican lies live on to harm the US today:

Tom Friedman, pessimism and socialism

The economic news is almost too awful to take lately, but I do want to take in the political news. President Obama and his Democratic adminstration must be the fresh air in our sails and I want to see it coming. This causes a problem for me because the economic and political news are inextricable these days. So I'm in a bit of a quandry. I must have some light of optimism to drag myself out of the bed every day and continue my job hunt, but optimism is getting harder and harder to find in the press.

Yesterday I watched a bit of the "Meet the Press" roundtable. One of my least favorite windbags was on the show, Tom Friedman. Any good roundtable must have at least one obnoxious windbag, but in this case all the other presumably knowedgeable people were agreeing with Friedman. And these days Tom Friedman is a very eloquent, impassioned advocate for unrestrained pessimism.

The main subject of the week is the bailout of the US automakers. The Republican leadership in the Senate wants to let the market forces do their magic and keep gubment hands out of the mess. The moderate left wants to throw more Treasury funds into the black hole of corporate shortsightedness that has created the losses. I think the US automakers should be socialized. I'm talking full government ownership of the all three corporations. Buy out the stockholders (for pennies on the dollar), kick some Union ass in very hardball negotiations, and manage the industry toward fuel-efficient production pronto. These corporations are political entities, so full-blown socialism is very close to what they are at the moment.

President-elect Obama

The initial blush of excitement has worn off. I went through an elation phase and a let-down phase. Now I'm into trying to anticipate what's next. I don't care what kind of dog the Obamas adopt. I don't care what school the Obama kids go to. I don't care what Michelle does with the drapes. I do care what President Obama, together with lame duck Bush does with the country's economic situation over the next few weeks.

Obama has some good solid liberals and some decent centrists in his economic advisory team. I'm partial to Robert Reich, who's blog gives a better voice to his ideas than I ever could . Essentially Reich is pushing for a very large injection of federal spending on US infrastructure. Kind of a baby New Deal, but a pretty fat baby. This would add to the huge federal debt, but unlike the Iraq War that was funded by the latest debt increase this infrastructure spending would have lasting positive effects in the USofA. The trick is to keep some of the pork out of the package.

Report on my experience at the polls

It is now fashionable to report any and all possible irregularities at polling places. With that in mind, I went to the polls this morning with my keen blogger's sense of the way voting should be. I must report that there was absolutely nothing unsual going on. Smiling workers, fully operational hardware, no exit polls, no undue pressure from 'partisans'. Just straightforward voting. Kinda disappointing in a good way.

Election Eve and what did we learn about the candidates

Mostly a bunch of nothing about how they want to be perceived and how they want us to perceive their foe. Obama is for change, McCain is a maverick, Obama is a 'tax and spend democrat', McCain is George W Bush. I'm left with the a gnawing curiosity about what these guys will do when they are President. Not what they plan to do, but what will REALLY happen. That is asking too much.

Obama is Clinton with a skinny neck and his dick in his pants (I hope).
McCain is close to Bob Dole in experience and GW Bush in depth of intelligence.
I guess all who vote are just placing a bet. I want to KNOW how the bet will pay off. Oh well, let the anxiety continue.