...so now what?

The elections are over...HURRAH!!!!!  However, no one, but NO ONE whom I voted for, was elected.  I'm very sad.  (Did I mention I'm mostly a Democrat?)

So now what?

I was thinking that the Republicans have two years to put their money where their mouths were.  That is to say, they were going to "turn things around."   Then I listened to the politcal pundits on NPR this afternoon and heard them say that in two years the Republicans will say they were hogtied because they could not get legislature past the Democratic president, and/or the democratically controlled senate.   So even more should be elected and/or reelected.

Already an excuse for getting NOTHING accomplished!  On this Day 64!

...debt forever???

I'm SOOOOOOOO confused!  The big spin on politics is that we're saddling our grandchildren with debt loads (the government debts loads) that we will have for years and years.  Now it seems to me that before Clinton, we ALWAYS had government debt.  He was the first president, that I remember, who actually balanced the budget!  And we know that George Bush thought we had WAY too much money sitting around, and so after enacting the tax breaks, that conveniently expire this coming year (more on that later), he started a money hungry war!  

As for the tax breaks that expire...I figure that he knew (or his cronies knew) if the Democrats were in power, if they stopped the tax breaks, they'd be vilified.  If the Republicans were in office, well, they'd never stop the tax breaks because they knew it made them look like heros, regardless the fact that our debt was and is increasing.  They'd find some way to blame the Democrats.  As far as the tax breaks, I can't say as an extra $10/month made all that much difference in my lifestyle.

Okay, much of this is going to be decided tomorrow, November 2nd, Election Day, as to what path we'll take, or rather who to blame in the next two years for everything that isn't going well.

All I can do is shrug this Day 63!

Elections create jobs!!!

Well, they must!  Where else are the millions of dollars going?  There must be a niche in business that caters, nay panders to politicians and their needs.  And those people must be getting rich?  If we stopped all elections, would the unemployment skyrocket?  I only have questions, no answers.  But the amount of money being spent, even at the local level, is confounding.  You can't just throw a hundred dollars into a pot, take out a newspaper ad, and hope for the best.  You must throw parties, give out t-shirts, put out yard signs, car magnets, maybe even buy billboards, and woe is me...investigate the other candidate for irregularities in his/her background, and that takes a P.I. (private investigator.)

I would be concerned if after the election everything died down for a few years, until the next election, but in this climate, which has gone on for a few years now (since Reagan perhaps?) the only lull is the month after the election, and then the parties start their name-calling for the next one, even if it's two years off.  Can't get too nasty too soon!

 So I guess the election business niche is on solid ground. 

Can't wait until after November 2nd.  My thoughts on this Day 62!

 

Government health care???????????

Okay, so the ads say that the government should stay out of health care and not mess with medicare.  Uh...isn't medicare something the government manages?  Am I missing something here, on Day 61???!!!

Why does everyone hate Nancy Pelosi?

What an awful election year.  The slurs and slander are getting worse every day, and the biggest mantra, for a "bad" democrat seems to be "...in lock step with Nancy Pelosi..."    I'm not sure many of the people running for office have even MET Nancy Pelosi.  Even local politicians are linked with her.   Poor Nancy must cast a very wide net.

Of course all these junior politicians, who want to go to Washington, think they are going to change the world.  They think they're gonna fix everything that the (previous) administration screwed up.  Of course the previous administration thought the same thing.  Change takes time, and whoever is in "power" when things actually start to look promising, will be the overall winner.

If Nancy Pelosi is still in office, then she wins, but no one would acknowledge that.  If her party is out of office, then she's decidely the ogre everyone is making her out to be.   

Nancy can't win for losing on Day 59!

R.I.P. Juan Williams

What a mess...  Juan may have said something many of us may think, BUT to say it out loud on a TV show, was just wrong.  As a news reporter, he's expected, at all public appearances (such as the Bill O'Reilly Show) to be absolutely unbiased.  I'm not sure if NPR acted too hastily in firing him, but Fox sure picked him up in a hurry, so he didn't land with a thud.  I personally lost all respect for him, with his uncalled-for  comments.

I say this as I recently came home from a trip out east, with a stop in New York City.  I rode the Staten Island ferry and looking around me, I saw and heard very, very few people who spoke English, and many may have been muslim.  Was I worried?  After all this was in close, and confined quarters.   I can even recall thinking that a security mantra for being in crowds, was to watch for unusual behavior.  What IS unusual behavior?  I decided to just enjoy my vacation. 

 All I saw were people, probably mostly tourists.  We probably also had the same agenda of seeing the sights, taking pictures, enjoying the energy that is New York.  If I were to worry about seeing  a lot of people who I thought were muslims, I'd probably just stay in my small town in Missouri and hide.

Juan, time to go...Day 58!

Where is he now...

And I'm referring to Ross Perot.  Remember him?  He ran for president a few years ago?  He's a Texas billionaire?  His famous words on NAFTA were that we'd "hear a giant sucking sound as jobs went to Mexico."

NOW do you remember him?

I bring up his name and quote, because the Hershey Chocolate Company is closing one of its plants, in Hershey, PA.  Many of the on-line comments referred to the fact that some of the chocolate is now made in Mexico! 

But they're not the only ones who have fled to the South.  If you go to some of the border towns (Del Rio comes to mind) you can see the american companies on the horizon.  The executives live in the U.S  probably, and cross over each morning to run the plants, with mexican workers.   Good for the mexican workers, bad for the U.S. workers.  Especially when you can SEE where the jobs went.

So Ross, we heard you, and some of us believed you!  But not the people that make up the rules.  The people that we ELECTED!  So where are you now, on Day 57!