This episode is 95% Trump free. Todd, Kyle and Scott talk about Jeff Flake’s speech on the Senate floor, video games and why Gamestop sucks, and we end it with Todd talking about why we need to stop using the word privilege.
Tag: election
Afterglow
Having had a night’s sleep, albeit greatly shortened, and looking at the day’s headlines, I see it’s not a dream I had.
Obama, really did win. And now the work begins. As he reminded us in his speech last night, we’re fighting two wars, in the midst of an economic meltdown, and a hard road lay ahead. I voted for Obama, not just because I’m a Democrat, but I believe in his message. I believe in change.
16 years ago (!) I was 27, living with my sister and working at a Burger King. Bill Clinton was running for President then, and despite his broken zipper problem, I believed in his message. We had eight years of prosperity, a balanced budget, and no wars. In spite of every “gate” thrown at the Clinton’s they overcame, perservered and I think made the country a better place.
I felt the same thing last night as I watched Barack give his speech. This morning, as I walked to work, the clouds seemed a little fluffier; the sky a bit more blue.
And the future a lot more hopeful.
I want Obama and the new congress to succeed. I want change, a better life for myself and my nephews and niece. I think he can do that. If he can’t, I’ll be the first to say so.
And now, with the election over, I return to the slime filled dungeons of the nitwits, who I’ve neglected for far too long. Hope they didn’t miss me too much.
The Right Direction
Relief. The election’s over, and Obama has won.
I’m sitting here, completely and utterly exhausted, wracked with nerves all day, about whether the rest of the country would see this election as I do. From Maine to California, from Florida to Minnesota voters did agree.
And race didn’t matter. When young adults are being fed into a war machine; families of all colors are being foreclosed on, being fired, and trodden on, we, as a nation, did the right thing.
For the next four years, our country will become a shining beacon once again, not the dark tower that is full of corruption and arrogance. We won’t have to worry about a hothead wanting to dig his heels into the sands of blood and death. Nor a vice President who is dumb beyond words can describe.
I can hold my head high, and once again say I’m proud to be an American.
Politics in Azeroth
Thanks to wowinsider.com for showing this one. Funny, funny stuff.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Kg-K7em20]
What are they hiding?
Thanks to AKMuckraker over at the mudfalts blog, for posting this piece by AK rep. Les Gara. I think it’s important enough to repost on my blog so others may read it. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, this should scare you.
Making things clear
Thanks to STNY over on the mudflats blog for posting this.
I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..
· If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re
“exotic, different.”
· Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American
story.
· If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
· Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
· Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
· Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well
grounded.
· If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years
as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of
the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years
in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people
while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs,
Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you
don’t have any real leadership experience.
· If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people,
then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking
executive.
· If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re
not a real Christian.
· If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a
Christian.
· If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including
the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
· If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible.
· If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in
a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values
don’t represent America’s.
· If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until
age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession
of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
recollections of 9/11
The alarm clock was set to wake me up with the radio. Bleary eyed and barely conscious I heard something about a plane crashing into the WTC. They didn’t mention anything about it being an airliner, and I didn’t give it much thought. I turned on CNN and was in time to see the second plane crash. I was stunned. In spite of what I was seeing, my mind just wouldn’t register what was happening. These were buildings I’d witnessed being built as a kid growing up in New York.
Then there was talk about planes being flown into the Pentagon, the white house, you name it. There was pandemonium as reporters scrambled to find the latest tidbit of information.
Meanwhile George Bush read a children’s book.
I dressed, caught my bus to work and watched the tv in the break room. Things were getting worse, as (all false it would turn out) report after report began to filter in about what was happening. Nobody could work. All we could do was watch in horror as something so unimaginable suddenly became a reality.
I’ve witnessed and expreienced many things in my life, but I don’t think anything ever scared me as much as that morning. I started crying and couldn’t stop. It took me several attempts to get my mom’s phone # right. All I could say was that I loved her.
For that one brief moment, I thought it could be the end of the world. We were sent home, and a coworker offered to drive me. We sat in silence listening to the news on the local talk radio station. every now and then we’d both wipe tears from our eyes.
I ran up the stairs o my apt and turned on CNN again. A tower had collapsed and the footage of that wall of smoke, debris, dust, dirt, paper and who knew what else, rushing down the street, covering and comsuming people in its wake stunned me.
7 years later, it all still seems like a bad dream, something I’ll wake up from eventually, but I know it will never go away. I saw the footage of people jumping from buildings to their deaths 90 floors below. Reporters asking where the President was. Where the VP was. Where the hell was anybody?
CNN was my constant companion over the following days and weeks. I tried to wrap my head around how this could happen. Yet, what kept popping into my mind was how much worse it could have been. As a country we’ve been fortunate enough to be spared some of the worst terrorist attacks that have plagued Europe and the middle east over the centuries. We’ve been lucky.
But that day, our luck ran out…and an era of Bush strong arm tactics began. now I’m no pascifist, but I believe in fighting for a reason. When we went into Afghanistan, to root out AL Queda and the Taliban I agreed with that. The hunt for bin-Laden? Get the bastard. Go into Pakistan? If that’s where bin Laden is, go get him.
sadly Bush and co. used this tragic, horrendous attack to wage war without so much as a peep. As they trample on the Constitution, eye Iran and use everything at their disposal to seat their puppet MCCain, they want to continue their wars.
That can’t happen. Obama/Biden provide the only choice to restore this country. McCain/Palin are a gruesome twosome of more of the same. More war, more death, a further degraded economy, an assault on Roe v. Wade, more tax cuts for big business, while real people like you and meean continue to get the shaft.
To honor those who perished in the attacks, to make their deaths even more meaningful, stop the war, and vote against those who would keep us in eternal conflict.
That’s all folks…
I think this picture says it all…
Seriously, that was the best he could do? Let’s put aside the puke green backdrop for the first ten minutes; or the makeup job that made him look embalmed; we can even put aside that after all the right wing squawking about Obama not wearing a flag pin in his lapel, MCCAIN didn’t wear one during his acceptance speech.
Put that aside for just a moment. Listening to this speech was like being locked in a car, forced to endure all of grandpa’s war stories, that he’s told for the past 40 years.The most boring speech I have ever heard. And the thing is, I’ve heard McCain give great speeches in the past. But he seemed tired, a bit out of it. Maybe he knows he’s destined to lose and was simply going through the motions. But did he have to be so damned boring? Were it not for my friends over at mudflats blog, I’d have been zonked into a near permanent coma.
We can even put the boring aspect aside, for a moment. He talked about taking back Washington, despite the fact they’ve had it in their hip pocket for 8 years. He invoked his now mythical POW status, where he single handedly ended the war with a cigarette lighter and a stick. He fell in love with ther US while being captive; this makes the assumption he didn’t love it before?
I quote this: They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world’s oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions…
For a moment I didn’t know who he was talking about. I thought he meant the US. turns out he meant Russia. Hard to tell the difference.
It was full of everything the right loves, and none of what Americans needed to hear. There was no substance. Sure he made promises but nothing about how it would be implemented. Obama went to great lengths to detail what and how he would create change.
All McCain showed was how tired grandpa gets when it’s past his bedtime.
Mama Rain and Sister Rain
I spoke with Mama Raingods this morning, curious about her take on the speech from Scaracuda last night. Let me preface her comment by saying she’s been a lifelong Republican and switched to being a Democrat in 1996 only because she thought Bob Dole was too old to be president and was concerned about her impening retirement. In many ways she’s still a Republican, and was somewhat comfortable voting for McCain. Her response to me was, “That woman is batshit crazy. There’s no way I’d ever vote for him as long as she’s on the ticket.”
I asked her how my sister was doing in the wake of the hurricane, and she said that Sister raingod’s brother in-law went with her husband to total up the damage and it came to 31,000 dollars, not including what was in the garage. The Red Cross had gotten them assistance within 72 hours, and FEMA said they could apply for a loan through them and it would take 90-120 days to process.
It’s that kind of red tape that is strangling this country.
An Alaskan’s perspective
Thanks to horror geek over at SL for pointing this out. I try and avoid writing about politics, though it’s one of my passions, but there are some things that have to be said, read and digested. This blog post is one:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/what-is-mccain-thinking-one-alaskans-perspective/