Election Dejection

With the mid-term elections just a few days away, we'll all be grateful when the din of political ads stops. The pundits are predicting big Republican gains. We shall see. Buster would like to offer a few final thoughts on the whole unholy process. Nothing you haven't heard before, but still . . .

"Money Can't Buy Me Love", but it sure can buy you public office.
The Roberts Supreme Court declared that corporations are people too, a decision which, for the first time, allows anonymous and unlimited campaign contributions from all sorts of places. It gave Republican advocacy groups, for the first time, a distinct financial advantage over the Democrats. And they've used it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (a.k.a. Chamber of Republicans, a.k.a. Chamber of Horrors) has spent an unprecedented $75 million nationally in support of Republican candidates. Might some of this lucre come from foreign countries, or organizations with ties to foreign countries? Maybe, maybe not. No way to tell, and they don't have to tell.

Rupert Murdoch was getting ready for bed when he found a spare $1 million in his pants pocket. He promptly gave it to his good buddy and former employee John Kasich. As a counter-measure, Buster immediately made a $25 contribution to Ted Strickland.

By hook and by crook, the Portman campaign raised four to five times more money than Lee Fisher's did. And unless Portman is discovered eating live babies for breakfast, that's all it takes. Game, set, match to Robbie in an easy win.

CBS News reports that the average seat in the U.S. Congress now "costs" $4 million, and all-time high.

Endless repetition of lies and bullshit buzzwords works.
It's said that if you repeat a lie often enough, a lot of people will come to accept it as the truth. Historically, the Democrats have been semi-reluctant to use such disgraceful tactics, because they're . . .uh, disgraceful. The Republicans, on the other hand, fully embrace low-down muck-wallowing and are always ready to give us the horseshit hard-sell and lie like rugs as long as it gets them elected. And it looks like it might do just that. A small sampling:
"Death panels"
"Kenyan"
"Big/Huge/Massive" government
"Failed" stimulus ["Failed" is a hot word. "Failed" anything.]
"Government-run" health care
"Government take-over" of health care
"Jobs killer"
"Has cost us [insert a really big number] jobs"
"Increased" taxes/spending/deficit
"Job-killing taxes"
"Reckless"
"Wasteful"
"On our side"
"Not one of us"
"Nancy Pelosi's [insert anything here]

The average American voter has an unmatched ability to forget what happened to him ten seconds ago.
Our recent Great Recession/Depression began on George W. Bush's watch. It resulted from years of relentless Republican-led deregulation of our financial system.

Our economy has been shedding jobs for a decade. The Crash of '08 certainly sped the process, but the problem is systemic and many of these jobs are never coming back.

The vast majority of the current federal deficit results from Dubya's tax cuts and his military spending spree.

Nutshell: We had 8 years of Bush, and Republican control for 20 of the last 30 years, but the average American voter has forgotten all that and is mad as hell because Obama hasn't fixed everything in 20 months. (FDR was well into his 2nd term before the First Great Depression began to ease up.) Due to Republican policies, the average American voters' investments/401 K's took heavy hits, but now many of those average American voters are ready to happily cast their vote for some ass-faced ideologue who wants to privatize Social Security. They're pissed off about Wall Street bailouts but they're gonna vote for some right-wing douchebag who wants to give tax breaks to Goldman Sachs.

The average American voter is an idiot. Not you, of course.

Buster On Friendship

A friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body. :)

He's A Little Slow On The Up-Take

Pete Rose was an exceptional baseball player, but is a cocky, stubborn, dishonest dipstick of a human being. The "Hit King" was permanently suspended from baseball in 1989 for betting on ball games, including betting on games involving his own team. For many years thereafter, Rose adamantly denied everything. He never, ever bet on any baseball game. Then he eventually recalled that, well, yeah, he did bet on baseball, but he never, ever bet on his own team. Until he ultimately remembered in 2004 that, well, yeah, he did that too. All the while, he distanced himself from his former teammates, hung out in Vegas, and cultivated a cock-of-the-walk gambler's lifestyle. (A high-roller in a what's left of a ridiculous Prince Valiant hair-do.)

Now, after a mere 21 years, Rose says he finally "gets it." He says he has recently talked to Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan to try to patch things up, and told them he was "sorry if I caused any embarassment over the years."

If, Pete? Seriously? If??? What a fuckin' blockhead!

The Platform of Willful Ignorance

Please go to Buster's Links and check out the short video from faux candidate "Michael Sharp" explaining his all-too-common political mind-set.

Sharron Angle's Vision Problem

Nevada F-tard and Tea-Bag Senate candidate Sharron Angle was recently captured on video addressing a group of Hispanic students. For some reason she felt compelled to tell these students that they "looked a little more Asian" to her. She said that if elected, she'd push for new laws requiring all Hispanics to wear sombreros and hold tacos, while all Asians would carry big TI-84 calculators and perform complex math calculations upon request.

God Loves You, And He's Broke

Yes, the good Lord is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, omnipresent and omnipotent, but somehow he's just not very good with money. No matter how many bajillions of dollars are contributed to his various churches, and despite tax-exempt status, they always need a little more!

The latest to come up a little short is the well-known Crystal Cathedral, founded by California televangelist Robert Schuller. The church filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy today, citing large drops in memberships and donations. The business of saving souls ain't what it used to be.

It Was A BFD

Yesterday, accompanied by the lovely Mrs. Gammons, I attended the "Moving America Forward" rally on the Oval at OSU. This was a Democratic get-out-the-vote stem-winder promoted for perhaps two weeks via email and a few campus flyers. Gates were open at 5:00, with the program starting at 6:15.

With so little advance publicity, ol' Buster figured on a modest turnout. We got there around 5, and boy, was ol' Buster wrong. At that point, the line to enter the Oval was already backed up to the stadium and halfway around it. (Eventually, the line completely encircled the stadium.) Once the line started moving, it us took an hour to reach the security gates at the entrance. It was the airport drill -- empty your pockets, walk thru a metal detector. (Somehow, I beeped and was wanded. The officer kept asking if I had an artificial hip or knee. No I don't, thank you very much. Do I look that fuckin' bad? Maybe I do.)

As we made our way onto the Oval, it quickly became obvious that this was going to be a really big crowd. Already there were many thousands of people. We got as close as we could and the podium was still just a speck visible only to those over 6 feet tall. And behind us, they kept coming and coming. Officially, they put the total at 35,000 people. The rallies later this month in D.C. -- Jon Stewart's "Restoring Sanity" and Steven Colbert's "Keeping the Fear Alive" -- will draw more, but they have nightly TV shows to help them. I thought that a turnout of 35,000 via email was pretty damn impressive. Just to be there was awesome!

There were singers and preachers and the Central State University drum line. John Legend performed. We heard from Mayor Mike, Mary Jo Kilroy, Yvette McGee Brown, Lee Fisher, and Ted Strickland. John Glenn made a nice little speech. The headliners were, of course, Barack and Michelle Obama. The whole thing was a worthwhile 4 hours of constant standing. My sore back was small price to pay.

I got several compliments on my "Health Reform Is A BFD" t-shirt. Also had an old lady ask me what my shirt meant. I explained that it was what Joe Biden whispered to Obama at the signing ceremony for the health reform bill. The old gal said, "Yes, but what does BFD mean?" So I told her. I get a perverse sense of pleasure from shocking old ladies!