Yearly Archives: 2008

Election, NADA

This Week’s WTF!? and Sour Grapes from Sore Losers (Yawn)

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Dumbed-Down System Wins
THE DEMOCRATIC leadership and their Kool-Aid drinking followers have finally done it! They have been trying for years to “dumb down” the electorate and get so many people thinking that they are entitled to government handouts so the Dems can get a dictatorial socialistic government.
       The election shows how naive and uneducated 52 percent of the electorate are and even more in New Mexico. …
       We’ll probably see the next four years be as bad as when Jimmy Carter was in office and, hopefully, a new Ronald Reagan will come along to get us back on track.
CURTIS S. SMITH Corrales

Time Will Prove Poor Choice
OH, FOOLISH American voters! Who has bewitched you? Time will tell what an incredibly bad choice Barack Obama was for the American presidency.
       Civil rights will supersede national security. The soft-on-crime Democrats will let known terrorists out of jail. Our border will not be secured. We will be wide open for attack. And we are told to “be patient” with the president-elect while he does on-the-job-training for a job he is not qualified for. That spells trouble, my fellow Americans!
STELLA DILLENBECK Alamogordo

Get Ready for Higher Taxes
I WANT TO thank all of you who voted for Barack Obama for raising my federal income taxes.
       Let me explain. When Obama lets the “Bush tax cuts” lapse, he will be restoring the tax rates of 2000. Taxes will return to a higher level, and my family will pay more. My wife and I file jointly and earn around $90,000 a year. That means we will pay approximately $4,167 more a year in federal income tax.
       Check this for yourself. Go to http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/ and pull up the 1040 instructions for 2000 and 2007 and go to the tax tables. Based on your 2007 income, check your taxes rates for 2000 and 2007, and apply them to your taxable income for 2007.
       Obama has said he will allow the “Bush tax cuts” to lapse. While he does not call this a “tax increase,” my taxes will increase significantly. So, once again, thank you. My middle class family did not have enough of a burden with child care expenses and a mortgage. Remember, you reap what you sow.
RYAN KETTLER Albuquerque

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Heavy Lifting

NADA

Who Would Jesus Shoot?

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On the front page of today’s Abq Journal is a picture of a man buying an AK-47. He is spending nearly $1,000 on this weapon of mass destruction, this machine that exists solely to destroy things as quickly and completely as possible. Saddest of all, he is identified as a teacher. Of what — fear?

If you hate guns and have money to burn, I suggest you go to the local gun shop and buy a machine gun. Tell them money is no object. This will accomplish three things:

(1) the sacred market will drive the price so high that gun-nuts will bankrupt themselves — it’s working for bin Laden;

(2) news that more people are arming themselves may just raise the gun-nuts’ stress level high enough to cause a stroke;

(3) you’ll be armed for the Rapture. (This one truly puzzles me: In the Rapture, righteous people ascend immediately to heaven, no? So is this gun buyer confessing he is not righteous and will be stuck on earth with the rest of us?)

I truly believe you have the right to live your own way. If you have money to piss away on things I have no use for, go for it. But if you live in a state of fear that drives you to arm yourself with a FUCKING MACHINE GUN, you have no quality of life whatsoever. I pity the people around you. peace, mjh

ABQJOURNAL UPFRONT: Run on Guns

By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
    Dan Hutchison went in a different direction.

    He drove directly to an Albuquerque gun store, pointed to a dull black Israeli-made AK-47 rifle and slapped his driver’s license on the counter for a background check.

    "I’m disappointed," Hutchison said. "This country is going down the tubes in a hurry." He forked over $829.95 and added, "It’s time for the Rapture." …

Valerie Jackson at Charlie’s Sporting Goods in the Northeast Heights has been selling loads of handguns to people worried about a looming ban.

When I talked to her last week, the presidency still hung in the balance and she laid out her version of an Obama administration like this: "If Obama is elected, you’ll be out of business and so will I, because he’s going to take away the 1st Amendment and the 2nd Amendment and then he’s going to go after our religion."

ABQJOURNAL UPFRONT: Run on Guns

PS: Hats off to the self-serving gun sellers whose pronouncements drive sales higher. Perhaps a few of your customers will eventually realize that selling guns is no different than selling drugs, tobacco, or alcohol: All depend on people so addicted they can’t see straight anymore. Customers so desperate they’ll spend any amount for more product, even if it kills them. It’s a corporate wet-dream.

PPS: Let me state again: Gun owners are safe from powerless bloggers like me. No need to get ugly. We’re all up to our necks in guns; you can’t get any safer, so stop worrying. Oh, but you can’t stop, can you? Pity.

NADA

Shake the Nuts Out of the GOP Tree

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While the Republicans engage in soul-searching, they may want to consider what to do about the bigots, idiots, and nut-jobs that cling to the GOP. It might also be time to shove a sock in the mouths of the ever-angry hate-jockeys on talk radio.

In Pa., Pockets of Doubt About an Obama Presidency | 44 | washingtonpost.com

By Robin Shulman
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The idea of an African American president doesn’t sit well with John and Marlene Roberts, who were eating a breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns at Denny’s the morning after Sen. Barack Obama’s victory.

“I guess you could call us prejudiced,” said Marlene, 62, a retired collection agency worker wearing a diamond-studded cross around her neck.

“I don’t believe a black person should be president,” continued Marlene, as she took a forkful of eggs over-easy. “I hope he does wonderful things. But I don’t like it.” …

This is a traditionally Democratic town, with a Democratic mayor. Yet Sen. John McCain poured resources into this largely white, working-class county and others like it in northeastern Pennsylvania, perhaps noting the fierce opposition to Obama among some of its residents.

Few people acknowledge racial prejudice as nakedly as the Roberts. But when asked how they feel about an African American president, some answer like Matt Sobieski, 23, a security guard, who shrugged, “Nothing you can do. He’s already elected.”

In Pa., Pockets of Doubt About an Obama Presidency | 44 | washingtonpost.com

Think Progress » Novak: 3 Million Vote Margin = Mandate For Bush; 7 Million For Obama = No Mandate

As of now, Obama’s popular vote margin stands at 7,401,289 — more than twice Bush’s 2004 vote margin — and Obama has netted 63 more electoral votes than Bush in 2004. In his column, Novak dismissed the Democratic Senate gains this year, even though they have netted five seats for a total of 56, with three more seats potentially up for grabs. By contrast, the conservatives’ so-called 2004 “mandate” netted only four new seats for a total of 55.

Said Novak, “[Obama] may have opened the door to enactment of the long-deferred liberal agenda, but he neither received a broad mandate from the public nor the needed large congressional majorities.”

[Said Novak four years ago:]

Q: Bob Novak, is 51 percent of the vote really a mandate?

NOVAK: Of course it is. It’s a 3.5 million vote margin.

Think Progress » Novak: 3 Million Vote Margin = Mandate For Bush; 7 Million For Obama = No Mandate

Red and Blue America | NewMexiKen

Blue indicates counties that voted more Democratic than in 2004. Red indicates counties that voted more Republican than in 2004. The darker the color, the greater the change.

Red and Blue America | NewMexiKen

Looks like Obama has twice the political capital that Duhbya claimed in 2004. It also looks like the upcoming generation of Republican rule that Duhbya credited to the architect of victory (Rove) will be a generation wandering the wilderness, cursing Duhbya. (A long trek may be the best way to lose the hate-filled loonies.) peace, mjh

Election

Change Comes from Within

The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME

The 44th President

TIME First glimpse at this week’s TIME cover, hitting newsstands Friday.

The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME

The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME

Obama said,

“Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.  Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.  As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.”

The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME

Obama’s awesome speech Nov 4th

McCain’s gracious concession speech. (His supporters booed Obama’s name, while Obama’s supporters cheered McCain’s.)

PS: Say Good Night, Grover

Election

NRA Votes for Fear — as usual

This is the bag the Albuquerque Journal was wrapped in this morning. One last ‘fuck you’ from our friends at the Journal and the sensible folks at the NRA. I’d vote in a minute to take every gun away from everyone, including the cops and military. But, don’t be such chicken-shits, NRA: Your guns are safe. And so is your right to absurd fear-mongering. Let’s be clear: The NRA is all about fear. Which is why the NRA is merely a tool of the fearful conservatives. peace, mjh

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Election

Worst of times, by Garrison Keillor — chicagotribune.com

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It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. When she said, “One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars,” people smelled gas.

Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne’er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself—one stink bomb after another, and now Gov. Sarah Palin.

She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Sen. John McCain’s first major decision as the Republican nominee for president. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy.

Worst of times — chicagotribune.com