I Wasn't Always…

 

Don't f*** with me. I am to see heads roll.

For the record:

I'm not a Republican. Not really. I've voted third party most of my adult life, even in 2016. I haven't seen the point in joining a party whose representatives were less-than-half-assed in its support for its declared conservative roots and ideals. The only times I declare a party allegiance are when primary elections roll around, and we have few to zero other options. And this is where the rubber hits the road.

Because options are everything.



I wasn't a Republican, even when Democrats – the Party of Feminists™ – elected (and then re-elected) a rapist, while slandering and further abusing that rapist's victims.

I wasn't a Republican, even when Democrats – the Party of Ecological Conscience™ – selected a candidate whose mansion and houseboat wasted more resources than any 100 average citizens combined.

I wasn't a Republican, even when Democrats – the Party of Racial Unity™– elected an open racialist to deepen what had been a healing racial divide, encouraging violence in the name of skin color.

I wasn't a Republican, even when Democrats – the Party of the Worker™ – demanded open borders, easing human trafficking, so that near-slave-wage (and often literal slaves) could be imported to compete with the already disadvantaged unskilled laborers already struggling across this nation.

I wasn't a Republican, even when Democrats – the Party of Science™ – declared that biology is irrelevant to one's sexual identity, that a newborn is not yet a human being worthy of protecting its innocent life, that wearing a mask, while having little preventive power in the spread of a virus, must be worn so that people are less afraid, that a governor whose policies which directly brought about the deaths of thousands of elderly citizens is a hero while a governor whose policies had the opposite effect is vilified, that alternate energy sources must always be the least efficient and most costly to the environment.

I wasn't a Republican until, after decades of Democrats challenging any Republican victory in presidential elections, they went so far as to falsify evidence and use criminal means – and purportedly unbiased government agencies – to enter that evidence into impeachment hearings, and, with the help of their lap-dog media, sold that lie to large swathes of the public. 

I wasn't a Republican until, after decades of Democrats encouraging lawbreaking on every level – from sexual abuse to drug abuse to violence against unprotected classes – and vilifying law enforcers and military members, said Democrats witnessed a lawful gathering they didn't like, declared themselves to be the party of law and order, and demanded that any who supported the gathering be "cleansed," denied the right to air travel, denied the right to work in any government office, denied the right to sell their goods through credit agencies, and more.

I wasn't a Republican until, after years of saying they "speak truth to power," Democrats used federal agencies to spy on and intimidate private citizens, used federal agencies to wrest property from private land-owners and cattle farmers, used federal and state agencies to shutter churches, forced independent artisans to choose between free speech and earning an honest income in their trade.  Speaking real truth to the Democrat powers, on most of these issues, is deemed violence worthy of criminal prosecution, but violent actions in the name of the singularly unoppressed American? "Mostly peaceful," "justifiable," "forgivable." Democrats choose to jail a person for going to church, free a person who has raped and murdered, based upon which socio-political boxes have been checked off.

I wasn't a Republican until, after decades of Democrats calling conservatives of all stripes "nazis", the Democrats showed themselves to be most in favor of behaving like that historic evil: threatening the lives and livelihoods of dissenters, of those who don't toe the ever-moving line precisely. Democrats celebrated the assault on a Republican Senator at his home. Democrats celebrated the assault on Republicans at a charity baseball game. Democrats celebrated the silencing of a conservative website. Democrats celebrated the announcement of many conservative media pundits' terminal cancer diagnoses. Democrats "doxed" non-conforming private citizens and celebrated when the mob descended upon them and their families,  celebrated vandalism to their homes and cars, celebrated when their employers were forced to fire them in order to save their businesses from those mobs. 

Democrats – the Party of Tolerance™ – have shown themselves to be supremely intolerant, and supremely intolerable.

For these and a hundred other reasons, unless and until I find a better option, I join with the Republicans. 



The GOP will be seeing me and mine come to do some house-cleaning, as well.

"Shop Somewhere Else"

Once upon a time, my small home town was offered the opportunity to host a WalMart. It would have been built right next to the city's bypass highway, behind the two major fast food franchises, easily accessible to all. It would have cost the city little to let them in – the corporation indicated they would refit all the necessary infrastructure to accommodate their needs. They didn't ask for much beyond a brief tax forgiveness, to be renegotiated after a certain amount of time.

The city council voted against the store.

Why did they do this?

Part of the argument was simple: competition. We have few stores in town, any more. The remaining handful of mom-and-pop places, here, have a hard enough time surviving against state and federal regulations regarding minimum wage, insurance costs, and such. Letting in a giant which can offset those costs via other states' lower tax rates and via sheer scale of trade? Well, that's just a guaranteed kiss of death to Tchotchky's Boutique and Corner Grocer, isn't it?

So, Walmart installed a newer, bigger superstore in the town that's our nearest competitor. It's close enough to us, we can easily drive there and back for the convenient bargains. They also, now, offer free delivery for many of their basic goods. They can do this, unlike Tchotchky's. They're giants, after all.

Tchotchky's is failing. Nearly all the Tchotchky's stores are failing. When the last of them is gone, we will have no choice but to shop at Walmart and other such superstore chains.

Now let us imagine that someone "upstairs" at Walmart decides a certain very popular, very widespread church is spreading dangerous beliefs through cult-like practices, and he must do something to stop this. He and his colleagues discuss this concern with the heads of Target, Aldi, and the other major supply chains of the region, and, in unison, they announce they will no longer do any business with this church's leadership, and with anybody who chooses to support this church. If it is known that you have a cleaning/maintenance contract with the church, you, also, are persona non grata at the superstores. If you are a remaining Tchotchky's owner/manager, and you sell to the church and its supporters, Walmart et al. inform your distributors that, until they stop deliveries to said Tchotchky's, the giants will no longer do business with those suppliers.

Pretty soon, every business is forced into a lockstep against the members and supporters of that church, if they want to keep afloat.

If you don't like their policies, you can "vote with your feet," right? Shop somewhere else. Simple as that.

The world's tech oligarchs today are telling people on social media, "if you don't like our hypocrisy, go somewhere else," as they do their best to brick up the gateways to every other "somewhere else."

Simple as that.

Try it yourself, sometime.

Just Stop With the World Apologies Already

Note: I posted this to my Facebook timeline earlier today, & enough people asked permission to share it that I've brought it here to my cobwebby blog, as well.

To all the people who were so desperate to see Hillary win: please stop apologizing to the rest of the  world for the election of Donald Trump. You helped it happen. You chose the worst possible candidate to lead your party (outside, possibly, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi), meanwhile looking the other way while evidence stacked up as to how she and her boss destabilized the world with their inept and/or crooked policies.

The POTUS you gleefully elected these last two cycles enabled both the expansion of corruption in our federal government and the escalation of racial mistrust and rage throughout our cities, culminating in riots and murder.

You looked the other way when every other racial and social group went out of its way to savage the middle class working white guy.

You supported the passage of laws which stifled free expression of religion (because, you claimed, "intolerance must not be permitted." How tolerant of you to not tolerate somebody's differing beliefs). You forced people to pay out of their hard-earned wages for the products of your own excess.

You encouraged members of your element to menace those who voted against you, even going so far as to publish addresses for the homes of private citizens -- and their children! -- who had expressed differing views, for all the world to harass.

Had you been capable of the same tolerance you demanded of others, you might, today, have no cause for trepidation from a backlash.

Had you supported a percievably honest-ish candidate, such as Bernie Sanders, you might not be crying in your trendy little vintner's cabernet, tonight.

No exalted platform awaits you for your sactimony.  You helped build this house. You get to live in it with the rest of us.

On Crossing Boundaries

Today there are confirmed reports that a Mexican Helicopter crossed the border into Arizona and fired upon US border guards. Now, if you look closely at satellite images of the region, you can clearly see there is a road running parallel to the border, making it obvious to anybody where that border is.

In other words, this was not a "mistake".

But, hey, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

Let's pretend that they had NO CLUE where they were, or how they got there. Or, as with the case of Sgt. Andrew Tahmoressi, helicopter traffic in the region was funneled north in such a way that there was no possible opportunity for them to turn back from the border, so, unlike our marine, they chose to fire off their weapons in panic as soon as the …erm…skyway opened up.

Yeh, that's the ticket.

Yeh.

This is not the first time people in official Mexican uniforms have made forays across our mutual border and fired at our law enforcement officers. Maybe some of them were accidental, but as more and more of this sort of thing is happening, and as officials in Mexico seem to be as enthusiastic as Obama in encouraging people to send gang members into our border states among the disease-ridden children, it's about time a few people in Congress start taking threats seriously.

And, why not start by suggesting that, as a gesture of good faith, since we've sent their "accidental crossers" back right away, since we've practically apologized to them for their stupidity/cupidity for years, maybe they can start truly atoning for their errors by (a) returning our hostage marine, and (b) getting their cops to stop taking more hostages hapless people into custody for making a simple mistake. And, maybe they can continue by actually defending the border correctly – that is to say, they stop people from coming in from their south and crossing the entire of their country unchecked as they make their way into our lands.

But I guess that's too much to ask. After all, our own government doesn't seem to give a tinker's damn about our border security, either, let alone care about the safety of those who are tasked with said border security, or those who live near the border, or those who have to pay taxes to support the agencies which offer "free" public aid to every last illegal border crosser who asks for it, even as the same government denies support to the veterans who made life so cushy for the people in that government…

I'm sorry. I fear I may have created a run-on sentence. But that's far less troubling than a runaway government supporting runs on our border.

Deja vu all over again: Illinois lawmakers order 7 to testify over Quinn's anti-violence program

Once more, an Illinois governor is near the center of a corruption investigation: 

Illinois legislators have voted to subpoena seven former state officials to answer questions about a troubled 2010 anti-violence program started by Gov. Pat Quinn.…

The individuals include Quinn's former chief of staff, Jack Lavin, and Barbara Shaw, former director of an agency that was responsible for the $55 million Neighborhood Recovery Initiative.

Ah, life in Illinois is always so predictable!

HT: Iowahawk –

ICYMI: Pat Quinn vying to become third straight IL governor in prison. 3-PEAT! 3-PEAT! 3-PEAT! http://t.co/eJkhdjL1D4
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 24, 2014

I do not like thee..

Since early on in his stay in the limelight, I've been a little less enthusiastic than many about the popularity of Chris Christie. Granted, I did enjoy seeing him take down so many union shills, but, somehow, I wasn't quite as comfortable with his success as I was with, say, Scott Walker's. At first, I thought it might simply be my Midwestern provincialism. However, in light of recent news concerning New Jersey's administration, I now have an excuse to share my qualms about having their current governor as the lead name on the Republican ticket for 2016.

In honor of this moment, I offer a small bit of doggerel:*

I do not like thee, Mister Christie,
The reason why is greatly mistie,
But this I say while shaking fistie,
I do not like thee, Mister Christie.

*With apologies to Ogden Nash and Thomas Brown

Newly Released Photo: Secretary of State In Negotiations with…

John Kerry negotiates with…you choose. Iran? North Korea? Russia? China?

Dishonest John at work…

(With respect and apologies to Robert Clampett and his brilliant creation, The Beany and Cecil Show.)

Yes, it's all Bush's fault....

After half my friends continue to claim that all our current economic woes can still be lain at Bush's doorstep, I looked something up on the official Bureau of Labor Statistics site.

Note how unemployment jumped from around 4% to around 6% right around and just after 9/11/01, and they came slowly, gradually, back down nearly to where they were when Bush first took office (please recall, it was established that, as he took office in January 2001, we were already in a recession) showing a remarkable stability... and then, suddenly, in 2008, it virtually doubled.

Hunh. I wonder what happened in 2008 which might have Changed things? I Hope we can undo the damage, and soon!

Darn that Dubya!

(Sorry about the chopping off of the image. I couldn't figure out how to shrink the government graph any more than Congress seems capable of shrinking the budget.)

Disparate tools for teaching

There are currently two persons smack dab in the headlights of the mainstream media. One has long been the direct target of many powerful news media teams, and manages to, occasionally, get clipped as they madly careen in pursuit. The other was doing everything possible to bury all traces of attention-worthy activities, and, somehow, ended up this week with his nether parts exposed.

At first glance, Sarah Palin and Anthony Weiner have little -- if anything -- in common. Palin is a supremely telegenic conservative mother from mid-American roots, educated far from the elite academies (U of Idaho, to be precise), an only child, a business owner, openly Christian, a rugged outdoorswoman, and, by many accounts, not often accustomed to flash and often embarrassed by fuss. Weiner is a geeky metrosexual liberal raised with two brothers in Brooklyn, a graduate of SUNY, direct from college into the world of politics with no business experience, with no real sense of faith, and an apparent need to brag about his sexual prowess to young women he has never met.

And, yet, they both have something in common: teachers. His mother, her father were teachers in the public school system. And, from them both, we also have a teaching tool or two.

Beginning with the more immediate news, Anthony David Weiner may soon be under official Congressional Ethics Committee investigation for his part in a scandal of his own making. And, it seems, the lesson we are to learn from him, via the media, is that, if you lie to them, at least be polite about it (it also helps immensely if you are a prominent member of the Democratic party). So long as they like you, they will help you with your cover-up. Lies are good, if you're on the correct side of the aisle.

Or, if Andrew Breitbart gets accused of propagating fictions about you, make sure he never shows up at your own press conference. These lessons would seem to be fairly easy to live by, but, somehow, Weiner has found this as challenging putting a cat into a wet suit.

Anthony Weiner is a teaching tool of the worst sort. Anthony Weiner is a case study in what is wrong with the presumption of anonymity on the internet, and what is wrong with a class which believes it lives by a set of rules quite separate from the rest of us. He and his media accomplices had willingly seen a man falsely accused of a federal crime (hacking into a congressman's e-mail account has huge ramifications, were it true) simply so that they could continue their tawdry relationship. One might learn from him, at the very least, not to insult the media when they're trying very hard to be on your side. If one were a inclined to go deeper, one might also consider that trying to put oneself above the people to whom you are ultimately answerable, and/or above the law, is usually not a terribly wise option.

Anthony Weiner just saw the end of his latest ego trip.

On the other hand, Sarah Palin is on a plain old bus trip. She holds no office, has not announced any intention of running for one, and, without requesting their company has a bigger press entourage, possibly, than the President of the United States. If she allowed it, they would crowd her out of every place she wants to visit. She visits. After riding in the Rolling Thunder rally in D.C., she has toured Mount Vernon, the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and many other historic locales. She discussed their relevance to today with her children. And she, when tired and accosted by another reporter, made a vague reference to Paul Revere's warning to the British army that they would be in trouble...

Egad, but the press and the left-leaning bloggers leapt upon that! You'd have thought she had just given a toast to the Queen of England during the playing of their national anthem, or some pax equally faux. It was all over the world what a doofus the woman was, for not knowing that Paul Revere rode from Lexington to Concord shouting "The British are coming! the British are coming!" Never mind that the good people of Lexington, Concord, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and other points colonial were, at that time, all British, so that warning would have meant nothing. Never mind that Revere himself wrote that he had, indeed, warned the British soldiers -- who stopped him on the road and prevented him from completing his ride -- that they would be met with resistance. What was important to them was that she didn't tell the story as they knew it, so she was, therefore, obviously unqualified to be in front of their cameras, and they'd tell her so every time they took another picture of her.

But the funny thing is, her apparent error forced people who held no animus toward her to come to her defense. People who really hadn't cared a whit about the woman suddenly found themselves researching and posting the results which supported her statements. Even the über-left Los Angeles Times ran a piece online covering her six.

What's great about this is not that there are converts to some political side or other, though. What's cool is, suddenly you have all sorts of people actually checking historical facts, just because some want to play "gotcha" with a woman who doesn't -- and won't -- play by their rules. It doesn't matter who she is, really. It doesn't even matter what she is, except in that whatever it is, it incites a percentage of the population to a frenzy that would put a school of barracudas to shame. And that frenzy leads others to fact-check.

In other words, they read. They research. They revisit history texts and letters and notions that had been out of favor or merely tucked away for a generation or more. So, they do precisely what it is that Sarah Palin says was the purpose of her bus tour: to reinvigorate the discussion of America's beginnings, and of what it means to be an American patriot; to educate her children, and anybody else who wants to learn.

Sarah Palin is what every good history teacher hopes for. Even if she were dead wrong in any and every statement, Sarah Palin is a catalyst for study, a teaching tool of the best sort. American historians should thank her.

The more things change...

So, at auction on Sunday, I spent wildly on postcards (I know, I know -- you are shocked!), and also bought a flat of paper goods having nothing to do with postage, but irresistible to pass by. This is why:

front

back

approximately the same size as a certain standard Government-issued paper article upon which we are heavily dependent, these were published in 1936.

Here they are, cleaned up & converted to B&W images.

(Click on any image to embiggen.)

I think these require no comment. Unless you want to add your $0.02.

Madness and politics...

I am insane. I am also politically aware (albeit not to a level of expertise I would prefer). This does not mean I am going to go out and shoot a bunch of strangers, no matter how much I loathe their views or actions. Those who think that it is politics which continues to trigger violent outbursts... well, they have their own insanity, don't they?

Remember when the experts blamed rock and roll music for assassinations? Or, for that matter, the violent television programs and movies? Twinkies? It's easy to point a finger at apparent influences, isn't it? But the trouble is, nuts are nuts. Regardless of what you put into their heads, the noise was already there, driving them to the point of pain and beyond.

And, if I thought it were apt, I might use the late incident of a madman in Arizona as a clear indictment of the mental health care system in our country today.

Unfortunately, treatment for insanity is still iffy at best, especially for those who have yet to do themselves or others any genuine harm. Most of us with mental illnesses live our lives threatening only ourselves, if that. And, from my own experience, I can safely say that clear and accurate diagnosis of a specific disorder may take years... or never come at all. You can not cure what you can not identify correctly. And, what with the shrinking budgets of many states, it is getting harder and harder to find a place where people like me (financially strapped and in a small rural community) can get help, even if we are properly diagnosed. No pointing of fingers... it's just reality, that the bottom line will always affect somebody, no matter how well-meaning the world tries to be.

And, in case you were thinking somebody should have been locked away years ago, when he first started showing signs of being nuts... our civil rights as Americans trump the responsibility of other citizens to take preemptive action against us crazies. Anything less than that, and we would be no better than Cuba or the old USSR (maybe even current Russia, although I can't prove anything, there), locking people away merely for political opposition. I may be nuts, but I'm not nuts enough to trust the system to protect the rest of our citizens from that kind of abuse, should we go down the preemption path again (yes, we did some of that, way back in the dark ages, up until the ACLU came in and emptied out asylums in the '70s).

There is no real fix for the problem of troubled minds. Madness exists, and it does real harm, but unless and until we can find a true, affordable treatment which does not violate our rights as citizens, expectations of safety from madness in this world will still be a fantasy. Life will always be a crapshoot.

So, you wanna make the connection?

Several high-ranking members of the Democratic party have recently taken to referring to the Republicans as being (and I paraphrase) the home of the Tea Party. This is just silly. The Tea Party, non-partisan group that it is, was born in the house of the insane spendthrifts of both parties.

However, if the Republicans want to give the correct response to such declarations, their leaders ought to stand up and say simply, "We humbly appreciate the comparison and the assumption that there are ties between us and this movement by the good and honest people of this great nation. If we are to benefit from any perceived allegiance, we must then rise to the occasion by following the direction of the people, and strive to meet the implied expectations therein. In other words, we can think of no greater compliment than to be linked to the hearts of free-thining Americans, and we will do all we can to win those hearts and continue to earn that link."

Okay, I'm not a speechwriter, but it seems to me, the best reply to the accusations that the Republicans and the Tea Party to be in bed together is to say, "I wish!" And then go out and try to make it true, the old-fashioned way: earn the public respect and trust. It's short notice before this election, sure, but I don't think this populist movement is terribly short-lived. This has been brewing a long time, and Americans' life expectancy -- unless Obamacare really does take over -- is still pretty high.

So, let me get this straight...

Am I to understand that it's okay for the government to tell me what I should and shouldn't eat (sody-pop, Big Mag, or whatever), even though it really affects only my own comfort; and the government can tell us what medical treatments are appropriate for hospice care (disallowing heroin, e.g. to those with pain which can only be treated with opiates and opioids); and the government can force private companies to fire employees, redistribute the proceeds from shares -- taking them from honest shareholders (many of them pensioners whose shares are part of their 401(k) ) and handing the money and controls to democrat pals in the unions; and the federal government thinks it can require private doctors and hospitals to perform operations which are, in their view, immoral, indecent and homicidal, and require private insurance companies to pay for the same; and the federal government thinks it can tell us what, where, and how to teach our children; and the federal government thinks it can put a knee-jerk ban on exploring and drilling for much-needed fossil fuels in the Gulf of Mexico, regardless of the safety records of those other companies whose drilling rights had already been federally- and state-approved; and the federal government is attempting to tell us what and how we can communicate via electronic media; and the local government has denied permission for a Greek Orthodox church which had stood near Ground Zero and was forced to move due to 9/11-related damage, to return to their original site, and we're told that's an appropriate decision; but when a bunch of in-your-face anti-U.S.-Constitution asshats who support terrorism and terrorists (and has the support of terrorist groups like Hamas) wants to build a middle-finger-flipped-at-decency, dance-on-the-graves-of-3000-murder-victims, "victory"-advertising mosque on hallowed ground in NYC while giving political lip-service to "tolerance", the administration says it's none of their business, or, more importantly, none of ours?

Tell me I'm just confused.

Are you sure you want that system?

Your -ism or -archy may seem very nice

If you think you'll sit at the top of the -arch.

Will you be so pleased with your new world order

When some total stranger tells you how to march?

-rk

Don't ask, don't argue

I've been considering the question currently on the lips of the moderate- to far-left, of rescinding the military policy of don't-ask-don't-tell. The argument used is that the policy "forces people to live a lie." Therefore, the policy must die.

I really don't get the part where this policy forces lies. All it requires is discretion. In other words, keep your sex life to yourself. It's pretty much the same rule for women in service, isn't it? Fraternizing is frowned upon, so don't get caught. They don't want to know that you're having sex, let alone with whom. That's been my own personal view for a while, too. Not that I'm against people having sex... I just don't want to have to think about their doing so. I have an unfortunately graphic imagination, and I'd like it to not go there.

But here the liberal masses are, trying to revoke a policy which was, actually, written to protect gays in the military from unfortunate repercussions... the policy against fraternization and the policies against various turpitudes are old-fashioned and yet designed to maintain a certain solid structure, a solidarity among the troops, a grounding for trust from top to bottom, as it were.

There are still problems with sexist behaviors within the ranks, violence against homosexuals and against women, as well as against others who may not immediately be seen as "fitting in" with the rest of a given unit. And, too often, the internal judicial system doesn't measure up to the needs of those who have borne the brunt of such attacks. It seems to me, before the military lifts the policy on sharing information on your sexual habits with everybody around you, the real target should be, simple and plain, making sure that the troops are ready for the reality that women and gays and other "outsiders" will be let in, and will be able to actually serve their country well.

They don't need to lift a mind-your-own-damned-business policy. They just need to make sure that the real issue that gets addressed always will be the individual's capability and worth in service.

Some most days it's hard to admit I'm from Illinois

Between the Chicago Democrats (and their downstate cronies) and this guy, I'm thinking I'll start telling people I'm from North Dakota or something...

The politicians of this state are exceptionally embarrassing. Hey, is there anybody out there who has a rational, sane, ethical statesman in office that we can borrow for a few months? At least until they can show us locals that it can be done?

Is the media worm turning?

From the AP today:

Obama pledges to slash deficit — after increase

Is this a sign that the MSM are waking from the enchantment, is the honeymoon over? Can it be?

Or is it just a single voice in the wilderness they call "journalism"?

Maybe it's only a tease, to make us believe the MSM can be unbiased about their Saviour...

Plus ça change

Yesterday, auction day, I brought home a handful of old paperback cookbooks to add to Mom's collection. Tucked inside the front cover of one of these booklets was a newspaper clipping, dated "...ER 1908", from the Peoria Herald-[cut away, don't know what the rest of the paper was called]. The little yellowed rectangle speaks across a century rather pointedly, I think.

From the section of the paper titled "Transcripts"

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
By the People
Once more you're all at Washington
at work with might and main ;
It's cost this land a pretty sum to
send you there again.
Your salaries are counting up you're
quite a luxury ;
We hope that you'll be worth it,
though on this we don't agree.

You're there, of course, to do some
work ; we've outlined it to you ;
Some delicate repairing on the tariff
you must do.
It's a tremendous ticklish task – it
must be done just so ;
Just put your mind upon it and let
all the small jobs go.

We want this done and done just
right ; we choose you for the work
Don't sit around and let it slip ; don't
dally and don't shirk.
For if you let the year go by and
don't get through this chore,
You know just what we'll do to you
when you come home once more.

Bye bye Blago

It's unanimous. Rod Blagojevvich is out of a job and barred from ever again holding public office. I would cheer, but the man was a symptom, rather than the problem. Now, to clean up the rest of the state's politics.

It's about freaking time!

For the record, I know everybody and his brother will be posting on the topic of G-Rod, today.

I'm unoriginal.

So sue me.

Anyway.

I love my home state of Illinois, but for years I've been embarrassed and frustrated by its politics. We who live downstate have little or no power to counter the massive forces of corruption from Chicago.

That's why it's nice to hear that the feds have taken Blagojevich into custody. He's the most frustrating and embarrassing element of IL politics, currently -- frustrating because his actions are quite obviously corrupt, and embarrassing because they're so obviously corrupt. It's bad enough to have a crook in office, as long as, for the most part, he's done little real harm to the people (hearken back to the days of Da Mare, Richard J. Daley). But this guy and his cronies have been both criminal and harmful... and the Blowdried One has been stupid and clumsy, to boot.

Of course, I should be grateful that Blago is such an idiot. He has probably made it very easy to remove him from office, and possibly opened the door to a thorough house-cleaning. But we have to live with the aftermath. Part of the aftermath is that there is no Republican party to pick up the pieces. The last batch of candidates for gov. from the right side of the aisle were mostly a bunch of wooden lumps, none of whom seemed able to demonstrate a lick of leadership in simple times... so we're supposed to expect them to handle a mess like this? We haven't had a real leader in the Illinois Republican party since Big Jim Thompson left office. Edgar was okay, but he just held the office, no great shakes. And then, of course, there was Ryan. [cue theme from "Jaws"]

So, we'll just get more Dems. Same old same old. Except we'll be getting more of the less-experienced Dems, and it's likely that, in the long run, they'll grow up to be more like Blowdriedovich than like Big Jim.

But wouldn't it be nice to think we really were heading for a happy future?