The election's been decided for a month now, but you can't empty out your spam folder faster than yet another solicitation from O, Inc. trying to strongarm some more funds. Dammit, David Plouffe & Co, I love ya'll like secret sample sales, but even God rested on the seventh day. Take a fuckin' breather already. Today's beggars bulletin comes courtesy of the VP elect, Joe Biden.

President-elect Obama and I have been assembling our team, and we plan to hit the ground running next month.

We want to be ready to go, and that's why I'm asking you to help us honor an outstanding commitment we made during the election.

Our campaign pledged to help Senator Hillary Clinton -- one of the vital members of our team and our future Secretary of State -- retire her campaign debt. That's the money her campaign owes to the vendors across the country that make our political process possible.

Barack and I had the deepest respect for Hillary as an opponent on the campaign trail. Her undeniable intellect, talent, and passion strengthened Barack as a candidate and tested our movement for change.

We welcome Hillary as a partner in our administration, and I hope you will show your support by helping Barack fulfill our campaign promise.

Will you make a contribution of $100 or more now to retire Hillary's campaign debt?

Four simple words: hell to the no. I donated my $10's, $20's & $50's to benefit Barack Obama. Period, full stop.

Since I'm not one of those "hard working Americans, white Americans" who was so paramount in making her case as the stronger candidate to carry the banner for the Democratic Party as the nominee, I suggest Hillary Clinton start leaning on those oft-mentioned supporters of hers... all 18 million of them.

Labels: Barack Obama, elections, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Indecision '08, Joe Biden, rants

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time... tonight is your answer." — President-elect Barack Obama

I am sitting here literally in shock. While there's still more tallying to be done on popular vote totals, it just dawned on me I have forgotten what it feels like for my team to win something big.

I blame the Yankees, Jets and the most recent incarnation of the Democratic party.

For the first time in my adult life, I'm really proud of my country.

Labels: Barack Obama, elections, history, Indecision '08, politics

We've heard the arguments, endured the pundits, watched the debates, reanalyzed the gaffes. And after 21 months, the longest running drama in American political history will finally draw to a merciful close. It all comes down to today. Election Day.

Every 4 years the ante gets raised for spinning into the vast wasteland of hyperbole for turnout motivation.

"This is the most important election EVER!!!!"

And people react like groundhogs, pull their covers back over their head and drift back to sleep. Comforted by the conventional wisdom that their vote doesn't really count, there's no real difference between the two major parties and showing up is a waste of time.

8 years, 2 wars, 4,000+ soldiers dead and an exacerbated man made catastrophe along the Gulf Coast later, we are still reeling from the consequences.

This time around, the stakes are far too high and there's no margin for error.

This election has always felt to me like a test of the American public on a very fundamental level. Bush got selected the first time because of inattention, and the second time because of scare tactics. But this time, people are awake. Everyone who cares can assess the character and nature of the four candidates on either ticket.

So what will it be? Will America stand on the edge of the abyss and leap off? Dress rehearsal's over. The time to take back our country is at hand.

Labels: elections, Indecision '08, politics

"I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray...
But when I woke up this mornin', could have sworn it was judgment day..." — Prince, 1999.

America just had its septic system pumped after six years of fascist diarrhea. After abject depression and serious contemplation of escaping into the still sane arms of our neighbors to the North, the smear-drenched depression that has polarized us from one catastrophe to another all converged into the big blue tide that swept many remnants of Newt Gingrich's 1994 conservative coup out to sea. Not even after the votes were officially tallied in Virginia had Donald Rumsfeld been yanked out from the comfort zone of the Pentagon like a $2 ho. Already a week has passed and the aftershocks still seem as if it was all a dream. It's like going to bed with Al Roker and waking up next to Denzel Washington overnight.

While the change was blowing in the wind for weeks leading up to the day at the polls, this is the Democratic party we're talking about. The political equivalent of the Three Stooges who make snatching defeat from the jaws of victory seem effortless. However, the left wisely got out of the way and let the GOP implode all by their lonesome. Stupidity, corruption and incompetence all made for the perfect storm just before this election to destroy the Bush mafia's carefully laid plans. Were it not for that, the Dems would still be sitting peacefully on the back benches wondering whether to say anything critical of the war in Iraq. And in spite of it all, they've again been given the chance to prove themselves to mainstream voters as a viable alternative in the run-up to the 2008 election. While breathless praise has been given to Rep. Rahm Emanuel and hometown boy Sen. Charles Schumer, the one conspicuously omitted is the blessedly forward thinking, Howard Dean.

Yep, a huge debt is owed to the good ol' Hulkamaniac screamer. Do you think the Dems would have Congress today with that bumbling, cowardly piece of shit, Terry McAuliffe at the helm? Or raised a whopping $50 million in an off-campaign year? Dean is tough, fearless, and pities the fools who won't put in the time to rebuild the infrastructure from the ground up. Just the kind of jolt the DNC desperately needed. Dean and Schumer made the Dems work, and work hard, for the first time in fifteen years - something they'd forgotten how to do once that smooth operator Bill Clinton fell into their laps, so they treated elections as the excuse for more corporate sponsorship and cocktail parties.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." — Mahatma Gandhi

It takes a special brand of arrogant douche bag to be blinded to the inevitable defeat Neo-Cons were handed. And that bloated turd of a man we owe gratitude and thanks to the most turns out to be the puppet master himself, Karl Rove. What's that old saying Bush mangled so succinctly? "Fool me once ... won't get fooled again." On his watch, he presided over a regime that made dissent equivalent to treason. Once pompous in victory, he's now humbled in defeat. How sweet it is.

It's entertaining watching the castrated bullies cannibalize themselves in the wake of this "thumpin'." The prospect of the Bolton appointment being rejected has foaming at the mouth, positively beside themselves.

"Whaddya mean King George isn't gonna have free reign? Where's the rubber stamp for Christ's sake? What the hell is this? Al-Qaeda is rejoicing. Good Lord, we're all sitting ducks. Raise the Crayola terror alert!"

After twelve years of listening to heartbreaking election nights full of asshole Rethuglican goons pledging bipartisanship while twisting the knife in our backs, I just want to send a heartfelt "fuck you" shout out to all my right-wing acquaintances. Nancy Pelosi, the supposed she-wolf from Sodom, is about to make U.S. history as the madam of the House. The country hates you, I hate you, and even Jesus hates you. Fuck you all for bringing us a child emperor who's long on political pedigree, short on any semblance of intellect. Fuck you for starting an illegal, immoral war, creating generations of terrorists who have even more reasons to "hate us for our freedom," alienating our foreign allies, wiping your ass with the Bill of Rights and jizzing over the entire concept of habeas corpus. Fuck you for marginalizing everyone from gays to the middle class and most of all, the poor in your bloodthirsty quest to retain a stranglehold on absolute power. And ultimately fuck you for championing the cause of self-righteous, hypocritical sheep.

But let it never be said that Americans have lost the ability to self-correct. It only took six years, but finally blinders are being taken off and the masses are coming around to what a precious few knew from the very beginning.

Maybe we're actually going to be able to get this country realigned on a course worth traveling. Maybe social security won't be printed on Monopoly money in my lifetime.

Let freedom finally reign.

Labels: elections, politics