Another Mid-Week Pause
No one topic I want to focus on.
Honestly, I don't know if I can. While feeling much better, whatever started to take me down by December 10th has taken me all this time to shake it, and I'm still not fully back. The drastically fragmented sleep has taken its toll; my memory and ability to concentrate are both in tatters. A little better each day, but the increments are tiny.
The primary process was almost interesting in the interim between last Thursday's Iowa straw poll and the lead-in to yesterday's New Hampshire vote. I deliberately (and, as it turns out, wisely) skipped listening to the coverage on Tuesday. Who needed a day of repetitious grind followed by updates as percentages of the precincts reported in? Not, I.
That said, I was a little disappointed to see that Obama didn't keep the predicted lead -- though it was only a loss by a gap of 2%. Oh, it isn't as if I'm a big Obama booster, but I believe I could get more enthusiasm going for his campaign in the general election than I could for Clinton's, and I'm looking forward with trepidation to the prospects for November. It kills me to hear the morons who try painting her as Liberal when she's so co-opted by corporate interests as to frighten me. Dimwits holding flashlights under their chins for a spooky effect as they intone "Hillarycare" and "socialized medicine" when what she and hers are most likely to offer us if they get the chance is some piss poor healthcare equivalent of no fault insurance. Force everyone to buy a policy by making it against the law not to have one, and most will end up with the most cut-rate plan they can find -- something of little to no use... except to the insurance companies.
I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich in an instant, but he's so far away from Likelyville as to be virtually not in the running.
There's no one on the GOP side I could vote for without it being a pre-suicidal cry for help. Even just on the issue of Supreme Court nominations, here are some quotes that made their way to me just today:
Oh, it drains the life from me. It's time for me to start heading for bed anyway.
No one topic I want to focus on.
Honestly, I don't know if I can. While feeling much better, whatever started to take me down by December 10th has taken me all this time to shake it, and I'm still not fully back. The drastically fragmented sleep has taken its toll; my memory and ability to concentrate are both in tatters. A little better each day, but the increments are tiny.
The primary process was almost interesting in the interim between last Thursday's Iowa straw poll and the lead-in to yesterday's New Hampshire vote. I deliberately (and, as it turns out, wisely) skipped listening to the coverage on Tuesday. Who needed a day of repetitious grind followed by updates as percentages of the precincts reported in? Not, I.
That said, I was a little disappointed to see that Obama didn't keep the predicted lead -- though it was only a loss by a gap of 2%. Oh, it isn't as if I'm a big Obama booster, but I believe I could get more enthusiasm going for his campaign in the general election than I could for Clinton's, and I'm looking forward with trepidation to the prospects for November. It kills me to hear the morons who try painting her as Liberal when she's so co-opted by corporate interests as to frighten me. Dimwits holding flashlights under their chins for a spooky effect as they intone "Hillarycare" and "socialized medicine" when what she and hers are most likely to offer us if they get the chance is some piss poor healthcare equivalent of no fault insurance. Force everyone to buy a policy by making it against the law not to have one, and most will end up with the most cut-rate plan they can find -- something of little to no use... except to the insurance companies.
I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich in an instant, but he's so far away from Likelyville as to be virtually not in the running.
There's no one on the GOP side I could vote for without it being a pre-suicidal cry for help. Even just on the issue of Supreme Court nominations, here are some quotes that made their way to me just today:
McCain:Those lines alone are enough to chill my blood.
"I'm proud that we have Justice Alito and Roberts on the United States Supreme Court." ... [And when asked whether he admires any Supreme Court justice in particular] "Of course, Antonin Scalia."
Huckabee:
"My own personal hero on the court is Scalia."
Romney:
"I think the justices that President Bush has appointed are exactly spot-on. I think Justice Roberts and Justice Alito are exactly the kind of justices America needs."
Giuliani:
"I will nominate strict constructionist judges with respect for the rule of law and a proven fidelity to the Constitution -- judges in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts."
Oh, it drains the life from me. It's time for me to start heading for bed anyway.
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Comments
Like you, Kucinich would be my first choice, and I'd vote for Edwards over any of the Republicans... maybe Obama, too, although I am suspecting deep down that he and Edwards both are nearly as sold up as HC.
Still, in the end, ANY Democrat will have to be better than any Republican we're likely to see put up. And God save us all from a Guiliani/Huckabee administration, which a small part of my brain is gibbering in terror about even as I type this. That's a combination that could WIN for the Repugs, especially if the Dems are dumb enough to run a woman or a black man (or both!) against it.
In terms of your susceptibility to cold and flu stuff, I've had great luck dodging viral bullets by dosing myself with Zycam every time I get a sniffle. You might try it. It tastes truly dreadful, but it works.
Steven Grant did a good job of covering him last week:
"His broad message - rip control of the country out of the hands of the bought and paid for thieves and scoundrels in Washington who want nothing more than to steal your money from him - is populist appealing, but the devil is in the details.
I'm not sure returning to a pre-Civil War political structure where the federal government has negligible power and states are free to make all their decisions on their own is of much benefit to anyone, and as far as getting rid of national taxation of any kind goes (Paul's political ads have stated he intends to replace the current tax system with nothing at all, leaving rather open the question of how the government's going to pay for anything... and the implication is that it's not because Paul doesn't think it should) there are a whole lot of roads in Wyoming and Idaho and Alaska etc that would never have been bought if people in Manhattan and Boston and Chicago and Los Angeles hadn't paid for them, and much of what now comprises America's infrastructure, as in need of modernization as it may be, resulted from taxation.
Eliminating "federal interference" is basically code for ending regulation of any kind, which strikes me as pretty much handing power over to the very corporate interests Paul accurately states are corrupting Washington. (And if you think unfettered capitalism is socially beneficial and shielded from widespread abuse, you're insane.)
Then there are Paul's social politics, which, despite his laudable opposition to the Iraq war, tend toward the heinous, like his stand of women's right to abortions; he may be willing to take the federal government out of the picture but he's perfectly happy to have states dictating what women can and can't do with their bodies, and makes no allowances for social disparities that would allow moneyed classes to do as they like while severely curtailing choice of any kind for poorer groups. What Paul proposes is essentially a culture of selfishness dressed up as antiestablishmentism, and, sorry, I just can't get behind it. The problem with the federal government isn't that it exists but that it's supposed to be looking out for the interests of the majority of its citizens but has largely bought into (and been bought by, but it mostly always was) a vision that what's good for General Motors is good for the country, and sucking up to the very interests it should be protecting us against. There have been times in this nation's history when the federal government has been a useful force for necessary change - during the Civil Rights Movement, for example, despite its involvement being somewhat capricious and paradoxical, but that's the nature of politics - that either never would have occurred or would have been a lot longer in coming without federal interference. The problems it now presents can't be effectively dealt with by going backwards, and that's really all Paul intends: to go forward, into the past."