I said I was done with all of this...

I said in the teasers, I am more interested in making a difference than a point. But elections are but every two years. They directly impact the amount of stress most of us (about 98%?) feel in our daily lives. Never before have Washington’s decisions hit so close to home.

Whether you are among the growing masses dependent on fixed income or are soon-to-be… 

Your retirement and investment accounts have tanked or you never had them in the first place…

You are one of the 8-15% unemployed or one of the growing number of Baby Boomers finding they are unemployable…

You are suffering poor health with even poorer health coverage or none at all…

Your home has lost half its value or, if you haven't already,  you're about to lose the other half...

Then you, too, need to care about what happened last night! 

    

I kept my mouth shut for two years to the day and look what happens! I euthanized the Daily Rant the day after the November, 2008, purging of a constipated right-dominant Congress. I supported, blogged and fund-raised for 43 candidates. 39 of them won and, along with us, were supposed to be the people we had been waiting for.

A Black President and control of a self-proclaimed progressive-minded Congress... What could possibly go wrong? Nothing was going to stop us now! True, a couple of cowboys blew a $127 billion surplus and dropped a trillion dollar tab on us on their way out the door. But we’ve worked our way out of Bush holes before. Didn't Bubba Clinton parlay Papa George's $290 billion deficit into a profit? We could do it again. All we needed was control.

So it is, just two years later, progressives are crying in their beer yet again. It is not because we’re stupid, lazy, or complacent that we find ourselves “stuck in Lodi again” with Credence Clearwater Revival. Could we have imagined that our archaic Congressional procedures, primarily unchanged since the Revolutionary War, could result in total systemic paralysis?

There were two agendas all along but we didn't find out until this morning just how sick the Filibusters agenda really was. Our celebratory chest-thumping in 2008 was never meant to be more than what Christine O'Donnell would call masturbation.

Looks like Christie would have fit in with a constipated Senate

 

People have emailed, called, and FB’d me, all asking the same question: What’s my take on what happened at the polls across America last night? I think Robin Williams summed it up best:  "Politicians are a lot like babies. They need changing often ... and for the exact same reason!"

In other words, 2 years ago, it was, “throw the stagnant  bums out.” And we did. Last night, it was throw the Commie bastards out... and we did. The point missed by the 37 hunchback analysts that piled into Wolf's basement at CNN  last night is this: "We the People" will no longer be passive and disinterested in what we expect from our public service representatives. Nor can we accept racism as an excuse for Washington's paralysis.

If the GOP was really listening to America's voice last night as they claim, let them start by vacating the Men's room at airports, close out their call girl tabs, park their Argentinean soul mates, put their teabags and cauldrons away, dump out the Witch's Brew, climb out of their tanning beds and get the hell off a President's back that accomplished more for the "Have-Nots" in the last two years than his predecessor did in eight!

You’re there to help him run a country…not to fight his every move making it impossible for us to egress from this mess you helped get us into. We do understand there needs to be compromise… but it’s not all one-way compromise. You need to be as flexible as you’re expecting us to be. Americans  will meet you halfway.... but only halfway.

Although it’s bad enough that the GOP’s first order of business will likely extend W.'s tax cuts as pay back for the flood of unregulated corporate campaign contributions, it’s not the top agenda item according to Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. With new House Majority Leader, John the Boner, crowding the podium next to him, McConnell stood by his recent comments that the "single most important thing" for the GOP to achieve in the new Congress is to make sure Obama doesn't get a second term.

Is that why the Republicans had such an easy time in the mid-terms? Racism is their common bond? Organized racism is how elections are determined?  Great! Then in 2 years, we can start all over again.... with a NO PARTY SYSTEM!

I said the New Rant was going to be more positive, inspirational and uplifting... and I plan to keep that promise. Your feedback will guide me. Nor will it be “daily”. I will be only as needed. Again, your interaction and comments will direct the frequency.

I offer this comforting observation. Although voters may have lost their sensibility compass last night, we did avoid adding insult to injury. Christine O'Donnell (R-DE) and Sharron Angle (R-NV) two of the three homophobic Tea-baggers running for Senate were thwarted in their attempt to get taxpayers to subsidize their hateful prejudice.

I know, Michele Bachmann, Turner, Overdrive got over in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District. But in the reassuring words of Meat Loaf, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad". I also suspect her influence will be minimized by the He-Man Woman Haters Club that also no doubt resides within the walls of Congress.

 

Is that Michele in her nighties with a bong?

We cannot accept shallow campaign promises from either party. We are not gullible enough to believe windbags from either side that promise us everything and deliver nothing. But the blatant and arrogant racism that leads two of the  three highest ranking Congressional leaders to publicly announce their top agenda item to be "running the Nigger out of the White  House" cannot fall on deaf ears.

In case it slipped Boner's consciousness, over 12% of the state he was elected to represent are black. That's over 1.3 million African-Americans that form his own constituency. I think I'm starting to better understand the strange results of the 2004 Presidential election.

If you don't understand, I suggest you go back and read how "Uncle Tom" Blackwell, Ohio's Attorney General at the time, managed to keep 70,000 of his rain-drenched brothers and sisters outside polling stations long enough for Junior to defeat Democratic Party cream puff, John Kerry.

Just one final word on the election for my fellow Californians currently apartment and job hunting while booking their tickets to Amsterdam after Prop 19 went Up in Smoke! 

"Hey Man, I think I know why Prop 19 failed...

Here's an idea... How about getting straight, staying straight, thinking straight, and keeping some of that cash on this side of the border? How about GETTING INVOLVED in helping us make a difference in some things that really do matter? Like stopping the Republicans from reversing the few decent things that Obama has been able to accomplish during the two year filibuster: health care reform, credit card reform, job creation, homeowner bailouts (not banks that hoard instead of loan) and the elimination of tax havens and tax cuts for the wealthy.

America... Love It or Leave It... or just wait two years.