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WILL THE GUY WHO WINS BECOME PRESIDENT THIS TIME?

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posted by Jim Ippolito on 10/28/2004 12:03:00 AM

 
BUSH SPINS 'EM LIKE A TOP

This Presidential race is a classic "guns versus butter" situation.

While Kerry has addressed both the domestic issues, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush continues pursuing his policy of, "Let's keep kicking ass, even though we don't know why," under the guise of keeping the world safe.

Of course Bush hasn't forgotten the domestic front, why just this past Friday he approved the latest round of Corporate welfare, in the form of tax cuts.

Didn't hear about this event you say? Well I'm not surprised, since it was done on Air Force One, more or less in secret, as are most dastardly acts.

This little bit of political thievery was conducted without the usual media blitz because of the Bush administration’s shame over it, and a desire to keep it off the front page.

It's so obscure a piece of landmark news that I had a problem finding a reference to it. I finally located a story about it in "eTaiwan News.com," which headlined the story as having been cloaked in secrecy.

This, by the way, is a tax cut opposed by the likes of Republican Senator John McCain.

But, back to Bush as a warrior and champion of the protection of America.

"Stay the course," "don't change horses in mid-stream," blah, blah, blah, etc. is the mantra of Bush's campaign.

So if people believe that Bush is the better protector, how come matters in Iraq are worse now than shortly after the main war ended a year and half ago?

Huge numbers of Americans and innocent Iraqi's are being killed every day, and now we discover that some 380 tons of high explosives have gone missing, explosives that have or will be used to kill Americans.

Now how the hell could that have happened? Our forces knew of the existence of these explosives, and yet nothing was done to secure them, or destroy them.

However, the Bush campaign has put an amazing spin on the situation. Instead of expressing sorrow or shame over this inexcusable oversight, the matter is being used as an example of just how dangerous the terrorists are, and how necessary it is to reelect Bush so he can continue to keep us safe.

Do Republican spin-doctors have titanium balls or what?

This happened on Bush's watch, and I don't want to hear any shit such as, "oh that was the Army's fault," because Bush has taken the credit for all the good that our armed forces have done, so he has to accept the blame for this mammoth fuck up as well.

So do you want to stay the course, or change horses for a fresh ride to safety for America?



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posted by Jim Ippolito on 10/25/2004 09:52:00 PM

 
UNDECIDED VOTERS

What the hell is it with these "undecided voters?" The news channels or TV networks gather a group of these clowns, sit them in folding chairs to watch the debates, and then afterwards the hosts ask them if what they heard made a difference.

They sit in folding chairs with practiced, super serious, somber expressions of skepticism on their faces. If one didn't know better you'd think they were going to make a decision that's going to either save the world, or end it.

Gimme a break for chrisake! With about 2 weeks until the election, and after thousands of hours of speeches, commentary, analysis of the candidates remarks, political ads and so forth these dufusses still haven't made up their feeble minds?

There are only two guys up for the job, not 200.

These people are full of shit, from the woman who looks as if she cuts her own hair with a nail-clipper, and sits, unmoving, her arms folded across her chest, for 3 hours, to the fat-assed, beer-bellied guy in jeans, the waistline of which is an inch above whatever is masquerading as his balls.

They just want attention: "C'mon, try a little harder to convince me to vote for you," thinks the deviant looking guy who claims he's been searching for a wife for 30 years.

"Ask me again if I made up my mind, and oh, can I have another corn dog and a paper cup of that blue stuff," utters another loser whose hobby is collecting used mousetraps.

You know these people all won the lottery for a free lobotomy and now they have their moment of glory, oh how they try to look so concerned.

The Presidential candidates spend the bulk of their time trying to attract true Independent voters, and those from the ranks of the undecided. It makes sense since each Party has a hard core that will vote for their candidate even if he’s dead.

On Monday I heard some Republican clown rant about the evils of early voting. He claimed that anyone who votes before November 2nd would be doing so without the benefit of all the information necessary to make an informed decision.

Is this moron for real? I wish I had caught his name so I could publicly embarrass him but the station cut him short and went to something more interesting and sensible, a commercial hawking a cure for constipation.

The trick here to understand the method behind this guy's seeming madness that was masked with phony concern. He doesn't give a hoot about voters being fully informed.

What he wants is to prevent voters who would vote for Kerry from doing so, perhaps because his Party has another round of "Shitboat Veteran For Bullshit" type ads ready to air which he hopes will change people's minds.

Actually, what he really wants is to have people hold off and hopefully not vote at all.

See, Republicans and Conservatives never miss a chance to vote, even if it's only in a runoff election between a pair of candidates vying for a job as a street sweeper. These people live, eat, and breathe politics, as opposed to most Democrats and Independents who approach politics as a part of life, rather than life itself.

So Mr. Public Interest knows that if he can get the Indies and Demos to hold off, there's a good chance that they will either miss the opportunity to vote or decide to play Skittles on Election Day instead.

Early voting is great, by now nothing new is going to come out and the candidates have said all that they can possibly say. There's nothing new coming, it's all just a rehash of what they've said a thousand times before.

Kerry will continue reaching out to the intellectual set by making eloquent speeches about domestic issues, sprinkled with assurances that he won't allow the terrorists to shit on us again.

Bush meanwhile will reprise his trash talking, scare tactics, and silly attempts at humor designed to garner the thug vote. There's no need for Bush to play up to the intelligent, money people, and those who think they are, because they're already in his pocket since they're his greatest beneficiaries.

Early voting is great and it should be available in all 50 States. For people like me who have medical problems and can no longer stand in line for hours, which is what would happen if everyone had to vote in the same few places at the same time, it's the only way.

What's that, I can vote by mail you say? I don't trust it. My ballot might end up in Fiji, or take 3 months to travel a mile. It's good for those who are completely house bound however; at least they have a shot at having their voices heard.

As for the "undecided," most of them probably won't even bother to vote, not because they can't decide but because in reality they don't care, they just want attention.



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posted by Jim Ippolito on 10/21/2004 01:04:00 AM

 
MORE CHURCHES INVOLVED IN POLITICS

It's not just the Catholic Church that's violating the separation of Church and State laws in America.

In Ohio, Reverand Rod Parsley of The World Harvest Church located just outside Columbus recently told his parishioners, "We are going to vote our values."

Hmm, sounds like an order to his flock to me.

Later, outside the church, the Reverand told ABC News : "I can personally endorse a candidate … I'd like to see George W. Bush as president because of the stands he has taken."

Hmn, sounds like a church official playing politics to me.

Anthony Picarello, president and general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of religious groups had this to say:

"If a pastor were to say the words 'vote' and 'Bush' or 'Kerry' in the same sentence, they are likely to have trouble from the IRS."

So what we have are religious leaders playing semantics, saying, from the pulpit, what they want to say without actually saying it. What we have are religious leaders taking a page from a lawyer's playbook and making suggestions or issuing orders to their faithful by inference.

To be fair, I must say that there are probably some religious leaders who support Kerry and make their feelings known to their congregations. However, it must be noted that Bush has made no secret of the fact that he and other Republican candidates have openly courted the "Evangelical" vote under the guise of "sharing the same values."

Use of the word "values" irkes me too. As used by politicians it is merely a synonymn for "preferences" and has no real relation to ethics or morality, which is what is being inferred.

As proof I offer the instance of a Wisconsin man, a self admitted Republican, who recently stated on National TV that many Wisconsinites: "go hunting, and watch the Packers play, and these are values that we share with Bush."

I don't see these activities as values but rather as preferences as to how one spends his or her leisure time. "Values" is just another buzzword used by politicians to align themselves with the "Religious Wrong," not Right.

Religious leaders should not be allowed to have their cake and eat it too. Anyone employed in a tax-exempt occupation by virtue of religious affiliation should stay the hell out of politics or start paying taxes.

After all, these "people of faith" would not like it if some governmental body began dictating which articles of faith they should follow, or, worse yet, outright endorsed one religious sect over another.



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posted by Jim Ippolito on 10/15/2004 09:44:00 AM

 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SHOULD LOSE IT'S TAX EXEMPT STATUS

This is a topic about which I could go on forever, but since it really is a no-brainer I'll be brief.

I was born and raised a Catholic, and attended Catholic schools, so I feel I'm qualified to comment on this issue, but this is so obvious that anyone who is at all familiar with Federal law will see that the Catholic Church should lose its tax-exempt status.

Frankly I'm outraged by the Catholic Church's interference in our upcoming Presidential election.

This religious organization, which provides asylum for child molesters, as long as they are ordained priests, has made no secret of the fact that they favor Bush over Kerry. The reasoning given is that Kerry supports stem cell research, and that is a sin in the minds of the Catholic Church.

First off it's incredibly nervy that representatives of the Catholic Church would make public comments about any parishioner's status with regards to he or she being either in or out of, "the state of grace."

Second, there is no place for politics in any religious organization in the United States despite all the rhetoric to the contrary.

It's obvious to me why the Catholic Church favors the Republican Party, the party of Corporate America. After all, the Catholic Church operates more like a Corporation rather than a religious organization.

When the priests don't have their hands down the pants of some 6-year-old boy they are busy rifling the parishioner's purses and wallets taking money to send to The Vatican the Church's Corporate headquarters.

That's right, the bulk of the contributions made by the Church's well intentioned members goes directly to The Vatican to buy more wine and veal for consumption by it's corpulent Cardinals, while they sit on priceless antique furniture in rooms full of valuable paintings and other expensive artifacts. The small amount that is left to the local churches goes for maintenance and so forth.

When a parish requires money for a local project, a school e.g. a separate collection is made, and there are plenty of these special collections. When I was a kid there was a saying in my old neighborhood, which was nearly 100% Catholic: "Arrive at mass 5 minutes late and miss the first 10 collections."

But I digress because there are so many matters within the Catholic Church with which one could take issue.

In short, the endorsement of a candidate for political office, in any way, shape, or form, by a religious organization in the United States is wrong. Since the Catholic Church is actively engaged in this practice in a veiled, but obvious manner they should be stripped of their tax-exempt status.

Here's an article in "The New York Times" exposing the latest violation of this law by the Catholic Church in Colorado.



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posted by Jim Ippolito on 10/12/2004 02:25:00 PM

 
WHAT IS A PROVEN LEADER?

I've heard a number of people, who are openly Republican, state that George Bush would be a better President than Senator John Kerry because he is a "proven leader."

Lets examine the phrase "proven leader" starting with the word leader.

As soon as a person is elected or appointed to a leadership position, be it President of The United States, or head janitor of the night shift, that person is a leader.

As soon as this leader makes a decision, be it whether or not to go to war, or which toilet stall should be cleaned first, that person has proven that he or she can lead, merely by virtue of having made a decision to be followed by another, or others.

That person is now a "proven leader," because he or she has made a decision that another, or others must obey.

But does that mean that the "leader's" leadership is good, has the right decision been made?

General George Custer was a proven leader, but he was also a brash asshole, and a murderer. Because of his ego he stupidly lead his troops against a group of innocent, but tough, Native Americans, who, rightly so, defended themselves by wiping out him and his forces.

In 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote, which means that the majority of Americans felt that he was the better choice for "leader" of America.

However, the outdated, unnecessary, and completely senseless electoral vote process came into play and subverted the people’s will.

Then, because of the foul-ups in the election process in King George Dubya's brother Jeb's Principality of Florida, The Supreme Court appointed George Bush as leader.

Suppose we had a lame-duck president and neither candidate had previously acted in a leadership role? Voters would have to decide between the two based on other factors they feel indicate the ability to lead.

This leads us to a wide variety of concepts regarding the perceived ability to lead.

A candidate may have been the CEO of a huge corporation. In many person’s minds this would indicate leadership ability. Others, however, might feel that CEO’s are cold, calculating, heartless individuals who would favor business over people.

This is a subject on which one could speculate ad infinitum so I'll end it by saying that the words "proven leader" are meaningless.

Regarding the upcoming Presidential election the answer is clear. We have to choose between an appointed President with a 4-year record of his ability to lead, or the lack of it, and a seasoned, worldly, battle proven, caring US Senator with 20 years of experience from which to choose.

We can have 4 more years of the past 4 or elect a man with sensible, fresh ideas that will benefit all Americans, including our embattled armed forces.

As Ronald Reagan said: "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?"



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posted by Jim Ippolito on 10/08/2004 01:23:00 PM

 
KERRY WINS FIRST DEBATE!

63% of the people polled stated that John Kerry won last night's debate.

Yet, on today's news every Republican and Conservative who commented on the debate claimed that President Bush was the strong, clear winner.

Were they watching the same debate?

Basically all I heard from the President was a rehash of his failed policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a promise of 4 more years of the same.

He was clearly outclassed and on the defensive. My opinion is that the President was appealing to his base and not in any way attempting to gain additional support from the undecided.

It appears that by sticking to his guns the President is relying on his slim lead in the polls to carry him through to victory rather than by trying to convince a substantial majority of Americans that he is the right choice.

The President relied on the old attack tactics of the Republican Party by refraining his cutesy, but inaccurate "flip-flop" accusations.

He acted more like he was playing up, and preaching to his typical supporters who have no idea about what the hell he's talking about, but who are satisfied as long as he makes fun of his opponent, mentions God, and assures them that he will kick ass.

Someone should have informed the President that he was addressing a diverse, national audience and not his usual handpicked mob of unsophisticated, indoor cap and cowboy hat wearing, booing, roughneck inbreeds.

The point that the President misses is that changing one's mind in the face of changing circumstances is the smart thing to do, it doesn't denote weakness. Sticking to a failed policy accomplishes nothing other than to prove that one is unwilling or unable to properly respond to change.

Overall, the object is to defeat terrorism, and in order to do so a President must be willing to change the tactics being employed to meet a dynamic situation.

Kerry has stated that he will appeal to other nations to provide more help in this fight and the President has either ridiculed that suggestion, or he states that he is doing that. Talk about a flip-flop!

The same terrorists that our troops are fighting threaten the entire world. So why shouldn't we elicit help in the form of military and money from other countries?

This notion that by doing so is tantamount to yielding control of our destiny to our allies is nonsense. Our "allies" need to take a more active role in the preservation of world peace which will be brought about by the defeat of terrorism.

After all, they will benefit from it, so why shouldn't they shoulder more of the risk and finance more of the effort?

Of course if other countries become more involved they will want a fair share of the "spoils of war," which in this day and age are lucrative contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq.

This does not set well with Halliburton, so we continue, under Bush and Cheney, to sacrifice our troops and create an enormous National debt for our children, grandchildren and beyond.

We need to continue the fight against global terrorism, but we also need to change the way the battle is being fought.

We need a President who is willing to change his methods of fighting terrorism as the situation warrants, while achieving the goals of his policies, both foreign and domestic.

We don't need, as Senator Kerry said: "More of the same."