Monday Open Thread: November 16th, 2009
What’s on your mind this Monday morning?
Before we get to anything else, we want to remind all of you that Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming — not because you would have forgotten, but because there is still time for you to contact your local USO office and ask them what you can do to volunteer those days (and if not ,see if they need prep work help the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve).
Here is the contact page for the USO…you can follow the links to find out how to volunteer in your city. If you have a major airport, you’ve got a USO.
The reason we keep reminding you about this is threefold:
(1) We love the USO, we love our troops, and since none of us guys here can be in the military ourselves (due to our fabulous gene), we try to serve our country in other ways…and supporting the USO, and asking other people to support it, is one of those ways.
(2) We want to see our troops have the best holidays possible, all across this country, because if anyone deserves a holiday it’s the men and women who wake up every day, put on a uniform, and set to work keeping us all safe for very little pay in often unpleasant circumstances. If they can get up and do this every day, all of us on the homefront can get our butts off the couch on Thanksgiving and Christmas and do our part to make the holidays better for all who have chosen to serve us. These are heroes with servants’ hearts, people…they deserve our love, support, and respect EVERY day, but most especially on holidays.
(3) Listen to us closely because truer words were never spoken: if you do this, if you volunteer for the USO, you will have the greatest experience of your life, you will be awash in feelings of pride, patriotism, and good will. You will receive thanks in the form of the most beautiful smiles you have ever seen in your lives – those worn on the grateful faces of our men and women in uniform, who will be DELIGHTED you chose to spend part of your holiday time with them. We are grown men who on the car rides home from volunteering days with the USO actually tear up, so proud of all the service members we met that day. This is an experience we have shared with many friends now, all of whom have become regular USO volunteers themselves. Once you start doing this, you are hooked…and hopefully hooked for life. You will make new friends as well as great memories.
Seriously, if you ever listen to us about anything, PLEASE checkout the USO near you. Tell them you want to volunteer some of your time to make Thanksgiving and Christmas special for our troops. Ask them for marching orders, and they will give them to you.
Go ahead and blow their minds and tell them “those gay Hillary guys in Chicago told us to do this”. They always get a big chuckle out of that, for some reason. One time we wore shirts when we did this that said, “Hillary Sent Us”, and everyone just loved that.
Go USA!
Get your butts off the couch!
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Here’s something that’s interesting that we’re going to think more about and work into a more substantive piece, if you can help us gather some more information and examples for an essay:
In 1994, part of the reason Democrats lost Congress was because many politicians and potential candidates saw the writing on the wall and decided not to be competitive that year, in what became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ie, Democrat candidates thought Dems would lose big that year, and Dems lost big that year because strong candidates backed out so they could run again at some later date that looked more up their alley.
It sure feels like that’s happening this year.
In California, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dropped out of the governor’s race, leaving only former Governor Jerry Brown (a vile man) as the sole contender for the Dem nomination. Newsom is a very good guy. The papers are all saying that he’s had trouble raising money in the state, and that’s why he’s dropping out. We just don’t think that’s the reason — to us, it feels like he doesn’t want to be one of the Dem casualties in 2010. He’d rather hold off and run some other day, and let Meg Whitman win the race this time out (unless Dianne Feinstein really does decide to leave the Senate and make a run for the Sacramento job being vacated by Schwarzenegger).
In Illinois, there are largely only terrible people seeking the Dem nomination for the Senate. We are supporters of Roland Burris because he has always been not only a strong friend of the LGBTQ community here, but also because we consider him a personal friend and are so proud he marched with us at the Pride Parade in Boystown this last year (the first US Senator to march in Pride in as long as anyone can remember…since Dr. Utopia, as a Senator, always refused to do so and Dick Durbin is too busy being lazy, ignorant, and slimey on whatever day the parade is held each year). Since Burris is not seeking election, we hope Republicans win Dr. Utopia’s old seat, because that would sure be a wonderful victory for Michael Steele and the RNC’s Senate team. And it would infuriate the White House. The trouble is, Republicans are running a fatally flawed candidate in Mark Kirk, who will be outed spectacularly by Democrats during the general election — using ammunition Kirk’s estranged wife has been feeding Dem operatives during their messy divorce. It’s deja vu to the Jack Ryan for Senate campaign all over again (remember, that’s how Dr. Utopia won his Senate seat…by releasing the pervy sex details actress Jeri Ryan used against Kirk in their divorce). Kirk does not respond well on his feet: instead, he starts telling military stories from his time in Afghanistan and seems to think you won’t notice that he’s not addressing whatever it is you want to talk about. A lot of politicians do this, but Kirk’s not good at it. Too clumsy and obvious. When he’s outed next year, he will probably do more of this, and fumble and bumble his way to a Jack Ryan-Alan Keyes debacle.
The reason this is bad is because Democrats are running some of the worst people in the state for Roland Burris’ Senate seat. The frontrunner is Alexi Giannoulias, the scion of the family that run’s Chicago’s mob bank, Broadway Bank. This is the bank that Dr. Utopia’s benefactor, convicted felon Tony Rezko used in many of his slimeball deals. We believe it’s also where scam artist and slumlord Valerie Jarrett found funding for many of her own shady real estate deals too. If Al Capone were alive today, he’d be banking at Broadway, and the Giannoulias Family would be taking great care of him. In essence, installing Alexi Giannoulias into that seat would be like sending a younger, fatter Tony Soprano to Washington to represent one of the most corrupt and crime-addled states in the Union.
The other people running for the Dem nomination are almost as bad, including Urban League President Cheryle Jackson, who is one of the rudest and most condescending people we’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. She’s not one of the Jesse Jackson Jacksons, but might as well be. No business anywhere near the Senate for her, thanks.
Why aren’t there better candidates running for this open seat in 2010?
Why aren’t there more Democrats running for Governor in California?
Why aren’t people like Beau Biden running for his father’s seat in Delaware?
Why aren’t Dems forcing strong challengers to Chris Dodd and Harry Reid in their respective states, or telling them behind closed doors they need to retire so that a formidable Dem challenger can run instead and actually win those races?
It feels to us like Dems know already 2010 is going to be a bloodbath, and they do not want to waste good candidates they can instead run in 2014-2016, when things settle down and cycle back to Democrats’ advantage after a Republican president takes office after 2012, and Republicans take back Congress in 2010.
Everything we look at is trending this way.
Democrats look far into the future for whom they are going to run and when. Republicans don’t bother thinking about strategy until a few months before an election…but Dems try never to waste a good candidate on a race she or he won’t win, because many of these people have only one chance to run and don’t want to be tarred as a loser.
For 2010, it looks like Democrats are fielding no one from the A-team in many races, or even the B-team. When you are running Jerry Brown in California and the Mob’s banker Giannoulias in Illinois, it sure looks like you know you are going to get spanked. That’s what the GOP does in Illinois: it runs crazy people like Rosanna Pulido in the race for Rahm Emanuel’s Congressional seat because it knew there was little chance a Democrat, any Democrat, could lose that contest. So Pulido got to run, was able to act crazy and say weird things and embarrass herself, but no decent future GOP candidate had to suffer a loss because they needed a sacrificial lamb to serve up to Mike Quigley (who won the seat easily).
The only races that we see that have decent Democrats running are in places like Massachusetts, where Martha Coakley’s running for the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy (the man who let a woman drown in his Oldsmobile while he went back to a party for more drinks in 1969…lest anyone ever, EVER, forget). Coakley is a Hillary supporter, and someone we like very much personally. Massachusetts should be a safe Dem seat. But, isn’t it interesting no Kennedy wanted that seat. Not even HRH Princess Caroline, who demanded Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in New York, but was denied (for the first time in her entire life, the dilletante didn’t get what she wanted…and is apparently STILL pouting over that one).
Hillary Clinton keeps repeating she has no interest in the New York governor’s race next year, and we wonder if it’s because she too feels like Dems are going to lose across the board in 2010. Ted Strickland, another strong Hillary supporter whom we are very grateful to, is in deep, deep trouble in Ohio (partly, we think, because of the actions of Jennifer Brunner, the despicable ACORN-backing Secretary of State in Ohio, who makes every Dem in the state look bad because of her shameless support of voter fraud in all its hydra forms. The woman truly does belong in federal prison…and yet she’s running for Senate herself, where Republican Rob Portman is ahead of both her and perpetual Senate candidate Lee Fisher, whom we also don’t like). Republicans have a great shot at taking the Senate and Governor’s races in Pennsylvania, too.
Republicans might even pick up Senate seats in West Virginia, in the 2010 election and if as expected Robert Byrd passes on in the next year leaving that vacancy to be filled by special election.
Even though the 2010 elections are still far, far away, the Dem primaries for all of these contests are coming up SOON. It’s almost Thanksgiving, and nothing of any importance ever gets done between then and after the New Year because people are so consumed with all things holiday then.
That means within the next two weeks we’ll have a good idea who the Dem nominees are going to be for the 2010 general elections.
Once that’s clear, we think good predictions can be made about what the DNC really thinks is going to happen to Congress. If, by and large weaklings and crazy people were run in the majority of races, as sacrifices, then just like in 1994 Democrats will lose Congress. If there aren’t mega-millionaires putting in large chunks of their own fortunes for the chance at taking vacant Senate seats for prestige value, then Dems are really in trouble. People only go all-in with their own money if they know they are going to win. In this climate, fundraising is tough for everyone…and if the super wealthy Dems aren’t stepping up to breeze away with Congressional prizes, then we know their independent and expensive internal polling has shown 2010 favors Republicans too strongly for them to make that expenditure now.
What other races are you following that could either help support where our gut reactions are going or disprove our theories?
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Elections have consequences. What sort of America do you want this country to be?
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© 2009, HillBuzz. All rights reserved.
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I heard on the news this morning that our illustrious Dr. Utopia is in China, talking about censorship. He apparently is telling the leaders that “tough criticism of the political leaders should be welcomed”– probably not correctly quoted, it was before my coffee, and other things that I find completely ironic since the White House is trying to shut down the only MSM network that is even hinting at criticism of said illustrious leader.
Hey, guys,
I am a straight libertarian/comservative here in Chicago. I just dicovered your blog, and I gotta say I like it. A lot. (The libertarian in me doesn’t give a rodent’s patootie who marries who. My inner libertarian also thinks government should get out of the marriage business entirely: Contract law and the religion of your choosing is what I’d like to see.) The coming together of the Palin and Clinton tribes I’m seeing here reminds me of the days when Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan could be friends after the work day was over. It also shows that Obama is keeping at least one campaign promise he made. He said he would bring America together. It is just not happening the way he envisioned it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6fL7Y4BZA&border=1&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
HB Guys, thanks so much for the USO link. Just went there to volunteer for the holidays. They are one of the best places to volunteer, and almost all proceeds go to making a small, but positive experience when our guys need it.
I would also recommend the Salvation Army. I have friends who live by the gulf in Mississippi and after Katrina, Salvation Army was THE main charitable organiztion that helped hundreds of families get through that horrific time. You never hear that much about them in the press, and you probably won’t.
And you thought the nicely dressed guys on your front stoop – -briefcases in one hand, pamphlets in the other — were invading your privacy. They are at least extremely polite and take “thanks but no thanks” for an answer. Just wait ’til this bunch comes a knockin’ . Just one more example in the never-ending list of ways for the Light Bringer and his army of thugs to annoy and intimidate the American people.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20091115/pl_cq_politics/politics3248073
I happen to live close to Ft. Hood and
am attending a volunteer orientation at
the USO there on Wednesday – thanks to
your encouragement!
You guys are “fabulous” for recommending the USO. Thanks.
Report: President of Chicago Board of Education Shot Himself
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575277,00.html
Is this important? I’m not from Chicago, so I don’t know.
So let me get this straight – he shot himself and then threw himself in the river?
Hmmm.
….. What’s on my mind today? Well, this may be off politics or maybe not. Yesterday, I was on a journey of sorts to find an outdoor Nativity scene for my front yard. To my dismay and disgust. I came home empty handed! I went to Walmart and Home Depot..and they had nothing of the sort. Just lot’s of Santa’s and snowmen. I did however find two Nativity displays at Lowes. But they had them way up in the rafters and one was not even located in the Holiday section. I wasn’t able to purchase them because I didn’t care for inflatables. This was all very upsetting. Christ is almost gone from Christmas. Why is this? Why? Isn’t Christ the reason for the Season? I guess as I am getting older, I am longing for the good ole days? Well, if anyone happens to come across an Outdoor Nativity Scene in the Long Island, NY area. Please let me know!
I wish I could help you, but I’ve noticed it too.
Actually, just a couple of days ago I stumbled upon forum thread discussing a Scottish town’s decision to hold a “Christmas Festival” that didn’t actually mention “Christmas” and I could not believe the vitriol spewed at the Christians in the thread for “whining” about “a holiday they stole from the pagans anyway.”
Nevermind that it was a pagan leader that assigned the date, and nevermind that Christmas celebrates something completely different from the traditional Winter Solstace. And nevermind that “paganism” isn’t a religion but rather a catchall term for any polytheistic religion so Irish “paganism” is different from Greek “paganism” is different from Indian “paganism” is different from African “paganism.” But no one seems to complain about them “stealing” holidays from each other.
And anyway, I never realized that just because one religion has a holiday around the same time as another religion meant that one of them couldn’t celebrate it. Someone better tell the Jews to knock off all that Hannukah stuff around the same time. And hey, while we’re at it, better cancel St. Patrick’s Day from here on out. That’s when the Japanese celebrate White Day, don’tchaknow!
Cripes-Suzette:
http://cripessuzette.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/someone-went-out-without-her-wighat/
Her squint is particularly noticeable in this photo.
There’s a great OpEd on The Boston Globe’s site from two days ago all about BO’s inflating ego mostly in response to his pre-recorded speech at the Berlin Wall memorial ceremony:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/11/14/obamas_swelling_ego/
In BOSTON of all places! Wow…what is interesting isn’t the responses (which are about 50/50 in agreement) but the recommend stars. Lots of folks are agreeing who aren’t posting.
Which is the way it is in RL— for every 10 posts by a liberal FOR something, there is usually 5 liberals represented. For every 5 posts by conservatives, there are 20 conservatives represented.
Which is why libs think they’re the majority.
I’d go even further to say that Liberal wingnuts think they’re the majority because they’re self-centered, self-righteous, and can’t see the big picture for their own enormous egos.
That’s the one thing I have to give the conservative wingnuts — they may be closed minded bigots, but at least they believe in something other than their own greatness.
I know many readers think Andy Martin is not always credible. However, his blog of Nov. 9, 2009 brings up an important point. He says that Obama’s muslim ties and Obama bowing down to extremists has endangered our national security. The article is entitled: “Andy Martin demands independent terrorist investigation of Fort Hood massacre”. He believes that the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan is definitely a “terrorist”, but the Obama is desperately covering this up. They had intelligence leading to this guy but failed to connect the dots (probably intentionally) and our soldiers paid the price.
This is definitely becoming one of my favorite blogs. Your posts are well thought out, and the writing is excellent.
On my mind this morning is getting through this semester and on to the next so I can go to grad school. I’m currently reading blogs instead of working on my research paper (The Rehabilitation of Sex Offenders). I’m just so burnt out, THANK GOD this is our last week.
Nice photo tribute to Hillary over at “That’s Me On The Left” blog.
Be sure to catch the T-shirt for Hillary (white lettering on black background).
http://thatsmeontheleft.blogspot.com/2009/11/photos-of-hillary-rodham-clinton.html
I recently started checking out your blog. I admire your political courage and integrity, HillBuzz! I am sorry for the horrendous treatment you are suffering at the hands of those you thought were your allies. [I can't tell if there's more than one of you at HillBuzz.]
I pray for your safety up there in Chicago, especially if the foreign terrorists come to town. [I'm in SO-IL.] I hope you won’t be put out by this, but I do also pray for your return to Rome. God bless!
Boyz … see this XLNT news?
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/11/16/matthew-berry-to-challenge-jim-moran-d-va-08/
I attended my first volunteer orientation for our USO yesterday morning. The man who was leading the orientation told us it was one of the largest groups of volunteers he’s ever had. It’s pretty exciting. Next step: One-on-one training. I can hardly wait. USO rocks!
You can add to your list of odd 2010 races the Governor’s race in Wisconsin. Zero democratic candidates with even any name recognition, still, months after Doyle (D) announced he wasn’t seeking reelection.
On the USO – it’s a great organization! Volunteering with the USO is a wonderful way to support our service members.
I have proof and documentation of the million jobs saved or created! If you should like to read it.
Blatant backtrack to a guest post by yours truly on Radioactive liberty. Take a look, make a comment. Hang around a while.
http://radioactiveliberty.com/discovery-1-million-saved-or-created-jobs/
Blogged it:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/11/mark-kirk-rumors.html