Election Night!

Following a long time custom that is in my genes (my parents were political junkies, too).  I watch the election, live texting to friends as needed.  While I await returns and watch endless coverage, I'm nervous, so I made some lists... kinda in the vein of Kelly's "Favorite 5"...

Check out how my brain works:

5 Heroines Tonight

1.Tammy Duckworth - Illinois US Congress

     Check out her bio sometime.  Amazing woman.  And, she takes deadbeat dad Joe Walsh out. 

2.Tammy Baldwin - Wisconsin US Senate

     Another Tammy!  Openly gay... would be the first openly gay woman in the Senate.  Opposed the   
    Iraq war in 2002, co-sponsored the bills to impeach Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales

3.  Elizabeth Warren - Massachusetts US Senate

     Defender of the consumer.  Wall St. Foe.  "Nuff said.

4.  Claire McCaskill - Missouri returning US Senator

     Conservative Democrat... not enough to the right for most in Missouri.  Running against the
     delightful mess that is Todd Akin.  If Missouri elects Akin, the state should secede.  They are not
     living in the same place and time as the rest of us. 

5.  Heidi Heitcamp - North Dakota US Senator

     Amazing woman, met her in collegem, worthy successor to Byron Dorgan.  A woman elected in
     ND?   Breast cancer survivor, champion of the EPA.





5 of this year's crop of villains (no need to give reasons)

Alan West - US Congress  could lose tonight
Richard Mourdock - US Senate  could lose tonight
Todd Akin   - Jailbird.  Throwback to an earlier century. ... could lose tonight
Paul Ryan - Good friend to Todd Akin.  Be very afraid if he wins tonight.  Dan Quayle looking good
Connie Mack - Florida idiot... too much to say.  Already the race called against him





5 Things if Romney Wins... I'll Get Over IT.  But these are my earliest fears:


1.  EPA Closed down
2.  Planned Parenthood Defunded, Govn't determines if hormonal birth control is legal
3.  Robert Bork selects the successor to SCJudge Ruth Bader Ginsberg
4.  Kids with pre-existing conditions and sons/daughters from 18-26 lose healthcare
5.  Neocons again get their finger on the "war button".  Torture is restored.



Best news commentator on politics for election:        Steve Schmidt.  That's right, Republican
    Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for John McCain. 

Best single happening:    Michelle Bachmann is never heard from again

Number of iced coffees today, so that I can watch the whole thing:    1 large, 2 medium

Got Her Done.....

It was dark-thirty at 7 a.m. this morning when I stopped at the North Tampa Library to place my vote.
A little surreal... the lady in front of me made quite a lot of noise about my perfume causing her asthma to kick in.  I put a lot of space between her and me, and when I entered into the balloting room, about 10 minutes after I arrived, I had to, for the first time, show my driver's license.  It was handed back to me with a white receipt on which the poll-worker had drawn a yellow magic marker line.  She told me to go to the yellow line.

Immediately suspicious, was I being sent to the yellow line because I was a woman?  Because I looked over 55?  Because I was white... I studied the green and orange lines (each with about 10 people) and could find no obvious "lumping" by demographics.  The captain of the yellow line gestured to me....I asked her...why was I yellow?  She responded, "because we have 5 lines, each a different color, and we open them as needed depending on traffic flow."  "The crowd just got bigger, so I opened the yellow line, and you are the first one in it.".... I felt pretty foolish.  The county ballot was absurd, one page for the voting and 4 pages of small printing (once in English, once in Spanish) of each of the tom-fool amendments our legislators sought to burden us with.  I finished in rapid order and inserted each page into the machine, got my sticker (above) and walked out.

Whole process, 20 minutes.  Effort?.... priceless.

GO VOTE!

5 Things

For me, it's simple.  I look at the 5 things that strike me as the fundamental ways to judge a candidate.

In the 2008 election, most of the "5 things" were about what Dubya had brought to the stage, things I didn't think McCain could change:

Thus, 3 things I didn't believe in and 2 things I thought Obama brought to the table:

       1.  The war in Iraq.  I was against it from the start  Both candidates said they would follow
               through in bringing the troops home, McCain a little more reluctant.  The war in Iraq
               was wrong, and ultimately, the biggest American shame of the decade.

       2.  Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.... propelled as "bringing us to new economic heights", these
               tax cuts, which most people don't realize, were heavily weighed to the wealthy, reduced the
               revenue of this country substantially, without maintaining jobs, and the deficit grew
              exorbitantly.

       3.   Social security privatization.  Bush wanted it.  He backed off, and so did the party, as his
              unpopularity grew.  One voice that did not back off?  Paul Ryan.  He had a much starker
              plan right through 2010.  And, if the party had not told him to "get off it", he would have
              continued.  SS is a fairly easy fix... for years, the upper income limit grew, until it reached
              $107,000, and there it stayed for 3 years.  In 2012, it grew to $110,000.  If you are the CEO
              of Citibank, you pay less than $7.000 in SS tax, and if you make $110,000, you pay the same
              amount.  Changing that is pretty simplistic.  There are other simple changes that will
              elongate the fund to get past the baby boomer generation. 

      4.    Torture.  I believed Obama when he said he would call a halt.  And he did.  Nuff said.

      5.    The economic morass.  It was such a mess at the end of 2007.  I was so scared.  We all were.
              And though there has been no magic, I believed that Obama would do more and faster than
              McCain.  And he did.  The stimulus worked.  The auto bailout worked.  I'm not sure when
\             McCain would have been able to make a dent.


And this year, the 5 are very different.


      1.   Taxation.  Romney's plan is ridiculous.  Both men seem poised to take on revision of the tax
             code, but you can't start that by cutting taxes 20% across the board.  And, if that happens,
             watch the deficit, and the wholesale ax applied to domestic programs we need.

      2.    Defense.  Romney is planning to spend big.  Right now, Obama plans to spend $550 billion
              without sequestration... sequestration dictates $500 billion.  Romney wants to go to $750
               billion.  At the height of the Cold War, Reagan was at $600 billion.  Why?

      3.   Reproductive rights.  I don't agree with taxation and defense spending.  But I'm afraid of the
            changes in reproductive rights for women.  This is my number 1 issue of the year.  Do I want
            my daughter and granddaughters to be able to get healthcare if they need Planned Parenthood
            to do so?  Yes.  I believe in the right to choose for abortion.  Perhaps the majority of the
            public does not.  But don't be fooled by Romney's position that he would allow it for rape,
            incest, or health of the mother.  That will last one day.  Ryan's much stricter position... no
            abortion at all, and little, if any, contraception, at all, will be the stage on which their doom
            will be set if they are elected.  They will go in that direction, as have most of the Republican
            dominated states.  And it will be their downfall.  They are rolling back time, by 40 years,
            for women.  They might survive the backlash for a year or so... but it will not last.  Women
             will fight for these rights in the same way that civil rights for blacks was the battleground
             of the 60's.  And it will destroy any Romney presidency. 

      4.   Immigration.  I believe in the Dream Act.  I believe in the tightening of borders that we have
             accomplished in the past 4 years.  Beyond that, I think either party will struggle with
             Immigration reform, until we find a way to make it work, stumbling along as we usually do.
             Romney and Ryan absolutely do not support the Dream Act.  And they have no solution for
             1.5 million Americans who are trapped. 

      5.   Jobs.   There is nothing wrong with direct jobs legislation.  The Jobs Act of 2011 is a good
              start and Republicans blocked it.  All of Mitt's plans are to let the money he gives back to
              the wealthy propel jobs.  If the economy grows, that will happen, regardless of new tax cuts. 
              Specific jobs plans make sense.  Had we passed the Jobs Act, and
              created 1.5 million jobs, we would be ready for round 2 right now. 

Success on the Civil Rights Front

Post Script - 6/30/2012...Got my driver's license.  Huzzah!  Can't figure out why I look 7 years older in the new picture.  Oh, well, now I can sigh relief until 2019, when they'll probably decide in Florida that I can't get a new license because I might break the camera.  .....


To update an older post.... I breathed a sigh of relief last weekend when I found an envelope from the Town of Greece (suburb of Rochester, NY) in my mailbox. Inside was a certified copy of the 1/2 page paper document (all in longhand) that represents the reason why I changed my surname in 1979...yes, my marriage license.

 The working week was far too short and jam-packed this past week, with 3 key people out of the office and me as the chief "fill in". Especially since I did have to take time out for a doctor's appointment. On that front, I am congratulating myself; in two months since I consulted with an endocrinologist, and followed her advice, I have reduced my A1c3 reading from 10.1 (10 is almost out of control diabetes) to 7.1, a respectable reading when you consider that, below the level of 6, you really don't have diabetes.

 Thus, I did not act on the receipt of this seemingly harmless looking document from the past. This week, I plan to take it, with all my other forms of ID, to the Florida DMV and renew my driver's license. Hopefully, I will have good news for y'all and will continue to be able to drive, vote, and work in FL (my job requires an active DL and auto insurance).. now that I have proved my identity to the conservative majority in the great state of Florida. Having proven to the Social Security Administration in 1979 that I had married and changed my name, I have to do so all over again to the state of Florida, some 33 years later. This, in the state that has already granted me a license 3 times, and allowed me to vote in 8 election years.

 Believe me, if men had to prove their marriages to the great state of Florida to be able to drive, that law would be overturned in a heartbeat!

So, look for the news that says I have proved that I can receive the rights of a citizen in the great state by week's end!

Let me apologize for Florida

In the past 10 days, several events tied to the seemingly endless series of Republican debates, have occurred in Florida.

Let me apologize. We aren't all barbarians.

From the Reverend Anne Howard:

"When moderator Brian Williams noted that Texas Governor Rick Perry has presided over a record 234 executions during his term of office, the audience burst into applause -- some of the biggest of the night, according to the applause-o-meters of the blogosphere. (This happened in the debate on the eastern border of Tampa).

That was shocking enough, applauding at the deaths of 234 human beings. I don't care if you are a supporter of capital punishment. Who applauds death? Who are these people?"

From reporter Sam Stein:

"ORLANDO -- The most provocative moment from Thursday night's Republican presidential primary debate came when a few members of the crowd booed an openly gay soldier for asking whether he would have to hide his sexuality under a future, Republican administration.
Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), to whom the question was addressed, responded that he would reinstate "don't ask, don't tell," the federal policy that prohibited LGBT individuals from serving openly in the military."

Santorum claimed he hadn't heard the boos.

Let me reiterate a point on DADT: in private enterprise, or as a government employee in all but the military in these United States, any employee can declare he/she is gay. They don't have to. If they are discriminated against because of their status, they can bring a claim under the EEO policy of this land.

ONLY in the military was this not true, where DADT claimed the careers of those who declared their preference, and, sometimes, of those who had not, but were "found out". Without question. Discrimination. And now, over.

These two atrocious incidents were followed by the Florida straw poll, where Florida Republican voters gave a resounding victory to Herman Cain, whom I define as: "the only Republican candidate actively campaigning for Vice President".

Herman Cain was one of the leading proponents of the Birther movement. A couple of my favorite Cain quotes: "the objective of liberals is to destroy America" and "the United States of America will not become the United States of Europe". And oh, yes, about George Bush:

"George W. Bush was the chosen one, he had the campaign DNA that followers look for."

Should Romney win the nomination, look for the Tea Party to do all in its power to draft Herman Cain for VP. OMG. That's all I'm sayin'.