Originally published by Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority Report

In seven days, voting by We the People will end, and ballot counting will begin. At the end of that process, we will know the identity of the man that a majority of electors in the Electoral College are committed to select as Commander in Chief when inaugurated as President of the United States next January.

Given the historical rarity of three consecutive presidential terms by the same party coupled with the radical that the Democratic Party has foisted upon the American people as their nominee and the coincidence that there are only seven days left before Election Day 2008, I am reminded of 1964 movie, “Seven Days in May”.

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Originally published by Mike DeVine, as legal editor for The Minority Report

Want to force the Drive-by media to cover Obama’s rejection of the wisdom of America’s Founding Fathers and our Constitution that produced the greatest nation on Earth?

Then Obama should be the keynote star speaker at every McCain-Palin campaign event.

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Obama announced four days ago that he would visit his “gravely ill” grandmother today.

tick tock

The root word, “Grave”, of the word “gravely” refers to six foot deep holes for the dead.

When I received messages that my Dad, Mom and Grandmother were gravely ill, I went immediately to their side. I didn’t take a three-day detour, wanting to see them and speak to them before they died and all.

Conservative columnist Fred Barnes, on The Panel portion of Fox News Channel’s Special Report nightly news show, tonight, said that Obama would not be in the safely democratic state of Hawaii tonight if he thought the race for President were close.

Hold it a minute.

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Originally published by Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for and co-authored with Pilgrim at The Minority Report

Whether its Obama as Da Boss:

Or Obama as The Godfather:

“One day I will come to you and ask you to do me a favor for me.”

The Obama family syndicate only makes offers you can’t refuse, and it won’t matter whether his favor to you was “a hit” on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding or a Newport on the occasion of an ACORN voter registration drive.

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“is” vs. “does”

I have always had problems with the use of certain words in the imperfect medium of communication via language.

The -ing words are the most blatant. They should only be employed to describe live events, precisely defined at the time, and so are wholly useless to use in print to be consumed at a later time, unless used to describe a circumstance one can only know after the fact.

For example, I never answer questions asked during sports events or before elections that ask who is winning or losing.

Why?

Whoever actually wins was always in the process of winning, and vice versa.

Therefore, with respect to sports, I always answer by saying who is “ahead” or “behind”.

With respect to elections, there simply is no way to answer an -ing question at all, given that we don’t keep a live tally of votes, as they are cast.

Which brings me to the issue at hand, i.e. Barack Obama’s relationship to “socialism” and the word “is”.

Liberals have avoided a lot of deserved criticism over the years with respect to economic policy and many political issues due to the limitations of language and Republican stupidity in falling into rhetorical traps revolving around the word “is” and its limitations, coupled with sound bite TV journalism, and the usual GOP timidity.

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society.

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Days ago:

“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors,” Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. “I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”

Today

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Originally published by Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

The media has been in a frenzy claiming that a few isolated hecklers at campaign events was evidence that the McCain campaign, and especially Sarah Palin, was ginning up anger by recounting Barack Obama’s past alliances with former terrorists and bigoted pastors.

Especially eschewed as execrable was the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee’s assertion that Obama’s domestic alliances and foreign policies were “dangerous.” The media went wild.

The next day, in response to a statement by an American citizen that said she was “scared” for Obama to be Commander in Chief, the ever timid of the opprobrium of the politically correct media, tone deaf John McCain defended Obama as non-scary. The media’s designated most experienced foreign policy expert, the Democrat’s VP nominee, begs to differ:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.

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Colin Powell advises America to elect Barack Obama as President and Commander in Cheif.

Other advice he has given:

Powell advised Bush 41 not to destroy Saddam’s army near the end of the Kuwait War in 1991. Saddam waged war against us for the next ten years and defied us after 911.

In 2003, after getting a U.N. resolution before the Iraq War that called for “serious consequences”(universally understood as promising military force), Powell, nevertheless insisted that Bush 43 seek another, redundant U.N. resolution that gave Saddam month’s to plan an insurgent war. Thousands of Americans paid with their lives.

This is the same Powell that abandoned President Clinton re Somalia in 1993, when Clinton entered office in the midst of an ongoing operation and, despite a request by the President to stay on thru the crisis.

Now, Colin Powell’s story of heroism as a soldier; personal story of achievement and message of conservative America values amidst derision as an Uncle Tom from the liberal Democrat Civil Rights crowd; and service under President Ronald were exemplary.

He was great at following orders in Vietnam; President Reagan’s orders as National Security Advisor and President George H.W. Bush’s orders during the first part of the 1991 Gulf War.

But when President Bush asked for his advice as Saddam Hussein’s army was fleeing a liberated Kuwait, he lost his way. At that moment, he rose above his pay grade and failed President Bush 41 and America.

Today, we are told, he is poised to endorse a man who considers making a decision on when a baby is entitled to human rights is above his pay grade.

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Originally published by Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority Report

Following the 1994 Republican takeover of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, network anchors explained the historic event as one of “angry white males” having a childish temper tantrum. This election season, an overtly in the tank for liberal Democrats media is raising the spectre of anger incitement pre-emptively to thwart a Gov. Sarah Palin(R-AK) and Joe the Plumber inspired Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) energized base that threatens to overwhelm another leftist Democrat presidential nominee at the ballot box, or inspire an assassination.

The occasions for the present incarnation of evil right wingers have been isolated shoutings of “terrorist”, “muslim” and/or “Arab” by hecklers at Palin rallies. (The Secret Service, after a review of campaign rallu audio tapes, debunked Obama’s debate lie that someone shouted “kill him”, which Palin heard but refused to denounce.) The media and Democrats have variously alleged that McCain campaign recitations of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) past alliances with Weather Underground Marxist terrorist William Ayers, Black Muslim Louis Farrakhan and Kenyan Arab Odinga cousin Marxists are incitements, but has chosen not to feature the vile hecklers of Palin wearing obscenity words on T-Shirts and shouts of “warmonger” at McCain to suggest their lives are in danger.

But lets consider the drive-by media’s “coverage” of angry words from angry white people directly associated with the Democratic Party leadership and the Obama campaign, shall we? (Obama and other authentically black definers frequently refer to the old Jim Crow “one drop rule” that classified any person as “Black” for legal purposes if they had at least 1/17th “negro blood” coursing through their veins. I apply that standard here for purposes of identifying angry whites.)

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Originally published By Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The HinzSight Report

“Game Changer”, this year’s ubiquitous word of evidence of the extreme laziness and lack of curiosity of most in the media, is the latest incarnation of this theory. Everytime I hear it is like the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard.

This theory, while also subscribed to by a large percentage of conservative pundits who worship at the feet of their poll obsessed Beltway idols, is actually an election outcome explanation advanced by the Left for more than 30 years, in the Drive-by Media and the national Democratic Party, to serve three inter-related purposes:

a) Prevent modern day liberalism from being discredited due to its proven failed policies;

b) Prevent modern day liberalism from being blamed for Democrat election defeats; and

c) Establish TV events as the causes of election outcomes so as to enhance the importance of television election coverage and increase viewership.

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Originally published at The Minority Report

[This is my reply to a former newspaper editor of mine from my years in Atlanta 2001-2006, who asked if I still thought the republican would win in a landslide.]

Dear Madam Editor

Hey gal! Good to hear from you.

Well, a landslide, whether electoral or popular, by either of our definitions, looks unlikely (by either) given that the GOP didn’t pick an unapologetic, unabashed conservative, but I still expect history to repeat itself until it doesn’t, and that would mean that a USA that has never elected a far left liberal, would continue not to do so.

Having been intimately involved in every presidential campaign since 1980 either as a democrat campaign activist; campaign manager; county chair; or repub campaign worker (incl this year for a black repub conservative candidate in NC), I have lived thru many October 15ths, most all of which had the GOP candidate behind a liberal that the GOP went on to beat. Carter and Clinton avoided the fate by not running to the left and/or thanks to Perot. I would concede that there are negatives this time ’round that were not present in past GOP victory years, esp the fact of the history of winning a third term coupled with bad econ times. Rather a potent obstacle especially when the GOP picked a maverick moderate.

The GOP wins when it runs to the right as unabashed, unapologetic conservatives and picks off conservative dems, not when it tries to appeal to moderate dems and indies. (See losses by Ford, Carter II, Bush II and Dole but also see Bush 41’s victory in 88).

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Originally published By Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

As usual the mainstream media, and that includes Fox News, misses the big story while they act out their roles on “game-changers” and their historically ignorant and discredited “Debate Moment” theory of Presidential election outcomes.

The game changer is not a debate moment. Its that liberals rarely win this game.

But they did manage to miss a major gaffe by Obama and the major message he sent that puts him in the unelectable liberal category.

America saw a man that thinks that plumbers, and, by implication, those small business owners economically equal to and better off than plumbers, should pay higher taxes. That he says 95% of taxpayers will get a tax cut loses its power when middle class people that think themselves akin to plumbers or better off, see that Obama puts them in the 5% that will get a tax hike.

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Columbus discovered us, and thank God for it

Happy Columbus Day!

And yes, there are good reasons to be happy. For the chain of events that resulted in the creation and evolution of the greatest nation the world has even known includes the discoveries of Christopher Columbus in 1492 as essential and as Exhibit A for proof of the reasons we became the Shining City on a Hill.

I was motivated to write this blog when I read a column by Uruguayan writer for Progressive Media Project, Eduardo Galeano, especially the following excerpts:

Who were the savages?

Perhaps the most revealing episode in the history of the Americas occurred in 1563 in Chile. Indians besieged the fortress of Arauco, depriving the Spanish of food and water, yet Captain Bernal refused to surrender.

From the stockade he screamed out, “There will be more and more of us!”

“With what women will you make them?” the Indian chief asked.

“With yours. We will make them bear children who will be your masters.”

The invaders called the original Americans idolaters and savages because the indigenous people believed that nature is sacred and that we are the brothers and sisters of all those with feet, paws, wings, or roots.

Today, with nature defiled and war and brutality rampant, who is the true idolater, the true savage?

Do you see that word “Today” at the beginning of the last paragraph?

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Originally published By Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

Yesterday, Representative John Lewis(D-GA), and surrogate for the Barack Obama campaign, compared John McCain to former Alabama Governor George Wallace in blaming the McCain-Palin campaign for outrageous statements about Obama shouted out by people attending their rallies. Lewis took McCain on a civil rights tour in recent years and now Lewis stabs him in the back while pimping for Obama. Lewis has his prioroities it seems.

Who can we blame for Lewis’ outrageous statements yesterday, not to mention 13 years ago during the first debate on the House floor after Newt Gingrich and the GOP took over the House for the first time in 40 years:

In an emotional speech that alluded to the Holocaust, and the need to speak out against moral wrongs, Mr. Lewis said:

“I urge my colleagues, open your eyes. Read the proposal. Read the small print. Read the Republican contract. They are coming for the children. They are coming for the poor. They are coming for the sick, the elderly and the disabled.”

Mr. Lewis conveniently forgets that following the passage of every item in the GOP’s Contract with America in 1995, the children, elderly, sick and disabled fared better than they had in the history of mankind. Yet, Lewis still seems to see all white people and Black republicans as the same angry crowd he met on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965.

I wonder if his chosen candidate would be cool with hanging out with those that bursted open Lewis’ skull on that bridge since he was only two years old at the time.

Lewis has learned nothing in thirteen years and Obama has learned nothing in 20.

Lewis’ candidate parked his butt in the pew of a Hate Whitey America Church in Chicago for 20 years; had his first political fundraiser hosted by a free on a technicality terrorist couple whose hateful views against America would be the natural result of nurture by a congregation that gives standing ovations to a Pastor that blames Uncle Sam, not Usama bin Laden for the 3000 killed on 911; and, when asked in a private meeting in San Francisco why polls showed working class whites in Pennsylvania and Ohio favored Hillary Clinton, stated that they were bitter clingers to “people that aren’t like them” (as well as God and guns).

The Democratic Party’s presidential nominee named his second book, The Audacity of Hope, after a sermon by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a man he called his mentor and pastor for two decades. Yet, when he announced his campaign for president last year, would not allow him to be seen in public on the stage during the announcement. Rather, he kept Wright in the church basement praying during same. We have all heard his blame God-damned America for giving AIDS to blacks and all the world’s problems are due to “greedy white people” sermons.

Obama wrote another book called Dreams from my Father, in which he regularly recalls his thoughts about white people he encounters. He assumes with certainty that whites despise him due to his skin color, much like, in 2007-8 he is as certain that his grandmother was a typical white racist as he is of blue collar whites. BTW, what was the difference those white men in Georgia that you nearly won a majority of? Could it be that they were ignorant of the Rev. Wright or did they think you were white? But I digress.

And what was that dream from his father? Marxism.

I asked a question weeks ago if Lawyer Obama could name ONE client he had served and one member of a community he organized other than the community to vote for Obama, or if all his character witnesses had to hide in basements; plead the Fifth or seek court orders to seal University of Chicago board minutes lest we gaze upon the conversations between neighbors.

Obama was asked if he had ever represented ACORN, the community to commit and be convicted of voter fraud organization. He said no.

He lied.

His name is in the Federal Reporter as co-counsel for ACORN in a case seeking to preserve the right to register drivers’ license applicants to vote, even if they can’t prove citizenship.

We now learn that Obama wrote a book review for the guy he said he only waved at on the way out of his driveway and that they were allied in attempts to indoctrinate school children in leftist ideology under the guise of education “reform” via the Annenberg Foundation.

We also know that America’s Number One Racist, Black Muslim Louis Farrakhan was the first to call Obama “The Messiah” and that the man Obama always refers to as “Minister” was honored by his own Trinity United Church of Christ.

A recent column by Sandy Rios at Townhall.com ties all of the influences that define the left which Gamecock says, includes Obama:

Hippies were often little more than clueless spoiled brats dulled by drugs, but others were serious radicals who preyed upon trouble and agitated it with the stated purpose of revolution. They wanted to overthrow the government of the United States of America. The black movement was characterized on the one hand by the high-minded non-violence of Dr. Martin Luther King, and on the other by the violent anger of the Black Panthers. The hate-filled factions of each, black and white, found each other and together nearly shipwrecked the country and undermined the Vietnam War. It was success for the rebellion in part … but not completely.

As those frustrated radicals came of age, they realized they would have to game the system, and improve their plans to accomplish their goals. They got advanced degrees and begin to fill colleges and universities… They virtually eliminated the American story from history, removed civics, dumbed down math and science and English with outcome-based education. It became more important that kids had the right “thinking” on social and environmental issues than that they understood the academic disciplines. They took over law school faculties, co-opted many mainline Christian denominations—like Methodists and Presbyterians—and subtly replaced the teachings of scripture on man’s need for redemption with emphases on social justice and helping the poor. Man could now obtain his own redemption without any inconvenient mention of sin or moral behavior.

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We have the answers (UPDATE - see link for more answers after this column)

Originally published By Mike DeVine, as Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

“This new information about Barack Obama’s relationships with ACORN and William Ayers raises a lot of questions.” - (insert TV political talking head’s name here)

Wrong.

The information coming out now, during the “attentive voter season” before Election Day, answers all the questions voters have before they vote every four years.

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Originally published By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

[Friday, October 10 - UPDATE: Wachovia and Charlotte dodge Regulators' bullett as Wells Fargo wins Wachovia: Combined bank to rival giants BofA and Chase
Gamecock argues below that the Fed should not have been twisting arms behind closed doors, so we were especially interested in this quote:

In a statement Thursday evening, FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair said she supported the efforts of the Federal Reserve to resolve the situation and praised Citi for letting the deal go forward. "While some outstanding issues remain, this announcement brings much needed certainty to the process," she said.

Notice Bair's praise to Citibank for supposedly "letting" the deal go forward. The free sales and legal markets would have most certainly dictated that the WF-Wachovia deal go forward and that Citi's only remedy for breach of contract be a civil action for damages. The unspoken message is that the Fed, i.e. Big Brother (or, under Bair, Big Sister) "let", i.e. centrally planned, the deal go forward.

Thankfully, the blind squirrel stumbled upon the right nut this time.]

[Thursday, October 9 - : McCain mortgage plan UPDATE

The details of McCain's mortgage re-fi plan is significantly more limited in scope than was suggested by the vague language he used in the debate. Only borrowers who made down payments would qualify and other details of the requirements listed on his website also greatly limit the number of borrowers that would qualify.

The statement on the McCain Web site fills in some other details: It says the plan would buy mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers and replace them with "manageable, fixed-rate mortgages." That help would be available to mortgage holders who live in the home as a primary residence, who can prove they didn't fake their qualifications for the loan, and who provided a down payment. The statement also indicates McCain believes the purchases can be made quickly as a result of the authority given the Treasury Secretary in various pieces of legislation.

]

Panic abounds post-passage of the $700 Billion Paulson Panic Prevention Plan.

The hundreds of billions of Bear Stearns, Lehman, and AIG dollars allocated behind closed doors by the President’s Treasury Secretary on Sabbaths and Sundays pre-PPPP will soon be exceeded by the billions more for AIG and from Paulson prognosticated bank failures. The arteries of credit markets Henry sought to un-clog remain cluttered with bad cholesterol as “regulators” dared not allow Wells Fargoans and CitiBankians unclog their own arteries in a free market and legal markets for Wachovia.

The “regulators” said they feared how the market would “react” to such a free market spectacle. No, they prefer the bear-they made roar louder-market-chaos they have “regulated” everyday since President Bush signed the “see, we did something and so can go home and campaign and say so” “Rescue” f/k/a Bailout, Bill.

The view of the new world the regulators have created must look better in the smoke-free backrooms they decide the fate of the world within, than it does from the less congested high-gas price semi-deserted roads and streets in Charlotte, where Wachovians ponder why the new Gods couldn’t let Wells Fargo pay a higher price to their shareholders and let a judge decide Citi’s damages.

In the meantime, as many acolytes of Milton Adam Smith Freidmanites took solace that Big Brother would, at least, as specified in the final version of the PPPP, only seek to “minimize” foreclosures like any other mortgagee (lender), along comes a, now masked, John, Maverick Loan Arranger (kudos to WSJ’s James, Best of the Web, Taranto), McCain with a dusted off housing floor market seeking proposal from last April, that would have Central Planner Paulson allocate $300B of the $700B “in” the “peel the green off the Greenback” bill, to Housing Gamblers Anonymous (HGA). The latest science indicates recovery by HGAers can only be had in mortgaged homes.

Meanwhile, this Forgotten Man issues a reverse Marie Antoinette refrain:

LET THEM RENT!

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[We swap editing roles for this one.]

Originally published by Mike DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

My brilliant conservative, non-columnist friend in the banking industry desires, and rightfully so, that Obama and the Democrats be hit again and again – at least by McCain and his ads! – on a number of issues. My most recent economics column introduced Boata’s desire that liberals be defeated by references to facts and refuted by logic to the point they are shut up or relegated to filibustering incoherently (which they are very good at). This is an event gamecock has often achieved under the nomenclature of placing liberals in the corner in the fetal position, and so don’t we all wish they would stay in that position!

They don’t, but Rush sees great benefits in having a few libs around spouting liberal drivel so we are reminded of the decrepitude of their ideas and proven failed policy proposals. What we must do is defeat them at the polls.

Boata’s debut at Redstate dealt with the economy.

Now GC is directed to deal with the following, which I will deal with in the context of “innocent life vs. evil”:

(1) The detonation of a nuclear device (most probably multiple devices) in the next administration. Most likely will be delivered via shipping to the US and set off in harbors likely in conjunction with at least one trucked to Israel. No one will talk about this - not PC and heads in the sand - but it is going to happen. I know the differences in Obama and McCain’s handling of crisis situations has been mentioned, but this backdrop is stark and sobering – if anyone will take it seriously.

and

(2) Obama’s view on abortion. This is a topic most are afraid to approach, but it is a topic that has seen a turnaround in views the last couple of decades. No longer is pro-choice in the majority. Obama’s ‘pay grade’ needs to be hammered home, and the fact that when life begins really has only 5 possibilities 1) At birth 2) At viability (which shrinks
practically every year) 3) At start of brain activity 4) At start of heartbeat 5) At conception. If Obama does not know when life begins, then the logical and moral stance is to play it safe.

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Originally published by Mike DeVine, the Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

[Update - Since my friend called for McCain to act, he has, all week. McCain has called out Dems, including Obama, by name in pinning the cause for the Fannie Mae induced economic crisis on them and showing that he and Palin are the real change.]

I had been considering doing a post-mortem on the recent two-week debate over the Paulson Panic Prevention Bill that was finally signed into law late last week. Given my exhaustion (and the recently announced retirement of alter ego Cockstradamus until after the election) from reading enough pages to have re-read Tolstoy’s War and Peace and having written five columns in 12 days that resembled Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, it was a great joy to me that an executive with one of the largest Banks in America (who also happens to be a close friend) wrote the following to me after I requested he identify three issues he wanted addressed refuting Obama and Democrat positions on the great issues of the day, with facts, that he considered not being effectively addressed by the McCain campaign or the media.

My friend shares much of our (conservative segment of the GOP) frustrations with the campaign and the past eight years and echoes many of my own thoughts, but he brings more of an insider’s perspective on the current state of banking affairs, as well as an outsider’s perspective, not being a blogger or columnist.

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Attention all conservative Republican nervous nellies that have declared defeat ad naseum for the last 23 months based on the refusal of our candidate to aggressively attack the opposition: The McCain-Palin campaign is taking the gloves off and attacking Obama’s radical leftism.

Baseball happens every Spring. Democrats get exposed for the out of the mainstream leftists they are every fourth October just in time to lose the presidential election.

Like many of the teeth gnashers here, I wish we would expose liberal Democrats for the intellectually and morally bankrupt forces they are 365 24/7, rather than join in the MSM’s denial and cover up of the vile, failed policies advanced by McCain’s “honorable” friends in Congress. If we did, we would have built oil refineries and nuclear power plants since 1978; drilled for oil off the coasts of the Lower 48; appointed Bork to the US Supreme Court; taught a heroic version of history to our children in neighborhood schools; and made it impossible for a man that parked his butt in the pew of a Hate Whitey America church for 20 years, to even make it to Iowa.

But, one thing I do know from having been intimately involved in every presidential campaign since 1980 (the first five of which as a Democrat Party official): Liberal democrat presidential candidates get exposed before election day and lose.

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The party is over.

The inebriated invitees depart the party locale for home with their mates. Sober mates of the inebriated (see wives) desire to cure their charges. Some use Folgers ($1.10/cup). Some use No Doze ($2.34/pill). Some use Reds (priceless).

All hurl in the Porcelain shrine at various times, but the Folgers drinker has more resources remaining to address dehydration.

Would that speed-addicted Congress drank Folgers.

People, we had a good ride, despite being told every day that Bush World was 1929 2.0. We blackberried from SUV’s on the way to Big Screens housed in two-story non-common stock in big-hole-less post-911 cities, suburbs and ex-urbs, cursing the non-burning Bush that kept them hole-less.

Nice ride, but too bad we bought the reds before the hurling was over. We could have spent every dime we had and felt more secure before the ejaculation.

Looking at the ejaculation, we wish we had post-Folgers dimes for a better clean up.

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