The problem with these statistics is that they are purposely deceptive. For instance, if a person exceeds his 6 months of unemployment insurance he/she is taken off of the numbers; or if a person gets a part-time job as opposed to full-time gainful employment they are taken off the numbers. Why, because numbers don’t lie but statistics can be juked.  The winds are blowing in a different direction and it is changing the landscape here in America.   Ladies and gentlemen do not be deceived. There is a war against the middle class.

Organized unions are shrinking at an alarming rate. For you to understand the impact of this you must first understand that the working middle class exists because of Laborer’s unions. Now there are a host of other variables that go into this equation as well, like regulation of business’, Franklin Roosevelts enacting labor laws and his favorable relationship with the growing union movement, all helped to create this perfect storm, so to speak. But the dollars and cents that went into a laborers pocket was in direct relation to a union’s collective bargaining. Henceforth, creating a working middle class. But now with the deregulating of business’, tax breaks to companies who do business on places other than American soil, coupled with the right to work laws, and unfair trade agreements that have been bartered on our behalf it has all but done away with the unions power and the working middle class status.   

Yesterday American Axel in Detroit Michigan settled a labor dispute they were having with GM over wages by accepting a ten dollar an hour pay cut of their hourly salary. That is a direct slap in the face to labor unions and it changes the lifestyle and financial bracket for every worker that has had to take that cut.  I’ll say it again, there is a war against the middle class.

Manufacturing jobs are down, construction jobs are down, and just two months ago Delta Airlines offered 30,000 workers buy out packages in hopes of trimming the fat on their workforce by at least 2000 jobs due to increasingly rising gas prices. Now couple that with the fact that American Airlines is looking to cut jobs over the same issue. Business’ have had to recalculate their yearly budget based on the skyrocketing prices of crude oil. Over 60,000 truckers have walked away from their rigs because of it. Folks, if you needed a sign that the middle class of America is shrinking look no further than the information I just gave you. And this all comes on the heels of the predatory lending scandal which in large part has caused 2 million homes to go into foreclosure.

2 million…to give you a sense for just how many homes that is you can take all the houses in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Boston and Sacramento combine them together and still not be able to accomodate everyone that’s losing their home. And those who haven’t had an eviction notice placed on their front doors are still effected by this crisis. They are facing upside down mortgages, meaning they are paying more for their home than what its now worth. Alan Greenspan said that this is the worst the economy has been since WWII. A war in which ironically helped bring us out of the great depression, where as this war helped send us into our recession. Yes, I said recession. If this is not a recession, then tell me what is?

I am not trying to scare anyone. I just want people to think. This is an election year and the next president we select is going to be vitally important to our future as a nation. Lets think about that. This time lets vote on the issues that effect all of us not the partisan ones that divide us. Because the attack on the middleclass isn’t going to skip you based on your vote. You are paying more at the pump just like I am. You are paying more for groceries just like I am. Your way of life is being threatened just as mine is. So let’s vote with that in mind this time. 

That doesn’t mean that you have to vote for the same person I vote for, I am just asking that when you do vote be mindful of the issues that we all face.

I just watched Brian Williams interview with Hillary Clinton after her huge win in West Virginia. It was a charming peice and for the most part showed Hillary in a favorable light. It showed her as the fighter we have or at least I have come to admire. For all the bad things you can say about Mrs. Clinton, you can’t say she is a quiter. In my opinion, that never surrender attitude is the most alluring quality that she possess’. But I think it may be that same quality that brings out the most unattractive side to Senator Clinton as well.

The win at any cost Clinton strategy. For the sake of not going through all the scenarios that have taken place within this campaign that I consider to be the scorched earth policy by Senator Clinton I will just use this past WV primary as an anaylsis.

The Pink Elephant in the room.

The now infamous AP article that Senator Clinton sighted while giving an interview to USA Today saying that hard working people, white people vote for her was probably the most divisive thing that I’ve heard through out the campaign. Now we’ve all known this since Ohio. There is a large segment of the population that is going to vote for Senator Clinton purely on the basis that she is a Clinton. Still, there are some that like the definition and experience that she gives in contrast to Senator Obama’s aloofness and message of change. And yet there is still a segment that is going to vote for her because she is white. (raises hand) And before you say it, I know that there are some blacks who are voting for Obama because he is black.

That isn’t the problem. The problem is when you come out and say it like it is something to be toted around like a badge of honor. It gives permission to those that feel that way to feel that way…or maybe better yet, she is saying it is okay to feel that way. Either way it is divisive and intentionally so.  

RUN IT BACK!!!

(playing under house rules)

There is also this magical goal post that for some reason everyone keeps allowing her to move. Now she keeps saying that she is staying in the race until we have a nominee. This is fair, right and just and it is the backbone of a democratic society. Voters must vote! It is the people who should decide the fate of our future. I believe this with all my heart. I believe that Hillary Clinton deserves the right to stay in this race until a nominee has been decided. But that doesn’t mean that she should stay until she finds a way that she can become the nominee.

She keeps changing the rules, at first we weren’t going to count the Michigan and Florida delegates because they held rogue elections. Everyone, including Senator Clinton agreed that this was fair. They even agreed to take their names of the ballots in Michigan, this also includes Senator Clinton. This was established by the party leaders and the candidates before the election process started. Now Senator Clinton is reneging on this agreement. Just like she reneged on taking her name off the ballot in Michigan. Now you might ask why am I bringing up something that has been known since before March. Because now Florida and Michigan provides new talking points. Yup, she’s found another way to change the dynamic of the race…and the latest rule change is(drum roll please)…2210. 

Since it is almost certain that Barack is going to get to 2026 delegates before Hillary does she has taken it upon herself to move the goal post. The magic number is not 2026 anymore it is now 2210 because that is how much it would have been if Florida and Michigan were included in the process. 

It reminds me of when I used to play basketball when I was a teenager. There was this guy named Jerry Jones. He lived around the block from where I grew up. He had a basketball hoop up in his backyard that was quite simply the perfect place to play backyard ball.

It was all concrete with a ten foot privacy fence wrapped around it and no powerlines to abstruct the angles to the basket. So needless to say, everyone in the neighborhood would post up over there during the summer, to either wait on the next game or to watch us play ball. The only problem with playing over Jerry’s house was that when ever he lost a game he would either immediately yell “RUN IT BACK!” which means he gets a rematch or he would just up the score. If we were going to ten then it went to twelve, if we were going to twelve then it went to fifteen and he would do this until he won the game. That’s what you call house rules.

A HOSTILE TAKEOVER

(democracy be damned)

Brian Williams:

For you to be the nominee it would have to be a wholesale shift in superdelegates, in effect overturning the pledge delegates and the individual state elections. Would you be comfortable with that?

Hillary Clinton:

Well I think that super delegates are there for a purpose that is to determine who they think will be the stronger candidate for president. Super delegates are not bound to vote any way. They can change their minds. They can go to the convention and change their minds.

She went on to say that pledged delegates didn’t have to follow the will of the people either. The reason I bring this up is it flies in the face of the logic of her main argument to seat Florida and Michigan delegates as they voted so that they reflect the will of the people when she is willing to disenfranche the thirty plus states, the seventeen million plus people that didn’t vote for her by having the superdelegates over throw the populus vote just so Hillary can be crowned queen for not quiting.

Here is the interview for those that want to view it. It was interesting to watch.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#24624767

End of disclaimer:

I remember when I was a little kid dressed up in my Sunday’s best huddled together with other little kids sitting in the basement of a church for Sunday school… I remember the stories that they’d tell me about Samson and the asses jaw bone, or David versus the invincible giant named Goliath, or the inconquerable Elijah versus the 800 prophets of Baal. I remember how the sunday school teacher would get to the part about the devil and as if on cue the shadows would come to life in that dimly lit mildewed church basement. 

I can’t count how many times I swallowed my heart in fear when the Philistine army circled Samson or jumped for joy when one of David’s smooth stones navigated its way to the soft spot of Goliath’s big head. No stories are tailor made to fit a child’s imagination better than the ones from the bible and that includes you Mr. Harry Potter. The world is a very different place when you are a child and virtue isn’t just an abstract term it is a living entity.

But as I got older and started to reconcile reason with faith and I heard these stories told over and over I learned very quickly that good would triumph over evil, that light would conquer darkness and none but the righteous shall see God. That took all the nail biting experience out of the stories for me. All I had to do was identify who was on God’s side in the story and then the outcome was a foregone conclusion. And that formula held true for about ninety nine percent of the stories I read.

But there was still one story that wouldn’t tie into that neat little bow. There was one story that deviated from the normal process of good versus evil. It was more nuanced in nature and the stakes were a lot higher than just a giant, 800 hundred prophets, or an entire army. What was at stake was every life on earth.

It’s going to rain,

That’s what God told Noah. Then he gave him the designs to the first yacht ever built. The designs were so intricate that it could accommodate one couple of every living species on earth. God then told Noah that as soon as he was done to get himself and his family on board because the earth was about to evict every living inhabitant it had. 

Now here is what is unnerving about this story, according to the bible it had never rained before. So how was anybody supposed to know what that meant or the ramifications of it raining? And where were the bad guys in this story? The bible just talks of people doing things that were distasteful to God. Which I assume means they were morally inept…And if everybody in the story was doing bad things except for Noah, does that make him the good guy or the oddball? And if Noah is the good guy then what is God, the just and righteous Arbitrator?…So what would that make the rain?…An instrument of God’s will…(Am I the only one terrified by this story?)

When you look at what is going on with the world today. Brush fires are consuming the forests in Florida. Just a couple of weeks ago they were ablaze in California. Over 900 tornadoes have touched down in the United States already. Nine hundred!! There were earthquakes in Illinois and Missouri for God sakes. When is the last time you heard of an earthquake in the midwest. Cyclones wiped out over 100,000 people in Burma, while the death toll in China’s devasting earth quake nears 12,000 with over 18,000 people still missing…

Like the Noah story, this is too complex for me to give an indefinite answer. I suppose if pressed I could say global warming. The brush fires probably caused by some hand of mischief.  But when so many events are taking place at such an alarming rate I have to wonder if there is an oddball amongst us with blue prints to build the next animal luxury liner?

End of Disclaimer.

SETTING THE TABLE

Liberty should always be interwoven into the human experiment that we call life. It is as vital to a humane society as the sun is to the vegitation on this earth. For most of those who have it, take it for granted like clean water and fresh air. For those who don’t have it, it is the most desirerd, most sought after and most precious of commodities.  

“Give me liberty or give me death,” were the famous words uttered by patriot Patrick Henry when faced with the unbareable yoke of the British ruling empire from across the Atlantic that had long become desensitized to the needs of its people.  

Slavery was and never is an option to those of us who know the value of freedom, who know the value of being able to choose. Really, that’s all that freedom is, the right to choose. It is having the opportunity to go left or right, up or down, to blow which ever way the wind takes you and not have any one tell you that you can’t go that way, especially for reasons as scant as the color of your skin or gender.

A choice is the patchwork of freedom. It provides the breeding ground for independent thought like a republic provides governance for the people by the people; and that governance comes without fear or favor ensuring that all our free. It ensures that liberty intrisically promotes individuality in others while embracing the sovergnity that can only come from the unification of a body of believers in a single cause, a commonly shared purpose.

The same cause that rallied farmers, pilgrims and those alike to believe in something that was greater than themselves. The same cause that channeled its vision through Thomas Jefferson when he penned these famous words.

 All men are created equal.

Everyone, without equivocation, believes this to be true in principle. It has been in the practice of this belief where we have fallen short. Even Thomas Jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence had his hypocrisy. Because while he spoke of all men being free he himself owned slaves. It is a wonder how this thougtful, compassionate, brilliant, articulate man couldn’t see the dichotomy in his actions. Now in all fairness to Mr. Jefferson, he wasn’t the only patriarch of old that had slaves.  It was something that was widely accepted.

Mr. Jefferson’s social environment, his surroundings, the accepted normalcies of the day didn’t allow his every day perceptions to marry the universal realities of every man or woman for that matter, being allowed to have the same footing. In other words, in his world, blacks and women were inferior to white men so they didn’t factor into his concept of equality . This is something that is definitely worth noting, for as brilliant and progressive of a thinker as Mr. Jefferson was he was still a product of his environment.  

Not withstanding the authors mirred reality, we have to remember that sometimes we must divorce the thought from the thinker. Because his definition of liberty is all encompassing.  It alone is an undeniable truth. A truth that is not just relevant to a time nor a place.

We hold these truths to be self evident.

Men and women from all walks of life use this as a rallying cry. It is everyone’s right to be free, to choose, to follow, to believe, anything they want as long as those rights don’t infringe upon the rights of another. Freedom is tolerance for the intolerant. It is the equalizing factor to the bully pulpit. Because it provides a voice for all: the Reverend Wrights, the David Dukes, the Martin Luther Kings, the Ida B Wells, the John F. Kennedys, the John Adams, the Malcolm Xs, whether it is pro life, or pro choice, whether it is PETA or the NRA, whether it is the KluKluxKlan or the NAACP, republican or democrat, catholic or protestant, jew or muslim. They all fall under the umbrella of liberty and to fight for one of them means to fight for all of them.

E Pluribus Unum Out of many, one.

 Coming next

Who sits down to eat?

End of Disclaimer.

Well it seems that the democratic party is going to do it again. They are going to blow another election. They are going to let the shiftless, run the country into the ground, get us into a war with no exit strategy republicans win again, in a year where if Jesus Christ himself was the republican candidate running for the oval office he would have a hard time winning. 

When the democratic primary started out last year in Iowa I was truly impressed and enthused by all the prospects. We had everyone running from white men, to hispanics, to african americans, to a woman. All the demographics were covered. There was no way we could possibly lose this presidential election cycle.

Then when it came down to the final two candidates I really got excited. Because I knew that for the first time in our history as a country a woman or an african american were going to be president. I was excited all the way up unto last month.

The past month has had to be the most disheartening month I have ever lived through. Hillary dodges sniper fire. Barack bowls a 37 and says people are bitter about economic prospects and finds solace in guns and religion. The side show circus had come to town. And the two democratic candidates were the carneys. For a month I had to sit and listen to gaffes, disparaging characterizations and out and out pandering. But the worst was when the vote came in and they dug into the exit polling.  

The democratic electorate has become so polarized. White women and bitter men are voting for Hillary in droves. Black people and affluent well to doers are voting for the elitist Obama. And it looks like they are doing it just on the basis of the candidate that looks like them. Because their policies are almost identical. There isn’t enough of substance to seperate the two politically anyway. So is this what we’ve come down to? We are voting for the white woman or the black man?

How are we supposed to take the country forward if our moral compass can’t navigate past these racial divides? What are we coming to when we select the leader of the free world on the basis of how they look? I thought this country was stupid for giving Bush four more years. Now I just think that we’re lost.

There are far too many big issues to parse one’s vote on such a trivial issue. What about the war in Iraq that lets face it, if we don’t end it we’ll have to start a draft to sustain it, let alone win it. What about the foreclosures at an all time high or us being raped at the gas pumps. Is the way that we as voters see to solve these problems by voting for the one with the skin color the same as ours?

If you think I am over exaggerating just go to the Huffington Post or CNN and read one of the political stories and then listen to the comments.  

Today Hillary Clinton said that white people vote for her. She actually said that. She said it in a way that brings attention to the divide, almost like it was a badge of honor. She has the white vote. Ninety two percent of the black vote is going for Barack. So I guess that means he has the black vote…I thought this was a time of change but I guess I was wrong about that. Because in times of change Martin Luther King had a dream. John F Kennedy had a question about what someone could do for their country. Now we just have black voters and white voters. And John Mccain will have the white house in 2009.

And as for me, I’ll just keep having nightmares.

The problem with our politics is that the politicians listen to what polls say that we are saying. Politicians actually believe that some poll no matter how unscientific and how high the percent of error it has is an accurate way to gage the pulse of the American people. They believe that the polls speak for me.  So what do they do in response to this data…They pander to us about gas, the war, taxes being too high, government rebates on automobiles. They craft policy promises around what they think we want to hear. Why?…Because they think that we don’t really think that they are just saying this for our votes. They believe that we believe that they are telling the truth. They think we are fools!

(note) I have never, not even once in my life been polled as to what I thought about the government, nor have I met someone in my life that has…You know I know this because I poll the people I meet in my life. (end note)…..*clears throat from all the sarcasm*

The problem with our politics is that we are fools. We do listen to the pundits and we do fall for the campaign promises…….They drink whisky and we go gaa gaa. They bowl a thirty seven and we laugh. They bring us apple pie from the store and we think how down to earth they are. They watch us pump gas while they tout of how they are going to bring the price of it down…and then they proceed to go and pick a fight with a coffee machine and let it win. And in the end we vote for them and nothing changes. Our jobs still get shipped out. The rich still get richer. We still feel the pinch at the pump. The economy goes to hell and they go to DC. And we wait for four more years for them to stand in front of an abandoned plant in rural America saying the same thing we heard before. And we will eat all up over again.  

Like sheep being led to the slaughter.  

End of Disclaimer.

After reading an inordinate amount of blogs and listening to the pundits spin this on television for three days now. Something doesn’t set well with me.

First let me say that Barack made a mistake in saying what he said the way he said it. It was at the very least inartful. But it must be put into its proper context. He was speaking at a closed fundraising event in which it was announced that there was to be no tape recorders etc. So it stands to reason that he would be a lot more laxed in his responses thinking that he was in friendly terrain. If you want a much more artful explaination of what he said check out his you tube conversation with Charlie Rose. http://youtube.com/watch?v=dJut4-dHuV8

Listen to the whole interview it is quite insightful about the candidate and his views. Having said that, there is certain elements to this whole “dust up” that disturbs me. I think there is/was a pattern to a lot of this.

First, is Miss Fowler herself. She claims to be an Obama supporter and a “citizen journalist” what ever that means. But if you read the articles she writes about Obama they don’t seem to show this “support.” In fact, they do the opposite. You would think by reading her articles that she didn’t like the man, coloring him as arrogant, flirty and putting on acts for crowds. Now in fairness to Mrs. Fowler, if she is to be objective as a journalist then she can’t show her bias. And yet I think that maybe her assesments of his character do just that. One could argue that they may over compensate for her laiden feelings for Barack. In her attempts to not show slant in his favor she became overly critical of the Senator.

To me, this seems like it may be plausible, at first and second glance. But that still doesn’t explain away the whole “gotcha” tactics in which she broke this story. Now, she claims to be a supporter of Barack. This means that she most likely voted for him in the democratic primary when it came to California. I think it’s safe to assume that if she supported and believed in his politics so much that she gave him her endorsement by voting for him. That is the very least and the best way she could express that.

But we know that she has done more. Because the fundraiser she was at in San Fransico was aclosed to the public; which means that you had to be a donor to the campaign in order to attend the event. And we also know through her own admission that it was an event for those who had maxed their donationis. In other words we know that she at least gave the Senator 2,300 dollars towards his candidacy. Which means she helped put ads on televisions, pay for his staff, his travel expenses etc… I think you see what I am getting at. 

Now here is where my problem lies. If she was there as a supporter, why the recorder if they said that they weren’t permissible. If she was there as a journalist, why then when they said no recorders she didn’t turns hers off. Because in my humble opinion, it was the equivilent of telling the room that what ever is said here is off the record. It is clearly obvioius that she and I differ on opinions on this matter. So lets move on. Now, if she were either a supporter or a journalist or maybe even both, why wouldn’t she let Barack know what she intended to do? Why wouldn’t she try to get clarification on what he meant if it bothered her and that is the reason she is bringing this tape out. She potentially could have sank the candidate she supported without so much as giving him a chance to ease her mind about what she thought was troubling remarks. And my last point about her is why she took liberties with distorting the story to fit her telling.

Ms. Fowler posted two stories in relation to this fundraiser. In one, she categorizes the audience as being middle classed Americans who were listening to the “Cocky” Barack tout about his foreign policy experience and speculate on who his VEEP would be. Yet, when she retales this “bitter” story, the middleclassed Americans are now upgraded to affluent cushioned from the troubles of the every day man millionares. (Funny how the person who was bothered by the generalizations of rural Pennsylvanians took out her own paint brush and proceeded to do a little broadstroking of her own.) Anyway, in either case, the respectable thing to do was give Barack an opportunity to explain himself, check with other people at the the event to see if they interpreted the way she had before she ran with the story. But of course, this doesn’t get her name in the paper. And it is my suspicions that this is what she wanted in the first place…

And might I add, that Ms. Fowler didn’t even place this story in the proper setting. She made it seem like Barack was just talking to supporters in whispered tones behind closed doors about how backwards people were in small towns. When he actually was asked a question by some supporters  who were coming to Pennsylvania to go door to door for him to drum up support. They wanted to know what to expect, what they would be facing in terms of obstacles when they got to Pennsylvania and in a relaxed, non politically correct way Barack tried to convey how things were in the small town as it pertained to their mentality about voting.

I just find this a bit interesting is all I’m saying. I think that maybe Mayhill Fowler is being a bit disingenuous when she calls herself a supporter.

Now on to CNN. MY GOD! The way they have handled this whole dust up has been deplorable. It felt like Fixed news was running with the story…well I wouldn’t go that far. But I found it funny that they spent a whole hour pouring gasoline on this brush fire in hopes that it would ignite the forest. High minded and serious thinking pundits sat down around a round table and gave their professional opinions of how Barack’s comments were the worst thing that could have been uttered in the history of politics.  Meanwhile the caption on the crawl below the screen said “Barack slams small town America” Slams? Wow, it was almost as if they were trying to destroy his candidacy…I take back my previous comment, this was as bad as something Fox news would have done.

Now for the record, I think that they should have been critical of what the Senator said, harshly so even. But what they were doing was an overt attempt to rouse the court of public opinion in almost a demagougish way. I mean you would have thought that Barack had stole some seven year old’s lunch money the way they were going on. Now let me also state for the record that I am a supporter of the Senator of Illinois so their may be a little bias in my statements. But not much.

Funny how Barack’s careless words could be construed in such a way that they require CNN to devote an entire show to the overall meaning of their intent. I mean, in the overall scheme of things, were they even half as bad as the news that Hillary Clinton’s top advisor was taking money from Columbia in the hopes of pushing a trade agreement that she is allegedly opposed too. Even though she has eight hundred thousand reasons not to be….That isn’t a bigger story than this? Her own husband is taking eight hundred thousand dollars on behalf of Columbia to promote free trade is not a torpedo sinker to her candidacy but Barack’s clinging to guns comments is? On a scale of one to ten which subject do you think is more damaging to America as a whole…free trade…or Barack saying that people vote for guns and based on their religious beliefs?…

 Where has our politics gone when unartful words about the middle class is more of a concern than conflicting interest in the economy for this same middle class. When has someone comments about the way people vote been more of a concern to the voters than potentialy those middle class citizens losing more jobs to another unfair trade agreement? I wonder how much time did they devote to this Columbia story? This story which twisted and turned two ways, pointing in two directions from Mark Penn to Bill Clinton and ending up pointing in the direction of the Senator running for the white house. How is not her close relationships and ties to these two men not part of an underlying theme to something that is potentialy huge for the overall direction of the American people? Okay, let me stop ranting on that and get back to CNN coverage of this incident.

I thought that they devoted entirely too much time on this topic of Barack’s gaffe. But I figured that tomorrow they would have Barack’s response up to rebuttal the allegations of him being an elitist from John Mccain and Hillary Clinton only to find them giving entire segments to Hillary talking on the stump in the hopes that she or someone in the crowd may respond to Baracks comments from the day before.  I am not kidding. They were devoting entire segments to Hillary. And then when they finally did show the Senator’s response from the night before while he was out on the stump in Terre Haute Indiana they would edit it. It took all of three minutes….his response did… and they edited the response.

Now how are they devoting entire segments to Hillary and not even giving Barack three full minutes of time in his response? That doesn’t sound right. That was the first time in this campaign where I can say that it was clear bias from the media as far as coverage goes. To further illustrate this point there is a part in Baracks video where he attacks John Mccaine and then right after he goes after Hillary. Well CNN cuts off his response right after he addresses Mccain and then Susan Maulvox says that he didn’t have anything to say about Hillary.

To me, it just seems like the media is being irresponsible about reporting it all because it is their desire to see this continue. They make more money and get more ratings when it does. I mean they are devoting hour long shows to cover Baracks words, when they wont even do an entire segment on a war criminal and his crimes.(That means you Mr. Bush) Bush was caught on tape joking about the whole Iraq and Katrina fiasco. And the media barely mentioned it. That is sad.

I don’t know I just think we should be better than this. The country is on the edge right now. We are tittering on something drastic here. This country is the worst I have seen it in my thirty three years. I am currently out of a job due to the brilliance of nafta, I am on the verge of losing my home, I have a grandmother that can’t retire, a mother that needs real healthcare and kids that need a stable future and CNN and Ms. Fowler wants to play politics.

And oh, by the way, I am bitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!