Teapublican Obstruction leads to Fewer Millennial Voters. Was that Planned?

It’s a fair question. Did Boehner and McConnell and all the other Kochsuckers work to cut down on Democratic voter turnout at the same time they stuck it to the Prexy all these years? It’s one way to interpret those falling numbers of Millennial voters:

And for a while, it didn’t look like millennials would need much convincing. As more members of this generation reached voting age, participation among young voters rose. The peak year was 2008 (52 percent). In 2012, the turnout among voters 18-29 dropped to 45 percent.

On top of that, the rate of voters under 30 who could say with certainty that they were registered to vote fell steadily after 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2012, it hit 50 percent — the lowest number Pew has recorded going back as far as 1996.

Ashley Spillane, the president of Rock the Vote, says it’s no mystery why millennials, or any voters, would be turned off from the process: “Politics right now is really disheartening. I think it’s why you see in the polls that young people are not affiliating with political parties.”

Think about it for a second: right before the “Republicans” started their “f*** Obama and the voters he rode in on” campaign, youth voting numbers were frickin’ huge, because the kids believed change was possible. But after 6 years of deliberate Teabagger destruction of change, the youth of America are disillusioned and are disengaging. And Millennials tend to vote for Dems.

Coincidence? In these times? Yeah, right. There is no way to prove it, of course, but in the end it doesn’t really matter whether or not the GOP has been manipulating Millennials on purpose or just enjoying a fringe benefit of their racist, treasonous, corrupt plan to seize power.

It doesn’t matter for two reasons:
Number A: it is wrong to suppress votes, whether it is a primary or secondary goal, and
Letter 2: the way to fight back is to defy expectations, by voting.

Millennials, wake up: you have been played. Strike back by voting against every Repub in every race, every ballot, every election. Vote to show them you are smarter than they think you are. Vote, because they don’t want you to.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Want to vote in South Florida? Better wear Depends.

That’s because if you have to pee during your six-plus-hour wait to cast a ballot, the bathrooms are verboten. Closed. Not available. No matter how long the line, or if you are elderly, or if the weather is crap (oh, you can’t do that either-no potties for you voter types).
From the article:

Instead, he received a written response announcing that the county would close all restrooms at polling places “to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not treated unfairly,” a January email stated. “[T]he Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days,” Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves said in a Feb. 14 email.

This latest voter-suppression effort is, of course, designed to keep the elderly, minorities and working poor from casting their ballots: Democratic voters, in other words. The local Board of Election is pretending that this is a decision based on the rights of the disabled, which is a lie more transparent than a hooker’s blouse. No, it’s Miami-Dade county doing what it does best: rigging elections so that “Republicans” win.

If it’s any comfort to all those voters waiting in long lines to vote this year: no matter the state of the diapers they may have to wear in order to exercise their franchise, they will never be as full of s*** as the elected officials who concocted this, well, crappy idea.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

John Boehner’s Fear of Losing Power (again) is why the Government is Shut Down.

Lots of people and pundits overlook this bit of history: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/politics/15boehner.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Indeed, it gets scant attention even in the above article. Here’s the relevant bit:

When Republicans took control in 1994, Mr. Boehner became chairman of the House Republican Conference, the fourth-ranking job. Just as he had in Ohio, he formed close ties with industry and developed a tight circle of advisers, many of whom have moved on to become lobbyists. Mr. Boehner’s taste for parties and fine wines also soon became evident; his Republican Convention-related soirees are a legend.       

Mr. Boehner lost his leadership position in 1998 after his fellow Republicans decided to clean house after losing seats.

Got that? Speaker Boehner got the axe once, and he is scared it’ll happen again. THAT is why he won’t cross The Thirty and allow the CR to be voted on in the house. He is so attached to the gavel, he’ll let children starve and die, deny Americans health care, weaken our national defense, and bankrupt the nation. The narcissistic son of a bitch.

Not that this writer is the only person to have had this thought: http://wosu.org/2012/allsides/government-shutdown-whos-affected/ Jack Torry and Jonathan Alter have said similar things in the past.

When one man’s lust for power can hold an entire nation hostage,  we need to make some changes. De-jobbing Boehner would be a good start.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

 

Lying Sack of S*** of The Week: Mitt Romney

Yeah, we all thought we were done with ol’ Willie, but it was not meant to be. Here he is on CNN, claiming that he “couldn’t afford” to pay enough people to staff his campaign.

Yes, that’s right, a man with hundreds of millions of dollars (that we know about) to his name says that a Chicago lawyer with only a mill or two in the bank had more money than he did. Really, Mitty?

Better build a Crown O’ Polished Turds elevator next to your car elevator, boyo, because you keep on accumulating these trophies.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Note to Mitt Romney: Whining is not Leadership

Over the weekend, Willard and Queen Ann sat down for a bunch of softballs an interview with Fox News. Mr. Blunt and Cranky has watched it and was struck by the whiny-arsed tone that was taken by the also-ran couple.

Contrary to what the other-than-dynamic-duo appear to believe, pissing and moaning after you lose does not make you look like a leader. It just makes you look like a spoiled crybaby brat with an overly-developed sense of entitlement.

Suck it up, Buttercup. Most of us wish we had a consolation prize of several hundred million dollars of mostly-untaxed assets, you pathetic sore losers.

Mr. B & C

House Leadership to Hurricane Sandy Victims: We Don’t Care

Mr. Blunt and Cranky doesn’t shock easily. But John Boehner managed to pull it off last night.

As you may know, the House was in session to pass a tax bill. There was also a Hurricane Sandy Relief bill waiting for the House “Republicans” to take action. This bill will help keep people from dying in the streets, keep the power on, fix stuff that Sandy destroyed…a pretty damned important bill, you’ll agree. So important, the Senate busted arse to get it to the House in time to be acted upon.

But it was not important to the Repubs that run the House. Turning a deaf ear to members of their own party, they split the scene and showed every intention of letting the bill die; thus guaranteeing the suffering of the innocents for months longer.

That, friendly readers, is how much the Boehner Brigade and the Teabaggers care about the citizens they are sworn to serve. The misery, hunger, and possible deaths of American citizens are not a good enough reason to spend another hour in a comfortable room and cast one little vote.

No, you are not at all important to these people. And if you are EVER fool enough to vote for any of the House “Republicans” again, then you are agreeing with them, and screwing your neighbors as well.

Remember this day when you go to vote in 2014. Remember it well, because Little Johnny and Company are hoping that you won’t,

Mr. B & C

Another Inevitable Conflict ? (If the American Ruling Class Doesn’t Get a Clue, We Will All Be F***ed)

As an avowed Radical Centrist and student of history, Mr. Blunt and Cranky is of the belief that no revolution is “inevitable”. Looking at example after example throughout time, we can see that if Leader So-and-So had paid attention and done the needful, Revolution XYZ need not have occurred.  As Isaac Asimov phrased it, conflicts can be “evitable”.

Such was the case in the French Revolution: the monarchy was informed by their ministers and experts of the steps that had to be taken to avert catastrophe, but said royals did not take the required actions. Result: a very bloody and damaging revolution that killed and despoiled the innocent along with the guilty. Read up on the Terror to see how bad things got at that time.

Bad as that was, a breakdown in 21^st-century America would be far worse. Reasons:

Number A: At the beginning of the French Revolution, there was a clear pair of sides – the 1% of the day, versus everybody else. Not so in 2012 America; we are fractured across lines of ethnicity, religion, income, geography and culture. If things go to Hell, we will find ourselves in a confusing, cluster-f***ed multi-sided conflict that would make our previous Civil War look tame by comparison.

Letter 2: Not that many people in 18^th-century France had firearms, and those they did have were primitive. Modern Americans own millions of sophisticated weapons. Add in related hardware and other supplies, and it is clear that we can pretty much kill anyone and everyone in the nation if we think we “have to”.

Thirdly: We live in a society that is more interconnected than any other in the history of Earth. Our banking, food, shelter, safety, transportation, health care; these and many more essential elements of modern life are dependent on a stable society. Any breakdown in society would cause us to lose the most basic tools we need to secure the essentials of life. That means that millions upon millions of us would die.

And this need not happen. Our new ruling class of Politicians, Plutocrats and Pundits (a load of Pee, as it were) may be too stubborn, vain, stupid, narcissistic, greedy and deliberately myopic to see beyond the next media cycle, but We The People have the power to change things. Power vested in us by the Constitution.  No guns required.

Folks, it is just this simple: if we keep our heads buried in the sand, our asses will be kicked in. Only by pulling our heads out and working together can we avoid yet another “evitable” revolution.

Tomorrow: some peaceful, bipartisan actions we could take to save our national a**es.

Mr. B & C

Why America in 2012 is Like France in 1789 (And Why You Should Care)

Mr. Blunt and Cranky was made to study entirely too much history in his youth, and after reading Twain and Dumas chose to study the French Revolution in more depth. Recent events in our own country have brought that bloody, mindless, and savage period back to mind: and the parallels are eerie. A few examples:

Number A:  Poverty and malnutrition were increasingly common due to economic instability, governmental ineffectiveness and a distribution network that failed to deliver food to those who needed it. Indeed, the nation’s overall  infrastructure was antiquated and crumbling, and no one was willing or able to take the needed steps to update and repair it.

Letter 2: Previous wars of choice had left the French government deeply in debt, and the dire economic situation led to a steep drop in revenues, effectively bankrupting the national treasury.  There was a huge wealth gap between the very small percentage of the nobility (and other rich folk) and the rest of the population. The legislature spent its time taking potshots at the head of state (and each other) instead of addressing the problems of the nation.

Thirdly: Those who had wealth and power were disconnected from the vast majority of the nation.  While Marie Antoinette did not exactly say “let them eat cake”, the aristocracy did express such sentiments: this further inflamed the anger of a population who were already frustrated by the actions of disinterested royals, priests and plutocrats.

The resulting revolution destroyed an entire culture, killed uncounted people, and left much of Europe destabilized for over a decade.  If the monarchy had listened to their ministers and adopted the needed reforms, it is likely that any needed societal changes would have been made in a far less traumatic fashion. As we know, the ruling class did no such thing, and they (and France as a whole) paid with their lives.

This writer trusts that the present-day situation is sufficiently similar to his readers as to not require a long-winded explanation: many Americans are suffering while a very few live high on the hog; we have members of the new aristocracy like Carly Fiorina, Mitt Romney, Lloyd Blankfein  et.al. saying very Antoinette-ish things; and the legislature is far too busy playing reindeer games  to solve the urgent problems that are slowly destroying the social fabric of our country.

If we do the same things that France did in 1789, we will have the same results. Want to avoid winding up like they did? Work to change the current paradigm in a firm but peaceful manner. Or just sit around hoping for divine intervention, and watch centuries of progress go up in flames.

Next time: why a revolution would be even worse this time around.

Mr. B & C

A Quick Brick Upside the Head to an Election Conspiracy Theory.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky hates hates HATES Conspiracy Theories. So when he heard the new one about those yahoo glory-hound hackers at Anonymous having saved the election by counter-hacking Karl Rove’s election-night hacking, he got ticked off. And later, he laughed. A lot.

Firstly: yes, it is possible to hack a vote tabulation device. And yes, it has happened. But the only way to do it in the timeframe required is to work for the company that owns the hardware and software that is being used. Exhibit A: the new software that was illegally installed on Ohio’s tabulation devices several days before the election, by the vendor, with the blessing of our SOS John Husted. That could well have been an attempt at a hack. But since it’s a black  box system, we’ll never know.

But there isn’t any way for an outside hacker group to get in there and deliver a counter-hack after the vendor put in his patch, for a variety of reasons. The only outside group that can beat a hack is the voting public. If the turnout exceeds the forecast amount by a sufficient margin, the hack either fails or is so obvious that the would-be-election-thieves don’t dare do it.

You want to thank somebody for the way the election came out? Thank your fellow voters. They deserve it.

Mr B & C

Note to the Hard Left: Calm the F***ing F*** Down

To hear a few crazies on the Left tell it, this week’s election results are a sign of the impending Social Democratic Paradise on Earth. News flash: uhhhh, ermmmm, not really, no. What it was was a repudiation of the Teabagging, Randian AMFYOYO dope dreams of the Radical Right. That is something quite different from an endorsement of the Hard Left.

The majority of the American electorate is and has always been Centrist.  This despite the earnest efforts of generations’ worth of extremists of many persuasions: alas, the sad reality is that most humans don’t really give a monkey’s about the nuances of political theory. What they want from politics is to have safety, security, and to do their own thing.  So when their wealth is redistributed beyond what seems an equitable extent, they get pissy. When their freedoms are infringed beyond the extent that seems required for their security, they get a wee bit ticked off. When they are insulted, condescended to, or abused, they get hugely pissed off.

All three things were done unto them in the past few years by the Radical Right; and so they gave the Teabaggers a humiliating kick in the groin. Well-deserved it was, and quite entertaining to watch. What they did not do was to endorse a wholesale shift to the Left.

What does that mean? If the Left wants to achieve their goals, they’ll have to do it slowly, carefully, respectfully, in consultation with the Center, and above all in a way that enhances the overall freedom, safety and security of the nation. That requires a calm, grownup approach, peeps.

The last thing anyone in the Center wants to hear right now are the words “radical” or “revolutionary”. They have had a bad experience with that sort of thing of late, and anyone who tries to peddle it now will wind up with their nether regions  feeling a lot like those of Akin, Mourdock and Company.

Mr. B & C