A general rule of thumb for selecting a running mate.

If you hear the sound of champgne corks popping from your opponent's supporters, you probably puaqued up!

mitt robme's campaign phaquing up? I'm shocked. Shocked I say...SHOCKED!

PEACE!

From this day forward I will describe mittens in one way and one way only.

Stupid!

I was starting to believe it with the tax and bain fiascos.

When a man who has been running non-stop for president for almost a decade has NO CLUE that it's a common practice to release many years of tax returns, he's a moron. When a man runs for president based on his business experience and he has NO IDEA that his business practices will be looked at by his opponents, he'd an idiot. When you run based upon your "success" as the head of an Olympics and you belittle the work of other Olympic organizers, you're a dipshit. This idiocy is only compounded by the fact that President Obama and Ted Kennedy were good friends. The fact that romney seems STUNNED that the President is using some of the same tactics that Ted Kennedy used to defeat romney very handily in 1994 is only another sign of the level of severe empty headedness.

romney is too damn STOOOPID to know that when you're a guest in someone else's home (or country) you don't insult your hosts. If you're enough of a turdbrain to insult your hosts and they slap you down, you DON'T compound the situation by having your flunkies double down on the insults.

mitt romney is STUPID! He is an out of touch with reality reality tv version of Richie Rich, a moron who has had a lifetime of well paid yes men telling him that he's a genius and covering up his f*** ups. Does that sound like anyone we know?

12 years ago, the Supreme court installed a moron in the white house. We learned a painful 8 year lesson that morons don't make good presidents. They don't even make mildly bad presidents. They make HORRIBLE presidents.

I'm 57 years old. I thought that I'd never see a candidate as stupid as george w turdbrain again. I SURE AS HELL didn't think I'd see one that was even more stupid!

I will, of course keep bringing the other issues up, but my main focus from here on out is simple.

mitt romney is STUPID!

That's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

My historic perspective of morons, pricks and senility on republican tickets in the last 40+ years.

Here it is being run up the flagpole. Some of you may salute. Some of you may pee on the pole.

I have noticed that every election since 1968 has had at least 1 member of the republican ticket with a DEEP and, IMHO disqualifying, flaw.

The ticket members that I cite:

1968 & 72: agnew (moron who thought that he was a genius)
1976: dole (prick)
1980 & 84: reagan (BLAZINGLY senile)
1988 & 92: quayle (Moron)
1996: dole again (prick)
2000 & 2004: george w turdhead (moron)
2008: sarah palin [comparison] (moron)
2012: twit romney (moron)

We were supposed to believe that twit romney was at least intelligent due to his business background, but...SERIOUSLY? Nobody with at least 1/4 of a brain would say and do as many truly dipshit things as he.

What's scary is that of those I listed, dole would appear to be the best of the lot because a prick can at least be a competent president.

What is even scaier is that they've gotten progressively worse. Bastard that he was, at least agnew could TALK! Also, when he insulted someone he was at least intending to do it! quayle, george w turdhead and sarah palin[comparison] seemed to embrace stupidity as a virtue. romney seems to be too stupid to actually know what a dunderhead he really is. Of course, in romney's case he has also had a lifetine of well paid yes men to tell him that he was actually a brainiac.

When I first thought of this today, I wondered if they would eventually get tired of nominating dopes. Then I thought of how little anything resembling logic has been a part of republicanland since the "dawn" of saint ronald.

BTW, before you point this out to me, I deliberately didn't include the thieves, nixon and cheney. They were and are corrupt bastards, but they at least weren't STUPID corrupt bastards.

Also BTW, the reason that I always say sarah palin{comparison) is because I will never forget how she took the opportunity of her introduction as john mcsame's running mate to draw very self-serving and favorable comparisons between herself and Hillary. AS IF!

That's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

I'd admired and respected joe paterno for YEARS, but...

...obviously, my feelings and beliefs have done a complete about face.

I had a thought last night that took away all of the regrets that I had about the tearing down of his "legacy". I'm running it up the flagpole for you. Some of you may salute, some may pee on the pole.

One of the things that I'd always held against Ike as President is that he had such high stature with the public that he could have ENDED joe mccarthy's little reign of terror with a single sentence. The public would have rallied to Ike and mccarthy would have been finished and a whole lot of lives wouldn't have been needlessly ruined or ended.

it was an unnecessary absence of leadership on Ike's part.

The same could be said for joe paterno. He could have ENDED this with a simple statement to the university administration and started the ball rolling to get his sexual predator employee in jail for life.

It wasn't only an Ike-like absence of leadership, it was, in fact , compounded by the active cover up.

This is where the football fan in my went aside and the father in me took over. All of a sudden I saw my son's face whenever I thought of these young men who were victimized by sandusky and paterno's tolerance of his conduct. In a way I'm sorry that the statue is no longer on the campus. It would have been a good place to relieve myself if I were ever on the grounds of PSU!

That's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

I have 2 thoughts about this Presidential election.

I'll run these ideas up the flagpole. Some of you may salute. Some of you may pee on the pole.

First, The June fund raising. I suspect that the President's tally for June, while not romney's 100 million, may actually be pretty good. I think that if it weren't, the figures would have been released on Friday afternoon or over the weekend when fewer people are paying attention. Of course, even if I'm right, as many of us as possible still have to give our $10 & $20 donations. This will not be an inexpensive campaign.

Secondly and possibly more important, I wonder if voter attitudes in this election is starting to become set. It seems that the polling in the last several weeks has next to no response to any news event. If this is so, possibly no amount of money spent by the billionaires to get their own bought and paid for chief executive with the working digits that grover norquhist requires in his next president will get their man in office. After all, the attacks that they're leveling at President Obama are the same tired old, much debunked and too oft repeated horseshit that they've been throwing since January 20.2009. It has been so often used that the public may be getting deaf to it. Of course, we still have to bust our asses to get the President re-elected.

Anyway, there's my 2 cents for this evening, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

The DU community has supported my family & I through a lot of BS, so now, some GREAT news to share!

My wife and I will always be very grateful for the support, kind words and good vibes we've received from our DU community through some HORRIFIC times recently. Some of those are here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002282915

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002311756

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002514497

I remember several years ago when Kephra passed on, Plaid Adder made the comment that we are a cyber "family" and we need to let each other know about the goods & bads of our lives. I wholeheartedly agreed, and continue to agree, with her.

After all the bad news BS I've shared with you these past few months, now for something truly wonderful!

My wife and I reached an agreement to buy a house tonight.

I know that many here have a very low opinion of home ownership, but both of us have always been of the home ownership mentality. We had a house in the Philly suburbs before we moved here 10 years ago. We've been living in rentals (sometimes really crappy rentals) for most of the last 10 years. for 7 months of 2009 we were homeless and living in a 9 unit transitional apartment house where there were 2 drug dealers and a woman who, shall we say, rendered professional services and a family who was hiding their fugitive sister-in-law in their apartment.

After my recently concluded 10 month nightmare of unemployment, we thought that we were at least a year from this. We were looking for a house to rent or lease/purchase in the city where my wife works. Our Realtor suggested that we talk to a mortgage broker to see what we may be able to qualify for when we would qualify. We found out that we qualified under my wife's income and job for a mortgage of the size that we wanted.

As of mid-August, we will move into a 3 bedroom, 1 bath (for now) ranch with an attached garage in 1/3 of an acre of land and within walking distance of a beautiful residents and guests only lake/beach. We will also be within walking distance of our son's new school (that has a sterling reputation) and some FINE ice cream, pizza and roast beef restaurants. We believe that this will be our final move. We believe that we will buy this house but our son will sell it in about 30 or 40 years when we leave the house feet first.

If I can master the technology, I'll post a picture after closing!

Our mortgage payment will be less than our monthly rent for a 600 sq. foot 2 bedroom apartment. Our combined round trips to work will be about 200 miles less every week. Our auto insurance and home owner's insurance will be less than our current auto & renter's insurance.

You've shared some very dark and difficult times with me and have been a great support to my family and I. For all of the faults and squabbles that we may get into in this community, DU is fabulous at coming together for it's membership in time of need.

Please allow us to share our joy with you tonight!

PEACE!

paul ryan is apparently being seriously vetted as vp.

HMMMM...lets look at a few things here

grover norquhist said that he didn't want a president who will lead, but follow the rightist/bagger faction in the congress. According to him, all the president needs is enough working digits to sign whatever is sent his way. Under george w moron, there was a rubber stamp congress. In groverland, there will be a rubber stamp president. He made it very clear that what he wants is the ryan budget passed and his no taxes pledge only applies to taxes on rich people. If you want to screw the average American, than THAT is ok.

There are numerous billionaires who are contributing their bottomless fortunes to Super PACS designed to smear and defeat President Obama. This is done as they are supporting a man who has spent nearly 20 years demonstrating that he has NO CORE VALUES other that mining companies for every single nickle they can as they ship the jobs of thousands of Americans overseas. Also, the mormon faith that he will not discuss.

romney is so gaffe prone that he makes george w moron sound almost lucid. He is so out of touch that he makes bush senior look like a populist man of the people. He has a disdain for working class Americans and their values that he makes rightist radio hosts look like actual human beings (well, let me not get TOO crazy there!). He mistreats animals to the point that he makes dick cheney look like St. Francis of Assisi.

paul ryan is not only the man who constructed the most draconian budget possible, but he is also the man who makes ayn rand mandatory reading for his staff.

To me, the most scary sum of these parts is this...

...this would be the ryan/romney administration, much like the late and unlamented cheney/bush administration. The biggest differences are that romney's smile is a lot more phony and that ryan is still young enough to do WAY more damage than cheney.

How many ryan appointed SCOTUS justices would there likely be in the next 4 years? Holy shit, I think I'm going to get out my debit card and zing off another $10 bucks to the Obama/Biden campaign. This post is making me way more frightened now that I've written it than it ever did while I was thinking of it for the last couple of days. Sheesh! I'm not a person that scares that easily, either!

PEACE!

I know that every parent has felt, is feeling or will feel what my wife and I are feeling today.

Our son graduated from 6th grade today. Come late August, he will be in Middle School, or, as it was called when I was a kid, Junior High. We are proud of him, amazed at just how fast Elementary School went by, very happy for him and very sad that our son is no longer a little boy.

Actually, he passed "little boy" by a long time ago on the way by "kid" to arrive at "young man".

I will never again feel the joy in my heart of seeing him run into his school, eager to start the new day. Maybe I'll drop him off at school in the future, but he'll be WAY too cool to run in unless he's late. My wife and I said goodbye to the goodbye kiss at school over a year ago. The exchange is that we're going to damn well kiss him when we're at home

When he was about 4 months old, a few weeks after we adopted him, I had a dream of something taking place when he 'll be about 17. In this dream, he's going out on a date and I'm at the door with him while mom is close by in the living room. I'm asking if he has enough money and he says yes but I give him another $20 just in case. I then ask if he has enough gas and he says yes but I give him another $10 just in case.

3 things that I know. First is that, unlike August of 2000 when I had this dream, $10 for gas will go nowhere 5 years from now. The second thing is that the $20 won't go a hell of a long way then either.

The third thing that I know is that his being 17 is just around the corner and will be here in NO time.

it has nothing to do with getting older. It has nothing to do with my wife getting older because she'll still be the most beautiful and wonderful woman on the face of the Earth when she's 199. It has to do with the fact that we LOVE being parents, even when we want to absolutely throttle him (which is frequently). In just a few years, he's going to be out, in college and GONE!

He'll be home for holidays, weekend visits, laundry, refrigerator raiding and hitting mom & dad up for money that we'll bitch about giving him while we're silently happy to do it. He'll always be our son, we'll always be family, but before long, he'll have a family of his own.

Of course, THAT'S when the fun will come in!

My mother-in-law lets him get away with a lot. My mother (God rest her soul & RIP) let him get away with absolute murder! We've always told him that we'll get our revenge when he has OUR grandchildren!

At least we have that to look forward to!

That's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!

PEACE!

The Barber victory vs. the walker victory.

A few quick thoughts before I dash off to work this fine AM.

Let's see. scott walker's campaign outspends us by 8 to 1, wins by about the same margin as he did in 2010 and, according to some polling, got the votes of some who don't like him but disapprove of recalling a governor for political reasons. In the meantime, the same polling shows President Obama with a comfortable lead.

The media response? Democrats are doomed...Doomed I say, DOOMED!

Barber wins a special election for Gabby's seat defeating the teabagger that she beat in 2010 after the rethugs cast the election as a referendum on President Obama and we show that the repubs are as hostile as they are to anything even barely resembling a social program.

The media response? If I listen closely I may be able to hear the crickets.

There goes that damned liberal media again!

Horseshit!

That;s my 2 cents, and quite possibly over priced at that!

PEACE!

Hey, everybody, PLEASE K&R this Great video in the LGBT Forum!