TheLastManInAmerica

It’s a tragedy, something no parent should have to deal with. Losing a child would undoubtedly cause a lifelong hurt no parent could ever recover from. I can’t say for certain but I’m sure the void left by the child’s death would forever be filled what ifs, a burden the parent would forever carry with them, wondering what they could’ve done differently to save the child’s life.

But why is it that we are only examining this plight now, following the death of John Travolta’s son, Jett? The national news’ hearts, along with the nation’s, are bleeding all over the place for this Hollywood icon since he lost his only son this past week. Why? What makes him so special that a family tragedy should spark such empathy from the world at large. I nearly died at sixteen when I was hospitalized following a stroke brought on by an unprovoked sucker punch from a man twice my age. Would my mother’s grief make national headlines? Would it be a top story on Larry King Live?

Children die every day in this country. Do we mourn as a nation for the thousands of parents whose children have parished in the line of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or the parents who watch their children live short, pain-filled lives dying of leukemia, expiring before they learn to walk, where’s our outpouring of sympathy for them?

I genuinely feel sorry for they guy; no parent should have to deal with that. It’s the media that has soured me on this subject. This sorrow that John Travolta feels is felt by people everyday but it takes a celebrity’s experience to make it something to report on. Then they all feel so distraught over it. Then their heart’s go out to the parents. If they’re going to report on the death of a celebrity’s child for days, then they need to dedicate an entire channel to the thousands of others who experience this pain everyday.

Get a life! Michael Newdow, you and your plaintiffs are making all of us look like whiny little children. You’re lawsuit to have “so help me god” taken out of the inaugaration and your objection to Rick Warren delivering the invocation speech are petty and seem to ignore the fact that all of our presidents have been christian.
You want these words taken out, right? To make you feel better? But what about those Christian presidents that this pledge actually means something to? You and your plaintiffs complain that you will feel ostracized if you are forced to watch an inaugaration with religious components, so you’d rather force these religious people to do without swearing their oath to their god?
And it was Barack Obama’s choice to have Rick Warren speak at his inaugaration, what say do you have in the matter? Obama is a religious man and wants another to speak at this occasion for him, you might not agree with it but that’s the cost of freedom, people will do things that you don’t like.
Atheists like to think that religious people are always forcing their beliefs on them. Sometimes they are, no doubt, but we need to pick our battles, not just start kicking and screaming every time someone says, “God bless you,” when we sneeze. Our presidents have been, and probably will be for a long time, invaribly religious. It is their choice to say these things and have these people speak; if they were atheist, I’m sure they would object to repeating that line that so offends you. If we try to take that away from them then we’re no better the zealots who condemn us for our beliefs

Is it a “huge mistake” as one editor put it? Barack Obama’s choice to let über-conservative evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration is drawing a lot of flack from liberals and the gay community but should we be surprised by this for any other reason than Obama sticking to his word?

We’ve all known the president-elect doesn’t support gay marriage, which is one of the reasons that I did not vote for him, but picking a man so opposed to abortion rights to lead him into office seems a little crazy, right? Not entirely. Lest we forget, one of Obama’s strategies during the campaign was to reel in some evangelical christians who may have been displeased with Republican candidate John McCain.

If anything, I think we should be surprised that he really meant it and wasn’t just looking to them for their votes.  

This may not be the best way for Barack Obama to start his stint in the Oval Office. The stench surrounding Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich spreads across the entire state and sticks to every politician around. But the noxious fumes might affect the president-elect worse than anyone, including Blago himself.

The problem is the contradiction surrounding the Obama team’s answers to questions regarding communication with the disgraced governor. On Tuesday Obama said that he had not any contact with Blagojevich but seemed to recant mid-sentence saying, “I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so we were not - I was not aware of what was happening.”

This runs contradictory to a statement made by Obama adviser David Axelrod last month. In an interview with a Chicago news outlet, Axelrod said, “I know he’s (Obama) talked to the governor and there’s a whole range of names, many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them.”

That’s a pretty detailed account of an exchange that, following Obama’s denial on Tuesday, Axelrod later called a Mulligan on, saying he, “was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the president-elect had spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then, or at any time discuss the subject.”

Did you hear that? Directly. So instead of them having a detailed discussion on the subject which Axelrod described last month, this clears the way for them to later say they spoke indirectly through channels. Nice back-stepping there, Dave.

This does not bode well for an administration who campaigned on the idea of Change. No it appears that Obama could very well be playing the same old tired poolitical games. So forget Jesse Jackson Jr. and the four others who may have been willing to pay to play, I want to know what role our next president had in this twisted plot.  

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has, as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said, “taken us to a new low,” by allegedly trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant senate seat in exchange for financial benefits for him and his wife. Scumbag.

The Democrat also allegedly contemplated keeping the seat for himself if he didn’t get “anything of value” for it. Douchebag.

Federal wiretaps have him discussing a potentially substantial salary at a non-profit organization or an organization affiliated with labor unions as well as setting his wife up with a job that would pay her $150,00 annually. Politician.

Blagojevich, according to the 76 page affidavit, said he wanted “to make money,” and was hurting financially. I sure am sorry your salary as Governor isn’t enough for you, Rod. Maybe you should get a second job, moonlight as a pimp or something.

Swine like Blagojevich are the worst, he is a power-hungry animal whose gluttony knows no bounds. He ought to be strung up by his scrotum while monkeys pelt him with feces.

Does Barack Obama need to apologize for perhaps being the first politician to stick to his word? During his campaign he promised to reach across the aisle and work with moderates and conservatives to help fix the problems afflicting our country. Now every politician makes that promise but would we be surprised to learn that, if John McCain had won, he was stocking his cabinet with staunch conservatives? Absolutely not! We would just accept it as a politician playing the part.

But here we are. Obama is putting together a melting pot of a cabinet, incorporating not only members of the Clinton administration but George W. Bush’s as well and he is catching heat from some liberals who would’ve just as soon seen him go flush with the former.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it’s all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

I’m sorry, did he not appoint Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State? So this isn’t turning out to be the Liberal Orgy that many on the left were hoping for but it’s also not Business as Usual, which is a big relief for those who don’t live and die by the Law of the Left. The House, the Senate and the Presidency are all in the hands of the Democrats; I won’t say “what else do you want,” because I already know but hell, be satisfied with what you have because it could be much worse.

Mark Begich, the incoming Alaska senator who beat out convicted felon Ted Stevens for a seat held by the Republican for decades, is now saying his 85 year-old former opponent should not be thrown in jail.

Ted Stevens was convicted in October on seven felony counts of making false statements in regards to money and gifts he received while in office.

“I think for an 85 year-old man to serve time in jail, that’s not the appropriate thing to do,” said Begich.

Than what would be the appropriate thing to do, Mr. Begich? Should we just slap his wrinkled wrists and send him on his way? Now don’t you go doin that again, ya hear!?

That is bullshit! Age does not absolve you of guilt. If anything, he has 85 years of experience that should tell him what he was doing was wrong. Or is it because he’s one of your own that you think he should get leniency? I’m sure all you crooked pimps have taken gifts like Stevens and if caught you’d lie just the same. Again, this makes him more deserving of jail time. He is a lawmaker who broke the Law, the bastard, and he should wither away the last years of his life in a 8×6 cell with all the other criminals.

Nathaniel Hawthorne said “Families are always rising and falling in America.” Actually, I am more or less quoting “The Departed” and its quoting of that line. Nevertheless, it’s true. That being said, could we possibly see the Bush family rise from the ruins that George W. Bush has left it in?

After eight years as president his approval ratings have sunk to historic lows. And in the process he has brought the family name and the Republican party down with him. But some believe the way to resurrection lies with his younger brother, Jeb, the former governor of Florida. Jeb himself has not announced his bid for the seat but in an email to Politico he stated, “I am considering it.”

With the announcement from Senator Mel Martinez of Florida that he will not seek a second term has prompted some to consider the best way of keeping the seat in Republican’s hands is to get Jeb Bush in the running. his popularity in the state is well documented. As former Republican state legislator Joe Negron says, “Jeb Bush is a complete rock in Florida and that’s just a fact.”

Rock star or not, he is a Bush and that name has become little more than a symbol of mirth or anger. But, then again, so is Sarah Palin’s and that hasn’t dashed the talks of her potential run for the Oval Office in 2012.

Cat fight! Alaska Senator Lisa Mukowski has shown her claws to Governor Sarah Palin, warning the former Republican vice presidential candidate not to run against her in her bid for re-election to the senate in 2010.

“I can guarantee it will be a very tough election,” Murkowski said in an interview.

Murkowski is up for re-election in 2010, the same year Palin’s term as governor expires and while Palin has yet to announce her intention to run for senate, Murkowski seems intent to advise her against it, warning that such a move could damage her hopes of running for president two years later.

 ”If she wants to be president,” Murkowski said, “I don’t think the way to the presidency is a short stop in the United States Senate.” She said a bid for senate by Palin could be disastrous; if she lost, her stock would drop right before her run for president and if she won, she’d have little sway in a chamber dominated by seniority and would have to begin her presidential campaign straight out of the gate. 

But could some other motive be making Murkowski so opposed to a Palin senate run? The answer is yes. Two years ago Sarah Palin beat out Murkowski’s father, Frank Murkowski, in his bid for Governor of Alaska and on the campaign trail this year, she boasted about upending the “old boys network” in Alaska.

Sounds like there’s some bitterness there. Luckily, I have the solution. We all know how little Alaskan’s suffrage means (the nearly elected a convicted felon to senate this year), so let’s settle this the good ol’ fahioned-way: MUD WRESTLING MATCH!  

It takes eight minutes for light to travel from the star at the center of our solar system to our planet. For the star called GOP2 (aka Sarah Palin), it took a matter of seconds for her light to engulf the planet, a light so bright that it has since blinded and dumbfounded the masses from  the day she were announced as John McCain’s running mate for this year’s failed GOP ticket for president.

In the three weeks since losing their bid, Sarah Palin has seen an amplified interest from the media. And, oh, how happy those in her corner are!

“Tomorrow, Governor Palin could do an interview with any news media in the world,” said her spokesman Bill McAllister. “Tomorrow she could sign any one of a dozen book deals. She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That’s the level we’re at here.”

From Oprah and George Stephanopoulos to Letterman, Leno and the Daily Show are, media sources everywhere are  clamoring to get Palin on their programs with the possibility of her own talk show not too far out of reach. I, personally, am sickened that we live in a society where someone like Sarah Palin, who rose to infamy as an inept politician, can ride ride that wave to international celebrity. While doctors are growing windpipes from stemcells and astrophysicists prove the validity of the Big Bang Theory, it’s people like Sarah Palin, who didn’t know Africa was a continent as opposed to a country, that become famous. Need I say more?