Michael Moore's Latest Rantings

When I was a TBO Umpire, something us teenage umpires were taught was this: When you make a call, especially an out/safe call, do it definitively, decisively, and demonstratively. (Those adjectives probably weren't used, but you get the idea.) One's demeanor can have a huge impact on the person observing this behavior in regard to their level of trust in your judgment. And, I suppose, this is an idea that translates into "real life". If somebody is presenting you with information and they hem and haw their way through their presentation, it sounds different than the same presentation given with conviction and with little or no hesitation.

I mention this in light of reading Michael Moore's latest rant. Political leanings notwithstanding, I think it is true that Obama maybe could've handled himself differently for the past 14 months.

Dear President Obama,

I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.

I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.

I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.

And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don't need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.

Now, don't get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:

"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED ME, NOT THE REPUBLICANS, TO RUN THE COUNTRY! I AM IN CHARGE! I WILL ORDER ALL OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUTTA MY WAY! IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DON'T LIKE WHAT I'M DOING THEY CAN THROW MY ASS OUT IN 2012. IN THE MEANTIME, I CALL THE SHOTS ON THEIR BEHALF! NOW, CONGRESS, DROP AND GIVE ME 50!!"

Then we will put on our jogging sweats and run up to Capitol Hill. We will take names, kick butts, and then take some more names. If we have to give a few noogies or half-nelson's, then so be it. In our pockets we will have a piece of paper to show the pansy Dems just how much they won by in 2008 -- and the poll results that show the majority of Americans oppose the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and want the bankers punished. Like drill sergeants, we will get right up in their faces and ask them, "WHAT PART OF THE PUBLIC MANDATE DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, SOLDIER?!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"

I know this is the job Rahm Emanuel was supposed to be doing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have always admired Rahm Emanuel (if you don't count his getting NAFTA pushed through Congress in the '90s which destroyed towns like Flint, Michigan. I know, picky-picky.). He is what we needed for a long time -- a no-apologies, take-no-prisoners fighting machine. Someone who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and pound the right wing into submission. Far from being the foul-mouthed bully he has been portrayed as, Rahm is the one who BEAT UP the bullies to protect us from them.

That's certainly what he did in 2006. After six long, miserable years of the middle-class getting slaughtered and the poor being flushed down the toilet, Rahm Emanuel took on the job of returning Congress to the Democrats. No one believed it could be done.

But he did it. Big time. He put the fear of God into the party of Rush and Newt. They had never been so scared. More importantly, though, he instilled a sense of hope in the Democrats that they could actually score the mother of all hat tricks in 2008 -- and with you, an African American no less, in the pole position!

It worked. The Darkness ended. The vast majority of nation wept with joy on the night of the election (those who weren't weeping went out and bought a record number of guns and ammo). Unlike the last president, you didn't "win" by 537 votes in Florida (although Gore won the popular vote by a half-million), you beat McCain nationally by 9,522,083 votes! The House Democrats got a walloping 79-vote margin. The Senate Dems would caucus with a supermajority of 60 votes unheard of in over 30 years. The wars would now end. America would have universal health care. Wall Street and the banks would, at the very least, be reined in. Hardworking citizens would not be thrown out of their homes. It was supposed to be the dawning of a new age.

But the Republicans were not going to go quietly into the night. You see, instead of having just one Rahm Emanuel, they are ALL Rahm Emanuels. That's why they usually win. Unlike most Democrats, they are relentless and unstoppable. When they believe in something (which is usually themselves and the K Street job they hope to be rewarded with someday), they'll fight for it till the death. They are loyal to a fault to each other (they were never able to denounce Bush, even though they knew he was destroying the party). They dig their heels in deep no matter what. If you exiled them to a lone chunk of melting polar ice cap, they would keep insisting that it was just a normal "January thaw," even as the frigid Arctic waters rose above their God-fearing necks ("See what I mean -- this water is COLD! What 'global *warming*'?! Adam and Eve rode dinos...aagghh!!... gulp gulp gulp").

We thought we were all done with this craziness, but we were mistaken. Like a beast that you just can't cage, the Republicans convinced not only the media, but YOU and your fellow Dems, that 59 votes was a *minority*! Precious time was lost trying to reach a "consensus" and trying to be "bipartisan."

Well, you and the Democrats have been in charge now for over a year and not one banking regulation has been reinstated. We don't have universal health care. The war in Afghanistan has escalated. And tens of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs and be thrown out of their homes. For most of us, it's just simply no longer good enough that Bush is gone. Woo hoo. Bush is gone. Yippee. That hasn't created one new friggin' job.
You're such a good guy, Mr. President. You came to Washington with your hand extended to the Republicans and they just chopped it off. You wanted to be respectful and they decided that they were going to say "no" to everything you suggested. Yet, you kept on saying you still believed in bipartisanship.
Well, if you really want bipartisanship, just go ahead and let the Republicans win in November. Then you'll get all the bipartisanship you want.
Let me be clear about one thing: The Democrats on Election Day 2010 are going to get an ass-whoopin' of biblical proportions if things don't change right now. And after the new Republican majority takes over, they, along with a few conservative Democrats in Congress, will get to bipartisanly impeach you for being a socialist and a citizen of Kenya. How nice to see both sides of the aisle working together again!

And the brief window we had to fix this country will be gone.

Gone.

Gone, baby, gone.

I don't know what your team has been up to, but they haven't served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter -- not of Republicans, but of the left. He called those of us who want universal health care "f***ing retarded." Look, I don't know if Rahm is the problem or if it's Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it's now running on fumes. Time to shake things up! Time to bring me in to get you pumped up every morning! Go Barack! Yay Obama! Fight, Team, Fight!

I'm packed and ready to come to D.C. tomorrow. If it helps, you won't really be losing Rahm entirely because I'll be bringing his brother with me -- my agent, Ari Emanuel. Man, you should see HIM negotiate a deal! Have you ever wanted to see Mitch McConnell walking around Capitol Hill carrying his own head in his hands after it's just been handed to him by the infamous Ari? Oh, baby, it won't be pretty -- but boy will it be sweet!

What say you, Barack? Me and you against the world! Yes we can! It'll be fun -- and we may just get something done. Whaddaya got to lose? Hope?

Retardedly yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Just to give you an idea of the new style I'll be bringing with me, when a cornhole like Sen. Ben Nelson tries to hold you up next time, this is what I will tell him in order to get his vote: "You've got exactly 30 seconds to rescind your demand or I will personally make sure that Nebraska doesn't get one more federal dollar for the rest of Obama's term. And then I will let everyone in your state know that you wear Sooner panties, backwards. NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"

More Videos and Links

1)



An oldie but a goodie.



2)


How To Shower: Men Vs Women - Watch more Entertainment

This is funny if you live with someone of the opposite sex.


3) If you've somehow never seen "Dick in a Box"... well, you must. Click here.


4) A somewhat contrived but yet thoughtful website about our political state here.



5) Finally, a classic if you've ever remotely loved the Howard Stern show: The Gary Tape. "I miss you, man."

Obama Race Email

I first saw this on Facebook, posted by one of the Teaneck boys here. It speaks for itself.

This was emailed to me so i don't know who to properly attribute it to. I don't necessarily agree with all of it but think it is enlightening if we are to truly examine the pervasiveness of race in our thinking and our reactions. It is said that Branch Rickey felt he needed to find the perfect person to break the color barrier in baseball because he knew the consequences of failure. I don't know if Senator Obama is that "perfect person" but he has the bona fides to qualify and he seems to exude grace under pressure.

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said "I do" to?
What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5?
What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

You are The Boss... which team would you hire? With America facing historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc.

Educational Background:

Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.)
Magna Cum Laude

Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters -
B.A. in Journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire ?


The other thing that this email doesn't mention is "what if Obama's unmarried teenage daughter was pregnant out of wedlock?" Seriously, imagine if Barack had a 16 or 17 year old daughter who was pregnant. How would general public perception be different?

Is Colin Powell also a nappy headed ho?

I watched Colin Powell's assessment of the presidential race on Meet the Press the other day with my wife and her uncle in D.C. As soon as he was done, her uncle made similar comments to Side Bar. So that was good.

In the days after, conservatives like Joe Scarborough and I'm sure many others who I don't listen to like O'Reilly and Limbaugh have been saying things like, "Well, of course Colin Powell endorsed Obama. They're both black."

Umm... I'm guessing they either (a) didn't actually listen to Colin Powell speak (unlikely), or (b) listened and felt like Colin Powell was being disingenuous. Either way... where is the outrage directed towards "respected" talking heads not only suggesting this, but saying it outright?

Compare this with the Don Imus outrage. Don Imus, a comedian, was attempting to use a colloquialism to be goofy and came off as racially insensitive, which he was and should arguably be castigated for, which he more than was. He referred to the "nappy heads" of the Rutgers women and called them "hoes", which is obviously silly as he has no idea if infact they are hoes or not. The general tone of what he was saying was demeaning, as these women were not trying to be public figured, nor are they asking to be commented on for their appearance and sexuality, and Imus thrusted them into the spotlight unfairly.

Now, here we have people saying that Colin Powell cannot make an unbiased statement about Barack Obama because somehow, despite his remarkable government experience and intellect, despite everything he articulately just stated after being given an uninterrupted half-hour on network TV to do so because his opinion is respected that highly, he is somehow swayed by the fact that both he and Obama have dark skin and this renders him incapable of being objective. Or, worse, that black people aren't ever really honest and will blindly stick up for another black person despite any other possible factors? Either way, it states quite clearly that, by implication, if Colin Powell, a Republican and Bush-Cheney supporter, cannot be trusted to put his blackness aside and be objective about this, why can we trust any black people with any decisions where there might be other black people involved? They are all lemmings who have no intellect, apparently, and can't wait to collaborate with other black people to stick it to the white man or something.

I don't understand why people aren't outraged by this. Personally, I think I'd be more upset about being told I'm a moron because I'm black, and that I shouldn't be trusted with a vote, than if some goofy dumbass comedian called some basketball players "nappy headed hoes". Am I overreacting?

WHAT?

From a cnn.com article this morning about the debates...

Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Obama did the better job in Friday night's debate, while 38 percent said John McCain did better.

Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night's winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won.

Good. Even so... 38% said "John McCain did better" in the debates. Almost 2 out of 5 people watched the debate and left thinking "McCain outperformed Obama".

Umm... WHAT?!? What were their criteria??

The Economy, Politics, Stupid Americans

The statistic came on Hardball last night that, in the past couple of days since the economy shit has hit the fan, Obama has taken a big bounce in the polls. Not coincidentally, "the economy" has become the most important issue to these people who were polled.

Umm... what was the most important issue for these people in their decision process before the media starting reporting that we could potentially be facing a huge recession / depression? If it was Iraq or something substantial... fine... but in many polls, some people were saying that they were leaning McCain because of things like he possesses "leadership qualities" or that he's more experienced, or his "character". These things don't seem to *mean* anything, do they?

Anyway, LJT outlined the situation better than I ever could, and cleared some things up for me. As the housing boom collapsed a couple of years ago, and leading up to where we were today, I couldn't shake the feeling that this problem was truly, at its heart, caused by individual people and companies overspeculating and overspending. LJT compared it to a big game of Jenga... is another analogy a house of cards that continues to be built on a flimsy foundation until one day it inevitably collapses? Anyway, regardless of how this shakes out, I hope (though am not optimistic) that Americans will learn their lesson as LJT mentioned. If companies and people only spent what they truly could afford, wouldn't there truly be little economic issue?

Palin, etc...

As much as I wish this picture that I got on email was real, it's not.

The boys over at Where's Luke have been posting many political items recently, from awesome videos to general political questions like this for which I don't have an answer. As ChuckJerry posted in the last link, it's unfathomable how many people are duped by the Republican agenda which has been proven to not work in this country for the past 30 years. People who think that business should just run free and that anybody can just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" the way their grandfathers did when they came to America is living in the past. However, I don't think the people who read this blog (if any of you are out there) would disagree with me. But, in answer to Jerry's non-rhetorical question, the book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" explains it well. Read the Wikipedia summary.

But anyway, some random thoughts:
- Joe Biden was awesome with Tom Brokaw this past Sunday on Meet the Press.
- Gloria Steinem weighs in.
- It's ironic, among many hundreds of phony-ass things, that the GOP has tried to paint Barack Obama as style over substance, yet if you actually go watch everything stated in the GOP convention, you hear all style ("Country First", "A True Maverick", "Let's Fight for America!") and no substance, whereas the converse seems to be true when I hear Obama and Biden speak.
- And fuck Sarah Palin for saying these words: "Just know that if I get elected, you mothers of special needs children will have a friend in the White House." Fuck you. How manipulative even above all the other manipulative, crafty insubstantial shit they spew. Is the implication that you won't have a friend there with those evil Democrats? And is there any substance to being a "friend" of these people?

This has turned into a rant. I'm going to stop now.

Republican Rally

Watching the Republican Rally, Giuliani speaking...

Two thoughts:

1) I feel like I'm watching a Nazi Rally.
2) From my brother: "These people are fucking crazy."

Prostitution

The Courier-Post is South Jersey's answer to the Bergen Record. It serves the heavily populated suburban areas near Philadelphia, much as the Bergen Record does for Bergen County.

Anyway, it is my local paper and I often peruse it. In the classified section, I often notice the handful of ads underneath "personal services". There are usually more than a handful in the Bergen Record as well. They are usually things that say "massage", but they are listed in the same section with things like "adult chat lines". Therefore, I would infer that these massages would not be confined to one's back and shoulders. And, then, I wonder if prostitution is illegal, how could these ads be allowed to be published? These ads are such a thinly veiled advertisement for prostitution. It would be equivalent to an ad that said something like "Want to do what Bob Marley does? Call 555-5555 for directions and prices. Bring your own bong." This analogy is not funny, or clever, but you get the idea.

Anyway, there is an ad that shows up often in my paper which is not even listed as "massage". In a typical paper, the same phone number appears with big, boldfaced ads three or four times in a given paper, each time with something different like "Hi, I'm Daisy. I'm a cheerleader and I can't wait to bust out of my uniform and show you my 36-D pom-poms. Call xxx-xxx-xx00" -- or "I'm Kate. A long day in the office has got me tense. I can't wait to get out of this business suit..." with the same number. The number ends in two zeroes, which struck me as numbers ending in "hundred" are usually fairly big businesses. These ads / phone number have been in the paper for at least 2 and a half years, the time I've lived down here.

This is crazy, I thought. Can they just advertise escorts / prostitutes so blantantly? The Philadelphia free paper has similar ads with pictures - but that is a free, city paper and this is our suburban, family-safe paper! And, wouldn't law enforcement notice these repeated ads and decide to crack down? Could it be that this number just a police sting to arrest potential johns?

So, curiousity got the best of me and one evening I had to hear what would happen when a random person calls this number. I went to a pay-phone, put in 50 cents, and dialed the number. I reminded myself to not solicit any illegal activity, lest there be any misunderstanding and a bunch of cops drive up to the phone booth I was at to arrest me for soliciting or whatever.

Them: "Hello, can I help you?"
Me: "Yes, I saw your ad in the paper."
Them: "Ok, it's $190 cash for the hour."
Me: "Uhh..."
Them: "Are you calling from a hotel?"
Me: "No, I'm at a payphone."
Them: "Hold on..."

"..."

Them: "Ok, hon, you're going to have to call us back from either a cell phone or from a hotel. Get set up and call us back."
Me: "Ok. So what's with all the different names of women in the paper?"
Them: "Well, what kind of woman are you looking for?"

I hung up. I think I got the point, and drove home.

So, I concluded, either the people on the other end were police are searching for people to arrest (unlikely), or more likely it is an obvious thriving prostitution business.

I think it's crazy that prostitution is illegal. The reasons to keep it illegal, I suppose, are that most people think it's immoral and abusive to the women that do it. Well, what women would turn to prostitution unless they had any other choice? And if it was legal, would that be any different? Would women aspire to be prostitutes if it was a "valid" career choice? I can't imagine that they would. So, at least, it would be safe and women who do must do it would be protected both physically and financially. And plenty of guys pay for prostitution now, and they would continue to do so if it were legal.

I understand the idea that many laws are in place to protect people either from themselves or from immoral activities. And, society must weigh the financial benefits of having them be legal and what the government can make off of them, versus the suppposed moral effect these activities can have on everybody else (like casinos and cigarettes, for instance). And, sometimes government draws the line, for better or worse (like many illegal drugs).

My point is: I think we've reached the point where it's such a joke that prostitution is illegal, yet it happens so blatantly all the time. The fact that it's illegal means many women, usually immigrants, become virtual sex slaves. Make it legal. Let the government profit off of it. Give these poor exploited women some protection at least.