I've curtailed my blogging to a large degree because I'm overwhelmed with trying to process what is going on in the country.

At this point I do believe that Barack Obama will soon be the President of the United States. That at least is good.

I'm appalled at the Republican voter suppression effort that must be costing them millions of dollars. I can't imagine what it will be like for a first time voter when they go to the polls and some Repub hack standing behind the poll worker says, "No. We challenge this registration." Literally millions of voters are going to go to the poll on election day and find that Repubs have removed them from the voting lists. In some cases, whole streets of voters have been removed. On the basis of some government record that shows you at an old address, or because you've moved across the street, or there seems to be a slight change in your signature from a recorded signature five years before, your registration can be challenged or has already been removed. You have to see this article in Rolling Stone by Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Greg Palast. Or watch the video.

Forgive the stream of consciousness that follows. Back to being overwhelmed. It's not by the failed Bush presidency, now acknowleged to be the worst in history. But what about the crash on Wall Street. A big ouch for me since I'm three years from retirement. Does the bailout make it better, or reward the rich for their bad judgement? Why doesn't the 700 billion go to the people being forclosed on so they can pay their mortgages instead of letting them be kicked out on to the street and reimbursing mortgage lenders for their losses? Isn't something wrong with this? If the home buyers (poor democrats) made a judgement error, didn't the lenders (rich repubs) make the same judgement error?

How about a major candidate choosing someone like Sarah Palin and all she represents, and spending $150,000 on clothes for her (talk about putting lipstick on a pig). About all the illegal things that Palin has done as governor, taking per diem for working at home, doing state business via personal email to shield her dealings from open records requests, firing people who won't do personal vedettas for her? About having two "D" students running at the top of a ticket. I can only surmise that good Republican candidates just wouldn't run this year because there was no chance of winning.

It is about voter suppression. It's about Afghanistan. It's about health care. It's about firing attorneys general who won't abuse the law for political purposes. It's about screaming "baby killer" and "socialist" and "muslim" and "kill him" at rallies. Its about people saying "I could never vote for a black man."

I'll tell you what I want. I want 350 electoral votes. I want 61 senators (so we can kiss Joe Lieberman goodbye). I want Iraq to be over. I want Osama hunted down and killed. I want health care for all Americans. I want the right to vote for all Americans. I want a graduated tax system that doesn't tap out while still in the middle class. We have had tax rates in the past as high as 94% on the uber rich, 91% during the Eisenhower administration (the definition of the good old days). It is currently 36% on the uber rich with loads of loopholes. Poor school teachers are paying 28%. I'll tell you, there is more than 8% difference in our salaries, but not in our tax rates.