Day: May 17, 2012

Humor Is Where You Find It

There is not much in politics that is humorous, mostly just pathetic….but from time to time I run across something that makes me smile….I could write a little about the Rickets Plan or some other equally deemed important by the media….but I just cannot resist this story….

Recently the socialists won the French election and that should send the right into more about the European socialist thing……..but all seriousness aside….this is just damn funny!

CNN is reporting……

France’s new Socialist government is already causing ripples throughout a Europe struggling to balance government budgets without making ordinary people’s lives miserable, but it has created a completely different problem in the Middle East.

The prime minister’s last name, it turns out, sounds like an Arabic slang word for penis.

His name is Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Pronounced properly in French, the last name is very much like a moderately rude Lebanese and Palestinian term that is widely understood in the Arabic world.

The French Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the issue but had no comment. The office of the French president, sounding amused, referred CNN questions to the prime minister’s office, which had no comment.

The story echoes reports that two years ago, Pakistan wanted to appoint an ambassador to Saudi Arabia whose name sounds like an even more offensive word for penis in Arabic.

But Pakistani diplomat Akbar Zeb denied the story, telling the Globe and Mail in Canada, where he is posted, that there had never been a plan to send him to Riyadh.

I am sorry but this is just what I needed today……some of my friends have always had the opinion that the French were a bunch of pr*cks…….and now this!

Yes, We Have No Third Party Today

Since the beginning of the year, maybe a little longer, many pundits have been saying that there could be an opening for a viable third party in this, the 2012 election.  Some have envisioned Ron Paul as that candidate and even some have called for the media whore Nader to get involved….but some have taken it to heart and tried to find another way to run an alternate to the log jam that is the two party system…..

First, it was Unity ’08……..

Unity08 was an American political reform movement that sought to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, secure vote to nominate a bipartisan alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.   Founded in 2006, the group gained attention from various media outlets, with Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter dubbing the group’s efforts a kind of open sourcepolitics……Unity08 had four major goals:

  1. Enable Americans to rank America’s most crucial issues.
  2. Empower Americans to draft or evaluate Unity08 candidates and actively engage them in debate about the crucial issues.
  3. Empower Americans to nominate a bipartisan Unity ticket via an online convention and secure voting process.
  4. Elect the Unity08 presidential ticket to national office.

The Unity08 presidential ticket was to consist of two candidates that come from different political parties. This bipartisan team was to propose a bipartisan cabinet in an effort to end paralysis in government. Co-founder Doug Bailey explained “What we are trying to do is to create a forum for people who are in the middle who have been left out of politics.”

Well that was a bomb!  It basically was a movement to get Mayor Bloomberg to run as an alternative…..now fast forward to the 2012 election season……

The official website for Americans Elect states that the organization has no ties to any political group – left, right, or center – and does not promote any issues, ideology or candidates. Any constitutionally eligible, qualified citizen—no matter their party—can seek the nomination, or be drafted by the delegates.   Other materials produced by Americans Elect state that the organization will promote the “sensible center”, centrist budgetary views, and a resurgence of centrist politics. The bylaws of Americans Elect state “The ticket shall be balanced around centrist principles…”

The co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum has argued that this announced “centrist” ideology is inconsistent with the organization’s stated commitment to an open, democratic process, because delegates given a free choice might select a candidate whom the directors did not consider centrist.

Americans Elect 2012 is an organization that was formed by many of the individuals that were responsible for Unity 08, and has substantially identical goals for the 2012 presidential election cycle.

I called it a con job when it was announced….and I still think it was a con job.  I say WAS because…..

A private organization established to run a third-party candidate in this year’s presidential elections has thrown in the towel, saying no one mustered sufficient support for such an effort.

Kahlil Byrd, chief executive officer of Americans Elect, says that under the rules his group approved for an online primary, the process was ending Tuesday.

Third party presidential candidacies have rarely succeeded in U.S. politics, and Americans Elect had hoped to conduct the “Americans Elect Online Convention” this June.

But Byrd says that “as of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required” to enter the online convention. He adds there still is, quote, “an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported AE to see a credible candidate emerge from this process.”

Another bust!  How many times will these people try this?  Will we see another organization in 2016?  Run by the same people?  Is this just good money thrown after bad?  There was NO way that this was gonna make a difference.  For one the voter…..why the voter?  Two words…..”IDENTITY POLITICS”

The American electorate is only concerned with “identity politics” and once you realize this then all this trying to change the way we elect a prez will cease or until the American voter truly wants a change attempts such as this is nothing but a con job that serves NO beneficial purpose in our politics.