It Is Going to Be a Wal-Mart Christmas

An excerpt from this excellent article by Marie Cocco, of the Washington Post, November 19, 2008: [click on title above for link to full text of column]

"The company that is now the biggest private-sector employer says the average hourly wage of its workers is $10.86. Wal-Mart has said it considers a 34-hour week as full time, though it declined to respond to my questions about this and other employment issues. Assuming the full-time week is 34 hours, a full-time Wal-Mart "associate" averages $19,200 a year. That's about $2,000 below the 2008 federal poverty level for a family of four."

Wal-Mart: Where your manager makes you work 45 hours per week, and you get paid for 34 hours! Shop Wal-Mart - Live Better! You won't see this blogger darkening the doorway at my local Wal-Mart!

How Did We Ever Let This Guy Get Away with Being a War President?

as posted on www.AlterNet.org

By Gary Brecher, eXiled Online. Posted November 17, 2008.

"Only a fool like Bush could pick an anti-American Arab country, add an invading army, and expect a nice fluffy democracy souffle."

Click on title, above, to link to full text of article. A great analysis of Bush & Chene's follies in Afghanistan & Iraq.

Senator-Elect Begich Makes It 58-40!

Congratulations to Mayor Mark Begich, the newly elected Senator from Alaska! Hard to believe so many knuckle-heads voted to keep their grumpy-old-white-man Ted Stevens, but they did. Thankfully, about 3,700 more voted for the right guy!

The recount in Minnesota's US Senate Race is going well, slogging through county-by-county, hand-counting each ballot. Al Franken's chances look good versus Sen. Norm Coleman.

If Franken is declared the winner in Minne-sOH-ta, then it will all come down to the run-off contest in Georgia on December 2nd. Will Georgia voters suffer "campaign fatigue"? Will Bill Clinton's stumping for Jim Martin spell the difference?

Senator Jim Martin of Georgia Would Make it 60!

Well, that's if you count "independent" Sen. Joe Lieberman as a Democratic vote.
But with Sen. Ted Stevens now falling behind Mark Begich in the recount in Alaska, and Al Franken taking the lead over Sen. Norm Coleman in Minnesota, the prospect of the G.O.P. fielding only 40 players on their Senate team come January is a real one! Click on the link above to support Jim Martin's runoff campaign in Georgia. You'll recall Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia as the first-termer who defeated Sen. Max Cleland back in 2002, running commercials so despicable that even Sen. "Songbird" McCain called them "reprehensible".

Winners Take Landslide Victories !!

Wow! What a four-day weekend it was!
Your blogger spent all day Saturday and Tuesday (Election Day) canvassing parts of Highlands Ranch & Roxborough in northwest Douglas County on behalf of Sen. Obama and CO-Senate candidate Mark Udall. (Udall won!) Sunday and Monday had to work.

Tuesday night it all paid off when we enjoyed the South Metro Young Democrats at their Victory Party at a Park Meadows eatery, and settled in to their comfy sofas to watch Barack's speech begin about 10:00 p.m. MST.

Impressions from the weekend:

Barack's speech: Loved it! Enjoyed seeing the close-ups of the moved-to-tears reactions so many in the huge crowd were having. The story of the 106-y-o lady from Georgia who voted yesterday for Obama -- a great way to tie all the themes of this campaign together -- and how we need to be mindful of our history of other successes, and mistakes, our country has made in the last 100 years.

Barack is cool, composed -- a real "Iceman". Just the type of leadership we need.
No more knee-jerk, "Cowboy-knows-best", "I know it in my gut" responses to issues of grave global import.

I LOVE the early trial balloons being floated that Caroline Kennedy might be our next Ambassador to the United Nations; and her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to head up the Environmental Protection Agency.

I like that Illinois' Governor is considering Jesse Jackson, Jr. as a possible appointment to Obama's open Senate seat. Haven't heard yet what might happen with Biden's open seat.

I love the fact that so-called "Millionaire [Betsy] Markey knocked off 4-term incumbent Marilyn Musgrave in CO's 4th Cong. District. That District last had a Dem. representing it in 1973.

I loathe the fact that my new Congressman is Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, who defeated challenger Hank Eng for the seat opened up by Tom "Nuke all the Mexicans" Tancredo. Coffman spent the last few weeks before our election diligently following the Karl Rove playbook of systematically purging as many new registrants from the polling lists, some of them for as silly a reason as failure to check a box next to the space to list the last four digits of your S.S. #. Happily, several county clerks took Coffman's office in to see Federal judges, all of whom told him to knock it off. Hope "Tricky Mike" enjoys being a freshman MC in a very distinct minority of GOP House delegation.

Memo to Darth Vader Cheney, George H.W. Bush and your crony-clients in the Oil bid'ness and Saudi Royal family. Go ahead and let those gas prices rise back to summer levels. Nice try, lowering them from $4.25 / gallon to $2.25 / gallon in three short months to try to buy your neo-con spooks another four years, but it didn't work. Let's get the prices back up to keep spurring on solar energy investment, hybrid vehicle technology, etc. And start packing your bags to get the SAM HELL OUT OF TOWN!

Two final words to George "W" and Laura Bush: "BUH-BYE!"