New Poem: GOD TALKS TO JOE BIDEN

 don’t try to pin this on Me

 you, presenting as Samson

 proclaiming only you can beat Trump

 boasting no one can take me out 

 except the Lord Almighty 

 >

 there are billions of souls needing help and refuge

 I’m not coming to Earth to reward your vanity

 by making a case for Kamala over you

 use your common sense

 it’s what I gave you at birth

 

Joe Biden says Oh well, at least I tried if he loses existential battle for democracy

George Stephanopoulos: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?

Joe Biden: I'll feel, as long as I gave it my all, and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that's what this is about.

That Was The Debate That Was Ramble

 CNN said no on-camera fact checking apparently because if facts were checked on-camera and one candidate had more wrong facts and/or outright lies than the other then pointing this out via on-camera chyrons would have indicated bias and CNN in the Zaslav era cannot indicate bias at all whatsoever.

And this is how democracy dies.

New Poem: FAREWELL 2020

 farewell 2020

 the year where someone scratched

 the tone arm hard across the favorite record

 with a rrrrrrrrrrrppppp sound

 and everything changed

 >

 farewell 2020

 the year where the Republican adage 

 government is best that governs least

 proved to be a deadly lie

 leave it to the states made everything worse

 >

 may 2021

 be the year where we don’t read these words:

 we don’t have 60 votes

 full vaccinated immunity not until 2022

 no federal charges filed against Donald Trump

New Poem: LIGHT IN THE TUNNEL

 he will yell his head off

 but we don’t have to be scared anymore

 he can challenge the results he doesn’t like

 but we voted in such large numbers

 he can’t undo the will of the American people 

 >

 a rose breaks through concrete

 a nation recovers from submersion 

New Poem: LEAVE THE ROOM PERMANENTLY

 be mindful of your aging friends/as they repeat all the things their parents and grandparents once said/know when to leave the room permanently when they won’t change/talking about lies and Trump and people who are smug because they know more than they do and global warming being a hoax and Black Antifa building public housing next door and again Trump and Joe Biden being the demon from THE OMEN shape-shifted into an old man and Trump again again as the straight-talking savior who kicks liberals to the ground makes them cry then tears out their balls in a way Ted Cruz would approve of

 as you leave the room permanently/remind the people who are no longer your friends/how Ted Cruz had to lose his balls to support Trump in 2016/and that they are racists urinating toxins into the American bloodstream/and these toxins kill as deadly as COVID

don’t smell their smoke anymore/leave the damn room and drive and keep driving 

GOP-believing friends/acquaintances from my youth grumbling about Biden debate laughter.

As with a week ago, I didn't witness more than a sliver of the televised debate.  So I can't make any informed commments at this time (though I read opinions from both sides of the ideological divide).

A lot of people who I grew up with in Electra, TX were carefully taught to support the Republican Party and its candidates.

And here is what one person [name withheld] who grew up in my hometown said publicly on Facebook regarding Joe Biden's laughter at Paul Ryan's debate comments:
 "...I think he thinks that if he laughs at what Paul Ryan is saying than the people will think that what Ryan is saying is nothing but a joke. Little does he realize that we the people have sense enough to realize that all he is showing is just how out of touch and rude he is."

Analyzing Mitt Romney and opening act Clint Eastwood..

If you're Clint Eastwood, you're used to running things and getting your own way.  This probably explains why Clint's Thursday night GOP convention speech (demonstrating a willingness to try for improv comedy; i.e. the Empty Chair prop) had the air of something that might be seen in a luxury restaurant/penthouse at a Republican candidates fundraising dinner with millionaires/billionaires (and no ordinary people) in attendance.  I can easily imagine the Mitt Romney entourage giving Clint a prepared speech--and Clint throwing it aside saying "I'M NOT GONNA READ THIS CRAP!"  Ergo, the rambling ruminations which sounded a lot like Clint's character putting down all in sight during the early reels of GRAN TORINO.

As for Mitt Romney: There was a lot of rose-colored Remembrances of Simple Loving Times Past rhetoric which gave me the impression that both Peggy Noonan and Karen Hughes may have contributed to his speech.  There was the inevitable attempt to link Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter.  And, most sickening, the primal Dog Whistle to the conventioneers and TV/online audiences: "THE HELL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE!  I'LL MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELVES JUST LIKE REAGAN DID!"

Running for re-election: Mel Gibson and Barack Obama.

Let's start with the man once known as Mad Max and Martin Riggs: I wish Alan Nierob or someone in Mel Gibson's agency/management/PR camp had begged Mel not to go on Jay Leno's THE TONIGHT SHOW.  The kerfluffle over Joe Eszterhas' self-serving reveal of Mel-in-anger-again had quieted, and it did Gibson no good to go out and spin his version of the Eszterhas problems (mainly Eszterhas' alleged underwork on a screenplay).  It just made Mel look churlish and smug, even with Jay doing his best to kiss Mel's posterior by whining about Eszterhas' violation of Mel's "privacy" by going public.  Then, there was the sad spectacle of Mel Gibson plugging what's now his first film to completely bypass U.S. theatrical release for a combination satellite TV/DVD unveiling (complete with underwhelming clip of Mel doing a Clint Eastwood imitation-by-phone to fellow actor Bob Gunton).  Since Jay has lowered the bar for plugs-by-guests, perhaps Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal can now promote direct-to-video movies on THE TONIGHT SHOW.

Now, our President (Barack Obama) is again cynically treating his re-election as a chess game of checkmate-the-GOP by touting the killing of Osama bin Laden in an unseemly manner.  It's one thing to show some solemn gravitas when the death of a (or, one might say, THE) major terrorist leader is announced--but it's quite another when bin Laden's death is turned into another campaign talking point (remembering that the Davis Guggenheim-directed, Tom Hanks-narrated re-election featurette film kicked off this effort a little while back).  To be honest, this seems to be only two steps away from releasing photos of bin Laden's corpse--something that, thankfully, never happened.  And it doesn't reflect well on Obama, Joe Biden, David Axelrod and Jim Messina (the re-election leader, not the former musical partner of Kenny Loggins) to keep up this distasteful effort to win "swing" voters by showing "toughness."

A lot of us voted for Obama the first time around because he was/is smart--and in 2008 gave the illusion of being a JFK/RFK for our times.

Most likely, the 2012 election will be a replay of Bill Clinton's slam-dunk 1996 re-election--though there will be a great deal of coordinated dog-whistle racism, classism, and you're-a-Commie mudslings from certain high-level Republicans, their financial providers and their media propaganda arms.

But it must be pointed out that at his core Obama is the same kind of moderate Republican as Mitt Romney--and blind-faith supporters of Obama must be prepared for more of the same just-mild-at-best social programs along with more bloodless decision-making (drone warfare and its collateral-damage deaths won't go away) and let-them-off-easy treatment of Wall Street thievery/greed (not to mention pandering to pro-fracking and oil-sands interests regardless of long-term environmental damage).

Safe to guess, though, that four more years of an unwilling-to-change-and-be-who-he-sold-himself-as-in-2008 Obama will be more appealing to many than watching Mitt Romney pretend to be Ronald Reagan on the outside and governing like George H.W. Bush on the inside.