BrooklynBoy, agree. Better Republican presidential candidates would have shifted the balances in congress. I believe.

@Abraxas
Well said and I completely agree with you. In some states and cities voting for a Republican (no matter how badly the Democratic incumbents have screwed things up, is the proverbial “Bridge Too Far”. Sad.
Nobody could have beaten Obama in 2008 (thank you George W. Bush) but a better candidate than McCain could have saved seats in the House and Senate.

I suppose it’s possibly that a state less dominated by Democrats could elect a competent Democrat governor who would be responsible and responsive to people’s real needs, but in the Deep Blue states, anybody who can get the Democratic nomination is likely to mess things up as badly as Hochul has. Mario Cuomo could at least paint a pretty picture of America for his followers. Fast forward to his son, Andrew “We were never great” Cuomo.
________

It was a sign that things were going terribly wrong that the media did more digging into Joe the Plumber’s background than into Barack Obama’s.

I had doubts about Obama’s character early on (in fact, that’s what precipitated my addiction to blogs about political subjects that ran outside the main media outlets, such as Beldar, Powerline, and the early Hot Air).
His campaign’s persecution of Joe cemented my opinion, and was a forerunner of the Democrat Party’s operations since then, because they were never called out on the unfairness by their own base.

@ Big D & Art Deco: did Mencken live in New York?

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
? H.L. Mencken, A Little Book In C Major

A few more topical quotes for good measure, and there are plenty more (372 to be precise):
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7805.H_L_Mencken

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
? H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe*

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…”
? H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: Third Series

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
? H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy: A New Edition

“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.”
? H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
? H.L. Mencken

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
? H.L. Mencken, In Defense of Women

“All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.”
? H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”
? H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

“When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”

(no citations for the last two, but I have no doubt they are pure Mencken)

* (reference to the origin of the word “bunk”)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/bunk

Obama’s statement, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” was so fake. Look at Obama now. A multimillionaire and still working to rake in more.

Many blame Biden for the trouble our country’s in. Obama set us up for it, and Joe the Plumber saw right through him.

Condolences to Joe’s family and friends. He was a decent man who did his best for his family, friends, and country. RIP

Never.

Earlier I mentioned Dr. Feelgood, as in the “vitamin shot”. So I decided to look up Wilko Johnson, my man, the guitarist, from the 70s Dr. Feelgood band.

In 2013 Wilko was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer — only ten months to live. In response Wilko said he felt “vividly alive.” He threw himself into a farewell rock tour, while continuing treatment. To everyone’s surprise and delight Wilko beat the odds and revived his career with the borrowed time. Including an acting role on “Game of Thrones.”

Ten years later the news is not so good, though not devastating. Wilko has died at the age of 75 of unexplained causes. Still, he made it to 75.

To Wilko — an epic performance:

–Dr. Feelgood, “She Does It Right” (1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHm7uIC84YM