Republican Lawyers in the Polling Place or How Alan got the Weasels out of the Hen House

They came in the dark before dawn; their short hair spiked straight up with Coach briefcases. The taller one carried a Transatlantic Beekman with his Armani pinstripe. His shorter, heavier and older one carried the Logan Brief his wife had bought him for Christmas the previous year. That one was also attempting a combover to cover the growing bald spot on the crown of his head. It thrilled him a little that his younger companion was showing more forehead than he used to. The polling place supervisor, a seventy-six year old retired steel mill worker named Alan Fenstermaker, ambled up the sidewalk lugging a box full of supplies. He drew back in fear when he noticed the two beasts waiting by the door. He had seen and heard stories about their kind before but had never actually seen them. He had hoped they would pass by his polling location. After all in 2000 they hadn't ventured north of Tallahasse and in 2004 they had haunted Columbus. But there they were, staring him down from the portico of the senior center. He could almost smell the crazy coming off them.

Republican lawyers.

They watched silently as the doors were unlocked. Alan knew the real trouble would come once they were inside.

He set down the voter registration rolls and walked over to the snack bar to start the coffee. The tall one wandered over to the thick black books. He ran his hands over them and Alan would later swear he heard democracy cry a little.

"How do we know these are correct?" The tall man asked. "How can we be sure every name in here is valid and legal?"

Alan gestured at the books. "Those came from the election board."

The shorter lawyer laughed a little. It was a small sound, devoid of humor and full of skepticism. "ACORN signed up some of these "voters"," he said. Alan could actually see the quotes around the word voter shimmer in the air.

"That's what they give me down at the board of elections and that's what we're using." Alan insisted.

Tall man thumbed through the book, absently glancing at the names on the pages as they fluttered by. "We're challenging them. We have to know if each voter is valid."

Alan looked puzzled. "Challenging who?"

The squat, older lawyer let a greasy smile spread across his mouth. "Everyone of them. Every person who comes through that door, every person who looks a little iffy. Everyone...with a 'D' next to their name."

"Now wait a minute..." Alan protested.

"No, old man," said the taller of the two. "You look. I don't know what all these people think they're up to but there is an order to things and we won't see it disrupted. There are wars to win, wells to drill and health care benefits to be taxed." He reached into his briefcase and threw a thick file on the table. It slid toward Alan who backed away from it. "The voters on the list in that file are suspect."

"Why?"

"Because we say they are!" The short man yelled. "We worked Florida in 2000! We had our man inside Fox News, that harpy in the Secretary of State's office and the Supreme Court in our pocket. Ohio doesn't afford us those advantages but if the votes don't count, well...they don't count." He kicked a chair toward Alan. "Get comfortable. It's going to be a long day."

Alan stood stiffly, afraid of what he would have to put up with. He had heard stories of lawyers and investigators, scaring voters with wild stories and intimidation. Something had to be done. He fretted for a moment and then reached in his pocket. His fingers closed around a small object and he smiled. He stood up straighter and charged at the Bruno Magli clad ogres.

"Begone ye foul demons!" He shouted. "Leave this place and never return! You're not wanted in this good and decent place by these good and decent folks! They'll not bear the sight of ye while they go about their duty!" The two lawyers advanced on him but he pulled his fist from his pocket and thrust it at them. They pulled up short, cowering before the retired mill worker.

"No," cried the tall one. "You can't."

"I can!" Alan roared. "I can and I am!"

"We have masters," the older one said softly. "We cannot go to them in failure. Please," he groveled, "let us just have a few of them."

"I've no care for your futures, monsters! Ye must be gone!"

Obediently, the two lawyers backed to the door and pushed it open. The tall man looked at Alan with pleading eyes. He held his arm out again, swinging the talisman in front of him. They went through the door and bolted across the parking lot to their Chrysler 300.

Alan sat down, exhausted, and dropped his hands to the table. His right hand opened and an object rolled onto the scarred surface of the well used buffet table. "All those years I've been carrying you," he said softly. "And I never realized your power."

The object was old, almost a century and a half old, but Alan always pulled it out of its case on election day. He had worked every election for the last twenty years and never did it without the talisman his father had passed on to him just as his grandfather had passed it to his son.

The 1860 Licoln election button looked up at Alan. Lincoln, the Republican president who had decided to extend Federal power over state's rights in order to preserve the Union and who hated how slavery undermined the legitimacy of his party. No GOP goon could long stand against such conviction. Alan smiled. When things were left to the people, the people would decide what they wanted. He got up and unlocked the doors for the voters.

Rust Belt Pop is Now Open!

My brand new store, Rust Belt Pop, is now open on the Cafe Press website. It has original designs available on a variety of merchandise. There are some fun designs, some sarcasm and even a couple for the kids. So click the link, check out the stuff and see if there is anything you like. Thanks for looking.

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

So I was trolling along in Borders, innocently looking for something fun to read. Nothing too heavy, nothing that fulfills a spot on my imaginary "classics to read before the big dirt nap" list, just something that I could have a little fun with over the weekend. I innocently wandered into the sci-fi section and Bam! The title and cover smacked me right between the eyes.

The title is evocative of great post-apocalyptic movies from the '80's and the orange-tinged cover features one of the aforementioned go-go girls in a mini-skirt and high heels wielding an AK-47. Of course I had to read it. That's how I bought Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse.

Mortimer Tate hid out on a Tennessee mountaintop and rode out the apocalypse that ravaged the rest of the world. As with most good post-apocalyptic fiction, the end of civilization is less important than how people go on after the fall. Mortimer emerges into a world where civilization has collapsed and whose remnants orbit Joey Armageddon's Sassy A-Go-Go strip clubs.

Events force Mortimer to trek through the southeast to the lost city of Atlanta. Along the way he picks up a cowboy sidekick named Buffalo Bill, a stripper name Sheila and one former cable TV network owner who has finally been let off the leash.

I don't know if it's the election, the economy or just the general attitude one is left with after eight years of President W., but post-apocalyptic fiction has been on the reading list this year. Alas, Babylon and On the Beach had me feeling pretty down about how things could end up if civilization came to an end. Victor Gischler's Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse is just crazy enough to let you think that as long as you have good friends around you, you can handle just about anything, including cannibal hillbillies, transexual asylum bosses, indentured servitude on electricity generating stationary bikes and even a shortage of steak. All you need are friends and whiskey to trade.

And a Platinum Membership to Joey Armageddon's Sassy A-Go-Go.

Rolling Stone calls Youngstown 'The Armpit of Ohio'. Should we even Care?

Rolling Stone magazine is like John McCain; old, irrelevant and still making a lot of noise no one wants to hear. Pretending that they are still the edgy, hip music magazine portrayed in the movie Almost Famous is like pretending Fox News is fair and balanced.

Should we care that Rolling Stone magazine wrote a story about the two idiots that pulled off the robbery of an armored car company last year? Even here people had pretty much forgotten about Roger Dillon and Nicole Boyd. When you are more famous for your incredibly stupid getaway rather than stealing millions of dollars, there's probably not much of a story to be written. Of course, the author, David Amsden, had to bring up the city's crime riddled past, as if drawing a link between the old mob crimes that used to happen here somehow influenced these two criminal masterminds to pull off a Hollywood-esque robbery. They didn't do this because they were poor and living in Youngstown, they did it because they were lazy and had opportunity.

Everyday there are thousands of people in the city who get up, go to work and do the right thing. Those people live in an area struggling with a shrinking population and a depressed economy but that wouldn't have fit the tone of the article Rolling Stone wanted. This was a crime committed by a couple of kids the magazine could hang the Goth label on. And ohhh...she was a stripper! And he played Dungeons & Dragons! And...and nothing. They drove to West Virgina. They got caught. It's just not the salacious tale the magazine was looking for so they had to make it seem like the geography was somehow to blame. Well, the area has been called worse by those more relevant so I don't think we should care. I mean, who the Hell even reads Rolling Stone anymore?

Obama & Ayers, McCain& Keating and Palin Reads a Newspaper

So Sarah Palin reads the New York Times, eh? Referencing this article, Governor Palin tries to make it seem like Senator Obama and Bill Ayers have some sort of relationship that proves "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," he pals around with terrorists and probably kicks puppies. And gosh darnit, Sarah Palin isn't going to have it.

It is a sign of weakness when a campaign has to go negative. In doing so, McCain/ Palin admit they are weak on the issues and have to move to character in order to generate interest in their campaign. Character is important, don't get me wrong. If a candidate has questionable associates it is the job of the media to discover who they are and just what the nature of their relationship is and that is exactly what the New York Times did. The article concludes that while the two men knew each other and served together on a board overseeing the distribution of educational grant money, there is nothing to suggest a closer relationship.

Of course, Governor Palin fails to mention the nature of the Obama-Ayers relationship or the work of the board. It's no surprise that the McCain campaign wants to stay away from the issues because right now there is only one issue and that is the economy. Given that McCain was against regulating markets before he was for it, now is the time to throw the Hail Mary and go after Obama's character. However, it is surprising that given the economic climate the McCain campaign would underestimate the risk of his association with Charles Keating.

Oh, gee whiz, Governor Palin, did you forget about that doggone Keating Five scandal? You know, the one where Senator McCain had to apologize for making the worst mistake of his life? The senator met with regulators investigating the failure of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. There was also some concern over the camapign contributions Charles Keating made to Senator McCain as well as the trips he paid for.

If Governor Palin were telling this story this would be the end of it. McCain met with regulators concerning a man who's savings and loan lost the life savings of 21,000 people; a man who contributed to his campaign and paid for trips the senator took. But since I'm telling the story you also get to hear that the Ethics Committee cleared Senator McCain of all charges but criticized him for poor judgement. For his part, McCain said, ""The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."

So Barack Obama has Bill Ayers, who committed crimes 40 years ago when Obama was eight years old. McCain has Charles Keating who committed crimes while McCain was in office. There's the dirty laundry. Can we please get back to the issues now?

With Silence on the Economic Crisis, Bush's Legacy of Failure is Now Complete

As I see it, the biggest stumbling block to resolving the current economic crisis is a lack of leadership. As banks were failing and brokerage houses were falling, no one came to the American people and explained what was happening. When the country's economy has been so poorly managed that it is necessary for taxpayers to provide a 700 billion dollar bailout, I expect leaders to take the time to explain the issue. Would it have been too much to ask President Bush to take a half hour to go on TV and explain what the problem is, how it came to be, what he thought the best solution was and what we could expect if that solution were enacted?

Of course, I'm not singling out President Bush entirely. This was an opportune time for either Senator Obama or Senator McCain to find a network news anchor and provide an interview explaining the problem. This is an opportunity for either candidate to show us how they can lead in a crisis.

The initial bailout package failed to pass the House because so many constituents contacted their representatives and senators and threatened them with their jobs if they approved the bill. It is ironic that the perfect storm of an election, a crisis and voter interest all combined to prevent action from being taken. Normally, Congress would have voted with their lobbyists and been done with it. However, we can only speculate that the bill before Congress is the best solution. I, like many people, work during the day and could not sit for hours watching the congressional testimony of Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke. This may very well be a good solution. It may very well not. No one has explained what plans B, C and D were and why they were rejected. Is it any wonder people watched their investments drop 10% and decided talk radio was the best source for news while forming their opinion?

This is the Bush legacy; endless war, debt and an economy in shambles. Instead of peaking out of the White House and then ducking back inside when he saw his shadow predicting six more weeks of economic trouble, the president should have addressed the nation and been straight with us. We can only hope that Congress knows more about what is happening than we do and is voting accordingly.