Dear Red States:

Author unknown:

Dear Red States:

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California , Hawaii , Oregon , Washington , Minnesota , Wisconsin , Michigan , Illinois and all of the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio , they are seriously considering it. We've given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we're dropping the middle states we're calling it United America, or simply the U.A.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas , Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We're keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole' Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America 's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama . We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. We'd rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite , thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Bluies..

Finally, we're taking the good pot, too.

Peace out,
Blue States

Fair Warning to President Obama

I've been in such a good mood lately, and with good reason. First off, my Phillies are leading three games to one in the World Series, and tonight's game gives them the home field advantage. Anyone who has ever attended a major sporting event in Philadelphia can attest to the zeal of the Philly fans. And that's putting it mildly - Flyers games include an unwritten rules allowing fans to spill beer on anyone wearing the other team's jersey. Eagles fans once booed Santa Claus off the field. And pity the poor sap in the stands tonight cheering for Tampa Bay. I could be mistaken but I believe there is an obscure rule on the books in Philadelphia that allows the people are him to kill him, cook him and eat him. I may be wrong.

Go Phils.

So the election draweth nigh, and every poll out there predicts a McCain defeat. Don't take it too personally, Senator. It's not about you, or your POW status, or even your policies. The simple fact that there is an "R" after your name pretty much dooms you. Americans are a fickle lot, and eight years of one party running the railroad is enough. Let's leave out of it the fact that George W. Bush (R) has set the controls for the heart of the sun. Even with the good that Bill Clinton had achieved after eight years, the American voting public demanded a game of musical chairs. Despite Al Gore's being overwhelmingly better suited for the job, Bush the Son skated into the job largely based on the American voting public's desire for something new and different. No matter how cataclysmically bad that choice was, at least it wasn't boring.

We liberals have had eight years to get good and mad about things. There isn't much going on in government that isn't going to get adjusted, if not reversed outright. Domestic policies, foreign policies, fiscal policies, economic, trade, you name it - there will be a new sheriff in town come January, and we're all champing at the bit to see how he's going to fix things.

Obama will have the benefit of a House and Senate that are controlled by the same party - his. And barring the occasional filibuster, we can reasonably expect the Federal government to function according to Democrat Party standards.

Even still, I already feel sorry for Obama. It's not a reflection of how I view his competence. It's not my pervasive pessimism either. It's simply this: Between eight years of Republicans running the Executive Branch and six years of them running the Legislative branch, we've gotten ourselves into a mess. You know how when you dig the Christmas lights out for decorating and untangling them takes longer than hanging them? I suspect Obama will feel like he's untangling the mother lode of all tangles come January, and I do not envy him.

Even so, he should know that about ten seconds after this throng of change-hungry liberals carry him across the goal and into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that same crowd, in all its fickle glory will begin to pick him apart. Obama will be roundly criticized by both sides. It''s not him - we just do it to our Presidents. They go from savior to goat pretty quickly. When Republicans criticize him for being a liberal, we'll circle the wagons, but we're defending the ideals, not the man. Bill Clinton took a lot of heat from both sides too. It's nothing personal.

So President Obama, if you're reading this, allow me to offer a few suggestions for your first 100 days in office. If you can stick to this list, you'll go a long way towards staving off criticism:

• Give us a deadline for ending the war in Iraq. We want to know the details, and we want you to keep your word. This war, and its inability to limit itself, had a lot to do with getting you elected. We vote for you in hopes of ending it, so let's make it a priority.
• Draft a bill, or ask Congress to draft it, introducing a Constitutional Amendment that the Federal Budget must be balanced.
• Get the ball rolling on national health care. Either draft legislation, or demand it from Congress, to get the damn process started already.
• Figure out a way to address the economic crisis that won't force the government to raise taxes.

Let's start with that. And know, sir, that even though I support you and rally others to do the same, I will be one of your harshest critics if you drop the ball. We've had eight years of idiotic leadership, and we're expecting quite a lot from you. I do not envy you, but I cannot bring myself to pity you either.

Godspeed to you, sir.

McCain Paints himself Into A Corner

With less than a month to go before Election Day, the polls are trending if not heavily, then consistently towards an Obama/Biden victory. Even Fox News, the last great bastion of right-leaning politics punditry, has succumbed to what looks like the inevitable: Obama will win and McCain will lose.

Not to be one to let the grass grow under my feet, I'd like to get the post-mortem started a little early. What went wrong for McCain? There's many factors that spelled defeat leading up to the election. Let's look back on some of the telling signs leading up to now, shall we?

• Certainly McCain was never Mr. Popularity among those on the right wing. Seen as too much of a moderate by fellow Republicans, he dared to cross the aisle to co-author legislation in a time where the Republicans enjoyed such a majority in both houses of Congress that compromise seemed an unnecessary evil.
• McCain was tainted by scandal, forever linked to the Keating Five. For those too young to understand... ah hell, just Google it. I'm long-winded enough as it is.
• McCain never quite clicked with the extreme religious right. To Bush's credit, he knew to play Mr. Born Again when the situation called for it.
• McCain relied too heavily on his status as a P.O.W. bad ass giving him the edge over us sissy liberals. It plays well in most cases, but this is a nation bone weary from an endless war.

The list goes on, but the one that caught my attention most recently was at a campaign event where he spoke with a woman who said she feared Barack Obama because he's an "Arab". The implication was clear - Obama wins, wraps his head in a turban , declares himself the Twelve Imam, and imposes Muslim laws. Any Christian holdouts refusing to convert to Islam get beheaded and the Inaugural Dinner is attended by the President of Iran.

McCain, to his credit, corrected the woman, saying Obama is not an Arab, and that he is a fine and honorable man. The crowd immediately booed. Booed! Watching McCain try to regain control of the crowd was just plain sad. Republicans are now booing their own candidate for refusing to propagate lies.

We're supposed to be electing the candidate based on the issues, or so I thought. But as McCain is falling behind in the polls, we've seen the names William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright trotted out once more, dusted off from their months of irrelevance. Republicans insist that these "associations" matter, because they reveal much about the man himself. I say, be very careful when attempting to besmirch Obama based on his associations. In the effort to get McCain elected, and in the past going back to the early 1980's, McCain has had a rogues' gallery on his speed dial, including Charles Keating and a few evangelists that would have us believe that Hurricane Katrina was God's righteous wrath borne against New Orleans for planning a gay pride parade. Scary stuff, that. To have a man in charge who keeps as spiritual counsel men with such Charlton Heston-esque notions of the Almighty makes you wonder how long it would take before we transitioned into a full-blown theocracy.

William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright - let's just admit it - are red herrings. Nothing in Obama's dealings with either of these men tells us anything about what kind of a job he would do as President. Their names are supposed to make you fearful and suspicious. And in your fear of Obama, you're supposed to vote for the safe candidate. But here's a thought - a safe candidate wouldn't employ fear as a tactic to make himself more attractive than the other guy. The safe candidate wouldn't want America to be afraid of anything, would they? It just seems to me that "safety" and "fear" would be mutually exclusive concepts - is it me?

Why are the Republicans losing so badly?

Because they WANT to.

The mess the Republicans have made being in charge over the last eight years has finally come to fruition. Wall Street is melting down, Banks are collapsing, and all because of the Republican de-regulation. Instead of a free market, instead of capitalism, we have seen rampant greed, golden parachutes for CEO's of failed institutions, jobs sent overseas, inflation on the rise, gas prices have skyrocketed while Bush's oil buddies got obscenely wealthy, and now we have growing unemployment, foreclosures like we've not seen in decades, and we're on the brink of war with Iran and Russia.

You've got to give the Republicans credit for having enough sense to realize the ship is sinking. They know that whoever is in charge when the roof actually does collapse will shoulder the majority of the blame. Republicans, having created this house of cards, can slink away after the election and then when it all comes crashing down say, "see what happens? Democrats in charge and it all goes to hell."

They'll neglect to mention that they're the ones with their market deregulation that got us here. They'll have us forget that when the Republicans ran the White House and Congress, that gas doubled and tripled in price. They'll have us forget they committed hundreds of billions of dollars to an unnecessary war. They'll have us forget how they bankrupted the Treasury and destroyed a budget surplus only to plunge us, and now Wall Street, into the biggest financial meltdown in our lifetimes. They'll shrug off the blame to Clinton, even though he had us going in the opposite direction. They'll pass the buck to Obama and Biden in 2009, abandoning the problem to the next generation.

That's okay though, Republicans. Don't worry about it. We're used to this from you. You did it with Reagan and Bush the Father, and now you've done it with Bush the Son - you screw the country royally, get your fatcat friends even richer, and leave this country like hooker in a ditch.

Come next year, you'll be playing golf in Dubai and laughing over how you fooled the American people into letting you get away with it, and how you got Obama to take the rap. But just like Clinton put our Humpty Dumpty economy back together again after twelve years of GOP omelets, so will Obama and Biden repair the damage this time.

That's why you nominated the least popular Republican you could find, and had her pick a hockey mom from Podunk Alaska as his running mate. You were never serious about winning in the first place. You WANT to lose this election, and bail out just in time. You know you've screwed us, and you know you haven't got the first clue how to fix it. So when Obama wins handily next month, if it fails you can blame him, and if he miraculously rescues us from the brink of the abyss, you can say he benefited from policies Bush the Son set in motion.

You've got all your bases covered.