Friday, October 22, 2010

America, meet Karen Handel

This woman will be the next governor of Georgia.

Okay Mrs. Handel, we get it. You're a bad ass.

Ladies and gentlemen, the likes of these will be our elected officials. How does this image make you feel? Does it make you feel a little uneasy? Maybe it makes you feel secure and in charge, knowing that a strong white woman with an assault weapon is gonna be in charge of things. Aww.

Yep, she can carry that thing around with her wherever she wants. It's Georgia.

Update: The Vanity Fair article to which I link in this article is outdated as of August 2010. Nathan Deal faced Karen Handel (who had already resigned as Secretary of State of Georgia) in a tightly contested August 10, 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate primary and won by fewer than 2500 votes. The following day Handel declined to pursue a recount and conceded. In recent polling, Nathan Deal holds a 10-point lead over Democrat Roy Barnes in Georgia's gubernatorial race.

Tax dollars by caucus

When the Tea Party-augmented Republican party takes over the House and the Senate this November, I think the Dems will have to take from the experience the following lessons:
  1. Don't piss off folks living in rural America...
    1. by levying Federal taxes on rural America,
    2. and calling them uneducated rural Americans.
  2. Stop subsidizing rural America with Federal tax dollars and just let the residents of the rural states live with indigence and the neglect of public services. One of two things will happen:
    1. Either they will fulfill libertarian expectations by
      1. independently replacing public services with private ones and
      2. somehow surviving the depression of their agriculture-based economy free from Federal subsidy
    2. or they will continue to live in indigence until they revolt or die.
  3. Meanwhile, if Federal taxes are eliminated (LOL), then Democratic states can modestly increase their own state income taxes to replace their own relatively modest Federal subsidies, and to cover their state budget deficits.
Surely those are the lessons that should be learned from this tax infomap at infographic.com:So, Tulsas of America, go ahead and keep on whining about your taxes. You will just be cut off from the Federal teat.

Remember the 2008 election? Just two years ago? This map reveals the dramatic difference in rural and metropolitan political leanings in that election:
Does it not beg the question: Why are metropolitan areas so much more better off than rural areas in terms of income and welfare, and why are they also more democratic? Are those two things somehow related?