I haven’t done any political blogging in a while, and this site actually started as a political blog, so I thought I should jot down a few notes about tonight’s midterm election.

Tonight, we the people have made it clear that Obama has not delivered on his promises of hope and change we can believe in. The wars continue, the economy worsens, and our civil liberties continue to become eroded under the specter of endless terrorism. Obama had his chance. He did nothing.

Firstly, Rand Paul won the Kentucky senate race. Some people feel genuinely scared of this. It makes me sad to see the original Ron Paul movement become muddled and confused with the establishment tea party movement. To explain one more time: The original tea party (not the historical one of course) happened in 2007 as a Ron Paul fund raiser, and nothing more. Actually, he raised 6.2 million dollars, a very impressive feat. After that, the establishment realized they had a problem, so started the tea party movement to try to divert people from the true liberty movement. Of course, they have had partial success as witnessed at tonight’s family dinner. Now, when someone like Rand Paul emerges, people just group him in with the more fringe elements of the tea party movement, and automatically write him off as a dangerous kook.

It bothers me how people just marginalize the members of the tea party, calling them some pretty brutal names – white trash idiots, for example. Anyone can call anyone anything, that requires no imagination. Just writing off a whole group of people without consideration represents something far more dangerous than anything some tea partier might suggest. These people feel scared about the fate of this country, and want to return to a more constitutional form of government. They see the tea party movement as a way to bring about this desirable change. They don’t realize that the establishment has co-opted it. Still, as with a guide the followers are blameless, to quote Gandalf.

Rand Paul makes for an interesting political figure. Even some Ron Paul supporters question his son. They worry that he will not uphold the libertarian views so dear to his father and to supporters. I’d certainly like to believe that he will do some good, but since he’s never served in politics we can’t really know for sure. He also specializes in treating premature babies with vision problems, something for which I can’t help but feel some amount of sentimentality. His victory in the senate compliments Ron Paul’s seat in the house quite well, and sets things up very nicely for Ron Paul to do another presidential run in 2012. I can’t wait to start campaigning! If you think we had fun in 2008, just you wait!

Republicans will take the house and gain some seats in the senate – 56 in the house and 6 in the senate as of 01:00 AM. This should slow down Obama’s agenda some, at least it seems that way to the surface mind. I see the two establishment parties as just two sides of the same coin. Douglas Adams got it right: the job of a president isn’t to wield power, the job of a president is to distract people away from it. Our current president has done a wonderful job of that. Having some opposition will, at least in theory, help balance things out. Americans don’t like extremes, and tend to not like one party controlling all three branches of government. Don’t get me wrong, some of those republicans scare me as well.

As for the Pennsylvania race, I assumed that Joe Sestak, the democrat, would win. He served as my district’s representative, where he duly misrepresented my views by voting for all the economic bailouts. However, before I got on the train home, I heard that the republican, a big business guy named Pat Toomey, had taken the lead. Sure enough, as I write this, he has won 51%-49%! I’ve already read mainstream articles detailing reports of voting problems, where machines registered democrat instead of republican. That doesn’t shock me in the least. Sorry guys, it didn’t work.

I would finally like to talk about another state: California. The voters there had a chance to make history on the sacred Mayan day of 4 Ahau by legalizing marijuana, but it looks like they let us down! Proposition 19 has failed, a measure to increase taxes on medical marijuana passed, and a weed-hating republican leads in the race for attorney general as of this writing. I really hoped california would give us a boost, but it appears not this time. Some pundits said that voters “just aren’t ready for it.” Bullshit! Can we not all agree that prohibition does not work? A hundred years ago, alcohol companies ran ad campaigns against a woman’s right to vote. Today, they run campaigns against legalizing pot. Seventy or so years ago, greed caused hemp to become illegal to protect newspaper owners invested in lumber, giving rise to the phrase yellow journalism, so called because the inferior non-hemp paper would yellow over time. We have to ditch this ridiculous idea of prohibition in the fourteenth century where it properly belongs. To those worried that legalizing pot would make it easier for kids to get, just know that they can already get it easily enough now. Legalizing it would make it harder for kids to get, much as under-aged drinkers must trek into shady bars in China Town to get served. If a kid wants to get high they will. Keeping it positive, even if it doesn’t happen this time, at least legalization has become mainstream. We just have to get 7% more of the vote in the next two years – a very doable goal. We already achieved 86.27% of this goal – a B+. Let’s make it an A in 2012!

Enjoy our Election Night Special! We went for four hours, and had a lot of fun and some freakouts, especiallya t the end with Obama’s midnight (DC time) victory speech.

I filled out my absentee ballot, and wrote in Ron Paul. Friends have had mixed reactions, and I have had mixed feelings as well, but what has happened has happened.

I began campaigning for Ron Paul in May when I joined the Philly Meetup. On July Fourth, I met someone and we started Ron Paul Radio. The campaign took all of us through ups and downs. When I could not even vote for Ron Paul in the primaries because the computer had me listed as a registered democrat, I felt so enraged. You can search for my article on that here. I did so much, gave so much time and emotion, so it just felt like the right thing to do. I had not read of Ron Paul’s endorsement of Chuck Baldwin, nor had I seen Chuck Baldwin in the third party debate. If I had, he may have very well gotten my vote.

Of course, the fact that Pennsylvania uses fraudulent electronic voting machines sort of makes the whole thing up in the air.

I tried to watch tonight’s debate, the second of three presidential debates, and fell asleep. I awoke to hear Obama saying that he wouldn’t take any military options off the table. Watching those two candidates felt like those Bumbling Boxers I had as a kid, wind-up toy boxers with adjustable arms who would bop each other and bumble around on a plastic ring until one fell down. I wish I could find them again. Sorry I can’t summarize more, but as said I slept through most of it. I heard the final question, which the commentator said had a Zen aspect to it: What don’t you know and how will you learn it? McCain first said he doesn’t know what would happen, then rambled on about all the things he does know. Uhhhh!

We had a great show at its new rightful time of 09:00 PM eastern time on Sunday nights. We covered the following articles:

• China paper urges new currency order after financial tsunami | Reuters
  
• Memo to US Secret Service: Net proxy may pinpoint Palin email hackers o The Register
  
• Could Clinton still come back? Internet buzzes with rumours Biden will be replaced by Hillary as Obama’s running mate | Mail Online
  
• Missouri Gov. Condemns Obama’s “Police State”
  
• ::Kabul Weekly|Reports::
  
• Contacting the Congress

We also played some nutty music, and celebrated my brother’s wedding. I had fun smoking a cigar!