I have tried to avoid the hysterics of this campaign season.

It has been quite a media extravaganza with Bill and Hill at core of national politics for 18 years with all the trysts and turns of a French political scandal  on the order of a Simone de Bouvoir or Francois Mitterand or perhaps a Nero or Julius Ceasar..

Of course, if anyone is going to write a piece on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, one must be prepared for a conundrum of Clinton melodrama dating back to ...well... ancient Rome, of all places to start. Flowing perpetually through Goldwater, Watergate and Whitewater cascading into Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Impeachment, The New York Senate seat and now a poorly executed Presidential bid.

Great Ceasar's ghost! The blue grotto of Capri is an Ozark mountain cesspool of Vice Presidential up welling.

I, perhaps like you , find a lot of what happens around here and elsewhere...Hilarious.

I hope it is apparent to even the most paranoid of beady-eyed Blue Dog Democrats that pandering to conservative constituents is as meaningless and destructive as pandering to Conservative ideas...especially economic ones. It is downright maddening.

Let's get real here. Neocon economic policies are just plain broke. If you are a conservative of any stripe...let go...your country and your platform are bankrupt. Middle-America is on life support. Blue Dogs get over your "moderate" positions. They are rooted in an 8+ year delusion of pure propaganda and compromise that has brought this country to it's knees and your collusion with Republicans has brought us to this point.

The stats are all in and the graphs are all plotted. Working class America knows what time it is. The Banks, the Oil Companies, attorneys and predatory Capitalists are circling like vultures on a Buffalo herd massacre.

Your alabaster oligarchies are in the public crosshairs whether you really care to see or not. We can already hear your hyena howls of greedy feasting when leftists suggest the necessary legislation to reign in this time of economic terror.  

The stench of greed, war, corruption and callous disregard for humanity hangs heavy like a putrid gorging Saturnalia of Pax Americana.

I am bummed out this week. I sold my house that my partner and I remodeled over the past 2+ years. Last night I cried with my realtor as I showed her this diary in my office.

Johnnie and I have worked hard to build our sanctuary from the storm, but the storm caught up with us.

We are in business litigation, so Johnnie and I are sueing my business partner. We are being forced to sell our home to pay all the damned attorney bills. I have little faith in the word Justice anymore.
I am holding out for a settlement or a buyout.

I wish I could blame George Bush but it really is a personal business dispute.

Oh WTF! It's all George Bush's and the Republican Party's fault!

Luckily I got a contract (in this crappy real estate market) for almost full price, however it is little consolation. What's money? As printers it is just paper and ink to me.

This is my sad farewell to a lot of sweat equity and a place that I thought I would stay a long time. A place where we have put in our hearts and souls.

Goodbye my Shangri-La...

Many friends and family members have encouraged me over the years to write down the stories of my youth in recollection of the stories of my Great Grandparents and Grandparents from over 40 years ago around the nightly campfires. In a simpler time, we used to gather for family reunions in Colorado as it was in "the middle" for travel by the far flungs families in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Denver. We would usually go around the Fourth of July at the heighth of the glorious Rocky Mountain summers when everyone could spend a week together at some out of the place high mountain lake.

All the family tents were pitched and sleeping pallets, quilts and pillows were laid out symetrically around the firepit for the cool Colorado mountain nights. This was the way we had done it for generations. It was magical for a 9 year old. Since I was the oldest of the oldest grandson of the oldest sons and daughters. I knew all eight of my Great- Grandparents well. I remember their faces and their voices telling stories of when they were kids. I was amazed, even as a kid, how my 70 year old Great Grandparents would sleep on the cold hard ground in sleeping bags in a tent.

It is my great pleasure to recount those stories tonight and share them with you in my sporadic commitment to Western geneology from an oral tradition.

We all need a little beauty in our lives. Memories and gilded reminders of places and times that capture the splendor of the natural world. Simple times and quiet places that sleep in our memories of wonder and longing.

I remember a time when all the roads out of Denver were winding dirt roads over the high mountain tundra passes sliced with glaciers and snow fields in July... alpine flowers and sweeping mountain vistas flowing down to the old mining towns of Dillon and Breckenridge. Steep gravel roads that switch backed across cascading streams and fluttering aspen groves alongside magnificent stands of pine and fir forests disappearing down to the empty desert valleys of the Eagle and Colorado rivers near Gypsum Colorado.

The dry valleys and eroded hills of Pinon pines, sagebrush and cheatgrass offer no clue to the lush meadows, temperate forests and alpine gardens of the Flat Tops Mountains of western Colorado. I often marvel at the concealed beauty of these mountain wilderness islands. Unnoticed and unrecognizable to the motorists whizzing down todays I-70 Interstate, it is always surprising to newcomers to wander off the beaten path to a place of verdunt beauty.

My partner and I were raised in very strict and devout Christian homes. I, a Mormon and him, a Church of God (Holiness). We often use biblical metaphors when discussing issues with our friends and customers because we recognize that America is a very religious nation.

As gay men who have been together for a long time, we knew there was no place for us in "The Church", so we have built a life on the edge in a predominantly Republican neighborhood in an upscale area. We are fondly referred to as "The Boys" amongst the neighborhood magpies.

We carpooled to our caucuses with our neighbors. Mary confessed she was a Hillary supporter and she wanted to go to the county convention as a delegate for Hillary. Jane said she wanted to go as a delegate for Obama.

I thought, OMG ...this is going to be interesting.

We arrived a half hour early to the middle school and traffic was jammed.

We parked 10 blocks away from the school and WOW! The place was packed and electric with excitement.

The lines were 6 deep stretching out into the cold night air.

Since I already knew our precinct number, we went straight to the cafeteria.

One of the important lessons of the last 50 years has been the successful ability of a political party to unite the major factions of primary base voters who often compete for conservative, moderate or liberal factions within a political party in selecting a Presidential nominee.

While investigating this hypothesis by reviewing the presidential and vice presidential nominees of both parties in recent times, I became aware that some of the most dramatic victories and defeats have generally come from a party willing to represent and unite those competing "factions" by nominating someone who appeals to a wide swath of competing voters within a party by choosing a strategic V.P. running mate.

To know thine enemy, so to speak, might be of a service or least an intersting read as I speculate, and perhaps too simplisticly, of the success and failures of political parties in uniting, healing and coelescing around a Presidential ticket that could  bring Democratic voters together and attract Independents, Republicans and new or disenfranchised voters  into a November Democratic victory.

DOW when Bush took office: 10,659
DOW futures now – 11,550
NASDAQ when Bush took office : 2,841
NASDAQ futures now - 2,340
Unemployment when Bush took office - 4.0%
Unemployment now - 5.0%
U.S. Budget when Bush took office - $425 Billion Surplus
Budget now - $244 Billion deficit

National Debt when Bush took office - $5.5 Trillion,
(being paid off by $350 Billion/year)
National Debt now - $9.187 Trillion -

The transfer of wealth from the middle and working classes to the ruling monied classes in the form of the much ballyhooed Republican "tax cuts" propaganda of the last 7 years has proven the disaster that is supply side economics.

Reaganomics is a joke, so Democrats and Republicans should STFU about tax cuts by looking at the historical and current economic data.

Asian stocks fell today, extending a global rout that has wiped more than $5 trillion from stock markets so far this year.  

It's been a bloodbath.

As a bad 3rd tier blogger, it behooves me to occasionally raise the collective consciousness of the 11 bloggers who follow my diaries. (yea for double digits!)

Not a lot of MSOC style Meta, very little self righteous faux Outrage and certainly none of the polemics and hysteria of candidate diaries out there splitting hairs here. (I just lost a potential 200 recommends with that comment)

Please read fast, because this will be scrolling off the recent list in 3 minutes making room for the 20 new 2 paragraph diaires titled, "Why I'll never vote for ________ !" by Singapore Sue and Mac is Back.

Today the President is proposing more tax cuts (which I think is just another excuse to funnel more money to the super rich)in an economic stimulus package that is being endorsed By Pelosi/ Reid /Bernacke as a bi-partisan cash infusion gimmick to hot wire America's shopping economy.

O.K. my little loyal flock of mostly lurkers ...stick with me til the end as we explore... singlely... the shallow depths of economic stimulus in America.

It is easy to be cynical and pessimistic about what has transpired in America over the last 8 years.

The Republican Party has destroyed the economy they inherited 8 years ago. Their propaganda of tax cuts for Americans, is, was and always will be a scam for working class Americans.  We all know that after Reagan and Bush what the meaning and effects of trickle down economics has been.

Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess

The Gulf coast is a mess

Foreign Policy is a mess

Healthcare, Education, Transportation, the Environment and Energy.

All of it one big friking mess.

And we'll have to clean it all up again and not get any of the credit and all the blame via the traditional media and the Right wing noise machine.
They do not take responsibility for anything of this mess they've created...in fact they deny it and lie about it.

Torture, FISA, Telecom Immunity, FEMA...the congressional investigations will be endless, contentious and wasteful.

Roll up your sleeves folks, it's our turn to bail out the do-nothing pompous and priveledged Republican management elitists again.

This is probably as big a mess as I've seen in 40 years of political awareness.

I have followed politics for a long time.

When I was 9 y.o. my Dad was a Chairman for Goldwater in New York for the Southern Tier district. Governor Nelson Rockefeller was the establishment POTUS candidate that year and we were WAYY outside the mainstream in upstate NY and America. We went to a Goldwater rally in Binghamton New York where my Mom sprayed painted my jeans, sweater, sneakers and cowboy hat all shiny Gold. I thought I looked cool. I was walking behind the car with my Goldwater sign that read " In my heart I know he's right". Then all of a sudden thousands of antiwar college kids rushed up and started chanting, "In your guts you know he's nuts!" "In your guts you know he's nuts!" The lead car sped away and I started running, suddenly my folks drove up and told me to hop in.

I remember my Dad screaming out the window, You f***ing pinko communist hippies...Get a job!"

We were pelted with eggs, water balloons and tomatoes.

I remember thinking in 1964, Wow ! People really get worked up over Presidential primary politics.

I didn't wear my shiny gold outfit again.

The wire services are reporting that Romney has taken 6 of the 12 national delegates that will represent Wyoming at the Republican convention.

One went to Fred Thompson

One went for Duncan Hunter

The other four are TBD.

Wyoming was penalized by the Republican party for moving up it's caucuses.

The Republican National Committee has slashed half of Wyoming's 28 national convention delegates. National party leaders similarly penalized Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina for moving up the dates of their nomination contests too.

The world economy depends on the dollar.

It is the most important currency in global trade.

Aircraft, oil, steel,and most natural resources are priced in dollars. Central banks around the world invest a substantial share of their currency reserves in dollars. The economies of entire continents depends on changes in the value of the American dollar.

For these reasons, the dollar's decline has the potential to send the world economy into a crisis.

Americans have been living beyond their means for years. That includes both consumers, who often buy their houses, cars and other consumer items on credit; and the government, which is adding billions to the national debt to pay for its programs, especially to fight terrorism and wage the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For a long time, this constant borrowing wasn't a problem, because Americans enjoyed a virtually limitless credit line at low interest rates. Credit card offers flood in on an unprecedented tidal wave of junk mail. If you got into trouble you could refinance, consolidate your bills and roll it all into one low monthly payment.

Then start all over again.

But that confidence is now gone. Once the real estate bubble burst, it has become clear just how shaky the foundation of America's economic growth really is.

Merry Christmas from snowy Colorado!

This morning we woke up to a white Christams of 6 inches and it's still coming down.

Even Goldie is enjoying her new horse tank heater that she got from the farm and ranch supply store for Christmas.

Snug as a bug in a tub.

It has taken me a few days to reflect on Mitt Romney's questionable invocation of faith , history and the founding fathers from last Thursday night,

" Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Oh really?

Romney continues:

"They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It's as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation "under God" and in God, we do indeed trust."

This is the rhetoric of the religious right, and in that sense I think it's a weak speech with some seriously flawed premises and clichés. It lurches toward a kind of religious nationalism not at all in the spirit of the Founding Fathers.

Most of all my savings and wealth is in my primary residence. Like many of you, I figure my home as my big investment in life. Two and half years ago,at my old house, they rezoned the empty lot next to me and built 3 story townhomes blocking my view of the mountains. I organized the neighborhood and 200 of us homeowners tried to fight city hall and the developers. We lost.

So,we put the house on the market, sold, then found and bought a fixer-upper in a nice neighborhood and have been as snug as a bug for a while now renovating. However, that big equity isn't so big anymore.

In fact, from what I can tell, we would be lucky to sell what we initially paid for the place...forget the renovations.

Prices are falling like a rock and foreclosures are at record highs here.

The wealth and security of working class Americans are threatened by Bush Adminstration policies and Republican economic voo-doo.

I'm pissed...again.

This week, after 2 years on a waiting list, my company was finally accepted to participate in the voter mandated Windsource® program with Excel Energy.

We are now an official manufacturing concern that produces enviro-friendly products using 100% wind power in the emerging Green revolution that is struggling to take hold in America.

photo: Excel Energy

In 2004, the voters of Colorado passed Amendment 37; an initiative that requires the state's largest utilities to obtain 3 percent of their electricity from renewable energy resources by 2007 and 10 percent by 2015 as well as establish a standard net metering system for homeowners and ranchers with small photovoltaic (PV) systems to connect to the power grid. The measure also calls for 4 percent of the mandated amount of renewable energy to come from solar resources.

This was the first time in the Nation's history that a renewable energy portfolio standard was put directly before voters rather than processed through a state's legislature.

The Immigration debate is a history of the legal issues that surround our border with Mexico and Mexican immigration. Many of us who live in the Western U.S. with our extended families and friends have multicultural roots in this region, we look to the many laws and treaties that govern our rights as citizens in our states that were guaranteed with the purchase of this region by the federal government from Mexico in 1848. Only a mere 160 years ago.

Those interests and rights include many tribal reservations that function as sovereign nations within the U.S., Spanish land grants that date back to the 1500's and white settlers who immigrated into these territories when it belonged to Mexico.

I'll never forget the first time I stood at the base of the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico and realized that I was looking up... at a city 1000 years old, in North America, that had been continuously inhabited by generations of people.

I was born a few miles from here.

Tom Tancredo, my congressperson, is a carpet bagger!

Photo taken by Bobak Ha'Eri