And Now it's Time for a Breakdown

Well it's been a few days, I sat and let it all marinate, and now I'm ready to give my thoughts on the election. I MOSTLY kept it presidential in this post; I could easily go on for a month about the Mourdocks and the Akins out there, but I'll spare you. So here are the hate lockers official takeaways from this election season.

#1: It doesn't all come down to the money.
To the Mitts, Mitch McConnells, and Scott walkers, out there... stop looking at the money. pay no attention (or at least a little less) to the man behind the wallet, because HE IS NOT YOUR MASTER; WE ARE. I write this blog because too many of us are too obsessed with too much of the wrong thing. Celebrity, bling, toys, whatever. Everybody wants everyone else to look at them, and everybody wants a bunch of stuff. I realized at some point that truly ,whatever they SAY they want, what they REALLY want is control.... influence.....guess what senators, governors, and congressmen? You already have that. you dont need to suck up to Sheldon Adelson, or the Koch brothers or anyone else for that matter. You're a participant in the most venerated legislative body in the history of democracy. You not only have the ability to influence your environment, you have the ability to influence the environment and the health and the safety and the well being and the education of MILLIONS of people. You're in a position to help shape our society into a more perfect union. So why the fuck are you still worshipping the money? You think you need the money to stay where you're at? Forget about illusions of control and power, you have influence!* If you do your job with integrity and principle, the money can't beat you. President Obama just proved that. Sheldon Adelson kicked in $70 million to try to defeat the President. Karl Rove raised another $370 million. Ralph Reed chipped in $10 mil and the Koch brothers put down another $ 400 million. They ponied up buckets of money and got 0% return on their investment. Hopefully the lesson from this election cycle will be that if you serve #1. the truth and #2. the people, then your public service career need not be a slave to/hostage to/victim of the ALLEGEDLY almighty dollar. If you are a servant of the people, then it's THEIR will that determines your fate, not some billionaire with a self serving agenda. And speaking of the will of the people...

 #2. The outcome of this election is the will of the people.
Obama won a clear majority in the electoral college and in the popular vote. Its especially telling that the Obama victory happened in the face of the "voter fraud is a felony" billboards on the west side of Cleveland, and "election monitors" coming to my old neighborhood back in Pittsburgh asking people for ID as if it was a mandatory to vote. Despite all the attempts at voter suppression, Obama still won in a landslide. Translation: the majority of Americans approve of the president and his policies, and disapproved of the idea of a Romney presidency. Someone wise once said that if you have a problem with one person, hey that happens. If you have the same problem with a second person, it be's like that sometimes. If you got same problem with THREE different people however. it might be time to start looking in the mirror. So if the MAJORITY OF THE COUNTRY finds your policies disagreeable, you might consider asking yourself what your real problem is with the president. I'm not saying that everyone who voted for Romney is a racist, but i am saying that all the racists voted for Romney. Be sure of your real reasons. make sure they stand up to facts. and speaking of facts......

#3. If you are remain in an informational bubble, constantly inhaling recycled facts that were tainted in the first place, eventually you will asphyxiate.
There's no way to spin it. The Romney campaign was predicated on misinformation, disinformation, and lies. From Paul Ryan's "closed factory" whopper at the RNC convention, to Romney's "jeeps to china" lie in the last week of the election. It seemed like these guys lied whenever given an opportunity. I know politicians lie, but generally speaking we're talking about lies of omission or obfuscation....not Romney/Ryan though. These guys told blatant, bald faced, easily refutable fabrications that flew in the face of facts(the Jeep moving to China story), logic (ryans claim that Obama broke a promise to keep a GM plant open that was already closed before he took office), and good taste(benghazi). Now we all know that there are those guys out there for whom lying is almost a part of their charm, but Mitt Romney is definitely not that guy. and speaking of not that guy.

 #4. Come on, ya'll knew he wasn't the guy....
Really, look at him

and tell me he's not the 40 years on version of Stan Gable from Revenge of the Nerds

Admittedly the republican primary field was pretty damn weak this time around, but seriously, this is the best ya'll could do? This smarmy, smirking self important, flip flopping flake? A dude with a moral compass built by the Mr. Magoo corporation? A guy that thinks the music of ABBA is "a little too angry?" All that talk of his formidable business acumen, as evidenced by his tenure at Bain capital. Guess what friends, Bain Capital only saw an average investment return somewere in the neighborhood of 30%, really no better than the average for any investment company, plenty of which don't carry a record of outsourcing, downsizing simply to pad profits, or generally running roughshod over the basic tenets of human decency or business ethics. At best Romney's business model is somewhat flawed, at worst it's truly immoral. But hey that's the beauty and purity of the free market, right? And if 47% or so get trampled underfoot so "Papa" John Schnatta can have another yacht, hey what are you gonna do? Just too bad, right? And that was the real question posed to us over the last year and a half. What kind of country are we? What kind of a people are we? are we the nation of "sorry about your luck?" the nation of "you don't look like me or mine so it's in my best interest to be indifferent to you and yours"? Or are we the nation of "we're all in this together"? The nation of "you don't have to look like me in order for me to give a damn about you"? Personally, I believe we are the latter. Since tuesday, I have felt a profound sense of gratitude that a significant majority in this country feels the same. And so as we bid a farewell to this 2012 election season, I'll send Governor Romney off with what I never could've realized was such an appropriate song until really thinking about the 7 year Romney candidacy and the American people's thoughts on it \
"....yes sir....I give to the Needy...and not the Greedy....uh-huh, that's right!"

Flag on the Play, Jackass Interference!

So here's the deal. YOu feel strongly about some issue? you have a stance on something? Save it for after the whistle blows.
In the 2003 NFL season, right wing agitator Rush Limbaugh was a commentator for ESPN's sunday night football broadcast. The subject on the table was Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb. Here's what Rush had to say

Completely lame and uncalled for. Nothing can convince me that this wasn't a calculated attempt to create controversy; another form of racial arson, which I've talked about before. Rush has zealots to feed meat to and he decided gameday was suppertime. I can just imagine him in the moments before the "on air" light came on: "Wait'll they get a load of what I say NOW. My Dittoheads are gonna love this one. Ramifications for my fellow broadcasters? Who Cares? Fallout for the Network that hired me to talk about football, not to advance my political opinion? To hell with them! All that matters is the further advancement of my own cult of personality."
To the credit of the Disney Company(ESPN's parent company), Limbaugh was dismissed soon thereafter. They let him save face by giving him an opportunity to resign as opposed to being fired, but everybody knew what was up. Later that season, Donovan McNabb took the Eagles to the Superbowl.

This past November, comedian/political commentator Bill Maher, In the New Rules segment of his show "Real Time", decided Quarterback Tim Tebow who had recently been named the team's starter, would make a great metaphor for the the Republican Presidential field. Here's how it went down.

Bill Maher has made no bones about his disdain for organized religion. Furthermore, this wasn't the first time he's found unkind things to say about Tebow. With that said, As of this writing, Since replacing Kyle Orton as Denver's Starting QB, Denver's record stands at 5-1. I guess it'd be a bridge too far for Maher to maybe look at that and think twice about his anti-religious predilections, but I wonder if he would at least be man enough to consider that he may have let his opinion taint his perception of reality. The truth is in this case, Bill Maher did the same thing he calls out the evangelicals for. He let his religious beliefs(or lack thereof) color his opinion in defiance of all of the stats, facts, and evidence. I'm no Tebow expert, but one look at his history as a player suggests that "in over his head" and "throws like a girl" seem at best ridiculously innaccurate and at worst like the words of someone more interested in their agenda than in an actual dialogue about sports.

Generally speaking, I dig Bill Maher. Rush Limbaugh not so much, but in this case they're both guilty of the same sin.
You know what the cool thing about sports is? Agendas and plans and opinions don't mean a thing. Sports is (with some exceptions)about whether or not you can get it done. that being the case, your feelings on Affirmative Action or Religion mean NOTHING. You embarrass yourself an annoy all of us by introducing those things into this conversation. I suppose neither of these situations should be a suprise to anyone; both of these fellas have a habit of making their hubris more important that what they're talking about.
So I guess the lesson to take from this is that not everything is Peanut Butter Cups. Before you get ready to introduce your personal hangups into our sports converstation, Think twice. As a matter of fact, no don't think about it even once. Just shut up, have some nachos and watch the game.