Who Wants To Play Monopoly?

 

I'm sure everyone has played the Parker Brothers board game "Monopoly" and tried to dominate all the properties and garner as much of the money as possible, but I'm not talking about board games. I'm talking about real life monopoly where a handful of individuals or corporations own the lion's share of the marketplace. Have you ever wondered who the real life monopoly players were? Well, if so, read on.

As many of you should know, only six corporations own 90%+ of all media. That includes movies, video games, publishers, magazines, newspapers, TV, cable, and practically all news outlets. That means just six corporations whose political and social agendas shape or influence our opinions on nearly every issue. To put it another way, those six corporations call the tune that we are forced to dance to.

While it's possible to find outside sources, most Americans either don't know where to look or they're too tired from work or just to frustrated to bother. Besides, most "go to" sources out there are biased one way or the other. There are too few non-partisan sources, such as this one, to go to. That means many American's turn to various distractions such at TV, videos or video games, movies, and so on; all of which are owned by those very same six corporations and reflect their political agendas.

So, if we weren't going to watch TV or play video games, what are we going to do? How about heading to the refrigerator for something to eat? Well, hate to break it to you, but you have the same problem. Four corporations control just over 50% of the market representing 79% of the groceries we buy. Not only that, just four companies---Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Ahold Delhaize (the parent of companies like Food Lion, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, and Freshdirect) control 65% of the retail market.

As an aside, farmers receive only 15 cents of every dollar consumers spend on groceries. The rest goes for processing and marketing. Meanwhile, farmers received approximately $424.4 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies from 1995 to 2020 (that includes $20 billion just under the Trump Administration). However, the majority of that money didn't go to the average small family farm. It went to the largest 15% of corporate owned farms which typically earn a million dollars or more a year.

In terms of meat processing, four companies---JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and  Marfrig---control  85% of the market while three companies, JBS, Tyson, and Hormel, control 66% of the pork market and four companies---JBS, Tyson, Purdue, and Sanderson Farms--- control 51% of the poultry industry. The same report points out that five corporations control 85% of processed pork market in Germany.

JBS alone received $78 million dollars in taxpayer based subsidies as part of a farm bailout during a trade war with China. JBS is 20% owned by the Brazilian Development Bank. In 2017, Brazilian authorities handed out the highest fines ever against JBS officials on corruption charges, including the bribery of 1,900 government officials. 

In terms of agrochemicals, such as fertilizer, four companies----ChemChina, Bayer, BASF, and Corveta own 65.8% of the market. The same companies, plus Limagrain, dominate 53.2 of the commercial seed market. In the world of "animal pharma", which makes veterinary supplies, medicines, and devices for farm and other animals, 58.3% of the market is controlled by only five companies, Zoetis, Elanco, Boehringer, Ingelheim, and Merck.

While Cargill, a global food company, is privately held, most of the other key players are owned by investment firms, banks, and pension funds; investing to the tune of $478 billion dollars in the meat and dairy market from 2015 to 2020. The major investors are Blackrock, Capital Group, Vanguard, and Norway's government pension fund! By the way, thanks to the blunder which is Citizens United, the food industry spent $175 million dollars lobbying government officials and making campaign contributions during the 2020 election cycle.

When it comes to the tech industry, which impacts nearly everything, just five companies virtually dominate the entire industry. Those companies are Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Between them, they control or influence around 80% of the technology we use every day. In fact, their combined wealth makes up 15% of the entire S&P 500. I bet no one is laughing at those high school geeks now! Of course, the tech industry, like everything else, needs electricity to operate. So who dominates the energy market?

The three primary sources of energy for the United States is oil, natural gas, and coal, with oil and gas accounting for 60% of all energy produced and used.  Renewable energy such as wind, hydro, and solar makes up a tiny fraction of America's energy source, and if the leading companies controlling the energy market have any say in it (and they do), renewable sources will never be a major player.

The industrial sector makes use of 32% of all energy produced. This is followed by the transportation sector which uses 29%,  which is closely followed by the residential sector which uses around 20%. The commercial sector, which includes businesses, hospitals, schools, etc., consumes 18%.

When it comes to production of all this energy, the largest global company is ExxonMobil, followed by Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Total, and British Petroleum. PetroChina and Sinopec make up the sixth and seventh spots. Others in the top 20 producers include a third Chinese company, CNOOC Limited (15th), Italy's Eni (10th), and Halliburton, a U.S. company, in 20th place. Together these 20 companies nearly dominate the entire energy industry.

You may be interested to learn that the oil and gas industry donated around $8,708,787.00 dollars in the 2020 election cycle. Of that Donald Trump received $3,773,155.00. Joe Biden, the only Democrat to receive money among the top five candidates, got a paltry $1,609,976.

The oil and gas industry gave $63.6 million dollars to the Republican Party while the Democrat Party got just $13.3 million dollars during the 1990 to 2020 election cycles. Thus far in the 2021/22 election, the GOP has received $8 million compared to the Democrat's $2.4 million. How's that for influence buying? 

With all that money, it's got to go somewhere! So, who are movers and shakers in the financial industry? The financial industry is highly diverse. It includes everything from banks, to fund managers, to holding companies, insurance companies (commercial and retail), to lenders and collection agencies. 

However, if we're looking at assets held or controlled, there are roughly 30 or so leading companies which dominate the U.S. financial market. The top ten (from tenth to first) are Blackrock, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, JP Morgan Chase, Visa, and Berkshire Hathaway. Also in the top 30 are Travelers (29th), Capital One (23rd), and Goldman Sachs (13th).

Globally, it's a slightly different story. While Berkshire Hathaway is still number one, the next five companies are all Chinese (Ping An Insurance Group, ICBC Banking, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and China Life Insurance). Next is the German company (and the parent of my old company, Euler Hermes) Allianz, which is a financial conglomerate.  

In eighth place is another Chinese company, Bank of China, followed by JP Morgan Chase, and AXA Insurance. Other companies in the top 30 include 12 American companies, eight Chinese, four French, four English, four Japanese, two German, two Canadian, and a smattering of Indian, Italian, Swiss, Spanish, and Dutch. Notably absent are those from Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, or Singapore.

As we all know, nothing happens in Washington without palms getting greased in one fashion or another. As with any other industry, the financial sector made its presence felt in the 2020 election cycle. Wall Street executives, directly, trade associations, PACs, lobbying, and so forth, spent $2.9 billion on the 2020 election cycle. Of that, $1.9 billion went specifically to candidates running for a federal office. 

47% of that $1.9 billion went to Republican candidates while 53% went to Democrats, with $74 million going to Joe Biden. So much for the Democratic Party being one of the working class! If we were to include money coming from the real estate investors and insurance companies, along with the financial industry, the money spent jumps up to $250 million dollars to support Biden.

 Meanwhile, "The Donald", who made his living in real estate investment and development, received only $103 million from those same industries. Five U.S. senators received a combined $300 million, including Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The same study showed that lobbying efforts by these same industries spent a whooping $932 million dollars for the same election cycle. Who spent the most? Apparently the top spenders were Blackstone, American Bankers Association, Charles Schwab, Susquehanna International, Bain Capital, and Renaissance Technologies. All I can say is that I hope they got what they paid for (well, maybe not).

Some groups and individuals would have you believe that America is "turning socialist" (or Communist. They use the two different ideologies interchangeably). Obviously if that was true, none of the above would be happening since socialism is the ownership of production by the workers and Communism is the ownership of everything by the state.

America is a Corportracy, a form of fascism, meaning a close partnership or even "hand-in-glove" relationship between corporations and government. As you'll note from the above, that's clearly what we have. Like any system, it has managers or overseers. Those managers are the uber wealthy Oligarchs who own or control these corporations. What they want they get, and it's usually at our expense.

Studies have shown that, on average, the wealthiest 10% of American's typically get what they want from government about 65% of the time. When average American's oppose a policy the super wealthy support (like the Wall Street bailout under President Obama), the rich usually win as they did in that instance.  The same argument can be made when it comes to tax cuts, low/no interest federal loans, bailouts, subsidizes, or foreign policy matters.

This isn't the work of would-be "socialists" or Communists. This is the work of an powerful and unbelievably rich Oligarchy where party means absolutely nothing except a means to divide us. They have an agenda and it's not the restoration of our former Republic or furthering the spread of democracy. This is about power and control. As George Carlin once said, "it's a big club and you and I ain't in it".  It's time we had our own club. It's time we stop playing Monopoly by their rules.

If you want to know more, please take a look at the links below. If you enjoyed the article, please consider passing along to others and don't forget to subscribe. It's free! Lastly please be sure to "like" us on Facebook or whatever platform you use to read A/O. It helps with the algorithms and keeps our articles in circulation.

 

Companies: dominating the market from farm to display case

America's food monopolies and power imbalances

Just a Few Companies Control the Meat Industry. Can a NewApproach Level the Playing Field?

GAFAM: The Big Five Tech Companies Facts

Lobbying spending of oil and gas companies in the UnitedStates

Disturbing data: The rich and powerful get their policiesadopted even if opposed by most voters

The Top 30 largest US financial companies in 2021

List of the largest financial services companies by revenue

Wall Street execs, employees spent $2.9 billion to influenceWashington during the 2020 election, study shows

Privacy: Do We Still Have It?

Don Sterling was busted when his girlfriend allegedly went public with a recording of a rant against her for bringing blacks to his games (he's owner of the LA Clippers, at least for the moment). The comments were made in what was supposed to be a private conversation in his home, which now raises the question----is there any privacy left? Can we assume that nothing we say or do at any time anywhere is private? We have long been accustomed to accepting what we say and do in public is, well, public and potentially can come back and bite us on the butt. But what about in the privacy of our own home? The second issue is whether Mr. Sterling or anyone else has the right to express their opinions regardless if it's politically or socially correct or not, so long as there is no threat made or implied. In short, can we reasonably expect to be protected by the Bill of Rights, especially the 1st, 4th, and 5th amendments? Is "free speech" or our right to expect privacy a thing of the past?

We've long accepted that whatever we did or said in public was likely to end up in the news or YouTube or some other social media site, but what about what we say or do in private? We know that Google, Yahoo and other web providers track us, as do stores (all in the name of improving and individualizing customer service), so does the government. Once we could expect reasonable protect under the 1st, 4th or 5th amendments, but since 9/11, those rights have largely been circumvented in the name of national security. Today, we're all now considered potential terrorists by those whose job is to protect us.

There is no privacy at work nor should one expect there to be since the Bill of Rights doesn't apply there (it only protects individuals from the federal government). Our employers have a right to see and hear everything we do during business hours, and many are now asserting that they have a right to know everything about the private us too, including our personal habits, health condition, diet, hobbies, and even memberships. We are increasingly viewed as to the "value" we add to the company just like any other asset. And when we start becoming a liability, we're terminated. Banks look at us not as individuals, but as credit risks. They too look at our "data portfolio" just as insurance companies do in determining our "cost risk" and potential impact on their bottom line based not just on our incomes and payment histories, but where we live, our medical histories, our buying habits and so forth. Soon we'll be evaluated as to our potential "value" to the company or society before a medical procedure is approved. It seems our "own time" isn't our own any more.

We have drones in sky, watching us like cyber vultures out of a Sci-Fi novel. I can see the day when insurance companies or employers start doing flyovers to see if we're really hurt when we fill a worker's compensation claim or when we call in sick. Maybe our car or cell phone monitors will alert HR as to whether we really went to the doctor that day, and then they can check the insurance cloud to see what doctor we saw and what prescriptions were written for us. And with all this increase on technology, we're finding that not our cell phone and cars, but our Smartphone, Ipad, and who knows what else is monitoring everything we do. In place of a heaven watching us, we now have the data cloud, and it knows if we being bad or good for goodness sake! For me, another image comes to mine, such as "HAL" from the movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey" or perhaps the super computer "Colossus" in the movie "The Forbin Project".

We're consistently be asking for our opinions through surveys and polls, as well as indirectly through monitoring and our sites visited and our searches. Have you noticed that as soon as you've searched for a product, that product or similar ones start appearing through ads and emails? All this is designed to increase the data file on us---individually and collectively. I recently read an article where new homes are being equipped with monitoring devises; they sense who's there, our wants and our preferences. It turns our lights on and off, fixes our coffee, regulates the temperature, gives us a verbal update on traffic, weather, and the news. Heck, I recently read a story about development of sex robots (called sexbots) in Japan which records and stores our likes and dislikes! Seriously. Come on, whatever happened to a good old fashion hookers? Are they becoming an obsolete profession? Surgeries can be done remotely through robotics and there is even monitoring robots who visit patients. Is there nothing sacred from technology? Of course, be it medical, financial, employment, or even personal, all data is stored. To be evaluated for "the net time".

Express an opinion and soon it will no doubt be recorded somewhere. As it is now, the closest most of us will ever get to immortality is to put something on the internet, and you can bet it will find its way into some database somewhere for who knows what purpose. It seems we have finally created the perfect beast, and it is us.

Exploring the Constitution: Privacy
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html

Legal Information Institute
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/privacy

Wall Street's Bailout:Charity or Payoff?

Why are the same Wall Street Robber Barons who rail against national health care, unions, minimum wage, and helping the average the home owner is now trying to get on the taxpayer financed 700 billion dollar gravy train? For the same reason that got them in trouble in the first place---greed. What happened to the Capitalist mantras of “financial survival of the fittest” or “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps”? It’s funny how those same individuals who call any government program to help the poor and working class “socialist” now have their greasy hands out for a piece of the largest bailout in history. I guess when it’s you and me, it’s “socialism” and when it’s them, it’s a matter of national imperative. To listen to Bush and Company, you would think this was a humanitarian rescue operation to some backwater country.

For anyone who wants to make this out as a Republican made crisis, let’s get this clear---it took both parties to blow this one. The Democrats and Republicans are both to blame for encouraging the unethical level of greed and unregulated environment which dominates the culture of Wall Street…and Washington. Let’s not forget either that these same soulless creatures who make their living off other people’s labor are the same people who underwrite both the Republican and Democratic parties. It doesn’t matter one iota to them which party wins since they own both. So don’t worry about whether or not there will be a bailout; there will most certainly be one. The real question is just what this corporate handout…err…I mean bailout, is going the American Public.

According to Bloggingstocks (http://www.bloggingstocks.com), there are 305 million Americans. At $700 billion dollars, that breaks out to roughly $2,295.00 per person. If you look just at working Americans (excluding retirees, kids, and I suppose illegal aliens), the cost jumps up to $4,635.00 per worker. Taking it from another angle, if the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 13.8 trillion dollars, the bailout will equal approximately one year’s domestic product. The best example I think is that, according to the article, at 5% a year, it will equivalent to working 13 days for free (well, not exactly free, since your money will be going to pay some Wall Street mogul’s salary). Now, I don’t know about you, but that really ticks me off.

Should government, which is ultimately you and I, be involved in rescuing companies because their owners got to greedy; to sloppy; and made bad decisions? When you mess up your checkbook, does your banker say “awl shucks, forget about it. We’ll get the other depositors to make up the difference?” I don’t know about you, but my mother taught me personal responsibility and dealing with my own mistakes. However, rewarding irresponsibility is what’s happening here, except on a really big scale. And the kicker is, we’re going to get to make up their multi-million salaries to boot. So when this bailout is done, do you think Wall Street is going to thank the American People for the $700 billion “gift” by offering us some really good interest rates or great stock tips? Don’t hold your breath. This is corporate fascism pure and simple, where government is there to serve the needs and interests of Big Money while you and I just hope we can make our next mortgage payment.

By the way, does anyone have any idea just how many people can be feed with $700 billion dollars? How much healthcare for the poor and eldery could this buy? How many Headstart programs or other primary education resources could this buy? How much medical research could be accomplished with the same amount of money? How many roads could be paved? How many police officers, firemen, and EMS workers could this employ? Just asking.


History is filled with “what ifs” and “what were you thinking?” moments. Perhaps we think of presidents as in some way more intelligent than the average person. The reality is that most aren’t. We tend to put them on pedestals and then proceed to throw rocks at them. Presidents and the Presidency are in many ways shaped by the occupant’s personalities, the times they live in, as well as by events outside their control. Tom Craughwell has written a terrific book that looks at some of the biggest goofs, blunders, and horrific mistakes made by the men who’ve occupied the Oval Office. Below is an excerpt from the book. If you have an interest in history, politics, or human nature, I urge to you read this book.

"Failure of the Presidents" by Tom Craughwell

The Bay of Pigs Invasion
John F. Kennedy

A TOTAL FAILURE. Many of the men of Brigade 2506 believed fervently that they were the first wave of Cuban freedom fighters who would liberate their homeland from Castro. They were convinced as they storrned ashore that they would be supported overhead by some of the finest fighter pilots of the U.S. Air Force, and they thought that as they advanced into Cuba, the U.S. Marines would be right behind them. Whether the insurgents had talked themselves into this conviction or the trainers from the United States had made such a promise is still a subject of debate.

The air support promised by the CIA consisted of sixteen B-26 twin-engine light attack bombers. From an airstrip in Nicaragua to the Bay of Pigs was a journey of 1,000 miles, round-trip, which left a B-26 with enough fuel to provide less than forty minutes of air cover for the Brigade. Anything longer than forty minutes and the pilots risked running out of gas somewhere over the Caribbean.

On April 14, 1961, just three days from the invasion, Kennedy called CIA Operations Chief Bissell to ask how many planes he planned to use in the operation. Bissell told the president the CIA planned to use all sixteen of their B-26s. "Well I don't want it on that scale," Kennedy replied. "I want it minimal." So Bissell cut the number of planes for the invasion to eight. The next day, those eight planes attacked the three airfields of the Cuban air force, knocking out some of the aircraft, but not enough to cripple the fleet.

On the morning of April 17, as the Cuban militia pinned down the men of Brigade 2506, the Cuban planes that had survived the air strikes attacked the exiles from the air. Meanwhile, the B-26s, their fuel low and their forty minutes up, veered away from the beach for the flight home. The Brigade's commander, San Román, radioed his CIA handlers for help. "We are under attack by two Sea Fury aircraft and heavy artillery," he reported. "Do not see any friendly air cover as you promised. Need jet support immediately." When San Roman's request was denied, he replied, "You, sir, are a son of a bitch."

With the sea at their backs, no means of retreat, and no chance of advancing into the interior of Cuba, the Brigade was in a desperate position. Back in Washington, the CIA and the Kennedy administration concluded that the invasion would fail. In a conversation with his brother, Robert Kennedy, the president said he wished he had permitted the use of U.S. ships to back up the Cuban exiles. "I'd rather be an aggressor," he said, "than a bum."

On April 18, Kennedy authorized six fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Essex to provide one hour of air cover for the CIAs attacking B-26s over the beach at the Bay of Pigs. But the jets from the Essex and the B-26s missed their rendezvous because the Pentagon forgot to factor in the one-hour difference in time zones between the B-26s' base in Nicaragua and the beach in Cuba.

That same day, Kennedy's national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, gave the president a status report on the invasion. "The Cuban armed forces are stronger, the popular response [is] weaker, and our tactical position is feebler than we had hoped," Bundy said. That was perhaps the kindest possible description of the Bay of Pigs operation.

As a humanitarian concession, the president permitted U.S. destroyers to approach the Cuban coast to pick up survivors. The ships were authorized to get within two miles of shore after dark, but no closer than five miles during daylight hours. The directive meant the rescue mission was beyond the reach of almost every man in Brigade 2506. A handful who had managed to swim to one or another of the bay's outlying cays were picked up, but the rest lay dead on the beach or were captured by Castro's forces.

At 2 p.m. on April 19, after two days of being pounded by militia, tanks, and the Cuban air force, Commander San Román and Brigade 2506 surrendered. "Everything is lost," Allen Dulles told former vice president Richard Nixon. "The Cuban invasion is a total failure."

Sixty-eight Cuban exiles were killed in the Bay of Pigs debacle; 1,209 were captured, and nine of them died of asphyxiation in a windowless sealed truck that took them from the beach to prison in Havana. After twenty days of interrogation, the prisoners were given show trials and sentenced to life in prison.

Soon after the conviction of the men of Brigade 2506, Castro made a public offer to exchange the prisoners for farm machinery. Kennedy leapt at the proposal. Immediately he formed the Tractors for Freedom Committee, chaired by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, with the purpose of collecting donations to purchase farm equipment for Cuba. But the group was not able to meet Castro's exorbitant demand of $30 million worth of capital relief, and it disbanded. The tractor deal fell through.

Negotiations between the two governments went on sporadically over the next twenty months. Finally, on December 24,1962, Castro announced that he was releasing the Brigade 2506 prisoners in exchange for $53 million in medicine and food from the United States. He also promised, "as a Christmas bonus," to permit 1,000 of the prisoners' relatives to emigrate to the United States.

The animosity between Cuba and the United States intensified after the Bay of Pigs debacle. Cuba allied itself with the Soviet Union, while America continued its policy of isolating Cuba economically and diplomatically. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev viewed America's failure at the Bay of Pigs as a sign of Kennedy's weakness and inexperience, an assessment he felt was confmned after meeting Kennedy at the Vienna Summit of April 1962, where it appeared to some that Kennedy was sandbagged by Khrushchev's threat to cut off West Berlin from the Western powers. Within six months, Khrushchev was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, an action that brought the world as close as it has ever come to all-out nuclear war.

In the face of the missile crisis, Kennedy held firm. The Soviets backed down, removing the nuclear weapons from Cuba, but the tension between Cuba and the United States has dragged on for more than forty years. During that time, political observers and historians have argued that the failed invasion actually strengthened Castro's grip on Cuba. Certainly Che Guevara thought so. In August 1961, at a meeting of the Organization of American States in Uruguay, he sent a note to Kennedy saying, "Thanks for Playa Giron [another name for the site of the invasion]. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it is stronger than ever."

Author Bio
Thomas J. Craughwell is the author of several books, most recently How the Barbarian Invasions Shaped the Modern World (Fair Winds Press, 2008) and Stealing Lincoln's Body (Harvard University Press, 2007). He has written articles on history, religion, politics, and popular culture for the Wall Street Journal, American Spectator, and U.S. News & World Report. He lives in Bethel, Connecticut.

Journalist, lecturer, and historian M. William Phelps is the author of eleven books, including his most recent, Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of America’s First Spy (Thomas Dunne Books, 2008). He lives in Vernon, Connecticut.


A friend of mine sent me this. It’s great! I just wish there was really someone out there who had the chutzpa to run on a platform like this:

WRITE-IN CANDIDATE

I have decided to run for President. After careful consideration, I decided that this was going to be my platform:

(1) Press 1 for English is immediately banned. English is the official
language, speak it or wait at the border until you can.

(2) We will immediately go into a two year isolationist posture to straighten out the country's attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the 'Walmart' policy 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.'

(3) When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it.

(4) All retired military personnel will be required to man one of our many observation towers on the southern border. (six month tour) They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens.

(5) Social security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't gettin nuttin out. The president nor any other politician will not be able to touch it.

(6) Welfare - Checks will be handed out on Fridays at the end of the 40 hour school week and the successful completion of urinalysis and a passing grade.

(7) Professional Athletes/Steroids - The FIRST time you check positive, you are banned for life. By the way, the FIRST time you attack your coach or fellow player, or get busted you’re history. I don’t care about your childhood. You are responsible for your actions.

(8) On second thought, one export will be allowed, Wheat, The world needs to eat. A bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.

(9) All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease, and the saved money will pay off the national debt and ultimately lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision whether it's a worthy cause.

(10) The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day
in Congress.

(11) The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies,
sporting events, outings, etc.

Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes but a vote for me will get you better than what you have, and better than what you're gonna get. Thanks for listening, and remember to write in my name on the ballot in November. God bless America!

Anyone want to be my VP???

Poll Results

I asked what you thought about Sarah Palin's qualifications to be Vice President. Interestingly, we have 40% of you who said they were excellent while another 40% of you said poor. 20% thought her qualifactions were only fair. Actually, the results seem pretty reflective if the election itself--a near draw.