Achievement Unlocked: I Voted

Whatever your party affiliation, your convictions, or opinions, we can all agree that it is our civic duty to get out and vote. 

For us PA voters, there has been a huge deal made about Photo ID being required for voting.  In fact, the stupid ads were still be played on the air even after the Supreme Court shot down the law requiring ID.  So, in case you are still confused, I will say it one last time....

In Pennsylvania, you will be ASKED, but NOT REQUIRED to show Photo Identification at the polls, unless you are voting for the first time in a new polling place.

OK, so get out and vote.  The lines will be long, but I'd rather complain about wasting an hour of my life instead of not being able to complain about the next four years.

Achievement Unlocked: I Voted

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10 Movies to Watch on Election Day

For those of us tired of the elections, tired of the campaigns, I offer you a break from the norm with 10 films to watch while you wait for the results.

Independence Day (1996)
A rather odd choice, huh? Think about it, though. You have a likable President is faced with a crisis of unimaginable proportions. Instead of being nations at war we are a world faced with extinction. There's no need for UN inspectors, tribunals, or linking one group to another with more twists and turns than the Magic Bullet's path. We know who the enemy is. The White House blows up, the Cabinet and the First Lady die. A Mac Powerbook turns superior alien technology into Windows Vista. Anarchy and chaos ensue all to be wrapped up in 2 hours with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saving the day.

You’re Not Elected Charlie Brown (1972)
Some politicians run on a platform of change or reform, Linus Van Pelt runs on the platform of The Great Pumpkin. Whether you believe your candidate should have a strong faith based campaign or not, you cannot deny Linus’ commitment to the issues. You also cannot deny that people in power really don’t have any when it comes down to it.

Man of the Year (2006)
If you think the current President is funny wait till you meet Tom Dobbs. Robin Williams plays a Jon Stewart/Bill Maher faux news figure who has a lot of opinions about the government. On the suggestion from his audience to run for President he gathers tremendous support, but he fails to rely on his humor and instead tries to run on the issues. How dare he? When he’s invited to the debate he breaks every rule and turns the process into parody winning over America. An improbable scenario has Dobbs on the ballot in 13 states. 13 states, that if won, give him enough electoral votes to win the election. Comedy turns to conspiracy as Laura Linney plays a propeller head with insight onto how the election really was won and soon she’s on the run for her life as she tries to give Dobbs the bad news.

The Candidate (1972)
If you think your vote doesn’t count, you’ll like this flick. Robert Redford’s character, Bill McKay, is tapped to go through the motions in a senate race against an unbeatable Republican. While McKay is told to just go out and say whatever he wants, he uses the forum to get out his message to anybody who will listen. Along the way he begins to be manipulated and becomes what he loathes, a politician.


Election (1999)
Who says Washington is the only place for crooks and liars. Check out any local high school and you’ll find a seedy underbelly, especially this high school in the suburbs of Omaha. There’s sex and corruption and scandal all before the lunch bell as Reese Witherspoon plays a character so twisted and vile she makes Ann Coulter look like Jessica Simpson.



Recount (2008)
The election of 2000 was supposed to last a day, yet it wasn’t finalized until more than a month later when the Supreme Court ruled against Florida’s recount. If you ever wanted to go back and rethink what you thought about the election 8 years ago, now you have your chance. Grab your hanging Chad, your popular vote, and commiserate with all those who wondered what might have been.


Wag the Dog (1997)
Hey! Look over here. Ignore that sex scandal. Look at this shiny war over here. Oooh! Ahhhh! Awwww, there’s a young girl carrying her dog through the rubble. And what a catchy song to encapsulate the nation’s emotions. Hollywood is tapped to distract the public and help keep public opinion in the black. Similarities to both the Gulf War and the Clinton Sex Scandal are intentional as well as Dustin Hoffman’s uncanny take on Robert Evans.


All The President’s Men (1976)
We’ll bring it down a notch with a pot boiler, non-fiction style. Woodward and Bernstein follow the money during the Watergate break-in and the revelation that Nixon was a crook. Don’t think for a second that the government is new to shady deals and misinformation. They nearly wrote the book. Excellent film with top notch performances by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.


V for Vendetta (2006)
All the financial woes and worries about security, home and abroad, can make for depressing conversation. Why not blow it all up while wearing a mask and spouting Iambic Pentameter with a bunch of V’s? The Wachowski Brothers’ film about a dystopian totalitarian state where the government rules all and considers anyone not with them a terrorist. While the movie pits a terrorist as a protagonist one has to remember that Americans were terrorists during the Revolutionary War.


Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
And if you want to actually feel good about government and politics this Capra classic pits Jimmy Stewart against the machine. First rule about shady politics, if you’re going to hire someone you intend to use as puppet, don’t give him something to do to keep him busy. He’s liable to come up with good ideas that directly conflict with your own and will ultimately expose you for the crooks that you are.

Hail to the Hollywood Chief

Presidential speeches and quotes are supposed to be memorable. Some are inspiring, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” , impassioned, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”, and in times like today, reassuring, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” But there are those that end up being silly and laughable. Instead of being regarded as historical in nature, they are more less pop culture footnotes, “Read my lips. No new taxes.”, “I am not a crook!”, or “I did not have sex with that woman.” With the current administration there aren't enough posts in the world to cover all of the goofy stuff W has said. Thank The Flying Spaghetti Monster that we have Fictional Hollywood Presidents to provide us with moving and uplifting speeches. So, I give you the best Presidential quotes from Hollywood.

First we'll start off with the comedic. A Commander in Chief should have a sense of humor.
President Tug Benson (Lloyd Bridges) Hot Shots: Part Deux (1991)



It seems like only yesterday I was strafing so many of your homes. Here I am today, begging you not to make such good cars.






Some Presidents assume the title of Commander in Chief with the desire to fix the economy or strengthen foreign relations. Others find themselves with the bigger task of rebuilding civilization after a rogue comet hits the Earth. Don’t you wish a candidate had a plan for this kind of disaster in their campaign.

President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) Deep Impact (1998)

We watched as the bombs shattered the second comet into a million pieces of ice and rocks that burned harmlessly in our atmosphere, and lit up the sky for an hour. Still, we were left with the devastation of the first. The waters reached as far inland as the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. It washed away farms and towns, forests and skyscrapers, but the water receded. The wave hit Europe and Africa, too. Millions were lost, countless more left homeless, but the waters receded. Cities fall, but they are rebuilt. And heroes die, but they are remembered. We honor them with every brick we lay, with every field we sow, with every child we comfort and then teach to rejoice in what we have been regiven. Our planet, our home. So now, let us begin.

Sometimes a President must own up to a mistake or at least take the blame for something because in the end, the buck stops there.

President Bill Mitchell aka Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline) Dave (1993)


I forgot that I was hired to do a job for you and that it was just a temp job at that. I forgot that I had two hundred and fifty million people who were paying me to make their lives a little better and I didn't live up to my part of the bargain. See, there are certain things you should expect from a President. I ought to care more about you than I do about me... I ought to care more about what's right than I do about what's popular... I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in... Because if I'm not... Then I don't belong here in the first place...

President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) The American President (1995)


For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.

For the record: Yes, I am a card-carrying member of the A.C.L.U. But the more important question is why aren't you, Bob? This is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the questions. Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for president, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, then, folks, you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a couple of minutes ago.

Everybody knows American isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I've known Bob Rumson for years. I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it. Nobody has ever won an election by talking about what I was just talking about. This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they're terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment. We are a nation afraid to go out at night. We're a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated.

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character. Then you have an old photo of the President's girlfriend. You scream about patriotism and you tell them she's to blame for their lot in life, you go on television and you call her a whore. Sydney Ellen Wade has done nothing to you, Bob. She has done nothing but put herself through law school, prosecute criminals for five years, represent the interests of public school teachers for two years, and lobby for the safety of our natural resources.

You want a character debate? Fine, but you better stick with me, 'cause Sydney Ellen Wade is way out of your league. I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer, and I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to do my job. Well that ends right now. Tomorrow morning the White House is sending a bill to Congress for its consideration. It's White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a 20 percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming.

The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today it no longer exists. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out and writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns. We've got serious problems, and we need serious men, and if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This is a time for serious men, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name's Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President.

Inspiring people to believe in your cause is essential to winning a Presidential election. But you can’t only talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Perhaps Aaron Sorkin, or at least the writers of The West Wing were psychics because they created a President that was modeled after a young charismatic senator that is only 271 electoral votes from being the first minority ever elected President. He made a speech at the Democratic Convention that inspired them to model Matt Santos on him and look how history turned out.

Presidential Nominee Matt Santos (Jimmy Smitts) The West Wing "2162 Votes" (2005)

You know I’d been hoping to stand here tonight under very different circumstances, and I have been asked by people that I respect to take this opportunity to support one of the other fine candidates who have made this race with me, to help decide who our nominee will be. But I can’t do that. I can’t do that because it’s not my place to decide who our nominee should be. That decision is yours and yours alone. Now there has been a great deal made about Governor Baker’s decision not to disclose his wife’s minor medical condition. Many people believe that he should have. But I don’t believe Governor Baker failed to disclose it because he was ashamed or embarrassed. I think he didn’t disclose it because we’re the hypocrites, not the Bakers; because we’re all broken, every single one of us, and yet we pretend that we’re not. We all live lives of imperfection and yet we cling to this fantasy that there’s this perfect life and that our leaders should embody it. But if we expect our leaders to live on some higher moral plain than the rest of us, well we’re just asking to be deceived. Now it’s been suggested to me this week that I should try to buy your support with jobs, and the promise of access. It’s been suggested to me that party unity is more important than your democratic rights as delegates. That’s right it’s not. And you have a decision to make. Don’t vote for us because you think we’re perfect. Don’t vote for us because of what we might be able to do for you only. Vote for the person who shares your ideals, your hopes, your dreams. Vote for the person who most embodies what you believe we need to keep our nation strong and free. And when you have done that, you can go back to Seattle, and Boston, to Miami, to Omaha, to Tulsa and Chicago, and Atlanta with your head held high, and say, “I am a member of the Democratic Party.”

Presidents must console the nation and perhaps the world during a tragedy.

President Josiah “Jed” Bartlett (Martin Sheen) The West Wing "20 Hours in America"II(2002)

...restoring abundance amid an economic shortfall, securing peace in a time of global conflict, sustaining hope in this winter of anxiety and fear. More than any time in recent history America’s destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek, nor did we provoke, an assault on our freedoms and our way of life. We did not expect, nor did we invite, a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people’s strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive.

Forty-four people were killed a couple of hours ago at Kennison State University. Three swimmers from the men’s team were killed and two others are in critical condition, when, after having heard the explosion from their practice facility, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire.

The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They’re our students, and our teachers, and our parents, and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we’ve measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we’re reminded that that capacity may well be limitless.
This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman) Independence Day (1996)

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

President James Dale (Jack Nicholson) Mars Attacks! (1996)

I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of 3 branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad.

And sometimes, the best ideas can be summed up in less than six words just before dispatching an evil doer.

The President (Donald Pleasance) Escape From New York (1981)

You're the Duke! A Number One!

President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) Air Force One (1997)

Get off my plane!

Why I am glad the Pennsylvania Primary is finally here

I'm glad that the PA Primary is finally here, because then the damn phone calls will stop.....for awhile.  I have gone on at length about my issues with phone calls.  Still, I understand that each candidate will try to get the most exposure and awareness of their campaign out to the masses before the primary on Tuesday, April 22.  However, I do not appreciate the fact that I've been called repeatedly by both Democratic candidates’ camps over the last few weeks. 

Let's see, we've had Ed Rendell send a recorded message.  He's for Hillary.  Then we have Senator Bob Casey sending his own message.  He's for Obama.  That should have been it.  Two calls and you're done.  You've got your message out to me.  I will go vote.   But, no, that can't be it.  They have to call on the weekends and remind me that there is a primary on Tuesday and want to know if I have a candidate in mind.   First of all, if I didn't know that there was a primary on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, you better check me for a pulse.  Everybody loves my little state come election time, but you all can't be bothered the rest of the months or years.  Secondly, even if I didn't know who to vote for, I sure as hell won't believe you.  You're not objective.  You don't lay out the facts.  You lay out what is more favorable for your candidate.

What's worse is that these punks seem to know exactly when to call to maximize my frustration.  It's Sunday and I've just got the baby down for a nap.  This gives her a much needed rest from chasing the cat and it gives me a much needed rest from chasing the baby.  "RING! RING!"  I say "hello" and of course there is a five second delay for someone to be assigned my call and here comes the spiel.    In fact, I've just decided to change my policy on the two "hellos".  You're only getting one.  Then I hang up.  The problem with that is that they just call back.   So, I'm prepared for the next call.  Once they get their political spiel out of the way, I'm giving them the "Do Not Call" story and then I'm going to tell them that yes, I have made my decision.  I'm voting for the other guy, even if it is the other guy/girl.  Why?  Because, you can't leave me alone.    You just destroyed my support for your candidate.  You call when you know you'll find someone at home.  If we don't answer, you don't leave a message on the machine or continue to call back.   You've done it.  You have just lost your candidate my vote.  I don't care who you are, but that's it.  In the scheme of things, I waste more energy giving them the third degree versus just listening and hanging up.   However, I'm tried of it.  I am sick and tired of being harassed by these folks.   You tell those people to call me directly.   I will speak to them.   I would appreciate a candidate who is willing to call me on the phone and speak to me one on one about the issues and my concerns for the presidency.  Don't hire people at minimum wage to do it for you.   Ed Rendell and Bob Casey don’t send me a recorded message.  Why don't you call me and ask how I feel about their performance.  Hey, Ed, thanks for getting us the new arena with Don Barden.  I'm glad we went with him instead of Isle of Capri.   I mean Isle of Capri was going to give us an arena and fix up the area.  Don is going to back out of his commitment to fix up the Hill District.  Here, I was worried he was going to screw us for no reason. 

And another thing that bothers me is campaign signs.  I'm on a tear, aren't I?  I think each candidate or their campaign should be fined a set amount of money for every day beyond the election that those signs stay up on the side of the road.  This is of course the ones that stick in the ground.  Billboards are fine, because they are paid advertisements.  The little signs in your yard are the ones for which I am asking a fine to be imposed.   It clutters up the landscape and tends to be an eyesore with all those colors abound. 

There you have it, my first and hopefully last political rant.  I'm Mongo and I approve this message.