Independent News and Politics

Well, this site has been around for a while now but it wasn’t much more than an experiment in building websites for a long time.  I had another domain doing politics, so there wasn’t much use for this one aside from a weekend project to test a few skills.

Anyway – a lot has changed and I feel like I’ve really got a place for IndyPundit now.  The political site has been taken down due to unforseeable security issues, so this will be my primary platform for political and economic micro-blogging.

That means, everytime I come up with a silly political concept or I just want to rant a bit off the record, I’ll be adding a short post here.  Hopefully, these little bits of reaction will add up to a clearer worldview that takes strategic positioning and institutional power into consideration.

September 2009 is off to a rocky start. While the month is typically a weak one for stock markets, this one comes amid serious concerns about consumer spending and significant slowdowns in almost all aspects of economic activity.

Grumblings from abroad suggest our easy dollar and state subsidy plan will not last forever, so what happens when assets begin to deflate again despite massive federal intervention?

So apparently, not only has the military lost control of an incredibly expensive satellite that was paid for with my money, they also can’t say quite how toxic it is or where its going to land.

In the last few hours, they’ve admitted that its full of rocket-fuel (really, you think so?) and that they don’t want anyone to find it. They can’t say what else might be in it that’s toxic or explosive, and they can’t say whose village its going to flatten.

Chances are, they’ll try to blow it up. You know, use another expensive rocket that we paid for with our tax money to blow up the first expensive but broken rocket. Yeah. And there might be some debris. And maybe a toxic cloud raining on us.

We just can’t say.

While campaigning in South Carolina, Huckabee has found a novel approach to defending his record of open-borders and encouraging immigration.  He’s denying it.  He says his record has been “misrepresented” so he’s trying to remove any doubt that he doesn’t support amnesty because he signed a “No amnesty” plan.

The video of Huckabee’s press conference and signing event is available at the FoxNews blogs.  It seems he’s trying to draw the fine line of being in favor of legal immigration while being hard on illegal immigration.  Will these subtle distinctions win over the nativist vote?

No other candidates have so far signed the pledge, so does that mean Huckabee is the border enforcer?

Are pledges more important than a candidates’ record?  After watching Hillary’s campaign, I know politicians have no shortage of promises and pledges…but are they worth anything?

OK, So Iowa has spoken and we all have to pick between Huckabee and Obama, right?
What? New Hampshire has their own opinion? There’s 48 OTHER states that have to vote, too?

Is it just me, or has this election been going on waaaaay too long, and still have no end in sight? We’ve had to deal with creationists, corporate-funded populsists, and more promises than could possibly fit on the national credit card. The research department is informing me that there’s actually ten more months of this nonsense before we find out who gets to ruin the country next.

Earlier in the election, there were some interesting characters. Two Hobbits, known as Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, came out of fairy-tale land to tell us of the horrors of war. There was also a friendly troll looking character named Mike Gravel, but he thought he could call out NBC’s complicity in political corruption & war and still be invited to the campaign. Silly troll.

Now we have the serious candidates. There’s a Mormon who owns a major media outlet, a bass guitar-rocking Southern Baptist liberal, and a couple of charismatic Democrats who are calling for new corporate subsidies and taxes as a way of sticking it to those corporations who are getting too fat from corporate subsidies.

I’m not even kidding about that last part.

Quit rewarding politicians for bad behavior! Quit sensationalizing everything! Quit playing personality politics!

There are a million topics you can cover if you want ratings – politics is near the bottom of that barrel. If you want to talk about who is wearing what or who they were dancing with, I’ll buy you a one-way ticket to Hollywood. Bring a cheap camera and something to defend yourself with, because the celebrities won’t be so kind as the politicians are forced to be.

Candidates: You can’t play the victim. You seek the spotlight, and you seek control. When you legislate our personal activity, you’re opening your own up to scrutiny. Welcome to the stage.

Try to remember that the audience has the final say in if you’ll ever get to play act 2.

What does independent mean to me? Well, its a little bit more than knocking at the flaws in each political party, its also about steering clear of financial conflicts of interest with any major media, publishing, party, or government organization.

Full disclosure: I have nothing to gain or lose (except a better country) if any politician, corporation, or non-profit organization benefits from or is harmed by any information I share with the internet.

Warning: You may find your core beliefs being challenged and you may be exposed to the negative consequences of idealistic political meddling. Heros may appear less courageous and villains may be scrutinized for redeeming value.

Disclaimer: Website owner and author is not responsible for any loss of sanity or social standing generated by the knowledge of corruption politics. Please feel free to quote (short or long) any material here – I just have to insist that you link back to the page you found it on.