After promising to file a new post on Mondays and Wednesdays, I promptly missed my first deadline due to a painful case of gout in my left big toe. “Why would this affect my writing?” one may wonder. “Do I type with my toes?” No, but I have followed common sense advice and have kept my foot

Mine eyes have seen a picture of Anthony Weiner’s cock: He should have kept it in his pants wrapped inside a cotton sock; If he’s going to leave it out that way, he should rub it with sun block A penis is in the news!   Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hal

For the last several months, I have be exclusively focused on writing a new novel and have therefore been remiss in keeping up this blog. And while I have not finished the novel, I feel compelled to return to blogging as we are entering dangerous times for the nation. I hope to get posts out at least every Monday

It feels very odd to be on opposite sides from Congressional liberals/progressives and commentators who I normally look to for leadership and wisdom. Rarely if ever have I found myself disagreeing with the likes of Chuck Schumer, Barney Franks, Anthony Weiner, Bernie Sanders and Keith Olbermann (although I find myself di

[I urge you to use [www.contactingthecongress.org] to find and e-mail your senators and tell them to support passage of President Obama’s Tax Cut Compromise and to persuade other senators to do so as well. This letter is geared toward Democratic Senators. If one o

There was a time when the Senate and the House could have pushed through an extension of the Bush Tax cuts for only the first $250,000 in income. They could have passed tougher estate taxes and a better package of stimulus measures than found in President Obama’s tax cut compromise. Unfortunately, that time was any

After the disastrous mid-terms for the Dems, one of the big questions everyone seems to be asking is, “Does Obama get it?” That was essentially the main question asked by reporters at Obama’s first p

Most of the results are in, and I’m out of both gin and vodka. I ran out of mixer about two hours ago and since then I have been mixing citrus vodka with sugar free, orange Metamucil in a drink I call the Republican victory. It’s hard to swallow and will give me the runs later. My wife just managed to

According to the McClatchy account Republican Rand Paul has “swamped” Jack Conway, his Democratic rival for the Senate in Kentucky. I am trying to avoid name calling and other histrionics. But this is so mind numbingly dumb, it makes me want to go skull fuck a rat. (I see that it was also just announced that

Last night, in response to Jon Stewart’s highlighting of his sometimes extreme rhetoric, Keith Olbermann suspended his “Worst Persons” segment. I say hooray to Keith for this. Stung by Stewart’s criticism, Olbermann initially tweeted that Stewart had “jumped the shark” by equating him,

A current NBC New/Wall Street Journal poll found that 58% of respondents believe that the Republicans if they take over congress will bring “different ideas” in to shape economic policy—

Reviewing the comments to some news story, I ran into a conservative reader’s complaint about the tax burden placed on corporate America. This is familiar Republican cant and a frequent non sequitur rebuttal to any progressive charges—as in: Democrat, “Your supporter stepped on my supporter&rsquo

plans to “hold my [her] nose and vote Republican, only for this race.”  "Why?" I ask and fight the urge to go pour myself a glass of straight 96 proof gin. "The economy," is the response the voter gave to CNN, “I have grave concerns about the bills that have been passed and h

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul—From Youth by Samuel Ullman I will address this to all of you who voted for President Obama in 2008, but are not committed to voting in th

I have not picked on single candidates this year, beyond highlighting how a few typify the abuses evident in this years election. I am making this exception because Bill Miller, in Alaska, has shown himself to be beyond dumb. On Sunday the Republican Senate candidate, Bill Miller, embraced the idea of turning the

[Note: It is extraordinarily hard to find good figures on what the tax cuts will cost next year. Many like to talk about what it will cost over ten years, a figure so high most Americans cannot grasp its meaning. I am following the well researched and balanced figures used here:

Only 19 days remain before the elections, but that is enough time for you to have an impact on the outcome. According to Nate Silver at the Five Thirty Eight Blog (recently annexed by t

So this is how it ends. Not with gunfire, screams and blood as the United States is invaded by foreign forces, or the government captured by conservative forces applying the “Second Amendment remedy” Sharron Angle

How Much Pain Are Republicans Willing To Inflict on The American People? That was the question Dee Dee Myers asked in a Vanity Fair column back in March 2009 when Rush Limbaugh and many Republican politicians were flatly announcin

Alaska Senatorial candidate Joe Miller, and Nevada Senatorial candidate Sharron Angle among others (

Consider the case of Gene and Paulette Cranick. Until a few days ago their home stood in Obion County Tennessee, near the town of South Fulton, but their home stands there no longer.

Monday Sept 20, CNBC televised a town hall meeting during which Velma Hart told President Obama, “I’m exhausted, exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantel of change that I voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I have been told that I voted for a m

Note: Having a life intruded into my blogging schedule yesterday, and I failed to get out a Monday post. To make up for that, today I will be posting twice.] While this posting pertains to all Democratic and open-minded independent voters, I would like to dedicate it particularly to Hispanic voters.

Because I am not much of a Facebook or Twitter type guy (I know relying on e-mail makes me a dinosaur—I might as well be writing letters. Do you remember letters?) so I need help from those of you who are more thoroughly socially networked. I need you to pass the word to your network—and ask them to pass the

“Throw all the bums out. They are only concerned with protecting their own jobs and their party’s power, not with what’s best for the nation!” is a fair paraphrase of the sentiment many feel about congress as a whole. It embodies a certain amount of truth, and in other years I could well

My hope is that some right-leaning independents will read this and begin to question their beliefs and political leaning. I know that none of this matters to hard core conservatives, who are perfectly content to believe that

I’ll make this brief. You do want the Health Care Reform Bill (Formally H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010) to pass. Depending on your luck and your health, it may benefit you greatly. If you are not certain of this, see my post below—

Today, tomorrow and Sunday should be the final days of the push for health care reform in the US House of Representative, and know it or not you want to support H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010. Unless you are a hard-core conservative (more interested in handing a defeat to President Obama than in saving the liv

Dear reader, As a liberal/progressive, I am deeply disappointed in the Health Care Reform Legislation currently in front of the US House of Representatives—but I still strongly support the bill. As much as I wish the reform legislation had not been watered down in an attempt to garner conservative support, I

Dear reader, Whether you are anti-abortion or pro-choice, if your Representative is a Democrat, I urge you to write them and demand that they commit to voting for the current health care reform legislation. In my proposed letter, below, I will explain why concern over the language used to prohibit federal funding

No Kidding! Wednesday March 3, 2010 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) laid out a major condition for Democratic success in the mid-term elections. The Democrats must pass the current health care reform legislation. That, of course, is not what McConnell said.

The Senate’s grand and noble tradition of suppressing all commercial, social, and cultural progress through the use of the filibuster is about to be ripped to shreds by savage democrats slashing the senate’s grand bod

This weekend I got the chance to watch Battleground. A nominee for best picture, among other awards, in 1950, Battleground lacks the blood, guts and explosions of modern war films, but it is big on heart. It is one of those war films that ce

President Obama’s exchange with Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) on catastrophic coverage and health savings accounts was one of the highlights of the Bipartisan Health Care Reform summit and shows the kind of worker-centered communication that Democrats need to adopt. It is their natural vernacular. Senator Bar

Today’s Health Care Reform Bipartisan Summit began, following the President’s opening remarks, with Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, saying that Obama's plan is too similar to the Senate plan. His

Below you will find the text of a letter supporting Health Care Reform that I sent today to my Democratic Senators (Boxer and Feinstein). I encourage my readers to use this link (Senate Addresses) to find the e-mail address for their

liberation from the self,” (Albert Einstein). “The true value of a politician can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from his party,” (Giles A. de Mello). Today we may have seen the true face of bipartisanship in the US Senate.

One problem with being a one-man-band here at the Café de Mello is that if my rather surly and temperamental muse goes on strike, or I am abducted by aliens, or I go on a bender, or life intrudes—as it did last week (I will explain shortly)—everything comes to a halt. I am, therefore, looking for one o

I have to admit, I had to agree with part of what Sarah Palin had to say in her speech to the Tea Party Convention. And no, that doesn’t mean I have gone out of my mind (although listening to Palin left me dizzy and disoriented. Her lack of logical consistency was stunning.) However,

House Minority Leader John Boehner (I don’t care what he says, his name should be pronounced “Boner” today accused President Obama of having a pre-911 mentality based on his administration’s handling of the Christmas

This is in part a response to Eva Rodriguez’s post “Don't buy the administration's spin on the Christmas day bomber” in today’s Washington Post. That Ms. Rodriguez, who can be fairly reasonable

In my post “Lindsey Graham Wants To Surrender To Al Qaida,” I suggested that by ignoring the rights of those suspected of terrorism and thereby abandoning our commitment to the principles in our Constitution we are giving Al Qaida the victory it wants—changing the fabric of our society out of fear.

According to the Washington Post, AIG is set to distribute about 100 Million Dollars in bonuses Wednesday to workers in the Financial Products division—the folks that brought the US banking system

Senator Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.) plans to introduce legislation that would block funding for the civilian trials of self-confessed 9-11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and four co-conspirators, all of whom are currently held at Guantanamo Bay. This amo

On Thursday, January 21st the five conservative jesters on the Supreme Court (the same five who decided that counting votes is irrelevant to elections) ignored the courts usual reluctance to overturn several established precedents and voted to give corporations all of the free speech rights of individuals.

It goes without saying (so why am I saying it?) that no one on the right liked the content of President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union speech, and many on the left were less than impressed by what they considered a conservative turn in many of his proposals. Many liberal/progressive commentators (e.g. Rachel Maddo

The state of the union: we are all fucked. The American people are the fuckees and the conservative-oligarchs are the fuckors. Obama will doubtless put it somewhat better.

As part of the mainstream media’s biased-to-the-left (bite me) coverage of Obama’s first year, the Washington Post ran an article detailing the fate of the three citizens Obama singled out for attention at last year’s pre-state of the union first speech to congress. These three individuals have not, in

[I started this post to respond to a wretched article in the Washington Post, but I got carried away. I will follow this with my response to that article.] As though everyone has joined the tea-party and drank tea mixed with some very odd herbs, it has become popular to characterize Obama’s first year as a f

Scanning the comments submitted to a Time.com article on the Massachusetts special election I came across the following, which I think speaks to some of the difficulties President Obama and the Democratic Party are fa