"The Lesser Of Two Evils"...Why, Obama Isn't That Bad!

[Elihu]

ugh, this is awful. the tier-er-or-ist-ts are winning. go vote for the sake of conscience. but write somebody in. anybody.

it's not right to vote for a sack-o-slogans...

[JackRiddler]

Nordic, it is untrue that my "perceptions of what [you are] saying is heavily clouded by [my] apparent heavy dislike for" you, since I don't dislike you (and honestly don't directly recall whatever old conflict you think is being repeated here). I like you fine, and said nothing about you personally, but about a point of view I saw you and others expressing in what I think is a heavy-handed and mistaken way. "Option 2" is a caricature of the anti-voting stance, which I see in contradiction with "Option 1." I've seen you represent both to a degree. I did not attribute 2 to you, nor is it based solely on what you wrote. But when you brought it up, I compared it to your writing. That might get you angry and objecting, but I wouldn't have expected such a personally insulted and enraged response, I think "Option 2" fits much of what you have produced on this thread, such as your use of dead children pictures. I do not think this because I dislike you. Which would be very hard, at this distance. I suspect, in person, I'd like you just fine (as I loved 8bit in person). Except for the way you're making the thought of such an encounter unpleasant with your mean and personal words.

[ninakat]

Iamwhomiam, that was the late, great George Carlin who stated those prophetic words, not me -- I'm not that clever. But I happen to agree with the sentiment. It doesn't matter though, whether you agree or not. And it doesn't matter if you vote or not. I, on the other hand, will have a clear conscience when I vote for a third party (Jill Stein) like I did last time around (Cynthia McKinney), knowing full well that it won't make any difference to anybody except me. Chris Hedges says it a lot more eloquently than George Carlin. Read it and weep, suckers.

+ + + + +

Published on Monday, September 24, 2012 by TruthDig.com
How Do You Take Your Poison?
by Chris Hedges

We will all swallow our cup of corporate poison. We can take it from nurse Romney, who will tell us not to whine and play the victim, or we can take it from nurse Obama, who will assure us that this hurts him even more than it hurts us, but one way or another the corporate hemlock will be shoved down our throats. The choice before us is how it will be administered. Corporate power, no matter who is running the ward after January 2013, is poised to carry out U.S. history’s most savage assault against the poor and the working class, not to mention the Earth’s ecosystem. And no one in power, no matter what the bedside manner, has any intention or ability to stop it.

If you insist on participating in the cash-drenched charade of a two-party democratic election at least be clear about what you are doing. You are, by playing your assigned role as the Democratic or Republican voter in this political theater, giving legitimacy to a corporate agenda that means your own impoverishment and disempowerment. All the things that stand between us and utter destitution—Medicaid, food stamps, Pell grants, Head Start, Social Security, public education, federal grants-in-aid to America’s states and cities, the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program (WIC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and home-delivered meals for seniors—are about to be shredded by the corporate state. Our corporate oligarchs are harvesting the nation, grabbing as much as they can, as fast as they can, in the inevitable descent.

We will be assaulted this January when automatic spending reductions, referred to as “the fiscal cliff,” begin to dismantle and defund some of our most important government programs. Mitt Romney will not stop it. Barack Obama will not stop it.

And while Romney has been, courtesy of the magazine Mother Jones, exposed as a shallow hypocrite, Obama is in a class by himself. There is hardly a campaign promise from 2008 that Obama has not broken. This list includes his pledges to support the public option in health care, close Guantanamo, raise the minimum wage, regulate Wall Street, support labor unions in their struggles with employers, reform the Patriot Act, negotiate an equitable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, curb our imperial expansion in the Middle East, stop torture, protect reproductive rights, carry out a comprehensive immigration reform, cut the deficit by half, create 5 million new energy jobs and halt home foreclosures. Obama, campaigning in South Carolina in 2007, said that as president he would fight for the right of collective bargaining. “I’d put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll … walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America,” he said. But when he got his chance to put on those “comfortable pair of shoes” during labor disputes in Madison, Wis., and Chicago he turned his back on working men and women.

Obama, while promising to defend Social Security, also says he stands behind the planned cuts outlined by his deficit commission, headed by Morgan Stanley board member Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican. The Bowles-Simpson plan calls for cutting 0.3 percentage points from the annual cost-of-living adjustment in the Social Security program. The annual reduction would slowly accumulate. After a decade it would mean a 3 percent cut. After two decades it would mean a 6 percent cut. The retirement age would be raised to 69. And those on Social Security who continued to work and made more than $40,000 a year would be penalized with further reductions. Obama’s payroll tax cuts have, at the same time, served to undermine the solvency of Social Security, making it an easier target for the finance corporations that seek to destroy the program and privatize the funds.

But that is just the start. Cities and states are frantically staving off collapse. They cannot pay for most pension plans and are borrowing at higher and higher interest rates to keep themselves afloat. The country’s 19,000 municipalities face steadily declining or stagnant property tax revenues, along with spiraling costs. Annual pension payments for state and local plans more than doubled to 15.7 percent of payrolls in 2011 from 6.4 percent a decade ago, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. And local governments, which made some $50 billion in pension contributions in 2010, face unfunded pension liabilities of $3 trillion and unfunded health benefit liabilities of more than $1 trillion, according to The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. State and local government spending fell at a rate of 2.1 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to the Commerce Department. It was the 11th consecutive quarterly reduction in expenditures. And in the past year alone local governments cut 66,000 jobs, mostly those of teachers and other school employees, reported The Wall Street Journal, which accumulated this list of grim statistics.

The costs of our most basic needs, from food to education to health care, are at the same time being pushed upward with no control or regulation. Tuition and fees at four-year colleges climbed 300 percent between 1990 and 2011, fueling the college loan crisis that has left graduates, most of them underemployed or unemployed, with more than $1 trillion in debt. Health care costs over the same period have risen 150 percent. Food prices have climbed 10 percent since June, according to the World Bank. There are now 46.7 million U.S. citizens, and one in three children, who depend on food stamps. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under Obama has, meanwhile, expelled 1.5 million immigrants, a number that dwarfs deportations carried out by his Republican predecessor. And while we are being fleeced, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank has since 2008 doled out $16 trillion to national and global financial institutions and corporations.

Fiscal implosion is only a matter of time. And the corporate state is preparing. Obama’s assault on civil liberties has outpaced that of George W. Bush. The refusal to restore habeas corpus, the use of the Authorization to Use Military Force Act to justify the assassination of U.S. citizens, the passing of the FISA Amendments Act to monitor and eavesdrop on tens of millions of citizens without a warrant, the employment of the Espionage Act six times to threaten whistle-blowers inside the government with prison time, and the administration’s recent emergency appeal of U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest’s permanent injunction of Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act give you a hint of the shackles the Democrats, as well as the Republicans, intend to place on all those who contemplate dissent.

But perhaps the most egregious assault will be carried out by the fossil fuel industry. Obama, who presided over the repudiation of the Kyoto Accords and has done nothing to halt the emission of greenhouse gases, reversed 20 years of federal policy when he permitted the expansion of fracking and offshore drilling. And this acquiescence to big oil and big coal, no doubt useful in bringing in campaign funds, spells disaster for the planet. He has authorized drilling in federally protected lands, along the East Coast, Alaska and four miles off Florida’s Atlantic beaches. Candidate Obama in 2008 stood on the Florida coastline and vowed never to permit drilling there.

You get the point. Obama is not in charge. Romney would not be in charge. Politicians are the public face of corporate power. They are corporate employees. Their personal narratives, their promises, their rhetoric and their idiosyncrasies are meaningless. And that, perhaps, is why the cost of the two presidential campaigns is estimated to reach an obscene $2.5 billion. The corporate state does not produce a product that is different. It produces brands that are different. And brands cost a lot of money to sell.

You can dismiss those of us who will in protest vote for a third-party candidate and invest our time and energy in acts of civil disobedience. You can pride yourself on being practical. You can swallow the false argument of the lesser of two evils. But ask yourself, once this nightmare starts kicking in, who the real sucker is.

[brainpanhandler]

(Iamwhomiam wrote:)
"Remember, what the US does, it does in your name and for your benefit. Might feel just a bit better participating, rather than just taking the blame for policies you do not support."

(Nordic wrote:)
is just infuriating. Yeah no shit, the US does everything it does IN OUR NAME. Why do you think we're so fucking PISSED OFF? It has made murderers and terrorists out of every single one of us. We are now a terrorist nation.

Yet you say "for your benefit?"

What kind of bizarre thing is that to say? What is the benefit to me of our nation being a terrorist country?

If you as an American citizen are suddenly just now realizing that your country is a terrorist nation, you have not been paying attention. If you believe you have not been the beneficiary of our nation's actions you must be ignorant of how high your wages and standard of living is in comparison to others living only a few hundred miles south of you and elsewhere around the world. Their poverty brings to you your comforts and me mine. That is undeniable.

Completely and utterly undeniable and obvious. Easily researched, found and understood by anyone who gives a shit. Not to mention oil is the foundation of our civilization.

What is the benefit to me of our nation being a terrorist country?

Really? You really don't know the answer to that question?

[norton ash]

Cheap gas, cheap meat, an abundance of cheap disposable goods made in polluting factories staffed by slaves thanks to all the drones and dictatery goodness. The freedom to throw out your wardrobe and your phone three times a year! Fuck, yeah!

It might not feel like a benefit to YOU, Mr. Selfish, but the neighbours just might revolt without it. (Ahh, they're revolting already.)

[ninakat]

Yeah, go iPhone 5 baby!

[ninakat]

Interesting that both Chris Hedges and Chris Floyd use the poison metaphor in their respective pieces today, presumably unbeknownst to one another. Great minds and all that....

+ + + + +

Tool Kit: No Choice Proffered in Election's Poisoned Chalice
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 24 September 2012 09:22

Rob Urie looks behind the giddy "gotcha" reaction to Mitt Romney's comments on the "47 percent" of shiftless plebians he wants to abandon. Obama partisans have seized on the leaked remarks as glaring evidence of the "real choice" in this election: between a callous, clueless tool of the brutal financial elite and a genuine man of the people, fighting the good fight for all the people.

But as Urie points out, despite this exciting new narrative in the campaign, there is actually more than one tool in the elite's election toolbox:

It was Spring of 2010, less than a year after the official end of the last recession but still deep in the throes of the Great Recession, that Barack Obama’s ‘deficit commission’ met for the first time. With close to twenty-five million people unemployed or underemployed and the number living in extreme poverty rising quickly, Mr. Obama’s central economic concern was cutting government spending. ‘Entitlements,’ rather than bankers, militarists and tax cheats, were bankrupting the country. And the co-Chairs of the commission he appointed had the solution: cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and corporate taxes and reduce government regulation of business.

With the faux surprise and opportunistic rants that met Mitt Romney’s 47% ‘dependent / victims’ comments, who noticed that none in his audience challenged them? And who among those who have read similar statements from Barack Obama’s ‘deficit’ commission believes that Mr. Obama’s big-money supporters are of different mindsets than Mr. Romney’s?

...The self-satisfied declamations against Mr. Romney’s comments by Democrats and their supporters depend on near complete ignorance of Mr. Obama’s actual policies while in office. Who in Mr. Romney’s audience, including Mr. Romney, benefited from the unconditional bank bailouts that Obama Generals Geithner, Summers and Bernanke orchestrated? Who among them stand to benefit from Mr. Obama’s top-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement that seals the power of international capital over labor and environmental regulations? And who among them stand to benefit from Mr. Obama’s build-out of the domestic infrastructure of surveillance, policing and the legal framework needed to crush rebellion? As Mitt Romney is in the process of demonstrating, it is clearly Barack Obama who is the more effective tool for promoting ruling class interests. ...

Mitt Romney’s public persona is exactly as he is—a deeply clueless aristocrat born to wealth and power whose political interests lie exclusively with those of his class (and race). And his views, as with those of his class, are based on his experience of the world. That many of the rest of us, including Barack Obama, have lived experience quite different from Mr. Romney’s provides us with perspectives different from his. And therein lies the rub—who can better sell the agenda of the ruling class: a conspicuously clueless aristocrat who wears his self-interest on his sleeve or a skilled technocrat who can speak the language of ‘the people’ while serving these same interests?

...Democrats and their supporters seem to want to continue their role of recent decades as constructive functionaries in a system designed to facilitate and perpetuate the fortunes of an economic elite, a ruling class, which has found ever more effective ways of siphoning off the wealth created by working people and nature while increasing their domination and control over our lives. The results are the largest and most oppressive prison system in the world, the greatest concentration of wealth in the fewest hands in human history, the largest and most deadly military in human history, used to promote the fortunes of the ruling class, and environmental catastrophe.

...Mitt Romney’s views, and those of his class, are emblematic of the extreme class division that comes with extreme income and wealth division. ... But his actual policies would look as much like Barack Obama’s as Barack Obama’s do like George W. Bush’s. Defenders of Mr. Obama’s signature achievement, his scheme to force people to buy health insurance from private insurers that have no intention of willfully paying claims, have Mitt Romney to thank for it—it was his plan. And how would Barack Obama’s unconditional and ongoing bailouts of corrupt bankers have gone over if Wall Street McMoneybags Romney had engineered them? The real choice isn’t what either party is claiming it is. The real choice is between the existing political economy and one that at least stands a chance of working. And neither party is offering that choice.

No: what they are offering is yet another draught from the poisoned chalice, filled with the rancid bipartisan brew of war, ruin, injustice and fear.

[DrEvil]

Just out of curiosity - Are there any provisions in the constitution to disband the union and remove the federal government? Or would it take some "watering of the tree of liberty"?

[Iamwhomiam]

ninakat, Carlin and I were friends and he may have gotten that bit from me a long time ago when I shared those feelings with him. We often discussed such things. No matter that I did not recognize the second paragraph as his words rather than yours; you agree with the sentiment.

Some of us will always find ourselves more involved than others in trying to slow the slide into the horrific times that I feel are sure to come. I don't fault you for making your choice a vote of conscience for an utterly unelectable "candidate." For me, at least at this point in time, doing the same is unconscionable. I've suggested that this is not the time to vote for someone who is utterly powerless to effect change or slow our collapse. I do hope Obama will do just that. Slow the slide into chaos. I also feel that if Romney were to be elected he would accelerate our sliding; in fact, I would not at all be surprised if that was the primary purpose for his being. Chaos, suffering and death.

The only Presidential candidates that won that I've voted for were Clinton and Obama. I cannot remember voting in the Ford / Carter contest.

I must say that I do not disagree at all with Hedges, excepting for what he has to say in his last paragraph. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Hedges himself has been accused on these pages of being a disinfo agent. But I like the guy. However, any of you wonder why he with his great number of readers has not sooner or really, at all, used his position to muster support for Stein? Or why he's advocating open revolt? (He is quite wealthy, you know)

"You can dismiss those of us who will in protest vote for a third-party candidate and invest our time and energy in acts of civil disobedience. You can pride yourself on being practical. You can swallow the false argument of the lesser of two evils. But ask yourself, once this nightmare starts kicking in, who the real sucker is."

Perhaps needless to say, I disagree with nearly all he has to say here. Yes, it is a "brand" war, but the ingredients of one product certainly is more appealing to me than the other. Hedges is dead wrong that voting for the lesser of two evils is a false argument. It is the only argument that matters. One choice offers some small hope while the other only offers hopelessness.

I doubt very much that I'll still be around in 20 years. Many of you will be. I'm doing my utmost to make this world a better place for those of you who plan on living longer and for those yet to come and yes, I feel very good about that.

Whether the nightmare kicks in sooner or later I believe depends primarily upon your vote, and if it does kick in sooner rather than later, ask yourself who the real sucker is.

No one is prepared for what's to come. We need more time to prepare, if that's possible. I believe my voting for Obama will buy us time we desperately need. It's that simple.

[ninakat]

Well, Iamwhomiam, nothing personal, but I expect Carlin would be disappointed in you. But he'd probably be disappointed in both of us for wasting our time debating something as futile as elections in the 21st century. How you can believe Obama gives us more time is beyond me, given the trajectory he's been on. Jesus. But, nothing personal, really. It's just a board, it's just a ride...

[Iamwhomiam]

^^^^ "How you can believe Obama gives us more time is beyond me, given the trajectory he's been on. Jesus. But, nothing personal, really. It's just a board, it's just a ride... "

Not to be rude, ninakat, but have you actually read either party's platform or read or heard the words from Romney, Ryan, or Limbaugh (or his equivalent)? Honestly, you're equating the two candidates to be equally evil. They are not. One appeals to the worst of us and the other appeals to the best of us, service to self and service to others. Just because both offer a service does not mean the service offered benefits all equally.

Do as you will. It's your karma you'll have to deal with, as I will mine.

Oh, about the dead man... I really can't concern myself with wondering whether or not he would approve of my position. He's dead, you know.

[2012 Countdown]

ninakat, Carlin and I were friends and he may have gotten that bit from me a long time ago when I shared those feelings with him. We often discussed such things. No matter that I did not recognize the second paragraph as his words rather than yours; you agree with the sentiment.

Some of us will always find ourselves more involved than others in trying to slow the slide into the horrific times that I feel are sure to come. I don't fault you for making your choice a vote of conscience for an utterly unelectable "candidate." For me, at least at this point in time, doing the same is unconscionable. I've suggested that this is not the time to vote for someone who is utterly powerless to effect change or slow our collapse. I do hope Obama will do just that. Slow the slide into chaos. I also feel that if Romney were to be elected he would accelerate our sliding; in fact, I would not at all be surprised if that was the primary purpose for his being. Chaos, suffering and death.

The only Presidential candidates that won that I've voted for were Clinton and Obama. I cannot remember voting in the Ford / Carter contest.

I must say that I do not disagree at all with Hedges, excepting for what he has to say in his last paragraph. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Hedges himself has been accused on these pages of being a disinfo agent. But I like the guy. However, any of you wonder why he with his great number of readers has not sooner or really, at all, used his position to muster support for Stein? Or why he's advocating open revolt? (He is quite wealthy, you know)

"You can dismiss those of us who will in protest vote for a third-party candidate and invest our time and energy in acts of civil disobedience. You can pride yourself on being practical. You can swallow the false argument of the lesser of two evils. But ask yourself, once this nightmare starts kicking in, who the real sucker is."

Perhaps needless to say, I disagree with nearly all he has to say here. Yes, it is a "brand" war, but the ingredients of one product certainly is more appealing to me than the other. Hedges is dead wrong that voting for the lesser of two evils is a false argument. It is the only argument that matters. One choice offers some small hope while the other only offers hopelessness.

I doubt very much that I'll still be around in 20 years. Many of you will be. I'm doing my utmost to make this world a better place for those of you who plan on living longer and for those yet to come and yes, I feel very good about that.

Whether the nightmare kicks in sooner or later I believe depends primarily upon your vote, and if it does kick in sooner rather than later, ask yourself who the real sucker is.

No one is prepared for what's to come. We need more time to prepare, if that's possible. I believe my voting for Obama will buy us time we desperately need. It's that simple.

Carlin was the man. Lucky you to have known him. Best rant on youtube in my signature link, imo.

re:Hedges, fyi-

Video: CrimethInc vs. Chris Hedges, a Debate on Tactics & Legitimacy in Occupy & Beyond
Sep 23, ’12 12:54 AM

Video: courtesy of Brandon Jourdan of Global Uprisings

Chris Hedges made himself a self-described “lightning rod” for this tactical debate in February, 2012 when he published his now infamous “The Cancer in Occupy” article (an indictment of black-bloc tactics) on his syndicated TruthDig column. The sometimes ugly debate that followed Hedges’ article continued to boil over on internet forums and comments feeds surrounding the Occupy movement. Since there is little accountability on internet forums and similar venues we thought it would be prudent to bring both sides together for a respectful face-to-face debate. Short of a handful of passionate outbursts the audience at last week’s debate at the CUNY Grad Center between the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and B. Travern of The Crimethinc. Ex-Workers Collective was perhaps the most disciplined “real-world” assembly surrounding this polarizing argument.Both Travern and Hedges attempted during the debate to define where tactical legitimacy begins and ends. While each had differing answers to the moderator’s questions, the audience was excited to see the intersections between the two. Travern conceded that he found himself agreeing with ~80% of what Hedges said about revolution. Interestingly Hedges also conceded when he proclaimed that “he is not a pacifist” and announced during the debate that he too is an advocate for “a diversity of tactics” …yet the two drift apart when defining what “diversity of tactics” personally means to each of them. Though some awkward gaffs were made, and some questions left unanswered, the event as a whole was an informative and encouraging experience that many could take a great deal away from. We encourage you to watch the video above, share it with your friends, embed it on your own blogs, continue to build dialogue surrounding the issues therein, and most of all take action for a more just future in the most effective and sensible ways you see fit.
At times it makes sense for Sparrow to mute our “radical” opinions and instead provide substantive facts that mimetically lead the readers/viewers/listeners we engage with to reach their own radical conclusions. This is why we felt a public debate, in the vacuum of a highly controlled venue, would be the best way to harness the vitriol of 7 months of internet bickering and turn it into something hopeful and constructive. We hope we did just that…
-
http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2012/09/chr ... upy-video/

[Belligerent Savant]

Honestly, you're equating the two candidates to be equally evil. They are not. One appeals to the worst of us and the other appeals to the best of us, service to self and service to others. Just because both offer a service does not mean the service offered benefits all equally.

Do as you will. It's your karma you'll have to deal with, as I will mine.

Oh, about the dead man... I really can't concern myself with wondering whether or not he would approve of my position. He's dead, you know.

One appeals to the BEST of us? Really?

They are f'ing POLITICIANS running for the HIGHEST office. Liars. Thieves. Cheaters. And more often than not, far worse.
No politician reaches anything near high office without selling out whatever shred of ideals/values they MAY have had when they started out.
They have sold themselves to the Gods of the System. They're both of the same cloth. Slightly varying colors or texture, but the same cloth nonetheless.

One of those 2 may be more "evil" by fractions of degrees if one chooses to split hairs about it, but in the end they both serve interests outside of us, outside of the citizenry, outside of the world at large.

Both parties are bullshit. Theatrics, as I and others have stated many times already.

Quite interesting to read comments calling for voting for EITHER of those 2 under ANY circumstances... have i stumbled into a parallel universe where RI is actually DU or HuffPo [or whatever other insipid 'liberal' blog/sites exist to perpetuate the notion of "us. v. them" among the plebes]?

And yes, "the dead man" is indeed dead. As we all will be. Relatively speaking, it is moments away. Your entire lifespan is nary a wink of the Universe's eye.

[Iamwhomiam]

I thought I most clearly set forth my definition of the "worst" and the "best" of us:

Worst:
service to self

Best:
service to others

There are exceptions. My Congressman, for example. A honorable fellow.

"Quite interesting to read comments calling for voting for EITHER of those 2 under ANY circumstances... have i stumbled into a parallel universe where RI is actually DU or HuffPo [or whatever other insipid 'liberal' blog/sites exist to perpetuate the notion of "us. v. them" among the plebes]?"

That's just plain ol' rude. To all who've honestly shared their rationale for the choices they've made and written about here. Never before have I ever advocated for any Presidential candidate, never. This time it seems so much more important to do as I have.

Oh, about this: "...insipid 'liberal' blog/sites exist to perpetuate the notion of "us. v. them" among the plebes]?" I tend to think teh radical right with their radio personalities have already trademarked the "us. v. them" thingie. Maybe even patented it.

I don't know of any 'liberal' blogs or sites, insipid or otherwise.

I don't know you at all, BS. You bummed because Paul got swept aside?

[Belligerent Savant]

I don't know you at all, BS. You bummed because Paul got swept aside?

lol... Yes, 'ol Pauly was a favorite of mine. Always good for a laugh or two.

At any rate, perhaps I over-reacted just a tad -- my bad.

I've had more than my fair share of run-ins of late with associates and pals that are waist-deep in the propaganda currently being peddled leading up to November, so my tolerance is a bit low at the moment.

I'm registered as an Independent, actually [to be clear, NOT the 'Independent Party', but as an Independent -- non-partisan -- voter]. And have voted in each election I've been eligible to vote, despite whatever opinions I may have about the process itself. Don't think I've ever voted for a Republican, not that it matters.