Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

My girlfriend went to sleep so you all in the general world will have the remainder of my post-election musings foisted upon you.

I can't see any reason to expect Obama to rediscover that civil liberties are a good thing, for United States citizens and citizens of the world; nor to expect him to put people ahead of politics and payoffs-- but i do hope the Obama administration and the Democrats at least relentlessly pursue their own party interests-- cutting off corporations that skew Republican (no more giveaways to Monsanto, at least some of big oil, defense and prison contractors, financial speculators, etc) and even slowing the redistribution of income from dynamic, job-generating city-regions to Republican regions that get more gov't money than they give; and ensuring everyone can vote.

A constitutional amendment giving everyone the right to vote probably isn't in the offering, but at least stating the principal that all citizens should be allowed to vote, and highlighting the number of people who are disenfranchised because of the war on drugs-- "you want to win elections with the votes of prisoners?" Well yes, when we imprison more people per capita than anywhere on earth, i think we need to establish the principal that you cannot take away the right of voting for any reason whatsoever.

The easiest path to Democratic party self-interest, aside from growing a spine and actually helping people, especially the least-wealthy 75%, would be accepting what seems to be Puerto Rico's voiced wish to become a state.

Next, Washington DC.

Heck, the establishment liberals could steal my idea for establishing a city of a quarter-million people in Wyoming, and taking two Senators and a Congressperson. Make it a model city for alternative energy experimentation and part of a hub of new high-speed mass transit-- either above-ground or tunneled vacuum-tube mag-lev is my vote, but whatever we choose to spend a billion dollars a month on here where the local multiplier redounds to us-- and oh yeah, we get infrastructure built too.

***

The tradition of election-night concession speeches is anti-democratic and pro-media.

Republicans would have to steal Ohio and probably steal Florida, with a lot of people watching, to win now. In both states, where we *know* the Democratic vote is being supressed, so a count of all challenged and provisional ballots would favor Obama-- and if there's no way to recount because the results are in the cloud of some Republican-connected firm, i think we'll have the moment when election integrity goes mainstream.

I just hope Warren proves way more progressive than Obama did. Her rise is frighteningly similar. I wish Scott Brown wouldn't concede (it is a very very nice speech). I think they must do that because they've got all these people assembled for a party, and they feel they can't leave them hanging.

But Massachusetts ranks "needs improvement" in election integrity itself, and evyrone who concedes before counting, let alone some kind of re-counting or spot checking, weakens our election integrity.