Screw the poor and aged. Steal from pensioners and miserably paid employees. Rob the schools. Then use the money to subsidize millionaires and billionaires.

"Please sir, may I have another spoonful of thin gruel? For I am fiercely hungry." 

"Damn you, you accursed street urchin! Shut your whining mouth. Don't you know I have billionaires to feed?"

Quick – Go grab a pail so you’ll have something to puke into. Then go here and read the latest disgusting news about the Dickensian States of America.

Meanwhile, in more and more cities and states, being so poor you're homeless is now a crime.

And if you think you'd like to help the homeless poor by feeding them, have another think. In 50 cities, from Daytona Beach, Florida to Camden, New Jersey, feeding the homeless poor is now a crime, too. Just let 'em stand up (because it's against the law for them to sit or lie down) and starve.

By the way, who are those self-righteous bastards who keep smugly declaring that America is a Christian nation? Oh right, people like this guy.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking pocket change

From a blog piece by Henry Blodgett on Yahoo's Daily Ticker, explaining a jury verdict under which which Samsung pays Apple a billion dollars:

The monetary damages here, though large, are almost irrelevant. Apple already has more than $100 billion of cash, and Samsung will barely miss $1 billion.

And I still see homeless people stooping in the gutter to pick up a nickel.

Thanks, Republican economics, for all the poverty – and keep cheerleading for it, John McCain. By the way, I love your dumb hat.

With John McCain essentially promising four more years of the Bush economy, with maybe some draconian budget-cutting measures thrown in to "reduce the deficit," it might be worth taking a look at some recent poverty numbers.

These come from an e-mail sent to me a few days ago by New York State Senator Liz Kreuger. She gets her information from a report from The New York Women's Foundation. It has to do with women but trust me, men and entire families are getting sucked into the same poverty hole.

• In 1989, 87.2% of women lived above the poverty line, but by 2005, only 83.4% lived above the poverty line.

• Today, 15.2% of New York's women live below the Federal Poverty Threshold ($19,806 for a family of four; two adults and two children), and 26.8% of all female-headed households with children live below the poverty line.

Kreuger adds:

The dire economic situation for women in New York and the downward trend are not isolated problems. Poverty creates ripple effects to th detriment of our entire state, impacting whole families, particularly impacting vulnerable children, elderly family members and whole communities.

Mind you, we're talking not about a long-declining rust belt state. This is happening in filthy rich, billionaire-loaded, $15 million luxury apartment-filled New York State. As the middle class slowly sinks into poverty while the super rich grow ever more super and richer, what does John McCain have to say about the economic policies that have brought us here?

Well, root around on his official website and you'll find him supporting heartwarming policies like these:

• He'll make it harder to raise taxes. Umm, he forgets to mention he's talking mainly about taxes on the rich. Warren Buffet, the billionaire investor, has complained that his secretary pays more of her income in taxes than he does.

• McCain will keep the tax cuts for millionaires on their capital gains and dividends. You're a poor jerk who only has $40,000 in a CD? Sorry bub, no tax break on bank interest for you.

•But McCain will cut the corporate tax rate 10% (thus shifting more of the burden to wage earners.)

•He'll also institute "pro-market health care and Medicare reforms." You don't know what that means? It means getting you out of Medicare and into an HMO with the disguising title "Medicare Advantage." Whatever they call it, it's an HMO. Did an HMO ever lower your health insurance rates?

I'd keep on going, but I'm almost ready to puke. Obama may have his faults, but if you don't vote for Obama what you're likeliest to get – if you're still part of the middle class by the time the next presidential term comes around – is impoverished.

P.S. What's with the dumb hat McCain is peddling on his website? Does he want to make us feel like we're all his kids? What's he trying to tell us? If he's the dad, who's the mom? I don't know about you, but I've never been in the same birthing room with Cindy McCain.