“To demonstrate my displeasure with you, President Obama, I’m going to blow my own brains out.”

This evening we may experience yet another example of the limitless capacity of most Americans to vote down their own future.

At issue: a special election for the seat in Congress formerly held by Anthony Weiner, the loose-screw congressman who was fond of e-mailing photographs of his, umm, weiner to young women.

On the right is Tea Party radical Bob Turner who will vote with the Republican congressional roadblock to bring down the president by voting against anything Obama is for, regardless of the consequences. Against: healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, abortion, an infusion of capital into the economy or, if the issue ever comes up, washing your hands after flushing the toilet.

On the other side is a Democratic party stalwart, David Weprin, who will support Social Security, Medicare, programs to get more of us employed, infrastructure repair and improvements, better schools, and a woman’s right to decide whether or not she will bear a child.

The district, I’ve heard, is roughly two-thirds democratic. So who is projected to win?

At this moment, it’s Bob Turner, the Tea Party wing nut.So what’s going on here?

Simple. Lots of democrats, like me, are pissed off at Obama, who has fiddled around attempting to compromise with the uncompromising right wing of Congress while the economy continues to go down in flames.

Add to that, Obama’s position on Israel isn’t quite as pro-Israel as some people in the district would like. So even though Weprin is an orthodox Jew who is as likely to vote against Israel’s interests as Michelle Bachmann is to start shooting gay porno films, the voters in the old Weiner district are going to get even with the President.

The polls show a slight lean toward Turner. To demonstrate to Mr. Obama how mad they are, the democratic district may vote today for a man who will cut their Social Security, destroy their Medicare, jerk the rug out from their school-age and college-age kids, vote to sink the economy, and force their daughters to bear the children of rapists.

That’s like the idiot kids who blow their own brain out to punish their teachers.

Morning After Report: Yep, my fellow Dems did it, last night. They pulled the trigger and blew their own brains out, voting to destroy their future and the future of the kids in order to tell off President Obama. Bob Turner Won.

The New York Times reported:

“I am a registered Democrat, I have always been a registered Democrat, I come from a family of Democrats — and I hate to say this, I voted Republican,” said Linda Goldberg, 61, after casting her ballot in Queens. “I need to send a message to the president that he’s not doing a very good job. Our economy is horrible. People are scared.”

Unfortunately, Linda, you also sent yourself a message. It reads, "I'm mad at Obama, so screw me!"

The Times also reported:

Mr. Turner predicted that voters elsewhere would also rebuke Mr. Obama in the elections next year.

“We have lit one candle today,” he said. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”

Nice going, Dems. You've added one more obstreperous Republican to the ranks, one more for the President to "compromise" with.

Answer quick, John McCain: You have a goose that lays golden eggs. You should A) Kill and eat the goose B) Smash the eggs C) Drill for oil

It’s becoming clear that we Americans have a unique talent for ruining ourselves and our nation. It didn’t used to be this way. But the Republican Party and their know-nothing candidate, John McCain, seem hellbent on driving this country’s economy off a cliff.

Drilling our way to national ruin

Case in point: McCain’s contagiously stubbornly ignorant insistence that we can drill our way out of current high gasoline prices by drilling for small amounts of oil that won’t come to market for about ten years anyway – meanwhile endangering with pollution our coastlines and unspoiled wilderness of Alaska.

Bob Herbert, one of the more sensible op-ed columnists at the New York Times, sums it all up here.

Was P.T. Barnum
America’s greatest genius?

The McCain mission for economic suicide keeps chanting, “We have to drill here and drill now. ... Drill here and drill now. " More and more Americans are falling for this con, thus demonstrating P.T. Barnum’s observation that at least in America, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Meanwhile, golden opportunities – hard times always lay golden eggs for those who look for them – are falling into the hands of this nation’s competitors. We could have a new and highly profitable industry manufacturing wind generators. Instead, orders for these high tech energy machines that generate power essentially for free after they are installed are going to other nations, from Denmark to China, while McCain’s backward policy keeps demanding we pump for oil.

And because we keep spending our money on oil, we’re showering other nations with a gusher of our own cash – not only nations like Saudi Arabia, that pump the oil, but also nations like China, from whom we keep borrowing more and more money because our own has less and less value thanks to all the oil we consume.

How about buggy whips, John?

John McCain’s yearning to somehow find a few drops more of oil is about as forward thinking as a huge Congressional appropriation to save the buggy whip industry. Oil is a backward technology. It’s time to move on, before the rest of the world eats what’s left of our lunch.

But John McCain thinks – and perhaps he’s right, suckers – that he can win a presidency by yelling “Drill, drill, drill!”

If that’s our solution, we’re dead, dead, dead. And when our economy goes, so will our living standard, our colleges and universities, our technology, and our national defense.