Pat Toomey, Crackpot

Ned has finally had time to devote himself to one of the nation's more important senatorial races, that in PA. It is between Admiral (ret.) Joe Sestak (D) and Pat Toomey (R), whom Ned believes to be a "fellow" or some such nonsense, with an anti-tax organization calling itself the "Club For Growth." Now, Ned agrees with most of Sestak's positions except his waffling on amnesty for illegal immigrants, but you can't have everything.
When it comes to Toomey, however, Ned sees a rabid wolf in sheep's clothing. Toomey's entire platform is based on "less" government spending, and "lower" taxes. He favors eliminating "unnecessary" government and environmental regulations. He wants to get rid of the capital gains tax and the inheritance tax, which benefits mainly plutocrats, he wants to lower the top rate of income tax, which, surprise! benefits plutocrats, and favors lowering or eliminating the corporate income tax, claiming that it is "higher than [most anywhere else] in the industrialized world." That would be true of course if it weren't for all the exemptions that corporations can take. If you factor in the exemptions, corporations pay very low taxes, and we all know of companies that pay NO TAXES AT ALL.
Toomey is also for eliminating Medicare and replacing it with, "Personal Medical Savings Accounts." This sounds fine, until you get cancer, which can cost $100k, because of the obscene profits of the drug companies, but we digress.
Basically, he is for eliminating any taxes on the rich, and forcing the average person to go hat-in-hand to Massa's back door and beg for crumbs. In this, he is very much like the extremists who hated Roosevelt because he had the temerity to free old folks from the need to seek charity in their old age by forcing through Social Security over the hysterical objections of Republicans.
Ned warns his many followers against being taken in by such lickspittles to the plutocrats.

Joe Miller (R, Alaska)

The latest of the "extremist" Republican candidates for Senate is one Joe Miller, a pal of Todd Pailn (we all know who he is!), and a foe of opportunist Lisa Murkowski. As of Aug 30th, Joe was ahead in his primary battle with Murkowski, an unpopular politician from an unpopular family, whose father appointed her to his seat when he ran for Governor (and was kicked out after one term, if Ned's memory serves). Ned's "progressive" friends are running around like headless chickens at the prospect of Miller taking Murkowski's seat, but Ned wonders what all the fuss is about. Murkowski is a right winger, just not as extreme as Joe. So what? She is "pro life" and so is he. She is a gun nut and so is Joe. She would vote to confirm right-wing judges and so will Joe. She favors unlimited military (war) spending and so does Joe. She is against a draft, ensuring that other people's kids will be called on to die for right wing politicians (and others as well, unfortunately) and so is Joe. Joe reportedly wants the Feds to "give back Alaska's land;" in other words, to cede all the federal land in Alaska to the state, since it never was Alaska's in the first place. That has about as much chance of happening as Ned has of being abducted by aliens, by the way.
She is against real climate change legislation and Joe is even worse, denying climate change exists. Now, to Ned this is a marvelously ironic situation, since Alaska will bear the brunt of early climate change effects, like melting of permafrost and glaciers.
No friends, to Ned it doesn't matter whether he is run over by a bus or a semi. One is squashed all the same. And at least Joe is against amnesty for illegal aliens, which group is costing this country billions each year.
But do any of Ned's readers wonder why Alaskans are such "rugged individualists?" Well, partly, it is because Alaska gets back about $1.50 from the rest of us for every dollar it sends to Washington DC. But more importantly, it gets a "severance tax" of a few dollars for EVERY BARREL OF OIL shipped south along the Alaska Pipeline, amounting to about 4 or 5 million dollars a day. Now, given that Alaska has about the population of Washington DC, that's a lot of moolah for those "rugged individualists" to spend, and spend it they do, as they get a tax rebate from the state every year. We are paying for their "rugged individualism."
So Ned says, a pox on both their houses.