Sour Grapes for Republican Whine

By Mark Lucas
News Editor
     America has a long tradition of accepting election results with grace, civility and good sportsmanship.  In 2000, Democratic Vice President and internet inventor Al Gore eventually acknowledged his defeat on a technicality, even though more people actually voted for him.  This year, US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama not only won decisively in the Electoral College, he also received 3% more of the popular vote.  Absent any proof of substantial fraud, Obama won reelection fair and square by any standard.
        So, this is the point where Mormon Bishop Willard Mitt Romney congratulates Obama.  Republicans and Democrats vow to work together, heal the wounds of a nasty campaign, find common ground, blah, blah, blah.  We've all heard the scripted malarkey before.  Right?
      Not this time.
      The Republicans are flipping out over their defeat.  It started before all the votes were tallied.  On election night, New York developer Donald Trump repeatedly called for a revolution and a march on the capitol during an online tirade.  Country singer and gun nut Ted Nugent tweeted that watching the election results caused him to cry tears of blood.  He described his fellow Americans as a bunch of pimps, whores and welfare brats who had voted to commit economic and spiritual suicide.
      Now, gun sales in Florida have jumped 40% on the assumption that Obama will increase the cost and regulation of firearms.
        Even Romney has cried foul play.  During a conference call with his major campaign contributors on Wednesday, Romney explained that Obama bought the votes of minorities with gifts.  He said Hispanics voted for Obama because he offered amnesty to the children of illegal immigrants.  He said young people voted for Obama because he offered to forgive their college loans. Romney said poor people voted for Obama because his health care reform offers them free medical care.
       In other words, Obama cheated by serving the millions of Americans who voted for him, paid his salary, invested him with authority and funded all the resources and manpower of the federal government.  What an OUTRAGE!  How DARE the American people expect their government to work on their behalf!  This is clearly contrary to Republican ideology which calls for the federal government to do nothing.  Worse yet, it runs against a long American tradition that the president should only give help to a few rich supporters who don't need it.
       Over 700,000 people have signed online petitions calling for all 50 states to peacefully withdraw from the nation.  Democrats and liberals have already fired back with a sarcastic volley of their own online petitions.  A petition calling for Obama to prevent the secession of any state has been signed by 2,190 people.  Another 10,652 people have called for Obama to strip the citizenship from anyone who signs a petition to secede from the nation and peacefully deport them.
       A petition with 3,196 signatures would require any state to repay it's portion of the national debt before seceding.  That's a particularly spiteful petition because the seven states with the most signatures to secede also receive the most funding from the US federal government.  These seven states received a total of 23% of all federal funds to the state governments in 2010.  Shockingly, these ungrateful states were also part of the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War:  Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama and Florida (which is the only one that voted for Obama ... eventually).
        Even in this parade of fools, Texas lives up to its reputation for always being the biggest.  Not only was Texas the first to collect over 25,000 signatures to secede, it collected the most, over 100,000.  However, secession is opposed by Texas Governor and failed Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.
     "Governor Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it," reads an official statement from the governor's office.  It's a sad day, when that amnesiac drug addict is the voice of reason.
     Even if Texas leaves the union, it might have to forge on without its state capitol.  The City of Austin has gathered 5,348 signatures on a counter petition to secede from Texas and stick with the rest of the USA.  In Austin's petition, the notoriously poor and liberal stronghold objects that its civil, religious and political freedoms have been oppressed by the rest of the Lone Star State.  Oh, by the way, the petition also calls for Austin to annex the other Texas cities of Dublin, Lockhart and Shiner on its way out of the state.