9/29/08 Obama more trusted than McCain on all major issues

Post debate voter polls show Obama is now trusted more on all major issues!! This even includes issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration and taxes, previously McCain strongholds. It appears that Obama's message that he will lower taxes for 95% of the population while McCain's taxcuts only favor the rich is getting through. Obama's traditional leads on the issues of budget and healthcare got wider after the debate as well. Obama also maintained his 50% voter support for the fourth straight day, the first time he has done so since June.

Obama Gets Post-Debate Boost in Voter Trust on All Issues
Monday, September 29, 2008

Surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters
September 27-28, 2008

Issue Obama McCain
War on Iraq 46% 45%
Immigration 43% 40%
Environmental Issues 54% 37%
Balance Fed. Budget 47% 43%
Negotiate Trade Agreements 47% 43%
Taxes 48% 45%
Social Security 49% 41%
Healthcare 54% 38%
Education 53% 36%
Abortion 47% 42%

Capping off another day of good news for Obama, former Prez Bill Clinton today gave Obama a ringing endorsement, saying he will be shocked if Obama doesn't win. He also announced he will be hitting the campaign trail for Obama this week, starting in Florida where a Rasmussen poll released today showed the candidates were tied at 47% each.

9/29/08 McCain did phone it in and took credit - before the bill died

Wow, big day on Wall Street. Largest ever plunge of the Dow (but not the largest %). And of course, the blame game is on full swing. Why did the bailout not pass the House? Let’s do the simple math: 2/3 of Dems voted for it, and 2/3 of Repubs voted against it. So who do you think is most responsible for it not passing? According to McCain, it's Obama! Never mind that McCain and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

Speaking at a rally in Columbus, OH just shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines. “I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, said McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker on Fox News that the deal would not have happened “without Sen. McCain.” Sadly for McCain, the rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

It’s truly amazing to watch this man and his wild swings with the “truth” – it’s getting impossible to separate McCain’s lies from the truth – the ease with which he denounces his own statements, sometimes made the same day, is truly astounding. The Audacity of Hope? Forget it, McCain is trumping that with the Audacity of his Lies.

In the same speech in Columbus, McCain said “You know, remarkably, some people have criticized my decision [to “suspend” his campaign], but I will never, ever be a president who sits on the sidelines when this country faces a crisis. I know that many of you may have noticed, but it's not my style to simply "phone it in."

Except he did phone it in.
John McCain stayed in Washington last weekend, supposedly to keep working on the bailout legislation. But not on Capital Hill, however, preferring to work out of his campaign office
"He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," said his senior adviser Mark Salter. 'Nuff said.

9/28/08 McCain: lifelong gambler (literally!)

I wrote back on Sep 18 about what a joke it was that "John "Gambler" McCain vowed to take on Wall Street's "casino culture" after the US government's 85-billion-dollar bailout of AIG. Well, I was closer to the truth than I thought:
the NY Times today reports on McCain's close ties to the gambling world, about how he has done more than any other member of Congress to build America's casino landscape today, but most tellingly, about how he personally has gambled at least once a month for most of his adult life.

"A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table" the article says. This is why he took those gambles in his campaign already: choosing the Rove sleaze machine to run his campaign, picking Palin as his VP candidate, and last week, his desperate (and also failed) gamble to postpone the debate under the guise of "leadership" in the government's bailout of Wall Street. McCain has accepted more gambling money than any other member of Congress outside Nevada and New Jersey, the biggest gambling states.

Now, I ask you again, is this the kind of man we want to be our President? One who, when confronted with tough choices, decides on impulse to go with the Hail Mary pass and damn the consequences? Or do we want a President who keeps his cool even when things look grim, and continues to make rational decisions under pressure? I think the choice is clear, and is getting clearer every day.

9/27/08 (just!) And the winner of Round 1 is.. Obama

All 6 of you who voted in my little personal poll were right (OK - 5 of you, I was one of them!) - Obama did win tonite, according to both polls taken by CNN
and CBS , and also according to most pundits that I heard and read. What is perhaps surprising is the margin by which he won in the polls - 51% to 38% on CNN. I saw the debate too and I would have said Obama did better on the economy but McCain did hold his own on the security issues, so I'd have given a slight edge to Obama. The reason for the large margins are 2-fold:
1. This debate on foreign policy and security was supposed to be McCain's forte (although the first 36 minutes were on the financial crisis) and Obama held his own, and IMHO, scored points for focusing on Al-Queda and Afghanistan and the essential role of international cooperation in responding to a global threat.
2. Apparently more Democrats than Republicans were watching the debate (what a surprise!), so the poll numbers favor the Dems (41% to 27%). We'll see tomorrow if this was significant.

Personally (and I'm trying not be biased), I thought Obama came off as being more calm, rational and composed - one might say Presidential - whereas McCain seemed defensive, always looking down or at Lehrer, was arrogant and repetitive- and many times, did what he's done in the campaign - lied, even about Obama's own statements, with Obama standing right there - but never once did McCain look Obama in the eye the entire time. With this attitude, he speaks of reaching across the aisle and working with Democrats? What a joke. It's been clear that the only time any Republican, be it McCain or Bush, is interested in working with Democrats is when their house of cards falls down and they're looking for help to share the blame. Sorry, guys, not this time. Here's grading of various aspects of their performance at Time/CNN .

The most pleasant surprise of these polls for me was the huge leads among women and very surprisingly, among those 55 or older - heretofore solidly McCainLand. Most likely, this relates to the fact that they think, rightly, that their retirement money is safer with Obama. As Jon King pointed out on CNN, this is also the most reliable voting group - so that is a huge boost. Also was nice that 64% thought Obama was more likely to win the election.

But let's not get too carried away - Kerry also had pretty big "wins" in the 2004 debates, and look what happened . That might have been more due to vote and voter manipulation, who knows? But that is precisely why we need to carry this momentum and build up a much bigger, unshakeable and undeniable lead going into Election Day. So, folks (and Obama), don't take your foot off the pedal - there is more work to be done.

But for tonite, mmm... that victory is nearly as sweet as my ice wine (from Canada - according to McCain, one of the terrorist refuges we send oil money to). Sleep well, gentle folk.

9/26/08 From Picking Palin to Picking on Palin

Oh my, how the cookie does crumble. The pendulum has swung so far the other way on Palin, I almost feel sorry for her now. She's now being hammered even by conservative gurus who only a month ago saw her as the second coming - for example conservative columnist Kathleen Parker who had praised McCain's "keen judgment" in picking Palin who she said was "a perfect storm of God, Mom and apple pie," now says Palin should step down from the ticket. She's not alone, the article also cites 3 other conservatives who say the same David Brooks, George Will, and David Frum.
Palin step down
But what the heck, it's still fun to pile on the pressure and watch her squirm. For today's episode, we have the clip where she rears her head and says "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. "
Anderson Cooper's double take is priceless.
Palin clips
Heck, while you're there, check out the other clips on this interview as well. It's fun, it's Friday.

More seriously, Carl Bernstein echoes exactly what I've said on this blog for the last month, that all these Palinproblems are entirely McCain's fault, she is who she is, and is probably a mighty fine governor of the state of Alaska, but in picking her for VP, he exercised a colossal misjudgement and threw away his hard-won legacy of an honest, straight-talking patriot.
The devolution of McCain

Looking back, I think maybe even the bigger mistake he made was in hiring the entire Bush campaign team (who basically burnt him at the stake in 2000) to run his campaign, including Karl Rove's protege Steve Schmidt, whose capacity for evil sleaze even gives his master pause. A decisive victory by Obama in this election would surely end these evilmongers' career once and for all, and perhaps return American elections to the democratic ideal the world once looked up to.

I'll drink to that tonite when I'm watching the debate.

9/26/08 Obama opens 5 pt lead in Virginia

I wanted to take a quick look at the polls before the debate tonite. The news is overwhelmingly good for Obama, further rationale for why McCain took that dramatic gamble that failed so miserably. I think Virginia may become the critical state in 2008 as Ohio was in 2004. If Obama wins VA, he's probably home and dry. Here are 5 of the top headlines on the Rasmussen/Fox site (typically Republican leaning!):
Obama Takes Five-Point Lead in Virginia
48% Disagree with McCain, Think Debate Should Go On
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (Obama 5o%, McCain 45%)
McCain Only Ahead By One Now in Florida
Obama Takes Four-Point Lead in Pennsylvania
Ohio Now a Toss-up
And over at Pollster.com, we see that Obama has pulled to within 1 pt in Montana, and is ahead in MI (3%), NH (2%) and North Carolina (2%)! These are within MOI, sure, but the trend lines are consistent.
MO: McCain 47, Obama 46 (R2K-9/22-24); StrategicVision: MI, NH (9/22-24);Rasmussen: NC, MA (9/23)
Desperate times for McCain. I wonder what desperate measures we'll see next.

9/25/08 McCain showboating serves no purpose

Boy, this sure was an action-packed day in the political world. It's midnight and I'm still catching up. McCain's evasive action on the debate which was structured as an urgent need to return to Washington to end this financial crisis has ended up being nothing more than the empty showboating of a scared man who sees the writing on the wall (and I'm not talking about his health). As I said before, I still hold that the main reason was to deflect attention from Palin's disastrous interview with Couric (have you seen it yet? it's hilarious!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Yx-RhHb4g ) and to lay the ground for cancelling the VP debate next week. We'll see about that. But more to the point, McCain's return served no purpose whatsoever. Many sources (including NY Times and CNN) report that McCain met with Republican Boehner and looked at their proposal, then sat silently for 40 minutes at the all-parties meeting called at his behest by Bush, before opening his mouth and saying - nothing of import, according to people present.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/us/politics/26campaign.htm

And we learn late tonite that all the talks collapsed and there was no deal on the bailout anyway.

So let's summarize - all McCain has achieved so far is:
1. Duck out of his debate and try to make a case for Palin to duck out of hers
2. Earn David Letterman's wrath by ducking out of his show claiming to be flying to Washington on his lifesaving mission while sitting in a room down the hall talking with Couric at the same time he was to go on Letterman's show. Moreover, he didn't leave for Washington till the next morning, and we already know all his vital work there today.
3. Confirm his image as a desperate gambler unfit for Presidency in the minds of the American public, as shown by the hundred thousand or so people who voted on a CNN poll that showed 70% of them thought his move was nothing but a political ploy.

As for his holier-than-thou attitude in "suspending" his Presidential campaign to be at Bush's side in the bailout battle, I say "more lies". What "suspension"? AP & the Huff Post report his ads continued to run, his aides were out peddling their wares on MSNBC, his campaigners were going door-to-door in 15 states, and of course Student Sarah was continuing her education by making a highly visible pilgrimage to Ground Zero. I say again "What suspension? Nothing but more lies".
UPDATE: Apparently McCain has backed off and conceded victory (?!) by agreeing to debate after all, further strengthening my suspicions that it was all a ploy to draw attention away from his floundering running mate!

I also came across what would be a particularly nasty little trick being played by the McCain campaign - if true. http://www.ickypeople.com/2008/09/mccain-sends-out-fake-absentee-ballots.html
It's claimed that the McCain campaign has sent out millions of fake absentee ballots to registered Democratic voters in battleground states, each of which contains the wrong return address or other errors designed to disqualify the vote. So far, I haven't been able to confirm this, and no major media outlet is carrying this, nor is it on Factcheck.org. I'll hold judgement on this for now - but truth be told I am hoping that that the Dems and Obama doing all they can to prevent having the election stolen by these sleazy tactics thrice in a row. Some whispers I've heard about voting machines not being ready in places like Ohio make me nervous.

Finally an interesting op-ed from the NY Times today by Roger Cohen examining America's fascination with exceptionalism (what he calls "Palinism" but could be just as well be "McCainism", or what I might call "isolationalism") and how it's not appropriate in today's world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/opinion/25Cohen.html?em

9/25/08: The real reason behind McCain's gamble

Everybody’s wondering why McCain dropped his bombshell trying to squirm out of Friday’s debate. It was a desperate gamble to deflect attention away from Palin’s bumbling interview with Katie Couric on CBS Evening News at 5.30pm. It worked, but only for a couple of hours. Millions of Americans including me caught her panic-stricken, broken-record replies to questions about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ getting paid by Freddie Mac. This picture is worth a thousand words, so see it for yourself at:

Katie Couric talks to Sarah Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Yx-RhHb4g

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2008/09/couric_letterman_too_much_for.html

Now, wait for the next bombshell: McCain will demand cancellation of the VP debate and air his debate then instead. He made the biggest mistake of his life picking this inexperienced bumbler for a VP, and now his campaign is reduced to playing keep-away with the media and the American people. Well it’s not going to work.

If you want to see what a real VP candidate looks like when talking to the press and answering difficult questions (without Cliff notes), see:

Joe Biden on Meet the Press

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JRiWazVoNQ&feature=related

Joe Biden on the Today Show Sept 16

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V544QfumwUY&feature=user

9/24/08 McCain is chickening out on the debate

McCain is chickening out on the debate. Plain and simple. He is unprepared and afraid. First it was Palin being cosseted and now he's running away from facing the public too. I was really looking forward to these debates - pretty much our only chance to see them unscripted before the election. No doubt there will be an "emergency" in Alaska (perhaps a bridge falling somewhere) that will tear Palin away from her debate too. I'm just disgusted with what the Republicans are calling democracy these days. Day after day more lies are exposed and now they've decided that they'd rather be elected on sleazy ads and canned scripts alone and hope never to face the public they're hoping will vote for them? NOT A CHANCE.

McCain has said he’d rather lose the election than lose the war. Now it seems he’d rather lose his integrity than lose the election. So children, what have we learnt about this man? Here’s what he cares about the most in order: the war > the election > his integrity. And somewhere down there, the American public who have to decide between these candidates in 40 days and are desperate to see them addressing their issues. McCain is not so needed in the Senate that he can't spare 90 minutes for a debate that Americans have been looking forward to for weeks. This man hasn't voted in the Senate since April, and 2 days before his biggest show, he gets a crisis of conscience and decides he'll go to work? The Congress doesn't need you now, McCain , but millions of Americans do. Don't be a chicken, show yourself.

BTW, here's what Obama said: “This is exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates,” he said.

He added: “Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my mind it’s more important than ever.”

9/24/08 More lies from McPain about Rick Davis

McCain said on Sunday that his campaign manager Rick Davis has had no connection to the failed real estate firm Freddie Mac for several years, and on Monday it comes out that Rick Davis has received nearly 2.5 MILLION dollars from Freddie Mac since 2000, including $15000/month upto LAST MONTH!!! Can we believe ANYTHING McCain/Palin says anymore? Their strategy seems to be lie until you get caught, then sweep it under the rug and move on to the next lie. I think the media needs to stop beating around the bush and follow TIME magazine’s lead in calling a spade a spade – McCain/Palin are liars.

McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/us/politics/w24davis.html?em

By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

9/23/08 Run, Palin, Run!! The downside of photo ops

McCain camp tries to keep reporters out of Palin meetings

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/23/media-presses-mccain-campaign-for-access-to-palin-meeting/

I’m pretty disgusted that it’s been 4 weeks since Sarah McPain’s nomination and just over to a month to the elections and she hasn’t even given a press conference - let alone answer any questions when she recaps her lies day after day. I think it’s pretty powerful when even staid TIME magazine openly calls them liars.
> John McCain and the Lying Game*
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1842030,00.html

This is their vision of the democratic process.. muzzle the press and feed that people what we want them to hear. Did someone say Vietnam? Wasn't he locked up and tortured for fighting against propaganda photo ops just like this when he was a POW? Whatever happened that John McCain? I just hope the Dems can win this thing and bring some sanity back to this country.

9/22/08 Palin blessed by witching pastor

This is old news, but I needed something else after all that grim reading I've been doing on the economy and the national debt (see previous posts) - not sure if this helped but it sure is different.

This is just too funny! Or it would be if this man wasn’t such a crazy fanatic. This might be our President one day??!! Scary scary scary….

Palin says Thomas Muthee made her governor of Alaska with his “righteous” powers.

Palin’s credibility is once again being questioned after an African pastor she credits with helping her political career was revealed to have waged a witch-hunt against a woman who was said to cause car crashes with her "demonic spells."

In June, Palin told how a visiting pastor from Kenya had foretold she was destined for greater things.

She told other members of the Assembly of God church in her home town of Wasilla, Alaska, that Thomas Muthee had laid his hands on her head and prayed over her when they met in 2005.

After what the 44-year-old described as his "awesome" prayer she went on to become Alaska's first governor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx-Ka0NTgRw&feature=related

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1057181/Palin-Afric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKEpsrwyiLk

9/22/08 It’s handout time in Washington!

Bush wants to make sure that all his best buddies get their cut before he leaves office. We already knew the oil companies were all running the largest profits in their history over the last few years. You may not know, but probably guessed that the defense contractors made out like bandits. Bush has handed out a total of 3 trillion dollars to them –for running an useless war - the defense budget went up 72% since he took office, compared to 0.8% during the Clinton years. Now his friends in finance are getting a trillion dollars in bailout money, rather than be held responsible to fix the problems they created). And you think this bailout is going to fix their problems? Nope, you can bet they’ll be back for more.

“So what about me?” say his other rich buddies. Just watch for the automakers, shipping companies, pharmaceuticals, airlines, health insurers etc to line up for their share. And who’s paying for all this? Why, you and me, of course – the poor, suffering American taxpayers. They just run up the tab (the deficit) and leave us to pay. Under Bush, the national debt has rocketed from 5.5 trillion to 9.8 trillion dollars. The largest previous increase was under – you guessed it – Reagan/Bush, when it went from 1 trillion to 4 trillion dollars (2-5.5 trillion in 2007 $). The interest on our $9 trillion national debt alone runs close to $300 billion (2007), or more than the entire GDPs of Thailand, Portugal, Finland or Colombia. To the tune of $5200 per year for an average family of 4 (compare that to the average $500 “stimulus” check you received, which btw you’re paying for too). And do you think it will be different with McCain in the White House? Since WWII, the Presidents who have had the largest budget deficits during their terms are:

1. R. Reagan 2. G.H. Bush 3. G. Ford 4. G.W. Bush. I think this plot says it all the best.

This plot from the Heritage Foundation, a Republican think tank. Remember, this is from December 2006, when the debt was “only” 7 trillion dollars. A more recent view of the deficit can be found at http://www.cbpp.org/pubs/fedbud.htm

The National Debt is now projected at11.2 trillion dollars, and looks like getting a lot worse. Basically, every Republican President after Reagan has enormously increased the debt. This is where your “tax cuts” are coming from. McCain is going to be no different, since this has become the Republican strategy.

BTW I didn’t make up these numbers – they’re from the President’s office. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/pdf/hist.pdf

And this article puts it in perspective – how it’s going to affect your family and your money.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=13209

And just so you can get a comparison of how vast the amounts of money we’re talking about here are - it’s so easy to say a trillion here, a trillion there - a trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. That’s one heckuva lot of money – just see how it compares to GDPs of entire (not-so-small) countries – it’s about the size of India’s GDP – a country with 1 billion people!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

9/21/08: Why I'm worried about the bailout

OK, I’m getting worried about where all this bailout money is coming from – guess what, it comes out of your pocket, via the NATIONAL DEBT. In Bush’s time alone the debt has skyrocketed from less than 6 trillion dollars to 11.2 trillion dollars now, and looks set for more. We may well be paying a trillion dollars a year just to pay the interest on the debt soon.

I found this great site with some of the easiest to understand charts of the economy I’ve seen – here’s one example of our national debt since WWII:

http://home.comcast.net/~andy_dunn/budget_main.html#national_defense

Notice how it stays steady for over 30 years after WWII, but then starts to shoot up after 1980? Not a coincidence, welcome, my friends, to Reaganomics – which has become the mantra of the Republican economic policy ever since. To summarize (yes, I’ll get hammered for this, but here goes): talk big about reducing government while at the same time putting in the biggest spending increases ever seen, and don’t forget to help all our wealthy friends in oil, defense and finance, meantime appeasing the American public with talk of tax cuts (mostly for the rich), which by the way, the people pay for anyway since we’re just going to add it to the national debt, which they don’t understand anyway!!

Since Reagan, the only time the debt flattened out or actually started to go down was under Clinton, but with Dubya Bush we’re back to the spending spree again, the likes of which have never been seen before!!

There are many other excellent charts at this site that are well worth taking a gander at. Bottom line is, our economic crisis is not due to a lack in productivity- au contraire, the GDP (and the GDP per person) continues to rise steadily year after year (Americans are working harder, not less), but because of profligate, out-of-spending by our government, particularly under Republican Presidents.

Here’s a clearer picture of this:

http://www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html

I also looked into who owns the National Debt – who are we actually paying all the interest to? Turns out that a big chunk is to our Federal Reserve Bank, which contrary to popular thinking, is not an arm of the Bush Administration, although it sure seems that way now.

http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/08/an-800-billion-.html

Foreign ownership of America is perhaps more visible when a Japanese company buys the Rockefeller Center or Columbia Pictures, or a British company buys Greyhound (did you know that? I didn’t), but the truth is much more subtle and dangerous – to us and to the world economy – nearly a fourth of our national debt is owed to foreign countries or corporations; about a fifth of it or about 1.5 TRILLION dollars is owed to just Japan, China, UK and OPEC. You’re worried about our economy now? If China and our “friends” who export oil (mostly Middle East countries but including Russia & Venezuela) decide to call in their money, you will have seen nothing yet. No, it won’t happen, because they like their money too, and if our economy tanks, they’re not getting their money back either. But it’s not a happy situation that America is increasingly beholden to foreign entities.

9/20/08 Trillion dollar bailout on Wall Street!

Wow! Can’t believe I was worried about the AIG bailout last week, this makes that seem like peanuts! Here’s a good take on this (this, by the way, is on the website of the Mises Institute, a proponent of the Austrian School, one of the oldest economic systems based on social science)

http://blog.mises.org/archives/author/j_henderson_1/

September 20, 2008 11:40 AM by J. Henderson

The Wall Street Journal editorial page's Stephen Moore supports the trillion dollar bailout of investment banks. Stephen is the alleged champion of free markets and was formerly with Club For Growth and was a federal budget policy director at the Cato Institute. His reasoning? Taxpayers must be made to subsidize an industry to avoid a "meltdown." Wrong! The meltdown, caused by the deflation of a Fed-created bubble, cannot be avoided. The bailout is merely transferring the costs to taxpayers.

Giving $700 billion (minimum) WITHOUT any oversight or ANY review to the man (Treasury secretary Henry Paulson) who got us into this mess in the first place? Especially to a man whose personal fortune of >$500 million dollars is tied up in exactly these same financial stocks? NO WAY! I will be contacting my local Congressperson & our Senators to make sure we know how this money is going to be used and that we (or at least Congress) has some say in it! I urge you all to do the same by contacting your Congresspersons.

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

9/18/08: McCain is always McSame

McCain really is McSame. Most Americans now agree - 68% of Americans think McCain will continue Bush's policies, with a full 22% believing he will actually extend them (CBS poll). He can't just shake 26 years of voting with your party and 90% voting with Bush overnight. It's very clear that right now he'll say anything, do anything to win this election. Just in the last couple weeks, McSame has said he is:

a fiscal conservative, a populist, a moderate, a reformer, an experienced Washington political heavy-weight, an outsider, a maverick, a regulator, a de-regulator and just about anything else he can think of and hope that we don't notice.

Just this week he has flip-flopped so many times:

"The economy is sound. The economy is in crisis. I'm for a bailout. I am against a bailout. I am against regulation. I am for regulation." McSame's positions on the economy are as volatile as the stock market. But Americans just aren't buying this anymore.

Goodbye McSame and whatshername.

In March, McCain told The Wall Street Journal: “I'm always for less regulation.”

Yesterday, McCain complained on CNN about regulators who were “asleep at the switch for the last couple of years.”

Here's another joke: John "Gambler" McCain vowed to take on Wall Street's "casino culture" after the US government's 85-billion-dollar bailout of giant insurer American International Group, the latest shock of a horrific fortnight for the financial industry. Maybe he's a believer in that old saying "You need a thief to catch a thief".

Obama plans to pound McCain for the fourth day in a row for his clumsy assertion that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Obama will link the two issues by arguing, “He didn’t understand it then, and he doesn’t understand it now.”

White House press secretary Dana Perino declined to repeat the “fundamentals are strong” characterization on Wednesday, saying there is “a mixed picture.”

So expect to hear Obama say that McCain is the last person to think that – that not even President Bush is arguing the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

9/17/08: Blame McCain for Palin

Now that Palin's lies, abuse of power, ignorance and hypocrisy have been revealed on national TV, the focus should return the to real issue: McCain picked her as his running mate.

With this pick, McCain decided to throw away his war-hero status, his integrity, and his most memorable contribution to government - his stand on earmarks. Palin's lies are really McCain's lies.. And now his first would-be Presidential decision is an outright, ignorant gamble on a lying hypocrite for a running mate. He has already become a puppet on a string - Palin's string. In fact, Palin already referred to what they would do in the “Palin-McCain Administration”. A slip of the tongue, sure, but a telling one, nonetheless. McCain is to Palin what Bush was to Cheney - a figurehead, only much weaker, and in much worse health. The comparison to Cheney, who is also fond of the “lipstick on a pig” phrase, has been noted by others:

http://www.squidoo.com/cheney_w_lipstick

The resemblance is deeper than the lipstick, as I mentioned before..she linked the "righteous war" in Iraq to 9/11 - 5 years after the Bush administration admitted there was no connection.

McCain is a confused, senile, inveterate gambler who has shown terrible judgment and thrown away his principles in selecting Palin as his VP. He is not fit to be President of this country.

9/16/08: Scary math

Palin is a bigger disaster than Ike, Gustav and Katrina put together.

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of war

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of rich getting richer, poor getting poorer

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of economic crisis (have you seen how many investments banks are collapsing?)

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of jobless and homeless people

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of rise in crime (people have to eat)

Scariest of all:

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye Roe v Wade, back to coathanger abortions in basements

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, hello constitutional amendments

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye USA as we know it.

9/15/08: Cheney II : The Sequel

I like some movie sequels, but Cheney II?? Too scary..

On Thursday 9/11/08, while speaking to troops departing for Iraq at Fort Wainwright, Palin linked the "righteous war" in Iraq to 9/11 - 5 years after the Bush administration admitted there was no connection!! Can't believe she would do such a thing on 9/11 - shameful.

Palin Channels Cheney's 9/11-Iraq Falsehoods
When everyone's attention was focusing on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's less-than-reassuring interview about foreign policy with ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, the Republican nominee for vice president was off delivering a speech in which she suggested a dramatically greater ignorance of recent history and international affairs than was on display in the interview...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080912/cm_thenation/1359848_1

To me the real issue is one of trust: I'm just tired to being lied to by my government. And from what I've seen, McCalin/Palin are just more of Bush/Cheney when it comes to the truth: they will say whatever is convenient, whether it's the truth or not. There have already been so many times McCain & Palin have "stretched" the truth, gone back on what they said, didn't know (even on matters they're supposed to be experts on - eg McCain on the so-called Iraq/Pakistan border or whether Al-Queda is Shiite or Sunni - see http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15836.html for a list).

Yes, you can be compassionate and say he was just confused, but even then, is a confused, senile old man really who we want as the next President? I just want our next President to be honest with us: in Obama I trust.

9/15/08: Palin channels Cheney

So McCain's own spokesman Rogers says "She's ready to be commander-in-chief" - which normally would be good, but given McCain's age and health, sounds foreboding. Please God, second-in-command is bad enough - long live McCain!

What is scary is that Palin's willingness to go to war with Russia and drop bombs on Iran and Pakistan sound eeriely like Cheney - and together with McCain's frequent confusion on the Middle East (see http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15836.html), McCain/Palin sounds scarily like the second coming of Bush/Cheney.

Palin Channels Cheney's 9/11-Iraq Falsehoods - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080912/cm_thenation/1359848_1

9/13/08: Student Sarah flunks her first midterm

So I’m guessing now that Palin floundered on her midterm exams (the ABC interview), I’m guessing she’s going to skip the finals altogether. I suspect that other than the debate with Biden (which I’m really looking forward to), she’s done with the media (at least the real ones) – it’s back to the same old acceptance speech full of lies which is all she can spout on the campaign trail. I think it’s a real flaw in our system that someone might be “elected” President, Leader of the whole darn “Free World” with so little scrutiny.

Democracy only works if people can talk to the candidates and know where they really stand. BTW, it's been more than a month since McCain gave a press conference. Straight Talk Express seems to have derailed, it's been more like TRASH TALK EXPRESS lately. Their policy is clear: spoonfeed the people only what we them to hear and avoid the media and people like the plague otherwise. We will go to war with every other nation to "protect democracy (read oil)" but scr*w democracy in our own.

9/12/08: McCain's colossal mistake: Sarah Palin on 20/20

I just watched Gibson interview Sarah Palin on 20/20 today.

I'm frankly horrified.

I think McCain made a colossal mistake in picking this right wing fanatic for a VP. She is clueless, inexperienced, and it’s downright scary to think (given McCain’s age and health) that she could be President!!! She thinks being able to see Russia counts as foreign policy experience?! She’s against abortion even in cases of rape and incest?! Forget stem cell research, we’ll all die of Alzheimers because we can’t find a cure with no tools. Freedom of speech? Only if you agree with her.

Some takes:

I'm no expert on the economy but it doesn't look like Palin knows anything either. All he's asking for is 3 things she would change from the Bush administration and after beating around the bush for a while and being patiently asked again, she says "Reduce taxes. Control spending. Reform the oversight on the agencies. " Oh right. And why is this "different" from Bush?? This is exactly what we've been getting from Bush for 8 years, and see where we are. She is so clueless. And when she has nothing to say, she goes on and on about the next level of bureaucracy. And the next level of bureaucracy. And the next level of bureaucracy.. please God, stop this madness and stupidity now.

CG: Why do you keep saying Obama will raise taxes?

Palin: I’m not a fan of Bill Clinton’s tax plan.

Hello, welcome to 2008. We were talking about Obama’s tax cuts for the middle class.

But Gibson lets it go, and stays with her.

CG: He (Clinton) created 22 million jobs, Bush 5 million.

Sarah: We have to create more jobs.

Great answer. How exactly? No idea.

Palin seems to be denying publicly known facts and rewriting history.

She denied supporting the Bridge to Nowhere though she’s on record defending it. That’s just silly.
About the books, she denied banning any books or desiring to do so, but her own campaign's spokesman said she asked about it 3 times.
"Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said Thursday that Palin asked the head librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, on three occasions how she would react to attempts at banning books."

In the interview Palin said "In our town there was an issue of if a parent came in and asked for a book to be taken off the shelf". I wonder if the "parent" was her too?
I'm just tired of these evasions and lies – and this is her FIRST interview!!! Possibly her last, on this showing.

8/30/08: McCain: which world do you live in?

OK, here’s today’s issue. Does McCain have a military mind?

This is supposed be his forte, his raison d’etre, his “advantage” over Obama. But can we really trust him to deal with the rest of the world?

Just last month, talking about Russia and the energy crisis, he referred to Russia’s threat to the non-existent country of Czechoslovakia – and this is not the first time. He’s repeated this particular blunder many times over the years, including the previous day, July 14, 2008 – John, listen up good – Czechoslovakia hasn’t existed as a country for over 15 years!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/14/mccain-references-non-exi_n_112650.html

He always seems confused about vital Middle-East issues where he's supposed to be an expert : see http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15836.html

for a list. He doesn't seem to know (or care) about the difference between Sunnis & Shia and which one Al-Queda is - he has repeatedly talked about Al-Queda's (non-existent) training bases in Iran - a deeply Shia country - is this laying the foundation for bombing Iran when he's in power?

UPDATE: Video of McCain's mistakes on Iraq - I particularly like Lieberman pulling him aside to correct him on the "Iran training Al-Queda" (at 1:02)!!!

I'm also deeply worried about us getting into a war with Russia over Georgia about guess what - an oil pipeline - and I haven't heard him say anything contrary to Bush's posturing on this issue.

8/29/08: I was energized!!

8/29/08

Note to readers: This was the day I started posting on various news websites. From this date to 9/25/08 when I officially inaugurated my own blog (the 10,000,001^th in the blogosphere), I am appending the posts that I had made on these websites.

Ladies and Gentlemen: That was an amazing convention! Every day, I was treated to some amazing, moving, honest speeches, detailing a vision of the America I want to live in. First it was Michelle Obama, then Hillary Clinton, then Bill Clinton, then Joe Biden and finally Barack Obama. I have not heard a better set of speakers at any one event in my life, and I make a living going to conventions and conferences, albeit mostly scientific ones! I am a news junkie , however, and I have seen many a political speech in my time, but I am now more hopeful than ever that there is light at the end of the tunnel, for me as a citizen, and for America as a whole, to end its increasing isolation and again take its place in this interconnected new world.