Pray for President Obama

May President Pinocchio Find His Lost Compassion for Christmas -- The Albatross Senate Bill Must Change in Conference or the Country Will Suffer

2009-12-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

Is Barack Obama's nose growing? He said he did not campaign on the public option. Hundreds of news clips and archival print stories beg to differ. Is he President Pinnochio, or is he a victim of presidential alzheimer's? What is it about the White House that makes their occupants forget their campaign promises. We thought Obama would be different, but apparently not.

Now that the albatross Senate health care bill has passed, the only hope for us is the conference committee and that Nancy Pelosi's team remains strong for the middle class. The taxes on group health plans, the mandate without a public option, the ruinous cuts in medicare for home health care and hospice that are in the Senate bill must be done away with as a matter of conscience.

Obama care has turned into Obama Doesn't Care with the passage of the Senate UN-Health Reform Bill. Let us pray that he finds again the compassion he seemed to show in his campaign for the office. A legacy of broken promises is not a good way to start his presidency. If he finds that compassion for the middle class again, then it will be a happy New Year.
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In spite of the gift of a very bad Senate bill, we wish you dear readers a Merry Christmas -- remember, JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON and WISE MEN AND WOMEN STILL SEEK HIM!

Keith Olbernan is Right -- the Mandate Must Go -- Obama is Accomlishing the Opposites of What He Promised Those of Us Who Voted for Him!

2009-12-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

After eleven months in office, Barack Husseien Obama is going down as a president who did not keep his promises, but also a president who is accomplishing EXACTLY the opposite of what he said he would do.

He is the anti-war candidate who has us deeper in war. He has done nothing in Iraq that President Bush had not only promised to do. And Obama has increased the troop levels in Afghanistan by over 50,000 troops.

Yes, he is the only Nobel prize winner who has ever won the prize and then increased troops in a war. But that is exactly what he had done.

He is the Trojan horse president. We elected him to do one thing, but he is doing the other, in so many cases.

He was elected to bring honesty to the White House, yet he defends the Bush torture techniques and the Bush secrecy policies. And he was elected to bring health care reforem and his SENATE bill is just a big, mandated payout to the insurance companies.

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT TO THE ONES WHO VOTED FOR HIM! How much better is he in reality than McCain, if at all?

He promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, yet his health care niil, without a public option to help keep costs down, has a huge tax cost.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has published a list of the 17 tax increases in the Senate health care bill, which are estimated to raise $370.2 billion in revenues over ten years:

1.40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500/$23,000 ($149.1 billion)
2. Employer W-2 reporting of value of health (negligible revenue effect)
3. Conform definition of medical expenses ($5.0 billion)
4. Increase penalty for nonqualified health savings account distributions to 20% ($1.3 billion)
5. Limit health flexible spending arrangements in cafeteria plans to $2,500 ($14.6 billion)
6. Require information reporting on payments to corporations ($17.1 billion)
7. Additional requirements for section 501(c)(3) hospitals (negligible revenue effects)
8. Impose annual fee on manufacturers & importers of branded drugs ($22.2 billion)
9. Impose annual fee on manufacturers & importers of medical devices ($19.3 billion)
10. Impose annual fee on health insurance providers ($60.4 billion)
11. Study and report of effect on veterans health care (no revenue effect)
12. Eliminate deduction for expenses allocable to Medicare Part D subsidy ($5.4 billion)
13. Raise 7.5% AGI floor on medical expenses deduction to 10% ($15.2 billion)
14. $500,000 deduction limitation on taxable year remuneration to health insurance officials ($0.6 billion)
15. Additional 0.5% hospital insurance tax on wages > $200,000 ($250,000 joint) ($53.8 billion)
16. Modification of section 833 treatment of certain health organizations ($0.4 billion)
17. Impose 5% excise tax on cosmetic surgery ($5.8 billion)

Talk about TAX and SPEND -- but the ones who get rich are the insurance companies!

As Keith Olberman, as honest a man as there is on television, put it recently, the mandate to buyr insuracne, without a public option, is a terrible thing. He called for its repeal from the already atrocious bill.

Olberman warned Obama: "Mr. President, they are calling you a socialist, a communist, a Marxist. You could be further to the right than Reagan – and this health care bill (as Howard Dean put it here last night, this bailout for the insurance industry) sure invites the comparison.

"And they will still call you names.Sir, if they are going to call you a socialist no matter what you do, you have been given full unfettered freedom to do what you know is just. The bill may be the ultimate political manifesto, or it may be the most delicate of compromises. The firestorm will be the same. So why not give the haters, as the cliché goes, something to cry about.

"But concomitant with that is the reaction from Democrats and Independents.
You have riven them, Sir. Any bill will engender criticism but this bill costs you the left — and anybody who now has to pony up 17 percent of his family’s income to buy this equivalent of Medical Mobster Protection Money.

"Some speaking for you, Sir, have called the public option a fetish. They may be right. But to stay with this uncomfortable language, this bill is less fetish, more bondage.

Nothing short of your re-election and the re-election of dozens of Democrats in the "house and senate, hinges in large part on this bill. Make it palatable or make it go away or make yourself ready — not merely for a horrifying campaign in 2012 — but for the distinct possibility also of a primary challenge."

Olberman continued: "There is only one redemption possible. The mandate in this bill under which we are required to buy insurance must be stripped out. The bill now is little more than a legally mandated delivery of the middle class (and those whose dreams of joining it slip ever further away) into a kind of Chicago stockyards of insurance. Make enough money to take care of yourself and your family and you must buy insurance – on the insurers terms – or face a fine.

"This provision must go. It is, above all else, immoral and a betrayal of the people who elected you, Sir.You must now announce that you will veto any bill lacking an option or buy-in, but containing a mandate."

This is a harmful bill, this Senate monstrosity, and we must pray that it is killed before it does much harm. It is not reform, it is not healthy and it is not ethical. The Senate bill with the mandate must be defeated, if not in the Senate, then in the House.

Health care reform that benefits the industry at the cost of the people is intolerable and there are no moral constructs in which it can be supported. Kill the bill tomorrow morning, for our children and our children's children.

Tax the Middle Class, Save the Rich -- the DEMOCRAT SENATE Plan in the Health Care Bill

2009-12-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

"Though the American left and right don't agree on much” Columnist Frank Rich over the weekend, "they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama's brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger's public image."

Hooray for Frank Rich's frankness! I am sorry to say I am one of those with such a suspicion. Where is the Barack Obama we all voted for? Where is the fire in his belly for defending the middle class? He is not the same man as he was last fall.

Now, using the selective memory that old fashioned politicians have always used ( we thought he was different), Mr. Obama says that 95 per cent of what he wanted is in the Senate Bill.

Really, Mister President? Are you sure you want to make such a claim when we have your speeches and campaign material all over the internet still?

Well, if you insist on saying such a thing, Mr. Obama, people will surely say things about you.

Where is Representative Joe Wilson when you need him? Some folks like him might say “You Lie!”, but I will be generous and just say, “Your memory is not precise, sir.”

EzrA Klein of the Washington Post and others have talks of Obama's promises. A look at campaign promises shows that these are things on health care that Obama promised, but failed to deliver:

1. Public option
2. No individual mandate
3. Drug re-importation
4. Government coverage of catastrophic costs
5. Employer mandate
6. National, rather than state level, exchanges

And then this horrific bill adds two things that Obama didn’t promise but are in the bill (and note, I agree the delivery system reforms are great improvements, but the case for the excise tax is a big attack on the unions and the middle class that supported Obama in the campaign).

1. Excise tax
2. Delivery system reforms

Yes, the Senate Bill is LOADED with taxes, bright shiny new taxes for many people. The Senate bill calls for a nearly $70 billion tax over 10 years on insurance companies, plus a $2 billion-a-year tax on medical devices. Billions of dollars are also meant to be raised from added taxes and fees on wealthier seniors, higher-end insurance plans and tanning salons.

Companies of all sizes have been increasingly burdened by health-care costs, which topped $400 billion in 2007, according to data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Unrestrained, that figure is expected to double by 2017. About 70% of workers receive health insurance through their employers.

Groups representing smaller businesses say the threat of increased taxes and premiums could outweigh provisions intended to limit the impact on small employers. The Senate bill "will not only fail to reduce and control the constantly climbing health-care costs small-business owners face, but it will result in new and greater costs on their business," said Dan Danner, head of the National Federation of Independent Business.

And the excise tax will crush workers and other folks who are on employee group insurance plans. Unions ranging from the powerful AFL-CIO to the National Education Association to the Communications Workers of America are decrying the provision in the Senate health package that would impose a 40 percent "excise tax" on insurance companies for "Cadillac plans" with high-cost premiums.

The unions claim the tax will end up hitting the middle class hard and say Congress should instead use the House-passed idea of simply increasing income taxes on wealthy individuals.The unions are correct. It is a terrible situation. And the Democrats are doing all of this, not the Republicans!

"The health plan excise tax will not let families keep the good health plans they have now," CWA President Larry Cohen said in a statement Tuesday. His group argues that insurance companies will end up reducing benefits to avoid the tax.

Thanks Mister Obama. You are allowing the biting of the hands that pulled the levers for you. And with this monstrous bill you are supporting, you are sealing a defeat for Democrats in 2010, not to mention 2012.

The Senate Health Bill is Very Bad Medicine for America -- May One Democrat Have the Guts to Vote No and Save the Country from a Lethal Mess

2009-12-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

It was a scene fit for Satuday Night Live. But it was sad, not funny. The Democratic "leader"ship in the Senate was all in joy as they patted each other on the back today, heaping accolades on Harry "Mr. Sellout" Reid, and I was reminded of a similar situation with the launch of the Titanic nearly a hundred yeats ago. A great iceberg is coming their way, but they are too puffed up and are too busy congratulating themselves to realize it.

Sad to say, the do nothing Republicans are actually right on the Senate bill,

Powerless to stop the bill, Republicans stepped up their attacks, contending the sweeping bill threatened to harm Medicare and add billions to the deficit and lots of taxes on the American people, with an economy already on life support. For once, the party of NO is right.

Thinking Democratic senators should vote NO on this bill that is bad for the middle class and the elderly. Of course,all the thinking Senators have been bought off by Harry Reid and/or the insurance companies that the Democrats in the Senate seem to really represent.

"Tomorrow the Senate will vote on a bill that makes a bad situation worse," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said on the Senate floor, according to the Associated Press. "This bill slid rapidly down the slippery slope to more and more government control of health care."

The final vote is now set for 7 a.m. Thursday, and that day, if this bill passes, will live in infamy, not with the laurels bestowed on Reid, but with the hurt it will put upon the American people. And Mr. Obama fiddles while the middle class is burning from burgeoning medical and tax debt and sheer legislative abuse.

A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT -- THE SENATE HEALTH CARE BILL NEEDS TO DIE

2009-12-23T00:19:00.000-08:00

I am praying that President Obama gets some guts and stands up for what we all thought he believed in when we forked out our money for his campaign and voted for him. Quite frankly, his performance in the health care bill debacle has been far below the stellar quality of his campaign. The White House seems rudderless, and gutless. Maybe David Plouffe, the miraculous campaign manager for Obama, would have been a far better chief of staff than Rahm Emanuel.

Obama seems to want to pass a bill just to say that he passed a bill. But the Senate version will kill the country as it is written -- yet he fiddles away as if it is the Magna Carta. Whatever happened to the Obama pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class? Why the mandate (which is really socialistic government intrusion in a big time way), when there is no public option to hold down costs? It provides legalized robbery for big insurance. Was that the change we voted for?

I voted for Obama, campaigned for Obama and have defended him vehemently for a couple of years. Now I would like him to do something for us, the ones that voted for him -- not the fat cats who voted for the Republicans. It is all so disappointing. Maybe Hillary would have had the toughness to play this game better than he is playing it. It seems he is mainly sitting on the sidelines, watching others play, while Washington burns with a nasty, ineffective fire.

And Harry Reid!? Don't get me started. What a sellout machine! Nancy Pelosi has more fortitude and cahones than Obama and Reid combined. The Senate Bill is a sellout to Ben Nelson and the insurance companies. It is WORSE than the current state we are in -- and I did not think that could be!

The Democrats need leaders, not weak-kneed doormats. The Republicans are horrendous - they do absolutely nothing. But in this case, nothing would be better than the toxic spill that is this Senate bill.

Part of the problem are the antiquated Senate rules -- definitely not fully democratic and surely not right for our times. Just like the electoral college, it makes the whole country hostage to small states and smaller minds. All the lobbyists need to do is pick off a few small state senators and they can write all kinds of "legal" atrocities upon the American people into a bill.

At this rate, the federal government is far from being functional, and it may never be so. Perhaps we would be more effective with a less centralized, state-based system, with only certain things like defense under the federal umbrella. Maybe the Republicans would be for that, and it would be better for the people to have decisions made more locally.

What is sad is that the TEA PARTY crazies were actually right about some things. They went over the top with their protests, but at heart they were right on the way the Senate bill has been constructed. With its abominable cuts in Medicare for the elderly (like hospice and home health care), and its allowing insurance companies to charge up to 300 per cent more for the elderly, it IS AGAINST OLDER PEOPLE in many ways. And it is loaded with new taxes for regular folks. THE SENATE BILL MUST DIE!

Jane Hamsher put it wonderfully at Firedoglake.com:If you read this you will have to contact your Senator to vote against this monstrous bill.

"Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill

1.Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not.

2.If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.

3.Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can't afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.

4.Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.

5.Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.

6.Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits -- like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions -- until 2014 when the program begins.

7.Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.

8.Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.

9.No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.

10.The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year -- meaning in 10 years, your family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

Background information on each point:

1.Hardship Waiver And Restrictions On Immigrants Buying Insurance Undercut Arguments For An Individual Mandate, by Jon Walker

2.What's in the Manager's Amendment by David Dayen

3.MyBarackObama Tax by Marcy Wheeler

4.Emperor Ben Nelson: All Your Uteruses Are Belong To Me by Scarecrow

5.The Senate Bill is Designed to Make Your Health Insurance Worse by Jon Walker

6.Best way to "Fix It Later" Is With No Individual Mandate Now by Jon Walker

7.The Senate Health Care Bill is Built on a Mountain of Sand by Jon Walker

8.The Devil in Anna Eshoo's Details by Jane Hamsher

9.Liveblog of the Dorgan Reimportation Amendment by David Dayen

10.Answering Nate Silver's 20 Questions on the Health Care Bill by Jon Walker Senate bill isn't a "starter home," it's a sink hole. It needs to die so something else can take its place. It doesn't matter whether people are on the right or the left -- once they understand the con job that's about to be foisted on them, they agree. That's why Harry Reid and President Obama are trying to jam it through as fast as they can, before people get wise. So email the list to your friends and family, tweet it and spread the word.

Get a Backbone Transplant, Mister President -- FIGHT THE REPUBLICAN LIARS WITH ALL YOU HAVE! GET US THE PUBLIC OPTION!

2009-09-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

President Obama's mealy-mouth approach to the health care crisis has drawn me out of blog retirement to plead with him to get a spine! Please, please, Mr. President, seek medical help. You obviously were born without a backbone. You have shown none in the debate with the shoot to kill Republicans and conservatives in your own party.

Maybe you need some glasses, too. Why else would you be so blind as to seek bi-partisanship with people who have no inclination to do the same with you. You have been like the Hebrew people in the wilderness during this past few months, wandering without purpose, seeking without finding. And it has not been a health care "fight" because you apparently do not have any fight in you.

You make many of us Obama voters wish we had voted for Hillary Clinton. She would be fighting, not always on the defensive. You seem to think if you stay above the fray things will get done. No way! You have got to man up and get tough with the ones who wish for your to fail. Right now, beacause of your timidity, they are winning.

Take a lesson from Lyndon Baines Johnson and fight it out in the trenches on Capitol Hill. He got the country Medicare with tough and tumble power politics -- by playing hardball for the people. He did not wear "mom" jeans to the battle, tiptoeing on tulips of false bipartisanship. He came to win and he was armed to the tilt with srong arm tactics and it worked.

Come on, Mr. President. Unless you learn to fight for what is right you are definitely a one-term president, so why not get your hands dirty and really FIGHT for change we can believe in. You were not elected to maintain the status quo. You were not elected by the REPUBLICANS that you seem to love so dearly. Many of them are racists who hate you and all your were elected to do.

Please, please do something for the progressives and middle class folks that elected you. Be the MAN we thought you were. FIGHT FOR US! Nobody can accomplish as much as you can, if you will just fight for us!

Wake Up White House! Dr. Howard Dean is Needed In Order to Pass Health Care Reform

2009-03-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

Governor Kathleen Sebelius will be a fine secretary of Health and Human Services, but President Obama needs to also utilize Governor Howard Dean, who revitalized the Democratic Party and helped Obama get elected. Why not put Dean in the White House as the Health Care czar that Tom Daschle was once to be (double duty was planned.)

Running HHS is enough to keep Sebelius super busy. It will keep her plate overfilled. Let medical doctor Howard Dean campaign for health care reform.

The administration faces a daunting goal: to get healthcare reform passed by year's end. Like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Obama is taking on healthcare at a time when Democrats enjoy majorities in both the House and Senate. However, we all know how that story ended. For this reason, Obama is looking for someone who not only understands the labyrinthine world of healthcare, but commands respect on Capitol Hill.

President Obama -- use that great brain of yours and see the wisdom in using Howard Dean, himself a doctor who has delivered on healthcare reform. As Governor of Vermont, Dean expanded healthcare coverage for children and pregnant women. When he left office, only 9.6 percent of Vermont residents were uninsured (in contrast, about 15 percent of all Americans are uninsured). Not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal just listed Dean as one of the main contenders for HHS.

We hear that, as DNC Chair, Dean butted heads with future Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other Beltway insiders. Why? They bitterly opposed Dean's 50-state strategy -- the farsighted blueprint that enabled the Democrats to retake the House and Senate in 2006, as well as made Obama's landslide victory possible. Well, what about the big tent of Obama? Is the tail (Emmanuel) wagging the lion (Obama)? If President Obama can reach out to Republicans, why not also reach out to Democrats who see things differently? Especially one that played a key role in your election. Dean was right by the way, and Emmanuel was wrong.

It is sad that some of the great Democrats who carried water for Obama, like Wesley Clark and Howard Dean, have been overlooked by the Emmanuel-driven White House. Where is the gratitude? Are you really utilizing the best the Democratic Party has to offer?

Howard Dean is exactly what Obama needs to get health care reform passed: a policy expert and populist who knows how to get things done.

Health care reform cannot wait. Please call the White House (202.456.1414) and ask President Obama to give Howard Dean the job of championing health care reform. Sebelius will need all the help she can get.

Republicans Have a Memory Problem -- They are Stuck on Tax Cuts and Kill the Government

2009-02-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

Republicans have a real memory problem. They have presided over record deficits and it is their policies that got us into the financial meltdown, and yet they act as if President Obama invented deficit spending. He did not. He inherited this mess from George W. Bush.

News flash! The Republicans know little about economics. They never did. All they want to do is cut taxes and kill government. They almost succeeded.

There is now doubt what must be done. We must defeat a few more senators to be rid of them forever. May a new second party take their place after 2010.

Zekariah Smith Returns: Do the Republicans Even Realize Who Won the Last Election?

2009-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

The stupidity of the Republican Party is amazing. They and their policies were repudiated in the last election, but they are determined to be the tail that wags the dog in Congress, obstucting the change that Prsident Obama promised and that people voted overwhelmingly to happen. John McCain, who got his tail beat in the election, lectures the President from the floor of the senate. Give me a break!

The stimulus package needs to be passed to attempt to save the economy the Republicans severed and crushed with their pro-greed policies. And anyone knows, except for the Republican stooges in Congress, that any spending is stimulative! What they so proudly call pork are good programs that went lacking in the Bush years. Republicans are now sanctimonious about the deficit after Bush ran us into the ground destorying, and then stimulating Iraq. They are such pompous hypocrites, and the cable news, desperate for any storyline to fill their air time, suck up the Republican drivel like shop vacs in a sewage overflow.

That is why we must drive a stake through the Republican heart and elect a super majority 60 plus Democratic senators in the next election. Here is the truth -- you cannot be bi-partisan unilaterally. It takes two to dance and the current Republican party has two right feet and wants to lead even though they lost.

President Obama reached out to them. They rejected his good intentions. Now he needs to take a lead from the scriptures, where Christ told the apostles that if people rejected their message, "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet." Matthew 10:14.

Commentator Chris Matthews of MSNBC had it right. Call the Republicans bluff. Let them bring the cots in and filibuster and see where that gets them. It will eventually bring on the super majority and then maybe we can get things done in Washington. I believe in the two party system, but the current second party needs to die before this nation can be healed.

Zekariah Smith in Mexico for Much-Needed Vacation

2008-11-12T03:10:00.000-08:00

Dear ones who read and mull over these thoughts I have been writing for several years now -- I am going on a much needed vacation to visit some friends in Mexico. Keep praying for Obama and Biden. I will try to check in from time to time with a comment, perhaps once a week. But the regular column will not be back until the new year. Happy Holidays!

Obama is a Believer and a Person of Prayer

2008-11-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

It is Veteran's Day. Let us be thankful for the service of our men and women in the Armed Forces, and all those who have served over the years, especially those who died for their country. Our freedom was won by their blood, sweat and tears!

And the faith of millions of Americans who have gone before us and paved the way with their prayers.

President-elect Obama is a man of prayer, and we need to surround him and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden with our prayers. They and our country dearly need our prayers!

"I am a Christian," the President-elect told the Chicago Sun-Times a few years ago. "So, I have a deep faith," Obama continues. "I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived."

When he was 6 years old, after his parents divorced, Obama moved with his mother and her new husband -- a non-practicing Muslim -- to Indonesia, where he lived until he was 10 and attended a Roman Catholic school.

"I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country, so I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and, at night, you'd hear the Muslim prayer call," Obama recalls. "My mother was a deeply spiritual person and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions and talk to me about them.

"Her view always was that underlying these religions was a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself, but also for the greater good."

Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
Obama says he reads the Bible, though not as regularly as he'd like, now that he's on the campaign trail. But he does find time to pray.

"It's not formal, me getting on my knees," he says. "I think I have an ongoing conversation with God.... I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why I am doing it.

"The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass."

Illinois state Sen. James Meeks, who is also the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church. Obama has stopped by Salem for Wednesday-night Bible study.

"I know that he's a person of prayer," Meeks says. "He came by for prayer."

Still, when you read Obama's books, you see his faith is a growing thing, just like with all of us. Let us pray that God will teach him many things in the next four years.

President-elect Barack Obama Needs Our Prayers!

2008-11-09T01:02:00.000-08:00

President-elect Barack Obama needs our prayers. The job he has won will take all the brilliance and patience and compassion he can muster, and then some. It is a daunting task, taking over this country after the failures of the last eight years.

Mr. Obama said it will be hard, but it can be done, in his historic victory speech in Chicago: “There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who wont agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government cant solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

President-elect Obama said he needs our help, all Americans together: “What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people," Obama said.

Please do what you can to help Obama and Biden renew America. Pray. Do. Be positive about this country and its future.

Obama Picks Emmanuel, Who Gets Things Done!

2008-11-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

So President-elect Obama makes his first and most important pick -- Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff. Emanuel, 48, has been leader in Congress committed to addressing the challenges facing families across the nation. Since taking the oath of office in 2003, he has been a strong, effective voice for Chicago in Congress. A Jewish politician whose father was Benjamin was born in Jerusalem. He is known as a fighter and Obama said he chosen Rahm because he knows how to "get things done."

Very good! We need someone like that! Emmanuel will be the quarterback for Coach Obama in the White House.

Let us hope that the Obama team can build some bridges with the other side. Vice-President-elect Joe Biden is working on it. On Tuesday night, in his a stirring victory speech, President –elect Barack Obama said of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin: “I look forward to working with them to renew this nations promise in the months ahead.” Oh, that we might have such a time of reconciliation.

He also hailed his partner in this amazing race, Vice-President-elect Joe Biden: “I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.”

He also made a statement of faith concerning his beloved grandmother: “And while she is no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.”

.Then he talked about the millions of supporters, stating the fact that this was a team election; “But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

“It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generations apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory."

It is a victory for all who gave and went door to door and did the small things to win this campaign. But now the battle for change begins. Keep praying! Keep hope alive!

The World Has Changed. America Has Re-Booted Itself! Change Has Come! A New Day Dawns!

2008-11-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

The world has changed. The American dream has been re-booted. Please pray for America as we embark on a new great adventure!

With his decisive triumph over Senator John McCain, Senate Barack Obama made obvious history: he is the first man of color to win the presidency. But the meaning of his victory extends far beyond that significance. Obama, a former community organizer and law professor, represents a seismic shift in America.

Mounting one of the best run presidential bids in decades, Obama tied his support for progressive positions (taxing the wealthy to pay for tax cuts for working Americans, addressing global warming, expanding affordable health insurance, withdrawing troops from Iraq) to calls for cleaning up Washington and for crafting a new type of politics. He has come to symbolize both hope and change for a country regaining its greatness.

After eight years of George Bush's presidency, Obama represents a serious course correction for America -- one that is being received in a positive manner in many parts of the world.

I am still in awe of the words spoken by PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA at his victory speech on Tuesday night in Grant Park, before a quarter of a million people and, 78 million more on television, and millions more on computer. They are words to be remembered and cherished and acted upon.

He lauded the people who stood in “lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.”

He saluted the American voters: “Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.”

He proclaimed for the world to hear that the American people had shown that they could “put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. Its been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Praise the Lord for the change He has granted us. Pray for the Obamas and Bidens. Pray for America!

Can America Inspire the World? Yes, We Can!

2008-11-05T05:57:00.000-08:00

Well. America, you did it! You stood in lines and you voted. Praise the Lord for His many blessings. Now we must pray for Obama and Biden and we must pray for our country. As Rev. Bishop T.D. Jakes said on national television last night, "we must gird President-elect Obama with our prayers."

And we must do all we can to make the promises of this election and American reality. This was a team election and it will be a team presidency. We are all a part of this team. Our job is to pray and keep participating in American democracy.

The words of President-elect Obama said it best:" "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where anything is possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," said Obama. It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, on this election, in this defining moment, change is coming to America."

In his first speech as president-elect, Obama catalogued the challenges ahead. "The greatest of a lifetime," he said, "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century."

He added, "There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face."

He offered gracious words to his vanquished opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

"Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. He's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves," Obama said. "We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader."

Indeed, Senator John McCain had an eloquent, remarkable concession speech, sounding like the McCain of old. If he returns to being his own man, not controlled by Bush-Rove policos, to being the old maverick we admired, John McCain may be the key to some of Obama's successes, supporting the number of things that they actually agree upon.

There would be setbacks and false starts, Obama said. "I will always be honest about the challenges…I will listen, especially when we disagree”.

The task would be done as it always had in America, “block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand”.

Obama was clear that the work for strengthening America now begins. “This victory alone is not the change we seek,”he said, calling for a new spirit of sacrifice and a new spirit of service.

In a message to those “beyond our shores” Obama said that a new dawn of American leadership was at hand. He reaffirmed the values of freedom and justice and said that his message to those who wanted to tear down the world was “we will defeat you”.

Can we make good on this promise of change, America? YES WE CAN!

Be Prepared for a Line -- Take a Chair, A Book, an MP3 Player -- But Stay in Line and Vote Obama!

2008-11-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

There appears to be a large, more than normal turnout in much of the country on this election day. Even in the small town I vote in, there was a line to vote. "The first time we had a line to vote in over 28 years said a veteran poll worker."

The message from the Obama-Biden people is a simple one -- Go to the polls and vote! PLEASE STAY IN LINE! Take a fold-up chair, a water bottle, a book to read, and MP3 player. Go to your polls prepared to stay awhile in order to get your mission accomplished.

But STAY IN LINE and VOTE for OBAMA-BIDEN. EVERY VOTER MUST VOTE and we must make sure that EVERY VOTE IS COUNTED.

STAND in LINE, STAY in LINE for your country. IT IS A PATRIOTIC THING TO DO. Do it for the future genrations of America. Heck, do it for YOURSELF. Do it for me and you and all those folks that had their votes stolen in 2000 and 2008! Help us take our country back. Make Democracy in the United States work again!

Now is the Time! Vote for the Change We Need -- Help Elect Obama and Biden to Lead America!

2008-11-04T04:52:00.000-08:00

This is it, thinking Americans. Today is the day! This is your chance to help take back your country, to stand up for true democracy. Get out and vote for Obama and Biden.

Voters in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, first voters in America,favored Barack Obama over his Republican rival, John McCain, 15 to 6, in the first ballots cast in the 2008 Presidential election early today. It is the first time in forty years that a Democrat has won in Dixville Notch.

Now it is the rest of America's turn to vote. Please vote for Obama-Biden and urge others to do so. Take some folks to the polls! If someone is still undecided remind them why we have decided to vote for Obama. Here is the case for Obama:

The U.S. faces serious challenges that have not been addressed by the Republican Party that has been in control of the White House for the pat 8 years and the Congress for 6 0f the last 9 years, and still has enough senators to block all progressive legislation. In the meantime, the problems we face as a nation grow as they are passed on to future generations.

We need a leader who can lay the foundations of another American Century—someone who will truly attempt to get past our partisan and ideological divisions, as we strengthen our standing in the world and tackle the challenges we face at home. We need a leader who understands our differences, but who also knows the importance of finding common ground. A close analysis finds Senator Barack Obama is the one candidate who can unite the American majority that wants to move forward and improve the long-term economic well-being, security and independence of our nation. We need a return to common sense, to faith and hope, and a move away from the Republican politics of fear and division.

We need real work on real issues, not demagoguery and ideology for ideology’s sake.

National Debt
The federal debt matters. We cannot saddle future taxpayers with having to service the debt we create with our irresponsible fiscal policies. Cutting the deficit will additionally decrease interest rates and increase private investment. The Democrats know how to do this – see the Clinton years.

Trade Deficit
Every year, the difference between what the United States imports from other countries and what it exports grows, and is likely to reach $1 trillion a year by 2010. The U.S.’s trade imbalance with China alone grew from just $10 billion annually in 1990 to well over $200 billion a year by 2006. Despite this increasing and extreme deficit, recent American administrations have been unable or unwilling to force China to revalue its currency and take other measures to strengthen our exports overseas.

Energy Independence
Even without tapping into Alaska’s oil reserves or drilling offshore, we can dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil—we have not even begun to realize the possibilities of Iowa corn, South Dakota wind or Montana coal. Even a growing number of environmentalists support increased nuclear power production. Obama is open to all these ways, as well as drilling of already approved spots.

Global Warming
Even those who still believe that global warming is a natural occurrence should agree that rising sea levels and other geological changes will be expensive to adapt to and probably impossible to undo. If we are able to reverse this dangerous trend, we must. No other nation has the economic and political power to take the lead on this issue.

Healthcare Reform
Our healthcare system is reaching a crisis. Rising healthcare costs are crippling business and putting millions of Americans, especially children and the elderly, at great risk. American families risk having a lifetime of savings wiped out from a single hospitalization or illness. Drug companies are reaping record profits as they promote new uses of old drugs. Small hospitals and doctors are closing their doors as malpractice insurance costs increase. We must reform healthcare to make it accessible and affordable for all Americans, while maintaining the competitiveness and innovation that has made our system the envy of the world. McCain’s plan is a farce that would destroy employer funded insurance.

Foreign Policy
As we continue to adapt our military to meet 21st century challenges, we should also work to increase our diplomatic power throughout the world. We cannot continue to utilize only our military strength. We cannot continue to wast over 410 Billion a month in Iraq, killing and maiming more of our young American soldiers in another country's civil war. Our foreign policy should put an emphasis on coalition building and in working with international institutions when it serves the national interest. Obama and Biden will do this effectively.

For these reasons and many more, Senator Obama needs your vote and support. Our country’s future depends on it. We cannot afford to keep the failure-prone Republicans in charge. We do not need four more years of the last eight years. We do not need the diva pitbull, Sarah Palin, a heartbeat away from the erratic, aging McCain as President. We do not need a warmed over Bush presidency: the sequel. We need a change for the better. Please vote for Obama-Biden. And then pray that God will bless America and revive our sense of hope, truth, and justice for all.

Hillary's Message for the Election: "NO WAY, NO HOW, NO MCCAIN, NO PALIN -- ENOUGH!!!"

2008-11-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Leave it to the great campaigner Senator Hillary Clinton to sum it all up for Election Day. Giving a majestic speech and building a compelling case for Senator Obama and Senator Biden on C-Span today (in a speech from Virginia) Clinton said she approved this message -- "No Way, No How, No McCain, No Palin!" She also said the proper mantra for this election, unlike the Republican big oil refrain, "Drill, baby, drill!", Democrats cheer "Jobs,baby, jobs!"

Clinton said voters must not vote for four more years of Republicans in charge of the White House. "It is time to foreclose on their stay, on their tired ideology and policies for the rich!" Clinton pointed out the wisdom in the old saying her mother told her:"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!" Clinton said we have already seen the terrible realities of four more years once, in 2004. Now we must all say "enough!"

Compare her wisdom with the caller on CNN who said that "blue collar people are with McCain because McCain supports Joe the Plumber!" Ah, yes, the Dumb Ass Brigade rides again. We have to out-vote the McPalie zombies in order to win our country back.

Republican Dirty Tricks Seek to Block the Vote!

2008-11-03T05:32:00.000-08:00

In the hours before Election Day, according to the Associated Press, comes an onslaught of dirty Republican tricks — confusing e-mails, disturbing phone calls and insinuating fliers left on doorsteps during the night. The intent is to keep folks from voting or to confuse them, usually through intimidation or misinformation. RFK Jr. predicted this in BLOCK THE VOTE.

But in this presidential race, in which a black man leads most polls, some of the deceit has a decidedly racist bent. Complaints have surfaced in predominantly African-American neighborhoods of Philadelphia where fliers have circulated, warning voters they could be arrested at the polls if they had unpaid parking tickets or if they had criminal convictions.

Over the weekend in Virginia, bogus fliers with an authentic-looking commonwealth seal said fears of high voter turnout had prompted election officials to hold two elections — one on Tuesday for Republicans and another on Wednesday for Democrats.

In New Mexico, two Hispanic women filed a lawsuit last week claiming they were harassed by a private investigator working for a Republican lawyer who came to their homes and threatened to call immigration authorities, even though they are U.S. citizens.

In Pennsylvania, e-mails appeared linking Democrat Barack Obama to the Holocaust. "Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, Nov. 4," said the electronic message, paid for by an entity calling itself the Republican Federal Committee. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake."
So it goes around the country. Republican dirty tricks and outright lies meant to suppress the vote are being done with malice toward all.

Laughlin McDonald, who leads the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said he has never seen "an election where there was more interest and more voter turnout, and more efforts to suppress registration and turnout. And that has a real impact on minorities."

The stealing of the election of 2008 has begun. Only you and your vote for Obama-Biden can turn American back into a real democracy, where the majority actually has a say in how this nation is run. Fight for your electoral freedom. Help others to vote. Stand up and be counted for the right to vote for all Americans!

Obama Favored By A Majority, But That May Not Be Enough in Bush-McCain America!

2008-11-03T03:54:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has run a fine campaign. He has the brilliance and the judgment to be a fine president. He has solid plans to help make the country great again. There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of voters favor him for president. But he may not win.

The Republicans have stolen the last two elections, so why not this one? If we allow it to be close, they will probably win. Don’t take my word for it. Read for yourself how they stole the election in 2000 and how they stole the election in 2004. What is one more stolen election for thieves of democracy?

The current Republican campaign is the sleaziest campaign in history. Hateful, despicable robo-calls in swing states that even GOP heavyweights decry as beyond the pale of respectable politics…and yet they continue. They seem to be moving the polls. Materials portraying Obama on food stamps., or as a terrorist! The N-word being tossed about Palin rallies.. Muslim. Arab. Socialist. Communist. Anti-American. Dangerous. The blacks will take over. This is a Christian nation, and Obama and the Democrats are godless non-Christians. The Republican lies and dirty tricks abound!

And the Republicans downplay it, dismiss it…even suggest it isn’t happening and, in any case, they aren’t responsible for the words of a few disturbed cranks. Yet the robo-calls continue. Ayers. ACORN. Dangerous. They feed the fires of fear with carefully crafted words and ads. And they have an ace up their sleeve. They know how to steal elections. They have recent experience at it. Suppress the vote with lies and whispers, amp up the fear factor to turn out your rabid base, tamper, obstruct, and use the law against the people to suppress the vote even more.

According to a well-documented investigative report in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale. Example- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls. Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal. Read the full story in Rolling Stone online at BLOCK THE VOTE. Also read about Stolen Election 2000 and Stolen Election 2004.

While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush. Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."

Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predicts that, this November 4, it will be far worse. Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls." There is more to the story. Read BLOCK THE VOTE and be informed as to what has really happened and is happening to our democracy at GOP dirty, crooked hands.

That is why it is so crucial that you call your friends and family and get them to the polls. Make the case for Obama-Biden. Give people a ride. Give people babysitting services if needed. Just get them to the polls to vote. Take the time. Stay in line. We are fighting for the very fabric of our democracy here.

We need a big turnout to defeat the deplorable Republican ways of stealing the close ones. And after you do all that you possibly can do to get out the vote for Obama-Biden, please pray for our country like you have never prayed before!

Please Vote , and Help Others Get to the Polls -- Call Your Friends -- AND STAY IN LINE!

2008-11-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how the Republicans trot out black talking points "strategists" to speak for them on the cable news shows? Every black in the Republican party must be being used as "experts" to spout Republiganda on these shows. There are not that many black folk in the almost all-white party, and they all seem to be on cable tv! These duplicitous spokespeople must be paid well to be saying the trash they are saying with a straight face.

The message to anyone who might be voting for Obama and Biden on Tuesday is to make it a clear and unmistakable goal to vote and have your vote counted. Let nothing stop you from voting -- from staying in line and getting your precious vote counted. This is a monumental struggle and you must STAY IN LINE and not be deterred from your responsibility to bring about important change in America. The line may be long, but you cannot falter in gutting it out in order to vote. Your country, its future, all the young people, are depending on you getting to the polls and staying in line until your vote is recorded. To see where your proper polling place is, visit www.barackobama.com

The Republican Spin Masters Whirl More Lies, Even As They Work to Steal Another Election!

2008-11-02T03:47:00.000-08:00

The Republicans are masters of spin and distortion and love to paint guilt by association, not matter how minimal it might be. In another attempt to paint groups and people with whom Obama has some connection in as unsavory a light as possible,

McCain has gone after the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now., even though he spoke at their banquet a few years ago. His ad lies, accusing the group of "massive voter fraud" and Johnny McBoy himself claimed in the final presidential debate that ACORN is "now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." What a lie from the man who approves so many other lies.

That is so far from the truth it should be funny. But, then, so many in the legions of dumb ox McPalies, right wing lemmings that they are, believe it with all their idiotic hearts – and they will all vote on Tuesday, every last stupid one of them.

Both Republican claims are breathtakingly inaccurate, according to factcheck.org,. there's a huge difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud. And while ACORN, which hires part-time, $8-an-hour canvassers to go door-to-door and register people to vote, has had some problems with phony registrations invented by employees who don't want to work, the problem has never been that it sent people to the polls using bogus identities or to vote in any other fraudulent manner. Even the Republican prosecutor of the largest ACORN case to date said the shenanigans of ACORN workers were "not intended to permit illegal voting."

However, it is mainly a smokescreen to hide the nefarious things the Republicans machine is doing themselves. Read about how they stole the election in 2000, and how they stole the election in 2004. Now, according to highly regarded voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., they are working hard to steal the election of 2008. Read BLOCK THE VOTE, a thoroughly researched expose’ by Kennedy that details the voter suppression strategies they are using this year. We must fight to see that every voter gets to vote and that every vote is counted. It is a supreme social justice issue. Please read BLOCK THE VOTE! And stand up for people’s voting civil rights!

Another smokescreen is a McCain ad that says that Obama’s health care plan would cost 50 million people their health coverage. NOT TRUE! In reality, two prominent studies found that Obama's plan would produce a net increase in the number of employees with health coverage through their jobs. Under McCain, according to the same studies, there would be a net decrease.

On the other hand, McCain would, for the first time, require workers to pay federal income tax on the value of their employer-provided health insurance. He claims it would be offset by the tax credits he'd provide of up to $2,500 per individual and $5,000 per couple or family – but for most people that would not come close to paying for the difference. So, in essence, it will be a big tax increase designed to destroy employer paid insurance, which is a Republican business goal. Anything to stiff the unions.

And the lies and distortions and campaign jolts keep on coming from the sly Republigandists. Now we get the revelation that Obama’s half-aunt from Kenya is living in the United States illegally. Don’t you know Senator Obama would have helped fix her problems if he had known about them? Someone at immigration had been sitting on this until the last minute.

Could it be that John McCain’s party is still in charge? Well, sure. And that explains it. She should be sent home, for sure. But how efficient is the Bush Republican immigration authority when she has been here for ten years and in public housing for five years? I think the greater embarrassment is the Republican lack of governance, that has been glaringly apparent for eight years, and it will not start to change with McCain. He helped it all to fester with his blind support of Bush-Cheney. He is surrounded by Bush people!

I am so very tired of the Republican lie machine. In two days it might actually be quiet for awhile, but if McCain and Palin are elected, it will play loudly for four more very long years. I pray that is not the case, for the children and grandchildren’s sake.

Mr. Smith Goes to McDonald's and Loses Debate to Dumb Ass Brigade, McCain 's Republican Base

2008-11-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

On Friday I gave a guest lecture to a community college class of a professor friend of mine who teaches in a neighboring town. I left home with plenty of time to spare, so when I saw the Golden arches in that town, I had a hankering for an Egg Mcmuffin and stopped in to soak up the red and yellow décor It was there, in the back seating area that I encountered the regular early morning coffee group that I will forever know as The Dumb Ass Brigade.

As I sipped my coffee and ate my hash brown, I overheard their mindless chatter.

“I love that Joe the Plumber!” said a plump, fifty-something woman, who I will call Susie the Stupid, “I wish he were running for President. He is so handsome, sort of like Mr. Clean.”

I’ve heard of lots of fantasies over the years, but never about a cartoon cleanser spokesman, but Susie was neck deep in suds and plungers. It did not matter that Joe the fake plumber is unlicensed and much of his story is a lie.

“That Joe tells it like it is," Susie said, with a moony expresssion. "He said Israel was dead if Obama and his Muslim friends get into power.”

“Yeah, and then all the blacks will take over and paint the White House black,” said Harvey the Hillbilly, munching an undetermined form of pastry, “And he is going to make that Bill Ayers guy Secretary of State. Not only is he a terrorist, but he is not qualified – he has only been a weatherman, and what does some TV guy know about foreign policy?”

“Well, that Sarah Palin, she’s standing up for us Joe-Six Packs. And she is really good-looking, too! I just love to watch her speak! ” said another older man, who I call Larry the Lecher, “And Sarah Palin said he was a socialist, he wants to redistribute the wealth like a Commie.”

“He’s not going to lay any hands on my wealth,” said a flannel shirted grandpa type who I call Roger the Rube, whose net worth appeared to be pretty minimal. “And Obama will not get my guns either. Hank Williams Jr. said McCain will protect our guns. Obama wants to give ‘em to the Mexicans and the terrorists!”

Well, I had held my tongue long enough, so I ventured an intelligent statement that went over like the proverbial lead balloon. “Obama is not a socialist. He is talking about a tax cut for 95 percent of the American people. He is just trying to help the poor and the middle class in these tough economic times. He is as American as you and me. His mother and the grandparents who raised him were white. He has a basic, strong middle class upbringing and he loves this country. ANd he supports the second ammendment!”

No one said a word. Ten pairs of eyes stared blankly at me. Then another man, Leo the Lemming, said in a fevered tone, “You got a beard, Mister. You sound like an anti-American. Are you a fellow traveler with Obama?”

I could not help but laugh. I had not heard that fellow traveler stuff for a long, long time.

I laughed. But no one else did.

So I decided to get out of the Mickey D’s before The Dumb Ass Brigade whipped me with their sausage burritos and scalded me with their very hot coffee. I was not going to win any debates with them. They represent the great ill-informed masses of fear-stoked Americans that have supported the Republican Party for years. The not so silent, easily manipulated near majority that makes elections close enough to steal.

So I grabbed what was left of my egg sandwich and backed out of the restaurant. The only consolation I had was that The Dumb Ass Brigade is so dumb maybe they will forget where the polling places are on next Tuesday.

If only America could be so lucky.

Republican Sleaze Knows No Bounds -- From Coast to Coast, Dirty Gutter Tactics Abound!

2008-11-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

I used to admire Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. But now, like John McCain, she has sold out to Republican gutter tactics, the Rove-Atwater doctrine. Dole is trailing in her re-election fight in North Carolina against Democrat Kay Hagan, and so she has resorted to outright lies to attack Hagan, a long time state senator, with character assassination. Sound familiar? She has taken Christianity as her cloak in attacking a Christian Sunday School teacher.

Dole's latest advertisement, according to Washington Monthly, suggests her Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, is a godless heathen. "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser for Kay Hagan," the 30-second spot says, showing footage of the group's members talking about their atheist beliefs on cable news. "Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money," the ad concludes. "What did Kay Hagan promise in return?"

At the very end of the ad, a voice sounding like Hagan's says: "There is no God." Seriously, Dole used a Hagan impersonator to make voters think Hagan is an atheist. It's hard to know where to start with an ad this deplorable. First, Hagan is actually a Sunday school teacher and an elder in her church. Second, the fundraiser in question was co-hosted by 40 people, one of whom is on the board of an atheist political action committee. Third, there's nothing scandalous about non-believers.

I am a Christian. I pray for them. But they are Americans, too, and should be treated with respect, not hate and derision. Jesus came to proclaim love, not hate. Read your Bible, Libby!

Another question: what is "godless money"? Since all money has In God We Trust on it, how is it “godless”?

Hagan held a press conference this week with her family and pastor to denounce the ad, and announced that if Dole didn't pull the ad, she would seek a cease-and-desist order. But this is just another example of the sleazy, deplorable Republican attacks all over the country. It is time to throw the rascals out! Reject the lies, America!

It all reminds me of the excellent John Grisham novel, The Appeal, which details how dirty right wing political campaigns are a cancer on democracy, circumventing real debate with fear mongering and distortion of facts. Grisham uses his fiction to lambaste the amorality and greed of corporate America and the consequences suffered by its unwitting victims, mainly the defenseless poor.

The Appeal is an exposé of how highly organized special-interest groups, loaded with cash, can manipulate public opinion in elections. These are right wing tactics perfected by the current Republican Party, which is not the party of Lincoln, or Ford, or Eisenhower. It is the party of Rove and Atwater and Schmidt.

Now we hear that the Republicans, according to MSNBC's Chuck Todd, after complaining about Obama raising so much money from small donors, have thrown $325 million with the RNC (from large donors mostly) toward their get out the vote campaign during the last 72 hours! McCain's campaign manager, Rick "Fannie Mae PR Man" Davis is quoted crowing about it! No way Obama and the DNC can match that. So the right zealots will be voting in great numbers. That is what all the lies and smears are about -- to fire up that legendary angry right wing base. Even as they continue to suppress Democrat votes.

And in the past the Republicans have always had the money advantage. This is how it has been with the Republican Party until this year, when Obama swore off PAC’s and lobbyists and went straight to the people via the Internet, and 2 million small donors gave the little people a voice in an election. The fact that the Democrats have been competitive until this point makes the Republicans so mad. “We don’t know who these donors are!” cries John McCain.

Well, Mr. Pinocchio McCain, I am one of those small donors,, and I am proud of it. I just wish I had more money to give to the cause of saving the country that I love. America. May God bless America!

And if anyone would like to be a donor in the last days, to be a part of in the fight for your country's soul, donate to Obama by Sunday at midnight. Click www.barackobama.com

Then make sure you vote on Tuesday and call as many people as you can to vote for Obama-Biden. The future of America depends upon it!

Chamelon McCain Deserves His Karma, He Represents the Mean Spirited Bush Past

2008-10-31T02:42:00.000-07:00

John McCain has earned another nickname to go along with Pinocchio and McSame. He is now the amazing Chameleon! All of a sudden, McCain behaves as though his buddy President Bush, whose major policies he has ardently supported for two terms, has now suddenly revealed himself to McCain as having been“wrong" on many policy issues.

Where was McCain when these “wrong policies” passed congress? Oh, yes, he was VOTING FOR THEM! Now, parroting Obama, he claims to be an agent of change, and presents himself as a maverick. But a hard look at three major-policy areas quickly reveals that rather than a maverick, McCain is more of a sidekick. I suggest we re-christen the good senator with a more fitting moniker: THE AMAZING CHAMELEON!

Do not forger the War on Iraq, costing us at least $10 billion a month. Senator Obama opposed the war right from the beginning, when to even hint it was wrong left one open to charges of being unpatriotic. McCain continues to cheer on this unlawful invasion—a war that costs U.S. taxpayers $10 billion a month--wrapped in the Bush-Cheney mentality that bombs and bullets are the perfect way to spread peace.

Hasn’t he learned the lessons of Vietnam? Obviously not. McCain would have the U.S. bogged down in the Middle East for God knows how long. Sure, the surge has tamped down levels of violence, but that’s rather like saying that, instead of being in the Emergency Room, the patient is now in the Intensive Care Unit—a patient who should never have been one, in the first place. McCain has also talked about bombing Iran and annihilating North Korea—as though two wars were not enough.

And where are Bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban? Alive and well in Pakistan, right across from Afghanistan, whence they escaped when U.S. forces, having surrounded them, took their eyes off the prize in order to invade Iraq. The Republicans have made enough bad decisions to fill a large, sad book.

Do not forget the Economy. Who said the economy was fundamentally sound the same week the credit markets froze, a huge investment bank collapsed, the world’s largest insurer had to be bailed out, and the whole house of cards that was Wall Street threatened to collapse? More-of-the-same McCain.

McCain has been a leading voice in calling for deregulation of the finance industry, not just the past eight years but going back to the savings and loan scandals of the late 1980s, so the bulls could have their fun? (A scandal in which the senator from Arizona was implicated and chastised by his Senate peers.) More-of-the-same McCain.

Suddenly, McCain has discovered the religion of populism. This, from a man whose main financial adviser for years was his buddy, ex-Senator Phil Gramm, Republican and former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and fierce advocate of deregulation, who once sneered at the country as a “nation of whiners.”

McCain accuses Obama of class warfare and planning to raise taxes to “spread the wealth,” citing the now famous Joe-the-Plumber Wurzelbacher, who worriedly told Obama at a rally in Toledo, Ohio, that the latter’s financial plans would raise his taxes. But this will be true only if Joe’s business makes more than $250,000 in net income a year. More than 90 percent of U.S. small businesses make less than that. The vast majority would thus get a tax cut rather than a raise.

By the way, newshounds checking on Joe have found out that he is an unlicensed plumber who never even served an apprenticeship, voted Republican in the last primary (though he presented himself originally as non-partisan), and has an outstanding tax lien of $1,000. So he was a fake plumber of questionable reputation.

But did that stop McCain-Palin? Well, surely not. They have never seen a lie they did not like. So they launched the inane Joe the plumber, Betty the dietitian, Sarah the demagogue part of their campaign. Now Joe the fake plumber is part of their campaign of lies – a “special” guest! How very dumb.

But their ostrich-lemming supporters seem to love it! (Their rallies are like Jonestown before the Kool-aid. I almost expect cheers of “ Drink, baby, drink!”

But what about the McCain-Palin policies? More-of-the-Same McCain will extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and such huge corporations as Exxon and Mobil (to the tune of $200 billion), perpetuating a highly inequitable system where the rest of us subsidize the rich. Now that is class warfare. That is Socialism for the rich!

The Republicans traditionally favor the so-called “free market” but a study done by a former editor at Money magazine shows that if a person had invested $10,000 solely with Republican or Democratic administrations since 1929, the result would be dramatically different. With the Republicans, that $10,000 would now be $51,211, excluding the Herbert Hoover years of the Great Depression. (Were we to include his term, the figure would be a paltry $11,733.) In contrast, with the Democrats, the sum today would have appreciated to $300,671.

Under Boy George, that $10,000 would have lost 5.1 percent annually, and one would wind up with less than $7,000.
McCain’s belief that the last eight years the economy has been fundamentally sound is clearly wishful and dangerously self-deluding.

Do not forget about Health Care. McCain intends to go the Bush administration one better with a plan that deregulates the health care industry by, for the first time ever, taxing job-related, health-care benefits 160 million citizens now get. He would force a great number of businesses to stop providing health care altogether, forcing the suddenly uninsured to purchase health insurance in the marketplace, with those needing it the most being the ones most likely to be denied.

This will exacerbate an already terrible situation, with 20 million added to the 47 million citizens now without health insurance. McCain’s proposed tax credit of $5,000 per family is supposed to pay for the cost, but this amount will hardly be enough to pay for a full year’s health insurance premiums. A free-marketeer, McCain believes health care is a commodity, not a right.

Meanwhile, the Barracuda Palin is working her best to distract voters from the abysmal state of the economy. Why such a person -- who makes a virtue of ignorance, flaunts her parochialism who stoops to rampant demagoguery, and shows absolutely no grasp of complex issues– is considered qualified to hold national office, a heartbeat away from the presidency, is a mystery to me. Her fans are more frightening than she is, and she is the worst of Halloween every day. And John McCain showed his poor judgment for all to see -- he picked her!!

There are a lot of ill-informed, under educated people out there. And so the Internet is ripe with rumors aimed at character assassination, not only of Barack but of his wife Michelle. But these reveal more about those who spawn and/or spread these scurrilous allegations than they do about their intended targets.

Sadly, many people believe this kind of trash – the character assassination emails and gutter level gossip, aided by the Robo-calls and the whisper campaigns that the Republigandists have perfected over their long term of election stealing successes. Pray it does not happen again.

It would be nice to live in a real democracy once again.

Obama Makes His Case, and President Clinton Agrees, America Needs Change of Direction!

2008-10-30T02:34:00.000-07:00

President Bill Clinton was a good president. He made a terrible mistake in personal judgment, and the hypocritical Republican hate machine made him pay dearly for it. But in his job as commander in chief and chief executive officer, his judgment for the American people was very good, and we had a time of wonderful prosperity because of the economic policies of his administration.

Which is why people need to listen when he says: "Barack Obama represents America's future, and you've got to be there for him next Tuesday," Clinton, with Obama at his side, said to the cheers of a huge crowd in Florida last night. Because he dearly wanted his wife to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton has been critical of Obama in the past, which makes his words now all the more a strong endorsement. He has come to see greatness in the man who beat out his wife in such a hard fought primary campaign.

Heaping praise on President Clinton, Obama said of Clinton: "In case all of you forgot, this is what it's like to have a great president."

President Clinton clasped Obama's hand and held it high when the men came on stage. Clinton made a methodical case for Obama, describing him as a strong thinker with smart policies. In one of his testimonials, he praised Obama for seeking the advice of experts — including him and his wife — on how to handle the country's financial crisis before acting. "Folks, we can't fool with this," Clinton said. "Our country is hanging in the balance. And we have so much promise and so much peril. This man should be our president."

Obama said of the two Clintons: "I am proud to call them my friends." Through the day, in two states, Obama unleashed a bleak portrayal of a McCain presidency, which promises to be four more years of the last eight years, and told a national TV audience that "the time for change has come."

Obama's rare, prime-time infomercial, shades of the great Ross Perot, (and very well done in making Obama's case for a change in direction from the Republicans) cut live to him appearing at a rally in Sunrise, Fla., where 20,000 packed a hockey arena all the way to the nosebleed seats. Obama continues to have wonderful crowds -- if they can just translate into votes to save this country!

The infomercial movie was an attempt to fight back at all the negative, false portrayals of Obama by the McCain campaign and the numerous right wing attack groups. It was an attempt to fight evil with good, instead of going personal and character assassination like McCain. The reason millions of small donars like myself have given to him ( I have given $190, but never over $30 at a time) is because we knew how the Republicans have stolen the last two elections, and we are trying to ward off the swiftboating of Obama. So I helped pay for this infomerial and I was pleased with how my money was spent.

The movie sewed together the best footage of Obama's campaign travels around the country -- hugging the ladies in the kitchen in hairnets, shaking hands on the assembly line, and delivering his best lines at speeches and debates with special family footage of him playing with his photogenic daughters.

Obama reminded viewers of his grandfather's service in World War II; that he only spent a month with his Kenyan father when Obama was 10 and that his mother was fighting HMOs as she died of cancer. He is no radical -- his and Michelle's background is far more solid American middle class than John and Cindy McCain. The ad focused on moving examples of middle-class or falling-from-middle-class families from the swing states that will decide this election.

Americans like you and me are hurting, and Obama has policies that will help them -- and us. McCain does not. He has the same right wing rhetoric that got us into this mess -- it got Bush and the Republicans elected, but look how poorly they have governed! America, do not be hooked and crooked by them again!

"In six days, we can come together as one nation, and one people," Obama said. From your voice, Senator Obama, and from many prayers, to God's ears!

Christians Need to Represent Jesus --Vote for Party That Will Change the Indifference

2008-10-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Christians need to think about issues that matter, not the distractions that certain politicians and their party serve up so easily, when , in truth, they have been indifferent to so many human needs over the past eight years. Issues like Peace. Security. Racial equity. Economic well-being. Adequate nutrition and health care. A healthy environment. Human dignity. These are basic needs of every human being and of the earth. How can our electoral decisions ensure that these fundamentals are met?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ contains examples and commands to help the poor and the needy, as well as to treat others with respect and compassion. Luke 10:27 proclaims: “And love your neighbor as yourself.” For Christians, the life and teachings of Jesus are at the core of moral living. In an era of great change and challenge we are called to bring the Gospel message into our relationships with all people and all creation. Voting American Christians need to vote with social justice issues in mind.

The Republicans do not deserve to stay in charge of the White House. Think of the travesties of the last eight years, of which McCain supported and the Republican Party was in charge. The country is in the ditch and they have been driving the bus. It is time to fire the drivers.

The list of reasons for change is a long one. Think of the high cost of the unnecessary war in Iraq, in lives and money; of the torture and Guantanamo injustices; of the Wall Street mess; of Enron; of the botched response to Katrina; of increased unemployment and increased poverty; of runaway health care costs and 47 million uninsured: of poor governance and all the lies and spin and lies again; of the imperial presidency of Cheney-Bush; of the secretiveness of government; -- I could go on and on, but you get the picture. They do not deserve to be re-elected to power.

There are millions of Americans who have great needs that our society can and should help them with, since this is still the world's richest nation, well able to help the “least of these" in our midst. (Matthew 25). We still have 47 million Americans without health insurance – a travesty in a country as rich as ours. Our education system needs more financing and less unfunded mandates (as Bush did).

We have a rising number of unemployed folks, and jobs still are moving across our borders and corporations seek to find cheap, un-benefited workers (where is the ethics in that?) Global warning continues to be a problem after the Republicans denied it was happening for mush of the last eight years. Poverty is still a big problem, especially among minorities.

Plus, our American global footprint continues to squash others. Our arrogant foreign and corporate policies have ruined our reputation. I have missionary friends abroad who witness daily the global impact of U.S. political and economic decisions encourage voters in the 2008 elections to scrutinize candidates’ policy proposals through the lens of those who, both in the United States and overseas, lack basic necessities, endure the scourge of racism, live with gender-based discrimination or feel the immediate impact of climate change.

The growing influence of mega-corporations on political processes encourages economic decision-making that focuses on wealth and prosperity while forgetting more vulnerable people in the U.S. and abroad. Many of these decisions profit larger businesses at the expense of smaller ones and encourage unsustainable levels of consumption. Our government must enforce a separation of large corporations and state, strengthen and enforce anti-trust laws and promote enforceable mechanisms for corporate accountability.

The knee jerk reactions to immigration, led by demagogues like CNN blabbermouth Lou Dobbs, must be overcome with common sense and compassion. The Congress must implement just and compassionate national immigration policies that counter punitive and isola¬tionist tendencies, that recognize the importance of global solidarity in an intensely polarized world and that respect the inherent dignity and human rights of all migrants and asylum seekers, documented and undocumented alike. We must end the use of workplace raids, and stop the practice of deporting parents of under-age U.S.-born children. We must give urgent attention to the root causes of in¬voluntary migration, especially war and economic injustice. Building a giant wall along the border is a total waste of time and money.

A check of the policies and plans of the two major Presidential candidates gives a stark contrast. The compassionate Christian candidates are Senator Barack Obama and Senator Joe Bide, Visit the Matthew25 Network for more documentation of this fact, or view their policies of compassionate change at www.barackobama.com.

Please, please, please, vote in this election and convince your family and friends to vote for Obama-Biden. The Republicans, by hook and crook will make it very close. Every single vote is crucial! The future of our children and grandchildren depends upon it.

Being for Programs that Help Other People Make Someone a Christian, Not a Marxist!

2008-10-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Florida television anchor Barbara West is getting national attention after an interview with Barack Obama's running mate, Joe Biden. She kicked off the interview by asking Biden whether he was embarrassed by "blatant attempts to register phony voters by groups like ACORN".

She then asked:"How is Barack Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

Biden asked, "Are you joking?"

The Obama campaign responded to the interview:"This campaign has now spanned 21 months and Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden have done countless tough interviews and they've answered every single question. Let's be clear: This station's interview with Joe Biden wasn't tough -- it was just absurd!"

Of course, Right wing pubahs Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck, CNN's water carriers for the Republicans, thought she was just wonderful. (I wish CNN would fire them like they fired their brother Tucker Carlson).

I think she was offensive and out of line! Tax cuts do not equal Marxism, Mrs. West! When tax cuts are for the rich they are good for the country, according to your Republican dogma, but what is wrong with helping the working people for a change? Mrs. West, are you implying that FDR, LBJ, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were also Marxists, because they all backed either tax cuts or social programs or both. Of course, you may not be much of student of history. Few neo-cons are. Which is why we got into the quagmire that is Iraq.

West was just another blonde, pretty talking points attack dog. West is married to a GOP media consultant, and her bio, in which she delights in covering Clinton's impeachment and seems to brag about scuttling Hillary's Heath Care program tells you everything you need to know about her objectivity.

The truth is that social programs, which some call socialist, have really helped this country -- such as social security, medicare, job corps, Comprehensive Education and Training Act (CETA), WPA, Head Start, Legal Aid, and many more. Social programs make it possible to balance the predatory nature of capitalism, so that it can work for the whole country, not just a chosen few wealthy capitalists.

Palin and "Socialist" Alaska: Another Case of Deceitful Hypocrisy from the Lipstick Pitbull

2008-10-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Now the Republigandists in McCain’s campaign are calling Barack Obama a socialist because he proposes middle class tax cuts while allowing the top money-makers $250,000 or more to pay taxes at a level commensurate with what they were before the Bush “give it to the rich” tax cuts. This is extremely hypocritical.

Sarah Palin is governor of the most "socialist" state in the union, and she knows it, but she criticizes Senator Obama about need middle class tax relief. Give me a break! I once lived in Alaska, home of Barracuda Palin, and it has a wonderful plan of sharing the wealth called the permanent fund. I wonder if Sarah or Todd Plain have ever given back their peramanent fund checks that come each fall?

Not that anything about the current “socialism” rhetoric should be taken seriously, it is just another one of the McCainanites distractive lies. But the closest thing to socialism on the American policy agenda is in Sarah Palin’s Alaska? You have collective ownership of valuable natural resources that generates lots of revenue for the state, and then the government makes “spreading the wealth around” through the Permanent Fund, etc. its main priority. It’s actually, for all the flaws of Alaska politics and public policy, a pretty good system. But I think the best way to think about it is that it’s an example of a somewhat special case in which socialism is a good idea.

Of course another time where you need a dose of socialism is if, for example, there’s a financial system emergency and the government needs to partially nationalize large banks in order to recapitalize them. But that’s been brought to us by George W. Bush with the support of John McCain.

Back in the day, as Sarah Palin likes to say, shortly after the oil from Alaska’s North Slope began flowing to market through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, the [Alaska] Permanent Fund was created by an amendment to the constitution of the U.S. state of Alaska to be an investment for at least 25% of proceeds from some minerals [such as oil and gas] sale or royalties...The Alaska Permanent Fund sets aside a certain share of oil revenues to continue benefiting current and all future generations of Alaskans.

So while Gov. Palin continues to criticize Sen. Obama for saying that "spreading the wealth around" helps everyone, the annual oil check paid to every Alaskan appears to do just that. I do not see anything wrong with the Permanent Fund. Indeed, I loved to get the checks while I was an Alaskan citizen. But I see Palin's cricism of Obama as high level hypocrisy. And McCain, after voting for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, now he wants to criticize Obama's tax cuts for 95 percent of the people as "spreading the wealth" and "socialism"?

The PFD payout, which comes in or near October of each year, is acknowledged to have a substantial effect on Alaska's economy, both in total and especially in rural Alaska where unemployment can reach 60% and where cash is scarce.

While I am not against the Alaskan model of natural resource management, I do believe that as she runs around the country disparaging Sen. Obama's economic plan as socialism, Gov. Palin should be challenged to articulate why Alaskan socialism is not a problem for her. Why is spreading the wealth around good for Alaska but not good for the rest of America?

This year's disbursement to every eligible Alasakan is $3,269 each for every man, woman and child. At times like this I wish I still lived in Alaska.

With Talking Points Hasselbeck, Palin Keeps Showing Unreadiness! Amen, General Powell!

2008-10-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin likes to portray herself as an average American working mother. But how many typical moms get $150,000 worth of merchandise from stylish stores and have strangers pay for it? Of course, now that the truth is out, the Republigandists say that all the clothes were always going to be donated to charity. Yeah, right!

And Palin, campaigning with another mind zombie zero, the wonderful extreme right wing stooge, Talkin Point Harpy Elizabeth Hasselbeck of View infamy, (when is Barbara Walters going to can Her Barbie Dollness?)continued the seemingly fabricated defense. Palin now says she shops only at a consignment store in Alaska for her own clothes. Really? Not even Costco or Walmart or Kmart?

Well, then, why are you wearing $150,000 of Neiman Marcus, Sister Sarah? What is real and what is false in your campaign? Oh, yes, the campaign is mostly false, but you are Joe Six-pack, Joe the Plumber, real America. Right!

Which led me reflect back on the last week, especially back to last weekend. To be fair, Sarah Palin did okay on Saturday Night Live, just as John McCain did fine on David Letterman, but if we were electing a “comedian in chief” I would be for Leno or Letterman, or maybe Steve Martin. I mean, Obama is by far the best speaker in American politics, but it is his great mind and calm demeanor, and the compassionate policies he backs, that make him ready to be president, not his performing abilities on television.

I still say that Palin is not ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and some very good people agree with me. General Colin Powell, in his powerful, thoughtful endorsement of Senator Barack Obama, said, “Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made..."

Powell is one of America’s most respected public figures. He is a highly decorated military man. He has served in a distinguished manner in several Republican administrations — as a national security adviser in the Reagan White House, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first President Bush during the Gulf War. After leaving government in 2004, Powell and his wife, Alma, formed America's Promise, an organization dedicated to helping children from all socioeconomic groups. So his opinion is an one of the most informed opinions you will find.

Some of the most stinging comments about Palin came from well-known columnist and former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Joe the Plumber was more thoughtful and persuasive than Palin."No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice-president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure," Noonan wrote of Palin."In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism."

In a tough interview on the Fox News Channel last weekend, (yes, Faux News does have one real journalist) Chris Wallace allowed McCain to say Palin did "a great job" on SNL, but then challenged him on his choice of her as running mate. "As a cold political calculation, hasn't Governor Palin become a drag on your ticket?" Wallace asked.

"As a cold political calculation, I could not be more pleased," McCain said. Which again makes me question the judgment of John McCain. It seems, on the basis of judgment, he is not ready to be president.

Let me leave you with one more thing Colin Powell agrees with me on – the lies and despicable tactics of the Republican campaign that John McCain approves are out of line.

Powell said, according to the L. A. Times,: “I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said, such things as, 'Well, you that know Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

Amen, brother Powell, Amen!

Republiganda Cries About Biden Comments Much Ado About Nothing! Obama Wise Leader!

2008-10-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

The Republiganda machine is latching on to comments made by Joe Biden about the Obama administration being likely to be tested. Well, sure, all new administrations are tested. If McCain is elected, his administration is sure to be tested -- with a green vice-president and an aging president, and the weight of his party's last eight years in the While House, they are sure to be tested.

But I believe Senator Barack Obama is up to the task. And so do a number of experienced White House veterans and foreign policy experts who have endorsed Senator Obama, such as General and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of State Madeline Albright, U.N. Ambassaador Richard Holbrook, President Bill Clinton, President Jimmy Carter, Vice-President Al Gore, Senator Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Zbignew Brzinski, Senator John Kerry, General Wesley Clark and Governor Bill Richardson, amomg many. Certainly Obama will need help -- Presidents have never operated in a vacuum.

But who will that help be? Obama is a wise leader has surrounded himself with high quality people, such as former Navy Secreatary Richard Danzig, former Air Force Chief of Staff Tony McPeak, Former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, former National Security Council member Susan Rice, and Senate foreign relations leader Biden himself. He has shown a calm, steady temperament. Erratic McCain has the dregs of the Bush administration, high powered lobbyists like his campaign manager Rick Davis, and Sarah Palin. And what have the Republicans given us for the last eight years? Enough said.

General Wesley Clark Works to Secure America!

2008-10-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

Not only are the Republicans using their lies, distortions and misrepresentations to smear and impugn Senator Barack Obama, but it is a common tactic by Republican candidates on all levels. The Lee Atwater-Karl Rove school of gutter politics has been fully embraced by the Republicans. The party is rotten to its putrid core. I am still a registered Republican, out of respect for Dwight David Eisenhower. But my party of Lincoln and Eisenhower is long gone. All that remains is the name, and that name is being sullied everyday by Bush, McCain, Palin and the Untruth gang that runs things now.

On a recent five hour auto trip I heard attack ad after attack ad on the radio – all Republican, all with the same misleading spin of the half-facts, all using character assassination lines on their Democratic opponents. Simplistic, vile, outright false, Yes! But apparently it works with half the population, which is a great sadness and proof that our education system has gone to hell. Clear thinking seems to be extinct among the red state crowd! Hence, the only Republicans who will get my vote are local candidates that I know are not part of this sellout to dishonesty that is a cancer on our democracy.

I have good company in this disdain for this politics of evil. General Wesley Clark, one of the most honorable men to ever wear the uniform, supreme commander in a war WE WON, finds the campaign tactics dishonorable. And he warns that if we do not elect Democrats to help Obama, we will have the same non-action in Congress the Republicans caused over the past two years. There have been 94 filibusters and numerous other delay tactics by the party of Bush-McCain.

A responsible plan of withdrawal from Iraq? Filibuster. Reform the health care system? Filibuster. Investment in energy renewables, bringing us a new energy economy? Filibuster. 94 such filibusters and roadblocks in Washington, caused by the Republicans in the Senate. Add to that a Republican president who is veto proof because of their numbers, and that is why the Democrats elected in 2006 have been unable to do what they were elected to do! We need more Democratic senators if we want real change by the Potomac River.

General Clark, campaigning across the country for Democrats, warns that is what we can expect to happen to Barack Obama's agenda if we don't elect enough Democrats to the Senate on November 4. Republicans have filibustered a record-breaking 94 times in the last two years! Imagine what they will do when faced with Barack Obama's agenda for change.

General Clark is asking for help in two Senate races that few believed we could win just months ago: Jim Martin in Georgia and Kay Hagan in North Carolina. Contribute to Jim and Kay today.

Click www.actblue to donate to the campaign in the final push.

Jim Martin served our nation honorably as a member of the Armed Forces in Vietnam, in the Georgia House of Representatives, and at the Georgia Department of Human Resources. He has led his state on health care issues, helped provide quality and affordable health care for thousands of children, and put foster children in loving homes.

His opponent, Saxby Chambliss, ran one of the most despicable TV ads I've ever seen in 2002. The ad compared war hero Senator Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. And now, Chambliss has launched two new attack ads against Jim, even brazenly using the same background music from the attack ad on Max.

The race is neck-and-neck, and General Clark needs you to make sure Jim has the resources to fight back against Chambliss' distortions and lies by making a contribution today.

As a five-term State Senator, Kay Hagan helped strengthen North Carolina's economy, increased the salaries of teachers, and broadened early childhood education. I'm also standing with Kay because she will stand up for our nation's military and veterans. It is not just because she comes from a strong military family -- she has a deep respect for the men and women who serve our country and fight for the freedom we often take for granted.

Kay has a real chance to oust Elizabeth Dole. Dole has been a rubberstamp for George Bush and has voted with him 92% of the time, even more than Bush lapdog John McCain (ninety percent). We cannot let George Bush's failed policies continue under Dole and McCain.

Kay holds a slim lead. So now the right wing attack machine is throwing millions of dollars into this race over the final two weeks, hoping negative, false advertisements will make the difference. Elizabeth Dole has loaned herself $3 million dollars this week to buy her seat back. It must be nice to have that kind of change lying around.
Kay needs our help to fight back. Please help carry Kay to victory by making a contribution today!

Click www.actblueto donate to the campaign for the final push.

We have 10 days to make a difference in these races. Jim and Kay need your help now. Check out General Wesley Clark’s views and schedule at Securing America.com Help General Clark, Senator Obama and Senator Biden change our country for the better.

Republicans Stole Elections in '00,'04! Now Try for 2008! Read About BLOCK THE VOTE!

2008-10-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

We continue to get emails asking about the real history of the stolen presidential elections of the last eight years. Yes, both President Gore and President Kerry actually would have won the elections if not for Republican deceitful actions. If you want to read about real things that tore at the fabric of democracy, the Republican war on democracy in the United States, then please read in detail about the Stolen Elections of 2000 with well-researched articles and links to powerful books by Alan Dershowitz. Vincent Bugliosi and Jeffrey Toobin, and the Stolen Election of 2004 where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes a compelling story about the theft of democracy in America. In the most recent issue of the magazine he wtites about how to guard against it happening again in 2008, in the powerful, complelling article, BLOCK THE VOTE.

McCain's Bus Now Doubletalk Standard, Fueled by Lies: Will America Still Take Bus to Nowhere?

2008-10-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

Our economy is in a huge mess. Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years.

And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it's been since the Great Depression. And it was exacerbated bv a "spread it to the wealthy scheme" also known as the Bush tax cuts which gave those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this Republican administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class. And the McCainanite Republicans promise more of the same. Ideological prattle, but no share of the cattle for middle class and poor Americans.

Obama-Biden promise to enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief. this is not spread the wealth, it is share the health, helping our entire country become healthy economically.

They also plan to provide $50 billion to jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re¬pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.

Do not expect John McCain and the Republicans to bring the needed changes. Their policies got us here in the first place.

“The failed economic policies and the same corrupt culture that led us into this mess will not help get us out of it. We need to get to work immediately on reforming the broken government -- and the broken politics -- that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place.” Senator Barack Obama wrote me and other supporters recently, standing up for principles he has been calling for over the last eighteen months, and decrying the Republican presidential administration economic policies that drove this nation into the very deep financial and economic ditch.

Obama has repeatedly said for months that what was happening in the subprime lending market was inappropriate, that nobody was looking at whether or not these loans made sense, that in many cases they were pushed into communities in which workers and homebuyers couldn't support the underlying mortgages, and the fact that we just did not do anything is reminiscent of what happened during the savings and loans crisis. (Which John McCain, of Keating Five and “poor judgment” fame, should know something about). Obama was spot on right in his warnings – while McCain was missing in action, as has been the case for much of the last eight years of his embrace of Bush and Bush’s brainless policies.

In his letter to supporters, Senator Obama stated the core truth of the financial mess Bush and his merry men and women cooked up for us: “The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has created a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression. “

And, make no doubt about, John McCain and his Republican Party are guilty of being co-conspirators in cooking up this financial mess with a purposeful lack of regulation and safeguards. In response, Obama and Joe Biden promise that they will be “guided by core principles of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another,” in their economic policies.

Obama stated:“Joe Biden and I have a plan that will guarantee our long-term prosperity -- including tax cuts for 95 percent of families, an economic stimulus package that creates millions of new jobs and leads us towards energy independence, and health care that is affordable to every American. It won't be easy. The kind of change we're looking for never is., but if we work together and stand by these principles, we can get through this crisis and emerge a stronger nation.”

This is the kind of real Straight Talk America needs. McCain’s straight talk ended in South Carolina n 2000, the victim of the same Rove-Bush gutter politics he now embraces. His campaign bus no longer is the Straight Talk Express -- it is now the Doubletalk Standard, powered by lies not gas, on a perpetual route from Spinville to Propaganda City. And yet almost half of America is still on board this bus to nowhere.

It is a sad commentary on where our nation is, educationally, morally, and in the important areas of clarity of thinking and careful discernment.

Vile McCain Mailer Crawls Out of the Sewer!

2008-10-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

The Republican National Committee is distributing a mail piece that says "Terrorists" on the front and opens to a big picture of Senotor Obama saying "Not Who You Think He Is."

John McCain -- who promised to run a respectful campaign -- said that he was "absolutely" proud of it. How schizophrenic!

If you are sick of this kind of campaigning, call people for Obama, make a donation, go door to door. We must overturn this evil Republican campaign tactic and their flood of smears. The McCain campaign is a cancer on democracy. www.barackobama.com

Obama is Pro-family -- His Policies Will Aid American Families Much More than Republicans!

2008-10-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

I am praying for Barack Obama and his grandmother. The fact that the white woman who raised him, his grandmother on his mother’s side, is sick, and he is putting aside the most important campaign of his life to be with her, well, this shows he is a candidate with deeply held family values. His plans and policies reflect this high regard for families.

The reason he is a great leader is that he has good values and good work habits, learned at his grandmother’s knee. Obama has demonstrated that he is a committed Christian with strong Christian values at the heart of his vision of America, and the world, as well as his vision of the society and the support for the neediest ones among us. Even his opponent, John McCain, recently told a crowd that Obama is “a decent family man.. who loves America” If I were the Obama campaign I would run this as an ad and a robo-call to kill the lies against Senator Obama.

It is amazing what some people will believe in the character assassination ads and emails. I found it interesting that Obama’s lack of lapel flag pin was so “disrespectful” in the primaries, but when he wears one in each of the presidential debates, and McCain wears none, and no one says a word. Sarah Palin attacks Obama as anti-family, and yet which candidate has policies that will actually help families? It is Obama, by far. just check his website for detail after detail. www.barackobama.com

You can also check out your coming tax cut under Obama if you are one of the 95 percent of Americans who will get one. And if you are wealthy, you will still only be paying what you were paying before the Bush tax cuts, which were originally meant to be temporary. And, if you are wealthy, you are getting more out of the American dream than anyone else, so you should pay a little more to help the rest of society. It is not spread the wealth, it is keep the health -- of the country that is buttering your bread with more butter than ninety-five percent of your fellow countrymen and women!

Anyone who has seen Senator Obama interact with his wonderful wife Michelle and his two young girls knows there is a lot of love in this little family. And both he and Michelle grew up in basic American families with strong values and work ethics that we can all admire. What is more, Obama is a good family man and represents families in his beliefs and policies! He loves his kids, his wife and he also cares for the families struggling all over the country, including the veterans and current military. He is concerned about the future we are handing our children and grandchildren. We all should be concerned about it!

In Obama’s remarkable acceptance speech in late August, he brought up an issue that we must keep at the forefront of this election: paid family leave and paid sick days. He laid out a compelling vision of what a strong America looks like when he said:

“We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honors the dignity of work.”

After eight years of Republican rule, our country looks nothing like this. When families find themselves in crisis and ask, “How can I keep my paycheck and care for my family in the face of this emergency?”…the answer for most people is “you can’t.” Working moms and dads have to make painful decisions about whether they take time off to care for a new baby or have enough money to buy diapers. The leadership of the supposed “family friendly” party has done very little to make life easier for American families.

Here are some facts to consider:

• The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has given more than 50 million Americans the ability to support their families. However, because leave is unpaid, many families that have taken leave face economic hardship. Of the people who do not take FMLA, 78 percent say they could not afford to take leave.

• In the United States, only 51 percent of people get paid leave through their work to care for families.

• Almost half - 48 percent - of workers in the private sector get no paid sick days.

• Among low-wage workers the number with out paid sick days are even more dramatic: nearly 80 percent do not get any paid sick days.

We can do better for working Americans. We must do better for working Americans. We must do better for families. We need a real pro-family administration, not one that just gives lip service to the phrase and then actually attacks the families with pro-business plans and nothing for the workers.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing spouse or parent. We must elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden because they are really pro-family!

How Can People Believe Republican Lies, Even When They Have No Plans to Help Most People?

2008-10-23T03:11:00.000-07:00

When I see the blatant character attacks of the Republican machine upon Obama, and the dirty campaign tactics of Robo-calls and whisper campaigns, I cannot help bur remember that Rick Davis, manager of the McCain campaign, stated in August, "This campaign is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Davis's statement reduces the campaign to a personality contest, and then they are not dealing with truth about personality. They lie to tear down Obama. During an election season when war, the economy and health care are such pressing issues, the Republicans naturally want to shift the focus to personality–especially when they've presided over eight years of disaster and all they offer is more of the same.

Think back to the first week in September. We could see this gutter campaign coming, because the convention was prelude to the brutal rap act that has followed. Given this Davis strategy, the speeches at the Republican National Convention were short on plans for the economy, as well as on Iraq, energy and health care. Energy is more drilling for oil companies, health care is destroy the employer health insurance benefit, and education is more unfunded rhetoric.

In his acceptance speech, John McCain stated in reference to American workers, "We will prepare them for the jobs of today. We will use our community colleges to help train people for new opportunities in their communities"–surely a reprise of George Bush's empty promises during his debates with John Kerry. Like Bush, McCain knows that he has no such program in mind. Let him state instead that he'll put an end to tax cuts for corporations that ship American jobs overseas. That is a strategy that will really help workers. It is one that Obama promises.

All you have to do is think back to the Republican convention to see that social justice issues were not on the Republican agenda, at least not in real policy efforts. In fact, no issues were on their agenda, except keeping the Bush tax cuts for the rich, staying in Iraq for a long time, and "drill, baby, drill!"

Following the strategy as defined by Davis, who is a highly paid corporate lobbyist when he is not controlling McCain, the convention became a nasty succession of crafted lies and character attacks, with the target being Barack Obama. During the convention, a new dirty word entered the Republican lexicon: "community organizer." As Sarah Palin stated, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities."

The Republicans are clearly contradicting theeir won history when they disparage this valuable role. George H. W. Bush stated at his inaugural address of January 2, 1989, "I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the nation, doing good." And McCain himself, in his acceptance speech, asked listeners to "Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all." Yes, Papa Bush seemed to care, but the Neo-Cons seem to have stolen his son's soul, and the soul of the Republican Party that he has led for the past eight years. This is the party of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I have always been suspicious when Republicans extol the virtue of voluntarism. Between the lines I hear, "Don't expect us to properly fund education, health care and other social needs. How can we do that and afford tax cuts for the wealthy and a repeal of the estate tax? Let volunteers and charity handle it."

Regardless of my suspicions, the fact is that Barack Obama is entitled to high praise for his work as a community organizer. As recounted by U.S News & World Report, "After graduating from Columbia University in 1983 with a major in political science, Obama worked as a financial consultant in New York City. But he was bored—and drawn to public service."

So instead of staying on Wall Street and raking in dough, Obama took a tremendous salary cut in order to help people. His annual salary was $10,000. I realize that the work of CEOs and hedge fund managers command more respect according to the Republican value system. But how can anyone, except those operating on the most cynical of motives, deny Obama's idealism and patriotism?

So what did Obama do as a community organizer? According to U.S. News, "In 1985, he moved to Chicago to work with local churches organizing job training and other programs for poor and working-class residents of Altgeld Gardens, a public housing project where 5,300 African-Americans tried to survive amid shuttered steel mills, a nearby landfill, a putrid sewage treatment plant, and a pervasive feeling that the white establishment of Chicago would never give them a fair shake."

This is what we should hope would happen in our neighborhoods!

Note that Obama worked with "local churches"–a point conveniently forgotten by Palin, the new rock star of the religious right. And a party that preaches self-help ought to praise Obama for the values he sought to instill in others: "...whether it was getting the city to fill potholes, provide summer jobs, or remove asbestos from the apartments or persuading the apartment managers to repair toilets, pipes, and ceilings, Obama encouraged residents to come up with their own priorities with the gentle admonition: "It's your community."

The attempt to mock Obama for his praiseworthy work as a community organizer was a clear sign as one more diversion by a Republican campaign that is bankrupt of ideas and offers the nation an extension of the failed Bush presidency. And they have kept up these incessant attacks, trying to paint him as a terrorist by association with a man who has not been anything near being a terrorist for nearly 40 years.

They have misrepresented his tax cuts for 95 percent of the people, calling it socialism when they know it is not! They have purposely lied about other policy issues. And so many people believe them! Pray for America. We are being run by liars and thieves and enemies of workers an the poor, yet half the people like it and have no compassion. Even for themselves. The American Way for them is lies, fables and veiled hate and racism.

It is time for Compassionate Christians to Stand Up and Be Counted! Work for Social Justice!

2008-10-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

For nearly 2000 years, followers of Christ have sought to live out their faith in the real world – under a variety of political systems: empires, feudal systems, tribal systems, monarchies, oligarchies, totalitarian regimes, anarchy, corporatetocracy, or democracy.

Rev. Brian McClaren, insightful author of a number of cutting edge Christian books, puts it well: "In our American democracy, we have struggled, stumbled, fallen, and gotten up again, over and over, learning each time as we moved forward. We have grappled with how our faith related to declaring independence, opposing slavery, fighting for the rights of women, confronting child labor, aiding farm workers, and overcoming economic depression. We have embraced the dream of overcoming racism, we have fought for openness in government, and the right of every one to vote, and so much more."

However, McClaren warns that over the last years we’ve watched large sectors of our Christian community in the U.S. engage in several decades of divisive, ineffective, and downright counterproductive political engagement. At best, many attempts at engagement have been superficial, simplistic, and subject to binary thinking where one or two wedge issues easily distinguish the “good guys” from the bad. It is happening again in this election, led by such divisive Evangelicals as James Dobson and Pat Robertson, and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

At worst, we’ve watched too many of our fellow Christians slip into a “culture war” mindset where neighbors became enemies to be defeated and silenced, not loved as we love ourselves. In addition, we’ve watched too many members of our faith communities be manipulated by cynical politicians who knew what tune to play to get people of faith marching obediently in their parade. It has been very sad and counter-productive to the full Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Zekariah Smith has been writing about this for years. The powerful parables of Mathew 25, the prophetic book of Amos, and many other compassion-laden scriptures have been forgotten in order to develop wedge issues based on fear. While the wedge issues of the past and of today may have some basis in the Bible, much larger issues of ethics and social justice have been virtually ignored. Dishonesty and deceitfulness in political campaigning has been lauded and rewarded. We must all remember that Jesus said that Satan is the father of lies. We must not reward the liars and charlatans with electoral success when their overall policies bring about injustice, not justice.

Now we face unprecedented global crises: caring for our fragile and wounded planet, building a just peace in situations of conflict and fear, and eliminating extreme poverty and health care inequalities, while working for economic fairness and stability the world over. Electing the wrong president will set us back even farther in these crises – something we cannot afford to do. Electing the better president will not solve everything; it will only be a first step in the next chapter of our history, but it is an important step.

We invite you, as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, to step off the sidelines as an observer or critic. Put your beliefs into action in the election that we believe is for the soul of America. We hope you’ll join us, as Matthew 25 Network member Rev. McClaren proclaims … "Praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and seeking to be humble makers of peace, joyful workers for the common good, and dedicated servants of 'the least of these.'”

Please consider Barack Obama and Joe Biden for a new administration in Washington and a clean break with the last eight years. For reasons to make such a choice, read the other articles and columns in this “Battling for Truth” blog.

For more information about social justice activism and the politics of hope, not fear, see the Matthew 25 Network. Watch their wonderful video on families and share it with all you know.

And read Columnist Zekariah Smith each day, joining in the battle for truth, justice, and the American way.

America Cannot Stand Four More years of Republiganda Rule -- Obama Will Bring Hope

2008-10-21T08:12:00.000-07:00

As I have written here before, I liked the John McCain of the 2000 campaign, and we sometimes see glimpses of that old maverick every now and then this year.But for the most part he is Bush warmed over, and his policies and the people around him will just give us four more years of the last eight years.Plus, he is running the same dishonest style campaign as Bush, with some of the same people manufacturing the lies, half-truths and assorted distortions -- the Repbliganda (Republican propaganda and spin).

America, it is time for a real change. That is why I am voting for Barack Obama. As the respected General Colin Powell said, in endorsing Obama Sunday, “he is a transformational figure.”

We need a president who can inspire Americans across all divides, whether republican or democrat, black, brown, or white, woman or man. We do not need one who appeals to our fears and fuels mutual distrust. We need a president who can ask all Americans to make the sacrifices necessary to change the course of this country. We do not need one who asks us to go shopping while we send our young soldiers off to make those sacrifices for us. We need a president who understands that the government is not about politicians, corporations, or lobbyists; it is about we the people. We need a president who requires us to think, inspires us to dream, and challenges us to take action. Do not underestimate the power of hope, of words that inspire. We are at a pivotal crossroads in this country.

We can choose to continue down a path that will leave a legacy for our children of insurmountable debt, perpetual wars, and environmental collapse, as will happened with John “McSame” McCain, or we can create real change, not the hollow promises of the ones that messed America in the first place. Only one candidate seems to get that it is not about him, it is about us. “We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

For these reasons, the choice for the next president of our United States of America is clear. Senator Barack Obama is the thinking person’s candidate. He is committed to social justice and helping the underprivileged in our society. His dynamic plans and policies will revitalize the large, critically squeezed middle class.

Senator Barack Obama can bring new politics that are grounded, but yet progressive, for our changing times in America.. Old politics no longer work and no longer are fit in our ever changing world. He speaks a language of truth with the courage and faith to bring about change in government that meets the needs of a wider range of Americans so we can regain our status in the educational world.

I support Senator Obama’s investment plan in early childhood education as it is truly a head start in education. We are behind other countries and Senator Obama will help us overhaul the whole educational system that is failing our young, including the blatant unfunded mandates of the "no child left behind" law. We are failing our children and we need to clean this area of concern up, for the future of our country. Obama and Biden have real ideas for the public schools,not vouchers for the private ones that will take funding away from the public schools, which is at the heart of McCain's education plan.

I support Senator Barack Obama in believing the time has come to start bringing our troops home as well. I am concerned as to what has really entered the systems of our troops who have served our country. When we hear of head pain, suicides, and their thinking process to be so not themselves, we must ask what really has happened. Has the war within them come home to be fought here? VA needs to give Americans some fast answers before we bring all our troops home. Thank you, Senator Barack Obama for the support of job protection for family members caring for these soldiers. And a defense department with leaders like Powell and General Wesley Clark will be so much better for our troops.

Another reason to support Senator Obama is that Senator Obama plans to eliminate taxes for senior citizens with incomes of less than $50,000 a year. Life for seniors is hard enough here in Maine with the high cost of heating oil just to stay warm. Haven’t we put our seniors through enough? Please consider voting for Senator Barack Obama and Senator Joe Biden to fix a creaky system that no longer works, to stop the ideologically driven rule by spin and deception, and to give us a government of truthfulness and transparency.

There are other reasons to support Obama. Take a look at his website www.barackobama.com for many other insightful policy positions that will bring the change we need.

Read All About It -- How Bush Was Installed As President and Elections Were Stolen in '00,'04

2008-10-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

We have had a number of emails asking about the real history of the stolen presidential elections of the last eight years. Yes, both Gore and Kerry actually would have won the elections if not for Republican deceitful actions. If you want to read about real things that tore at the fabric of democracy, the Republican war on democracy in the United States, then please read in detail about the stolen elections of 2000 with well-researched articles and links to powerful books by Alan Dershowitz. Vincent Bugliosi and Jeffrey Toobin, and the stolen election of 2004 where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes a compelling story about the theft of democracy in America.

The Current Republican Party is Deadly to America -- It Has Almost Killed Her Already

2008-10-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

Do not be fooled by John McCain’s new soft, friendly ad and his admission that things have been bad the last eight years. He and his Republican Party are not the ones to bring us change! REMEMBER – it was McCain’s party, and McCain’s votes for his Republican party’s policies, that made things bad. They do not deserve another four years. Do not give it to them!

What we must do is stop them from stealing this election, too. All thinking, compassionate Americans must fight for fair elections and be ever vigilant that everyone is able to cast his or her vote and that every vote counts and is counted. This right to vote really is the fabric of democracy. Yet the Republicans are at war with our democracy. They gave it grievous wounds in 2000 and 2004. Now here they go again!

They do not want anyone but their people, the ostrich-lemmings, to vote. If every one else were to vote, the Republicans would lose. However, in a democracy, it is crucial that we allow and encourage every adult to vote. Voting rights are important civil rights that we must fight to uphold for the poor and politically weak.

The history of voter suppression in this country goes back to its beginning. The U.S. Constitution (yes, the original document had its flaws, too), when ratified in 1787, it did not define a citizen. Any citizen of a state was deemed a citizen of the nation. At the time, most states only granted the right to vote to white male property owners. By 1850, most landowner requirements were eliminated. Throughout America's history, certain groups of citizens were disenfranchised. Poll taxes, literacy requirements and physical barriers effectively removed these individuals from the voting pool. Court decisions, local legislation and Constitutional amendments overturned many of these conditions for voting, but it has taken a huge effort for blacks and women to get to vote in America.

Yet some still do not like it that blacks and browns have the right to vote, and they work to keep people from voting. In our day, that group is the Republican Party. Lincoln must hate his name associated with such a bunch of conspirators against the right to vote.

It was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, pushed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, that made the big difference. The history of oppression of blacks is a sorry one for this country. After blacks were freed from slavery in the Civil War, and granted the right to vote in 1871, literacy requirements, physical violence, property destruction, hiding the polls and economic pressures still kept many blacks from voting, particularly in the South.

Republicans of our day still fight against black (and brown) voting, and they have a particular venom for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, who valiantly attempt to register the poor and underprivileged, hopefully giving them a say in our democracy. That is why the Republicans are crying against them in their latest smokescreen. It is a familiar tactic of the Rove-Bush machine. Republican have repeatedly attempted to exclude legal voters and reduce Democratic turnout. There are many shocking stories from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections of such purposeful suppression of voters.

The Republicans are the ones who are always crying wolf and voter fraud while, in reality, they are the ones doing it, stealing elections and engaging in massive campaigns of voter suppression.

Now, they are attempting to disqualify hundreds of thousands of voters. What does that say about a political party? Their strategy is not to persuade voters that their positions are best for the country, but to disenfranchise them in as many places as they can. Right now, Republicans are doing all they can to prevent as many people as possible from voting in swing states like Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, and, of course, Ohio.

They won't give up. Cheating is all they have left and the power they desire so madly at stake. They will do anything to stay in power. Lie, cheat, steal? Sure!

They will fight to destroy the larger vote, and then they will smile and lie and maybe even wink at you. Since the snake was in the garden with Eve, there has never been a more deceitful creature on God’s green earth than this current version of the Republican Party.

We must defeat these inveterate liars so soundly on November 4 that the party will have to take a different direction. We need another kind of choice than the evil, neo-con/closet racist choice they give Americans now. The current Republican Party is deadly to America. It has almost killed her already.

Republican War on Democracy Continues: Do Not Let The Cheaters Steal Another Election!

2008-10-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

I am incensed about the newest McCain-Palin lie attack – the alleged vote fraud for Obama. John McCain, who can be so charming on late night TV, is at the heart of this big lie. Yes, it is not true! Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of "Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states" as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it's true. None of it.

In just the last week, we've had a phony stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they'd long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she's being besieged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they've not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain's state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him - you guessed it - precisely one legal vote.)

It's an old Republican scam, but it's never been carried out with more zeal than this year. The Republicans have been putting so much time, money and resources into the propaganda leading up to this over the last four years, we should have expected no less. Now we have a department of justice, under George Bush's corrupt command, that has plotted to keep low-income voters from voting, and were even willing to fire their own US attorneys for failing to bring phony charges of voter fraud in key swing states like Nevada and Missouri.

So what are the crimes that have caused all the bombastic language by Republicans on television and talk radio, and in several otherwise respectable newspapers and by the McCain campaign self? The only actual crime here is that Acorn managed to register some 1.3m low-income (read: Democratic-leaning) voters over the past two years. The rest is, pretty much, just made up.

But in the bloody and desperate trenches of the Republican war on democracy, that's more than enough to kick in a last minute surge of lies that may - with the help of a compliant and lazy corporate US media - wreak enough havoc, scare enough voters, confuse enough people and plant enough seeds to call an Obama victory into doubt on November 4.

As Bruce Friedman of London’s Guardian Newspaper, a keen observer of U.S. politics, writes: “If you can't win it, steal it. If you can't steal it, claim the other guy stole it. If you can't claim the other guy stole it (yet), say they're about to and then kick up smoke that maybe someone will believe you. (Heckuva job, CNN.)”

Friedman sums it up: Here are the facts. Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic ("fraudulent", "incomplete", et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming "Acorn is committing fraud" know all of the above but don't bother to share those facts with the media they've run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it's voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.

Friedman adds “You'll hear that Donald Duck, Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and (new this year) the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team have all had fraudulent registrations submitted in their names. That's true. And we know this, why? Because Acorn told officials about it when they followed the law and turned in those registrations, flagged as fraudulent.”

What you won't hear is that federal law requires anybody who does not register to vote in person at the county office to show an ID when they go to vote the first time. So, unless Donald Duck shows up with his ID, he won't be voting this November. You needn't worry, no matter how much even John McCain himself cynically and dishonourably tries to mislead you.

Freidman puts it plain for his British readers: “If it quacks like a duck, in this case, it's likely another Republican Acorn voter fraud lie. They haul it out every two years. Just days before the 2004 presidential election, rightwing whack job Michelle Malkin claimed that Acorn was registering terrorists to vote in swing state Ohio. Problem was, that was proved to be a lie.”

Friedman continues: In 2006, again just days before the election, the new US attorney in swing state Missouri (recently appointed, since the one before him refused to bring such charges), filed voter fraud indictments against Acorn workers in the state. Problem was, bringing election-related indictments that close to an election was a violation of the department of justice's own written policy. And Acorn had nothing to do with it, other than turning in the employees to officials.

The sad thing is that this dastardly tactic has been an effective one, as it's served to distract from very real concerns about tens of thousands of voters who have been illegally purged from the voting rolls in dozens of states, as the New York Times reported in a remarkable front page investigative story. That story followed a report the week before from CBS News detailing still more wholesale purges of voting rolls in some 20 states.

That will be the November surprise, when thousands, if not millions show up to vote only to find they are no longer welcome to do so and are forced to vote on a "provisional ballot" which may or may not be counted.

Mr. Freidman warns: “These real concerns of election fraud, such as voting roll purges, electronic voting machines that don't work and so much more that actually matters, have been obscured by the smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand of the Republican party's phony Acorn voter fraud charade.”

If you want to read about real things that tore at the fabric of democracy, the Republican war on democracy in the United States, then please read in detail about the stolen elections of 2000 and the stolen election of 2004

Voter Fraud? The Very Dirty Pot Republicans Cry Wolf as They Eat the Sheep ! Past is Prelude!

2008-10-18T04:50:00.000-07:00

Now the Republicans, who stile the elections of 2000 and 2004, are crying voter fraud over two weeks ahead of election day. It is yet another distraction, an effort to mask their own efforts at voter suppression that they have done so well in the recent past. Once again, it is the truth be damned, and how can we use words and accusations to our advantage, whether they are factually accurate or not.

McCain accused the not-for profit group ACORN of tearing at the “fabric of our democracy,” during the third debate. Yet his party has emulsified that very fabric of democracy for years. It is typical Republican doublespeak. Do one thing, say another. Distract, divide, demean, and conquer.

It worked before, so the McCainanites, many of who worked for Bush, are using their tried and true terrible, despicable tactics. And do not tell me all is fair in politics. We in America should be better than that. If we cannot do democracy right, how can we assume others can? Already we have a totally outdated system of electing a president – the shamefully non-democratic electoral college system – and now we have a party, and its current administration, conspiring to suppress the vote with trumped up charges of voter fraud.

I am thankful that Barack Obama's campaign asked the U.S. Justice Department to expand a special prosecutor's investigation to include possible improprieties surrounding reports the FBI is looking into voter fraud in the presidential race. Obama's campaign attorney said the investigation should look into a leak to the news media that the FBI is probing allegations of voter registration fraud by a grassroots organization called ACORN. The group's activities were denounced by Republican nominee John McCain in the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

Respected lawyer Robert Bauer, general counsel to the Obama campaign, wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey a day after the Associated Press, citing unidentified law enforcement officials, reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating ACORN. The name is short for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

A special prosecutor appointed by Mukasey already is looking into whether improper political considerations influenced the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. At least one prosecutor was fired following Republican complaints that he didn't aggressively pursue allegations of voter fraud against ACORN.

Bauer said the news leaks are part of a coordinated effort by McCain's presidential campaign and Republicans. They are ``fomenting specious vote-fraud allegations and there are disturbing indications of official involvement or collusion,'' Bauer said.
``It is apparent,'' he wrote, that law enforcement officials are serving ``improper political objectives'' that could inhibit voter participation in the Nov. 4 election. The aim is to ``suppress the vote and to unduly influence investigations and prosecutions,'' Bauer wrote.

The truth is that unless someone with a false registration actually shows up to vote, there is a problem. Otherwise, it is just another Republican propaganda distraction. If Mickey Mouse shows up at the polls in a couple of weeks, John McCain might have cause for the alarm he showed over alleged voter fraud during Wednesday’s debate. If Minnie and Goofy also turn up with state-sponsored photo ID, then the Justice Department and the FBI will need to turn their attention away from terrorism, bank robberies and billion-dollar financial scams to investigate fake voters.

But it’s quite unlikely that Mickey or Minnie or Goofy will be among the voters lined up on Nov. 4. So McCain’s hysterical outburst over a group of activists — ACORN, he said, “may be destroying the fabric of democracy” — needs to be understood for what it is: a distraction. The Republican nominee is once again using fear as a tactic to try to win votes. ACORN, reaching out to register the poor, is under Republican attack, as in past years.

During this election season, ACORN has conducted a registration campaign, hiring workers to sign up new voters. Some workers have decided to fake it, filling in names such as “Mickey Mouse” instead of those of eligible voters. (According to ACORN’s leaders, they discovered the fake names and notified authorities. They’ve also fired workers caught engaged in illegal activities.)

Fake voters are a myth, a convenient cover for those who really don’t believe in the universal franchise. (ACORN has been accused of fraudulent registrations; for actual voter fraud to occur, persons with those fake names would have to show up to cast ballots.) There is no evidence of people coming to the polls using false names and fraudulent IDs.

Atlanta Journal Constitution writer Cynthia Tucker states that ever since the civil rights movement inspired large numbers of black and brown Americans to exercise their right to vote, Republicans have been engaged in efforts to keep them away from the ballot box. Way back in the 1960s, Arizona Republican William Rehnquist — then a GOP activist, later the chief justice of the United States — was accused of intimidating Latinos to try to keep them away from the polls. Many Republicans fought the “motor voter” laws, passed during the ’90s, that allowed state driver’s license bureaus to also register voters. Ease of access encourages less affluent Americans to vote, and Republicans fear that too many Democratic-leaning voters are in that demographic group.

Don’t be fooled. Neither McCain or his hench-people are not concerned about democracy. They’re worried about Democrats. They really do not want a big turnout. If more poor people actually vote, they will lose.

Obama Wins Debates, But So Did Gore, Kerry -- Turnout Counts -- We Must Nurture Education

2008-10-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

Obama won the final debate, by my score card, and, therefore, won all three debates. The opinion polls agreed with me on these debates. All of them had the public picking Obama by whopping margins. So Obama won all three and Biden won his on points, although Sarah Palin definitely out-winked him. But let me remind you that Gore won all three in 2000 and Kerry won all three in 2004.

So debates do not always hold sway. It is mainly get-out-the-vote at this juncture, which is why McCain still runs the attack ads -- and his ads attack Obama's character and contain outright falsehoods, which is a far higher level of negativity than the Obama ads which attack McCain's real policies and the Republican record of the last eight years. McCain may claim that he is not "George Bush," but the represents the same party that has been in power in the White House for the past eight years, and six of the last eight years in Congress.

And McCain really is Bush warmed over in so many ways. For one, he picked the SHE-BUSH to be his Vice-President, and then, on issue after issue, he continues to trumpet the Republican ideology of Bush and his failed policies.

John McCain’s fusion to President Bush’s ideological hip couldn't’t be tighter when it comes to education. He is eager to expand taxpayer financed vouchers to aid parents who send their children to parochial schools, to “shake up schools with competition,” as he said Thursday night in his acceptance speech. And he aims to further centralize elements of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative, rather than rethinking how Congress can narrow achievement gaps without micromanaging the daily work of teachers.

I am convinced that a full vouchers system, taking money from public education, will eventually destroy public education, and yet public education has made America great -- a fantastic social justice leveler of the playing fiend, so to speak, helping for fairness and building society stronger.

McCain’s pitch on school reform actually might be better if he talked to Palin a bit. Palin, the daughter of a retired public school teacher, who began her political career leading the local Parent Teachers Association.

But, as University of California professor Bruce Fuller expertly points out, McCain places his faith in vouchers, assuming that market competition among schools will magically deliver a stronger teaching force or counter the denigrating effects of family poverty on children’s early growth. Yet only three publicly financed voucher programs — Cleveland, Milwaukee and Washington — have survived since the early 1990s. We know that many inner-city parents seek an escape from dangerous or ineffective schools. But these experiments with vouchers have failed to yield consistent achievement gains.

Fuller shares that according to a recent Gallup poll, just two in five Americans support school vouchers. On No Child Left Behind, four in five believe the legislation should be revamped by Congress, to de-emphasize standardized tests.

McCain’s push to privatize schooling also surfaces in his pitch to have Washington pick after-school tutoring companies, removing this authority from local school boards. These budding corporations, sniffing out a vast new market, see better prospects if they can directly lobby federal officials, not unlike the inside politics of winning farm subsidies.

Fuller, who monitors public policy closely, states that on early education, Republican leaders have been silent, even though quality preschools pack a strong punch in boosting young children’s learning. Mr. McCain has repeatedly voted against bipartisan proposals to expand and improve Head Start preschools. In contrast, Ms. Palin as the governor of Alaska, has urged expansion of early childhood efforts that focus on poor families. Indeed, she recently asked for legislative options to enrich the training of preschool teachers — priorities right out of Hillary Clinton’s playbook.

So where are McCain's real priorities? He wants to freeze spending on discretionary federal programs, like special education that serves millions of young children. Once again we need to speak for the weakest among us. Special education must be saved and nurtured.

Pro-Life is a Lifetime Stance, Not only in Womb, But also Cradle to the Grave: We Must Stand for Unborn and theBorn: Abortion, War Both Evil

2008-10-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

I am a pro-life Christian, because I believe God is pro-life. And I am glad He is! But I am pro for all of life, from womb to the grave, so it influences my views on war and capital punishment and social justice issues. This does not mean I do not have compassion on pro-choice advocates, and though I disagree with Obama and Biden and the Democrats on this issue, (and I pray they might one day see it differently), they are right on so many other key issues that I am going to vote for them in November. More than one issue affects people in this election, and it takes more than being against abortion to be fully pro-life. Pro-life should also be a cradle to the grave life stance.

A little self-disclosure – I am a registered Republican. But the party has left me with its deceitful campaign tactics and apparent aversion to honest governance. I guess you could say I am an Eisenhower Republican, and there are very few of us left these days. But I seek to be fair to all people, and I have many Democratic friends, and I have become convinced that Obama is a more fully pro-life candidate (from the cradle to the grave) than McCain or Palin, and certainly than George W. Bush has been as president.

My friends who are pro-women’s choice have made their case with me. They talk about the idea that having a child is a personal choice that affects a woman's body and personal health. They believe that both parents' and children's lives are better when the government allows women to have abortions, thus preventing women from going to desperate lengths to obtain illegal abortions. ( I am old enough to remember the coat hanger and coke bottle self abortions that killed or maimed many a young girl before 1973.)

More broadly, pro-choice advocates frame their beliefs in terms of "individual liberty," "reproductive freedom," and "reproductive rights." The first of these terms was widely used to describe many of the political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries (such as in the abolition of slavery in Europe and the United States, and in the spread of popular democracy), whereas the latter terms derive from changing perspectives on sexual freedom and bodily integrity.

Many pro-choice individuals often do not consider themselves "pro-abortion" because they consider abortion an issue of bodily autonomy, and find forced abortion (as has been done in China) as legally indefensible as the outlawing of abortion. Indeed, some who are pro-choice consider themselves opposed to some or all abortions on a moral basis, as I do, but believe that abortion bans imperil women's health. Others have a practical acceptance of abortion, arguing that abortions would happen in any case but that legal abortion under medically controlled conditions is preferable to illegal back-alley abortion without proper medical supervision. Others ask what is the difference between qbortion and ANY form of contraception, since all essentially destroy life or its possibility. The debate has many facets. I counter with scriptures about Jeremiah and John the Baptist, adn the fact that thte Bible considers them persons in the womb.

However, remembering the back alley abortions that young women attempted in my childhood and youth, I personally do not think turning back Roe vs. Wade is the answer -- people need a change of heart that a mere change in the law cannot bring. But I think Christians need to proclaim the message that all life as special and sacred, and be fully pro-life in all areas, not just the womb. What about the babies and children and the elderly? And as Rep. Ron Paul says, “How can you really be pro-life and also pro-war?” And I might add, how can you be pro-life and against decent, affordable health care for all children and adults? True pro-life folks should really be like the Prophet Amos, crying for social justice to flow down like rivers.

But Please do not forget the unborn. They are not just so much waste, even though some people treat them that way. Anyone who has ever looked at a sonogram knows they are fully alive human beings! The unborn are innocents who need someone to speak for them.

And if a young girl or woman bravely chooses to keep her child, when the biological father and others desert her, society and the churches need to be there to help and support them. Fertility is a blessing and a gift from God when God created us, as human beings capable of creating life ourselves. The moment where there is existence of life in women, where women can feel another pulse and heartbeat.. is extremely amazing.. how wonderful and powerful women can be here.. bearing a life within themselves.. What an awesome privilege! Yet some feel so overwhelmed and afraid they give up that precious and fragile life. Pray about this issue. It is a very complex situation for those who consider abortion. They need love, support and compassion

But so do the unborn children.

Amidst the Lies and Distractions, Do Not Forget the Poor and Needy, the Issues of Justice for All

2008-10-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

While I feel the lies and dishonesty of the current White House and the Republican campaigns of the last twenty years, (especially this one), are a huge problem for our American society, (the society that lies to each other destroys itself), And while I am greatly concerned about the state of our economy, let us not forget other key issues facing the American people.

Our commitment to social justice and help for the poor and needy, to build a more equitable country, must remain constant. We must not forget the challenges faced by children and families living in poverty, the inadequacy of our “safety net” of human services, the disproportionate incarceration of men of color, and the challenges experienced by those living with disabilities. We who are Christians must live with Matthew 25 influencing our conduct and our votes. Some would point to gay relationships and women’s choice as the moral cancers, but Jesus singled out uncompassionate ways for special condemnation. He emphasized the importance of acts of compassion.

We need to work for a “kinder, gentler society” to use good words from George H. W. Bush in his 1988 campaign. We need to fight for fairness, equity and help for the powerless.

Social justice means all citizens are entitled to the same rights and services. I am deeply concerned that we in America continue to fail the children who are abused, neglected, and just plain unwanted. Foster children, who depend on society’s largesse for their very existence, go largely unseen. Because these are children, they don’t fund any political campaigns, lobby any elected representatives for an opportunity to be heard, or organize any marches to advocate for better services. They have no voice if we don’t speak for them.

Health care is another area of great concern. Why are 46.6 million people without health insurance ? Why is employee-sponsored health insurance disappearing? (And now McCain’s health care plan wants to kill it off entirely!) Why are the numbers of uninsured African Americans, Hispanics, and immigrants so disproportionate to that of Caucasians? Why is the number of uninsured children—8.3 million—again on the rise, when it had been dropping steadily since 1998? And why aren’t more people as outraged about it, in the still wealthiest nation in the world?

And not only is the Middle Class being squeezed beyond measure, but we also have mounting poverty.In 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Labor, 12.6% of the population (or 37 million people) were poor—up from its all-time low of 11.3% in 2000 and higher than in 1979. Even the higher African American (24.9%) and Latino (21.8%) rates and the lower Caucasian (8.3%) rates rose above their all-time 2000 lows. Meanwhile, the American Dream—the promise that work pays—faded for the working and middle class. In 2004, 7.8 million people aged 16 or older spent at least 27 weeks either working or looking for a job but earned below–poverty-level wages in companies that provided few basic benefits such as healthcare or parental leave. More than 58% of these “working poor” women and men were on the job full-time and 90% worked at some time during the year—twice as many African Americans and Latinos as Caucasians. Thanks to tax cuts and corporate welfare, inequality also reached new highs. In 2005, the top 20% of households accounted for a record 50.4% of the national income, up from 49.8% in 2000 and 43.2% in 1970. In contrast, the bottom fifth’s share fell from 4.4% in 1970 to 3.6% in 2000 to 3.4% in 2005.

Christians must decide what really matters most, and then speak and act appropriately. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” For too long thinking Christians have let the loud mouths of the right speak for Jesus. Well, Jesus would like us to speak for Him using His own words.

For eight years the Bush administration (i.e. the Republicans) have turned a deaf ear to these issues and have, instead, served Wall Street and the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. It is now time to change direction. That change comes in Obama and Biden and compassionate Democrats, who have plans and policies to address these social justice issues. Check them out at www.barackobama.com

Obama Should Air McCain's Straight Talk About Obama:"He's a Decent family Man, Citizen"

2008-10-14T03:42:00.000-07:00

John McCain's ads still contain multiple false and misleading claims about Barack Obama and about Obama's tax proposals.

A TV spot claims Obama once voted for a tax increase "on people making just $42,000 a year." That's true for a single taxpayer, who would have seen a tax increase of $15 for the year – if the measure had been enacted. But the ad shows a woman with two children, and as a single mother, she would not have been affected unless she made more than $62,150. The increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his current tax plan anyway.

McCain's moral epiphany of last Friday was short-lived. His high distortion ads still lie about Senator Obama's record and plans. Case in point: A Spanish-language radio ad claims the measure Obama supported would have raised taxes on "families" making $42,000, which is simply false. Even a single mother with one child would have been able to make $58,650 without being affected. A family of four with income up to $90,000 would not have been affected.

The TV ad claims in a graphic that Obama would "raise taxes on middle class." In fact, Obama's plan promises cuts for middle-income taxpayers and would increase rates only for persons with family incomes above $250,000 or with individual incomes above $200,000.

The radio ad claims Obama would increase taxes "on the sale of your home." In fact, home-sale profits of up to $500,000 per couple would continue to be exempt from capital gains taxes. Very few sales would see an increase under Obama's proposal to raise the capital gains rate. The McCain Republican machine is doing this on purpose. Do we want four more years of these people in charge? They apparently do not know how to speak the truth. Obama is not perfect, but I have not caught his campaign is such adroit deception. But such deception has become a Republican art.

Senator Joe Biden talked about the incessant, distorted McCain attacks yesterday, according to ABC News, Biden pointed out that Obama focuses on issues and plans to raise the economy, while "John McCain’s entire speech is gonna be attack, attack, attack, attack. Now look, by contrast, it seems it couldn't be clearer to me. It couldn’t be clearer to me what’s going on here. John McCain wants to attack Barack Obama and Barack Obama wants to attack the problems that face America today.”

“But here’s the bottom line: these attacks don’t hurt Barack Obama, these attacks don’t hurt me," he continued. "Every single false charge, every single baseless accusation that comes forward is an attempt to get you to focus on something other than what’s going on in your family, other than something’s going what’s in your neighborhood, in your state. Beyond the attacks, and I mean this literally, beyond the attacks, what is John McCain really offering?”

“There’s a need for the international community in this global economy to come up with a common approach how to deal with this economic crisis. It’s not just talk, it’s a reality. You see the markets are moving again today, they’re doing better, they’re bouncing back a little bit. Why? Because of international cooperation with the banks in England are doing and what we’re doing. So folks, look, you need international leadership and it can only come from one place. The president of the United States of America. And it can only come quite frankly, in my view, obviously from Barack Obama.”

iden warned that McCain might be "a great soldier", but that does not equip him to deal with the economic downturn.

“People assume because he had been a great soldier that he had certain hands, that John, in a moment of crisis, would know what to do,” Biden said. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, John's hands have been anything but certain in the last year. They've been uncertain. And the McCain administration would be uncertain, clinging to the past, lurching from one bad idea to another.”
Witness that just last Friday McCain lauded Obama and attacked him on the same day. McCain abruptly changed his tone on Friday and told voters at a town-hall-style meeting that Mr. Obama was “a decent person” and a “family man” and suggested that he would be an acceptable president should he win the White House.

But moments later, Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee, renewed his attacks on Mr. Obama for his association with the 1960s radical William Ayers and told the crowd, “Mr. Obama’s political career was launched in Mr. Ayers’ living room.”
If i were the Obama people I would run the laudatory McCain statements in an ad saying "Who is the real Barack Obama? And then show McCain say he is a good family man, as he said on Friday. That would be fair play after all the numerous personal destruction ads aimed at Obama that John McCain has approved.

I am John McCain and I approved this lie could be replaced with some real "straight talk from McCain, something he actually said on Friday: "he’s a decent family man, citizen who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues... I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments, I will respect him.”

Republicans say Black is White, Re-create Reality Once Again: Palin is Bush with Lipstick and Heels

2008-10-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

McCain’s running mate, unlawfully abused her power as Alaska’s governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, according to an ethics investigation released last night. It deals a significant blow to an already embattled Republican ticket just over three weeks until Election Day.

The report, released after a two month investigation, found that Mrs Palin was motivated in part by a personal grudge when she fired Walt Monegan, the police chief, after he failed to dismiss her brother-in-law, who had been involved in an ugly divorce from her sister.

Mrs Palin has always maintained that she dismissed Mr Monegan over budget disputes, but the investigator hired by a 14-member bipartisan panel of the Alaskan state legislature concluded that a personal grudge influenced her decision - although it was not the sole reason for her motive to fire him.

Mr Monegan triggered the enquiry this summer when he alleged he had been fired by Mrs Palin, the Governor of Alaska, because he refused to bow to pressure by her, her husband Todd, and members of her staff to sack Mike Wooten, Mrs Palin’s former brother-in-law.

“I feel vindicated,,“ Mr Monegan said. “It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field.”

Stephen Blanchflower, the investigator hired by the legislative committee to conduct the investigation, said he found Mrs Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain. He said she violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: To get Trooper Michael Wooten fired," he said.

of course, the McCain-Palin campaign responded by saying that black is white and night is day, in their best Animal Farm doublespeak.

Even though. On Friday, the bipartisan Alaskan Legislative Council(ten Republicans, four Democrats) voted unanimously to release the findings of its “Troopergate” investigation, McCain-Palin called it "partisan."

The report stated unequivocally that “Sarah Palin abused her power” by violating a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. As the report emphasized, “Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional.”

But the amazingly dishonest McCain campaign has decided to simply turn the finding on its head. On Fox News Sunday, campaign manager Rick (Fannie Mae PR man) Davis claimed the investigation absolved Palin of any wrongdoing:

DAVIS: Let me tell you, this whole thing has been a kangaroo court form day one. … The reality is there was absolutely no wrongdoing found in the report. 1,000 pages, an enormous waste of time and the best that they could come up with was no violation of any laws or ethics rules, but –

WALLACE: Wait wait. It said she violated the state ethics board.

DAVIS: But that she acted within her power and scope of authority as governor to do exactly as she did. … It was a great public circus.

Davis’s claim that the investigation was a partisan hit job is laughable. The investigation was originally authorized by a unanimous, bipartisan vote of the Legislative Council; a bipartisan majority voted to subpoena key witnesses, including Todd Palin; and its findings were released Friday under unanimous, bipartisan agreement.

Yesterday, Palin similarly reversed the report’s findings, telling Alaskan reporters yesterday she was “very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing,” or “any hint of any kind of unethical activity there”:

KTVA Reporter: Governor, finding No.1 on the report was that you abused your power by violating state law. Do you think you did anything wrong at all in this Troopergate case?

PALIN: Not at all and I’ll tell you, it, I think that you’re always going to ruffle feathers as you do what you believe is in the best interest of the people whom you are serving.

Perhaps Palin’s complete misunderstanding of the report’s findings is rooted in the fact that she apparently still hasn’t actually read it:

KTVA Reporter: Have you read the whole report? (No response; sPalin aide invites question from

KTVA reporter).

The Ostrich-lemmings of the Republican party do not care. They are too scared of Obama's skin color and different kind of name and think he is Muslim terrorist because of the MCacain ads.

But I pray that the thinking Americans ( I still hope we are a majority) will not put this unqualified, deceitful woman a heartbeat away from the presidency. She really is not a pit bull, but rather she is George Bush with lipstick and heels.

Did McCain Have Moral Epiphany, Or Is He Locked In His Bush-Rove Campaign Prison?

2008-10-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

Was it a moral epiphany or yet another mercurial image from an erratic campaigner? Has McCain, like the character Gollum in Lord of the Rings, still a shred of goodness inside, even through he has been affected by the Ring, er, I mean the Rove for a long time now?

The Seattle Times reports today John McCain on Friday moved to calm rising anger among his supporters at rival Barack Obama, describing him as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

McCain was booed after the conciliatory words about his Democratic foe.

The move by McCain at a town-hall meeting in Lakeville, Minn., came after days of rising tensions as the Republican presidential candidate and his campaign repeatedly attacked Obama as a friend of a 1960s radical they call a terrorist.

Growing angry about Obama's increasing lead in polls, supporters of McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have responded with loud cries of "terrorist" and "traitor."

At one rally this week in New Mexico, McCain winced when his mention of Obama's name was greeted by the shout of "terrorist," but the candidate said nothing.

Supporters at Friday's town-hall meeting pressed McCain to get tougher on Obama.

But when one man said he was scared to raise his unborn child in a country that might be led by a President Obama, McCain disagreed.

"I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States," McCain said to boos and groans from supporters.

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments. ... I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity; I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

At one point, McCain grabbed the microphone from a woman who had begun to say she didn't like Obama because he is an Arab. "No, ma'am. No, ma'am," McCain said. "He's a decent family man, a citizen who I just happen to have serious differences with on fundamental questions."

His comments came a day after an angry Wisconsin crowd shouted epithets about Obama, pumped fists angrily and catcalled repeatedly when Obama's name was mentioned. Outside, many flipped their middle finger at a media bus.

McCain was less conciliatory at that rally. When a visibly angry supporter in Waukesha told McCain "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right."

But even while McCain tried to quiet the boos Friday, his allies and advertising unleashed a flurry of attacks on his rival's ethics, touting Obama's ties to Vietnam War-era radical Bill Ayers, who was radical four decades ago, but a senior citizen professor now.

McCain's campaign released a national TV ad that asserts Obama worked with a "terrorist" when it was politically convenient and then lied about their relationship.

Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, hosted a 1995 candidate event for Obama and was involved with two mainstream charitable groups in which Obama also had been active. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has praised Ayers as a leading citizen who helped shape the city's innovative schools program.

In the late 1960s and early '70s, when Obama was a child, Ayers belonged to the Weathermen, a radical anti-war group that advocated violence and placed bombs at the Pentagon and the Capitol. There's no evidence that the two men are close or that Ayers has any connection to Obama's presidential campaign.

What will it be? Will MCCain pull the ads? Or does he really control his campaign? The Bush operative led Republican campaign is in full gutter mode now, responding to Obama’s hopeful vision for America with low blow attacks and outright lies. As Senator Joe Biden said yesterday, “I've heard some pretty unspeakable things in the past few days -- deeply offensive smears that we'll hear over and over again until Election Day. John McCain and Governor Palin are setting a new low in presidential politics with their dishonorable campaign.”

Biden continued, “After Tuesday’s debate, it's clear why John McCain doesn't want to talk about the issues facing ordinary Americans -- especially the economy, which his own advisers admit he can't talk about without losing."

So what's to come from the McCain campaign? Biden sees more negative attacks and lies. And it's even worse from some of the well-funded outside groups supporting McCain, have a sole purpose is tearing Barack Obama down with smears. Instead of focusing on the issues that really matter,

So it is that McCain and Palin and their hench-people are doing everything they can to encourage this toxic atmosphere. They do not want folks to see that it was a type of McCain’s own Keating economics that got us in this financial mess. Witness Sarah “Not Ready to be a Heartbeat Away” Palin, and her hateful rhetoric, and all the lies McCain has approved in his multitude of false, misleading ads.

Palin is a falsehood machine gun. She is not just telling lies; she's telling lies that have been exposed as lies, and that have gotten a lot of attention. Assuming she does not actually want to lose, she must assume that her audience either doesn't know that she's lying, or that her audience doesn't care. In either case, it's deeply cynical, and deeply insulting, and starkly tragic.

What has the McCain-Palin gutter brigade chosen to do? Viciously attack Obama's good character with recycled lies and distortions, all in an effort to distract us from important issues like the economic crisis. The same tactics they used against Dukakis, Clinton.Gore and Kerry. Character assassination with lies -- and the real truth does not matter, since it is the opposite from what they are saying,

You would think that someone like McCain, who was viciously attacked and smeared by Bush-Rove in 2000, and who was grievously wounded in those attacks--wouldn't turn around and in 8 years do it to another candidate. But he has surrounded himself with Bush operatives.

What a hypocrite! He has bought into the Republican-Rove-Bush way of winning – by hook and by crook. BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GOVERN! Witness the last eight years!

Did McCain have an epiphany or was the better John McCain of eight years ago trying to send a message from this detestable Rove-Bush prison he finds himselfin?

Who Really is Cindy McCain? A Former Drug Addict Who Stole Drugs From a Charity

2008-10-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Who is this Bill Ayers that McCain speaks so ominously about? The former Weatherman, William Ayers, now holds the position of distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Ayers was never convicted of a crime, but he has admitted being part of the group that was radically against the VietNam War. Obama was a child in Hawaii when this stuff happened. He ahd no connection whatsoever to the crimes involved.

Both Obama and Ayers were members of the board of an anti-poverty group, the Woods Fund of Chicago, between 1999 and 2002. In addition, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in April 2001, as reported here. They lived within a few blocks of each other in the Hyde Park section of Chicago, but Ayers is not a close friend or adviser to Obama, and has no ties to the Obama campaign at all. So it is all guilt by tenous association.

But two can play this sordid game of dragging up the past on associations. If you are going to hold a man as evil still after nearly forty years, then what about Cindy McCain? Yes, John McCain lives in the same house with a former drug addict and a person who stole drugs from a medical charity.

Who Really is Cindy McCain? Yes, we know she is and heiress to her father's stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, a mega-beer distributorship, and that she is an executive whose worth exceeds $100 million. Her beer earnings have afforded the GOP presidential nominee a wealthy lifestyle with a private jet and at least ten homes at his disposal, and eleven cars, and her connections helped him launch his political career.

Husband John cannot remember it, but by the last count, Cindy McCain owns ten homes, including an apartment near Washington DC; two condominiums in Coronado, near San Diego as well as the one her father left her in La Jolla. She lives in a $4.7m pad on top of one of Phoenix's fanciest new luxury towers. She also owns holiday homes in the countryside near Sedona, Arizona. Her vast wealth and many homes are the way she grew up.

The Hensleys have long been members of the Phoenix elite. (That’s right, elite, as in what Barack Obama is actually not). She grew up in a rambling low-slung house with a fiberglass Clydesdale horse – Anheuser Busch's trademark – plonked in the front garden. The only child of her parents' second marriages, Cindy's mother, Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley, kept a tight rein on her daughter while her father lavished her with gifts. So you can be sure that she can really feel your pain, middle class and poor America! NOT!

But there is more to the story of Cindy “Beer Barbie” McCain that many seem to have forgotten.

Back in 1989, following two back surgeries, Cindy McCain became addicted to the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet. To keep up with her daily need of 10 to 15 pills, she used other people’s names for prescriptions and stole drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she’d begun in 1988 to provide emergency medical services around the world.

A 1993 DEA audit of the amount of painkillers her charity had obtained quickly uncovered her thefts. She avoided prosecution for those crimes through an agreement with the Justice Department in which she submitted to drug testing, paid a fine, performed community service in a soup kitchen, and joined Narcotics Anonymous. She also closed her medical charity.

Cindy McCain is Senator McCain’s second wife. His infidelities put strain on his first marriage, and he was divorced from Carol McCain, his wife of 15 years, in 1980. (Carol McCain not only waited for five and a half years for her husband to return from Vietnam, but she also endured a horrific automobile accident during that period which broke both her legs and one arm and ruptured her spleen. She nearly lost her left leg, and surgeries left her four inches shorter than she was before her accident. The woman John McCain returned to was far different in appearance from the beautiful former model he’d left behind.)

Cindy Lou Hensley and John McCain began dating in 1979. But the Wall Street Journal states: “At the time, Sen. McCain was separated from his first wife,” numerous other sources assert he was still living with Carol McCain when he began seeing his future wife, Cindy. John and Cindy wed in 1980, one month after his divorce from Carol became final. [From snopes.com: Cindy McCain]

TO PARAPHRASE JOHN MCCAIN's ADVERTISEMENTS -- How Dishonorable!

Who Really is John McCain? An Erractic Man Wrapped in Dishonorable Lies and Bush Ideas

2008-10-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

Like a carnival magician, the McCain campaign is trying to distract the voters from the truth again – attempting to focus on Obama's character with guilt by association ads and smears. But Obama has proven his calm, steady character under pressure throughout two long, tough campaigns. The McCain charges are lies, lies, nothing but lies. “Pinocchio” McCain strikes again.

His ads attempt to raise fears, asking “Who really is Barack Obama?” But the better question is “Who really is John McCain?” Or maybe “Where is the John McCain we once thought we knew?” The old McCain is certainly no where to be found in the current campaign of lies.

The Republican propaganda machine does not want folks to keep thinking about the staggering economy, job losses, home foreclosures, gasoline prices and the Bush administration's wholesale gutting of the regulatory agencies that were established to protect Americans from robber barons, health hazards and the destruction of the environment. The Republican record of the last eight years is perhaps the worst in American history. So they are trying very hard to distract the voters from thinking about it.

As Joseph Galloway wrote about the Republican complicity in the financial meltdown, in the Miami Herald; “Over most of the last eight years, a Republican president and a Republican Congress aided and abetted this shocking development. Bowing at the free market altar, Republican politicians caponized, neutered and rendered toothless the regulatory agencies that were established to protect the public from predatory capitalism -- all while accepting fat campaign contributions from the predators. In his term, Bush has made the very rich very much richer and put the bedrock of this nation, its broad middle class, very much at risk of falling through the cracks his administration has pried open in the floor beneath their feet.”

And then there is the War in Iraq, which is bleeding $10 billion or more a month away from the United States, plus all the many losses of life and limb for our soldiers. What good could this money do here at home? What good could these young men and women have done in their lives that are now lost for a war based on lies?

But here goes McCain, talking about a hundred year presence in Iraq. He promises more of the same Neo-Con, blustering foreign policy as we have seen with Bush-Cheney.

As Senator John Kerry said, “McCain "has proven that he has been wrong about every judgment he's made about the war. Wrong about the Iraqis paying for the reconstruction, wrong about whether or not the oil would pay for it, wrong about Sunni and Shia violence through the years, wrong about the willingness of the Iraqis to stand up for themselves.” Kerry said that McCain has proven he has poor judgment -- too poor a judgment to be president of the United States.

John McCain has showed why the American people cannot trust him to bring a new direction in Iraq. McCain continues his pattern of pandering to the right wing that is his Republican party, and misleading the public about the facts on the ground by echoing the Bush Administration's talking points on the war. He claims every credit on the “surge,” inflating its real results, but the jury is still out on its effectiveness. Other factors have been involved in the violence slowdown, but McCain does not acknowledge them.

The truth is, John McCain refuses to admit that he is wrong on Iraq. He was wrong to echo the Bush Administration's misleading case for war on Hardball in 2001, wrong to predict an "overwhelming victory in a very short period of time" on CNN Late Edition in 2002, wrong to say we "will be welcomed as liberators" on Good Moring America in 2003, wrong to say the end is "very much in sight" in 2003, wrong to let Donald Rumsfeld keep his job in 2004 and 2006, wrong to say he could safely walk down a Baghdad street on 60 Minutes in 2007, and wrong to challenge the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with him. McCain is wrong to say that keeping our troops in Iraq for 100 or 10,000 years "would be fine" with him. [McCain Town hall in Derry, NH, 1/3/2008;)

"John McCain's angry tirades and misleading attacks can't change the fact that he refuses to acknowledge his own poor judgment in backing the Bush Administration's mishandling of the war," said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney. "It is evident that only Senator Barack Obama, right on his judgments of the war, can be trusted to bring the change in Iraq the American people want."

The person who will bring real change is Senator Barack Obama. With Senator Joe Biden by his side, with Senator Hillary Clinton leading the way in Congress with Reid and Pelosi, Senator Obama will bring in a new administration, with fresh ideas and a calm purpose, to make America a leader the world can trust again.

Obama and Biden and the Democrats know how to govern, something that has not been done since the Clinton Administration. A vote for Obama and Biden will help give America the change we need.

DO NOT BELIEVE THE FEAR ADS, AMERICA! OBAMA IS THE PRESIDENT TO TAKE US INTO THE FUTURE, NOT FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE LAST EIGHT YEARS!

McCain Wants to Burn $300 Billion More, Hopes Smoke Covers His Keating Economics

2008-10-08T05:46:00.000-07:00

Debate number two showed us a condescending John McCain, talking about "that one" when referring to Senator Obama, and attempting to sway public opinion with a brand new "plan" that is already in place. This shows you how out of touch John McCain really is.

Of course, pouring an additional $300 billion in order to nationalize bad mortgages is a new and dangerous twist to the existing plan. Who is the fiscal conservative in this race? Only Bob Barr, is seems, with Obama more fiscally conservative than McCain.

And Obama again won the debate, acting far more presidential than mercurial McCain. He offered real policies for real problems, not posturing and demagoguery.

Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama. Dirt, dirt, and more dirt from the mudslinging mavericks.

In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.

But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.

During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.

Sound familiar?

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts -- and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.

In fact, in the infamous Keating Five scandal, McCain was NOT exonerated, as his surrogates are fast to claim, reather he was censured for exercising "poor judgment." He still has poor judgment today.

There is a great 13-minute documentary about the scandal called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis" -- that you can see at www.KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.

The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn't learned his lesson. He is still practicing Keating Economics today.

And this time, McCain's bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.

Watch the video to see why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis: We cannot afford the risk of McCain and his Keating Economics.

McCain Unleashes Lies from the Pits of Hell -- Pray to Heaven His Falsehoods Do Not Succeed!

2008-10-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago we had the travesty of the 2000 election, in which the media were prone to emphasize Vice-President Al Gore's exaggerations while letting George W. Bush off the hook, and then in 2004 we had the swiftboating of a real American hero Senator John Kerry. If being in prison because you allowed your plane to be shot down qualifies one for hero status, what about being shot in your body for your country like Kerry?

But now we have the dirtiest, most false campaign of them all, with every lie approved by the once honorable John McCain. "The biggest liar in modern political history," writes Michael Tomasky, the editor of the Guardian America, about John McCain. There are indeed so many lies associated with the Republican campaign that truth seems a distant memory. You have to go back to Reagan and Papa Bush to find Republican truthfulness, and then it was few and far between compared to Eisenhower and Ford. (Even if Cheney was his chief of staff, Ford was too decent a man to lie like the devil).

The lies of John McCain include the recent "Who is Barack Obama" ad, misrepresenting Obama's postion on Afghanistan. With obviously quick, devious editing, they turn an understandable statement by Obama into a statement that seems to question our troops.

At a town hall meeting in New Hampsire in 2007, Senator Obama was asked if troops should be moved out of Iraq to better fight terrorism, Obama turned to Afghanistan, where he has long supported having more troops so the job could be done well, and we did not rely solely on air power which often has resulted in civilan casualties, and said, “we've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." Notice the first part of his statement, about having MORE troops in order to fight more effectively, is purposely left out of the McCain lying ad.

Then a woman's voice scolds: "How dishonorable." Yes, she is trying to smear Obama, but she could easily be talking about the ad that her voice appears in!

What is more, the McCain ads have covered a multitude of other lies. Remember the despicable efforts of the McCain campaign to portray Obama as being in favor of teaching sex education to 5-year-olds and the Spanish language ad accusing him of opposing immigration reform? Other lies include McCain's claim that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class or McCain’s statement to the women of "The View" that Sarah Palin never requested earmarks.

All were proved factually inaccurate, but the McCain campaign does not care. They feel they can win with their lies. A lie a week changes the news cycle from issues that actually matter.

Those of us who once admired John McCain for his supposed truthfulness now realize the true depths of his deep moral depravity. Plus, as Alan Wolfe writes in Salon.com, when McCain is linked to Palin, moreover, as he so frequently wants to be, “lying experiences something of a multiplier effect. These candidates lie so much that they have taken to lying about their own lies.“

Of course, George W. Bush was a consummate liar in both his presidential campaigns, and he still won, (rather he was awarded the presidency, one by the Supreme Court, the other by Diebold in Ohio). Then he continued to lie in office, and look what a horrible mess that got us! Wolfe see the Republican lying problem’s core as an ideological one – “the form of conservatism to which they all adhere demands that if they are to win they have no choice but to lie.”

In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush, then something of a political unknown, claimed to be a compassionate conservative and promised the country a "humble" foreign policy. Lies both. Wolfe rightly says that Bush purposed to invade Iraq before 9/11, and Bush wanted to privatize Social Security, the most compassionate program ever adopted in this country, and was simply waiting for the right opportunity to do so.

Even beyond the lying smears and character assassination that McCain and Palin are deeply engaged in, Wolfe sees a basic falseness in the Republican propaganda: “the conservative populism that has swallowed up the contemporary Republican Party lies because conservative populism is itself a lie. It claims to be guided by faith, when it is run by corruption. It speaks of diversity, but remains overwhelmingly white. It uses women to push an agenda that would expose women to harm. It speaks of reform tomorrow, but works to slash the reforms of today. It seeks popular support to enact policies that, if revealed for what they really were, would be wildly unpopular.”

SOUND THE ALARM! RING THE BELL! HELP WAKE UP AMERICA! WE MUST NOT ELECT ANOTHER SERIAL LIAR! GOD SAVE AMERICA!

McCain Approves More Lies -- Takes Off Another Set of Dirty, Truthless Gloves -- Smears Obama

2008-10-06T05:19:00.000-07:00

Here come the lies again! The Republican Propaganda machine is cranking up its slurs of Senator Barack Obama, and, of course, the truth does not matter. Now that wonderful smiling and winking liar Sarah Palin has accused the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, of associating with terrorists. Give me a break!

Dragging up old slurs that have already proved to be erroneous, Palin said Obama had been "palling around" with an ex-member of US-based militant group Weather Underground named Bill Ayers, which opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s. The truth is that Mr. Obama once served on a charity board with a member of the group, who is now a reputable college professor all these years later, but Obama has denounced the groups militant activities during the Viet Nam war. CNN found not close friendship or ties between Obama and Ayers, just a small link for working on the same charity.

This is typical Republican gutter politics. What is clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy. But more cheap shots are sure to come in the next month. Commentators say Palin's attack forms part of a broader Republican strategy to attack Senator Obama's character by trying to link him with people he has known or met. It is a trashy strategy.

Speaking to lemming-ostrich supporters in Colorado and later in a Los Angeles suburb, Pit Bull Palin said the time had come to take the gloves off. Palin described Senator Obama as someone who saw the US "as being so imperfect... he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country". The crazy thing is the whole charge is so ludicrous. Obama was a young child when Weather Underground was active, and it has not been active in many years. It is another attempt at guilt by association, and the association is very limited to being on the same charity board.

And of course, the woman casting stones is married to a former member of a party in Alaska that was dedicated to seceding from the United States. But she is the super patriot here – at least, that is what her script says.

Now comes the word in the press that the McCain campaign is going to take the “gloves off.” Did they ever have gloves on? After all the dirt and mud they have already thrown, after all the smears and jeers, how can they sink any lower?

If you have any hope for the future of America, go to Obama’s website – www.barackobama.com -- and contribute to his campaign right now. He will need all hands on deck to defeat the McCainanite lies. Even twenty dollars will help Obama and Biden fight for the truth.

Can you remember the promise that “Mr. Flip-Flop” McCain made at the beginning of the year, that he would "raise the level of political dialogue in America." McCain pledged then that he would "treat my opponents with respect and demand that they treat me with respect."

Instead, with Rove protégé Steve Schmidt at the helm, McCain has turned the campaign into a torrent of debasing negativity, misrepresenting Barack Obama's positions on everything from sex education for kindergarteners to middle-class taxes. As Rolling Stone magazine points out, in September, in one of his most blatant embraces of Rove-like tactics, McCain hired Tucker Eskew — one of Rove's campaign operatives who smeared John McCain and his family during the 2000 campaign in South Carolina. Where are your principles, John?

As Tim Dickinson tells in Rolling Stone, throughout the campaign this year, McCain has tried to make the contest about honor and character. His own writing gives us the standard by which he should be judged. "Always telling the truth in a political campaign," he writes in Worth the Fighting For, "is a great test of character." He adds: "Patriotism that only serves and never risks one's self-interest isn't patriotism at all. It's selfishness. That's a lesson worth relearning from time to time." It's a lesson, it would appear, that the candidate himself could stand to relearn.

"I'm sure John McCain loves his country," Dickinson quotes Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism czar under Bush. "But loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."

Hence the lies come full torrent again, wiht all the talking points surrogates, (often either carefully picked blonde women or black men), pressing the offensive with crafted lies. It should remind thinking Americans of the dirty politcal past -- of the swift-boating of a real war hero, and the debasing of a future Nobel Prize winner. This is how the Republicans of our century roll over people. They lie.

Well, we have had enough lies with Bush-Cheney, America. Do not give the Republicans four more years to lie to us and run this country deeper into the ditch. Fight for the soul of America. Battle for the truth.

McCain's Health Care Plan is Unhealthy for America, And Would Not Help the Uninsured

2008-10-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

In the recent quasi-debate, Sarah Palin used her folksy, pit bull with lipstick demeanor to defend the same disastrous policies that have failed us for the past eight years. She couldn't identify a single area where she or John McCain would change George W. Bush's economic or foreign policy positions.

Palin, winking and blinking, and evoking her alleged “small town values” at every turn, offered no real change. Just hearing her whiny speaking voice for four more years would drive me to drink. Where did she get that accent? It is not Alaskan that I know of, even though I lived there for a number of years. “You betcha” is Minnesotan, not Alaskan. Is the accent something she made up also?

Using that often condescending voice and her wolf-like smile, she railed against the Wall Street her party created, talking about greed as if the Republicans and deregulation had not stoked the current conflagration, and acting as if some real regulation would not help us at all. Well, tough talk without regulation will do what we have now – nothing! And McCain-Palin promises us more posturing and more nothing.

The change we need is fixing this broken economy from the bottom up -- not tax breaks for the wealthy and huge corporations that ship U.S. jobs overseas. Let's be clear: Governor Palin and Senator McCain are offering nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies at home and abroad, trying to disguise them in the rhetoric of change.

Americans need real solutions and real change. Not only are John McCain’s ads full of smoke and mirrors, so are his proposed policies. As Senator Joe Biden pointed out in the debate, McCain’s health care plan would not help the currently uninsured. Indeed, it would put more people on the uninsured rolls. The McCainanites strike again! They will be tampering with your existing health care coverage, in the name of the wonders of the free market.

John McCain's proposed health care plan is likely to result in higher overall health care spending than Sen. Barack Obama's, says Kenneth E. Thorpe, PhD, Emory University health policy researcher.

Thorpe, professor of health policy and management at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, is the author of two analyses that detail estimated savings from both the McCain and Obama proposed plans. (www.emory.edu/policysolutions/) Under McCain's plan, 14 million adults would face either denials of coverage or pre-existing condition waivers in today's individual health insurance market. If all employers dropped coverage, over 65 million adults would face the same fate, Thorpe's analysis notes.

"Sen. McCain's health care plan would change where and how many Americans secure health insurance," says Thorpe. "It would also change how insurance is bought and paid for. These are significant changes from the current system." The central tenet of McCain's health care plan is to withdraw the current tax exclusion of employer health insurance contributions and treat them as taxable income.

In exchange, McCain would provide refundable tax credits of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of purchasing insurance in the non-group private market. This would not help the uninsured, many who pay a small amount of taxes because of low incomes, and would actually cost employed people thousands of dollars. Thanks, McCain. More of the same priviatizing Republican bull crap.

In addition, McCain proposes that higher-risk, chronically ill patients secure health coverage through state high-risk pools. The plan is not specific on the mechanism for assuring Guaranteed Access Plan (GAP) coverage, and does not address how generous subsidies would need to be. But even if the overall cost of insurance for high-risk populations were capped at 50 percent higher than the current total cost of employer-sponsored insurance, the federal costs of this portion of McCain's health plan would approach $70 billion per year.

In contrast, Obama's health care proposal could reduce national health care spending by $200 billion to $275 billion and federal spending by approximately $100 billion by the year 2012.

Obama's health care plan, says Thorpe, includes a number of components designed to improve the quality of care and make health care more affordable over time. Key initiatives in the Obama plan include broad-scale adoption of health information technology, along with changes in financial incentives for physicians to promote evidence-based, best practice coordinated care management programs. In addition, Obama's plan encourages wider use of lifestyle change and wellness programs designed to reduce obesity and its associated costly conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

The reality is, McCain’s proposals would greatly increase the number of uninsured Americans, while also doing nothing about health care costs except increasing the number of people who can’t afford good quality health care for themselves and their families.

Once again, it is hocus-pocus. The Republicans have rhetoric saying they are doing one thing, but they are really doing another, and the plan is ideology –driven, not by what is actually best for all the people.

No Matter How Much Lipstick You Put on Pit Bull, Or Even If She Has Been Taught to Wink, She is Still Not Ready to Be a Heartbeat Away!

2008-10-04T04:03:00.000-07:00

"Can I call you, Joe?" Sarah Palin asked in the pre-debate greeting to Senator Biden. Sounded like more of the same of her folksy demeanor, right? Well, it was just to set up her pre-canned quip, "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again."

When you watch her antics again, you can see that the "folksy" stuff is not a sign of authenticity, but of a carefully conceived disguise. All of her winks and smiles, dropping her G's on words, and using the punchy phrases like "darn right","you betcha", and "doggone" were pre-planned, designed to present a false image of her. In contrast, Joe Biden, showing some grace and dignity, came to answer the questions for Americans to hear the facts, and it showed.

When she tried to remember her talking points, Palin made some big factual errors. But since the McCain-Palin campaign has often defied the facts, because they do not matter to them, she might have been recalling the talking points accurately. The campaign may have called upon her to lie for them again. And if she did not remember her talking point, she just changed the subject. Unbelievably, she said she wasn't going to answer some of moderator Gwen Ifill's questions but then at the end took credit for taking tough questions.

Palin played fast and loose with the facts, and often used a half-truth to add up to a big lie. Case in point:

PALIN: Said of Democratic presidential candidate Obama: "94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction."

THE FACTS: The dubious count includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by factcheck.org found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all, seven were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, 11 would have increased taxes on only those making more than $1 million a year.

Of course, the right wing propagandists went through the roof on the broadcasting major's television performance. Typical was the National Review's Rich Lowry, who wrote: "I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it!"

How sickening! The truth is, Palin has proved she cannot take follow-up questions,flubbing questions in media interviews. Her solution in the debate: not answering them at all.

Palin demonstrated a knack for answering the question she wanted to answer—not the one that was asked. At one point, Ifill asked Palin to respond to a comment by Sen. Biden on health care. “I would like to respond about the tax increases,” Palin pivoted and proceeded to accuse Obama of raising taxes the aforementioned 94 times, which is FALSE! A minute later, Ifill prompted Palin to respond about McCain’s record of deregulation.

Again, Palin resisted: “I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again.” Biden looked exasperated, prompting Palin to say, “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.” In other words, rules be damned. (Like the laws she ignores in Alaska).

In other words, as columnist Christopher Beam pointed out for Slate magazine, she was saying "screw your questions, I’ve memorized a message and gosh darn it, I’m going to get it across." She even managed to steer Ifill at one point: “Can we talk about Afghanistan real quick?” “Certainly,” said Ifill.

She had talking points but few responses to Biden’s rebuttals. One notable exception was the time she corrected Biden on “McClellan’s” argument that counterinsurgency could work in Afghanistan as it has worked in Iraq. Biden conceded the point but didn’t mention that his name is actually Gen. McKiernan. McClellan served under Lincoln.

It was a strategy to avoid follow-ups, in a debate format that favored that, and she was able to come across both forceful and "charming" to the Republican base. All style, but little substance.

Of course, the more I see her I see an Alaskan Stepford wife, a Republican fembot programmed to be that smiling pit bull with lipstick that she is.

In her closing statement, Palin said she liked the debate because “I like to answer these questions without the filter of the mainstream media.” Christopher Beam got it right when he wrote, "If by 'filter' she means Couric-style follow-ups, requests for clarification, and other obstacles to the subjects she came to talk about, she’s right. This debate was a great medium for her."

No matter how much lipstick you put on that pit bull, she is not ready to be Vice-President, a heartbeat away from the presidency. She continues to showcase the poor judgment of John McCain.

Fencepost Palin Reads Her Cards Well, And All Are in Awe -- But Joe Biden Actually Won Debate

2008-10-03T04:03:00.000-07:00

The talking fencepost had been prepped to the gills and so Palin proved she can memorize talking points, even if she cannot think beyond them. Because it was not a real debate, more of a joint segmented speech, she was more in her element. Because she did not fall off the stage, the Republican spin masters trumpeted her performance.

The fact that she looked at the camera was seen as a fantastic thing, but you would think that since her only degree was in broadcasting, that should not be seen as such a badge of honor. Still, the bravos were flowing from the chattering Republican shills, on cue and according to their own well-written talking points.

"She dominated the stage," said one. "She even winked at the camera twice. I have never seen that in a Vice-Presidential debate!" Well, sir, that is because no one so shallow, coy, or brassy as Sarah "Barracuda" has even been nominated by a presidential candidate with such poor judgment as McCain before.

Yes, Palin exceeded the super low expectations, as I predicted here yesterday. In fact, I am not so sure she helped drive those expectations low herself, so she could rebound "miraculously." The McCain campaign is that devious.

Look at it this way --either Palin cannot handle questions off script -- which I feel disqualifies her to be President, or it was a devious ruse, which also should disqualify her to be President -- and the Vice-President must be ready to be President.

Even in this quasi-debate, she broke the rules and chose not to answer some of the questions. If you cannot go by the rule of a competition, will you go by the rule of law? Oh, I forgot, Troopergate and its cover-up prove that she could care less about the laws of the land. Of course, the media, with its news cycle Alzheimer's, has already put Troopergate in its rear view mirror.

No matter what the Republican propaganda machine tells you, it was evident that, on substance and facts, Senator Joe Biden won the debate hands down. He showed himself to be graceful against her incessant attacks, as she scrambled from note card to note card to blast him and Senator Obama. His answers were filled with his insight and experience. And he really tried ot answer the questions, as opposed to using questions to launch pre-programmed talking points.

True to the McCain campaign, Palin was loose with the facts, sketchy on any kind of policy, but strong on the fact hollow values statements. She repeated many Republican talking points, including "John McCain knows how to win a war!" Oh really? If I remember we lost in Viet Nam, didn't we? Or are the Republicans re-writing that history, too?

As I said in yesterday's column, the smoke and mirrors brigade would trumpet how wonderful Sarah Palin was in her second coming. But you must look beyond her style and supposed personality and look at the ideology and policies she represents.

Her ideas are bad for the country, no matter how well she smiles or how well she remembers her carefully devised (by someone else) talking points. A vote for Palin is a vote for four more years of the last eight years, or worse!

McCainanites Plot the Second Coming of the Pit Bull -- Palin Will Exceed Low Expectations

2008-10-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin will probably do well in the debate tonight, and will be proclaimed as “wonderful” and “brilliant” because she has set her own bar so very low. It is another Trojan Horse moment for the deceitful McCain campaign. The woman cannot be as dumb and totally uniformed as she has looked in her two real interviews (Hannity does not count, for he is no journalist, only a propaganda shill).

Don’t get me wrong, she is surely not qualified, by education or experience, to be president of the United States. But she has to be smarter than a fence post, which is the object she has resembled in the interviews with Couric and Gibson.

So I predict that she will exceed expectations, and that the ever-scheming McCainanites expect this to give them a much needed bounce in the polls. But people should not be looking at her debate style or her perky "hockey mom" personality.

They rightly should be afraid of her extreme beliefs, and her proclivity for lying, (just like the forked-tongued McCain), and the place she and McCain stand on the issues. Their policies are more of the same claptrap ideology that Bush has stuffed down our throats.

Sarah Palin has been proclaimed fervently by the Republican propaganda machine to be a “family values Christian.” A closer look makes us ask what kind of Christian is she?

The Bible contains strong appeals to honesty, urging me not to bear false witness (the 10 Commandments), to let one’s word be one’s calling card (Your “yes” be “yes,” your ”no” be no.”) But Sarah Palin has easily lied about her own record.

Her stump speech claims, it seems, have been shot down as lies on a daily basis:

• The state lost money on the sale of a government jet that wasn't sold on eBay. She had implied that this had worked as planned.
• She was in favor of the bridge to nowhere even though she said she wasn't.
• She was an ineffective small town mayor, even though she claimed that experience as proof of her ability to lead. One of her great policy pursuits was to attempt to take books she deemed “offensive” out of the town library. Perhaps McCain will make her “Censor in Chief” as Vice-President.

And, to be such a supposed patriot, it turns out she was not entirely forthcoming about the fact that her husband supported Alaska's secession from the United States, though he's no longer a member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party.

And her brand of Christianity is not of the usual mainline variety ascribed to by most of our presidents and vice-presidents of the past. Palin is just one level above the snake handlers (and she might even be doing that, for all we know). There is a widely viewed video of Palin being prayed over by a controversial minister and blessed to be protected from witchcraft. This is not your traditional American Christianity.

As Roy Bragg of the Express News commented, “While Americans love leaders who have strong religious beliefs, the notion of a world leader who believes in sorcery and magical spells might be a little much for the average person to tolerate. This gives ‘enchanting’ a new meaning, eh? On a positive note, if McCain wins, those official exorcisms at the White House will be a hoot.”

In all seriousness, Palin’s far, far right religious views call for a close inspection. She certainly is openly judgmental, so the tolerance and love Jesus talks about so much seems distant from her. The Golden Rule for her seems to have more to do with campaign fundraising and oil and gas, than in a truly Christian way of life.

Not only is she rabidly anti gay marriage and anti women’s choice, and she once tried to take books out of the Wasilla library, but her churches are part of a fanatical fringe movement of Christianity called “Dominionism,” with groups seeking to influence or control over secular civil government through political action — aiming either at a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law. Sounds like George W. Bush on religious steroids.

For a more detailed explanation of this frightening way of thinking, see author F. William Engdahl article: "Joel’s Army, Politics and Religion, Creating Strange Bedfellows." Engdahl writes that Palin is part of the "Joel's Army" movement, a cult like part of extreme right "Christianity".

He writes: "Joel’s Army believers are hard-core ‘dominionists,’ meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism. To paraphrase George W. Bush, ‘You’re either with us or you are against us.’"

Engdahl states that Joel's Army members are recruited young and taught to believe they’re members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world. Sarah Palin was twelve when she first came into these circles.

We Have Seen What A Religious Fanatic President Will Do(Bush)– And It is Not Good. We Do Not Need Palin, Too!

McCain is New Lord of the Lies, and Dishonesty Built the Wall Street Wall That is Tumbling Down

2008-10-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

McCain is the new lord of the lies, but he has a lot of brothers and sisters on Wall Street. Dishonesty built the Wall Street Wall, the financial house of cards that is still falling.

The once defeated, still proposed $700 billion bailout, which I detest, is just a bandage. I think more crap will hit the fan and soon. Too many lies have been told. Too much greed has ruled the day. I fear that more collapse is coming.

I actually think people, Obama included, need to listen to Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Backed by distinguished Emory University Professor Frank Alexander, Kucinich argues that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act will not fulfill its stated goal of preserving homeownership. Unless the Secretary of the Treasury is required to prioritize assets that will give the Treasury a controlling share in the underlying whole mortgage, the Secretary will hold bad assets with no power to make them solid again. Helping people keep their homes should be priority one. Read at: http://kucinich.house.gov/

The economic problem is really a crisis of dishonesty. The problem is that our system is built on a house of cards, divorced from what is true, what is tangible and what is real. It has been a time of greed on steroids, fueled by rampant lies and deceit.

According to the FBI, mortgage fraud is the fastest-growing white-collar crime in America. While certainly not the sole cause of the subprime mortgage crisis, it is likely one of the causes, as unscrupulous brokers talked unwitting people into buying houses they couldn't afford.

And the U.S. government, under the glorious former king of false statements, George W. Bush, has been hiding and manipulating economic indicators for many years. It stopped reporting the size of the money supply in 2006. The government has also spun the economic data, manipulated the economic indicators, and otherwise manipulated the market and the economy. What's wrong with that? Well, consumers have had an unrealistic view of the economy, and have therefore made bad decisions based on false or hidden information.

And many top economists - such as Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz - are saying that the high cost of war in Iraq is the real cause of the current slowdown in the U.S. We have wasted billions and billions of dollars over there for nothing good, and all because of lies. It is now clear, of course, that the Iraq war was launched under false pretenses, created by Bush, Cheney and the Neo-Cons who control them.

As columnist George Washington (a pen name) wrote in Op Ed News, “The Neo-Cons -- the guys running our nation's foreign policy -- have bragged that they disdain reality and that America can just "create its own reality" since it is an empire and the world's sole superpower. Well, it didn't quite work out that way in Iraq or Afghanistan. And if we invade Iran, it won't work that way there, either. The lies which America's 'leaders' have been using are so blatant that America has lost its credibility. Of course, the government has tried to hide the weakness in the economy by devaluing the dollar. But the chickens are coming home to roost: gaming the system only works for so long.”

Washington goes on to speak about the disastrous "derivatives bubble". He writes: “Basically, the $516 trillion dollar derivatives market doesn't trade in real goods or real services, but abstract ideas and pieces of paper several steps removed from the real goods or services. The problem is that neither the buyers or sellers of derivatives have placed a value on the books of their trades. Indeed, they can't, because no one really knows what a lot of these abstract psuedo-investments are worth: they're so many steps removed from a tangible good or service, and have been re-packaged with a bunch of other derivatives, that even the large banks which hold large amounts of derivatives don't really know what they're holding in their hands.”

This is the crap that will knock over the proverbial fan. As one writer put it: "It’s all smoke and mirrors. The financial system has decoupled from the productive elements of the economy and is now beginning to show disturbing signs of instability."

Dishonesty is the poisoned tree at the base of America’s problems. The economic crisis is its fruit. Capitalism works when there is transparency, honesty, and some checks and balances. But what we have is capitalism sick from cancer of lies.

We will not be able to get out of the downturn until people are willing to stand up and demand that our economy be based on truth. America must return to truth as a building block of our society.

I am John McCain -- And I Approved This Lie

2008-09-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

John McCain has approved a multitude of lies against Senator Barack Obama. It is the old propaganda technique of “if you repeat it enough, people will think it is true.” But he and his campaign’s continued use of lies and half-truths is doing a terrible thing to the morals of America.

Any devout Christian, Jew, or Muslim worth his or her salt should decry the terrible example the McCain-Palin lies give to our children and youth. What is honorable about telling lies?

Writer Joe Klein, in Time magazine, points out that McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. "His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent—and witting—disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both."

Klein also writes that worse than the lies have been the smears, such as when McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) It appears, says Klein, “that the McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions.” I could not agree more.

McCain's campaign has been a series of snide and demeaning ads accompanied by the daily gush of untruths that have now been widely documented and exposed. As Klein writes, “the strategy is an obvious attempt to camouflage the current unpopularity of his Republican brand, the insubstantiality of his vice-presidential choice, and his agreement on most issues — especially economic matters — with an exceedingly unpopular President.”

Jonathan Chait writes in the New Republic that “McCain's untruths, in their frequency and their audacity, defy any modern historical precedent. He has been concocting falsehoods for months on end, all of which serve a clear political purpose.

Chait reveals that even after Sarah Palin’s lie that she said “no to the Bridge to Nowhere”, was revealed, and that she had, in fact, vigorously championed the project until it was no longer tenable, the McCain campaign continued to assert it anyway, day after day, dozens of times in all. Even after its falseness had been affirmed in almost every media outlet, they kept playing the untrue ads.

Chait states that what happened after that was even more unusual, and possibly without precedent: McCain's supporters simply suggested that the truth or falsity of their statements didn't matter. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said this to Politico about the increased media scrutiny of the campaign's factual claims: "We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."

Republican strategist John Feehery made the point even more bluntly, telling The Washington Post: "The more The New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there, and the bigger truths are: She's new, she's popular in Alaska, and she is an insurgent." Then, he added, "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."

This reminds me of the time, years ago, when I was a night manager at a Burger King in central Florida, when I called the police on a group of young people (who none of us had ever seen before) who were soliciting donations for an alleged youth center in town, using particularly aggressive techniques, and bothering customers. The police came and investigated, discovering there was no youth center really planned, and the young people were actually from Miami – they were “Moonies” affiliated with the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, and they went by the motto, “a lie to stop a bigger lie is not a lie at all.”

Well, sorry Rev. Moon, but I called it a lie then, and I call what McCain and his henchmen are doing a bunch of lies in our time. This is an insidious thing the Republicans are doing here, folks, and it is ruining our country.

Chait writes with a wonderful clarity: “Here we have the distilled essence of the McCain campaign's ethos: Perception is reality. Facts don't matter. McCain has presented himself as the grizzled champion of timeworn values. But the defining trait of his candidacy turns out to be a postmodern disdain for truth. How could McCain--a man widely regarded, not so long ago, as one of the country's most honor-bound politicians, and therefore an unusually honest one--have descended to this ignominious low?”

Well, Jonathan, and everyone else, I will tell you. McCain went to the prevarication bed with the Bush boys and girls and they converted him to Bush-Rove politics – which is lying, cheating, and smearing at the lowest possible levels.

It got Bush-Cheney elected twice. That was a travesty. But the even bigger problem is that it is also how Bush-Cheney governed.

Erratic McCain, With His Flipflop Thinking and Pinball Decision Making, is Too Reckless to Trust

2008-09-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

Here we are with our nation in shambles because of Republican mistakes. There has been a terrible lack of leadership and oversight from the Bush-Cheney White House. McCain-Palin, stocked with Bush aides and ideas. promises to be just more of the same. Four more years of the last eight years.

An economic Katrina has been shattering the confidence of hardworking, middle-class Americans. The war that should never have been in Iraq is dragging on way too long, draining our economy of $10 billion a month that could be used at home for things that matter, like education, better health care, and much needed repaired roads and bridges. We need a change of direction with new drivers at the wheel, not the same folks under a different name at the top.

At a time of huge challenge, the candidate with the intelligence, temperament and judgment to lead our nation to a better place is Sen. Barack Obama. Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent.

Obama is a young visionary, not as long in the tooth as McCain, but Obama is also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that is actually a good thing. We need a president who is the smartest person in the room, not a hot-tempered flyboy or a blank slate beauty pageant runner-up. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.

As Clive Crook writes in the Financial Times about Obama’s performance in the current financial crisis: “I do think Mr Obama is handling the crisis much better than Mr McCain - not because he is suggesting better remedies (he continues to say little), but because his instinct to reflect before opening his mouth and his impeccable taste in advisers are both working to his advantage. These factors, I think, are much more important than the supposed popularity of standard Democratic positions on economic management.

“Unlike Mr McCain, Mr Obama offers no instant bold responses needing to be qualified or withdrawn or forgotten soon after. As ever, he looks calm, methodical and unruffled - and has his picture taken in conference with Paul Volcker, Bob Rubin and Larry Summers, who command wide respect. His response may be thin, so far, on content, but it is an altogether more reassuring posture than his rival's tendency to hasty and exaggerated certainty. This difference of intellectual temperament has often been seen as one of Obama's biggest drawbacks, including by many of his own supporters. But the complexities of the crisis are putting those traits in a much better light.”

McCain’s mercurial temperament and pinball machine style of decision-making has been on full display in recent weeks, as he lurches from one side to another, sometimes having different positions on the same issue within a few hours. And McCain and his Bush-Rove henchmen proudly proclaim him and Palin as “the original mavericks”, as if that is a wonderful thing. Actually, it just speaks to their instability.

As Matthew Dominowski points out in the Staten Island Notebook, The classic definition of the word maverick is said to derive from an Old West rancher named Sam Maverick, who didn't bother to brand his cattle. “That can't be what McCain's referring to,” Dominowski remarks, “The Republican brand on him is pretty clear and visible."

Dominowski tells us that the term maverick eventually came to refer to an unbranded range calf that, through carelessness or willful recklessness has become separated from its mother. Any cowboy will tell you that mavericks are quickly rounded up and returned to the herd, lest they get picked off by wolves or a mountain lion, or rustled by some of the bad guys out there.

That is McCain in a snapshot – a renegade range calf, willfully reckless – we know he fancies himself as being unpredictable, trying to posit that as some kind of strength. But he has shown himself to be just what the dictionary definition of unpredictable is: capricious, changeable, erratic, fickle, inconsistent, inconstant, mercurial, temperamental, uncertain, unstable, unsteady, variable, volatile…there are more synonyms, but the point is made.

I ask you America, are these the qualities you want in the President of the United States, the man (or woman) with a finger on the nuclear button?

McCain's Poor Judgment Showcased in Palin Choice -- He is Unstable, Erractic Maverick

2008-09-28T05:40:00.000-07:00

Where was the great Barracuda Pit Bull, Sarah Palin, after the debates? She was invisible. Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden was on numerous channels on Friday, supporting his campaign partner Barack Obama. Biden's counterpart, Palin, was nowhere to be seen. So where's Sarah? For what must be obvious reasons, Palin is being kept on a short leash by the McCain campaign.

Palin remains out of her league and far from presidential. McCain's camp knows this, of course, which explains why Gov. Palin is staying out of sight and far from open microphones. And it just amplifies the questionable, dangerous judgement of McCain.

If you want to know about Sarah Palin, take a look at people who know her best – Alaskans. Many have serious questions about why McCain picked such a novice to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

"It's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency." The Anchorage Daily News

From the Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks: "Sen. John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate was a stunning decision that should make Alaskans proud, even while we wonder about the actual merits of the choice.... Alaskans and Americans must ask, though, whether she should become vice president and, more importantly, be placed first in line to become president…Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's interests when he created the possibility that she might fill it."

And you have to see the great wisdom in what the Republican State Senate President Lyda Green said: "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

Even presidential scholars are astounded at Palin's minuscule educational background and qualifications. Presidential scholars say she appears to be the least experienced, least credentialed person to join a major-party ticket in the modern era. So unconventional was McCain’s choice that it left scholars of the presidency literally “stunned,” in the words of Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and scholar of the vice presidency. “Being governor of a small state for less than two years is not consistent with the normal criteria for determining who’s of presidential caliber,” said Goldstein.

Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Christian evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, wrote powerfully, and with a bit of well-founded fear, about the warped political strategy behind it all -- in the Huffington Post: “We have seen the next Mussolini and she's wearing a skirt. Don't let Palin's "hockey mom" image fool you. Sarah Palin is the face of a post-democracy America, post-constitutional and post-freedom America. She is the home town "little Austrian" vice presidential candidate to a cancer-riddled old man who, chances are high, won't see the end of his first term in office if he becomes president due to illness and old age. The woman who said that we don't need to read people their rights (in her acceptance speech) may well be the next president.”

This is the path that America is on with Palin and McCain. Severe lack of knowledge of foreign affairs does not matter to this bunch. Palin looks good in designer glasses and that is all they need. She is not part of the dreaded “educated elite!” as conservative radio talk show hosts proudly proclaim, like being a dumb ox is worthy of a medal of valor. Talk about the dumbing down of America!

“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek, a Woodrow Wilson fellow and professor at Virginia Tech.

That should be enough to cause one to vote for Obama and Biden. Who picked this hot air, photo op candidate to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? Why John McCain, he who was officially found, by the bi-partisan Senate investigation, to have exercised “poor judgment” in the Keating Five scandal, which was another financial mess he helped create.

McCain still has a double portion of poor judgment! Witness Sarah Palin. We cannot risk him as President of the United States.

I See Bush People! It Does Not Take a Sixth Sense to Know That McCain is Four More Years of Bush

2008-09-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

The first debate showed two starkly different visions of America. Barack Obama is looking to the future. The Illinois Senator chose his words carefully, made salient debating points, and was overall a man of grace and reason. He exhibited a calm, reasonable temperament and he has a record of good judgment.

McCain offered more of the same old bromides, the same old people, the same old ways of thinking, all in a herky-jerky, angry style. He lacks the proper temperament and has too poor a record of judgment to be the president of the United States.

McCain is looking to the past, locked in his own ancient memories, and he will give us four more years of the last eight years. After all, when I look at his top campaign staff, I see Bush people. And that should scare any thinking American.

All the proof you need that electing John McCain will continue the Bush White House is that he is surrounded by Bush people in his campaign. Indeed, without the Bush-Cheney soldiers and the ever-present lobbyists, McCain would have no campaign staff. It tells you what a McCain White House would be like – a continuation of the Bush-Cheney White House.

Contrary to the lying ads and cleverly crafted propaganda for the erroneous "McCain is still a 'maverick' idea", the Bush veterans at the core of McCain’s presidential campaign tell the true story. Far from being a group of outsiders to the Republican Party power structure, it is now run largely by skilled operatives who learned their crafts in successive Bush campaigns and various jobs across the Bush government over the past eight years. They know how to get elected (by hook and mostly crook), BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GOVERN!

Heading up day to day campaign operations is Karl Rove-disciple Steve Schmidt. Here is what he did in the Bush-Cheney administration:Spokesman for the Republican National Congressional Campaign Committee; Chief strategist in charge of Supreme Court nominations of Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Chief Justice John Roberts; Counselor and spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney; and a key member of the exclusive "breakfast club" led by top White House adviser Karl Rove that ran President Bush's re-election campaign. (2004).

Also from Bush-Cheney: Senior Advisor Nicolle Wallace, former Bush Communications Director; Senior Advisor Matt McDonald, former Associate Communications Director in Bush White House; Senior Advisor W. Taylpr Griffin, Deputy Communications Director, Bush-Cheney ’04; E-Campaign Director, Micheal Palmer, E Campaign, Bush-Cheney ‘O4; Senior Economic Adviser Gerald Parsky, co-Chair Bush-Cheney; Director of Messaging Brett O’Donnell, debate preparation, Bush ’04. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more.

And the Palin part of the campaign is also overrun by Bush people. According to the New York Times, advising Sarah Palin are a multitude of Bush people, from Mark Wallace, a Bush appointee to the United Nations, to Tucker Eskew, who ran strategic communications for the Bush White House, to Greg Jenkins, who served as the deputy assistant to Bush in his first term and was executive director of the 2004 inauguration. According to the Washington Post, Palin was surrounded on the recent trip home to Alaska recently by operatives deeply rooted in the Bush administration.

Sarah the Barracuda is surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers. Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both.

The ranks of the McCain-Palin team are now full of those Bush-Chemey veterans. Nicolle Wallace, Mark Wallace's wife, was communications director at the White House and is now offering senior-level communications expertise to both McCain and Palin (and joined Palin on her Alaska trip). Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is now McCain's domestic policy adviser (and accompanied Palin to Alaska as well). Bush confidant Mark McKinnon stopped formally advising McCain once Obama became the Democratic nominee -- but he, too, is continuing to advise the group and crafted Cindy McCain's convention speech. A former Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully, wrote Palin's convention speech.

Some of those now working for McCain-Palin have overcome past political conflicts to join the team. In one of the strangest tales of the campaign, McCain has embraced Eskew, who was once reviled by McCain loyalists for his role running Bush's especially nasty 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina, where they LIED about McCain in order to win. But now we see that Eskew not only joined Palin on her trip home to Alaska, but also he is serving as one of her closest aides. Stephen E. Biegun, a former member of Bush's National Security Council, was on the trip, too; he is helping give Palin foreign policy briefings.

Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt worked on the Bush campaigns and, more recently, at the Republican National Committee. Two other Palin press officers, Maria Comella and Ben Porritt, worked on Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. W. Taylor Griffin, who worked on the 2004 campaign, is helping manage Palin's communications effort in Alaska. Another Bush advance pro, Chris Edwards, is helping to stage-manage Palin's appearances around the country.

Judge for yourself. But don’t be fooled by the packaging. If you like what Bush/Cheney has brought us, you might be happy to pull that filthy Republican lever again. But if you think the country is on the wrong track, you must THINK long and hard about voting another way.

If you cannot vote for Obama, who is clearly the most honest, careful, compassionate candidate, then vote for Bob Barr, a decent man not surrounded by Bushites. But for the nation’s sake, do not vote for McCain -- it will just be four more years of the last eight years.

John "Pinocchio" McCain, Says One Thing, Does Another, Playing Games With America's Future

2008-09-26T04:24:00.000-07:00

So that famous “only one task at a time” candidate, John “Pinocchio” McCain, “suspended” his campaign (although his campaign ads still ran, and Sarah Palin still made appearances, and offices were open, and it seemed he lied about the suspension, too). The nation’s erstwhile economic savior went back to Washington where a deal seemed to be forming to bail the country out of the mess he helped start. And then, once he got there, with all his grandstanding and photo-opping, the wheels of the negotiations fell off. Thanks McCain! You really made a difference.

The current Republican Administration came up with the idea of the bailout. Bush himself said the situation was dire. The Federal Reserve chairman warned of terrible results if nothing was done. The working plan was presented by the Republican Treasury secretary. Republicans and Democrats had worked together for seven days on a compromise plan based on the original Republican administration plan. Now, if you hear Republicans on television, the bailout was a Democrat idea. Give me a break!

Now McCain gets to town, and since the Republicans are running against themselves this year, the House Republicans have revolted, and I suspect his devious campaign is behind it. They want to solve their totally free market mess with more of the questionable economics that got us here. Oh, let's just throw some more gasoline on that fire!

This is what happens when you play politics with our children’s future, which the Republicans have been doing for the last eight years. McCain pulled what pundit Pat Buchanan called a “Hail Mary pass.” I describe it not with a sports analogy, but a literary one: it was a Trojan Horse maneuver, deceitfully seeming to be one thing, but being done for deviously self-serving reasons. He hit the reset button of the news cycle to take attention away from Palin’s ineptness, his own complicity in the financial collapse, and his campaign manager’s revealing scandal.

Yes, my friends, John McCain’s campaign manager, the wonderfully duplicitous Rick Davis, super lobbyist, was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say, according to the New York Times and Newsweek.

McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. But he is in cahoots with one!

Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played a large role in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Newsweek reports that “Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's vice president for external relations, because "he [Davis] was John McCain's campaign manager and it was felt you couldn't say no," said one of the sources.”

The New York Times reports that 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 Davis. Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, paid Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort. Davis took a leave of absence in 2006 to run McCain’s campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder he continues to benefit from income of Davis & Manafort.

Apparently, Davis did next to nothing for the money. Columnist Andrew Sullivan says thus “was classic corporate insurance, shaken down by someone in their pocket.” And this person, Davis, is running the McCain campaign, and it was he who told the Washington Post that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." Obviously, this is the Republican strategy – distract the voters from the issues and the supreme fact that POLICIES, not personality, REALLY MATTER! (In other words, do things razzle-dazzle things like “suspend” your campaign.)

Meanwhile, McCain has no clue on the Davis scandal, as he seems to have no clue about Palin:

In an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, McCain responded to a question about Davis's role in the advocacy group through 2005 by saying that his campaign manager "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it." Yeah, right! McCain’s right hand man was a key cog in the terrible collapse. Do you really want this bunch giving us four more years of the last eight years?

Or, perhaps better stated, as columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote in The Daily Dish this week, “Do we really want an out-of-it president surrounded by corporate lobbying sleazeballs?”

Nicolle Wallace -- Hidden Harridan, Cheshire Cat, Talking Points in Hand, is a Devious Spinner

2008-09-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching some of the morning news shows and I want to throw up. The Republican spinmasters were out in force, fashioning what seemed to be truth out of downright lies, as they do so well. They have become word magicians, painting false pictures so well that half the population thinks it is unadulterated truth. Emperor McCain really has no clothes, but the spinmasters make some believe he is arrayed in the finest patriotic, country first threads.

Give me a break. This is political gamesmanship at its most shameless, disguised as something it is most certainly not. Yet here is Nicolle Wallace, the lovely mythmaker and teller of tales, armed with her McCain-Palin talking points,fervently making the case for McCain's "courage." She is such a good actress!

On another channel, there was Douglas Holz-Eakin, he of "McCain developed the Blackberry" fame, using the same talking points. He and McCain and Bush got us into this financial mess with their "totally-free market" ideology, but now they are going to fix it. It is like hiring the arsonist to be your firefighter.

Answer me this: If the campaign is suspended, why are they on television trumpeting McCain? If the campaign is suspended, why were talking points sent out so the suspension could be used politically for McCain's politcal gain?

Yes, you can be sure the Republicans had the lifeblood of their propaganda campaign, the Bush-Rove talking points. CNN reported that the talking points went out. McCain's Colorado campaign director Tom Kise inadvertently sent out the campaign's internal talking points regarding the suspension of the campaign to the media.

The blog Daily Kos posted these talking points. Among them was:

"*John McCain is calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including himself and Senator Obama. *John McCain is directing his campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night's debate until action has been taken to address this crisis.*It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem. This is a time to put our country first. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved."

There are others, but they are laced with the same Bush-Rove bull malarkey. Notice how the campaign theme "country first" is woven into the talking point. If it really was country first, it would be one thing. But it is really politics first, McCain first, a Trojan horse move by people who tell lies with such very straight faces, just like has been done for the last eight years in the Bush-Cheney White House. (Was it not great to hear Bush, who did his best Nero impression with financial crisis, fiddling our money away in Iraq while the financial heart of America burned. But now and he and McCain are casting themselves as saviors of the crisis they enabled to happen.)

It should not surprise anyone that Nicolle Devenish Wallace is so skilled in doublespeak and spin -- she is a Bush-Rove operative, trained in the Rove academy of political lies. Wallace served as communications director for Bush-Cheney '04 and held the same post in the White House at the start of the president's second term. How can anyone ever believe what she says?

This is the same Nicolle Wallace who said on the Joe Scarborough show on September 4th that the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads! Wallace is a shill for McCain-Palin and will say whatever it takes to aid the campaign, whether it is true or not.

And what about the wonderful economic adviser Douglas Holz-Eakin? He was the director of the Republican congress's Congressional Budget Office from 2003-2005, so he is also part of the gang that got America into this mess. But he is good at sticking to talking points, (except when he says McCain helped create the Blackberry, then the wizard behind the curtains is revealed).

The truth is that McCain, campaigning for what will really be Bush's third term, is surrounded by former Bush operatives and big time corporate lobbyists and none of them know what truth is because they always speak in spin. It is their native language.

Pardon me, I need to go upchuck again. I just saw that harridan Nicolle Devenish Wallace on television again. The Cheshire Cat of political liars is let loose again on America.

Will Calls McCain the Queen of Hearts, But Old Flipflop John is Not Playing with a Full Deck

2008-09-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

John McCain's suspension of his campaign is just another desperate campaign tactic disguised as being done for the good of the country. But it is not "Country First," but rather "McCain First." His campaign has been sliding under the sheer weight of its own lies, and he is trying for a "time out" to slow things down so he can attempt to set the "reset button," as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow so aptly put it.

Conservative political columnist George F. Will recently hit a rare home run with his characterization of McCain as the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Certainly, most of the things that he approves for his campaign ads have the truth of a fairy tale, so I agree with Will that McCain's judgment is questionable.

Will writes: "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."

Will added: "It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"

I do not think so, not when the person in question is 72 years old. And I feel Barack Obama, one of the smartest, most reliable people in government, is a quick study, and already has quite a bit of knowledge and good judgment, and the experience he does possess is quality experience.

Plus, he will surround himself with good people, not Bush-Cheney retreads and Washington lobbyists like McCain has in his campaign. And the Vice-Presidential choice shows Obama makes clearer, more conservative, (in the best sense of the word), common sense decisions than McCain. He put the whole country at risk with his choice of hockey mom-cypher Sarah Palin.

This suspending the campaign is surely a political gambit, though cloaked in McCain's best "Country First" rhetoric, and it feels like a wild improvisation, as John Dickerson of Slate wrote, with "someone in the McCain team mapped out on his chest: OK, you run to the fire hydrant, cut left, and then when he gets to the Buick, John, you heave it."

It is more of the Flip-Flop Express, the roller coaster ride of positions and ploys that campaign strategist Steve Schmidt (a Bush-Rove operative) plots for good soldier McCain. You must admit, McCain still follows orders well.

Dickinson pointed out that it's not clear what exactly McCain is going to do in Washington. He doesn't sit on any of the relevant committees and everyone is already deep in negotiations. Still, he's coming anyway. It doesn't make much logical sense. (Not much McCain does makes sense in the honorable use of the word). The only way to understand it is politically: As Dickinson states, "In a presidential campaign, the surest sign that a candidate is playing politics on an issue is when he claims not to be playing politics on an issue. The only way for McCain to convince everyone that his intentions are 100 percent pure is for him to drop out of the race completely. A campaign doesn't end—and its distracting affects don't disappear—just because one candidate says so."

In response to McCain, Obama pointed out that he had actually started the bipartisan ball rolling, reaching out to McCain privately earlier in the day to issue a joint statement. McCain then one-upped him and went public. This shows you what a man of honor McCain still is -- NOT! McCain was judged a war hero because he was shot down and spent five and a half years in prison. But so much of his life sense that time, from his failed marriage to the Keating Five to his sellout to Bush in the last eight years (just to be elected President, no matter how much of his soul he had to sell)-- so much of his life shows him to NOT be a man you can trust.

McCain was not only being transparently political in this suspension, but also reckless. Imagine what that recklessness would be like if McCain were in the Oval Office. On Wednesday Joe Biden warned that McCain is actually too risky and dangerous to be a calm, deliberative commander-in-chief. McCain's mercurial, bipolar campaign proves Biden's point.

Yet the people who will vote for McCain, the ostrich-lemming part of America, will think he is a true patriot for suspending his campaign and not wanting to debate. The ostrich-lemmings are usually one or two issue voters -- anti-women's choice or anti-gay rights (even though a gay couple getting married has no real impact on them, the propaganda makes them afraid, so they vote Republican). Or gun lovers, or anti-Mexican folks (they call it immigration, but it is usually racism), or anti-black folks (racism again, even though Obama is half-white). The Republicans win by fear, not by a real look at what is best, overall, for the country as a whole. It is so deeply sad.

Senator Hagel, a True American Patriot, Says Sarah Palin is NOT Qualified to Be President

2008-09-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska became the nation's most prominent Republican officeholder to publicly question whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has the experience to serve as president. It goes to show we still have some good Republicans, although most of them are on the Un-straight Talk Express headed for Spinville and Propaganda City.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published last Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say."

Could Palin lead the country if GOP presidential nominee John McCain could not? "I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president," he said.

McCain and other Republicans have blindly defended Palin's qualifications, citing Alaska's proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska."

Hagel took issue with that. "I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

Hagel, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, serves alongside Senator Barack Obama and he knows Obama is not a lightweight on foreign relations. Indeed, Obama has immersed himself in the facts and policies that will make America a respected leader in the world once again.

Not only is Palin a cipher in foreign relations, no matter that she had a day of photo opportunities at the United Nations yesterday (no questions were allowed from reporters – imagine that!), but her education does not compare to Obama’s, or even Biden’s. He went to Columbia and graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School. Biden has a law degree from Syracuse University.

In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest (playing the flute and winning the "Miss Congeniality" award as well), then finished third (second runner up) in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship. Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College -- now known as Hawaii Pacific University -- in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College. In 1987, Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho. So she has a Bachelor's degree in communications, and no post graduate studies.

Not only is Palin under qualified educationally and experience-wise, but she obviously has little regard for the laws of the land. Sounds a lot like Bush-Cheney, does it not? Palin's husband has refused to testify in the ethics investigation of his wife, and a key lawmaker said Thursday that uncooperative witnesses are effectively sidetracking the inquiry until after Election Day.

Todd Palin, who participates in state business in person or by e-mail, was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. McCain-Palin presidential campaign spokesman, super lawyer Ed O'Callaghan, said Thursday that Todd Palin would not appear, because he no longer believes the investigation is “legitimate.” It is so nice that he and Sarah Barracuda can pick and choose what investigation by the state legislature is legitimate. Give me a break!

State Sen. Bill Wielechowski of Alasaka, a Democrat, said the McCain-Palin campaign is doing all it can to prevent the Legislature from completing a report on whether the GOP's vice presidential nominee abused her power as governor. This shows us what the McCain-Palin administration will be like if elected to office – MORE OF THE SAME: FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE LAST EIGHT, TERRIBLE YEARS! REPUBLICANS DO NOT DESERVE IT, AMERICA! Wake up and fire the party that got us into this mess!

Will World Leaders Hear More Pegler? -- Palin Quotes Him, Though His Values Are Repugnant

2008-09-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Palin goes to New York City. The moose hunting hockey mom is in the big city representing American women to the world. Pray, please pray, for America!

Let us hope she does not quote again her literary hero Westbrook Pegler, who authored one of the key quotes of her well-received (by Republicans and especially the extreme, extreme right) acceptance speech. Pegler's fascist values are not what we want to present to the world as American values.

This untried, untutored small state official, the 20-month governor, who only acquired a passport last year, and admits she has never (so far) met a foreign leader, is now center stage at the United Nations today. The McCain-Bush campaign is trying to cover this incredible gap of knowledge and experience in her resume with a quickie fix of photo opportunities at the U.N. (Even though the Republican Party and its platform is very anti-United Nations!)

The Wall Street Journal's Web site quoted a campaign strategist as saying that next week's gathering would give Mrs. Palin "some exposure and experience with foreign leaders," adding: "It's a great idea." Give me a break! Isn't that really impressive for foreign policy exposure? What a joke, and what a bad one with all of our lives hanging in the balance if and when she ever takes over as president!

What actually will happen is that she will stand in a room with foreign leader. Do you really think she will have substantive talks with them? It is sad that she is representing American women, when so many other women are more qualified. She no HillaryClinton, or Madeline Albrecht or Condoleeza Rice, or Christine Todd Whitman or Kay Bailey Hutchison.. Well, at least foreign leaders will get a good look at Republican Stepford Wife, so that may be helpful to them.

And if Sarah Palin is the "candidate of American values" (as Sean Hannity proclaims --he of softball interview questions that make him a top Fox news propagandist), then what are her real values. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had a salient point when he wrote: "Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”

As some wise folks have pointed out, it might be worth asking Sarah "Barracuda" Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list. Pegler was also a pit bull, but he did not, (as far as we know), wear lipstick. He is not someone that should be quoted in a revering way in a national acceptance speech. But Palin did, and the Republicans said not a discouraging word as they ran like lemmings to the sea to sing her praises. Ah, the power of propaganda! It is sickening.

McCain is the Incredible Two-Faced Man, A Puppet of the Republican Spinmasters

2008-09-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

John McCain has become the Incredible Two-Faced Man. The former Straight Talk Express is now the Flip Flop Special. Witness his "evolving" positions on a wide range of issues, from off-shore drilling to the "fundamentals" of the economy to last week's differing opinions each day on the Wall Street debacle he helped create.

He went every which way on that one and probably will have a different take today. On the other side, Barack Obama has consistently called for more supervision of the Wall Street and housing greed-based juggernaut that has run this nation into the financial wilderness.

Back in 2000 a lot of us were pulling for McCain as he really was a maverick then, fighting Bush in the primaries, and being derailed by the lies of the Karl Rove led campaign. In the infamous South Carolina primary, the Bush forces, never known to let the boundaries of propriety stop them from telling lies, started a massive "whisper" campaign, literally stealing the election with lies. For the full story see "What Bush Did to McCain":
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?forum=8&topic_id=522&az=show_topic

and this article in the Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/banks

as well as this encyclopedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_campaign

Suffice it to say that it was a terrible smear campaign, using racism, and totally below the belt, as Bush-Rove campaigns are. Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.

McCain was badly hurt by those buzzards, but in his ambition, he decided to support Bush (by his own words, more than 90 per cent of the time), he got on board with the Bushians, and for the greater part, he sold out. I guess the old adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" applied to McCain, because he embraced Bush. He went from maverick to foot soldier for Bush-Cheney. Now his campaign is run by Bush operatives and confidants, using the Rovian political game plan.

The Republican mantra is not really "Drill, Baby, Drill." It is "Spin, Baby, Spin." And McCain has become the puppet of the spin masters. It is a sad thing to see.

Beware of Republicans Bearing Gifts -- McCain's "Health" Plan Guts Employer Coverage

2008-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

BEWARE MacPalin's health insurance plan, or should I say, non-plan. For those who do not have health insurance, they get what Bush-Cheney offered -- TAX CREDITS -- which is nothing if you do not make enough money to pay taxes or pay little taxes. If you have employer provided insurance, he has something that should make you shudder -- (READ THIS CAREFULLY) --

Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) health plan would eliminate the current tax exclusion of employer payments for health coverage, replace the exclusion with a refundable tax credit for those who purchase coverage, and encourage Americans to move to a national market for nongroup insurance. Middle-range estimates suggest that initially this change will have little impact on the number of uninsured people, although within five years this number will likely grow as the value of the tax credit falls relative to rising health care costs. Moving toward a relatively unregulated nongroup market will tend to raise costs, reduce the generosity of benefits, and leave people with fewer consumer protections. [Health Affairs 27, no. 6 (2008): w472-w481 (published online 16 September 2008; 10.1377/ hlthaff.27.6.w472)]

A description of Senator McCain's plan is available on his Web site and in several speeches he has given.1 These sources reveal a vision of what, from Senator McCain's perspective, a desirable health care system would look like. At its heart, the system he envisions is one in which many more--perhaps most--insured Americans would buy health insurance and health services in a national, relatively unregulated, competitive market, either on their own or as members of fluid, voluntary associations, such as churches or clubs. Because this would be a radical departure from the current system, its likely effects deserve close attention.

Eliminating the tax exclusion would greatly reduce the number of people who obtain health insurance through their employers.7 This decline would be driven by three factors: the effective price of employer-sponsored coverage would increase, the nondiscrimination rules would no longer apply, and low-risk employees would have less incentive to remain in employer-sponsored groups.

According to the respected journal Health Affairs, "Achieving Senator McCain's vision would radically transform the U.S. health insurance system. His plan would alter the nature, source, and financing of coverage for the nearly 160 million Americans who now receive health insurance through their employers. We estimate that twenty million Americans--about one in every eight people with job-based coverage--would lose their current coverage as a result of the change in the tax treatment of coverage. Initially, this loss of job-based coverage would be offset by an increase in coverage in the nongroup market (although not necessarily for the same individuals). Within five years, however, the net effect of the plan is expected to be a net reduction in coverage relative to what would have been observed if the tax treatment of employer-sponsored coverage remains as it is now.

"The decline of job-based coverage would force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system--the nongroup market--where cost sharing is high and covered services are limited. Senator McCain's proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in it would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not, -or someday will not be--in perfect health."

In other words, the McCain-Palin plan will not come near accomplishing national health insurance coverage for all people, or even make more people insured, but actually will result in less people insured, because his plan is an ideological, supposedly "free-market", deregulated plan, not a practical, real-life plan to meet people's real needs. Deregulation is the Republican watchword, and it did so much for us in housing loans and on Wall Street, did't it?

By contrast, the Obama-Biden team has a plan written for real people and real needs. It is pragmatic and puts people first, not ideology. Check their plan out at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ It is a serious plan for helping folks, not a sophisticated smokescreen like the McCain and AMA proposals.

Todd Palin Thumbs His Nose at the Law -- One More Abuse of Power by the Power Mad Palins

2008-09-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Now Todd Palin, Mister Sarah Palin, has thumbed his nose at a subpoena. The law does not matter to him or his "wonderful" wife. Does it surprise you that a candidate for the party that has shredded the Constitution the last eight years (the REPUBLICANS) would have a husband with little or no regard for the law?

What is more, his plays for influence in state government raises red flags all over the place. In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, (a good man done dirty by Sister Sarah), one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power? After all, Nancy Murkowski or Susan Knowles (previous Alaska governor's spouses) were never accused of pressuring a commissioner or inappropriately sitting in on meetings that should have been private.

The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels went to a a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd's presence was at meetings with the governor. Last week, on the Alakan televsion Dan Fagan Show, Representative Jay Ramras mentioned that Todd was working lawmakers offices often during the legislative session.

Most alarming indication of Todd Palin's reach into state government is this: last month, a group of Alaskans filed a freedom of information act for emails sent from the computers of both Frank Bailey and Ivey Frye. Along with several boxes of documents, they received a cover letter along with 78 pages detailing the emails that were not released due to "Deliberative Process and Executive Privilege". The serious concern about these emails is that they were prohibited from being released to the public due to executive privilege, even though Todd Palin was copied on these same emails. Todd Palin is not a member of the executive branch, nor is he even a government employee. Todd Palin is a member of the general public. But he has been the shadow governor of Alaska in a very large way. This shows you how the Palins do business -- secretively, like Cheney-Bush.

Sarah Palin initially welcomed the investigation of accusations that she dismissed the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. "Hold me accountable," she said.

But she has increasingly opposed it and she has "covered it all up" since Republican presidential candidate John McCain tapped her as his running mate. The McCain campaign dispatched a legal team to Alaska including the McCain campaign's super lawyer Edward O'Callaghan, a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York to bolster Palin's local lawyer. Mighty high powered help for much ado about nothing. What are they trying to hide with these squash the truth tactics?

Apparently, not only does Sarah Palin abuse her powers, but so does her husband, Todd. Do we want this seemingly power-mad couple just a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Remember the Keating Five? McCain Exercised "Poor Judgment" Then, And He Still Does Today! Do Not Trust America to Him!

2008-09-19T05:37:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that the Democrats and Barack Obama and Joe Biden can do a better job with our economy that Palin-McCain (as the pit bull with lipstick proclaimed their ticket on Thursday). McCain only offers verbal gymnastics (fundamentals means workers? We all know that is not what he originally meant, but remember the propaganda mantra -- say it enough and a lie becomes truth).

McCain only offers more of the same policies and people that got us into this mess. And remember, he was part of the last such financial collapse, as part of the Keating Five in the Savings and Loan Debacle.

For those of you who do not remember or have not heard, the Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly, but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment."

Obama is right when he says McCain is sticking with "an economic philosophy that has completely failed, and he represents a party that has embraced this philosophy for years." Sen. Barack Obama laid out his approach to managing the current financial crisis -- promising to play a proactive role if he is elected president in order to prevent future meltdowns.

Obama has delivered a series of economic speeches over the last year-and-a-half on the campaign trail, and he recapped some of his top proposals the last three days. But the core of his argument was against Sen. John McCain, who has a long record of promoting deregulation and who has repeatedly said the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Obama poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."

"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess," Obama said. "What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election." Obama also pointed to a history of Democratic presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, who commanded the country through rough financial waters. And he hammered McCain repeatedly -- for failing, he said, to grasp the root of the problems and for only belatedly deciding that greater regulation is needed.

"John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," Obama told a crowd of about 2,100 at the Colorado School of Mines on Tuesday."In fact, one of the biggest proponents of deregulation in the financial sector is Phil Gramm -- the same man who helped write John McCain's economic plan," Obama continued. He said Gramm is "the same man who said that we're going through a 'mental recession,' and the same man who called the United States of America a 'nation of whiners.'"

"So it's hard to understand how Senator McCain is going to get us out of this crisis by doing the same things with the same old players," Obama said.Obama, appearing in the same town that the darling of the extreme right, Sarah "Barracuda" Palin, visited a day earlier, drew an enthusiastic response. As he wrapped up his speech, reminded the audience of two statements by key advisers to McCain -- economic adviser Doug Holt-Eakin's claim that McCain had created the BlackBerry, and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's admission that neither Palin nor McCain would be qualified to run a major corporation.

JOHN MCCAIN IS AGAIN EXERCISING "POOR JUDGMENT" JUST AS HE DID AS A MEMBER OF THE KEATING FIVE. He exercised poor judgment in being a non-regulator as a Senator. He exercised poor judgment in buying into the Bush economic plan. He exercised poor judgment in selecting the academic and experience lightwieght, Sarah Palin. He continues to exercise poor judgment in approving the lies of his campaign.

McCain, like Sarah Palin, is proving not prepared to be President. Hers is on resume and integrity. His is on integrity and judgment.

Un-American Palin Poor Choice to Represent America in a Visit to the United Nations

2008-09-17T14:46:00.001-07:00

So now John McCain sending Sarah "Barracuda"Palin, the self-described pit bull in lipstick, to the United Nations next week in order to “boost” her foreign policy credentials, according to media reports. The McCain campaign seems to think that having Palin rubbing elbows with the global elite and international bureaucrats will make her look good and somehow give her "instant foreign policy credentials." But that’s like having her visiting Lehman Brothers to accentuate her economic expertise.

Palin and her “Country First” running mate may want to take a look at the Republican Party platform they are supposed to be running on. It is highly critical of the United Nations she will be visiting. The platform calls the U.N. “scandal-ridden and corrupt.” Perhaps McCain should think about these facts before sending "Barracuda" Palin out to meet and greet the world leaders at an institution his and her political party does not respect.

What is more, McCain is sending a woman to represent America who, just a few years ago, supported Alaska seceding from the United States of America. Don’t believe me? John McCain’s crack vetting process (not) may not have found it, but it is a fact that "patriotic" Sarah Palin supported the Alaska Independence Party. A Party that what? Wait for it… advocates seceding from the United States of America.

That’s right. Sarah Palin supported an organization that hates America so much that they want to break up our union, leave the country and become a nation unto themselves (or join Canada— seriously). What’s more un-American than that?

Now a few years later Sarah Palin wants to run a country she advocated leaving? And believe me, wanting to break up The United States of America is not a patriotic stance. Disliking your country so strongly that you not only want to leave it, but want to take one of our 50 great states with you when you go? How is this not unpatriotic?

Please, ask yourself what would happen if Barack Obama or his wife Michelle Obama had belonged to such an organization? Would Sean Hannity ever shut up about this? Would bombastic opportunist Bill O’Reilly get on the bandwagon? Of course he would! Even a draft dodger like Rush Limbaugh would go on and on and on about how un-American the Obamas are, and we’d spend the next six weeks debating whether or not the Obamas love this country.

However, let a Republican advocate breaking up the United States of America and conservatives can’t wait to put her in the White House. Talk about hypocritical! And now she is representing McCain (and our country because of the publicity surrounding her visit) at the United Nations!

How disrespectful!

Sarah Palin's Actions are NOT Pro-Family -- Her Choices Do Not Put FAMILY FIRST!

2008-09-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

What kind of American pro-family values is Sarah Palin actually promoting? Saint Sarah, christened a paragon of virtue by the Republican propaganda machine, is certainly anti-gay and anti-choice. But are those two incendiary issues enough to be a real pro-family Christian? Is not pro-family putting FAMILY FIRST. No amount of Republican spin can change the fact that this mother chose not to be with her baby or her family in her own home for an extended period of time. She chose celebrity over family.

What is Sarah Palin, mother of five, doing with her family? She has a recently born baby with downs syndrome, but she chose to parade around the country for John McCain. Before you call me sexist, let me say that "traditional" values, which Sarah Palin "seems" to support, have felt a mother's careful care was important to the children in her family. Palin's husband makes enough money that she could have chosen to stay home with the new child, since she chose to bring him into the world.

Dena Fox, a Wasilla, Alaska Christian writing in the Alaska Dispatch on September 3, 2008 raised some questions that must be considered by thoughtful Christians and others in America:

Fox writes: "Considering that the Palin family includes four minors and that the income from either Palin parent would support the family, is this the position of evangelical Christians – for both parents to choose demanding jobs that require frequent and extended absences from home? Up until now, (James) Dobson would have criticized that lifestyle. Now, he calls it a ‘personal matter.’

I would argue that a true pro-family stance insists on far more than not aborting one’s offspring. Responsible parenting acknowledges the need for individuals to take responsibility for their actions starting with the procreative act which brings with it the potential of long-term consequences. These consequences do not come cheap. Caring for a child is emotionally draining, expensive, and time-consuming. Yet, it remains the Christian duty of both parents to ensure that between mother and father, provision and parental presence are available until the child achieves the maturity to make wise choices for him or herself as an adult.

I think evangelicals need to be clear here No, it is not ideal for parents to put career before kids. No, it is not ideal for struggling teens to be forced into the national media by their parents’ decisions. No, it is not ideal for daily hours of therapy young Trig will need to be carried out by people whose congratulatory smile is not Mom’s (or Dad’s) and whose cheers will not likely be, “Who loves Trig? Mama does!”

"Over the past eleven years, I have learned that a child with Down syndrome requires somewhat more time, instruction, and advocacy than my other children. These demands have been intense, but the rewards just as great. I agree with Governor Palin’s assessment that her son is a gift and God’s will for her life. But if it is God’s will that Sarah and Todd Palin raise a child with Down syndrome, it seems just as clear to me that God would will Sarah and Todd to be physically available to hold him, care for him, and – over the next twenty-plus years – raise him.

"It would be nice to think that we could fix America’s broken values by supporting this attractive woman who seems to embody the pro-life value. But I stop short of identifying Palin with pro-family values. No law can change the morality and behavior of immature people who lack solid role models and supervision. More than a law or a position, America needs models of responsible parents raising responsible adults to be responsible parents. Palin may be a fine politician, but hers is not the example of Christian family values my family strives to live by, nor is her model of family values I want my family to emulate.

This is not about politics. By all means, vote Republican if that ticket represents your views. But please, don’t confuse smokescreens and media spin with Christian values. Christ was selfless and sacrificed himself for others. Palin may worship Christ, but in accepting this nomination, may be sacrificing family in order to serve herself."

I agree with Dena Fox on everything except voting Republican -- it is the most anti-family thing you can do. Save Sarah Palin's children -- and the rest of our children -- send her back to Wasilla.

You Cannot Vilify with Truth -- Palin Criticism is Justified -- the "Palin Myth" is Crumbling

2008-09-17T05:33:00.000-07:00

The Republican propaganda talking point this morning is that Sarah Palin, new darling of the extreme right, has been "vilified" in the media by the left wing Democrats. Here they go again! Facts are just coming out about Palin that are different from the glowing narrative they presented at their myth making convention. So the Republican shills on cable television are chattering anew about how Palin's honor has been attacked, according to them, "unfairly."

Here is woman who ran in no primary, who has not had a regular news conference as a candidate for vice-president for over two weeks, and the Republicans do not want any negative stories or criticism. They want to continue to manipulate and control all media, as they have pretty effectively during the last eight years of Bush-Cheney Republican rule. But a real investigative spotlight will send the Palin Myth crumbling.

They are playing the old change of direction game that they do so well, but which is death to democracy. When Palin gets caught with having a lack of experience or a real-life lack of commitment to conservative family 'values'--it's always THE LEFT who are wrong, not the duplicitous candidate ! Isn't it nice to take things out of context and claim ignorance all at the same time? This is a prime Republican tactic. What is so sad is that it works with half the population.

The truth is that Palin is a lightweight candidate picked for reasons of perceived electability and not on her qualifications to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. There were far better candidates in the Republican party, but she was picked by the bosses to be the one to carry on the Bush legacy, because, I believe, of her malleability. One things the Republicans have proved is that they can get elected, but they do not govern well. Palin goes along with this pattern.

It amazes me how hypocritical the right is on the issue of Palin. If Palin were a democrat with the list of things found out on her, Hannity...Limbaugh...and the right wing bloggers would be having a field day with it.

And vilfied? Your'e talking about vilified, what have they been doing for months to Barack Obama? That is okay, but hands off our icon Sarah, who no one may question -- (because, in truth, she might not be able to answer the question).

If we stuck to issues and policies, there is no doubt in my mind that a majority would feel it is time for a change from the ideas of McCain-Palin-Bush. This is the bunch that has driven this country into a very deep ditch. We need to elect some folks who will govern us well, who will make government work. You cannot make government work when you are trying to deconstruct it, as Bush-Cheney has done, as McCain-Palin will do.

But now the Republicans are running against themselves -- and they are winning.

Heaven help us!

Sarah Palin is the Real-Life Not Ready for Prime Time Player -- She Does Not Compare to Hillary!

2008-09-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

Is it not a wonderful thing that the McCain campaign, led by his Bush henchmen and henchwomen have discovered the word "sexist." Since they discovered Sarah Palin and her ultra right wing views, they have tried to shield her from questions or criticism with the word "sexist" thrown around like confetti at their convention. It is nice that they are now such seemingly strong feminists (and have been so for all of two full weeks).

Now the McBush campaign, ever so audacious, is slamming Tina Fey’s impersonation of Governor Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live,” while Cindy McCain is calling out the ladies of “The View.” They are doing their best to censor any criticism. How much farther will they go if half of the country stays brain dead and votes them into office?

“SNL” had its highest rated season premiere since 2002, but some members of the McCain campaign were not laughing. Millions of viewers tuned in to see “30 Rock” star and “SNL” alum Tina Fey portray Sarah Palin alongside Amy Poehler, who did her Sen. Hillary Clinton impression.

“The portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial,” McCain advisor Carly Fiorina told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday. “I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes I would say sexist.”

The Fey/Poehler sketch satirized such topics as Palin’s religious beliefs and foreign policy.
“Just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance,” Fiorina said.

Give me a break! First, Sarah Palin, supposedly so qualified to be President, cannot be interviewed except when the campaign "approves" of the interviewer, and she has yet to have a full-scale press conference. Now she cannot be satirized like every other major candidate for office has been. The fact is, Hillary Clinton, with eight years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as First Lady, and having done amazingly well in one of the most challenging Presidential primary campaigns in history, IS far more substantial than Palin. No question about it!

The truth is clear in the McBush campaign SNL debate: Sarah Palin is the Real-life, Not Ready for Prime Time Player!

Republican Lack of Supervision Brings Economic Mess -- Obama and Biden Have Answers

2008-09-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

The overwhelming greed of a large part of America is coming home to roost -- and the waste from their precarious perches is messing up our economy big time. Lehman Brothers collapses, Merrill Lynch is sold in a panic. What is next in this Republican induced economic house of cards. Will the dominoes of greed made, bubble fueled, "emperor has no clothes"companies keep falling down?

Without a doubt, the "let the market run free" mentality of the Republican Bushites has helped bring us to this precipice. This administration has provided little supervision, (a process aided and abetted by McCain adviser Phil Gramm and his ilk when he was in congress, when the Elephants controlled everything), and greed has run rampant. People knew better, but without any supervision by the government, they did not DO better. The depravity of humanity shows forth in the form of unadulterated greed. And the Republicans want no safeguards, because they might "hinder the marketplace." Well, capitalism does not work well without some safeguards.

We must put some responsible adults back in charge of this country, such as we had with the Clinton economic team. One such brilliant, compassionate American is Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor and current college professor in California. He writes why we are in trouble. It all comes down to an economy that has lost sight of the importance of the middle class:

"As a result, typical Americans have run out of coping mechanisms to keep up their standard of living. That means there's not enough purchasing power in the economy to buy all the goods and services it's producing. We’re finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the real earnings of middle and lower-middle class Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway. Nor is the answer to give tax breaks to the very wealthy and to giant corporations in the hope they will trickle down to everyone else. We've tried that and it hasn't worked. Nothing has trickled down.

"Rather, the long-term answer is for us to invest in the productivity of our working people -- enabling families to afford health insurance and have access to good schools and higher education, while also rebuilding our infrastructure and investing in the clean energy technologies of the future. "

Reich's prescription aligns with Senator Barack Obama's plan for America. McCain is more of the same. Obama and Biden bring hope for the future and a plan for tomorrow!

If McCain were Pinochio, His Nose Would Soon Reach Europe -- He Has Lost Integrity and He Approves the Messages of Calculated Lies!

2008-09-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are one of the terrible travesties of presidential campaigns, and the Republicans have become masters of it. Doublespeak and stretching the facts to fit their cause is usual for them and they do it pretty much nonstop ever since the 2000 campaign when they belittled Al Gore and used misrepresentations and smears to defeat him in the electoral vote. (Never forget he was our popularly elected President that year).

But Senator John McCain has approved more blatant lies than ever, and, thankfully, he has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.

According to the New York Times, Mr. McCain has found himself under particularly heavy fire for a pair of headline-grabbing attacks. First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)

Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adult predators).

Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.

A McCain advertisement called “Fact Check” was itself found to be “less than honest” by FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group. The group complained that the McCain campaign had cited its work debunking various Internet rumors about Ms. Palin and implied in the advertisement that the rumors had originated with Mr. Obama.

In an interview Friday on the NY1 cable news channel, a McCain supporter, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, called “ridiculous” the implication that Mr. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment was a reference to Ms. Palin, whom he still also defended as coming under unfair attack.

“The last month, for sure,” said Don Sipple, a Republican advertising strategist, “I think the predominance of liberty taken with truth and the facts has been more McCain than Obama.”

Indeed, in recent days, Mr. McCain has been increasingly called out by news organizations, editorial boards and independent analysts like FactCheck.org. The group, which does not judge whether one candidate is more misleading than another, has cried foul on Mr. McCain more than twice as often since the start of the political conventions as it has on Mr. Obama.

A McCain spokesman, Brian Rogers, defended the campaign of lies, saying the campaign had evidence for all its claims. “We stand fully by everything that’s in our ads,” Mr. Rogers said, “and everything that we’ve been saying we provide detailed backup for — everything. And if you and the Obama campaign want to disagree, that’s your call.” It is the old Republican way, used adroitly and disgustingly by the current administration -- IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE TRUE, JUST SAY IT ENOUGH AND PEOPLE WILL THINK IT IS TRUE!

If McCain were Pinochio his nose would soon reach Europe. OF course, I think that is a good characterization of what has occurred -- McCain is now becoming the great Pinochio of politicians.

Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer, to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters, and the truth does not matter to them in this despicable endeavor.

“On Friday on “The View,” generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized his new advertisements. “We know that those two ads are untrue,” Ms. Behar, a courageous American if there ever was one, said. “They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?”

"Actually they are not lies,” Mr. McCain said crisply. Which proves what a really good liar he is.

There You Go Again! The Newest Republican Propaganda Ad -- How Disrespecful to America!

2008-09-12T05:36:00.000-07:00

"There you go again!" said Ronald Reagan in his second debate with President Jimmy Carter in 1980. The way he delivered that line, in response to what he thought was Carter's misrepresentation of his record, was a hit, was effective, and is a part of presidential history.

Barack Obama needs to re-use that good line, because the devious Republican propaganda machine continues to release one false television advertisement after another in order to muddy the waters and distract the proverbial cable news cycles, and, most importantly deceive the voters with trumped up issues that have no real basis in fact. First it was lipstick on a pig-gate, and now it is: what they said about Sarah Palin, "how disrespecful!" The things that were said are taken out of context and placed together to tell the ad's story, which is false -- Obama and Biden have not shown disrespect to Palin. But it is the old Republican tactic -- if you say it enough and use a big enough megaphone (television), then lies will be received as if they are true.

The sad thing is this -- print media tends to catch McCain-Bush (it is the Bush team that is running this campaign) in their deceptions, but television gives it little airplay. Instead of calling the McCain campaign to task for its outright twisting of the real facts, for coldly calculating that they will be able to get away with it, we hear the pundits declare how "smart" the Republicans are, and how "it works!"

Well, going up to a bank teller with a gun works, too, for a nice withdrawal, but the police keep that from happening most of the time, because society knows it is not right. What works is not right when it is WRONG -- and the Republicans are killing our democracy with these falsehoods and the media needs to be the referees in order to make democracy work. Even such a usually honest newsman as NBC's Chuck Todd called the most recent ad "disingenuous." but then compared teams winning football games with dirty play to what the Republicans are doing.

Hey Chuck, the last eight years should show you that who wins, and how they win, effects millions and millions of people in very real pocketbook ways, unlike a college team winning a football game. The stakes are much higher, so the news media must do a better job!

Here is the truth about the Republican ad machine and particularly this new ad defending Sarah Palin's honor (which was NEVER attacked, but straw dogs are a Republican specialty):
the ad itself shows a complete disregard for the truth and plays to a seeming belief in the fact that many Americans are non-thinkers and will believe whatever they see on television, if it is colorful and well-packaged, like any effective automobile or toothpaste ad. That is contemptuous of the American people and of the democratic process.

HOW DISRESPECTFUL!

Remembering 9-11-2001 with Prayers, But Let Us Stop Politicizing This National Tragedy

2008-09-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

Let us take a moment to pray for the victim's families of 9-11-2001, and to honor the memory of those who were killed, the office workers, the soldiers, the firemen, policemen and first responders, and the innocent ones who died in the planes. They were innocents, and many were heroes.

But let us not allow the continued tasteless politicizing of these tragic events, especially by the party that was in power at the time of the attacks, and the mayor who had not prepared his city for such an emergency.

The term is thrown around a lot, but never has the tragedy been so viscerally exploited as it was at the RNC in a video presentation. This "Tribute to the Victims of 9/11" was really nothing of the sort. It was a blatant use of disturbing images to sell America on John McCain. Keith Olbermann on MSNBC spoke for many of us when he reacted with disgust at the blatant politicizing of such a terrible moment for all of us, not just Republicans. For his courage and honesty, MSNBC uncourageously caved into Republican outcries and relieved him of his event anchoring duties.

When the RNC convention goers jumped to their feet at the end of the disgusting, manipulative, pandering video, I began to wonder if any Republican leaders have even remnants of ethical, moral backbones. Where is the party of Eisenhower and Ford? They should have booed and walked out. Are Americans so easily manipulated by media techniques? Are we a brainwashed populace? The opiate of the masses is not religion, as Karl Marx theorized, but modern advertising and media. Old Karl had never seen what modern media can do, had he?

The politicizing video was a patently un-American, inhuman display, and its makes one wonder what hope is left for this country, when this stuff seems to work so well. The video was used as a selling point for John McCain as evidenced by the line stating - in the context of this convention - that we'll have a president who won't let it happen again. A total foul and a complete abuse of the feelings we all have about that horrible day.

I fully beleive Obama or Bob Barr or even Ralph Nader love this country, and our strong and effective military will be just as vigilant under them as they would be under McCain. Witness our safety under President Clinton, a Democrat who was not a prisoner of war, but was a good commander in chief. Our defense will remain strong, whoever is President, because it is their country, too, and they are all committed strongly to it.

If the Republicans hadn't politicized this tragedy, we could have seen it as a try at having a non-partisan moment in a sea of relentless bashing of "blue" America, but instead it was used as just another Republican infomercial. Are these the people you want running the country for four more years, after what they have done the last eight?

Palin is Not a Pig, but Republican Politics is a Pig Sty! Lipstick Stupidity is Their Latest Distraction

2008-09-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows a bit about baseball knows that a pitcher can get someone out if he or she has overwhelming stuff -- a faster fastball, a severe slider, etc. -- or he or she can be the kind of pitcher I was -- a junkball pitcher, with an assortment of off speed pitches and lots of motion in my windup. The object was to get the batter's eye off the ball, to distract them, to sneak the ball by them by hook or crook.

That is what the Republican propaganda machine is doing in their deceptive plan to elect John McCain president. With the true mess they have made the last eight years, the way they win is to keep the voter's eye off the ball. They do not have strength on record or policies or plans or issues. So they distract with trumped up character issues and making it all about supposed culture wars, instead of the things that really matter --policies, policies, policies.

Now we have the poster story for this political atrocity that the Republicans, ever since Daddy Bush and the late strategist Lee Atwater (remember Willie Horton and the ad with Dukakis in a tank?) They have gotten better at this morally bad thing over the years, and this year we see doctoral level Atwater -Rove tactics. Witness the lipstick on a pig brouhaha, woven by Republican hacks and their journalistic brethren over a folksy remark used by thousands and thousands of politicians, professors and preachers over the years.

There is video evidence of McCain himself using the descriptive phrase several times, as well as Vice -President Dick Cheney, as well as other Republican luminaries. Obama used the remark a number of times in the primary campaign, long before Sarah Palin was a national Republican overnight hero.

But McCain's campaign says the sexist, "offensive and disgraceful" comment was directed at Palin and is demanding an apology. Their attack was fierce and shrill, from dozens of young, female surrogates picked fresh for the offensive, to the erstwhile man of integrity himself, John McCain, who approved this message in another questionable judgement. He should be ashamed of playing this game. I used to admire him when he was fighting this kind of politics in 2000. But now he has sold out to the Bushian team. He is playing the game their dishonorable way.

In Palin's speech accepting the party nomination last week, she joked that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick. So now we are told by some, she has the corner market on the word "lipstick" and anytime you say lipstick you are referring to her.

Give me a break! One retreaded joke in Minneapolis does not give you ownership of a word owned by the world. It is our collective word for all English speakers to use, not just Sarah Palin, who I assume is a self-described pit bull, but not a pig. If she were a pig, she should take offense to the remark. Since she is not a pig, the Republicans are showing their utter lunacy, their mounds clouded by Rovian politics, on this one. Sarah Palin is not a pig, but Republican politics is a pig sty, and they try to draw everyone, the whole country, into the mud with them.

"What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad because they know that it's catnip for the news media," Obama said. "I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift Boat politics. Enough is enough," he said.

Obama was commenting on McCain and the Republican record, not taking a personal slap at Palin, and anyone with any sense knows that. The Republican talking points crowd and their phony outrage only shows their own secret contempt for American voter intelligence.

Paul Begala, the old Clinton assistan, said on NBC's Today show that its was "smart politcs" for the Republicans to commandeer the news cycle with a distraction. It may seem smart to a political operative, but it is dirty, disreputable and dishonest. It has no good moral base. What may be smart politically is not smart for the country. It really is treason to the American democracy. What is more, the way they campaign is also how the Republicans govern.

America, keep you eye on the ball, not the distractions. No matter how much the Republicans try to put a new face on their heartless ideology and failed policies, they remain a dismal fact of American life, and they will remain the same under McCain and five-child hockey mom from up North.

No matter how they try to dress it up, they do not deserve four more years in power. They are trying to put lipstick on a pig. But it will still be a pig.