Bloggers for John McCain

The Mac is Back!

2008-11-03T13:31:00.001-08:00

Obama's Incendiary Remarks Compiled

2008-11-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

Other people did the job for me, so enjoy!

Remember to Vote: New Media Study Indicates Bias for Barack Obama

2008-11-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

Remember to vote on (or before) November 4th...

Before you vote, it may be interesting to you that the study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University found that coverage of Senator Barack Obama has been 65% positive, but coverage of Senator John McCain has been only 36% positive.

According to the study by researchers at George Mason University, there has been a documented media bias for Obama and against McCain. Does this influence your vote? I don't know. Should it influence your vote? I don't know that either. However, it is my belief that you should know about it.

The link below has the details. Judge for yourselves...

Source: http://www.cmpa.com/media_room_press_10_30_08.htm

Additional References: Pew Charitable Trust Study of Print Media: "The media coverage of the race for president has not so much cast Barack Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed John McCain in a substantially negative one, according to a new study of the media since the two national political conventions ended."

Source: http://journalism.org/node/13307

I Grew Up in a Small Town, I Am Not Bitter

2008-11-02T13:33:00.001-08:00

The evidence shows this race is tightening both in the popular vote as well as in the Electoral College. As closing argument to our viewers, I am going to remind them during these two days Obama's most incendiary statements and associations. I begin by his condescending "small town people are bitter" argument. Mr Obama, I grew up in a small town. Through hard work and dedication I have managed to accomplish many things in my life. In my way to Silicon Valley, through Pamplona, Paris and Madrid, I have met many people from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Yet, some of the most respectable and honorable people that I have met through these years, and regardless of their education attainment or ethnicity, come from small towns. Mr Obama, if you don't get it, maybe it's because the hard drugs that you admit you took in high school and college had a permanent effect in your brain. Alas, I grew up in a small town and I never took or tried those.

More Obama Socialism:'Do What I Want or You'll go Bankrupt'

2008-11-02T07:04:00.001-08:00

Three Things the Obamedia Will Do to Depress Republican Turnout and Help Obama - From Hillbuz!

2008-11-02T01:37:00.000-07:00

I found this very encouraging article from a blog by Hillary supporters, Hillbuz. If you're thinking there's no way McCain/Palin still have a chance to win this coming Tuesday, think again!
Please share this article with your McCain/Palin supporter and independent friends who might have gotten demotivated to cast their votes for McCain/Palin after seeing the poll #s on TV everyday! I honestly think we should just all turn to the QVC channel for the next 3 days until the election! Why? The Main Stream Media (all the local news and cable news channels, including the FoxNews, sadly) has done such a bang up job in making sure that we know that Obama is winning in all the polls - even the non scientific bobble headed dolls one!

The fact that Obama is leading 'comfortably', as one of the famous pollster said (I think it was Zogby) honestly, has scared the beejesus out of me. It has nothing to do with his race or skin color. It has everything to do with his tax and spending proposed policies, his sense of globalism, his sense of communism, his associations with groups or individuals who are either racist or socialist/communist or both and his lack of experience. How someone with all the aforementioned characteristics can be on the brink of becoming the president of this great free country is just beyond me! Hey, perhaps I should run in 2012...at least all's I have is the lack of experience part!

If today were 09.11.01, I betcha (**wink**wink***) that BHO would not stand a chance of winning this general election, even being the presidential nominee coming out of the primary election! But let your hearts NOT be troubled my friends! According to our Anti Obama friends at Hillbuz, the ONLY thing that WILL stand in the way between Obama and the US Presidency is Us! Yep...US...all of US that support McCain/Palin, if we get demoralized easily by the Main Stream Media that has been relentlessly making us sure that we know Obama is 'comfortably' leading in all the polls.

So, here we go: Three things the Obamedia will do to depress Republican turn out and help Obama

(1) Calls for McCain to just give up and quit, because the race is over. This one is a favorite of the trolls who lurk on pro-McCain sites. We get them here, despite all the spraying and fumigating we do, but notice how we ignore these trolls We’ve identified two paid Obama staffers who have been assigned to HillBuzz. We picked them up around the same time people from Ace and LGF started picking up some of our stuff — so our guess is they were assigned to us by whoever was monitoring those sites. They’re different trolls than the ones assigned to us during the primaries (we only had one back then, so evidently we’ve gotten more on the radar now). One of them starts posting “her” concern troll remarks here at 8am. The other one starts “his” remarks around 5pm or so. It appears there are two shifts for the trolls — and from what we can see, they share the same computer and IP address. And it’s an address right here in Chicago. [...]

(2) Wild claims of Obama winning states that shock and surprise you. Since Obama believes there are 57 states (maybe 58 or 59, depending on how he’s counting that day), the Obamedia will report huge wins for Dear Leader in the states of Confusion, Denial, and Undress, with Atlantis, Oz, Hopetopia, and Leningrad all going to Obama early on November 4th — because everyone loves Obama so much, that places that don’t even exist have voted for him (with 100% of the vote of the dead, cartoon characters, and historical figures going to Dear Leader in unprecedented numbers). The best example of the Obamedia making up lies like this was on Super Tuesday, when every Eeyore we knew ran through the streets crying and pants-wetting, gnashing their teeth and yanking their hair as the sky fell around them — BECAUSE OBAMA IS WINNING CALIFORNIA! MASSACHUSETTS! ARKANSAS! TENNESSEE! NEW JERSEY! NEW YORK! WAAAAAAAAH! DOOOOOOOMED! [...]
(3) Repeated insistance that blacks and young people will decide this election, and they are all going to vote in record numbers for Obama. First of all, black voters have always voted Democratic in massive numbers. We don’t think blacks have ever voted for Republicans in any substantial way in any race we can think of. Blacks vote as a race-bloc, and they always vote for the Democrat. Maybe Obama will get blacks who have never voted before to vote for him, or blacks who don’t bother to vote on Election Day to show up and vote, but we doubt that it will be very many people. Black voters were highly motivated to vote in 2004 because they felt George W. Bush stole the 2000 election, and they saw that as a civil rights issue that increased black turnout to one of the highest levels we have ever seen. [...]

After reading this Hillbuz article, read these articles to pump yourself up! More importantly, read all the comments, if you have the time! Trust me, it's totally worth it! It would really make you regain your confidence (if you ever lost it, like me...:) ) that the chance of McCain winning is not just some wishful thinking, it can be made a reality...with our relentless support!
1) A Risky Prediction: McCain Will Win
2) Signs Pointing to A McCain Victory
3) Stunning Results in Early Voting in CA. Smile Redstaters!
4) GOP Internal Polls (NJ, CA, MI, PA) Show Possible Landslide for McCain

So, go out there and:
1) VOTE! Don't get demoralized by the MSM and polls!
2) Make Calls to the battlegound state. Go to johnmccain.com to find out how!
3) Post comments on as many blogs as possible about McCain's chance of winning (quote this Hillbuz article, and other articles I give you) and Obama fake tax cut plan. This should be a priority over Obama's many radical associations as this it seems people don't care if they are lead by someone who "seems" to have socialistic view. But for sure, they SHOULD care about the money in their pockets and their jobs and how if Obama gets elected, they will end up with neither. And this is not a scare tactic my friend, just tell them that higher taxes lead to businesses spending cut which will eventually lead to businesses laying off people. No job, no money. And if they say...but..but Obama said bla bla bla (you know what he said about his tax cut plan) , just laugh, say that's BS and point them to this website: Barack Obama records on tax reform
4) Talk to your friends who are lukewarm in supporting Obama and are indifferent about this election. Do the same thing as the above. Also, use the right analogy to compare Obama's tax cut rhetoric with Obama's tax cut records. Ask them if they would trust a convicted bank robber to make a deposit for you at your bank? Ask them if they would trust a convicted child molester to babysit your children? Then....ask them if they would trust Obama, with his (lack) of tax cut voting records, to really cut their taxes?

Lastly, HAVE FAITH in the greatness of this country and its citizens!

We beat the Nazis and Fascism in the world war, we got through the Great Depression just fine, we beat the USSR and won the cold war, we toppled Saddam Hussein that the world does not have to worry about him breaking the 13th UN resolution anymore!, we give aids (financial + human volunteers) to other countries that were hit by natural catastrophes and malignant diseases like Indonesia, Pakistan and African countries, respectively. If we want to surrender to socialism and communism, we would have done that long time ago and Carter would have been elected twice.

SO...FIGHT! LET'S GO OUT THERE AND WIN THIS ELECTION! Let's make sure that after January 20, 2009, we're not gonna see what's depicted on the video below really happening!

Reasons to vote for McCain; reasons to vote against Obama

2008-11-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

My reasons for voting, not just for McCain, but also against Obama, are almost all premised upon two basic belief systems I hold: (1) As a general matter, that federal government is best which governs least; and (2) that country is safest which has a strong military and is willing to use it in its own defense. With those principles in mind, here's my laundry list of reasons for favoring McCain over Obama.

1. National Security. While Obama has run from the subject for a long time now, he had made it clear through his own speeches and those of his surrogates that he wishes to do two things that will turn America into a wounded deer, lying there to be savaged by rapacious scavenger nations. First, he intends to remove America instantly from Iraq, despite the fact that we're finally winning. While we all understand that even the best commanders sometimes have to conduct a strategic retreat ("he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day"), it's insane to back out of a fight that one is winning. I don't think it's ever been done at any place in any time. Second, at a time when America is disliked by her friends and loathed by her foes, he wishes to slash the military. He seems to be clueless that, in the real world, you first get people to become your allies, and only then do you lower your defenses.

McCain understands that the best defense is the promise that, should anyone attack you, you can and will go powerfully on the offensive. His fundamentally cheerful personality makes it clear that he's not out there looking for trouble but if trouble looks for him, he's ready.

In that regard, I have to say that I find it amusing that all the good liberals at my martial arts dojo, the ones who are desperate to unilaterally disarm America, are assiduously training themselves to be strong in case of an unexpected personal attack on the street. It baffles me that they can recognize at a personal level that the strength and training they're developing will not turn them into killing machines, but merely keep them safe; but are unable to extend that basic principle to a national standard.

In any event, McCain's entirely successful take on the surge should in itself demonstrate that he understands warfare in the modern era and is the one most likely to be able to protect America from her stated and violent enemies.

2. The economy. Neither Obama nor McCain is an economist. Neither understands the minute ebb and flow of the economy. That's fine. We're not electing an economist in chief. But each does have a view of the government's role in the marketplace, and this view will definitely affect the economy.

Obama wants to push out individuals and make the state the major player in the market place. How? Redistributive taxes. He wants to take more and more money away from people who have earned it, not simply to fund basic government program such as defense and infrastructure, but to give it to people whom he thinks deserve it. He doesn't believe in a fluid, flexible, reactive marketplace that rewards initiative and hard work. He trusts only the government, which doesn't reward action and initiative, but merely distributes pay based on a victim hierarchy.

Fine, you say, but what does this have to do with the economy? Everything.

The government does not make money; it only spends money. When you suck money out of the marketplace, there's less to go around, and you create infinitely smaller incentives for the entrepreneurs who create products and jobs. And aside from the lack of incentive, punitive taxes that benefit people who haven't earned money provide a strong disincentive for workers and entrepreneurs. Why should I think, and risk, and create, and sweat, if it's just going to go to the guy who whined about the fact that life is hard? News flash: Life is hard and life is unfair.

In a large, heterogeneous society, it makes sense for the government to provide a safety net for those who cannot possibly succeed economically (the aged, the ill, the handicapped), just as it does to provide a safety net for productive people who have fallen on hard times. However, it drains the economy dry to suck money out of the productive segment of the economy only to divvy it up amongst those who feel entitled for no other reason than their identity. Even Obama figured this out when he said at the start of the market's problems that he wouldn't put his tax changes into effect (and, mark you, at that time he'd only been admitting to tax "refunds" made on the backs of small businesses) because it would harm the economy. Well, duh!

Fast forward to John McCain. McCain also can't talk economic tech talk, but he understands that people, not government, make money, and make jobs, and have ideas, and show initiative. He understands that, when it comes to the marketplace, the government's job isn't to take over, but to police. It's job is to make sure people don't cheat or abuse their privileges.

In that regard, one of my favorite books in the world, To Serve Them All My Days, tells the story of life in a small public boys school in England between the world wars. I mention it here because the wise old headmaster has a good policy. Rather than myriad rules than simply invite evasion, he operates the school on a single principle: "Few rules but unbreakable." This would be an excellent rule for the marketplace, too. Figure out the big cheating problems, and slam down on them. Then see what else flows from that.

3. The judiciary. Do you like judges to make it up as they go along, depending on their emotional response to the parties before them? Each judge gets to decide if any given party is a good guy or a bad guy, or if the party belongs to a class of good guys or bad guys. Oh, I almost forgot! The judge also gets to define what constitutes "good" and "bad."

If you think that's the appropriate way to run a judiciary that will result in fair rules of law and the reliable application of laws so that individuals and businesses can make future plans, then Obama is the guy for you. Not only is he a member of a political party that believe that judges are uniquely situated to make these kinds of personal decisions, he has also stated that he believes Supreme Court justices should be guided by empathy, not law. And as you all know, we recently learned that he thinks the courts should be used as instruments of economic redistribution of wealth.

If, however, you believe that judges are to apply the law equally to all parties before them, regardless of the judge's personal response to any given party, and if you believe that a judge's role is to interpret law, not to make law, McCain is definitely the guy for you. While not as pure as one would wish, there is no doubt, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that his judiciary will be more of a strict constructionist and less of an activist judiciary than Obama's.

By the way, one thing about judges: they're all former lawyers. If you think lawyers are scuzzy (and so many Americans do), why in the world would you want to vest all your trust in judges who are, after all, just lawyers? (Incidentally, let me remind that Obama is also a lawyer).

4. Abortion. The abortion issue is actually a subset of the judiciary issue. Despite all the screaming about the fact that Sarah Palin is pro-Life (and she actually walks the walk, rather than just talking the talk), the bottom line is that the president doesn't set abortion policy (nor, of course, does the VP). The only thing a president does that affects abortion is appoint judges.

A strict constructionist judge, one who sees the line between adjudicating and legislating, will honestly admit that Roe v. Wade made up a constitutional right where none exists. A strict constructionist judge will then say that, since there is no constitutional (i.e., federal) right, abortion must be decided either by the states or by constitutional amendment. Most states would continue to keep abortion legal, some states would limit it, and one or two might do away with it altogether.

There is no doubt but that McCain would appoint judges who wouldn't expand federal abortion rights (since they don't exist in the constitution) and who might in fact limit federal abortion rights (since they don't exist in the constitution). And there is no doubt that Obama, who refused to vote on a law that would allow live-born aborted babies to receive care, would not appoint those judges.

5. Freedom of speech. The evidence of your own eyes should convince you that Obama and his party are not committed to free speech. I'll give you a few examples. You can provide the rest.

First of all, there's the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which demands that radio stations give equal time to alternative political views, and then insists that the government determine what views get this time. Keep in mind, by the way, that the people advocating this doctrine also contend that NPR, the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, ABCNBCCNNCBSMSNBC, etc., all have no actual political view -- they are, say the Fairness Doctrine advocates, impartial reporters of the news. It's only such nefarious sources as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dennis Prager, Fox, Hugh Hewitt, etc., who purvey "biased" material that cannot be allowed to sully American ears, and that must be reduced by 50% (making it unprofitable, of course, for radio stations to carry them in the first place).

Suffice to say that, if Obama is president and a Democratic Congress passes the Fairness Doctrine into law, he'll sign the bill with pleasure. If McCain is president, and if the bill isn't veto proof, I can guarantee you he'll veto that bill.

That's big stuff. Here's the little stuff: Obama hasn't given a press conference in over a month; Obama's minions went after Joe the Plumber's private information in an effort to destroy him when he made Obama look bad (just by asking a question, mind you); Obama refuses to give future media access to two TV stations that asked Biden hardball questions; Obama has kicked off his plane reporters from media outlets that haven't endorsed him; Obama's minions threatened to investigate all of his major donors; and, lastly, Obama's minions have subverted the democratic process (which is a form of speech) through hundreds of thousands of fraudulent registrations.

6. Immigration. There is no doubt that conservatives think McCain is soft on immigration. But if you think he's bad, please remember that Obama represents a party that wants to do away with immigration limitations altogether. It's a party that wants an open border policy.

Is that what you want? Hey, even if you're Hispanic, even if you're a recent Hispanic immigrant, is that what you want? Keep in mind that an economy and a society can absorb only so many newcomers at a time. America's great virtue, as Tito the Builder appreciates, is that America provides enormous opportunities for those who come here, not simply to take from the government, but to work and to give back to this country. That system falls apart if America is flooded with unlimited numbers of immigrants. It's like overloading the lifeboat, with everyone drowning.

England serves as a great example of a country that is destroying itself through its unlimited immigration policies. Without passing any judgment on Muslim beliefs and values, it is still noteworthy that, in less than 15 years, Britain's elites have managed to create a situation that will see their ancient English culture gone in a few more decades

Think I'm exaggerating? The most popular baby name in Britain right now isn't Charles or Jonathan or Bert, its Mohammed. The biggest religion in England right now isn't the Church of England, it's the Catholic Church (because of the influx of Polish immigrants). I have great respect for the Catholic Church, but its current dominance is an historic irony that would make Bloody Mary happy, but that is, well, weird in the great panoply of British history. And when all those Mohammeds grow up, I can guarantee you a very bloody religious war in that country if the little Polish Lechs and Katerinas don't want to convert to Islam without a fight.

There are less than 72 hours left to the election. The media wants to tell you that this election should be Obama's because he's pretty and speaks well and has a calm temperament and, while we're not supposed to talk about race, he's of a race that will make the whole world happy and let us pat ourselves on our collective backs for being so open-minded. The media, of course, is wrong. This race is about incredibly important issues that will, at the least, affect us for years, and at the most (and worst) change America forever.

Even if you're no huge McCain fan because he's not conservative enough, or you're one of those Ivy League conservatives who thinks that Palin isn't "one of us," none of that should matter right now. In a vote between Obama and McCain, for those who cherish freedom from an intrusive federal government and who believe that the federal government's most vital role is national security, the choice should be clear: VOTE FOR MCCAIN.

Cross-posted at Bookworm Room and at Right Wing News

More Yes Men Please

2008-11-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a story you won't see in the MSM: Yesterday Obama kicked off reporters from The New York Post, the Washington Times, and the Dallas Morning News - reporters who had been traveling with Obama's campaign all this time but just happened to belong to papers that endorse John McCain. Obama's campaign cited the need to make space for the far more important black monthly magazines Essence and Jet, who I bet will give Obama a real rough time with hardhitting stories like this one about the best black couples in politics today.

Now to be fair, McCain hasn't allowed Maureen Dowd and Time columnist Joe Klein to come along with his campaign in the past, but there's a difference between barring news reporters versus barring columnists. The first kind of journalist aims to deliver objective accounts of the facts, while the second type is given far more free rein with speculation and reporting.

I guess this is a sneak peek of what we can expect from an Obama administration. God help us all.

Obama Will Take Care of Me...

2008-11-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

I'm really not sure whether to laugh or cry here. Laugh because it's a little bit funny, cry because this type of mentality does exist and has spread all across USA. I'm not sure whether this lady is being serious or not, but what I know is I'm so sad to know this type of mentality exists, cultivated and promoted by Barak Obama and his liberal congress friends.
I guess when you can't win the votes of American people, you just BUY their votes! What's the price tag? $1000k per year or $83 per month (i.e. Obama's promised taxcut for the "middle class"). What good would $83 per month do if you can't buy much and don't have a job because your employers want to cut budget because of high tax issue and these employers will be laying off people?

I wouldn't have to work to pay for putting gases in my car, I wouldn't have to work to pay my mortgage. If I help him [Obama], he will help me!

What this lady sadly does not realize is what government gives, it can take it away whenever it wants it back!

GOD SPEED - GOD BLESS AMERICA

2008-11-01T00:54:00.000-07:00

GOD SPEED. May He win! Let's put this man in the white house! Let's defend our Freedom and Liberty! Go out there and VOTE! There's NO WAY we're going to let the Freedom and Liberty that makes this country great be taken from us without a FIGHT!

Why We Must Fight For McCain by Arnold Schwarzenegger

2008-10-31T18:05:00.000-07:00

The whole video is interesing, but if you are in a rush, make sure you watch minute 5:20

Petition to the LA Times: Release the Obama/Khalidi Tape!

2008-10-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

I encourage our readers to sign it. At the time of this writing: 5000 signatures and growing!

Victor Davis Hanson: 'The End of Journalism'

2008-10-31T06:14:00.001-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson is a well regarded scholar in military history, fellow at the Hoover Institution and a registered Democrat. I always love his columns because they are cogent and persuasive. In every single piece that I have read from him, he usually goes in detail through his arguments, providing solid evidence backing his points. That's why I find his piece about media bias in this Presidential election particularly interesting. Call it a "scholarly researched" version of Michael Malone's illuminating piece. Please read it here,

"There have always been media biases and prejudices. Everyone knew that Walter Cronkite, from his gilded throne at CBS news, helped to alter the course of the Vietnam War, when, in the post-Tet depression, he prematurely declared the war unwinnible. Dan Rather’s career imploded when he knowingly promulgated a forged document that impugned the service record of George W. Bush. We’ve known for a long time — from various polling, and records of political donations of journalists themselves, as well as surveys of public perceptions — that the vast majority of journalists identify themselves as Democratic, and liberal in particular.Yet we have never quite seen anything like the current media infatuation with Barack Obama, and its collective desire not to raise key issues of concern to the American people. Here were four areas of national interest that were largely ignored.

.....

Imagine the reaction of CNN or NBC had John McCain’s pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years been revealed as a white supremacist who damned a multiracial United States, or had he been a close acquaintance until 2005 of an unrepentant terrorist bomber of abortion clinics, or had McCain himself sued to eliminate congressional opponents by challenging the validity of African-American voters who signed petitions, or had both his primary and general election senatorial rivals imploded once their sealed divorce records were mysteriously leaked."

CNN's King: 'Whining' Media 'Out of Touch' on Election Coverage

2008-10-30T19:06:00.001-07:00

Read the whole story here,

"You know media bias has reached epic proportions when journalists are criticizing their own colleagues for a lack of professionalism in covering Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin."

Are the MSM suddenly realizing that they have crossed a very dangerous line that might lead to their extinction given the new emerging media?

LA Times: Shame on You!

2008-10-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

A Spaniard's Case For McCain and Against Obama

2008-10-30T10:44:00.001-07:00

November 4th is approaching and those who are undecided are beginning to make up their minds. I want to present my reasons for supporting John McCain for President and why an Obama Presidency brings to my mind deeply uncomfortable thoughts.

In full disclosure, I must say to all of you that I am not a US citizen yet. My immigration status is known technically as US Lawful Permanent Resident, commonly known as "green card holder". My status in the US is, for most practical purposes, similar to that of a US citizen except that I cannot vote in those elections which require US citizenship, ie the vast majority of elections held in the US. What that means is that in everything else I have most of the same rights and obligations of a US citizen, including my eligibility for the US Army draft. I also plan to apply for US citizenship next year, so my interest in who will be the next US President goes beyond a mere curiosity from a foreigner who lives in the US.

Simply put, I cannot be truthful to my reasons for willing to become a US citizen without passionately supporting John McCain in what has been called the most important election since 1980. This has nothing to do with calling Obama unpatriotic, although the latter's own statements on his reasons for not wearing a US flag pin would raise alarms on any reasonable person, but with the vision of America that captured my imagination as a child and teenager. Is that vision, that I received through American movies and TV, that triggered my desire to work hard so I could come to the US to seek the American Dream.

So what vision am I talking about? I fell in love with the America that gives every individual an opportunity to raise by himself regardless of his economic or family background. An America where individual freedom is the creed upon which its patriotism is based. An America where individual enterprise created the technology breakthroughs that have changed the world in which we live. An America that rewards individual merit while she is generous with the less fortunate of society. An America whose powerful Army has been used mostly as a force for good, unlike the different European armies that have been used mostly to subjugate neighbors and the rest of the world. In summary, an America that promises to those who give the best they have in themselves that success will follow their hard work and dedication. The last eight years haven't been perfect and frankly, George W Bush, mainly through an incompetent administration, has made a lot of damage to that vision of America. Whatever mistakes Bush made however, do not justify giving the highest office in the land to an individual, Barack Obama, whose vision for America is nothing like what grabbed my imagination as a kid but that sounds a lot like the European nightmare that I lived before coming to the US.

So, what nightmare I am talking about? Well, a society where the economic and social status where you are born pretty much determine your future. A society that provides universal state funded education and health care but with the catch that the government, not the individual, decides which school you attend and which doctor you go to. A society where asking a powerful politician a simple question can put you and your family in trouble (does the Joe the Plumber story sound familiar?). A society where mediocrity is rewarded and excellence punished (convince yourself by looking at the list of the best world universities and count the number of European universities there). A society where the "old money" still controls businesses, where chronic high unemployment exists because some people find it a better deal to receive government checks than to help themselves by having a job. A society where if you take a look at the largest companies, by almost any measure, 30 years ago you'll discover little change with respect to the largest companies today (in the US companies such as Google didn't exist 30 years ago; others like Microsoft or Apple were garage startups back then). A society where the last time the Europeans had armies comparable to the present US army in size and influence, they brought us World War II (ethnic nationalism is so ingrained in each European country that the only way the different European countries have found to be good neighbors is to have armies so weakened that they don't pose any serious threat to each other). Do I really need to continue?

When I hear the Obama/Biden ticket talking about "spreading the wealth around", "giving government checks to people who don't pay income taxes", "government mandated health care insurance", "negotiating without preconditions with the crappiest dictators of the world", rhetoric that puts the government playing an intrusive role in people's lives, education, free enterprise, science and technology, deciding when an individual is too rich for his own good... I get reminded of what I left behind in Spain. When in addition I see the press lynching a private citizen who dared ask a question to Obama or Biden avoiding the journalists who ask him hard questions, I am fearful that an Obama regime would make incidents such as Valerie Plame's the norm, not the exception.

For all these reasons, I cannot but wholeheartedly support John McCain for President.

Obama Undertakes Presidential Internship To Ease Concerns About His Lack Of Experience

2008-10-29T14:04:00.001-07:00

Those who had questions about why a Spaniard like me is volunteering for John McCain, will find their answers here (from The Onion News),

Obama in 1995: Reverend Wright is 'wonderful'

2008-10-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

LA Times covering up Obama

2008-10-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's official. With so many false rumors around, I was hesitant to believe this one at first. Now, the LA Times has confirmed the existence of the tape and its opposition to release it,

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

The Obama/Khalidi story can be viewed here,

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about
meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

Clerk charged with unlawful search of Joe the Plumber

2008-10-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Read here,

"Toledo Police have confirmed that a TPD records clerk is accused of performing an illegal search of information related to 'Joe the Plumber.'"

Keep The Change

2008-10-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

CBS Exposes The Obama Campaign's Financing

2008-10-28T14:17:00.000-07:00

Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered!

2008-10-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

I found this chilling audio recording through Drudge and Littlegreenfootballs. In this audio, in his own voice, as Naked Empire put it (the audio poster in Youtube), he wants to Radically Reinterpret the Constitution to Redistribute Wealth. In the audio, the discussion is not about whether redistribution of wealth is right or wrong, it is about HOW to do it legitimately! Obama is discussing the best way to bring about a Redistribution of Wealth! Read more about Warren Court after you watch this video. It will open your eyes about Obama's real agenda - redistribution of wealth BY ALL MEANS!

I would recommend to watch the video, record it (use Camtasia software) and store it in your hard drive. I've heard about controversial Obama movies disappearing from Youtube before as in case you don't know, the CEO of Google (youtube parent company) supports The One.

Why Obama's socialism should not be necessary in America

2008-10-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

My mother, bless her heart, said something very important the other day. She said that Europeans are much more socially conscious than Americans and that's why they have all those government programs (i.e., socialism or spreading the wealth). She was clearly trying to say that Americans are mean and selfish, and that's why they've traditionally leaned to keeping their wealth, rather than allowing government redistribution. She's completely wrong, of course, but wrong in a very interesting way.

What she neglected to consider with her pronouncement is that, traditionally, America and Europe had vastly different social and economic fluidity. While Europe has had an exceptionally rigid class system from which few escape, America has been since it's inception a place in which people can "make it." Every immigrant group (and such is the nature of America that all but the Indigenous Americans are immigrant groups), has managed to assimilate and rise economically.

Census records from the Lower East Side in New York, through which passed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of immigrants from all over Europe, show that within two generations, all of the families that once lived there had moved into the working, middle or wealthy classes. Certainly, individuals may have suffered and failed but, en masse, the immigrants did well. They didn't need to become the recipients of perpetual government largesse.

In Europe, however, there were no systems by which the lower classes (and that also always meant the poorer classes) could escape their stratum. Whether by accent, education, poverty, or tradition, they stayed there. (And, interestingly, even the educational opportunities socialism provided didn't much change that. When I lived in England a couple of decades ago, after almost 40 years of free access to college education, most English people did not go on to college and people still gave away their class instantly just by opening their mouths.) Socialism, in other words, was just a totalitarian government substitute for the old noblesse oblige that saw the upper class (or, at least, the socially conscious ones) take care of the poorer orders, all the while ensuring that they stayed in their place.

The intense stratification of that system continues to exist with the new immigrants to Europe. Whether in Germany, Norway, Sweden, England, Italy or France, these new Muslim immigrants are instantly the recipients of government largesse that gives them housing and money -- and that essentially tells them to get into their immigrant ghettos, and stay there, preferably feeling grateful to and voting for the government that was so good to them. Its a shock to the ruling class, and one that they can't seem to understand, that these immigrants, rather than feeling grateful at being stuffed away into ghettos without any opportunities, loath the countries in which they live, and cheerfully envision their bloody overthrows.

My mother agreed with me on all of these points (how could she not?), but then produced her "a-ha!" to prove me wrong: "What about blacks in America (and, she could have added, Native Americans, too)?" To her, they proved I was entirely wrong in describing America's social and economic fluidity. To me, though, the were just the extra evidence I needed to prove that when, as they do you Europe, a government provides too much for people, it consigns them permanently to poverty and social exile.

As you know, African-Americans (and Native Americans) differed from all other immigrant groups in America because the American system essentially imposed against them, for centuries (and in brutal and horrible ways), a European style stratification that prevented any upward movement. This is true whether one is looking at slavery, relocation, genocidal wars or Jim Crow. I'll focus from here on out on what happened to blacks when Americans finally wised up to the error of their ways, but you can tell the same story about Native Americans.

Beginning in the 1940s (with the WWII economy) and continuing into the 1950s (with the Civil Rights movement), blacks started the same upward movement as other American groups. That is, once the nation began removing the artificial ceiling it had imposed on them, blacks too made social and economic strides. The strides were slow, because prejudice is slow to die, but they were real, and they created a rising black working and middle class composed of nuclear families. I have no doubt that, had the government continued to educate and police against discrimination, and otherwise left the market to do its work, African Americans would have joined other immigrant groups in realizing the American dream in a generation or two.

The death knell for this laborious, but real, social and economic ascent was the Great Society. The moment comprehensive welfare programs began (around the mid-1960s), government workers fanned out to black communities all over America and made huge efforts to tell blacks to stop working, because the government would pay for them. White guilt was at its apex, and government welfare was its expiation.

Being rational actors, blacks gave up bad, low-paying, often demeaning jobs for free money. And being rational actors, they gave up nuclear families and parental responsibility for even more free money. And so began the terrible slide of the African-American community. Even if you all don't remember that time, you do remember what finally arrested this slide and helped put African-Americans back on the same, slow upward trajectory that existed before the Great Society: The fact that Clinton, under duress from a real Republican Congress, ended “welfare as we know it.” Once again, African-Americans, being rational actors, were given the incentive to shelter in the strength of the nuclear family and plug into the American Dream.

Obama wants to undo the American Dream and turn us into a European economy, where all benefits flow from the government, rather than individual effort. You can call it "socialism," or "big government," or "spreading the wealth," or whatever else suits you, but the outcome will be the same: People will be locked into government induced poverty in perpetuity, the middle class will become slack, the economy will enter into stagflation, unemployment will rise, and service in every area of American life will fall as people lose their incentive (because they've lost the ability) to rise upwards and join in the American Dream.

Signs Pointing To A McCain Victory - NO KIDDING!

2008-10-26T04:52:00.000-07:00

After I posted my latest article, Why Do Barack Obama Unfounded Rhetoric and Radical Associations Seem Insignificant, I decided to do more research on the net to find a glimpse of hope that the American People can still see through the Main Stream Media and US Academia Indoctrination, about what Obama really is. I'm just not ready yet to believe that the ideology of Freedom and Liberty can be easily replaced by the Socialism, From Each According to His Ability, To Each According to His Need, Ideology. So here you go: Signs Pointing To A McCain Victory! Go PUMA (Party Unity My A**)! You also have to read PUMA letter that's addressed to the Republican Party! If PUMA will fight to the end for the McCain/Palin ticket, we have to fight too! It's so comforting to know that we have a friend in PUMA!

Here's one of the comments on the article (1 out of 250-ish last time I check!):

Thank You for this uplifting article. I am a lifelong Democrat and an African American. I was a Hillary Supporter during the primary but I am now voting for John McCain. The same goes for my husband and his sister. I realize that I am one of the 4% of AA's not voting for Obama. In my book principals should trump race, gender and party. I cannot vote for Obama. While I would love to have an African American or female president someday, I am disappointed in the DNC's choice of Barack Obama who is an empty suit that talks a good game. Obama has accomplished nothing in Illinois. The city of Chicago has the highest sales tax in the nation at 10.25%. The city has had 462 murders this year and we still have 2months in the year left. If you look at his record you see nothing. During the debates, Obama had no experience to draw upon for examples. Sarah Palin did, Biden did, obviously McCain did. When I hear Obama talking I glaze over because it is such empty rhetoric. he criticizes the other guy and really says nothing about what he will do beyond his flash card answers.

I am also disturbed by the African American leaders who have been used and thrown under the bus by Obama such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.If Martin Luther King were alive he would have found a place under that bus as well. You can be sure of it. Donna Brazille is a race baiting buffoon and Colin Powell is a desperate man whose legacy is on the mend.

Interesting that Obama delivered his Denver DNC speech on MLK's "I Had a Dream" anniversary yet did not mention Dr. King once. Obama lacks humility and smacks of insolence--the kind that a true leader should not possess. Obama lacks judgment. The media constantly gives him a pass on purchasing his home from Rezko, his unscrupulous relationships and lack of experience. It amounts to affirmative action.Which I am not in favor of. Obama is the least qualified person to ever run for POTUS.

I will be happy to vote for John McCain on November 4th. John is a true patriot and has a deep commitment to this country. When I see McCain his words are sincere and not preachy like Obama. Not condescending like Michelle Obama either. Who by the way will make a terrible first lady. She is a very angry,bitter woman and it shows. I will not let her work through her race issues by being our first lady. I don't need Barack to enlighten me. This so called Great Unifier has caused division among woman, blacks, the DNC and everything else that he touches. Go back to Chicago Senator Obama and finish,or I should say start the job that the people of Illinois elected you to do. 143 days was not enough.

I know how to bring change into my life without this just add water arugula smoothie drinking Messiah.

McCain/Palin 08

Obama's Campaign Cancels Future Interviews With WFTV

2008-10-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

I just read this at the Orlando Sentinel,

" Why did Barack Obama's campaign cancel an interview Jill Biden, wife of Sen. Joe Biden, was going to do with WFTV-Channel 9?
.......
The Obama campaign earlier Friday suggested that future interviews with WFTV were unlikely before Election Day"

Please watch the interview and decide for yourself. Of course, it goes without saying that had Sarah Palin been the person interviewed by Barbara West, this would have made the national media.

Big Brother: Government computers used to find information on Joe the Plumber

2008-10-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

I have stated several times that I am no friend of conspiracy theories. I found it laughable when Naomi Wolf said that the US was in the process of becoming a totalitarian regime because of the anti terror laws enacted after 9/11. That comparison was then insulting to those who really know what a true dictatorship is all about.

Surprisingly, the "US is becoming a dictatorship" in the MSM ended quietly after the November 2006 election that gave the Democrats the control of the US Congress. Which takes me to the the public lynching of Joe the Plumber by the MSM. We've seen public lynching of individuals involved in controversial political issues before. What made this case different until yesterday was that those individuals who were lynched by the MSM were, by their own choosing, public political figures in one way or another. In my 8 years in the US I don't remember the MSM lynching a private citizen "just for" asking a question to a politician.

Adding perilous insult to injury, yesterday we learned from an Ohio newspaper that, "State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."

Note that from the article, it's a given that Joe's private info was accessed from government computers and shortly after he became famous because of his encounter with "The One". Those are facts nobody questions. What the Ohio authorities are investigating is whether that access was illegal. Ms Wolf, don't you think that this is a much more serious invasion of privacy by Big Brother than whatever fantasies you had in your mind before the 2006 election? (That was a rhetorical question). Another rhetorical question: where are the MSM when we need them; how is that this isn't highlighted by them as an issue of more relevance than Sarah Palin's wardrobe?

Michael S. Malone: Editing Their Way to Oblivion: Journalism Sacrificed For Power and Pensions

2008-10-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

I first learned about Michael S. Malone last year when I was recommended his book about Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. I ended up buying the book, getting emotional while reading it and attending one of his talks about his portrayal of Bill and Dave at a Mountain View bookstore.

Since his name was new to me, I did a bit of research about him prior to attending the event; I learned that he was a household name in high tech journalism. A former HP employee like myself, although he had had the privilege to work with both Bill and Dave, he had been a journalist at the San Jose Mercury News before writing for the biggest household names in the news industry such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ABC News. Further, from his presentation I came under the impression that he was a strong supporter of the media, especially the liberal media. I remember him defending the San Francisco Chronicle existence in the middle of the crisis that has affected newspapers main source of revenue, that is advertising, now that they have to compete with the new Internet media. That's why, I was completely shocked when I was reading this article of his today repudiating the way the media has handled this Presidential campaign.

I have been living in the United States for only eight years. Up until this past September and this, about to end, October I had an overall good impression of the US media. Not that I was convinced that all media were "fair and balanced" but at least I got the impression that when it came to reporting news, most respectable sources tried their best to present both sides of controversial topics. Not anymore. And it worries me a great deal. Nothing of what I saw in the Presidential campaign of 2004 comes close to the systematic lynching and humiliation that I have witnessed this time around regarding anybody who dares challenge, let alone criticize, "The One".

See, for those of us who come from places like Spain where all media have been behaving for years in the same way the MSM have been behaving during this Presidential campaign, it was refreshing to be able to tell the people who still live there that the New York Times mocked Spanish newspapers such as El Pais by calling them "pro-government newspaper". Is the US in the process of becoming a country like Spain?

How the hell did it came to this? While I was thinking these past days about the issue, I said to myself, well, maybe this is the way the US media were before 9/11 and I just didn't see it because of the special circumstances we lived after that horrible tragedy. That's why, reading Michael S Malone's article was so refreshing. After all, it seems that even he thinks that the media has gone too far this time. I'll reproduce some of the most interesting quotes but I really, really encourage everybody to read his article completely.

"The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game.
With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate."
"But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist."
"But nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign."
"But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass - no, make that shameless support - they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather - not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake - but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election."

"I’m not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Gov. Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to Alaska to rifle through her garbage."
"No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side - or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for Senators Obama and Biden. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as President of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: his job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so."
"Why, for example to quote McCain’s lawyer, haven’t we seen an interview with Sen. Obama’s grad school drug dealer - when we know all about Mrs. McCain’s addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Senator Biden’s endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?"

It Doesn't Have to Happen!

2008-10-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

A Small Business Perspective on Obama's Tax Plan

2008-10-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

An Army of Joe's

2008-10-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

TIPP: Dead even race

2008-10-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

This must be one of the most weird campaigns in history. Some polls show Obama with double digit gains (and not surprisingly those are the polls that are echoed by the media); yet, the daily tracking polls of several organizations show the race tightening, some within the margin of error (for instance Gallup's traditional model for likely voters shows Obama and McCain within the margin of error). The most surprising of all comes from TIPP. Its daily tracking poll, the poll that got it closest in 2004, shows a dead even race,

"McCain has cut into Obama's lead for a second day and is now just 1.1 points behind. The spread was 3.7 Wednesday and 6.0 Tuesday. The Republican is making headway with middle- and working- class voters, and has surged 10 points in two days among those earning between $30,000 and $75,000. He has also gone from an 11-point deﬁcit to a 9-point lead among Catholics."

I am Voting Democrat: The Clueless College Student!

2008-10-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

Hope this story makes you laugh as much as it did to me,

"Finally, I asked the troubling question about how Obama will ensure a tax break for 95% of people--despite the fact that about 40% don't pay income taxes. He struggled with that one for a while. Again, it seemed to be a foreign concept to him, like no one had ever raised the subject before.

He stumbled through a series of answers. Obama would "give" the unemployed jobs so that they could pay taxes and get a tax break. When I reminded him that would only account for 6%, he--in a tribute to the American education system--said that Obama was really talking about the 55% difference between 95 and 40. I reminded him that Obama had specified 95%, not 55%. He replied that "Obama didn't really mean that." I asked if he, the caller, was really supporting a candidate who lied about something so important?

He told me to wait while he talked to his supervisor. I could overhear bits of a conversation in which he referred to me, rather politely, as "a difficult one." (At least he didn't call me THAT one.)

When he returned to the phone, he informed me that Obama would reach the 95% figure by initiating taxes on the 40% who don't pay income taxes now, so that he could later give them their promised tax break."

It's Official: Coverage of McCain Twice as Negative as Obama

2008-10-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

We already knew this, but having it confirmed by the The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism is akin to having it proved. Shame on you, MSM (or should I say Obama's propaganda arm?),

" John McCain received nearly twice as much negative press coverage as did Barack Obama. According to the report, 57% of the stories about John McCain during the period between September 8 and October 16 were "clearly negative in tone," compared to 29% for Obama. Conversely, stories that were "clearly positive in tone" favored Obama over McCain by a factor of more than two to one, 36% for Obama to just 14% for McCain."

Obama's Judgement about Iraq

2008-10-22T11:32:00.001-07:00

Obama and Ayers in Their Own Words

2008-10-22T10:45:00.001-07:00

New McCain Ad: Sweat Equity (aka the other Joe the Plumbers)

2008-10-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

CNN interview with Sarah Palin

2008-10-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

This is the Sarah Palin we love! Just see the anchor concede at the end that the media is giving a pass to Joe Biden with his comments that Obama, if elected, will be tested by America's enemies!

Jonah Goldberg: The media vs. Joe the Plumber

2008-10-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Follow up on the Tito Munoz story,

"In short, Obama's explanation to Joe the Plumber that we need to "spread the wealth around" is a sincere and significant expression of his worldview, with roots stretching back to his church and his days as a community organizer. Millions of Americans don't share this vision. They don't see the economy as a pie, whereby your slice can only get bigger if someone else's gets smaller. They don't begrudge the wealthy their wealth; they only ask to be given the same opportunities. They look at countries such as France and, rather than envy their socialized medicine and short workweeks, they fear their joblessness and tax policies that punish entrepreneurialism. People like Tito Munoz look at America and see an open path to their own American dream. It would be nice if the media at least tried to understand this point. Instead, they attacked and belittled a citizen who asked a candidate a question. They think he's stupid or a liar for not understanding that a promised check from a President Obama is more valuable than some pipe dream about future success."

Military Men and Women Prefer John McCain Overwhelmingly; Democrats on Iraq

2008-10-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

That's right folks,

"Sen. John McCain enjoys overwhelming support from the military’s professional core, a Military Times survey of nearly 4,300 readers, indicates, though career-oriented black service members strongly favored the Democratic Party candidate.
McCain, R-Ariz., handily defeated Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 68 percent to 23 percent in a voluntary survey of 4,293 active-duty, National Guard and reserve subscribers and former subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times and Air Force Times.
The results of the Military Times 2008 Election Poll are not representative of the opinions of the military as a whole. The group surveyed is older, more senior in rank and less ethnically diverse than the overall armed services. But as a snapshot of careerists, the results suggest Democrats have gained little ground in their attempts to significantly chip away at a traditionally Republican voting bloc in campaign messages and legislative initiatives, such as the recent expansion of GI Bill benefits, experts said."

Also, I want to remind our viewers the opinion of our dear democrats on the Iraq war, back when their opinion actually mattered,

Why Do Barack Obama Unfounded Rhetoric and Radical Associations Seem Insignificant?

2008-10-21T01:27:00.000-07:00

The fact that Obama is ahead in multiple polls really disturbed me. How can someone who has not been truthful about his background and his records be so liked by the American people? How can the people of this FREE country like to hear what this guy has to say? How can the people of this FREE country get eaten up by his empty rhetoric? How can his 'SOCIALIST' like policies resonate so much with the people of this FREE country?
So, I decide to throw out there, some reasons that I can think of. Some other, I found from the internet. Here you go:
1) Americans hate Bush so much that anything that's tied to him is hated too. For the records, I love Bush tax cut policy, but I dislike his uncontrolled spending! And I think that's one of the reasons why our country is in huge debt right now!
2) Americans predominantly watch CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, ABC, PBS, Comedy Central (yes...I'm not kidding you, I heard my friend telling this to my other friend!) and only listen to NPR for their news source. They should watch C-SPAN once in a while!
3) American are not well informed about Barack Obama's proposed policies vs his records
4) Americans chose to ignore Barack Obama's records of tax & spending and radical associations AND the true nature of his proposed policies (which is Socialist-like) subconsciously
5) Americans chose to ignore Barack Obama's records of tax & spending and radical associations AND the true nature of his proposed policies (which is Socialist-like) willingly

Out of all reasons, I found #5 to be the most disturbing. Why? Because if a presidential candidate's records can not be used as non-biased true predictors or indicators of how he or she would lead this country, than what can? Campaign ads, campaign slogans, rhetoric, fluffs?!?
If this is the answer, I would submit to you that we are finished! Let's just start reciting our "Viva Obama" chant!

I found more consolations in reason #1 - #4. Well, they're actually kinda tied together. The hatred for Bush, Americans are not well informed, and Americans chose to ignore Barack Obama's records of tax & spending and radical associations AND the true nature of his proposed policies (which is Socialist-like) are the results of Americans predominantly watch CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, ABC, PBS, Comedy Central and only listen to NPR for their news source. Let's see the example below, about Sarah Palin vs Joe Biden debate coverage, the top one is the debate coverage by MSNBC and the bottom one is a coverage by Fox News. Basically they were discussing about all the alleged lies from both sides. Watch and learn!

MSNBC Coverage

Fox News Coverage

Okay, if you know nothing about what each candidate stands for, which coverage makes you feel like this: "this candidate is really a big LIAR and I can't believe he/she is arrogant enough to think that the media is not going to find out"? Exactly. If didn't know any better, I would say Palin is a big LIAR, she's so arrogant to think that the media is not going to find out! Okay...some of us knows who's for who :) Rove's for McCain/Palin, and Olbermann's for Obama. With the advent of Internet, it is really easy to find out whose "lies" are real LIES vs "lies" that are made up for political purpose. For example, one website that I like to go to, to see if any of these candidates' rhetoric are just that, rhetoric, or there's really some truth to them, is OnTheIssues.org. How did I found this site? I just googled "McCain voting records" or "Obama voting records". And voila...it's all right there, in front of the whole world to see. Going back to the lies discussion. I went to the website to check whose lies are real lies and guess what...I don't mean to sound bias here...of course it's Rove's list of lies that are the real LIES...of Biden's!
Again, just go to this website, ontheissues.org, to check out all the candidates' voting records!

I'm sure you have also heard about Obama's radical associations which bunch of people and organizations that are:

1) Anti America (Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright)

Do you honestly and intellectually believe that Obama who has been going to Rev. Wright's church for 20 years, doesn't know that his pastor hates America? How about the fact that Obama's 2nd book is titled and based on Wright's sermon "The Audacity of Hope"?
If you watch the video below, Wright gave several sermons at different times and of course the consistent theme is Let's Hate America people, America's no good, America's the source of all evil, well you get the point. My point is, it is so apparent that Wright's shown and heard to have been consistently hating America, and therefore, it is almost impossible for Obama (and dishonest, I might add) to say that he never saw that side of rev. Wright. He said, what's he's seen is the Rev. Wright who preached love, giving, caring for other people, and all the sermon topics that normal Pastors actually gives! Uhumm..and I am Shirley Temple! By the way, in addition to using Wright's sermon as the theme of his 2nd book, Rev. Wright also married Barack and Michelle, and baptized their 2 daughters. Now, if you don't trust that your Reverent, would you ask him to marry you and baptize your children? By the way, this article is really telling about "Who is Barack Obama".
And what about "Hate Speech" towards white people? Boy, this guy, Wright, sure knows how to give it! For some people that think that racism can only go one way, the video below clearly demonstrates that racism can go the other way! I'm not white and yet I am disgusted to see such conspiracy theory about white people being thrown around like that! It's clear that Wright is a race monger that should be distanced away at any cost - even if was going to run for only a PTA leader, I would distance myself away! And Obama is running for a president!
It is not clear to me why and how any sane person would want to associate himself with this guy. Period. Unless...they share the same view!

2) Socialist, Communist, Anti America, and Unrepentant Terrorist (Bill Ayers, all the above; New Party, Obama's socialist association)

I know that McCain has been trying to raise this association in his effort to portray Obama's lack of judgment. My question is, why just Ayers? Why not Wright as well? Anyways, it's beyond me.
And unfortunately, McCain's effort seemed to have failed as a lot of Americans do not resonate with his ad despite the fact that Ayers is a socialist, communist, anti America and an unrepentant terrorist. Why? I really don't know...it's so beyond me, that I decided to do my own research and found this article: Why Obama's Communist Connections Are Not Headlines. Here's the excerpt:

The leftist intelligentsia that dominates higher education, and which writes the civics texts used in high schools -- I've read and studied these texts -- and which trains the teachers who teach in high schools, is not in the slightest bit notably anti-communist. These liberals do not teach the lessons of communism.

What's more, aside from failing to instruct their students in the crass facts about communism's unprecedented destruction -- its purges, mass famines, show trials, killing fields, concentration camps -- these educators are negligent in failing to teach the essential, non-emotional, but crucial Econ 101 basics that contrast capitalism and communism and, thus, that get at the heart of how and why command economies simply do not work. Each semester in my Comparative Politics course at Grove City College, it takes no more than 50 minutes to matter-of-factly lay out the rudimentary differences. Whereas capitalist systems are based on the market forces of supply and demand, which dictate prices and production levels and targets, communist systems are based on central planning, by which a government bureau attempts to manage such things. Capitalism is based on private ownership; communism on public ownership. Capitalism thrives on small government and taxes; communism on large government and taxes, typically progressive income-tax rates and estate taxes -- both advocated explicitly by Marx -- and much more.

This stuff isn't rocket science. It is easy to teach, if the professor desires. The problem is that it isn't being taught. Consequently, Americans today do not know why communism is such a devastating ideology, at both the level of plain economic theory and in actual historical practice. It is a remarkably hateful system, based on literal hatred and targeted annihilation of entire classes and groups of people. (Nazism sought genocide based on ethnicity; communism sought genocide based on class.)

Most Americans generally know that the USSR was a bad place and that it was good that the Berlin Wall fell; they lived through that. But they know little beyond that, especially young Americans in college today, born around the time the wall fell -- Obama's biggest supporters. Nowhere in America is Barack Obama worshipped as he is on college campuses, by students and professors alike.

What does it all mean for November 2008? It means that millions of modern Americans, when they hear that Barack Obama has deep roots with communist radicals like Bill Ayers and Frank Marshall Davis, don't care; they don't get it. Moreover, the leftist establishment -- from academia to media to Hollywood -- will not help them get it. To the contrary, the left responds to these accusations by not only downplaying or dismissing them but by ridiculing or even vilifying them, given the left's reflexive anti-anti-communism. The left will create bad guys out of the anti-communists who are legitimately blowing the whistle on the real bad guys.

Based on the article, Americans seemed to be (alarmingly) open to accept someone, Barack Obama, who clearly had (or has?) some associations with people or organization who have socialist, communist agenda. And the cause of this is lack of education on this topic, socialism and communism, academically. What can possibly cause this? I think this is the answer. With close to 4000 professors from various famous universities and colleges show their dear support for Bill Ayers, how can the American people and youth even remotely think that socialism and communism are bad for this country? Unfortunately, it looks like the Gallup poll by education tracking supports my suspicion about the "normalization" of socialism (perhaps not to the extent of communism) in the US academia. Take notice of the percentage of the college level and post graduate level voters who support Obama vs McCain. When I learned about this whole petition and connect it with the Gallup poll results, it seriously made me sick to my stomach, to think of the possibility that my child, when she grew up, will have a good chance of being educated by some of these professors who signed the petition! It saddens me to see that this great country that was founded based on Freedom and Liberty is now being permeated, slowly but sure, by supporters of the socialist ideology. I mean, if they don't support the ideology, why in the world would they support Ayers?

Going back to Obama, there was a new revelation that Obama was a member of the New Party which was formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA.

Okay, let me just put it this way...who are we kidding here...just like what Joe Biden says: Honey, if it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, IT'S A DUCK!...I would say, Dear American people, if he thinks like a socialist, if he talks like a socialist, if he governs like a socialist, then..HE IS A SOCIALIST! Seriously, I should just write Palin's campaign speech...I'm sure she would appreciate this!

On serious note, if you are interested in finding out why socialism and communism are bad, please check this website out. Basically, the notion that everything can be taken care of by the benevolent government is a very dreamy and euphoric idea, an idea that can only be exercised by surrendering your basic rights, freedom and liberty, to the government. And what the government gives, it can take away. Watch the video below, it might just open your mind.

I also found this great article detailing how Hitler Won Over The German People. It's so great that it disturbs me even more about this US election because it has a lot of similarities with the German election when the Germans ended up electing Hitler. Here's the excerpt:

It was a manufactured consensus, a propaganda construct, with repression of political opponents, "racial enemies" and other outsiders to the proclaimed "national community" as the other side of the coin. The "superman" image of Hitler amounted to the central component of the fabrication. Already before the "takeover of power" it had been the creation of the most modern, hugely successful, political "marketing" strategy of its time, masterminded by Goebbels. And once the monopoly of state control of propaganda fell into Nazi hands in 1933, there was no obstacle in the mass media to the rapid spread of Hitler's "charismatic" appeal.

Sounds familiar?? And to think that these Leftists always try to associate Bush with Hitler!
And if you think Hitler is not a good example of a socialist, this article may change your mind!

3) Racist (Ayers, Pfegler)
Watch Rev. Wright video above.

4) Corrupt (Rezko)

5) Anti-semite (Rashid Khalidi who worked with PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) in the past)

It is also worth noting that it has been confirmed that there is a video of Obama toasting the radical Khalidi at a Jew-bashing dinner event to honor Khalidi in 2003. The LA Times has this video but won't release it!

6) Committing Vote Registration (ACORN)

This article (with a picture in it) is pretty much self explanatory.

Even with the numerous amount of evidence about Obama's radical associations, I won't be surprised if some of you will say what's the big deal, it's just guilty by association. No. Guilty by association is one thing. Guilty by participation is another thing. If you take a more detailed look into each of the asociation, Obama was not necessarily a passive associate, i.e. he did not just sit by the sidelines and watch his beloved friends doing all these henious acts. He participated in acts that certainly are in support of their agenda. For example, Ayers. They both sat in the Woods foundation where Ayers, as the chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, appointed Obama to administer $50 million to advance the project agenda of "education reform" not by improving math and science, but by politizing the student body and "radicalizing them". And guess what group that Obama's administered the fund to: ACORN. What a nice coincidence huh?

We must ask ourselves about Obama and his radical associations:
1) Does he actually share the ideology of these radicals that he associated with?
2) Did he just use these radicals to get ahead in his political career and dump them when it's politically inconvenient? Just like when he disowned Rev. Wright when pressed thousand times by the media (i.e. Fox News!)
3) Was he just a clueless and naive young man from Chicago who had a lot of HOPES to CHANGE the world that have blinded him from seeing what these radicals are all about
4) Was he just possessed by the alien that wants to take over the earth? **wink**wink**

Answering YES to any one of the questions above, on top of his lack of experience and supporting records for his campaign rhetoric SHOULD be enough reason to not vote for him and disqualify him to be the President of the United States of America.

Lastly, I truly believe that the Main Stream Media and the penetration of US universities by the leftist (and radical) ideology are the predominant culprits of why Barack Obama unfounded rhetoric and radical Associations seem insignificant. Perhaps...just perhaps...people will start paying attention when things that we take for granted, slowly but surely, perish under Obama's presidency:
a) Walmart, Target
b) Quality Education
c) Quality Healthcare
d) Conservative Talk Radio (see Fairness Doctrine)
e) Competitive Pay for Workers
g) Innovativeness
h) Driving your gas guzzlin' SUVs
i) Freedom NOT to support and fund an ideology that you don't believe in (see Freedom of Choice Act, Obama is a proud supporter of this)
Here's an excerpt of Freedom of Choice Act:

By enacting FOCA, we will establish a federal law guaranteeing reproductive freedom for future generations of American women. This guarantee will protect women’s rights even if President Bush and an anti‐choice Congress are successful in reversing Roe v. Wade or enacting even more restrictions on our right to choose.

With a single stroke of the pen, the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would wipe away virtually every state law on abortion nationwide, allowing abortion-on-demand in all nine months of pregnancy for any reason and without any restrictions. And guess what...since it will become a federal law, it is unavoidable that our taxpayers money will be use for this disgraceful act.

I'm Voting Democrat

2008-10-20T20:59:00.000-07:00

Job Creators Prefer McCain Four to One Over Obama

2008-10-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

The economy seems to be the most important issue leading to November 4th. For all the media fanfare created around Google's CEO endorsement of Obama, it turns out that job creators overwhelmingly support John McCain for President,

For some months during this Presidential election year, Chief Executive has conducted specialized polling of CEOs’ attitudes on issues affecting national policy and the economy. In CE’s most recent poll in September, 751 respondents, more than double the usual number of business leaders, made their voices heard on their Presidential choice. By a four-to-one margin CEOs support Senator John McCain over his rival, Senator Barack Obama. More to the point, a thundering 74 percent majority say they fear the consequences of an Obama presidency, compared to only 19 percent who fear a McCain presidency.

By the nature of the survey, we don't know who is siding with McCain and who is siding with Obama. Yet, if Silicon Valley is any indication, among the CEOs of the top 10 companies in the Valley in terms of revenue, known CEO supporters of John McCain include Cisco's John Chambers, HP's Mark Hurd and Intel's Paul Otellini. Excluding HP's purchase of EDS, the combined revenue of those three companies was more than 180 billion dollars in 2007. Those three companies alone make more than one third of the SV150's 450 billion of dollars in sales in 2007. So! We know how "objective" the mainstream media is reporting these issues :D.

Will 2012 be like 1980?

2008-10-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

No Comment

2008-10-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

Biden: 'Obama will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in office'

2008-10-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

The full article is here, at ABC News' blog. UPDATE: hear Biden in his own words. I just want to remind our readers of Obama's plans for a weakened US military and his manifestly inconsistent pronouncements on foreign policy during his presidential campaign.

Q: Joe The Plumber in Spanish? A: Tito Munoz

2008-10-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Interesting article from the National Review,

....

After McCain left, as the crowd filed out, Munoz made his way to an area near some loudspeakers. He attracted a few reporters when he started talking loudly, in heavily-accented English, about media mistreatment of Wurzelbacher. (It was clear that Spanish was Munoz’s native language, and he later told me he was born in Colombia.) When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree.“Are you going to check my license, too?” he asked me. “Are you going to check my immigration status? I’m ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my greencard, I have my passport — “
....

“Yeah, I have my papers right here,” he said. “I’m an American citizen. Right here, right here.” With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose.
“Right here,” he said. “In your face.” Munoz said he owned a small construction business. “I have a license, if you guys want to check,” he said.Someone asked why Munoz had come to the rally. “I support McCain, but I’ve come to face you guys because I’m disgusted with you guys,” he said. “Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber? Joe the Plumber has an idea. He has a future. He wants to be something else. Why is that wrong? Everything is possible in America. I made it. Joe the Plumber could make it even better than me. . . . I was born in Colombia, but I was made in the U.S.A.” The scene turned into a mini-fracas when David Corn, of Mother Jones, defended press coverage. Munoz was having none of it. Why, he asked, would the press whack Joe the Plumber when it didn’t want to report on Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber? “How come that’s not in the news all the time?” Munoz said. “How come Joe the Plumber is every second? I’m talking about NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN.”
....

Back on Track

2008-10-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

So I have to apologize for being delinquent on my last two posts. I was out of town and also sick which explains my absence. However, during this time I have been keeping close tabs on all the recent developments and I have to jump back in to get down and dirty again. Many of my McCain supporting friends have been in a funk lately citing negative polls and a barrage of doomsayers who claim McCain is all but finished. To those friends, I say nothing can be further from the truth. Here are some good points to meditate on and share with potential friends of yours who may be on the fence.

Ayers is a legitimate target. I know this is so yesterday's news but Bill Ayers is a legitimate concern. Much has been said in the media that McCain and Palin (the desparate and evil people they are) have resorted to low down smear tactics on Obama because they continue to remind us of the true nature of Obama's good friends. In this case, the media is flat out wrong. To question Obama's association with Ayers, Bill Wright and other radicals from Obama's past is proper diligence. If someone was applying to be a scout leader, but they were close friends with a known unrepentant pedophile, it is only just and valid to take that association into consideration especially as a negative. In fact you would be negligent in not disclosing this type of negative association. Again, this is not being dirty it's being diligent. If you have ever had to apply for top level government security clearance, you know that all of your associations going back to high school are fair game. Barack Obama is applying to be the leader of this country. If he closely associates with and is influenced by people who are unapologetic about their desire to destroy this country then the Anti-Americanism of those radicals deserves to count against him. This is especially applicable to Obama since he has no record of ever standing up for his country. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but a good way to put it into perspective for others is this: If John McCain had been a close friend of someone like a KKK member who was unapologetic for attacks that killed an ethnic minority John's campaign would be done. We would be the Bloggers for Mitt Romney.

It's The Economy Stupid...but who is stupid?. We all know that the biggest issue is the economy. Stocks are plummeting, 401Ks are in the crapper and long time trusted institutions are going to that big financial bank up in the sky. According to the pollsters Obama's recent lead in the polls is due to the perception that he is better at handling this economic fear and malaise that has gripped our nation. But what has he done that indicates he is a financial savant? Quite simply the answer is nothing. In fact, everything that he has done has been the opposite. His economic plan has well known holes in it with handouts masquerading as tax cuts and his energy policy if enacted will be costly if not flat out impossible. Obama has never demonstrated any overwhelming command of economic issues. Nor has he provided any leadership in the Senate on any economic issues unless you count his insane Global Tax Proposal http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-global-tax-proposal-up-for-senate-vote/ which aims to take a ridiculous amount of money and give it to the UN, no strings attached. The UN. The Hugo Cavez Loving, Arafat pandering and Ahmedinejad admiring UN.

Obama is a condescending snob. And it shows. Now I'm not too fond of arugula (although I will never set foot into a Whole Foods again since they sold me cement for toothpaste) but Obama has revealed time and time again he is nothing but an Ivy League elitist. The famous "Guns and Bibles" comment is particularly revealing and still sits in the mind of many voters. Like many elitists, he thinks that people in flyover America don't agree with him because they're too ignorant or scared. I'm not the most religious person in the world and I don't own a gun but it's lame politicians who make me bitter. Obama tells you how to maintain your car, how to talk to your children, what you should eat and how much money you should make. But take heart America. This campaign has shown that the more confident Obama gets, the more he feels he can get away with telling us what he truly thinks of the common person...and it aint nice. Obama's snobbery and elitism will rear its head again before this election is through.

Don't worry about Colin Powell And don't bash him either. Powell is a good citizen who has served his country well. He will always have my respect and admiration. He's no dummy either. He sees an opportunity to score big and has a really good out in case things backfire. This campaign has had defections on both sides and a significant amount of betrayals. Just ask Hillary. While I defend the man, I think that Colin Powell's reasons for choosing Obama are asinine. Oddly, Powell cited McCain's negative campaigning as a reason for his support of Obama. But how can someone who has served in the Bush administration and been witness to the most vile and hateful bile ever directed towards a political figure take offense at anything McCain's campaign has done? Furthermore, he cited Sarah Palin's perceived lack of experience as a negative but he calls Barack's non-experience "fresh". What a blatant double standard. Nevertheless I still respect the man. In many ways I feel sorry for him. He has now put himself in the same camp as those who ridiculed him for years such as Al Sharpton who called him a "House Negro" and Jeremiah Wright who lumped Colin along with Clarence and Condamnesia as the worst type of sellout.

So in these last few weeks before the election I encourage everyone to get the word out on these points. Engage your friends who might still be undecided. Get your McCain stickers on your cars and your laptops. I've got one on my guitar amp. I'm also encouraging friends to contribute to McCain's campaign and do some volunteering. The race is far from over and a lot can change in the next two weeks.

Newt Gingrich: Tax Rates and Job Creation

2008-10-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

William Kristol: 'Here the People Rule'

2008-10-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

I liked this Op-Ed:

"as Gerald Ford said after assuming the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974, ”Here the people rule.” One of those people is Joe Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber. He’s the latest ordinary American to do a star turn in our vulgar democratic circus. He seems like a sensible man to me. And to Peggy Noonan, who wrote that Joe “in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made.” At least McCain and Palin have had the good sense to embrace him. I join them in taking my stand with Joe the Plumber — in defiance of Horace the Poet. "

Disappointed with Colin Powell

2008-10-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

I watched the Meet The Press Interview completely and I saw that he himself was somehow hurting, even going as far as saying "it isn't easy for me to disappoint Senator McCain in the way that I have this morning". You disappointed many of us Mr Powell. Only you know why you decided to go the liberal media way, those same media that not very long ago were willing to cut your head for making the case for the Iraq war in the UN.

Convincing people with ideas

2008-10-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

I carpooled to a soccer game today. The driver, who is someone I don't know very well, is a very charming man who is quite obviously a potential Obama voter. He wasn't quite sure about me and, since he was a very civil individual, he never came out and either insulted McCain or lauded Obama. He did say, though, that he thought it was the government's responsibility to provide medical care. He also characterized Vietnam as a complete disaster. That gave me an interesting opportunity to explain to him a few historic facts he didn't know -- because very few people know them.

I started out by reminding him of something that most people forget: the Vietnam War was a Democratic War. Kennedy started it and Johnson expanded it. (Nixon, the Republican, ended it.) I didn't say this in the spirit of accusation, because I wasn't being partisan. I said it to give historical context to a larger discussion about freedom versus statism.

I noted that, in the 1930s -- and, again, most people have forgotten this -- the major battle in Europe was between two Leftist ideologies: Communism and Fascism. When he looked a little blank, I pointed out that the Nazis were a socialist party, a fact he readily conceded. I also reminded him that, in the 1930s, given that Stalin was killing millions of his countrymen, and that Hitler hadn't yet started his killing spree, Fascism actually looked like the better deal. World War II demonstrated that both ideologies -- both of which vested all power in the State -- were equally murderous.

Men of the Kennedy/Johnson generation, I said, saw their role in WWII as freeing Europe from the Nazi version of socialism. When that job ended, they saw themselves in a continuing war to bring an end to the Communist version of socialism. Again, they were reacting to overwhelming statism.

Thus, to them, it was all a single battle with America upholding the banner, not of freedom, but of individualism. They knew that America couldn't necessarily make people free or bring them a democratic form of government, but that it could try to protect people from an all-powerful state. That's always been an integral part of American identity. He agreed with everything I said.

I then moved to the issue of socialized medicine, which I pointed out, again, gives the state all the power. The state, I said, has no conscience, and it will start doling out medical care based on its determining of which classes of individual are valuable, and which are less valuable, to the state. My friend didn't know, for example, that Baroness Warnock of Britain, who is considered one of Britain's leading moralists, announced that demented old people have a "duty to die" because they are a burden on the state.

A few more examples like that, and we agreed that the problem wasn't too little government when it comes to medicine, but too much. Health insurer companies operating in California are constrained by something like 1,600 state and federal regulations. I suggested that, rather than give the government more control over the medical bureaucracy, we take most of it away. He conceded that this was probably a good idea.

Lastly, I reminded him what happens when government steps in as the pater familias. He didn't know that, up until Johnson's Great Society, African-Americans were ever so slowly "making it." As a result of the Civil Rights movement, opportunities were opening for Northern Blacks, and they -- meaning the men -- were beginning to make more money. The African-American family was nuclear and starting to thrive.

This upward economic trend collapsed in the mid-1960s, and its collapse coincided absolutely to the minute with government social workers fanning out to black communities and telling them that the government would henceforth provide. Since it seemed stupid to work when you could get paid not to work, black men stopped working. They also stopped caring about their families, or even getting married, since unmarried mothers did even better under welfare than intact families. In a few short years, not only did African-Americans as a group collapse economically, their family structure collapsed too. Men were redundant. The state would provide. Again, my friend nodded his head in agreement.

The ride ended at that point but, as he was dropping me off, my friend told me (and I think he was speaking from his heart), that it was an incredibly interesting ride. And I bet it was, because I gave him real food for thought in the form of facts and ideas that fall outside of the orthodoxy that characterizes our ultra-liberal community.

Cross-posted at Bookworm Room and Right Wing News.

David M Kennedy, Obama donor, New Deal Critic

2008-10-18T18:03:00.000-07:00

David M Kennedy is a Stanford Professor of History who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for his book Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. In it, he argues that "the most responsible students of the events of 1929 have been unable to demonstrate an appreciable cause-and-effect linkage between the Crash and the Depression" and his subsequent argument that, although it made order out of chaos, the New Deal did not reverse the Depression--that, he says, was the war's doing".

Mr Kennedy is also a maxed-out Obama donor. Why I bring this up? Because this week, many people suggested that if the Democrats regain control of the White House and the US Congress, they are thinking about bringing a sort of New Deal 2.0 to the United States. I wonder why Mr Kennedy has remained shut about this (correct me if I am wrong), when, as recently as last May 3rd he said in a lecture that is available in iTunesU :"1940 was the 11th year of the Great Depression"; referring to a government survey he said "45% of all white families, and 95% of all African American families in 1940 lived below the poverty line"; "the average unemployment rate for the entire decade of the 1930s was 17%"; "one Herbert Hoover administration; two Roosevelt administrations had not solved the crisis of the Depression"; referring to the US "this was a truly impoverished country".

He goes on arguing that the US economy prospered together with the US involvement in World War II. I grant him that in May 3rd 2008 few anticipated the magnitude of the financial crisis. But now, when Obama and the Democrats are proposing New Deal type of solutions, I find it astonishing that he hasn't stepped up criticizing Obama's "spreading wealth around" economic plan.

Europeans' passion for totalitarianism: Jörg Haider

2008-10-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

So much for "European enlightenment". I just read in the news that the funeral of Jörg Haider drew 25000 people:

"Thousands of Austrians packed the southern city of Klagenfurt on Saturday to mourn Joerg Haider, a politician who was denounced as a Nazi sympathizer in the 1990s but had remained hugely popular as a provincial governor"

Nazi = National Socialism. That's right. I am not saying that all European socialists are Nazis; all I am saying is that Europeans' passion for socialism has less to do with love for "spreading the wealth around" than "spreading the wealth around among us". And who is "us"? Well, go and check how difficult is to get each of the different European citizenships, compare that with the process of becoming a US citizen and you'll understand better. For instance, until 2000, Germany had a very strict Jus sanguinis citizenship law! After the law changed, it's easier for children of non Germans born in Germany to get the German citizenship, but it's still not a straight forward right as in the US.

Peter Robinson: What Would Milton Friedman Say?

2008-10-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

Nice article at Forbes by Hoover Fellow Peter Robinson:

"Whom would Milton have blamed?
For the bubble itself? Probably nobody. From the tulip mania in Holland more than three-and-a-half centuries ago to the dot-com bubble here in the U.S. less than a decade ago, wildly irrational behavior sometimes develops in markets. "Friedman never argued that markets are perfect," says Jay, "only that over the long run they're a lot more efficient than any other method of allocating resources." Sometimes, Milton recognized, bubbles just happen.

Whatever the origin of the bubble, however, Milton would have blamed Congress for making it much, much worse. Congress, after all, created Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ), institutions that spent tens of billions of dollars on subprime instruments. "Congress told Fannie and Freddie to subsidize bad loans for the purposes of social engineering," says Jay. "It was terrible, just terrible.""

Karl Rove's Identity Stolen by MoveOn.org on Behalf of Barack Obama!

2008-10-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karl Rove <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
Date: Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 1:39 PM
Subject: Hey ???: Don't help Obama!
To: ?????????

Dear ???,

Time to relax!

Obama is way ahead in the polls. It's time for you to take victory for granted, and to stop paying attention.

And take it from me, Karl Rove: there's definitely no need to spend one more minute making calls to recruit Obama volunteers.

You're probably thinking, "But Karl, why would you—the mastermind behind the stealth get-out-the-vote program that powered George Bush's victories—be advising us not to make phone calls for Obama?"

That's a good question. (And by the way, I prefer "Evil Genius" to "Mastermind.") It's true that voter outreach can tip an election. But hey, Obama's ahead in the polls, and they never lie.

So relax! Do some yoga. Check out the new season of Project Runway. Sip white wine lattes, or whatever it is that you people like to drink.

Barack does not need folks in ?????? calling MoveOn members in battleground states to get them out for Obama. So there's finally time to tie-dye the seat covers for your Volvo. In fact, you probably shouldn't even bother to vote.

Please forward this to all of your Democrat friends. Don't send it to Republicans, though.
Thanks in advance for not doing all that you normally do,

–"Karl Rove"

P.S. Again—no volunteering! Don't click this link to make a few minutes of calls right now, from home, and give a big boost the Obama campaign!
?????

P.P.S. Okay, okay. This is Adam Ruben writing now, from MoveOn.org. Our lawyers made us promise to tell you that Karl Rove didn't actually write this message—but we're pretty sure this is what he'd write if he had.

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 4.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

More Political Satire; Really Funny

2008-10-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

Charles Krauthammer: Who's Playing the Race Card?

2008-10-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

The insidious, and false, racism charges brought against the GOP by some at the MSM are an offense against the party that fought a war to end slavery. President Eisenhower didn't hesitate to face a Democratic Governor in Alabama to make sure African Americans had access to equal education opportunities. In some discussion that I had in a forum at the Mercury News, a recalcitrant Obamaniac conceded that the Democratic Party pre-JFK was fundamentally a racist party. While I commend the extraordinary work that JFK and LBJ did to enact what became the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which finally ended legal support for any kind of racial segregation in the US, it is completely unfair to charge the GOP with racism. The uncompromising commitment of the Republican Party with individual freedom includes, by definition, the repudiation of racism. This commitment has guided the GOP since its creation. Frankly, such unapologetic defense of individual freedom is one of the reasons I am a proud Republican.

Republicans don't need to redeem a history of support to racist ideals. That's why when Republicans nominate somebody who is qualified for a top political position, such as Colin Powell or Condi Rice, we don't care whether those individuals are African Americans. The Democrats never understood what individual freedom really means, that's why they keep inventing ways to redeem their racist sins. They first brought affirmative action, then they brought PC, which the late Charlton Heston brilliantly described as "tyranny with manners" and now they want to put an unqualified person in the top political office of the United States as if that could erase the shameful racist past of the Democratic Party. Enough is enough. Please keep reading,

Let me get this straight. A couple of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association -- with total strangers, mind you -- but worse: guilty according to The New York Times of "race-baiting and xenophobia."
But should you bring up Barack Obama's real associations -- 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations and distributing money with William Ayers, citing the raving Michael Pfleger as one who helps him keep his moral compass (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2004) and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN -- you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover, it is tinged with racism.

Obama Will Raise Taxes!

2008-10-16T16:56:00.000-07:00

Why does Senator Obama want to raise taxes, even though it will hurt the U.S. Economy? It is hard to understand why Obama spreads myths about the so called benefits of raising taxes.

Here are some of the most common myths about Obama’s tax plan:

1. The middle class will not be taxed – Obama wants to take money from families who have earners at all levels of income; everyone has family members who will pay more taxes, which leads to less money for food, gas, utilities, housing and education for all.

2. Only people earning over $250,000 will be taxed – To pay for Obama’s increased spending, Congress could raise taxes for those earning $100,000 or more. Obama hasn’t explained how he will repeal tax breaks for wealthy lawyers, senators, and politicians, or how he will define earnings... Take home pay? Gross earnings? Net income less expenses? Adjusted Gross Income? What?

3. Rich people sit on gold bars – Obama thinks rich people sit on gold bars, but they actually invest their wealth. After the stock market has lost 40% of its value, during his run for President, investors who help create jobs are struggling. People that own businesses are now trying to cut employees and make remaining employees work harder.

4. Government can create jobs – Obama has never owned a business, so he doesn’t know that government intervention can only help businesses create jobs or prevent businesses from creating jobs. Government entities hire very few people and can’t directly create jobs.

5. Taxation is investment in the future – Obama wants to remove funds from people’s bank accounts, partially by increasing the Capital Gains Tax, which will reduce 401K investment equity used by businesses to create jobs. On what is Obama going to spend your family’s money?

6. Patriotic to pay more taxes? – Obama and Biden think poor people, who can’t afford to pay higher taxes, are less patriotic than rich lawyers, senators, and politicians. Nonsense! Every citizen can be patriotic, even if they aren’t wealthy.

7. Raising taxes helps to spread the wealth around – Obama wants to increase government spending to support more government programs. What? Who? When? There is no timetable for success in these vague government programs.

Obama says he wants to raise taxes. Why would he do that when even the most junior of his advisors knows that it will hurt the economy and the middle class? Obama’s statements on the campaign trail have already helped to send the stock markets plummeting.

Just say NO to Obama!

Say YES to John McCain!

Joe The Plumber: Obama Tax Plan 'Infuriates Me'; 'We are The Greatest Country in the World'

2008-10-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

Quick post with this exclusive interview by ABC News to the star of last night's debate: Joe the Plumber,

"To be honest with you, that infuriates me," plumber Joe Wurzelbacher told
Nightline's Terry Moran. "It's not right for someone to decide you made too
much---that you've done too good and now we're going to take some of it back."
"That's just completely wrong," he added.

And of all places, I found this enlightening interview at the MSNBC website,

The racist history the Democratic Party wants you to forget

2008-10-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

The latest smear against those who oppose Obama goes something along the lines that opposing him is tantamount to racism. This WSJ Op-Ed sets the record straight regarding the racist history of the Democratic Party. We cannot reproduce it here entirely because of copyright issues but I will just give three quotes which surely will make our readers intrigued about the rest,

"Anyone who has traveled to the Far East knows that the
mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine
cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. . . . The argument
works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful
Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and
objection to have thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the
Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here
and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of Japanese
exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to advance the true
reason--the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples.
. . . The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to
intermarriage of the two races--there can be no quarrel there."
--Franklin
D. Roosevelt, 1925 President, 1933-45
"I'm not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that's made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods."
--Jimmy Carter, 1976 President, 1977-81 Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002
"The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans."
--James Webb, 1990 Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia

Bookworm: Should you laugh or should you cry?

2008-10-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if this a joke, but if it is real, it could explain why Obama is ahead in the polls...

How to Attack Obama

2008-10-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

Recently, the McCain campaign has come under heavy criticism for its attacks at Obama and polls seem to indicate that the negative campaigning against Obama has not worked very well.

While attacking Obama for his association with Ayers, Rev Wright, or Retzko may be legitimate, I believe there are better ways to attack Obama that specifically go after the image he has created of being a new type of candidate who will change the way politics is done in Washington.

1) In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in a race where he was the only candidate. He was the only candidate because his campaign team got the Democratic incumbent as well as three other candidates disqualified on a technicality. How is getting your opponents disqualified on technically dubious grounds demonstrate changing a political culture of partisanship?

2) As a senator, Obama was a protege of Emil Jones, part of the Chicago political machine. Obama did nothing as state senator to go after the Chicago political machine or Daly, which everybody knows is corrupt. Why not? Because Obama was more interested in making connections to run for higher office. And now as president, Obama will go after lobbyists and DC corruption? I wouldn't hold my breath. Rather, expect the Daly political machine to come to DC if Obama is elected.

3) Continue to hammer home the point that Obama has virtually no legislative record either as a US senator or as a state senator. The McCain campaign has done an OK job of this, but they need to keep reinforcing the idea that Obama was always too busy running for the next office than for actually getting things done.

4) Finally, and most important attack him on the issues. Really go after his health plan, and explain why it won't work. (Saying it will socialize medicine is just too general.) Explain that Obama will nominate federal judges who will interpret that the constitution guarantees a right to gay marriage or that the interpretation of the U.S. constitution should be guided by European mores. Go negative on the issues, not on tenuous connections to 1960s radicals.

By the way, read a great op-ed by Bill Kristol on what McCain and Palin should be doing over the next few weeks.

Do people really think they can have it both ways: socialism and capitalism?

2008-10-14T18:00:00.001-07:00

Not sure what is going on but I am increasingly worried that the US is embarking itself in a path that could prove disastrous for itself and the world. I was surprised when I read the WSJ Editorial "Obama 95% illusion". Surprised not by the major conclusions of the article but because the MSM is giving a pass to Obama on its implications. Obama keeps promising that 95% of Americans will get a tax cut, yet ~ one third of Americans don't pay any income taxes currently. How does Obama make it work?; well, basically under his plan 44 % of Americans would end up paying no income taxes at all and most of those 44% would end up getting a check from the IRS. This "wealth redistribution" scheme of which Obama is unapologetic is a form of socialism. Some pundits even talk about Democrats willing to implement a New Deal 2.0. Why this isn't news? Why demonizing Sarah Palin is more important than scrutinizing what could be the transformation of the US into another socialist country such as any of those which are part of the EU or Canada?

For those who don't see anything wrong with this naive scheme, I should remind them what each of those EU countries and Canada suffers from:

- Chronic high unemployment rates. This is a byproduct of the fact that many workers find it a better deal to get a check from the government than going to work.

- Mediocrity all around the place, be it at their universities, medicine (when was the last time that a genuinely European country or Canada developed a breakthrough treatment or vaccine for a deadly disease?) or science and technology. What's the value of having socialized medicine if nobody is producing the treatments that tackle the most deadly diseases?

- Very little or none entrepreneurship. If one goes back 30 years in time and compares the largest companies by either revenue or market cap with those of today in the EU and the United States, he/she will find that many companies that top the list in the US today such as Google, Cisco, Microsoft or Apple didn't exist 30 years ago or were tiny companies back then. On the contrary, the most important corporations in Europe today, with very very few exceptions, were the most important European corporations 30 years ago.

- Low birth rates. Eurostat, EU's statistics office, says that according to the current projections, in 2015 there will be more deaths than births in the EU as a whole.

Apparently some people think that they can have it both ways: a big government that acts as the mayor player in all aspects of society: business, education, science, technology, medicine and the benefits that come from a capitalistic society where government plays a minor (supervisory) role: excellence, growth, rewards for those individuals who work hard, innovation and hope for a better future for the next generation (which is what I think is at the core of EU's and Canada low birth rates). Unless they've found some kind of Philosopher's stone, every single country that has tried some form of socialism, and the US under Jimmy Carter is no exception to the rule, has suffered from the same devastating effects. Are Americans really willing to give up their exceptionalism?

British Satire About Market Meltdown

2008-10-14T08:57:00.001-07:00

Economists for McCain: 500+, including 5 Nobel Prize Laureates

2008-10-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

This is a quick post. I found it interesting that despite the liberal bias existing in academia, 500 + economists with stellar academic credentials, are endorsing McCain's economic plan. The list includes 5 Nobel Laureates: Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith.

Obama: "My Plan is to Spread the Wealth Around"

2008-10-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

So much for "enlightened policies". We knew this was the case all the time around; now we have Obama being unapologetic about it. He wants to turn the United States into another socialist country. In his own words,

Obama, the greatest swindle in the history of American Media

2008-10-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up and read the following from the respected Times of London,
"Germany and France put mountains of cash on the table today as they led
continental Europe in an offensive to rebuild trust in banks with state
guarantees worth over one trillion euros"

That's right my friends, with the current Euro/Dollar exchange rate, that's almost twice the value of the package passed by the US Congress which seems to be responsible for Obama's leading in the polls.

During the last eight years, the governments of the leading EU countries have been socialist or socialist leaning: Labor in the UK, Schroeder up to 2005 in Germany, Chirac up to 2007 (Chirac didn't do anything to counter the policies of the socialist party in France such as the 35 hours working week).... Yet Obama keeps saying the ultimate responsible for the the current financial crisis are the policies of Bush during the past 8 years. He keeps saying it, and the media lets him get away with such nonsense. We all knew that the MSM exhibit a huge liberal bias, but this big, with this magnitude? Are the MSM nuts or they are just part of the greatest swindle in American's Media history in order to help elect Obama?

Two videos that are worth way more than any words I can produce

2008-10-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Today is a video day, because I've watched two videos that shine light on a couple of problems Obama has. The first is a very short video, in which Obama promises that ACORN and related groups will help shape his presidential agenda -- something that matters if ACORN's view of America doesn't accord with your view:

The second video is a bit longer (at about 10 minutes), but bears watching. It's basically an interview with Philip Berg, the slightly crazy Democratic operative who, in August, filed a lawsuit against Obama accusing him of being foreign born.

If you've been paying attention, you know that rumors have been swirling endlessly about whether Obama was born in America (in which case he can be President) or in Kenya (in which case he can't). Most reputable bloggers have been ignoring this meme, but there's one thing that keeps it coming back again and again: Faced with these accusations, Obama won't take the easy out and just produce his birth certificate. Instead, he does anything and everything to avoid producing any documentation (including his educational records) that might put this rumor to rest. In other words, don't look at Berg, who may be a tinfoil hat guy (despite his denials). Instead, look at Obama, who is hiding something:

Incidentally, there's also the potential that evidence will emerge showing that Obama was, in fact, born in a Kenyan hospital.

Let me say this again: Normally I'd relegate this "non-citizen" rumor to the dustbin of desperation. It's Obama's (and the DNC's) own bizarre conduct in the face of these accusations that keeps it alive. If Obama would simply produce his documents, the whole thing would instantly, finally and completely be dead in the water.

Catholic Vote Video + Obama's radical abortion views

2008-10-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

This a quick post to share with our viewers this inspiring video. It's being pushed forward by a Catholic grassroot organization but I think it underscores very well the stakes at this election and why it's being called the most important election since 1980. Catholics, non Catholics, believers and non believers alike should understand these stakes and vote with their conscience. Keep in mind that Obama has been named by National Journal the US senator with the most liberal vote record in 2007. This video had, at the time of this writing, more than 800,000 views and growing!

Now, listen Obama's own words on why he rejected in 2002 an Illinois version of what later that year became the Federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act

Dangerous associations: Ayers, Wright, Khalidi, what else?

2008-10-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

What do the Ayers, Wright, Khalidi names have in common? Well, as far as this election is concerned, 1- all of them have been associated in some way or another with Obama; and 2- they all are notorious for their links to ideologies or ideologues that embrace hatred, even violence in some cases:

- Bill Ayers,

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground

- Jeremiah Wright,

"Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11"

- Rashid Khalidi,

"From 1976 to 1982, Mr. Khalidi was a director in Beirut of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA. Later he served on the PLO "guidance committee" at the Madrid peace conference.
In bringing professor Khalidi to Morningside Heights from the University of Chicago, Columbia also got itself a twofer of Palestinian activism and advocacy. Mr. Khalidi's wife, Mona, who also served in Beirut as chief editor of the English section of the WAFA press agency, was hired as dean of foreign students at Columbia's SIPA, working under Dean Anderson. In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab American Action Network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada, and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. (There were also testimonials from then-state Senator Barack Obama and the mayor of Chicago.)"

As anybody who has been following the campaign events this week will tell you, Obama has still to answer in a satisfactory manner the extent of his association with all these people. When the hatred-filled words of Jeremiah Wright surfaced back in the primary season, it took Obama quite a long time to finally disown him. It's very hard to believe that Obama didn't know of Wright's hate speeches given how close their relationship is described in this youtube video for instance. Then came the Ayers thing and he said he was a guy who lived in his neighborhood. But as the previous CNN investigation shows, their relationship was deeper than that. We see the same pattern with Khalidi.

Whoever brings race as the issue Obama's critics are trying to push when they question these associations doesn't seem to realize that Ayers is white, Wright is black and Khalidi is Palestinian. Racism against whom?

The McCain campaign is saying the the issue here is one of trust between Obama and the American people. I think that there is for sure a trust issue between Obama and Americans, but that's old news. After Obama's numerous flip-flops I am surprised that the issue of his untrustworthyness is brought up now. I, on the other hand, take issue with the associations themselves.

I have said numerous times in my comments that I know first hand the damage that these guys , and their ideologues, have caused in Spain. There too, there are very cheap politicians who don't mind to "pal around" with terrorists or their ideologues. I find each one of those cheap politicians despicable. And for the very same reason, and based only on what we know for sure about the extent of his dealings with the Ayers/Wright/Khalidi I find Obama a disgraceful individual totally unworthy of the US Presidency.

Obama Presidency Could Bring Great Depression

2008-10-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Investing is all about confidence in the future. While we could argue that the polls have shifted against Senator McCain because of the bailout plan, most of the bad news is behind us. So why isn’t the Dow Jones Industrial Average going up? Why has it continued to slide?

Is Senator Obama's lead in the polls depressing the Dow Jones Industrial Average? The Dow should be coming up with news of Treasury Department's activities to stabilize the market. However, the Dow continues to drop. Is this due to Obama's current lead in the polls? Did we lose $1,000,000,000,000 (i.e., trillion) of the two trillion lost in the New York Stock Exchange because Obama is ahead in the polls? Most likely, investors don’t see a bright future if Obama wins. The Dow dropped 300 points on the day Obama clinched the Democrat nomination. Investors are afraid of his plans for the economy. Tax and spend. Tax and spend. Tax and spend. The Obama plan is mostly the same old gibberish about increased investment not leading to job growth and that only the Federal government knows what is best.

Is the Dow dropping partially due to Obama's continuing lead in the polls? Yes, there was a huge mess on Wall Street that is now getting cleaned up, and the financial markets are being stabilized, but why isn't the Dow Jones Industrial Average going up? Isn’t it at least partially due to Obama's lead in the polls? Could it be because investors fear Obama's stated goal to raise taxes sharply and grow government? Socialist policies always panic Wall Street. The message of Robin Hood is to steal from the rich to give it to the poor. But is class warfare good economic policy? Many of Obama’s economic advisers are already involved in the economy through the Democrat-controlled Congress. Can we afford to have a Democrat in the White House, too?

Will electing Obama for President send the U.S. economy into another Great Depression? The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down almost $1 trillion dollars lower than it should be ($2 trillion down total since the financial crisis) and this seems to be because Obama is ahead in the polls. Will an Obama presidency destroy what is left of investor confidence and send the U.S. into another Great Depression? Yes, a Presidential candidate can hold sway over the stock market. Electing a candidate who is hostile toward investors can have a devastating effect on Wall Street.

The financial markets are down for a multitude of reasons. If Obama was seen as a savior who could help, the stock market would have recovered substantially. If my estimate is correct, imagine what the Dow will do if Obama is elected. Can America afford to elect Obama President? No!

Thank You Senator McCain for Listening to Us!

2008-10-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

This morning I checked what's currently going on with John McCain campaign. I was pleased to find out that he FINALLY listened to all of us, his supporters in the blogging world, who have been pleading for him to fight harder.

It is reported that Sen. John McCain today will lay plain the crisis on Wall Street - not to mention Main Street - firmly on the narrow shoulders of those who caused it in the first place: the Democratic Party in general, and Senator Barack Obama in particular. He's going to talk about it all. Here's the excerpt:

Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I
guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will
be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter
restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place. Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress
opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year he
said that subprime loans had been, quote, “a good idea.” Well, Senator Obama, that “good idea” has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. He was surely familiar with the people who were creating this problem. The executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have advised him, and he has taken their money for his campaign. He has received more money from Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of
the chairman of the committee overseeing them. Did he ever talk to the executives at Fannie and Freddie about these reckless loans? Did he ever discuss with them the stronger oversight I proposed? If Senator Obama is such a champion of financial regulation, why didn’t he support these regulations that could have prevented this crisis in the first place? He won’t tell you, but you deserve an answer.

And there's more!

All I can say is we have to be prepared my friends. John McCain and Sarah Palin are ready to fight harder for us! The gloves are off. We have to do whatever we can to help them out! Even if we have to risk of being called racists! I guess when you can not defend the facts, name calling is always a convenient solution. I don't know about you but the thought of us having to say "VIVA BARACK" in less than 30 days has been keeping me up all night.

All I can say is: God Speed.

Senator McCain, It's Time to Fight Harder!

2008-10-05T23:47:00.000-07:00

Today I visited JohnMcCain.com and found this article in his blog.

Weekly Radio Address

Today, we released our new Weekly Radio Address focusing on our nation's economic future. John McCain also discussed the philosophy he will bring to government, here's a quote:

"Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn't think of them first, let's use the best ideas from both sides. This great country can do anything we put our minds to. I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. We're going to finally start getting things done for the people who are counting on us, and I won't care who gets the credit."

Honestly, I have been very disappointed with Senator McCain response to what's been happening currently, i.e. the economy meltdown. Did anybody see the latest polls, by the way? According to the latest Rasmussen poll, Obama is attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. And for each of the past ten days, Obama has been at 50% or 51% and McCain has been at 44% or 45%. Not a good trend for McCain.

Obama is where he is right now because of the current economy meltdown that was caused by the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama did not have to do anything substantial, something that he must be really familiar with, to be where he is right now in the poll. Obama did not have to do much to influence people to prove that he is the right leader that can take this country out of this dreadful economy. He has the Main Stream Media helping him out, propping him as the one that has been acting "presidential" in this whole messy $700 billion "pork" bailout discussions, by not "injecting" the presidential campaign into the discussions. All Obama had to do was open his mouth and preached about how this calamity happened because of the Bush's administration and the Republican congress policy of "deregulation". All Obama had to do was pick up his phone and called his colleagues in the senate to "encourage" them to vote yes for the $700 billion "pork" bailout, like his colleagues have ever needed any encouragement to spend the taxpayer money. It is probably like a second nature for them already. When problem occurs, throw money at it...and it will go away!

What's strangely missing from this whole picture is nobody ever questions Obama what specific policy of deregulation by the Bush's administration and the Republican congress that has caused this calamity. What everyone seems to be ignoring is the fact that the Bush administration in 2003 wanted to tighten oversight with a new regulatory board for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government recipients for the express purpose of addressing bad loan practices? Also, how about the fact that Senator McCain tried to do the same in 2006? Why did this effort not go anywhere? Had this more oversight been implemented, we wouldn't have been in this disastrous financial situation. Thanks to the resistance to tighten oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the likes of Mr. Barney Frank, Ms. Maxine Water, and Mr. Chris Dodd, all Democrats, now we are forced to be the biggest creditors of bad mortgages!

But what has Senator McCain been doing? Instead of giving these facts out in his campaign trail, he gives speeches on bipartisanship! Nice! I'm just hoping that he will not squander the good work that Sarah Palin has done last Thursday in laying out the foundation for him to fight harder! That is...if he wants to win this election. The aforementioned facts are all over the internet now and even Fox News made a show out of it. Not talking about these facts is like ignoring a huge pink elephant in the room! And this is what Senator McCain has been doing. And that's why he's losing. This like handing the election to Obama on a silver platter. He might as well go home to Sedona, AZ, to rest.

To express my concern about how things are going, I wrote this letter that I will post as a comment in JohnMcCain.com blog that has the article I quoted above:

Dear Senator MCain,
Me & my family want you to win this election. We truly truly truly believe that you and Gov. Palin are the right kind of leadership that this country needs. The current financial crisis and war on terror require strong and trustworthy leadership with proven track records of conservative values in the white house.
Therefore, please don't give up the fight Senator McCain! Our future and this country future depend on you. We believe that your opponent with his radical associations and socialist beliefs of income redistribution will take this country to the wrong direction. And right now, you are the only one that can stop that from happening. We are deeply concerned that you're slipping away from winning. The whole thing about bipartisan talk is nice and gives folks the warm and fussy feeling. But apparently your opponents do not share this idea and has been attacking you and the economic conservative values incessantly. In all his campaign speeches, he has been telling lies to the American people about how the economic conservative values of personal responsibility and free enterprise are the culprit of the current financial mess that we're in. Sadly, this has been going on, unscrutinized and unchecked by everybody and the Main Stream Media.
Senator McCain, we have been fighting for you and will fight harder for you to win! But, you have to take the lead. Warm and fussy feelings are the last things we need right now. Feeling confident and secure about our future is what we need right now. You have the track records. Governor Palin has the track records. Your opponent does not. How he can get to be where he is now is beyond the pale. He is like a fictitious super hero that just came out of a marvel comic book and made live by the Main Stream Media. This is like a bad dream to us to have to face the possibility that he can be our next president. Unfortunately, with this bad dream, we can not just pinch ourselves to rid ourselves of this dream because it's becoming more and more real everyday.
Unless...you fight for us, Senator McCain! Please take the gloves off, for us! Please live up to your own invitation to fight in your acceptance speech! We will fight for you, if you lead us! Please don't kill our spirits by succumbing to the charges that conservative values are destructive and dangerous! Please stand up and make us proud of the values that we hold near and dear to our hearts and what has made this country great! You still have 30 days and two debates to fight. We will stand up and fight for you if you do the same for us.
If you will, Senator McCain, with all due respect, I found this article online that we, your constituents, believe what you should do to win this election.
I got this from this website:
http://billhobbs.com/2008/10/the_conventional_wisdom_among.html
Sincerely,
The Diva (my nickname)

I sincerely hope he'll listen to us. Otherwise, be prepared to be left with change in your pocket, cause the "Change We Need" train is coming faster than you can ever imagine.

Obama's "cwazy" friends and "wed" background

2008-10-04T14:40:00.000-07:00

Joshua Muravchik, a self-admitted Red Diaper baby, is now one of the best thinkers and writers on the conservative side of the political spectrum. I first came across him several years ago when I read one of his articles in Commentary Magazine, a conservative political magazine with a Jewish orientation. I wrote him praising the article, and he was kind enough to write back.

Through our email exchanges, he ended up recommending that I read his book, Heaven on Earth : the Rise and Fall of Socialism, which was one of the most eye-opening books I've read in years. Muravchik goes back to socialism's origins in 18th Century France and, in genuinely lively prose, examines all of the socialist experiments that have risen and failed -- with most failures etched in blood and tears.

What Muravchik's expertise means is that, when he speaks of the "Left," he knows whereof he speaks. He does not use that term loosely, but gives it a very precise political meaning. All of which leads me to the subject of today's post: Murvachik's short, pointed article in this month's Commentary Magazine describing in very careful detail Obama's long history of Leftist associations and Leftist conduct.

Muravchik is too much the gentleman to speak harshly of Obama, but he does call into question Obama's early (and increasingly less repeated) comments that he would be a uniter, not a divider. In the introductory part of his article, after repeating the most salient parts of Obama's famous 2004 speech, in which he introduced halcyon images of bipartisan coaches at Little League games, Muravchik introduces the walk behind Obama's talk:

Four years later, Obama is the Democratic nominee, and even his occasional shrill attacks on his opponent seem to have chipped away little of the cornerstone of his own candidacy: the promise to bring us, all of us, together. Can he do that? Is he well-suited to raise the curtain on a new post-partisan, post-ideological era?

From his record in office, it would hardly seem so. Non-partisanship does not just mean Democrats coaching Little League, lovely as that is, but cooperating with members of the other party in developing compromise solutions to national problems. The Senate has a particularly rich tradition of such bipartisanship, but Obama appears never to have participated in it. On the contrary: according to Congressional Quarterly, which measures how often each member votes in accordance with or at variance from the majority of his own party, Obama has compiled one of the most partisan of all voting records.

Last year, for example, the average Senator voted with his own party 84 percent of the time; Obama voted with his party 96 percent of the time. In the prior two years, his number was 95 percent, making him the fourth most partisan member of the Senate. And not just partisan, but also highly ideological. In 2007, according to the National Journal, Obama’s voting record made him “the most liberal Senator.” Throughout his Senate career, according to Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the dean of liberal advocacy groups, Obama voted “right” 90 percent of the time. Actually this is misleading, since ADA counts an absence as if it were a vote on the “wrong” side. If we discount his absences, Obama voted to ADA’s approval more than 98 percent of the time.

That's just Obama's voting record, which is, euphemistically, merely "liberal." The meat of the article, however, examines his friends, such as Wright, Ayers, and Davis. Unsurprisingly, given Muravchik's intellectual background, the article doesn't just stop with looking at Wright's or Ayer's more inflammatory, stupid utterances, from which Obama has distanced themselves, but focuses on their life's work and meaning.

If you want to have a very good idea about the kind of man running for the White House (and currently in the lead), I strongly recommend that you read Muravchiks' article -- and then email it to your friends. It's an important article, as evidenced by the fact that Commentary is making it freely, rather than "fee-ly," available. Even those Americans put off by Palin's pro-Life stance may find themselves even more put off by Obama's pro-Left stance.

Palin to Biden: "you said in fact that you wanted to run, you'd be honored to run with him [McCain] on the ticket"

2008-10-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

If there is a sentence that summarizes well, what happened in yesterday's debate is the Palin's punch to Biden about the latter's wish to run with John McCain. We have all watched the famous McCain ad in which Biden is quoted both praising McCain and bashing Obama. What some people might not know is the context of those quotations. In an August 2nd 2005 interview with Jon Stewart, when Joe Biden was giving serious thought to the idea of running for president, he expressed his honest belief that the country would be better off whether he run with or against McCain. When Jon Stewart pressed Biden about whether he'd really said "with" Biden said Yes.

Fast forward two years, in the August 19th 2007 Democratic primaries debate, Joe Biden is unapologetic that Obama isn't ready to be the President of the United States; he said stood by the statement

"I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training".

Did Obama go through any kind of transcendent, out of the body, type of experience that made him suddenly ready to be America's next President between August 2007 and August 2008? Not that I, or others, are aware of. What happened then in between so that yesterday Joe Biden tried to convince us that Obama is more qualified to be our next President than Senator John McCain with whom Joe Biden was willing to run in 2005? Plain and simple: Joe Biden lost the 2008 Democratic Primary and in August 2008 he was picked as Obama's running mate. Talking about judgment, what type of judgment does this show about Biden? I think that the best analysis about Biden's change of mind was provided by Governor Palin in yesterday's debate when she addressed a different topic, Biden's position in the Iraq war:

"Oh, yeah, it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider. And someone just not used to the way you guys operate. Because here you voted for the war and now you oppose the war. You're one who says, as so many politicians do, I was for it before I was against it or vice- versa. Americans are craving that straight talk and just want to know, hey, if you voted for it, tell us why you voted for it and it was a war resolution"

So while pundits seem to agree that there was no real winner in yesterday's debate, they also seem to agree that those who were hoping to see Governor Palin implode not only were disappointed but they saw her in her A game. In fact, CNN's David Gergen said that Biden gave "the best debate performance of his life".

Wait a minute!!!!! A guy with a 30+ year record in the US Senate, twice a Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party giving the best debate performance of his life against Governor Palin, who had been all but called mentally retarded by the MSM in the previous two weeks, and all that the MSM can say is that the debate was a draw? My friends, let's call this by what really is: Governor Palin bested Joe Biden big time in yestersday's debate. By calling it a draw, the pundits of the MSM are just showing their embarrassment that they predicted Armageddon for Sarah Palin and what they got instead was Sarah Phoenix Palin proving all those MSM pundits, and Biden, wrong.

As for Joe Biden, it's too late to be McCain's running mate, as your original intent was, but it's never too late to recognize that the legacy of your 30+ years of service in the US Senate will be overshadowed by the phenomenal mistake you are making in pushing for a guy you genuinely know isn't qualified to be America's best president.

Bashing Governor Palin: Is Keith Olbermann an Idiot?

2008-10-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure if MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is an idiot, but I think is it an interesting line of inquiry. Calling someone an idiot is such a classic put down, as long as you aren’t insulting the idiots out there. Still, I’m not calling Keith Olbermann an idiot in those words but just asking a simple question. Normally, I eschew writing what sounds like a personal attack, but I just can’t help myself this time… So let’s get to the business at hand. Is Keith Olbermann an idiot?

Olbermann seems to have a thing for Governor Sarah Palin that defies explanation. He constantly trashes her background and abilities. He is obsessed with putting her down and lampooning her every statement. Just look at his website. Palin this and Palin that, and there is feature entitled, Aunt Sarah’s Moose Stew. Is Olbermann obsessed with Sarah Palin?

Half of Olbermann’s show yesterday on MSNBC was devoted to trashing Senator McCain and Governor Palin. Ironically, Olbermann used to be a sportscaster on ESPN, who got too big for his britches. Now he’s broadcasting pseudo-journalism on MSNBC, which is watched by up to two dozen homes in California and New York. Yes, better add one home: mine. Does it matter what Keith Olbermann broadcasts to over two dozen American homes?

I watch Keith Olbermann’s show when I want to feel like the smartest man in the world. He’s like a uninformed version of Anderson Cooper blended with an unfunny version of Jon Stewart. Does he have any training in journalism, economics, or political science? He graduated from Cornell though… What’s up with that? Let’s make fun of where Keith went to college. High above Cayuga’s waters there’s an awful smell! Ha Ha! Is Cornell University taking full responsibility for Keith Olbermann’s journalistic prowess?

What did Keith Olbermann not know about being a journalist and when did he not know it? Let’s get some answers to these questions about whether Keith Olbermann is ready to serve one heartbeat away from the king of know-it-all journalists on MSNBC, Chris Matthews.

You Got Econo Served

2008-09-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry, even the debates cant trump this one.

Earlier this week, I awoke to the cheery sounds of NPR news when I heard something that just left me dumbfounded. It was Senate Majority Leader Reid saying we need the Republican Presidential nominee to tell us what to do on the current economic crisis.

I was completely shocked. Did NPR go conservative on me? Did I just hear Harry Reid admit to McCain being the key to solving our Nation's financial system crisis?

As I listened more to the commentary on the Majority Leader's statements, an NPR commentator explained that the Majority Leader made those remarks to force John McCain's hand to agree with the 700 billion dollar bailout. Democrats have enough votes to pass the measure and it has the agreement of the president and the vice president. But the Democrats in the House wanted to interject the current presidential campaign into this agreement by saying that both parties are in favor of this unpopular measure.

For a day, their plan completely backfired. The Majority Leader's statements were basically an admission that when you need something done in the Senate that requires bipartisan support, you call John McCain. Funny, McCain's campaign has consistently spoken about this theme. Harry Reid did not say "We need the Great Uniter, Barack Obama to make this deal happen".

McCain in turn responded like a true leader by suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to hammer out the deal, albeit not the one Harry Reid may have wanted. The Junior Senator from Illinois, well, acted like a true Junior Senator and said essentially "Call me if you need me". "Call me if you need me" is what people who are not key decision makers say. It was completely pathetic and certainly not presidential. Leaders place themselves at the center of the table with all the key people.

Basically Harry Reid admitted McCain is a leader in times of crisis and a bipartisan force to be dealt with. He also admitted that McCain is well versed on the underlying issues of the economic crisis. If this was a horrible dance movie, you might say that Obama got "served" by his own people.

I knew that the Dems would realize their mistake soon and begin to issue statements about how little they needed McCain and how they misspoke earlier. These statements came in a plenty by the next day. However, the damage had been done and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. As far as I'm concerned, the election is over. Just give it to McCain already. The Dems basically admitted he's the best suited to handle tough situations.

As for Obama, we'll call you if we need you.

Thoughts about last night's debate

2008-09-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Immediately upon debate's end, I checked my email, since I'm a member of several conservative blogger email groups, and I went wandering into the blogosphere to see what conservatives had to say about the debate. What I learned was that conservatives generally thought McCain was the winner. More surprisingly, I also learned that, in blogs meant for other liberals, as opposed to liberal sites for general public consumption (such as Time or Newsweek), people also thought McCain had done better. They were just grateful that their man was still standing at the end.

As it happens, I also agree that, substantively, McCain did better, but I'm not sure that's good enough. Here's what I thought of how the ordinary person would see it, rather than those who, like us, are extremely involved politically and therefore very knowledgeable about the underlying facts.

The informed (that would be us) could tell that McCain was more accurate and more responsible. However, McCain is sometimes an elliptical speaker, who starts a thought and then forgets to finish it, or who speaks in jargon (such as referring to the Department of Defense as the DOD). Obama, although his answers were ill-informed, involved prevarication or outright lies, and were abusive, was still the smoother speaker, and that was despite the stuttering. He has the lawyer's tactic of keeping the words flowing even when nothing is coming out. Listeners hear subject, verb, object and, unless they are themselves well-informed, don't track that they just heard "The phelmble reamplicated the intializer."

These communication styles -- McCain talking sense but sounding confusing, and Obama talking nonsense but sounding lucid -- mean that those who don't know the issues and don't know the facts (that would be a lot of the undecided voters), probably walked away thinking that Obama was more in command. We, the obsessive political wonks, looked at every smirk and interruption with disdain, but they just heard a smooth flow of words.

Certainly this takeway -- smooth Obama, rough McCain -- is already the message the talking heads in the MSM are beginning to emphasize. (See here, for example.)

McCain wasn't helped by Lehrer's ineptitude, made manifest when he asked how the financial crisis would affect their Presidential governance. Obama embarked on a convoluted, empty description of the way in which he was going to choose between his important programs, some of which we really need and others of which we only have to have. (His words, not mine.) McCain replied that he was going to cut spending everywhere.

Lehrer then came back at them claiming neither had told him how they were going to deal with a post-financial crisis Presidency -- but that, in fact, was precisely what McCain did tell him. Cut, cut, cut spending. If that's not a way to deal with government indebtedness, I don't know what is. But again, by asking that stupid question, Lehrer undercut the intelligence of McCain's answer, and brought it to the same level as Obama's waffling -- a problem made worse by McCain's elliptical speaking style, which prevented him from saying "Jim, I did answer your question. Just as a household would do when the money is tight, I'm going to tighten the belt everywhere, and I'm going to do that through increased efficiency."

If McCain is going to have a hands-down win in the next debate, he is going to have to tighten his speaking style. People need to hear his thoughts from beginning to end. They are the better, more informed thoughts, but if they get lost behind a less than linear speaking style, the public is going to gravitate to the smoother Obama, no matter how meaningless or dishonest his answers.

I'd like to blame my anticipation of public superficialitity on the fact that we live in an MTV/soundbite generation, but that's too easy. This problem has been around since the modern media intersected with elections. Warren G. Harding, although it's hard to believe it know, overwhelmed women (voting in their first election in 1920), because he looked so good in his pictures.

Likewise, back in 1960, America for the first time saw a televised debate, featuring knowledgeable, experienced Nixon, sweating like a pig since he had the flu, and facile, less experienced Kennedy, artifically tanned because of his hidden Addison's disease. Despite the fact that Nixon won on the radio, where people couldn't see faces, Kennedy won hands down on TV, where they could. It was a triumph of style over substance.

By the way, this is not a gloom and doom prophecy. I think McCain has shown himself to be a master of both strategy and tactics. With more sleep, and a wee bit more prep (not so much as to make him wooden), he can tighten his communication and leave Obama staring at his dust.

Obama, You’re Fired!

2008-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

I can’t help but think that if Donald Trump ran the U.S. Senate, he would fire many senators for dereliction o f duty. A Senator’s first responsibility is to represent a constituency before the country’s highest legislative body.

At a time when both houses of Congress are debating one the most important pieces of legislation in the last decade, Senator Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, refuses to perform his elected office.

Senator John McCain knows his responsibilities and announced yesterday that he would suspend his presidential campaign and would return to Washington, D.C. to work on the financial bailout in the U.S. Senate. Indeed, on Thursday John McCain made good on that promise. The fate of the first presidential debate at The University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS is in question.

Senator McCain is putting the country and the citizens of Arizona first. Senator McCain realizes that he works for the people of Arizona. He has decided that his responsibilities, for which he is being paid $175,000 per year, are more important than his personal campaign to win the U.S. Presidency. Moreover, his history of bipartisanship could be helpful for rapidly passing the legislation.

On the other hand, Senator Obama stated that he planned to continue his campaign and attend the debate. He seemed to think that his presence wouldn’t make a difference in Washington, D.C. He indicated that he could be reached by telephone, if he was needed. You know, I believe him. He has so little legislative experience in Washington that his presence would not be missed.

What does this say about the man Barack Obama? It says he struggles with exercising good judgment. Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution does not have a provision for recalling senators and congressman who refuse to perform their elected duties. Short of impeachment, there is no way force out senators who behave like Senator Obama.

Why Do Real-Life Events Have to Interrupt a Good Campaign Season?

2008-09-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

Everybody's focus is naturally on the crisis, financial breakdown, collapse -- insert appropriate panic word here -- on Wall Street. Unfortunately, this news cycle has helped Obama in the polls and the McCain/Palin momentum that has been steamrollin' since the Convention seems at least momentarily derailed. Not that Obama has done or said anything that inspires confidence in his ability to solve this crisis.

Unfortunately, McCain's handful of proposals have not gained any traction with the media or the American public. McCain's most important selling point on this issue is that a couple of years ago he warned about problems with Fannie and Freddie. Saying there is too much corruption and greed on Wall Street may get wild applause on Main Street, but it's not clear to me there was widespread corruption. It seems like it was just bad and stupid investing.

In his radio address over the weekend, McCain did offer a 5-point plan, which seems to make sense on a more long-term basis. However, now it's Wednesday, and I'm not sure whether that plan is still what McCain is proposing as the solution. More recently, McCain came out with a new suggestion for a bi-partisan board to oversee Paulson's buyout plan.

Part of the problem that both campaigns are having is that they are trying to react to a news cycle that is quickly changing. First Lehman Brothers went under; second, AIG went under; then Paulson announced a $700 billion buyout plan for mortgage-backed securities. It's hard to stick to a clear message when things keep changing. Consequently neither candidate has looked that good on this issue.

Honestly, I have no idea what should be done to solve this crisis -- I'm not even sure it really is a crisis. What would be really interesting and maybe even a great political move is if McCain stopped traveling around campaigning, went back to Capitol Hill, and actively worked to pass legislation to handle the financial situation. It would be a risky move as any time not spent on the campaign trail is lost time, but it might show that McCain is more interested in solving problems than scoring political points in swing states.

But then again, none of this might matter as the first debate on Friday (where the focus is foreign policy) might change the entire news cycle and campaign momentum.

Will Hillary run (as VP)?

2008-09-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

Biden is a never-ending source of delight -- for those who don't like Biden. Whether he's chastising reporters for being out of shape, demanding that the wealthy show their patriotism by transferring their money to the middle class, making bizarre and ill-informed pronouncements regarding Catholic doctrine and abortion, or offending Ohioans en masse, you can really count on the guy to get it done (or, should I say, to get it done wrong). Nothing about this is new; it's just Biden being Biden.

If gravitas means being old, gray, and a Congressional seat warmer, Biden is the ticket. However, if gravitas means being thoughtful, informed and wise, Biden is, and always was, the comedy man in this straight man's role. Although Obama must have known going in what he was getting with Biden, you can't help wondering if he's suffering from buyer's remorse right now. That's especially true given the legions of women who took umbrage at the way he cavalierly insulted Hillary and who, in response, fled to McCain.

The question then, at least in the blogosphere, is whether Obama is going to pressure Biden to withdraw for some sympathetic reason, such as health or a family crisis, enabling Hillary to come in and save the day. While everyone with any sense will know that Biden's withdrawal is manufactured, some women may be so glad to see Hillary back on the ticket that they'll yield to the Democrats' siren song. Frankly, I've been one of those worried about this.

Noemie Emery, however, is much more sanguine. She thinks that, whether Obama wins or loses (and, of course, especially if he loses), she'll come out on top if she sits this one out:

If Obama wins, she gets to see her party in power, if that is her object. The problem is that the party is no longer hers. Or hers and her husband's. If Obama wins, the Clintons become history. They also slip down considerably on the great grid of power: She is eclipsed by a president who defeated her, a first lady who hates her, a loquacious vice president with a large, lively family, and a legion of people who early on threw in their lots with Obama, and have prior claims upon him and his loyalty. She becomes in effect a footnote to history, remembered perhaps for her personal dramas, her historic run in the primaries no longer remarkable, but overshadowed by Sarah Palin's run for vice president. Win or lose, Palin becomes the country's most visible she-politician, culture phenomenon, as well as the best bet to succeed John McCain at the head of her party. Hillary is yesterday's news, and has the rest of her life to brood on the mistakes that caused her to lose--very narrowly--the great prize she wanted and pursued, some will tell you, for the past 30 years.
This changes, however, if McCain wins. At once, she becomes the most important Democrat, the shipwreck survivor, the frontrunner for her party's 2012 nomination; the road not taken; the one that, if followed, would have led to the outcome for which her party has struggled so long. For four long years, she will be saying "I told you so"--to the super-delegates who didn't flock to her even when she won all those big primaries; to Obama, now back in the Senate, who didn't name her when he had his big chance. A deflated Messiah, a wünderkind who couldn't quite hack it, Obama would join Al Gore and John Kerry in the weary line of pitiful losers who tried and failed to match Bill Clinton's success. Bill Clinton himself becomes the Big Dog again, the one shining light in the overall darkness, the only Democrat to be elected twice since Franklin D. Roosevelt, the most successful Democrat since the mid-1960s, when Lyndon Johnson's luck, along with his party's good fortune, ran out. (Granted, this is a fairly low bar to get over. But still.) If you were Hillary Clinton, which prospect would you find more appealing? Let's guess.

That sounds like a reasonable Clinton-esque calculation to me, and one that is given more heft by the fact that Hillary's emissary (that would be Bill) has managed to trample all over Obama by heaping lavish praise on both McCain and Palin. The current Clinton tribe plan, therefore, seems to be to support generic Democratic issues, while building up the opposition. It's a long range plan, but certainly one that may benefit McCain/Palin in the short term, and one that seems antithetical to a Hillary October surprise.

Jabbering Joe Biden’s Taxation Gaffe

2008-09-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

Senator Joe Biden has stuck his foot in his mouth again. Wow! Last time he was attacking Governor Palin’s VP-qualifying experience, which happens to exceed his and Senator Barack Obama’s (B.O.) executive experience combined. Those attacks created a tsunami of publicity and sympathy for Governor Palin. This time he is comparing patriotism to paying more taxes. This guy is a laugh riot!

In any election, it supposed to be secret that taxes are going up to pay for all the stuff that was promised. However, all candidates for public office feel obliged to speak out against wasteful spending. Earmarks are also a no, no. However, earlier today, Jabbering Joe Biden indicated that it was time for the wealthy in America to be patriotic and pay more taxes. He didn't define what he meant by the term wealthy. Doesn’t he understand that his words will be heard and read around the country? Think of the advertisements suggesting that the Democrat Party thinks paying taxes is patriotic...

The taxation gaffe could eliminate any opportunity that he and B.O. may have had of winning the election. Yes, I already called the Presidential election for the Repubicans, but I’m amazed that the Democrat party is continuing to do everything possible to lose the election. Biden is out in front saying every possible to hand silver bullets to the McCain campaign. Don’t say taxes are going up! Hillary Clinton must be laughing at the sheer stupidity...

I really hate to say this but there is only one way for B.O. to win… he has to dump Jabbering Joe Biden. (Ok, I won’t tell them who to replace him with, but everybody already knows that.) After Jabbering Joe’s latest gaffe, can’t you just imagine Michelle Obama saying to B.O., “We aren’t moving into the White House with that blabbermouth on your ticket… He just can’t keep a secret! ”

Obama on Experience

2008-09-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

Obama visited the Googleplex last November to preach to the choir, and a devoted follower asked him a pretty softball question about how he's going to defend his relative lack of experience compared to others in the Democratic primary pool. I thought his answer was interesting in light of recent criticisms of Palin. He describes what makes a good presidential candidate and Palin more than fits the bill:

"What we're looking for when it comes ot leadership is vision, judgment, and character. and that's what I bring to this race. I have the experience of bringing people together to get things done...I'm good at listening to people and finding common ground. I've also got the ability to stand up for what I believe in, even when it’s unpopular...I know how to choose talent and get smart people around me who are capable and independent and bring together a variety of different points of views [sic]...We’re not looking for a chief operating officer when we're selecting a president. What we're looking for is someone who will chart a course and say here’s where America needs to go...This is all about judgment and character, and also I think a little sense of impatience, because part of the reason I'm running is that I'm impatient with the status quo and what we've seen from Democrats and Republicans is a certin willingness to tolerate what I consider an intolerable status quo."

Winning California for McCain

2008-09-16T22:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I went to the volunteer kickoff event for the McCain campaign in San Mateo County. There were about 300 volunteers who attended, and many of them had not been involved in the campaign previously. As one of the speakers joked, "There are so many people here it looks like a Democratic Rally." It shows you that the excitement about the McCain-Palin ticket carrying across the country has even reached the Bay Area.

I am really curious to know how close the race in California is. All the California polls I've seen are pre-convention. (If any has seen recent California polls, please let me know.) I heard that a recent internal Republican poll put Obama's lead in California at about 5%. Honestly, I would be surprised if it is that close, but I do think it could be single digits. And that means McCain is within striking distance.

The bottom-line for those living in California: Don't be afraid about wearing the McCain pin or putting a McCain-Palin bumper sticker on your car or putting up a yard sign. There are more McCain voters in California than you realize. McCain is definitely the type of Republican who can do well in California and maybe even win the state. And get involved with campaign! Any resources that the Obama campaign has to put in to shoring up support in California are resources that he cannot spend in swing states like Ohio, Florida, or Pennsylvania.

The speakers also spoke a little bit about ways to talk with undecided voters. The number one thing is to explain why you specifically support McCain. You may not know every issue, but you should have one or two specific reasons why you support McCain. And don't be afraid to draw contrasts with Obama, especially as it relates to the reasons why you support McCain.

The other thing that may help is to visit some of the conservative blogs which quickly respond to what is going on in the news to give you ammo when the Democrats attack McCain or Palin. Some good sites to go to are McCain Report, The Weekly Standard, and the National Review Corner. And of course, check back here regularly as we offer our opinion on why the McCain-Palin ticket is best for the US.

The McCain Messiah

2008-09-15T00:18:00.001-07:00

Much has been said about the Barack Obama's near mythical status among people of the left and Europeans. The Left, Europeans, Newspaper reporters and Celebrities swoon over him. As we all know, this prompted the McCain Celebrity ad. Of course, there are those who think that that the Obama hype has gone beyond celebrity status to something more epic. Rush Limbaugh jokingly pokes fun of Obama calling him the Messiah. The funny part is that Obama supporters genuinely believe he is.

Just check out any of the Obama Campaign schwag you see out in the area. It's not just a "Vote Obama" sticker or "Obama/Biden 08". It's Obama's face in Che fashionista style above a single word, a profound concept such as HOPE, CHANGE or BELIEVE. It's almost as if the message they are trying to convey is that Obama like Jesus, Krishna, Buddha or Ganesh is more than just a politician. Obama is the entity that can deliver these philosophical concepts to you and give you inner peace. Check out this Obama Messiah blog. It is a hilarious collection of Obama deity imagery and religious comments from his backers.

Now, personally I know that Obama is not the reincarnation of any deity. But honestly if anyone deserves Messiah billing it is probably McCain.

I came across this article long before the RNC and the stirring video before McCain's speech. This article is from a fellow POW who spent time with McCain. There's also an accompanying video interview of Tom Moe and I highly recommend you all watch it. Tom Moe recalls how as a POW he carved out a small hole in the wall of his cell so he could peak into the neighboring room. His neighbor, John McCain and him became friends as for a long period of time McCain was the only person who Tom could communicate with. But Tom's story relays the difficult moments of McCain's POW stay. Tom, a retired USAF colonel, recalls how McCain would be taken out daily for interrogation and beatings. But everyday when they brought him back and you could see the damage done to his body, McCain would make sure Tom could see him and give him a thumbs up sign. Tom states how McCain's attitude was something that helped him to get through the trying times alive and back to his family. McCain inspiring Tom helped in some ways to save his life.

Taking it even further, McCain's suffering and abuse more closely parallels another Messiah we all know who suffered as a prisoner and endured torture and abuse. And as for Crucifixion, well just watch MSNBC and CNN.

Seriously though, McCain is not Jesus. I will remove the candles and incense from my McCain shrine at home. But the next time you see an Obama "Hope" sticker, think about the candidate who has inspired hope in the most gruesome of circumstances.
To find it within you to see that your fellow man has the hope to endure even though all your bones are broken and you are a beaten man is superhuman inspiration indeed.

Out of Touch With Your Running Mate, Barack?

2008-09-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

Obama once again strayed away from the "audacity of hope" and made another cheap shot against McCain in his video "Still," which makes fun of the fact that McCain joined the Senate like, totally 20 years before Obama did. So uncool. And that he said he doesn't know how to use email or computers very well.

Ok, fine. I've been trying to get my parents to use Gmail for 2 years. They won't budge from their beloved Microsoft Outlook. And it's not because they're not smart. Kids I babysat for in high school probably have fancier cell phones than I do and know how to program their DVDs and Tivos, and I still don't have the patience to do that. Who cares?

I'm not even gonna get into the fact that McCain can't type because of the injuries he endured at the Hanoi Hilton. But let's look at a few things McCain does know how to do that Obama doesn't:

Fly a plane.

Fire a gun. (Palin can do that too.)

Run a committee dedicated to national commerce, science, and technology.

And McCain did decently when interviewed during the primaries by CNET in their "Technology Voter's Guide" to the election. Check out his responses - he shows a solid understanding of the internet's role in fighting terrorism, takes positions in favor of competition and free trade as they apply to tech, and says he's against internet taxes. And in this Tech Crunch inteview from last year, he sounds pretty confident (there's also a podcast) and cracks some good jokes, too.

How did Obama's running mate fare in this survey? Well, Biden refused to answer it, perhaps because he didn't want to discuss his pro RIAA record, crackdown on copyright law in online music downloading, and skepticism of net neutrality - all positions that don't sit well with the techie-happy Obama. Or perhaps it's because he received a 37.5% score from the CNET folks in the 2006 Voter's Guide.

Looks like Obama should consider his running mate's positions on technology issues, not just whether he can click 'send,' before he throws the first stone.

Are Republicans falling into the hubris trap? Or, pride goeth before a fall

2008-09-13T15:49:00.001-07:00

Interestingly, the two concepts in my post title have ancient roots. More than twenty-five hundred years ago, the Greeks concluded that overweening pride and arrogance were sins so great that they were worthy of criminal penalties. It upset the polis to have an individual align himself with the Gods.

The Biblical concept of pride leading to personal destruction is also an ancient one, having its roots in Proverbs 16:18 (a Biblical book reputed to originate with King Solomon, almost 3,000 years ago): "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

In other words, there is absolutely nothing new in the fact that some people, elevated to high position, lose control of their connection to humanity, begin to believe that they are gods or demi-gods and, Icarus-like (to quote another ancient concept), end up plummeting earthward from their artificial heights.

Over the past year, Obama, driven by his internal narcissistic dialogue and buoyed up by apocalyptic levels of worship emanating from the media and the MoveOn.org crowd, became the poster boy for hubris and overweening pride. He started to believe his own press. His speeches become more and more unrelated to pragmatic politics, and suggested that he had the magical powers to lower the oceans, clear the air, and bring everlasting peace to mankind. This kind of message would have been a hard sell to the unconverted in any event, but it was made harder by the fact that his implicit faith in his wonderfulness kept stumbling and crashing into his marked ordinariness: his verbal gaffes; his horrible friends; and his bad decisions (one word: Biden).

Once Obama had blown himself up to Olympian proportions, and had shown himself to be devoid of even a smidgen of humility, he made himself an easy target. The McCain campaign gets huge kudos for being bold enough to aim the pin at that target by creating a couple of wonderful ads that showed that Obama was a mere celebrity, full of sound and fury, but signifying (what else?) nothing.

Obama then let any remaining air out of the balloon by giving the most pedestrian of convention speeches. That Obama's oration didn't rise to rhetorical heights might have been forgivable in someone weary from campaign for almost two years, had it not been for the Britney-inspired Greco-Hollywood backdrop and the 38 million souls who tuned into watch this recycled, embittered, mean-spirited and surprisingly boring speech.

And then McCain, showing true fighter pilot instinct, blasted Obama from on high -- and along came Sarah. Conservatives went flipsy-wacky. People are turning out at Republican political rallies in record numbers, polls show that conservatives and independents think she's wonderful, and the blogosphere has gone stratospheric in its praise: she's a natural, she's a political wunderkind, she's real, she's pragmatic, she's a straight shooter, she's a values laden candidate, she has charm, she's the ultimate candidate for women, she's the ultimate counter to feminism, and on and on.

All of which raises the worry that, with Palin, we're heading down the stretch to the same hubris that pretty much predicted Obama's current tumble. Except I think not. I think that there are several good reasons why Grecian hubris and Biblical pride are not going to dictate Palin's (and McCain's) downfall in the next couple of months.

First of all, the time frame is such that it's unlikely that Palin will be able to match Obama's two year long journey of ego inflation and deflation. Even if her ego does go upwards, it's unlikely (especially given her performance to date) that she can amass sufficient gaffes to start the post-inflation humiliation.

Second, while Republicans are thrilled about Palin, she's not feeling the love from the media. Their venom will probably serve two salutary purposes. To begin with, it will backfire nicely by exposing media bias and lies, and by turning Palin into an underdog, an every-woman, for whom voters can root. To see one lone mother attacked by thousands of reporters world wide isn't a fair fight, and you know that Americans, at least, don't like seeing people bullied. Additionally, it will keep Palin's own ego in check. She can't simply relax and bask in her own wonderfulness. Being on the defensive is a good way not to become too proud.

Third, well, I'll leave the third strand to Charles Krauthammer, who was comparing Obama to Reagan -- but I think you can fill Palin's name for Reagan's with the same results:

The problem is that Obama began believing in his own magical powers — the chants, the swoons, the “we are the ones” self-infatuation. Like Ronald Reagan, he was leading a movement, but one entirely driven by personality.

Reagan’s revolution was rooted in concrete political ideas (supply-side economics, welfare-state deregulation, national strength) that transcended one man. For Obama’s movement, the man is the transcendence.

Which gave the Obama campaign a cultlike tinge. With every primary and every repetition of the high-flown, self-referential rhetoric, the campaign’s insubstantiality became clear. By the time it was repeated yet again on the night of the last primary (No. 3), the tropes were tired and flat.

And fourth -- and this may be stretching it -- Palin is a deeply religious person. Hers is manifestly not a lip service religion, but is part of the very fiber of her being. She acknowledges God and knows the vast difference that lies between her, a mere striving mortal, and God.

I can't get into Obama's heart and mind, but his church selection and his words about religion leave me feeling that, for him, religion is a matter of social and political expediency rather than faith. (I may be wrong, but that's how he presents himself and his faith.) I think that's part of why he was comfortable buying into the Messiah identity. He could see himself aligned with the gods, rather than functioning appropriately below them.

Hubris is a real and present danger whenever power, praise and human frailties are allied. I think, though, that Palin has some insulation from the risk -- and certainly enough to carry her through to election day. Poor Obama, did not. And whether he wins the White House or loses it, he's headed for a fall. I can only hope that his fall takes place before November 3, or I fear that, when he does tumble for once and all, he'll take the rest of us with him.

So what IS the Bush Doctrine, anyway?

2008-09-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin had the right answer –“In what sense, Charlie?” – when he asked her about the Bush Doctrine. Fact is that the “doctrine” covers a lot of ground, not just pre-emptive warfare. Here’s Wikipedia on the term:

The Bush Doctrine is a phrase used to describe various related foreign policy principles of United States president George W. Bush, created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The phrase initially described the policy that the United States had the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves, which was used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan. Later it came to include additional elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a supposed threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate (used to justify the invasion of Iraq), a policy of supporting democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating the spread of terrorism, and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way. Some of these policies were codified in a National Security Council text entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States published on September 20, 2002. This represented a dramatic shift from the United States's Cold War policies of deterrence and containment, under the Truman Doctrine, and a departure from post-Cold War philosophies such as the Powell Doctrine and the Clinton Doctrine.

Someone also needs to ask Obama and Biden if they understand (as they should) that their own encouragement of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia means that the U.S. “perhaps” would go to war for those countries. That’s simply the reality of being in NATO, a military alliance in which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.

The Global Climate Change Presidency

2008-09-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

The Global Climate Change Presidency

The next U.S. President could have significant impact on global climate change, yet Senator Obama’s policy is more about energy. Senator McCain’s policy addresses the larger scope of global climate change.

My personal research is relevant to the presidential candidates’ energy and climate change policies, because the two candidates seem to have vastly different understandings of climate change and potential underlying causes of change. (The research is on beliefs about climate change and I am looking for always looking for additional participants: http://www.geocities.com/dawagnersjca/short.html .) Advertising not withstanding, I’ve been thinking a great deal about global warming.

Some voters are not convinced that global warming is occurring. Others believe strongly that global warming is occurring. Those who believe strongly in global warming are not in agreement about the cause. Some attribute the warming to human activity (i.e., anthropogenic). Still others who believe in global warming are split among a variety natural causes, such as solar radiation due to sunspots, etc.

The Obama campaign has no clearly stated policy on global warming; There is no discernable action plan relative to what the Obama / Biden ticket will do to tackle this extremely important issue. Instead, Obama’s energy plan makes vague reference to reducing greenhouse gases.

On the other hand, the McCain campaign has published a clear statement on climate change policy, albeit brief. Like the Obama plan, the McCain plan presupposes that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Unlike Obama, McCain provides extensive detail about how a market-based cap and trade policy will encourage an overall lowering of greenhouse gases.

Double-fault: Obama. Obama’s energy policy provides easy-to-understand bullet points that are absent necessary detail, implying that the candidate and his advisors have not really done considerable thinking about how to address global climate change. Moreover, the lack of detail combined with the prominence of the term green house gas emissions (as the only cause of global warming) in the energy policy seems to indicate that no further scientific inquiry will drive the Obama plan.

Advantage: McCain. McCain’s climate policy is much more detailed and seeks scientific answers for setting acceptable levels of greenhouse gases. Presumably, a science-based approach would include a development of an extensive understanding of the degree to which greenhouse gases have played and will continue to play a role in global climate change.

Both candidates’ websites offer press releases with praises of their respective policies relative to climate change, but only Senator McCain has articulated a point of departure for building a comprehensive solution to the problem of global climate change.

References:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/1F8B2869-689E-4E79-BFB4-C20CF1A47297.htm

Anatomy of a Non-Story

2008-09-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

Remember what the MSM were saying right after John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate? That his “vetting process” was somehow deficient because the media hardly knew anything about her. Judging by what we see so far, McCain vetted her just fine. But the media will keep trying to prove him wrong and throw her off her game by finding some embarrassing detail that he might have missed.

So swarms of investigative reporters, lawyers and opposition researchers have descended on Alaska to do what McCain probably did months ago. That is, check her out. Of course, their agenda is different from his. They have gone North in the hope, if not the expectation, of digging up some dirt. But they don’t have much time to be thorough and fair. So, instead of real dirt (which requires serious and sustained digging) you can expect to find innuendo, speculation, gossip and the passing along of unsubstantiated charges from political enemies. Non-stories, in other words.

I’ve been in the newspaper business and I know how these things work. News organizations don’t deploy well-paid reporters on weeks-long assignments without expecting something for all that time and money. Put your crack team of investigative journalists on the hunt and they will have to produce something, even if it is flimsier than a wet shopping bag. Witness the New York Times “Did he have an affair with a lobbyist”? piece.

Now we have an article in The Washington Post that describes – in many, many words – how Palin followed the rules on reimbursed travel and has spent much less in this area than her predecessor.

Only that’s not the lede. What the Post wants you do know, right off the bat, is that “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a ‘per diem’ allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.”

This is made to sound bad, especially for a self-styled fiscal conservative. But it shocks only those who don’t understand Alaska or its geography. Juneau, the capital, is an 800-mile round trip from Palin’s home in Wasilla. It is far from most Alaskans’ homes, and at least once it has come very close to losing its place as the capital to a more convenient spot. Long commutes for state officeholders are nothing new. And in a state as big as Alaska, lots of air travel on state business is the norm. The Post does note, about two thirds of the way down, that Palin spent $93,000 on airfare in 2007, rather less than the $463,000 spent in 2006 by former Gov. Frank Murkowski. And a check of Alaska’s rules for reimbursement shows that she did not break them.

Here’s another story The Washington Post should pursue, if it wants balance. The Website OpenSecrets details Joe Biden’s expense reimbursements for official travel in 2007. A sizable amount of this (covering about seven pages) is for Amtrak fare to and from his Delaware home. Maybe it’s not travel on an Alaskan scale, but the object is the same and so is the case for billing it to the taxpayers.

In Defense of Palin

2008-09-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

The Democrats have ramped up their attack machine against the newest star in the Republican Party, Gov Sarah Palin. In one sense, their preoccupation with Palin should not worry us because it shows the Dems are running out of ammo against McCain. In the voting booth, voters are really going to be making their choice between McCain and Obama. Nevertheless, we should not allow these attacks to go unanswered.

I doubt a moose-hunting Hockey Mom needs any help from me in defending herself, but here it goes. By the way, I wonder if she has ever hunted donkeys...

On the Bridge to Nowhere. As governor, Palin officially killed the the $398 million bridge. Before support galvanized for ending this wasteful project, Palin's transition team questioned the usefulness of the bridge and criticized its drain on resources in February 2007 report. Barack Obama and Joe Biden voted against an amendment to the 2006 Transportation Appropriations Act that would have taken money from the Bridge to Nowhere project to help fund repairs for a bridge in New Orleans damanged by Hurricane Katrina.

On earmarks. As governor, Palin realized Alaska relied too heavily on federal earmarks and asked state officials to limit the number of requested earmarks in 2007. The Anchorage Daily News editors praised Palin's efforts to reduce the number of federal earmarks Alaska received. What other state has said "no thanks" to free money from the federal government?

On per diem. During her first year as governor, Palin's travel expenses were about 80% less than that of her predecessor. She rarely sought reimbursement for meals while staying in Anchorage or Wasilla. She even usually flew coach!

Also, as mayor, Palin never demanded that the Wasilla library ban any books. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, and the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term.

Palin was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that advocates voting on whether Alaska should secede from the United States. (I thought that secession question was answered oh about 140 years ago, but I digress.) The party chairman admitted her mistake a few days after the story ran although the correction in the New York Times was buried on page 18. Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982.

It's clear. There is only one choice for those interested in cutting wasteful spending from the Federal budget -- McCain/Palin!

To Young Independents

2008-09-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that I respect you immensely. Your initial instinct is to question everything you hear and make a level-headed decision. You think about how much a president actually matters in getting business done in Washington, as opposed to where he or she stands on every conceivable issue. You’re comfortable with opinion dissonance inside your own head. You’re practical, thoughtful, and, most likely, quite cynical about what government can do for you.

But I urge you not to be cynical this time. This election’s important, and it’s going to be fascinating. Gov. Sarah Palin’s selection as McCain’s running mate was yet more evidence of this last week. Each candidate has chosen a running mate that buttresses (or perhaps highlights) his weaknesses or shortcomings. The Gallup polls have been nail-bitingly close all summer. This is the first general election in 56 years where we have no incumbent candidate nor a sitting vice president running for president. And we stand at a crossroads in our national security and energy policies, with the opportunity for substantial discussion. The fact that both parties have made history in this election is icing on the cake compared to what I think are the real points of interest.

Now it’s most likely you’re an educated bunch who doesn’t buy into political theatre or rhetoric. You acknowledge that Obama is a brilliant speaker and McCain a brave veteran, but aren’t confident that these are sufficient for the presidency. So allow me to ask that you get into the true joy of politics – not the name-calling or mudslinging, although I get into that stuff like I enjoy reading People magazine – but the candidates’ strategies. Have fun reading between the lines of their speeches. Because the vast majority of Americans aren’t as smart as you are, and politicians need to make their message simple, emotional, and easy-to-understand for those other people. But you’re different – you’ve studied the candidates’ voting records. You read realclearpolitics.com and Politico every morning. Hell, you’ve stumbled across this blog today. And you’re waiting for the debates before you make your final decision.

In that case, allow me to make an attempt at an intelligent pitch for McCain. I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles and went to Harvard for college. I’ve always been a hesitant conservative/moderate in a sea of liberals. I’ve always been in environments where it was cooler and even seen as more moral to be liberal and to be vocal about it, or at least to be a moderate. But in my last semester of college, I realized that it’s ok to be partisan, and it’s no less moral to be conservative. I think a lot of self-proclaimed “moderates” want to be fair and magnanimous. But just because I’m a Republican doesn’t mean I agree with everything the party does – I’m a human being, not a political party, and my ideas are shaped by my personal experiences. Over the years they may change, though I must admit that my core beliefs have remained pretty Republican.

At the beginning of the summer, though, when I saw how empty Obama’s message was and how liberal his supposed “post-partisan” policies were, I stopped believing that he’d stand by that line in his 2004 Democratic convention speech saying that “there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.” That was a statement that I personally found very uplifting (if only many of my liberal friends would take it to heart). But I trust McCain’s record of across-the-aisle legislation and unique combination of morality and pragmatism when it comes to foreign policy. And these are all qualities we really need right now in a president.

Voting can be a lot like accepting a job offer – sometimes you’ll be skeptical of the company and the job, but hopefully at the end of the day, you recognize that the corporation’s basic mission is sound and it gets some solid, honest business done. The same goes for politics. I believe that both parties’ presidential and vice presidential candidates this year want to help this country. That’s why they’ve made public service their careers. But I just think the Republicans are the ones with the right ideas about rejuvenating both large and small businesses, ensuring that America has domestic oil reserves as well as a sustainable plan for alternative energy, and disabling terrorists by leading the world, not caving to it. And that’s why I’m choosing McCain and Palin.

Accomplishments you can believe in

2008-09-07T17:57:00.001-07:00

Correction: Accomplishments in which you can believe!

Since I don't have TV, I sometimes am oblivious to much of the happenings in the world. I was startled when channel surfing at a friend's house to find out how much the Palin Hate machine is in full swing. It is both tragic and depressing. While watching CNN, and I forget the announcer's name, I witnessed him become practically hysterical in his outright denounciation of Palin and her incompetence, inexperience and lack of values. The same went for MSNBC. I found a link on the web where some one posts a list of the latest smears and how to refute them. The worst part about this witch hunt is that many of my friends are starting to quote this stuff verbatim like it's gospel. I can tell they are quoting CNN/MSNBC/etc when they tell me "How could McCain pick this unknown person. She's so inexperienced."

The word unknown is the dead giveaway. My reply is simple, I say "Dude, she's unknown to you. It's not her fault you're a dummy".

Check out one of my previous posts and you'll know that I've been following Palin's career for a while, even before she was Governor. But I'm no stranger to Alaska. I've travelled there often to visit friends. I've watched some college hoops up there. I even met Coach K when he brought the Duke team to play in the Great Alaska shootout. I am also part owner of an Alaskan business. And yes, I even know how to spell Murkowski.

So when people sit back and tell you that Governor Palin is inexperienced, point them to this article on the Investor's Business Daily. It nicely illustrates the scope of her 'inexperience'.

We in the "lower 48" are in need of natural gas. Alaska has an abundance. However, while this project's immense potential was known to all, the project had been stalled for a while as special interests previous govenors wrestled over concessions to big oil and objections from people in the state legislature. Sarah Palin though, in her brief term in office got this pipeline through. And yes, while she did leverage the work of others, she was the one who pushed the legislature to get it through. She seized the opportunity that came from high energy prices to make this happen. This was also done ethically. To avoid the appearance of any sweetheart deal, she opened up the bidding process again and awarded it to the best firm, who coincidentally happened to be a Canadian firm. Much of this pipeline will go through Canada making this one of the largest internationally construction projects ever. This involved considerable difficult negotiations with Canada.

The completion of this pipeline will bring in a tremendous amount of energy to the country, driving prices down and improving the lives of all. This will be no simple task. At a price tag of 26 billion dollars and stretching for over 1715 miles this will be the biggest US construction project in history.

Now when energy is one of the biggest issues facing all Americans, both Democrat and Republican, it is good to know that there is someone on the ticket with Accomplishments you can believe in.

I mean Accomplishments in which I can believe.

How much do brains matter in a President?

2008-09-06T21:15:00.001-07:00

It happens pretty much like clockwork: In every presidential election that I can remember, voters are assured that the Republican is a brainless buffoon, and the Democrat a savvy intellectual. I first saw this with the 1976 election, when I was 15 years old and, for the first time, politically aware. Gerald Ford was presented as a big, dumb jock, who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Jimmy Carter was a brilliant, analytical engineer.

In 1980, as you recall, Ronald Reagan was the actor/jock who had simplistic ideas. I remember going around parroting the line that you could wade through Reagan's deepest thoughts without getting your ankles wet. Carter, of course, despite his abysmal Presidential record was still, as the media repeatedly assured us, so much smarter.

By 1984, Reagan's intellectualism had fallen even lower in the media's and pundit's estimation. The guy was dumb as a rock, and spoke in stupid, infantile terms about evil, and freedom, and simplistic things like that. He had no nuance. Fortunately, the savvy (but pure) Walter Mondale was going to save us from the guy with the obvious 2 digit IQ.

Fast forward a few years to 1988, and you've got the inarticulate George H.W. Bush, who was obviously too dumb to communicate in basic English, despite his illustrious career. And on the other side, you've got the pedantic Michael Dukakis, who really did sound like a hyper-analytical university professor. He was obviously smart.

I don't need to remind you of the Clinton years. For me, they pass in a blur of paeans praising his extraordinary intelligence. The press wrote reams of laudatory columns about his ebullient wonkishness, his extraordinary ability to master complex ideas, and his lust for knowledge. The only person smarter than he was, the press assured us, was his wife, a woman who intelligently subordinated her own career to exponentially expand the power of his through their combined brains.

Wait! I forgot, there was one person smarter than Clinton -- Al Gore! Al Gore, the great genius who made Dukakis look like a fluent, witty speaker. Al Gore, the all seeing, all knowing internet inventor. It was unthinkable that George W. Bush, the ultimate buffoon, a man with a West Texas accent and a habit of speaking about "nukular" weapons, could beat this Ivy League genius. And yet the unthinkable happened. And it happened again when the even smarter and more intellectual John Kerry also went down before that buffoon. (Never mind that subsequent investigation revealed that the "buffoon" did better at Yale than either of these two shining lights.)

It should be no surprise at this point that the exact same pattern is shaping up here. Obama, as we know, is even smarter than all of his Democratic predecessors put together! He is a luminous speaker (as long as he has a script). He's a luminous writer (although his off-script speaking skills are beginning to tell me that, as much as anything else, he had a good editor). He's just plain luminous. Palin, with her non-Ivy League degree, her slightly goofy Alaska accent, her beauty queen credentials is, of course, laughable when compared to Obama, right?

Well, I'm not so sure. For the fun of it, let's accept as true that all of these Democrats are indeed infinitely more brilliant than their Republican opponents. I won't get into petty discussions about GPAs and IQs. I'm going to agree: Each Democratic candidate since at least 1976 has had -- I don't know -- heck, let's give him 40 IQ points on his Republican opponent. The question is whether, even if we accept the genius Democratic premise as true, those type of academic smarts matter.

Popular culture has always joked that those who can, do; and those who can't, teach. Growing up, as the child of a teacher, and with the assumption that I would eventually get myself a PhD (only to end up with a JD), I always thought that this olds expression was sour grapes. The correct expression in my world would have been, those who are smart excel academically and use big words; and those who aren't smart, well, they aren't smart. Life has taught me otherwise.

What I've learned is that you can be too smart for your own good. Take my father. He was a superb teacher, and a truly fascinating and erudite man, but that's not why he taught. The wages were abysmal and it would have been great if he could have held another job -- but he couldn't. His sense of intellectual superiority made him a miserable employee. He never rose past the bottom ranks because he was so deeply offended by having to work for stupid people -- a disdain he made manifes -- that those same stupid people, all of whom were further up the hierarchy than he was, made sure to keep him firmly under their thumbs. He never got fired because he was an honest and reliable worker, but he never got promoted either. So much for his brains (and they were impressive).

Or take my uncle. It is no exaggeration to say that he was the most brilliant student in the history of the Jewish Academic high school in pre-WWII Berlin. (My father, who was much younger, repeatedly heard this encomium to his older brother from teachers frustrated by the fact that my father was merely smart, and not brilliant.) Considering that the school was both German and Jewish, you can imagine the standards. My uncle was a bona fide genius. He was also a complete git.

My uncle ended his life as a low level civil servant living in squalor with his wife and adult child in a one bedroom apartment in Copenhagen. My mother, to this day, recalls how he and his family eschewed handkerchiefs, opting instead to blow their noses into their hands and then wipe their fingers on the walls.

It would be too facile to say my uncle was just another tragedy of the war, someone damaged by the the hunt from pillar to post as he stayed one step ahead of the Nazis. The fact is that others fared worse than he did, but did better in the end. What he was was an embittered Leftist, who was so convinced of everyone else's stupidity (and, when it came to brains, he was right about the others, I guess) that he became dysfunctional.

Those are family anecdotes, but you can learn a lot too by looking at our brilliant Democratic presidents and our less brilliant Republican ones. Jimmy Carter, the brilliant engineer, was quite possibly the most wishy-washy man ever to hold the office. An engineer friend of mine explained that Carter made calculations. He assembled data and reached a conclusion. Add in new data and he'd arrive at a new conclusion. My friend's analysis was right as far as it went -- that was how Carter thought -- but it missed the scary corollary: Carter had no fixed principles. He lived in a moral vacuum in which everything was a factual problem that could be solve by manipulating integers.

The arguably less intelligent Reagan might not have had the world's greatest head for details, but that left him a lot of space for large thoughts about abstract values. He cherished freedom and therefore didn't get bogged down in the real politik that was de rigeur in Washington when he took office. He knew that the Soviet Union was an evil institution and was able to keep his eye on that ball. Likewise, he figured out that governments don't make money, they just spend money. People make money. This was intuitively correct and was backed up by the collapse of socialist economic systems. He didn't need experts to spell out in stifling academic details an opposite principle that could not possibly be true.

Clinton too had a Carter-esque habit of getting bogged down in inessential details. Even the loving press noted how people often dreaded going into meetings with him because he was unable to stay focused. His overweening sense of his intelligence also blocked his moral compass. Clinton felt that he was too smart for the petty rules confining ordinary people. (Same for Mrs. Clinton.) Smart and narcissistic, they both did precisely what they wanted because they refused to believe that mere mortals could catch up with them. When mere mortals did catch up, rather than being repentant, they were actually offended that ordinary people would come after them.

I believe that precisely the same pattern is emerging here. I'll concede that Obama is a smart guy, with a good word sense. (Especially if the word is "uh, uh, uh," which pops up a lot in his extemporaneous speaking.) However, he's already shown over and over again that, in common with people who believe that they're smarter than the average bear, he's guilty of terrible and dangerous hubris. He's also incapable of learning from his mistakes because, in his own mind, he's too smart to make mistakes. Anything that goes wrong is the other guy's fault. I think this accounts for the ponderous, inept, back-firing attacks that he's aiming at Palin.

In contrast, Palin and McCain may not be the greatest intellectual lights in the world, but that's probably a good thing. They speak clearly. They embrace simple, intuitive ideas. They are able to view the big picture without getting bogged down in details. And they're very, very clear on larger values and morals issues. Because they're not getting tangled in petty sidelines of thought, they don't see moral questions as being above their pay grade. Their answers ultimately may not be right, but at least they have them.

I hope you don't take this post as an attack on intellectuals, academics and smart people generally. I think smart people are wonderful and delightful. I know many who are almost obscenely functional and who have utterly admirable values. It's just that I think that the Democrats' obsessive focus on smarts leads them to a form of arrogance that blocks situational awareness, that makes them extremely arrogant and that, in extreme cases, enables them to substitute values free analysis for fixed moral principles.

An In Touch Speech

2008-09-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

With a speech so decorated and captivating, John McCain proved once again why he should be the next President. However, Barack Obama said this morning that John McCain’s speech was “out of touch” with America. I was left scratching my head. Did he watch the same speech I did?

John McCain: “I don’t work for a party, I don’t work for a special interest, I don’t work for myself, I work for you….I’ve fought corruption, and it didn’t matter if the culprits were democrats or Republicans…I've fought big spenders in both parties…I've fought to get million-dollar checks out of our elections… I've fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes… I fought crooked deals in the Pentagon... I fought tobacco companies and trial lawyers, drug companies and union bosses.”

So far so good, seems to be what America is looking for. Maybe it happened later.

“We believe in low taxes, spending discipline and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor. We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities. We believe in a government that unleashes the creativity and initiative of Americans. Government that doesn't make your choices for you, but works to make sure you have more choices to make for yourself.”

Not there either. It must be at the end.

“Fight for what's right for our country: Fight for the ideals and character of a free people. Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all. Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.”

That seems pretty in touch to me. There is only one logical explanation:

It is Obama who is out of touch with the American people.

Newsflash Barack: John McCain is in touch with the American people because he knows what the American people want. American’s want to know: who they are voting for, what he has done, and what he will do. This is exactly why McCain spent a great deal of time explaining his past in the military, as a POW and Senator, and the specifics on what he plans to do when elected.

Honestly people, sit back and think for a second. Aside from Obama’s charm, personality, and overall likeability, why would you even consider voting for him? We all want “Change” but does Obama bring more change that McCain? The only change Obama would bring is the least experienced person ever to become President, not to mention a voting record where he failed to make a tough decision 130 times and never once did he introduce a major piece of legislation.

Let’s face it. McCain has the perfect amount of experience to be President. He is a Maverick, a Hero, a Father, a Son, and most importantly a Leader. Beware Barack; the voters will one day realize that you have no executive experience, courage, valor, or voting record to be president. And that is why, come November, I am confident that the American people will make the intelligent decision to elect John McCain as President.

Closing the Convention

2008-09-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Now that the last streamers and balloons have fallen from the Xcel Center--and I think I'm still trying to get the confetti out of my hair--I want to reflect a little bit on what I experienced.

This was my first convention, so I really can't compare it to other conventions, but my bottom-line reaction to the convention is that it was a lot of fun. It was similar to attending the Super Bowl three days in a row, but it is even better than that because your favorite team wins every night and everybody else is cheering for the same team.

Most of my California friends support Obama, so it is also encouraging to be around with so many McCain supporters. I also met several other McCain supporters living in the Bay Area. Yes, there are Republicans in the California Bay Area. The convention has really infused me with even more excitement for a McCain adminstration, and I'm looking forward to getting back to California and working hard over the next 60 days to get him and Sarah Palin elected.

McCain's speech was in a word, presidential. He did not give a rah-rah speech like Palin did the previous night, but he looked to inspire Americans and quietly but forcefully explain why he should be president and what he will do when elected.

Before the speech, many television pundits said that McCain needed to talk about his domestic policy. On Thursday night, McCain did just that. He will cut wasteful spending, keep taxes low, work on retraining people to take advantage of opportunities in this new economy, give people a choice in education, make it easier for Americans to find good health care health care insurance, and achieve energy independence.

It was very exciting at the end of the speech when McCain was saying he would fight for us and encouraging us to stand up and get involved. The crowd was going absolutely wild. We were cheering and clapping so loudly that I really could not hear a word of what he was saying at the end. How cool is that!

During McCain's speech, a question kept running through my mind. Why have I supported McCain as president since the primaries? The basic reason, which was reinforced by seeing McCain give his speech, is that I trust McCain to do what is best for America. I believe that trust is justified by McCain's long public career. I may not agree with McCain on every single issue, but I trust McCain's judgement. I just cannot say the same thing about Obama.

When the speech ended, the balloons and confetti started falling, the music started playing (check out the "Raising McCain" song by John Rich), and people started dancing. The McCain and Palin families came out on stage, and the Xcel center seemed to get even louder. Palin and McCain both walked out to the crowd and shook hands. About 10 high school students made their way to the center of the hall right in front of the podium and held up a couple of big signs saying "Students For McCain." Balloons started popping making the convention sound like a big popcorn machine.

Eventually, we began to exit the Xcel Center energized to stand up, fight, and win the election for John McCain.

Sarah Palin: Change in Which We Can Believe

2008-09-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin: Change in Which We Can Believe

Of course, today’s title is a play on Senator Obama campaign’s slogan, “Change we can believe in.” Has it annoyed you that the slogan is grammatically incorrect? It bugs me when I read student papers with sentences that end with a preposition. So with today’s entry I co-opt Obama’s slogan to make my point about the best presidential ticket to effect change in Washington, DC.

I believe the McCain / Palin ticket will go all the way this election year and that was my gut instinct from the beginning. Yesterday, my Dad played back the answering machine message that I left for them on the day of Governor Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) selection for Vice President, August 29. In the message, I screamed, “Wooooohooooo! Great choice! The Democrats are gone. They’re dead. They’ve already lost…”

My Dad got such a kick out of that message, he has been playing it back for everybody who will listen. Is it premature to call the presidential race for the Republicans? Well, I hope that my initial evaluation of Governor Palin proves correct. I am calling the election now. The McCain / Palin ticket will win the White House in November 2008. Is that too bold? Perhaps.

Yes, that’s bold, but rarely do we see a speaker interrupted by several minutes of applause so intense that she is unable to begin speaking. That was the case with Governor Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC). Her selection by Senator McCain has energized the Republican base and totally changed the game. Money is flowing. Volunteers are signing up. Democrats are worried that they have once again found a way to lose. As I listened to Governor Palin’s acceptance speech, I actually felt a little sorry for the Obama / Biden presidential ticket; frankly, I do not believe they know what has hit them. Their strong allergic reaction to her candidacy might indicate that they are deeply concerned. Category 5 Hurricane Sarah has come ashore and slammed into the side of Democratic Presidential ticket.

Without a doubt, Governor Palin is a woman of generous looks before the camera and dynamic speech before the microphone, but her appeal is truly multi-dimensional. The family. The experience. The package. The more we learn about Sarah Palin and her family, the more she appeals to working class Republicans and Democrats. It seems implausible that a more perfect running mate for Senator John McCain could be found. Moreover, her political background includes a record of reforming that uncannily resembles McCain’s own background.

If we want to talk about real change, or change in which we can believe, we need a different team in Washington. Senator Obama has been whining about the need for change in Washington, but the Democratic party has been in control of the House of Representatives and Senate for two years. Where is the change that was promised two years ago? What did Obama and Biden change as U.S. Senators? Let’s face it. We need something new and two Ivy League-trained attorneys will not make the needed difference.

We’ve tried dad after dad in Washington. Let’s try a mom for once. To effect real change in the White House, we need a woman’s perspective on domestic and foreign affairs. I say this as a son, father, and husband. There are some jobs that require dad and others that require mom. There are some tasks that I do best and others are best handled by my wife. Women should be in high political office.

I sure hope that Governor Palin brings the baby to the debate. That should silence jabbering Joe Biden (as Dad calls him because of his penchant for saying too much) for at least a few seconds…

I Think I Need a Third Hand

2008-09-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school and college, my two sisters refused to sit me with at baseball games because they hated my cheering. I would cheer really, really loudly in a very throaty and raucous yell. Since that time, I have mellowed and don't cheer as loudly at baseball games. But Wednesday night, at the Republican Convention, I resurrected that voice and cheered as loudly as I ever have at any sporting event! What an awesome night! Michael Steele, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Guiliani, and especially Sarah Palin all gave excellent and rousing speeches. What I really didn't know what to do was what I should do with my hands. Seriously, should I clap or wave my sign? I tried to do both simultaneously, but I think I really could use a third hand.

OK, enough about me. On the last blog, I mentioned the Texas delegation. Some other delegations that I noticed were Pennsylvania waving thier yellow "terrible" towels, Florida waving their orange towels, American Samoa in their flowery shirts, and Michigan wearing some very cool hockey sweaters with the number 08 on the back. It was the Michigan delegation that cheered the loudest at Hockey Mom comments. The Maryland delegation also started a good back-and-forth chant for Michael Steele.

And now a cheat sheet to some of the the impromtu chants that started up in the crowd in case you could not understand them on TV.

How should you respond to questions about Obama's legislative record? "Zero! Zero!" with the forefinger making a circle with the thumb. The Obama-Biden ticket is big on talk. The McCain-Palin ticket is big on results.

How do you respond to questions about how to make the U.S. energy independent and bring down gas prices? "Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!" We're not advocating only drilling for oil, but drilling for oil needs to be part of the solution along with nuclear power, clean coal, wind, solar, and other sources of energy.

How do you respond to the role of many media outlets in this campaign? "Booooooooooo!" and turn around to look at the television booths in the rafters with thumbs down. We Republican delegates are proud to stand up against the Washington insider, the old boys club and liberal media establishment who are attacking Sarah Palin because she is not one of them and not of Washington.

And of course, chants of "Sarah! Sarah!" and "John McCain!" are always appropriate.

I cannot wait for John McCain's speech to close out the convention. I'm planning to wear a "Stanford 4 McCain" T-shirt. Look for the Cardinal red.

Partisan Politics

2008-09-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

In listening to Joe Lieberman talk yesterday I was taken aback by his topic, as I was expecting something more along the line of Senator Thompson’s speech, constantly explaining how McCain’s military background makes him the only choice to be our next President. Especially since Partisan politics hasn’t been high on the priorities of the American public, at least not as stated in recent polls, his speech came as a shocker. Yet what he spoke about, Partisan politics has been stated by activists such as Japhet Els of Change-Congress.org as the most central problem of our government, the root from which many of our woes stem.

As a member of today’s youth, I like many of my generation, am put off by the current state of the government. Apathy in my generation has taken hold, caused in large part to what we see when turning on the T.V to listen to our politicians. We hear a cacophony of words with no backing, Partisan ideas, slander being thrown about by both sides, and little actually being “said” by those running for office. However, while this campaign has had its fair share of candidate bashing and negative advertising (to note I watched the RNC on CNN and they were running anti-McCain ads during the convention) I still feel much more enthusiastic about my options for President then I have in my short lifetime following politics.

At the base of what I’m looking for in this election, is a break in the gridlock that grips Washington. Several months ago I attended the Leon Panetta lecture series, featuring Tucker Carlson, Gov. Bill Richardson, former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, and Bill Press. The panel focused on this gridlock in relation to Obama’s campaign, as this was a Democrat delegation, the thing that struck me the most was how they stressed that the only way to get things done in D.C, will be with the political capital the President has in the first 100 days he's in office. Be this what it may, I don’t want to think that the next President has only 100 days to grapple with some monumental issues. The perils we face scare me; from our foreign energy dependence, to social security, the war on terror and the image of our nation to the world, not to mention our teetering economy, and looming Medicare crisis. It’s going to take more than 100 days to set forth policies that deal with even one of these issues, and thus we need a President who can cross party lines to make sure that the necessary decisions be made and legislation passed to deal with these issues accordingly.

Lieberman’s speech helped to highlight for the general public, the impressive resume that John McCain holds in his fight against special interests in Washington, who are responsible for much of the quagmire the besets our government. From his campaign finance reform bills to his championing of those who try to infuse our legislation with Pork Spending, McCain has time and again put the interests of our nation before that of the Party. In doing so he has strayed from typical Republican policies and crossed over to work with Democrat’s to make such accomplishments possible. To me, this history makes him stand out as the smartest candidate to pick when the November election takes place.

While our future President will be charged with the task of spear-heading the fight against Partisan politics, in no way does this mean that the general public should simply sit back and wait for change to happen. Our politicians are representatives of their constituencies, meaning that our voices for change are necessary for any action to occur. We can’t let special interests and corporate lobbyist drown out the cries for action of the general populace. I’m proud to say that here in Silicon Valley; the cries of the public are being amplified with the help of technology and our entrepreneurial culture. Sites like Change-congress.org have been present at the conventions, talking to various delegates and elected officials about the corruption that has taken hold. Specifically traction has been found at both conventions surrounding the effort to deal with earmarks and maneuver legislation through the Partisan stand still.

Hope isn’t a word that should be patented by just those of the Democratic Party; rather it should be the rallying cry of all of us, across party lines. Hope should inspire us to pick the candidate who can create change in the future, not merely preach about it. Hope should be handed down to the next generation, so that the problems we face today will not cripple their future tomorrow.