Give me a moment to tell you a neat American success story. Many people have heard about famous big business like Federal Express (or FedEx.) Whether you are watching movies like “Cast Away” or shipping your valuables across the planet, there is a very good chance that if you are dedicated to the necessity of getting your package to its destination on time, you likely opted to use FedEx to pull that off. Well, for as many that know FedEx, equally as many likely do not know the story of Fred Smith of Tennessee.
Fred was the son of Frederick C. Smith, founder of Dixie Greyhound Bus Lines (this eventually became “greyhound bus lines”... ever heard of it?) and Toddle House, a cool little diner-style restaurant chain with a twist. While some folks might remember Dixie Greyhound Bus Line, it is Toddle House that is even more amazing. Toddle House while looking like the typical breakfast-only 24/7 diner had an honor-based payment system. What does that mean? It means that you order up your food, enjoy the meal and drop your payment in a box on the way out of the restaurant. Here is a business man that had a mission to transport and feed average Americans and that invested in trusting them and believing in the integrity of the American public! So cool.
Fred Smith's father, Frederick C. Smith died when Fred was only four years old and Fred was raised by his mother and his uncles. As a teenager Fred became a licensed private pilot and eventually earned his way into Yale University where he became friends with future politician John Kerry who shared his affinity for flying at the same time becoming friends with George W. Bush. having a diverse group of friends might have something to do with the fact that Fred also had an affinity for baking and eating pies.
After graduating from college with a bachelor's degree in economics and rather than immediately follow in his father's footsteps and going into business, he decided to serve his country as a U.S. Marine for four years from 1966 to 1969. As U.S. Marine he served two tours of duty in Vietnam, flying with pilots on over 200 combat missions. He left the Marines honorably with the rank of Captain, having been award with the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.
By 1970 Fred Smith decided to go into business for himself. At first he ventured out, turning a love for flying into purchasing a business that did aircraft maintenance. Don't be confused here. When I say aircraft maintenance don't think I am talking about Boeing or United Airlines. I am talking about a business that employes mechanics that repair aircraft engines. If Joe the Plumber is talking about purchasing a business that employs plumbers, then Fred should be considered Fred the Airplane Mechanic, and he went ahead and bought the business. Then a big turn happened in his life that changed all of ours. Fred was left an inheritance. A $4 million inheritance. Rather than turning around and buying a huge home, or a moving to hollywood, Fred followed in his father's footsteps again and invested in his business, taking it to the next level. By 1971 FedEx was born and Fred invested his $4 million, and raised between $80 - 90 million in venture capital to launch the business with a solid plan. It looks like his love of flying coupled with his bachelors degree in economics played into helping him create a business that now operates in 220 countries employing tens of thousands of Americans.
Fred Smith believes in America and invests in Democracy. Since 1990 FedEx has made over $21 million in political campaign contributions to both Democrats (45% of donations) and Republicans (55%.)
In the case of the 2008 Presidential Election, Fred Smith, a great American hero in times of war and in business by creating jobs in America, decided to back another great American war hero and servant in Washington, D.C. with a rich 30 year history of inspiring change and responsibility, John McCain. You see, Fred knows that McCain will work to preserve the rights of Americans like Fred so that they can inherit money without the threat of the Government taking that inheritance for the purpose of spreading the wealth around. Obama intends to implement an inheritance tax to spread your wealth around. Fred also knows that McCain understands the value and reality that business owners invest in their businesses which means investing in people. In a conversation with economic analyst and Wall Street Journal writer Stephen Moore, Fred Smith said that Obamas plan to increase corporate taxes in America would kill FedExs ability to add more employees to the 30,000 Americans he already employs.
Fred gets it and wants Americans to know that McCain will not use the federal government's power to redistribute wealth, he wants to make the Capital Gains Tax elimination a permanent fixture of America, and reduce taxation on inheritance. Fred Smith supports John McCain's desire to reinvest in America by allowing businesses and businesses owners the freedom of keeping their hard earned money so they can create more employment opportunities.
Read here about how Obama's Capital Gains Tax will negatively affect the Gross National Product for America and as a result hurt the U.S. Dollar at home and abroad:
http://www.nysun.com/business/obama-capital-gains-tax-hike-would-hit-new-york/81902/
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Record: Breaking An American Addiction To Oil
There is a lot of talk in this campaign about breaking America's addiction to oil. This is one of those areas of the campaign where Obama and McCain are not too awfully far apart in terms of having a verbalized goal, it would seem. This goal enters their speach when they say phrases like "break our dependance" or "break our addiction." The techniques they want to employ to achieve those goals, however, are quite different.
Introduction: I have heard a number of Obama supporters say that they would be fine paying higher gas / oil prices if it meant breaking an American addiction to oil. If that is your goal, then you are actually more in line with the goals and plans of John McCain when you look at the details, which we will do by reviewing an article by the Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/publication/14755/
Let's a take a look through these independently researched facts:
Obama-
The core of his plan to deal with our addiction has everything to do with the windfall profits tax he would like to apply to oil companies. This is how this would work. A windfall profit tax would be applied to those companies and as a result the proceeds would be turned into “tax rebates” ($1000/yr for couples and $500/yr for singles.) The idea here is that if oil companies are making windfall profits (this is vague, as in not yet defined as to what a windfall profit is exactly) then the tax would help offset the cost at the pump. Assuming windfall profits go away, so would the tax rebates (this part is a little more unclear.)
My analysis: tax rebates fall into the category of entitlements. This means that once the rebates are voted on, then the money has to come from somewhere to pay for them. In a sense, we would need windfall profits to pay for these rebates. In that sense, if the rebates pass congress then Congress is counting on the windfall “fundraiser” to follow successfully. Folks like McCain are saying that this plan actually creates a federal addiction to oil through planning on and needing the tax proceeds of big oil companies. Imagine how unfulfilling this plan might feel if we were talking about a drug addiction. Taxing a drug dealer to reduce the cost of the drugs we are addicted to. I am not sure how this solves the problem.
Next Obama in august of 2008 Obama said he “supports the sale of 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "for less expensive crude, which in the past has lowered gas prices within two weeks." This statement signaled a shift of position for Obama, who in July 2008 said he did not believe the United States should use that reserve supply.
My analysis: It keeps us in oil, and aims to provide cheaper oil.
Obama said he would close loopholes that jack up oil prices.
My analysis: Still talking about making oil cheaper.
Next Obama said we need to use less oil as a country.
My Analysis: Honestly, this sounds like Gov. Palin but more importantly every candidate is saying this and I think it is a good goal. However, it will take some advances in technology to make this more possible. I am glad he says this is what he wants, but hopefully we as a country will move toward this technologically.
In 2007 one month after Obama announced his run for the Presidency, Obama co-authored the Fuel Economy Reform Act, which proposed that automobiles become more fuel efficient.
My analysis: This is yet again less to do with getting ride of oil dependance and more about cheeper. This “bill” never saw the light of day. It wasn't that it was shot down. It was that it was never introduced to be voted on.
Obama said in January 2008 that he would support nuclear if it was safe and the waste was well taken care of.
My analysis: Finally we are done talking about more and cheaper oil. Again, many candidates agree, but the additional speculation here is the apparently uneducated fear around nuclear waste disposal is a slightly more outdated perspective. Obama has caught some flack for simply not understanding issues surrounding advances in nuclear technology.
McCain-
McCain says he supports an "all of the above" approach to energy security, meaning he will "support the development of alcohol-based fuels, establish a permanent research and development tax credit to support energy innovation, and will encourage an even-handed system of tax credits for renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and biomass."
My analysis: This is a long term approach since what he is saying is that we need to focus on seeing technology develop to the degree that we can actually do away with dependence. Recall above that Obama said we need to use less oil. This is how that would happen.
He said he would lift federal restrictions on domestic oil exploration in the United States. At the same time he has stressed the importance of protecting refuges like the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This is what McCain calls the “Lexington project.”
My analysis: Like Obama, this is less about avoiding an oil addiction and more about just making oil cheeper. Speculation here says that oil prospecting takes time and that this would again possibly take a while to see the benefit.
McCain has been a proponent of nuclear power. The Lexington Project includes aggressive goals about running more of the country on nuclear power. That plan has always included safe storage of nuclear waste and included a desire to position America as championing safe storage as a world leader in cooperation with other countries.
My analysis: McCain has given Obama a bit of a hard time about not having a more reasonable understanding of nuclear power as an alternative energy source. Rightly so. Obama entered the conversation quite late for whatever reason. McCain also speaks to the need for America to champion the storage and management of nuclear waste. Obama doesn't speak about nuclear energy on this level.
At about the same time McCain and Leibermann proposed the Climate Stewardship Act and they said it “harness the power of the free market and the engine of American innovation to reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough and quickly enough to forestall catastrophic global warming." Later versions of the McCain-Lieberman legislation included billions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear energy companies. In one felled swoop McCain attempted to reduce oil dependence and work toward protecting the environment. The bill didn't pass.
My analysis: McCain receives a lot of flack for supposedly not backing alternative energy efforts. In this Act he was backing subsidizes support for nuclear American investment and environmental protection. While there have been some bills and acts about alternative fuel that he took objection with, generally the accusation is false.
Again, McCain does not support the windfall profits tax for the above reasons.
My analysis: See my Obama criticism on this talking point.
Finally, McCain promoted the idea of a “clean car challenge” as well as a $300 million challenge to get companies to pursue building an automobile energy storage solution that can out-power modern hybrids.
My analysis: I like these two initiatives because they are proven to work. An example would be the modern “space race” in the form of the private industry “X-Prize” paid out to a company named scaled composites for building a more efficient private sector equivalent to the NASA Space shuttle. It was an amazing success. In the case of being both clean and breaking a dependence on oil, this recommendation again pulls that goal off.
Conclusion:
Obama- grade of C
Obama appears to support energy alternatives, but the large majority of his plans simply make oil cheaper or more abundant rather than provide significant goals toward alternatives. On the upside, Obama has made a number of changes to these plans and might change them again sometime in the next few weeks before the election. Personally, again... my blog, Obama's talk about “change” could be interpreted as him “changing” his mind on stuff, which often makes nailing his goals down a little difficult (example: definition of a “windfall” and how that tax actually breaks our dependence on oil.) Again, in the short term he seems to have a goal of lower gas prices, but the goal of eliminating an American dependence on oil seems to have gone missing almost entirely.
McCain- grade of B
He appears to have supported energy alternatives in form of voting and co-authoring bills, historically, as well as making plans to promote an effort and investment toward the goal of breaking a dependence on oil. Note that this runs contrary to the Obama accusation directed at McCain. On the downside, there doesn't seem to be as many short term goals of lowering the cost of oil which seems to be a priority of Obama.
Intro Review: Again, I have heard a number of Obama supporters say that they would be fine paying higher gas / oil prices if it meant breaking an American Addiction to oil. If that is your goal, then you are actually more in line with the goals and plans of John McCain when you look at the details.
Update: If I wanted to be more specific about giving them a score, I could award a point for plans that include breaking dependence and a negative point for plans than do not help this goal. I considered this, but in the end McCain would end up with a number that was very positively correlated toward this goal and Obama would have ended up with a negatively correlated score. Do the math for yourself. Even if I had simply awarded a point for items that helped achieve the goal, ignoring those that do not help, McCain would still get a much higher score than Obama.
Introduction: I have heard a number of Obama supporters say that they would be fine paying higher gas / oil prices if it meant breaking an American addiction to oil. If that is your goal, then you are actually more in line with the goals and plans of John McCain when you look at the details, which we will do by reviewing an article by the Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/publication/14755/
Let's a take a look through these independently researched facts:
Obama-
The core of his plan to deal with our addiction has everything to do with the windfall profits tax he would like to apply to oil companies. This is how this would work. A windfall profit tax would be applied to those companies and as a result the proceeds would be turned into “tax rebates” ($1000/yr for couples and $500/yr for singles.) The idea here is that if oil companies are making windfall profits (this is vague, as in not yet defined as to what a windfall profit is exactly) then the tax would help offset the cost at the pump. Assuming windfall profits go away, so would the tax rebates (this part is a little more unclear.)
My analysis: tax rebates fall into the category of entitlements. This means that once the rebates are voted on, then the money has to come from somewhere to pay for them. In a sense, we would need windfall profits to pay for these rebates. In that sense, if the rebates pass congress then Congress is counting on the windfall “fundraiser” to follow successfully. Folks like McCain are saying that this plan actually creates a federal addiction to oil through planning on and needing the tax proceeds of big oil companies. Imagine how unfulfilling this plan might feel if we were talking about a drug addiction. Taxing a drug dealer to reduce the cost of the drugs we are addicted to. I am not sure how this solves the problem.
Next Obama in august of 2008 Obama said he “supports the sale of 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "for less expensive crude, which in the past has lowered gas prices within two weeks." This statement signaled a shift of position for Obama, who in July 2008 said he did not believe the United States should use that reserve supply.
My analysis: It keeps us in oil, and aims to provide cheaper oil.
Obama said he would close loopholes that jack up oil prices.
My analysis: Still talking about making oil cheaper.
Next Obama said we need to use less oil as a country.
My Analysis: Honestly, this sounds like Gov. Palin but more importantly every candidate is saying this and I think it is a good goal. However, it will take some advances in technology to make this more possible. I am glad he says this is what he wants, but hopefully we as a country will move toward this technologically.
In 2007 one month after Obama announced his run for the Presidency, Obama co-authored the Fuel Economy Reform Act, which proposed that automobiles become more fuel efficient.
My analysis: This is yet again less to do with getting ride of oil dependance and more about cheeper. This “bill” never saw the light of day. It wasn't that it was shot down. It was that it was never introduced to be voted on.
Obama said in January 2008 that he would support nuclear if it was safe and the waste was well taken care of.
My analysis: Finally we are done talking about more and cheaper oil. Again, many candidates agree, but the additional speculation here is the apparently uneducated fear around nuclear waste disposal is a slightly more outdated perspective. Obama has caught some flack for simply not understanding issues surrounding advances in nuclear technology.
McCain-
McCain says he supports an "all of the above" approach to energy security, meaning he will "support the development of alcohol-based fuels, establish a permanent research and development tax credit to support energy innovation, and will encourage an even-handed system of tax credits for renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and biomass."
My analysis: This is a long term approach since what he is saying is that we need to focus on seeing technology develop to the degree that we can actually do away with dependence. Recall above that Obama said we need to use less oil. This is how that would happen.
He said he would lift federal restrictions on domestic oil exploration in the United States. At the same time he has stressed the importance of protecting refuges like the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This is what McCain calls the “Lexington project.”
My analysis: Like Obama, this is less about avoiding an oil addiction and more about just making oil cheeper. Speculation here says that oil prospecting takes time and that this would again possibly take a while to see the benefit.
McCain has been a proponent of nuclear power. The Lexington Project includes aggressive goals about running more of the country on nuclear power. That plan has always included safe storage of nuclear waste and included a desire to position America as championing safe storage as a world leader in cooperation with other countries.
My analysis: McCain has given Obama a bit of a hard time about not having a more reasonable understanding of nuclear power as an alternative energy source. Rightly so. Obama entered the conversation quite late for whatever reason. McCain also speaks to the need for America to champion the storage and management of nuclear waste. Obama doesn't speak about nuclear energy on this level.
At about the same time McCain and Leibermann proposed the Climate Stewardship Act and they said it “harness the power of the free market and the engine of American innovation to reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough and quickly enough to forestall catastrophic global warming." Later versions of the McCain-Lieberman legislation included billions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear energy companies. In one felled swoop McCain attempted to reduce oil dependence and work toward protecting the environment. The bill didn't pass.
My analysis: McCain receives a lot of flack for supposedly not backing alternative energy efforts. In this Act he was backing subsidizes support for nuclear American investment and environmental protection. While there have been some bills and acts about alternative fuel that he took objection with, generally the accusation is false.
Again, McCain does not support the windfall profits tax for the above reasons.
My analysis: See my Obama criticism on this talking point.
Finally, McCain promoted the idea of a “clean car challenge” as well as a $300 million challenge to get companies to pursue building an automobile energy storage solution that can out-power modern hybrids.
My analysis: I like these two initiatives because they are proven to work. An example would be the modern “space race” in the form of the private industry “X-Prize” paid out to a company named scaled composites for building a more efficient private sector equivalent to the NASA Space shuttle. It was an amazing success. In the case of being both clean and breaking a dependence on oil, this recommendation again pulls that goal off.
Conclusion:
Obama- grade of C
Obama appears to support energy alternatives, but the large majority of his plans simply make oil cheaper or more abundant rather than provide significant goals toward alternatives. On the upside, Obama has made a number of changes to these plans and might change them again sometime in the next few weeks before the election. Personally, again... my blog, Obama's talk about “change” could be interpreted as him “changing” his mind on stuff, which often makes nailing his goals down a little difficult (example: definition of a “windfall” and how that tax actually breaks our dependence on oil.) Again, in the short term he seems to have a goal of lower gas prices, but the goal of eliminating an American dependence on oil seems to have gone missing almost entirely.
McCain- grade of B
He appears to have supported energy alternatives in form of voting and co-authoring bills, historically, as well as making plans to promote an effort and investment toward the goal of breaking a dependence on oil. Note that this runs contrary to the Obama accusation directed at McCain. On the downside, there doesn't seem to be as many short term goals of lowering the cost of oil which seems to be a priority of Obama.
Intro Review: Again, I have heard a number of Obama supporters say that they would be fine paying higher gas / oil prices if it meant breaking an American Addiction to oil. If that is your goal, then you are actually more in line with the goals and plans of John McCain when you look at the details.
Update: If I wanted to be more specific about giving them a score, I could award a point for plans that include breaking dependence and a negative point for plans than do not help this goal. I considered this, but in the end McCain would end up with a number that was very positively correlated toward this goal and Obama would have ended up with a negatively correlated score. Do the math for yourself. Even if I had simply awarded a point for items that helped achieve the goal, ignoring those that do not help, McCain would still get a much higher score than Obama.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Barack O'Copy
So it is week number two and I am sweating on an elliptical trainer at the gym over lunch. To pass the 30+ minutes I typically listen to my iPod and watch the news on mute and read the closed captioning.
Today, once again, I saw Barack follow after John McCain, pretending yet again that he is a pioneer. About a week ago today during the debate John McCain was undermined by both Obama and later the press for suggesting that the government should specifically bail out mainstreet by specifically addressing the fact that many Americans are struggling under mortgages that many can't afford. Regardless of what you think about any of the bailout plans there has been a hort-load of speculation about how expensive or unreasonable or redundant a specific mainstreet bailout would be. Now, John McCain is talking about the federal government buying up those mortgages and then, over time, the government makes its money back from the value of those mortgages. The idea is that the U.S. government can wait out a very long term investment a lot easier than banks or home owners.
Now take a look at Barack O'Copy's plan. His answer for mainstreet is to simulate the market and create jobs, assuming that a lack of employment is what is responsible for people defaulting on loans. Next, he wants to block foreclosures on homes where the owner only owns one home, for three months. Next, he wants to give tax-breaks to companies that create jobs here in America. Let's look at what this will do for home owners. Employment might be one reason for defaulting home loans, but we know it is not to blame for variable rate loans from predatory lenders. The three month delay on foreclosures will do just that: delay the foreclosure for three months. If renegotiating loans can't get done in time (this is incredible pressure on a currently stressed out banking system) and jobs are not to blame, or people cannot get jobs quickly enough, then three months is too little too late. Finally, giving companies a tax break sure sounds like John McCain. I think the distinction is that O'Copy only wants to give those breaks to mid-sized companies (not the evil large corporations) ... why????? Oh... My.... Goodness....! Wait for it!? Because tax breaks for companies mean simulating the economy toward growth! Whaaaaat? Wait? Obama said that this is the very exact "failed policy of Bush and the Republicans." Obama!? Isn't this basically the same trickle-down policy by another name? Isn't the net effect the same (lowered tax burden for everyone equaling more jobs!?)
But the bottom line is that companies don't just create jobs so they can get a tax break. There has to be work for those new employees to do. And if those companies could create jobs, and Obama is promising them tax-burden relief for two years, how would that really work? Two years means this whole job creation thing wouldn't kick in quick enough to solve the mainstreet mortgage issue in reality.
Obama is a stinker! But we don't have to be! He is showing his true colors. Taxing the rich isn't our duty. He isn't about justice through taxation, or fairness through taxation, or duty or patriotism! He is simply holding a federal fundraiser for his expensive programs. But once again, in true form, Obama is taking a lesson from the guy who should be president, John McCain, but somehow the ignorant public are thinking that if Obama says it, well... it must be his idea, right?
Today, once again, I saw Barack follow after John McCain, pretending yet again that he is a pioneer. About a week ago today during the debate John McCain was undermined by both Obama and later the press for suggesting that the government should specifically bail out mainstreet by specifically addressing the fact that many Americans are struggling under mortgages that many can't afford. Regardless of what you think about any of the bailout plans there has been a hort-load of speculation about how expensive or unreasonable or redundant a specific mainstreet bailout would be. Now, John McCain is talking about the federal government buying up those mortgages and then, over time, the government makes its money back from the value of those mortgages. The idea is that the U.S. government can wait out a very long term investment a lot easier than banks or home owners.
Now take a look at Barack O'Copy's plan. His answer for mainstreet is to simulate the market and create jobs, assuming that a lack of employment is what is responsible for people defaulting on loans. Next, he wants to block foreclosures on homes where the owner only owns one home, for three months. Next, he wants to give tax-breaks to companies that create jobs here in America. Let's look at what this will do for home owners. Employment might be one reason for defaulting home loans, but we know it is not to blame for variable rate loans from predatory lenders. The three month delay on foreclosures will do just that: delay the foreclosure for three months. If renegotiating loans can't get done in time (this is incredible pressure on a currently stressed out banking system) and jobs are not to blame, or people cannot get jobs quickly enough, then three months is too little too late. Finally, giving companies a tax break sure sounds like John McCain. I think the distinction is that O'Copy only wants to give those breaks to mid-sized companies (not the evil large corporations) ... why????? Oh... My.... Goodness....! Wait for it!? Because tax breaks for companies mean simulating the economy toward growth! Whaaaaat? Wait? Obama said that this is the very exact "failed policy of Bush and the Republicans." Obama!? Isn't this basically the same trickle-down policy by another name? Isn't the net effect the same (lowered tax burden for everyone equaling more jobs!?)
But the bottom line is that companies don't just create jobs so they can get a tax break. There has to be work for those new employees to do. And if those companies could create jobs, and Obama is promising them tax-burden relief for two years, how would that really work? Two years means this whole job creation thing wouldn't kick in quick enough to solve the mainstreet mortgage issue in reality.
Obama is a stinker! But we don't have to be! He is showing his true colors. Taxing the rich isn't our duty. He isn't about justice through taxation, or fairness through taxation, or duty or patriotism! He is simply holding a federal fundraiser for his expensive programs. But once again, in true form, Obama is taking a lesson from the guy who should be president, John McCain, but somehow the ignorant public are thinking that if Obama says it, well... it must be his idea, right?
Friday, October 10, 2008
McCain connections versus Obama connections
I watched a couple videos that were sent to me about McCain associations with political "terrorists." As a voting American it warrents examination (especially if I am planning on voting for McCain.)
Having watched those videos and researched the players involved I think there are obvious factor that differentiate McCain’s associations in comparison to Obama's on these talking points. Let's examine them:
Having watched those videos and researched the players involved I think there are obvious factor that differentiate McCain’s associations in comparison to Obama's on these talking points. Let's examine them:
- The Keeting 5: McCain had a connection to the group, but was quickly exonerated for having not actually participated in any poor behavior. It is worth note that other in the group were not exonerated. Only John Glenn (Democrat) and McCain (Republican) were said to have not done anything wrong (so you cannot say that Republicans let him off the hook since a Democrat and a Republican were said to be guiltless.) This happened in 1989. McCain still apologized to Americans for what that group had done. He didn’t take ownership, but he did verbalize sympathy for any harm that group caused.
- His Attendance at the controversial meeting: In this case he was invited to speak but didn’t have a long time association with this group or specifically any tie directly to people who were a part of radical groups. In fact there is no ongoing connect for him with these groups.
So, in that sense he has been around people who have gotten into trouble, but in neither of these examples do we find him teemed up with these people in long-time relationships surrounding a direct connection to goofiness. We all know that politicians from Chicago will always win a contest on "number of objectionable associations through proximity." Obama's list is too long if we are simply going to mention who he sat next to at a meeting. In both of the above examples McCain was either completely peripheral or implicated but exonerated. This isn't quite the case with Obama. Now let's look at Obama:
- Obama chaired on an “education” committee founded by Ayers that did all sort of goofy experimental education thing that resulted in the undermining of school leadership and the promotion of his campaign. Read the wall street journal expose:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html - The fundraiser meeting McCain attended was a one time thing in 1993 and hardly comparable to the decade or more that Obama has known Ayers and been involved in implementing his radical agenda (according to the Washington Post) / political fundraising. As well it is worth mentioning that the mention of the woman who shot the doctor was noted in a prayer and the Oregon Citizens Alliance is not known for radical involvement. It is simply a grass roots political group that is trying to get legislation passed. Unlike the Weathermen they aren’t responsible for blowing things up or hurting people or disrespecting property. To say they are simply because a woman was mentioned at a meeting in a prayer in 1993 is a huge exaggeration.
The associations on the McCain side are obvious but harmless at best. The Obama side is also obvious, but they are apples to oranges at best. You don’t go to prison or land on the FBI top-ten wanted list for attempting to pass controversial legislation. Give me a break.
NOTE: Ayers is not the only character of ill repute associated with Obama. Click to read more about Obama's poor judgments and associations.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
An Appeal To The Left
I recently rote an email to someone who sent a letter to John McCain explaining his frustration over McCain's selection of Governor Palin. He replied with the typical banter one would expect to hear from someone who is supporting Obama.
I would say that in my short voting history I feel more educated on the history and plans of the Democrat and Republican candidates now as compared to any other election. Like nearly everyone else at first I went with my gut and conservative nature supporting McCain. But now, based on my research of the major issues of these candidates pasts (voting histories as well as experience), getting an understanding of their proposed presidential goals, as well as following the trending and life of their campaigns, I can now say with all confidence that John McCain seems both the most reasonable and experienced candidate.
When investing toward retirement you are always told to make measured investments that are a balanced mix of conservative low risk and higher yield, high risk. The reason they say this is because the conservative low risk base investment will help you ride the ups and downs of the inevitable high-risk losses that might occur. This is why so many are in a panic over the stock market right now. The risk was obviously too high for too many and now that it is crashing, reasonable people are weighing the fact that they put too much of their investment in the high-risk bucket. At this stage of our economy Obama's inexperience coupled with his list of inexperienced "change"equals high risk. I think that in better days we as a nation could throw more into a high-risk set of change goals, but what our nation needs is stability. I am not willing to play with those outcomes at this point. Having said that, change is inevitable, so I am speaking to the kind of change that Obama envisions. A simple example of this change would be the inevitable changing of the guard within the government financial leadership in a transition to an Obama administration. Market speculation is already saying that this transition equals risk and an inevitable downturn (again) of our markets. Forgetting lack of experience and character issues, we can't afford Obama on this issue alone.
Having shared there thoughts, here is the letter I gave to the person I mentioned above, in response to the letter he said he sent to McCain. please, consider the points in this letter as you think about the coming election:
I read your note and appreciate you putting thought into the letter, but my hope is that you gain a greater understanding of the actual voting history (in Illinois and Washington) of Obama before you actually vote. I understand that most folks feel strongly at this point about their candidate of choice, but it is never too late to examine the history and character of the candidates within the context of their campaign promises. For example, I think Obama gets a lot of credit for:
Things to consider when thinking about the above statements (item for item):
In conclusion, in almost all of his plans outside of the plans that are traditionally held Democrat perspectives, Obama has shifted toward McCain along a diagrammatic scale and typically in response to either something McCain has said (as if Obama is learning how to be presidential from McCain while on the campaign trail) or due to some new revelation about some person in his life or campaign that is revealed as problematic or un-American (examples are: Robert Malley who has terrorist ties in the middle east, Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin who helps architect the deregulation of wall street, his pastor of 20 years and "spiritual mentor" Dr. Wright who has given awards to Farrakhan, Illinois slumlord Tony Rezko in prison for his real estate scandals and who helps Obama buy his personal home, Vallerie Jarret who is another Slumlord in Illinois and a part of Obama's campaign, Mr. Raines who was sought for advice by the Obama campaign and who is an ex-Fannie Mae CEO who was successfully sued for millions for financial fraud.
Again, I agree we need change. So, why not vote for McCain who has an actual track record of pursuing change regardless of what hot water he find himself in inside his own political party? Why not vote for McCain who has a 20+ year record of not pursuing pork-barrel spending (something Obama has only just recently decided he would be about for a few months after 4 years and nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel spending alone!) Imagine Palin presiding over Congress (despite what Biden says about the role of the Vice President, the Constitution says that the Vice President is the "President of the Senate": http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Vice_President.htm) Understand that Palin led her state into a momentum of change toward responsible spending and governance. Within the scope of Congress I have no doubt that she would lead our Congress toward the right spirit of change and into a fiscally responsible direction (more than anyone else.) Palin has proven experience and undeniable success in this area of governance and would be poised and emplowered by the Constitution to lead all 535 people in the U.S. Congress.
I would say that in my short voting history I feel more educated on the history and plans of the Democrat and Republican candidates now as compared to any other election. Like nearly everyone else at first I went with my gut and conservative nature supporting McCain. But now, based on my research of the major issues of these candidates pasts (voting histories as well as experience), getting an understanding of their proposed presidential goals, as well as following the trending and life of their campaigns, I can now say with all confidence that John McCain seems both the most reasonable and experienced candidate.
When investing toward retirement you are always told to make measured investments that are a balanced mix of conservative low risk and higher yield, high risk. The reason they say this is because the conservative low risk base investment will help you ride the ups and downs of the inevitable high-risk losses that might occur. This is why so many are in a panic over the stock market right now. The risk was obviously too high for too many and now that it is crashing, reasonable people are weighing the fact that they put too much of their investment in the high-risk bucket. At this stage of our economy Obama's inexperience coupled with his list of inexperienced "change"equals high risk. I think that in better days we as a nation could throw more into a high-risk set of change goals, but what our nation needs is stability. I am not willing to play with those outcomes at this point. Having said that, change is inevitable, so I am speaking to the kind of change that Obama envisions. A simple example of this change would be the inevitable changing of the guard within the government financial leadership in a transition to an Obama administration. Market speculation is already saying that this transition equals risk and an inevitable downturn (again) of our markets. Forgetting lack of experience and character issues, we can't afford Obama on this issue alone.
Having shared there thoughts, here is the letter I gave to the person I mentioned above, in response to the letter he said he sent to McCain. please, consider the points in this letter as you think about the coming election:
I read your note and appreciate you putting thought into the letter, but my hope is that you gain a greater understanding of the actual voting history (in Illinois and Washington) of Obama before you actually vote. I understand that most folks feel strongly at this point about their candidate of choice, but it is never too late to examine the history and character of the candidates within the context of their campaign promises. For example, I think Obama gets a lot of credit for:
- Obama wants to reform Washington.
- Obama wants to implement power in Washington to the benefit of main street.
- Obama wants to tax the the rich and give to the poor.
- Obama wants to legislate medical benefits.
- Obama will get us out of Iraq.
Things to consider when thinking about the above statements (item for item):
- He and the 110th Congress were elected on the same campaign for change and reform (this is a redu of that same campaign.) The 110th Congress will go down in history as the "do nothing" Congress with a larger disapproval rating than President G.W. Bush. If we vote for this same campaign again and expect something different than the change Obama didn't ever try to do in the 110th Congress (he didn't lead a single effort for change in the 110th) then we end up being the fools. Fools, not because we didn't rightly want change. We would be fools for voting twice for a campaign that yielded nothing close to the promised result the first time.
- Obama said this same thing in Illinois when he was elected. And people thought he was going to deliver good change to the benefit of the people on main street. As a result he gave millions of government dollars to the public sector to build "affordable housing" in Chicago. It sounds good if you don't examine the outcomes. The results were the largest slums in Chicago many of which are now condemned. Many of those slumlord are in the middle of lawsuits or in Prison. Some of the others are working for Obama's campaign. I can share the stories from the Chicago Tribune. There were other write-ups in the Boston Globe that followed the story from the main streets where this craziness happened all the way to re-employing those corrupt private sector real estate developers into seats in his campaign.
- I think we all agree that we should be helping those who are less fortunate. I am not a fan of the concept of "redistribution of wealth." The most writing on the values of redistribution of wealth as a government concept are found in socialist manifestos, and unfortunately those examples didn't work out very well either. It seems that Americans are willing to help each other out each year by giving billions of dollars philanthropically. My concern with the sensibility of Obama's hopes is that if we leave it to the government to create new situations that care for our neighbors, then we won't do it ourselves. A study not to long ago showed that conservative people give more (financially and of themselves) than liberals. Why? The study asked why and it said that liberals feel that their taxes take care of philanthropy through entitlement programs. But even Obama admits those programs are failing. It just doesn't seem like "good" or "change" to take a failing program and throw more money at it. If he throws money at it like he did in Illinois, then those tax dollars will just go into the hands of federal slumlords rather than just the ones he previously knew in Illinois. Some people even think his law experience was good legal experience and philanthropic because it was a non-profit law firm he worked for (some don't even know about that.) The truth is that his firm was the group that got those slumlords the government dollars. As a lawyer he worked to get government funding for those slumlords and later those slumlords helped him get elected to the Illinois State senate. A number of them continue to work for his campaign today. I know we want change, bu I cannot believe this is the kind of change we want.
- In the very early 1900s federal taxes were made into law by the 16th Amendment. Under President W. Wilson they were used to provided funding for World War I. Before 1913 the U.S. Congress tried to pass federal tax rulings a number of times, but it was always deemed unconstitutional. So Congress had to amend the constitution to make it possible. Jump forward about 100 years and now according to Senator Joe Biden, paying taxes is "our American duty" and "patriotic." Federal taxes are reaching deeper into our pockets compared to many other countries and compared to our rich American history. A UK Paper recently told of companies that were moving out of countries where the corporate taxes were incredibly high compared to other mature developed nations. America was very near the top of that list of nations with already high corporate taxes. Somehow over the last 100 years and our countries ability to forget the fate and facts that have befallen many a socialist governments across the planet, it makes no sense in any shape or form to grow a form of government using a form of taxation that only 100 years ago was considered unconstitutional by our legal system as well as Congress itself.
- Obama talks a lot about getting out of Iraq. And I hear many, many people talk about "warmongers" and contrast Obama with those war-mongers. The problem is that Obama hasn't kept his plans and promises on any front of the Iraq war yet, and he is already talking about moving troops to other regions of the world. Obama is using the momentum of anger around Iraq to simply split hairs between him and McCain. Fundamentally Obama's plan now looks each day more and more like McCains plan. If you were to draw a diagram plotting Obama on the far left side of the "Iraq plan" and McCain on the far right side, what you would see is Obama progressively looking more and more like McCain every day.
In conclusion, in almost all of his plans outside of the plans that are traditionally held Democrat perspectives, Obama has shifted toward McCain along a diagrammatic scale and typically in response to either something McCain has said (as if Obama is learning how to be presidential from McCain while on the campaign trail) or due to some new revelation about some person in his life or campaign that is revealed as problematic or un-American (examples are: Robert Malley who has terrorist ties in the middle east, Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin who helps architect the deregulation of wall street, his pastor of 20 years and "spiritual mentor" Dr. Wright who has given awards to Farrakhan, Illinois slumlord Tony Rezko in prison for his real estate scandals and who helps Obama buy his personal home, Vallerie Jarret who is another Slumlord in Illinois and a part of Obama's campaign, Mr. Raines who was sought for advice by the Obama campaign and who is an ex-Fannie Mae CEO who was successfully sued for millions for financial fraud.
Again, I agree we need change. So, why not vote for McCain who has an actual track record of pursuing change regardless of what hot water he find himself in inside his own political party? Why not vote for McCain who has a 20+ year record of not pursuing pork-barrel spending (something Obama has only just recently decided he would be about for a few months after 4 years and nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel spending alone!) Imagine Palin presiding over Congress (despite what Biden says about the role of the Vice President, the Constitution says that the Vice President is the "President of the Senate": http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Vice_President.htm) Understand that Palin led her state into a momentum of change toward responsible spending and governance. Within the scope of Congress I have no doubt that she would lead our Congress toward the right spirit of change and into a fiscally responsible direction (more than anyone else.) Palin has proven experience and undeniable success in this area of governance and would be poised and emplowered by the Constitution to lead all 535 people in the U.S. Congress.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Example of Rhetoric Versus Evidence
In my heart I really don't think that people get the difference between rhetoric and evidence. Let me show an example.
I am having a conversation today with a Democrat that is personally involved in politics (and has been for a long time.) He is throwing around a lot of conclusions and when I ask him for some evidence so we can consider that evidence with him he replies...
"The reason we cannot vote for McCain is because it was their de-regulation in Congress that is making main street poorer and making Bush Republicans richer and we MUST NOT ALLOW THAT ANYMORE!"
He looks around the room with a smile, eyes chasing for support of this statement. I replied, "Well, that is a conclusion, but isn't evidence. It makes an assumption of evidence but it doesn't contain anything but a conclusion and an assumption. For example, evidence does tell us that the deregulation of wall street with regard to the mortgage crisis started with President Carter in a federal mandate to the banking industry to make mortgages more affordable. It was under the administration of Clinton that wall street was de-regulated so that banks could sell the interest from mortgage loans as if they were stocks, and it was a lack of voting for the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act co-authored by McCain that kept us in harms way since 2003. Those are published facts. Maybe there are more facts to be considered, but those are facts. From those facts we should be able to conclude that it isn't the fault of "Bush Republicans." Here are some additional facts. Under Clinton, guys like Rubin, Summers (co-authors of the deregulation) and Fannie Mae executive Reines have profited from that same deregulation. So clearly "Bush Republicans" weren't the only people getting richer. In fact Fannie Mae's second largest recipient of campaign contributions is Barack Obama, and Obama has in one way or the other asked for help or retained the help of these Democrats who de-regulated wall street, which means that Obama is interested in seeking the council of the architects of the deregulation and profiteering of wall street and the mortgage situation on main street. How does this support your view?"
All of this said, people are not willing to review or even tollerate the facts. They seem to rather want to fill their pockets with the rhetoric of generalized stereotypical blame that says that Republicans are bad for various reasons. It is evident to me that if Obama were to become president that this level of introspection (or lack thereof) would likely continue and blameshifting through stereotypes would continue. I would give anything for someone to review the facts as a Democrat and explain how their paradigm fits in with this history (either minimize it in a reasonable manner or produce facts that bring a more whole perspective.) Instead I am left hopeless, imagining that they would rather simply not really care about this stuff and ride their horse to the whitehouse in November.
To me, this sticking your head in the stand to a degree is starting to feel pretty un-American. Other folks I have worked with have brought up stuff they have heard about McCain or Palin and we are able to talk about their strengths and weaknesses (we did do that for a very long time where I work.) I am starting to feel like Obama folks would rather just vote him into office rather than look at the details. I would rather be brought evidence from Democrats and then we would all be forced to consider a more complete perspective rather than just reduce this whole thing to something less than reasonable.
I am having a conversation today with a Democrat that is personally involved in politics (and has been for a long time.) He is throwing around a lot of conclusions and when I ask him for some evidence so we can consider that evidence with him he replies...
"The reason we cannot vote for McCain is because it was their de-regulation in Congress that is making main street poorer and making Bush Republicans richer and we MUST NOT ALLOW THAT ANYMORE!"
He looks around the room with a smile, eyes chasing for support of this statement. I replied, "Well, that is a conclusion, but isn't evidence. It makes an assumption of evidence but it doesn't contain anything but a conclusion and an assumption. For example, evidence does tell us that the deregulation of wall street with regard to the mortgage crisis started with President Carter in a federal mandate to the banking industry to make mortgages more affordable. It was under the administration of Clinton that wall street was de-regulated so that banks could sell the interest from mortgage loans as if they were stocks, and it was a lack of voting for the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act co-authored by McCain that kept us in harms way since 2003. Those are published facts. Maybe there are more facts to be considered, but those are facts. From those facts we should be able to conclude that it isn't the fault of "Bush Republicans." Here are some additional facts. Under Clinton, guys like Rubin, Summers (co-authors of the deregulation) and Fannie Mae executive Reines have profited from that same deregulation. So clearly "Bush Republicans" weren't the only people getting richer. In fact Fannie Mae's second largest recipient of campaign contributions is Barack Obama, and Obama has in one way or the other asked for help or retained the help of these Democrats who de-regulated wall street, which means that Obama is interested in seeking the council of the architects of the deregulation and profiteering of wall street and the mortgage situation on main street. How does this support your view?"
All of this said, people are not willing to review or even tollerate the facts. They seem to rather want to fill their pockets with the rhetoric of generalized stereotypical blame that says that Republicans are bad for various reasons. It is evident to me that if Obama were to become president that this level of introspection (or lack thereof) would likely continue and blameshifting through stereotypes would continue. I would give anything for someone to review the facts as a Democrat and explain how their paradigm fits in with this history (either minimize it in a reasonable manner or produce facts that bring a more whole perspective.) Instead I am left hopeless, imagining that they would rather simply not really care about this stuff and ride their horse to the whitehouse in November.
To me, this sticking your head in the stand to a degree is starting to feel pretty un-American. Other folks I have worked with have brought up stuff they have heard about McCain or Palin and we are able to talk about their strengths and weaknesses (we did do that for a very long time where I work.) I am starting to feel like Obama folks would rather just vote him into office rather than look at the details. I would rather be brought evidence from Democrats and then we would all be forced to consider a more complete perspective rather than just reduce this whole thing to something less than reasonable.
Help for understanding to current financial crisis
If you are like me at all then you might have some understanding of what connects the crash of wall street to mortgages on main street. But my understanding ended with the basic connections of mortgage lending and wall street deregulation. I surely didn't come to any understanding of why we are in the situation we are in, which is important. Surely, I think we all agree that we don't want to see fat-cat financial people ride the bailout and get more rich on the crushed backs of main street folks who are sitting under the weight of unmanageable prime rate mortgages!
(Read the rest of this below before watching the video)
Lately I have heard politicians from every side of these issues say that we shouldn't worry about pointing fingers but rather get down to solving this. I would mostly agree with that, the point being that first and foremost we should be trying to solve the problem. But the fact remains that we need to understand the problem to find our way out of it. I think most would agree. Pointing the finger is only as relevant as the likely hood that the same players would do the same thing again. In that case, it is worth knowing who the players are and what they did.
This video I am including here outlines the causes of the crisis and doesn't oversimplify the nature of it (as you can imagine this has been on the brew for some time now.) In fact recently a number of analysts are saying that the "bubble burst" about a year and a half ago, but this is such a large bubble that we are only now JUST BEGINNING to feel the outcome of it.
As an interesting side note, we can now see without a doubt that we live in a global economy. Markets across the planet are crashing with the exception of the Asian markets and that is largely due to a combination of global market factor like competitiveness as well as directly connected market factors, like trade. As an American, I can say that one thing about this crisis is true. The government bailout only takes the gears of the financial machine our of virtual gridlock. It is the average main street American that still has to make good decisions to invest in our economy over the next years to see us climb out of this hole we are in.
Check out the video. I think it will be enlightening. (I am sure there will be other videos that more people will make.) Thanks Jeff, for pointing me toward this video. I think that it is the most complete summary to date.
(Read the rest of this below before watching the video)
Lately I have heard politicians from every side of these issues say that we shouldn't worry about pointing fingers but rather get down to solving this. I would mostly agree with that, the point being that first and foremost we should be trying to solve the problem. But the fact remains that we need to understand the problem to find our way out of it. I think most would agree. Pointing the finger is only as relevant as the likely hood that the same players would do the same thing again. In that case, it is worth knowing who the players are and what they did.
This video I am including here outlines the causes of the crisis and doesn't oversimplify the nature of it (as you can imagine this has been on the brew for some time now.) In fact recently a number of analysts are saying that the "bubble burst" about a year and a half ago, but this is such a large bubble that we are only now JUST BEGINNING to feel the outcome of it.
As an interesting side note, we can now see without a doubt that we live in a global economy. Markets across the planet are crashing with the exception of the Asian markets and that is largely due to a combination of global market factor like competitiveness as well as directly connected market factors, like trade. As an American, I can say that one thing about this crisis is true. The government bailout only takes the gears of the financial machine our of virtual gridlock. It is the average main street American that still has to make good decisions to invest in our economy over the next years to see us climb out of this hole we are in.
Check out the video. I think it will be enlightening. (I am sure there will be other videos that more people will make.) Thanks Jeff, for pointing me toward this video. I think that it is the most complete summary to date.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Obama avoids making judgments or makes poor ones
(UPDATE: I have updated this blog post to included links to sources on most of this critical voter information, to help you with your political research.)
In the first presidential debate, Obama accused McCain of making poor judgments about Iraq, saying that he made the right ones. Unfortunately he is leaving out a few facts.
When Obama made statements about iraq in 2002, he wasn't in Congress... he was in Illinois. he also made those statements in a speech to unquestionably the most liberal audience / district in his campaigning area, hence nothing other than a liberal message could have been well received. how do we know this Obama judgement on Iraq is pandering? Well, mostly because in 2004 he told the ChicagoTribune that "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." and in 2006 he said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices." What does this mean? It means that he is at best shooting from the hip, pandering, and then being revisionistic when momentum and new information benefits him.
So what of his other judgements? Let's take a look at his time as an Illinois State Senator.
Is Obama a brave soul that sticks to his position on the tough issues? Well, we know when we look at his constantly shifting positions on Middle East issues that he has a hard time knowing what we as a nation really need to do. EVERYONE AGREES that we don't want to be at or in war. Obama just can't seem figure out if Hillary was too weak on the issue (he said her timeline was too long) or if he should adopt more of her "weak" perspective now that he is the Democrat nomination for President (his plan now look more like hers than his.) He can't figure out if McCain is a warmonger who doesn't know how to do diplomacy, or if he is the warmonger who doesn't know how to do diplomacy rather than drop bombs (to chase terrorists) on Pakistan without their support.
Maybe we should break it down to something more simple. What if Obama is trying to look tough on crime, but doesn't want to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults for fear of offending some consituents? What should he do? I can only tell you what he did. He did the same thing that the 110th “do nothing” Congress did about wall street... he didn't vote. In fact, when the vote came around he voted “present” communicating, “Hey, I am hear, but I am politically scared to vote, so I won't.” What was the bill really about: It was about prosecuting 15+ year old kids who committed a crime with a firearm on or near school grounds. If it was the right thing to do, why didn't he vote for it? Likewise, if it was right to vote against it, then why didn't he? We will never know because he didn't have the courage to be counted either way.
Don't even get me started on the fact that Obama has given a horrible list of excuses why Obama was continually unwilling to support a bill in Illinois that would require doctors to give life-saving medical services to babies that survive an abortion. Google that one yourself... it is actually pretty sad stuff. Worse yet, again, after making a bunch of excuses why he wouldn't vote for it, he wasn't actually convicted enough to vote (again.)
Bill Burton, an Obama spokesperson, said of Obama, “No politically motivated attacks in the 11th hour of a closely contested campaign can erase a record of leadership and courage.” I agree. It is too bad for Obama that he doesn't actually have a track record like that. In fact Obama proved that he didn't have the courage to vote 130 times as a state senator in Illinois alone!
But what about other types of judgements? Surely, with an undebatable significant lack of experience, he would at least surround himself with the right people (I hear this all of the time as an excuse to forgive his lack of experience)? Well, let's meet some friends of Obama.
First there is Robert Malley (his father was associated with Arafat and the PLO.) Robert himself has written a number of articles and made statements that put him squarely in a position of weakening the American support of Israel through revisionist propoganda during the Clinton days and since. Even Clinton disagreed with Robert Malley's perspective on Israel killing peace talks between Palestine and Israel. At one point Arafat called Clinton to tell him he was a great man (after a peace talk.) Clinton replied to Arafat, “No, I'm not. On this i am a failure, and you made me a failure.” So Robert's dad would be a horrible choice but is Robert himself a horrible choice with a fairly horrible bias in the wrong direction. I mean, Obama had selected this guy to be on his foreign policy team. THEN Robert Malley admitted to The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, a terrorist organization. He claimed that he does peace talk work with them, but if you read his track-record on treating Israel like a whipping-boy and look at the politics of his father, it is obvious that his Hamas connection is questionable at best. The news came out about Robert Malley and suddenly now Obama fires him. What kind of judgment and leadership is this?
Biden has taken campaign contributions from credit company MBNA, consulting pay from them and has gotten one of his kids a job with them after graduation all while a senator participating in working on bills that gave benefits to the company. In addition and directly related to the current issues on wall street Obama is the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. If all we were talking about was Fannie Mae we would see enough lies coming from Obama to call him a liar and “scary.” (1) Again, he is in second place for receiving the most campaign contributions from FanMae and FredMac, second only to another Democrat, (2) He's had four years of a voting majority in Congress to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hasn't done anything. In fact, if this was so important to him, why didn't he push to get the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act (bill co-sponsored by McCain) passed? Answer: because he is too busy letting the majority Democrats telling him how to vote (not a leader; he's a follower simply voting the Democrat party line), (3) his campaign DID INFACT pursue advice on mortgage and policy issues from Franklin Raines, the defunked CEO of Fannie Mae, who pulled down $90 million for five years of work at FanMae, later successfully sued for millions because he committed financial fraud to get bonuses. Now, all of this news hits the fan, the truth about Raines comes out, and Obama has once again bailed from the connection (seeing a pattern here? I think he imagines that if he gets exposed all he has to do is disassociated himself, and then we are supposed to forget his bad judgments.)
Consider that the deregulation of Wall street was architected in a large part by Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, financial advisers in the Clinton administration, the deregulation signed by Clinton (let me say that again so it is clear - wall street was deregulated using a plan architected by and during the Clinton Democrat Administration.) So the big issue that Obama has with deregulation of wall street ENDS UP BEING a Clinton era result... but wait, there's more!? Those same guys (Rubin and Summers) right now continue to be financial advisers for Obama... Hmmm? So is this whole wall street thing really a Republican thing by people like John McCain as said by Obama to McCain in the first Presidential debate? Come on. Lies and more rhetoric. More revisions Obama, really? I am geting a little tired of it (as you can imagine.)
His pastor had some harsh stuff to say earlier this year consisting of a completely un-American sermon asking God to damn America (that is no joke. The sermon was called for his congregation to ask "God (to) Damn America"). Keeping things real, Obama attended his church for 20 years and called him his “spiritual advisor.” During that 20 years his church published a magazine titled “Trumpet Newsmagazine” where they gave the Dr. Jeremiah A Wright Jr Trumpeter Award to a man they said “truely epitomized greatness,” Louis Farrakhan. What? FARRAKHAN!? Farrakhan is an anti-semite and is full of hate-speak!!! So, staying true to form, when all of this comes into the light, what does he do? Obama suddenly withdraws himself from his spiritual leader of 20 years. Now, I don't think for a minute that Obama likely agreed with everything that Dr. Wright has said, but it is amazing to me the list of people by which Obama seems to surround himself. Is this good judgment?
Who else does Obama hang out with. Let's talk about radical William Ayers who's group (led by him in the 1960s, Ayers' Weathermen) took credit for bombings at the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol four decades ago. He, Obama, chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge co-founded by Ayers. Ah, but maybe that means he really doesn't know Ayers right? Wrong. Ayers threw him a “meet-the-candidate” party IN HIS HOME when he first ran for a political seat in the mid 1990s. Don't kid yourself. They are connected.
Let's make the count so far: Pandering over Iraq, dodging his senatorial responsibility to vote because the issues were tough (how presidential is that?), associated with some of the more scandelous part of the deregulation of wall street, selected someone connected with the Hamas terrorist organization to be a part of his campaign, personal friend to an American terrorist that bombed the U.S. Capitol. This should be enough for a reasonable person to say, "Who is this guy?" and some of you should be asking yourselves, "Why am I thinking of voting for this guy?" Maybe at this point you are still thinking that Obama himself is not corrupt or given to using his political authority in corrupt ways with personal relationships that affect the average mainstreet person in a negative way? Keep reading.
What about the current bailout plan in D.C? I think people are upset that this is happening, but feel like something needed to be done. At the same time there is a lot of talk about how that money might go to people on wall street and not help people on mainstreet. Obama banged on this drum, right? In fact Obama said it reminds him of the S&L bailout in the 1980s and claimed, “our economy went into a recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?” How insightful of Obama. Typically I don't give him credit because I don't think he has much proven understanding or experience. In this case he does actually have some experience. Too bad it is on the wrong side (wait for it!) As a State Senator in Springfield, Illinois, he used his elected office and clout to help unscrupulous low-income slumlords like Tony Rezko get millions of dollars in state grants, that later turned into uninhabitable “projects.” When Obama was questioned about giving millions of tax dollars to these crooks who were claiming to solve housing issues on mainstreet, he said he believed in programs where public funds back private companies to develop housing.... what? Wait a minute? I thought privatization was evil according to Obama, and was going to fix this sort of thing? Worse yet, as president he is talking about building a fund that pushes more than half a billion tax payers dollars PER YEAR into the hands of guys like Tony Rezko who are going to continue to NOT build affordable (rather uninhabitable) housing for mainstreet. Wow, he doesn't know what he is doing, even after he does it!? How do I know this?
How do I know he hasn't learned anything from this? Well, because Valerie Jarrett the previous chief executive of Habitat Company (the group that managed Grove Parc, the worst of these uninhabitable housing “projects”) is a senior adviser to Obama and a part of his Finance committee. He wasn't kidding when he told the country that his lack of experience didn't matter. It appears that a lack of experience or even the wrong kind of experiences still seem to make for good qualifications to join his campaign in high seated places.
What about Allison Davis, fund raiser for Obama and a lead partner at his lawfirm in Illinois? Well, ends up she is not just a lawyer, she is a real estate developer as well, and was not only involved with Grove Parc but is the recipient of more Government money to rehabilitate her slumlord property where the plumbing was in such disrepair that raw human feces sludged it's way into her uninhabitable "mainstreet" apartments.
Who is Tony Rezko really, you ask? He is one of those other fundraisers for Obama. You see he knows people who like what Obama has to say (and are likely waiting to receive part of that cool half a billion a year grant for housing once he is elected) and so he raises money to get and keep him elected. Rezko has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama, and that money comes from guys like Cecil Butler, who controlled Lawndale Restoration, unquestionably one of THE largest government subsidized slumlord in Chicago. With no surprise the government (reminder: Obama = Illinois Government) had to eventually seize Lawndale Restoration when city inspectors found around 2000 code violations on his property. So pay these guys to build this crap, then take their campaign contributions, and then the taxpayers have to pay to seize the housing once it is uninhabitable. Nice Obama! Wow!
But don't forget about that darn Tony Rezko! I wonder what Tony would say about his connection to such slimy folks who were ready and did provide campaign funds for Obama? Well, the only way of knowing would require you to call up the prison where he now resides and see if you can get him on the phone to find out. Better yet, I wonder what Obama would say of his relationship to Rezko? Well, you would have to call Obama up in the house that Tony sold him. Ouch!
Updated: Let me make one more connection for you. I have heard a lot of people talking about how Obamas law experiences someone how pushes him over the top in terms of having special qualifications. Upon further investigation, the lawfirm we were led to believe was all non-profit nearly philanthropic in the end simply specialized in getting real estate grant contracts from the government for people like Tony Rezko. Are you putting it together? If this were a movie, his firm would have been the slimball lawyers working for the slumlords that didn't have the mainstreet folks best interests at heart. It is amazing how in the face of these undeniable facts about corruption, that Obama comes away unscathed by the press. It might be one thing if he was out there trying to fix the messes of these people. Instead, he financed them, and they threw parties for him and gave him money! Enough is enough!
To read more about the validity of this Obama / Rezko fiacso read these:
In the first presidential debate, Obama accused McCain of making poor judgments about Iraq, saying that he made the right ones. Unfortunately he is leaving out a few facts.
When Obama made statements about iraq in 2002, he wasn't in Congress... he was in Illinois. he also made those statements in a speech to unquestionably the most liberal audience / district in his campaigning area, hence nothing other than a liberal message could have been well received. how do we know this Obama judgement on Iraq is pandering? Well, mostly because in 2004 he told the ChicagoTribune that "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." and in 2006 he said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices." What does this mean? It means that he is at best shooting from the hip, pandering, and then being revisionistic when momentum and new information benefits him.
So what of his other judgements? Let's take a look at his time as an Illinois State Senator.
Is Obama a brave soul that sticks to his position on the tough issues? Well, we know when we look at his constantly shifting positions on Middle East issues that he has a hard time knowing what we as a nation really need to do. EVERYONE AGREES that we don't want to be at or in war. Obama just can't seem figure out if Hillary was too weak on the issue (he said her timeline was too long) or if he should adopt more of her "weak" perspective now that he is the Democrat nomination for President (his plan now look more like hers than his.) He can't figure out if McCain is a warmonger who doesn't know how to do diplomacy, or if he is the warmonger who doesn't know how to do diplomacy rather than drop bombs (to chase terrorists) on Pakistan without their support.
Maybe we should break it down to something more simple. What if Obama is trying to look tough on crime, but doesn't want to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults for fear of offending some consituents? What should he do? I can only tell you what he did. He did the same thing that the 110th “do nothing” Congress did about wall street... he didn't vote. In fact, when the vote came around he voted “present” communicating, “Hey, I am hear, but I am politically scared to vote, so I won't.” What was the bill really about: It was about prosecuting 15+ year old kids who committed a crime with a firearm on or near school grounds. If it was the right thing to do, why didn't he vote for it? Likewise, if it was right to vote against it, then why didn't he? We will never know because he didn't have the courage to be counted either way.
Don't even get me started on the fact that Obama has given a horrible list of excuses why Obama was continually unwilling to support a bill in Illinois that would require doctors to give life-saving medical services to babies that survive an abortion. Google that one yourself... it is actually pretty sad stuff. Worse yet, again, after making a bunch of excuses why he wouldn't vote for it, he wasn't actually convicted enough to vote (again.)
Bill Burton, an Obama spokesperson, said of Obama, “No politically motivated attacks in the 11th hour of a closely contested campaign can erase a record of leadership and courage.” I agree. It is too bad for Obama that he doesn't actually have a track record like that. In fact Obama proved that he didn't have the courage to vote 130 times as a state senator in Illinois alone!
But what about other types of judgements? Surely, with an undebatable significant lack of experience, he would at least surround himself with the right people (I hear this all of the time as an excuse to forgive his lack of experience)? Well, let's meet some friends of Obama.
First there is Robert Malley (his father was associated with Arafat and the PLO.) Robert himself has written a number of articles and made statements that put him squarely in a position of weakening the American support of Israel through revisionist propoganda during the Clinton days and since. Even Clinton disagreed with Robert Malley's perspective on Israel killing peace talks between Palestine and Israel. At one point Arafat called Clinton to tell him he was a great man (after a peace talk.) Clinton replied to Arafat, “No, I'm not. On this i am a failure, and you made me a failure.” So Robert's dad would be a horrible choice but is Robert himself a horrible choice with a fairly horrible bias in the wrong direction. I mean, Obama had selected this guy to be on his foreign policy team. THEN Robert Malley admitted to The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, a terrorist organization. He claimed that he does peace talk work with them, but if you read his track-record on treating Israel like a whipping-boy and look at the politics of his father, it is obvious that his Hamas connection is questionable at best. The news came out about Robert Malley and suddenly now Obama fires him. What kind of judgment and leadership is this?
Biden has taken campaign contributions from credit company MBNA, consulting pay from them and has gotten one of his kids a job with them after graduation all while a senator participating in working on bills that gave benefits to the company. In addition and directly related to the current issues on wall street Obama is the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. If all we were talking about was Fannie Mae we would see enough lies coming from Obama to call him a liar and “scary.” (1) Again, he is in second place for receiving the most campaign contributions from FanMae and FredMac, second only to another Democrat, (2) He's had four years of a voting majority in Congress to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hasn't done anything. In fact, if this was so important to him, why didn't he push to get the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act (bill co-sponsored by McCain) passed? Answer: because he is too busy letting the majority Democrats telling him how to vote (not a leader; he's a follower simply voting the Democrat party line), (3) his campaign DID INFACT pursue advice on mortgage and policy issues from Franklin Raines, the defunked CEO of Fannie Mae, who pulled down $90 million for five years of work at FanMae, later successfully sued for millions because he committed financial fraud to get bonuses. Now, all of this news hits the fan, the truth about Raines comes out, and Obama has once again bailed from the connection (seeing a pattern here? I think he imagines that if he gets exposed all he has to do is disassociated himself, and then we are supposed to forget his bad judgments.)
Consider that the deregulation of Wall street was architected in a large part by Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, financial advisers in the Clinton administration, the deregulation signed by Clinton (let me say that again so it is clear - wall street was deregulated using a plan architected by and during the Clinton Democrat Administration.) So the big issue that Obama has with deregulation of wall street ENDS UP BEING a Clinton era result... but wait, there's more!? Those same guys (Rubin and Summers) right now continue to be financial advisers for Obama... Hmmm? So is this whole wall street thing really a Republican thing by people like John McCain as said by Obama to McCain in the first Presidential debate? Come on. Lies and more rhetoric. More revisions Obama, really? I am geting a little tired of it (as you can imagine.)
His pastor had some harsh stuff to say earlier this year consisting of a completely un-American sermon asking God to damn America (that is no joke. The sermon was called for his congregation to ask "God (to) Damn America"). Keeping things real, Obama attended his church for 20 years and called him his “spiritual advisor.” During that 20 years his church published a magazine titled “Trumpet Newsmagazine” where they gave the Dr. Jeremiah A Wright Jr Trumpeter Award to a man they said “truely epitomized greatness,” Louis Farrakhan. What? FARRAKHAN!? Farrakhan is an anti-semite and is full of hate-speak!!! So, staying true to form, when all of this comes into the light, what does he do? Obama suddenly withdraws himself from his spiritual leader of 20 years. Now, I don't think for a minute that Obama likely agreed with everything that Dr. Wright has said, but it is amazing to me the list of people by which Obama seems to surround himself. Is this good judgment?
Who else does Obama hang out with. Let's talk about radical William Ayers who's group (led by him in the 1960s, Ayers' Weathermen) took credit for bombings at the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol four decades ago. He, Obama, chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge co-founded by Ayers. Ah, but maybe that means he really doesn't know Ayers right? Wrong. Ayers threw him a “meet-the-candidate” party IN HIS HOME when he first ran for a political seat in the mid 1990s. Don't kid yourself. They are connected.
Let's make the count so far: Pandering over Iraq, dodging his senatorial responsibility to vote because the issues were tough (how presidential is that?), associated with some of the more scandelous part of the deregulation of wall street, selected someone connected with the Hamas terrorist organization to be a part of his campaign, personal friend to an American terrorist that bombed the U.S. Capitol. This should be enough for a reasonable person to say, "Who is this guy?" and some of you should be asking yourselves, "Why am I thinking of voting for this guy?" Maybe at this point you are still thinking that Obama himself is not corrupt or given to using his political authority in corrupt ways with personal relationships that affect the average mainstreet person in a negative way? Keep reading.
What about the current bailout plan in D.C? I think people are upset that this is happening, but feel like something needed to be done. At the same time there is a lot of talk about how that money might go to people on wall street and not help people on mainstreet. Obama banged on this drum, right? In fact Obama said it reminds him of the S&L bailout in the 1980s and claimed, “our economy went into a recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?” How insightful of Obama. Typically I don't give him credit because I don't think he has much proven understanding or experience. In this case he does actually have some experience. Too bad it is on the wrong side (wait for it!) As a State Senator in Springfield, Illinois, he used his elected office and clout to help unscrupulous low-income slumlords like Tony Rezko get millions of dollars in state grants, that later turned into uninhabitable “projects.” When Obama was questioned about giving millions of tax dollars to these crooks who were claiming to solve housing issues on mainstreet, he said he believed in programs where public funds back private companies to develop housing.... what? Wait a minute? I thought privatization was evil according to Obama, and was going to fix this sort of thing? Worse yet, as president he is talking about building a fund that pushes more than half a billion tax payers dollars PER YEAR into the hands of guys like Tony Rezko who are going to continue to NOT build affordable (rather uninhabitable) housing for mainstreet. Wow, he doesn't know what he is doing, even after he does it!? How do I know this?
How do I know he hasn't learned anything from this? Well, because Valerie Jarrett the previous chief executive of Habitat Company (the group that managed Grove Parc, the worst of these uninhabitable housing “projects”) is a senior adviser to Obama and a part of his Finance committee. He wasn't kidding when he told the country that his lack of experience didn't matter. It appears that a lack of experience or even the wrong kind of experiences still seem to make for good qualifications to join his campaign in high seated places.
What about Allison Davis, fund raiser for Obama and a lead partner at his lawfirm in Illinois? Well, ends up she is not just a lawyer, she is a real estate developer as well, and was not only involved with Grove Parc but is the recipient of more Government money to rehabilitate her slumlord property where the plumbing was in such disrepair that raw human feces sludged it's way into her uninhabitable "mainstreet" apartments.
Who is Tony Rezko really, you ask? He is one of those other fundraisers for Obama. You see he knows people who like what Obama has to say (and are likely waiting to receive part of that cool half a billion a year grant for housing once he is elected) and so he raises money to get and keep him elected. Rezko has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama, and that money comes from guys like Cecil Butler, who controlled Lawndale Restoration, unquestionably one of THE largest government subsidized slumlord in Chicago. With no surprise the government (reminder: Obama = Illinois Government) had to eventually seize Lawndale Restoration when city inspectors found around 2000 code violations on his property. So pay these guys to build this crap, then take their campaign contributions, and then the taxpayers have to pay to seize the housing once it is uninhabitable. Nice Obama! Wow!
But don't forget about that darn Tony Rezko! I wonder what Tony would say about his connection to such slimy folks who were ready and did provide campaign funds for Obama? Well, the only way of knowing would require you to call up the prison where he now resides and see if you can get him on the phone to find out. Better yet, I wonder what Obama would say of his relationship to Rezko? Well, you would have to call Obama up in the house that Tony sold him. Ouch!
Updated: Let me make one more connection for you. I have heard a lot of people talking about how Obamas law experiences someone how pushes him over the top in terms of having special qualifications. Upon further investigation, the lawfirm we were led to believe was all non-profit nearly philanthropic in the end simply specialized in getting real estate grant contracts from the government for people like Tony Rezko. Are you putting it together? If this were a movie, his firm would have been the slimball lawyers working for the slumlords that didn't have the mainstreet folks best interests at heart. It is amazing how in the face of these undeniable facts about corruption, that Obama comes away unscathed by the press. It might be one thing if he was out there trying to fix the messes of these people. Instead, he financed them, and they threw parties for him and gave him money! Enough is enough!
To read more about the validity of this Obama / Rezko fiacso read these:
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Palin Record on Reform (an example)
In the case that you missed it, this article outlines Palin's efforts to inspire and enact reform on key issues in Alaska.
Wallstreet Journal reports on Palin and Oil Reform for Alaska
I have noticed that in interviews with Katie C. of CBS she is working hard to confound and confuse Federal political outsider Vice Presidential candidate, Governor Palin, by asking her to answer questions as if an insider on topics that no other candidate is being ask to bring answers to (compare the kinds of questions Katie brought to Gov. Palin and compare that question list with the questions and compliments Katie brought to her interview with Sen. Biden... oh wait, you didn't even know about that fluffy pup-piece interview with Democrat Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Biden?) There will obviously be downsides to employing federal outsiders, but between her experiences in achieving reform, working with industries and other political leaders, I would rather see this outside become VP and do what she says, rather than have a president that says one thing and does another (an unchasable ubber-list of flipflops and political reinventions of his own political agenda by shifty re-word-smithing of his goals.)
Side-note:
Recently, a few new friends confided in me that they considered McCain to be truthful about what he wanted to do for the nation, but they didn't like what he wants to do so they are not voting for him. On the flipside, they said that the more recent military / economic flipflopping of Obama was likely Obama just "pandering" to look "tough" and they believe he will go back and do what he said at the beginning, so they will vote for him. When I showed them some new facts that outlined Obamas involvement with receiving benefits and seek advice from folks who are under investigation and have been conficted of shifty dealings (not unlike Enron) with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I was told that they were "all politicians and all liar." When I asked if they thought the press was being biased when they were reporting badly on McCain but not reporting on shifty Obama facts, they replied that the sentiment in the country is very anti-Bush and so it is understandable that they would want to get people to vote on a candidate that doesn't like Bush.
On the first point, I think that I can respect the notion that people might not want to vote for McCain because they don't agree with him. I don't know why they don't agree with him, but if they don't like what he stands for, I can at least see their reasoning behind not wanting to support him. Seems pretty straight forward to me. What I don't understand is why McCain and Palin are getting sifted like sand and Obama and Biden get a pass, no matter the public opinion of President Bush. Anything less than even-handedness is bias, in my opinion. If they are suppressing the Obama / Biden stories by not reporting them then they are influencing through omission.
A perfect example of this would be two interviews that Katie Curric Recently did with (1) Senator Biden and later with (2) McCain and Palin.
Check this out: Video of Katie, McCain and Palin on the issue of the press non-contextually parsing and nitpicking over words, calling it "Gotcha Journalism".
Later CBS News published an article asking if "Gotcha Journalism" was just Republican candidates wanting a double-standard.
Now, check this out: Video of Katie and Biden talking about Biden not wanting to be held to the same standard of contextually parsing and nitpicking over his words ( same as Gotcha Journalism, but without calling it Gotcha Journalism.) (it starts about one minute into the interview)
No difference! Same issue! CBS had interviewed Biden a week before they interviewed McCain and Palin. Why didn't they object to what Biden suggested in the form of an article a week earlier?
The timeline goes like this:
Even if I were to assume that Palin was making a naive statement about cross-border attacks on a country without the support of that country, the one common denominator between what she said and what Obama said is one thing: limited experience. At best, if the first were true, then the second is that much more true. The facts seem to be, however, it is a stretch to say that she said that. How do we know it is a stretch? Because even the CBS news article has to conceed that at best the similarity between what Palin said and what Obama said requires deduction, interpretation and inference stating that it was "implied."
Finally, during the coming Vice Presidential debate tonight I would like to hear what Palin and Biden think for themselves. I am less interested in what these candidates think of their running mates platform or more importantly what details they can recall on demand by the interviewer. What I would like to see happen is an honest set of questions about the key issues in America and what these candidates would personally want to see happen as a result of being elected. They were both just selected to be running mates and I expect them to be filled with personal opinions but possibly still working to find their place within the priorities of the inside view of their respective campaigns. In my opinion, this is why Biden said he didn't support "clean coal technology." He may not personally support it. My guess would be that he would be compatible with what Palin recently said about her views, that she is willing to share her views and perspective, even if that perspective ended up not being the goals of that administration. I think Biden will not agree with Obama on all points, but he will likely let Obamas goals run the administration be it elected in November. Having said that, I still want to hear what they think.
Wallstreet Journal reports on Palin and Oil Reform for Alaska
I have noticed that in interviews with Katie C. of CBS she is working hard to confound and confuse Federal political outsider Vice Presidential candidate, Governor Palin, by asking her to answer questions as if an insider on topics that no other candidate is being ask to bring answers to (compare the kinds of questions Katie brought to Gov. Palin and compare that question list with the questions and compliments Katie brought to her interview with Sen. Biden... oh wait, you didn't even know about that fluffy pup-piece interview with Democrat Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Biden?) There will obviously be downsides to employing federal outsiders, but between her experiences in achieving reform, working with industries and other political leaders, I would rather see this outside become VP and do what she says, rather than have a president that says one thing and does another (an unchasable ubber-list of flipflops and political reinventions of his own political agenda by shifty re-word-smithing of his goals.)
Side-note:
Recently, a few new friends confided in me that they considered McCain to be truthful about what he wanted to do for the nation, but they didn't like what he wants to do so they are not voting for him. On the flipside, they said that the more recent military / economic flipflopping of Obama was likely Obama just "pandering" to look "tough" and they believe he will go back and do what he said at the beginning, so they will vote for him. When I showed them some new facts that outlined Obamas involvement with receiving benefits and seek advice from folks who are under investigation and have been conficted of shifty dealings (not unlike Enron) with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I was told that they were "all politicians and all liar." When I asked if they thought the press was being biased when they were reporting badly on McCain but not reporting on shifty Obama facts, they replied that the sentiment in the country is very anti-Bush and so it is understandable that they would want to get people to vote on a candidate that doesn't like Bush.
On the first point, I think that I can respect the notion that people might not want to vote for McCain because they don't agree with him. I don't know why they don't agree with him, but if they don't like what he stands for, I can at least see their reasoning behind not wanting to support him. Seems pretty straight forward to me. What I don't understand is why McCain and Palin are getting sifted like sand and Obama and Biden get a pass, no matter the public opinion of President Bush. Anything less than even-handedness is bias, in my opinion. If they are suppressing the Obama / Biden stories by not reporting them then they are influencing through omission.
A perfect example of this would be two interviews that Katie Curric Recently did with (1) Senator Biden and later with (2) McCain and Palin.
Check this out: Video of Katie, McCain and Palin on the issue of the press non-contextually parsing and nitpicking over words, calling it "Gotcha Journalism".
Later CBS News published an article asking if "Gotcha Journalism" was just Republican candidates wanting a double-standard.
Now, check this out: Video of Katie and Biden talking about Biden not wanting to be held to the same standard of contextually parsing and nitpicking over his words ( same as Gotcha Journalism, but without calling it Gotcha Journalism.) (it starts about one minute into the interview)
No difference! Same issue! CBS had interviewed Biden a week before they interviewed McCain and Palin. Why didn't they object to what Biden suggested in the form of an article a week earlier?
The timeline goes like this:
- Katie Couric interviews Biden who says people (Republicans) shouldn't nitpick his words. He claims that he isn't going to parse his words or censor himself. -9/21/2008
- (No articles from CBS News claiming that this is a ploy for a double-standard.)
- Katie Couric interviews McCain and Palin claiming that Palins statement about not letting Al Qaeda get a foothold in Pakistan is as much a military statement in poor diplomatic form as Obama saying that he would drop bombs on Pakistan to attack Al Qaeda with or without the support of Pakistan. McCain said in reply that you don't say stuff like that and that these soundbyte grabs where there are issues with non-contextual parsing of words is in fact a lower form of journalism he is calling "Gotcha Journalism." Note that Palin's words said nothing about doing such a thing with or without the support of Pakistan like what was said by Obama. - 9/29/2008
- NOW CBS News suddenly calls this non-contextual nitpicking a plee for a double-standard by publishing an article accusing the McCain campaign of nitpicking over Senator Biden's claim that the Obama camp doesn't support "clean coal technology." - 9/29/2008
- Palin says she would definitely support cross-border attacks on Al Qaeda in Pakistan (CBS news leaves out that she said nothing about having or not having the support of Pakistan... this is called a lack of context, in my mind, and was in fact the very point McCain was making when he took exception with Obama's "with or without" the support of Pakistan statement.)
- Biden was questioned on video, asking if he supported clean coal technology and he said that they did not support clean coal technology (do we know the rest of that context? How is this non-contextual nitpicking?)
Even if I were to assume that Palin was making a naive statement about cross-border attacks on a country without the support of that country, the one common denominator between what she said and what Obama said is one thing: limited experience. At best, if the first were true, then the second is that much more true. The facts seem to be, however, it is a stretch to say that she said that. How do we know it is a stretch? Because even the CBS news article has to conceed that at best the similarity between what Palin said and what Obama said requires deduction, interpretation and inference stating that it was "implied."
Finally, during the coming Vice Presidential debate tonight I would like to hear what Palin and Biden think for themselves. I am less interested in what these candidates think of their running mates platform or more importantly what details they can recall on demand by the interviewer. What I would like to see happen is an honest set of questions about the key issues in America and what these candidates would personally want to see happen as a result of being elected. They were both just selected to be running mates and I expect them to be filled with personal opinions but possibly still working to find their place within the priorities of the inside view of their respective campaigns. In my opinion, this is why Biden said he didn't support "clean coal technology." He may not personally support it. My guess would be that he would be compatible with what Palin recently said about her views, that she is willing to share her views and perspective, even if that perspective ended up not being the goals of that administration. I think Biden will not agree with Obama on all points, but he will likely let Obamas goals run the administration be it elected in November. Having said that, I still want to hear what they think.
Obama in the middle of the Mortgage Scandal
It is becoming known, more and more, that the individuals who were largely responsible for the wallstreet deregulation plan / scandal under President Clinton, Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, are a part of the economic advising group connected with the Obama campaign. In other words, these same folks are molding and shaping the Obama perspective on the economy. What the rest of us are also learning is that Obama has more of a connection to the fiasco that is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Obama is Seeking the Advice of Fannie Mae Leadership Who are Involved in Mortgage and Financial Scandals?
The Washington Post did an interview with Franklin Raines, now in the press for receiving notoriously supersized-paychecks totally $90,000,000 for five years of work as the CEO of Fannie Mae. Raines claimed to have helped along the early days of the Obama campaign who went seeking his advice on “mortgage and policy matters.” Raines was one of three individuals providing leadership for Fannie Mae that are now involved in mortgage-related financial scandals.
In the details, the Associated Press reported that Raines, in an Enron-like scandal, and several other Fannie Mae top executives were ordered to pay nearly $31.4 million as the result of a civil lawsuit for manipulating Fannie Mae earnings so that they would receive additional pay bonuses (sound like Enron all over again?)
While is seems clear that Raines does not sit in a formal position in the Obama campaign, it is disconcerting to imagine that these are the types of people Obama advisors are reaching out to for advice. I thought it was a value of Obama to clean up such behavior in Washington, rather than reach out to it for advice?
Obama is the Second Highest Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac Recipient of Campaign Contributions?
It is no surprise then to imagine that Obama is found in the top 25 politicians to receive campaign contributions by these organizations. Of the top twenty five politicians to receive contributions, Obama ranks second from the top, behind only Christopher Dodd, the Democrat from the state of Connecticut. To be fair John McCain also received contributions. They totaled less than $21,000.
Republicans in Congress like John McCain tried to fix Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac in 2005?
As evidenced by the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, Congressional House Republicans have made attempts to fix the problems with these organizations. The bill never even came up for vote in the Senate. There is plenty of speculation as to why it didn’t come up for vote, but there isn’t a lot of understanding as to why it did not happen. What is notable is that McCain, a co-author of the Federal Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act legislation in 2005 said at that time, "For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – known as government-sponsored entities or GSEs – and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market…"
As fact-checking goes these historical revelations seem to upset the accusations of the Obama campaign to connect McCain with the deregulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It ends up that Obama has a greater conflict of interest and connection with this scandal than McCain. If you are still looking for change in America, it seems that McCain actually has a track record of seeking the kind of change that Obama talks about on one hand, but doesn’t seem to back up in the details of his Washington, DC dealings.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Bailout Shot Down BY EVERYONE
Well, not by everyone, but a majority shot the bill down. What I find surprising is the amount of spin it is getting in the press. The spin goes something like this:
"Republicans in the House of Representatives shot down the Bailout legislation causing the largest single drop on Wallstreet to date. Could this result in a modern economic depression?"
I do not want to devalue the many folks who's investments are in flux at this moment as a result, but it is just shoddy reporting to blame the Republicans. Let me explain why.
On Monday the bill was voted down in the House of Reps: True enough.
Republicans voted it down: quite true to a large degree.
Democrats voted for the bill but were squashed: Not quite true.
In the House, 133 Republicans voted against the bill, leaving 65 Republicans voting "for" the bill. That's nearly one third of all of the Republicans in the House voting "for" the bill, for the record.
At the same time, in the House, 140 Democrats voted"for" the bill, while (surprisingly we don't hear about THIS in the press) 95 voted against it. Again, more than a third of the House Democrats voted the bill DOWN.
Let's do the the math another way to keep things honest here. In the House the Democrats have 235 members. At the same time, right now there are 198 Republicans in the House. That means that Democrats comprise a bit more than half of the House. Now, I hear a rumor going around that says that to pass a Bill successfully through the House you need a 2/3rds majority. Let's imagine that this was true and so, if 65 Republicans voted for the Bill along with all of the available democrats (235) then you still only have 65% of the House, right? So that must be why the Bill was shot down. Those horrible Republicans!? Wait? Oh, it ends up you only need a majority. Wait? If the President was about to veto the Bill then you would need a 2/3rds majority to overrule the veto (now, that is where that 2/3rds rule comes into play.)
So let's consider the real facts as a result of this number crunching. Since it was Bush who presented this legislation his administration wouldn't likely fight it to hard. So he wasn't to blame... hmm? And since it only takes a simple majority to vote the bill through the House, since the Democrats comprise a solid majority (4% more than is required) that means that even if all of the Republicans simply refused to vote it shouldn't change the outcome, so they aren't to blame... hmm? In fact 36 Democrats could have voted against it, and the bill could have still passed... double-hmmm?
So who is left to blame then? Democrats anyone?
When Obama talked about Iraq in the first presidential debate he said that the real question is, "Why are we in Iraq to begin with?" Later when discussing the economy he blamed McCain for voting in favor of deregulation. So let's take a tact from Obama's playbook and ask a few similar questions.
Why is wallstreet in the position it is in, to begin with?
Well, Obama would have you believe that it is the fault of McCain. But the fact is that under the Clinton administration, financial advisors Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin architected the deregulation of Wallstreet.... under Clinton. Let's watch the timeline a little bit.
So Bush comes into office and four years later the Democrates take both the House and tied it up in the Senate. So, in Congress, the Democrats are sitting as the "king" of the proverbial "hill" and have for the past four years. How did this happen? The 110th Congressional Democrats ran an unprecidented campaign for "change" and overturned more seated Republicans to take the majority. Does a campaign for change sound familiar?
So what has happened in the last four years then? Each Congress (this is the 110th Congress of the U.S.) gets a nickname and this Congress has been called the "do nothing" Congress. Wow? Really? Campaign for change, then do nothing. Wait don't they have a majority? That is enough to push bills through, right? What happened? Who cares if Republicans all voted against their bills, how didn't they seem to get the job done? Remember, they aren't known as the "the republicans shot us down" Congress. They are the "do nothing" congress.
The 110th Congress has worked less than any Congress on record. Talk about Falling asleep at the wheel. So, then if that were true, wouldn't we be all upset about that? Well, we are. Polls show that the 110th Congress has the lowest approval rating in HISTORY. To compare it to another poll that gets a lot of press, for quite some time now, the 110th Congress has lower approval rating than President Bush. Ouch! So, should we really be blaming Republicans? Equally as important, is McCain to blame as Obama asserted?
To bring this full circle, do you know any of the names of Obama's financial economic advisors? Here are two named you might now know: Mr Summers and Mr. Rubin. So if we are pointing fingers, Mr. Obama, who is to blame again?
To be fair, Mr. Obama decided on Sunday that we shouldn't care about why we are in this situation right now, but just rather focus on fixing it. Interesting that on Friday he wants to blame McCain and when the truth comes out about Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, the Clinton Administration and his desire to take the advice of these same folks, now we should suddenly stop pointing fingers.
The voting in Congress is all about getting this bill right. Nobody wants to make the situation worse, so I am in favor of making smart decisions about getting this right. The bottom line is that Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of deregulating congress and it is politics at its worse to simply blameshift. I am in favor of working to fix stuff, but I am not in favor of the obvious revisions to history Obama is trying to sell to the American people.
Keep it real. Don't be hoodwinked.
"Republicans in the House of Representatives shot down the Bailout legislation causing the largest single drop on Wallstreet to date. Could this result in a modern economic depression?"
I do not want to devalue the many folks who's investments are in flux at this moment as a result, but it is just shoddy reporting to blame the Republicans. Let me explain why.
On Monday the bill was voted down in the House of Reps: True enough.
Republicans voted it down: quite true to a large degree.
Democrats voted for the bill but were squashed: Not quite true.
In the House, 133 Republicans voted against the bill, leaving 65 Republicans voting "for" the bill. That's nearly one third of all of the Republicans in the House voting "for" the bill, for the record.
At the same time, in the House, 140 Democrats voted"for" the bill, while (surprisingly we don't hear about THIS in the press) 95 voted against it. Again, more than a third of the House Democrats voted the bill DOWN.
Let's do the the math another way to keep things honest here. In the House the Democrats have 235 members. At the same time, right now there are 198 Republicans in the House. That means that Democrats comprise a bit more than half of the House. Now, I hear a rumor going around that says that to pass a Bill successfully through the House you need a 2/3rds majority. Let's imagine that this was true and so, if 65 Republicans voted for the Bill along with all of the available democrats (235) then you still only have 65% of the House, right? So that must be why the Bill was shot down. Those horrible Republicans!? Wait? Oh, it ends up you only need a majority. Wait? If the President was about to veto the Bill then you would need a 2/3rds majority to overrule the veto (now, that is where that 2/3rds rule comes into play.)
So let's consider the real facts as a result of this number crunching. Since it was Bush who presented this legislation his administration wouldn't likely fight it to hard. So he wasn't to blame... hmm? And since it only takes a simple majority to vote the bill through the House, since the Democrats comprise a solid majority (4% more than is required) that means that even if all of the Republicans simply refused to vote it shouldn't change the outcome, so they aren't to blame... hmm? In fact 36 Democrats could have voted against it, and the bill could have still passed... double-hmmm?
So who is left to blame then? Democrats anyone?
When Obama talked about Iraq in the first presidential debate he said that the real question is, "Why are we in Iraq to begin with?" Later when discussing the economy he blamed McCain for voting in favor of deregulation. So let's take a tact from Obama's playbook and ask a few similar questions.
Why is wallstreet in the position it is in, to begin with?
Well, Obama would have you believe that it is the fault of McCain. But the fact is that under the Clinton administration, financial advisors Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin architected the deregulation of Wallstreet.... under Clinton. Let's watch the timeline a little bit.
So Bush comes into office and four years later the Democrates take both the House and tied it up in the Senate. So, in Congress, the Democrats are sitting as the "king" of the proverbial "hill" and have for the past four years. How did this happen? The 110th Congressional Democrats ran an unprecidented campaign for "change" and overturned more seated Republicans to take the majority. Does a campaign for change sound familiar?
So what has happened in the last four years then? Each Congress (this is the 110th Congress of the U.S.) gets a nickname and this Congress has been called the "do nothing" Congress. Wow? Really? Campaign for change, then do nothing. Wait don't they have a majority? That is enough to push bills through, right? What happened? Who cares if Republicans all voted against their bills, how didn't they seem to get the job done? Remember, they aren't known as the "the republicans shot us down" Congress. They are the "do nothing" congress.
The 110th Congress has worked less than any Congress on record. Talk about Falling asleep at the wheel. So, then if that were true, wouldn't we be all upset about that? Well, we are. Polls show that the 110th Congress has the lowest approval rating in HISTORY. To compare it to another poll that gets a lot of press, for quite some time now, the 110th Congress has lower approval rating than President Bush. Ouch! So, should we really be blaming Republicans? Equally as important, is McCain to blame as Obama asserted?
To bring this full circle, do you know any of the names of Obama's financial economic advisors? Here are two named you might now know: Mr Summers and Mr. Rubin. So if we are pointing fingers, Mr. Obama, who is to blame again?
To be fair, Mr. Obama decided on Sunday that we shouldn't care about why we are in this situation right now, but just rather focus on fixing it. Interesting that on Friday he wants to blame McCain and when the truth comes out about Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, the Clinton Administration and his desire to take the advice of these same folks, now we should suddenly stop pointing fingers.
The voting in Congress is all about getting this bill right. Nobody wants to make the situation worse, so I am in favor of making smart decisions about getting this right. The bottom line is that Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of deregulating congress and it is politics at its worse to simply blameshift. I am in favor of working to fix stuff, but I am not in favor of the obvious revisions to history Obama is trying to sell to the American people.
Keep it real. Don't be hoodwinked.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Enough is Enough
It's time. There is only so much a reasonable person can endure. After this Friday evenings debate, where McCain clearly schooled Obama on having an understand and confirmed reasonable plans to deal with diplomacy, foreign relations, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a better understanding of his and Obama's plan for taxes and their affect on the economy, I am now formally fed up with the bias in the media. Having watched Nightline and read reviews of the debate in a number of newspapers, they completely leave out the exchange of facts and non-contextually quote McCain leaving out the incredible and expert handling of the facts and issues by McCain and rant and rave about how “Presidential” Obama looked. What? Really? Remarkably they give McCain credit for being more accurate factually, but yet they declare Obama the winner based on issues like “Obama faced the camera, sculpting his talking points with verbose hand-movements, while McCain stood stoically, chopping at the air.” Apparently, since Obama cannot win on content, the debate was reduced to a fashion show as the virtual tie-breaker. Someone shoot me now!
It amazes me that there were no press references to the schooling Obama received on his verbalized approach to handling issues in Pakistan and Iran. For that matter, Obama had one story of experience he shared that night, when he anecdotally referenced a recent visit to Green Bay, WI, whereas McCain rained down story after story of legitimate applicable experience working with world leaders in first hand locations across the planet.
If I were cheering for Obama right now I would be embarrassed. The best retort the Obama Campaign came up with in regard to the debate on Friday night was a claim that all of McCains experiences simply characterized him as "old." What? Really? What an obvious tact. What a shameful attempt. Why didn't they just say “McCain is ugly.” or “I know you are, but what am I?” or “YOUR MOMMA!” The fact remains that Obama, from his own understanding of taxation, to the economy, to his opinions on the continued war effort, is clearly without understanding. What in the world does he bring to the table? I have yet to figure it out. How does identifying an obvious need for hope and change uniquely qualify him to lead? Someone please explain how playing Captain Obvious but without having real answers somehow equals a good presidential option?
I am happy to itemize the many issues I have with Obama. And while I have attempted to be reasonable so far during this campaign season, now that Obama has had a chance to debate McCain and the press still attempts to imagine he is the same caliber candidate as McCain, I think it is time for the gloves to come off. So here are a few myths worth shattering in round one of uncovering Obama.
Well, that's enough for now. And I am not so naïve as to think that this list of facts changes anything at all. Regardless of the complete lack of legitimate experience that Obama has, his followers will still have to talk-up how presidential he looks and how important that must somehow be. I just hope those same followers would feel as good when he actually has to resolve some world conflict and then be reduced to a puppet following the advice of anyone other than himself because of his lack of real world qualifications.
In conclusion, I am not saying don't be a democrat. I am saying... don't be a sucker for this guy. It is time to say, enough is enough.
It amazes me that there were no press references to the schooling Obama received on his verbalized approach to handling issues in Pakistan and Iran. For that matter, Obama had one story of experience he shared that night, when he anecdotally referenced a recent visit to Green Bay, WI, whereas McCain rained down story after story of legitimate applicable experience working with world leaders in first hand locations across the planet.
If I were cheering for Obama right now I would be embarrassed. The best retort the Obama Campaign came up with in regard to the debate on Friday night was a claim that all of McCains experiences simply characterized him as "old." What? Really? What an obvious tact. What a shameful attempt. Why didn't they just say “McCain is ugly.” or “I know you are, but what am I?” or “YOUR MOMMA!” The fact remains that Obama, from his own understanding of taxation, to the economy, to his opinions on the continued war effort, is clearly without understanding. What in the world does he bring to the table? I have yet to figure it out. How does identifying an obvious need for hope and change uniquely qualify him to lead? Someone please explain how playing Captain Obvious but without having real answers somehow equals a good presidential option?
I am happy to itemize the many issues I have with Obama. And while I have attempted to be reasonable so far during this campaign season, now that Obama has had a chance to debate McCain and the press still attempts to imagine he is the same caliber candidate as McCain, I think it is time for the gloves to come off. So here are a few myths worth shattering in round one of uncovering Obama.
- He is going to solve healthcare in America: false. His outrageously expensive plan leaves millions of Americans without healthcare and only attempts to provide for children. Get ready to pay more and get less. (According to Obama supporter Hillary Clinton, his healthcare plan leaves something around 15 million Americans out in the cold.)
- He really care about fixing wallstreet via regulation and taking care of mainstreet: Not even close. Wallstreet is where the pocketbook of mainstreet resides. Separating these two issues is naïve and an oversimplification by Obama. The fact is that his financial advisors Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, advisors of Obama, were party to the deregulation of Wallstreet during the Clinton era. That's right. Obama is connected directly to the people who created the problem in wallstreet. (UPDATE: Obama is seeing his connection with the problems in wallstreet and while just a few days ago he was accusing McCain of being at fault, SUDDENLY blaming someone is not supposed to matter any more. FLIP-FLOP! I guess he only now gets the connection of wallstreet to mainstreet now that the debate is over. Thank you for joining the rest of us! When will naïve shifty hypocrisy end!?)
- He will solve our woes in Iraq and Afghanistan: If by solve our woes you mean: put our soldiers in harms way, divert funding in ways that diminish our current gains on the current war fronts, and as a result keep us going back to the Middle East again in the future... Then yes, sure, under that definition, his shallow examination of the dollars invested in Iraq and short-term view of savings at the expense of increased instability in that region, then by all means vote for the man. But understand that you will not be able to find a military leader involved in Iraq and Afghanistan that sees Obama's recommendations as anything but naïve or at best completely dangerous. Obama, at best pointed out some poor estimations McCain made about the Iraq war, but then again many people on the left side of Congress made some of those same assertions at the same time. For the record, Obama said more about questioning our exit strategy for Iraq when it started. His was a question of nailing down a more detailed plan for Iraq (not that he had one) and not sp much an ideological statement about not belonging in Iraq, like He and so many want to pretend it was. That plays out well now, but is revisionist.
- Obama is going to better the opinion of America in the world: His significant lack of experience will almost certainly work against any possibility of this. Obama, in his lack of experience was schooled by McCain with regard to Obama's hypothetically imagined hunting of bin Laden via bombing Pakistan without that countries cooperation. His attempt to sound brave and solid as a potential Presidential Commander in Chief ends up, yet again, seeming naïve and an oversimplification of an legitimate strategy. What was at one time an attempt by Obama to sound reasonable with regard to pursuing diplomacy in intense world situations, now makes his lack of experience seem like a liability. I can't believe for a minute that someone listening to Friday debate truly thinks that Obama really understands presidential diplomacy let alone how to manage a military effort.
- McCain represents big government and big business and Obama represents benefits to regular people: Obama completely doesn't understand his or McCain's written policies around taxation and entitlement programs. For one, both McCain and Obama have plans to close loopholes in corporate tax rules, despite what Obama says. At the same time Obama wants to jack up taxes in the companies that employ us, redistributing that money to the poor among us. This isn't even fully accurate. Yes. He will increase taxes to the companies that employ us. (Tell me, how do you think that will affect your wages, employment and future raises?) Then understand that Obama is simply granting, in return, a tax credit to Americans, which means that you get to pay less taxes. You don't get money, you don't get benefits, you simply are granted the opportunity to be DEMANDED LESS TAXES by the government (though, this isn't even true based on a reasonable analysis of Obamas tax plan.) At best, will this offset any of the outcomes of higher corporate taxes? Imagine that Obama is right to assume that the trickle-down of benefits isn't working in America (while we know it does because people get raises and new opportunities get created.) What we know, by gas prices alone, is that there is an non-debatable trickle-down of cost to the consumer when these companies get taxes jacked up by Obama. Suddenly, a smaller government with less taxation starts to look good the whole way around. It is an interesting if not irresponsible piece of fiction to imagine that Obama and regular folks equal “us” and that somehow the corporate world equals “them” and that these two eco-systems are not intimately tied together. Wake up Obama! Hurting any cost-related segment of our economy ALWAYS trickles down to mainstreet!
- Obama believes in me and says, “yes we can”: No,... he can't. You are the largest component of his plan. It is hilarious to me how many people throw money into the lottery each month imagining that there one dollar will turn into a million, yet they never count the cost over the months, never realizing they are putting in way more than they will ever get out. I think that people following Obama see these vague hope-filled naïve and oversimplified programs by Obama and imagine that the dollar they are putting in will turn into a million coming out. But the fact is that the devil is always in the details. And the details, especially in the hands of big government, tend to yield far less return over a lot long period of time than if you had been left to make many of these decisions in the manner of your choosing. You are not the recipient of the "we" in his rhetoric. You are the mule that will facilitate his political agenda through your mainstreet pocketbook!
Well, that's enough for now. And I am not so naïve as to think that this list of facts changes anything at all. Regardless of the complete lack of legitimate experience that Obama has, his followers will still have to talk-up how presidential he looks and how important that must somehow be. I just hope those same followers would feel as good when he actually has to resolve some world conflict and then be reduced to a puppet following the advice of anyone other than himself because of his lack of real world qualifications.
In conclusion, I am not saying don't be a democrat. I am saying... don't be a sucker for this guy. It is time to say, enough is enough.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Bridge to Nowhere: The Records of Obama and Palin on Earmarks
I have definitely been one to say that I am surprised there haven’t been more comments about the amount of inexperience that Barak Obama is personally bringing to his campaign. Compared to almost all other candidates, Republican or Democrat, Obama sits somewhere in the middle (just below Palin) in the “years of elected public service” category. Obama takes his non-elected service scenarios and adds them to his service record, but for that matter so could any candidate. It doesn’t bump his “service record” above Palin or anyone else. The upside of a politician not having a lot of experience is that there are less years to examine when it comes to trying to figure out their record of involvement.
Big on discussion boards is the topic of “The Bridge to Nowhere.” Here is some history for you on that project, so that you are getting a little more than spin. If someone mentions the Bridge to nowhere without knowing this info at the minimum, then they are simply riding the soundbite train like many other lemmings. Read on to get off the soundbite train.
You can judge if I am being biased or not by my perspective. Read on!
The Bridge to Nowhere project started many years ago. In fact some Alaskan state politicians have claimed to have been a part of trying to fund the bridge project for the better part of twenty years. Here is a quick overview of that story.
The island Ketchikan, has the second largest airport in southern Alaska. That part of the country only sees about $1 million in tourism dollars per years and the island itself has a population of around 50+ people with traffic of about 350,000 by ferry and 200,000 by the airport per year. The bottom line is that the island community has no chance of bolstering the local economy through the inconvenient location of the airport and tying the airport to the mainland via a bridge seemed like a good idea to increase the flow of tourism and business. The proposed bridge was to be taller than the Brooklyn Bridge, and nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge (I think a lot of people imagined a smaller bridge and tinier community, but that is neither here nor there.) From cruise ships to accommodating ships that drive through the “Alaskan Marine Highway,” this bridge would have to be tall beneath it to allow water-transportation to pass under.
Two political champions of the project were Alaskan senators Ted Stevens and Don Young. They felt it was important to pursue funding for this project on behalf of Alaska.
When Sarah Palin ran for governor in September 2006 she made remarks about supporting solving the transportation issues in that community and funding the bridge project.
Now, let’s take a step back. In 2005 Ted Stevens’ efforts to fund the bridge assisted by federal funds was nearly a reality. At about the time the bill was going to be enacted by Congress Katrina hit and the funds were reallocated from Alaska to aid recovery. So, no “bridge to nowhere.”
But wait… there is more. In October, during the election Sarah Palin was asked if she supported the continued state funded pursuit of the bridge(s). She said yes. She felt that there was good continued support in congress to send earmarked funds to Alaska in this specific infrastructure project.
Recall not too long ago bridges collapsing in Minnesota? This was a smaller bridge but it took the lives of people. I do recall people making an emphasis at that time about the importance of investing in America’s infrastructure. Again, neither here nor there. This isn’t about a transportation being a fundamentally bad need. This is about an expensive bridge partially federally funded being the wrong answer.
In December of 2006 Sarah Palin was elected Governor of Alaska. She started her Governorship continuing to talk about turning Alaska toward a more fiscally responsible set of values and financial ideals by reforming spending. Everything in the budget was going to be examined and potentially revised to match a fiscally responsible set of values.
Since 2005 Congress, who had diverted bridge funds from Alaska to help in Katrina aid decided to provide those funds to Alaska... again. The state senators were happy but a smaller contingent of Congress (much led by Senator John McCain) continued to argue against earmark funding.
A few months later in 2007 Governor Palin, in keeping with her fiscally responsible agenda, stated that Alaska would be submitting a budget that would force the state to “live within their means” and reject the $185 million earmark for the bridge project. In July of 2007 she said that Alaska would find a “better way to reach the airport” and added that “a $398 million bridge is not the answer.” She didn’t say that the need for a transportation scenario like a bridge was a bad idea. She simply said that the plan for $398 million bridge project was the wrong answer. Like she later told the nation, if Alaska needs a bridge then they will find a way to build a bridge without Federal funds. (It is worth mentioning that at the same time Palin is turning down the $185 million earmark bridge budget, Obama is earmarking around $330 million for Illinois.)
Governor Sarah Palin within six month of coming into office rectified a nearly half a billion dollar expense. That isn’t the only cut she made to the state budget plans. Government officials across the state have noted that the state’s budget runs in a surplus and continues to make cuts that match the Governor’s fiscally responsible agenda.
As a result of the cuts, are Alaskans angry at Palin and see this as a political flip-flop? A typical result of “Angry Alaskans” should show up as a negative popularity poll, traditionally. Based on the press’ coverage of the topic, one might think her state would likely despise her. Surprisingly enough popularity polls show her to be the #1 most popular State Governor in the nation with a score of 90.
So, in summary, the need in their state isn’t bad or wrong. Under Sarah Palin it was determined that the bridge was simply the wrong answer to a relevant question inside her state. Federal funding given to states isn’t necessarily wrong either. I think that generally speaking Democrats and Republicans agree that the Federal Government plays a valid role in maintaining our transportation infrastructure. So, in my estimation the Democrats and the Republicans both had it right:
Dems: Sarah Palin did support the “bridge” (project.)
Reps: Sarah Palin acknowledges the need for solving the issue of transportation in that part of Alaska, previously known as the bridge to nowhere, but feels that the bridge was not the answer when it was time for her to set a budget as the elected Governor of Alaska.
Final note: So what of Earmarks? Both McCain and Obama don’t want them? What is that about?
Obama/McCain Earmarks Quick History:
McCain has never sought earmarks for Arizona, where he is the senior Senator for the state. He has been opposed to them from the beginning. That means he hasn’t asked for an earmark in his 26 years of Congressional service. Senator McCain calls this responsible.
Obama has petitioned for $860 million in earmarks over his total of four years as a junior Senator for the State of Illinois. Last year alone he sought more than $330 million in earmarks. Obama has joined McCain in not asking for earmarks for fiscal year 2009. Obama calls this “not asking” a moratorium. Why is he not asking? Obama said, “We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress’ seniority, rather than the merit of the project.” This isn’t too surprising coming from a junior senator with only four years under his belt.
I am not saying I don't agree. McCain himself said that if a project is worth investing in, it gets supported in a New York minute! I just think it is not at all suprising that the reason Obama gives for not supporting earmarks has to do with the fact that senators with less experience (him) don't get funded as often.
The smartest thing I have heard Senator Obama say in the last months was his desire to not put a timeframe to the war in the Middle East until he might be president and could review the situation from that vantage point with advice from on-the-ground leadership. This is what he has said. Obama is imagining how the view as President might affect his decision process. He has to imagine, because he doesn't have a parallel experience to draw from since State Senators are not empowered like that to make such decisions.
Governor Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she can make a tough decision to reverse years of poor investing to turn down millions of dollars as a result of having analyzed the situation from the vantage point of an empowered Governor. These aren’t words about change after years and nearly $1 billion of a track record in the wrong direction. She doesn't have to speculate or imagine. She has been there and made the tough decision. You don’t have to simply say something for it to be a lie. You can also just live the lie for years like Senator Obama.
Big on discussion boards is the topic of “The Bridge to Nowhere.” Here is some history for you on that project, so that you are getting a little more than spin. If someone mentions the Bridge to nowhere without knowing this info at the minimum, then they are simply riding the soundbite train like many other lemmings. Read on to get off the soundbite train.
You can judge if I am being biased or not by my perspective. Read on!
The Bridge to Nowhere project started many years ago. In fact some Alaskan state politicians have claimed to have been a part of trying to fund the bridge project for the better part of twenty years. Here is a quick overview of that story.
The island Ketchikan, has the second largest airport in southern Alaska. That part of the country only sees about $1 million in tourism dollars per years and the island itself has a population of around 50+ people with traffic of about 350,000 by ferry and 200,000 by the airport per year. The bottom line is that the island community has no chance of bolstering the local economy through the inconvenient location of the airport and tying the airport to the mainland via a bridge seemed like a good idea to increase the flow of tourism and business. The proposed bridge was to be taller than the Brooklyn Bridge, and nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge (I think a lot of people imagined a smaller bridge and tinier community, but that is neither here nor there.) From cruise ships to accommodating ships that drive through the “Alaskan Marine Highway,” this bridge would have to be tall beneath it to allow water-transportation to pass under.
Two political champions of the project were Alaskan senators Ted Stevens and Don Young. They felt it was important to pursue funding for this project on behalf of Alaska.
When Sarah Palin ran for governor in September 2006 she made remarks about supporting solving the transportation issues in that community and funding the bridge project.
Now, let’s take a step back. In 2005 Ted Stevens’ efforts to fund the bridge assisted by federal funds was nearly a reality. At about the time the bill was going to be enacted by Congress Katrina hit and the funds were reallocated from Alaska to aid recovery. So, no “bridge to nowhere.”
But wait… there is more. In October, during the election Sarah Palin was asked if she supported the continued state funded pursuit of the bridge(s). She said yes. She felt that there was good continued support in congress to send earmarked funds to Alaska in this specific infrastructure project.
Recall not too long ago bridges collapsing in Minnesota? This was a smaller bridge but it took the lives of people. I do recall people making an emphasis at that time about the importance of investing in America’s infrastructure. Again, neither here nor there. This isn’t about a transportation being a fundamentally bad need. This is about an expensive bridge partially federally funded being the wrong answer.
In December of 2006 Sarah Palin was elected Governor of Alaska. She started her Governorship continuing to talk about turning Alaska toward a more fiscally responsible set of values and financial ideals by reforming spending. Everything in the budget was going to be examined and potentially revised to match a fiscally responsible set of values.
Since 2005 Congress, who had diverted bridge funds from Alaska to help in Katrina aid decided to provide those funds to Alaska... again. The state senators were happy but a smaller contingent of Congress (much led by Senator John McCain) continued to argue against earmark funding.
A few months later in 2007 Governor Palin, in keeping with her fiscally responsible agenda, stated that Alaska would be submitting a budget that would force the state to “live within their means” and reject the $185 million earmark for the bridge project. In July of 2007 she said that Alaska would find a “better way to reach the airport” and added that “a $398 million bridge is not the answer.” She didn’t say that the need for a transportation scenario like a bridge was a bad idea. She simply said that the plan for $398 million bridge project was the wrong answer. Like she later told the nation, if Alaska needs a bridge then they will find a way to build a bridge without Federal funds. (It is worth mentioning that at the same time Palin is turning down the $185 million earmark bridge budget, Obama is earmarking around $330 million for Illinois.)
Governor Sarah Palin within six month of coming into office rectified a nearly half a billion dollar expense. That isn’t the only cut she made to the state budget plans. Government officials across the state have noted that the state’s budget runs in a surplus and continues to make cuts that match the Governor’s fiscally responsible agenda.
As a result of the cuts, are Alaskans angry at Palin and see this as a political flip-flop? A typical result of “Angry Alaskans” should show up as a negative popularity poll, traditionally. Based on the press’ coverage of the topic, one might think her state would likely despise her. Surprisingly enough popularity polls show her to be the #1 most popular State Governor in the nation with a score of 90.
So, in summary, the need in their state isn’t bad or wrong. Under Sarah Palin it was determined that the bridge was simply the wrong answer to a relevant question inside her state. Federal funding given to states isn’t necessarily wrong either. I think that generally speaking Democrats and Republicans agree that the Federal Government plays a valid role in maintaining our transportation infrastructure. So, in my estimation the Democrats and the Republicans both had it right:
Dems: Sarah Palin did support the “bridge” (project.)
Reps: Sarah Palin acknowledges the need for solving the issue of transportation in that part of Alaska, previously known as the bridge to nowhere, but feels that the bridge was not the answer when it was time for her to set a budget as the elected Governor of Alaska.
Final note: So what of Earmarks? Both McCain and Obama don’t want them? What is that about?
Obama/McCain Earmarks Quick History:
McCain has never sought earmarks for Arizona, where he is the senior Senator for the state. He has been opposed to them from the beginning. That means he hasn’t asked for an earmark in his 26 years of Congressional service. Senator McCain calls this responsible.
Obama has petitioned for $860 million in earmarks over his total of four years as a junior Senator for the State of Illinois. Last year alone he sought more than $330 million in earmarks. Obama has joined McCain in not asking for earmarks for fiscal year 2009. Obama calls this “not asking” a moratorium. Why is he not asking? Obama said, “We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress’ seniority, rather than the merit of the project.” This isn’t too surprising coming from a junior senator with only four years under his belt.
I am not saying I don't agree. McCain himself said that if a project is worth investing in, it gets supported in a New York minute! I just think it is not at all suprising that the reason Obama gives for not supporting earmarks has to do with the fact that senators with less experience (him) don't get funded as often.
The smartest thing I have heard Senator Obama say in the last months was his desire to not put a timeframe to the war in the Middle East until he might be president and could review the situation from that vantage point with advice from on-the-ground leadership. This is what he has said. Obama is imagining how the view as President might affect his decision process. He has to imagine, because he doesn't have a parallel experience to draw from since State Senators are not empowered like that to make such decisions.
Governor Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she can make a tough decision to reverse years of poor investing to turn down millions of dollars as a result of having analyzed the situation from the vantage point of an empowered Governor. These aren’t words about change after years and nearly $1 billion of a track record in the wrong direction. She doesn't have to speculate or imagine. She has been there and made the tough decision. You don’t have to simply say something for it to be a lie. You can also just live the lie for years like Senator Obama.
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