The Radical Moderate

John McCain claims that there can be no compromise as long as a public option exists. That's right, he doesn't want to ensure the public option works properly and helps all Americans get health care. What he's saying is the same, ignorant, self-centered Republican mantra all the other idiot are spouting: "If you don't give us exactly what we want, there can be no compromise!"

Of course, those children don't even get the hypocrisy of their own words. He claims that a government program would cause Americans to lose private insurance. Huh? I thought the government couldn't compete with private health care. So who's going to lose the insurance? Well, articles I've read about his statements on Stephanopoulos's program say both that he didn't say how and that Georgie the suck-up didn't press him on it.

Meanwhile, it look like (no surprise to anyone who wasn't fooled during the campaign season) he's going to pull what Clinton did. He's going to give in to the yammering and kill the public option. Rather than explain clearly to people why it matters, rather than remind Democrats that they're the majority in both houses of Congress, he'll bow to political expediency and his urge for two terms and doom our nation to more of the same, worsening costs and cares.

This, at a time when even the conservative Dallas Morning News is pointing out that there's a strong lack of competition among private insurers (their site stinks, but it's on page 2 of today's print copy) and that medical tourism, US patients going overseas to find affordable health care (page 4) is on the rise.

"We don't like what you're doing, so don't do anything" and calling that compromise is disgusting. Sadly, Obama backing down in the face of that is even more disgusting.

Since the election, I've done something I never do at other times. I've occasionally been turning to Fox "News" to watch the fun. I just did and it was hilarious. McCain and Palin pundits are viciously attacking each other and the "moderator", attempting to be "unbiased", didn't (in the short time I was watching) ask the McCain apologist one simple question: If Palin really was the problem, who chose her?

Last night, my brother told me to check the news today. It seems a McCain campaign worker claimed to have been attacked. She said a large black man held her down and carved a "B" on her face because she supported McCain.

The main problem making police immediately suspicious? It seems the letter was carved in her cheek backwards! It's bad enough that the college student was so disturbed as to fake a racial attack blatantly linked to the Presidential race. She's obviously mentally disturbed, and the police have treated her as such; she's being handed over for psychiatric evaluation. It's both funny and sad.

What's funny and painful is a short sentence near the beginning of the article. It says she's a "20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas." Oh, man! Another Aggie joke has been born.

The Colin has decided he doesn't have the stomach for the way the asshole has shot off his mouth.

I know, easy, but I couldn't help myself...







Appendics [sic]:
That means Colin Powell is voting for Barak Obama

And, yes, I had to finish it with that section, but you can cut it out if you want. :-)

I'm sorry to say it, since I used to have a modicum of respect for McCain, but he must be suffering from dementia. The man who claims to drive the "Straight Talk Express" has accused Obama of being socialist because of his tax policy. Let's remember, McCain:
1) Just voted to socialist the financial industry's risky behavior
2) Has never called for an end to Social Security or Medicare, socialist programs
3) Calls for changes to the health care system to partial socialize it
4) Ignores that taxes in the US have always meant to be progressive

His mind has gone, since he either doesn't know what he's saying or he doesn't think people will notice his blatant hypocrisy. This is a man some people want to serve in the White House?

The Democratic controlled House's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform just came out with a report on the egregious violations of ethics during the 2006 elections by the White House. The Administration regularly sent out White House officials on taxpayer dollars to support Republican candidates. As the Washington Post reports: "The report said that since the Rove aide and many others involved in organizing the trips are no longer in office, 'there is no effective remedy' for any related violations of the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts the use of public funds for partisan gain."

Not surprisingly, White House Chief Propagandist, Scott Stanzel, blames the report on "an attempt to score political points."

How, then, to look at McCain charging Acorn with major election violations? Acorn is a non-profit that registers low income people to vote. They review the registration lists before sending them on to the registrar, flagging questionable names for registrar attention. Recently, Republican registrars and Secretaries of State have been advertising that Acorn lists show some obviously fake names. What few reports point out is that those names were flagged by Acorn for attention.

However, that hasn't stopped the FBI, run by the same White House that's complaining of "political points" from opening a pre-election investigation of Acorn. Of course, this Administration won't be around to fire the FBI agents when they find nothing, so they'll avoid the scandal they created by firing Federal Attorneys who investigated the last round of charges and found nothing.

Why isn't there regular and heavy coverage of Republicans removing voters from rolls in order to steal another election?

I just watched a documentary segment on a European news station. Two segments say enough. First, in New Mexico, where Republicans "won" in 2004 by less than 5,000 votes, the poor are regularly being moved off. In their zeal, it's not just ending there. The interviewer went to Las Vegas, NM, and interviewed the local registrar. When he went to vote in his caucus this year, he found his name was removed from the rolls. Then there's David Iglesias, a Republican appointed Attorney General who researched more than 100 Republican claims of Democratic voter fraud. He couldn't find one that was valid. He was fired.

Then there's Michigan, where a Republican leader is on record as saying they'll be at polls to prevent people whose houses are on foreclosure lists from voting. The interesting thing was the interview with a couple who were fighting an eviction. They mentioned the eviction company Trott & Trott. The interviewer went to talk with them.

In the window of the office was a McCain poster. It seems the company's office is where the McCain campaign headquarters are located.

The people who are most affected by the current financial crisis typically vote Democratic. Therefore, Republicans are escalating their normal tactic of preventing people from voting.

I've recently seen a couple of articles pointing to the financial crisis being the fault of the Democrats because the top two Fannie Mae donation recipients were Obama and Dodd, both Democrats. The interesting thing was that none of the folks who claimed that showed the study. I had to search to find out for sure.

I found an Open Secrets study that showed the simple claim was true. However, that claim missed a few things. I posted some of them on a Washington Post talkback, and I'll put them here too.

First, the top 10 are evenly split, 5 & 5.

Second, the article doesn't break down which politicians were given donations at which time within the 1989-2008 period. After all, parties in the majority are given more money by all lobbyists.

Third, the list breaks out donations by individuals and by PACS. Just looking at the top 10, we get:
a) Dems: $109,500 from PACs, $419,499 from individuals
b) Reps: $399,899 from PACs, $176,150 from individuals

That last bit is very indicative, showing which party gets money from industry organizations clearly pushing industry wants versus which gets it from people who happen to work there. There's enough blame to go around, but it's clear the Republicans were more involved directly with the industry positions pushed by the PACs.

Also, note that study only refers to Fannie and Freddie donations. I couldn't find one showing all the financial industry donations. That would really interest me.

As for McCain, he has two reason for low donations:
1) His deregulation work as one of the Keating Five helped caused the S&L crisis, so they know he likes them and don't need to donate
2) 84 of his campaign employees, including his campaign manager, work or worked for financial industry lobbying firms.

McCain's words and actions show he is not the person we want in charge of our finances.

After doing some cleaning, I sat back down. The local TV stations are all shutting down for Yom Kippur, so I turned to the news again while rewinding a tape for some recorded movies and shows I'd taped.

Again, France24 was showing two folks speaking. This time, they were rebroadcasting the Obama-McCain debate. I turned to it at the point McCain was blaming Obama and the "Democrats in Congress" for the Fannie Mae problems. Huh? McCain is the one who fought for constantly deregulating. It's his campaign manager and 83 other campaign workers who were lobbyists for Fannie, Freddie and other investment industry members. It's he who talked about "sound fundamentals" while Fannie, Freddie and the markets crashed around him because of the weak fundamentals he helped create.

It just shows that Orwell's focus on the USSR/Russia missed that some folks in the West can boldly compete with some of the best Stalinist propaganda.

Sadly, while Obama did talk about some of it, the name "Keating" never made an appearance.

There's a 15 minute video on http://www.keatingeconomics.com/.

It spends too much time on the S&L crisis and too little time talking about how he's still deregulating today. The emphasis on the later is needed to focus better on his experience message. Still, it's good they're finally talking about it.

Now, if they'd only create a quick 30 second spot for TV and radio...

Someone just sent me a link to a url that quotes: http://mediamatters.org/items/200810040004?f=s_search. It also quotes from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6061828.column

G. Gordon Liddy. Proud to plan and advocate things typically considered terrorist and someone of whom McCain says has an "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

McCain says we can't pull out of Iraq. That would be surrender.

McCain says he'll pull out of Michigan. After all, he couldn't win so surrendering made the most sense.

Note the difference: McCain thinks it's important to save his campaign money, not the lives of middle and lower class soldiers.

Mother Jones Magazine recently reported that McCain has 177 lobbyists on his campaign. More interesting is that they've been able to find records linking 83 to the financial industry who McCain and Palin slam for causing the current crisis. The article even lists the names of the 83 and for whom they lobby.

Yes, MJ is a left wing journal, so it's no surprise they found it out. Sadly, it's also no surprise that I've seen no major media outlet pick up the article, information that's critical for the electorate clearly understanding what kind of "change" McCain really wants.

If the media was really controlled by the supposed left wing conspiracy, you think the story would be a bit more prominent. Rather, it's more proof of how the main outlets are owned by corporations which tend to be conservative and active in forcing media in direction they want.

But of continuing the Rovian lie machine.

Obama served in two charities with Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the Weather Underground. The dingbat Palin is now crowing, in multiple States (and the states of ignorance and dishonesty...) that means Obama is "palling around" with terrorists.

Lets ignore that nobody says Ayers is still doing Weather Underground type of activities, or was at the time Obama and he worked on the charities. Or that she's not telling everyone in the neighborhood that in which they live that all citizens who know Ayers or work with him are terrorists. Or the fact that she has never linked them as friends who have come close to "palling around". Lets deal with the simple one: Where's any indication Obama ever said he agreed with the Weather Underground? There isn't any, of course. It's just typical Republican lies and smears. Another Swift Boat.

However, let's remember who's done more damage. The Weatherman set of small bombs that did little damage, with nobody showing they did even a million dollars total. Some of the members, working with other groups, killed themselves while assembling a bomb. Their biggest violence was a single incident in which two policeman and a guard were killed in a Brinks robbery. Most of the money was recovered.

They were terrorists, rightfully labeled.

So lets compare. The Savings and Loan crisis has directly cost the taxpayer of $124 billion (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/SavingsandLoanCrisis.html). The same article points to at least $30 billion in other costs to healthy banks, cost that would have been passed on to the consumer.

The current financial crisis has just seen Congress approve $700 billion in bailouts, not knowing how much, if any, will ever be repaid. In addition, trillions of dollars in retirement account savings has disappeared from middle class American's savings.

It's completely conceivable that suicides from financial failure during that crisis were easily higher than three. How about increased crime by people suddenly poor? I can't find statistics either way, but it seems clear that financial desperation is a prime cause in many types of violence found in society, and causing financial hardship for others is causing that violence.

The combination of financial industry and political greed that created the excess, illegalities deregulation, and lack of supervision have done far more damage to the country than the Weatherman. In addition, both groups did what they did as an open statement that their theories were "better" than anyone elses' and their political views should be forced upon others. Terrorism is using violence to force a change in the political environment of your country. The US and all States say, rightfully, that domestic violence extends past physical violence to verbal abuse. Using the same logic, I think it's correct to say that what the financiers and politicians did to the economy was a violent attack upon most citizens.

If one group is terrorism, the second certainly is too.

So, if Obama is linked to a small time terrorist through living in the same neighborhood and serving on the same charity boards as Avery, what are we to say about George Bush, Sr., Georgie Jr, and Jeb, who collectively served on bank boards that failed to the tune of $1.5 billion? And what are we to say about McCain, a man whose time in Congress has often been spent aiding and abetting close friend such as Keating. Financial figures who have committed terrorism upon the nation at a level not even imagined by the Weatherman?

I do not excuse the Weatherman. Why is Palin excusing much worse terrorists?

McCain has made a central part of his campaign that he wants to get rid of earmarks and pork.

Obama says he wants to change politics for the better.

Some of the tax breaks put into the "bailout the rich" Senate bill:
- Lowering a tax on children's archery arrows
- Giving Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a tax break on rum
- Changing NASCAR's depreciation tables to further benefit one of the most successful sports not in any financial trouble

And more. Multiple reports point out that there are $155 million in tax cuts, not close to being offset by only $44 billion in additional taxes and some spending cuts.

Some of the tax breaks make sense. That's beside the point. It's a tangential issue that doesn't cause and won't help the current financial crisis. It's buying votes with earmarks and pork.

The response of the two candidates? They're spending time on the phones, calling Congressman and saying "See what we're bribing you with. Vote 'Yes'!"

The candidates are both hypocrites. On this issue, they're equally bad. It's on the many others in which McCain has flopped or is just wrong, not to mention his strong involvement in causing the mess.

It's why I don't say Obama is a great choice, he's just a chance to rise to mediocrity while McCain will keep us as low as Shrub has brought us.

The economy McCain has been busy building since he joined the Keating five, more than 20 years ago, has proven to be fragile and built on a house of cards. He's made idiotic statements about how sound the "fundamentals" are and is at a complete loss as to how to respond in the crisis. His poll numbers are dropping.

But, wait! He's scheduled to debate Obama. What's a confused fool to do? Well, only something straight out of the Holy Grail. Campaign? Debate? Run Away! Run Away!

As Obama said, a President should be able to multi-task, and the person who wants to be President should be able to communicate what's going on with the crisis.

A Pew Research Poll shows only half of Americans know Obama is Christian. The Republican slander campaign has a growing percentage of people who "know" Obama is Muslim.

Nicholas Kristoff asks, in an opinion piece, puts forward a great thought: "Just imagine for a moment if it were the black candidate in this election, rather than the white candidate, who was born in Central America, was an indifferent churchgoer, had graduated near the bottom of his university class, had dumped his first wife, had regularly displayed an explosive and profane temper, and had referred to the Pakistani-Iraqi border ..."

We all know how the Republicans would be dealing with him now. Yet Palin says it's not fair for people to ask about McCain's recent statements about the economic "fundamentals". After all, it's ok to invent things about the Democratic candidate, but quite another to ask the Republican about his clear and recorded words.

More firms bailed out. What joy...

What does that mean for the average taxpayer? Either more taxes or fewer services. Most likely, both. Since it's the government that's infusing the money, that only comes from one place: You the taxpayer. Forget progressive tax rates, the wealthy don't even pay a share equal to their wealth (not just income, but capital. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate). The burden falls on the middle class.

Whose fault is that? Why the "small government" folks who brought government intrusion to pass laws that directly helped corporations at your expense. The folks who passed deregulation that got the world into this mess. The folks who ignored the Savings & Loan crisis of the Reagan and Bush Administrations.

Remember that? Congress deregulating the banking sector to help people enrich themselves? While Republicans talked the less than $100,000 the Clintons lost in Whitewater supposed scandal, Bush pere, Georgie and Jeb sat on the boards of Savings and Loans that lost around $1.5 billion and they walked away without a look back.

Remember the most famous folks of the S&L scandal? Charles Keating and the Keating Five? Keating, the head of one of the S&Ls that eventually failed, donated more than a million dollars to Senators, and called on a few to help get regulators off his back as his bank got into more and more trouble. The Keating Five were the five Senators most involved in pressuring the regulators to back off.

One of the most famous quotes to come out of the whole affair had to do with Keating's honesty. A reporter asked him if his donations had an impact in getting the Senators to help him. His response was, "I want to say in the most forceful way I can, I certainly hope so."

One of the five? Why, John McCain, of course. The same one running for President. The same one who, just recently, proudly declared "I was chairman of the Commerce Committee that oversights every part of our economy." Does he really want to take credit for that? Especially since he seems to have a fuzzy memory. The Washington Post points out that his committee excludes "credit, financial services, and housing".

Here's a man who helped cause one crisis minimizing the current one while taking "credit" for the sorry state of our economy. But, gosh, he's a war hero. 'Aint that enough?

I just found out something you may not heard about.

In 1994, Joe Biden pushed legislation through Congress to say that State, local and Indian governments must provide free rape kits to victims if they wished to receive federal funding. You see, many governments still blamed women for being raped and charged them for the tests.

However, if a government didn't want federal funding, it could still charge for the kits. What's coming out in the news is that Wasilla, Alaska, charged for them up until 2000. Palin, of course, was mayor of that town while they were charging. She didn't put a stop to it, she supported it. Alaska's legislature heard about it and passed a law in 2000 to end the practice in the State. That's why it ended, against Palin's will.

Some of you may say that McCain will think differently, he's not a radical and won't let Palin push through similar things in their Administration. The problem with that is simple. McCain voted against Biden's bill in 1994, long before his "conversion" to right-wingerhoood. Also, he voted against funding the bill just last year.

Let's forget Choice and bad economic policies. Do we really want, in the 21st Century, a President and VP who think it's the woman's fault for getting raped?

An interesting article in the NYT describes egregious excesses in the Interior Department's Mineral Management Service. Earl E. Devaney, the investigating inspector general, found “A culture of ethical failure”. It's truly disgusting. However, given the ownership of the current Administration by the oil industry, it's just more of the same.

On election day, don't forget McCain's slogan: "The Republicans have stunk, elect another one!"