RIP Les Paul

I am without words, there is not much to say. One of the greatest minds to ever pick up a guitar,... hold up, scratch that... one of the greatest minds to ever BUILD and CREATE guitars.

RIP Les Paul, there is no way to even measure how many people this man has inspired through his creations and wonderful ways of teaching the rest of us what "tone" was really about.

Les Paul, the Waukesha-born genius who rose to become one of the most influential musicians in the 20th century, has died at the age of 94.

A representative of Paul made the announcement in New York.

Paul was best known as a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar and the originator of multi-track recording.

Paul, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was also a major recording artist in the 1940s and 1950s, and performed in Manhattan late in life.

With his wife Mary Ford, Paul enjoyed a series of over 25 top forty hits in the late '40s and early '50s including "Vaya Con Dios," "Hummingbird," and "How High the Moon." The couple later divorced and Mary Ford died in 1977.

Paul influenced scores of musicians in the worlds of rock and jazz. One of them was Steve Miller. Back in 1948, Miller's father struck up a friendship with Paul when the guitarist was visiting Milwaukee for a date at a local club.

"Les and Mary showed me my first chords," Miller told the Journal Sentinel. "He's such a great player, everytime I go to New York I go to the club and jam with Les. There's just this vibe around him. It's always a jam session and all the cats are always there."

Aside from making rock-and-roll possible with his creation of the electric guitar, Paul also contributed immensely to the advance of studio recording over the years with inventions like multitrack recording, reverb, and more than a dozen others.

Paul McCartney once said this of Paul: "Les was one of the greatest innovators in recording techniques," McCartney said in a statement. "The work he put into developing the guitar that was named after him made the instrument an all-time classic, and his incredible playing skills make him one of the masters of the instrument."

In 1990 Capitol honored him with a boxed set "Les Paul the Legend and the Legacy." The 4 CD box contained liner notes by Paul himself and 34 never before released tracks.

Born Lester William Polsfuss, Les Paul started performing at home when he was 10 years old, organizing his own little orchestra. He also became fascinated with electronics, building his own broadcasting set in his basement.

A Waukesha music teacher had told Paul's mother not to waste her money on lessons for the boy because he wasn't "musically inclined."

Thank you and may you rest in piece Mr Les Paul, the world will never be the same without you, just as it was changed because of you.

Mom Was Drunk Driving, Not Just On The Phone

Okay, so previously in my entry, Get Off The Phone and Drive, I mentioned one of the latest SUV-filled auto accidents. While the rant was definitely about people on the phone, and all reports indicate she was indeed on the phone while driving at different points before this accident.

Diane Schuler was drunk and high when she drove straight into oncoming traffic on a New York highway, swerving for nearly two miles to narrowly avoid crashes until she slammed head on into an SUV and took eight lives, including four children, investigators said today.

from article: Wrong-Way Highway Driver Who Killed 8 Was Drunk, High

It has now come out she was in fact, intoxicated, and was drunk driving. She drove the wrong way on a highway and ended up killing more than just herself and kids, she killed others.

Schuler, 36, was killed in the July 26 accident on New York's Taconic State Parkway along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces who were riding in her van as well as three men who were in the SUV in the July 26 wreck. Her 5-year-old son was the lone survivor of the crash.

Schuler had a blood alcohol content of .19, more than double the legal limit and was also "impaired by marijuana," according to a statement released by state attorney Janet Difiore citing a toxicology report by the Westchestery County medical examiner.

They have classified this as "murder" now. However, was this a murder suicide? Perhaps she got drunk to kill herself and kids, and needed to be drunk to do so.

The crash was ruled a homicide last week before the toxicology report was completed, Westchester medical examiner Dr. Millard Hyland told ABCNews.com.

"It was ruled a homicide in terms of people being killed because she was driving in the wrong direction," Hyland said, and did not take toxicology into account.

The full report was completed Monday, Hyland said.

Roseann Guzzo, daughter of Michael Bastardi and Guy Bastardi, both crash victims, told New York's The Journal News that while the report explains the once mysterious accident, it does not justify it.

"This wasn't an act of God. This was her choice. She made the wrong choice," Guzzo said. "This isn't an accident. This is murder."

Murder suicide?

You Know Your Daughters Attractive When...

You hit on her at her own mother's (and your wife's) funeral!

Did that sound sick to you? Well, thats just what sleazebag Ryan O'neal has been bragging about.

Ryan O’Neal hit on his own daughter at partner Farrah Fawcett’s funeral in June.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the actor says he didn’t recognize the “beautiful blond woman” – who happened to be his daughter Tatum O’Neal – who embraced him at Fawcett’s funeral.

Aside from the incestuous accusations, let's just say he must have not been that upset to hit on a woman as the hearse is driving away... read this:

“I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blond woman comes up and embraces me … I said to her, ‘You have a drink on you? You have a car?’ She said ‘Daddy, it’s me – Tatum!’ I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it’s my daughter. It’s so sick.”

This guy has to be the bottom of the barrel when it comes to sleaze. The hearse hasn't even made it out of his view and he is already asking a blonde out for a drink! Not to mention, he must have a very close relationship with his daughter that he didn't even recognize her, and instead jumped right into propositioning her for drinks!

“That’s our relationship in a nutshell," she told Vanity Fair. "You make of it what you will.

What a dad!

Man Found Guilty For Praying Instead Of Taking Daughter to Doctor

While any citizen of the United States has the right to refuse medical treatment, and can choose to "pray" instead, you cannot refuse care for your child and pray instead! This is the absolute center of religious wackoness! Anyone who would pray over a sick child instead of seeking medical treatment should be jailed.

Wis. jury finds father guilty of killing daughter by praying, not seeking medical care

from this article: Wis. Jury: Father Guilty in Prayer Death Case

This man neglected his child so long, she died, right on the floor of her home with religious wackos standing over her and praying.

A central Wisconsin man accused of killing his 11-year-old daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care was found guilty Saturday of second-degree reckless homicide.

Doctors say she could have easily been cured had she been brought to a doctor.

Doctors testified that Madeline would have had a good chance of survival if she had received medical care, including insulin and fluids, before she stopped breathing.

Nothing fails quite like a prayer, does it?

Dale Neumann, 47, was convicted in the March 23, 2008, death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes. Prosecutors contended he should have rushed the girl to a hospital because she couldn't walk, talk, eat or drink. Instead, Madeline died on the floor of the family's rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called 911 when she stopped breathing.

Why call this guy a wacko? Let me get to that...

Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.

So should we get rid of our hostpitals and doctors in America because the bible says God will heal us? Absurd!

"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumann testified. "I am not believing what he said he would do."

This man wilfully neglected his daughter and it resulted in her death. He tried to say he thought she had the flu, but when you read his disregard for doctors you know that is only being said to weasel his way out of responsibility for his own daughters death and casting it off on God.

Neumann knew he should have taken his daughter to a doctor and minimized her illness when speaking with investigators, Jacobson said, calling Neumann no different than a drunken driver who remarks he only had a couple of beers.

People like this who use the bible as a means to neglect and kill should be locked away from the population. In 2009, it is time to put down the bible and pick up the book of reason and logic which tells us medicine works and prayer does not.

Everyone who prayed in that room should be on trial and/or in jail for neglectful and willful manslaughter.

Kid Steals Car and Runs From Police

Another clear sign of the direction America is headed. Some 7 year old thug in the making stole his fathers car and ran from the police, and instead of being reprimanded and bringing shame on his family, he is on television today and everyone is laughing. Not me. I can't wait till they find this kid stealing cars 10 years from now. You think it's funny? If I had done this when I was a child, I would not have been put on TV and been paid for doing so. This family is accepting money to appear on TV when the kid should be as grounded as anyone can be.



Because my mother worked so many hours per week as single mom, I was raised by my grandmother. And I can tell you, had I done something like this, she would lit my behind up with either her hand, or the closet thing she could find. Call the CPS if you will, but this little brat doesn't deserve air time, he deserves a good old fashioned lesson in discipline.

He drove at speeds of 45mph and endangered lives of others, this is not funny at all. I bet if he had run over someone you people wouldn't be laughing, would you? Thought so.

Let's look at how the media played out when a 7 year old BLACK kid did the exact thing... no one was laughing and in fact, everyone vilified him and his parents. What is the difference between a 7 year old white kid and a 7 year old black one? Nothing but skin color and the way the media writes the story.



I call it like I see it. When white kid does it, it's funny and goes on TV shows. When black kid does it, media portrays parents as bad and bad kid... white parents laughed and enjoy the attention, black grandma says "If I knew they wouldn't take me to jail I would beat his a$$ right now!"

Go grandma!

In Effort To Not Be Racist, Americans Become Xenophobic

I cannot help but notice, and point out the irony of this situation. In an effort to not be seen as racists, Americans have become xenophobic! Allow me to illustrate...

In the article, White House 'Beer Summit' Becomes Something of a Brouhaha, Americans are not happy with the choice of beer chosen by the participants in the "beer summit" called together by Obama, which consists of him, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr and Officer Crowley.

How so?

The president's plan to toss back a few cold ones with some high-profile guests at the White House has the American beer industry hopping mad.

It seems people are upset the President and friends are not drinking, American beer.

Late Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hinted the presidential cooler will likely be stocked with what he understood to be the two guests' own personal favorites -- Red Stripe and Blue Moon.

"The president will drink Bud Light," Mr. Gibbs added.

The problem is that all three beers are products of foreign companies. Red Stripe is brewed by London-based Diageo PLC. Blue Moon is sold by a joint venture in which London-based SABMiller has a majority stake.

And Bud Light? It is made by Anheuser-Busch -- which is now known as Anseuser-Busch InBev NV after getting bought last year by a giant Belgian-Brazilian company.

Wo cares what kind of beer a guy drinks? Not everyone has the same likes and dislikes and when it comes to beers, that is every man's personal choice! There is no need to get xenophobic about it!

It gets better, look at these quotes:

Among rival brewers, the news fell flat. "We would hope they would pick a family-owned, American beer to lubricate the conversation," said Bill Manley, a spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a California-based brewer that happens to be family-owned.

Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams, decried "the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer."

I love the use of "foreign domination," it almost sounds like a war! Lubricate conversation? Is that what they call getting a buzz now? Alcoholics and those who promote alcohol use sure are funny when you don't drink.

Genesee Brewery, Rochester, N.Y., released a statement congratulating the president for having beer at the meeting but adding: "We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."

Make no mistake, this is xenophobia at it's finest. A clear indication that America is still not only racist, but we still dislike foreigners! What a way to make even this event look bad. Embarrassing, but what do you expect from a bunch of alcoholics? if they act this way sober, you should hear what they say when they are drunk and behind closed doors...

But this is nothing new, even President Bush had names of desserts changed, what does old Bushy have against the French?

In general, the White House strives to showcase American food, wines and traditional concoctions at official meals and parties. Sometimes, even menu items with a foreign provenance are Americanized. In the George W. Bush White House, a favorite chocolate dessert was referred to not as a French-style soufflé, but as a "chocolate freedom."

Anyhow, a man's personal decision on what type of beer he drinks is his own business, and it is a shame that even in an event trying to bring people together and quell a bit of racism, Americans show their #1 characteristic, to hate and fear that what is different than our own. Which strikes at the heart of racism and xenophobia.

You people should be ashamed.

Get off the phone and drive!

Anyone else notice the increase of children-filled SUV accidents? Everytime I read the news story I ask, was she on the phone? Well, was she? Reports hardly ever address the question... recently an SUV ran into a tree on a residential street. No dog running across the street was reported, the mother just claimed she "lost control" of her SUV and her children ended up being terribly burned. And rescue workers were burned trying to save her kids. Hurray for heroes, but question still remains, how did mom lose control on a residential street with no oncoming traffic or any reason for her to do so? Was she on her phone??

Mother, Two-Year-Old Daughter, Three Nieces Among 8 Dead in Wrong Way Crash

Police are looking into how a woman who drove nearly two miles into oncoming traffic before plowing into an SUV head on in a fatal crash that took her life and seven others somehow became disoriented behind the wheel.

from this article: Taconic Crash: What Was Wrong With Wrong-Way Driver?

Fast forward to today. I am reading another news story this morning about a woman who drove head first down wrong way and crashed in her SUV filled with kids, killing not only herself and kids, but other passengers in other cars! So I ask myself again, was she on the phone? The answer in this case, could be yes, for this article actually mentions she called her brother while driving and he asked her to pull over because she said she was having problems seeing.

What was wrong with the driver? Lack of sense? She should have pulled over, instead, she caused fatal accident killing more than just her family.

On the drive, Schuler called her brother to tell him she wasn't feeling well. He asked her to pull over immediately. Schuler did not pull over, but her brother was worried enough to call the police.

So, here is a mom, who is having problems seeing, and instead of pulling over, what does she do? Gets on her cellphone and keeps driving. This horrible accident could have been avoided if mom chose to pull over and figure out what was wrong with her sight, instead of continuing to endanger the lives of her children and others while driving on cellphone.

And it's not like she made a quick mistake and turned onto wrong ay street. She did so for miles, and cars were swerving not to hit her as she sped in the fast line into oncoming traffic. Cops said cars were swerving not to hit her and she just kept going. Why?? Suicide?

"She was having some problems seeing," Lt. Dominick Chiumento of the New York State Police told "Good Morning America."

Two hours after the call to her brother, police believe Schuler turned onto the parkway, heading down an exit ramp with signs clearly stating that she was heading the wrong way.

She drove in the fast lane, straight into traffic. Oncoming cars swerved to miss her.

She kept driving for 2 hours after she called her brother!

One of the drivers in her path, Richard Rowe, managed to avoid a crash with Schuler who he said seemed "in total control."

"I don't understand. She was in total control of the car," Rowe said. "Maybe initially she was confused, but she had lots of time to correct her mistake. If we had been 30 seconds later, we would have been hit by her."

While driving while on phone may not be the case here, she was certainly using cellphone at some point while driving, as reports indicate from her brother.

The answer to my question, "was she on the phone?" is usually answered with a "yes" if you dig into the facts.

Hopefully cellphone use in vehicles will be banned soon, I really am tired of seeing people on the phone while driving. I have never, not a single time, ever driven while on phone. Most of the time I leave my cellphone at home, and am known for not carrying one, so I am allowed to speak this truth.

Three men from Yonkers, N.Y., could not avoid Schuler. All three were killed in the head-on collision.

Schuler's autopsy ruled out a heart attack or aneurysm, and police do not believe she was under the influence or suicidal.

Hang up and drive idiots!

OBAMA WINS PRESIDENCY!

Well America, we did it.

Barack Obama wins the presidency

I posted this before: Barack Obama Wins Presidency And hoped it would come true... and it has.



The world will never look at America the same. Hopefully, this will take our country in a better direction. Other countries will see us different now. And we proved we can look past skin color and elect a president.

Say it, get used to it: President Barack Obama.

Congrats to the winners

Election Day

The day is here, it has finally come. It is time to elect a new President of the United States.

Who will you be voting for?

I do not consider myself a democrat, and although I can have some conservative thoughts when it comes to balancing the budget and wasteful spending of tax dollars, I am a Libertarian.

However, I have learned my lesson from the past and have decided to vote Democrat this go round and will be voting for Barack Obama. Why? If I went into some long diatribe about it, it wouldn't make a difference here, or anywhere. The reasons do not really even matter anymore.

The race is not just between Barack Obama and John McCain, but I really feel if I do not vote for one of those candidates I may be allowing a room for margin that would allow John McCain to snatch the Presidency, simply because of split and decisive voters placing votes for candidates who basically have no chance of winning.

At first I really thought I would vote for Obama simply because I felt he would do a better job than McCain. But after watching McCain's nasty election campaign, the way his party has used racist images and propaganda, I am now going to vote Obama, to vote AGAINST McCain. I place my vote with Barack Obama because I like him, but also because now I do NOT want McCain to win. I feel he will do more harm than good to this country.

At first I thought both candidates were running a nice campaign, but then McCain's advertising became so nasty, the local Republicans running for office started bashing Obama in their local ads and it just got worse and worse. That is not something that sways people like me to their side of the argument.

As I said, it's too late for reasons, it's time to vote. It's time to put your money where your mouth is and pull the crank. Flick the switch, pull the lever. Take the ride.

It's going to be a long day for some people, and I can't wait to see the results.

Voter Fraud

The Republicans and John McCain are trying real hard to connect Barack Obama to voter fraud. The problem is, Obama hasn't done any wrong. Companies are hired by both Democrats and Republicans to gather votes, and here is the latest news regarding Republican toes to voter fraud.

From: GOP voter registration fraud case leads to arrest

The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario late last night on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.

How much voter fraud has gone on through this company?

How tied is the Republican party to this group?

If McCain and the Republicans want to portray Barack Obama as taking part in voter fraud, when they themselves are connected to companies committing the same offenses. Possibly even worse?

From: McCain renews claims of voter fraud

Republicans are stepping up pressure on election authorities over alleged voter fraud by a grassroots group with past ties to Barack Obama, setting the stage for a potential legal battle should the Democrat win next month's election by a narrow margin.

Maybe McCain should keep clean out the skeletons in his own closet before accusing Barack Obama of doing anything fraudulent.

Not only did this company commit voter fraud, they actually tricked people into registering "Republican." And were paid for each voter they registered.

Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.

Several agencies had launched investigations into Jacoby's activities, including the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, which issued the warrant for his arrest earlier this month on felony charges of voter registration fraud and perjury.

Sounds like McCain and the Republicans have been up to their own voter fraud tricks?

McCain has ridden the news soundbytes with "ACORN," now let's see how he faces his own voter fraud case.

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

The moment many have been waiting for.

According to the BBC:

US President George W Bush's first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has endorsed Democratic election candidate Barack Obama for the White House.

He backed his fellow African-American over John McCain, the Republican Party's choice to succeed Mr Bush in the 4 November election.

He told NBC Mr Obama had the "ability to inspire" and was "inclusive".

"All Americans... not just African-Americans" would be proud of an Obama win, he argued.

He nails it. Barack Obama inspires people, can bring about unity and change. People are tired of the same old divisive politics in America.

We want to vote for someone who can help us get this country back on track.

As more news articles come out about this, we will get a glimpse into his reasoning behind this endorsement, but the certainly adds to the excitement of this election.

From CNN: Colin Powell endorses Obama

"I think he is a transformational figure, he is a new generation coming onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I think that's inappropriate. I understand what politics is about -- I know how you can go after one another, and that's good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for," he said.

"Obama displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge," Powell said.

"He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president," he said.

Above are some quotes from Colin Powell about Barack Obama and why he endorses him.

What do you think of this highly public endorsement?

Obama Speaks To 100,000 In Missouri

Barack Obama gave a speech to 100,000 at a Saturday rally in Missouri. Marking the biggest crowd at one of his U.S. events.



Look at the size of that crowd! Amazing.

From WSJ Blog: Obama Rally Draws 100,000 in Missouri

The crowd assembled under the Gateway Arch on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear Obama speak about taxes and slam the Republicans on economic issues.

Lt. Samuel Dotson of the St. Louis Police Department confirmed the number of attendees piled into the grassy lawn by the Mississippi River.

To be sure, big crowds don’t always signal a big turnout on Election Day. But Obama’s ability to draw his largest audience yet in a typically red state that just weeks ago looked out of reach, could signal a changing electoral map.

For months Missouri polls put Obama as much as ten percentage points behind Republican John McCain. It was widely believed that McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate would have won over the state’s conservatives and boosted his chances there. So far, that hasn’t happened.

I think it says a lot about Barack Obama, that he is able to draw such large crowds and inspire so many Americans to actually get involved in the political process.

Many Americans have grown cynical towards politics, and many would rather watch sports than vote. But we are all working on changing that, and when elections such as this draw so much attention, it helps get more people involved, sometimes those who would normally be doing something else.

Chicago Tribune Endorses Obama

The first time it has endorsed a Democrat.

However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America's slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven't experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn't forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

Obviously the best part is the end, but its worth reading the whole thing.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause--the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.

With that in mind, in 1872 we endorsed Horace Greeley, who ran as an independent against the corrupt administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. (Greeley was later endorsed by the Democrats.) In 1912 we endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party candidate against Republican President William Howard Taft.

The Tribune's decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.

We see parallels today.

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

The give reasons why they do not endorse McCain.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate--but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

The Chicago Tribune also states why it has chosen Obama.

We do, though, think Obama would govern as much more of a pragmatic centrist than many people expect.

And a great ending

Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.

He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.

When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren't a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

Good job, and go Obama!

McCain RoboCalls

Have you gotten one of these McCain "robocalls" everyone is talking about? Things are heating up on the campaign trail. The McCain campaign is getting aggressive, more than ever.

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Rigel Anderson report: Embattled Republican Sen. Susan Collins is calling on Sen. John McCain to stop paying for automated phone calls which describe Sen. Barack Obama as having "worked closely" with "domestic terrorist Bill Ayers."

"These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics," said Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley. "Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately."

We shall file this one under "propaganda."

Ayers is the former leader of the Weather Underground. To protest the Vietnam War, his organization ran a domestic bombing campaign which resulted in fatalities.

Obama, who was 8 years old at the time, has repudiated those acts as "despicable." Friday's statement from the Collins campaign came after Maine's Democratic Party issued a press release earlier in the day challenging the Republican incumbent to denounce what it called "blatantly false phone calls personally attacking" Obama.

Collins' Democratic opponent was not satisfied.

"If she truly feels that strongly about it," said Carol Andrews, communications director to Democratic Rep. Tom Allen, "she should resign as co-chair of McCain's campaign in Maine."

Here is the transcript of the McCain Robocall.

"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500."

How effective are these types of things during an election?

Republican Vito Fossella Drunk Driving & Having Affair

What's worse than getting busted drinking and driving? Getting busted for drinking and driving and having an affair at the same time. Ooooops!

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A judge has has convicted Rep. Vito Fossella of drunken driving and will later decide if he should serve time in jail.

The New York Republican was arrested May 1 in the suburbs outside Washington, leading to revelations he had fathered a child from an extramarital affair. After the scandal, he decided not to seek re-election.

Alexandria, Va., General District Court Judge Becky Moore found Fossella guilty, and scheduled a Dec. 8 hearing to decide if prosecutors had met the legal requirement for high blood alcohol content, which would mean a mandatory five-day jail sentence.

Rep. Vito Fossella, on trial for drunken driving, insisted from the witness stand Friday that he had only two glasses of wine the night he was busted. He sought to clear himself in a case that derailed a promising political career and may lead to time in jail.

"I had no more than a glass and a half" of wine with dinner, plus a few more sips of wine at a tavern in the hours before he was arrested, Fossella testified.

Fossella, the lone Republican in Congress from New York City, was arrested just after midnight on May 1 in suburban Virginia. He had spent the previous afternoon at the White House celebrating the New York Giants' Super Bowl victory.

"There was a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from the car and his lips were stained red," police officer Jamie Gernatt testified in Alexandria General District Court. The police officer said Fossella told him he'd had two or three glasses of wine.

The non-jury trial was expected to take a day. Police say his blood-alcohol level was 0.17 percent, and under state law anyone convicted of having a BAC above 0.15 must serve a mandatory five-day jail term.

Doesn't every person busted for DUI claim "all I had was a beer or two officer." LOL

Police said the married 43-year-old told them he was headed to see his sick daughter. Given that his wife and children live in New York, that statement set off alarms and eventually led to the revelation he had secretly fathered a daughter, now 3 years old, with a Virginia woman named Laura Fay, a former Air Force officer and congressional liaison.

After admitting the relationship, Fossella announced he would not seek re-election, a drastic fall for a politician once viewed as a potential mayor of New York City. His downfall has also created an opportunity for Democrats to gain a seat in Congress in November.

Fossella's troubles have only further hurt his state party's election chances next month. If a Democrat wins Fossella's seat, it will mark the first time in 35 years that all of New York City has been represented by Democrats.

Vito Fossella busted for drinking and driving and having an affair.

Former UCLA exec pleads guilty to body trafficking

Go ahead an file this one under "creepy." Here is another winner for Friday night.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former chief of UCLA's cadaver program pleaded guilty Friday for his role in selling donated body parts to medical, drug and research companies in a scheme that netted up to $1 million, prosecutors said.

Henry Reid, 58, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles County Superior Court to one count of conspiracy to commit grand theft, with a special allegation that he damaged or destroyed more than $1 million worth of school property, which refers to the donated bodies.

Under a plea agreement, Reid could be sentenced to four years and four months in state prison. He also agreed to cooperate in the trial of a co-defendant and to repay $100,000 to $1 million to the program at the University of California, Los Angeles, according to a statement from the county district attorney's office.

A judge will determine the actual restitution figure, the statement said.

"My client accepted responsibility for the mistake he made concerning his activities as director of the Willed Body Program at UCLA and is extremely remorseful about the situation," his attorney, Melvyn Sacks, said after the hearing. "He deeply regrets the outcome of his actions."

The "mistake?" How do you make the mistake of selling people's body parts after they are dead??? Sounds like it took a little more than an accident to negotiate and sell that amount of body limbs and organs.

Prosecutors said Reid sold hundreds of parts of donated bodies between 1999 and 2004 to Ernest Nelson, who operated a business transporting body parts. Nelson then resold them to more than 20 medical, drug and research companies, prosecutors said.

Nelson has said he believed he was acting under the university's authorization when he received the donated torsos. He cut them up and kept the frozen parts in a rented warehouse until they were sold.

The scheme unraveled in 2003 after a state health investigator became concerned about a sale and contacted the university. Reid and Nelson were arrested in 2004, then freed while an investigation continued.

The men eventually were indicted on one count each of conspiracy to commit grand theft and one count each of grand theft and grand theft of personal property. The remaining theft counts against Reid will be dismissed at his Jan. 30 sentencing hearing as part of his plea deal, prosecutors said.

Am I the only one that is creeped out by this?

UCLA said it instituted new procedures to prevent future abuses, including new donor forms and security and tracking systems for the bodies.

yeah, hopefully the school can put an end to this type of activity. Man that is creepy.

Muslim Students Fakes Attack

It looks like we have a great winner for Friday night. Just when you thought there wasn't enough race based attacks in the world, here comes a student to fake one and stir up some racial tension.

(Sun Times) A Muslim student who claimed she was attacked at Elmhurst College in what school officials described as a hate crime has now been charged with making up the story.

Safia Z. Jilani, 19, of Oak Brook, told police that on Oct. 9, a masked, male attacker struck her in the head with a handgun about after she entered a restroom in the Schaible Science Center on campus, according to a release from Elmhurst police.

Police found threatening graffiti -- "Kill the Muslims" -- written on a mirror in the restroom, students and police said. Earlier Thursday, the victim had spoken at a demonstration called to denounce anti-Islamic slurs and a swastika she had discovered Oct. 2 on her locker, school officials said.

But late Friday afternoon, Elmhurst police announced that a weeklong investigation determined the assault never occurred,there was no gunman and Jilani was arrested on a warrant for filing a false police report, a Class 4 felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison.

The initial report of the attack triggered a lockdown at the college while police searched the campus and prompted hundreds of students to rally again the following day to protest the incident.

Officials at the 3,300-student private college -- which has about 30 Muslim students -- denounced the attack and promised to increase security on campus, including offers of rides for Muslim students to and from classes.

Uh oh. So did she draw the swastika on her locker or did someone else?

Uncounted: The New Math Of American Elections

With the excitement building over the upcoming Presidential Election on November 4, 2008, I decided to give Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections a viewing last night.

Here's the brief description I read before I sat down to watch it...

Filmmaker David Earnhardt takes a close look at the state of America's electoral process and presents unnerving evidence that fraud at every level is disenfranchising voters across the nation. Featuring candid interviews with election officials, journalists, statisticians, computer programmers and others, this persuasive documentary also examines the scandals surrounding the 2004 presidential election.

All I knew going into it, was that the documentary was about elections, and the counting of votes using electronic voting machines.

If you are unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding electronic voting machines, the company Diebold, and the 2004 election, you really should check this one out. Diebold received so much negative publicity regarding the voting machines bugged with problems, they have since changed their company name to: Premier Election Solutions Inc.



I understand why the country has begun moving towards electronic voting machines, however, I do not understand why there is no paper trail. The company behind the machines, in this DVD, is Diebold, the same company who makes ATM machines. ATM Machines keep an internal auditable log and can be traced. Why should our voting machines, made by this same company, be unable to be audited or counted if there is an issue. Essentially, once votes are cast, there is no proof of them and no way to verify or count them afterward in the event of a problem.

Electronic voting machines should print out a paper, showing all your votes, you should be able to look that over, and then drop that in a ballot box. Not have it all stored in memory on a machine, that has proven to fail. I am concerned more than ever that the Republican ties to the companies who make these voting machines, has in fact, been used to "flip votes" in favor of Republican politicians. Why would I think that?

The man, Clint Curtis is in the documentary, who was employed to write software for these voting machines blows the whistle in this DVD. He became aware something was wrong when his employer wanted him to make the "vote flipping" part of the software source code to be hidden or non-traceable. He voiced his concern, and was told, "you don't understand, this is to flip the election in Florida." Now, if you remember Florida was the state that basically gave George Bush the 2004 election. If he had not won Florida, there is a chance the entire election would have come out differently.

Other examples of clear vote fraud, is shown in a town where only 800 or so people voted, yet Bush was given 4,200+ votes from that precinct. Something a little strange going on? Certainly, and this DVD will open your eyes to the blatant voter fraud taking place in our modern elections.

Why do electronic voting machines not give us a paper trail? Something we can count afterward? Voting machines are built to the exact opposite of standards that ATM machines are manufactured to. ATM machines can be audited and every bit of info or transaction leaves a record so someone can analyze the machine and its numbers if there is ever a problem. Why would a company, that builds such systems, go out of their way, to make voting machines hold no record, keep no trace or trail of events? There is only one reason, to hide what is going on inside.

In this documentary, you see public officials who have been fired for making inquiries into these voting machines, and you can see many of the connections between certain politicians and the company who makes the machines and more. Bruce Funk is locked out of his office, an elected official, while Diebold denies him access to the machines so they can edit the software and remove the "flip virus." This is an amazing inside look into what is going on in America regarding the vote counting process.

I will leave you with the description from the box:

UNCOUNTED is an explosive documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 - and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. This controversial film examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof.

UNCOUNTED shares well documented stories about the spine-chilling disregard for the right to vote in America. In Florida, computer programmer Clint Curtis is directed by his boss to create software that will 'flip' votes from one candidate to another. In Utah, County Clerk Bruce Funk is locked out of his office for raising questions about security flaws in electronic voting machines. Californian Steve Heller gets convicted of a felony after he leaks secret documents detailing illegal activities committed by a major voting machine company. And Tennessean entrepreneur, Athan Gibbs, finds verifiable voting a hard sell in America and dies before his dream of honest elections can be realized.

UNCOUNTED is a wakeup call to all Americans. Beyond increasing public awareness, the film inspires greater involvement in fixing a broken electoral system.

You should watch this before the upcoming election if you have concerns regarding electronic voting machines.

Get your copy of UNCOUNTED: The New Math Of American Elections before the election.

Obama Bucks

Ever since Sean Hannity said that "no one in the Republican party had resorted to fear or race" in this campaign, I have made it my duty to document the blatant racist adverts being put out via the internet, by the Republicans. Here is the latest, sent out by official Republican mailing.

Obama Bucks

According to PE.com:

The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

What about this image, doesn't contain elements of fear and race?

The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

The group's president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club's meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Of course she, "doesn't want to go into it further."

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

Not only was this from a chain-letter already being circulated by Republicans, she decided to make copies and forward the propaganda to all her members. Who sent it to her originally? In addition, she doesn't think in racist terms? It's like the racism just goes over their head or something, like they don't even notice it... amazing.

But Black Republican members of the group noticed... and were upset by it.

Sheila Raines, an African-American member of the club, was the first person to complain to Fedele about the newsletter. Raines, of San Bernardino, said she has worked hard to try to convince other minorities to join the Republican Party and now she feels betrayed.

"This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."

I can only imagine something like this would offend black members.

Acquanetta Warren, a Fontana councilwoman and member of the women's group, said the item is rude and requires a public apology.

"When I opened that up and saw it, I said, 'Why did they do this? It doesn't even reflect our principles and values,' " said Warren, who served as a Republican delegate to the national convention in September and is a regional vice chairwoman for the California Republican Party. "I know a lot of the ladies in that club and they're fantastic. They're volunteers. They really care -- some of them go to my church."

Warren forwarded an electronic version of the newsletter to the California Republican Party headquarters, where officials also were outraged Wednesday and denounced the illustration.

Hector Barajas, the party's press secretary, said the party chairman likely will have a conversation with Fedele, and Barajas will attend the statewide California Federation of Republican Women conference this weekend in Los Angeles to handle any news media there to cover the controversy.

Again, take notice that this is taking place in the liberal West, California to be exact, and this shows racism is everywhere.

Joe the Plumber

Things aren't looking so good again for McCain. A lot of news has been made about this Joe The Plumber guy. A citizen on the campaign trail, who got the attention of the media by posing a question to Barack Obama regarding raising his taxes. Come to find out...

According to Eisenstadt's blog:

John McCain did great tonight in the debate. But every time John mentioned “Joe the Plumber,” some of us in the campaign banged our heads against the wall. If Steve Schmidt had any hair left, I hear he would have been pulling it out tonight. He reportedly screamed at John’s debate prep team tonight (out of earshot of reporters, of course). “You idiots - he’s related to Charles Keating… of the Keating Five scandal!” They thought they had a real live Joe Six-Pack who’s spurned Barack Obama’s tax plan. But what they forgot to do was check on Joe Wurzelbacher’s background.

Turns out that Joe Wurzelbacher from the Toledo event is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbacher of Milford, Ohio. Who’s Robert Wurzelbacher? Only Charles Keating’s son-in-law and the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the infamous Lincoln Savings and Loan. The now retired elder Wurzelbacher is also a major contributor to Republican causes giving well over $10,000 in the last few years.

Barack Obama took the high road in the final presidential debate by not retorting with the Keating Five scandal when McCain brought up William Ayers of the Weather Underground. But now it (the relationship between Mccain, Keating, Joe the Plumber) will be out in the open even more now. Wonder what will the ads be like?

Word on the internet is, the guy isn't actually a plumber. A licensed one anyway.

A staff person with the Toledo Division of Building Inspection told On Call this afternoon that her division will contact Wurzelbacher to notify him that he can't work without a license.

"We're trying to track him down," she said.

In the meantime, the Democrat-friendly local plumbers' union is fuming.

"He has no license whatsoever with the city of Toledo," said Tom Joseph, the business manager for Local Union 50 of the Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics, which has endorsed Obama. "He has no license in the state of Ohio. He has no contractor's license in the state of Ohio. He is not a plumber. He works for a plumber."

Never a dull moment in politics.

After The Final Presidential Debate

What I saw at the Final Presidential Debate was John McCain acting like a desperate old politician trying very hard to make negative attacks, the other candidate Barack Obama doing a great job at not letting the smear tactics get the best of him.

CNN says: "John McCain came out of the gate strong, but Barack Obama gained strength as the night progressed Wednesday in the final presidential debate where each candidate tried to convince voters that he is better equipped to steer the nation through these troubled times.

Hours before the debate, CNN changed its Electoral Map. The new estimate shows that Obama now has 277 electoral votes to McCain's 174. To win the White House, a candidate needs 270."

I liked the split screen moments, where we could see one opponent speak while watching the reaction on the face of the other. I liked that.

McCain definitely came off as sarcastic, I can't stand that hissing like tone in his voice at times, nor do I consider it presidential the way he turns nasty and you can almost see that fury bubbling to the top. I have heard of his temper tantrums before, and you can see, even from these debates, that McCain is a hot head. Barack Obama kept his cool, calm temper, while McCain went on the attack, and McCain's snake-like grinning while he tries to tie Obama to terrorism turns me off as a voter. Obama is not connected to terrorists, and to see McCain lie over and over again, makes me never want to see him in politics after this. When is his term up???

Barack Obama did a good job on trying to remain on the issues, on topic, and McCain seemed willing, from the start, to try and dodge an issue but come in with a negative attack. We are tired of this, we want answers to the problems facing America, not more of this political back and forth.

McCain didn't get his knockout, and Barack Obama made him look even worse by sticking to the issues and dodging the negative attacks. In this debate, Obama did the right thing by taking the high road and not being tricked into defending himself against baseless accusations. McCain did bring up Ayers of The Weather Underground, and Obama did the right thing by addressing it, but he did not stick on that topic for long and quickly moved to ACORN, and the next attack McCain tried to deliver. I was proud of Barack's focus, and would be proud to have this man as my President. For the first time in my adult life, I will actually ben not only fond, but proud of the leader of my country. President Obama, I look forward to your leadership.

The people who wanted to see McCain strike and attack, will be happy. Those that like the calm mannered Barack will say he did a great job at withstanding McCain's constant attempts at causing Obama to waste his time defending himself versus stating his position. Obama did a great job at not letting those attacks become the focus of the discussion, and kept pulling the debate back to the economic crisis and what is really facing America.

Off topic, but I wanted to mention this: ExxonMobil was the biggest advertiser for the post debate commercials! Those big meany oil companies and their profits!!! ;)

I thought it was highly amusing, that ExxonMobil came up in the debate, their tax breaks and higher fuel efficient cars. Why? Because this is the company McCain wants to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to. Barack Obama specifically named them in the debate, and their ad was for? None other than, those fuel efficient cars we've been waiting for. However, just as in the documentary Who Killed The Electric car, you can tell how the commercial was made not to promote the idea of hydrogen vehicles or biofuel cars, but to show the schematics for tiny box cars that have no room or power. Ads of this nature have been documented by all car advertisement watchers. I won't go into it further here, this is part of my lifelong study of ads, watch Who Killed The Electric Car to gain a further understanding of that I am talking about here. Researchers compare the commercials made for fuel efficient cars vs Hummers, Titans, and other gas guzzlers. You'll be surprised to see how one vehicle is marketed, while the other commercials have negative messages regarding the vehicle they show, to keep people wanting the gas guzzler and not the "tiny sized" hybrid cars.

In the end, to use a McCain campaign line, Barack Obama won... hands down.

Waterboard Barack Obama

As I sit here, reading the news, awaiting the final Presidential Debate, I felt the need to prove Sean Hannity wrong.

"Nobody in the Republican Party has resorted to overtones of "race and fear" in attacking Obama."

Not only has it been shown that high ranking Republican leaders are training vote recruiters in talking points, to smear Obama claiming he has ties to Osama Bin Laden, we can prove Sean Hannity wrong by simple showing a graphic used by the Republican Party in California, on their official website.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how the Republicans plan on gaining votes... "Waterboard Barack Obama" ads.



This was used on the official Republican website, although since removed, it shows how far this political party is willing to go to try and make Barack Obama look bad by claiming he has ties to Osama Bin Laden, totally false.

Here is what FoxNews had to say about it...

A California county's Republican Party Web site encouraged readers to "Waterboard Barack Obama" and compared Obama to Usama bin Laden, drawing criticism on Wednesday from Democrats and Republicans in the state.

The Web site of the Sacramento County Republican Party posted five illustrations saying that the terrorist group Hamas supported Obama and that "the only difference between Obama and Osama is BS." Another attacked Michelle Obama, reading, "Hey Obama! Want to see bitter?"

The graphics were removed from the site by Wednesday, after the state GOP urged the local group to take them down.

The state Republican Party learned of the controversial content when it received a phone call from a reporter, said party spokesman Hector Barajas.

"I called the Sacramento county chairman and I had them remove it," Barajas said. "I also noted to them that this is a complete distraction from what we're trying to do, and that's elect John Mccain and Sarah Palin as the next president and vice president of the United States."

I also posted about the GOP leaders in Virginia, equating Obama with Osama, and training vote recruiters to use the talking point that Obama and Osama are friends.

Anyhow, back to the topic of proving Sean Hannity wrong for his comment that no one in the Republican party has resorted to fear or race in this campaign. As you can see that is plainly, not the case.

Official Republican leaders have used racist graphics, as well as, images that promote fear. Not to mention, not only does the "Waterboard Obama" ad insinuate he is connected to Osama Bin Laden, the ad encourages torture against a United States Senator. Before John McCain switched his stance on waterboarding, he was against it. He said it amounted to torture, and American military had no place in torturing people. He has since, flip flopped, changed his policy and believes in torture as a means to gather info. The old McCain would have shunned this type of advertisement, and it shows the length to which these politicians will go to gain a vote during an election.

Even though the "Waterboard Obama" ad has been removed, it still proves that Sean Hannity did a little more than stretch the truth by claiming no one in the Republican party had stooped this low. They have. Here's the proof, Seany Boy.

I would also like to take this time to prove yet another point I have tried to make before. Notice how these racist things happening on the campaign trail, are actually not in the South? Notice how people say "oh the South is so racist." As I look at the electoral maps today, I see Obama is making gains in Southern states, while not suffering the hateful rhetoric he is getting from other states!

The latest hate is in California, not the South! Imagine that...

Seattle Times reports...

The Sacramento Bee asked Craig MacGlashan about the content after seeking his reaction to hate-filled graffiti that was spray-painted over an Obama display on a fence in Sacramento.

In recent weeks, MacGlashan, an attorney, joined local Democratic party officials in condemning vandalism to political displays.

The vandalism to the Obama display appeared to have been done overnight Monday. A racial epithet, profanity, "KKK" and the words "white power" were clearly visible from the roadway. Six of the nine fence panels were defaced.

"What you are describing to me is not free speech, it's vandalism. We don't condone it," MacGlashan said.

Those people spraying "KKK" on signs, and "white power" are nowhere near the South. As a matter of fact, due to population, there are more registered hate groups in California than the southern states combined, believe it. California has more registered race hating groups, than if you combined all the hate groups in the south. And as the news reports, you can see where all the hate is taking place. Not in the South.

Using fear like this in an election campaign in the year 2008, amounts to terrorism in my opinion. Our political climate should be free of these types of advertisements coming directly from the Republican Party. Sure, some wackos will always make racist ads or propaganda, but to have it being shown on Republican party web sites takes it to a whole new level.

You are wrong Sean, your party has in fact, stooped that low.

Obama = Osama Bin Laden

What a very dumb thing to say, or think. You'd have to be a very uneducated person to say such a thing. But, wait. Isn't that what a leader of the Republican Party, a GOP leader, just said? Yes, yes it is. Although, now he wants to say it "was a joke."

Pay attention to how he says it, he is not joking. This was not a joke, nor was it ever intended to be... clear case of smear tactics being used by the Republican party.

In the Washington Post, ...

"It is just the hard facts. It's terrible that it can be said, but it can," Frederick said. "It's shocking. Here is a guy who is one step away from the presidency, who is one step away from being commander in chief, who has a friend who bombed the Pentagon. It's just shocking to me." He added, "And there is no denying that Osama bin Laden had a role in bombing the Pentagon."

Where, in the above, is the injected humor? Where is the funny part? He is making a propaganda statement, and releasing it to the public. This is not just some guy on the street the Mccain campaign can write off, this is a Republican leader.

Anyone with a brain can tell he was not joking, not in the slightest way. That was calculated, worded carefully, and presented to the media.



"Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick heads Virginia's GOP." A real winner.

This incident is just as bad, if not worse, than the Barack Osama ballots being released to voters. However, it serves the same purpose. Fear. To scare voters into voting one way. Barack Obama is not a terrorist. Stop trying to say he is. He is a United States Senator, and this shows how far these people are willing to go to make him look bad, just to win the election. It's been reported, that Frederick stood on top of a folding table, and announced this as the "talking point" to smear Obama. This is what is being told to people before they go door-to-door? Yes...

According to TIME:

With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.

At this time, according to the Washington Post, even 40 year Black republicans are taking offense to this type of hatred in the election.

Donald Scoggins, a prominent African-American Republican in Prince William County, has condemned Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick for comparing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to Osama bin Laden.

Scoggins said he's been involved in the Republican Party for 40 years, but said Frederick's remarks are "totally unacceptable." Scoggins once headed Republicans for Black Empowerment, which sought to recruit more African-Americans Republicans to run for office.

"At this point in time, not just in Virginia, but all over, there needs to be a lowering of the decibel of hatred and that was very much uncalled for," said Scoggins, who has been in touch with other GOP activists and leaders this morning to discuss Frederick's remarks. "For him to equate (Obama) with someone as vile and destructive as bin Laden is just very much beyond the pale."

Americans need to realize, these type of people, harm our politcal climate more than encourage nonpartisan efforts to fix the problems facing this country.

Stop letting these racists scare you into voting for someone. This is terrorism, not politics. Using fear in an election campaign, is no different than using bombs. Wake up people. These GOP leaders want to scare you away from voting Obama because he is a terrorist? Barack Obama is a well respected member of the US Senate. Show some respect.

President Obama

Get used to hearing it, get used to saying it. "President Obama"

Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.

When I first started watching the political race for the presidency, to be honest, I'm not that big on Hillary Clinton. So I wasn't that excited or involved in the race. Then Barack Obama won the nomination... and while I do not want any more Republicans running the country, I'd rather place my vote for someone I believe in and not just to vote against John McCain. What do I mean? Let me elaborate for a moment...

When George Bush was running against John Kerry, I voted Kerry. Not because I liked him. In fact, I didn't. Still don't. But I voted for him anyway. I didn't vote for him, I voted against Bush. This time around, it will be different.

Instead of placing my vote, just so one party doesn't win, I will be voting for someone whom I at least believe is the best choice at this time. I can't stand watching Bush give an interview or a speech, on the other hand, when Barack Obama speaks, he draws me in and I want to hear more of what he has to say.

I want to place my vote for someone I believe in, someone who I feel will help lead this country. I don't want my country to be in such bad shape politically that the only person I can vote for President, is the guy with the less amount of scandal attached to him, or to cast my vote because I don't want the other guy to win. I like Barack Obama, although we obviously differ in some policy ideas, out of the two he is the best for the nation.

I'm not necessarily an "undecided," but I don't consider myself a Democrat, or a Republican, that's for sure. My views put me under the Libertarian umbrella when focused on the issues, but in this election, all I can do is choose between these two. John McCain or Barack Obama? I'm not sure why people feel the need to be Left or Right, this country needs more people in the middle, Centrists, whatever you call em today. Moderates?

Unlike many, I refuse to let religious matters get in my during an election, I do not "practice" any faith, and I exercise my right to remain, godless. I feel too many let religion cloud their judgment, and do more harm in politics than good. But enough on that, back to President Obama.

What other reasons would I vote for Obama?

I'm also tired of the war. Barack Obama says he wants to end it, come up with timeline for withdrawal, and execute the plan. John McCain has been quoted as saying, we will be in Iraq "for at least 100 years." 100 years? No. The American people need to stop these war mongers now. Obama voted against the war when it was started, and John McCain continues to support eh Bush policy of "keep sending troops to Iraq." It's time to stop.

I have, for years now, more than one family member serving in Iraq. Multiple tours of duty, and when you hear them ask questions like "why are we even over there?" It's hard to answer. There is no reason, we need to get out of Iraq.

I also think, Barack Obama will be the one to really help put all the past segregation and inequality questions to rest, finally. If America elects a racially mixed man for President, I really feel not only will America begin to look at itself differently, I feel the world will view us in a new light. Racism and inequality have plagued this country long enough, hopefully, under new leadership, Obama can help bring us together and lead our people into a new era of Freedom in this country. Sure there will still be racists, that's not my point, I am referring to those who are ready to move this land forward, and put their own issues to rest. The past is the past, it is time to go forward. When people born to an interracial family, single mother, can make it to the Oval Office, anything is possible folks. Anything.

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos reports: Going into tonight's third and final presidential debate Barack Obama leads John McCain 53 to 39 percent in support nationally, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

Among independent voters -- a crucial voting group in this election -- Obama now leads McCain by 18 points, according to the CBS/Times poll.

Go Obama!

Final Presidential Debate

Tomorrow is the big day, and for many Americans, this has been a much anticipated moment.

The Final Presidential Debate of 2008 is upon us. And remarks, made this week, by John McCain may indicate this could be the most exciting of the debates of this election. McCain has vowed to "whip Barack's you-know-what." How Presidential.



The final presidential debate airs at 9 pm EST, 6 PST. The run time is about 90 minutes, and will be aired on every major network. CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX and CNN etc...

According to Associated Press, and as I've mentioned previously by barack showing leadership on foreclosures, the two candidates will both try and show themselves as a leader in the debate.

Barack Obama and John McCain will both pursue the image of a strong leader in troublesome economic times as they meet Wednesday night for their third and final presidential debate.

Joe Biden says he will be disappointed if John McCain brings up William Ayers.

"In my view, the ads that are being run picturing Barack Obama and people saying 'known terrorist' -- I think that's over the top."

As he continued his two-day bus tour across the Buckeye State stopping at Lisbon's Steel Trolley Diner for lunch, Biden said "Barack Obama was eight years old when this guy Ayers was doing bad things."

Biden said he felt "good" about tomorrow's debate, expressing "total confidence" in Obama.

Biden warned that he would be "disappointed" to see McCain bring up Ayers in Wednesday's third and final debate, though McCain has threatened to do so in response to Obama's suggestion that the Republican candidate doesn't have the guts to raise the issue to his face.

All Obama has to do, Biden says, is "repeat the performance he's had the last two times out."

Biden said the debates have contrasted "a guy who’s confident and steady and a guy who's not quite sure of where he wants to take the country."

Accusations of voter fraud in battleground states are beginning to make the nightly news, and we just await election day. I plan on voting early, and so should you! And make sure you tune in for the final debate of the presidential election 2008.

Christopher Buckley Resigns Over Obama Support

Wow, earlier I said it must have taken some courage to publically endorse Barack Obama the way he did. Well, he has now resigned from the National Review over it.

(Washington Note) The late William Buckley's son, the talented writer and thinker -- Christopher Buckley -- surprised many with his brave decision to endorse Barack Obama recently.

His announcement created a storm among National Review editors. According to reports, he offered to resign. And it took a nanosecond for the magazine to accept that resignation.

Some will think that this is good. I don't. It's not wise to have such rigid ideological lines in publications that fair-minded thinking can't be supported, debated, and embraced in process if not in substance.

Bill Buckley opposed George W. Bush's war in Iraq. He was an independent thinker who also would have difficulties with the Republican party that has been recently sculpted.

The father would not have accepted the resignation of the son -- and instead might have debated him in a set of catchy columns.

So true. Like him or not, William Buckley would have, and I would have loved to see it, taken this opportunity to debate this. Would've been historic!

It would have been as great as any sports event. But, to get back on topic, how far are people going to go to try and punish those who have opposing views in modern journalism and/or politics?

I'll keep following the Christopher Buckley resignation as it plays out over the next few days.

Sarah McCain Palin Not The Winner

A real winner here today. His name should go down in history as the smartest, brightest man, to ever walk the plant. Mark Ciptak. LOL

Sorry, but naming your child "Sarah McCain Palin" is about the dumbest thing I can think of at the moment. I mean, really.
According to the AP:

A new father has secretly named his baby girl Sarah McCain Palin after the Republican ticket for president and vice president.

Mark Ciptak of Elizabethton put that name on the documents for the girl's birth certificate, ignoring the name Ava Grace, which he and his wife had picked earlier.

"I don't think she believes me yet," he told the Kingsport Times-News for a story to be published Tuesday. "It's going to take some more convincing."

Ciptak, a blood bank employee for the American Red Cross, said he named his third child after John McCain and Sarah Palin to "to get the word out" about the campaign.

"I took one for the cause," he said. "I can't give a lot of financial support for the (McCain/Palin) campaign. I do have a sign up in my yard, but I can do very little."

I wouldn't wanna be that kid.

Even Pepsi Cutting Jobs

Looks like even Pepsi is cutting jobs, over 3,000 this time.

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- PepsiCo Inc., the world's largest snack maker, said it will cut 3,300 jobs after profit fell more than analysts estimated and the company lowered its forecast for the rest of the year. The shares dropped as much as 14 percent in New York trading.

PepsiCo wants to save $1.2 billion over three years as it closes as many as six plants and pares 1.8 percent of its workforce, including ``overlapping'' marketing and sales jobs, Chief Financial Officer Richard Goodman said today in an interview.

The maker of Gatorade and Pepsi-Cola will use some of the savings to boost marketing of its beverages in North America, which make up a fourth of PepsiCo's annual revenue. Drink sales in the U.S. and Canada decreased 3 percent in the third quarter as consumers cut back on soft drinks in groceries and convenience stores to better afford higher priced gasoline and food.

``The initiatives come at a time when it's evident they're necessary,'' Mark Swartzberg, a New Jersey-based analyst with Stifel Nicolas & Co., said today in an interview. ``Beverage performance in North America continues to be challenging and worse than expected.'' He recommends holding the stock.

Full-year earnings excluding some costs will be $3.67 to $3.68 a share, lower than its prediction of $3.72 in July, the Purchase, New York-based company said. The dollar's increase against other currencies will hurt profit in the fourth quarter, it said.

PepsiCo, the world's second-largest soda maker, dropped $5.44, or 8.8 percent, to $56.33 at 9:41 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares decreased 19 percent this year before today, compared with a 23 percent decline for Coca-Cola Co.

Americans are spending less on soda, to afford gas prices right now?

Sheriff Fires Back At Republican Censure For Supporting Democrat

Why should a party be able to punish some of its members if they do not vote a certain way, along party lines?

From: Sheriffs displeased that Landrieu endorsement drawing criticism

A couple of Louisiana’s most popular sheriffs are unhappy that the state Republican Party is considering ways to formally censure officials who go against the party line in major elections.

Things are heating up in Louisiana where a Republican Sheriff is firing back at the censure he and others are being threatened with for not voting along party lines.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain feel they are the target of the criticism for their endorsements of Senator Mary Landrieu in the upcoming election over Republican candidate John Kennedy.

“When I became a Republican, I did not know that meant there was a blood oath to the Republican Party and that other people would decide for me who was best for the job,” said Normand Monday.

Roger Villere, the head of the State GOP organization said a formal censure would have to wait until after the election because there are no rules in the party’s bylaws for such a move, but he is clearly not pleased that such high profile GOP officials have supported Landrieu publicly.

Senator Mary Landrieu supports Barack Obama as President. The Republicans have ran lots of negative ads trying to make, not only her, but Barack Obama look bad. I not only watched her debate against Republican John Kennedy, I have seen many of the negative ads his campaign released. most focused on comparing her to Barack, and over and over "the most liberal voter in Senate" etc... Nothing to do with Mary, her views, nothing, just negativity.

Mary Landrieu has earned the support of these people, and it is proof to how the left and right can work together in times of crisis.

“When you have a person in office who has worked hard and earned your support, it’s kind of difficult to tell them no and blindly follow a party mandate,” said Strain. “I am a Republican. Everything I believe and do represents the Republican Party."

I don't think these Republicans should be censured for voting a certain way, because they actually support the candidate they are choosing.

Why should these people, not be free, to support whomever they choose? Seems this may be, not only a way to send a message to voters thinking about choosing Barack Obama over John McCain, but punish those that have publically supported those who favor Barack as well.

Barack Obama Shows Leadership On Foreclosures

This is what I like about Barack Obama, compared to John McCain. At a time when America needs some leadership during this economic crisis, Barack Obama is offering answers, or at least a plan, versus McCain's illusion of a campaign for presidency. McCain is trying to portray himself as "still in the fight," when America wants answers not campaign rhetoric.

From Barack Obama calls for moratorium on mortgage foreclosures

Democrat Barack Obama today called for a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures as part of a package of proposals to deal with the impact of the current economic crisis on voters, while Republican John McCain portrayed himself as a fighter who should not be counted out of the race for president.

That says it all. One opponent offering a plan, the other presenting an image of a fighter who hasn't been knocked out, yet.

With the troubled economy on voters' minds and polls showing Obama widening his lead with three weeks to go before election day, the presidential candidates fought in Ohio and Virginia, must-win states for McCain.

America has its mind on one thing right now, how can I afford the things I want to buy, as well as, keep up with the piling bills.

At a rally here, Obama unveiled four proposals to help people caught in the recent economic meltdown and gyrating stock market.

"We can't wait to help workers and families and communities who are struggling right now -- who don't know if their job or their retirement will be there tomorrow, who don't know if next week's paycheck will cover this month's bills," he told 3,000 supporters in a convention center in this northwest Ohio city. "We need to pass an economic rescue plan for the middle class, and we need to do it not five years from now, not next year; we need to do it right now."

"If Washington can move quickly to pass a rescue plan for our financial system, there's no reason we can't move just as quickly to pass a rescue plan for our middle class that will create jobs and provide relief and help homeowners," he said.

Now that Palin has cleared herself of any wrong doing in Troopergate, we can all sleep tight, casting our votes, and waiting until election day. Don't miss the final Presidential debate. They can also stop calling it a "rescue." we know it's a bailout.

Republicans Try To Punish Their Own

Republicans are trying to censure fellow Republicans who are supporting Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. Landrieu supports Obama!

With more than two dozen prominent Republicans publicly backing incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu over her GOP opponent, state Treasurer John Kennedy, the state Republican Party is considering ways to discipline Republican officials who endorse Democrats, the head of the state party said Saturday.

When high-profile elected Republicans endorse Democrats, it "sends the message that we are not united," state GOP Chairman Roger Villere said. "It confuses the Republican message. . . . We are not looking to punish people, but we don't want this to develop into a trend."

Speaking with reporters after the quarterly meeting of the party's governing body, Villere said several party leaders want to adopt a formal mechanism to censure GOP officials who break with the party's candidates. He said passing a resolution "without teeth" simply to sanction a Republican who backs a Democrat, as party leaders have in the past, "doesn't make sense."

He would not elaborate about possible sanctions.

Any censure resolution or bylaws change, however, likely will have to wait until after this year's elections. The party's board, known as the Republican State Central Committee, is not scheduled to meet again until early next year, though a special meeting can be called sooner.

I watched the Landrieu vs Kennedy debates last night, and the way I saw Kennedy try and tie Mary to Obama was embarrassing. This is what Republicans try, when they have nothing else to stand on.

Several prominent Republicans -- including eight officials elected parishwide in Jefferson, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, St. John the Baptist and Lafourche parishes -- have announced support for Landrieu in the Nov. 4 contest. St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain appears in a TV ad for Landrieu.

At least four other major GOP officials from St. Tammany, where Kennedy lives, also have backed Landrieu. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand, another Republican, joined the pack Friday.

Even Sheriff Newell Normand knows what is best!

As I said, the South Will Rise brothers and sisters! Get out and let your friends know, it is okay to vote for Obama in the South. It's time to change the image of the racist South, all these hateful comments at McCain rallies, aren't in the South, we are a peaceful people down here. We love Obama!!!

Send a message to the GOP, vote Democrat or Libertarian down the entire ballot. Let them know we mean business this time around, and will not let them "steal" the election this time!

Anyone else think this is to send a message to Republican voters in the state that voting for Obama is not right? I think it is. Keep up the good fight people. Voting for Obama is what a patriot would do today. Not stand with the same people who have helped the corporations get rich while you can't afford gas prices. Stop believing these Republican lies, and vote for the Middle Class!

Karl Rove: Obama Has The Electoral

Despite the excitement over Americans casting their vote for who they feel is the best President is the United States, the electoral vote is what actually elects the President. So how is Barack Obama doing in the electoral college?

Well, even according to Karl Rove, Barack Obama has the electoral votes to win! All you need is 270.

Republican strategist Karl Rove said over the weekend Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has clearly pulled ahead of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). But Rove also cautioned that the race could still drastically change, just as it has in the last two weeks when news of McCain's suspending his campaign, Congress' financial bailout package and the first presidential debate affected voters' perceptions.

Rove said on Sunday on his website that Obama had reached more than the 270 required electoral votes to win an election. Citing 39 new state polls in the first three days of October, Rove said the freshman Democrat now has 273 electoral votes while McCain has 163 and 102 votes remain in a toss-up.

LA Times has Obama at 277 electoral votes.

National electoral map: McCain gains Indiana while Obama holds 277

Nearly two dozen new state polls in recent days show the Democratic Party ticket headed by Sen. Barack Obama holding strong with 277 hypothetical electoral votes, 7 more than needed for election, but Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have regained traditionally Republican Indiana from the tossup category.

This according to the latest state-by-state poll research compiled by Karl Rove & Co. and published in The Ticket by permission every few days.

With Indiana's 11 electoral votes, the first time since early September that the Republican ticket has gained, McCain-Palin now hold 174 electoral votes while another 87 remain in the tossup category.

Barack Obama is outspending McCain, who is running 100% negative ads right now, that many feel is not helping his campaign.

Couple those factors with a massive spending edge for Obama on television, and it's not hard to understand why the Illinois senator sits above 300 electoral votes for the second week of Fix picks in a row.

And, even this map may undersell Obama's strength somewhat as his heavy advertising in places like Florida, North Carolina and Indiana -- 53 total electoral votes -- have turned all three states into true tossups. If Obama were to sweep those three states, he would stand at 364 electoral votes -- the most since Bill Clinton won re-election over former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole with 379 electoral votes in 1996.

While it is important that people get out and vote on Election Day, it is vitally important for Barack Obama to gain the "electoral vote."

Republicans Getting Scared, Court Obama Voters

Nice, you know things are getting bad when Republicans are starting to worry about their own reelections in parts of America.

The difficulties of the McCain campaign have led some Republican leaders to express concern that he could end up dragging other Republican candidates down to defeat. “If Obama is able to run up big numbers around the country,” said Mr. Anuzis, the Michigan party chairman, “the potential for hurting down-ballot Republicans is very big.”

One sign of that has emerged in Nebraska, where Representative Lee Terry, a Republican, ran a newspaper advertisement featuring words of support for him from a woman identified as an “Obama-Terry voter.”

The only way for things to get done is to finally come together.

After a turbulent week that included disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin and signs that Senator John McCain was struggling to strike the right tone for his campaign, Republican leaders said Saturday that they were worried Mr. McCain was heading for defeat unless he brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear message to counter Senator Barack Obama.

Republican leaders are worried the McCain campaign is heading towards defeat.

Tommy Thompson, a Republican who is a former governor of Wisconsin, said it would be difficult for Mr. McCain to win in his state but not impossible, particularly if he campaigned in conservative Democratic parts of the state. Asked if he was happy with Mr. McCain’s campaign, Mr. Thompson replied, “No,” and he added, “I don’t know who is.”

Many Republicans are unhappy about his recent negative ad attacks, and now at 100% negative ads running. Why?

In Pennsylvania, Robert A. Gleason Jr., the state Republican chairman, said he was concerned that Mr. McCain’s increasingly aggressive tone was not working with moderate voters and women in the important southeastern part of a state that is at the top of Mr. McCain’s must-win list.

“They’re not as susceptible to attack ads,” Mr. Gleason said. “I worry about the southeast. Obama is making inroads.”

Because right now the election is all about undecided voters, and moderate voters aren't responding well to the negative ads. Negative ads are put out so either sides supporters have things to "talk" about. Propaganda if you will. But negative ads don't really work to gain someone's vote.

“The main thing he needs to do,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, “is focus on a single message — a single, concise or clear-cut message, and stick with that over the next 30 days, regardless of what happens.

“He’s had a lot of attack lines. But it’s time to choose.”

Vote Obama!

McCain going to whip Obama's what?

John McCain keeps saying the derndest thing, dontcha think?

Republican John McCain vowed Sunday to "whip" Democratic rival Barack Obama's "you-know-what" when the two presidential candidates meet Wednesday in their final televised debate.

McCain made that pledge as top advisers said he is weighing new economic proposals to help the nation weather the financial crisis. The Arizona senator refused to answer a reporter's question Sunday about what plans he might be considering.

Addressing several dozen volunteers at his campaign headquarters outside Washington, McCain promised some of his signature "straight talk" about the state of the race. National and many battleground state polls have shown him trailing Obama amid the deepening market crisis.

"We're a couple points down, OK, nationally, but we're right in this game," McCain said to cheers. "The economy has hurt us a little bit in the last week or two, but in the last few days we've seen it come back up because they want experience, they want knowledge and they want vision. We'll give that to America."

McCain said he and running mate Sarah Palin would continue campaigning hard in the three weeks left before Election Day, in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. The two planned a joint appearance Monday in Virginia, a Republican stronghold turned battleground this time.

"We're going to spend a lot of time and after I whip his you-know-what in this debate, we're going to be going out 24/7," McCain said.

The two men will debate Wednesday at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y. CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer will moderate the 90-minute forum.

Still, McCain promised to run a "respectful" campaign in the weeks to come.

"I respect Senator Obama, we will conduct a respectful race and be sure everyone else does too. But there are stark difference between us," McCain said.

Looking forward to the final Presidential Debate and the election results.

Negative McCain Ads Reach 100% - Even Twitter

I noticed even the John McCain twitter ad in the election category, is negative! I heard that John McCain had stepped up his negative ads to 100% percent, but I didn't believe it until I looked it up.



Even on twitter, he is trying to make Obama "look bad," but not delivering any answers to the problems facing America. The Barack Obama twitter ad, on the other hand, links a positive event, a speech of Joe Biden and others, including Hillary Clinton, about the issues facing this country.

Negative ads will always be part of our political process, or circus. But how effective are they, at a time, when people are struggling, even to keep up with the current gas prices in America?

Joe Biden Speech

Just finished watching the live Joe Biden Change We Need speech from the Barack Obama site. The internet rocks for politics.



I like being able to watch live events and videos from all over the country, covering the election.

Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden stumped in his northeastern Pennsylvania hometown Sunday alongside New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. (Oct. 12)

UPDATE: AP added this video so I thought I should include it.

McCain Not Doing So Good

Lots of people criticizing, not only McCain, but his campaign, trends in donation spending, and more.

In an article about Florida, Florida Republicans cast blame as McCain trails in polls, I read...

John McCain's plunging poll numbers in Florida have top Republicans second-guessing and starting to distance themselves from the campaign.

For the first time in more than a decade, Florida Republicans are considering the almost unthinkable: Their presidential nominee could lose the state.

The economy, an unpopular president, a strong opponent, and the inability of John McCain to reverse poll numbers despite repeatedly revising his strategy has top state Republicans looking for someone to blame.

When things get rough, the blame game begins.

No Republican has won the White House in modern times without carrying Florida. The last to lose the state was McCain's former colleague, Sen. Bob Dole, in 1996. Some Republicans say the state party hasn't done enough, while others blame McCain's national campaign.

Roger Stone, a longtime McCain supporter, said the state party and the national campaign bear almost equal blame.

''This effort lacks coordination and a cooperative spirit and it's showing,'' Stone said. ``But it's more than mechanics. The campaign has no consistent message.''

Over the summer, the Obama camp spent at least $10 million on Florida television ads -- 4,000 of the spots attacking McCain -- while McCain spent nothing.

The failure by the party and McCain's campaign to respond to an Obama radio ad in Florida that bashed McCain over embryonic stem-cell research was ''a perfect example of them not being on the ball in Florida,'' Stone said, echoing numerous Florida Republicans. But national campaign officials said McCain is within striking distance of Obama in the polls, has ample time to turn things around, and had a winning strategy until Wall Street's crash.

I always like reading about the amount of money being spent on the ads in elections...

Some Florida Republicans are concerned that state donors sent $34 million to McCain's national campaign, while only $14 million has been spent here. Meantime, McCain fruitlessly spent money in Michigan -- where he has now pulled out.

McCain's campaign expects to spend much more as the state becomes more competitive. Obama has boasted that he'll spend $40 million in the state. Moving into the final stretch, Obama spent nearly five times as much as McCain during the first week of October -- $2.9 million to McCain's $623,000, according to Data Source, a market-research firm.

Many have started to question McCain's campaign strategy.

From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.

from The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama

Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign “suspension,” a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.

To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell “between slim and none.” Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.

Americans are tired of the George Bush policies that have gotten us in this mess, and we won't let color of skin get in our way. Go Obama!

“I mean, when people are facing the challenges in their own lives they are facing, no one wants to hear that stuff. It’s dumb,” Ed Rendell Criticizes McCain Attack Strategy

Nailed it. Some have even called for McCain to tone down the hateful rhetoric being spewed at his political rallies across America.

According to Rep. Lewis Has Harsh Words For McCain:

The Georgia congressman wrote that he is “deeply disturbed by the negative tone” of the McCain campaign. He did not offer any examples, but recent press reports have detailed angry and hateful comments from some people attending McCain and Palin rallies. At a townhall meeting Friday afternoon, McCain himself called on supporters to be more respectful, though aides downplayed the effort and said McCain was acting as he always has.

Lewis was harsh in his assessment of the Republican ticket.

“What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” he wrote.

He went on to compare the Republican candidates to Wallace, who ran unsuccessfully for president.

“George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama,” Lewis wrote. “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”

And according to Raw Story:

A conservative columnist called McCain's campaign "stupid" for continuing to run attack ads that criticize the character of Democratic opponent Barack Obama when "they haven't worked.

All these are signs that McCain is not doing so good. Let's hope Barack Obama continues to gain in battleground states and wins, not only the Popular Vote, but the Electoral Vote as well!

Coffee, Race, Fear, & Obama

Sunday mornings are the worst for political junkies, for lack of better term, because the news articles repeat, and the stories stay the same until Monday when the mainstream media gets back to work. However, in the blogosphere, on internet forums, chat rooms, even twitter, these things never stop. So I eagerly get up, get the coffee going, and jump on the 'Nets to see what's shaking.

I read this quote about Obama and it got me thinking:

"If he gets elected his brains will very likely decorate the back of whatever stage he's standing on at the time." a guy on a message board.

Is this just wishful thinking from another McCainiac, or is there more to it? Does it have to do with race?

Before I go into it, I will state that, I personally believe it to be more wishful thinking than anything else. But yes, it does have to do with race.

These are the same people shouting "kill him" at McCain events, or saying they are "scared of Obama" on television. I wouldn't call it "racism," but it definitely has to do with race. As McCain even stated, there is no reason to be afraid of Barack Obama. But this is how far his campaign has gone, playing on the fear, the fear of Obama, the fear of a racially mixed man in the White House.

Sure, there are going to be threats against Barack Obama, and especially if he wins the election. But what I see coming out of people's mouths online comes is the result of something deeper within the person. Something they were raised with, something they've felt since they were young. I was raised in the Deep South, I heard the N-word more than anyone growing up, not from my mother, but countless others, and countless times growing up.

As someone who grew up in an interracial family, I can say, these things are more visible to me. I look at what people are saying, and its fear bubbling to the surface, nothing else. The same fear of the Civil Rights years, and same fear being used to divide this country. And all they can do is go online and spread more fear. They have no answers, they have nothing honorable to say. Just more and more "Obama will be shot" thoughts. Listen, we can do without that. If you are not intelligent enough to look past the rhetoric and see that America is finally ready for a change, and all you can do is throw out wishful thoughts about threats against Obama, maybe you need another hobby?

The reason people say these things, is fear. But what I do not understand is, to me, the idea of Barack Obama getting shot, is much scarier to me than having a racially mixed person as president! Is America so unsafe, so hostile, so trigger happy, that even as we get ready to elect our next president, the thoughts are mostly, "will he be shot?" Why aren't we celebrating the fact we have such a great country, where elections like this, are even possible? No, that would be too humane for these monsters. These cowards, these hate mongers.

These people go online and run their mouth about death threats, but you never see them say anything honorable about race or America. You never see them say that an Obama assassination would be bad, do you? No, and that's why I continue to believe it is mostly wishful thinking.

The idea that America still has wackos running around claiming "God and Guns First," and that one of these are the exact type to actually try to hurt Obama, should scare anyone. This, my friends, is terrorism. Anyone who goes around preaching about how "if Obama gets elected, he's gonna be shot" is the terrorist, they are using terror and fear to forward their own agenda, or candidate.

I'm not afraid of a racially mixed man in the White House, but I am afraid America is still so divided, still has a large portion of racists, terrorists, and more. And the fact that they keep a portion of this great nation under siege, that even if the People did elect Obama, some psycho could still come along and take our President from us. That is scary. That is fear.

Stop Blaming Troopergate On Obama

These people will say anything, and blame anything they can on people who are voting for Barack. Are they trying to say citizens caused this? Obama supporters? Who, the 10 Republicans behind the investigation? LOL

Fox News says:

McCain-Palin 2008 spokeswoman Meg Stapleton issued the following statement on today’s release of Stephen Branchflower’s report:

“Today’s report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan. The report also illustrates what we’ve known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior. Lacking evidence to support the original Monegan allegation, the Legislative Council seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact. The Governor is looking forward to cooperating with the Personnel Board and continuing her conversation with the American people regarding the important issues facing the country.”

Doncha just love the spin? How can they blame Troopergate or Sarah palin abuse of power investigation on "Obama supporters" if the investigation started before she was even picked by John McCain to run for Vice president? LOL

You gotta be kidding me, people actually fall for this stuff? Sarah Palin was under investigation for Troopergate before she was even picked to run for VP, so to say this has anything to do with Barack Obama or his campaign is nonsense. Let's not forget to mention, it was Republicans who led the investigation, not Obama Supporters!

The New York Times noted that the report "was commissioned and released by a bipartisan state legislative panel made up of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats."

They can try to spin it, but it's just not true. The only fact in the case is, it was abuse of power.

Earlier, the McCain campaign, cleared Sarah Palin of any wrong doing with their own report. Funny.

Sarah Palin Abuse Of Power

Uh oh, it looks like the report findings on Troopergate are surfacing on the Internet, and making their way from blog to blog now. Get ready...

The first paragraph of these articles always contain the best sentences!



Quotes are from MSNBC:

A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner.

Zing! Busted! So how will this come into play in this election now?

The Republican vice presidential nominee has been accused of firing a commissioner to settle a family dispute. Palin supporters have called the investigation politically motivated.

How come every time a politician is under investigation, they claim, almost always, it is "politically motivated?" The investigation was started long before she was picked as VP running mate.

Walter Monegan says he was dismissed as retribution for resisting pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.

The legislative panel met for six hours before making a unanimous decision to release the so-called "Troopergate" report. The vote was 12-0 to release the report, except for certain parts they consider confidential.

Alaska lawmakers on Friday began reviewing the lengthy and politically sensitive investigative report focusing on whether Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her authority as governor.

The first-term Alaska governor has been accused of firing a state commissioner to settle a family dispute. But the report is also expected to touch on whether Palin's husband meddled in state affairs and whether her administration inappropriately accessed employee medical records.

Palin fired Monegan on 7/13/08, was being investigated in that same month, and was not tapped as VP pick until 8/29/08. Which brings up a question of judgment on John McCain's choice of Vice President, in my opinion, choosing someone already under investigation for abuse of power?

The full investigative report can be found here.

McCain Supporters Are Scared Of Obama

I am afraid too. I am afraid I am going to have to order another Halloween mask. :(

Originally I ordered the John McCain mask, because I thought it was more creepy, and would make for a better "scare" on Halloween this year. But after reading this news article just now, I think I need to order the Barack Obama Mask instead. LOL

According to Wall Street Journal:

At the town hall meeting, one audience member said that he and his wife are expecting a child next year. "Frankly, we're scared. We're scared of an Obama presidency," the questioner said.

Really, I can't do anything except laugh. But the next part is the best.

Sen. McCain replied that of course he hopes that Sen. Obama is not elected but added: "I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president of the United States." The crowd replied with a chorus of boo's.

And when another questioner said he could not trust him because "he's an Arab," Sen. McCain replied, "No, ma'am: no ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not."

It's almost as if the propaganda has worked so good, too good, these people have forgotten that Barack Obama is a citizen of this country, he is a Senator, and he is some radical Muslim who we don't know anything about. Obama has books you can read to find out about his life, and there is no reason to be "scared of him." Geez.

If anyone should be afraid, it's Obama. He is the one getting the death threats, not making them!

At a rally on Wednesday with Sen. McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, someone yelled "off with his head." Later that day, a man at a rally held a sign that read "Obama, Osama." Speakers at events have increasingly been using Sen. Obama's middle name, Hussein. At a Monday event, someone shouted "terrorist!" when Sen. McCain asked rhetorically, "Who is Barack Obama?"

Those are the scary people. Not the U.S. Senator who is leading in the polls, gaining in battleground states, and going to win the Presidency. :)

McCain Priority "Protect Investors"

Protect investors? What about Americans!!!!

Everytime I read another article about John McCain, what he is talking about today, trying to find out his plan for this economic problem facing America, he proves to me he could not be more out of touch with the rest of us paying the current gas prices in America.

Barack Obama has said its time to focus on the people who are really feeling this, not jus the big corporations and companies who are responsible for this mess in the first place. In Ohio yesterday, Barack Obama stated that some Republican strategists have said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "If we don't turn the page and stop talking about this economic disaster, we are going to lose the election." Barack's response to that, is exactly what Americans want to hear, "McCain needs to start worrying about the people who are really losing, losing their house, losing their job, losing their retirements, during this crisis!"

he nailed it! McCain just keeps wanting to help out his investor friends, nothing to do with the rest of America.

McCain spends over $200,000 on maids and "household help" in a year, that is more than most Americans even make in a year. That shows how out of touch he is with the rest of us.

Here is what McCain has been focused on:

John McCain called for suspension of the requirement that retirees must begin liquidating their retirement accounts when they reach age 70 and a half, the latest economic policy rolled out by the Republican presidential candidate.

The Arizona senator announced the plan at a rally Friday morning in La Crosse, Wis. Buried a third of the way through his typical stump speech, McCain said his priority was to “protect investors – especially those relying on their investments for retirement.”

This guy is spending more time talking about things that affect 70 year olds, and not those of us who are still under half that age! What about us?

I know we are all investors, and I know we all have to plan for our retirement, but the only reason McCain is bringing this up is because it affects him. Notice he isn't talking about bringing gas prices down, or talking about ending the war in Iraq, just more and more junk about "investors" and "taxes."

Again, he is only addressing this because he is now over 70, and at 72 he sees a reason to change it.

The campaign’s economic policy director, Doug Holtz-Eakin, said the proposal is a temporary suspension. Holtz-Eakin said that when McCain, who is 72 years old, heard about the requirement to begin liquidating assets, he said, “We should stop that right now.”

We need change, not more of the same. But, at this time in his campaign, all McFail can do is intensify his negative ad campaign against Barack Obama and hope for the best.

McCain Camp Defends Kill Him! Crowd

I have already posted that I have started to view John McCain and Sarah Palin much differently after watching them ignore, although aware of, the hateful comments their supporters are shouting at their political speeches. Chants such as "kill him" when Barack Obama's name is mentioned, or words like "terrorist" or "traitor" and so on.

I feel that if they actually disapproved of such behavior they would have stopped speaking, and corrected the vulgar hecklers. But instead, they either smile or smirk, and look away, and continue their speech. Allowing their supporters to turn into a frenzied mob looking for blood.

In an effort to spin this, McCain's campaign has released statements, defending the supporters, and trying to twist it around to somehow make Barack Obama look bad. How could someone screaming "kill him" about a U.S. Senator, actually be spun to make the Senator look bad?

Here's how they tried... and failed.

McCain's Senior adviser Nicolle Wallace had this to say:

"Barack Obama's assault on our supporters is insulting and unsurprising. These are the same people obama called 'bitter' and attacked for 'clinging to guns' and faith. He fails to understand that people are angry at corrupt practices in Washington and Wall Street and he fails to understand that America's working families are not 'clinging' to anything other than the sincere hope that Washington will be reformed from top to bottom."

"Attacking our supporters is a new low for the campaign that's run more millions of dollars of negative ads than any other in history."

Please keep in mind, McCain's campaign is running way more negative ads than Obama. In fact, lets look at the negative ads.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

Yet McCain has outdone Obama in a negative ad war that has grown personal. McCain, who for some time has portrayed Obama as "dangerously unprepared" for the presidency, is questioning his very character. Obama, for his part, is painting a picture of an over-the-hill rival dwelling in the past.

Since the start, the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin at Madison reports that 73 percent of the ads McCain has aired and 61 percent of Obama's have been negative.

Don't you just love the spin? McCain's campaign has been much more negative, anyone who has paid attention to the election can see that.

Let's get back to the "defending McCain supporters."

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers released this:

“Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo."

Grinning ear to ear, on video, while your supporters yell "terrorist" or "kill him" while a United States Senator's name is mentioned in your speeches, should not be defended. It's made America look at McCain and Palin much differently.

Obama Spelled Osama On Ballots

Hard to believe this was a "typo" considering the keys "b" and "s" are nowhere near each other on the keyboard.

From the TimesUnion:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's last name is spelled "Osama" on hundreds of absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County.

The misspelling, which elections officials on both sides of the aisle insist was simply a typo, is causing embarrassment for the county.

''No question this is an honest mistake innocently done,'' said Edward McDonough, the Democratic commissioner. ''We catch almost everything.''

''This was a typo,'' said Republican Commissioner Larry Bugbee. ''We have three different staff members who proof these things and somehow the typo got by us.''

Is it a Freudian slip, intentional act or a mistake? Voters are sure to have opinions, and one pol pointed out that the letters 's' and 'b' are not exactly keyboard neighbors.

So lemme get this straight, three different people who are supposed to check these things, missed a "typo" as blatant and offensive as "Barack Osama?" And a Republican telling us, it was just a typo. Sure, yeah I believe that! LOL

Officials say the flawed ballots were sent to approximately 300 voters. On row 1A Barack Obama's name is spelled Barack Osama.

Very hard to believe. Then again, not really. :(

So far three people have called to point it out, he said. Those people will get new ballots sent to them.

One Sand Lake resident who caught the misspelling, and who asked to remain anonymous, was skeptical.

''It's a little suspicious and at least grossly incompetent,'' the voter said, wondering ''if I crossed out the name and wrote in the right spelling my ballot would be invalid?"

At least some noticed.

Troopergate

Get ready for the buzz word of the day: Troopergate.

Republican lawmakers are trying to halt an investigation into Troopergate...

According to AP:

Five Alaska lawmakers filed an emergency appeal Friday asking the state's Supreme Court to halt an investigation into abuse of power allegations by Gov. Sarah Palin before the findings are released next week.

Why would they want to stop the investigation?

The independent investigator conducting the probe plans to turn over his conclusions by next Friday to the body that authorized the it, the Legislative Council. The five Republican lawmakers, none of whom are on the Legislative Council, claim the investigation is being manipulated to damage Palin before Election Day on Nov. 4.

Somehow, I doubt this is being done to smear Sarah Palin because the investigation started long before she was even vice presidential nominee.

The probe is looking into whether Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, and others pressured Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire a state trooper who was involved in a contentious divorce from Palin's sister and then fired Monegan when he wouldn't dismiss the trooper. Palin says Monegan was ousted over budget disagreements.

The five lawmakers sued to block the investigation or remove its overseers, but their lawsuit was dismissed on Thursday by an Anchorage judge.

Due to the publicity surrounding this case, Americans anxiously await the report's findings.

Defense attorney Peter Maassen said the Legislature is free to conduct an investigation as it sees fit and the judge's ruling confirmed the separation of power principles. An emergency appeal is unwarranted, he said, because by next Thursday the investigation will have already be completed — it will only remain to make it findings public.

"There's been no time in history that a court has suppressed the outcome of a legislative investigation," Maassen said.

The public deserve to see exactly what the Palin's have been up to, "up there in Alaska."

As it seems, at the moment, Sarah Palin wants to try and slow this investigation down "for years" and keep it secret from the public.

Palin pledged her cooperation with the probe until she became Sen. John McCain's running mate. She has said through her lawyer that she only will cooperate with a separate investigation, one that she calls unbiased but is conducted in secret and can last for years.

Americans are tired of this secrecy that people like Sarah Palin shroud themselves in, while firing public officials, and doing all kinds of illegal things behind closed doors.

We deserve to hear the full extent of Todd Palin's involvement, and to get to the bottom of Troopergate.

Todd Palin sought the dismissal of a Alaska state trooper at the center of a probe into his wife's conduct as state governor but denied attempting to influence her directly, court documents showed Thursday.
In a 25-page sworn affidavit to an investigator examining abuse of power allegations against his wife and Republican vice-presidential nominee, Palin said he had repeatedly contacted senior Alaska officials to raise concerns over the conduct of his ex-brother-in-law Mike Wooten.

Todd Palin is not a government official, and should not be sitting in on Governor meetings, and discussing the firing of anyone in office, or any policemen. This guy is an oil field worker, doesn't have a college degree, and serves no purpose sitting on on important official business. Why should he be talking to anyone in regards to State Troopers being fired or not? His involvement, continues to concern me. Not to mention his membership in the Alaskan Independence Party.

The idea that some oil worker "First Dude" is making phone calls and inquiring whether or not State Troopers are fired, should concern any American. And the fact these two continue to try and conceal their actions, will only further the curiosity of the situation.

SS Drops Obama Threat Investigation

Well, that didn't last too long.

I sure hope, for Obama's sake, that nothing happens to him. You would think that the Secret Service would do a more thorough investigation regarding someone shouting "kill him" about Senator Barack Obama. But, as it seems, the case has already been dropped, with the person responsible, never being found.

Who was it that screamed "kill him?" What if they are now plotting an attempt on our next President's life? Will the next person who scream it be taken seriously? This is serious stuff, and I am worried that this type of acceptance, when it comes to threats on Obama, will be overlooked from now on.

According to AP:

The US Secret Service has investigated an alleged death threat against Democrat Barack Obama shouted Monday at a rally for his Republican rival John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, an agency spokesman told AFP Thursday.

The probe by the service that protects US presidents, past and present, visiting world leaders and US presidential candidates, stems from a report by The Washington Post about a shout, "kill him," heard during the rally when Obama's name came up.

The alleged threat was made when Palin was speaking of Obama's relations with former 1960s radical Bill Ayers, whose group "The Weathermen" carried out a series of attacks in protest against the Vietnam War.

"We take every threat very seriously. Every time we receive or are reported information like that, we follow up," said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan.

However, he cautioned that at the McCain rally, "no Secret Service agent overheard any threatening statement and no threatening statements were reported by law enforcement or the general public."

"We did make some inquiries after the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that a someone had yelled 'kill him,'" he added.

What irks me, is no Secret Service heard anything???

Donovan said it wasn't clear whether the threat was actually vocalized or, if so, if it was meant for Obama or even Ayers, both of whose names were uttered by Palin at that moment in her speech.

For those reasons, he added, the investigation was dropped.

Not vocalized? Then how did people hear it then?

I have begun thinking very differently about Sarah Palin and John McCain after this event. I have watched them give their speeches while people shout "kill him" and "terrorist" about Barack Obama, and they stand by and do nothing. How can John McCain sit there and raise questions about his "connections to terrorists" when Obama is a U.S. Senator, this isn't some new guy off the street? Barack has served this country as honorably as McCain has. Obama is not connected to terrorists, and by allowing their hateful mobs to rally and cheer on things like "kill him" at political events, its embarrassing to me, not just as an American, but as a human.

AIG Blog Relations

Something that has many Americans angry tonight, is the $440,000 retreat I brought up recently.

Well, today I got a blog comment from "AIG Blog Relations" and I felt I should make a quick post and direct your eyes that way and see their response to my entry. I am guessing AIG Blog Relations is someone being paid to, or a bot being directed to, post replies on blog entries regarding the AIG bailout.

I know a lot of people are angry about this, and rightfully so.

When people can barely fill up their car to go to work because of the gas prices right now, and they hear about people ordering $1,200 worth of food in a night, or spending $200,000 on rooms at an expensive California spa retreat. Yeah, ordinary folk tend to get angry.

And not only are average Americans digusted, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has called for people at American International Group Inc. to be fired over this.

"If AIG was throwing money around for tee times and hot stone massages while begging for Federal Reserve dollars, it's a scandal and an outrage and heads will roll," Baucus said. "I want to know who we can fire and how we can get this misspent money back and I want both of those things to happen pronto."

He said he is considering calling for a special investigation by the Federal Reserve Inspector General.

Even President Bush is mad LOL

Anyway, feel like saying something about this? Make an anonymous comment! join the discussion here

Rednecks For Obama

Some things just make ya proud to be an American.



This picture from Associated Press captures the moment perfectly. Americans in the street, showing their support, holding a "Rednecks for Obama" banner, being greeted by Senator Barack Obama.

When Barack Obama's campaign bus made a swing through Missouri in July, the unlikeliest of supporters were waiting for him -- or rather two of them, holding the banner: "Rednecks for Obama."

In backing the first African-American nominee of a major party for the US presidency, the pair are on a grassroots mission to bridge a cultural gap in the United States and help usher their preferred candidate into the White House.

Tony Viessman, 74, and Les Spencer, 60, got politically active last year when it occurred to them there must be other lower income, rural, beer-drinking, gun-loving, NASCAR race enthusiasts fed up with business as usual in Washington.

Viessman had a red, white and blue "Rednecks for Obama" banner made, and began causing a stir in Missouri, which has emerged as a key battleground in the run-up to the November 4 presidential election.

Being from the South, I grew up seeing a good bit of racism, some of it I will never forget, nor feel the need to go into here. However, when you look at stories like this, and understand that the New South, is not what it once was, you can see that fine thing that makes America what it is. People no matter the skin color, down in the South, learn that we are all in this mess together, and hating each other because of skin color will get you nowhere.

"I didn't expect it would get as much steam and attention as it's gotten," Spencer told AFP on the campus of Washington University in Saint Louis, the state's biggest city and site of last week's vice-presidential debate.

"We believe in him. He's the best person for the job," Viessman, a former state trooper from Rolla, said of Obama, who met the pair briefly on that July day in Union, Missouri.

The candidate bounded off his bus and jogged back towards a roadside crowd to shake hands with the men holding the banner.

"He said 'This is incredible'," Spencer recalled.

It's been an unexpectedly gratifying run, Viessman said.

Rednecks4obama.com claims more than 800,000 online visits. In Denver, Colorado, Viessman and Spencer drew crowds at the Democratic convention, and at Washington University last Thursday they were two of the most popular senior citizens on campus.

"I'm shocked, actually, but excited" that such a demographic would be organizing support for Obama, said student Naia Ferguson, 18, said after hamming it up for pictures behind the banner.

"When most people think 'redneck,' they think conservatives, anti-change, even anti-integration," she said. "But America's changing, breaking stereotypes."

A southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, defines the stereotype as a "glorious lack of sophistication".

Philistines or not, he said, most rural southerners are no longer proponents of the Old South's most abhorrent ideology -- racism -- and that workaday issues such as the economy are dominating this year's election.

"We need to build the economy from the bottom up, none of this trickle down business," Spencer said. "Just because you're white and southern don't mean you have to vote Republican."

Stories like this are great and should make us all proud to be American. I do not like reading the stories about hearing people shouting "kill him" or "terrorist" when Barack Obama's name is mentioned, things like this show us the side of humanity that is often loss in the negative campaigning and ads. I do enjoy reading stories showing everyday citizens doing something, getting involved, whatever they can do. That's nice. That's American.

The Rednecks for Obama are definitely winners!

How Can Anyone Still Be Undecided?

Last night was the first time I actually started thinking about people who are "undecided" in regards to the upcoming election. "How can anyone still be undecided?" I thought. And it still has me pondering. So I started to look up some articles about these undecided voters to see if I could understand why they are still debating which side to vote for.

Some undecided voters are leaning toward Obama.

With disgust dripping from his voice, Mr. Sullivan read aloud a story on page 4B of USA Today about how AIG agents had spent $443,000 on a week-long retreat at a California resort six days after the government bailed them out. When he came to the part about Joseph Cassano, the head of AIG’s finance division, taking home $34 million and then being placed on a $1 million-a-month consulting retainer in February, he smacked the paper.

“They should have had these CEOs in handcuffs yesterday,” he said looking at the accompanying photograph of two former AIG CEOs taking an oath before testifying to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I would have liked to have heard someone say ‘Bailiff, bring the shackles.’ I want outrage, I want heads to roll.”

Mr. Sullivan does not believe either Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain is forceful enough to lead the country out of its current economic morass but he is increasingly convinced Sen. McCain is too tied to the special interests in Washington to be given a chance try.

I can understand the frustration this guy feels. All Americans should be upset about this type of stuff. McCain even corrected someone during the second presidential debates for calling it a "bailout," he said he calls it a "rescue." A fine example of how McCain is "out of touch" with ordinary Americans. Americans feels the way Mr. Sullivan does, not the way McCain does.

Watching the debate Tuesday night Mr. Sullivan said he was angered by what he saw as Sen. McCain’s vague promises.

“He said ‘I know how to get America working again,’ but he never said how,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Two weeks ago he said our economy was fundamentally strong, well that tells me for a man who is supposed to be in the middle of the action, his head is in the sand.”

When the debate switched topics to foreign policy, Mr. Sullivan’s interest waned.

“Our house is on fire here, I don’t have time to cut my neighbor’s grass,” he said. “We need a strong domestic economy before we can fix the rest of the world.”

Everyday citizens are worried more about gas prices in America, than about foreign policy.

“There is something fundamentally wrong with our system when I go to my local grocery store and the apples there are from China,” Mr. Sullivan said.

“I’m conservative, I don’t want to see the Democrats get into power and spend like drunken sailors, but the pendulum has swung too far to the right. It needs to be brought back.”

I think many, many, many of us feel the same way right now. Some voters say after the debates, neither candidate "delivered" or "got angry enough."

Are you undecided? If so, please tell me why.

Palin Is Anti-America Like Joe Vogler

Don't know who Joe Vogler is? Well, he is the guy who formed the Alaskan Independence Party that Todd Palin, the husband of Governor Sarah Palin, was a member of. (scroll down for video)

The best way to get to know someone is to hear their words, or things they have been involved in... Let's get to know Joe Vogler a bit shall we?

A quote: “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.” Joe Vogler

Another quote from Joe Vogler:

“When the [federal] bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own [Alaska]. There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don’t have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we’re ready to die.”

He was quoted more than once threatening federal actions against him with violence, known to carry large guns with him etc...

What does this have to do with Sarah Palin?

Well, her husband was a member of the very group that has held these anti-American ideas, and as recent as this year (2008) Gov. Palin has made video encouraging the AIP to "keep up the good work."

According to Salon, AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark said recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. “She’s Alaskan to the bone … she sounds just like Joe Vogler.”

This quote is from “Coming Into the Country,” by John McPhee, who traipsed around Alaska’s remote gold mining country with Vogler for his 1991 book. The violent-tempered secessionist vowed to McPhee that if any federal official tried to stop him from polluting Alaska’s rivers with his earth-moving equipment, he would “run over him with a Cat and turn mosquitoes loose on him while he dies.”

Vogler wasn’t just a blowhard either. He put his secessionist ideas into action, working to build AIP membership to 20,000 — an impressive figure by Alaska standards — and to elect party member Walter Hickel as governor in 1990.

Vogler’s greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.

That’s right … Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.

Joe Vogler attracted such anti-American governments as Iran to sponsor his anti-American ideas, and now with the national attention Sarah Palin has gained, she has continued to encourage the plans of Joe Vogler by supporting the Alaskan Independence Party's ideas of secession from the United States.

How can this woman even be considered American when her own husband has belonged to a radical group that doesn't believe Alaska should be a part of this nation, and in fact, should be its own country??

This doesn't sit well with any American who hears about it, and it's no wonder why this topic has been kept off the radar of mainstream media. But the Palin's cannot deny their involvement with the group, nor can they change the fact Todd Palin was a member.

Imagine if Michelle Obama had joined some Black Panther type of black radical group that called for armed resistance against the government? The media would be having a field day, but here the Palin's associate and encourage the AIP to "keep up the good work" What work? Raising funds to separate Alaska from the United States?

The bottom line is, Americans on the mainland U.S. had never heard of Sarah Palin before John McCain picked her, and if she is "just like Joe Vogler" I think the rest of us Americans are in trouble. I can look past her Canadian accent, but I cannot overlook her connections to a group that wishes to divide the United States, not just on topics, but actual secession of a state.

Here is a video of the AIP talking about how now that Sarah Palin is elected, "we just need to put a Republican label on it, and get it approved." This is in regards to secession from the United States! See for yourself the infiltration of American Government taking place from these Alaskan secessionists.



"Our current Governor, who I mentioned the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected. You should infiltrate. I know the Christian Exodus is in favor of it, the free state movement is in favor of it. Put the Republican label on it to get elected, that's all there is to it."

This shows how they have used the Republican label to sneak in their policies of secession...

A final Joe Vogler quote: "The fires of Hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government and I won't be buried under their damn flag. I'll be buried in Dawson, and when Alaska is an independent nation, they can bring my bones home, back to my country."

This is who founded the Alaskan Independence Party that the Palin's support. One does not 'pal around with secessionists" and not be one. How could you hang around with people who believe Alaska should be a separate nation from the U.S. and not agree with them?

Michelle Obama On Larry King Live

I was not able to watch Larry King Live last night with Michelle Obama, but thankfully the Internet allows me to watch the video this morning! If you haven't seen it, here it is... Michelle Obama on Larry King Live.



It's amazing at how much more intelligent she sounds when compared to Sarah Palin or Cindy McCain. Cindy McCain looks and sounds like she is on Vicodins and can barely stand up half the time, and Sarah Palin's Canadian accent gets under my skin. But Michelle Obama talks eloquently, and comes of as a warm and friendly person.

According to NY Times political blog, Michelle Obama is turning the other cheek to the sharp attacks on her husband, Senator Barack Obama, from Senator John McCain, his wife, Cindy, and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin.

No matter who wins the election, Mrs. Obama said, there should be no hard feelings.

“You can’t tear up the game so much so that, you know, you don’t leave people something to come back to,” she said. “You know, we’re going to need John McCain, we’re going to need Cindy McCain, we’re going to need independents and Republicans working hard to fix this crisis.”

Mrs. Obama also dismissed a suggestion from Mr. King that voters might vote against her husband on racial grounds. She said she did not believe in the so-called Bradley effect, which occurred in 1982, when voters told pollsters they would vote for Tom Bradley, a black man, for governor of California but then did not do so.

“If there was going to be a Bradley effect,” she said, Mr. Obama would not have won the nomination. Besides, she said, the Bradley episode was “several decades ago, and there’s been growth and movement.”

“Now, there will be people who will never vote for Barack Obama,” she said. “But there will be people who will never vote for John McCain either.”

She added: “I just believe that the issues are going to weigh in people’s hearts more so as they go into the voting booths this time around, than anything else.”

When I watch Sarah Palin speak, I almost have to bite my tongue, but I could listen to Michelle Obama go on for an hour and not feel bored... she did a great job on Larry King last night. She showed herself as a true American, and a winner. Not once does she get negative, not once does she lose her tact and charm. She is a class act, and would make a great First Lady. Congrats.

The world is watching and waiting for this great moment in history when America elects Barack Obama for president of the United States!

The Weather Underground

After hearing so much about the Weather Underground and William Ayers in the latest mud slinging from the McCain Palin campaign, I decided to watch a DVD that I had intended on watching months ago.

I just finished watching The Weather Underground Documentary, and encourage all who are interested in some great historical footage and info about the radical 60's group known as The Weathermen, or The Weather Underground.



The description I read before watching said...

A sobering documentary about a group of 1960s "committed freedom fighters" known as The Weather Underground. A radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen didn't just march or sit in; they rioted and bombed -- not to change the American political scene but rather to destroy it. The organization was part of a global trend of revolution that sprang from the belief that not acting against violence is violence.

While I was somewhat familiar with The Weather Underground, I always enjoy a good documentary and this one is worth watching. It featured lots of old video clips of student protests, riots, things on fire, and more. It covered how the organization started out as a student group, and morphed into something much darker. But it also shows how there are in fact roots of revolution in America's history and I think all Americans should watch this.

After Second Presidential Debate

Here's a brief look at some of the things that have happened after the Second Presidential Debate last night. Oddly enough, quite a few things have happened...

While clicking around on political sites and blogs today, I noticed a lot of Barack Obama ads, and I thought to myself, "he must be spending a lot on those." Well, I clicked around a little more and then I found this blog entry on a WSJ blog: Obama’s Big Day: $3.3 Million Spent on TV Ads

Barack Obama spent $3.3 million on TV ads on Monday alone—a remarkable one-day expenditure that more than doubled rival John McCain’s spending that day, according to the ad tracking firm, Campaign Media Analysis Group.

The Obama campaign has been ratcheting up its ad spending over the last month, increasing it by about 20% per week.

Wow, nice strategy, and very impressive.

In addition to referring to Americans as "my fellow prisoners" today, Cindy McCain also jumped into the negative campaign fun and had her own moment.

Cindy McCain got in on the attack action Wednesday while introducing her husband, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, at a rally here.

The mother of four, including two sons in the military, challenged Democrat Barack Obama to “change shoes” for a day. “The day that Sen. Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body,” she said

McCain’s charge is based on a single vote Obama cast as a senator. Factcheck.org called the claim “misleading” based on the fact that Obama voted in favor of troop funding on 10 different occasions. The only time he voted against it was a vote in which President Bush vetoed a version that included a date for withdrawal.

So by that logic, George Bush is actually the one to blame for not funding her son. Barack Obama has voted 10 times to fund the troops!

Hey! Remember that Sarah Palin email hacker that busted Palin's use of multiple Yahoo accounts for government business? Well, he pleaded not guilty today.

Today, David Kernell, son of Mike Kernell, chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operations Committee, pleaded not guilty in federal to charges that he intentionally accessed Palin’s e-mail account without authorization. He was charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

It's been an eventful day in politics so far, and it's not over yet! Let's see if anything else happens today/tonight. But what could top the "Kill Him" scandal?

After the debate last night, I really hope the final one is the best!

My Fellow Prisoners

Today while campaigning in Pennsylvania, Mccain referred to Americans as "my fellow prisoners."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I will laugh. LOL



This guy is losing his mind, and at the same time, losing the election!

Secret Service Investigating Kill Him Shouting

Having just blogged about the Sarah Palin "Kill Him" rally scandal, I wanted to dig up a little more info on the subject.



This image is not intended to be humorous, I believe that when you actually see the words in an image, it sinks in exactly how hateful and real they are. Sarah Palin could have stopped herself and identified whoever it was that was screaming "kill him" about Barack Obama, and did not. Instead she kept on talking and said, "Boy, you guys just get it."

When you put those two quotes side by side, you can see how much of a threat these type of people are to freedom in America.

No one on either side of the aisle should want to see Barack Obama shot, and if that happened I don't think America would ever recover from the image of a nation so racist they shot the first racially mixed man running for Pres.

I am also glad to read that the Secret Service, according to RadarOnline, has started an investigation...

The Secret Service is following up on media reports today that someone in the crowd at a McCain/Palin event suggested killing Barack Obama, according to Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley. The shout of "kill him" followed a Sarah Palin rant on Obama's relationship with radical Chicagoan Bill Ayers.

Wiley says the Secret Service did not begin looking into the matter until press reports, namely Dana Milbank's article in the Washington Post, surfaced today, because no agents at the event heard anything. "The Secret Service did not hear any threatening statements directed at targets under its protection and no threatening statements were reported to us by law enforcement or citizens at the event," Wiley told Radar. Also unclear: whether the remark was directed at Obama or Ayers if the words were actually "kill" and "him."

If you don't take things like this serious, where do you draw the line?

McCain Supporters Threaten To Kill Obama

Under any normal circumstances, uttering the words "kill him" towards a Senator and especially someone running for president would be greeted by Secret Service members or at least Homeland Security. However, what we see from the John McCain campaign is exactly the opposite.

During a Sarah Palin speech, McCain supporters began screaming racial obscenities towards a black camera operator, and even "kill him" when she mentioned Barack Obama by name.

Although it is hard to make out, here is a video of the "kill him" rally:



According to The nation...

Sarah Palin was on the verge of inciting a race riot in northern Florida yesterday. At her rallies, the Republican faithful hurled a racial epitaph at a black sound man, and screamed "kill him" and "treason!" at Barack Obama.

"Boy, you guys just get it!" Palin responded. This reaction, presumably, was what Palin had in mind when she urged John McCain to "take the gloves off."

As a concerned citizen, I demand the Secret Service and whoever else needs to be involved, do some investigating and find out who exactly it was screaming "kill him" about a United States Senator and presidential hopeful, Barack Obama.

Here is a video of McCain supporters shouting "terrorist" when asked "Who is the real Obama?"



Notice McCain just smiles and does not correct this? I would not be surprised to find out if the person screaming "terrorist" was actually involved in the campaign to be honest at this point. McCain should have stopped his speech and corrected the heckler, instead he smiled and continued on. Eerily as if expecting it and knowing it was coming.

Like him or hate him, Barack Obama is a US Senator and is protected by Secret Service, no one in America should be screaming 'kill him" when his name is mentioned. This should be taken as a serious threat and should be investigated.

McCain Helping eBay Stocks In Speeches

Am I the only one who notices John McCain plugging eBay into his speeches?

Do you think this is a coincidence that one of his advisers is in fact Meg Whitman, who has made millions of dollars off eBay stocks?

Do you think McCain has eBay stocks in his investment portfolio?

I am surprised to see I am one of the only people bringing this up in blogs today. I noticed McCain consistently plugging how well eBay is doing right now in his speeches, how so many Americans make a living from auctions, and so on. However, that type of promotion comes on the heels of a lay off of 1,000 eBay employees.

I have mentioned this in my comments about the debates last night:

I also thought it was hilarious that McCain mentioned eBay and how many people are doing business on the site, but he left out the fact that eBay has just laid off 1,000 employees... this really shows how out of touch he is with the rest of us. Why? One of his advisers is ex eBay executive Meg Whitman. The people at the top are doing great, but the people who just lost their job aren't doing so well, but McCain will try and make it look like eBay is doing great and everyone is happy. Not the 1,000 who just got laid off.

Should politicians use heavily promoted events such as Presidential Debates to promote companies they are investing in? If these people own stocks in the companies they are promoting in their public speeches, this is like free advertisement.

Meg Whitman has made a lot of money with eBay stocks, and one has to wonder, how much will McCain make?

AuctionBytes says..

eBay CEO Meg Whitman exercised options on shares of eBay stock in June and twice during the month of August, and sold the stock for a total of $64.9 million for a net gain of $45.7 million for the year. The transactions were conducted under a prearranged trading plan that allows Whitman to sell up to 6,400,000 shares between June 2007 and February 2008.

McCain has touted Meg and her economic prowess as why she is his adviser, however, this comes at a time when eBay is laying off 10% of its workers!

According to Reuters & The Huffington Post...

McCain touts the economic prowess of, and suggests as a future Treasury Secretary Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and someone who he has turned to for economic advice in the past. Normally, this is a solid point for McCain to press, highlighting entrepreneurship and the growth of female business leaders. The problem: eBay just announced that it was firing 10 percent of its work force.

EBay announced on Monday that it would cut 10 percent of its global workforce, representing the most significant layoffs in its history.

This is what McCain had to say about Meg Whitman and eBay during his speech... just like an advertisement.

I like Meg Whitman [former CEO of eBay and current McCain campaign adviser], she knows what it's like to be out there in the marketplace. She knows how to create jobs. Meg Whitman was CEO of a company that started with 12 people and is now 1.3 million people in America make their living off eBay. Maybe somebody here has done a little business with them.

At a time when the stock market is falling and Wall Street is in trouble, I highly doubt he is just dropping names like eBay in his speeches for free. Politicians never promote companies or corporations for free.

My grandpa told me long ago, "follow the money." I would place a wager that if you follow the money on this, you'd find out exactly why McCain talks so much about eBay in his speeches.

Hefner or Hubbard?

I am having a bit of political overload this morning, so I jumped into the Entertainment news and found this.

In the news today, it seems one of Hugh Hefner's rental girlfriends has decided to break up with him. After seeing this picture of an aging Hefner, I could not help but notice the strange resemblance to Scientology creator Lafayette Ron Hubbard, or L. Ron as Tom Cruise calls him.



Which is which? I cannot tell.

From Fox News...

Despite Hugh Hefner’s claim to Pop Tarts at the recent FOX REALLY Awards that he and his three leading ladies are all still an item, his number one gal Holly Madison is getting ready to bunny-hop into the "real world."

A well-placed inside source confirmed to Pop Tarts that the couple recently ended their romantic relationship and have been sleeping in separate bedrooms. And Madison herself told TMZ on Monday that she and Hef "aren't together."

But despite reports to the contrary, 28-year-old Madison is still living at the iconic Holmby Hills mansion.

"She’s putting plans in place to move out, and she still hangs out with Hef at movie night and things like that, but she doesn’t sit next to him anymore," said our source, adding that Holly will most likely leave her job in art direction at Playboy when she eventually moves out.

Sounds like any other break up. She is still hanging around, living in the mansion, but she is going to leave one day. LOL

Hefner is the winner here.

Bailout Execs $440,000 Spa Retreat

So here's what AIG execs are doing with those billions of tax-payer bailout dollars...

From MSNBC...

Less than a week after the federal government had to bail out American International Group Inc., the company sent executives on a $440,000 retreat to a posh California resort, lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown said Tuesday.

The tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees at the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy.

The retreat didn't include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove AIG under, but lawmakers were still enraged over thousands of dollars spent on catered banquets, golf outings and visits to the resort's spa and salon for executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary.

"Average Americans are suffering economically. They're losing their jobs, their homes and their health insurance," House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., scolded the company during a lengthy opening statement. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."

Aren't you in a hurry to help bailout more of these failing banks now?

Key Moments In Last Night's Debate

Last night was the second presidential debate of 2008, and there is only one more remaining.

What I want to do is grab some quotes from various news articles this morning and point out some good moments in the debate:

A couple of things I noticed right off the bat, he did not mention Sarah Palin a single time, nor did he bring up William Ayers, as I predicted he would not. Had McCain mentioned William Ayers, the Keating Five would've been brought to light in front of millions watching! So McCain chose the coward route and kept his mouth shut.

According to NY Times...

John McCain on Alternative Fuels

Obama appeared well-prepared to parry Mr. McCain’s criticisms, matching him statistic for statistic as they argued over domestic and foreign policy.

“Senator McCain and I actually agree on something,” Mr. Obama said. “He said a while back that the big problem with energy is that for the last 30 years politicians in Washington haven’t done anything. What McCain doesn’t mention is he’s been there 26 of them and during that time he voted 23 times against alternative fuels.”

McCain constantly tries to cast himself as someone who supports alternative fuels, but his record speaks the truth. McCain has voted against alternative fuels throughout his entire career.


McCain stated Obama spoke too loudly when talking about taking out targets in Pakistan...

At another point, Mr. McCain criticized Mr. Obama as saying he would speak, without preconditions, to the leaders of countries like Pakistan, quoting Theodore Roosevelt — at first incorrectly — explaining the way he would deal with leaders of foes.

“You know, my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt,” he said. “Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly — talk softly, but carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.”

“Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I’m green behind the ears and, you know, I’m just spouting off, and he’s somber and responsible,” he said. “Senator McCain, this is the guy who sang, ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,’ who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don’t think is an example of ‘speaking softly.’ ”

You could actually see McCain facial expression go from smiling to a more somber tone as Obama jabbed back effectively.

McCain tried to link Barack Obama to the current financial mess in America

Mr. McCain sought to blame Mr. Obama for the crisis in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing agencies, saying that Mr. Obama “and his cronies” had failed to speak out when the organizations began making the risky loans that he argued were at the heart of the financial crisis.

“Fannie and Freddie were the catalyst, the match that started this forest fire,” he said. “There were some who stood up against it. There were others who took a hike.”

Mr. Obama nodded disapprovingly. “Now, I’ve got to correct a little bit of Senator McCain’s history, not surprisingly,” he said “Let’s, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system.

“Senator McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator.”

This should not be overlooked, McCain's deregulation is what helped the Keating Five scandal continue for years after it should have been stopped, and his deregulation attitude is exactly what has helped fan the flames of the current financial crisis in America.

From Washington Post Blog...

When asked if health care is a right or responsibility

One moment struck me as particularly unfortunate for McCain: When Tom Brokaw asked whether health care was a privilege, a responsibility or a right. McCain said it was a responsibility, but left unclear whose responsibility it might be. Obama said he believed it should be a right, and talked about how his mother, who died of cancer at 53, had to spend the last months of her life arguing with insurance companies. Pretty powerful, I thought.

As usual though, not much of a debate. The structure won't allow for one, and even when you could tell one of the opponents wanted to continue, time limis and no follow up questions continue to make these "debates" look more and more scripted. Full of rehearsed one liners and talking points and no real substance. Despite those feelings, I think Barack Obama Won Again.

Hopefully the final debate will be the big finale!

Barack Obama Won Again

Face it, you can't debate it. Barack Obama won again tonight.

I think it was more than obvious that often John Mccain kept using his same distortions as fact. Such as trying to twist Obama's comment about attacking Osama Bin Laden if he were in Pakistan and the government there was unwilling or unable to deliver him, should we take him out?

McCain sought to make it sound as if Obama wanted to attack Pakistan and not just the terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

That's just one example, but enough about McCain, let's talk about the man who did a great job at delivering his points instead of a plea for presidency.

What I saw in Barack Obama was someone who was ready to lead, who cares about America's reputation among the world, and a genuine patriot.

There were a few times where I wanted him to attack and I applauded Obama's insistence to do a follow up retort to McCain's mud slinging regarding the Osama-in-Pakistan comment. However I did cheer out loud when McCain was served and owned on that forced follow up...

McCain wanted to paint Obama as "talking too loud" about what he would do in regards to military force, he even cited Teddy Roosevelt about "talking softly but carry a big stick."

Well, Barack Obama responded with a great reply like, "John, aren't you the guy who was just singing Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Iran?" He did a great job at showing how McCain will condemn Obama while consistently doing something even worse.

McCain talked a lot about "cronyism," but it is his cronyism like with the Keating Five that got us into the financial mess we are in right now.

America needs change and we need to put an end to the Republican policies that McCain has voted alongside Bush and supported.

I also get tired of hearing John McCain cheerleader for "lots of nuclear power plants" even saying "build a bunch of em, they are safe and clean." Is this guy going senile already?? We need energy independence in this country, but we don't need to destroy our land with nuclear reactors and nowhere to put spent fuel that will contaminate our rivers and be around for 10,000 years.

I also thought it was hilarious that McCain mentioned eBay and how many people are doing business on the site, but he left out the fact that eBay has just laid off 1,000 employees... this really shows how out of touch he is with the rest of us. Why? One of his advisers is ex eBay executive Meg Whitman. The people at the top are doing great, but the people who just lost their job aren't doing so well, but McCain will try and make it look like eBay is doing great and everyone is happy. Not the 1,000 who just got laid off.

I watched the second Presidential Debate tonight, and I think Barack Obama won.

Republicans Pay "Terrorist" To Speak At School?

When Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of being pals with terrorists, I bet she had not thought the comment out too far. In a classic retort to such hateful association attempts, Obama's brilliant campaign has sought to bring to light the fact that Republicans may have actually paid William Ayers (the guy they claim Obama is friends with) to speak at the University of South Carolina.

According to an article I just read from the Associated Press...

Barack Obama's campaign is citing the University of South Carolina's speaking invitations to William Ayers and Republican Gov. Mark Sanford's role as school trustee to counter GOP efforts to link the presidential candidate to the 1960s radical.

The governor dismissed the effort as "totally bogus" and said he never heard of Ayers.

If Republicans really consider Ayers a terrorist, why is this school paying him to fly there and speak? Wouldn't that mean Republican Governor Mark Sanford is in fact, "paying terrorists to speak at a school?" And, according to Palin's logic, "pallin' around with terrorists?"

In an e-mail to reporters, the Obama campaign said Ayers is a "distinguished scholar" at the University of South Carolina, where Sanford serves as the ex-officio trustee while governor.

"By Governor Palin's standards, that means Governor Sanford shares Ayers' views," the e-mail read.

Something tells me if John McCain even hints to this in the debate tonight, it could be the breaking point where one of the opponents must overcome the other verbally or lose control and get "erratic" the way McCain has been since the current financial crisis.

the campaign did not back down, saying the connection in both cases is equally tenuous.

"The point is that by Sarah Palin's logic, serving on a board with someone establishes an association with them," said campaign spokeswoman Melanie Roussell. "Obama has served on the board but did not have a relationship with William Ayers. He only met him a few times.

"If her logic is to stand, it could be said that Gov. Sanford has been palling around with William Ayers," she continued.

I would say, paying a "terrorist" to speak at your school would make you more of a pal to a terrorist than being 8 years old and having no connections to Ayers while he was committing crimes.

When will the Republicans ever learn that this stuff will only backfire on them?

Obama 9 Point Lead Before Debate

I wanted to see what the polls were looking like before the Second Presidential Debate even begins tonight. Right now, from a Gallup poll taken over the last few days, Barack Obama has a nine point lead over John McCain.

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking poll shows registered voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain for president by 51% to 42%.

This is an increase over his recent 5 point lead I posted about during the last presidential debate.

The nine percentage point lead in Oct. 4-6 tracking matches Obama's highest to date for the campaign, and the highest for either candidate. Obama led McCain by 49% to 40% near the tail end of his international trip in late July.

Obama has now held a statistically significant lead since Sept. 24-26 polling and has not trailed McCain since Sept. 13-15, roughly coinciding with the intensification of the financial crisis.

I'd like to wish both candidates luck at this time, and I must be honest, I cannot wait to see this go down!

I wanted to document the polls before, as well as, after the debates to compare Barack's popularity as it either increases or decreases after the debate tonight.

McCain Is In Trouble

Sitting here bored waiting for the debates, I decided to dig up some news articles and see what some of the major news outlets were saying... I just watched this video of ABC News' Sam Donaldson claiming "McCain is in trouble." And I agree...



Below is the transcript of the entire video.

On this day of the second presidential debate, Republican presidential nominee John McCain is in trouble and there really doesn't seem to be much he can do about it.

If the two candidates and the national mood, turned dark because of the financial crisis, continue in place for the next 28 days, McCain will almost certainly lose the election.

McCain is simply being crushed by the economic disaster and ensuing worry -- bordering on panic -- that has followed. (Hey if you've just lost your job or the money in your retirement stock portfolio you're entitled to a little panic.) The majority of Americans, rightly or wrongly, say they trust the Democrats and Sen. Barack Obama to deal with this crisis more than McCain and the Republicans.

Both candidates have made some mistakes -- and you can believe one of McCain's was selecting Gov. Sarah Palin to run with him if you wish -- but it's not mistakes that have put McCain in this spot. It's the times.

So, what could turn this around? Probably only two things: Obama could make some huge, game-changing error, but given the careful way he's proceeded to date and the fact that candidates who are ahead don't have to take chances, there isn't a lot of expectation that that will happen.

The second thing is that events, call it fate if you will, could take a hand. Should some huge foreign policy or security crisis occur, which would play to McCain's perceived strength, causing Americans to forget their pocketbooks and look to the safety of their skins -- that might do it.

Surely throwing a "Bill Ayers the former terrorist" at Obama -- or throwing a "Keating Five" at McCain in return, will have no effect on the race. It's too late to make the race about character; to most Americans, the race is now about survival and well-being of one sort or another.

I'm not calling the election, mind you, but I am laying out the situation. If McCain wins, he can thank not his smarts but his lucky stars.

Do you agree with him?

Obama Gains In 5 Battleground States

According to CNN, Barack Obama is gaining in five battleground states. Hopefully after he does a good job in the Presidential Debate tonight, his popularity will continue to rise.

Polls in five key battleground states in the race for the White House released Tuesday suggest that Sen. Barack Obama is making major gains.

The CNN/Time magazine/Opinion Research Corp. polls of likely voters in Indiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin reflect a significant nationwide shift toward the Democratic presidential nominee.

Obama has made significant strides in New Hampshire, the state credited with reviving Sen. John McCain's Republican primary campaign in both 2000 and 2008.

Fifty-three percent of New Hampshire's likely voters are backing Obama, while 45 percent are supporting McCain. Obama held a lead of 5 percentage points in the last CNN New Hampshire poll, taken in early September.

Four years ago, Sen. John Kerry narrowly carried New Hampshire -- a one-time GOP stronghold. George W. Bush squeezed out a slender win by 1 percentage point in 2000.

Areas that once belonged to George Bush and the Republicans, are now voting in support of Barack Obama!

In North Carolina, the two major party nominees are locked in a dead heat, with McCain and Obama each claiming the support of 49 percent of likely voters.

"Obama's strongest region is in the Raleigh/Durham area," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director. "McCain does best in Charlotte and the surrounding counties."

In Wisconsin, which hasn't voted Republican since 1984, Obama is holding a 51 percent to 46 percent lead among likely voters.

"Obama continues to maintain a 'home field advantage' in the southern Wisconsin counties that border Illinois," Holland said. "He has nearly a 30-point lead in the city of Milwaukee, although he loses the Milwaukee suburbs by nearly as large a margin."

CNN is shifting North Carolina from leaning toward McCain to a tossup. CNN is moving Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes, and New Hampshire and its four electoral votes, from tossup to leaning toward Obama.

Finally, CNN is switching Michigan and its 17 electoral votes from leaning toward Obama to safe for Obama. The McCain campaign announced last week that it was shifting its resources out of the once hotly contested industrial state, instead intensifying efforts in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

With these moves, CNN estimates that if the presidential election were held today, Obama would win states with 264 electoral votes and McCain would carry states with 174 electoral votes, with 100 electoral votes still up for grabs. To win the White House, 270 electoral votes are needed.

Tune in to the debate tonight and see history being written.

Second Presidential Debate

The second Presidential Debate of 2008 is tonight at 9 PM EST and will be televised from Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., according to the Commission on Presidential Debates.



The candidates will debate in a town meeting forum, answering questions from the audience and the Internet.

With the excitement of this Presidential Election building, are you going to watch the debate tonight?

After tonight, there is only one more Presidential Debate before the election.

The next Presidential Debate is scheduled for Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Keating Economics & John McCain

Find out just how involved McCain was in the Keating Five scandal in this video. It's pretty simple, he would help push for deregulation and immunity from prosecution for the crook behind the entire ordeal.

McCain's push for deregulation is what helped cause the Keating scandal, and further paved the way for the mess we see on Wall Street today in the form of $700 Billion Bailout.

From the Chicago Tribune:

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

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

McCain should have known the Keating Five scandal would resurface, and as an American citizen, it is startling how similar these events are. Notice McCain's answer, "more deregulation!

That very deregulation is why we are in the mess we are now. Thanks to John McCain.

Palin Case Reversal

When Troopergate first made the headlines, Palin instructed her subpoenaed friends and aides (including her husband Todd Palin) to disobey the subpoenas.

Looks like things are reversing in the case... from the NY Times.

Seven Alaska state employees have reversed course and agreed to testify in an abuse-of-power investigation against Gov. Sarah Palin.

Flip flop in the court of law!

Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, is the focus of a legislative inquiry into whether she abused her office by firing the public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan. Mr. Monegan says he was dismissed because he would not fire the governor’s former brother-in-law.

Lawmakers subpoenaed seven state employees to testify in the inquiry, but they challenged those subpoenas. A judge rejected that challenge last week. Because of that ruling, the Alaska attorney general, Talis Colberg, says, the employees have decided to testify.

The Sarah Palin case will be in the news this week, I will post more about it in the morning.

McCain: Virginia is Communist Country

Another great move by the McCain campaign and their families. Joe McCain referred to Virginia as "communist country." I guess that is how McCain plans on winning in Virginia?

As I just read in the Associated Press...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's brother made an apparent joke at a campaign rally this weekend that might not play well in parts of newly competitive Virginia.

Joe McCain, speaking at an event in support of his brother, called two Democratic-leaning areas in Northern Virginia "communist country," according to a report on The Washington Post's Web site.

"I've lived here for at least 10 years and before that about every third duty I was in either Arlington or Alexandria, up in communist country," Joe McCain said at an event in Loudon County, Va.

Why would he say such a thing? Because Barack Obama is ahead of him in the polls in Virginia.

Virginia has long been a Republican stronghold in presidential elections, but Democrat Barack Obama is running even or ahead of McCain in recent state polls. Obama is being helped by fast-growing communities in the Washington, D.C., suburbs of Northern Virginia, which tend to vote more Democratic than other parts of the state.

As of the last few days, the rhetoric from McCain's campaign has gotten nasty. Calling people communists, terrorists etc...

One of those areas is Arlington, Va., where John McCain owns a condominium.

Wait, so McCain owns a condo in Communist Country? LOL

Palin Terrorist Comment Backfiring On Campaign

Sarah Palin's recent claim that Obama is friendly with terrorists may be the beginning of the end for the McCain campaign. Americans are tired of this type of gutter politics... Obama is not friends with terrorists, and as the Associated Press has said...

By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Let's get to the facts here... Obama was a child when these events occured and he had no connection to the people who perpetrated them...

But Palin's reference questions Obama's associations and thereby his character. And her context is inaccurate.

She is referring to Obama's relationship with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were "pals" or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.

Obama, who was a child when the Weathermen were planting bombs, has denounced Ayers' radical views and actions.

Therefore, Palin's about how he is pals with terrorists is so far off base that it is a blatant lie, not just a distortion of facts.

Most Americans are tired of this type of behavior coming from our elected officials trying to use fear and terrorism as divisive campaign tactics.

Obama Not Connected To Terrorists

McCain and Palin have decided to step things up and make their last month of campaigning nasty, aggressive, and generally what is called "gutter politics."

Reuters has said...

"There is a time when it's necessary to take the gloves off and that time is right now," Palin told thousands of supporters at a rally in a sports arena in Carson, California.

Earlier at a fundraiser in Englewood, Colorado, she departed from her usual speech to question Obama's character.

"Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin said of Obama, also calling him an embarrassment.

Her use of words like "palling" instead of "friendly" clearly means this is a calculated and thought out quote being used to further the idea that Obama is somehow connected to terrorists. This man is a Senator and has worked for this country his entire career, Palin's connection him to terrorists is very negative and definitely gutter politics.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of "palling around with terrorists," marking a shift to a nastier tone in the White House race.

The remark was dismissed by Obama as "gutter politics" but appeared to reflect an effort by Sen. John McCain's campaign to target Obama's judgment as the Illinois senator solidifies his national lead and gains an edge in vital battleground states a month before the November 4 election.

It came shortly after McCain's campaign called Obama a liar and just days after both candidates urged Congress to set aside partisan politics to pass a $700 billion financial rescue package in a bid to revive credit markets.

The tougher tone comes as McCain struggles to move the theme of the election away from the economy, an issue that has helped Obama build leads in key states, including several won by Republicans in the last presidential election in 2004.

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said, "Today, the McCain-Palin team took their discredited, dishonorable campaign one desperate step further, announcing that they were going to try 'turning a page on this financial crisis' and launching more personal attacks on Senator Obama."

"Instead of offering solutions for working Americans and families struggling through a failing economy, they have offered more gutter politics and false attacks," he said in a statement.

First off, the same article Palin used to say Obama is "friendly with terrorists," concluded he has no ties or connections to ANY TERRORIST. But does that stop Sarah Palin from claiming the opposite? Of course not... when you have nothing else to hold on to as you are falling, you can always call your opponent a friend to terrorists. This is fear mongering and definitely not worthy of a Presidential Election campaign.

Again, the article Sarah Palin used as "proof" of terrorist connections, concluded he in fact, had none...

Palin cited a New York Times story on Saturday that examined Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Vietnam War-era militant Weather Underground organization who is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Times concluded they were not close.

Palin is clearly trying to spread lies as truth and scare the American public away from voting for Obama based on phony terrorist allegations.

Republicans Sue Palin Over Email

Sarah Palin's sneaky email tactics are gaining more attention as yet more email accounts are turning up.

Keep in mind this is a Republican who filed this lawsuit, not a Democrat or crazy wild eyed liberal ;)

According to the Washington Post...

In a lawsuit filed in Alaska Superior Court, a Republican activist seeks to force Gov. Sarah Palin to produce copies of official correspondence she sent and received on private e-mail accounts.

Andrée McLeod filed the suit Wednesday and publicized it in a news release today. "Rather than using her state e-mail account, throughout her two-year tenure as Governor of Alaska, defendant Sarah Palin, as a matter of routine, has used, and, on information and belief, continues to use, (at least) two private e-mail accounts... to conduct official business of the State of Alaska," the suit alleges.

The suit is the latest front in a battle McLeod is waging over Palin's e-mail. In June, she filed an open-records request and received four boxes of redacted e-mails. But more than 1,100 others were withheld, an action Palin justified by claiming executive privilege. McLeod appealed that claim last month before going to court last week.

McLeod has questioned whether Palin was using private e-mail accounts to conduct state business in a manner that would skirt open-records laws. In one notable e-mail, a Palin aide apologized for discussing state business on a public account. "Whoops!" Palin aide Frank Bailey wrote, after addressing an e-mail to the governor's official state address. "Frank, this is not the Governor's personal account," a secretary reminded him.

ABC News is reporting that even more email accounts are being discovered as

News of yet another private email account for Sarah Palin could affect the Troopergate probes by the Alaska state legislature and the state personnel board, the Washington Post reports this morning.

Palin and a close circle of aides had accounts on the “PalinForGovernor.com” domain, a privately-run domain she had used for her campaign, that paper found.

A technician described to the Post how he set up email accounts for Palin and others this spring at the direction of aide Frank Bailey. Bailey denied the account as “completely inaccurate” and told the paper “we haven't used that domain in a long time.”

This just keeps getting better and better... over at the Huffington Post I read...

The Washington Post reports that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) is "being asked by a local Republican activist to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public records request, including 40 that were copied to her husband, Todd." Invoking a favored practice of the Bush administration, Palin has claimed executive privilege to keep the e-mails secret -- despite the fact many of them were sent to Todd, who is not an elected official.

What's more, Palin and her staff intentionally use her personal Yahoo e-mail account, perhaps to avoid document release requests.

Republicans Foreclosing Voter Rights

With over 700 families a day losing their home in California, and the current financial crisis facing America is causing more people to lose their homes, I wonder if the Republicans will use this to their advantage during the presidential election of 2008? Or are they already planning to?

According to the NY Times,...

The foreclosure crisis could do considerable damage to the nation’s voting system. More than a million people have lost their homes in the past two years. And because voter registration is based on people’s residences, they could face politically motivated challenges at the polls.

The problem may be especially acute in the presidential battleground states. In Ohio, more than 5 percent of home mortgages are seriously delinquent or in the foreclosure process, and there were more than 67,000 foreclosure actions in the first half of 2008. Michigan and Florida have also been hard hit.

There are a large number of advocacy groups and other programs that work to ensure that minorities, the disabled and students are able to cast ballots. Because the foreclosure crisis is so recent, not much work has been done to ensure that people who lose their homes do not also lose their chance to vote.

Many of the hardest-hit neighborhoods are low- income and minority areas, which tend to vote Democratic. That means officials have to be extra vigilant to ensure that Republicans do not use foreclosure lists to challenge voters. There was a dust-up recently in Michigan, after a progressive Web site quoted the Republican chairman of Macomb County as saying that his party planned to do just that. He and the party insist there are no such plans, but the Barack Obama campaign has filed suit to block foreclosure-based challenges.

Whatever happens in Macomb County, where nearly one in every 100 households is in foreclosure, it is likely that in at least some parts of the country there will be challenges to voters who have lost their homes. There is also a real danger that voters who are in foreclosure will be misled or intimidated into not casting ballots.

What can be done to try and stop this from happening?

It is important that state and local elections officials do everything they can to help people caught up in foreclosure to cast ballots. They should make clear that in many circumstances, people in foreclosure still have the right to vote where they have been living. The rules vary by state. They should also widely advertise how people who leave their homes can change their registration, to vote from their new addresses.

Election officials should also ensure that there are enough poll workers to handle the disputes and confusion that could arise — and that they are properly instructed in the law.

Michigan Republicans Betrayed By McCain

After finding out McCain was giving up in Michigan and stopping his campaign advertising there, many local Republicans feel betrayed.

According to Freep...

"Michigan Republicans scrambled Friday to stanch potential damage to their election chances after Sen. John McCain's sudden decision to halt his presidential campaign, including TV advertising, in Michigan.

Some hoped McCain would resume campaigning in the state soon.

Others were downright mad.

"I don't know what McCain was thinking," fumed Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, a leading state Republican. "He's a general who left the battlefield in the middle of the fight.

"I'm disappointed in his behavior; he's thrown a lot of good Republican candidates under the bus."

Patterson said McCain's withdrawal is a blow to other GOP candidates in other races on the ballot. Presidential candidates are counted on to draw voters to the polls, and the appearance that one has given up could depress his party's voter turnout.

Beyond Michigan's 17 electoral votes, the next biggest prize for state Democrats is winning two congressional seats now held by Republicans -- Joe Knollenberg's 9th District seat in Oakland County and Tim Walberg's 7th District seat stretching from western Washtenaw County to Battle Creek.

"If 20,000 people stay home in Michigan on Election Day because our commander has raised the white flag, that could change a lot of races," Patterson said.

How much of an effect will McCain's concession of Michigan have on his election campaign?

OJ Simpson Guilty (Again)

I'm reading the news, having my coffee this morning... looks like they've found OJ Simpson guilty again.



The Los Angeles Times says...

A jury convicted O.J. Simpson of armed robbery and kidnapping late Friday night, 13 years to the day after he was acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her friend in Los Angeles.

Simpson and his codefendant, Clarence Stewart, were both convicted on all 12 counts. As the court clerk read "guilty" 24 times shortly before 11 p.m., Simpson grimaced and then nodded slightly, quickly regaining his composure. From the gallery, his sister, Carmelita Durio, wept on a friend's shoulder.

Acquitted of killing his ex-wife Nicole, but found guilty for stealing some old football cards, and a football he signed 25 years ago? LOL

According to the Associated Press...

Nine men, including O.J. Simpson, were involved in an armed robbery on Sept. 13, 2007, in a cramped Palace Station casino hotel room. Six were initially charged in the case. Four pleaded guilty to lesser crimes and testified for the prosecution, along with the two victims and the man who arranged the meeting.

I know if I was OJ Simpson I would stay away from anything even remotely considered a "crime."

Howard Stern Marries Beth Ostrosky

After vowing never to marry after his first divorce, Howard Stern has fell prey to the lure of fake blond hair and artificial breasts and has married Beth Ostrosky. I assume, Beth Stern now?



On the David Letterman show, Howard Stern said of his flip flop regarding a second marriage: "I'm a hypocritical liar, as you know," Stern said. "Things change, love happens, love blossoms."

While we know it must be hard to actually find someone who likes them for who they are, one has to wonder about the prenuptial agreement in marriages like this. Girls who have no career or wealth of their own, marries a guy who has worked for decades acquiring his wealth.

Then again, let's face it, Howard is not looking for a woman to cook for him, or raise his children. Celebritity wives do not have to be burdened by things such as: cooking, kids, or anything important. Just sit back, look very pretty and go shopping! So I am sure Howard has picked the right girl here.

I'm not bashing Howard at all, but you just know 100% of the women in his life, are just after his money...

Economy Is Hurting As McCain Concedes Michigan

It could be the gas prices, it could be the loss of jobs, but according to the Associated Press, Sarah Palin admits: "The economy is hurting." Governor Palin also questioned McCain's concession of Michigan due to the financial strain on the McCain/Palin campaign.

Sarah Palin questioned Republican presidential candidate John McCain's decision to abandon efforts to win Michigan, a campaign move she only learned about Friday morning when she read it in the newspapers.

In an interview with Fox News Channel Friday, the Alaska governor said she was disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan. In an indication that the vice presidential candidate had not been part of the decision, she said she had "read that this morning and I fired off a quick e-mail" questioning the move.

"Todd and I, we'd be happy to get to Michigan and walk through those plants of the car manufacturers," Palin said, referring to her husband. "We'd be so happy to get to speak to the people in Michigan who are hurting because the economy is hurting."

McCain has decided to pull out of Michigan and focus his campaign on other states at this time of his campaign.

Word of the McCain campaign's decision to move staff out of Michigan and stop advertising in the state broke around midday Thursday — the same day as Palin's vice presidential debate against Democrat Joe Biden. The campaign had decided Wednesday night that the $1 million a week it was spending in Michigan wasn't worth it with internal polls showing Democratic nominee Barack Obama approaching a double-digit lead.

The cost of advertising in these states must be putting a strain on his campaign.

Wonder Where All This Money Comes From?

The Los Angeles Times has said, "The House today approved a $700-billion financial rescue plan -- sweetened by $110 billion in tax cuts -- on a 263-171 vote four days after rejecting it in a move that stunned both Wall Street and Washington."

According to the Associated Press, "With the economy on the brink and elections looming, Congress approved an unprecedented $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday and sent it to President Bush who quickly signed it."

Today I read on the Wall Street Journal, "President George W. Bush signed the biggest government intervention in the financial markets since the Great Depression after U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers wary of growing signs of the nation's economic distress voted Friday in favor of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue package."



Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who wonders these things? Where does all this money come from?

It must fall from the sky.

Presidential Debate Schedule 2008

There are many people out there who do not know when the Presidential Debates are on.



Each debate begins at 9pm EST, 6 PST. Run time 90 minutes. The debates will be aired on every major network such as CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX. Of course you can see them on CNN, MSNBC and other cable network news channels.

September 26, 2008: Obama/McCain debate at University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

October 2, 2008: Palin / Biden Vice Presidential debate at Washington University, St. Louis, MO

October 7, 2008: Presidential debate in town hall format takes place at Belmont University, Nashville, TN - Submit a Question

October 15, 2008: Presidential debate taking place at Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Be sure to tune in and see how your candidate feels about certain issues facing America today.

Gas Prices In America

We all know gas prices are out of control, they keep rising, then dropping a little then going up again. A hurricane comes along, or a gas line in the Middle East gets blown up by a terrorist and the price of oil just keeps going up and down, up and down. One thing remains the same though, the cost of filling up your vehicle in America is definitely not getting any cheaper, and one thing that is really putting a strain on our economy is the price of gasoline.

Here's a look at the gas prices in America...



This picture shows the gas prices in America. Oklahoma is paying the least right now, at just over $3.13. Alaska is paying the most at $4.84 a gallon. Without going too deep into it, even at the lowest gas prices right now this is putting a strain on American families.

I am lucky enough to not have to drive much to earn my living, but I have two twenty-something year old brothers, and I see what they are struggling with. One having to drive many miles in a day going from home to college campus, back to home, then to work, and so on. The other raising children, managing the bills of a household with multiple vehicles, and putting himself through college as well.

Being the oldest of the brothers I often give my younger brothers advice from time to time, and sometimes it has to do with money management. Because of my brother's job, he needs to have a big truck and it would be impossible for him to drive to work in one of the latest trendy hybrid cars. Long story short, he drives a Nissan Titan, and no matter how many compliments he gets about his truck, he always brings up the gas prices that are eating him up.

At 12 mpg, people in America are riding around in cars they can barely afford to drive back and forth to work in. The average guy doesn't even fill up his vehicle, he just puts in what he can and hopes it lasts him the remainder of the week! Which is what is actually making me want to learn more about the energy independence debate and alternative fuel options facing America.

Joe Biden Wins VP Debate

I will keep this entry short and sweet. People on either side will be arguing who won the vice presidential debate over the next week, or at least until the next one. However, there are a few things that give the edge to Biden on "who won."



Biden did his best to stay on topic and answer the questions he was asked. Quite a few times Sarah Palin did the opposite of that. She dodged a couple questions, but did so smoothly and effectively without drawing much attention to the fact she was sidestepping a question or two during the debate.

Biden also did very well in not coming across as a bully or picking on the experience of Palin. However, he effectively drove home one point that should not be overlooked: to link McCain to the policies of George Bush. A vote for McCain is a vote for the same, and we need change.

At times you can see Palin is so off course and wandering around topics that it is aggravating watching her wink at the camera. The "mom next door" stuff has got to go. We need more in a leader than that. You could also tell her knowledge of topics was actually only skin deep, and once she rattled off her main talking points on topics, she simply repeated the catch phrases and tried to forward the McCain Palin agenda.

Therefore, I have to say Joe Biden won the debate.

Now what? After the VP debate

Now that the smoke has cleared, the excitement and anticipation depleted, now what?

We know Sarah Palin can hold her own in a structured format of debate which doesn't allow for much interaction between candidates for vice president. We know Palin knows how to win a crowd, but what will she and her party do that will differ from the last eight years we've had with George Bush. We also know that the McCain campaign's attempt at smearing Gwen Ifill prior to the debate, was a sad ploy of worried political strategists trying to invoke intimidation into the process. Gwen Ifill did an excellent job at moderating the event, and showed absolutely no bias.

Listen folks, we need change, we need something new. Someone who will lead instead of follow the same game plan that has gotten us eight years of failure. McCain has voted over 90% of the time right along side Bush and all his policies. He supported and has no end in sight for the War in Iraq, and has admitted his own lack of knowledge when it comes to economics. Iraq is costing us $10 Billion dollars per month, while Iraq has over 80 Billion in the bank! Let them pay for their own "liberation." We've lost like 4,000 soldiers as of right now...

Constantly trying to paint herself as "like the rest of Americans" will backfire on Palin. One thing that annoys me is when someone like Sarah Palin tries to claim she is anything that resembles a "hockey mom." Compare the size of her house to yours, calculate how many days of the week her husband actually "works" and isn't riding around town with her in big tax payer owned SUVs burning up $4 a gallon gas. She wouldn't wanna be in the same shoes as the rest of America if her life depended on it.

At this time in our nation's history we do not need the "mom next door" running this country. We need someone who understands foreign policy, the threat of terror, economics, and a wide variety of complex issues that many feel Palin is out of her league in regards to what would be expected of her should the aging John McCain have a heart attack or something. It worries me, that presenting Palin as "the everyday mom" is the Republicans focus. It should worry all Americans. We need and deserve more than that.



Sarah "I can see Russia from my house" Palin is nothing like the rest of America. She is connected to the Big Oil companies that are squeezing out every nickel and dime they can out of the American people. In fact, no other Governor in America is so connected to the oil companies. McCain and Palin plan on reducing taxes for these very companies that are making record profits, meanwhile normal everyday American people can barely afford to put in $30 at the gas pump, let alone fill up.

I promise you, Sarah Palin, does not have to worry about filling up her gas tank. Her gas is most likely continuously paid for by the tax payers in America. She rides around on the taxpayers dime, and is as out of touch with American's as "I can only count up to 7 when it comes to how many houses I own" McCain.

McCain is not like Americans either. This guy flies around on his own corporate jet, he has never ran his own business, he has lived off the tax payer dime since he was born (not in this country.) Yes, McCain was not born in the US, he was born in the Panama Canal Zone which was never considered a part of the United States. Some even question his "natural born citizen" status, having never been born on U.S. soil, he may be a citizen, but not "natural born." McCain was born into a family living off the taxpayer, and lived a privileged life, never really having to stand on his own. Ultimately he was shot down in Vietnam after only 20 hours of combat time, and this one event is what is used most effectively in his campaign.

We all know John McCain served in Vietnam, I have an uncle who fought in 'Nam and spent a lot more time in combat than John McCain did, but what does that mean in regards to running America? McCain has no real plan for America, and is out of touch with those of us who actually have to pay bills and share finance with our wife or husband. McCain is in a prenuptial agreement, and married into his wealth. His name isn't on anything he owns, and both he and his wife owe their entire fortune to her father who is a large distributor of Budweiser.

Listen, we cannot afford another four more years of the same. McCain just wants to sell as much beer as he can, cut taxes for the rich and wealthy, and continue to siphon revenue out of every pocket in America by being "in bed with the oil companies" of his running mate Sarah Palin.

We need a change, and even though I am not a Democrat, I will vote for Barack Obama to help assist that change of direction in this country.

Vice Presidential Debate

What did I think of the vice presidential debate of 2008?

I knew not to underestimate Sarah Palin, it would be foolish to do so and she performed well. She was obviously crammed with the all the proper talking points regarding most topics that could come up during the debate. However, much of the things she said looked very rehearsed and her responses very scripted.

Sarah Palin was obviously well prepared for the topics and would not be where she is if she was not good at witty retorts and making jabs at her opponent as she twists facts and beats around the bush a bit. Biden even pointed out at times she did not answer a question.

Joe Biden did exceptionally well at trying to deliver the Barack Obama message and even had a nice little "almost tear up" moment. He illustrated his knowledge on foreign affairs, his concerns about ending the war in Iraq, health care for Americans, and many other "around the table" topics that face our nation. He even stopped himself at one point from making a negative comment about McCain and instead rephrased and made a positive comment about Obama. I liked seeing him take his thoughts from placing blame to coming up with a solution, and it showed.

Debates of this nature must be extremely anxiety causing, but overall both nominees did a good job at presenting their side of the "argument." Although there was not much debating, just fact trading and policy discussion regarding where their opponent stands and past votes for legislation and bills.

Palin tried to make Obama look as if he did not support the troops, while McCain voted against funding the troops because the bill had a "timeline to bring Iraq troops home."

McCain opposes a timeline to bring the troops home. As someone who has family in Iraq, I wish they would end the war in Iraq and bring our family members home safely.

So who do you think won?

Biden vs Palin Debate

The moment we have all been waiting for! It's finally Thursday, and in just a few hours we will finally get to see the first of the Vice Presidential Debates of 2008.

The Senator Joe Biden vs Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin Debate. (If you can really call it that)



Although considering the way these type of political television shows go, and according to the New York Times, McCain fought for a strict and structured format for the "debate" which will most likely leave most of us viewers scratching our head wondering "what debate?"

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

What will they come up with next? A "loose format" would allow the nominees to answer questions and provide more reasoning for their stances on issues.

Here's the good part...

The wrangling was chiefly between the McCain-Palin camp and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which is sponsoring the forums.

Commission members wanted a relaxed format that included time for unpredictable questioning and challenges between the two vice-presidential candidates. On Wednesday, the commission unanimously rejected a proposal sought by advisers to Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, to have the moderator ask questions and the candidates answer, with no time for unfettered exchanges.

McCain doesn't want to see a real "debate" and somehow I doubt that's what we will see tonight.

What resulted from negotiations between campaigns is a 90-minute format that calls for the two candidates to stand at podiums and field questions from a moderator. Answers may not exceed 90 seconds, and two minutes of open discussion will follow each question. Each candidate will give a 90-second closing statement.

My guess is the McCain campaign wanted to keep Palin's answer time to as little as possible so she can repeat phrases and not have to do much "debating" at all.

McCain's Blame Game

We all know politics is sometimes the art of saying one thing and doing another, but nowhere is that fact more prevalent than in John McCain's call for no finger pointing during the current financial crisis, while pointing the finger at Barack Obama and blaming him for it.

McCain's latest ad even claims Democrats and Senator Barack Obama are to blame for blocking reforms that would have stopped the financial crisis from happening! But he wants the world to believe he is not casting blame on anyone. He has formally denied any blame game, however interviews illustrate this falsehood blatantly. Using his own words against him, reporter after reporter has shown he uses blame in many of his ads and speeches, and in the same paragraph will point the finger and cast blame on anyone except the actual people who helped cause the financial crisis, the banks, the people who fought for less regulation of financial institutions and policies.



McCain has proven himself to be quite the flip flopper during this campaign. Often saying one thing and doing another, or in this case, hypocrisy of placing blame on your opponent for doing exactly what you are in fact doing. The McCain Blame Game started long ago, and he uses it to great effect in the media, however reporters are pointing out his lies as the election continues.

McCain has also tried to use his "campaign suspension" to his advantage, when many in government feel his efforts actually slowed down and hindered the process. Again, in the same breath trying to paint himself as someone who was assisting the bailout effort, while in fact hindering it and aiming to cast blame on Barack Obama.

“He certainly did nothing for the first few days," McCain added. "I suspended my campaign, took our ads down, came back to Washington, met with the House folks and got on the phone, and also had face-to-face meetings.”

Let's not forget he cancelled his David Letterman interview to "catch a plane to Washington," but was in fact just a few blocks away having makeup put on to do another interview, and was actually not on his way to the nation's capitol.

McCain began introducing partisanship into the process of government as soon as he "suspended his campaign." That effort alone hindered and slowed down the actual work being done on negotiating the bill. "More harm than good" comes to mind. He sought to dominate news coverage, and in the end it backfired on him and made Barack Obama look good for wanting to continue the first Presidential Debate rather than avoid it.

One thing he cannot deny is Obama's recent surge in popularity and approval ratings in the polls. And McCain's latest quote buzzing around the internet news sites and blogs may be his best.

When asked why Obama is doing good in the latest polls McCain answered: "Because life isn’t fair.”

Senate Bailout Vote

How did the Senators that represent your state vote?

Akaka (D-HI), Yea
Alexander (R-TN), Yea
Allard (R-CO), Nay
Barrasso (R-WY), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Brown (D-OH), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Nay
Bunning (R-KY), Nay
Burr (R-NC), Yea
Byrd (D-WV), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Nay
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Yea
Clinton (D-NY), Yea
Coburn (R-OK), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Nay
Coleman (R-MN), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Corker (R-TN), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
Craig (R-ID), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Nay
DeMint (R-SC), Nay
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dole (R-NC), Nay
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Nay
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Ensign (R-NV), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Nay
Kennedy (D-MA), Not Voting
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Nay
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Yea
Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Martinez (R-FL), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Nay
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Obama (D-IL), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Sanders (I-VT), Nay
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Nay
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Sununu (R-NH), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Nay
Thune (R-SD), Yea
Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Webb (D-VA), Yea
Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Nay

This is how the Senate voted Wednesday on the financial bailout bill. (S. Amdt. 5685 to H.R. 1424)

Obama vs McCain Website Fight

I decided to take a look at both presidential candidate websites today and give a quick summary of my thoughts on each.

First I typed in JohnMcCain.com and let the page load...



First off, upon site load I was taken to a video intro page and was greeted by an annoying clip of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. Aggravating. But I did in fact enjoy the stars and the design layout of this page...

I could do five things. I was asked to put in my email and zip code and "sign up to join the team." I could "Learn more about why to vote John McCain" I was also given the opportunity to "recruit friends" and "take action." Or I could click the back button on my browser and get the aggravating video of Palin's voice to STOP! Finally I clicked "continue to www.JohnMcCain.com" and so I went...

The website is obviously very well designed, great use of the three predictable colors of red, white, and blue. Lots of things to click around on, and various entertaining photos, and ads.

On I surfed to BarackObama.com to compare...



I was glad to not be greeted with a Senator Biden video! Instead I was taken to a very informative page showcasing his stance on various current events and topics ranging from the financial crisis, breast cancer awareness, and even a clickable map so I could find local events to get involved in to help out. Immediately the difference I could see felt as if I was being offered info rather than Republican talking points. Obama's site used the word "learn" when illustrating an opinion compared to McCain's site presenting the info in more of a "watch this" style of presentation of media.

The Barack Obama site was easier on the eyes and had a much nicer design. The graphic elements were very nicely balanced and the fonts were legible but not distracting. I also really like the glow effect used in the site design.

McCain's web site had an annoying stretched looking font and felt as if I was browsing a military site. He even wanted me to join a "Catholic Coalition" if I wanted, and had a pull down menu of dozens more to choose from, including "bikers, lawyers, and veterans." LOL I came to his site to learn about him as a candidate, not join a religious coalition.

Both sites are encouraging viewers to register to vote, so that is good. Clearly each candidate will be asking for donations, even via the internet, so that is to be expected. However, I think people are also looking to find more info about the candidate and looking to know where they stand on certain issues.

Obama's site seemed to invite me in for a look around, whereas McCain's site seemed as if I was watching a bunch of commercials and an artificial approach to being welcomed. Overall, I think Barack Obama's site wins.

Hillary Clinton To Replace Joe Biden?

Before I even start you can go ahead and file this one under "rumor," but since the Los Angeles Times has wrote something about this I felt as if it was time to go ahead and write my own post regarding this popular rumor.

Have you heard? After the Joe Biden vs Sarah Palin debate this coming Thursday, rumor has it that Joe Biden will step aside and be replaced by none other than Hillary Clinton!



Now, I am neither Democrat nor Republican, but I have to say this would be quite an exciting change in this election campaign. I think when you compare Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin you can see a clear difference between the resumes, and this change in the game would be very interesting.

Why would Joe Biden back out of this important election? Again, this is a rumor, but it's being said that the reason is due to health problems.

I don't watch sports, so I watch politics, however I do not do so with the emotional burden many others do. As most, my team usually doesn't win, so I am stuck watching the other winning teams parade their most valuable players and I am on the sidelines like the rest of you. My libertarian views often pit me against not only Republicans, but Democrats, but I do see the need for change within this country and will do my part in helping assist that change.

Joe Biden vs Sarah Palin Debate Nears

Excitement would be an understatement to the feeling many have in anticipation of the Biden vs Palin debate, as it nears. With decades of experience we know Biden is most likely ready, but how ready is the newcomer from Alaska, Sarah Palin?



Recent quotes regarding Palin indicate even conservatives are concerned with her performance during interviews.

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there.

If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

And those are from someone who supported Sarah Palin until now, and this is before the debate even occurs!

Here's more...

"Holding Sarah Palin to just three interviews and microscopically focusing on each interview I think has been a mistake, I think they'd be a lot wiser to let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin. Let her talk to the media, let her talk to people." - Governor Mitt Romney, who many within the GOP saw as the smartest choice as vice president.

And another...

"McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her -- aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House." - Bill Kristol in the New York Times

I agree that if Palin were a man, more people would be attacking her credibility and readiness to be commander in chief should that need arise. I don't think many Americans actually feel she would be ready to handle the reigns of the country, and McCain's choice of her as a running mate says volumes about his decision making in regards to this nation.

The first vice president debates are this Thursday, and no matter which side of the aisle you are voting for this should make for some good political entertainment. This is better than sports.

Democrats will cheer on Joe Biden and trumpet his three decades of political experience, and the Republicans and conservatives will sit there hoping it doesn't get too messy, and debate with themselves and their constituents how they let things get so bad. The country is ready for change, and most Americans are tired of the same old policies that have gotten us where we are today.

Maxed Out

Despite being an avid horror movie fan, I have become addicted to documentaries lately, especially social and political ones.

So considering the latest financial crisis looming, I decided to finally check out the DVD Maxed Out.

Maxed Out takes viewers on a journey deep inside the American style of debt where things seem fine as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. Shocking and incisive Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us.Runtime: 87 mins

While I could gather what it was about from the title and brief description alone, it did provide a peek into some aspects of American debt that I was not aware of. Such as the average American household has at least $9,000 in credit card debt. As well as a brief hint into credit or debt related suicides in the population.

I already knew a few things this DVD seeks to inform the viewer of. How could most of us not be aware that most Americans are behind on bills and credit and debt are both sky high at this time in our nation's history? That most people will never pay off their credit cards before they die, and the majority of citizens have credit card debt, hence the title Maxed Out.



Maxed Out does include some entertaining clips of the major credit card company lobbyists and spokesman before congress and you can clearly see the influence they do have. You are briefly informed about Bush and the bankruptcy reform, but I felt it could have went a little more into real estate debt. However, I do understand this documentary was focused on credit card debt as opposed to the economic crisis facing America today.

I recommend this DVD to anyone interested in financial issues related to society, and or debt in general.

Barack Obama Wins Debate & Gains Popularity

After the first Presidential Debate this past Friday evening, many of us were eager to see who would come out as the victor, not only regarding the debates, but to see the surge in popularity afterward. What we see from the latest polls is that Barack Obama not only won the debates, but has now gained an eight point lead over McCain in the latest Gallup Poll.

"Barack Obama leads John McCain, 50% to 42% among registered voters in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday -- just one point shy of his strongest showing of the year."



In another Gallup poll, released by ABC News, when asked which candidate offered the best proposals to solve the country's problems, 52% said Barack Obama and 35% chose McCain.

Many Americans were impressed with Barack Obama during the debates, while McCain came off as grumpy, negative, and repeating the same old tired Bush plans as what America needs.

Can't wait to read the headlines: Barack Obama Wins Presidency

Barack Obama Wins Presidency

That is what the newspaper headlines would say if the election were to mirror the results of the latest Gallup poll regarding Barack Obama & John McCain. I guess maybe some would word it differently, such as "Barack Obama Is President," and dozens of more variations... either way the latest polls show Barack with a five point lead.



"Barack Obama leads John McCain, 49% to 44%, when registered voters are asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, according to the latest Gallup Poll."

With Barack's performance in the first round of the Presidential Debates being favorable and with the way debates can shape elections, hopefully these positive poll results continue to increase as his popularity grows towards the election.

Why I Stopped Watching Television

People often get a puzzled look on their face when I tell them I have not "watched television in years." As of right now, it's been over three, however last night considering the "Presidential Debate" was set to air at 9 pm EST, I debated with myself whether to watch it on traditional television or simply broadcast it from my laptopto my HDTV.

After taking my shower I had approximately thirty minutes until the debate was set to begin. "Time to make the popcorn," I shouted to my wife. "Since it's the presidential debate, maybe I'll just watch it on the HDTV instead of streaming it online tonight," I thought to myself as the popcorn began to pop. I grabbed the remote and flicked the television "on."

What popped on my screen was a television show called "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" THIS is what is on until the debate? It got me thinking about the intelligence of those who would be tuning in. The people glued to the tube for this show actually vote??

Without going too deep into it, a few ironic facts came to me as I sat staring into what would be a moment of clarity that would help to explain my against-the-grain mindframe when it comes to sitting in front of a television.

The first thought that popped into my head was, "how did you might be a redneck if Jeff Foxworthy land this job?" This guy has spent his entire career dumbing down the same rednecks who actually buy into his humor, now he gets to host a show that basically touts 5th graders as smarter than the average mom or dad who attempts at outsmarting the kids on this show.

The second was the first and only question I could actually sit through before flicking the "input" selector button on the TV remote to "PC" so I could stream the debate via the internets.

The question was: "If you are in Mexico and you begin walking West, which body of water will you encounter?"

The dad looked as if he was just asked the hardest question in the world, the kid at the other podium simply wrote down a single word answer and looked forward toward the camera. "Dad" sat there puzzled not knowing what to do, or what to answer... "Pacific you idiot!" I shouted at the television.

The dad chose not to answer the question and instead pull one of his lifelines, a "cheat" which allows him to see the kids answer and if he agrees with the child, he can use the answer as his own. Needless to say, the kid wrote down "Pacific" as his answer and the dad was forced to swallow his ignorance before the audience and even Jeff Foxworthy looked puzzled that anyone could not know which ocean is on the west of our country. However, this is exactly the intelligence quotient of the people on this show, and no doubt of those who actually watch this type of garbage.



Do yourself a favor, don't waste any more of your life watching these shows, stop watching reality television (it's not real anyway), and please make your children go outside and play instead of watching this stuff. I know it's hard to get kids to read books, but try to find creative ways to stimulate your child into cherishing their education more than entertainment.

Shows like this are the exact reason I stopped watching television so many years ago. I will admit that after being forced to mandatorily evacuate for Hurricane Gustav I had to watch the weather forecast and location of the storm as it hit our area causing much damage, but I would consider that a permissible wavering of my "no television" diet. We were without electricity for almost a week, and I had no choice but to follow the news to see what was happening in regards to the storm, the internet was down long before the power went out. But other than that, I really do not watch television at all. It has been years and everytime I catch a glimpse of the programming I am reminded as to why I stopped watching television and now spend all my personal entertainment time online.

The debate turned out to be somewhat entertaining, a bit of a let down as I expected a bit more one on one. Hopefully in the next debate they will direct answers and rebuttals to each other instead of addressing the moderator as much. But overall, I feel Obama made the best showing, McCain was condescending and came across as a grumpy old man casting blame and accepting none as the Bush policies he has backed are somewhat responsible for the state of our country instead of listing examples of answers to our problems.

Obama also addressed McCain as "John," while John referred to Obama as "Senator Obama." McCain did not make eye contact with Barack, even as Obama continuously looked in his direction.

McCain Wins Debate (Before It Happens)

We all are anxious to see the first Presidential debate tonight, but McCain and his campaign may be the most eager yet!

Take a look at the latest Maverick Marketing tactic from the John McCain election campaign. Before you even attend the debate, before one question is even asked, actually before you even confirm you are going to attend since asking to postpone the debates in the first place, release a cleverly deceptive "McCain Wins Debate" ad on the Internets. It's genius when you think about it.



Although the debate is set to take place in a few hours at 9 pm ET, the ad was released prematurely on the Wall Street journal. It wouldn't be as entertaining had the ad not been accompanied by quotes from Rick Davis his campaign manager stating "John McCain won, hands down." LOL

I can't wait to see the debates tonight.

Who do you think is gonna win?

David Blaine LOL Money

When someone calls David Blaine a magician, your response should be "What does he do that is magic?" Because hanging upside down for 60 hours isn't exactly magic, nor is the bungy jump he called the Dive of Death. Listen, people bungy jump every day in America, this doesn't make you a magician.

Now what Gandalf does in Lord of The Rings, now that is magic!

Actually, what David Blaine does is heavily promoted stuntman work. He does not magic. Suspending yourself above a city, while possibly terrifying and definitely taking some willpower, looks cool and makes him a lot of money, it doesn't exactly equate to magic. In fact, nothing he has done in a very long time could ever be considered magic by anyone calling themself a "magician." He is a stunt man, nothing more. He just happened to find a way to make a lot more money at his trade than the guys who used to dive off the rooftops in Old Hollywood Westerns.

Which brings me to the point, David Blaine is the real winner here. He makes a lot of money, and I mean A LOT. In fact while he is hanging up there during the night in the cold city breeze, I can only imagine the thoughts going through his head as he dangles there... "lol money, money lol."



I am sure that is the extent to what keeps David Blaine focused while he is performing his latest "trick." Thousands of spectators flock to see it, millions or so tune in on television, most are let down, millions of dollars roll in via advertising revenue, and Dave just keeps thinking to himself... "lol money, money lol."

Internet street creds to YT - lol money bro.