Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/28-30. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)
McCain (R) 48
Obama (D) 47
Early voters (17 percent of sample)
McCain (R) 42
Obama (D) 54
I can't believe we may actually win Arizona. And I have a bonus treat for you guys:
If the 2010 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Janet Napolitano the Democrat and John McCain the Republican?
McCain (R) 45
Napolitano (D) 53
Janet Napolitano is Arizona's governor, currently serving her second term. Her favorability rating of 67-29 is higher than Palin's, which is 65-35 in a poll we'll be releasing in a few hours. Napolitano's job approval rating of 69-21 similarly beats Palin's 61-37. Palin may be giving the Rick Lowrys of the world starbursts, but Napolitano is wowing them with competent governance, and it looks like Arizonans wouldn't mind sending her to Washington instead of McCain.
Update: McCain forced to campaign in Arizona on Monday. I bet he wishes he could spend the evening in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Florida.
SARASOTA, Fla. – Republican John McCain on Thursday spiced up a cross-state bus tour aimed at keeping Florida from swinging to the Democrats by accusing rival Barack Obama of saying "anything to get elected."
Just keeping track of McCain's ability to saying anything even if it's the opposite of what he just said....
In a report whose release was the subject of a high-stakes political showdown that went all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court, investigator Stephen Branchflower concluded that Palin communicated her displeasure with the trooper, Mike Wooten, and allowed her husband to apply pressure to have Wooten fired.
Original post: At first I thought this headline was from The Onion:
Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.
Geebus! These people not only have Irony spinning in his grave, they've just killed Satire too!
And while we wait for the Alaskan lawmakers to release the findings of their probe that was stonewalled, let's review just a couple of the lowlights of the timeline:
The Alaska Legislative Council - a bipartisan panel composed of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats – authorized, by unanimous vote, a probe into the “Troopergate” allegations. [...] July 31, 2008
In a CNBC interview [...] Sarah Paln responded to questions on Troopergate, saying that she looked foward to an investigation into the charges against her [...] August 13, 2008
An audio tape surfaces, proving Monegan’s claims that — while he was never directly told by Palin or anyone to fire Wooten — he was contacted many times by Palin, members of her administration and her husband, Todd Palin in calls and emails that raised issues about Wooten’s employment. [...] September 16, 2008
McCain campaign lawyers try to either end the investigation or delay it until after the election. Former Justice Department prosecutor Edward O’Callaghan, now working for the McCain campaign, told reporters that Palin was “unlikely to cooperate” with the Alaskan legislative inquiry into Monegan’s firing because it had been “tainted” by politics. O’Callaghan stated that the McCain campaign was directing an aggressive legal strategy to shut down a pre-election ethics investigation.
Yeah, the probe was tainted & partisan because eight10 republicans and 4 democrats voted unanimously to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her unethical conduct.
Read the whole thing as we wait for the Alaskan lawmakers to release the (stonewalled by John McCain's team of lawyers that airdropped into Alaska) report.
Oh, and that "long and thorough process"? Yeah, not so much:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain's vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.
Well, no wonder the McSame camp is so defensive, they gambled on a wild card and have to scramble to explain why their completely unqualified pick is qualified to be a "a heartbeat away" from the presidency.
And the best they could come up with about her 'executive experience' is: 1) She's the Governor of the largest state in the union! OK, but there are 670,000 people in Alaska, the whole state doesn't even rank, population wise, in the top 15 cities of the US. Not to mention she's only had the job for less than 2 years.
"If there's one public official who has consistently put his country ahead of his party, working across party lines to get things done in Washington, it is John McCain," Lieberman said in an interview with ABC News. "It's not Barack Obama, with all respect." [...] "Sen. Obama has no record that I can see of taking on positions that are held by a lot of people within his own party," Lieberman said. "John McCain does that all the time.
But most importantly, why would a Democratic Senator and candidate for president 'reach out' to the very rethuglicans who got us into these economic, immoral and deadly morasses that have been the trademark of Bushco when the whole point of this election is to decide between John McCain advocating 4 more years of demonstrably failed policies and Barack Obama advocating the return to American ideals?
Seriously, there will always be a contingent that would vote Republican even if Josef Stalin was the R candidate for President. They could never be persuaded to vote D under any circumstances. Those folks will find this ad annoying and insulting. Good, they deserve to be annoyed and insulted.
Thanks, Paris. This is the most worthwhile thing you've ever done. Check that: probably the only worthwhile thing.
Want to have some great fun and help determine the political direction of the US for the next several years? Or at least pretend to? Check out Open Cabinet, a wiki where you can pick and choose the next administration from the VPOTUS on down:
Open Cabinet is a collaborative effort to map out the next President's Administration. From the Vice President to the Secretary of Labor, let's figure out who might - and who should - staff the Executive agencies.
Built by Michael Whitney, it's quite interesting. And there's a companion blog as well. Seriously, the selections already in place are fascination, some obvious, some much less so. I'm not thrilled to see Check Hagel's (R-Neanderthal) name on the Obama list for VP. Other than on the Iraq war, the man is as Republican as one can be.
Anyway, check it out, and make your own contributions. That's what a wiki is all about.
Mark Kleiman, who is a bright guy, says this about Obama & FISA:
But note that if Obama becomes President, he has no reason either to block internal investigation within the Executive Branch or to use the claim of "executive privilege" to shut down Congressional investigation. So the goal of revealing the extent of the Bush/telco lawlessness is not defeated by the civil-immunity provision.
Note also that the authority in the bill expires in 2012.
Obama's vote is politically wise (not giving McCain an attack line about Obama's not wanting to spy on foreign terrorists) and substantively harmless. But the right wing is devoted to creating an image of Obama as a flip-flopper, and for their own reasons parts of the Netroots are willing to play along.
I'm glad to see that the Obama campaign is allowing the debate to occur on the Obama website. And I'm glad lots of people are really, really outraged about unconstitutional spying, and about amnesty for lawbreaking. But this is not a life-or-death issue. All of the damage done by the passage of the bill will be undone by the election of Barack Obama as President.
While I'm not sure I completely agree with him in re: the FISA vote and subsequent options, I do agree that some in the Netroots are organizing a circular firing squad again.
Meanwhile, in matters political, the continued intransigence of left-wing bloggers and liberal Democratic interest groups that make up part of the Democratic voting block remains completely and totally mystifying to me. The utter unwillingness to allow Obama any latitude in framing his positions on issues so that they are more palatable to independent voters, demanding that he adhere to strict and rigid positions with no room for movement or nuance, appears to me to be an unwitting sabotage of a candidate who has always been a center-left pragmatist. Any slight deviation from orthodoxy, real or perceived as we saw last week with Iraq or today with abortion, is met with derision, assaults on his integrity, and charges of flip-flopping. It is particularly vexing given that Obama is not going to pursue policies that run counter to the general positions that these folks demand and that the alternative, McCain, is completely on the “wrong” side of the issues.
The sum total of this behavior is to validate GOP frames that Barack is a flip-flopper and can’t be trusted (aided, of course, by a media establishment that loves a “gotcha” and is wholly in the tank for McCain), and watching these various interest groups daily hamstring Obama is going to give me an ulcer or high blood pressure or both. I can’t decide what is driving it, but it is maddening. Whether it is a need to feel relevant, the naivete of single issue voters, an unwillingness to recognize the demands of a general election, spite from former Hillary supporters, complete ignorance regarding Obama’s stated position on an issue (see his “flip-flop” on Iraq in which he said the same thing he has been saying for over a year- he will continue to refine his withdrawal policy as he gets additional information), or a desire for accountability after eight years of Bush, the end result is to force Obama into a box on many issues and refuse to allow him the flexibility he needs to win in November.
As I said, it is maddening, and I don’t want an ulcer or high blood pressure, so I think I am going to do my best to ignore it. The GOP and the right-wing bloggers, however, will not, and they will be eager to join you as you vent your spleen attacking Obama on your pet issue. Thanks for being a dupe, and spare me the nonsense that you are, unlike Republicans, just demanding accountability from your candidate. Just to be clear, you aren’t demanding accountability- you are knee-capping him. I never noticed this trait among Democrats when I was a Republican, now, it is crystal clear why Democrats have so much problem electing a President. Trying to unite a bunch of self-serving whiners, even after eight years of disaster, is near impossible (and now watch ten people accusing me of trying to stifle dissent or being a Rethuglican in disguise who just likes a new “dear leader.”).
Bottom line is, the choice is Obama or McCain. That's a real difference. If you don't think so, you're either unconscious, or you haven't been paying attention.
The choice isn't Nader, or Gene McCarthy, or even Kucinich, it's Obama or McCain. That's a choice between Bush redux and someone who actually lives in reality. He may not support your personal single issue or be as pure as you'd like (see above YouTube), but he's not McCain.
Repeat for the hearing impaired: HE"S NOT JOHN MCCAIN. That's all that matters. Pragmatics really counts, sometimes more than purity. Let's elect him, them try to purify him. But if we don't elect him, it's McCain.
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.
These techniques were designed to break torture victims and get them to say anything that a corrupt regime wanted them to say.
Just ask John McCain. He not only made a video confessing war crimes for his captors, the torture he experienced drove him to attempt suicide. (He wrote a book about it.) And while McClain admits to his capitulation to torture, he also alleges he refused early release. (We have only his word that this happened. It requires a suspension of disbelief to think that a broken, tortured, powerless prisoner can dictate the terms of his release to his captors.)
So when lunatic wrongwingers send a viral email that Senator Obama is the "Manchurian Candidate," maybe they should look closer to home. Maybe they should look at John McCain, who actually was tortured, broken, and then sent back home by the communists.
The same John McClain who shortly after being released by his captors cheated on his wife, and then divorced her while she was permanently disfigured from a car accident.
The same John McCain that cheated on this faithful wife? Yeah, he did it with Cindy, a 20 year younger multimillionaire heiress, (heiress, drug addict and thief). But John did the right maverick thing, he dumped his crippled wife and married his mistress, who just happened to have $100 million. And that's when he began his political career.
If you wanted to write a script about a hero who'd been tortured & brainwashed, cut himself off from those who knew him best, suddenly had unlimited financing and decided to run for president ... oh, wait a minute, George Axelrod already wrote that script. Hmmm, what was it called?
St. John McCaca can't help tripping on his own rambling ideas and positions. This time, it's immigration reform, where he won't even vote for his own bill:
There are some folks we call dead-enders. They will follow The Party no matter what. If they saw GWBush, John W. McCain, Dick Cheney, and Grover Norquist gang-raping their child on TV, they would still vote for anyone with an "R" after their name, including the aforementioned McCain.
It always cracks me up when a supposed 'thoughtful' Right-wing pundit criticizes a Democratic candidate, thoughtfully, as if they would ever vote for said candidate, or even consider him anything but a traitor willing to sell us all down the river into Islamofascist slavery:
The fact that everyone knows who Bush was referring to and the fact that the substance contained in the remark reflects the widely held belief of a very large percentage of voters should have given Obama an opening to retract the remark and share his thoughts on engaging Iran, Syria, and other terrorist supporting nations in a useful dialogue.
Instead, Obama and the Democrats hit the ceiling, calling Bush every name in the book and whining about their hurt feelings. Their reaction reminded me of a line from the movie All The Presidents Men where the Washington Post has published an article accusing the White House of wrongdoing and the reaction to that article from the Nixonites. Ben Bradleee observes “They doubt our ancestry, but they don’t say the story isn’t accurate.”
Obama called Bush’s words “an appalling attack,” “dishonest,” divisive, “fear-peddling,” fear-mongering,” but for some reason, never got around to responding to the substance of Bush’s charge; that Obama and the Democrats cannot be trusted with running American foreign policy because their outlook on the world is is based on false assumptions about, our friends, our allies, our role in the world, and most of all our deadly enemies.
Bush actually did Obama a favor. He gave him a golden opportunity to lay out his “realistic” ideas on American foreign policy so that it would get the widest possible hearing. The problem, as Obama and the Democrats well know, is one of perception – a perception they try their best to finesse rather than tackling head on. It’s not about talking tough and making threats. It is about calling our enemies, well, enemies . They could try that for starters.
Right. Problem is, any idea Obama lays out as realistic will be ridiculed by this guy and his crowd. Yet he seems so reasonable. But often so do most sycophants and supporters of totalitarian regimes.
What could possibly be wrong with 75,000 people attending a political rally?
Admittedly, not much on the surface. And perhaps if the times weren’t so perilous and the candidate who was the beneficiary of that huge crowd wasn’t so problematic, we could really celebrate such an outpouring of support, free from the nagging doubts that plague many of us about Barack Obama and his past associations and present ideological beliefs.
Except my republican soul (note the small “r”) is a little frightened at this mob scene. Politicians should be plebeian in their appeal – being one of us and not standing above us, Caesar-like in their beguilement of the masses. Truman and Eisenhower were plebes; modest in their habits and with no illusions regarding their own failings. There is something to be said for such solid republican values in a presidential candidate and when someone such as a Kennedy or Obama rises above the masses, presenting themselves as perhaps something more than a servant of the people, we are bound to look in askance at such a phenomenon.
The anti-populist elitism, the sniff of "dirty masses" from an ivory tower conservative psuedo-intellectual is almost enough to make the spirit of Bill Buckley smile up from Hell. The fear of the people revolting, trying to further their own best interests, has been a touchstone in conservative politics since long before the Cold War.
And in case he forgot, there's never been a more anti-plebian President than GWBush, with the possible exception of Poppy Bush, who really took his elitism as a life style, and didn't try to hid it with a phony rancho in Texas.
Moran finishes his anti-Obama whine thusly:
But dangerous he is – for his beliefs, not for his personality or the character of this mass movement he has inspired. So when I see 75,000 people screaming his name with the kind of abandon reserved for rock stars or religious figures, I worry more that the candidate won’t be able to live up to the lofty expectations he has engendered in his legions than he would use such a movement for nefarious purposes.
And given his incredible lack of experience and zero track record in getting anything done, I would guess that if he is elected he would generate more disappointment among his followers than any other president in memory.
Dude, that's rich in unintended irony. He worries, poor concern troll he is, that Obama won't live up to the Left's expectations, that he has an "incredible lack of experience and zero track record in getting anything done", and will "generate more disappointment" blah blah blah.
Like, you know, George W. "28%" Bush has done.
The real reason for all this pearl-clutching and hand-wringing is in the video at the top, and rests on the heads of the Republican collective, the "dirty unwashed masses" who voted for McCain, once a pariah in Republican top circles, now their candidate. Weak as Wally Cox with the flu, ethically challenged as Ferdinand Marcos, anti-intellectual as GWBush, and flip-flopping more than a trout in the bottom of a boat, McCain's star is the one they have hitched their wagons to. So Moran instead carps and whines about Obama's mis-perceived problems, and pronounces him a bad candidate.
The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the right to free speech:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Marietta bar owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling, featuring a look-a-like of cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" underneath, are not meant to offend.
Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey,
"We're not living in the (19)40's," he said. "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears — he looks just like Curious George."
No, we're not living in the '40s. Black people can vote, and one is the likely Democratic candidate for President. But for some, especially in the South, it's still the '40s, and the Bull Connor '50s.
Mr. Norman, you know God-damned well that picture is offensive, and you don't care, because you're racist. No other conclusion can be drawn. You're not clever, you're not funny, you're infantile and prejudiced.
There is one essential difference between Clinton and Obama that hasn't been talked about. And that is, while there are some who feel women are not as good as men, no one in today's society, except for sociopaths, hates women.
Yet there are still those in this country who hate black people. As fellow blogger darkblack pointed out to me, Obama is in far more physical danger than Clinton, for that simple fact. We've come so far, yet sadly, not far enough. We still have racist jerks like Mr. Norman.
(Note: Title lyric from the awful RaHoWa, a White Power band. I post them so you don't have to go look them up. Mr. Norman may not subscribe to all their tenets, but he's in good company with them, no matter how hard he denies.)
Pam works with a 20-something black woman, who has recently become politically aware.
She tells Pam (3rd party paraphrase):
When Obama first started running, her parent's generation said "Not gonna happen, they will never let a black man run". They, of course, being the white establishment.
The black community thought highly of the Clintons, but Hillary and Bill are rapidly flushing that down the drain.
Now that's Obama's a shoe-in for the nomination, the same folks are saying that if it doesn't happen, if somehow Hillary gets it, the disappointment will set race relations back a long way.
It would be easy for those of us with far less melanin to say they should get over it, aren't things much better for blacks now? It would also be stupid, since to deny that institutionalized racism still exists would be to ignore all the evidence.
For this, along with many other reasons, I hope Hillary finally reads the writing on the wall and drops out, sooner than later.
There's a fair amount of chatter about John McCain's comment about staying in Iraq for "100 years." Mostly, it's liberals taking him to task for it, and conservatives defending him and claiming he's being taken out of context. The mainstream media was slow overall to focus on the statement, and then mostly joined the conservatives, without pressing McCain beyond a certain point. It's been encouraging that several liberal blogs have delved into the issue, but far too many mainstream media outlets and media watchdogs haven't bothered in their "fact checks" to examine essential context for McCain's remarks. McCain's rhetoric demands a closer look, but it's also crucial to examine his entire Iraq policy.
There's more, so much more. Batocchio takes on McCain's overall war policy, his history of flip-flopping on issues, including those related to Iraq, his framing of any U.S. withdrawal as "surrender", and other acts of idiocy.
Here's the complete video:
It's not a pretty picture. Here are some other selected bits:
McCain keeps bringing up South Korea, Japan, and “commitments” in other parts of the world, but these are false equivalencies that do not address the situation in Iraq. As the questioner tries to point out, our troops aren't being killed on a daily basis in South Korea, Japan (or Germany), so McCain’s comparisons are inapt at best, disingenuous dodges at worst.
. . .
His website touts a ”No Surrender Tour.” Frankly, it’s juvenile language reminiscent of many a right-wing screed, and disappointing coming from McCain. To whom exactly would we be surrendering? Surely not to the Iraqis. We’re occupying their country, supposedly to help them and their supposedly sovereign government. Does McCain mean Al Qaeda, perhaps? Since he’s said this elsewhere, it’s the most likely explanation. But since the millions of Iraqis would never let the much smaller extremist group Al Qaeda “take over” Iraq, that’s not a realistic threat, and since Al Qaeda is mostly in Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan, occupying Iraq specifically makes no sense for addressing that threat either.
. . .
The National Security Network has a post detailing how ”McCain's Rhetoric Doesn't Reflect Reality.” While it’s a valuable post for challenging his current claims about Iraq, what I find most striking is looking at McCain’a record over the past ten years. Consistently, he’s been extremely aggressive, arguing at times for military action against Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Iran, and Syria. He also opposed peace efforts in Northern Ireland. Additionally, he’s consistently mocked war opponents and foreign leaders working for diplomatic solutions.
This is an amazing piece of work, please go read the whole thing.
1) With our two candidates beating the %&$&$ out of each other, this book will place the focus back to where it belongs: McCain. If you guys help it fly off of Amazon, it will receive the attention it needs, and then McCain will be held accountable.
2) It’s only $10! I mean c’mon, what can you get for less at Amazon, except a pair of Dick Morris’s used socks?
3) My kid needs diapers
4) If you like me on tv against Republicans, this book’s selling many copies will make sure I am on tv more and can make the arguments against him that need to be made.
5) It’s only $10!
6) I am releasing the newsworthy bits of this book through our Progressive Media. That is a choice I made with my publisher. It is how we grow it. Buying this book will show this is a strategy that can work.
I also collaborated with members of our media on this book, most notably blogger Bob Geiger helped create two chapters of this book with his unmatched knowledge of the Senate.
7) McCain would be a very, very dangerous man to have in the Oval Office. This book can perhaps be a part of stopping that.
There you go, the 7 best reasons I can think of. So please folks buy the book. Buy many! Email your friends about it! Threaten them if they don’t buy it….well, maybe not that. We’re not Republicans, after all.
Here's the link to buy the book at Amazon, I'm getting it right now.
Thanks, Cliff!!
By the way, here's über-Conservative Pat Buchanan on why McCain is unfit for the job:
Barack Obama has long argued that he has shown better foreign policy judgment than his remaining presidential rivals, specifically in opposing the Iraq war.
But at a fund-raiser in San Francisco over the weekend, he reportedly made the case that he has more foreign policy experience as well -- a claim getting a lot of blowback from presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.
Obama never claimed more experience, as the quote from the Huffington post in the article proves:
"I think a lot of people assume that might be some kind of military thing to make me look more commander-in-chief-like. Ironically, this is an area -- foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain."
Not experience, knowledge and understanding. and I think this is arguably true.
Hillary voted for the war. John McCain wants more war. They have more experience, but less understanding or knowledge. Especially McCain who has lied and flip flopped over and over about Iraq. And when he wasn't lying or flip flopping he was proving his ignorance.
But all you're going to hear is that Obama 'claimed to have more experience.' Just another manufactured controversy from the beltway media that would rather report on haircuts and cleavage and can't be bothered to get anything right.
Strengthening the Middle Class Providing Affordable & Accessible Health Care Ending the War in Iraq Energy Independence & Global Warming Improving Our Schools Fulfilling Our Promises to Veterans Supporting Parents and Caring for Children Restoring America's Standing in the World A Champion for Women Comprehensive Government Reform Strengthening Our Democracy Reforming our Immigration System An Innovation Agenda Creating Opportunity in Rural America
Economic Stimulus Plan McCain Tax Cut Plan Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity Straight Talk on Health System Reform Strict Constructionist Philosophy Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life Lobbying & Ethics Reform Strategy for Victory in Iraq Border Security & Immigration Reform Commitment To America's Service Members: Past And Present Education National Security Stewards of Our Nation's Rich Natural Heritage Protecting Second Amendment Rights America's Space Program
Right. Forget the Iraq Strategery, the Ethics Reform, the Commitment to not torturing POWs like he was tortured, in fact, forget the whole thing as boilerplate concoted by someone in his PR shop. He doesn't mean any of it.
And Space Program? WTF?
But what of other Republican candidates? (yes, I know they already dropped out, but they still are sucking up to try and win a VP nomination)
Keeping Americans Safe Confronting Radical Jihad Combating Nuclear Terrorism Latin American Allies Global Economic Competition Ending Energy Dependence Curbing Federal Spending Ending Illegal Immigration Reducing Healthcare Costs American Culture & Values Raising the Bar on Education
Nice. Clearly those are his political issues and not his personal ones. That said, the list is pretty scary, with a triple boogey-man lede: Keeping Americans Safe, Radical Jihad, and Nuclear Terrorism. While I'm flattered he cares so much about my safety, I'm pretty sure that even he would agree, after a few scotch & sodas, that it's total BS.
Mitt, buddy: Radical Jihad has killed less Americas that drunk drivers every year, yet it's still the tactic designed to appease the bed-wetters on the Right. And Nuclear Terrorism might be taken seriously if anyone on the Republican side of the aisle was even a tiny bit serious about searching incoming shipping containers. Not going to happen, because it will cause a few dollars expense to the shipping companies, and we can't disrupt business in anyway now, can we?
Seriously, the candidate's issues lists are less reality and more posturing, having been created by marketing teams to sell the candidate's brands to the public. Obama and Clinton have some credibility based on track records, but McCain, and even poor old multimillionaire Romney have exactly none.
Zero.
Nada.
Bastards.
(Note: Mostly I think Steely Dan sucks. The later albums like Aja & Gaucho were, to me, exercises in clinical music: all science, no soul. Reelin' in the Years was a pretty good song, fit into the aesthetic of the time, and had some great lyrics. But soon after, they descended into studio wankery. Of course, your mileage may vary.)
Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost less than the full credit can deposit remainder in expanded health savings accounts.
Eliminating the "bias toward employer-sponsored" can mean only one thing: eliminating the tax deduction for employers who provide health insurance. If that happens, exactly .2 nanoseconds later all employers will stop providing health insurance. None of them provide health insurance out of altruism, or even the progressive thought that healthy employees are better workers. Nope, no tax deduction, no insurance.
A caller to Thom's show disagreed, saying that the McCain idea was to steer people toward other health insurance providers. Maybe, but nowhere on McCain's site does it say that. So that's just wrong.
And a $5000 tax credit? Swell. That's about what my insurance alone costs. But a "tax credit" means that I still have to spend the money first. And most of the "tax write-offs" I have calculated over the years, realize from 50% to 66% of their value, not 100%. But heck, I'm not an accountant so what do I know.
And WTF does "innovative multi-year policies" mean? Any health insurance I've ever dealt with was month-to-month.
And finally, "health savings accounts", that old chestnut thrown around by those who don't want you to have any actual insurance. Terrible idea. Why? Here's an example" How much can you afford to deposit into one? $100/mo? Total of $1200/year? Or can you do twice that, for $2400/year? Or maybe, if you have no actual insurance, $500/mo, for $6000/year. Should leave you feeling pretty safe, right?
I had to have a colonoscopy last November. Because of a confusion in billing, the 3rd party clinic that did the test for Kaiser sent me the bill initially: $6000. Were I covered by an HSA only, that would have wiped it out, and any other testing ot treatment would have been out of pocket for me. Insurance companies love HSAs, because the charge fees for administrating them, but incur almost no risk.
It's a lot like getting health care from a pawn shop after hocking Grandma's diamond ring.
Ambassador Wilson, I have great respect for you, and your hair. And what was done to your wife was wrong. You have many friends in the bloggersphere, but tonight, you have one less, because of this from HuffPost:
In 1998, as Senior Director for Africa in President Clinton's National Security Council, I helped orchestrate six phone calls, some late at night, directly from President Clinton, three each to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles, and Eritrean President Afwerki, to stop the air war between the two countries. Two of Barack Obama's senior advisers, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, were also involved in that effort, and could attest to the importance of presidential involvement if they would choose not to remain silent as a ploy to protect their candidate's slender credentials.
. . . In former Yugoslavia, President Clinton played a similar role, reaching out to friends and allies, to adversaries and belligerents, in order to reach agreements that permitted the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
. . . Contrast the above examples with the last seven plus years of George W. Bush and the conclusion is inescapable: presidential leadership is critical and should be tempered with experience and capability.
No problem so far, we can all agree that the last 7 years were really bad.
But then to go here:
Senator Obama is clearly a gifted politician and orator. I disagree profoundly with his transparently political efforts to turn George Bush's war into Hillary Clinton's responsibility. I was present in that debate, in Washington, from beginning to end, and Obama was nowhere to be seen. His current campaign aides in foreign policy, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, were also in Washington, but they chose to remain silent during that debate, when it mattered.
Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko. But his assertions of advanced judgment are also ludicrous when the question of what Obama has accomplished in his four years in the Senate is considered.
Joe, you've jumped the shark. Time to pack the show up, and start a second career in directing, because this writing won't sell. I won't even bother with the Wright & Rezko cheap shots; you should be ashamed. I'm glad you passionately support Sen. Clinton, but her past is filled with shady characters whose misdeeds shouldn't be used to attack her. Comes to mind James Blair and Robert L. "Red" Bone:
Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.
The computerized records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader.
. . . A close examination of her individual trades underscores Blair's pivotal role. It also shows that Robert L. "Red" Bone, who ran the Springdale, Ark., office of Ray E. Friedman and Co. (Refco), allowed Clinton to initiate and maintain many trading positions – besides the first – when she did not have enough money in her account to cover them.
Innuendo? Yes. Criminal acts? Who knows. Let he who has not sinned sail down the Whitewater rapids.
The more important point is that Bill Clinton, praised above as acting responsibly in a crisis, was a Governor of a small Southern state with plenty of internal problems, and virtually no foreign policy implications. While his terms as Governor were neither disastrous nor glorious, his election to the Presidency was based on charm, charisma, and national dislike for George H. W Bush, who had vast foreign policy experience.
To continue:
Obama has stated that he will rely upon his advisers. But how will he know which ones to depend upon and how will he be able to evaluate what they say?
Yes, how will he know who to listen to? I re-cap from earlier in the Wilson piece:
Two of Barack Obama's senior advisers, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, were also involved in that effort, and could attest to the importance of presidential involvement if they would choose not to remain silent as a ploy to protect their candidate's slender credentials.
So Lake & Rice were invaluable as counselors to Clinton, yet untrustworthy as aides to Obama? Sorry, pal, can't have it both ways.
Which of his shifting coterie of volatile advisers would he turn to? Will it be the one who repudiated his withdrawal plan, exposing his real intention, prior to being forced to resign? Or will it be those advisers who remained silent until politically convenient -- several years and several thousand lives after the shock and awe invasion, conquest and disastrous occupation of Iraq?
Oh just stop it! Support your candidate, that's fine. But this argument is specious, especially when your candidate has her own credibility issues. Face it, the bulk of Hillary's Foreign Policy experience is from being First Lady. And while that's a fine thing, it's no better than the experience of a Senator from Illinois, or New York. She may have met many foreign leaders, yet her interaction with them was ceremonial, not substantive.
Sadly, stupidity isn't a test for commenting on a popular blog. In this case, I found this comment at Huffington Post:
Barak Hussein Obama
1) He LIES about his relationship to Rev. Jeremiah " God Damn America" Wright. . Who even though he knew how radical this guy was kept him on the campaign for an additional year. Of course in 20 years he never heard of his invective. He never heard but kind words form his favorite "uncle".
2) He LIES about his deal to buy his house with Tony Rezko. He says he only worked 5 hours for the man but amazingly REZKO while defaulting on $10 million in other debts, conspired to buy half of the land Obama's house is on at 100% of asking price, so Obama can get his piece at 65%. He LIES when he says he hardly knew this man who gave $250,000 to his campaign not the $100,00 he first LIED about.
3) He LIES about his sexual relationship with Larry Sinclair and the attendant drug use.
4)He LIES about NAFTA telling OHIO voters he'll re-negotiate the treaty while telling the Canadian Government not to worry, he'll do no such thing.
5) He LIES about the war saying he has always opposed it while voting for funds to fight it.
6) He LIES about his intentions about bringing the troops home. He says he will. He says he'll send them back into Iraq. He says he'll do whatever the #%*& he wants when he is commander in chief.
7) He LIES about bringing Democrats together while running a formidable and vicious attack on Hillary.
8) He LIES about health care saying his plan does not MANDATE the collection of premiums from hard working Americans as Hillary's would, when if fact his plan would MANDATE everyone buy the coverage for their kids....and he would collect the premiums in the same MANDATED fashion.
9) He has his staff say on national television that the infamous photo of him in Arab/Muslim attire was taken when he was on a diplomatic mission. WHO sent this idiot on a diplomatic mission: NO One. So the truth is HE LIES why he was in Africa or he LIES about conducting foreign policy for the United States while unauthorized: also a crime.
10) He has LIED his way to position in this election where he might actually win. Not to worry, if that sad event happens the media and McCain will call this guy out so forcefully he won't know what hit him.
No point in unpacking all the crap, lies, straw-man arguments, and delusions in this piece. Is the author racist, a fervent Hillary supporter, ar a Right-winger? Doesn't matter. His/her mind will stay totally fact-free during this election cycle.
