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Where the "TEA Party" went wrong

2011-03-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I last visited this blog since my blog at wordpress is a lot of fun to use and gets a lot of views. However, I had already posted something substantial to the blog there about people who whether in seeking to maintain a lifestyle through spendy real estate that also potentially makes it a spendy prospect for businesses to operate here. And because of the deals that countries like China offers them, there goes the manufacturing plant and the jobs too. Or trying to maintain a lifestyle through sports in colleges or universities at the expense of actual education means that we have people today who no longer have a sense of priorities to bring this country back to being a first, either in cutting edge technology or any where else. You have to have top rated education for this, sports teams won't achieve that.

But since Rand Paul, the face for the "TEA Party" showed up on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," I found some cause to visit here again. We all know that the guy will stick up for the super-wealthy like the Koch brothers who helped fund the "TEA Party," but what really took the cake, was when Paul held the view that only capitalism could punish the wicked on Wall Street or the banks. At one point he complained about the intervention of government that enabled people in corporate offices to walk out with mega-bonuses. To put it bluntly, the dude had his facts completely twisted. They were walking out with mega-bonuses long before government intervention. The intended intervention from the GW years to the first year of Obama's presidency was to keep the banks from toppling and money flowing. But for obvious reasons, the people who ran the corporate HQs weren't interested in anything but mega-bonuses for themselves and screw the rest of the marketplace. So, Rand Paul, how would capitalism punish people with that kind of attitude? Banks are part of the commercial landscape, you really can't do business without them. But then, what can you expect from a guy who pushes this radical ideology to the limits and against all reason?

So, let us take such a Paulian concept into the real world and argue that "too much government" can be whined about and we have a burdensome regulation, when it comes to crime in your neighborhood. Even a guy like Rand Paul would agree that the mugger in the back alley, the shoplifter, the armed robber, the killer; should face their punishments to the full extent of the law. On the other hand, when it comes to banks like Capital One: Holding such a bank legally accountable for wrong doing suddenly becomes a no, no. In the case of the bank capitalism must be the sole judicial system.

All right, we are talking about a bank, one of many banks and credit card companies that sought through the Republican-controlled legislature, that it step in and intervene with the downside of capitalism. IE, that aspect of capitalism in which a bank card holder runs up an unsustainable debt on his account, declares bankruptcy, and leaves the bank holding the bill. If capitalism was the means of punishment, then it seems to me that banks could have used the bankruptcy itself to set up red flags. Notifying other banks that this person had run up unsustainable debt on his or her account(s) and then declared bankruptcy. A flag on that individual submitted to any and all banks would have told them that such a person was a credit risk and not to do business with him/her. But the banks did not choose to do that, instead: they went to Congress and demanded that government intervene in the marketplace. Further, they treated any bankruptcies that were won as an erasing of all debt and encouraged the individual who went bankrupt to get into debt another time. Well, then I would certainly have to argue that these banks weren't thinking in capitalistic terms, but only in how much money they could get for pushing easy credit. Capitalism you see would take foresight and planning. The banks instead took the path of least resistance and ended up (as portrayed even on The Daily Show Face Book page) causing a catastrophic economic collapse. Well then, how would capitalism punish these banks if they simply abandoned the rules of capitalism?

The above link shows you what Capital One Bank did to get around consumer safety rules. Just as following the GOP passed bankruptcy reform act, they also failed to follow The Fair Credit Billing Act of 1999. Yeah, following the bankruptcy reform act, Capital One decided they could screw with the accounts through billing and payment errors, charge excessive debt to the accounts on the basis of billing and payment errors, tried to create bankruptcy conditions, would not allow the accounts to be closed, would not allow the accounts to be paid off so that the accounts would be closed... And for such predatory lending practices, they should be free, according to Paul, to continue on in these questionable and criminal practices and only capitalism should punish them. Punish how?

Meghan's law became possible because of some truly brutal killing of a young child. The "three strikes" law became possible because of the judicial system's tendency to engage in catch and release. If you are caught for some criminal offense for the third time, then you get to go away forever. But, we should not hold banks legally accountable when they fail to follow the FCBA or the changes in credit card laws since they were passed in 2009 and implemented by 2010. Yeah, laws to hold the banks legally accountable when they fail to follow the rules of doing honest business with their customers. Instead, it is twisted into burdensome regulations that unduly interferes with the marketplace. Check out the link above, there is your undue interference with the marketplace. Yes, it is absolutely necessary to hold those who commit crimes accountable. No matter if they are waiting for you in the back alley or sitting comfortably in a corporate office.

Afghanistan: What is our priority?

2010-06-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

As much as I respect and agree with Trudy Rubin (republished in the Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington 21 June 2010), it still begs the question that after 9 years of our presence in Afghanistan, just exactly what are our priorities in that country? Remember when we first invaded Afghanistan? It was around a month after 9/11/2001. Our reasons were simple, getting the terrorists who attacked innocent people here in America. Go after the people who gave them safe harbor. Then our priorities shifted from going after terrorists to forcing a democratic society on a people who were not really ready for such a society. Then our priorities shifted again. Instead of dealing decisively with the Taliban and Al Qaeda; the GW administration decided that "terrorism" was a greater issue in Iraq and so went after Saddam Hussein. In the meantime, the Hamid Karzai gvt became increasingly corrupt, ceded greater control of the general countryside to the Warlords, the Taliban began re-emerging and gaining stronger footholds in Afghanistan and had positions of security in Pakistan itself. The GW administration did not choose to work with Pakistan to deal decisively with the Taliban. With the end result that the Taliban had free rein to begin destabilizing Pakistan as well.

Back in the day when all this was going on under a GOP president, and it was the Democrats who wanted a time line for withdrawal from Iraq; exactly what did Senator McCain have to say about any "re-emergence" of anti-Democratic forces? Or did he simply join with fellow GOP voices in Congress to utterly condemn the Democrats as failing to support our troops and spineless in the face of terrorists? Was there mention of negotiating with the U.S. installed Iraqi gvt to assure a stable country that the U.S. Military could eventually leave and the Iraqi people and gvt could handle their own security from then on? Or was there a failure on the part of the GOP led gvt to make the sort of decisive demands: now that we got rid of a brutal dictator for you and paved the way for you to achieve a democratic state, how about stepping up to the plate and working to make a better society and gvt for yourself? As long as GW and his administration weren't prepared to make such decisive demands, they also left themselves no room to negotiate with what ever actual society and gvt the Iraqi people would eventually create. That all we would do is simply prop up a dependent "state" rather than ceding back to a sovereign people the free will to decide their own future. As long as we are there, a "dependent people" don't have to make any decisions as to their own future. As long as we are there, there would be factions prepared to resent our presence and to go on the attack against their fellows just because other factions desire the presence of Americans. Apparently, it never occurred to anyone, inclusive of Senator McCain during the heyday of the GW administration to bring all sides together and have them negotiate a peace pact. If Shi'ite Muslims worked out a peace pact with Kurds and other minority peoples and beliefs living in Iraq; then it would have been possible for the U.S. presence in Iraq to have left years sooner. Instead of negotiating peace with actual warring parties after the fall of Hussein, GW decided instead that he could simply impose a western style (and Christian) type of gvt on that people. After he left office, President Obama as his successor proceeded to put forth a time line for withdrawal of troops from Iraq whether warring parties within that country were ready for it or not.

The time for negotiating the peace is after you have fought the initial fight and put the enemies on the run. You don't put off such negotiations for a later date or abandon them all together. GW had made it readily apparent that he wanted to go to war and use being a "war president" to personally boost his ego and keep a GOP lock on Congress. But he also made it readily apparent that he didn't know how to run a war or bring one to a successful conclusion. That is why, two years after he has left office, we are still dealing with the Iraqi situation that could have been concluded a long time ago and Afghanistan who's people we actually did abandon before invading Iraq. GW was ultimately not interested in negotiating the peace after the battle was won. Had we actually been prepared to do that, we could have strengthened the hand of the newly installed gvt in Afghanistan and that of the people to more thoroughly resist Taliban incursions. The fact that McCain couldn't be bothered discussing that fact back when GW was still in office, and was simply one more Republican voice opposing the Democrats in a polarized partisan contest of who should ultimately reign supreme in Washington, D.C.; makes it a little late for him to argue negotiation and prospective abandonment of the Afghani people today. Make that, 7 years to late. No war is truly over until you have left the enemy no room to maneuver and no further reason to fight you. GW loved the "glory of war," but not the work it would take to actually end one and leave behind a stable society. After all, given his treatment of this American society, how should he be bothered with giving greater consideration to countries he invaded and left destabilized as a consequence? It says a lot about the people he put into his administration. It says a lot about himself. And it says a lot about Senator McCain who lacks the necessary graciousness two years after his defeat at the polls to consider his own lack of willingness to truly challenge the last administration when it would have counted the most. Waiting 8 years and challenging this one really begs the question of why do it now?

Should the Obama administration begin negotiating the peace between the Afghani peoples and all factions that could prove detrimental to a stable society? Absolutely. That there can not just be a time line for troop withdrawal; there must also be a firm commitment between the peoples and their gvt to create a society that they can live with and resist any effort on the part of militant Taliban to recreate the sort of intolerable conditions where human rights are concerned, that was partially why they were ousted in the first place! The Afghani people should be informed about what sort of choices they should have. Negotiate the peace between them and deny a philosophical foothold that allows the Taliban room to maneuver and then go on to attack the rest of their society and gvt, or face a return to a nightmare situation pre the American invasion. Given this sort of decisive either/or demand; the Afghani peoples would indeed know where they would stand once the American forces did leave. As long as the American forces are there and propping up a corrupt gvt, no such decisions have to be made. Nor does the American gvt have room to negotiate. If the Afghani peoples wish to be a sovereign peoples in a post-Taliban world, they will have to make a decision as to their own future. Further, to negotiate with the American gvt as to what they want that future to look like.

Also in the news, Al Qaeda making a threat to the Obama administration that if you don't pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan there will be grave consequences. Shall we say, stand in line behind financial institutions allowed to run amok then collapsing? The BP oil spill? Business interests that use any excuse to continue to outsource jobs? Excuse me, but we have now seen more harm from our "friends" than our enemies.

Our original rationale for going to war in Afghanistan was about terrorism. Terrorism must continue to be the focus of this and all other succeeding administrations until that day comes when those who currently engage in violent extremism see no further cause to do so. Let a sovereign people build their own nation. If they truly desire to do so. It can not solely be up to us to take care of them as though they were "orphans." We can assist, yes; but ultimately, the decisions as to their futures is their own to make.

Latest book review

2010-03-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

"Anti-Semitism in America." I had that book around for a while and after finishing the "Swords of Riverside," finally picked this book up to read it. So far, it is a particularly disturbing book. Anti-Semitism has been around since the founding days of Christianity. And the rationale for it is found in the New Testament. I do have a number of questions regarding that rationale for Anti-Semitism and they are thus: did someone forget to remind these "Christians" that Christ was a Jew? Are the alleged "anti-Semitism" in the New Testament actually a direct quotation of Christ or words put in his mouth long after the fact? Especially as to the latter, the final compilation of the New Testament was hundreds of years after the birth and death of Christ. In that time, the vast majority of converts to Christianity weren't Jewish, but rather Pagan. If that tells you anything. And you can be sure that pagan influence would be the underpinnings of any final compilations of the New Testament. And it is because "Christians" felt that they were so superior to any other belief, that they felt quite safe in denigrating those who hadn't "converted" to their beliefs. How long after the fact could you possibly make the claim that the Jews did agree to the torture and final execution of Christ and make it official in the bible? 100 years? 2oo years? The religious council that finally put together what would become the modern version of the New Testament? In that time, considerable enmity could and would spring up between pagan Christians and Jews unconvinced that Christ was the Messiah. Because of that enmity, it would always be easy to make biblical claims long after the fact that Christ had it in for his fellow Jews and that the Jews would simply prefer to sell him out to the Romans. Which makes the argument that the bible carries a degree of "Christian" mythology and a rationality for their hatred of those who do not believe as they do.

The next question would certainly be: when Christ instructed his followers to "love their neighbors as themselves," and even to "love their enemies," why is it then that "Christians" would prefer to engage in religious bigotry? Sorry, but one is hardly supportive of a "superior religion" if one does not live up to the teachings of Christ. And the hatred of Judaism, the violence against them, the mockery of them; does not square with biblical morals. But, "Christians" went through 2,000 years plus justifying it.

When reading this book, as the author Dinnerstein began to discuss the increased hatred of Judaism in general and Jews in particular at the turn of the 20^th century and the "Progressive era," seems that the "liberalism" of that time didn't extend to those not of the Jewish faith. And when Bolshevism overturned the last Tsar of Russia, it was a taint that Jews in America could also carry along with earlier questions about their loyalty.

Today, a Glen Beck can on Fox News equate "progressive" with Marx or Hitler. But, he used exactly the same language against "progressives" that were used against the Jewish faith from the early 1900s. Wonder if the guy has any kind of historical understanding of the fact? Today, Obama is attacked for his "socialist" views if he employs government to aid those left out or left behind. It is exactly the same language that was used against the Jews in an earlier era. Today, Democrats are complained about if they push for too much government or the gvt take over of _________. A parallel argument of what was complained that those "shyster" Jews who would use their "influence" to take over gvt and ultimately bring an end to a "Christian" nation. Literally, the same or comparable language of those who "fear" gvt because of whom might ultimately control it.

Not so long ago, "Christians" claimed a Judeo/Christian set of values. That is, until a Rabbi sought to put up a Menorah at Sea-Tac airport and rather than put up the Menorah, Sea-Tac officials took down the trees. The resulting uproar that led to across the board attacks on the Rabbi and demands by "Christians" that their pagan trees be put back up in the airport. The trees were put back up and the Menorah was never installed. Yeah, Judeo/Christian values up and until a Rabbi wants to put a Menorah honoring his holiday in an airport that only wants to honor a pagan/Christian holiday. That should tell you a lot right there. Or when a battle erupted in Florida, such as Jews putting up Menorahs to honor their holiday in a public setting and "Christians" who decided that Nativity sets could be placed in the near vicinity. In a land of diverse religion, why would "Christians" feel the need to compete for attention with the Jews? Given the particular history of "Christian" refusal to respect beliefs outside of their own, that exploiting the Nativity as a competition with the Jewish holiday comes as no surprise. Hanuka is recognized on the calenders. But we don't take a week off for the festival of lights as we do for "Christmas." How about that.

And it is "Christianity" after centuries of abusing those of other beliefs, then turns around and tries to claim that they are "victims." War on "Christmas" anyone?

I'd have to say in closing however, that much of what "Christians" had to say about Jews in particular, sounded exactly like the worst demons of their own beliefs. Merely a case of projection.

The thugs vs the U.S.

2010-01-05T10:07:00.000-08:00

Fhrida Ghitas is fortunately not published in the Spokesman-Review very often. I think it is actually a blessing that she isn't. If there was ever a definition of liberal, she would meet that definition to a "T." So, reading her republished editorial in the 5 January 2010 edition of the Spokesman-Review, you could immediately get the impression that because Iranian President Ahmedinajad only happens to be an extremist who undoubtedly hates the west as much as he hates Israel and the U.S.; our failure to "make nice" to such a thug and make him see sweet reason, well; it can't be GW's fault, now can it? No kidding? Really?

Let's lay aside for the minute that countries with governments and leaders who absolutely detest this nation; one of the lasting legacies of GW was that he spent more time alienating his friends than putting together at any time an effective foreign policy. Only if you ignore such a legacy as Ms. Ghitas sets out to do, then you can opine away that GW can't be blamed for countries with "mutually exclusive" policies (that at the same time, hate us). Well no, if for example Iran spent better than 20 years calling us the "Great Satan" regardless of who was in office, that would be true. On the other hand, how about attacking France for refusing to step up to the plate on a contemplated invasion (by the U.S.) of Iraq. Anything associated however loosely with France could be renamed: Freedom Fries, Freedom Toast; and French wines could be dumped down the gutter. And "French cleaners" could get vandalized with graffiti written all over the building, etc. I am quite sure that the French government (that was demonstrating mutually exclusive policies when it came to GW's two terms in office) breathed a sigh of relief when GW was replaced by Dem successor President Obama. As did other nations known to be our allies before being confronted with the last president's belligerence.

Now to take into consideration, Hugo Chavez. Would it be impossible for the man to not know the world's opinion of President Bush when he was in office? The point to be made is, that of course the man isn't stupid, he'd have radio, TV, some kind of newspaper, and without a doubt the capacity to obtain international news. Just as he would travel to other nations at odds with this one, quite prepared to make deals with those countries just to p.o. the last administration in particular. Ever consider that Chavez is a master manipulator very capable of pushing the hot buttons of people most passionate? Well, yeah; is the Pope Catholic?

I remember when people started screaming away about President Obama's poor choice of "friends." In letters to the editor in the Coeur d'Alene Press and again in the Spokesman-Review and even on blogs. President Hugo Chavez who gave Obama a book, Chavez who at one point spoke approvingly of the new president before the U.N. brought a rain of rants that insinuated a question of disloyalty by Obama to this nation. And from there, attacks on the (old) left in general. So, when Chavez who'd be just as capable of knowing all about the criticisms of American media such as CNN and Fox News about Obama obtaining the Nobel Peace Prize so soon into his presidency; well now it wouldn't be impossible for the man to simply capitalize on that American-based criticism and change his opinions about Obama "his dear friend" in a matter of months. While I did not hear about Chavez' mutually exclusive domestic and foreign polices vis a vis Obama until Ms. Ghitas brought this matter front and center. I do know that there did come a time when Obama wasn't being attacked for his anti-American "friends." Not now, anyway when one of them turns on him.

No, I don't guess that diplomacy is going to work on Ahmedinajad. But neither did drawing a line in the sand, backing away, drawing another line in the sand, backing away and drawing another line in the sand; which was the Iranian foreign policy under the GW administration ever effective either. So, what should we do? Well, we reduce our dependence on foreign oil and begin to do something toward cutting off Iran's oil profits, which no doubt does go a long way toward funding Ahmedinajad's nuclear ambitions. We ask the rest of the western world to follow suit. Then we turn to Iran's neighbors and tell them that it would be in their best interests, that whenever Ahmedinajad throws a tantrum, to send him to his room without supper. Maybe applying the right sort of diplomacy not directly with Iran but with those who do business with Iran would do more to curtail Iran's thuggish attitudes. If Iran no longer had the profits to support a nuclear program, how quickly would Iran come to the negotiating table?

Decent and enlightened Republicans

2009-06-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Leonard Pitts, jr.'s editorial this morning (republished in the Spokesman-Review) about what the Republican party was commencing to do wrong when it came to expanding its own base and trying to make that long climb back into power. Namely, being a little too prepared to continue to alienate what ought to be a natural constituency—African-Americans. His column is definitely worth reading for the anti-racist rant that is the message he puts forth. And his appeal to decent and enlightened Republicans to tell their party about what ought not a party platform any longer; precisely: using racial and racist overtones against this nation's first African-American president.

It brings to mind a quite clumsy and laughable letter published in the Coeur d'Alene Press of recent vintage, where the writer complained about the current administration in exactly the manner that Pitts had decried. Being happy with a GOP president who could balance a Dem Congress (but he was also white, wasn't he?), who "kept them safe" (not really); who only spent "millions" (that is around a few 0s off of what the last administration had actually spent) as opposed to Obama's trillions. But who wouldn't have been treated as both "racial and a radical." Well, let's put it bluntly, that racism was behind Rush Limbaugh's encouraging the GOP to go to the polls in open primary states and vote for Hillary Clinton. Had Clinton won the Dem nod on overtly racist votes; not necessarily would she have become president because the same racists would have been equally appalled at the idea that a woman might just ascend to the highest office of the land. Vote for the woman in the Dem field of presidential wannabes only because that "black man" scares the heck out of these people. And let us also put it bluntly that Dems weren't holding TEA Parties during the last administration because they were absolutely scared spitless of how they would get treated if they did. As indeed both radical and anti-American. They got that jammed in their collective faces anyway over the last 8 years for any number of reasons. So if the writer could claim now that Democrats were out protesting excess spending by the current administration; perhaps so. But it is also safe to say that they could more safely protest the current administration than they could have the last one. And that anyone on the political spectrum could more easily protest the current administration than they could have or would have the last one. Because, this administration at least is more democratic in nature. Even though it did have valid questions for the motivations of the TEA Party activists. Well now, it would be good for the writer to have gotten the Spokesman-Review and had a chance to read Pitts' editorial; that would answer a few questions. The GOP is infested with racist hold overs; they and the religious activists are about all that is left of the party's base. In short, the TEA Parties were driven in part by racism and radicalism. If the Dem president had been white, would there have been TEA Parties? Probably not. The last time there was a Dem majority in Congress and a Dem President—Bill Clinton, no TEA Parties were held at all. So, seems to me that what scared the heck out of these TEA Party participants and had them organizing their opposition to the current administration was indeed based on race. And TEA Parties weren't in vogue when this country was in more difficult times back in the 1930s when FDR got sworn into office. How about that. After all, an activist gvt was hard at work trying to bring an economically crippled nation back into full production. The same as now. FDR was all about excessive spending to put people back to work. The same as now. The GOP lack of gratitude for FDR's helping them to achieve a middle class and higher status would only appear decades after the fact. Unlike now. Afraid that unless the TEA Party participants can really prove otherwise, race was a factor in why they organized their protests.

But, I would like to offer a couple of corrections now as to Pitts concepts of conservatism: when racist "states' rights" proponnents get called "conservative," what's "conservative" about being a bigot? Christ was a Semite, people go to church to hear the teachings that initially came from a Semite; then they go out and demonstrate nothing but hate for anyone who doesn't look like them, think like them, hold a political or religious philosophy different from their own, or even behaves differently from how they behave. The people who proclaim themselves to be biblical literalists; yet do not value their own book so as to actually live up to its teachings in their own lives. The same people, ladies and gentlemen, who'd attack the enlightened and decent as "liberal." The time that pure hatred gets called "conservative" has to be scary to anyone. The time that "love your neighbor as yourself" an erstwhile Christian commandment if there ever was one gets attacked as "liberal," as though something nasty lay underneath it; that says a lot about what has become the radicalization of the GOP. Why would anyone truly conservative go against what he says he values most? Who's actions and behavior can only be destructive of the canons of his belief? He wouldn't. In short, someone who happens to be truly conservative would be both decent and enlightened. As of now, they truly don't exist among the GOP.

Don't know much about history

2009-05-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Kathleen Parker's 1 May editorial republished in the Spokesman-Review demonstrated a real snit fit over the very idea (apalling) that President Barack H. Obama (pro-choice) could accept an invitation from Notre Dame University (Catholic) as a commencement speaker and even get an honorary degree. So she starts her editorial off with this declaration; "Here on planet 'What about Me,' principled people are so rare as to be oddities. Thus it was a head-swiveling moment Monday when former Vatican Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon quietly declined Notre Dame's Laetare Medal." Seems Ms. Glendon is a Harvard University law professor and a respected author on bioethics and human rights. That is, given the tone of Parker's column to follow, Prof Glendon is thoroughly anti-abortion. And that it is on this highly political stance that Ms. Glendon won't accept this medal [in part] because Barack Obama was invited to be a commencement speaker. —Parker. Quite frankly, I'd suggest that "faith" wasn't behind Ambassador Glendon's refusal to accept such a medal so much as her political opposition to President Obama and his ideology. Which then begs the question, we know that GW Bush authorized the use of torture against terrorist suspects. GW being invited by Notre Dame to be a commencement speaker and a recipient of an honorary degree despite his history on international policies and the contravening of the Geneva Conventions; would a Ms. Glendon refuse such a medal on the grounds that GW wasn't a supporter of human rights or accept it because GW was opposed to abortion and stem cell research? But if Ms. Glendon were acting on the principles of "faith," to put it bluntly, her respected authorship on bioethics and human rights ought to put her at odds with the very church she was only an ambassador to; given the history of the church itself as not being a supporter of human rights. Under the circumstances, I wouldn't accept such a medal.

But, I highly doubt that "faith" had anything to do with it. Rather, as I suggested above, it was all about the politics.

Parker goes on to say, "It has always seemed to me that the truest form of feminism, as in the earliest days of suffrage, would be to hold abhorrent the state-sanctioned destruction of women's unique life-bearing gifts." Excuse me? Suffrage was all about women's equality. And along with Margaret Sanger's push toward the equality of women also included birth control and family planning. Thus it can be said without equivocation, that Ms. Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood. But at the time of the earliest days of the feminist movement, the "conservative" reaction was to oppose women taking their place in society as workers, voters, politicians, having an independent income and managing it on their own, deciding for themselves just how many kids they'd like to have and when. The "conservative" reaction was that women's only role was to be that of wife, mother and home maker. In the century since women's suffrage made many political and economic gains, the "conservative" reaction is to now put a new dress on a very old argument; precisely, the only acceptable feminism is the woman who is wife, mother and home maker. And this comes from the pen of a woman who is not herself only a wife, mother and home maker... presumably. No, Parker actually does work for a living in the newspaper business. And is therefore a beneficiary of the feminism that Sanger helped promote. And as for the "state-sanctioned destruction of women's unique life-bearing gifts," I think she does not recall any too well what the state allowed in the 19^th century as to doctors being able to neuter women who were regarded as [retarded] by giving them hysterectomies. That is the only "state-sanctioned destruction of women's unique life-bearing gifts" that I know of. Rendering such women as incapable of bearing children. Talk about your euphemisms that not only shoot wide of the mark but head off into Never Never land. There is no life-bearing gift in getting pregnant. Only if you possess the well-functioning equipment to get there at all.

With reference to Glendon refusing to accept the medal Parker had this to say,

President Obama won't be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.
We think having the President come to Notre Dame, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.

"Glendon, who is no mortal's pawn, decided she couldn't accept the award."

Apparently, "faith" insists that neither will Prof. Glendon act very Christian, either. I am fully familiar with the bible. I am fully familiar with that scripture in Luke that advises the followers of Christ to love even their enemies. With reference to God loving even sinners by the gifts he bestows (sun and rain) upon them. True love, according to Christ, does not stop at the gate of someone you regard as a foe. In today's political language, Glendon as a "Christian" should have been more than happy to seize on an opportunity to assist Notre Dame in educating the President on the causes both she and the university cared about. But instead, she let political opposition stand in the way of Christian morality. That I regard as a real loss to herself and Notre Dame that "faith" in accordance with the bible wasn't the "principle" she wished to stand on. So, a trip down history lane: until the rise of the feminist movement, abortion really wasn't an issue from the 18^th to the 19^th centuries. It did occur but the precise records of how often the occurrence, how many hundreds, thousands, of women might have obtained such a procedure is not known. With the rise of feminism, only then did "conservatives" and religious activists go on record with a political opposition to the procedure. Anti-family planning laws were passed to include prohibiting the birth control pill as well as rendering illegal the abortion procedure. But regardless of the effort to render illegal the abortion procedure, women still sought out and obtained abortions, at great risk to themselves. "Faith" wasn't the article that drove such opposition. Rather the politics that opposed the existence and rise of feminism in this nation. If "faith" was the principle that Glendon was applauded for by Parker, well, it wasn't very evident by Parker's description since any dogma concerning abortion must also be met with respect as well for one's fellow Christians. Glendon had no such respect. The politics came first. Glendon might have been an ambassador for Christ and she refused. Good for her as she most certainly shot in the foot what credibility Christianity might have got in this world. But why should Obama bow out? He has demonstrated more than once his willingness to love even his political enemies.

The errors of hysterical screeching

2009-04-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

E. Thomas McClanahan who is a member of the Kansas City Star editorial board and republished on 4 April 2009 began with a comedy of errors when it comes to the use of polls to argue the failure of the Obama administration barely into its 4^th month. The highly partisan Zogby poll was specified. For anyone who recalls the Zogby poll, the Spokesman-Review's blog Huckleberries online made consistent use of the Zogby poll because I do believe the blog's author didn't really care to see Obama win. But compare the Zogby poll to other polls, even to that of CNN's polls of polls, and the Zogby poll was artificially too low during the primary and general campaign season of 2008. I sure wouldn't much trust the Zogby poll that can as easily track voting demographics as can John King's "Magic Wall." And therefore, asks questions of people and only those people who wouldn't have supported Obama in the first place, before making "random calls" of anyone else. I'm sure the Zogby pollsters would have been still surprised despite their skewed attempts at polling that President Obama still has such strong support. But McClanahan, who seems to want Obama governed solely by polling sees a man who is polled in the mid 50s as a failure. Actually, Obama would have to poll worse than GW in his last year in office, about 19%, by the end of his first year in office, to be regarded as an utter failure. "Many people are worried?" Or only those people who are actually polled with typically loaded questions, worried.

One of the issues that McClanahan brings out is the cap and trade environmental policy that can only wreck our manufacturing base. We have a manufacturing base? Beyond the auto industry, most of our manufacturing base does not exist in this country any more. Perhaps one cause can be past environmental regs (which GW proceeded to relax and the manufacturing industry fled this nation regardless) but the other greater cause was the desire for cheap labor. No, cap and trade environmental policies would only affect polluting energy producing companies. They aren't going to outsource to say China before sending the energy they produce back to the consumers locally. Either a staff member of the Kansas City Star is badly misinformed or he hopes that his readers are ignorant. Given the fact that Lou Dobbs of CNN has bemoaned the fact that we don't really make anything in this country any more, then McClanahan could have watched his colleague on TV, even contacted him more personally to discuss our lack of a manufacturing base that GW's own environmental policies would not have discouraged these industries from continuing to operate here. Excuse me, but the well informed don't to date have a problem with Obama's policies or presidency.

On the health care front, health care and the insurance has become unaffordable here in this nation. The insurance policies that cover less while costing more. The "tests" that doctors perform to assure that they don't get malpractice lawsuits make hospital stays unaffordable. Doctor visits unaffordable. What has that got to do with the economic crisis that swept through Europe? Actually, nothing. While whipping away at Obama, McClanahan ignores some truly crucial factors that started economic collapses across many nations and led to the G20 Summit in the last week. Banks such as Citigroup that looked for foreign investors to keep it financed as it continued to engage in out of control business practices. Lou Dobbs faithful following was informed of that back in 2007/2008. Citigroup that went from national to international in its out of control desire to obtain more capital; as its inevitable collapse loomed, so it began to create an economic crisis in countries that had provided it with capital. As did AIG. The heavy speculation in oil futures, driving up to obscene levels the price of gas at the pump, that too was a factor in economic collapses across nations. It heavily hit the most impoverished to the point of starvation and violent rioting before gas prices began to reduce to more affordable levels. It literally caused local businesses to close. But if you want to scapegoat GW's successor, then do by all means ignore all that. But the above is exactly why the people put Obama and not McCain into office. With McClanahan, you do have to wonder who suffers most from short term memory problems.

Once an apologist, ALWAYS an apologist

2009-03-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

The business world has become some sort of victim of a Congress hell-bent on controlling it, if you believe the hysterical screeching coming from the likes of Cal Thomas. The people who bussed to the homes of AIG executives and protested them should have really directed their anger at the politicians in Washington, D.C. People should hold "tea parties" out of "protest" at what the federal gvt is doing... The problem for Mr. Thomas is, it is a little late to make the argument that the voters should specifically target 3 Dems, including Barney Frank and Chris Dodd out of "anger," or that they simply need to "clean house," of all politicians come November 2010. The reason why is that any politician who is running for office as a newcomer, who vies for the House or Senate seat of the incumbent Thomas wants to see replaced, will also have gotten a percentage of his campaign funding from the same business interests who want the politician to provide favorable legislation for. And at one time, Thomas was actually among those opposed to the capping of campaign contributions from PACs and the business world because it was after all, "free speech." In short, he wasn't opposed to graft and corruption between Congress and the private sector as long as the private sector was ultimately a beneficiary.

What Mr. Thomas seems to fail to understand, is that when various industries and financial institutions pay out fantastic sums to politicians on the assumption that those same pols will remember them in federal legislation, the relaxing of rules, the unenforced regs, the regulatory agencies that don't and possibly can't do their jobs right; when you get the sort of financial melt down mess that happened in one year: 2008; that had been however decades in its development and catastrophic consequences; those "victimized" businesses did want it that way. Now he proclaims that we don't need "new rules," we just need to enforce the ones already on the books. Excuse me, Thomas, but the laws now on the books were just the way business lobbyists wanted them when they paid out millions in dollars to write the legislation favoring their specified special interests. So yes, we need new rules.

When the Spokesman-Review republished his latest tirade in its 24 March 2009 edition, the S-R also published a column by Robyn Blumner. She goes to great lengths to describe usury in this society, those who made great "short term" wealth trading in essentially worthless paper, and the refusal of investors to invest in something solid such as what would produce good jobs and a stable manufacturing base in this nation. Question: what is the worth of a "tea party?" Our tax dollars have been at work shoring up the business interests and catering to their very needs ever since it was decreed that corporations could be deemed private citizens. No one threw "tea parties" when politicians on the taxpayers' dime engaged in tort and bankruptcy reform. They did not throw "tea parties," when politicians on the taxpayers' dime helped business interests work against Americans having good paying jobs. They did not throw "tea parties," when politicians on the taxpayers dime allowed and even encouraged the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and the insourcing of foreign labor. They did not throw "tea parties," when gvt turned to the private sector when it came to the war in Iraq. And the private sector much epitomized by Halliburton then proceeded to bilk the taxpayers of their hard earned money by its failure to do its job right. So, what is the worth of throwing a tea party now except on a partisan "feel good" premise?

Of course, politicians can let the nation down because of one fact, only those with the money (the business world/wealthy) are the ones the politicians are going to listen to the most. But until now, to make an anti-corporatist argument was to put you on the side of "socialism." Never mind that the private sector that cozies up to gvt demanding that its short term interests get met, does run the risks of finding that it can come with plenty of strings attached. Mr. Thomas was never opposed to the one, he is only opposed to the consequences of the private sector demanding the personal attention of the federal gvt. Yeah, given the financial mess this nation now faces, there are going to be consequences.

Not stem cell research, objectifying humanity.

2009-03-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing to be said about political columnists such as Kathleen Parker, they always come up with cute creative ways to not get their message across and to reaffirm to the congregation where their positions clearly are. Stem cell research if it comes from embryoes not used and would have been discarded by fertility clinics is now "objectifying humanity." In other words, if I had some debilitating disease such as Parkinson's that could be cured by an embryonic stem cell based treatment, I'd be objectifying humanity if I accepted such a treatment. But the painful shaking, the slow deterioration of the body long before death would have brought a blessed relief; I'd have that choice wouldn't I of not accepting the treatment on "moral grounds" and thereby objectify my own. No one wins in such a debate because it becomes an either or. Either you are going to be for that discarded embryo that never becomes a child or you are going to be for research done on it that saves the life of your child. Looks like objectifying humanity is a permanent fixture in the political realm already.

While Ms. Parker turns to select research to prove why we should turn only to alternative stem cell research, she mentions U.S. News & World Report in particular who's editorial staff and editor in particular happens to have a political bias. They gave full coverage to a guy once with "research" that was ultimately discredited as to a "link" between breast cancer and abortion. But discredited ultimately because the risks of breast cancer should have been just as high for women who miscarry, in itself a form of abortion. Or breast cancer risks already being high for women who never had kids. How about the breast cancer risks for women who did have kids? How about the fact that women can simply be prone to breast cancer period never mind the politics surrounding abortion? So, the researcher she mentioned, who worked initially for the first President Bush (by the way, G HW Bush was anti-abortion) a Dr. Bernadine Healy informing the readership that embryonic stem cell research is obsolete. If that were the case, then President Obama would have no cause to lift the ban or provide federal tax dollars.

Of course private research could always get private funding so Ms. Parker intoned. But given the politics surrounding embryonic stem cell research private funding would not necessarily be guaranteed. Esp. when restrictions existed that scientists could only use existing stem cell lines, most of which were unusable, private research with private funding based on such a federal restriction, would have simply driven such research to other nations with fewer restrictions. Which I believe that Ms. Parker neglected to be any too informative about that . Only because of such a restriction, not necessarily because of the efficacy of using alternative stem cells, researchers turned to seeing what might be done about that to essentially get around the ban. Which again, Ms. Parker ignored. If such research were indeed a success, again there would be no need for President Obama to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research.

The cloning of Dolly the sheep created a political firestorm. What was feared was that human cloning would be next, the creating and destroying of human embryos for research purposes. Well now, if anti-abortionists guard the door against using discarded embryos for research, they could just as easily pave the way toward scientists creating and destroying embryos for research purposes.

My position is, that discarded embryos should be used for research if there is no way that they can ever be children. To find out exactly how stem cells work, what they can be used for and eventually, to discover if alternative stem cell use can also be duplicated to the same degree of success as is done with embryonic stem cell research. But that no treatments should go out the door until all research has been done. I don't believe in objectifying humanity. If a stem cell taken from my blood or skin, etc. could be used to cure a debilitating affliction, I'd be more than happy to receive it because it would be the culmination of research that got the science to this point in time. It has to start somewhere. Why not with discarded embryos?

Regulation=Socialism

2009-02-28T08:06:00.000-08:00

Government that gives you specific guidelines on how you operate your business, workplace safety rules, the type of product that it wants to see as to quality and safe use, the minumum pay requirements... I am quite sure that business interests operating in this country would indeed grumble over "social democracy" of the European style as expressed by Charles Krauthammer. However, while those businesses have grumbled over "too much regulation" and then started moving their operations overseas in order to avoid all that; we have ultimately letters to the editors such as this one:

Agencies failing us
Just in the last year, we have had salmonella scares for lettuce, tomatoes, spinach and now peanuts. The Chinese have sent us lead painted toys for our children to play with and poisonous milk (melamine) for our children to enjoy.
I've heard people blame farmers, the factories and the Chinese. Put the blame where it belongs: on the ineffective bureaucracies of the USDA and the FDA. How much do you want to bet that there is a USDA tag on the side of the peanut butter jar. It's being sent to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and prisons. You can't sell products in the U.S. without approval from the USDA and/or the FDA.
These bumbling agencies are in place and paid for by the American people to keep us American people safe from tainted food and tainted products.
Why not create some more government agencies so that they can maim and kill Americans too? These government agencies have become a burden and a strain on the American taxpayer.
Why do we pay these agencies when they really don't care about what they're paid to do? Our government is failing all around us. Let's not even mention the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dave Stevens
Spokane

Besides being a touch hysterical, this letter does present some valid arguments. Problem is, that in the GW years, the regulating agencies that Mr. Stevens gives a major thumbs down on were underfunded to begin with, understaffed and essentially an extension of the business interests they were supposed to regulate. The only problem with this letter is that Mr. Stevens waited until now to write this letter and denounce all agencies for failures just because of the political decisions made by the last administration at a time when a new administration has barely come into office. Mr. Stevens could have written this letter even a year ago. But given the tone of for what are we paying these agencies... Well now, the presumption is to simply get rid of them altogether, and I assume that the American people can take even more of a chance with their medicines, durable products, as well as food. The gvt funded highly regulated "private sector" that Mr. Krauthammer does much whining about well now...

I hope he doesn't have any money in a bank that failed recently. That the merchandize he bought at a high end store wasn't made as cheaply as possible in Bangledesh and sold at a high mark up price under a name brand. That he actually did get what he paid for. That the car besides being made in America isn't being recalled for faulty parts. Or as demonstrated in prior years, having a tendency to blow up on you if hit just right. How about the house he owns? Can he trust that it wasn't built with shoddy materials and priced much higher for the type of work and material that went into it? The bridge he drives on, doesn't face the immediate threat of collapse. The store he enters with a heavy snow load on the roof, the roof itself will bear the burden quite well. But well, with all those business friendly legislatures and city gvts in place, costumer friendly products and services literally, getting what you paid for, isn't necessarily a fact. Having regulations effectively enforced and you are more likely to get what you pay for.

As for gvt funding. I recall during the Reagan era that Senator Jack Kemp among others pushed from the federal gvt a desire to incentivize business interests to enter areas of high poverty and set up shop. What would it take for businesses to do that? Tax breaks? Direct funding? Don't recall that Krauthammer said anything about such a "social democracy" during the Reagan era. Well, President Obama is certainly direct funding business interests today to encourage new technology and reduce the poverty levels in this nation. To literally incentivize those businesses to help bring this country forward into the 21^st century. That wouldn't be the first time in this nation's history that this happened of course. The federal gvt provided a railway transportation grid during the Lincoln era that was ultimately a useful tool of the private sector to transport goods and services across the nation. Lincoln being a Republican, could he be accused of "social democracy?" The federal gvt under Eisenhower made possible our national freeways and bridges. Ultimately, the private sector made use of the same transportation grid to better deliver goods and services across the nation. Could Eisenhower be accused justly of "social democracy?" Eisenhower was a Republican. Oh, I see, we reserve such accusations for the Democrats in high office.

Regarding the stimulus package

2009-02-25T07:22:00.000-08:00

The stimulus package is now law, it became law regardless of overwhelming GOP opposition to it in Congress and because of GOP love for federal dollars from state and local levels. So, did the news media miss bipartisanship when it came to passing out "free" dollars? Gary Crooks "Smar Bombs" went into the particular details of GOP opposition for the package in Congress and among some state governors. That particular column is published twice a week in the Spokesman-Review. What got me to chuckling over his column was where he pointed out select Congressional GOP and governors who expressed their opposition for varying reasons, even to claiming socialism (apparently, "socialism" is that argument you use when you are called on to account for how you spend the money), or increased business taxes, etc. once the stimulus money was gone.

Well the presumption is, that the money wouldn't just be lying around but put to somewhat good use. Critical infrastructure repair takes time to do. It can take years. But in the time that critical infrastructure is taking place, those at work spend money they have earned and bring business to the towns and cities where they work. At least, that's the idea. From the business they do, they begin to increase the tax base. From the business they do, they increase the likelihood of more people being hired, also providing business because of the money they earned, and etc. Why would we assume—re Republicans—that we shall continue to plead poverty and cry about businesses being burdened with excessive unemployment taxes? Why would there be unemployment if the concept of the stimulus package works out to any extent as it has been touted.

You get the impression that a welfare argument does exist. And it is "keep giving me money even as I decry "socialism." Coming back to "Smart Bombs," Mr. Crooks presumes that the so totally in opposition to the package GOP in members of Congress and among the governors were none the less prepared to take the money and run with it. Among the GOP members of Congress he named, (let me add here that they no doubt did a lot of hand wringing over a package laden with pork) they secured federal dollars for their districts (that they had initially voted against). Which does argue that pork is good as long as it is delivered to GOP hands. Now that is a good reason for laughing out loud.

Digital switch over and other news

2009-02-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

Most of the TV stations in Spokane, Washington made the digital switch over at 11:30 or so last night. I scanned for the digital channels for my HDTV in my bedroom and set for Digital only channels. Then I checked out the SDTV Sharp in the living room and took note that "Analog" no longer showed up when I hit the power button. So for the Dish Network, it is effectively no longer airing Analog signals. 12 June 2009, is the final effective cut off date for the switch over to digital TV to be complete. That's for slackards to get their act together to get either converter boxes, newer digital TVs or the most recent of HDTVs. To either connect to cable or Satellite TV. I notice there is a moment's time delay when it comes to switching from one channel to another. But, there is a cleaner signal now that stations are switching to digital. And a much muddier one as KREM continues to broadcast an analog and a digital signal. My 480i sharp has absolutely no problem picking up any of the signals, otherwise.

You have to appreciate Leonard Pitts, jr. for his republished (Spokesman-Review) opinion piece on the costs of war. The Pentagon banned photos of flag draped coffins exactly when they were used to politically slam G HW Bush back in the early 1990s. I guess that playing politics with the honored war dead wouldn't be an acceptable notion. A point that Pitts did definitely miss in his otherwise most informative column. Efforts by the news media to engage in the politics of embarrassing presidents, wouldn't be acceptable if you are the president who's the target. However, the news media was just as hasty in similar efforts at politically embarrassing Clinton. Not with flag draped coffins in this case, but rather with one live intern. That being said, Pitts does have a point about Americans waking up to the fact that war does touch us. And seeing those flag draped coffins does mean that a very real person did lose his or her life for us.

Picked up a new channel on Dish Network, Fox business. That's nice. I may be more inclined to watch that than the Politics r Us show that is supposed to be their news channel.

On Huckleberries online today, Dave Oliveria was reporting that Avista had garnered some 7 odd millions in profits over the last year. Question: that being the case, why does Avista continually demand rate hikes? Next question: why does Avista demand that rate payers pay for new equipment? Given Obama's stimulus package, which he signed yesterday, a good chunk of that package is going to energy costs savings and green technology as well as improvements in our power grids. If that major chunk of change were to be spent in those areas as advertised, Avista could be heading toward the door of bankruptcy as people start seeking windmill power, solar array panels and etc. for their own homes. The homes that can generate their own power for heat, light, and general utility usage, for what would they need Avista and 20th century power grids? At least one thought for the day.

The Hate Parade

2009-02-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

With Earl Parker, my my we have a real famous individual here, a former member of Reagan's press team. Wouldn't have known that until Mr. Parker informs us. While he is speaking derisively of President Obama's press conference—Obama only addresses certain members of the Washington, D.C. press corp. And here I thought that routinely happened. Certainly, we had presidential control and canned speeches over the few times that GW chose to hold a press conference before a press corp that was certainly docile. But, Mr. Parker wasn't sniping or guffawing at that time. Wouldn't be surprising, Mr. Parker admits to being a partisan Republican. He also takes a swipe at the stimulus package without going into details. Offering instead the same canned speech through his letter to the editor that Rep. John Boehner offered: these are all worthy projects to be sure, but they will hardly jump start the economy. So, what will? Given the fact that all prior efforts to "jump start the economy" during the GW administration caused it to instead collapse. As though the last 8 years never occurred.

Next on the list, Ray Anderson does have a legitimate beef about illegal immigrants. So do I. But on what basis does Mr. Anderson have to accuse Obama of "releasing terrorists?" He actually had not. What he did publicly order was that Guantanamo Bay, Cuba would shut down its prison there. And that those who ran it would have a year to do so. In the meantime, the cases of those who are prisoners there would be put under review and any who should receive prosecution would get it. That is not an argument of simply releasing them. Mr. Anderson is obviously anti-abortion and so I won't go there even though it was the first line of his letter. What he dwells on at greater length is an executive order from Obama's desk that enables a resettlement of Gazan residents in the U.S. Conflict victims. And with ties to Hamas. When possible, I watch CNN. As hostile as CNN often is to President Obama, were that the sort of public issue that Mr. Anderson seems to think it is, then CNN would surely have grabbed onto this obviously public record and ran it into the ground bleating endlessly about it. But, on the McLaughlin group heavily populated by such people as "Monica," Pat Buchanan and etc. with a near hysterical hatred of Obama, no mention was actually made of such an order. David Brooks with his own share of condemning words for Obama, did not mention this. Charles Krauthammer, republished on a fairly frequent basis in the Spokesman-Review, would surely have disclosed this to all of the world. Odd that he hadn't. So, on what basis does Mr. Anderson believe that Obama would actively aid Palestinians with active ties to Hamas? Because he confesses that many of his relatives are Muslim? I am a Druid, many of my relatives are Christian. I am supposed to have a more generous view of the world toward people often hostile to my belief just because they are relatives? They are hostile to my belief, that's the crux of the matter. And Obama's relatives being Muslim, are surely hostile to the idea of Obama being Christian. What Mr. Anderson does is use Obama's interview on Al Arabiya as a weapon against him. Wonder how he would have reacted if it had been GW, instead?

Esa Auten seems to have a real problem in her long and rambling letter about rights "that come from God." What our founding fathers declared in a revolutionary war document was eloquent at the time of its signing, would have assured the founding fathers' imprisonment and execution if we had not won our war against Great Britain, and was imperfectly implemented hundreds of years after the fact. Instead of Auten trying to jam her imperfect understanding of this nation's history into Obama's teeth, she should take a better look at it herself.

Linda Cook waits seven years to describe Obama using fear. And in an even more slimey manner, equates Obama promoting his stimulus package as Indian tribes driving buffalo herds off of cliffs. Wonder what Ms. Cook plans to do with the tax cuts that are supposed to show up in her paychecks a little further down the road? Say she doesn't want them, hand them back? Wonder where her voice was when the GW administration managed to use the fear of terrorism to stampeding people into buying plastic sheeting and duct tape to build "safe rooms" that wouldn't have been safe or effective? No?

The Stimulus package

2009-02-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

I had been on vacation for the last two weeks, it will officially come to an end on the 14th. And so, I have been watching plenty of news especially where it concerns the stimulus package now before Congress. Latest on CNN, seems the House Democrats now want to delay the final vote in order to read thoroughly what's in the package. Now they do, since much of what they had originally voted on got stripped out. And hadn't before, re Lou Dobb's complaints in the last few days on CNN.

Getting on Face book, it has been more of a satisfying adventure than trying to Twitter. But, it took time to set it up almost to my satisfaction. I checked out Face book because Rick Sanchez could be Twittered, Face booked and Myspaced. I checked out doing a Twitter account and trying to Twitter to a Sanchez public board, I could never be sure that to be the case. But with Face book, especially after Sanchez accepted me as a "friend," I can post on my wall and it will also appear on his. One of the hot topics of the day was of course the stimulus package. The thing is, that you can expect the suddenly we remember to be fiscally responsible GOP among Sanchez' viewing audience to post to any of the above sites. One of the fellows posting suddenly decided to jam it in my teeth when I discussed the fact that what one dude called pork still produced jobs creation. He presumed that I was from the land of fruits and nuts... LOL!... meaning California and would of course swallow anything. So I duly informed the fellow where I was from and adviced him on the fact that our Republican governor wants people to spend more in taxes and fees to balance the budget and pay for infrastructure maintenance. I don't know that I got another reply to that comment, but Facebook provides a nice notification service. Better than Twitter. And those who set up Twitter claim that it is faster and better? I don't know about that, it looks pretty clunky to me. So excuse me if this is one of my more rambling blogs. But, beyond posting comments to local blogs such as at the Spokesman-Review.
I have never before really socially networked. The fact that some of the news anchors from CNN such as Sanchez and Don Lemon will socially network with their viewers, is I think a major plus.

Back to the hot topic of the stimulus package, I can appreciate the twittered concerns from viewers that CNN elected to show where they questioned whether the stimulus package would benefit them personally. Until such a bill does get passed and signed into law, that is hard to say. Until the money from the package begins to work its way through the U.S. as various forms of investments, that is really hard to say. Those are some legitimate causes for concern, as is any pork in the bill. Where one fellow mentioned pork, I figured I should inform him that the designing and building of a Coast Guard polar icebreaking ship was probably not pork if it put people to work in the ship building industry. For anyone who has a good bit of history as to the Coast Guard fleet, I don't believe they have the most modern of fleets and could in fact use some more modern ships, better ships. Why wouldn't that prove to be a worthwhile project and not "pork." Since if it came to a submarine being built in the same fellow's district, and a GOP Senator had sponsored it, he likely wouldn't have called it pork. Same difference. At this time, if I have a big concern about the U.S. Gvt's investment in America, I'd be more concerned about misdirected funds and businesses taking money and continuing to employ anyone other than American citizens.

"Dead Certain," history of a failed presidency

2009-02-10T18:25:00.001-08:00

I picked up this book at Borders when it went on a fire sale price of $4.23 including tax. I figured at that price, I could endure reading a recent history of GW. Now that he is no longer in office that is. I got as far as his 2004 re-election bid and cracked up when GW really met Senator Kerry ready to rumble in the first of three presidential debates. Why? Because I had sent Senator Kerry e-mails through his web site to advice him about the need to task GW on the record, his record as known over the last four years by what the news media reported. What Kerry did not do during his airing of campaign ads, he did do during the debates, reminded the people of GW's actual record. Even if GW was to win the election in 2004, his nose was bloodied sufficiently by 2006, that the Dems started regaining the control of Congress. All Kerry had to do was start exposing the fraud of the GW presidency. Even further, the man that people saw as "one of us" held a sort of aristocratic view that he could never accept being challenged. Well, excuse me, GW, but this nation is a democracy. How Robert Draper described GW's reaction to even being challenged by Senator Kerry was pure joy. The debates had rocked GW in a way that he was not prepared for. Within two years, especially after Katrina, GW would face a voter revolt. But then, I expect it would take a bruising re-election for GW for people to begin to wake up to the facts. GW once had very high approval ratings that carried him into the war with Iraq. But, with Kerry carrying at least 48% of the vote, GW's popularity and factual mandate had basically eroded. Katrina—and GW's approval ratings never really recovered. Had Katrina occurred in 2004, it would have been the defining moment of GW losing the election. Especially if he showed the sort of carelessness toward Louisiana and other areas along the Gulf Coast that he did in 2005. The timing right before the off-year elections of this hurricane, couldn't be better. The same sort of fumble hand behind Iraq was also on woeful display on the home front. The people weren't likely to forget it, especially after CNN saw Katrina as the one impeachable offense that needed to be kept in the court of public opinion. But it took them all of 4 years to reach that particular conclusion.

I know that the author wanted to be more than fair to GW and to give the man a "humanizing" aspect. To put it bluntly, that would be an impossible task to fulfill. Here is one reason, Florida went to GW twice. First in 2000 when hanging and pregnant chads produced a highly contested election between Gore and GW. But, without a question, GW did win Florida quite handily by 2004. When President Obama went to a town in Florida today, one hit hard by job losses, there was a fellow in the audience who thanked him for visiting this town and even being prepared to listen to the people in the audience. Apparently, something that GW had not done in all of eight years! Here's why: he might campaign in Florida, but he made certain that the only people who came to see him and ask questions were carefully pre-screened as to their ideological loyalty. As Draper described, to assure GW's "comfort level." How could a man who was seen as "one of us," insist (as a matter of royalty or aristocracy) that he never be offended by the rabble who might not hold him in high regard. And indeed, who (Ft. Meyers, Fla, Elkhart, Indiana) might have a very good reason as to why they'd have heartburn. Well, as Obama was quick to point out, between 2008 and the first 2 months of 2009, unemployment had doubled. GW couldn't be bothered to actually discuss anything with real citizens, only with those citizens who'd further his political campaign. Real citizens would have a few nits to pick with the man. So, a fellow in the audience who made a most telling statement today: about Obama's predecessor who never once came to visit and actually listen to their concerns. And they thoroughly appreciated the fact that Obama met with them and did so. To put it bluntly, GW never really caring about the people he was elected to lead was pretty much vindicated by what I watched this morning.

By 2008, and well into the presidential campaign, GW's polls had dropped so low that he had a negative effect over his chosen successor. And the above is sufficient reason why. Events, GW never wanting to be challenged or having his comfort level invaded; as a consequence, he would find the GOP more thoroughly reduced to a minority status and an African-American Dem would become president.

Seeing a bit of Cal Thomas, and then listening to GOP Governor Crist of Florida, his introduction of Obama included holding a hand out for that federal stimulus package. Let's hope that Thomas and his rants about "hidden welfare spending" took a note of Crist wanting that very thing for his state. Bear in mind that Crist can't hold forth on being a limited gvt free market GOP if the financial situation is so dire that he can't hope to keep his budget balanced. When GOP mayors and Governors plead poverty, that puts them at odds with the Congressional GOP who don't care for a Dem generated stimulus plan. At this point, I highly doubt that Crist much cares, as long as he can get federal money into his hot little hands.

As to matters of error and political capital...

2009-02-05T08:22:00.000-08:00

You can say that Froma Harrop has something in common with David Broder, too busy condemning and not enough thinking. And I'll start with this, in the last 8 years of GW, we saw plenty of business as usual, revolving doors between the government and the private sector, and a question as to whether those who signed onto the GW administration paid their own taxes on a timely basis. Well, not only did we not know as to the latter in particular, but it mostly went undiscussed. If anything did get discussed, was the most public utterances of anyone in the GW administration. The news media simply did not "go personal" about the most intimate character and character flaws of the prior administration. No doubt there was a reason, the GW administration simply never allowed personal matters to be public. And got defensive and quickly retaliated should personal matters get some kind of public airing. Ref Dan Rather and questions concerning GW's failure to live up to his recruitment standards in the Air National Guard. The big deal was that the messenger could get attacked and even further become a sacrificial lamb by the news media to appease a wrathful president. The news media, I guess, knew better than probe too deeply personal issues that no one in the GW administration wanted to reveal.

But given the Obama administration, it is as though the dam had burst. Cal Thomas had weighed in on the "red flags" of some of Obama's appointments to various cabinet positions. Based on? The very public revelations that 3 of these cabinet appointments had failed to pay their taxes on a timely basis. With Bill Richardson, a criminal probe into New Mexico state contracts. That's public revelations! Wow! Has anyone in the news media taken a real step back and considered how silent they were on business as usual that could and did lead to so much corruption in the GW administration? They were. No matter how egregious the behavior happened to be, the news media seemed more than content to simply give GW a pass. At least until Katrina. And now we hear all about how Obama has spent his political capital trying to defend people uniquely suited to shepherd his agenda legislatively through Congress or elsewhere. But, people whom it is publicly revealed did employ the lucrative revolving door because they could parley gvt service into getting well-connected in the private sector. Tom Daschle isn't the only one. Dick Cheney had himself made use of such a revolving door, from gvt service, to include a political office, to Haliburton, and back to gvt service. But there wasn't the screaming from here to heaven by the news media because he did so. But then, the news media was merely content to report on such revolving doors and business as usual instead of complaining about it.

Shall I say that Tom Daschle is a creature of old Washington, D.C.? Yes. Can I say that the former Senator could have done a better job of making sure that all his taxes ought to have been paid on a timely basis? Most assuredly. But unlike Mr. Broder who has demonstrated the sort of inordinate hostility toward the current administration that he mostly withheld from the prior, I recognize that the Obama administration has already demonstrated a firming bedrock of transparency that includes personal issues that become a public embarrassment. Broder has the sort of access and opportunity to discuss these issues that he was quite frankly denied over the last 8 years. With me, Obama has all the political capital he needs to make mistakes, openly admit he screwed up, and move forward. And with Froma Harrop I do have one point of agreement, I don't expect a perfect administration. After all, I already see an open administration. So, when will the news media wake up and take what they are offered?

Obama as anti-Christ? LOL!

2009-01-22T01:28:00.000-08:00

I guess I really did not much get it when various news magazines featured pure hatred by some fringe lunacy groups such as the Evangelical new left re whether they deemed then Senator and now President Barack H. Obama as the anti-Christ. That is, until I watched the History International channel that featured what Christians thought the anti-Christ was down through the ages. Or more precisely, what they wanted to define him as being down through the ages. So let me take a guess here that principally, the anti-Christ is an espouser of false doctrine. Those who follow him are presumably not accepting the one true path of faith as per the bible. At least, according to some biblical scholars. According to fantasy and general fiction writers among the Evangelical new left, such as Hal Lindsey, and the dudes who wrote the "Left Behind" series now treated as "gospel truth;" the anti-Christ becomes this man of pure evil, tyranny and ultimate war who first disguises himself as a loving man of peace. And such is his charisma, that the people willingly follow and therefore to their doom. That through him, he becomes a principle power that gains control of the entire world. A man who persecutes and tortures and is responsible for the deaths of many thousands of people. Basically, the "Left Behind" authors want to portray a liar. A fellow who cunningly puts on a false face until the real mask is torn off, and to the horrors of those who survive and even attempt to defy him.

But, I do have a question here, why Obama?

Then think about this, Obama does not make the argument that he is perfect, that he won't make mistakes. Given his Chicago political history, I am also certain that Obama makes no pretense to being a saint. Therefore, as honest a man as any politician can be. After 8 long years of the Evangelical new left living with a liar, GW, they seem to have a problem with a man being more open, more honest, more transparent—if not completely so—than his predecessor, GW. And as such, the Evangelical new left have a hard time handling that. After spewing pure hatred of Clinton, falling completely silent about the more odious aspects of the GW era and essentially giving him the "dear leader" treatment, they then renew their venom with the next Dem president this nation has since elected. Which says what? If "the beast" who is described as a type of "anti-Christ," who dons the similar appearance to Christ but who speaks as the dragon is the ultimate in liars; then GW more thoroughly fits that bill. And what would a similar appearance to Christ be like? Given "John the Revelator's" initial warnings to the Christian churches, then the fellow who dons a Christ-like aspect but who speaks as a dragon would in reality be a Christian who pushes the sort of false doctrines that trips up even the elite.

What did GW do? If the economy is now in a mess, it is because he happened to be a principle actor in determining that the market place shall have no rules to govern or guide it. In the name of national prosperity, he fostered greed and the nation reaped the consequences of greed. As a consequence of the ruining of the financial aspects that oil the market place and keep it running; GW permitted an even larger expansion of gvt to "save the market place from itself" with an unaccounted for transfer of taxpayer money in a massive bailout. That ultimately did not do what it should have done, freed credit. That being one example of a man intent on duping even his own party as to his intentions, would also make it even harder, a greater obstacle to climb for his successor who must pick up the broken pottery and try to set things aright. That is but one example.

For the world to suddenly love Obama, it is after 8 stupefying years of having to deal with a dude who's charisma and high regard came mostly from a particularly narrow faction in this nation. He was their man after all. He would push their agenda almost exclusively. But for anyone else who did not care to grant GW a "dear leader" status, we were attacked in many diverse ways. Even as GW did (in accordance with "Left Behind" verbal pictorials) bared his fangs and talons early on in his ultimate assent to power. And yet, none of this perturbed the Evangelical new left. And while Israel does not have a new temple, we have seen a machismo war in the Middle East. Iraq became a war of choice because GW wished to flex the national muscle to show the rest of the world that yes, he can do this. But when he did do this, he also broke the back of the nation that can be rendered more vulnerable that lacks the means of fighting future wars through a lack of financing, and the resources because of gargantuan indebtedness. If Evangelicals wish to see Obama as the person to fear, well, GW had already set the stage.

In two days

2009-01-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

First it was Leonard Pitts, jr. who had a particularly biting response to what he deemed that history would judge about GW Bush. And now, a most eloquent and biting response by David Broder about what he thought as well of the GW legacy. (Republished in the editorial pages, http://www.spokesman.com). Broder happened to be right, GW did not ask the majority of Americans to sacrifice to pay for two wars. In fact, he did not ask the supremely wealthy to sacrifice to keep this nation from entering massive deficits and the foreign financing of two wars, supposedly beefing up homeland security, and the consequences of tax cuts.

But, this nation and the American people have sacrificed anyway. Broder fell just short of acknowledging that.

Lost jobs. Lost international prestige. Lost stature as a creditor nation. Practically on the verge of being a 3rd world country. Creating a gvt that people could truly be afraid of for the first time in their lives. Lost homes. Lost businesses. A reeling financial industry. Suffering from a "free market gone wild" in the way of health care, insurance of any sort, drug costs and the increasing costs of education. A military that is going to take a long time to rebuild because of how GW chose to command two wars. Katrina, the hurricane.

This nation has not been "normal" since 9/11/2001, and all of GW's encouraging people to go shopping could never bring this nation back to normal. Is taking off your shoes to have them inspected normal? Do you have to have trial size ounces of liquids, deoderants and toothpaste to prevent your making a bomb aboard an airplane considered normal? The failure of TSA employees to spot fake weapons being loaded on planes by government oversight groups would seem to be far more scary than the bottled water you want to drink, or the breath freshener you want in your carryon. Is gvt spying on your e-mails using the excuse of terrorism considered normal? No. And GW used the fear factor very successfully against Dems in Congress in 2002. He also made a successful use of the fear factor against his Dem contender for the White House, Senator John Kerry, in 2004. But as people began to hurt personally on the financial level to far greater degrees by 2006, and Katrina still being fresh in their memories, the GOP began getting the business end of the sacrifice stick as they lost offices during the November elections of that year. The fear factor no longer worked when people were becoming increasingly fearful of their own financial security.

In 2008, CNN, Senator Hillary Clinton, and the McCain/Palin campaign tried using the fear factor against our soon to be inaugurated President, Barack H. Obama. As did a number of bloggers, letter writers, commenters to blogs, message boards and chat rooms. But, the fear factor that sent such delicious shivers up the spines of the die hard radicals did not work to prevent the Dem candidate from succeeding. That Obama got over 50% of the popular vote and an electoral blowout of 365, says that for most Americans, they wished to put the failed GW presidency as far behind them as they could. The fear factor was that Senator McCain would continue GW's disastrous policies. They didn't need four more years of facing more of the above.

In the letters to the editors published this morning in both the Coeur d'Alene Press and Spokesman-Review, you get the impression that those employing the fear factor still against President elect Obama aren't paying much attention to what the man says. And are inventing their own ideas about what sort of President Obama will actually be, precisely, everything they detest about him. He isn't in office before the 20th of January, but he is already a "Karl Marx" reading president, according to one writer. And according to another, is going the route of FDR. Precisely, the revisionist history of FDR as a fellow simply continuing the disastrous policies of Herbert Hoover on steroids. Herbert Hoover, incidentally, oversaw massive job losses, bank failures and etc. FDR, upon being elected, had to attempt to reverse that. If Obama, in two days, has to provide an FDR style of intervention, it is to invest in the American workforce as GW wasn't willing to do in the last 8 years.

In two days, the Bush era is over with. And in two days, we have a fellow who is preaching tough times and sacrifice if the nation is to get back on its feet.

While he is still Senator...

2009-01-10T12:10:00.000-08:00

CNN took note of the fact that still Senator Joe Biden took a trip to Pakistan at the same time that terrorists struck Lahore some many miles away. CNN didn't say that the Vice President elect was lucky that the terrorists didn't strike in the area that he was visiting, rather, Wolf Blitzer and his cadre were wringing hands over Biden possibly stepping on the toes of the not yet confirmed Sec. of State. Biden had not resigned his Senate seat, he can surely have that goodwill tour if he desires. When he does resign his seat and is sworn in as Veep, then it will be up to the Sec. of State to carry out foreign policy orders for the new administration. So how is it that Biden has stepped on anyone's toes when the new administration won't have its full day of work cut out for them until 21 January 2009?

Biden might be cutting a fine line line here, but he is still within his privilege as a Senator to do what he wishes until he assumes a new office.

What was even more amazing was that CNN would go to all this trouble nitpicking, second guessing, deconstructing every move that Biden or even Obama might make before they assume their new roles on 20 January 2009. They did this where a Democratic administration is concerned as they weren't prepared to where an incoming Republican administration was concerned. Instead, watching CNN during the waning days of the Clinton administration, you didn't hear a word about what GW might be doing, what Cheney might be doing, or even what their nominees for various cabinet positions and etc. were doing. They were off the MSM radar and basically invisible. After GW's inauguration, it was as though Clinton never left office, it was 24/7 ragging on the former Prez for the next few months. I shall assume that the spectacle of seeing a duly elected president being removed from office on matters not involving high crimes and misdemeanors being otherwise denied to the MSM, they had to content themselves with broiling Clinton over hot coals. But they mostly gave GW a free pass.

Did someone forget to tell these dudes at the anchor desks and as talk show hosts that there was in fact a new president in town and that really, you should be covering him instead?

Now, it is as though there never was a Bush presidency, Sec. of State Condi Rice is on the job until 20 January 2009. Biden's trip to Pakistan with a Senate collegue did not step on her toes.

And I have to shake my head at the kind of thinking that had the MSM watchdogs basically sleeping when an enemy was at the door then rousing to bark, bark, bark, howl and gnash their teeth at the people who's interests they were supposed to be guarding. Then dozed away as the robber entered the house... Then barked and tried to bite as the cop tried to arrest the robber. In short, they don't have any objective priorities to work with.

Which leads also to this, Governor Sarah Palin was on the news bashing at the news for being "unfair" to her and her family. CNN wants to find out what sort of background Palin has and it makes the McCain camp supremely uncomfy at even a mild investigation. Palin drops the ball on giving intelligent answers during the Couric interview and somehow Couric is now to blame. Tammy Faye only does what any comedian will, recognizes foibles and acts on them. But suddenly, Faye is to blame for why Palin is not now Veep elect. Seems like CNN is all about showing this whiner general sympathy. But here is some news from a Republican to this radical think guv. If you were a Democrat who vied for a spot on the Obama ticket, are you so sure that you would have been his choice, considering that your best foreign policy response was to be next door to Russia? I highly doubt it. And had you actually won a spot on the Democratic ticket, you would have been an even bigger embarrassment to Obama given your family background than you even were to McCain. As the radical think among the religious activists wouldn't have been quite so prepared to forgive you having a daughter who is out of wedlock pregnant. After all, what can one expect from those lacking in morals Dems, anyway? And Fox News, that was quick to go ballistic over Clinton as Dem would be prez, was more than charitable to yourself, and only because you have a R behind your name. So who are you kidding?

At least the best political teams that Blitzer tends to host weren't quite so sympathetic to the whiner. But then, they did know a few things, didn't they?

Passenger profiling

2009-01-05T08:32:00.001-08:00

"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane and other people heard them. Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."—Air Tran spokesman Tad Hutcheson defending his airline's decision to remove nine Muslim passengers—all but one native U.S. citizens—from a Washington-Orlando flight, based on other passenger's suspicions.

I recall when this had come out on CNN last week. Any passenger getting on a plane and publicly discussing the safest place to sit in the event of a crash... If the nine people had been dressed in ratty looking t-shirts and jeans and were of the Christian faith would I as a fellow passenger be any less suspicious? After all, Christians of extreme faith have been known to get violent But that would be an unfair criticism, right? Or would it? Never mind that plane crashes of any type can focus any passenger's mind on whether he or she or even they will get safely to their destination. The safest place to sit on a plane in the event of a crash for one's survival has been openly discussed on no less than news and in the public interest shows.

But in the case of the Muslim 9, as seen on CNN and the republished [to the Spokesman-Review] Air Tran excuse of why they were removed from the flight in the first place; I highly doubt it was what they said, but the fact that they were Muslim in the first place. That it wouldn't have mattered to their fellow passengers what they said, their fellow passengers would have been suspicious because these 9 passengers were Muslim and made no secret of it. And we all know not to trust those who are openly Muslim on board an airplane, don't we?

What these supposedly panicking passengers did not do was think. People openly dressed as Muslims managed to pass the security checks. Any carry on items in their possession passed security muster, they exposed themselves to the same searches as their non-Muslim passengers had. And I'll assume that Air Tran like any other airline business would want to keep its planes and passengers safe to where their inspections of any passenger and his or her luggage at all would be quite thorough. Had I been on the plane, and knowing that this is what these Muslims were saying as they went to take their seats, my response would have been a shrug of the shoulders and a "so?" Because I would have been just as knowledgeable about the problems airline companies have been having to even keep their planes safely in the air, and in some cases, getting their planes off the ground. Terrorism accounts for less than 1% of all airline tragedies. But because of 9/11/2001, it manages to account for the 100% sense of terror and/or hatred that Americans now feel toward fellow Americans if they are of the wrong faith. So what does it take to destroy a pluralistic democracy anyway? The Air Tran 9 case would be an ample description.

Movie review--The Golden Compass

2008-12-30T12:07:00.000-08:00

I recall the major political flap about "The Golden Compass" when the movie had first come out last year. The religious radicals were all up in arms about—how dare they make a movie about religion in such a bad light—what they thought was the true underlying theme of a fantasy movie. It was after all "free thinkers" v The Magesterium. Having the chance to see the movie in full (and I wouldn't mind getting the video for this) what I saw was the following:

The Magesterium was a world controlling presumably "secular power" that didn't like "dust" any mention of "dust" which presumably created the world. Let us assume that "dust" is "God." Even further, "dust" was able to travel between worlds (precisely "Earths" that existed in infinite possibilities side by side without each knowing that the other existed) and because "dust could travel between worlds" the plot of "The Golden Compass" was to prevent The Magesterium from gaining control of the many earths as they already had controlled the world they were now on.

The Magesterium was even further at war with anyone who dared defy them as to the ability to "think for themselves." They were even, accoring to the movie, prepared to cut from young children their "Demons." Shape shifting spirits that walked beside children and adults and had a tendency to disappear in fiery sparks when the man died. If they could (the Magesterium) cut the demons from the kids, then they would have a generation they could totally control and vanquish, so they thought, any rebellion against their ultimate power.

Does this look like "Christianity?" What it did look like was a Soviet style thinking that was ultimately successful in controlling an entire "earth." Something that it failed to do on this one. The sort of gvt that would go so far as to control how one thought or believed was actually a gvt that Christians were in fact prepared to oppose during the pagan era. Again when schisms wracked the church when it allied with totalitarian gvts during the Middle and later ages. That was the foundation of a "democracy" of a sort in Great Britain some hundreds of years before the founding of the American colonies. And Christians along with other free thinkers were at the foundation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. "The Golden Compass" was essentially a good versus evil saga. A rebellion against tyranny. The Magesterium was undoubtedly that tyranny.

Now my question is this, when Christians fought against tyranny to win a free nation here in the U.S. of America, why would they whine that the whole idea of "The Golden Compass" was both anti-God and anti-Church? In short, are today's "Christians" of the opinion that they don't love democracy? They love the idea of having total control over states and individuals? To bring out an anti-tyranny film such as "The Golden Compass" makes their special interest demands on secular powers such as federal, state and local gvts very vulnerable to challenge? Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that those "Christians" who'd oppose the making of the film and even further the showing of such a film must be suffering from a guilty conscious. In "The Golden Compass," I saw a totalitarian state that was fearful of having its rule challenged, and would do any cruel thing to guarantee that it stayed in power. It would kidnap children and "cut away their souls" in order to achieve power that would last an eternity? It would lie to children in order to achieve its ultimate ends? Were I a Christian, I wouldn't hitch my wagon to that kind of thinking. And as a Druid, I do applaud successful battle between rebellions and tyrannies. I applaud the willingness of people to not only be free but also to fight for the freedom of others, as would seem to be the case in this movie. "Christians" were anti-Marxist, so what about this movie could they not like?

Comedian for Congress

2008-12-23T11:17:00.000-08:00

According to news reports, source—Spokesman-Review, it looks like comedian Al Franken is going to take his place in Congress. The nail biting recount now has him in the slimmest possible leads, where he is but 48 votes ahead of the incumbent that he seems to have successfully defeated. While the Democrats do not have a veto proof or filibuster proof majority in the Senate, they do have an answer to Rush Limbaugh as well as Karl Rove serving there. The author of "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot" will have the poor fellow stewing and fretting over fresh meat on his live radio talk show. Well, I expect that we ought to have a comedian in the Senate given the joke we had to endure in the White House for all of 8 years.

The Governor Blagojevich problem that never seems to go away. It has been weeks now since Gov. Blago was initially arrested on corruption charges, weeks since U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald told the public that he found no entangling and criminal associations between team Obama and Gov. Blago's office over the purported sale of Obama's vacated Senate seat. And Obama himself wanted an internal review done (no doubt as a reasurrance to voters as to his own transparency) as to what actual contacts if any, any of his team might have with the Illinois gov at any time. But while CNN especially Anderson Cooper 360° was prepared to treat such an internal review with mockery and even scorn (well excuse me, but isn't this what they wanted?), Ed Henry did manage a bit of candor; hearkening back to Fitzgerald's on the record statements of earlier in December. There is no there, there.

I guess the CNN producers and crew can't get over the fact that giving such an easy pass to McCain, refusing to second guess, dissect or deconstruct his every comment and past association; did not ultimately lead to the favored son, McCain winning the presidency after all; and so they must bite Obama on the ass at every turn, even when they have no news story to do it with. It reminds me of CNN airing tapes that were acquired illegally and used as a witness against Bill Clinton. Monica Lewinsky came across as the pouting ninny who didn't like the idea that ultimately Bill didn't continue their affair and said it was over. But nowhere on those tapes did you hear Ms. Lewinsky being "victimized." Or the tone would have been very different. If the intent of the tapes were, to inform the public about Clinton's "sexual history," that of course would be true. But as it would pertain to a sexual harassment case that Judge Wilbur-Wright proclaimed lacked the necessary evidence to go to trial? That it would not offer. As to putting a man on federal trial for lying to the court? CNN airing the tape at all bollixed up any court case that might have legitimately existed. It was all about politics, even coming from what was supposed to be a 24/7 news channel and not a recognition of the law.

The law says that Gov. Blago is the center of the fiasco he made of his own office. The burden of guilt or innocence lies on the man who is centrally accused of doing the dirty after 4 years of intense scrutiny by federal prosecutors. But not Senator now President elect Obama. Had the federal prosecutors gone after Obama, he would have been forced out of the running for the office of the presidency early on. If CNN has a problem in not being able to recognize the obvious, then just how trusted are they as a news service?

Bryan Fischer and the misconceptions about Christmas

2008-12-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

Dave Oliveria manages to front page Bryan Fischer ever so often because the deeply religious gent manages to do one thing very well, stir up a lot of controversy. The latest, Fischer's argument that the public square should host only that which pertains to the majority belief, especially when it comes to the Christmas holiday. He bluntly makes it plain that he would not allow other religious views to share the public space with his own.

I commented on Fischer's position.
[This link being updated since this was initially posted. The Spokesman-Review website is now Spokesman.com and the link features Bryan Fischer carrying his war against merchants if they don't cowtow to his precise Xmas wishes. You would think that in the spirit of the season, Fischer would learn a little love, charity or generosity.]

And as Oliveria also links to "Community Comment" regarding the origins of the Christmas tree, the decorated tree long in use before Christians decided to co-opt it for themselves; if Fischer is going to be hostile to any and all symbols that don't pertain to his own belief, then the decorated tree that has been in use for thousands of years, to which God (in some bibles) was utterly hostile to the idea of his chosen people making use of them, then Fischer would have to be true to his bible and true to his own argument that any symbol that doesn't reflect his religion should simply be abolished. That would have to include the Christmas tree.

Here are some more examples:

Community comment: Gift giving was in vogue during Pagan Rome's Saturnalia. Gift giving during the Winter Solstice can't therefore be an acceptable act. Unless we give charitably—at all times of the year, and give gifts only on one's birthday.
The wreath may symbolize a halo. But it also may symbolize a crown of thorns. But one can find "halos" adorning the heads of Druids too. Those made of Holly incidentally.
And decking the halls with bows of holly (Community comment) and in accordance with Germanic tradition of some hundreds of years, of putting a tree in or near a house to wait for spring to come; is in accordance with its preceding earth religion of Druid/Wicca and was never in accordance with Christianity. You won't find it in the bible.
Community comment: Martin Luther put candles on the tree to represent the starry night that shone over Bethlehem. The candle, according to historians, is representative of the pagan torch much used during their holy celebrations, and was therefore banned, along with incense, by the church. To put a once banned because it was pagan candles on a tree that had ancient non Christian traditions in honor of Christ is a real hoot. We won't chastise Martin Luther for being a fairly ignorant fellow. But when Fischer has as much access to reading material as I do; one can certainly chastise him for pushing a symbol that at one time his own church was very hostile to.
How about the supposed date of Christ's birth? Politics was behind the church wanting a mass for Christ celebrated near the pagan celebrated Winter Solstice. Only with time did people begin associating the mass for Christ with Christ's birthday. But, in accordance with pagan tradition, other "man-gods" could also claim a winter birth under "special circumstances" much as the church would ultimately claim for Christ, Mithras was among them. Given the fact that many pagans flocked to the Christian calling, the popular man on the cross also predated Christ, that this was also how a man god would be sacrificed for the good of the people. What would it take for pagans turned Christian to attribute to their new-found beliefs their own traditions? Especially when the church itself supported the whole idea?

In short, poor Bryan Fischer would not have much to base a purely Christmas display on that did not have elements of older beliefs and traditions. It had all been borrowed or plagiarized.

Angst about the Electoral College

2008-12-10T13:15:00.001-08:00

Dick Polman makes an interesting argument that the Electoral College is so archaic that it is just disenfranchizing voters. That argument while appealing is hardly valid. The voters do put their X on the ballot for the candidate of choice, from President to dog catcher. The man with the most electoral college votes is the man who wins the election. Nor does it hurt that right along with the electoral college vote, the man who gets the most popular vote generally wins the election. The voters are by no means disenfranchized. They had their say on 4 November 2008. They made their wishes known to the people whom they want to commit to putting into office who they decided was the clear winner in the last election. That is Senator and now President elect Barack H. Obama. So, electing a president is a two step process. But, I have absolutely no heartburn over the matter.

When it comes to GW Bush, of course, he did not win the popular vote in 2000, and it became a very appealing argument at that point, by way of the Democrats at least, how nice it would be to direct elect the President of the U.S. and abolish the Electoral College forever. However, given the subsequent voting problems in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008; by way of electronic voting machines, and the hanging chads in Florida, how can anyone be sure that a direct election of a U.S. President would be any less messy than the two step process that we have now? I can see some real problems with the idea. And Polman wasn't comfortable enough to recognize that there were plenty of methods being used in the above described election years to disenfranchize plenty of voters without the Electoral College coming into play at all. To put it bluntly, dirty politics. Just as I can have a question about laws on the book or proposed laws that would render the Electoral College essentially toothless. By, according to Polman, rendering it a "symbolic" institution.

If the whole idea of the Electoral College was to cater to slave states and slave owners, there were also plenty of laws that also catered to both slave states and slave owners. Going on from there, I am fully aware of how both presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, paid a lot of attention to what were defined as battleground states and certainly states with the mostest in electoral college votes. The fact that Obama spent the most money and stayed consitently on message, most assuredly won him the necessary votes. He was also televised nationally by way of news media coverage. Any voter in those less "important states" having the occasion of watching national news channels such as CNN, would know as much about Obama as those watching local news in those "swing states." In the age of instant communication, I see no reason to abolish that "archaic institution" the Electoral College.

The problem in the newspapers

2008-12-03T08:11:00.001-08:00

Terrorism struck India last week. Over our Thanksgiving holiday, the gut wrenching horror of what has been described as a well-coordinated attack in which close to 200 people, and among them Jews and Westerners, esp. Americans, died. So, did the Spokesman-Review publish editorials excoriorating the terrorists? Cal Thomas who in prior years did bleat about the unchecked growth of Islam and what (terrorists) may hide behind the walls of their mosques; well he was published as whining and whipping away about British taxes. At least, it wasn't American taxes he was having heartburn over this time. So, let us discuss what low taxes did in Great Britain, it produced a "boom" so it was said in that country as it did under Reagan. A boom? We had a recession! during Reagan's first term and a recession that ushered Bush (41) out of office in one term. We had a boom under Clinton who did indeed raise taxes. But no decrease in taxes guaranteed a stable jobs report in this nation and it sure didn't guarantee a stable economy in Great Britain either. Thomas' biggest problem now is that facts must be ushered aside in favor of a tired ideology.

After 4 November 2008, The Coeur d'Alene Press was all about allowing attack letters such as from Jesse Robbins to enter its pages. The sort of frothing, screaming, ranting in which the base line seems to be, the voters were simply too stupid when they voted for Senator Barack Obama as our new president of the U.S. After all, Obama being a Democrat and he will now push socialist policies on this country. Problem for Robbins is that he has only lived with the GOP version of socialism for the last 8 years. A gvt that doesn't trust its own people, argues that in the name of "keeping us safe" must cause us to fear and hate our neighbors, actually does not keep us safe in the most fundamental ways—to include Katrina. He could live with that, but he could not live with a gvt that might actually show compassion toward the governed. How about that.

And because the letter from Robbins had clearly gone over the line, there were at least two writers who began to argue about the need to review such letters prior to publication. Which the Spokesman-Review does, incidentally. Not all letters submitted to the Spokesman are in fact published. But, according to those writers who fault that idea, an editorial review would result in censorship. According to Larry Kettle, who engaged in infantile name calling every few words, it would be censorship. Well, where the paper's editor, Mike Patrick is concerned, Kettle for one will never have to worry that those "liberal socialists" will prevent his tantrum throwing being made public. But, I will say this, that Patrick does his paper no favors by publishing such tantrum throwing.

No letters were published regarding the horrors of terrorism in India. That is, the only letters that Patrick saw fit to print were of local concerns and those spewing vitriole about the people's choice in elected leadership. GW is still president, Obama is waiting to assume office, and we see yet again that "the war on terror," has its limits. Americans overseas were not kept safe for our "fighting them over there so that we won't fight them here." Given what even CNN called a truly sophisticated attack, how well the Islamic extremists had carried it out, I ponder the notion that what developed was certainly Al Qaeda inspired; if not Al Qaeda in origin. I understand that 6 Americans died. Where are the letters expressing outrage? Can't do that?

Patrick did manage to publish a letter rebutting Larry Kettle. Same day, same paper. A Republican, who voted for Republican candidates this time voted for Obama. She did not like Robbins' engaging in name calling because of her choice which she had the freedom to make at the polling booth. Well, by extension then, Kettle as well. Because Republicans, Independents and Democrats voted for Obama in this state of Idaho, even we conservatives have been turned into (Kettle, Robbins) "liberal socialists." No, as GW clearly said in one of his last interviews, a vote for Obama was in many cases, a repudiation of himself. Well, duh.

How quickly can you put Obama in office?

2008-11-26T11:16:00.001-08:00

CNN it seems just can't wait for GW to leave office. In fact, months before Obama can be officially sworn into office, CNN is engaging in pure hysteria over the state of the economy (it is dismal enough) and Obama isn't providing specifics about what he will do to correct our economic woes. Excuses me, dudes; Obama isn't in office yet. And if you are in such a big hurry about showing GW the door, then you should have never given him a mostly free pass over the last 8 years.

And when we don't see that kind of whining, then there is this matter of cabinet picks. The "recycling of faces" from the past Clinton administration. Well? Wasn't a lot made about Obama's inexperience? Wouldn't there have been a lot of hell raising about his picks if he had indeed brought unknowns and don't know a damn thing people from say Chicago to run his cabinet? Or maybe, because of Chicago politics, the cabinet would have been facing questions about their associations, as Obama had already faced such questions while on the campaign trail. Literally, if Obama hadn't brought people in who were already experienced in the ways of Washington, D.C. and been criticized for it, he would be criticized for who he did pick, instead.

Which leads me to suspect that Obama has the makings of being a good president, when the news media itself, esp. CNN can't make up their minds about what they don't like most about him. Ed Henry interceded into a discussion about the dismal economy this matter of "recycled faces" in the incoming Obama administration. Not "change," of course that Henry can believe in if these people have been around the block before. No, probably not. But, if you are going to put a stimulus package into the economy to regrow infrastructure and recreate construction and etc. jobs, who do you want to best help you get such a package off the ground? Well, would it be a state treasurer from say Idaho or Alaska that knows only a small portion of the economic pie? Or would it be a guy like Volcker, or Summers who has the general experience to know what the national and international pie looks like? If your prez elect, you'd go with a guy like Volcker or Summers. And why that deserves such a thumbs down, I don't quite understand. "Change" means never having served in Washington, D.C.? When McCain decided to co-opt the "change" mantra, who among the news media and indeed the political cartoonists asked the question of a guy who served in Congress for 26 years, what sort of "change" he was bringing to Washington? In McCain's political stump speeches, it looked less like "change" and exacerbating as well as extending already entrenched GW domestic and foreign policies. But, we have already heard Obama's proposals. They are indeed a change from the last 8 years. Now, with who's help should they be implemented?

If the news media doesn't like Obama's picks as "not change enough," and this is 2 months before Obama assumes the office, then the news media isn't bound to like much of anything. Well, Ed Henry and the cast and crew of CNN; Obama is the people's choice, get used to it.

How to write an epitaph for a presidency

2008-11-22T11:59:00.000-08:00

Michael Barone looks back at history, that Americans had gone through bad economic times in particular, to say of this era, and this presidency, well, it isn't so bad. That truly great presidents, well, they left unresolved issues behind. Leave it to the apologist of U.S. News & World Report writing as well for Creators' Syndicate, to try to put a silver lining on a dark cloud that only historians can look more fully at. Did GW protect this nation from terrorism? No. Because he had basically abandoned counter terrorism efforts left behind by his predecessor, Clinton. Until 9/11/2001 woke him up to the fact that terrorists don't care what the political ideology of the current president happens to be; they'll attack anyway. Then, GW over-reacts, after that, he mismanages how he should even address the issue. On the war front, we can abandon Afghanistan for Iraq, even though we haven't resolved creating a stable country, nor assured that a power vacuum would not be created in the aftermath of deposing the Taliban gvt. We did not guarantee a stable country and we sure as hell did manage to create a power vacuum. Thus, we saw the emergence of the Taliban for one as a newly energized threat. Point two in rebutting that vain attempt at creating a silver lining out of whole cloth, we managed to create more terrorist attacks in more parts of the world, because we took our focus off of dealing effectively with Al Qaeda.

GW also mismanaged whom he thought the enemy ought to be, by spying on American phone calls and e-mails. Just how many disaffected Americans would actually call up Mahmoud the Al Qaeda guy based over in erstwhile ally Pakistan, anyway? But, Americans were randomly spied on anyway. Because of some twit "shoe bomber" ready to blow a hole in a commercial plane in flight bound for the U.S., anyone prepared to travel on a commercial flight must remove their shoes. Yet, over the years, there have been plenty of investigations into actual airport security that showed how many holes in our security actually existed. Law abiding people take off their shoes for airport security, and the potential bad guy can put a bomb in a box that gets overlooked at the checkout counter. How about that.

Yeah, Barone can tell us all about how GW put together funds and a network to aid AIDS sufferers. That is, after spending years ignoring AIDS sufferers. And only on condition that faith-based organizations get the largest piece of the AIDS funding pie. What he doesn't say, but CNN does, is that for GW's efforts, AIDS treatment in places like Africa remains spotty at best. And wasn't that a one time program that GW could push and then go on to basically abandon? We didn't hear from him another time, at least, about its progress and shortcomings and how it could be improved.

We could hear however about his midnight executive orders intended to force his successor into compliance with for example anti-abortion regs, or for that matter, pro-mining regs that are also anti-environment. But given GW's penchant for abandoning a lot of the things that his predecessors had done, inclusive of SALT 2; what makes him think that President elect Obama will bow to "his legacy" and carry out his last minute orders? By 20 January 2008, its a whole new ballgame.

Bad presidents are historically remembered better than great presidents. That is, Nixon is going to be better remembered for Watergate than for his China proposals that ultimately made China an economic powerhouse. Bad presidents are going to be better remembered for presiding over economic downturns, such as Herbert Hoover, more so than good presidents such as FDR, who used "socialism" to take this country out of bad economic times. And to be castigated for it, decades later, by the middle class beneficiaries of that "socialism." Unfinished business? I'm sure that Barone would like to put GW on Mt. Rushmore. But the sort of dude who late in the game finally decides that imported foods from China need to be quality checked so as not to poison the people expected to buy and eat it, after years of refusing to do anything about it. Well, he isn't Mt. Rushmore bound by any means. Who, late in the game finally recognizes the need to invest in the American workforce by signing extensions of unemployment insurance, when he had opposed the idea for years. Well, he doesn't deserve the soft pedalling that Barone thinks he needs. Historians don't base their views on a single column. They will take a long look at records, consequences and results. The consequences for this nation because of GW verges on the catastrophic. GW the "disaster president." That is how historians should really record him. A disaster in the business world. A disaster as President of the U.S.

For whom the bailout doth toll

2008-11-15T13:17:00.000-08:00

In a letter to the editor, David Shaw of Post Falls informed the Spokesman-Review readers of the fact that General Motors Corporation was expanding its operations in foreign countries and bleeding money on the home front. And, at the same time, General Motors along with Ford and Chrysler were bellying up to the bailout trough. Mr. Shaw can hardly be blamed for thinking that the sort of management now leading the automotive industry has been shoddy in its practices, refusing to get with the times in creating fuel efficient and more affordable cars. If what Mr. Shaw reports, then the taxpayers are indeed being called on to fund companies that want profits and subsidies and don't want to invest in the American workforce.

Of course, CNN doesn't report that. And Michael Barone didn't care to report that either. What Barone did say was that should the big 3 automakers fold into bankruptcy, then the union perks that come with working for such companies, such as: health insurance and good wages, would have to be slashed and severely. Barone also made the argument that the federal gvt wasn't as in good a position to put new and better transportation on the road as the marketplace and of course new start up companies can.

The problem for Barone, and he does write a more thoughtful piece: Is that banking bailouts were supposed to unfreeze the rest of the market to the point that businesses small to large could keep putting inventory on their shelves and pay their employees who could then go out and shop for small to large big ticket items inclusive of homes and cars. That hasn't happened. Just as the big 3 automotive industry got hit hard with gas prices shooting out of sight, crippling their sales and etc. Everything can't be blamed on the union worker and his demands for a middle class wage, pension and health benefits.

So as was heard on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" last night, what was the point of putting people back in their homes if they didn't have jobs?

For companies to start up and invest in an American workforce, there must be capital present. The banks aren't likely to lend for new business start ups, investors now bailing out of the stock market on Wall Street aren't likely to invest in new companies. Then it seems to me that Barone still holds to an ideological position that somehow the free market as it now exists will find its way to terra firma. Will it? Well then, I expect it will require a massive monetary incentive from the federal gvt to nudge the market toward some sort of future. Unfortunately, given the massive debt of the last 8 years, we don't have that.

What to do, what to do?

Eating sour grapes

2008-11-10T11:27:00.000-08:00

Senator Barack H. Obama, now President elect Obama. He got 368 electoral college votes, quite the blowout really from 2004, when President Bush barely got a majority electoral college vote and 3% advantage over Senator Kerry. Michael Barone, in a republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial, downplayed the electoral college blowout as well as the 53% to 46% Obama to McCain percent of votes cast. Obama got a 7% point difference to McCain that GW had not gotten with Kerry. Looks to me that the voters gave Obama a mandate. No, the Democrats did not get a supermajority in Congress, but they did put the GOP into a much smaller percentage of overall Congressional seats than they had before. Only Mr. Barone would make the argument, that because the Democrats had not obtained fillibuster proof majorities, Obama has no mandate. Uh, he won, didn't he?

In the aftermath of our first credible African-American presidential candidate winning handily against that "old white guy" Senator McCain, I have seen GOP types to include Amy Holmes on CNN trying to make the argument about what it will take to get back in power. Have these people considered exactly why they are not now in power? It starts with GW, who currently enjoys a 76% disapproval rating. The highest to date of any other prior president whether GOP or Dem. Even Clinton, with his Monica problem did not have such a high disapproval rating, around, so CNN informs, 54% in 1994. It continues with compounding economic disasters. Wedge issues on a national scale such as abortion, gays and stem cell research will decidedly have to be taken off the table as people who struggle are going to be more concerned with where they live, if they have a job, if they will be able to educate their kids, if they will have health care, period. With Circuit City going into bankruptcy protection, DHL now pulling the plug on North American operations, AIG now demanding and getting an even heftier and more favorable bailout package, GMC looking to go broke by the end of the year; abortion, gays, stem cell research become issues that can only ideologically matter when people are satisfied with their lives and don't have to fear for their personal futures. Yet, this is the "spirtual awakening" that the self-proclaimed "religious right" keep wanting to bring to the table. Even in the face of very heavy losses for their side.

Gas prices going through the roof helped to destablize American car manufacturing. Just as it encouraged the early closure of businesses including a dairy company in Washington state. People reduced the demand by turning to alternative sources of transportation, as a consequence, gas prices dropped. But, in a massive effort to break the back of the consumer, first by denying them good paying jobs and encouraging the exploitation of the foreign work force, then calling on them to turn their homes into credit cards so that they could keep on spending; the credit crunch that came as a consequence that saw favored businesses begin to crumble and financial bailouts and nationalization of financial systems; there could not be a better recipe for setting the stage of fiscal socialism, even communism in this country. GW's domestic policies created this. And GW called these "business first" policies "conservatism." We all know what happened that the GOP suffered such heavy losses, except for the GOP themselves.

Smaller gvt, so they said, except that was never really what happened, was it now? Gvt that favors business interests isn't any smaller than a gvt that favors the impoverished. Or for that matter, gvt that favors religious interests. Fiscal responsibility, so they say in the aftermath of Dems now claiming larger legislative percentages. But, when the GOP had full control over a 6 year time period, they spent like drunken madmen, now didn't they? Returning to constitutional constraints, during the 8 years of GW, we saw no desire on his part to keep gvt within constitutional constraints and no desire on the part of the GOP to restrain him. Only the U.S. Supreme Court was willing to do that.

I recall a letter that was published in the Coeur d'Alene Press within a few months of my returning stateside from having served in Germany. The woman who wrote this letter was describing a page of Communist revelution that not only sought to destroy natural leaders but also recognized institutions. With the GOP, ultimately, we saw the Communist revelution play out in the last 8 years of GW. Consumption as an institution has now been destroyed. The financial institution has been destroyed. Natural leaders such as Gore and Kerry were considerably damaged, who might not have done the damage to this nation that GW had. The tactics used to destroy these natural leaders were called Rovian. The institution of trust between people and their gvt was destroyed. The fear by the gvt toward its own people was created, the day that GW decided that Americans could be spied upon for writing e-mails and making over seas phone calls. And there were myraid attempts to create an official religion as well. A faith based office in the oval office? Gvt should ride to the rescue of one Terry Schiavo? Moral politics when it came to gays and abortion? Gvt should dole out taxpayer moolah so that favored churches can better benefit the socially least of these among us?

Consider this, each and every one of these so called "right wingers" were so busy wanting gvt to comply with their every ideological whim that they were forgetting that the more you ask of gvt, the more you apparently want its intrusion. The more gvt intrudes, the less leeway you have for keeping ninth and tenth constitutional principles in place. We now have Dem majorities in Congress, we have a Dem in the White House, simply because those who claimed "conservatism" forgot their own rules. If we have socialism or communism in this country today, it is because the GOP and indeed GW wanted it that way. Now if the same party wants for this nation something entirely different, instead of looking for ways to get back in power, look instead for ways to create a whole new attitude about what they think should be the future of this nation. Obama did that, and that is why he won.

Press... Letters, we have stupid letters

2008-11-02T23:59:00.001-08:00

Shirley Smith seems to think that the bible is the answer to Wall Street greed. That we the "me generation" are the reasons for the downfall of the nation. Well, not to mock Ms. Smith, but it looks like God is going to have quite the job ahead of him to set GMC back on its wheels personally and preserve some 10s of millions of jobs. That is, if the company executives get down on their knees and pray for forgiveness. Or, as some of us recognized a long time ago, that American industry left to foreign nations the innovations, the leading edge technology. We no longer created; we just wanted the profits. Now, because we did not compete in a way that would have mattered more, because investments would have been costly; now we have companies, big companies like the American auto industry that may soon go out of business because of the greed of executives over and above thinking of the long term health of their companies. They didn't want to compete, to compete would be costly. To have something actually made in America would prove costly. When people become unemployed as a consequence of businesses no longer following rules of commerce 101, in order to have a commercial transaction, people must have something to buy it with... Eventually, it would be an act of suicide on those very companies that wanted the profits first. I wouldn't claim, in Ms. Smith's case that "me" came first. And greed is as old as biblical scripture.

My answer to Jeanne Sappington who tells us who Obama's "friends" are, by way of terrorists, anti-Americans, etc. Don't look now lady, but Palin only spoke lovingly to an Anti-American group of people before she took up a position as McCain's running mate, the Alaskan Independence Party. As for McCain, understood the dude actually got endorsed by an Al Qaeda guy.

Joan Kinsebom is obviously anti-abortion. But operates on the presumption that one scripture dictates an entire bible. If a people are righteous, they will not harm a pregnant woman and cause her to deliver prematurely, IE have a miscarriage. But what God says to the unrighteous is that even their children can suffer the consequences. As is spelled out in other scripture. Yes, 9/11/2001 did happen because Muslims had planned all that, Muslim extremists did carry it out. But on the day it happened, and even though GW had plenty of forewarning, he was busy reading "My Pet Goat," to a bunch of grade schoolers. Apparently, the book was more important than preventing some 3,000 deaths, which GW certainly had the power to do, he had been warned for long enough, that he could have acted, and he did not. To date, Kinsebom is more his apologist than being willing to hold him accountable. Those others, the liberals, can be held accountable for ideological differences.

If you are C & M Shipp, then no, you don't like the idea of taxes that presumably takes out of your pocket and puts into the hands of the undeserving. Jesus, in your world view, would not rob Peter to pay Paul. Hate to have to break it to this couple (?), but God's original premise for endorsing taxes was to literally pay for the gvt that the people wanted set over them. One of the purposes of the Bill of Rights is to have the gvt there when you think you need it. But in the process of demanding that gvt answer your very whim, it takes money. Some Peter's pocket is going to get picked to help some undeserving Paul. Whether Paul is in this case, the impoverished, to the church, to the business interest...

And reading Robert H. Collett's argument that Jesus never taught the Marxist version of "socialism." I am sure that he did not. Because they would never have met. Nor have I seen any Christ style argument that gvt must demand monies from people to "spread the wealth around." However, see above. The gvt has been in the process of spreading the wealth around for some decades now, and GW has been among those willing and eager to do it. If it wasn't socialism under GW, then it isn't socialism today. I can only wonder if Mr. Collett saw McCain's "health care plan" that would see workplace insurance taxed (to spread the wealth around) and encourage people at the same time to buy private insurance for a tax credit (that must come from someone's pocket to pay for it) that pays for approximately half the insurance. What good does that do the 46 million currently uninsured because they can't afford good insurance and those who's insurance doesn't begin to cover the cost of medical care? McCain's answer, is to throw yours and my money at the problem and hopes that takes care of the matter. At one time, the Dems were ranted at for doing the same thing.

Then in the Spokesman-Review, we have the rantings of George A. Bratina who declares that Obama can't fix the human condition and explains how... Well, is Mr. Bratina anti-abortion? Then he, along with McCain/Palin think they can fix the human condition. Did Mr. Bratina ever listen closely to McCain saying how he can personally bring about the force of gvt to get Wall Street and America started all over again. After decrying Obama saying much the same thing. And finally, on CNN, someone finally declares what no one else publicly would have said, that the matters of private enterprise, inclusive of Wall Street are not under McCain's control, he can't do anything about its failures or successes. If McCain wanted to run for the private sector, then he should have left office years before and done just that. In Bratina's case, wrong target. Don Graham could have substituted McCain's own economic plans and come up with the same answer. McCain also has questionable associations and an equally questionable record. One that he often questions himself. And apparently, Paul G. Swanson seems to think it is a good idea if gvt under a McCain administration provides "economic fairness," but not under Obama, who's ideas of economic fairness are so much bread and circuses.

Quite frankly, I fail to find anything conservative about McCain, or less gvt is the answer in any of the above letters.

It should be breaking news...

2008-10-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

Oil Companies intent on destroying McCain campaign.

It was reported on CNN this morning that oil refineries here in the U.S. are considering shutting down production in a number of refineries because the cost of buying the crude has now equaled the cost of producing the gas which currently is running at about $2.66 a gallon. The oil companies are doing this in order to raise the cost of gas, just as about a week before, OPEC decided to cut production in order to keep up the cost of oil. CNN tells us all this without going further into the implications.

What after all did the high price of gas do for you anyway? Like trying to sell that gas guzzling Hummer that no one was prepared to take off your hands for a song? Increasing the cost of stamps, shipping packages, for the U.S. Postal Service. Doing a number on state and county budgets. Having to decide on a limited budget whether you want that gallon of milk today that cost as much as that gallon of gas. Gas prices that closed businesses and cost jobs. People who turned to buying in record numbers, environmentally friendly cars. People who took to riding bikes and walking more. Yes, the lack of demand drove down prices. So now, against all Economics 101 reason, OPEC and U.S. Oil companies want to shut down production to increase prices. What will that accomplish? Besides reducing demand even more as people look for ways to not have to pay those burdensome prices.

Along comes McCain, who promises that corporate tax rate of 25%. He says that high taxes cripple businesses and cost jobs. Back during the oil shock days just prior to businesses starting to collapse under their own weight of greed, like Countrywide, people were staring at the price at the pump and the last thing on their minds was taxes. The business interests that shut their doors because of literally an energy crisis, they weren't thinking in terms of taxes either. Could they afford the high cost of electricity, the gas to fuel the rigs for transportation? Could truckers make a living when half of their expected paycheck would go into filling an 18 wheeler. Taxes weren't an issue a few months ago when Obama started talking about green energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Of creating fuel efficient cars here in this country that would ultimately eliminate our need for oil at all. On the other hand, when the energy crisis was something that McCain was able to exploit, "drill here and drill now" was the mantra. But we all know, don't we that as people turned to conservation out of practical need to survive what the energy crisis was creating, a lower demand for oil and drilling here and drilling now would become too costly for what it would be worth to extract it. As oil prices dropped, McCain dropped that mantra from his campaign playbook. On the other hand, Obama talking about oil prices being "too high," oushed again for green technology. Well, now between OPEC and the U.S. Oil companies, there is an added incentive for Obama to not only be elected but also to push green technology.

Now I am going to have to wonder if he will in turn drop his 25% tax pledge to corporations that were fully intent on driving smaller businesses into the ground because of incessent greed. That, or lose heavily to Obama.

Embellishing his record

2008-10-24T21:55:00.001-07:00

He's a young Lieutenant sitting in his plane on the flight deck of the U.S.S Enterprise, ready to bomb a target in Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis. We came this close, so Senator McCain claims better than 40 years later, to a nuclear war. He was "tested" while sitting on that flight deck, waiting for orders to carry out a bombing run. But the bombing run was never carried out. What Senator McCain neglects to mention, was that negotiations between Kennedy and Kruschev kept a nuclear war from happening. There is no question that McCain was tested as a member of the U. S. Military. He was tested as a POW in Vietnam. But at no time in his life was he tested in the diplomatic arena as a member of the U.S. Military or as a member of U.S. Senate. Beyond engaging in the usual congressional junkets, visiting the troops or foreign leaders, does not provide a sufficient presidential resume no matter how long you served in Congress. No matter what Cal Thomas has to say about it. What McCain also neglects to mention, that Obama probably has better diplomatic skills than he by having been a community organizer. I also fail to to find much "tested leadership" when the McCain campaign jeeringly dismissed community organizational skills, apparently having no idea how tough a job that can be. A leader would sit down and learn a few things before being dismissive of something he is ignorant of. So how would that translate on the world stage?

In truth, it has been debated that Senators even have what it takes to be president. Which McCain likely understands that very well. Which is why McCain seems to run against his own Senate career before running on it.

When even Alex Castellanos wants McCain to have a consistent big message, to address big issues. Rather than reduce his campaign to the petty and the small. Then there is no question, that if and should McCain loses the election, he will have only himself to blame.

Defining Socialism

2008-10-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

On CNN today, CNN Newsroom anchors turned to Karl Marx to find out what Socialism happened to be. By no means does it fit the current GOP definitions of socialism as applied to Senator Obama. But it does apply to the750 billion dollar bailout and how Paulson and Bernanke intend to apply it. And it also applies to what McCain wants to do with those toxic mortgages. So, with that thought in mind, I could only watch with hilarity the so called GOP African-American doofus on the Rick Sanchez portion of the Newsroom postulating a "socialism" based on taxes as a redistribution of wealth. Then let us take a good long look at what that "redistribution of wealth" would comprise:

If you are in the military, then those tax dollars support you.
If you have a military or other form of government contract, then those tax dollars support you.
If you are a state that has a degree of dependence on federal largess, inclusive of the State of Alaska, then you can be sure that there will be a redistribution of wealth.
If you hold a federal or state or even a county office, then those tax dollars support you.
If you are a staffer or an appointee of said office holders, then those tax dollars support you.
If you as a business interest are seeking subsidies or tax breaks, then someone must pay the taxes to support the subsidy or tax break. Then such a subsidy or tax break is a redistribution of wealth.

Sarah Palin says that she is against all this. Does she have any understanding at all of what she is saying? I don't think so.

Tax vouchers for private and religious schools are a redistribution of wealth.
An increase of the child tax credit to $7,000.00 is a redistribution of wealth.
A 25% tax rate is a redistribution of wealth.
Buying up those toxic mortgages is a redistribution of wealth.
Continuing the war in Iraq even as that gvt increases its personal wealth without paying toward an improved security for its own citizens or putting together a military that can operate independently of the U.S. Military, is a redistribution of wealth.
Aiding any foreign country for what ever reason, is a redistribution of wealth.
Earmarks are a redistribution of wealth, no matter which politician, inclusive of McCain, supports them.
Any federal aid toward any special interest group is a redistribution of wealth, regardless of political ideology.

Which begs the question of whether the African-American McCain supporter even knew what he was talking about.

Socialism=government control or ownership. McCain wants to buy up those toxic mortgages on the behalf, so he says, of home owners. Government now owns those mortgages and has effectively nationalized home ownership. What McCain has not said, is what are the consequences of this form of altruism. He has not said, and the non-thinkers in his campaign aren't about to challenge him. After all, McCain is offering a free ride. McCain as the other Democrat, anyone?

Hysteria on the campaign trail.

2008-10-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

When you wade into A Matter of Opinion, there is at least one hysterical type who constantly posts there. The fellow who goes on and on and on and on and on and on about Senator Obama. He refers to himself as "Bruce." With that sort of obsession, you really have to wonder what he fears? Then again, with his obvious hatred of all things Dem, had Senator Clinton gotten the nod, then he would have attacked her in much the same manner. And so I shall now turn to the Coeur d'Alene Press letters where Judy Eisses basically alludes to why she would prefer to have McCain in office because he meets her ideals. Fine. But he doesn't meet mine. His campaign doesn't meet mine. Basically a letter that suggests this is a person who will simply vote for the person she says she is in support of. Her letter is mercifully short. But not so, Bryant Bushling. Senator Obama who "thinks exactly like Professor Ayers" or even Jeremiah Wright, and therefore becomes that scary and alien other who can't possibly be "us." That is a serious message of hate. Hatred of a man, not just because he is a Democrat, but more personally, because of his associations. In that case, I would certainly have to argue, as I did to "Bruce" at A Matter of Opinion, about the fellow holding up the sign and refusing to believe that Obama was even American let alone a Christian. He spread hate with his statement, denies he does so, then attacks the CNN reporter. We have gone beyond polarization. We are now looking at thug politics. The sort of politics that ought to give honest to the Gods conservatives as much of a shudder of fear as any delicate liberal out there. This country is better than that.

So why the hysterical hatred anyway? We did not have a man known by his associations as a campaign issue until Senator Clinton and the news media sought to discredit that unknown Senator Obama with them. But now that this door is open, if we can hold a court of public opinion on whether a man is qualified for public office based solely on his associations, then no politician now out there would be qualified to run for office. Certainly to include GW Bush and Senator McCain. When you are a politician after all, the crowd you run with isn't going to be pristine or saintly. Never has been, never will be. That is why Palin's turning to who you pal around with as to whether you are even qualified for the office or not became the purest form of hypocrisy. How about that Alaskan secessionist movement? That wouldn't be relevant? Or as Gary Crooks was to remind even "Bruce," that Senator McCain actually praised a fellow by the name of G. Gordon Liddy who was prepared to do some terrible criminal acts on the behalf of President Nixon. McCain praising a convicted felon? Then I would definitely not want to go there on "guilt by association" as a campaign tactic, not when it can tar brush yourself as well. Since McCain and Palin stirred up that sort of hatred last week with all those "guilt by association" charges, McCain finally, and it was somewhat to his credit, dialled back on any more attacks of that sort. Because it can backfire, and the above describes exactly why. We are here to discuss the issues, and whether we agree with a candidate on his take of where he wants to take the country, or whether we disagree. Not name calling, not "guilt by association," the issues.

Larry King Live had at least one independent on board who said that he "trusted" McCain on the economy, national security, etc. Maybe he did. But, I'll disagree, because I have the sort of facts coming from McCain himself, whereby, I don't. Yeah, we could very well see a sort of "socialism" setting in as to what this country could face in the next four years. But, why would we prefer that "socialism" of Senator Obama over say the supposed "capitalism" of McCain? Among Anderson Cooper's 10 most wanted that helped to create a financial collapse in this nation, 1 Phil Gramm. And while his supply side economic theories had plenty of bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton; it was one of those "pro-business" deregulatory practices that GW saw no reason to overturn. And the banks, the mortgage industry, etc. from 2000 onward, were very happy to exploit it.

Why do new organizations that are obviously in support of McCain such as The American Issues Project prepared to point only to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, what both organizations did for Obama in campaign contributions, what no Democrat was prepared to do with either of them, and then with their collapse, the economy spirals into chaos. The problem with that was, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were near the end of major financial institutions to collapse, before the GW administration rang the alarm bell on the economy, and not the first. A point brought out by "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." The economy was spiralling into chaos long before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and GW as well as Senator McCain were in denial about that for months. Part of the facts, upon which to base an ad, but not all of the facts, and the ad becomes an act of libel. Thug politics. The facts don't matter and hysteria rules.

Locking up the bigot vote

2008-10-08T12:22:00.001-07:00

It was yesterday, Rick Sanchez was on CNN, the last hour of the Newsroom. There was a telling video of a McCain/Palin rally in which a county sheriff got up on stage yelled out Barack HUSSEIN Obama saluted the crowd, and soon after, the so called rally turned into a slug fest between Palin supporters and the news media, and the Palin supporters were shouting racial slurs. Shouldn't this shame an honest to goodness Conservative? Shouldn't this shame anyone who has supported the GOP big tent philosophy? Didn't the GOP hope to attract minorities to its base? Yet, the bigots were out in force yesterday, whipped up in a frothing mass of fury by Palin as attack ad trying to make Obama look like a terrorist owing solely to his sometimes associations of people with questionable histories. Then again, if anyone would like to recall the Carlyle group of which GW's father was a member, and among the Carlyle group was only the bin Laden family themselves... Then one way or another, GW has his own questionable associations. The bin Laden family could indeed make the Bush family "look like terrorists." Following Palin's logic. Even worse, McCain wants to succeed GW, right? John W. Dean wrote "Worse than Nixon" and "Conservatives without a conscious." I expect that Dean should know what he is talking about when it came to Nixon. And when he can say of G.W. that he is actually worse than his old boss, then, that is very telling. Dean himself informs his readers about the bin Laden and Bush connection to the Carlyle group. And while I'll assume that Bush the dad has since quit the membership; it may also have lay behind why the bin Laden family could leave the country soon after 9/11/2001 along with over a hundred other Saudi citizens. Even before (Vanity Fair) other domestic flights and international flights could resume, Saudi citizens including the bin Laden family, could leave the nation. Wouldn't that make GW far more iffy a prospect as president as opposed to now Professor Ayers serving on two educational boards with Obama. Or Ayers holding a coffee for Obama as he began campaigning for the Illinois state legislature. Amazingly enough, the GOP never took to task GW for letting the family of a terrorist leave the nation, nor took to task a president who wanted to shelter Saudi Arabia from any accountability for having 15 of the 19 hijackers calling Saudi Arabia home. Yet, Obama as a child, who had nothing to do with Ayers' radicalism, and only meets him after he becomes a college professor, can be "known by the company he keeps." That being so, then the same stain and soiling should be applied to Palin: Alaskan secessionist movement, extremist anti-abortionists, McCain: Keating 5 as they seem to think should be applied to Obama.

I only saw highlights of the debate last night after I got home from work. I saw highlights from the debate this morning when I turned on CNN. Here was a telling argument from McCain, a man who "stands on his record" after he spent the last several weeks, especially after the Republican convention, literally running from it. Must be why the "voter impressions" of John McCain didn't budge before last night's debate or afterwards. But the voter impression of Obama did, and into even more positive territory. What does that say? McCain expressed pure loathing for Obama last night. When it came to an energy policy that GW wanted pushed through Congress, who voted for it? "That one." Not Senator Obama, not Barack H. Obama. Let us not actually recognize that he is a fellow politician who is also running for the highest office in the land, he is "that one" who voted for this "loathsome" energy policy (not me). Well, for such an energy policy to have gained passage into law, it would have required Democratic support. Now how would it have gained Democratic support if in fact there weren't Republicans reaching across the aisle to get that support? Suddenly, McCain is no longer that bipartisan uniter as he had proclaimed himself to be not so long ago. Now he is a partisan who can't be bothered with even naming his opponent. Instead of McCain or Palin asking, who is the real Barack Obama, McCain should set the "straight talk express" back on its wheels and inform people about who is in fact the real John McCain. We aren't that many weeks from an election folks. And while the post debate analysts were more than happy to not probe too deeply a major flaw in McCain's character, yet it was still glaring, and of far further concern than the company Barack Obama ever kept in the past. A presidential candidate who refers to his opponent, on the same stage with him as "that one," is a bigot down to the bottom of his soul. And yes, without a doubt, his "base" will comprise bigots just like him. Didn't we have a black period in this nation where bigots did run amok? Do we need another?

On "A Matter of Opinion," a Spokesman-Review blog, "Margaret" a commenter was informed of a Palin rally turned ugly. She was prepared to argue that bigots don't speak for conservatives. Sounds like a good idea. But neither should conservatives talk an ugly mouth toward supporters of an opposing ticket and at the same time try to paint that opposing ticket as "the scary other." Because of who the man is: Obama. Or even because of who his father was: A Kenyan. To put it bluntly, the company one keeps wasn't really an election year issue until a credible African-American began running for president. Then it became an issue for Senator Clinton, just as (plagiarism here) it has now become a campaign issue for McCain/Palin. Well then, what about the company that Christ kept? Didn't he work among sinners? Didn't he save a prostitute from getting stoned to death? Didn't he keep company with the poor and the sick, the demented? If Christ were running for president as a Democrat, then the company he kept would be an issue. Worse, because he represents a minority, a Jew. Right?

Yesterday, we saw the bigot vote make a violent appearance. We saw its characterization in how McCain treated his opponent. Now we see another aspect of the bigot vote, Palin telling a protester that her son was serving in Iraq right now so that he could be free to protest. My response to the snarky little bitch (and I stand by that) I served in Germany during the Cold War so that she could come out on the campaign trail and politically exploit her son's service in Iraq. Obama doesn't have family members in Iraq. But by contrast, there were hecklers in the crowd that started to boo him, his supporters started to shout them down, and Obama reminded all present that everyone is entitled to their opinions because this was after all a democracy. There were no more boos from the hecklers right after that. Too bad that Palin forgot what sort of country she is running for the veep spot of.

The bailout passes and the market still tanks.

2008-10-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

Post the Biden/Palin matchup which incidentally polls show that Biden won, the House of Representatives went on to debate the bailout package and passed this time by an overwhelming margin. I expect it was the fear of God from a lousy jobs report, around another 1500 thousand more jobs were lost in September. But, until 10 days ago, when job losses had been reported over the last year, GW Bush wasn't prepared to hit the panic button and call Congress into action. Instead, between himself and Paulson, McCain and etc., GW kept insisting that even though we faced "challenging times," the fundamentals of our economy remained strong. Now we have a train wreck, and GW wants and finally gets a bail out package. On PBS which hosts such news as Washington Week and the News hour with Jim Lehrer, it was revealed that when GW had indeed hit the panic button, it was already far too late. Yeah, and McCain is trying to run a campaign in a GW produced disaster of far-reaching implications.

Biden and Palin debate: I have seen clips of the debate now on the above shows mentioned. Palin working on the "folksie" type of approach that better connects with middle America. Yep, you betcha, ain't. I go on a blog such as Huckleberries online or even A Matter of Opinion, I may indeed say, yep, you betcha, ain't. But then I am in the company of commenters and bloggers who use the same language. On the world stage, I think I would need to make my case in something other than "winking a lot" or using words that convey an ignorant sort of hick. I would want to show my best in my use of correct language. Instead of yep, yes. Instead of you betcha, I would produce before the listener/viewer that I had some command of the English language. While the reporters and spin doctors were politely spinning that well Palin made no major gaffes and that she exceeded expectations, uh, she had a less favorable review post the debate than she had before. The one called: Not qualified to be a veep or president. Right, the gaffe was in how she conducted herself. During the debate she challenged Joe Biden as a guy who should not look back when it came to the past 8 years of the GW administration. Oh? But Palin resorts to history herself when trying to convey her best lines. Gwen Ifill in this moment advised the hypocrisy on the part of Palin. Gaffe compiling on gaffe. None the less, despite Palin's failure to impress beyond a narrow base, McCain laughed and nearly hooted that he felt real sorry for his good friend Joe. On the presumption or perception that Palin had mopped the floor with Biden. Not according to the post debate polls. But only McCain would engage in an absolute lie.

The bail out: CNN discussed how McCain was on some kind of victory lap that finally, Congress had pulled something out of its ass and passed this thing. Again on Washington Week, one of the reporters noted that McCain had lost some core Republican support. He suspends his campaign, goes to Washington, "brings the Republicans together" who then go on to buck the original legislation... And what the reporter reveals, McCain had not followed through. McCain had not followed through! That vindicates previous blog posts that McCain was just using this bail out package for his own personal political gain.

McCain ad, he resorts to the use of Iraq, which the American electorate is thoroughly tired of, and uses the American troops to attack Obama. Never mind that in the last few months, many U.S. troops are having a change of opinion about Obama. Because of one reason: I am sure that they are getting sick and tired of multiple rotations, stop loss, and extended tours. Reference Palin telling Biden that he is raising the white flag of surrender for wanting to end the war. Don't you just love the meaningless platitudes? We have a worn out military, we are suffering some trillions of dollars in debt, we depend on enemy countries to finance our heavy spending. At some point, we need to reprioritize what our expenditures must be if we are to get our country economically strong again. That isn't just jobs, but also a rotting infrastructure. And Al Qaeda needn't lift a finger if a bridge collapses again in Somewhere, Any state, USA and kills dozens of people. No, we have no money to fix it. This is our problem. Yes, we should look back as the recent history must be a lesson for the future. This is my response to McCain's ridiculous ad: McCain, provides utterly ridiculous ads, approves of lying a lot and can't say anything constructive. So on the above news shows mentioned, McCain is expected to return to "character issues." To hit Obama on a lack of character. When it comes to "character" McCain is just as challenged on character as he accuses his opponent of being. Read above.

The stock market initially rose on reports of the House voting on the bail out package. Then it tanked. How about that. Now, the same gvt these business interests came running to in a panic for help, can't even trust the help they are supposed to receive in the months ahead. Or was it the jobs report. Palin v Biden, Palin making the argument that taxes can only kill jobs. We had a recent "tax cut" of 600 dollars to "stimulate the economy." Looks like the economy shed more jobs despite this last round of GW tax cuts; which leads to Obama targeting Palin with a strong hammer hand as of this morning. That he hoped she turned on the TV and learned about the latest round of job losses. Yeah, PBS, they showed that. What did tax cuts ever do to keep the economy strong? Or banks and insurance companies from tanking? Or mortgage industries such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac becoming nationalized? Add to that lowered interest rates, the dollar bottoming out, and then writers of letters to the editor informing us of what happened when back in 1929 and what Woodrow Wilson signed onto. However, if this is a repeat of 1929, do recall that the Democrats are not in charge of making policy. The blame for this solely lies with GW Bush. No matter what the spin machine in the S-R Roundtable try to argue otherwise. And the next president will have a helluva mess to clean up. Worse than GW had to clean up after Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky? Adultery is petty compared to what this country is facing right now. Don't we all wish that GW had that intern waiting in the wings after all.

One wild political ride

2008-09-30T18:53:00.001-07:00

David Broder was republished in the Spokesman-Review and literally spinning Senator McCain post debate as some sort of "Alpha male" next to Senator Obama by implication as subservient. I guess that Broder forgot to mention the fact that Jim Lehrer, moderator of last Friday's debate, informed the two presidential candidates that they needed to engage one another. This Senator McCain chose not to do. Instead, he addressed his audience as though he stood in front of a campaign rally, talked about his opponent as though he were not in fact in the same room, and delivered attack lines and campaign ads. If this is how he is prepared to treat his opponent in a debate, consider how he would regard the rest of the nation, with the same level of contempt. That isn't "alpha male." And no, this is not what we want in a president. Considering that this is what we got from a fellow who treated the U.S. Constitution with contempt, the little guy with contempt, etc. Too bad that Broder could not bring himself to call a spade a spade.

So, come Monday morning, McCain is out on the hustings patting himself on the back at how he had rode in like some white knight and literally rescued the bailout package from the jaws of death. Actually, when he rode in on his white horse, the deal that was in the works fell apart. He hammered Obama as a guy who "monitored everything" and sat on the sidelines and did nothing. »Roland Martin appearing in "The Situation Room" hammered back at McCain as inserting himself into a situation where he was neither wanted or needed (and making a fool of himself) and trying to "do the job that was actually up to the House leadership to take care of. Senator Obama did the right thing by only picking up the phone and calling in to find out how the bail out plan was progressing, he did not "insert himself" into the political process because he had far more respect for his fellow members of Congress than apparently Senator McCain did. They were doing their jobs, McCain did not. And while McCain was out on the hustings busting loose on Obama, the bail out package was being brought to a floor vote. When the final tally was over, House GOP over 130 odd against and McCain: 0. Tuesday. I was at work this morning and so did not have the occasion to have some clue about where we stood today after a day of panic hit Wall Street yesterday. The DOW had plunged some 777 points. Today it had rallied some 500 points. Which I thought was good. But for McCain, he was facing the ultimate embarrassment. Which of course, failure of accountability here, he took some vicious swipes at Obama and afterwards, engaged in a furious attack on the entire Congress. It was postulated that McCain was trying to draw independent voters. However, it looked more like McCain was spitting fire because his own party had not of course conceded to his wishes. And publicly made the man look like a fool. If this is how he is going to act on the campaign trail, trying to exploit a bad situation for scoring political points, then getting served up a heaping helping of s$#t from his own party. Then I would have to say, the man got exactly what he deserved. But, he doesn't deserve to be president. So the press love to laugh at Biden's gaffes, but McCain is a gaffe. Too reckless by half. He is a decade older than GW who engaged in some utterly reckless behavior. McCain should be regarded as old enough to know better. Given how much he hammered that point home during the debate. Uh huh, and acting if possible, more irresponsible than GW himself. So, do we want McCain's itchy trigger finger too near the nuke buttons? GOP critics of McCain, (http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo re a commentary thread) felt otherwise. As of today, 30 September 2008, not only do we know that McCain is running away from his own history, he is running against his own party. You really can't blame the Democrats for a political cover your own ass in an election year decision by the House GOP. Who for the sake of keeping their Congressional seats, started spouting an anti-business as a special interest mantra. That is just the most comedic situation of the last 2 days to add at least some graveyard levity to what could otherwise be a catastrophic situation.

Watching "The Situation Room" hosted by John King, Alli Velcci (sic?) was describing for the viewing audience just how much the financial industry now suffering a melt down was intricately connected to your company and your job. I also saw spin from an apologist that no, no, no this was not a Wall Street bail out. Aren't financial institutions part of Wall Street? Yes, yes, yes. Didn't Congress give them plenty of rope to run amok, make what would become toxic loans and mortgages? Yes, yes, yes. Did the investors during trading days start flipping out when banks and investment firms started collapsing? Yes, yes, yes. And when the bail out package went down on a House floor vote, who was it who flipped out and caused the Dow to plunge over 700 points? Wall Street investors. So, let me get this straight; banks and other lending and financial institutions make some screwy deals because they want to get rich. The CEOs aren't satisfied with being multimillionaires, they want to be really rich. Then the house of cards starts collapsing under this weight of greed, there is no question whom the GW administration wants to protect: Wall Street. As the financial guru of CNN was prepared to put it, no bail out means the credit spigot just dries up. There goes the loans for your payroll, loans for your inventory, etc. Okay, since the biggest chunk of the payroll goes to those CEOs, here's a suggestion:

They should immediately take out all monies that they have squirreled away in off-shore accounts.
Beyond what they immediately need for keeping a car on the road, a modest house to live in, a stipend to send their kids to the local community college, a cheap car to drive, groceries bought at bargain stores, clothes perfectly useful bought at thrift shops.
And return the vast majority of their wealth to their struggling businesses in order to meet the payroll, secure loans, etc.

Why not?

Two views on the bailout

2008-09-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

David Broder was fairly more delightful and somewhat more balanced in his editorial about the bailout package that is being proposed by Paulson and company. He managed to take a sharp jab at GW that after 8 years of what can only be described as failed foreign and domestic policies, GW didn't want to put his imprimatur on this particular package. Then I will guess that Broder's column must have appeared about a day earlier than GW's speech of last night in which he was indeed prepared to put his imprimatur on the bailout. I will suppose, engaging in hysteria about what must surely happen if the bailout did not go through. I did not see the speech, I was down at the Kootenai County Farmer's Market. Well, Broder emptied both barrels on the Congress that doesn't wish to make trouble, but shot more particularly at the Democrats as opposed to the GOP. Never mind that the GOP lined up with GW over some major issues in order to score political points on the Dems. Then lead the charge of "do nothing Congress." So, at that point of a balanced editorial, Broder started losing his bearings. The final argument of how both McCain and Obama being creatures of Congress...

Takes me to a Huckleberries online blog post where we debated McCain suspending his campaign so that he can work out the mess of a financial bailout in Washington, DC. McCain is definitely a creature of Congress if he suddenly decides that being president is less important than throwing his 26 year weight around on Capitol Hill. But both he and Obama, while "creatures of Congress" are also running to succeed disaster president, GW. Leadership coming from McCain would not be to abandon his campaign so that he can be a "creature of Congress" all over again; but rather, to debate Obama on the scheduled dates and contrast his own plans for the country as opposed to that of his opponent. And I highly doubt, from the bailout package as originally proposed by Paulson and Bernanke would have "put the country first." Obama's "four principles" did. Do I think that what McCain did, to scurry back to Washington, DC and cancel his appointment with Dave Letterman was a stunt? Yeah. To encourage his presidential opponent to work out a bail out package that was initially more beneficial to Wall Street greed than Main street need? Why not just debate that, instead? McCain wanted to score political points off his opponent. His polls are tanking. So he becomes a "creature of Congress" all over again, putting himself ahead of country. Pat me on the back because I did all of this. Yeah, right. Does McCain want to be a leader of the nation? Then he should be debating Obama and proving why he is qualified.

On the other hand, David Sarasohn minces no words. He has no problem detailing why we got into this financial mess in the first place. His editorial appeared in the Thursday, 25 edition of the Spokesman-Review and speaks very well on its own as a detailed account. So, I truly have nothing more to add to what Sarasohn said. But it does bring up something interesting about the McCain campaign up to the point of yesterday. We all know how McCain liked to attack Obama and complain about his Dem opponent. I'd even like to say that McCain does a lot of projecting. (Same thing that GW did in 2004.) What ever he would accuse Obama of, you can be sure that McCain was there first and making those very market-based legislative mistakes. What Sarasohn pointed to, McCain "creature of Congress" that he is, mostly went along with. Obama was not in Congress for long enough to have baggage equal to that of McCain. Sarasohn's editorial was far more newsworthy than Broder's. ♥

The Market Meltdown

2008-09-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that in the political fall out of the Wall Street meltdown that McCain has suddenly decided that he is running against Washington, or in charge of Congress, or indeed, thinking he is already president. So that he "encourages" Congress to pass a plan to strictly benefit Wall Street, the way Henry Paulson originally wanted it. On the other hand, the Democrats aren't so sure that giving a blank check and a free rein to the same Wall Street firms that are currently going belly up without over sight, is such a good idea. And Senator Obama had himself made the argument that Main street could use a helping hand. Was McCain thinking in terms of Main Street when he lashed out at Obama this Monday morning? No. Obama was suddenly everything that had ever gone wrong on Wall Street, everything that could prove problematic in the Washington culture of corruption... Problem is, Obama hasn't been in Washington, D.C. for long enough to be that greatly influenced or to influence. That is, he is a Junior Senator from Illinois. Seeing a McCain ad, Obama has any number of guilt by associations even when that would be quite a stretch. CNN challenged in particular the McCain ad that made these claims. For a change, and it is a positive change, they did call into question the short falls of the McCain campaign. That was more than they had done in all of 2004 and 2006. As for the "guilt with association" with Tony Rezko, CNN admits that the developer wasn't under investigation when he sold some land to Obama. Trying to create a retroactive problem for Obama through an ad that leaves out all mitigating factors, well, it is more than negative. It is asking the voter to become judge, jury and executioner of one's opponent. It is also saying that McCain is very worried that he will not make it to the White House despite Palin. So, he flails, jabs and fails to be presidential. Nor does he speak the truth, nor are his ads "straight talk." Whereby Donna Brazile challenged McCain on "immigration reform" who once praised Obama (in the Senate) for the positions he took on the issue and has (for the purpose of the campaign trail) since denounced him. That does sound like a fellow who jumps mindlessly on every bandwagon trying to get votes. The ultimate in pander politics. But we all know where McCain stood on immigration reform, don't we? Illegal aliens should attain citizenship, "guest workers" should take American jobs. That's not being for the working class, is it now?

Cafferty files, McCain owns 13 cars and should that be a big issue. My answer is yes, it is just as important as any other issue on this campaign. McCain can afford, because of his rich wife to gas up and use 13 cars. I can't afford to gas up my gas friendly Isuzu on the price of gas these days. Yet another revelation of "elitism." Any time McCain says how "elitist" Obama is, thinking about those cars and houses McCain has, that looks like a case of projection. Cafferty acknowledges, that Obama has only one. Looks more and more like Obama is far more Joe Sixpack than McCain will ever be.

McCain, you are no outsider

2008-09-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

I was listening to McCain's speech on CNN today. One of his arguments regarding our current economic crisis is that businesses were taxed second highest in the world. Oh, compared to when? By the time of the Reagan revolution, businesses were paying upward of 90% in taxes. Businesses were managing to be quite profitable despite high taxes and were also technological leaders. After Reagan began subscribing to supply-side economics, the tax rates were reduced to 35%. The tax rates for those of lower income were actually increased. Senator McCain was certainly in office when supply side economics were being implemented. He didn't exactly oppose the lowered taxes on businesses as "too high" at the time. But, he does now. He was also part of the deregulation mania that caused mergers of businesses and bankruptcies, junk bonds and ultimately S&L bailouts.

You would think that after 26 years in the Senate, McCain would have learned something. Especially as it involved the S&L fiasco. No actually, as confirmed by Robert Scheer and CNN McCain continued to support the sort of economic philosophy that has now led to our current financial mess. Would that be an apt description of insanity? McCain on the campaign trail ranting about the greed and corruption on Wall Street, but wishing to fuel greed and corruption by reducing corporate taxes. Oh, and during the time of reduced corporate taxes, we also saw global trade that included outsourcing of American jobs. McCain in the Senate said nothing about it. But the Democrats most certainly had. McCain on the campaign trail now sounds exactly the same "socialist" theme that the Democrats were once accused of, "the common good," "the public interest." Attacks Obama for once having on his campaign staff a former CEO of Freddie Mac. But guess what CEO was on his own staff and said that McCain could not run a business. McCain on Obama, that he was gaming the system. McCain's 26 years in Congress, he is already an old hand at doing so.

One last issue. McCain promises all of these tax cuts to working families. He plans on raising tax credits to parents of young children upwards of 7,000 dollars. Where will he get the money to put working families on welfare? I know that right now, we are suffering from a massive deficit as much as we are facing an economic crises. McCain's supply-side plans are totally out of touch with reality.

Two views of the McCain/Palin ticket

2008-09-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

When readers attack or praise Linda P. Campbell for what she has to say about Governor Palin, then maybe she is doing something right as a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. When one reader sends an e-mail informing Campbell that she is an "ugly hag" who is just jealous because Palin is a beautiful woman, well now, that may be why more men than women are prepared to vote for her at all, Palin is beautiful. But, so? Or if Campbell's readership gets heartburn when the columnist addresses how Mom Palin would juggle work and family as Vice President, I guess they forgot that they raised the first qualification of Palin as veep because she is a mom first. But from what I have seen of Palin supporters in the Spokesman-Review Roundtable, none of them have seen fit to ask the sort of questions that Campbell does ask, such as health care, views on Supreme Court Justices, tie breaking votes. Or even reducing the national deficit, what would we do about energy independence and leaving the environment cleaner.

It was on CNN that we learned how Sarah Palin governed Alaska, first by cutting taxes. Yeah, all kinds of taxes: property tax, no income tax. Which must be why she left the town of Wasilla in the red and even further, hired a lobbying firm to get all those earmarks. You bet she can be considered popular, seems you can buy popularity if you hand out a lot of dough. That came courtesy of the windfall profit tax. And when she raised sales taxes, it was to buy a sports arena that as CNN reports, is still in the red. She has been described as a "fiscal hawk." Oh? Then those surrogates who'd offer that sort of description have some strange ideas of what they mean by a "fiscal conservative." Not when Alaska got some of my tax dollars for all of her earmarks. A "fiscal conservative" would at least argue the need for the state and its government to have some self-sufficiency, especially if you are now opposed to earmarks. Correct that Palin began cutting earmarks, but that she had not eliminated them altogether. That should tell you something.

On the same day, an "Outside View" that had to do with Senator McCain, the Air Force procurement of tankers—Boeing v EAD, Boeing that was legally investigated for possible snafus in the procurement matter that led to a CEO and an Air Force officer facing imprisonment. While McCain's supporters have lauded McCain's "maverick" approach to bucking the party or bucking American special interests, McCain, at least according to the editorial first published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was actually acting on the behalf of EAD. In short, McCain's campaign staff that is or was composed of lobbyists, some of whom acted on the behalf of EAD, shall we say that those lobbyists persuaded McCain to think globally against an American business and American workers when it came to the Air Force procuring new tankers?

McCain expressing outrage over the melt down of Lehman Bros and demanding, demanding that we must have the sort of legislation in place to regulate what should never have happened in the first place. Senator Obama on McCain, what he happened to not do was to help insure that what happened to Lehman Bros, need not have happened in the first place. That is, support legislation that would have halted the abuse of subprime mortgages, etc. that has since broken the back on our ownership society. According to Obama, McCain did not support any such legislation. Nor did McCain while in the Senate support regulation of the financial markets. That seems to go hand in hand with the above editorial. McCain, maverick? Only if you take his record out of context.

When a woman speaks

2008-09-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Karen Heller wrote what I believe to be the most delightful of editorials, considering that she wasn't overly impressed with McCain's pick of Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Nor was she overly impressed with the reaction of women to McCain's pick of Governor Palin to be his running mate. Or McCain himself. Excerpts:

Many women, and the men vying for women's attention, are too busy assailing or defending the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

That's entirely correct. We in the blogosphere certainly are. But at times I feel I defend Palin as well. If she is such an accomplished woman, that is one thing that McCain should take into consideration. And factually, he does not. His ads demonstrate that he does not. His uproar over "lipstick on a pig" proves that he does not. His need to have his nominee coached on what to say to Charles Gibson merely provides further evidence that he does not. So, the off-hand chance that Palin did become veep? Would that be on the order of glorified secretary? She brings coffee into McCain's office then goes back out to take care of the paperwork while the more qualified cabinet take care of their meetings without her? Yeah, McCain gives that impression.

Like the alpha girls of junior high, women are dwelling on Palin's looks, her children, her voice. Her story has become the hit drama of the new fall season.

Should it come as a major surprise that McCain would pick a real pretty woman? Not necessarily the most competent, but certainly as beautiful as he can find them. Same thing with Cindy McCain. Well, then I guess other women will now dwell on her looks. That is, Barbie doll looks. With reference to "The Inlander" her story is about all she does have going for her. She can field dress a caribou, she is a mother, she runs a business, she became a mayor that scoped out all the earmarks she could find... Her story, that the GOP were careful to play out in the rosiest hues possible. Even when it wasn't possible. And Palin herself made that "she's a mom" would have national attention. Not only with a Downs Syndrome baby, but also a pregnant out of wedlock teen.

After their speed date, John McCain selected Sarah Palin not due to experience or compatability, but because she's the woman who completes him.

I know where Heller goes with this, about the fact that McCain is elderly, irreligious. But I can also think of another line, Palin's ability to corner the market on religious extremism. Even when there is no real proof that Palin governs from a religious extremism agenda. If McCain wanted to corner the market on religious extremism, then he could have picked any number of pastors or even the sons of pastors. Which makes the argument that religious women, now gah gah over Palin, if they took another look at her "religious credentials" may find her to be no more religious in the willingness to govern that way than McCain himself. That being the case, how quickly would the religious activists sour on McCain/Palin? My take on both, I don't give a flying hoot what they believe, it is how they act, publicly or privately that determines whether I vote GOP or Dem. And from what I have found from both McCain/Palin, is that neither of them truly have a sense of principles. He flip flops, she may have helped kill the bridge to nowhere, but she did keep the money. She didn't exactly say no thank you while extracting the dough from my wallet.

Palin also bestows on McCain the embittered evangelical far right, the electoral gluttons who almost sat out a cycle but whose needs apparently must be served in every general election before those of everyone else.

McCain made the theme of his convention, service and putting country first. I expect that is defined as... Keller stated above. There is McCain's country, the religious special interests, and then there is the rest of us. And finally:

The battle this engenders among women underscores, despite hollow bromides to the contrary, how few have reached the upper echelons of politics. To attack Palin, McCain's camp argues, is to attack all women, rather than say, these Republicans.

On the other hand, to attack Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, is not to attack all women. Only those who are Democrat. Only those who are in Congress. Only those who have the legislative agenda the rest of us may disagree with. You would think that Sarah Palin had just taken on the reincarnation of Mother Mary. Unlike other politicians, Palin must be completely protected from the normal hoi polloi of political life. Ever hear of idol worship? By the way, from Palin's record, she ain't pure or a saint. And that should say a great deal about the lack of moral principles among the religious activists.

Gary Crooks devoted an entire "Smart Bombs" to the McCain/Palin ticket. I'd definitely have to say that Crooks managed to establish himself as a journalist, better than Lou Dobbs when he established that earmark spending (porcine spending) is 16.9 billion for all of 2008. We spend a billion a day in Iraq. Out of such earmark spending in which McCain takes great pains to target some GOP, definitely Dems and in particular Obama, placed in a matter of perspective, 16.9 billion is a comparative drop in the bucket to gvt expenditures elsewhere.

Mr. Crooks also pointed out an earmark not on McCain's list: "We do know some of the earmarks that irritate McCain, because he keeps a list. Oddly, the $10 million he requested for the William Rehnquist center to commemorate the former chief justice and fellow Arizonan is not on the list." Proceeds to put a lie to McCain's claim that he opposed earmarks so much... Well, except for the now late Justice William Rehnquist. Sounds like the taxpayers were out a pretty penny for a center devoted to a fellow who loved shredding the U.S. Constitution and past laws passed by Congress and signed into existence by presidents. Uh, I am not likely to visit such a center that my tax dollars paid for any time soon. I also feel it was a pure waste of my money. I am sure that a Rehnquist center could more easily have come into existence on purely personal donations. The equivalent of the much mocked studying of dairy herds, right?

Gary Crooks appears weekly in the Spokesman-Review. Heller is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer republished Saturday, 13 September 2008.

If there was a hypocritical moment...

2008-09-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

Reading the letters to the editor that the Spokesman-Review publishes can get sometimes very hilarious. Since Sarah Palin became McCain's choice of running mate, there have been inevitably broadsides against McCain's choice and of course whining about how that is so unfair coming from the other side. Or, how Palin is "frightening" everyone. From Anita Perry:

Palin critique hypocritical
Liberal columnist Froma Harrop's editorial ("Palin's politics drag down ticket," Sep. 5)was a window into the state of fear now rampant among the left as she unleashed her train of venom against Sarah Palin.

Pardon me, but no one was exactly arguing a "state of fear" of say Senator Barack H. Obama as many an author of letters to the editors, editorials, blogs, commenters unleashed a "train of venom" in his direction. Pardon me point 2. but if the batch of crap that can be dished out for a presidential candidate because he happens to be a junior Senator, African-American and a Democrat, well, then the Republican Veep choice can definitely get the same treatment. Agreed?

Continuing on with this interesting letter:

First, describing Palin's daughter as "looking stupid and defiant as she held mom's fifth baby" at the convention and then inexplicably calling the whole family "dysfunctional," she also questions Palin as a mother because she went right back to work after having her latest baby.

You will note that earlier in the letter this same author was shrilly calling Harrop liberal? I can't think of anything more liberal than agreeing it is quite all right to resume the affairs of state after having a Downs Syndrome baby. Any other mother would take some time to stay with her child, that is why we have family leave. And yes I would actually question mom at this time. So, turning the reins over to say a Lt. Governor would surely not break the state of Alaska, would it? Which makes the argument right there that I highly doubt Palin "as a mom" even relates to most working moms. She doesn't have time for Trig. Being a governor is too important. Most women, esp. if they had a special needs child, would put that child first.

As an example of a perfect mother of five, she points to Nancy Pelosi, who "waited until (her children) were grown before she ran for high public office." (There is a reason for that, of course, because generally people don't become a lobbyist before age 21.)

With an implied argument of nepotism. Which says a lot about how much Ms. Perry knows about the workings of Washington, DC? A son of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice can easily find his way into the GW administration, then applies a broad "morals" brush on any network that shows a flash of a "Wardrobe malfunction." And ultimately, the fines the very same dude seeks to impose, in the millions of dollars, gets overturned on appeal. Oh, but you see, now we are discussing the GOP, can't have that!

Ms. Perry's letter concludes with a whine about name calling of "conservatives" by the left. Uh, and the self-described "conservatives" have done plenty of name calling. If you can't take it, don't dish it out. "...or decrying the fact that a 17 year old had premarital sex." Excuse me? The Anita Perrys of this world had no problem decrying the fact that 17 year old kids had premarital sex. Only because Palin is a GOP Governor, now that discussion should be off limits.

I have more fun now with the newly minted feminists and liberals among the GOP than I ever did before. And here is the last zinger. Palin is basically lauded as some sort of super woman. As a woman who can relate to moms everywhere. Oh? Given Perry's argument, Palin does not now and never will relate to moms everywhere. Because most moms, when facing the facts of a sick kid, would have seen to that child's needs. Most moms, when facing a consequence indeed an embarrassment of a pregnant 17 year old kid, would not choose to exploit that child to some political advantage. Yeah? Conservative, huh? Try going over the top new left radical.

What David Brooks does not mention

2008-09-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

Having seen the latest episode of "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" I watched with particular interest two particular highlights of this news and talk show. One of them was a debate between a GOP pollster and that of a Democrat, and of course Mark Sheilds and David Brooks. The GOP pollster wasted no time gushing over the "change" McCain would bring to Washington and the Democrat, on the other hand, was trying to discuss what issues mattered most.

What David Brooks could accomplish was to count McCain's accomplishments as a "maverick" on the fingers of one hand. In a 25 year history, that doesn't sound like much of a track record for a maverick.

Continuing on, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" was on for a Friday night Special. Well, it seems the GOP nominee for president doesn't much sound like he would bring "Change to Washington" if he sounds like he is plagiarizing GW's 2000 nominating convention speech. When Stewart played soundbites of Comedy Central's own version of "McCain's biography" McCain was seeing flip flopping on Iraq, about perceiving no difficulties in our taking out a brutal regime, years later, we always knew there would be difficulties... One cam certainly hope that McCain did not just happen to watch that particular segment or that could be a real embarrassment. Especially when he bases his entire premise of why he would be a better Commander in Chief when it comes to Iraq. Well, that would be all right if he didn't change his mind on the subject as often as Senator Kerry was accused to have done by 2004. We perceive no difficulties... We had always anticipated the difficulties... So, McCain on the campaign trail forgets McCain of 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and even 2008. He likes to harp on "the surge." How much "the surge" proved to be a success. But how long did it take for McCain of say 2002 to recognize that by 2005 we had a serious problem in Iraq? Only slightly less time than GW from 2003 and on the campaign trail was trying to paint a rosy picture about Iraq, "We're turning the corner." And only agreeing to a "surge" when the American body count reached staggering proportions. The point about McCain was that he wasn't bucking the party or going against GW when say Cheney argued that the insurgents were in their last throes. ...some years later... Or when Rumsfeld argued that democracies were messy. ...some years later... Or even when now Sec. of State Condi Rice was telling us all about the birthpangs of democracy. ...some years later. McCain did begin describing "whack a mole" as a military strategy being employed by the Pentagon under Rumsfeld of chasing insurgents and terrorists around the Iraqi countryside. Only after he expressed his frustration, then and only then did he call for a surge. How long did it take for GW to pay attention? At least another few months and up to a year. If McCain was so "right," at the time then it wasn't the "defeatocrats" who can be blamed for why the surge didn't take place in a timely manner, it was GW himself. GW managed to cost a lot more American lives by delaying the surge. So, if the Democrats were skeptical about the merits of such a strategy, I surely could not blame them. But McCain would rather blame Obama. Obama is the only person in the Senate who just "wouldn't support the troops." Obama was the only one who wanted to cut off funding. Actually, Obama was only one of many Democrats who sought to bring an end to the war. Only
one of many Democrats who sought to force a cut off of funding in order to bring the war to a close. And McCain was one of many Republicans who filibustered or blocked any such Dem efforts. In short, McCain wasn't prepared to buck his party when it came to Iraq or to go against GW. Even when Americans polled began to increasingly turn against the war. McCain was "right" about the surge even when he acted like a weathervane to keep himself aligned with shifting GW positions. So, given his past video filed comments how right was he?

It was kind of funny to watch McCain literally aping GW in quite telling sound bites that variated only a little from what GW himself had said. A "change agent" if you can't tell the difference between GW and McCain? How about that. A change agent if McCain doesn't employ an original thought in his own nominating speech? So here would be a suggestion for the Dems populating HBO, link this blog and send it on to the Dem National HQ. Obama could simply ressurect the same video files that compare GW and McCain. That would be a great campaign ad, wouldn't it?

It also puts a real question mark on Sarah Palin's own talking points on McCain. McCain flipping and flopping on Iraq entirely in tune with the GW administration and their surrogates. If he could do that in the Senate, then what position will he take on Iraq tommorrow that only undercuts what he said previously? Make that McCain a "maverick" who bucks his own previous positions. Yep, that is what Brooks missed.

As seen on Huckleberries on-line

2008-09-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

Huckleberries online featured the latest noise about Sarah Palin and most certainly her daughter Bristol. Indeed, the posts at HBO got hot and heavy at TuBob's rather snarky post concerning how the GOP has been very willing to portray Sarah Palin. Well, the GOP were very prepared to portray Governor Palin in exactly the way that TuBob was describing. While the McCain supporters were whining and gnashing their teeth over TuBob's portrayal that they were quickly forgetting what was after all only on the news. And while crying that Palin was being made a victim of some kind of liberal attack dog in force, well, there is this little problem that the GOP did set up this target with the full intent that it would be shot at.

Yes, I put in my 2¢ worth, I was more than happy to respond to Bristol's Pregnancy threatens campaign. The Big Blog that Dave Oliveria reposted from a news source in Seattle, where the commenter in this case disclosed just how "conservatives" and "liberals" had switched roles when it came to Bristol's pregnancy. And of course, Idaho Values Alliance truly "inspired" by the fact that Bristol would be keeping her baby and marrying her boyfriend. But on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," seems the comedian had his audience in stitches and laughing hysterically in the aisles. Why? All he had to do was show us a Karl Rove in support of an obscure Gov. Palin as opposed to his dismissive attitude toward another governor, a Dem, head of a more populace state. Karl Rove v Rove. Those who appeared specifically on Fox News who played sexism to the hilt. That is, as long it involved a Dem candidate for president. On the other hand, we don't do sexist comments as long as it is a GOP veep in waiting. "The liberal attack dogs" have nothing on the double standard and two faced ideology of the GOP. And yes, actually, just because Palin owned a business, was a mayor and then a Governor for the last two years, should be a concern to anyone thinking about voting McCain/Palin. Proximity to Russia doesn't give you foreign policy experience. Visiting troops in Kuwait, or Iraq doesn't give you commander in chief qualities. Making trade deals with countries that have already received federal approval does not make you an international expert on business or the American economy. Any governor can do those things, as can any member of Congress.

While the GOP were trumpeting how much "executive experience" Palin has between being Mayor and Governor of (a sparsely populated) state as opposed to Obama or even Biden. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer made a challenging point about McCain having no executive experience himself. So, does that mean that McCain should be number 2 on the ticket and Palin number 1? Palin did not run a national campaign. Also on CNN, was a post Palin discussion of Palin making this "fantastic" and "impassionate" speech that was none the less a canned play to the base speech. And from what I understand, engaged in the typical retreads that had been heard for months. Whether a McCain ad, or McCain on the campaign trail, or people posting blogs, or people commenting to blogs. But today, "it was tough and fantastic." Or "dripping with sarcasm." What it also was, is a lie. Palin, what part of the speech I heard of where she spoke of being "proud of her country," she also happened to have a guilt by association with the Alaskan Independence Movement that wanted Alaska to be an independent nation. If you are "proud of your country" you would not join such a movement nor would you encourage your husband to join such a movement, nor would you desire any sort of association with such a movement.

Before heading to the Wednesday Farmer's Market in downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I watched some of Wolf Blitzer's afternoon talk show where Bill Bennett a morals crusader who shrugged off Palin's guilt by association with the seccessionist movement. And quotes that Blitzer put on on his board, how "irrelevent" Palin's association with such a radical movement was. But on the other hand, Ayers could be the useful tool to slap Obama across the face that because of an old friendship Obama has a guilt by association with a terrorist. By that logic, GW holds hands with Saudi leaders, who support extremist Islamic sects from which come terrorists, GW has a guilt by association with ...terrorists. But of course, Bennett won't discuss that.

On Larry King, seeing some clips just now of Sarah Palin taking hard attacks at Senator Obama while borrowing from Senator Clinton. Or shall we say, plagarizing Senator Clinton. What you say to people in Scranton one day while they are listening and something else in San Francisco another day, when presumably they don't. It wasn't the GOP who made claim to that victimology as political tool, it was Senator Clinton! If I were Clinton, I'd sue.

Jonah Goldberg, when political derision matters more

2008-09-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

I saw Goldberg's latest republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial. If there was a word for his latest editorial, "troll" would be it. I know for myself, that I have worked for a good percentage of my life, at least 30 years or more. And what have I got to show for it? I don't have my own home and can't afford to rent. One of the reasons was, that housing prices shot sky-high as people got greedy over the idea of homes being so valuable that they became a second source of income. But for people such as myself, they became impossible to afford. No bank is going to lend money to someone who makes 12,000 a year, but maybe an unscrupulous subprime lender would. Not that I got embroiled in such a mess, thank the Gods. And yes, I would love having the sort of income that even at my age that I could in fact afford a home of my own. Wishful thinking. Which brings to mind this question: From what source did Goldberg get the idea that the economy grew 3.2% last quarter? Maybe 3.2% last quarter of last year! But this year in particular, the housing crisis was even worse than last year. New housing starts are reduced even in the Inland Northwest now and gas prices have forced businesses even in the Inland Northwest to shut their doors. Then I guess that would depend on "who's economy" grew?

Phil Gramm derisively treated the current recession as "mental only" and Americans had become a nation of whiners. Then I guess that is where Goldberg gets his view of the world. From Gramm himself. The recession doesn't exist, even though people appeared on CNN during the Dem National Convention and complained about Senator Obama not being "specific enough" about the foreclosures hitting the state of Florida particularly hard. If that is not a sign of recession, then I quite frankly wouldn't know what was.

Apparently, Goldberg doesn't believe that Obama and Biden can actually get out of a motorcade and interview people in trouble. They do. In order to have a real sense of what woes people are going through. So what ever circles Goldberg is running in, I expect it is not in the circles of ordinary people who face job losses for a variety of reasons, loss of wages based on the company they work for preserving its profits, loss of benefits because those benefits now prove too spendy for the company to stay in the black. And the ripple effect gets spread elsewhere...

The Heritage Foundation is utterly opposed to a bill that would unionize America, precisely, pitting American labor against those oh so poor struggling businesses. The Heritage Foundation blatantly made a distinction between the American workforce and the American consumer. There is none. You can't become a consumer without money in your pocket. You can't have money in your pocket unless you have a job. The business interests should bear in mind that continuing on a trajectory of us v them as supported by no less than the Heritage Foundation, means that their economy is going to go down in the dumps ultimately. If they don't hire an American work force, if they don't want to pay the American work force decent wages, neither will an American consumer exist. Personally, I don't agree with unions. I am not prepared to support reunionizing the work force. But I do understand why a desperate American work force would again begin to trend in that direction, or the Heritage Foundation wouldn't now be trembling in fear of the prospect. Even to distorting the intent of a founding father, Ben Franklin, I believe. It is out of self-protection.

Jonah Goldberg wonders if "American Idol" is on the minds of Americans these days. It isn't on my mind at anytime. I don't watch the show. Why would I care who was the best singer, dancer, etc.? I don't do "Reality game shows." No, who is to be the next president of the U.S. is my main concern. Obama is pro-choice. McCain is anti-abortion. I want Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who do not create a state religion. Something that Congress is not allowed to do. Therefore, this Republican votes for Obama. We need a new direction on handling world crises. In all of 8 years of the GW administration, we have seen that administration handle world crises, not at all well. McCain on the campaign trail is go along to get along. McCain on the campaign trail does not demonstrate a willingness to be a maverick. Therefore, I don't trust that McCain is capable of a new direction. We are a nation deeply mired in personal and national debt. Neither McCain or Obama have excellent arguments on how we dig our way back out of the red ink and toward fiscal prosperity. But Obama promises gvt that will be there for the common man. What does McCain promise? We already know that GW did not produce a gvt for the common man, but only for the special interests. And in the process, just how many times did he ultimately sell out this country while catering to the special interests? That is something that must guide my vote come November, it is why I won't vote Republican whenever possible.

Goldberg can wring his hands, cry crocodile tears and claim the Dems are engaging in political distortions of an economy that perhaps in his mind really exists. But for struggling homeowners, the workforce, the students, the poor, Goldberg's economy is not the one they see. If it exists, it isn't "trickling down" to them.

While watching PBS

2008-08-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

Of course, as expected, Senator John McCain picked his running mate right after the Democratic National Convention. It was intended, so the news media declared that his Veep pick would steal the thunder from Senator Obama. Really? I probably had more fun to day questioning McCain's particular wisdom in picking a complete unknown with a history that could prove a disaster. So let me take stock of the aftermath of the Dem convention and the prelude to the GOP Convention. While watching a bit of "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" I noted the fair and balanced approach "The News Hour" provided to Dem and GOP surrogates, apologists, what ever. The GOP surrogate who got trotted out to hit shows like "The News Hour" sounded exactly like he hadn't actually listened to Obama's speech before passing judgment, and in the process, misrepresenting what Obama said. And was not challenged on any front by the "fair" people at "The News Hour." What Obama said, the Republicans expect you to pick yourself up by the bootstraps even when you have no bootstraps. You are on your own. The surrogate blather was not something that I can directly quote but the gist would be, that Obama sends a mixed message of expecting people to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and yet gvt will still take care of them. No, actually Obama did not say that.

Mark Shields and David Brooks, Mark Shields becomes the quintessential liberal here in trying to find a silver lining in a cloud of McCain's own making. That having Gov. Palin on board she will gain the Hillary vote. However, on CNN, the opposite happens to be the fact. David Brooks carping that Obama has turned to old partisan playbooks. If Obama had not come off as tough in his acceptance speech, if he had not chosen to whup McCain's butt, David Brooks would have turned on a dime and chastised him for wanting everything sunny with rainbows and flowers. Which definitely would suggest that there are those in the news media who'd never be satisfied with anything that Obama said or did.

After the initial round of Sheilds and Brooks, were those who commented on Obama pushing an agenda without discussing how it would be paid for. Certainly a legitimate question, but again no challenge, how would McCain pay for his particularly ambitious agendas? A matter of put Obama down without significantly building McCain up. Or of how Obama's speech disappointed. Well, I am sure when I write these blog posts that there are different ways in which I could express myself, but I am going to write from the heart. From what I could tell, Obama spoke from the heart. And that is exactly why he has managed to captivate large audiences everywhere. And by the way, no candidate for higher office is going to be long on specifics until they actually attain the office and have a full appreciation of what's ahead of them. Realistically, they can only provide broad outlines of a general plan. But now, there is shrill screaming that because Obama can only do that, lay out the broad outlines of a general plan that he is "all talk." There is nothing there. On the other hand, what McCain lays out as to a general plan is also highly unrealistic. Given the financial debt and how much we are in hock to foreign and not so friendly gvts. Could McCain any more readily pay for his tax cuts or a war in Iraq, or Iran? What would in reality be sacrificed? While there was a whining lady on "The News Hour" who complained about the high foreclosure rates in Florida and how Obama had not addressed them... But, has McCain addressed them so significantly that would make the lady any more ready to vote for him? From Obama's quoting McCain about what he assumed was "middle class," anyone who made less than 5 million a year. Huh, then I would guess that where my income stands at best at 12,000 a year with my little business and current job, I am middle class. Isn't that heartening. McCain is married to a rich heiress, he doesn't have to worry about a home foreclosure in the foreseeable future. He also has the perks that come from having been in Congress, no the fellow is well set up, he doesn't have to worry about a thing. So, at no time did the whiner and the detractor take stock of anything like this. McCain has no more "executive experience" than does Obama. And he has picked as a Veep someone with a very thin resume on executive experience.

This is not a matter of "hate Palin and McCain" as some whiners on Huckleberries online proclaimed. There is a very serious issue here and one that any reasoning Republican should actually be prepared to confront and not try to explain away or dismiss. Palin is a woman, Palin is very attractive. And while Palin has some executive experience as Mayor and Governor, she was never a heart beat away of having to assume the monumental task of trying to run a country that according to McCain (echoing GW) is fundementally sound economically, it isn't. And trying to carry on an agenda that McCain would have set in motion should he be president, one that would cost money that we no longer have. Trying to do so if McCain was actually no longer able to assume the duties of President. And given McCain's health problems, at any time that he became president, he might not be able to assume those duties. McCain had better picks. And if there were folks that would have to hold their noses at such picks (reference Adam's blog linked to at HBO.)
Well then, on the "stupid ratio" that Adam had given it, then there were better people McCain could have run with and having far more experience and certainly better prepared to take over the reins if McCain keeled over. But as seen later on Bill Moyer's Journal, the Editor of "The Nation" regarded McCain's pick of Palin as ...cynical. That, even though I am a conservative (read moderate and cautious) Republican, says it all. McCain wants to sew up both the women and Evangelical vote. Even though his own track record and that of Palin's is contrary to what women would now deem the most important.

And of course, remniscient of the "I feel your pain" that the GOP once derided in Bill Clinton, she is a working Mom, she knows exactly what working parents go through. Uh huh. She is Governor, with a special needs infant, she also has something as Governor that working parents in general don't, the special perks and priviledges that come with being a politician. She has no idea, from such an elevated position, what working parents go through. Her job takes care of both her and the Downs Syndrome Baby, Trig. But given the track record of the GOP, working families struggle more with special needs kids. So, I highly doubt that Palin feels their pain. Bryan Fischer then, being "inspired" by such a choice of GOP Veep, who lauds the fact that Palin would not abort a Downs Syndrome Baby. Forgets one thing, that society is still reluctant to lend a helping hand to the handicapped. If Palin were a single mother and without options, not having a federal handout to take care of a child who would be crippled at birth, would she in fact have regarded abortion as not an option? The fact that she had her financial cards in order, says a great deal about how it would be easier to bear such a child because she would not suffer financially for doing so. Not to say that this would be true of any other woman. Esp. any other woman who didn't happen to be fairly wealthy and or a politician besides.

The GOP lame response on Larry King

2008-08-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

Taunt rattle and roar. I am listening to the various GOP being highly dismissive of the Dems. The America I know, thunders one, that doesn't expect gvt to take care of me from cradle to grave. Is that a fact? But gvt can take care of fetuses, correct? Business interests, correct? Religious activists, correct? That is the America that is the reality. So gvt shouldn't expect to feed and clothe everyone. But gvt does produce the regulations that governs quality products. Precisely, the drugs safe to use, the food safe to eat, the toys safe to play with, the pet food safe enough for the pets to eat. The car that falls apart on you within a short time of its being driven off the lot is not a quality product. I would definitely argue that there is a parallel reality between the GOP and the Dems at this stage, the GOP are in continuous denial that even they want lots and lots of government.

Gvt should not feed and clothe its citizens, but it can and should spy on them. Gvt should not be in the business of educating its citizens but it can however pass the costs of war (with tax cuts) to the children and grand children. Gvt should not act on the behalf of ordinary citizens facing home foreclosures but it can act on the behalf of mortgage lenders who ran amok in the field of real estate. It should not provide health care or health insurance. But it provides heavy subsidies through the form of "reformed" Medicare to the pharm and insurance companies. And what was the prospect of the GOP in Congress who first appeared on Larry King Live voted for more gvt as long as it assisted their variety of special interests?

Gvt, according to one GOP in ardent denial, was only expected to provide temporary measures during the great depression when it came to such things as Social Security. In short, those of us not born in that time of hardship, but facing one today, should be denied that safety net called Social Security because it should have been a temporary measure during the 1930s. But the GOP in denial, you can be sure he expects to have a pension and other perks for being a politician. He is guaranteed to not be denied. Well now, perhaps we should inform the guy, that he should enter political service totally on the minimum wage, $7.00 per hour. He should hold a second job just so that he can pay his own way in Washington, D.C. He should not expect to get franking privileges because of how that costs way too much money. He should not expect the taxpayers to foot the bill for his travel, that is his minimum wage salary should get him on board a commercial jet to get him to his home district at set times of the year. If he doesn't have the money to travel, too bad. After all, too much gvt starts with members of Congress voting in the hundreds of thousands, taxpaid for payraises each year. Bet you won't see a GOP member of Congress making the argument that he can do with a lot less money. That his personal wealth prior to his entering Congress is enough to see him through however long he serves in his term of office, whether 2 years or 6 years. No, he loves the taxpaid for payraises as much as does anyone else.

Then on Larry King Live, was a Roman Catholic woman who supported Hillary Clinton, whining about being "abused" by the Obama camp, even being "abused" on the blogosphere. Wow. I have my very sharp disagreements with Senator Clinton, because of how she ran a particularly nasty campaign. At the same time, I am not, as a Republican, a member of the Obama camp. And no, Obama does not have to earn the whiner's vote. She needs to grow up.

And finally, the particularly lame discussion of how "independent" Senator McCain happened to be. Well now isn't that interesting? There is no doubt about Senator McCain's voting record in which a large percentage of the time, yes actually he did support GW completely. So much so, that he angered the GOP who disagreed utterly with GW's liberalism on No Child Left Behind, Immigration reform, etc. McCain deemed a "maverick" when bucking his own party over earmarks, or the McCain/Feingold bill that reduced PAC money in political campaigns. But on the campaign trail, McCain expresses a 100% go along to get along. There is in fact no independence in thinking what so ever. What he has done as a Senator is polls apart from what he is doing now as a presidential candidate. Again, GOP in denial about the facts.

Obama's wisest choice.

2008-08-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

Since the weekend, we all know now who Obama's veep choice is. Indeed a Dem talking head on CNN had already spilled the beans that it would be Joe Biden. I am going to leave it to the political analists as to what they think Senator Biden would bring to an Obama presidency. For myself, I know what Senator Clinton would not have brought to an Obama presidency. The least of which is that baggage called Bill Clinton. So, while there are Hillary supporters out there who are undoubtedly disappointed by Obama's choice, Senator Biden is already recognized for being a good hard fisted campaigner who will be more than happy to take on Senator McCain.

Just now on CNN, the news staff there proclaims that McCain has kept the focus on Senator Obama. Well, he wouldn't be quite so successful in "keeping the focus on Senator Obama," if in fact the news media, most specifically CNN wasn't doing a lot to help him. At the same time, CNN doesn't choose to give McCain the same scrutiny and that is one reason why McCain is now dead even in the polls. How about that?

DOW dropped over 200 points today. Gas prices have also dropped due to decreased demand. The Home crisis in this ownership society continues to have a dismal report. No light at the end of this tunnel as of yet. And GW's own polls, dismal. Where McCain rushes to succeed GW as the next president, I expect it wouldn't do to have to acknowledge the fact that he seeks to replace a man with whom he has agreed with 95% of the time, if you believe at least what the Dems themselves have said about McCain. We are talking about a 95% approval rating with a man who now has a 2/3rds majority who dissapproves of his overall job performance. You can be sure that the news media, esp. CNN don't care to probe too deeply into McCain's own history of go along to get along. Even when GW's own policies began successfully dividing the GOP and turning them against one another. McCain wants to be prez. He will pander and go along to get along to get to that office. But would he be a successful leader on day one?

While McCain flipped out at Obama stating it bluntly that McCain deliberately painted him as that scary other. McCain did in fact attempt to paint Obama as that scary other. I definitely have far more distrust of McCain at this point, his failure to demonstrate accountability and responsibility for his own campaign, than I do for Obama. And that is despite his past associations with Wright, Ayers, and etc.

Yeah, Biden brings a lot of weight and gravitas to an Obama candidacy. Better than Hillary.

At the fair

2008-08-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

Having the afternoon off from work, I decided to get some bills paid, shopping done and then visit the fair. I viewed what I had submitted for exhibits and from what I could tell, I had won mostly red and white ribbons, no blues. Still, not a bad showing for all of that. What I found interesting, while wandering around and dodging the square dancers and then getting a bite or two down at the food court, were little boys running around with "Indian headbands" and Bill Sali written in front. How about that, little boys who can play at cowboys and Indians and promote Bill Sali for Congress at the same time. I wasn't really sure what to make of that. But I thought it was a bit ludicrous.

Lou Dobbs, I watched him a bit before heading out the door and getting the bills paid. He was harping about all of the lobbyists and corporations who were handing out money toward the respective Dem and GOP conventions hand over fist. How about that? Probably been happening for years. The various corporations and their paid lobbyists have probably been donating to various presidential conventions for the simple reason that they want to get a foot in the door of the next administration. Mr. Dobbs would certainly have a very good reason to have whined about such a thing in 2000 and again in 2004. Well no, he spent his time hosting people who complained about Al Gore and John Kerry. He only produces a pox on both their houses when speaking derisively of McCain and Obama as agents of change or reform but who still allow corporations and lobbyists to foot the bill for the conventions themselves. So who would he have foot the bill for the conventions in Denver and etc.? The convention attendees — whoops! LOL! Which includes of course lobbyists and corporations.

Also on CNN, McCain making political hay out of Obama's over seas trip. Just how many people on the CNN staff bothered to remember that McCain wanted Obama to travel over seas? Give it a space of a few weeks and apparently, not very many chose to. Seems that they loved the idea that McCain could use the rave reviews that Obama drew among the Europeans to an advantage. Really? After 8 years of GW getting the protest vote, and you would think that it would be a refreshing change that Europeans could actually fall in love with an American politician. Then again, McCain couldn't seem to stand the idea that Obama could get a European fan club and for himself, jars of killer applesauce went on the rampage and almost tripped him up. And so, McCain ends up acting like a bratty two year old and of course gets his poll numbers up on par with Obama. Ain't politics amazing? Or is it just as possible that CNN and other poll takers decided to change whom they polled in order to get McCain's polls on par with that of Obama? For anyone who wasn't polled by CNN, etc. I expect they are plenty disgusted by McCain's antics.

The Lou Dobbs problem

2008-08-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

While I was getting ready to submit my latest entries to the fair, which included baked goods and a gift basket, I had the occasion for watching CNN. Among the questions of the hour posed by Jack Cafferty included whether the news media was biased in favor of Senator Obama. What Cafferty also related was that much of the news media coverage of Obama had in fact been tough, IE negative. Yes, to include Lou Dobbs show as well as "Anderson Cooper 360." However, when it came Dobbs turn to cover the same issue, he covered one newspaper, The Washington Post and generalized from the WP admission of giving Obama front page coverage that the news media was itself in the tank for Obama. However, Dobbs did not bother saying whether the WP had given Obama consistent positive coverage or not. Which would put him in the category of being highly biased as well as unbalanced and misleading in his own reporting.

One of Cafferty's e-mails was from a respondent regarding how important it would be to cover McCain more thoroughly, to include his gaffs, flip flops and etc. Speaking of, did McCain pad his POW resume with a "cross in the dirt" story between himself and a Viet Cong captor? I really don't believe there were ever at any time that many Christians among the Vietnamese considering that they were mostly Buddhists. Or Communists. A Viet Cong captor would be highly unlikely to draw a "cross in the dirt" on McCain's behalf. Which would beg the question of were this story really supposed to be true, then McCain didn't know the first thing about his captors with whom he spent as a prisoner for some 5 or more years. From AOL news, did McCain make up such a story; I'd have to argue that he did. So we would have to assume that McCain said what he did to "impress his audience." But that doesn't make him more qualified, or experienced or having better judgment if he proceeds to lift a story from some book and makes it his own. That is called plagiarism and the last politician to borrow like that also got into hot water on a political level. Well, CNN did cover it, as they did not really cover McCain trolling for votes among bikers. Yeah, McCain isn't covered as thoroughly as Obama, yet McCain whines and attacks that he isn't. He should be happy that his less than straight talk remarks don't get more exposure or analysis. Nor was McCain in an isolated room waiting his turn to talk to his base at Saddleback Church, being instead in a motorcade... Cafferty had no problem questioning why McCain wasn't already at the church. Indeed, despite McCain's and his campaign staff's attempts to deny it, McCain could easily have switched on a radio or had other means of gaining access to Obama's answers to the questions posed. Or why leave when he did for the church, instead of arriving at the same time as Obama and being escorted to an isolated room to wait his turn? But Dobbs did.

Indeed, Dobbs brought on his show Tony Perkins and a Roman Catholic priest, both of whom pretty much sing from the same page on the abortion issue. No, not Perkins' ideological opposite, no minister who may hold a different view on abortion from that of the priest... Even though such people could likely be found. Either Dobbs was uninterested or simply too lazy. He wanted to "stick it to" Obama as it concerned the "Faith & Values" forum. And so, he selected two people who could give Obama varying but generally snarky comments about Obama's comment that discussing when life begins was above his pay grade. I guess Dobbs, Perkins, as well as the priest don't spend much time taking a close look at their respective bibles.

Deuteronomy itself details that before a chosen people can truly have their lives for themselves and their descendents, they must first be righteous. The Old Testament prophets fully detailed what fates were in store for a chosen people and their children once they rebelled against God. The churches go by a scripture that is in Psalms, I believe regarding God who "knows you" long before your mother did. Which makes it interesting, to say the least, God "knows you" and then has you spontaneously aborted because of the sins of the father. Or dashed to death, or carved out of the mother's womb. Or in the case of Jeremiah, a sword should have made his mother's womb his tomb. How about Job? A fellow who decided that being still born was better than the current suffering that he endured. McCain's crisp and clear answers that life begins at conception is as devoid of a biblical basis as is any church doctrine on the same subject. The bible itself renders the argument highly murky. And because of that, it would indeed be well beyond anyone's pay grade to make that sort of presumption. But leave it to the church to presume on the basis of a scripture in Psalms to tell God his business. And the religious activists on the message boards at AOL to further taunt Obama for being truthful. Which also puts them in the singular bind that if they can't stand now the man running for president, for any number of rationales, especially some terribly ludicrous and hysterical ones, then why are they opposed to abortion? If not Obama, then some other child who was lucky enough to survive pregnancy, grew up, entered the Senate and decided to run for president, as a Democrat. Basically, they mocked their own doctrine as well as Christ's teachings of love and what hatred meant... the same as murder. And because Obama isn't a white man, he was attacked specifically as a fellah hating all of white America. Which sounds like a case of projection, that the "white America" that won't vote for Obama because of his name and skin color just happens to be bigoted. I saw no family values at the AOL forums, nor any sense of Christian among those posting. Just pure hate. But you see, God knew Obama before his birth and what he was destined to be. Which puts the same bigots in the hypocritical bind of their own making concerning the fellah they don't want for president and why. But not "pro-life" by any stretch of the imagination.

McCain's "crisp clear answers" on the abortion issue didn't take into consideration the hash the religious activists at AOL proceeded to make of it as they used the blogs to smear and attack, again and again. How very disgusting. I'd have to say that when "life begins" is definitely above their pay grades too, given the mockery they make of their canons. Dobbs couldn't be bothered to have a real debate on this. Or he might have gotten an earful. Dobbs whining about Obama has been particularly consistent, it is just a matter of on who's behalf he will whine. First, Clinton, and now that poor, poor guy, McCain. Who's worst mistakes really aren't covered at all.

I don't think I understand Kathleen Parker

2008-08-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

Ms Parker appearing yet again in the Spokesman-Review opinion page. Was she amazed? Gushing? Was she appalled? Fearful? It was an editorial about the Olympic celebrations held in Beijing. The 2,008 drummers who beat in perfect timing... Yeah, when you are a communist dictatorship, you can make that kind of demand. Just as you can make a demand that a pretty little stand-in mime to a song sang by someone who is outright ugly. We want to impress our guests with our discipline and power. Quite frankly, it might be "awe inspiring" but I sure wouldn't act like I can't particularly find the appropriate words to express about the limits of communism in China today. IE, their lack of honesty. IE, their unwillingness to recognize that everyone is an individual. And yes, given the Olympic ceremonies, what little I saw indirectly, I am more inclined to regard the Chinese with their precision drummers as rather akin to goose stepping Nazis. On the other hand...

I have to wonder if after 8 years of GW, if Parker was primed to gush at those 2,008 drummers and consider the limits of a "messy democracy." You know, we can't possibly have 2,008 disciplined drummers because of dissent and etc. Why not? You give anyone an incentive in a democracy to show up a dictatorship that they don't like, and they'll do it in spades. I'd consider what China has done to guarantee a lack of dissent before making the argument what a lack of dissent and discipline has created in those 2,008 drummers beating their drums in perfect time. If you don't, do you go to jail for failure? She could have written her editorial that way. Instead, I heard every essence of liberalism on display with a country that we may have a "capitalistic" truce with, but is in no way, our friend.

Some things the news media should not cover

2008-08-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

At times, I do have to disagree with Leonard Pitts, jr. And that involves the idea that the news media ought to be some kind of self-described "morals police" while seeking the latest salacious angle in what can be called tabloid style journalism. To recap why President Bill Clinton had to humiliate himself in front of the nation by confessing to an affair with a young intern, is because the GOP had decided that misdemeanors like adultery could now be placed on the level of federal offenses. What Pitts forgets about the Clinton supporters, is that they aren't that stupid. They recognize that just because a state law decides that adultery is a crime, doesn't mean that it is a crime to afflict the national interest. A president afflicting damage on the U.S. Constitution causes far more concern for the national interest than a young intern as a mistress to a president. A president that puts the special interests ahead of national interests, that results in lead poison in imported toys, or for that matter, e Coli in the food you eat, that is far more a matter of concern for the general public, than whether that president sowed wild oats in his younger years. Which begs the argument of what priorities the news media truly has.

Consider this, Senator McCain had affairs before divorcing his first wife. No doubt, he suffered a middle aged crisis and literally dumped his wife for a younger woman. He none the less ran for public office and was elected. The now late Helen Chenoweth, truly embarrassing in many ways to the state of Idaho, was a home wrecker. She ran for office, twice, was elected. The second time, to put another "home wrecker" out of office. Where it counts, the voters simply have not cared what the personal life of the politician is. What matters is whether the politician can deliver. So when Pitts made the argument that the politician, in this case, Edwards put his own interests ahead of his family, and therefore would he put his own interests ahead of the nation; ya just gotta ask, what has the last 8 years of GW been like? GW, presumably is faithfully married. But he definitely hasn't put the interests of the nation first. And Katrina had been a defining moment that proved just how little GW cared about his fellow Americans. On the other hand, Clinton, for all his daliances with Monica Lewinsky, was all over the first attack on the WTC. Set up counter-terrorism measures. And all the news media and the "family values" GOP could focus on was Paula Jones. Clinton, despite his flaws, came out of his presidency with a better smell test than GW is currently capable of. In short, Clinton delivered. GW hasn't to date.

Edwards is a private citizen. His presidential bid having failed, then a Monica waiting in the wings to derail a presidency is a moot issue. So why did it become a one day sensation? Why are respected to zany columnists and bloggers still prepared to cover something that no longer involves a public official. That's correct, John Edwards is a private not public official. His decisions to involve himself in an affair with Hunter is of concern only to his family and friends and not the nation. Joe Blow, your neighbor, who runs around on his wife, wouldn't even get such national attention, let alone national condemnation. And if Joe Blow decided to run for public office, his past activities might not rise up to haunt him, as long as he is promising something along the ideological front to whoever in his district. That is what is referred to as forgiveness. Or the least of the prospective voters' concerns.

What got to be so truly hillarious, was that the "family values" GOP, who on that ideological basis felt that they could drive out of office a man who failed to live up to his own marital requirements, have yet to drive out of office guys like Craig and Vitter. That while supporting "defense of marriage" all to often proved an unwillingness to defend their own. McCain proclaims that he is the better man for the U.S. presidency, who committed adultery, divorced and remarried. And then drages his younger wife before a biker rally and "jokes" that his wife should participate in a biker beauty contest. He doesn't even respect his current marriage. Yet, that had less coverage and fewer bloggers commenting than Edward's two year old affair. Why is that? McCain is a public figure, why is he getting such a free pass? McCain is running to head the nation, while trolling for votes at a biker rally, didn't he put his own interests ahead of respectability, looking presidential, and informing the nation that he knows what the hell he is doing as a prospective commander in chief. Yet, Pitts would rather discuss Edwards. Well then, if Edwards would have made a lousy president because of Hunter, then McCain is surely just as bad because of Cindy.

Where it concerns Georgia

2008-08-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

First leading off with Kathleen Parker, who for a change is dead on in her criticism of GW. In her "Peek inside Putin's mail box." But then goes off into a wild and derisive tangent about Obama, who's initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia was initially measured, but was most certainly in no way resembling what Ms. Parker claimed in her fictional editorial that he wrote. His second response was certainly as stern as that of McCain. afterwards, Parker really goes wild with the claim that McCain would make the argument to Putin, don't make me come over there... With what? That would be declared an empty bluff. And we already know how Putin proceeded to shrug off everything else that the U.S. gvt started making "tough statements" about. If not (The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer) turning around and attacking the U.S. on a foreign policy level vis a vis Georgia. Which makes the argument that you have to wonder just how much of the news does Ms. Parker pay attention to before she vents.

I have to disagree with Jack Cafferty, south Ossetia was part of Georgia's territory before pro-Russian gvt residents decided they wanted to take a sizable chunk out of Georgia and make it an "independent" state. What Georgia's gvt then tried to do to regain control of the breakaway "republic" became Moscow's excuse to kill thousands of mostly innocent civilians. No, Georgia did not start it. The pro-Russian peoples of South Ossetia did. To which Putin had given his blessings. Given the oil wealth that Russia has accumulated, Putin has rebuilt his country to the point that he can do more now than employ oil as blackmail against Europe, and any Eurasion country that wants to join NATO. That is what is scary, and Cafferty fully missed it.

Don't you just love it when the news media or those who write letters to the news media lambasting say the Democrats for "standing on principle" when it comes to drilling for oil? The Dems are in political trouble, so say some of the writers if they don't cave in to off-shore drilling. Then when they do compromise, they can be attacked again, by the news media itself, for listening to the people. Such as was heard on Lou Dobbs.

Now Broder wants a lovefest!?!

2008-08-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

Remember "My Fellow Americans?" That was when two former presidents found themselves banding together to survive post office assassination attempts. Indeed, the current president was behind those attempts at assassination. It was pretty funny throughout. Esp. when the straight-laced (GOP) ex-president was forced to march in a gay pride parade to keep his buns from getting wasted. That was the development of "mutual trust." When the movie ended, both former presidents were basically running a campaign of partnership.

You get that impression with David Broder's (republished to the Spokesman-Review) editorial. McCain clearly angry... Obama clearly angry... And Broder then begins describing throughout his column the need for "mutual trust." Why is that? Could it be that Broder is finally tired of the Karl Rove style negative campaigning that Senator McCain did put his imprimature on? The Karl Rove style speech that Senator McCain did indeed deliver against his African-American opponent, and when called on it by Obama, started whining that he wasn't a racist? That Obama was indeed playing the race card? Mutual trust, huh? McCain had a chance to do that months before. He didn't choose to follow up on the whole idea that "mutual trust" betwen him and his Dem opponent as even being possible. Instead, he went the route of dirty politics to make his poll numbers rise. So, why would McCain develop a public "mutual trust" of his opponent if it wasn't to his political advantage?

And finally, as though to keep the war going and assure that "mutual trust" would never be assured, Broder then makes the public announcement that the invitation (to Obama) that the townhall meetings were still open. No word on whether Obama would accept them when by September to October, we are going to be facing pre-November debates. A little late now to address townhall meetings and then get ready for those debates. At this point, Broder (on the behalf of McCain perhaps) is beating a dead horse.

In other news

John Edwards sexual infidelity seemed to have sparked a gleeful GOP to remind the voters of Idaho about Larry LaRocco's past sexual indiscretions. What has the one incident to do with the other? Yes, LaRocco is running for office. No, Edwards is not now seeking public office. Presumably, so some folks commenting on the subject at Huckleberries online declared that LaRocco got hit with a sexual discrimination lawsuit. That should have been enough to keep him from getting into office at this time. If so, if voters are supposed to have heartburn over any candidate who has personal moral failures, no one would be qualified to hold office. :) But just try to tell the self-righteous that. In the entire history of this nation, truly honorable and principled men have been a most uncommon lot in the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Presidency and even more local state, county and city offices. Corruption is not new. It didn't happen yesterday. And being seen in the company of a woman not your wife seems to have become a "perk" that comes with the job.

My take on the matter is this, the GOP wouldn't have said a word if it was one of their own. Nor have they been in a rush to remove anyone from their ranks, esp. in Congress, Larry Craig comes to mind, for less than proper sexual dalliances. They have made far more of a fuss over Democrats failing to toe the moral line. Only if the news media finally gets wind of the story and it becomes an immediate embarrassment (Foley and the intern story, Foley ultimately resigned) then they may make some play at facing the fact that they really aren't God's Own Party after all. But (and this is in Vitter's case), they aren't prepared to cast the sinner out. So, where can the GOP legitimately stand when it comes to reminding voters of Mr. LaRocco's past indiscretions? Just as easily, they can be reminded that sexual indiscretions can be made less relevant than GW's lack of response to Katrina, and the aftermath there of. Or the collapse of Enron that destroyed the pensions of thousands of its employees. Or GW's less than stellar foreign policy experience—because Russia has now invaded Georgia a western and U.S. ally. And what does GW propose to do about that? Uh, now that we have a weakened U.S. Military that neither he nor McCain wanted removed from Iraq because even though we had plenty of "victories" we hadn't yet won. Right, what can we do about something that could easily lead to World War III? Not very far sighted, when it comes to ideology.

McCain' retaliation?

2008-08-08T09:44:00.001-07:00

David Broder's latest republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial was truly revealing. McCain regrets all the negative campaigning. But on the Spokesman-Reviews blogs, such as A Matter of Opinion, McCain unveils a new ad that ostensibly attacks Obama over his tire guages that lead to energy independence, but the ad itself according to the actual date, that of 1990, involves a Bush energy conservation policy inclusive of inflating your tires. He may in personal conversation regret his negative campaigning. But I can think of one reason why, and has nothing to do with what Broder chose to make public: McCain's ads are as clumsy as his speech. They aren't put together well, tend to attack the wrong people, and can easily be misinterpreted. McCain should regret the sort of campaign team he has working for him. Wonder if they worked for Senator Kerry in 2004.

So Broder takes note of the fact that technically, Obama turned down 10 townhall meetings before carefully screened audiences. Essentially borrowing from GW's penchant to talk to no one who has hard questions for him. A "friendly audience" and to who's advantage? A smart man who recalls GW's record before any townhall meeting would greet with caution a repeat of such closed meetings (closed to the public that is) where only those preferred individuals could get in, ask maybe a soft ball question or two and generally engage in adoring adulations of their favored candidate... That to me would be a real bust. And why Broder chose not to probe, made his editorial a real bust. Obama was prepared to agree to two of them. McCain didn't like that. And since that time, whether Broder wishes to admit to it or not in so many words; his editorial none the less did. Because Obama wouldn't play by McCain's rules, McCain threw a tantrum and childishly lashed out.

Seems to me that McCain is the one in control of his own campaign. If he didn't want such childish and clumsy ads, he wouldn't have allowed them to be aired. If he wanted a campaign where he once said that he was all for sending a positive campaign and respecting his opponent, then he should have stuck to his original principles instead of flip flopping. Ultimately, Broder's problem isn't even with Obama, but with McCain.

While visiting WordPress.com

2008-08-06T23:11:00.001-07:00

I had just finished posting to blog at jeh15.wordpress.com. It was my reaction to Senator McCain making an utter fool of himself before a biker rally and yes, utterly humiliating his bravely smiling wife. Then, I decided to check out other blogs of interest and latched onto Texas Darlin. Seems the author comes up with some really, really kooky claims about Senator Barack Obama. The latest kooky claim is that Senator Obama has a forged birth certificate. When commenting about his particular claims, I took note of how quickly bloggers like himself were ready to trash Dan Rather over his bringing up GW's questionable Air National Guard history. To put it bluntly, they didn't want to believe a news anchor who'd trash their favorite personality cult leader, GW. So they trashed Dan Rather. Now, when it comes to 2008, they'll believe anything bad, as long as it involves a Dem Senator running for president. And even invent conspiracy theories concerning him, including it would seem a "forged birth certificate."

What was to follow, in the comments, seemed like an echo chamber of ranting hystericals or radicals. So, being the maverick and conservative Republican that I am, I threw some cold water on this hot bed of fabricating evil out of nothing. I have the privilege to not believe the people who on the one hand, believe sweetness and light about the "dear leader" (GW) and claim the devil when it comes to Senator Obama. Well excuse me, while it is likely true that Obama flips and flops. That his political career was probably never squeaky clean, he is still a man running for president. And the bloggers frothing with pure hatred about the man, may soon have to get used to the idea of his actually being president.

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I had been thinking off and on about this, something that had been briefly noted on CNN: McCain as president would immediately move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. It was at this time that it hit me, the abomination of Revelations. The abomination set up in the Temple, so "John" was prepared to write. Jerusalem is the home of two temples. One is Jewish, one is Islamic. And Israel is also host to a number of churches. Obama firmly hesitated on the whole idea of moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv. There was a valid reason why, the potential for increased conflict. So what did "John" mean by abomination in the temple? If "temple" means a holy city claimed by 3 beliefs, putting a cultural influence in that "Holy City" that was alien to all three beliefs and diametrically opposed to the idea that they might finally come to some peaceful conclusion that ultimately ends the strife and conflict between them. Well, an American Embassy in Jerusalem would not in fact promote peaceful solutions to ancient religious hatreds. That, would be an abomination. And McCain as president would personally start the end of times? Remember now, the U.S. is first and foremost a capitalist country. Secondly, religiously diverse. Thirdly, has a law that is based on secular premises. In all three points of fact, the U.S. is diametrically opposed to all things Middle Eastern. Senator Barack H. Obama might be equated with the devil according to some hate-filled bloggers, but he did not advise putting an "abomination" in the temple. But McCain point of fact, had.

Tire gauge McCain

2008-08-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

It wasn't all that long ago when gas prices were climbing out of sight, local TV channels started broadcasting ads concerning how to increase your gas mileage. That included properly inflated tires. But just because Senator Barack Obama mentions properly inflated tires to increase the fuel efficiency in your cars. McCain does the predictable, both mocking and distorting Obama's intentions. This he does by handing out tire gauges to anyone attending his campaign. And then makes the argument that tire gauges won't assure energy independence. Okay.

So if Obama can be ridiculed for picking up on "a well-maintained car can increase your gas mileage" and running with it, then that is a ridicule that should just as quickly be aimed at local KREM TV. After all, this is the channel I watch the most when say, I want to see CSI: Miami, for example. So, was McCain right to engage in ridicule? Or was he again engaging in out of touch politics? Well thank you for the free tire gauge fellah, now I'll be able to know whether my tires are going low on air. Don't want to wear out either the rims or the brakes with tires that run too flat. See, I don't think I can afford one otherwise given the poor state of the economy. But it looks like your campaign can afford them as some kind of stupid political campaign stunt against your Dem opponent. But then, given all the pay raises and perks that your Senate career has provided you, the tire gauge looks like a gift, grudgingly given by Scrooge himself. Couldn't you have at least gold plated the tire gauge for me? Talk about your too cheap gift.

While McCain was mocking Obama, he was forgetting that the SUV is becoming a useless piece of junk because of its poor gas mileage and people with them are trying to trade them in for Priuses. And who invented the Prius? Well, not the American automakers. And who assured that Priuses would be invented, not in America? Well, John McCain, I believe. Given what Senator Obama said about him today.

While CNN had a more comprehensive discussion about this latest dust up, CBS quickly described the tit for tat between the two campaigns and then moved on. I guess they are waiting for the bloggers to do their work for them. But I again noticed that the news media, especially CBS didn't care to really question McCain's credibility when he engaged in attempts at mockery that would fall flat as a stand up comedy routine. Only McCain's opponent would do that. So if there is a referendum here anywhere, the news media seems to me to be failing to do its job in asking the necessary hard questions.

Who is a conservative? Who is a liberal?

2008-07-31T09:03:00.000-07:00

I can understand Leonard Pitts, jr's confusion concerning what ought to be described as a liberal, a person who wants to fix what is wrong in society, usually through gvt activism. And efforts at demonizing such an individual, just for wanting such gvt activism in the first place. At the same time, if this is a morality argument, that being a "conservative" is both righteous and Godly; to date, I fail to find anything righteous or Godly about being a so-called "conservative."

Reminds me years ago, visiting various message boards, including one for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Seems there was a particularly hostile poster who treated the Second Commandment as uttered by Christ, to love your neighbor as yourself as some kind of a liberalism that was dangerous, naive, and of course totally unacceptable. A biblical commandment as found in the New Testament and this poster was telling me 1. Just how ignorant the poster was about his/her bible and 2. Morality arguments that somehow did not translate into practicing what one preaches. In even earlier years, I saw a remarkable whine from a letter writer to the Press who described precisely Secular Humanism and was wondering why I did not apply such "secular humanistic" standards to her and people who thought like her. In short, long before Mr. Pitts finally caught wind of this, this strange identification of what it means to be "conservative," I was getting the general drift of how much you owe me, it is all about me, me first; before projecting that social or individual failing onto other people. Of course, "liberals."

Only by reading these posts on message boards, written letters and even published editorials could I finally come to the conclusions that I now have of radical — New Left or Old Left. You see, both style of radicals tend to go off the deep end. They are narrow minded, obsessed with their agendas, they do not take into consideration other opinions, the fact that people may indeed disagree with them, that their agendas may in fact cause more harm than good. They may be passionate, but they are hardly compassionate. And the gvt should be there for me, me, me... the causes I support. And both types of radicals certainly do engage in social engineering, I don't like the fact that this society is racist... Gvt pass a law. I don't like the idea of legal abortion... Gvt pass a law. Illegal immigrants should ultimately have the same rights as legal Americans... Gvt pass a law. I don't think gays should marry... Gvt pass a law. And on, and on, and on. Since both types of radicals insist on gvt running amok, who is the conservative? And since none of the radicals think in terms of morality but rather in power plays. Can I be the special interest that gvt is most inclined to support never mind what it does, tax wise, etc. to my neighbor, who is effectively the liberal? And both the new left and the old left have touted being "agents of change." But of course, they want "change" to be spear headed by some kind of activist gvt acting on behalf of their special interests and social agendas. And any number of letters to the Coeur d'Alene Press that whined about too much gvt, but then in another breath in another letter, what gvt wasn't doing to support my passionate cause and how we must elect so and so to guarantee that gvt is activist on my behalf. Or gvt wasn't "Christian." Define? So we must take it back for Christians. When was the last time fellah, that you took a good long look at the U.S. Constitution? The U.S. Constitution is biblically based? The bible pushed any number of theocratic gvts. God created the form of gvt that we have now: as found in the Old Testament where God basically is written as the law giver, the supreme ruler and the judge. Don't ask me how anyone could revise a totalitarian argument into a "democratic state." Any king can be argued to be the law giver, the supreme ruler and the judge. But the society that he governs is decidedly not democratic. Only radicals could be persuaded into not thinking before they write or otherwise opinionate. And take at face value what any scumbag taking on a man of the cloth persona feeds them.

On the other hand, a liberal would have cause to think and a conservative would have cause to question.

As Pitts put it, a conservative would be suspicious of change. A conservative would support minimalist gvt. Which is not what we have now with the current crop of radicals posing as "conservatives." And the liberal? Well the liberal would be the guy who wants to fix what is broken, and a truly acknowledged liberal, Senator Barack H. Obama is running for the presidency. But is Senator John McCain a "conservative?" beyond pushing for low taxes at a time of record deficits and wanting to keep a military presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future? Or is he wandering into dangerous radical territory by walking lock step with GW on any number of his current domestic and foreign policies? The Gods only know that if I had to select between a radical and a liberal, the liberal would be the first to get my vote. Given the fact that there are no conservatives in the race at this time. Even Senator McCain pushes a gvt is an answer for everything, to include a "gas tax holiday." And then whines at Obama for also having a good gvt approach in domestic policies. Get my point?

When Pitts wrote his republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial, it invovled a shooting that left 2 dead and a number of victims wounded. The gunman said that he couldn't get a job and that he hated gays and liberals. Yeah? What an excuse to disobey thou shalt not murder. The lib-lefties and the gays made me do it! As Pitts saw it, the self-proclaimed "conservatives" had literally set the stage by dehumanizing the political opposition. Quite frankly, I'd be more willing to ask, did the gunman think that there were gays and liberals among the people he killed and wounded? Did he think that he was an arm of God's vengeance? Seems to me that what this fellow did ought to bring shame to anyone who claims a "morality argument" but who does not practice what he or she preaches. Those people were innocent. For what purpose did they die? And I would further note, can it shame the NRA as well who want toys unlimited and the gvt can keep its filthy hands off them? Christ told Peter that he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. A conservative, especially one who claims an association with Christ, wouldn't be preaching the sword and then demanding special considerations from no less than gvt for special protections from its wrath.

Finally, Pitts bemoans a lack of accountability. Oh, that's right, only if we get gvt to impose it... on everyone else but us. That spells radical. Thank you Pitts for getting nearer to the truth.

Election takes

2008-07-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Cal Thomas started off on his usual rant about Senator Obama, indeed his (republished to the Spokesman-Review) column starts off with Obama not being the second coming. If Mr. Thomas is that quick to deride and dismiss Obama's soaring rhetoric, I expect it is also because Senator John McCain's own rhetoric stumbles so heavily that he becomes a joke. If anything, a worse joke than GW. In any of the columns that I read, Mr. Thomas' latest is probably the first time he ever mentioned "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart;" and only because Stewart had mocked Obama for visiting the birthplace of Christ, Bethleham where he was born. But, Thomas did not see fit to note how often Stewart had also mocked John McCain. Well now, that would be because Jon Stewart is an equal opportunity mocker of all things political, no matter what party. And an equal opportunist when it comes to playing games with Main Stream Media. It doesn't matter whom he lampoons. Which brings me to a last night "Daily Show" where Stewart hosted author Bill Bishop who says that any more, this nation divides along lifestyle lines. People, when they vote, vote according to the idea that the candidate is "just like me." Which makes it interesting that this nation would vote for doofus GW twice given the wrack and ruin he brought to the U.S. over two terms. We actually have a 51% majority who'd gleefully engage in ruining the nation's economy, wreaking the U.S. Constitution, be more than willing to spy on their neighbors based solely on a suspicion that their neighbors were terrorists? No, make that some 20 odd percent that probably still would. The rest were lied to. But where was GW ever like anyone else in the U.S?

Too bad that CNN didn't have Bishop touting his book "The Big Sort" on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." It just might be that Bishop would have easily answered a Jack Cafferty question about why Obama wasn't doing better in the polls. Because Obama actually doesn't fit into anybody's idea of a lifestyle category perhaps. But the fact that he is ahead in most polls, no doubt also suggests that people have become increasingly tired of GW and the obstructionist GOP. Oh, and by the way, the latest major scandal involving the GOP is Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska indicted now on various corruption charges. Just what Senator McCain needs in an election year, right? He only shared Senate chambers with Stevens, and you can be sure the GOP taint will be hard to wash off.

And finally, Les Payne a columnist for Newsday gets republished in the Spokesman-Review, Wednesday, 30 July 2008. He details that McCain reallly isn't all that he is cracked up to be and likely padded his resume a bit more thoroughly than can even be claimed about Obama. Seems Payne did some checking of his military career. McCain did not graduate at the top of his class. That his own military career is actually more comparable to that of GW who had himself, a hard time even learning how to fly an Air National Guard jet. And McCain as "cocky fighter pilot" had his own comparisons to GW according to Les Payne's column. But that "cocky fighter pilots" did not make it to commanders, IE wing commanders. Reading Payne's column through, it is a thoroughly damning indictment of what makes McCain not qualified to be Commander in Chief. A fellow who, like GW could too easily be the butt of late night jokes. Whom we can all laugh at if only to not end up crying.

CNN Presents

2008-07-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

I had been out for a good part of the day paying bills and doing a litle shopping. It is that time of the year to start getting home made goods ready for the fair. So returning to the house around 3 pm, to enjoy a subway sandwich and fries and a soda, I turned on CNN. Wolf Blitzer had sound bites of a personal interview with Senator John McCain. Among other things, Senator McCain felt free to criticize Senator Obama for failing to visit wounded troops at a military hospital in Germany. Well, seems the Pentagon let it be known that they didn't want presidential candidate Obama visiting the military hospital, but they wouldn't mind Senator Obama visiting the hospital, a private visit without photo ops. While radical bloggers picked up on that and also voiced their own criticisms; wasn't that the Pentagon's call to make? And isn't the ultimate authority over the Pentagon still GW Bush? Seems to me that all McCain and the narsty bloggers could have done is simply ask why the Pentagon didn't want a Senator Obama campaign event staged at that hospital? I would have asked. And it looks to me that Senator Obama only deferred to the Pentagon's wishes. Jeffrey Toobin made the rather remarkable argument that it makes Obama look bad. To initially schedule such a visit and then abandon it at presumably the Pentagon's wishes. Here is what ought to make a politician look bad: Such as GW engaging in plenty of photo ops with wounded soldiers trying to recover from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. But at the same time, GW pushes the sort of domestic policy that throws the same vets under the bus. And McCain's criticism? He'd be in a better position to criticize if he hadn't been busy himself throwing vets under the bus by his obstinent refusal to support GI Bills for vets, among other things.

Quite frankly, McCain had better watch what he is saying.

McCain also had a lot of whining about Obama, that he would love to visit Germany... And get media coverage? And draw ginormous crowds? Meanwhile, McCain in his sound bite interviews with Blitzer demonstrated just how much he was in lock step with GW circa 2005. Or 2006 or even 2007. We have successes in Iraq. But they are fragile. On "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Errol Lewis (?) had the audacity to ask what would McCain define as "victory?" Indeed, in the years in which we had been at war in Iraq, what did GW define as victory? You begin to wonder if McCain is terrified of leaving Iraq? Robert Zimmerman, one of the political analysts on Dobbs' show declared that McCain was practically accusing Obama of treason. That sounded exactly like what GW was prepared to do in 2002, 2004, 2006. Problem for GW, it didn't work in 2006. Wonder why? Hurricane Katrina maybe? Quite frankly, I don't think that I would ever want as a president a guy who acts possessive and controlling. It will all go poof and disappear into dust if I don't keep an eye on it.

For McCain's information, the American people are looking at their wallets this year, not the war McCain wants to continue.

So McCain ridicules and whines and gets little media attention. And on CBS, seems McCain's ridiculing and whining isn't helping his poll numbers any. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart showed us a clip of McCain touring a grocery store and nearly getting whacked by killer cans of applesauce cascading off the shelf. Something that CNN did not want to present. McCain ends up looking like an also ran, and even further, an idiot. And finally, McCain makes the rather interesting proclamation that he knows how to fight and win wars. Okay, I'll take that and run with it. McCain got shot down in Vietnam and spent several years as a POW. He was hardly in a position to fight and win a war as a POW. And it is too bad that CNN has yet to challenge him on it. As a Senator, he talks up a surge, that worked, except we can't trust the results of such a success. Either it worked or it didn't.

On Wolf Blitzer's show, "The Situation Room," some guy from the Weekly Standard claimed McCain was self-assured and acted like he knew what he was talking about. I have yet to see where McCain knows what he is talking about at any time. The surge worked, except it didn't. If CNN doesn't want to challenge McCain's waffling positions, this blog post will. Either the surge worked, and that is rationale enough for American troops to leave Iraq with honor, or it didn't. McCain, you can't have it both ways.

Seems Cal Thomas prefers Paris

2008-07-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

Cal Thomas could consider practicing what he preaches. He substitutes his view of the world for what he assumes should be Senator Barack Obama's world view. Not only is it a matter of taste, it is also a matter of judgment. Mr. Thomas takes in a foreign city visiting museums, art galleries and etc. And then presumes that he can instruct Senator Obama who visits war zones on the fine art of geopolitcs. Now that is what I would call Monday morning arm chair quarterbacking at its finest. Just as he also arrogantly assumes that Europe doesn't know what is in its own best interests. Which puts Mr. Thomas in the position of being the typical ugly American. Waltze in, take a brief look and start criticizing everything you see. Has it ever occurred to Mr. Thomas that what Europe wants as to its best interests may not in fact coincide with that of the U.S.? Indeed, ever since Ronald Reagan, European interests have been very divergent from that of the U.S. And just how grateful does Mr. Thomas consider western Europe to be some 60 plus years after World War II anyway? The president who can work with the current European reality will have a better world view than the fellow who follows almost blindly (for the purposes of the campaign trail anyway) a geopolitical view of the world that ultimately alienated most of it. That is, from no less that GW Bush.

While Thomas, the White House and Senator McCain were criticizing Obama's fact finding mission, did they forget that Obama was urged by McCain to check out the war zones and draw certain conclusions? Thomas in particular, regards Obama as being an "innocent abroad" read: ignorant. But, given the fact that Thomas only works for the news media, at one time was probably a staffer of some politician; campaign or other wise. He was never so high up in the federal food chain as to be fuly knowledgable of world events, to in fact have the raw data to work with that ultimately informs presidents. And that seems to me to be the point: it doesn't matter if a president as former Governor, former Senator, former actor knows practically nothing about world events, he is going to be given daily briefings on them. Just as he should surely have people on his side who are experienced enough to help him interpret what he gets told in order to come to some hopefully wise decision. (Not always were presidential decisions wise, given how often they were instead ideologically driven.) So let us presume that Thomas has seen 8 years of GW's muddled mess of being a know nothing Governor who couldn't care less and hammers on Senator Obama that he had better have all the experience GW lacked without the resume to back it up. And goes on to criticize Obama as lacking the resume. Silly. Why wasn't Thomas so quick to criticize the lack of a resume in Republican president GW Bush? I would suggest that it was because he was all gaw gaw over the name.

To put it bluntly, Obama doesn't have to worry about trying to filling the shoes of his predecessor; they are way too soiled now to try on. No, he will be bringing his own shoes to his candidacy and that makes him entirely uncomparable with prior presidents even as it moves this country into entirely unexplored territory. I suspect that is what has Thomas frightened the most, that Obama, if elected, would take this country into entirely unexplored territory.

—Thomas does have one thing right, Europe has far more respect for Obama than it does McCain.—

Do people (according to those polled) truly trust McCain on national security issues better than Obama? Only if they ignore McCain's record of the past some 25 years. And more particularly of the past 8. Yeah, he could probably be among the members of Congress who turns military toys into pork barrel projects for the home state or district. Of larding military budgets with the toys the Pentagon didn't need and certainly never asked for. (Various news sources.) But just because he has fattened up the Pentagon budget doesn't make him capable of being a fellow where national security is a primary issue. And this is why:

We are fighting two wars. But, we are also economically in the pits. How do we support two wars and domestic security given the massive debts that since incurred since GW's ventures in Iraq?
The Robyn Blumner editorial following that of Thomas (republished in the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington 22 July 2008) showcased how readily the Federal gvt could bail out faltering big business but has neither the money or the resources to protect the working class. Could just as easily translate into not having the [FDA resources] to protect our food, medical supplies, etc. Nor having the border security resources to protect us from terrorists, criminal gangs and drug cartels. In short, the taxpayers should bail out favored interests. But to fork over the tax dollars in their own interests would be a major no no. McCain, wants to "keep taxes low" but to buttress "national security" you can't manufacture viable security on a ray of sunshine.
Yes, it takes money. Yes, it would mean ponying up money to increase our national defenses, strengthen our military and taking care of our veterans. Yes, it would take money to guarantee our food and product safety. And McCain can't possibly achieve those aspects of national security by "keeping taxes low" in the face of massive national debt.

So, even though I wasn't polled, I don't trust McCain to be any great Commander in Chief if he makes the willing choice to follow GW's failed policies of the last 8 years. Nor would I personally trust him on national security issues given how quickly he jumped on the "immigration reform" idea that certainly could not help Americans suffering job losses. And yes, adding to the economic doldrums. Even though, in the short term, "immigration reform" would have helped GW's business buddies.

So, what about national security? That if we pull out of Iraq our national security is more greatly threatened? How about the home of the original plot to send planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Seems that it is up for grabs again as both Al Qaeda and the Taliban have regrouped to engage troops who are numbered in the tens of thousands as opposed to the hundreds of thousands currently in Iraq. And given how GW managed to alienate Europe in his big push to go to Iraq, I highly doubt that Europe would be all that concerned about picking up the pieces of GW's mess making. National security today is having your priorities in order for the type of enemy you are facing. You really can't engage in an old fashioned war in some part of the world against a "jihad" that can form terror cells anywhere. And GW prefers to show his "machismo" at engaging in old fashioned wars never mind that terrorism isn't only to be found in Iraq or harbored in Pakistan. According to CNN as of yesterday morning, terrorist attacks struck buses in China, killing and injuring commuters on board them. How do we address that sort of national security if there is this blatant refusal to pull out of a country we declared sovereign 4 years ago. And therefore presumably, capable of taking care of its own future? Thomas should be aware, that terrrorists attacking the Chinese in the weeks before the summer Olympics have already proven that they could just as easily threaten American athletes. No doubt, that was the message being sent. If the American athletes were ultimately put at risk in China just because of terrorism, who could we truly blame? Not Obama, who is running only to succeed GW in office. No, GW himself. The difference between world view and view of the world. GW's view of the world has only been truncated in the last 8 years, and sadly it shows.

So, what if for once Thomas had put Bush in his column instead of Obama? "Bush an innocent abroad?" His column then would have been exactly right. And if he had published such a column in 2000, would GW have been president today?

When the hysteria enters the ridiculous

2008-07-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

I do give credit to Leonard Pitts, jr. He managed to put a finger on a nation in which, those who claim to be Christian in a "Christian nation," have decidedly un-Christian attitudes toward Senator Barack H. Obama. Those who proclaim "conservatism" also prove just how much they tie such thinking in with bigotry. That is surely the only reason why I see letters to the editor making public why the author thinks Obama is a (pick one:) Muslim, Socialist, he went to church but he is a closet Muslim, he is a radical thinker based on Rev. Wright's teachings, his fist bumping his wife is a "terrorist gesture," he managed to subtly "flip off" Senator Clinton. And get this, most of this hysteria came from the news media itself. The news media, far from just reporting the news, bought into whispering campaigns by e-mail, circulating Obama photos in tribal clothing, no flag pin, etc. Which brings us to crappy political cartoons, from say Michael Ramirez to Glenn McCoy, and a not so thought provoking attack on Obama from Signe Wilkenson depicting him as "crying" over a New Yorker magazine cover.

Which satire was the New Yorker applying? The one that directly attacked Obama? It wouldn't be the first or only time. Or was it holding up a mirror to the persistent fear created by the zanies at Fox News where innocent gestures could be warped into something gruesome. With the satire of the cover exposing hate against a man with dark skin and a Middle Eastern name, probably the biggest firestorm came not from the Obama campaign where it was recognized that the New Yorker had first amendment rights to publish what it choose (Hat tip: a poster at Huckleberries online); but rather from the news media, such as CNN, proclaiming just how "righteous" they were in describing such a cover as outrageous. Wasn't that the intent? But in the months before then, when it looked like the news media wanted to see Senator Clinton as the presumptive Dem nominee for the U.S. presidency, they, including CNN spread about the outrageous, the ridiculous, because they were absolutely opposed to seeing the scary black guy win. Obama posed a threat to their comfort zone, to be sure. And to be sure as well, Obama running for president exposed the naked hatred that can engulf the citizens of this nation. A hatred that was allowed full play in the news media itself.

So, the only question that I would have for Pitts, the e-mailer in his republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial, did the author recognize the irony of the situation in proclaiming that the New Yorker had for the first time gotten it right? I believe it did, but perhaps not in the way the author might have intended. Because I am not beyond recognizing satire. But neither would I consider myself to be ignorant nor stupid, so much so as to not recognize it when I see it. A cartoon is not to be taken literally, unless the author literally demonstrates that is how he would have his work interpreted. In the case of the New Yorker, their beautifully drawn front page cartoons, were always about a joke, satire, irony. In the case of Glenn McCoy, an ugly hatchet job. In the case of Ramirez, what I think of you if you don't agree with my world view. Perhaps Pitts had it right that the e-mailer had reached the point of the extreme, the outright hysterical, that he could take a satire and assume it was literally true. Of what this nation was endanger of should it put Obama in office. What the e-mailer in question would have forgotten is that the guy who really should have a pic of Osama in his office is the guy who saw his presidency rescussitated in its first term, and exploited Osama bin Laden heavily in 2004.

If a flag burns in the oval office, then it is because Congress passed a law at presidential urging to update the FISA law to where one doesn't need a warrant or a court of law to presume that Americans are terrorists. The flag got burned because of the literal removing from the Bill of Rights an important right in the judicial process for Americans. For what should the flag wave, if not for this? —Political cartoon: GW wanted the FISA law so that he could listen for trouble (terrorists). He got an earful. But not of "terrorism" trouble but rather of economic trouble. I can think of one silver lining in such a cloud, GW for the first time could not remain long oblivious to the troubles of the nation. Because those economic troubles of home foreclosures, job losses, etc. are at what is after all the top of the list for voters. Osama bin Laden is a distant problem.

McCain has much to learn

2008-07-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

Watching clips of McCain's latest speech in which he proffered up the "Karl Rove playbook" to mock and deride Senator Barack Obama over Iraq and Afghanistan, I was struck by how much McCain seemed less to truly target Obama as he was actually targeting GW. GW wasn't in Iraq when he decided to invade. He wasn't in Iraq when he decided to take out a regime. GW proved to be quite ignorant about Iraq when he decided he knew best what that country needed. And how long did it take GW to commit to a "Surge" and approve of "counter insurgency strategies?" A reminder for McCain that it was around 2 years after the invasion and about 2 years after sovereignty was supposedly returned to the Iraqi people and their new Iraqi gvt. 2 years, in fact in which the GW administration was in complete denial about the true state of affairs in Iraq. Indeed, he ran a campaign how we were "turning the corner in Iraq." Actually, we turned that corner and met our goals back in 2003! So why were we in Iraq long after returning sovereignty to the Iraqi people? It took 5 years to find out that it was all about the oil. All about foreign companies, including American oil companies having an opportunity to glean profits from one of the largest middle eastern oil reserves parked under the desert sands of Iraq. That was the real reason GW wanted to be there, costing American and Iraqi lives so that he could help his buddies in the oil business. But he didn't care to be honest to the American public about who he hoped to actually benefit with such a war. But the hints were already there, when the first recipients of federal gvt no bid contracts went to companies such as Halliburton, etc. who had close political and business connections with his family, namely former President George H.W. Bush. And the very same companies, Including Blackwater that ran amok wasting taxpayers' dollars, proved inefficient in their work, cost likely innocent Iraqi lives (Blackwater), cost Soldiers their lives through say electrocution just by taking a shower (Halliburton). Under the circumstances, a "surge" and "counter insurgency strategies," would be met with heavy Democratic scepticism. And why not?

I stand by the fact that I too happened to be sceptical about the "surge." I also continue to be sceptical about the sort of "political success" in Iraq where Malaki can wander about the streets of Baghdad handing out cash to anyone who cares to reach for it; that was bought and paid for by U.S. and Iraqi lives. Where it is far more possible for Ahmedinajad (sic) to walk openly in Baghdad; but GW and members of Congress must use stealth to visit or be guarded heavily while traveling. Including McCain himself. I am going to be so sceptical because of the many ways in which this war was mismanaged. How often the American people got lied to.

McCain in his pretty speech ingores all of the above. And when was the last time that I heard that the insurgency was "on the run." Oh yeah, when Veep Cheney said they were in their death throes for about 2 years. Meanwhile deaths of American Soldiers and Marines were increasing dramatically. Or that the "terrorists were on the run." Back in Afghanistan before GW suddenly decided to bow out of that same country and go after Saddam Hussein. And apparently, Senator McCain can't even trust his own assertions about the evident defeat of the enemy. To pull troops out of Iraq would signify "defeat." Our defeat. But, and here is the latest pretzle argument, that so McCain asserts, we can make use of the same "counter insugency strategies" that worked so well in Iraq.

So let us review those "counter insurgency strategies." An increase in manpower. We won hearts and minds by paying enemies to become friends. In order to increase American manpower in Afghanistan, we would have to pull American troops out of Iraq. Acknowledged in fact by DoD Gates. To have the money to pay Taliban and etc. enemies to become "friends," we might not be able to bail out large banks as they fail, such as IndyMac. That too, was what McCain fails to acknowledge. And even further, how long would such loyalty hold? As long as the money kept rolling in? Or unless there was a better offer from some other gvt instead? And an offer that could prove inimicle to American interests. That is after all how Pakistan became a terrorist harboring state and the Taliban could become a regrouped and deadly insurgency in recent months.

Instead of McCain trying to tell Obama how stupid he is or how much of a flip flopper he happens to be; McCain should look to himself and his fellow GOP who refused to demand any real accountability from an administration that made a total mess out of foreign policy and made also a mockery of America's standing in the world. Obama may be that junior Senator from Illinois, but he at least had the cajones to stand up and question what we were doing in Iraq, even in the face of being called a "defeatocrat." And he continues to have the cajones to question and challenge today. McCain plays the same denial playbook that GW got his campaign instructions from in 2004. And McCain actually thinks that he can see denial as an effective campaign strategy for winning the White House.

Polls to McCain, 45% of those polled now think Obama can better handle Iraq. Only 47% think that McCain can better handle Iraq. A 2 point spread? It suggests that McCain's rather childish rants aren't playing beyond the party faithful. As for the war in Iraq, the majority continue to think that this war was not worth fighting at all. No matter how McCain claims "flip flops" (he could look in the mirror on flip flops), Obama has the voters on his side. Source: CNN, 15 July 2008.

Making political hash out of a sucessful rescue

2008-07-11T07:01:00.001-07:00

It had only been in the news after all, Ingrid Betancourt among the hostages held by FARC. 6 years, Ms. Betancourt had languished in the hands of truly dangerous people. Then the Columbian gvt found out where FARC and the captives they were holding were. Yes, the rescue was brilliantly executed. Yes, many FARC members were captured. But what Charles Krauthammer says after the fact is clumsy.

I guess he forgets that Europe had only been engulfed in wars of many kinds for many hundreds of years. Whether the wars were religious, economic or who could claim what turf—such as occurred during the time of Hitler; at some point, I would think, Europe is a little afraid of going that route another time. So yes, I can understand why Europe would prefer negotiation with some of the world's worst people. They are tired of getting into the middle of any more wars that aren't immediately embroiling them at their own doorsteps. Even further, as was the case with Bosnia, they aren't sure they want to resolve a matter parked over in a neighboring country. Unless, of course blood spills on their doorsteps. Maybe I don't particularly sound to sympathetic either. But I at least take history of violent struggles in Europe, that convulsed all of Europe, into consideration. Charles Krauthammer, however, comes off as a tad ignorant.

Then he praises our protracted war in Iraq as the emergence of a new Arab democracy. Excuse me, the first Arab democracy. Oh, and what is Turkey, anyway? Didn't Europeans under Communist rule fight for and win a democracy by their own hands? Didn't we Americans do battle with British imperialism to win an independent country that we ultimately styled a democracy? Democracy wasn't foisted on anyone in the two cases cited above. However, it has been the case with our going to war against an admitted brutal dictator (of which there are many) and for reasons and excuses that were ever shifting. Only now is it proclaimed that we have invented a democracy in a nation that never knew the concept. Never mind that economics factored into why we are still present in Iraq. Precisely the economics of business interests that seek to do oil business in Iraq. And the Iraqi gvt itself giving the go-ahead to allow foreign businesses to work and drill what is after all the people's of that country's treasure and they should have a voice in who gets it and who ought to profit. Did Krauthammer consider that?

Ingrid Betancourt was the beneficiary of a "conservative" Columbian president showing compassion and concern for the welfare of FARC's victims. But, our own foreign policy often being ruled by dollars, not necessarily are we prepared to show the same ounce of compassion toward the victims of anyone or anything. Oh and by the way, Americans were among the hostages that FARC had kidnapped. What was on GW's mind in the last 6 years of their imprisonment, besides business trade deals, that is? Let us indeed give the Columbians credit where it is due, but let us not presume that it ought to be a guiding policy for how we should, as a country, behave in the future. That the Columbians, or for that matter, any other country or gvt dictate our foreign and domestic policies. On the other hand, I can see plenty of room for improvement in our elected gvt learning to handle foreign affairs a whole lot better than it does now.

Senator McCain's message problem

2008-07-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

I had watched CNN for a while yesterday and watched McCain spouting off his "economic platform" how much it differed from that of Obama's and even further, how much Obama's own platform of "raising taxes" would surely damage a fragile economy. Over the last 8 years of the GW presidency, the economy has been damaged and that was with those low taxes that McCain is now touting. On Tuesday night, there was a re-run of "The Daily Show with John Stewart." Ted Koppel was featured and at one point discussed the disasters of the economy including what was wrought as a consequence of low taxes. I thought that was very appropriate to show that re-run on the same night as a CNN broadcast of a recent McCain speech. A further update, McCain spouting off much the same line today, that if we increase jobs in this country—after 8 years of continuous job losses. Froma Harrop republished to the Spokesman-Review discussing what to do about illegal immigration—which is among the reasons why Americans have lost jobs in this nation to date. If not outsourcing of jobs to foreign nations. Medicare and Social Security "reform"—of the former that GW initiated to greatly assist business interests. Of the latter, GW would have initiated to benefit, the business interests. What "reforms" would McCain have initiated? He didn't exactly say. Which puts his speech into the "pie in the sky" category.

Then a Senator Obama ad that targets McCain and responds immediately to an RNC ad; McCain whining that Obama "is the first to go negative." I believe that any candidate has the right to not only argue the issues in an ad, but also to respond to those who attack him. McCain regards it as "personal" that Obama responds on the issues? Well, for the first time, CNN took note that the RNC had put out an attack ad and were prepared to make plain that McCain could only make his case about Obama only if and only if the RNC ad was discounted. McCain sounds like he needs a liberal hug of approval. He sure won't get one from me. McCain wants the presidency so bad, but he whines about the competition. Get a life. This is a democracy after all.

And then found in AMOO a particular chart.

Yes, this chart was produced by a "liberal think tank" according to the published blog post at A Matter of Opinion. But it does take note of the difference between "economic expansion" and corporate profits. Over the last 8 years, the GW administration has deliberately confused "economic expansion" with corporate profits. And so has Senator McCain. Tax corporate profits, and we are certain to damage economic expansion and cause a loss of jobs. But when corporate profits were indeed taxed at low rates, economic expansion: IE job creation, and only if you count it jobs outsourcing to foreign nations plus the hiring of cheap illegal alien labor that GW thoroughly supported during his two term presidency. Net result, job losses for American citizens. Net result, the economy did not expand in real terms. Net result, businesses suffered as a consequence of Americans losing their jobs.

Between "The Daily Show" and what got published at the Spokesman-Review, a solid rebuttal of McCain and what he proposes as president. —CNN, McCain is still struggling to find a message. —CNN, Obama has stayed consistently on message. 8 July 2008.

I finally got to this blog only after spending the day putting together my big green house. I got in some new plastic sheeting from FarmTek. It took me a while to puzzle out the broke down (for the purposes of moving from the old address) green house and set it back up. Once the frame was in place, then move it to its spot, set up my tomatoes, eggplants and peppers onto boards and plant stands that I installed, then I put on the plastic sheeting. As the days get colder, I do have the old cover for the green house and will cover the green house with it. A double cover to protect the plants from early frost. To grow a winter garden, including tomatoes and cukes.

"Smart Bombs" Bombs.

2008-07-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

Gary Crooks writes "Smart Bombs" for the Spokesman-Review. His Saturday 5 July 2008 column presented the S-R readership with a "Safety rationale tanks" concerning the gas guzzling SUV. For example: "Remember when people used safety to justify their sport utility vehicle purchases? A colleague does and he wonders what's become of that rationale. It's a fair point, considering the plunging sales of SUVs and the crummy trade-in prices they now fetch." Actually, it has been known since the time the SUV had debuted that they were subject to roll overs. They were never a "safe" rig to drive and the real reason for their purchase probably had nothing what so ever to do with the "safety" factor but the macho factor of buying the latest toy and intimidating the hell out of the subcompact owner. But if you were—or thought you were anyway—wealthy enough to afford one, then you also had to be wealthy enough to buy the gas for it too. And most people who bought one when gas prices were cheaper than they are today, aren't wealthy enough to put a third of their monthly income into one each time they go to the gas station. That being said, "macho" now has to give way to practical reality.

Continuing; "A non-starter. Don't feel bad about trading that guzzling SUV for a car; the safety advantages were always illusory. SUVs are subject to rollovers, which account for one-third of highway fatalities. Plus, their weight makes it more difficult to stop or avoid others." So why did the "Big 3" Automakers put such a rig in the hands of consumers to begin with? Given the track record of the SUV, even if I could afford one, I'd never own one. And what Crooks said here, being correct, would be rationale enough for most consumers to reject such a rig for something with far higher safety ratings. But you know people, machismo rules, before the wallet kicks in.

Then Crooks goes on the discuss a web site out to defend the SUV owners. But, the blog in question, as asserted by Crooks, shut down in December.

But, while Crooks did a pretty fine job of discussing the history of the SUV and why it will no longer be a vehicle of choice for the American consumer as gas prices continue to go up, up and away... This is where his column tanks, literally. CAFE is to Crooks a "tax" that gets passed on to consumers. I would have thought that CAFE was an attempt by Congress to regulate a mileage standard in vehicles owned and operated here in the U.S. of A. as to miles per hour before you had to fill up at the nearest Conoco. Indeed, CAFE was relaxed in the Reagan years and never fully re-instated as long as we weren't facing a crisis in the price of gas. Now we are facing an emergency situation in which Congress wishes to toughen CAFE to improve mileage all the time (Crooks) in cars built in the near future. And it would seem to me that if the Big 3 automakers wished to stay competitive with say the Japanese, they would be demanding CAFE as a benchmark for improving the cars that they would want the American consumer to buy and ultimately keep them in business. But as long as it can be revised as a "tax" that gets passed on to consumers, that plays into an anti-tax view by GOP stalwarts to ultimately defeat any attempt to move America past too high energy prices. Geeze, CAFE is an unwanted "tax" so get rid of it. Poor choice of words, Crooks. And it doesn't do what constitutes the innovation of the free market one damn bit of good.

Probably you can call cap and trade a "tax" to clean up the air we breath. I am sure that I don't mind such a tax being instituted if it will improve my chances of remaining somewhat in good health. And I am also certain that many other people would make the same argument. But, to the best of my understanding, cap and trade was never a "tax" to regulate the pollutants that industries put in the atmosphere, but it would certainly constitute a fine if they failed to comply. So, Crooks is against "taxing automakers" with a tougher CAFE standard who would just pass the cost of the "tax" onto the consumer. And instead, tax gasoline, and shoot the price of gas, I presume, even higher through the roof and put the automakers permanently out of business, along with gas station owners, as people opt for bikes and their own two feet. Make that price of gas prohibitively unaffordable and we don't need no car today.

So let us instead consider the concept of building the better mousetrap. The car that doesn't need oil and no hydrocarbons needed for taking you from point A to point Z. You don't need a gas station, but you may still need a repair shop to maintain the solar panels that power your rig, or replace the battery backup that runs your car on cloudy and rainy days. How about a cannister replacement every hundred miles on the car that runs on kitchen waste? In post oil America, there are plenty of ideas that keep Americans on the road and in the macho toys of their choice. Taxing gas doesn't serve to spur innovation. Recognizing that ultimately fossil fuels do have a shelf life, may get the innovators of the market place off their duffs and giving back to this nation its innovative edge in new technology. As the old axiom goes, necessity is the mother of all inventions.

It's about time this defense was published

2008-07-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

How many months was it when Michelle Obama got raked over the coals for daring to say that for the first time in her life she could truly be proud of this nation? The reasons should have been obvious then; her husband, Senator Barack H. Obama was running as a presidential candidate among a fairly crowded field of Dem candidates, and he was actually drawing huge crowds of people prepared to vote for him. It was at that time that this was seen as some terrible gaff that could only hurt candidate Obama. It was also at this time that Ms. Obama got attacked by people who felt "flushed with patriotism" in their rush to judgment over a candidate's spouse poor choice of words. How many months before the Spokesman-Review finally publishes:
For black Americans, national pride overcomes obstacles

Frank Harris takes note of Michelle Obama's comments and has a different reaction to them than the White America of the news media, the white America among the bloggers and letter writers. Their presumption was that only because Ms. Obama must truly "hate America" and has demonstrated a "lack of patriotism" could she speak as she did at the time. Mr. Harris has quite a different and welcome take on the matter. For example:
On the Fourth of July, we as Americans will celebrate the 232nd anniversary of our country's independence. On the fourth of November, we will elect our 44th president. I said we: This is our country. This is my country. I am an American: I did not say black American. I did not say African American. I said American.

How about that. You get the impression, throughout all of Mr. Harris' editorial that there is a lingering bigotry. That those who rushed to judge Michelle Obama finally proud to be American speech could do so, not so much because of her politics, her husband's party, but also because of the color of her skin! There is in fact a lingering bigotry in this nation. That if you are the wrong color, you can't possibly be "as American" as the "white majority." While Mr. Harris could rightfully discuss this from the perspective of race, I can expand on this by considerable.

Pat Robertson only held the opinion that Christians were the only people who could truly be patriotic. In a nation, incidentally, where Christians may make up a "majority" of people, but Christians are in fact made up of many sects. Which "Christian" would Robertson, a protestant, have argued was "patriotic?" At the same time, how about all those non Christians who served this nation honorably in a time of war and peace? Basically, Robertson held to a not so moral version of "Christianity" that he doesn't have to love his brother or his neighbor as himself. This Druid, after all bore arms on his behalf during my time in the U.S. Army during the final years of the Cold War. Just so that he could say, that as long as I wasn't "Christian" I couldn't be patriotic. So why would I be surprised by the willingness of news media types, political cartoonists, bloggers and letter writers to flay Michelle Obama for truer words never spoken? If you aren't one of us—religion, race, geographical origin, etc.—you aren't one of us!

The only thing I find distressing was that it took so long for Harris' editorial to make republication. Why should it have taken so long?

The US Supreme Court rewrote the Second Amendment

2008-06-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

The news media, especially CNN, likes to make a big, big issue out of Senator Obama's "flip flops" on gun control or gun banning laws being constitutional, at least until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Washington, D.C. gun banning law designed to control gun violence in that city. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court spoke, what is a Democratic presumptive nominee for the presidency supposed to do, especially when Barack Obama is trying to appeal to the gun nuts. What the news media did not choose to do was to parse, dissect or take a truly close look at what was decided in a 5 to 4 activist judicial majority on the behalf of the NRA as special interest group.

I do not have the exact quote of the Second Amendment at hand but I do know this: It first speaks of militias in the defense of a free state. A free state which is no less than a government and its people. Militias were not in fact, as some erroneously assumed a "police force" but in fact the only military force this infant revolutionary nation could field during its latter revolutionary stages. Any able bodied man of a certain age could join a militia and indeed was expected to, in the defense of a free state. But because these were not organized military units then each militia member would also expect to take his weapon home with him. Even further, because the infant democracy wasn't the most stable, and threats from criminals to Indians were a fact, gun ownership as self defense would have been implied if not specifically coded into constitutional law. Guns would have been a necessity, not a luxury. So, for the time that the Second Amendment was written, the rights of the people (who formed the militias) to keep and bear arms (in the defense of a free state) shall not be abridged. By the time the 19th century rolled around, unless you were a pioneer heading into the wild west to create new settlements there, guns were only a necessity for hunting and self defense against yes, criminals and Indians. But, by the 19th century, the local militias were swiftly giving way to organized military forces, both Army and Navy. The local militias may still exist on a state by state basis, their successors being the National Guard: Idaho, Washington, etc. But, the federal gvt fielded the general Army and Navy since the time of Thomas Jefferson. Thus, not all able bodied men were being called upon to bear arms for the defense of a free state. Not when they could carry a gun and "go west" instead. In this summary of the history of the Second Amendment, from the time of its drafting and eventual 2/3rds majority approval, it is the most dated of laws in that for the purpose in which it was originally written, ceased to exist when the federal gvt created the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force to defend the free state as opposed to calling on the general populace to do so. As was the case when we had first entered this country as colonists. And militias were necessary to defend the colonies and then ultimately the new United States of America. An Amendment where it's original intent existed only for 2 or 3 decades after its initial drafting and approval into law, and becoming outdated so quickly, the eventual aim of the NRA and how much that special interest organization has evolved should actually be discussed.

Precisely, the NRA can not claim to be a militia that protects a free state. No, they must resort to the second portion of the Second Amendment: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Of course, against the common and certain to be violent criminal. But, from letters to the editors that I have seen in both the Spokesman-Review and the Coeur d'Alene Press, those of the NRA membership have shown a particularly hysterical fear of the government (part of the free state, after all) and secondly, demonstrations as to why they should have the latest toy, even when it serves no useful purpose in hunting, the gun as a luxury item. To put it bluntly, the NRA has managed to completely divorce itself from the original intent of the Second Amendment and applies a whole lot of liberal applications to what it wishes to define as a "right to keep and bear arms." ———And here you would have thought that the Roe v Wade decision was an act of supreme liberalism, writing a "right" into the U.S. Constitution that actually did not exist.——— Using the Second Amendment to defend one's gun collections is surely more liberal still! But that is precisely what the NRA now wishes to do.

And it is the liberal 5 Justice majority that rewrote the Second Amendment, just for them. Do take note that Justice Antonin Scalia did not suggest taking into consideration the gun ownership "in defense of a free state" but only supported the argument of "self defense." Thus cutting out altogether exactly why the Second Amendment could exist in the first place. That is, in its original meaning. A cop is going to "bear arms" for a fact, defending a free state by enforcing the laws on the behalf of the citizenry in his city, county and state, or even on a federal level. At no time has anyone declared that cops defending a free state should ever be disarmed. While I was in the U.S. Army, I bore arms in the defense of a free state. I would certainly have argued that should I be called to war against an enemy, that I should not meet him on the field of combat without an M16 A1 in hand. Being trained to use one, I would use it, in my own defense and that of my fellow soldiers. And on the behalf of this nation and the U.S. Constitution. When I was in the Army, I was both a beneficiary of and a defender of the Second Amendment in its original meaning. But, that is not what the NRA can claim to day. Their's has been a liberal rewriting of the Second Amendment, to include ideologies that the founders themselves would probably have been shaking their heads over. Do you really need a 50 caliber rifle in your gun case? Don't you already have a military in existence to defend you from foreign enemies? And cops to defend you from domestic ones? In high crime rate areas, I can definitely see a need for the gun as self-defense. In rural areas where hunting is a fact of life, I can see a need for the gun to supplement the food put on the table. But I see no need, as a pro-gun Republican, to create an arsenal. Against whom do you plan to use it, anyway? Your neighbor? The NRA now has the backing of the U.S. Supreme Court as it continues to slide off the liberal left end. But given the trend that the same court granting certain rights to terrorist suspects under U.S. control; the same liberal re-writing of the Second Amendment, won't necessarily make this nation safer from crime. Because the criminals need only wait for the NRA to challenge other gun laws and then take advantage of the consequences. Not what you would call a moral argument.

The only continuity that the NRA can legitimately claim is the "self defense" argument. An AR15 or its equivalent, doesn't exactly support the "self defense" argument, any more than it supports useful for hunting argument. No, it instead makes the statement, that I value my toys and oppose any means that would curtail my obtaining more of them. How about your neighbor, when the criminal breaks into your home, steals your toys and then makes use of them against the little old lady who lives next door to you? Didn't you just give them a green light? Think about it.

"Presidential seals" and other stories

2008-06-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Here is an absolutely funny situation that recently got aired on CNN; Senator Barack Obama orders a "presidential seal" that he uses for his podium during his campaign speeches. When I looked at the "presidential seal" however, I noted that the only similarity involved the Eagle. What of course CNN did not mention was why exactly Obama would order up such a seal in the first place. Would it be because his detractors have questioned both his being American and his patriotism? So now they get just as hysterical that he displays the American Eagle roughly similar to that of POTUS. There is a whole lot more difference between the POTUS seal and that of the presumptive nominee's seal however. I am certainly not going to fault Obama for having ambitions. I am cracking up over the various reactions.

Kathleen Parker was absolutely hilarious when she talked up gender differences when it came to house work and raising kids. Women, in her opinion, were simply far more nurturing and of course far more prone to doing the house work. How about that. But since the study that Ms. Parker was siting involved married couples only, how about us women with no kids. The men who live as bachelors. The single men who have to raise kids. That's a problem for Parker as she tries to debunk a social science study over why there isn't more of a division of labor for married couples.

Let me consider why, my mother worked as a nurse until retirement. She was hardly a "stay at home mom" even after she had kids. We kids, I suppose didn't always expect to find mom or dad (Kootenai County Deputy Sherriff) home all the time or to be greeted with cookies and milk and a super clean house. My parents both worked to pay the bills and put food on the table. I expect that they were the hidden struggling middle class where both parents had to work to make a go of it. Did dad sometimes do house work? Yeah, rarely. Because I truly think he needed someone to pick up and clean up after him instead of his doing for himself. So in this brief discussion of my history, perhaps I can say that I am an exception:
I hate house work.
I don't care for kids.
I run a business.
So is the argument really not a generalized "gender argument" but rather of individuals on a case to case basis?

The Bush legacy

2008-06-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

After I acquired my Gateway laptop around two years ago, it had been rattling around in my business briefcase for about that long, I finally dragged it out to recharge, use and hook up to the internet. So, it is from this computer that I am now posting to this blog...
Let us start off with a David Sarasohn editorial where he discusses the fact that GW opposes pay increases for the troops. How about that, we want to "support the troops" but not with much needed pay increases.
It seems the main reason the Bush administration opposed increasing aid for veterans to go to college was the fear that they might go. And then who would be in Iraq? "The last thing we want to do," explained Geoff Morrell, "is create a situation in which we are losing our men and women whom we have worked so hard to train."
How about that.
I really can't think of a better description of cannon fodder than that. Before GW insisted on invading Iraq, there were certainly editorials such as from Mr. Friedman who talked up the need to take out Saddam Hussein, but he asked at the time if Team Bush was actually ready and able to carry out such a war. Mr. Friedman at the time didn't think so. And has since been vindicated. For that, he has been labeled a "liberal." I wouldn't know about that. Since quite conservative people can be highly critical of GW as well. And Friedman didn't exactly strike me as all that "liberal."
Back to David Sarasohn, there has been quite the political battle between GW and Congress over the definition of "supporting the troops." Seems GW doesn't mind supplying the toys (rather belatedly)but is utterly opposed to the very idea that the troops ought to get paid what they are worth out on the front lines. Even opposing the very idea that post combat, the troops should get an education. — Moveon.org ad in which the woman is holding her baby and telling Senator McCain that he can't have her child for his hundred years of war in Iraq. So what was that again about the U.S. Military having trouble recruiting and retaining Soldiers, Marines, etc.? GW suddenly takes on the aspects of Mr. Scrooge.
And GW still loves to campaign. Every time he opens a flap jaw and lets fly, he overshadows Senator McCain and reminds voters yet again that in many circumstances they are more likely to vote against something than for something.

David Iglesias (sic?) wrote a book

2008-06-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

Watching the 16 June 2008 "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and yucking it up at how Mr. Stewart doth smite the news media for being both two-faced and having a double standard as it concerns Senator Barack Obama, he showcased a former Republican federal Attorney who had written a book better than a year after he had been fired from his job by the AG Gonzalez led (In)Justice dept. As he described his and other federal attorneys' firings, it was politically motivated. The attorneys were doing their jobs following the law and were fired because they didn't toe the GW administration political line. Or act on behalf of the GOP preparing to engage in dirty tricks against Dem rivals. The book, "In Justice" is a must read.

Certainly among the reasons:
The willingness of GOP politicians to not follow the law.
Blatant corruption.
Failure to abide by the U.S. Constitution.
Refusal to insulate federal attorneys from political retribution.
To put it very bluntly, there is enough of an argument in this book to make a very good case of putting a president, soon to be former president in federal prison. Let us hope that is the case.

Now if they just had working capital...

2008-06-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

Cal Thomas gives us an optimistic version of how the free market has worked for the poor in Africa, South America and etc. Who with a bit of hard work managed to become industry leaders in manufacturing projects among other things, despite obstacles put in their place by their own governments. Mr. Thomas in fact, goes through all these anecdotal stories to bash Senator Clinton and Senator Obama for playing up the "victimhood" and "can't do spirit" of the working poor in this country. How about that, if the gvt would just get out of the way of the impoverished of this nation, then they too could ultimately own their own versions of Microsoft.

What Mr. Thomas leaves out; is that part of the aid packages handed out to impoverished countries in the African continent, to Central and South America have been lending capital designed to create homegrown businesses in those self same impoverished regions. Only because of lending capital, has it been possible for the poor who want the jobs, who want the businesses to create the jobs, to go on and become success stories. As detailed in Thomas' republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial. What about this country?

Among the poor poor can't do it without gvt help "victims" just happen to be multinational megabuck corporations. While Thomas was bashing away at the above Dems for "preventing" the impoverished from thinking that they too can become yet another Bill Gates, guys like Gates who head corporations like Microsoft, ExxonMobile, Haliburton, etc. come making demands of gvt to either protect them from competition, within the U.S. itself from such terrible how dare they start up companies who make the same sort of TV, maybe better than mine software or microchip, even though I live on the other side of the state from the local farmer's market, I control what those fools can buy as seed or sell as plants and produce in the state because even that local operation presents a threat to my bottom line. Or as discovered in the time of the Reagan administration, we don't like the Japanese "dumping" onto the American markets microchips and etc. that are better, faster and cheaper than what we make. Or, because of exceptionally deep pockets, these same multinational megabuck corporations will also accept welfare. Of course they can't hope to get international trade deals without the help of gvt, but they can get juicy contracts on the basis of whom they know and what they are prepared to pay out through lobbying to get the special ear of their favorite politicians. As opposed to that Mom and Pop operation in Someplace, Tennessee that can do the same thing that Haliburton can do, but doesn't have a Dick Cheney, for example, going to bat for them. But of course, Thomas steers clear of any sort of discussions of that nature. In this country, success stories aren't the "rags to riches" fantasy stories that get shown in Hollywood. Nor are they "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" novels that I have seen over the years on the book shelves. No, either it is a "you got lucky" with the company you hired onto. Or you just happened to make the "right impression" when it came to your superiors, or you "inherited the business" from the deceased who first started the company and you are now carrying on the business basically in his name. Or you had a "great idea" that the banks were prepared to take the risk and lend money too. The venture capitalists also thought it was a great idea and supported your efforts. In short, working capital.

What Thomas takes great pains in all of his editorial to not say, is that while the poor should regain that optimistic can do spirit, what do they do for capital in order to create the business that finally makes them a success in life? Duh!

Ads and opinions

2008-06-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

Found on Huckleberries on-line: A Senator John McCain ad that asks the viewers whether they think yes or no, that it is quite acceptable for a potential president to actually sit down with foreign leaders who are hostile to this nation. Given that he is following in the foot steps of other presidents who worked with tyrants and flakes as long as they were our tyrants and flakes, well, the ad turns out to be a real bomb. Se it here.
In any case, no matter whether you agree with Senator McCain or not, push the button yes or no and it takes you to his ad and then invites you to the web site to sign up and even donate. Which is definitely an argument that the ad is misleading. If you agree with Obama and his willingness to engage in diplomacy, Senator McCain still wants you to sign up and donate. Wow...

On to other matters: Fred Hiatt informs us in his republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial "Report complicates 'Bush lied' mantra" Hiatt basically wants to explain away why GW took us into a war as, well, it was the intelligence estimates after all, over WMD, Hussein cooperating with terrorists, etc. And Hiatt even further playing up the fact that GOP were prepared to argue how the report had vindicated them. That's interesting. And Hiatt's verbiage leaves a lot out. Back in 2000, Wolf Blitzer did an interview with presidential candidate G.W. Bush. Who said at that time concerning Iraq, that Hussein creating a program of nuclear weapons and other WMD, and he was caught with such weapons, GW was quite prepared to go to war with him. I guess Hiatt, must have missed that. Which begs an interesting question, GW was so hot to go to war with Iraq in 2000, even before he would have known whether or not he would become president, but he states as an obvious goal to Blitzer that as president WMD would indeed be an excuse for a war with Iraq. Well then, what would follow as president, GW would likely come up with quite a number of excuses to take out the Iraqi gvt. Even to, as discovered on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" manipulating the intelligence estimates. The ones that as Hiatt finally admits to in his column, were so tragically wrong. — Also on Huckleberries on-line: It is disclosed that Dennis Kucinich wishes to deliver 35 articles of impeachment against both GW and Veep Cheney. With the usual comment critters blowing smoke that it is a "waste of time." The GOP wasted no time trying to drive Clinton out of office because of an intern, GW's own antics are a hundred times worse.

Thomas Sowell should read -- Elizabeth Sullivan

2008-06-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

Now that we have entered the general campaign season, you can be sure that editorials will come out in favor of one presidential candidate or in opposition to a presidential candidate. Thomas Sowell manages to do both. However, in the editorial to follow his own column, written by Elizabeth Sullivan of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, she actually describes the kind of legacy that the present president will actually leave his successor, no matter whom he may be. And while Sowell is undoubtedly correct to point out what sort of hostility this country is likely to face in the years ahead; he is incorrect to project the failings of the current administration onto a potential democratic successor. No matter what, the Bush administration has created the sort of Middle Eastern mess that may be difficult for his successor to sort out, if indeed he can even successfully clean up the foreign policy disasters that GW has managed to leave him.

From Elizabeth Sullivan's
Islam ineptitude at White House

It's not just CIA Director Mike Hayden who says al–Qaida is on the ropes. The Jihad's leading theorist writes from his prison cell in Egypt that Osama bin Laden betrayed Islam with his 9/11 terrorist attack. Coming from an Egyptian terrorist titan known by his nom de guerre, Dr Fadl, that frontal attack last year stirred up a hornet's nest of other al–Qaida dissent. It forced al–Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al–Zawahri, to issue an unprecedented and blatantly self–serving public manifesto defending his terror methods that kill so many Muslims.
You would think that the GW administration would take advantage of that sort of dissension that literally could unravel the whole idea of al Qaeda and even what makes it a credible terrorist organization. Not according to Elizabeth Sullivan who writes, "The White House continues to fumble important chances to transform its foreign policy to embrace such changes within Islam. Instead, U.S. officials seem to denigrate all Muslims by using such terms as 'Islamofascism' to refer to the nation's enemies." She further adds, "Al-Qaida's weaknesses would be something to celebrate if it weren't creating greater potential dangers to the U.S. homeland. The network's embarrassed leaders may be looking for that next big strike against the infidels to restore their lost standing with other Muslims." — You listening Senator McCain?

As Sullivan further notes, "Yet by not capitalizing on the rising tide of popular Islamic disgust to embrace less confrontational approaches, U.S. officials aren't just missing opportunities to make inroads with average Muslims. They're also managing to look weak and out of touch—which automatically lowers their standing with the Arab world." (Sullivan's full editorial can be found at the on-line edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.)

If as Sowell notes, Senator McCain is the "obvious choice." McCain is facing a challenge, that a far younger man with even less experience than McCain had himself acquired after 25 years in public service, has left him. And Sowell could have done as Sullivan had done, pointed a damning finger at the proper politicians, those presently occupying the White House. Instead, Sowell presumes that the foreign policy mess that Senator Barack Obama inherits on day one as president, can only become worse. How do we know that it wouldn't be made worse under McCain who has, on the campaign trail, embraced most of GW's ideology about "America knows best" (Sullivan) that have also come with blinders as to America's bungling when it comes to truly foreign cultures and religion. Sowell's own ideology obviously will never allow him to think outside the box. Pity.

Earth to Mitt Romney

2008-06-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

The long primary season is over now that Senator Barack H. Obama has won enough delegates to gain the presumptive Democratic nomination for the U.S. Presidency. On CNN's "American Morning," former Gov. Mitt Romney was doing his surrogate best to slam Obama by way of Senator Clinton's earlier campaign jabs of how "inexperienced" Obama was, even to his continued "naivety" even though it is possible during a long campaign season for anyone to rethink their positions, to flesh them out, to change their minds on certain issues because of new knowledge or understanding or new facts. Nothing wrong with that. But of course we must "hold Obama" to what he said during the Dem debates and voice a disapproval of his "dangerous naivety" and attack him again as he begins moving toward tough diplomacy that advances American and our allies' interests, again as proof of "naivety." But not proof, that Obama is a quick learner. In fact, Obama demonstrates the sort of intelligence going into this contest against McCain that GW never exhibited on day one of his presidency. That if I make a mistake, I am willing to learn from it and move forward, sort of intelligence. And here, Romney is prepared to slam Obama for actually demonstrating one of the primary gifts bestowed upon a leader, a fellow intelligent enough to recognize his mistakes and learn from them. So is that why McCain is currently 6% points behind Obama in the national polls?

While Obama has been attacked for being willing to sit down personally with "the world's worst tyrants" as Romney was prepared to put it, and McCain has shaken a fist at Iran; Zbigniew Brzezinsky and William Odom had an editorial on Iran republished in the Spokesman-Review, where they acknowledged a need for diplomacy. And how far we weren't likely to get with Iran if we didn't have some kind of diplomacy on the table essentially as a means to stabilize the Middle East. After all the slamming of Senator Obama for arguing that diplomacy can certainly be an answer for Iran; Brezinsky and Odom undercut the GOP attack ads with a demand that we do have a need for diplomacy with a flake for a tyrant, Ahmedinejadh (sic). The full editorial is in the 6 June 2008 edition of the Spokesman-Review. And breaking news this morning, seems Iran isn't only just prepared to meddle with Iraq to stir up heat against the U.S. presence, Iran is prepared to "share intelligence" with Turkey in taking out the PKK rebels. Weren't the Kurds deemed to be on Iran's side during the Iraq-Iran war? If that should tell potential U.S. leaders anything, Iran feels emboldened enough to stick its fingers in many pots, even where it would seem that the actions of the gvt of Iran was self-contradictory, and could easily create a massive blow back against that regime. So, it would be hard to say what was on the mind of the flake Ahmedinejadh (sic) except to suggest that he acts like a kid in a candy shop who is given full access to grab and throw about what he wishes and make a general mess out of things.
(From the editorial:) Diplomacy needed to quell Iranian threat

One should note also in this connection Iranian hostility toward al Qaida, lately intensified by al Qaida's Web-based campaign urging a U.S.-Iranian war, which could both weaken what al Qaida views as Iran's apostate regime and bog America down in a prolonged regional conflict.

Now isn't that something? McCain rattling sabers at Iran does Al Qaeda's bidding. Why should we find this in an editorial but not acknowledged on the campaign trail? If Brzezinsky and the now late Odom happened to be correct on this, a fellow with 25 years of experience in Congress who doesn't acknowledge what these two authors did, can't have any better a foreign policy argument for the Middle East than diplomacy first Obama can bring. Now why would we want to do the bidding of a terrorist group that slaughtered over 3,000 of our countrymen anyway? Time to think this out and come up with a fresh answer. Hopefully, Romney gets hold of the same info.

The GOP are bad but the Dems are worse

2008-06-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

Cal Thomas was in the Spokesman-Review again whipping and flailing away at Dem promises that he argued they simply did not intend to keep, with reference to ending the war in Iraq, among other issues. Never mind that the GOP themselves were greatly responsible for why Iraq had become a war without end. Quite frankly, they were going to stand by their man, G.W. Thomas further opines that well the Dems continued to fund the war that they opposed. Never mind that G.W. himself used the welfare of the U.S. Military as a baseball bat against the Dem noggins. What Democrat wants to lose a bid for becoming a major player in Washington, D.C. after 8 years of G.W.? Of course it is going to be a matter of politics on the Dem side to shake in their shoes with all the GOP thunder and lightning going on, on the other hand, Thomas didn't choose to look very closely at what the GOP did not do as agents of change.

♥ Reduce spending.
♥ Make certain that the budgeted billions of dollars toward the Iraq war actually
assured the timely delivery of equipment that the troops would need to assure some degree of
safety in their battles with the enemy.
♥ Have an action plan for ending the war once it got started.
♥ Putting people first during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina instead of politics.
♥ Actually stand up to G.W. on principle when he was clearly in the wrong.

So, in what way were the GOP supposed to be "better" than the Dems.

Whiners in Chief

2008-05-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

Having the day off but having to go to a dental appointment and then onto the downtown Sherman Avenue and 5^th Street Kootenai County Farmer's Market, I got in on some of CNN and did some planting out of the stuff I had to sell; and watched replays of former President Bill Clinton whining and attacking his fellow Democrats for a "cover up" concerning Senator Hillary Clinton's chances of getting into the White House. "She's winning the general election right now," he said. Uh huh, she lost more states than did her Democratic opponent, I do believe she lost a primary battle with Senator Obama in Idaho, and she is winning the general election right now? If you count the votes of rule breakers Michigan and Florida and dismiss the caucus states that Obama won, then you can claim that Senator Clinton is a victim of sexism and a cover up. But in those states that Senator Clinton did win, seems race was a factor and both he and she were prepared to play up the factors of race. Because Senator Obama stands in the way of an easy walk to the White House. But by the very fact that Senator Obama has weathered many a storm inclusive of Jeremiah Wright and come out of it fairly unscathed, and has gone on to win even more contests, there is no question that Obama is a credible presidential candidate in his own right. But that is no longer the argument that Senator Clinton can make not if her hubby stands in front of an audience and plays up the Senator as some kind of victim of the news media (she's asking for the job of President isn't she?) and the Dems who just don't want her to be president. O-kay. Only losers whine and attack like that. A following CNN poll in a hypothetical matchup between Obama v McCain, Obama leads with 2% against McCain. In a hypothetical matchup between Clinton and McCain, Clinton leads McCain by 2%. But the question of who is becoming the more popular candidate to the Democratic party, Obama now has a double digit lead over Clinton. I wonder why? To put it bluntly, I had considerable respect for both the Clintons, the key word—had. Since this race began, both Bill and Hillary have gone down the tubes in their capacity to be gracious and in his capacity to be a respected elder statesman. Apparently, being back in the White House is more important to them both than what they are currently doing to the Democratic party.

So it came as some hilarity for David Broder of Washington Post fame to look way back into the Carter administration and offer a series of cautions about what President Barack Obama would do well not to repeat concerning the Carter years. Nor is it what I would call a "timely" republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial. Given what CNN had only yesterday, 28 May 2008 concerning Obama and his popularity v Clinton and hers. Seems to me that President Obama would have far less fragmenting of the Dem party than Broder assumes. But, there have been plenty of punditry excitements and pressure on the idea that "to heal the party" (a la the Carter years) Clinton should be put on the ticket as VP. Given what I have seen during this primary season, neither Clinton, Bill or Hillary would ever stand for being in second place. They'd be more than happy to politically shove President Obama out of the picture as they took central stage and demanded the lime light. That would not just fracture the party but also the nation. My own caution for Senator Obama, don't please the Clintons, get your own running mate. (♥)

The banal v the thoughtful

2008-05-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

Doug Floyd of the Spokesman-Review/A Matter of Opinion blog thought that Michelle Obama should be considered fair game in this election season. Around a day after I had offered my own rebuttal on that blog, should Cindy McCain be in the news (a target)? Chelsea Clinton? Kathleen Parker gets republished in the print edition of the Spokesman-Review, of course she can be such a target... look at what she said! Quite frankly, given Ms. Parker's prior zaniness, I definitely wouldn't use her to vindicate the above argument. Ben "Scooter" Jones(?) of "The Dukes of Hazard" and a member of Congress at one time, made a very eloquent rebuttal at trying to turn one spouse or family into a target for political attack. I expect that journalist Parker is very capable of being as fully aware of news sources besides her own, because that former TV actor was making his case on CNN. But where the Obama's are concerned, Ms Parker would rather not pay attention.

Michelle Obama—For the first time in her life she was truly proud of her country... The GOP decided to make political hay out of that and proved very specifically how they weren't proud at all of a country that allows by way of the First Amendment Michelle Obama to say what ever she pleases, even if it seems offensive. And so exploited the same first amendment privileges to come off as remarkably threatening and intimidating in GOP Tennessee ads. A fellow in the ad can't be "proud" of his country unless he is standing in front of a private arsenal mounted on a wall? It's an ad in its most banal that could as easily be used against the GOP who ran it. Parker could have said that, she didn't.
Michelle Obama or Barack Obama—The government that would require people to work... Depending on where they were at the time to have made such utterances. Well now, back in the 1930s where this nation was going through the terrible travails of the Great Depression, seems we had a gvt under Franklin Delano Roosevelt who not only required that the able bodied go to work, but to also provide them with jobs. When gvt intervened, the Great Depression began to ease its deadly grip. Doesn't sound like Senator Obama is saying anything at a time when we are facing:
A terrible housing mortgage crisis,
A credit crunch,
High fuel and food costs,
Increasing losses of good jobs;
worse than what Roosevelt himself had said when the conditions of this nation were so much graver.

And what of the GOP themselves? Ronald Reagan came into office with the whole idea that he could whip away at the "welfare queen." That individual suckling the teat of gvt, driving down to get her welfare check in a limousine. The GOP started touting the mantra of welfare dependency, what the Democrats were doing to people by offering them welfare dependency and on, and on, and on. So the GOP touted "welfare reform" and Democratic President Bill Clinton signed it into law. I would guess then that gvt requiring the impoverished to "go to work" only sounds good as long as it is a Republican making the case. If a Democrat, however, how dare he!?! Then I guess Ms. Parker must love those welfare queens.
Leonard Pitts, jr. had a more useful argument to make, the thoughtful conservative v the unthoughtful "conservative." In short, the former is the guy who having certain principles inclusive of limited gvt and fiscal sobriety. But the unthoughtful conservative on the other hand happens to be the guy who tramples all over those ideological principles and even principle itself. A snippet for general amusement:

Don't read this column yet. First I want you to do something. Google "Chris Matthews + Kevin James." This will bring up video of the latter, a conservative L.A. radio pundit, being questioned by the former last week on MSNBC's "Hardball." You "must" see this video.

For the Internet (or dial up only—meaning me) deprived, here's a recap: James goes on "Hardball" to comment on a speech President Bush gave before the Israeli Knesset in which he accused unnamed politicians—read: Senator Barack Obama—of a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. Bush evoked the memory of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister whose attempted appeasement of Adolph Hitler made him one of the more thoroughly discredited figures in the 20^thcentury.

James goes off like fireworks, blasting Obama's willingness to talk to the nation's enemies and accusing him of policies detrimental to Israel. And Matthews asks him a simple question: What did Chamberlain do? You're defending a speech that equates Obama with him, so what was his sin?

What Pitts goes on to relate was that James couldn't provide an answer and kept on ranting about appeasement, appeasement. So Pitts provides an answer for the record: "What Chamberlain did—he gave Hitler a chunk of Czechoslovakia in exchange for what he thought was "peace in our time"—is not some "Jeopardy" obscurity. It is, rather, a pivot on which turned perhaps the bloodiest tragedy in human history. Yet James knows nothing about it." And obviously, GW who's own father fought the Nazis in World War II knows nothing about it either. In what I have seen of Obama's speeches, I have not heard any Neville Chamberlain style arguments. But we have all seen GW going off to Saudi Arabia pleading for a reduced price in oil by way of the Saudi gvt pumping more crude. The Saudi gvt saying no. GW getting some harsh criticism as well as some pointed political attacks by way of republished to the Spokesman-Review political cartoons. One such, the Saudi official saying "no" after reading GW's note and even despite GW kissing his feet. There could be no greater description of "appeasement" than that.

My take? A "thoughtful" conservative doesn't engage in lemming-like behavior. Just because the "dear leader" said thus and so, doesn't mean the "thoughtful" conservative is going to agree. On the other hand, James as that unthoughtful conservative read:—new left radical, the dear leader speaks and guys like James will line up and go over the cliff for him. Pitts is getting there.

The interesting problem for the GOP

2008-05-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

CNN had picked up what had become a political furor but only disclosed the cat fight between GW and Senator Barack Obama, not the rest of it as found in this report: "Bush: Obama misinterpreted remarks." But did not go on to disclose some other rather interesting news; GW signing a memorandum of understanding with the gvt of Saudi Arabia over the "civilian" use of nuclear power. Okay. And that was after he told the Israeli Knesset what he thought of "appeasing" enemies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda. Indeed going so far as to attack Democrats as "appeasers" of terrorist organizations equitable to what was said about Hitler in the run-up to World War II. Well, Saudi Arabia is only the home of extremist sects. Saudi Arabia only produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers. Saudi Arabia only dragged its feet when it came to the U.S. pursuing justice for the deaths of dozens of American members of the U.S. Military in the Khobar Towers incident. Saudi Arabia was the home of Osama bin Laden. How certain is GW that the transfer of nuclear power to Saudi Arabia would be used for "peaceful" purposes? Of course CNN didn't pick that up, it might make GW look bad and cause problems for Senator McCain as well. Yeah, it might make him an "appeaser" you see.

What did make the news was this exchange between NBC's "Today" show and GW. The White House (as reported by CNN) sent a harshly worded letter to NBC for "deceitfully" misquoting him: as actually aired on NBC. As picked up at the above link and in the same article, the exact quote: Engel: "In front of the Israeli palm at the Knesset, you said that negotiating with Iran is pointless—and then you went further, you saying—you said that it was appeasement. Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama? He certainly thought you were."

The President: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calender has. People need to read the speech. You didn't exactly get it right either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolph Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. But I also talked about a vision of what's possible in the Middle East."

Right, and Saudi Arabia is a "proven friend of Israel." So let us remind GW that one of Al Qaeda's own aims is to punish anyone who allies with Israel and punish its people for daring to occupy what ought to be regarded as Islamic territory. No he won't "negotiate" with Al Qaeda, he'll just hand the Saudi gvt a means of nuclear proliferation that can very quickly become the dirty bomb in a jihadist's hands. Way to go GW!

On the domestic front, Cal Thomas gets a bit hostile toward the GOP as having abandoned "conservative" principles. Well, I'll agree with less government any time. I'll agree with fiscal discipline. I'll agree that we should be discussing individual rights. I'll even agree with personal responsibility. On the last issue in particular, "personal responsibility," it actually isn't up to the gvt to strengthen the American family, esp. if the whole idea of "strengthening them" is to force women to have babies. Force women to stay home with their kids. Force women in bad marriages to highly abusive husbands to stay married to them. I can think that in society religious organizations could do the work that would help strengthen the family. No? They spend more of their time demanding that gvt "do something about it." Much like Bryan Fischer of the "Idaho Values Alliance." The GOP aren't the only ones to have abandoned Reagan's "conservative" principles post their 1992 convention platform; so did the religious special interests.

Speaking of Bryan Fischer, Huckleberries on-line (Spokesman-Review hosted blogs) featured an I'll get mad and take my toys home with me article for discussion. Fischer saying that the GOP can't hope to win without the "religious right." In my own rebuttal to Fischer, I'm very prepared to say that the GOP would more likely have my vote if they got rid of the more gvt more, more, more religious radicals. See above commentary on Thomas. I am a believer in limited gvt. Too bad Fischer doesn't believe in it as well.

What Mr. Thomas doesn't seem to get is that "reform" isn't "conservative." Conservatives do not believe in reform. Conservatives believe in not fixing what works well (if only for them.) So, if "reform" is on the mind of Thomas in his republished to the Spokesman-Review editorial on this 20th of May 2008, then he should call it what it is: liberalism. Only liberals support the idea of reform.