Saturday, October 04, 2008

Bush's tax policies didn't create jobs, or economic well-being for most Americans. Why does McCain want to pursue more of the same?

Senator Barack Obama is proposing tax cuts that would help struggling, middle-class families get back on track and provide relief during these financially uncertain times.

No matter how many times John McCain claims otherwise, the overwhelming majority of Americans will never see a tax increase under Barack's plans. Barack's proposals will lower tax rates for 95% of families, including the small business owners that are the core of our economic well-being. It's time to help the folks that have been hurt the most by the Bush economic policies that McCain has backed for the past eight years.

John McCain pledged to run and honorable, honest campaign. Instead he's been using his stump speeches and attack ads to purposefully mislead voters about Obama's real tax plans.

The crisis that we're facing calls for innovative solutions. John McCain's plan calls for renewing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. That didn't create jobs. That didn't stimulate economic growth. In fact, that approach is fundamentally more of the same, and the United State of America just can't afford it.

No more lies.

Before you vote, know who will raise your taxes more. According to independent, non-partisan comparisons, if you earn less than $250,000 per year? It's McCain.

Do the causes of Global warming matter?

Let's try a little hypothetical situation:

You're standing on a riverbank and you see more and more people who appear to be trying to get out of the river, but they're tired and can't swim to shore so they're being swept on out to sea. Do you
  1. go upstream and figure out why they're all in the river, or
  2. blame the policies of the Bush~Cheney Administration, or
  3. ignore the cause and hope sound-bites on the 6:00 news will make it clear that you're not pointing fingers but definitely in favor of keeping people from drowning?
While you're thinking which of those three you'd suggest, watch this excerpt from a recent interview:

Is that your final answer?

While forming a sub-cabinet to study the issue isn't exactly the epitome of small-government solutions, it is creative. It wasn't, however, one of the choices you were offered.

Global warming looms as the biggest threat to thefutureIf you picked "3" you were likely impressed by Governor Sarah Palin's amazing winking soundbite show in what was supposed to be a debate Thursday night. I suggest you move to Alaska where you can rest assured you'll be hearing a lot more sound bites from her in the coming months and years.

If you picked "2" I sympathize, but you'd better be out working to get Obama elected, and working to add forward-thinking progressives who think about energy and the environment in terms of the future to both the U.S. House and Senate or you'll be whining on November 5th.

If you picked "1" feel free to add me to your friends list, we just might have something in common.

    We urgently need a comprehensive energy policy for the United State that will, at a minimum:
  • Incorporate energy into an overall national security policy.
  • Unify energy and environmental policy, recognizing our obligation to act as planet-stewards on behalf of future generations.
  • Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
  • Help create new jobs by strategically investing to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
  • Provide incentives to save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
  • Put hundreds of thousands of Plug-In Hybrid cars on the road sooner rather than later. Our government must work to encourage those vehicles are being built here in America.
  • Ensure 10% or more of our electricity comes from renewable sources within 5 years, and aim for 25% within 15 years.
  • Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to substantively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Let's talk about the real world

The causes of global warming do matter. And while there is more than one reason people may fall in the river, making sure other people aren't pushing them in and figuring out what the main causes are -- and preventing those -- will save us a lot of time and risk we'll otherwise invest in hauling drowning people to shore. Governor Palin's flippant, sound-bite-ready reaction shows a naive, dangerous lack of understanding.

False Steve Jobs Report Not CNN's Fault



Just two days ago an iReporters created a video that reported news that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack. The result was a drop in Apple's stock price before the iReport team got wind of the news that the video's report was false.

They took it down 20 minutes later.

For some reason, some want to blame CNN for this situation. CNN's not at fault because the video was never tagged for official use by CNN.

London Bike Messengers Race Video - Cool View Of An Event

I found this and put it up for two reasons: 1) I wanted something about London, and 2) a video that was offbeat and a slice of life outside America.

This is it:

Biden / Palin Debate - Senator Biden Beats Gov. Palin Handly

Friday, October 03, 2008

O.J. SIMPSON FOUND GUILT FOR ARMED ROBBERY, SHOULD BE RELEASED ON APPEAL DUE TO JURY

This, to me is a crazy. I'm not saying O.J. Simpson was not stupid for not calling the police in Las Vegas and filing a stolen items report, but given the complexities of the overall case, and the assertion that the Las Vegas law enforcement people wanted to score a big arrest of O.J. Simpson, it's shocking to even hear of the final verdict.

But also consider what could be grounds for filing an appeal: that none of the jurors were Black -- zero. That's stupid and for the judge to allow the formation of such a jury is criminal in itself -- or should be.

Plus, O.J. Simpson himself never had a gun. Plus, the person -- an obviously questionable man called Thomas Riccio -- who Simpson for some god-awful reason asked to help him, ended up recording Simpson and selling it to the media for $210,000.

Wild and not right at all.

There's reason to believe Simpson will be released on appeal of the makeup of the jury. That's crazy to even think that a fair trial was had with an all-White or at least non-Black jury. Plus, the judge , Jsckie Miller, didn't release information on the juror questionaire. Why? I don't know.

All I know is this fish stinks and it's being thrown back into the water.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Wants $7 Billion Loan For California

The long term impact of Proposition 13 and the changed economy have produced a situation where California finds itself in a cash and credit crunch of historic proportions. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants a $7 Billion loan for California otherwise thousands of teachers in the state will be laid off.

BIDEN SCORES BIG DEBATE WIN AGAIN PALIN



Senator and Democratic VP Candidate Joe Biden basically ate Governor and GOP VP Candidate Sarah Palin alive at the "first and only" Vice Presidential Debate. I had the pleasure of watching the debate at a special event held by The Bay Area Democrats at the offices of McKinsey and Company in the Bank of America building in San Francisco.

I will share video of the impressions of viewers, but my firs take is that Palin came in with well presented canned lines that more often than not did not match the question that was asked. But the fact that the words were well-presented seemed to be enough for some people, leading me to a great concern for America's collective desire to want to think critically about anything.

Biden gave an awesome and commanding performance. His 36 years of Senate experience came to bear on the debate and he presented himself well, giving a civics and foreign policy lesson to America.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Palin avoids imploding during VP debate

Did Governor Palin's performance change the outcome of the election? Almost certainly not, though she probably did succeed in getting the attention back on Senator McCain. Her answers were obviously much less spontaneous, and accordingly less substantive, less revealing, and generally less related to the questions Gwen Ifill posed. In fact, the debate may have been overshadowed by the revelation that the McCain campaign has written off Michigan, and will even continue running ads there.

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK)Both candidates foreshadowed their strengths and styles for the evening handling the very first question, Biden gave a fairly soft answer when asked had the previous week been DC at its best or its worst, but Governor Palin essentially ignored the question altogether to assert that McCain, who had championed Wall Street deregulation, nonetheless had warned people "two years ago" that something bad might be looming.

What came through from Senator Biden was the sense of a man who genuinely grasps the enormity of the dual crises facing America: the meltdown in our economy and the damage to our standing in the world that the policies of the Bush administration have wrought. Biden was considerably more willing to show himself to us, while his opponent's agenda was clearly to echo now-familiar talking points wrapped in folksy colloquialisms – a sort of blending of the styles of George Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Biden did seem to gloss over that the time-tested Republican campaign theme of "lowering taxes" which has not by any means strengthened our economy during the Bush administration. So perhaps casual viewers looking for bright spots in Palin's performance will buy her assertion that a vote for McCain isn't likely to continue current policies even though Biden did once basically dare her to name one way in which McCain offered any real change. We're left to wonder if gosh-darnits meant to sound like Reagan are sufficient evidence of a viable Vice President or not. As a strategic goal, distancing the McCain~Palin ticket from Bush and Cheney is obviously prudent, yet speaking at a tactical "in the limelight" level, Sarah Palin mispronouncing nuclear in the same way that George Bush does surely emphasized her similarities to our increasingly unpopular President.

When Ms. Ifill asked how a VP might change the partisan posturing that we associate with Washington politics the two answers were markedly different. Biden's story about being given a come-uppance and his resulting lesson about not judging another motives rang with credible humility. Palin, on the other hand, after suggesting the secret was in selecting political appointees without regard to their politics (that's a trifle naïve, I must say) then immediately launched into a highly partisan smear as she made her appeal to voters to pick Republicans to return to the Oval Office.

Who dealt with the questions better?


Senator Joe BidenPalin dodged the question when both candidates were asked about their weaknesses. Biden was forthcoming, whereas the Governor clearly launched into talking points. Asked about policy issues they'd had to change on during their careers Biden admitted to giving up his original ideal about selecting judicial nominees based solely on temperament and intellect, learning there was reason to consider "judicial philosophy" as well. Palin cited not vetoing budgets when she lacked support. In other words she'd learned she couldn't dictate from a minority position, which frankly sounded like she didn't understand the question although it's a good lesson.

Biden did have the upper hand in the exchanges about taxes. The Governor was obviously in talking point territory on that topic, while Senator Biden clarified and debunked those points and how they relate to wage earners under $250,000, regardless of if they are small business owners or not. A format that allowed longer responses probably would have provided Biden the opening to talk about how tax cuts haven't been creating jobs lately, but the rules for the VP debate cut down the intervals each had for speaking in comparison to the Presidential events, and that frankly worked in Palin's favor.

Well moderated evening


Any questions or concerns about Gwen Ifill's impartiality as a moderator have been erased by her style of presenting both with similarly sticky questions – and letting both hear both questions before replying when the two were different, such as on challenging the Governor to explain why she'd said she didn't know what a VP did ("it was a joke") whereas Ifill noted Biden had been quoted as saying he'd never be a VP (which he didn't actually have to address, since Palin wanted BOTH to be seen as jokes - Sarah let Joe off the hook.) Ifill had moderated the vice-presidential debate between Republican candidate Dick Cheney and Democratic candidate Senator John Edwards during the 2004 debate, but her as-yet-unpublished book had been the source of some hand-wringing among certain pundits during the 24-36 hours before the debate.

One outstanding quandary for those who were paying close attention to Palin's talking points is how to reconcile her assertions about getting government out of the way with such statements as being the first Governor to form a climate change sub-cabinet. That's not exactly a small-government approach, although it did allow her to nearly deflect questions about what causes climate change. Biden, of course, was quick to point out that while it's all well and good to talk about avoiding finger pointing, yet it's hard to solve problems if you don't know what the cause is. Perhaps his best shot of the night came early on when he likened McCain's proposals to tax health care benefits while deregulating the health care insurance system as a "Bridge to Nowhere."

Republicans can relax, she passed.


Still, it must be said, Governor Palin was much better prepared for this than she had been for her interviews with Katie Couric, and surely exceeded the expectations of many who watched the debate. Did she win? Not in the traditional sense of providing substantive answers related to the questions. Yet political debates are not judged solely by that standard, and since she likely didn't drive conservative voters away she also didn't lose.

If the standard is which candidate presented a person ready to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency, a question Ifill asked about, Senator Biden's more thoughtful, spontaneous familiarity with the national policy issues outshined the Governor's repeated references to Alaska as an energy producing state. There can be little doubt in the minds of the voters that the Obama~Biden policies will diverge sharply from those in force currently, whereas based on Palin's performance, (which didn't meet the level she attained reading her acceptance speech at the RNC,) a vote for McCain~Palin is, indeed, a vote for more of the same.

Digg this article...


McCain pulling out of Michigan

According to Jonathan Martin at The Politico, John McCain is throwing in the towel and ceding Michigan. He will go off TV, discontinue all mailings, and pull almost all of his staff. He has also cancelled a scheduled rally there next week. According to recent polling, Obama has opened up as much as a 10 point lead over McCain in MI. For more details on the Republicans stunning decision to cede Michigan more than a month ahead of the election, see The Politico.

Sarah Palin Distracts Voters and Journalists With Her Legs



This video shows that Alaska Governor and GOP hopeful VP Candidate uses her legs to gain an advantage. But we Democrats must undertand that we're all gaining from this process -- eventually people will get tired of the whole deal of seeing her legs and vote for Obama = Biden.

See this on CNN iReport.

Senate Version of Bailout Bill Passes 74 to 25 - House Next

The U.S. Senate passed the new version of the Bailout Bill 74 to 25 votes. And while credit markets have not recovered all the way -- about 70 percent -- from Monday, at least it's not going to crash as it did that day.