"Me" time

Already the presidential R&R champion, GW is going out on a high note by opting to stay on vacation during the recent Israel/Gaza fighting.

A GOP shortcoming distilled to its essence

I usually don't agree with Mr. Gingrich, but he was quoted in a NYT article saying:


“I think the country is so tired right now of a style of Republican attack politics that has become a caricature of itself, they instinctively go, ‘I’m tired of that,’ ” said Newt Gingrich, a Republican and former speaker of the House. “It’s ineffective against Barack Obama right now. The country is faced with serious problems and is about to have a brand new president. You’d have to be irrational not to want the new president to succeed.”

Indeed the Republican style attack politics of late have become a caricature of itself. No longer is the party fighting for any principles, and less and less even for an ideology, but simply fighting 'The Democrats'. After regaining power in the 90's riding anti-PC, anti-sexuality sentiment, they used their power to 1) flog Bill Clinton , 2) save Terry Schiavo, 3) enrich their friends, and 4)do what they could to build and keep their so called permanent Republican majority.

One thing they did well was articulating basic and popular, albeit vague, principles: limited government, fiscal conservatism, upholding the rule of law, and fighting for traditional values. How well they adhered to these while in power leaves a lot to be desired.

One thing that has always bothered me is a false (in my view) correlation with conservative politics and fiscal conservatism. By accident of nomenclature Republicans were able to use a value almost universally shared, though not as universally practiced, and proclaim for themselves the mantle of sound fiscal policy and label political liberals as irresponsible money wasters. Then, mounting an anti-tax crusade they managed to drastically cut the tax burden on their wealthy power base while simultaneously throwing around federal money as if it grew on dandelions.

In the name of reducing government they cut domestic programs and spending, ignored infrastructure maintenance and improvement, removed significant amounts of internal federal checks, balances, and oversight, and significantly weakened the government regulatory structures over private business, while simultaneously drastically expanding the federal bureaucracy with the DHS and creating a secondary shadow federal government entity through subcontracting of basic services and national security operations that proved to be both less efficient, less effective, and less accountable than the government entities they replaced.

On a moral crusade to appease their fundamental religious wing, they pushed for criminalization of personal vices, and continued the increasingly unreasonable and expensive mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and foul language on TV. At the same time they openly and brazenly disregarded longstanding statutory and constitutional prohibitions on things like torture and detainee treatment, massive warrantless eavesdropping, and lied the country into a war of aggression.

The adherance to their core principles has been selectively applied the the opposing party while behind the scenes, and- as they grew complacent and emboldened by their apparent lock on power- increasingly out in the open they adhered to the actual and eternal core political principles of gluttony, greed and avarice, wrath, and pride. (And in one or two cases sodomy)

Happy Yuletide Greetings!

Random hottie spotting

This picture ran with an article about cold weather today.

Metal Atari Style

My morning dilemma

Pheasant hunting

This is pretty disturbing.

An Update: Here is one writers reaction to this story.

Fun for the whole family

Sock and Awe

Anything goes

There was an interesting quote toward the end of this NYT editorial about the Interior Dept. today talking about the Minerals Management Service of this article fame. The quote was from the department's Inspector General where he said

“Short of a crime,” Mr. Devaney said, “anything goes at the Department of the Interior.”

Right before that, it said:

According to Mr. Devaney, officials accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drugs and sex with oil company employees.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that about everything in that list is in fact a crime. If Mr. Devaney doesn't think so, I know of some NBPD officers who would disagree.

Out-Bushing Bush

One of the hallmarks of Bush's reign was the singular focus on partisan politics above actual governing. His administration and their underlings in Congress would transparently act and vote in ways designed to above all beat the Democrats. The actual details were secondary to beating those lousy dems. Perhaps it is his lame duck status, or a rare change of heart, but Bush has been working to keep the auto companies out of bankruptcy, while the only roadblock to that has been Senate Republicans. Everybody knows and understands that the companies became fat happy bloated and lazy. Nonetheless to let them go bankrupt in the middle of a recession amid some serious instability in the financial sector and the economy as a whole seems pretty foolish. No one wants to see the money go to waste, so while it would be good to make sure there is a good plan in place unlike the last bailout, to let them fail at this time would probably be harmful. What is incredibly juvenile is the single-minded obsessing on the UAW. The UAW has already agreed to restructure their compensation structure, probably more so than any other employees excluding the $1 a year CEO's. It seems fairly transparent that the underlying motivation is to weaken a union that mainly gives money to Democrats. It seems a strange time to draw the line when the much much larger financial bailout is still in process with no effective conditions for the recipients to clean up their act, to pick this loan for a fractin of the amount to put your foot down doesn't make sense, at least for the reason given. To hold up the entire process, making lower wages for the workers the single objectionable issue it hinges upon, could maybe be called silly at best.

Self explanatory

"The $50 billion allegedly lost to investors would make Madoff's fund one of the biggest frauds in history....and a fine of up to $5 million"

Cabinets

Lots of people have been complaining about Obama's picks for his cabinet. That he is letting down his supporters on the left with Clinton and Gates. So far it seems to me he is putting together a pretty promising entourage.
The team of rivals hype is pretty annoying for me another example of how the urge to be a part of greatness by comparison to an historic figure is everywhere. Bush thought he was Churchill and now Obama is being heralded as Lincoln and FDR in one.

For secdef it was smart to have Gates stay on as someone intimately familiar with the current wars, plus he will mollify the Republicans, you might hope, from trying to pin gwot's problems on the new pres. He has also walked the line quite well of disagreeing with Bush's more morally dubious ideas while still professing the inability to change them quite yet.

HRC et al could be quite good at sweet talking the foreigners and doing some token or possibly even meaningful humanitarian things.

Gen. Shinseki for the VA is encouraging, so is Steven Chu for Energy Sec is too- and he has won a nobel for research. Sounds a bit elitist to me though. I bet he eats Arugula too. Who will the next nobel laureate appointed? Al Gore for internets and powerpoint affairs? Paul Krugman for treasury?

Holder for the AG has potential he seems sincere and it will remain to be seen if he has the balls to do anything on the torture issue. Another plus for him is that his Marc Rich pardon involvement will cancel out with Gates' Iran-Contra involvement making for a scandal neutral cabinet.

Wisconsin's Russ Feingold talked about cabinet picks and other things in an interview here.

Auto bailout and some other things

-Is the $70 an hour union wage real? This is one of the better writings about the auto bailout I have read. The house has passed an auto bailout bill but it may not get through the senate.

The earlier hearings were a little funny to see, the big 3 CEO's coming to Washington to ask for money, and getting rejected. It may have verged on political theater but a part of me did want to yell "Burn!!" when they were asked if they flew in on private jets, and if they would give them up in order to get the money but none agreed to at the time. It did underscore a mentality not only of them but also in the financial firms getting bailout money where executives there had no intention to change the way they do business even though their businesses failed and are being propped up by tax money. They seem to think they can keep living high on the hog like it is still the glory days of the bubble, when once one attained the lucrative title of 'executive', you now had it made in the shade. Even if you were a dumbass and did a shitty job, driving your company into the ground, you were given a good golden parachute on the way out since that is what executives deserve. Just because your company is losing money doesn't mean you shouldn't get that new gulfstream 12 with the pool of sharks with laser beams on their heads.

Where they are at now seems a bit better, apparently they all decided to sell the corporate jets (to Scotty Pippen I presume) and even agreed to work the next year for $1.00 in compensation. I am sure that they are sincere in that and wouldn't sneak a few extra bonuses the year after that to make up for it. They even came back to Congress a week later with detailed plans for how they were going to restructure and become a profitable company if only they could borrow a few billion. Imagine the prodigies that could come up with a detailed corporate restructuring plan in a week for a multi-billion dollar company! It boggles the mind! Not only that, but they even included in the plan how they are going to re-tool to make more efficient cars!

I must assume that these plans willl not be put in place unless and until they get their money. Otherwise it might confuse you that they strongly objected (allong with the Bush White House) to a provision of the bailout that would have made them drop their lawsuits against California's emissions regulations.


In other news, has Obama now become tainted by the IL gov. who was trying to raffle his vacated senate seat? Read this to find out.

Dumbshit Awards

3rd Place:
This teacher doesn't believe in free software and will make sure her students are not exposed to the subversive carnival show that is Linux. Everyone should use MS Windows, and she is going to do some investigating to see if it is a criminal act to use a computer without Windows on it. (from /.)

Runner Up:
This letter writer (3rd from the top) is upset that he was forced to vote for George W Bush twice and John McCain, even though he thought they were both nincompoops and would wreak havoc on the country. He would rather subject the US to their rule than vote for someone who is not pro-life. Oh, the predicaments one finds oneself in as a values voter. Cannot there ever be a competent pro-life candidate so the values voters can stop voting for incompetent buffoons simply because they are pro-life?

The Winner:
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Chicago. While already under investigation for other matters, he made innumerable incriminating statements, some shown here, on a phone call the feds were recording. Unless you have been living under a rock, not much explanation here is needed.


What do they win? Trucknuts!

This song sucks

This song is great

Bank of America, how ungrateful

Bank of America, how could you be so ungrateful for the federal financial bailout that the same week as Bush weakens the federal rules on mountaintop removal mining, you go and decide not to finance it anymore? Don't you know that we are in a credit crisis and Financial institutions must continue lending out money? How could you go behind the president's back like that and undermine his plan to remove more mountaintops by declining to finance said removal? I am noticing a disturbing trend from you and your Bush hating "green policies". Bank of America? More like Bank of Hippieland. Where are your manners?

Partisan responses to the economic crisis

Right: Tax Cuts!!
Left: The New Deal lives again!!
Center: I love Sanjaya!

Going Retro with Greatness Envy

Phase I:
Baby Boomer-in-chief G.W. and the Republicans try to become the Greatest Generation II in the transcendent generational struggle of our time against terrorists. People on the home front can do the part in the war effort against these new fascist communists. Just like Eleanor Roosevelt convinced Americans to plant victory gardens after the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, George Bush convinced Americans to go victory shopping after the tragedy of 9/11. Just like Rosie the Riveter gave women the inspiration to replace the men at war in the workforce, Joe the Plumber gave women the inspiration to become entrepreneurs in building trades.

Phase II:
The second black man everyone at work can agree on and the Democrats channel FDR and embark upon The New Deal Part Deux. Home prices are down, your 401K lost 30%, hobos are crowding Main Street, and Ford Motor Co. is using fire hoses to keep away the throngs of job seekers. How will we hold up in such dire circumstances? More details as they emerge.

Lent for Liberals

Would a trend be a trend without an equally trendy anti-trend? With the ascendance of the shop-a-holic's dream that is black Friday comes the anti-establishmentt answer in buy-nothing-day. Cyber Monday has order-nothing-Monday. (I made that second one up)

How best for those whose life is dedicated to scorning mainstream to make a statement against all things shopping and holiday cheer? How best to assuage the anti-consumerist angst coming from your inevitable participation in christmas shopping at the MALL? How best to compensate for 364 days of living the consumer lifestyle like the rest of the chumps, and do it in a conspicuous way that you can brag about to your hipster friends? Never fear, buy-nothing-day is here!

Things I'm thankful for

Titans Defense
T Monk

Rhetorical Question

Whether or not you agree with him, it is so refreshing to hear a president speak intelligently. In my opinion I want a president that seems smarter than me. I think most people would agree with that so my question is; what does that say about Bush voters?

*(No offense to my loyal reader(s) who fall in that category)

Don't blame edgrimly, he voted for the lizard people

You can vote for them too here.

Gulf War Syndrome

Now apparently called Gulf War Illness, a long awaited congressional report is out confirming a causal link between service in the first gulf war with this illness. After over a decade of denying any such link and labeling it psychosomatic, the federal government and the VA should now have no choice but to pony up for treatment.

Like it's going out of style

Is the way the GW Bush administration is handing out money in its final few months in office. Think the Iraq war is a money pit? Not in comparison to what has been spent ensuring financial execs get their christmas bonuses this year. This CNBC page is keeping a running tally of the grand sum of federal handouts, and has a slideshow to compare it to other high dollar expenses in the history of the nation. The money spent on the financial crisis surpasses even WWII, and the entire cumulative spending of NASA. Memo to W: George senior can't write a check to bail you out of this one.

A song for Saturday

Another video for ed

It was kind of cool to see Mila Kunis say guild and twink.

More dumbing down

Not long ago Chopper wrote about people dumbing things down, he may be interested to read this from my favorite naysayer addressing a similar thing.

Eject him

Harry Reid, don't give Joe Lieberman any chairmanships please. Just don't. He campaigned for McCain, and is pining for an Iran invasion. Why would you put one of McCain's main men in one of the most influential positions on foreign policy? He is still extricating his shit stained nose from the GOP's ass now that he sees the wind is blowing the other way. The election buzzword was change and Lieberman is anything but that.

Hand over fist

Here's a look at what the bailout money has been doing so far in Rolling Stone.

missed calls

1999 called, they want their Nader back.

2000 called, they want their McCain back.

1946 called, they want their George back.

If you thought McCain supporters had a bad Tuesday

At least they weren't in one of ed's cardboard trucks like this guy.

The missing tape

The missing tape that was never really missing.

Associations

I'm voting on nOVEMBER 9TH

Nalin

transcript

14th sign of the apocalypse

This was on FOX Business Channel. FOX! Yes, FOX!

Joe the Plumber?......Bueller?.....Bueller?

everybody watch these, except edgrimly

i was unable to find a video for the arby's "where is everybody, where did everybody go?" one

Best headline of the day

Things about robots are always good.

Silly Flies

Todays PDI (Public Display of Ignorance) from Sarah Palin:

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not

The newest "scientific study" to be ridiculed as an example of wasteful earmarks is fruit flies. I know at least one loyal reader would have taken the same high school biology class as me and might remember fruit flies being one of if not the best way to study genetics. Now that bears and planet-ariums have already been used, I wonder what the next scapegoat will be....

Economic Growth

This is a pretty interesting special section about economic growth, and whether or not the are the resources and methods to sustain it indefinitely. When it is the basis upon which we shape the economy is that compatible with the long term inhabitance of this planet?

Woopsie

The first thing McCain has done that made me laugh out loud-his campaign sent a fundraising letter to Russia's UN envoy. Today, we are all Georgians. Tomorrow, we will ask the Russians for a campaign donation. It gets better too. The campaign belonging to one half of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform team not only sends a letter soliciting funds from a foreigner (which is illegal), but also suggests amounts in the letter that are higher than the legal allowable limit. It appears you can see the actual letter here.

One for the sports fans

Wisconsin's late great Senator

Thanks to Michele Bachmann for withdrawing from her race for Congress in Minnesota. She didn't actually withdraw, but made some comments so idiotic that the effect is about the same. She went on at length about how Obama is anti-American, and how she thinks there should be investigations into how many people in Congress hold anti-American views. I think some democrat somewhere must have played a prank and switched her script with one specifically designed to link the GOP congressional incumbent to McCarthy. Of course, she really didn't mean to say all that....It will be explained as a mis-statement, or maybe a gaffe, or better yet, she was tricked into it by the devious genius of Chris Matthews.

Election Fraud

Look here for an interview with Mark Crispin Miller on voter fraud and acorn.

Voter purging and provisional ballots seems a far bigger concern than Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys.

In the last debate McCain tried to tie Obama with acorn who he said was "perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." After making such a serious proclamation, he never mentioned it again. The biggest fraud in history and destroying democracy, yet on ly worth one mention, and that mention was to tie Obama to it and not to argue about what should be done about this greatest fraud in history and the end of democracy. Has this supplanted radical islam as the greatest threat to our democracy? If McCain loses I have no doubt he will say it has.

Transitive property of taxes

Obama says that 98% of small businesses make less than the $250,000 and wouldn't have their taxes raised. McCain says that Obama is going to raise taxes on 50% of small business income. Is one of them distorting the facts or do 2% of small businesses bring in 50% of the country's small business income?

Happy Friday

Some debate observations

Tonight was the third and final debate before the election. A few of my humble observations follow:

-I thought this one was the best one. It gave them the most chance to go back and forth and get down to specifics.

-On every single question McCain was given the last word. This was usually when he got his "zingers" in with no chance for Obama to reply to them.

-In the first few minutes of the debate, McCain blamed the financial crisis on Fannie and Freddie. This claim has been made repeatedly by conservatives. It has also been shown as false many many times. The Community Reinvestment Act has also been blamed a lot. This is also false and has been repeatedly shown to be. These highlight the Republican's tactic of assigning blame to things associated to democrats and poor people, even when they know their claims are false. If you're interested, you can read a few things that show why these claims are false. It should not be up for debate that this crisis is largely attributable to the the complex financial instruments that were unregulated and wildly speculated upon, and unregulated financial institutions that made huge bets on bad lending. A NYT editorial today, this analysis of the debate makes this point too, TIME magazine's economics writer, McClatchy newspapers, and many more if you take the time to look.

-McCain likes to say US business pay the most taxes in the world. That is quite a false claim. He deliberately confuses the nominal tax rate with the amount of taxes the corporations actually pay. Check this from ABC news, which shows that 2/3 of US corprations payed ZERO taxes.

-McCain likes to push Obama about "re-distribution of wealth." It is funny. Republicans like to use taxes as a signature issue. On one hand they talk about how they will lower YOUR taxes, or just lower taxes, and accuse democrats of always raising taxes. In reality, the republican platform and their track record of the past few decades is lowering taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals by huge amounts and giving small token breaks to most people. When democrats make efforts to make the tax burden more fairly shared by lowering average peoples tax rates, they shout 're-distribution.' There is the hypocrisy. I will probably come back to this sometime soon. On a related note, they manage to back democrats into this corner by, as George W has done, by giving away so much tax breaks to their 'base' and bankrupting the country in the process. On the same token they have spent more and more while still making the claims of 'tax and spending' democrats. By destroying the federal budget and drowning the country in deficits and debt, thay have also made it that much harder for the democrats they know were coming into office to actually accomplish any domestic goals.

-When asked if he can balance the budget in his first term, McCain did not hesitate to declare, YES. It is funny to hear him say that when we are at the beginning of what looks like a nasty recession. The idea is silly, that the federal budget can be balanced during a recession. If he does that, guess that he won't use any government spending to try and bring the country out of that recession. He has been giving Obama lots of shit lately about 'raising taxes during bad economic times' like Hoover, and at the same time makes an irresponsible claim to balance the federal budget during a recession.

-Obama congratulated McCain on showing independance from Bush on the issue of torture, referring to McCain's actions before the MIlitary Commissions Act was passed in 06. While true that McCain gave a lot of lip service during the bill's debate to being against torture, the final bill did gave the CIA free riegn to torture. McCain sided with the 'team' and voted for the bill.

-After agreeing that smear politics and Ayers are silly distractions, McCain then goes on at length about Obama's 'connections' to Ayers and ACORN.

-McCain said that "ACORN is perpetrating the greatest voter fraud in history and destropying the fabric of democracy" To bad it's a paranoid fantasy.

-One of McCain's repeated points was that he is going to make a spending freeze in government. When the topic came to energy, he said he wants to build 45 new nuclear (not nucular) plants right away. How he will do this with a spending freeze I have no idea. Nuke plants are heavily subsidized by the gov't. They are hugely expensive to build and if private energy companies don't get subsidized to build them, and also get liability guarantees from the fed for public health liabilities, they would not get built.

-Free trade, and Columbia. Chopper has talked about the dumbing down of society, and here's a great example. McCain accuses Obama of opposing free trade in general and with Columbia specifically because he voted against a free trade bill with them. When Obama responded, he said he supports a free trade agreement with Columbia, but it needs to have enforceable enviromental, labor, and human rights protections. He didn't vote for the bill because it didn't have all of these, mainly because it was mainly a Bush and republican bill and those things are anethema to them. Shouls seem then that they both agree they want free trad eagreement with Columbia. Maybe they disagree on some of the specifics it should include. McCain stuck to his talking point that Obama opposes having a free trade agreement with Columbia.

-Again, how many times do we have to hear about Joe the fucking plumber? McCain likes to call him Joe the plumber to bring up an image of Joe sixpack and insinuate Obama will raise taxes on all you normal people. At least towards the end he spoke the truth: Joe, you're rich. To bad McCain spent the whole debate using Joe the plumber as a proxy for non-rich people.

-McCain loves vouchers. He screamed it over and over. Vouchers Vouchers Vouchers. Voucherss are a good way to takea money out of public schools and give it to private schools, and ensure that the public schools never get better. Maybe the end goal is to end public education and give everybody vouchers to go to private schools. Seems like a much more expensive proposotion than public education. Current voucher programs are only available to a few and make it worst for the rest of the kids that don't get them. One could argue it could also be worse for the ones that do when the schools arent required to meet curriculum standards like puiblic schools are. Little school on the prarie with Doris the churchlady teaching science. Not to mention, with the vouchers you are now giving federal money to religious schools that push religious indoctrination on the kids. But republicans are no opponent of giving federal money to religious purposes. Are you serious about improving the state of the poublic schools in poor areas? Then make schools state funded with equal funding for all schools based on # of students. But good luck getting suburban parents letting some of their tax money go to those inner city black ones. Maybe Chopper has an opinion in this.

who is this clown?

enough about joe the fucking plumber

We must act now, or else we might do something sensible!

There's been a mad rush from both candidates to come up with a rescue plan for the economy. Some government capital investment - aka bailout - is needed to try and avert a disaster, that much seems apparent. I question the prudence of more stimulus and rescue plans though, especially ones that are thrown together in the coming weeks before the election, that will probably include 'sweeteners' like the first bailout bill did to make sure they pass. I wonder why McCain with his signature issue of earmarks and pork didn't say much about those. As everyone knows, there's no better way to change the course of an economic slowdown years in the making that is starting to hit full steam than a hastily designed plan made to appeal to the lowest common denominator right before a presidential election. God forbid that Americans accept that the economy will be slowing down for a fair length of time. We must come up with half-assed quick fixes, pronto! Any economist worth their salt knows that economic cycles are a thing of the past, endless growth is the new way of business. We have heard dire warnings from Paulson that 'economic growth might be slower' gasp! Slow growth! Stock up on your canned goods now!

Last week, after announcing the notion in the debate, McCain announced he wants to have the government buy up distressed mortgages, and do this at their face value instead of the actual market value of the homes. Another flagrant socializing of losses. He called it the McCain American Homeowndership Resurgence Plan. I would call it the McCain Presidential Campaign Resurgence Plan. While it is good to hear their ideas, acting on them would be extremely idiotic since the timing and content are based mostly on scoring political points to win the election.

Now this week he came out a rescue package to turn that economic frown upside down. McCain, displaying his non-maverickey allegiance to the right wing economic philosophy of corporate and wealthy giveaways to the detriment of everyone else and the nation as a whole, has some clearly poorly thought out ideas.

-John McCain Proposes That Withdrawals From Tax-Preferred Accounts - IRAs And 401(k)s - Should Be Taxed At The Lowest Rate - 10 Percent - In 2008 And 2009

Significantly lowering the tax rate on withdrawals from 401-k's and retirement plans. With a lack of capital a main driving force behind the current problems, doing this will make every Tom, Dick, and Hairy take as much money as they can out of these accounts during this temporary low tax period, thus creating a huge outflow of cash from mutual funds and the securities they own. Not to mention encouraging people to empty their retirement accounts and spend-spend-spend like the good little Americans they want you to be. While admittedly that would boost the economy with all that spending going on, it would do so at the expense of the life savings of all those seniors he proclaims he wants to help.

-John McCain Has Called To Suspend The Tax Rules That Force Seniors To Sell Their Stocks In The Midst Of The Most Grave Financial Crisis Of Our Lifetime
Not to bad

-John McCain Will Not Penalize Those Forced To Sell Off In Today's Tough Markets John McCain believes that we should increase the amount of capital losses which can be used in tax years 2008 and 2009 to offset ordinary income from $3,000 to $15,000.

People that are invested heavily in the stock market, and for god gnows what reason decide to sell those stocks, get a big tax break. Not likely to benifit the great majority of 'folks'. A shifting of the tax burden from the investor class to the wage earning class. Classic right wing tax policy.

-John McCain Will Strengthen Incentives To Save, Invest, And Restore The Liquidity Of Markets. John McCain proposes a reduction in the maximum tax rate on long term capital gains to 7.5 percent in 2009 and 2010.

People who in some way will manage to make money from stocks, now have to pay less, one half the regular amount, in taxes on them. See above.

Additionally, the money managers at hedge funds that everyone has come to love to hate in recent weeks, have been exploiting a tax loophole for a long long time that taxes their income, which they make from fees they charge, at said capital gains tax rate instead of the normal income tax rates most people pay. Someone honestly interested in helping out the middle class that gets paid lip service every four years might propose changing this loophole. What better time to do it than with huge public anger towards hedge funds? What was once politically impossible when the public was unintersted and Washington bought off now might be possible even probable. Instead, John McCain makes no mention of this (neither has anyone else in Washington) and is proposing to cut their already immorally low tax rates in half.

-

America's Families Are Bearing A Heavy Burden From Falling Housing Prices, Mortgage Delinquencies, Foreclosures, And A Weak Economy. It is important that those families who have worked hard enough to finance homeownership not have that dream crushed under the weight of the wrong mortgage. The existing debts are too large compared to the value of housing. For those that cannot make payments, mortgages must be re-structured to put losses on the books and put homeowners in manageable mortgages.

This proposal is not unique to McCain. People who made bad decisions or got snookered get some of their debt taken care of by Uncle Sam. People who bought responsibly get nothing, even if their property values have dropped too. While it is a good idea to help people facing foreclosure, this is not the way to do it. Many people have proposed allowing bankruptcy courts to restucture the interest plans of people's primary homes in bankruptcy. It's about the only debt right now that can't get restructured in bankruptcy. In the bankruptcy bill of a few years ago lots of people on the liberal side of things pushed for this. It never stood a chance of making it into that bill. Side note- people can currently do this with second homes while in bankruptcy, to keep their second homes, but not with primary ones.

Seems rash to do this and adjust the principal people owe right away without waiting to see what happens to the market and if prices come back up some amount. Why shift those paper losses inot real losses the government pays for so quickly. People that bought more than they can afford will lose it and should. People that got talked into adjustable rates that are balooning should get some help with better interest terms to stop unwarranted foreclosures. Less foreclosures is less depression of home prices is less negative equity.

More on Milwaukee voter fraud

A piece in the Cap Times on the Milwaukee voter fraud saga

Happy Anniversary

Bogeyman

The bogeyman of the right, George Soros, has a good interview about the financial crisis and the dangers of fundamentalism.

Mother of all ironies

It seemed like graduation day was coming, and George W Bush was going to leave office as a free market hero. Bush and the last half dozen presidents before him have de-regulated nearly everything there was to de-regulate. Capital was king and those who have it make the rules to ensure they kept it. The government was made impotent to oversee or even peer into corporate dealings. The buzzword was "specific market failure", that was used to prevent nearly everything that was proposed to regulate business activites. Everything from accounting rules to greater consolidation to climate change was a non starter without a 'specific market failure' to warrant action. When some of them did rear their heads like Putin likes to do, some superficial knee jerk laws were passed that did little to constrain the advance of unfettered capitalism. Not even the debacle of energy market de-regulation, Enron, and the ensuing accounting scandals could stop the inexorable march towards private control of everything. Medicare was partially privatized with the Plan-D pharmaceutical subsidy. An unsucessful attempt was made to privatize social security but it remained on the wish list and probably still is there. Free market was the mantra and it was pushed to its ideolical extreme. Acedemics like Greenspan who ran the Treasury and the Fed, who were by no means opposed to the free market ideology, were replaced by industry executives Paulson and Bernanke by Bush. In the same manner as he did so many other things, Bush was able to bring the ideology to its extremes and enscone it in the Washington consensus as dogma.

Now, with the implosion of the US financial system, it appears to be forcing the hand of the Bush administration to abandon its plan to act as a repository for the big financial institutions to unload worthless assets on. To try and keep the global economy from all but dying, Paulson is now seriously proposing to give money directly to banks, in exchange for a federal ownership share. Due in large part to the failure of their ideology when taken to extremes, the free market chamion is socializing a huge portion of the country's finance system.

Chomsky on the financial events

My favorite elitist Noam Chomsky weighs in with a short (by his standards) piece on the recent financial happenings.

McCain comes to Milwaukee

He arrived tonight, but apparently wouldn't want to live here.

Red Herrings

You have the GOP and the right wing press spasming over alleged votor fraud, mainly about a non-profit group called ACORN. Now this week the police raided an ACORN office in Nevada. Wisconsin's own AG is suing the state a month before the election to force the state to go through every registered voter since '06.

You have a non-profit group, ACORN, with limited resources trying to get people registered to vote, which I think most people can agree on being a good thing, unless your that blatantly partisan that it bothers you that the people they register tend to vote democratic. You have college kids volunteering to go out and register people or getting paid meager sums to do it. A good number are probably guys just trying to get laid by looking politically active for their girlfriends or something to write on a job or college application. This group has registered 1.3 million people so far for this election. The things I have read about it usually cite something like a few hundred registration cards being duplicate or incorrect, at the most. The Dallas Cowboy's are registering in Nevada. This doesn't seem like widespread fraud to me. It seems like the work of bored kids.

Maybe a few people weren't into it and just went through the motions filled out some fake cards and then went home and banged their idealistic girfriends. Maybe some people registered to vote twice by accident. Maybe someone copied down an address wrong. Who knows for sure, but a few hundred out of 1.3 million seems like chump change. I would like to see any organization anywhere compile lists that big this quickly and not have a few mistakes. It is also worth pointing out that voting fraud and registration fraud are not the same thing, and errors on registration cards does not necessarily equate to registration fraud. So because there are some duplicate registration cards does that mean that person will vote twice? Probably not, and on the off chance someone does try they won't have much luck if the people at the polls are doing their job. Does someone filling out some fake cards to get their quota and go home mean these fake people will come out and vote on election day? Maybe in light of all this fraud we should forget voting and just let the Supreme Court pick the next president.

Wisconsin has the honor of being included in the list of states where this issue is getting the spotlight. A search of the articles from the local rag, here - here - and here, these people are being accused of fraud for some small potatoes stuff. A good number of the workers in trouble are in trouble for 1 or 2 registration cards total. There could very well be a few people out there trying to cheat, most likely there are. Nothing I have seen, except Fox News, make it seem like a big problem. Not one that can have an actual impact on election outcomes. Most of what I see doesn't even look like fraud but more like laziness. Mostly it seems like Republicans hyperventilating about an imaginary voter fraud conspiracy. Mountain out of a molehill. Maybe this raid will turn up more info, but my money is that it doesn't provide any evidence of widespread intentional fraudulent voting.

An update: A post at ThinkProgress looks at this issue some more and has a video compilation too.

Assclown

Never Again

Besides gushing about how they 'both love Israel', Palin made a slight reference to the country when she used the phrase 'Never Again', - historically signifying never to let another Jewish genocide occur- in reference to the financial turmoil we're seeing. Someone at the NYT points this fact out, though I would think it should garner a bit more attention than it has.

Pick a side

Sarah Palin put a lot of emphasis duting the debate tonight on reforming and dealing with corruption and wanting strong oversight. A few minutes later, she ranted about getting government out of the way and letting private industry thrive.

He and McCain are bouth talking the populist reformer talk but I would have a hard hard time believeing they would walk that walk, especially if you actually look at McCain's record and support for Bush and the republican's tax plans.

The twit energy olympics

When Joe Biden and Sarah Palin had a debate tonight the subject turned to energy, and climate change. Sarah Palin said she thinks climate change may be partially due to humans but also natural cycles but she doesn't care or think we should discuss the cause only deal with the 'impacts'. There was a lot of general talk about 'fixing our plant'. She mentioned energy independence and reducing emissions as some ways do do it but mostly she was vaguely talking about fixing our enviroment. She said she thinks we all should come together and work on 'the impacts' of climate change. Then 2 minutes later she pushed drilling in ANWR and offshore drilling. She bragged about a natural gas pipeline through Alaska bringing "clean, green" natural gas to hungry markets. Yes, drilling in those places will make us energy independant and natural gas has no carbon emissions, I also have a bridge to nowhere to sell you. Then clean coal came up, and they both gushed about their support for it. Palin jabbed at Biden quoting him as saying 'there is no such thing as clean coal', whichi he then denied. Now it does sound like something he could have said, and if he didn't say it he should have. There is no such thing as clean coal, it's a fossil fuel and burning it will have emissions, carbon and others. Besides emissions the mining of it could hardly ever be called clean, especially mountaintop removal mining. Now is it better then burning coal with no thought to limiting the pollution and greenhouse emissions? Of course it is, but it is not a 'clean' fuel and never will be. All Biden could think to respond with was yes, yes, yes, yes i support clean coal look at my record i support clean coal. His take on global warming? it is man made, man made is the cause. Oh well lets stop doing man-made then and it will be better. Let's boycott man-made. Who usues man-made anyway. The only semi intelligent energy related thing to come out of either of their mouths was when something Biden said that was so unintersting and standard political boilerplate that I don't even remember it anymore.

I misunderestimated him

I was a bit heartened when the House voted down the Bush-Paulson bailout bill. Now tonight the senate passed their own version of it. the whole things makes me utterly fucking sick. I had thought the days of the Bush administration fear mongering and forcing its way over the cowering democratic minority in Congress were behind us. It was a slow weaning process, but it appeared that after the FISA telco immunity bill was passed there was no more low hanging fruits of fear left to exploit. Even in that case it was a minor struggle to pass, when the Democrats at least feigned opposition for a short while to put out the image of standing up for something. Boy was I wrong. Not only were Bush and Paulson able the pass their request nearly verbatim with minor cosmetic changes designed to be ineffective but placate the masses who wouldn't read the fine print, but actually were able to get the Democrats to champion it for them, allowing the House Republicans to simultaneously stand up to it and vote no on principle, and lament over how the Democrats caused or allowed it to fail and ruined the country. Touche

Time to place your bets

Warren Buffet is putting big money into Goldman Sachs. On a few occasions already, the gov't has saved/bought a few companies by putting in a lot more to them. Buffet is a smart guy, and where he puts that kind of money is significant. What could make him have such confidence in Goldman? Could it be that the federal government is about to give $700 billion to it's former Chair and current Treasury Secretary Paulson to do with as he sees fit? I wonder...

Woe is me

Almost every pundit and politician who has weighed in on the upcoming bailout has made the point that we may recoup the money, or even make some when the govt sells the things they are going to buy, but there is no guarantee. Apparently poor poor Congress is powerless to change that fact. Poor impotent Congress, the body that is WRITING the legislation of the bailout, can't guarantee we will get the money back. The people writing the legislation are powerless to put things in it that everyone would desperately want in, from the way they talk. If only someone who could do so would put in language to require companies or banks that sell bad debt to the govt agree, should they survive and continue making money, to reimburse the govt if the govt loses money when it sells them. If only we could make such guarantees, cry the lawmakers and powerful media figures, but alas we are all powerless to guarantee anything about recouping the money.

Keeping it up

Our central rule relating to just about everything the government does was most succinctly put by George H.W Bush:

George H.W. Bush, attended an environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. When asked by a reporter why the US refuses to pledge to reduce greenhouse gases, H.W. Bush replied: “The American way of life is not up for negotiation.”

The idea is espoused by every modern administration. Sometimes explicitly sometimes inferred. The American way of life- a car in every garage, a comfortable suburban existence, must be maintained at all costs. This American dream is the driving force behind our foreign policy. Built on the back of abundant domestic energy resources and industrialization, and now kept up through military control of Middle East oil and borrowing from Asia. What started out as the American dream was morphed into the American privilege, then morphed into the American entitlement. Something people used to strive for has become something people are owed just for being American. They hate us for our freedom, not freedom of speech or religion, but freedom to have it all, drive what you want anywhere you want as much as you want with the A/C on and the jacuzzi warm and ready at home to relax in and drink beer and eat Arby's in when you get home. This is America, where freedom is now symbolized by burning gas and hauling ass, if I can't jump in my truck and go anywhere I want and not worry about how to pay for it then I'm not truly free.

It's what terrorists are after us for. They hate our way of life Bush likes to repeat. A remark he is sometimes derided for, but he is more right than he is given credit for. Though not in the way he likely meant. It's not that 'they hate us for our freedom,' it is that they hate us for the things we do to maintain 'The American way of life.' With the depletion of our domestic oil supply, we have became increasingly involved militarily with the oil supplying countries. The size of this bailout that everyone thinks is staggering isn't that much more than our annual defense budget. Less, actually, if you incluse all of Bush's non-budgeted war spending. All that money to keep the oil flowing, and to make ever bigger better weapons ever better military vehicles and ever more expensive missile defense systems that give the cold warriors ever bigger hard-ons and ever bigger salaries and bonuses, all on the taxpayer's dime. Without cheap plentiful oil the American way of life could not be supported. The only choice our leaders have had is to keep the oil flowing by force. Carter was actually the first to ennunciate out oil driven strategy, which you can hear about in a worth watching interview here.

An ever greater percentage of our material production has been going overseas. Our trade deficit is getting larger and larger, all the wealth that used to stay in the country is going out. The 'cheap' things we buy are creating new growing economies around the world, on our dime. Meanwhile we pretend that everything is swell by borrowing money from other countries, to buy things from other countries, and to pretend that we are making tons of money by lending money to each other and charging each other interest and fees on the borrowed money. Our productive economy built in the early 20th century has become a parasitic economy, feeding off each other's debt, buying ever more and increasingly expensive consumer goods with borrowed money to keep the wheels of consumer debt turning, and borrowing money from abroad to fund it all. An earlier generation built railroads and American industry, the next built the highways and fought WWII, the next built subdivisions and fought Vietnam, and the next built exurbs and more subdivisions, sold American industry, and fought in the Middle East for a new world order, a thousand points of light, WMD's, and GWOT. George W Bush will leave office having almost doubled our national debt. A few will make out, collecting from all the good little Americans buying their houses and TV's and cars and gadgets on credit, but eventually somebody is going to be left holding the bag. The entire government has been trying desperately to keep the charade going this week, dire warnings of our economic growth slowing down from the President and the Treasury secretary himself. Their solution? Borrow more money. That's the ticket.

I'll see your Iraq and raise you a secret invasion

There was a debate tonight. McCain likes to say he was a maverick and 'opposed' president Bush on many things. McCain had pushed a point, that Obama was wrong to say he would carry out military missions in Pakistan. He said the line 'you don't say that publicly'. He also seemed to confuse attacking Pakistan with anti-terror missions that take place in Pakistan. It wasn't entirely clear which he was talking about but it seemd like he was referring to attacking the country of Pakistan during his whole talk on it. He then says, that if you do attack Pakistan, you do it in secret. His idea of the proper way to do things when you start a war is to do it in secret. He repeated it just a short while later, that if he were to attack Pakistan he would do it in secret. At least GW had the decency to pretend like he was giving us a choice with Iraq. Which as bad as it is is prefereable to 'oh hey by the way I started a war last night, hope you don't mind.' Worse than Bush continied, that kind of thinking is Bush squared.

An update: transcript exerpts

We've got to get the support of the people of -- of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan.

Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.

...

So we've got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. But I'm confident, now that General Petraeus is in the new position of command, that we will employ a strategy which not only means additional troops -- and, by the way, there have been 20,000 additional troops, from 32,000 to 53,000, and there needs to be more.

So it's not just the addition of troops that matters. It's a strategy that will succeed. And Pakistan is a very important element in this. And I know how to work with him. And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I'm going to attack them.

Another Update: More related details on this subject are here at Thinkprogress

A nickel if you can think of an exception

Nothing good has ever resulted when GW has urged the American people to do something urgently.

Just give us a few trillion and we'll make it better, we promise

Bush's treasury secretary is saying the upcoming bailout is the economy's last best chance. After we have taken over the mortgages themselves when they nationalized fannie and freddie, and also taking over the biggest insurance company around, now treasury secretary Paulson wants $700 billion to buy crap paper from when those mortgages were sold and re-sold. The bush administration is pushing hard to get it pushed through, going so far as to say they are worried how the markets will react tomorrow, monday.

It seems almost absurd now the scope of crisis than have been taking place. What more perfect metaphor for bush's presidency than a massive failure of the US financial market with a taxpayer funded bailout on a scale to be the largest in our history, while never ceasing to proclaim that everything will be ok, they have it under control. Not one for small actions, Bush has managed quite a few achievements of scale, through a combination of ineptitude, bad luck, single mindedness, and corruption. The largest reorganization of federal government and the country's largest bureaucracy with the homeland security dept. The most expensive war(s) we have ever fought. Some of the biggest intelligence failures ever, or possibly biggest deceptions ever, with WMD's. One of the biggest natural disasters and most pathetic recovery efforts in New Orleans. The largest terrorist attack on our country. The most obsessive push for a powerful executive branch as there ever was. One of if not the most corrupt and inept administrations ever. And this is the administration that we are falling over ourselves in order to give them huge sums of taxpayer money to do with as they see fit and somehow bring about a miracle cure for what they so love to refer to as 'turmoil'. Based on their say-so that it will work, it must be big, it must be immediately with no time for analysis or study, and they must be given a free hand to do what they wish.

The pattern of behaviour is long. Bush and his administration's response to every crisis, whether real or manufactured, is to push something gargantuan through as fast as possible with as little detail as possible, and with maximum authority to the executive and minimal room for questioning or transparancy.

A Video for Ed

Yankee Stadium




The rest is worth watching too

A video for Eyeball

since he felt alienated

{insert world leader's name here}

If you can sit through the first half of an interview McCain did in Miami, you will get to hear McCain get completely stumped when asked if he would meet with Spain's Prime Minister. He was asked two or three times and gave boilerplate answers about standing with our friends and being against those who would do us harm in 'the region'. It appeared that 'the region' he thought Spain was in was Central and South America since they had just been talking about that previously and he mentioned Cuba or something in the same breath.

The interviewer repeated again 'now this is Spain we're talking about, Prime Minister Zapatero'. Again McCain gave a boilerplate answer and said he would have to 'check on the situation' before giving a specific answer. It definitely seemed like he had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Though some have speculated he is keeping Bush's cold shoulder policy for taking Spanish troops out of Iraq.

Then, McCain's 'i will have to check on it and see' comment, and this is coming from the supposed foreign policy guru maverick, could just as easily have been substituted with 'I don't know my stance on the person or country you are talking about so I will check with my neocon advisers to find out if they are for us or against us. I don't decide who to like or not I leave that to my hockey Mom and her Christian Warriors.

Top 10 reasons to vote for Obama

10. It's the most likely way to get George Tenet in front of a grand jury
9. It's the most likely way to get John Yoo in front of a grand jury
8. It's the most likely way to get Donald Rumsfeld in front of a grand jury
7. It's the most likely way to get John Ashcroft in front of a grand jury
6. It's the most likely way to get Alberto Gonzales in front of a grand jury
5. It's the most likely way to get Scooter Libby in front of a grand jury
4. It's the most likely way to get David Addington in front of a grand jury
3. It's the most likely way to get Dick Cheney in front of a grand jury
2. It's the most likely way to get George W Bush in front of a grand jury
1. It's the most likely way to find out what the Bush administration's domestic spying actions were.


Today in the Washington post was a bit of a history of the fight over Bush's spying bill and the threatened resignations. Some have pointed out how it says that Addington, Cheyney's chief of staff, signed Gonzales's name himself. Others have pointed out that no one knows for sure what was actually changed or done differently from the previous 3 years of the program that made them able to give legal cover to it. One of the best lines from it is:
Bush expressly overrode the Justice Department and any act of Congress or judicial decision that purported to constrain his power as commander in chief.

Obama has been asked about this as has Biden and both have expressed openness to investigating what went on the last 8 years. Short of a Nader victory Obama is the most likely, or better the only one likely to shed some light on Bush's many misadventures. Black baby incident notwithstanding, McCain still has highly doubtful prospects of even mentioning them specifcally. He will most likely continue Bush's fine tradition of passive blame assignment. 'Mistakes were made' type of nonadmissions. He is not likely to expose his party to that scrutiny nor want to bring to light any of the downsides to his beloved global war on terror national security theme he has hitched his campaign horse on.

A day of celebration

My loyal readers are both surely celebrating now that their archnemesis Yost has got the boot. I really don't care that much but I wanted to be sure to beat them both to the punch in mentioning it.

In case you haven't seen it

A 9/11 tribute video, RNC style. A new low in politicizing the event.

Double Standards

Larry David reference

My favorite naysayer argues that Obama's healthcare plan as outlined is a poor one, and also gets in some healthy bitching about Democrats in general.

Airport Security

I get to my car in the airport parking lot today and on my windshield is a small newsletter from a preacher or reverend with a the front page being a small bit about the pastor in charge of the publication, and the rest an article about quote "evil Catholics" being the masterminds of the Waco incident as a part in a broad war between Catholics and whatever this guy was. And really if there is such heightened security as to make you take your shoes off every time you fly (even if they are sandals) it seems to me just as risky to have quasi militant Christian religious nuts running around the parking lot, leaving things on all the cars?

Fuck Fox News

This is quite funny. Some 'leftist' people heckle a Fox News guy. Do you not believe in freedom? Do you not believe in freedom?



Such raucous ruffians

GOP VP

Sex, Drugs, and Politicians

You know election season is underway now that the sequel to the 04 Swift Boat book about John Kerry, Obama Nation, has come out- at #1 on the NYT best sellers list no less. The author was on Larry King, you can see the whole thing here. Be warned, if you get near the end you hear Larry King utter the words 'boy buggering'. The show was actually pretty entertaining, it is pretty apparant throughout that both the liberal guest and Larry King himself think the guy is a buffoon.

Particularly ironic is the books drug use speculations. With both sex and drugs, it has been like a political double standard in that in order to keep alive party stereotypes and retain the family values voting bloc- the sex and drugs just get hyped a lot more when it's a democrat that does it than when it is a republican. With the exception of the congressional page incident, and maybe Larry Craig too. But can you imagine if it was a democrat that was molesting teenage boys instead of Mark Foley? Compare the coverage of Spitzer to David Vitter. Who? you might ask....well that is exactly the point. At least John Edwards illegitimate child is legitimate.

The book asks if you should believe that Obama hasnt used drugs since his teens since, after all, people are rarely honest about quitting drug use. It's a good question. I wonder, should we believe Geroge Bush stopped drinking at age 40?

Given John Kerry responses to things like the swift boats and windsurfing was basically 'hey stop making fun of me' it is interesting that now, it looks like times are changing, Obama has put out a 41 page critique of the book, and Kerry has made his very own website about it too.

Stars and Stripes

GW Hols up Old Glory backwards while making what might the most retarded face I have seen from him yet. (Hey tards, please don't boycott me for saying retarded)

Summer Vacation

Bush Legacy #22: Vacationing during crises. The most notable was staying in Crawford a few days when Katrina hit, while Brownie couldn't be disturbed while dining. This week, Condi will go to Georgia after missing the first few days while on vay-cay. Bush himself was at the Olympics.

UPDATE::: After the Olympics, Bush will 'work' a few days before going on vacation.

Batman

Retrospectives

The Bush years are nearing a close, and some retrospectives are starting to trickle out. This Daily Show one was quite good.



The NYT had one that though not a retrospective it still captures his political style well.

Think you have a strong stomach? Read this and find out. I might be scarred for life

Photo of the day

GW and two volleyball players

Pipe Dream?

Edgrimly may soon find himself no longer a criminal....along with all the rest of the hippies.

Brilliant

If anyone can solve the Favre dilemma, it must be Ari Fleisher. Rumor is we're eying up Donald Rumsfeld for Defensive Coordinator.

Rude Passengers

Angry because he missed his stop?

Cleanliness

Not bad for a Monday

53 dead in Iraq and 1 death sentence here in the USA.

Scavenger hunt

If anyone can find this picture on the internets or the google let me know

Check please

If you haven't already heard (or guessed), GW is projected to leave the White House with the biggest budget deficit ever; and that's not counting the spending on the wars he started. As it turns out, the privileged son who couldn't handle the finances of his failed business ventures also cannot handle the finances of the USA.

Milwaukee and LED's

A somewhat rare occurance, Milwaukee was featured in the NYT in an article about green technology, namely LED's. It received two seperate mentions in the article. As a bonus, there is a mention of Rensselaer.

Kum-ba-ya Alert (Bring Backe the Commies)

The most recent appearance of the Kum-ba-ya argument, which I put at marginally better than the Hitler argument, was from David Brooks in the NYT today. His thoughts were that-
gee, Obama had a good speech, but he didn't talk enough about missiles. You see all the great Berlin speeches of the past, even though they did emphasize coming together, had the critical missile element. Without the Communists to point missiles at, it's just not the same. All the let's get together stuff is ok, but really just fluff. I wanna hear more about blowin shit up. Tell me who to hate or else I get all confused. Sure Obama mentioned fighting in Afghanistan, but let's face it- it's not the same as starin down the commies and not blinking. What's this co-operation stuff-what are we, in Kindergaten? Lot's of scary shit is going on and there's wars to be a-fightin! No more namby-pamby tearing down of metaphorical walls. If it's not a tangible commie wall with booby traps then I don't wanna hear about it.

Word of the day: Transition

John McCain is "taunting" Obama for beginning to plan for a White House transition. The quote they give:

“Before they’ve even crossed the 50-yard line, the Obama campaign is already dancing in the end zone with a new White House transition team,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in a statement. “The American people are more concerned with Barack Obama’s poor judgment and readiness to lead than his inaugural ball.”

Another sports analogy? They are getting kind of old. And this preparation is bad because....something about an inauguration ball? Is this the old Democrats are sissies line again? Notice the not one but two references to dancing.

I guess now it is bad manners to plan ahead to run the largest economy and military in the world. Maybe it's a good idea for both of them to give it some forethought. just maybe. If McCain thinks you should not prepare, how will he be 'ready to lead' if he takes over? I would think not preparing is what shows "poor judgment" and ensure zero 'readiness to lead'. Coincidentally, the same paper that turned down an article written by McCain had published a different one recently that talked about being ready to transition.