I don’t care what party they are from. Be they democract or republican, vote against them if they voted against the bailout today.

WHY TO SUPPORT THE BAILOUT
* Conservatives oposing the bailout will argue that in a free market economy, people should be punished or rewarded based on the quality of their decisions. I agree with that principle whole heartedly.
* Conservatives will also argue that this is one of those instances and that the market will fix itself. I could not disagree more. That simplistic argument that people like Rush Limbaugh are pushing ignores the amount of time it may take the market to fix itself. And when we are talking about such a massive amount of capital at stake, this could easily take a decade.
* Liberals will argue that the bailout will benefit Wall Street who caused this mess and ignore the “little guy”. MoveOn.org is running ads to that effect. It is a one-sided, ignorant argument. A whole lot of little guys AND a whole lot of big guys caused this mess through housing speculation, mortgage backed securities and hedge funds. People ate up risk as if their lives depended upon it and now the whole economy stands on the brink. And, if the economy tanks, we all get screwed.

TODAY’S VOTE
The ‘no’ votes today read like a who’s who of congressmen in close contests. They voted no so they would be pinned with this bailout if it turned out to be unpopular. In otherwords, 220 people put their individual job security of the economic and job security of the rest of America. It is wrong and these people should be fired before they are entrusted with another critical task.

So, on the heels of the Lehman collapse, John McCain is promising many new government regulations to keep “Wall Street greed” in check.

Hey, I think Wall Street went overboard (as they tend to do every 10-15 years). I also think housing speculators, borrowers, mortgage brokers and others did a lot to contribute to this mess as well. My question to McCain voters is this: Conservatives believe whole heartedly in ‘the market will provide’. How does McCain, the populist, reformer and regulator sit with you? I would think it would give you guys shivers.

Came across an excellent video montage comparing Barack Obama’s upbeat, hopeful message with that that of Ronald Reagan. Republicans love to embrace the legacy of Reagan because he was such a popular president. And, a key reason for the popularity was that he made people believe in themselves and their country–much like Obama is attempting to do now.

And while, the McCain camp is trying to talk about anything but the issues, you Reaganites should ask yourselves: isn’t it time to feel good about your government again? to not have a president who tries to scare us into silence or questions our patriotism if we have an opposing viewpoint? to have a president who runs on issues, not insults and fiction?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfKXVDbvkoQ

Congrats to the GOP! They have found a very likable, intelligent, effective and attractive candidate in Sarah Palin. She was an effective hit woman. But, before you neo-cons get too carried away about her, please remember the following:

1. You can’t keep her on script and away from the media forever. She has never done this before. She will screw up. It’s not a matter of if, but when. (Even the best candidates screw up)
2. She is under investigation for abuse of power. There is a decent chance she will not even be a governor come November.
3. She very conveniently did not mention a single one of her beliefs last night. Governor Palin is extremely far right. She is for overturning Roe v Wade, against teaching evolution and against sex education in schools despite her daughter’s pregnancy. (Don’t tell me I am beating up on a teenager. It is a 100% relevent topic, the same as Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter was relevent to his opposition of gay marriage. It’s just worth exploring to see if Palin’s opposition to sex education still stands now that she has been personally affected.)
4. John McCain is still at the top of the ticket. That’s a problem.

That said, I fully expect Sarah Palin to be the GOP nominee for president in 2012.

A Hillary Clinton delegate recently defected and did an advertisement for John McCain. The delegate, Debra Bartosevich of Wisconsin even gave a press conference. When asked if she was pro choice of pro life, she said she was pro choice. She also said she was able to support McCain because he was pro choice.

Um, Debra, he is adamantly pro-life and says on his own website that he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/95b18512-d5b6-456e-90a2-12028d71df58.htm

I respect anyone’s decision to vote for a candidate based on their beliefs. BUT, please check into John McCain’s positions–or anyone else’s–before deciding to cast a vote for that person. You shouldn’t vote for someone who squarely disagrees your most closely held beliefs–because that’s beyond stupid.

John McCain recently declared in a CNN interview that things he did 30 or more years ago are not relevent to today’s presidential campaign. The network recently did a profile of both presidential candidates. In the McCain profile, when they covered his first marriage, CNN mentioned that McCain’s public insistence that he was separated from his first wife when started dating Cindy was false.

Court documents showed that he had been living with his first wife for the first nine months of his relationship with his soon to be second wife, Cindy. McCain’s response this issue: “You know, that was more than 30 years ago.”

You can understand why he wanted to smooth over the story of his infidelities to his wife: Voters care about that stuff (see John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, etc.)–especially voters on the religious right who take religion and religious sacraments very seriously.

So, Senator McCain. . . Excuse me, let’s call him by his full name. Senator “Don’t Question Me — I am John @#$%ing McCain! I spent five years in a hole in Vietnam so I can do whatever the @#$% I want and get away with it.” (There, that’s better. I want to give him his full due) Senator, your response leaves us with only a couple of options:

1. If your infidelities happened too long ago to matter, then so did your incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton. And if that’s the case, you need to stop bringing it up as an explanation for every last thing you think voters might find offensive: from your verbal gaffes on stage to your opposition to granting service men & women the same educational benefits your received from the government to your frequent memory lapses to your misunderstanding of Mideast politics to, yes, your marital infidelities.

2. If things that happened 30+ years ago DO matter, then you need to explain your infidelities and your lies in trying to cover that up.

3. If your stint at the Hanoi Hilton gives you a free pass on everything, then anyone who has committed an act of heroism in this country gets a free pass. All veterans, cops, fire fighters, olympians and astronauts should be allowed to cheat on their spouses. . . or their taxes. . .or whatever else they feel like. I don’t think this one makes sense, because you know what? A lot of these people don’t want to do that. Why? Because it’s wrong.

It’s called accountability Senator McCain. It’s what leaders do. Look into it.

It’s McCain’s elitism that will ultimately turn off voters.

I can already hear the groans by McCain supporters: “Geez, you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill with this house thing.”

It’s is not for me to make either mountains or mole hills–it’s up to the voters. And, in difficult economy with record home foreclosures, John McCain has done the Democrats the following favors:

* Had more homes than he could recall (which is staggering when you think about it)
* Gave a speech where he recommended that people need to get second jobs and skip vacations in order to save their homes.
* Had his chief economic adviser deny the existence of economic trouble and call the United States a “nation of whiners.” (This same adviser made his living working for a company that speculates in oil)
* Openly professed to not know much about the economy.

Ultimately as the public turns its full attention to the election, people who are feeling economic pressure will see the following: a man who was born into privilege, who has never worked in the private sector, who never had student loans, who married into wealth through an extramarital affair. This same man has:

* fought against giving veterans the same educational benefits he enjoyed
* denied the need for housing assistance when literally has more houses than he can count
* has called (through his surrogate Phil Gramm) the country a bunch whiners when he did not earn any of the fortune he currently enjoys.

And people think Obama is out of touch because he went to an Ivy League school? At least he earned his way in there.

Don’t get me started on the gigantic heap of bullshit contained in this letter.

Because someone writes something in an email doesn’t make it true. “John McCain has sex with sheep.” There, I wrote it in an email, it must be true. “John McCain is a child molester and what’s worse is that he faked his incarceration and conspired with the Viet Cong to bring a disgraceful end to the war in Vietnam.” Wow, who knew? The mainstream media must be really biased toward McCain to not be reporting this stuff.

These bozos all claim that the mainstream media and historians are so biased that no authoritarian source of news & information can be trusted, except of course the blogs of former GOP staffers and militia members in Montana (and FOX news, which is the same thing). This would be funny, except some people actually go along with this.

What’s more, you hear their complaints of “Obama thinks he’s so smart!” I am going to go out on a limb here: As former editor of the Harvard Law Review and Professor of Constitutional Law at University of Chicago, he’s probably kinda smart. You also hear “He acts like he is going to be President!” Well, I am no mathematician, but as the Democratic nominee, I would say there is a 50-50 chance, maybe even better given the mess that the GOP has made over the last 8 years.

######################################

Dear Friends:

My name is Joe Porter. I live in Champaign , Illinois . I’m 46 years
old, a born-again Christian, a husband, a father, a small business
owner, a veteran, and a homeowner. I don’t consider myself to be either
conservative or liberal, and I vote for the person, not Republican or
Democrat. I don’t believe there are “two Americas ” – but that every
person in this country can be whomever and whatever they want to be if
they’ll just work to get there – and nowhere else on earth can they find
such opportunities. I believe our government should help those who are
legitimately downtrodden, and should always put the interests of America
first.

The purpose of this message is that I’m concerned about the future of
this great nation. I’m worried that the silent majority of honest,
hardworking, taxpaying people in this country have been passive for too
long. Most folks I know choose not to involve themselves in politics.
They go about their daily lives, paying their bills, raising their
kids,and doing what they can to maintain the good life. They vote and
consider doing so to be a sacred trust. They shake their heads at the
political pundits and so-called “news”, thinking that what they hear is
always spun by whomever is reporting it. They can’t understand how
elected officials can regularly violate the public trust with pork
barrel spending. They don’t want government handouts. They want the
government to protect them, not raise their taxes for more government
programs.

We are in the unique position in this country of electing our leaders.
It’s a privilege to do so. I’ve never found a candidate in any election
with whom I agreed on everything. I’ll wager that most of us don’t even
agree with our families or spouses 100% of the time. So when I step into
that voting booth, I always try to look at the big picture and cast my
vote for the man or woman who is best qualified for the job. I’ve hired
a lot of people in my lifetime, and essentially that’s what an election
is – a hiring process. Who has the credentials? Whom do I want working
for me? Whom can I trust to do the job right?

I’m concerned that a growing number of voters in this country simply
don’t get it. They are caught up in a fervor they can’t explain, and
calling it “change”. Change what?, I ask. Well, we’re going to change
America , they say. In what way?, I query. We want someone new and
fresh in the White House, they exclaim. So, someone who’s not a
politician?, I press. Uh, well, no, we just want a lot of stuff
changed, so we’re voting for Obama, they state.

So the current system, the system of freedom and democracy that has
enabled a man to grow up in this great country, get a fine education,
raise incredible amounts of money and dominate the news and win his
party’s nomination for the White House – that system’s all wrong? No,
no, that part of the system’s okay – we just need a lot of change. And
so it goes. “Change we can believe in.” Quite frankly, I don’t believe
that vague proclamations of change hold any promise for me. In recent
months, I’ve been asking virtually everyone I encounter how they’re
voting. I live in Illinois , so most folks tell me they’re voting for
Barack Obama. But no one can really tell me why – only that he’s going
to change a lot of stuff. Change, change, change. I have yet to find one
single person who can tell me distinctly and convincingly why this man
is qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful
nation on earth other than the fact that he claims he’s going to implement
a lot of change.

We’ve all seen the E-mails about Obama’s genealogy, his upbringing, his
Muslim background, and his church affiliations. Let’s ignore this for a
moment. Put it all aside. Then ask yourself, what qualifies this man to
be my president? That he’s a brilliant orator and talks about change?

CHANGE WHAT?

Friends, I’ll be forthright with you – I believe the American voters who
are supporting Barack Obama don’t have a clue what they’re doing, as
evidenced by the fact that not one of them – NOT ONE of them I’ve spoken
to can spell out his qualifications. Not even the most liberal media can
explain why he should be elected. Political experience? Negligible.
Foreign relations? Nonexistent. Achievements? Name one. Someone who
wants to unite the country? If you haven’t read his wife’s thesis from
Princeton , look it up on the web. This is who’s lining up to be our
next First Lady? The only thing I can glean from Obama’s constant
harping about change is that we’re in for a lot of new taxes.

For me, the choice is clear. I’ve looked carefully at the two leading
applicants for the job, and I’ve made my choice.
Here’s a question – where were you five and a half years ago? Around
Christmas, 2002. You’ve had five or six birthdays in that time. My son
has grown from a sixth grade child to a high school graduate. Five and a
half years is a good chunk of time. About 2,000 days. 2,000 nights of
sleep. 6, 000 meals, give or take. John McCain spent that amount of
time, from 1967 to 1973, in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp.
When offered early release, he refused it. He considered this offer to
be a public relations stunt by his captors, and insisted that those held
longer than he should be released first. Did you get that part? He was
offered his freedom, and he turned it down. A regimen of beatings and
torture began.

Do you possess such strength of character? Locked in a filthy cell in a
foreign country, would you turn down your own freedom in favor of your
fellow man? I submit that’s a quality of character that is rarely found,
and for me, this singular act defines John McCain.

Unlike several presidential candidates in recent years whose military
service is questionable or nonexistent, you will not find anyone to
denigrate the integrity and moral courage of this man. A graduate of
Annapolis , during his Naval service he received the Silver Star, Bronze
Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. His own son is now
serving in the Marine Corps in Iraq . Barack Obama is fond of saying “We
honor John McCain’s service…BUT…”, which to me is condescending and
offensive – because what I hear is, “Let’s forget this man’s sacrifice
for his country and his proven leadership abilities, and talk some more
about change.”

I don’t agree with John McCain on everything – but I am utterly
convinced that he is qualified to be our next President, and I trust him
to do what’s right. I know in my heart that he has the best interests of
our country in mind. He doesn’t simply want to be President – he wants
to lead America , and there’s a huge difference.

Factually, there is simply no comparison between the two candidates. A
man of questionable background and motives who prattles on about change
can’t hold a candle to a man who has devoted his life in public service
to this nation, retiring from the Navy in 1981 and elected to the Senate
in 1982.

Perhaps Obama’s supporters are taking a stance between old and new.
Maybe they don’t care about McCain’s service or his strength of
character, or his unblemished qualifications to be President. Maybe
“likeability” is a higher priority for them than trust”. Being a
prisoner of war is not what qualifies John McCain to be President of the
United States of America – but his demonstrated leadership certainly
DOES.

Dear friends, it is time for us to stand. It is time for thinking
Americans to say, “Enough.” It is time for people of all parties to stop
following the party line. It is time for anyone who wants to keep
America first, who wants the right man leading their nation, to start a
dialogue with all their friends and neighbors and ask who they’re voting
for, and why. There’s a lot of evil in this world. That should be
readily apparent to all of us by now. And when faced with that evil as
we are now, I want a man who knows the cost of war on his troops and on
his citizens. I want a man who puts my family’s interests before any
foreign country. I want a President who’s qualified to lead. I want
my country back, and I’m voting for John McCain.

At this point, I want to add that I don’t want a First Lady that has to
be shown how to really love America. I want a First Lady who thinks
more about people beyond herself and takes on tasks like Cindy McCain
does. Have you read about her trip to Rwanda and Zaire? Look it up.
She thinks far beyond herself and her people. She would be a very
important asset to the presidential office also!!

The Britney/Paris ad was a move to take Obama’s biggest strength, his popularity, and turn it into a weakness–stating he is merely an attractive, bubbly debutant. While this strains credulity (I don’t believe either Britney or Paris were Editor of the Harvard Law Review, amongst other accomplishments), Obama should take a similar, though more reasoned approach: Attack McCain’s character.

* McCain is the “straight talker”, yet he has been denounced in the press for misleading people
* He “supports the troops” yet he voted against providing enlisted men with the same access to quality, free education that he had.
* He is about family values, even though he abondoned his first wife following a disfiguring car accident to have an affair with an attractive heiress later to be known as Cindy McCain.
* He supports continuing a war in a region he refuses to learn anything about (“Pakistan-Iran Border”, Confusing Sunnis & Shiites constantly)

Unlike being a scurrilous association (which seems to be how all Obama attacks are formed.), the above points are fair, relevant and, most imporantly, true.

RIP: The Straight Talk of John McCain. Born 1980, Deceased 2000.

Today McCain reprimanded Obama on Iraq, saying “I know how to win wars”. Um, what is this based on? He has only participated in one war, Vietnam. The U.S. didn’t exactly breeze through that one now did it?

Now, I know he wasn’t calling the shots in Vietnam, but if that’s his only war experience, then he can’t claim to know how to win wars any more than I could claim to be able to be the Heavyweight Champion of the world. I mean, after all, I have boxed a couple of times and have read quite a bit about the sport over the years.