Saintless

Sarah Palin’s comment about Pro-America wasn’t some off-hand comment that was taken wrong, as she tries to convince us of in this video:

We believe, we believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.

She’s feeding part of a message intended to “inspire” the right wing of the Republican Party. Here’s the other part of the message, from a different mouthpiece:

Well, I would say that people who hold anti- American views. I don’t think it’s geography. I think it’s people who don’t like America, who detest America. And on college campuses, a Ward Churchill, another college campus, a Bill Ayers, you find people who hate America. And unfortunately, some of these people have positions teaching in institutions of higher learning. But you’ll find them in all walks of life all throughout America.
[...]
I think the people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large, the people who are radical leftists. That’s the real question about Barack Obama — Saul Alinsky, one of his teachers, you might say, out of the Chicago area; Tony Rezko, who is an associate also.

It disgusts me to think that they are getting away with trying to divide our country in this fashion, not by pitting political ideas against political ideas, but by pitting ordinary Americans against ordinary Americans. And it disgusts me that it seems to be working, and that somehow that message is more attractive to some people than this message:

(Check it out about 4:50 in)

“There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this country. We all love this country, no matter where we live, where we come from.”

This idea that Barack Obama wants a united country is not a new one. His 2004 DNC speech is an easy example. “There is not a red America and a blue America…There is a United States of America”, and if you look, those examples go back through all of his public life.

For more, see Keith Olbermann’s special comment last night:

As I was writing this, a friend sent me this link, to an article titled “Populism Without Pitchforks“:

Here again, Obama’s recent soft-populist language goes off in another direction entirely, not targeting much of anyone, but instead invoking a sense of natural order in which all of us live up to our responsibilities, in service of a sense of national purpose. It is an ethics based on a sense of mutual obligation and engagement, embodied in the ever-expanding circle of Obama’s own campaign. And in this sense, it is deeply reflective of the best in American populism, what the historian Lawrence Goodwyn called, “the movement culture” characterized by “collective self-confidence,” and the active engagement of millions in the practice of democracy.

I voted yesterday, and I feel even better about my vote today, knowing that in two short weeks, we’ll find that Obama won the 2008 Presidential Election, and that we can look forward to a United States of America, and not a Divided States of America. And when Obama wins, that means that Americans will have chosen to band together, and rejected the politics of hate and fear. God bless America.

(h/t Richard Warnick and Jason The)

It’s only 2 minutes long, and it’s eerie how on-target Obama was with what McCain would say and do.

(h/t Glenden Brown)

This last week has been an absolute whirlwind in politics, and it’s not showing any signs of slowdown.

First up, you better get your butt over and register to vote, or verify your registration, because in some places, it’s the last day to get registered, and the rest of us have the deadline coming up!

This whole economy thing has the entire country on edge. The Dow is down by a record number of points today. McCain pulled a faux-suspension of his campaign last week to rush to DC to help with the bailout bill, where he was pretty much told to butt out by Harry Reid. He said “bullshit” on national tv while Obama brought up his refusal to meet with Spain, during the debate McCain tried to cancel. The Congressional leaders announced over the weekend that they had finally gotten “the bill” together, but failed to pass it today. Apparently, anyone up for re-election knew they didn’t dare vote for it, and while the Dems pulled together about 140 members to vote for it, the GOP failed their own goals, leaving it to die on the floor. McCain somewhere along the line was claiming credit for getting the GOP to go for it, though I’m not expecting him to claim credit for the failure. The American public feels like they’re getting screwed, which is exactly how they should feel giving up what I read earlier was the greatest single dollar amount for any transaction, ever. Banks are failing left and right, though the only people truly getting screwed for the most part with that, are the shareholders in said banks, thanks to this think called regulation. The conservatives are telling us that the solution to the economic failure due to lack of regulation is to…drumroll, please…..have less regulation. Pretty much everyone agrees something has to be done, but the problem is what to do, and how to get everyone on the same page.

It’s almost enough to make me vote for McCain, because God only knows how anyone is going to clean up this mess and come through it with the American people supporting them. That, of course, is just a passing thought, because Obama is the only candidate that I think really stands a chance at actually fixing this mess in a responsible manner, and not leaving astounding debt for my grandchildren to inherit.

Responsibility. What’s your policy?

Really, how else would you explain this coincidence?

Yesterday, the Chinese were able to not only predict the outcome of their shuttle launch (success!) but were able to quote the astronauts before it even happened!

BEIJING (AP) – A news story describing a successful launch of China‘s long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.

And just one day later, John McCain is able to announce that he’s won tonight’s debate, which won’t occur for another 6 hours, as of this writing.

Although I try not to allow myself to become wrapped up in conspiracy theories, I really believe that what just happened is that the Chinese have invented a time travel machine, and somehow McCain convinced them to share it with him! Anyone have a better explanation?

Here’s Barack Obama’s message to Americans:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONM7148cTyc]

Here’s his plan, as mentioned in the video. It’s hard to get much in a commercial, even when it’s a 2-minute commercial. The starts off by presenting the problem:

The Problem

Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression.

Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

And the topics that the plan covers:

• Jumpstart the Economy
• Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
• Trade
• Job Creation
• Support Small Business
• Labor
• Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud
• Address Predatory Credit Card Practices
• Reform Bankruptcy Laws
• Work/Family Balance

Given that I work in the tech industry, and I’m very focused on the environment personally, I really appreciate that Obama wants to create green jobs. I’ve said this a lot lately, but if we (America) don’t take the lead and become innovators when it comes to alternative energy and green jobs in general, someone else will. We will have lost the opportunity to continue the tradition of making America great, and being leaders for the rest of the world. We have to do it at some point. Our environment will not sustain our current course of action. Our gas prices will not sustain our current course of action. We have to. And I believe Obama gets that, and realizes there are mutiple reasons for us to head this direction.

There’s a reason why…

Over the weekend Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, told Bloomberg News that he was “not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money” and that the United States could not afford big tax cuts such as those proposed by Republican John McCain. Alan Greenspan went on to say that the current economic crisis, that began with the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market last year, is so bad that he called it “a once in a century” crisis and will lead to the failure of more firms.

And don’t forget, while the economy is in it’s downward spiral right now, that McCain himself gave the reason why Obama’s plan is better than McCain’s.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_APdK9fgDM]

Kudos to the Obama campaign for being quick on the draw.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reQLzgywzk]

McCain has done some slimey things in his past, but this outweighs anything I know about.

McCain’s new ad (if you can stomach it):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVLQhRiEXZs]

Do you see what they did there? They took a bill that was supposed to teach young children how to keep from being victims of child predators, and twisted it to make Obama look like some old pervert, and visually emphasized it with a truly funky picture of Obama, with his shirt disheveled, and a leer on his face. That bill wasn’t about giving condoms out to 5 year olds, it was about keeping them safe. But that didn’t matter to McCain. What mattered was winning.

Oh, and apparently, that same twisted lie was once before (unsuccessfully) used by Obama’s opponent in the Illinios State Legislature. McCain couldn’t even make their own lie up, they had to borrow one that hadn’t worked the first time.

Here’s what Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton had to say:

It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why.

So, what McCain essentially did there was, for those not more aware of what’s really going on, use America’s children to lie to their parents, and make them afraid of Barack Obama. The Politics of Fear are alive and well.

Olbermann’s special comment tonight was regarding tomorrow’s sad anniversary of 9/11/2001.

First he went into the GOP “9/11™ Tribute” at their convention, and how horrifying it was. The video was not a tribute to the victims of 9/11, their families, or even Americans in general. It was a tribute to the horrific deeds done that day, an attempt to make Americans remember the fear, and their hope was that Americans would then look to Republicans to save them from it happening again.

Doesn’t that make them the Terrorists, because they are attempting to inspire terror in the hearts of Americans, to further their own agenda?

Then he went into how McCain is blackmailing the US electorate with his claim that he can, will and knows how to capture Osama bin Laden. If he knows, what is he holding out for?

Wow, Keith really outdid himself tonight. Way to go!

There’s still a chance to catch the comment again during the 9:00 PM (MDT) hour, or over at MSNBC.

In Obama’s interview with Olbermann last night, he mentioned a cartoon that I found very amusing.

(h/t Bill in Portland, Maine)

I had a very good discussion with someone at work yesterday, who is very conservative. I’ve had a lot of really interesting conversations with him over the last year or so. A lot of them are very refreshing because, although his viewpoint differs greatly from my own on many key issues, we have never had any negativity in our conversations. Generally, I try to avoid politics at work, to keep things happy. Too many people get pissy when you disagree, and this election has the potential for some very heated conversations.

Anyway, this guy is conservative on both social and political issues. He’s expressed frustration over McCain’s candidacy, and repeatedly said he felt like he was going to have to hold his nose and vote. But, yesterday, he expressed how excited he is over Palin’s nomination. He felt good about her, because she’s not a Washington insider, though he’s sure that by the time she spends any time there, she’ll be no different than the rest. But, for now, she’s a breath of fresh air to him. He likes her conservative background, and she’s the only reason he’s going to be happy to cast his vote this November.

I can understand that. If Hillary had won the primary, I think I’d have only felt good about voting for her if she had chosen someone who was so outspokenly liberal as to pretty much be controversial for the VP candidate.

But, given that the GOP has tried so hard to make the national security issue one that they own, it seems odd to me that they’d put someone so extremely inexperienced so close to being Commander in Chief. McCain is OLD. Not old as in “I’m 31 and can’t ever imagine being 50″. Old as in ready to kick the bucket. Old as in suffering from CRS. Old as in 77 is the average life expectancy in the US. That doesn’t even take into account his melanoma or lasting effects of injuries that might affect him due to his POW experiences. The likelihood of Palin taking over as President should not be ignored.

Palin is not some squeaky clean hockey mom, as some would have Americans believe. She has some definite question marks hanging over her head. We know almost nothing about her.

• Except that she campaigned for governor on the issue of making the Bridge to Nowhere happen, then decided it shouldn’t (after it became a national issue), but didn’t give the money back, and used it for other things.
  • The previous sentence can be shortened to “She’s a liar“.
• We know that she accused Obama of requesting $1 Billion in earmarks, even though he only requested $311 Million last year, which he made public, and hasn’t requested any this year.
  • The previous sentence can be shortened to “She’s a liar“.
• We know that she claims to have fought against earmarks during her time in office, but she has made the largest per-capita pork requests of any state in the union, and hired a lobbyist to get earmarks for Wasilla (pop. 7,500) totalling $27 Million.
  • The previous sentence can be shortened to “She’s a liar“.
• We know that she touts her time as Wasilla’s mayor as proof of executive experience, but she mismanaged building a sports stadium, and ran the town into the ground.
  • The previous sentence can be shortened to “She’s a failure“.
• We know that Palin claims to be ready to lead the nation, but won’t be meeting with the media until they can promise to behave themselves and be deferential to her.
  • The previous sentence can be shortened to “She’s not ready“.
• We know that she claims to put America first, but she was a member of the Alaska Secessionist Party, and even made them a video earlier this year.
  • The previous sentence can be shortened to “Alaska First – Alaska Always“.

I really hope I’m done with talking about Palin at this point. There are so many positives about Obama and Biden, and the negatives of John Bush McCain really need to be repeated. Palin was selected to throw everyone off, and change the conversation being had. She was selected to overshadow the Bush-McCain connection. Can’t let that happen. No way, no how, no McCain.

Keith Olbermann asked Senator Obama a question on Rachel Maddow’s behalf during an interview aired today. He basically asked Obama if he was sorry that he’d essentially banned 527 groups from his campaign, thereby eliminating their ability to go after McCain for him, especially after things like the recent “uppity” remark.

Obama seemed a bit surprised by the question, and came back saying that people wanted change, and that type of thing wasn’t change. I can’t wait for the videos of this interview to show up on YouTube.com!