Saintless

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]

I really, really don’t want to write another blog about Sarah Palin. But, this issue just cannot be ignored. First, I will say that I fully respect Palin’s right to her personal views on abortion and contraception. However, I do not believe she has any right to force those beliefs on me, or anyone else.

My personal view of abortion is that, in a nutshell, it’s an awful, horrific thing. My moral values tell me it’s wrong. My moral values also tell me that I can’t force my morals on any other person, and the government has absolutely no business doing that, either. And anyone who believes that abortion should be 100% banned should read this article.

That aside, Sarah Palin has absolutely no respect for a woman’s body when it comes to the issue of rape. I’m convinced of that after finding out more of the story about Palin’s “Troopergate” scandal. (h/t Kagro X of DailyKos) According to ABC News, Alaska has an epidemic of “sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and murder that make her state one of the most dangerous places in the country for women and children”, the rate of this abuse is 2 1/2 times that of the national average. Even Palin apparently agrees that this is an epidemic, and needs to be fixed.

According to the article, Palin did have members of her administration focused on the issue, and they were even devising a very ambitious plan to combat the problem.

But, then….

Some members of Palin’s administration were focused on the issue of sexual violence. Officials in the Department of Public Safety were devising an ambitious, multi-million-dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state, but Palin’s office put the plan on hold in July.

Days later, Palin fired its chief proponent, Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, after he declined to dismiss a state trooper Palin accused of threatening her own family members. Palin has said she fired Monegan because she wanted to move his department in a “new direction,” and he was not being “a team player on budgeting issues.” The dismissal is now at the center of a hotly-contested investigation by the state legislature.

Many have suggested that Palin’s true cause for firing Public Safety Commissioner Monegan was that he wouldn’t fire her former brother-in-law. That’s the subject of the investigation centering around Sarah Palin. This isn’t a bad rumor going around about Palin. There’s enough evidence that she’s being investigated over it.

This suggests to me that, as Governor, a vendetta against Palin’s brother in law trumped women’s safety. If her brother in law was truly a danger, there are protections in place that would have led to him being fired. But, those would have gone through a normal course of legal standards, which Palin apparently has little respect for.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Back in 1996, when Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, the town’s police force began charging rape victims for forensic work done in their case. Palin signed of on the budget where that became the standard, and otherwise never said a word about it, leading to Alaska having to make it illegal in the state to charge the victim for the kit. I cannot even imagine the empty space that must be inside of any person who would even consider asking a rape victim to cough up $1,000 to cover a rape kit. Mary Mapes over at HuffPo has this to say:

Oddly enough, Fannon did not make the same kind of choice in other criminal cases. He did not make people injured by hit-and-run drivers or mugging victims or the families of murdered men and women cough up money to investigate their cases or collect evidence to catch their attackers.

It only happened in rape cases.

Hmmm.

Now, why would that be?

There is one terrible possibility: that this happened because somebody in charge in Wasilla — either the police chief or the Mayor or both — hails from the craziest corner of the pro-life community, the people who believe that birth control is abortion.

These people oppose paying for forensic work in rape cases because as part of that process — as a final step in a humiliating and dehumanizing procedure — a woman is typically asked if she would like a “morning after” pill, a medication that will prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the lining of her uterus. The treatment is believed to be about 80% effective in preventing pregnancy.

Sarah Palin has not deigned to take questions from the unwashed masses in the media, but if she ever does, this might be a good place to begin.

Does she believe that giving a rape victim a “morning after” pill is committing murder? Does Palin believe that the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for this or that police shouldn’t offer this as a matter of course? Does she really believe that a woman should have to bear the child of her rapist?

We already know that’s what she would want for her daughter.

During her successful gubernatorial campaign in 2006, Palin declared that she would not choose an abortion for her daughter — then 14 years old — even if the girl was raped and became pregnant. “I would choose life,” Palin said.

Eric Croft suspects that these pro-life beliefs were the reason behind Wasilla’s no pay police policy on rape victims.

He is the Democratic legislator who got the system changed by sponsoring a state proposal in 2000 that required local police departments in Alaska to pay for victims’ “rape kits,” as the evidence-gathering process is called. He wrote the bill with Wasilla’s misguided police procedure in mind.

After asking a whole host of questions related to this story, Mary Mapes then says:

Maybe this is all some kind of unthinkable misunderstanding. Maybe Palin didn’t know this was happening, didn’t hear about it even the whole state joined the conversation, maybe this tough-talking Mayor couldn’t control her police chief.

Maybe she has changed over the years, maybe she now recognizes the immorality of treating rape victims this way.

Whatever the answer — before we vote — before we are treated to another story about her taste in shoes or her time as Governor, would someone please pin Palin down and ask her what the hell was going on with rape victims in Wasilla?

And more importantly, why?

This person who says she’s prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency could clear this whole thing up in a heartbeat.

Why won’t she?

After you read the ABC article, read the rest of Mary Mapes’ article, and think about how these stories fit together.

It really reminds me of my childhood. I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (JW). They have strict beliefs about literal interpretation of the bible, and I understand that Palin’s religion does, as well. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that if a woman is being raped, but she does not yell out, struggle with all of her might, even up to death, that she is responsible for the rape. I have no idea whether this idea might be taught from the pulpit of Palin’s church, or whether she agrees with it. But, this teaching comes from Deuteronomy 22:23, 24:

If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death–the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Now, having grown up where that scripture was used to teach us that if we’re raped, it’s our fault. We were also taught that if we wore clothes that excited a man, then we were asking to be raped, and even screaming wouldn’t take that responsibility from us.

Add to that, when a JW elder, who was also a close friend of the family and my employer, began to touch me inappropriately about the age of 14 or 15, I ended up telling. Which led to me being taken into a room with other elders, and my mother, where I was told it didn’t happen, because there weren’t two or more witnesses, and I must be imagining it. His wife later told me he was impotent, so it couldn’t have happened. I didn’t have a clue what impotent was for years. But, I did know that when he would come up behind me at the counter and “give me a hug”, there was something poking at me, and it’s not normal for a 50-something year old man to “hug” a 14 year old girl for 10 minutes at a time.

I won’t get into the other, more personal, stories that have affected me regarding religion and/or rape. But, suffice it to say, it’s a big issue with me. And when I put the bigger picture together about Palin’s passive acceptance of charging for rape kits, her putting on hold the comprehensive rape legislation to get back at her brother in law, I can’t help but wonder if her religion could be guiding those decisions. And if so, what future decisions might be guided by her religion, and what direction would they go?

Mind you, I could care less what church someone belongs to, with very few exceptions. But, what a person of authority and power does with their religious beliefs is very much my business. When that person’s worldview is very much shaped by their religion, it’s my business. And yours.

There are lots of scary questions out there, but my biggest question is this: Does Sarah Palin care more about doing what is right, or what her religion says is right?

Sarah Palin seems to have some very misguided views, and she’s repeatedly been on the wrong side of the issue of rape, which scares the shit out of me. She doesn’t seem to have a moral compass that tells her kindness and compassion is needed, and she’s put her interests ahead of the citizens of the town and the state that she’s been in charge of. And she most certainly doesn’t have the judgement to be Vice President of the United States of America.

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.

John Amateo, of Crooks and Liars (one of my favorite blogs), wrote a piece on the media’s concept that we’re voting for personalities, rather than policies. It’s a very informative read, most certainly. He ends with this:

This election is about restoring some order to our country. Here’s a memo to the media: Do some segments about POLICY! It matters when we’re actually trying to get jobs, pay bills and feed our families. I can’t make it any clearer than that.

A vote for McCain equals more War.

A vote for McCain equals No universal health care.

A vote for McCain equals a continued collapsing economy.

A vote for McCain equals higher gas prices.

A vote for McCain equals no help for the housing market.

A vote for McCain equals a further erosion of woman’s rights.

A vote for McCain equals ideologue judges being placed throughout the country.

As I put in the comments on the C&L blog, I take exception to the concept that McCain equals higher gas prices.

Ok, it’s true that McCain will bring higher gas prices, but the actual problem is higher energy prices. McCain will not put an emphasis on alternative energy, other than a token nod to it. He is not concerned with environmental impacts of oil drilling, or auto emissions. He is not concerned with how our energy needs have driven foreign policy. He is not concerned with the jobs that alternative energy technology will bring. He just wants to drill, and pretend that will solve all of our problems. In the end, it won’t be just higher gas prices, it will be higher energy prices, all around. And the US will not end up being a leader in current and upcoming technology, as we have in the past. We’ll have missed the boat, and put jobs, national security, and the economy at risk.

I’ll be watching the RNC speeches tonight with Drinking Liberally.

Join us Thursday, Sept. 4th (starting around 7:30 – 8) for a McCain convention speech watch party at the Saints and Sinners club, 3040 S. State St. Tell them you’re with Drinking Liberally at the door and then follow the sounds of howling and heckling upstairs. There will be a band playing later, so while there’s normally a cover for such things, they’re waiving it for us political geeks – you’re even encouraged to stay for the band. Thanks to Saints and Sinners to providing the space, and DL’er Becky for her help in finding it. Thanks also to everyone who offered suggestions and their homes.

Saints and Sinners doesn’t have a kitchen set up yet – keep that in mind because we certainly don’t want anyone drinking on an empty stomach.

The national leaders of Drinking Liberally along with People for the American Way have a drinking game we can play to stay awake while we watch McCain talk to his small group of old white people at the RNC.

I’ll be live blogging the speeches, thanks to my phone’s capability of providing my laptop an internet connection (providing said connection works – otherwise, I’ll still blog it, but it won’t be very “live”).

Join the crowd at Saints and Sinners if you can, or look for the blogs here at Saintless. Don’t forget to use refresh, and leave your thoughts!

Here are my thoughts about Palin’s speech. It’s already 30 minutes into it. Hope it’s not too disjointed to read, but I’m writing it as I hear. Hopefully, I’ll be able to expand the thoughts later. This will update every time I save, it’s my first attempt at live blogging.

Seriously, McCain doesn’t run with the Washington herd? What exactly do you call lobbyists?

Did she know who Harry Reid was prior to making this speech?

Is that booing I hear in the background? And what was up with the “lipstick” joke?

Not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery? That may be the most hypocritical line in this speech.

Being a POW doesn’t qualify you for presidency, ask McCain’s fellow POWs.

Brave men served and suffered to serve their country. The journey from that to the Oval Office…seriously, is she saying that the only reason to elect McCain is to fulfill his personal dreams? How does that qualify him for POTUS?

POW, POW, POW. Yeah, we caught that part. Is there a point? I’m waiting…..

That’s the kind of man we need to see us through the next four years? Someone who can feed you full of shit, knowing it’s unlikely you’ll get out alive, but make you think it can happen anyway? Where do I sign up?

Damn, this is over already?

Haha, KSL radio just called her Sarah McCain!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I was trying to remodel my bathroom as I listened and couldn’t take it anymore. I think I’ll try this liveblogging thing again, soon. It’s very freeing to get my thoughts out as I listen to crap spew from my radio. I bet it would be even better to get my thoughts out when there’s something positive to write.

Overall, my thoughts on the speech are that she knows how to read from a teleprompter and emphasize the right words quite well. When she told the joke….”What’s the difference between a PTA mom and a pitbull? The lipstick.” It became totally obvious she was reading someone else’s words, not just their outline.

Sad.

Is KSL seriously asking if she wrote that herself? Ugh!

Haha, caller is talking about Palin’s cheap shots at Obama’s community service. Ethan is defending her. She’s new, it’s ok. What?? Those are just jokes, PR, marketing.

Not sure who is talking (Ethan?), but he’s saying that his problem with Palin’s speech is that it required temporary suspension of disbelief.

I’m off to figure out how to finish my remodel. Feel free to leave your thoughts below. (We bloggers like that kind of thing.)

A (female) friend just sent me a message saying “I’m embarrassed for women if they really think this is supposed to be a representation of women. I’m really embarrassed for myself.”

First, an apology to those wondering why I didn’t blog much while in Denver. My laptop has had some issues, so blogging wasn’t an option. But, if you missed me, I’m sorry! I’ll try to make up for it over the next few weeks with some more in-depth posts.

As our chauffeur, Jeff, drove Jason, Craig and I home from Denver last Friday, a frequent topic of our conversation was this mysterious woman, Sarah Palin, about whom we knew little. Although MSNBC didn’t give us much to feed on before we left Denver, we managed to find lots of tidbits via our phones on the drive.

We found out that she’d been a “mayor/manager” of a small Alaskan town for a couple of years before spending the last year and a half as Alaska’s Governor. She apparently ran that little town into the dirt before moving on. She has no foreign policy experience. She was a beauty queen (like many other women in McCain’s life). She has a firing scandal that is as of yet unresolved. Her Wikipedia entry was scrubbed, as was her website, but they missed the Google cache of her praising Barack Obama’s energy plan just last month. A month ago she didn’t know anything about McCain’s position on Iraq. And those are just the first few hours of what I learned about Governor Sarah Palin.

The more I learned, especially about her inexperience, and the more I thought about the obvious ploy to win “disaffected” Clinton voters, the more angry I got.

I’m not a feminist, or at least I don’t call myself one. With politics, as with most things, I find that balance is really an essential part of getting it right. And feminists are pretty much seen as extremists. The original movement is really one I could get behind, but so many of the arguments coming out of modern feminists mouth’s really are extreme. I don’t think I deserve a better job than men because my grandmother didn’t have a chance in hell of getting one. I do think that I should have an equal chance at getting that job, though. I think most feminists probably agree with me, but the loudest ones are a bit too extreme, and so I do not identify with them.

That said, something I truly didn’t understand during Hillary Clinton’s run for President was why her supporters sometimes had no better reason for supporting her than to get a woman in the Oval Office. I do see that it would be a wonderful thing to have a female president, but I needed more of a reason to support her than I had. By far, I think that Clinton’s core supporters have come over to the Obama camp, or are at least on their way. Hillary Clinton’s principles on women’s issues were matched well to the Democratic Party.

And so, in choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, how can John McCain think that the true core of Clinton supporters will come running? Sarah Palin believes that the government should decide many things for women that most of us would like control of ourselves. She is pro-life. Hillary Clinton is pro-choice.* Sarah Palin has not been a voice on issues, such as domestic violence, equality, or anything else typically thought of when discussing women’s issues. Her vagina does not make her any more of an expert or an advocate of those issues than Alaska’s proximity to Russia makes her a foreign affairs expert.

This next part may seem a little disjointed, but I wrote some notes during the car trip home, and I’d like to separate those thoughts from the rest of this. So here they are.

In general, a woman can work and still raise a family. Of course, some challenges with work or the family can make success at either less likely, without choosing one. A highly stressful job, one that takes you away from your home or a child with a disability are perfect examples of what I’m talking about.

Is Sarah Palin some kind of undiscovered superwoman that she can be both a good mother to an infant with Down’s Syndrome and a good Vice President of the United States of America?

Is her husband the nurturing matronly type who will make a fine mommy-substitute to this baby with Down’s Syndrome? Is she hiring a surrogate “mommy” to fill that role? When her child cries, will she be given the choice between America and little baby Trig? Which will she choose?

Is McCain’s choice a signal that he’s resigned to losing this election, and the choice of a woman was to make the party look good, as if they’re suddenly over their history of discrimination? Or is the whole thing a joke because he couldn’t get anyone to accept?

Sarah Palin has put herself in the position of abusing the issue of women’s rights, as has John McCain. Sarah Palin is undoubtedly an irresponsible choice to put one missed heartbeat away from running this country. And McCain’s choosing her twisted the entire women’s rights platform into something else entirely. Sarah Palin as VP isn’t the same as Hillary Clinton as VP, or even POTUS. Sarah Palin is a willing puppet, and is doing harm to women’s rights, not helping it. Sarah Palin is a mockery of Hillary Clinton and every thing she stood for. Most of Clinton’s supporters are going to understand that.

And women everywhere are going to be pissed in the years to come when a serious woman Presidential candidate comes along again, whether it’s Hillary or not, because clips of Palin will be shown and jokes about her clownish run at the White House will be used to discredit that woman candidate.

I, as a woman, am offended by McCain choosing Palin, and by Palin accepting the offer.

*I often feel the need to clarify when this topic is brought up. My personal view of abortion is that it is wrong. However, I don’t think the government needs to decide that for anyone, nor do I. On top of which, reducing the number of abortions will only happen with education and working harder to get people to consider adoption or not getting pregnant in the first place. But, I digress.

At least, according to Paul Begala.

“He says it’s a long-term strategy,” said Paul Begala, the longtime Clinton aide and Democratic strategist. “What he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose.”

You know, seeing Obama staffers here in Utah, and sometimes staying pretty late, after they’d finished making calls and wrapping up paper work, you’d think that if they were wandering around picking their noses, that I would have seen it. Oddly enough, I guess I missed that part. Or maybe that was just the 2004 election.

What I did see was them reaching to every corner of the state, organizing voter registration, calling campaigns and lots of good that was done both for the Obama campaign and for the Utah Democratic Party. They built on what we had started, and left us with organizing abilities that we did not previously have.

I believe that Utah has lots of potential for the Democratic Party, and that many Utahns, even those who may not vote for Senator Obama, appreciated that we were not ignored. Utah has far more unaffiliated voters than it does for both major parties combined. And though some may have short memories, it’s not been all that long since Utah was considered a Democratic state.

On top of which, the attention given to Utah from the Obama campaign in the primary election greatly helped the chances of Democrats running for state and local offices. People are more involved, and they are willing to work to achieve their goals. Hope, being the tagline of the Obama campaign, is really what we were given. Hope that we could make a difference in our own lives, instead of assuming that wealthy Republicans were going to win anyway, so why bother? Without that type of hope, they will win. But, with it, we are spurred to action, and we will be much better off for it.

And if staffers are brought back to Utah, I’ll buy the Kleenex, just in case.

I just took The Bush-McCain Challenge – an online quiz to see if you can tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain. Check it out, and see if you can do any better than I did!

Don’t forget to check out the bonus carrot round!