Six in ten Americans favor a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion. Fine. But let’s not let that stop us from passing Health Care Reform. The abortion issue and Health Care Reform are two completely different issues.Don’t be distracted. Don’t lose your focus.
I personally don’t believe in abortions but I believe in a woman’s right to chose. I am not God and will therefore not judge someone else’s circumstances. I do not believe that “the public at large” or our law makers should create legislation that would prevent many women from getting their health insurance plan to cover the cost of an abortion, even if no federal funds are involved. That’s just too black and white — what about women who are in a medical crisis?
These same people who are screaming that government is too big are the same people who want to micro-manage other people’s reproductive organs and choices. Hypocrites!!!
Most Americans like most of the current House bill. They like the parts that add new regulations to the health insurance industry that will stop them from discriminating against pre-existing conditions and provide more coverage for people who can’t afford health care. Americans also like the language in the bill that requires companies to provide health insurance to their workers. But most of us are not so sure about the language that requires people to get health insurance on their own if they don’t get it through another source. We agree with and understand the philosophy behind it, but it’s worrisome.
Folks, let us work this out. Let us create a bill that benefits the majority of Americans. Let us pass Health Care Reform. Send a letter via US mail or send an email or call your elected officials and tell them what you don’t like about the existing bill and what you do like and support. Your voice matters.
Participate in the process. Let your voice be heard. Tell our law makers to make the current House bill even better but please continue to support Health Care Reform.
Contact your elected officials — everyone from our President, Vice President, Senators, US Representatives, Governors and State legislators — by going to http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
This morning, we are one step closer to achieving health care reform in the United States of America. Can I get a “hip, hip!”
Nancy Pelosi and The House voted 220-215 on Saturday night on health care legislation that would provide way past due relief to Americans struggling to buy or hold on to health insurance. One Republican, Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana voted with the Democrats.
Some Democrats said they voted for the legislation so they could seek improvements in it. “This bill will get better in the Senate,” said Representative Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee who has been outspoken in his criticism of some provisions of the bill but decided to support it. “If we kill it here, it won’t have a chance to get better.”“Our plan is not perfect, but it is a good start toward providing affordable health care to all Americans,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio D-Oregon.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and The Senate still have to bring their health care plan to the floor for debate. Once their decision is made then the House and Senate will bargain and hopefully reach a deal on a final bill that will go to President Obama for signing.
The health care legislature passed last night will be paid for through new fees and taxes along with strategic cuts to Medicare. The plan will extend coverage to 36 million people now without insurance while creating a government health insurance program. It would end insurance company practices like not covering pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they become ill. Most employers would have to provide coverage or pay a tax penalty of up to 8 percent of their payroll. The bill would significantly expand Medicaid and would offer subsidies to help moderate-income people buy insurance from private companies or from a government insurance plan. It would also set up a national insurance exchange where people could shop for coverage.
“We did what we promised the American people we would do,” said Representative Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, but he also warned, “Much work remains.”
The successful vote came after President Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to make a personal appeal for lawmakers to “answer the call of history” and support the bill.
During the private meeting with Democrats in the Cannon Caucus Room, the President acknowledged the political difficulty of supporting major legislation in the face of unanimous Republican opposition and tough criticism from conservatives.
Lawmakers credited President Obama with converting a final few holdouts during his appearance at a closed-door meeting with Democrats just hours before the vote. Democratic officials said that the President’s conversation Saturday with Representative Michael H. Michaud, D-Maine, was crucial in winning one final vote.
After the vote, Mr. Obama issued a statement praising the House and calling on the Senate to follow suit. “I am absolutely confident it will and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.”
But don’t forget, there’s lots of work still to be done. We will have to make calls, send letters and send emails to our Senators in the upcoming weeks so that they will pass a health care plan.
The New York courtship of LeBron James began in earnest when the scheduling gods curiously put his only appearance at Madison Square Garden on the same day as the Yankees’ World Series victory parade.
If you believe in conspiracy theories, then this is right up there with the “chilled” envelope pulled by David Stern in the 1985 Draft lottery, putting Patrick Ewing in New York. You mean LeBron, a die-hard Yankees fan, gets an up-close look while the city is being painted in pinstripes? Is there a better marketing opportunity?
Is this better than anything Madison Avenue could dream up?
The Knicks hope the intoxicating celebrity factor will be enough to sway LeBron next summer as a free agent, because that’s all the Knicks really have in their favor. They can’t offer more money. They can’t offer a better collection of teammates, at least not right away. They can offer Spike Lee while Cleveland offers Drew Carey. They can (and will, you watch) get Spike and Chris Rock, among other celebrity row fixtures, to make a recruiting film in which famous people explain to LeBron why playing in New York will be far more enjoyable than playing in Cleveland.
(Sample pitch from Rock: “Hey LeBron, where you celebratin’ after a tough game in Cleveland? Arby’s?”)
A handful of the Yankees, still smelling of champagne, will be strategically seated at courtside Friday, making LeBron the second-most loved athlete in the house … if Derek Jeter shows up.
Then there’s C.C. Sabathia, big basketball fan and friend of LeBron’s from when Sabathia played in Cleveland; he left for New York and scored an instant jackpot, both with money and a ring. The video screen will constantly show their faces and they’ll get a standing ovation, all designed to show LeBron what it’s like to be a champion in New York. And the fans, no doubt, will chime in, cheering LeBron at warmups (like, who else will they cheer this year?), gushing whenever he does something spectacular and chanting “MVP,” as they did last year, when he dropped 52 on the Knicks.
All this will play to LeBron’s ego and convince him that a star of his magnitude needs to be in New York. That theory, by the way, is obsolete. Maybe 20-25 years ago, a star could receive better perks in New York, as Reggie Jackson did when he left the small market A’s. But with the global media and advertising of today, that’s not really necessary. LeBron blew up commercially without ever leaving Cleveland, and that will continue to be the case if he stays in Cleveland.
Obviously, the big factor for LeBron is collecting championships and whether his best chance is in Cleveland with a Cavs’ team that’s probably third-best behind Boston and Orlando and lacks a starry supporting cast, or a Knicks team being furiously stripped and rebuilt on the fly. The Knicks hope it also comes down to the stars and whether LeBron wants to hang with his buddy Jay-Z after the game, or retire to his palatial pad in Cleveland and call it a night.
That’ll be LeBron’s decision to make next July. And guess what? The Yankees should be in first place then, too.
Friday, November 6 @ 8pm EST on ESPN Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks!
It started way early this year. Walking around coughing. Runny nose. Deep congestion. Unsettled stomach. Waking up at 3am and not being able to fall back asleep. Despite the make-up I was wearing, I looked sick but I didn’t have a severe fever. Yes I had muscle aches and chills and went from hot to cold in a nanosecond and a temperature higher than 98.6 but I didn’t have a severe fever.
I live in Florida so usually the flu doesn’t hit us until February – not this year; the flu came early.
Everyone who looked at me, and saw me blowing my nose, or coughing, probably thought I had the swine flu. I stopped at a local pharmacy and bought cough drops, aspirin and two different types of flu and cold medicine, as well as a large carton of orange juice. As the cashier saw me approaching, her eyes got big. She began to hesitate — as if she didn’t want me to approach her register. I could tell she thought I had the swine flu.
I tried to comfort her — telling her it was simply a pre-emptive strike. I said I was fine, but simply had a sore throat. I said I wanted to start drinking orange juice early just to play it safe. I doubt she fell for anything I said.
It seems like the different viruses, colds and other bad bug strains out there may be packing a little bit more punch this year. Most folks who get sick now automatically assume they’ve got the swine flu. I did, and it was kind of scary. I even went to the ATM machine and took out money — fearing I could end up in the hospital in a matter of hours. Don’t ask the logic behind that thinking.
Since we don’t usually see a full blown outbreak of the seasonal flu in Florida until February health officials believe most of the influenza activity we are seeing right now is H1N1, and not the seasonal flu. So we could be looking at a double dose of flu activity this year. Swine flu now and seasonal flu later this winter. Hopefully that won’t be the case, but things are certainly off to a bad start.
It’s starting to look like we are in for a long and rough flu season. I’ve got my hand sanitizer ready. I’m sick now and I have no desire to get sick again.
The 2009 virus circulating the world isn’t strictly swine flu; rather, it’s a mix of swine, avian and human influenza that has never been seen before in humans. In the upcoming months, we’ll be dealt the double whammy of seasonal flu season and a potential second wave of swine flu.
Some people already have enough trouble determining if they have a cold or the flu; the symptoms are similar, although the flu’s symptoms are a bit more intense. But it may be especially difficult to know if you have swine flu or seasonal flu, since the symptoms are extremely similar. Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, stuffy or runny nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Swine flu patients also report diarrhea and vomiting, not usually present in seasonal flu.
A laboratory test is the only way to confirm a case of swine flu, but few tests have been done as most swine flu cases thus far look like a bout with seasonal flu. Many people recover without needing any medication or hospitalization, and some might not even know they’re ill. The mild nature of swine flu has led some to question why there needs to be any worry, as deaths have been far less than those attributable to seasonal flu.
However, because the current H1N1 influenza is completely new and no one has immunity, public health officials warn that swine flu could eventually cause more complications than seasonal flu does. Not only will there be more complications, they’ll likely be more serious. So far, doctors have reported that swine flu is more likely to result in viral pneumonia, as opposed to bacterial pneumonia often seen in seasonal flu cases; the bacterial version is much easier to treat than the viral kind.
Even if you don’t know if you have swine flu or seasonal flu, head to the doctor if you start to experience symptoms that aren’t part of a typical flu experience; these may be the warning signs of serious swine flu complications. That means everyone needs to remain vigilant about their health in the coming months.
Because swine flu and seasonal flu are transmitted in the same way, everyone should be on watch when it comes to prevention. Cover your mouth with your elbow when you cough or sneeze, wash your hands often, stop touching other people’s stuff in the office, don’t touch that door handle, stop talking in other people’s face and stay home when you’re sick.Whether you have seasonal or swine flu, you’ll be doing everyone around you a favor.
I’m GLAD that I don’t have the ‘swine’ — just a bad case of the good old seasonal flu which takes about five to ten days to shake — according to the doctor.
Do you have an election in your community this week? If you do, go out and VOTE and take a friend with you.
Folks, there are elections all across the country on Tuesday, November 3 and THEY MATTER.
We’ll see important elections for Governor in New Jersey and Virginia and important Mayoral elections in Atlanta, Houston, New York and other cities and we should be focused on them. Plus races for City Council, State Legislature and other positions are also up for grabs. These elections might not receive as much publicity and hype and may not seem to be as ‘sexy’ as the Presidential elections but they are more important in many ways.
These elections will affect our daily lives: The raising of fees, property taxes, making our schools more effective, fighting disparities in our criminal justice system are all determined by the City Council, Commissioner’s Court, Sherriff’s office and by local and state judges yet we ignore these elections. We should gladly spend time in lines to make sure our votes are counted in our local elections.
Even though President Obama is the leader of our country and the leader of the Democratic Party, once he authorizes monies to go to our communities our local elected officials are the ones who decide HOW to spend the monies.
Our President is VERY important but our local elected officials are the people who allocate these funds in a meaningful way or waste it to serve their own personal agendas.
In order for President Obama’s policies to be effective, we need local politicians in office who have a similar vision.
Know which local politician(s) in your community will do the most for you and your family. Share this information with your neighbors and friends and please make sure everyone in your household go out and vote and make sure each person takes a friend with them to the polls.
As he weighs whether or not to send more troops into the Afghan war zone, late last night President Barack Obama made a solemn trip to Dover Air Force Base to honor some of our fallen soldiers by being there personally to greet the 18 flag-draped caskets of young American soldiers killed in action this week.
When he arrived in Dover, Delaware our President travelled directly to a base chapel where he met privately with families of the fallen Americans. Former President George W. Bush visited the families of hundreds of fallen soldiers but did not attend any military funerals or go to Dover to receive the coffins.
The Dover base is about 100 miles from the White House and is the entry point for service personnel killed overseas.
As some Americans sit around huffing and puffing and thinking small; as they continuously work on dividing and conquering the United States of America, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met last week and made moves toward uniting socially and economically in an EU-style community which would encompass half the world’s population.
So as we continue to fight amongst ourselves in America and dither on the brink of insanity and weaken our social and economic infrastructure instead of working together to make America better and stronger leaders at a summit of 16 Asian nations met in Thailand and listened as the prime ministers of Australia and Japan set out competing visions for a regional bloc that would boost Asia’s global clout.
A central question at their summit was what role that the United States and China would play in any future grouping.
Not wanting to miss out on the potential power that the Asian bloc of countries have, Russia has applied to join the East Asia Summit – a group that includes China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand that works in conjunction with ASEAN.
In November U.S .President Barack Obama will hold the first ever summit with ASEAN leaders as well as attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore to keep America relevant in Asia.
Some countries want the United States to be part of a future Asia regional framework as a counterbalance to China’s influence said one diplomat.
Japanese premier Yukio Hatoyama pushed his plan at the summit for an East Asian community that could “lead the world”. He said that he would not want to see an extensive US involvement with ASEAN or the East Asia Summit despite Tokyo’s close ties to Washington.
Australian leader Kevin Rudd’s vision for an Asia-Pacific Community by 2020 explicitly includes Washington.
“Whether we like it or not, I think we could not avoid a US role because the US is a big country which has powers both in economic and security matters,” said Chaiwat Khamchoo, an analyst at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
“Some countries in the region are suspicious of each other so they want the U.S. to play a role.”
After the distractions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has only recently re-engaged with the region, particularly in Southeast Asia where Washington’s hard line on military-ruled Myanmar kept it at a distance.
With Japan kept busy by its economic woes, China has boosted its influence across the region in recent years, signing a free trade agreement with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
India has tried to play catch-up, belatedly signing its own trade pact with the bloc.
Earlier this year US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the “US is back in Southeast Asia”.
Asian leaders agreed at this weekend’s summit that they need some new framework to hold together their diverse and sometimes fractious region. A closer community would help Asia capitalize on its relatively quick recovery from the global economic crisis and to cut its dependence on the West to drive growth.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in his closing remarks to the summit on Sunday that the “old growth model in which Asia relies on consumption in the West will no longer serve us as we move into the future.”
Americans — united we stand, divided we fall. Let’s stand together and build a better and stronger U.S. of A!
Washington Mutual, the struggling savings and loan, has been working on several efforts to save itself, including a potential sale.
Among the potential bidders that Goldman has talked to are Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC. But no buyers may materialize. That could force the government to place Washington Mutual into conservatorship, like IndyMac, or find a bridge-bank solution, which was extended to thrifts in the new housing regulations.
Citigroup is also considering an offer, but would likely be able to buy Washington Mutual only if it emerged from a receivership, according to a person close to the situation. JPMorgan is maintaining its posture that it will not bid unless it receives government support.
The announcement comes as the bank, which has suffered badly from losses on mortgages it had made, continues to stumble. Shares in Washington Mutual fell nearly 10 percent on Wednesday to $2.09; they have plunged 94 percent over the last 12 months. This week alone, investors have been frightened by Standard & Poor’s cutting of the bank’s debt rating to junk.
TPG, the private equity firm that led a $7 billion cash injection into Washington Mutual in April, said Wednesday afternoon that it would waive its right to be compensated if the bank sold more shares to raise capital. “Our goal is to maximize the bank’s flexibility in this difficult market environment,”TPG said in a statement.
While the bank has a strong deposit base, the uncertainty of the markets and the increasingly poor housing market have increased concerns about Washington Mutual’s outlook.
Since the FDIC doesn’t release the names of banks that are in trouble, but you can check the health of your own bank. Check out bankrate.com. This site will have a safe & sound rating system that can help you get a picture of your bank’s health.
If you want more detailed information about your bank’s financials, you can go to ambest.com.
Some signs to look for:
Pay attention to massive job layoffs or cutback in services at your bank.
1. If your bank doesn’t accept new loan submissions that’s a HUGE red flag.
2. If you start to see generous CD yields advertised – that could be a sign that the bank is in trouble so it’s trying to entice people to keep their money at the bank and get new deposits.
The McCain campaign has insisted that the Thursday, October 2 debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees. With this format there will be much less occasion for impromptu direct exchanges between Palin and Biden.
McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.
The bickering and power struggle was chiefly between the McCain-Palin camp and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates which is sponsoring the forums.
Commission members wanted a relaxed format that included time for follow-up questioning and challenges between the vice-presidential candidates.Last week, the Commission rejected a proposal from advisers to Palin and McCain for few if any free flowing or flexible interactions. Advisers to Biden say they were comfortable with either format.
A commission member said that the new agreement on the vice-presidential debate was reached late morning Saturday. It calls for shorter blocks of candidate statements and open discussion than at the presidential debates.
Both campaigns see the four debates as pivotal moments in a presidential race that is not only extraordinarily close but also drawing intense interest from voters; roughly 40 million viewers watched the major speeches at the two parties’ conventions.
While the debates between presidential nominees are traditionally the main events in the fall election season, the public interest in Palin has proved extraordinary, and a large audience is expected for her debate debut.
The negotiations for the three 90-minute debates between Obama and McCain were largely free of any power struggle. The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates which begin this Friday, September 26. Teams Obama and McCain agreed to one substantive change to the format originally proposed by the debate commission, giving them two minutes apiece to make a statement at the beginning of each segment on a new topic.
Schedule of debates:
Friday, September 26, 2008: Presidential debatewith foreign policy focus, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
Thursday, October 2, 2008: Vice Presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Tuesday, October 7, 2008: Presidential debatein a town hall format, Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Wednesday, October 15, 2008: Presidential debatewith domestic policy focus, Hofstra University, Hempstead (L.I.), NY
Unfortunately a four-point lead means little at this point in the game especially for a black candidate who needs to be up by 10 points in battleground states to be safe, the game isn’t over yet.
The next potential game-changer is his first debate with John McCain, and what he needs to do in the debates is precisely what he has not done thus far in that format, and what no Democrat other than Bill Clinton has done effectively in decades: to connect with voters in a way that makes them feel like they know and share his values, feel confident that he will keep them and their families safe, and will do right by people like them.
How does he do that? By following some basic principles, many of which Democrats would do well to follow in every debate at every level of government:
1. Think of your answers as sandwiches, with emotionally evocative and values-driven language at the beginning and end and with the “meat” in the middle. Emotionally evocative opening and closing statements serve three functions: they draw voters’ attention (one of the major function of emotions from an evolutionary standpoint), they signal voters what you are passionate about, and they provide the sound bites that will be replayed over and over on television. The emotional “bread and butter” at the beginning and end can elicit or address voters’ anger, hope, concerns, sense of patriotism, faith, or whatever informs your position and moves voters, or it can be a story from your own life or the lives you’ve encountered on the campaign trail. That is the bread and butter of what voters will remember. Follow it with the “meat”: first, how we got here (indicting the GOP for what it has done and making the causal link to the pain people are experiencing and our moral standing in the world), and second, a very brief bulleted description of what you plan to do (no more than three points, which is the most voters will remember). For example, on health care, start with something like, “I believe in a family doctor for every family. Right now, 50 million working Americans and their families can’t take their kids to the doctor, and the rest of us are watching our co-pays shoot through the roof and our security disappear as insurance companies are raking in record profits.” Then compare McCain’s “you’re on your own, pal” plan that would knock 150 million people off their employer-provided insurance (which would scare the hell out of most voters if they only knew about it — and for good reason) with your own, emphasizing the most central points of your plan: if you’re happy with your doctor or health plan, you will be able to stay with what you have; if you’re not, you’ll have choices, including not only an array of private plans that will have to compete for your dollar but the same plan members of Congress get. End with something that again inspires emotion, “If that plan is good enough for people like me in the Senate, its good enough for the people who pay my salary — the American taxpayer.”
2. Clearly enunciate your principles in virtually every response. Why do you take the position you do, and how does that principle reflect mainstream American values? Get to the specifics after you’ve established the principle, because it cues voters that you’re a person of conviction. The usual Democratic statements such as “I’m for the Second Amendment but for limited regulation of x,y,z” is not a principle, any more than was Al Gore’s debate response in 2004, that he supported regulation of new handguns but not old ones. (What’s the principle? That old guns are rusty? Voters saw through it and thought he wanted to support gun control but didn’t want to say it.) Here’s a principle, and one that distinguishes him clearly from McCain and the GOP: “My basic principle on guns is this: I believe in the rights of law-abiding Americans. That’s why I support the rights of law-abiding Americans to own firearms to hunt and protect their families, and why I support the rights of parents to send their kids to school in the morning and know they’ll come home safely.” That sets the framework for a principled position; for example, against assault weapons (e.g., “If you’re hunting with an M-16, you’re not bringing that meat home for dinner”).
3. Look at the audience and know where the camera is at all times. In his Saddleback performance, Obama split his eye contact between his interviewer, Rick Warren, and his shoelaces. He rarely turned to the camera and his broader television audience. Eye contact and body posture are crucial nonverbal cues in primates including humans, and voters unconsciously process those cues about dominance, sincerity, and so forth. Downcast eyes readily suggest shame, low status, or evasiveness. McCain had been coached by a good media coach to respond to his interview with direct eye contact, often using his name, and then to pivot away toward the audience within one to two seconds. Democrats routinely fail to make use of people who can help them enunciate their positions with strength, conviction, and humor.
4. Avoid dispassionate, meandering, intellectualized answers. Nuance and emotional appeal are not mutually exclusive. Sure, it’s harder to enunciate a principle that recognizes ambiguity than one that emanates from a Manichean worldview of the good guys vs. the bad guys. But people are often relieved when someone speaks to their ambivalence. It isn’t hard to say that business is the engine of our prosperity but that leadership is about keeping that engine on the right track. Nor is it hard to say what most people feel in their gut, that government shouldn’t be in the business of forcing one person to live by another person’s faith, which is why Sarah Palin has no right to plan our families for us, but that you ought to have a very good reason (e.g., the mother’s life or health is seriously in danger) to abort a late-term fetus.
5. Inspire and indict. As I argued in The Political Brain, and in multiple posts here, you can’t win a campaign with one story (about why you should be elected), and no one has ever won the presidency by saying only nice things about himself and his opponent. You have to control the dominant story of who you are (and answer attacks on that story directly and immediately) and the story of who your opponent is and why he’s not the right person for the job or the times.
6. Don’t run from any issue. State your principles clearly and with conviction, and if you worry that the public isn’t with you, turn that into a virtue (by making it a mark of genuineness and courage). The failure to state a clear position on hot-button issues has been a standard Democratic error for decades. Republicans never make this mistake. They’ve been running on a position on abortion that’s at 30% in the polls for years–that life begins at conception, and there’s no room for compromise–and this year they’ve even taken the more extreme position that every rapist has the right to choose the mother of his child. If Democrats don’t run on abortion and contraception this year, when Republicans have governed or threaten to govern with positions so far to the right that you can’t find them on a map of America (e.g., forcing teenagers to have their rapists’ babies, perpetuating the cycle of poverty by making contraceptives unavailable to poor women, teaching only abstinence when it’s nearly impossible to name a Republican who ever practiced it–they deserve another 3 Alitos and a Scalia for good measure.
Seven hundred billion dollars – that’s ‘11’ zeros.It’s almost incomprehensible to me.I had to write it out – $700,000,000,000. This is the amount of money George Dubya wants us to entrust Henry Paulson with.
This so called “bailout”of America’s failed financial institutions seems to me to be the greatest heist in America ever; this will be the greatest highway robbery in broad daylight, in the middle of day with everyone watching with our eyes wide open.
How can anyone with any common sense give $700,000,000,000of American citizens’ money; of middle class American’s money to ONE person to ‘handle’with virtually no oversight?
According to a draft of the bailout proposal, all decisions by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, “are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” What the heck!!!
I don’t care if anyone tells me that I have to trust the ‘experts’.This just doesn’t sound right to me.Not at all.I don’t trust this solution. Not me, not today, not tomorrow. No way.
One thing that bothers me is that the very executives who destroyed their companies are going to get to put a share of hundreds of billions in their ‘pockets’. Plus they will get this money practically hassle free.Less hassle than it would take for you or me to get an unemployment check after working years and making a contribution to the system.These CEOs get to evade their responsibilities. That just doesn’t sit right with me.Not at all.
I am one of those people who believe that this ‘bailout’has to be inspected and dissected with a fine tooth comb with little or no room no trickery and thievery. There is just way too much of your dollars and my dollars at stake.Accountability and oversight has got to be paramount!The current proposal only requires one oversight report to Congress every 6 months.What kind of crap is that?This has to be the worst business decision ever…ever!
Dubya Bush is saying, just give us the money and trust us, we’ll handle it.Yeah, right, just like we trusted him with the WMD and the Iraq war.To quote George W. Bush, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”You get the idea, right?
The Bush administration is urging Congress to quickly stabilize the financial system by temporarily transferring the bad debts of American financial institutions to taxpayers. The proposed plan would give the Treasury Secretary Paulson sole powerto manage the funds and the buying and reselling of mortgage debt.“This is something that has to work. I very much believe it will work”, said Paulson.
So we should trust Paulson (who said 2 weeks ago that the economy was strong!) because he simply believesit will work?!Where are the spreadsheets, economic forecasts, market analyses and scientific formulas?I want to see credible reports and projections!I want more than ‘I believe’ from Paulson.
I believe that I am going to come up with one of the most innovative business idea ever and become a billionaire overnight – that’s what I believe.Will a bank give me a loan based on what I believe???I think not!
Democrats measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President – when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.
We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job – an economy that honors the dignity of work.
The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great – a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.
Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton’s Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.
In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.
When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.
And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She’s the one who taught me about hard work. She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she’s watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.
I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.
What is that promise?
It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.
It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.
Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves – protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.
Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.
That’s the promise of America – the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.
That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.
Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.
Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.
I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.
I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.
The McCain campaign most likely is having a team meeting and writing a press-release which will accuse Katie Couric of being a sexist. Katie Couric has done a great public service by asking Palin some real questions and giving voters the opportunity to see how Palin answers.
So it seems that Palin disagrees with Roe v Wade but doesn’t understand the fundamentals of Roe v Wade since she believes in the ’privacy’ dynamic. Palin doesn’t seem to get the nuances of any issue. Just incredible.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain is pulling his resources out of Michigan in the midst of polls showing Obama building on his lead there.
McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis called former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to tell him of the decision just before Romney got on a conference call with reporters today. Romney, who grew up in Oakland County, was holding the call with McCain strategist Doug Holtz-Eakin to raise claims that Obama’s policies are no good for Michigan’s struggling economy.
Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Romney, confirmed the call took place but wouldn’t discuss the details. “They need to do whatever they think puts them in a position to win in November,” Fehrnstrom said.
A state Republican Party source had already told the Free Press that McCain was pulling out of the race in the state and moving workers to Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida — the latter two being states won by President George W. Bush in 2004 that the Republican needs to hold onto if he’s going to win the White House.
Recent polls have shown Obama increasing his lead in Michigan into double digits. A Detroit Free Press-Local 4 Michigan poll showed Obama with a 13-point lead last week, and today a poll by Public Policy Polling showed Obama leading McCain 51-41 in the state. Meanwhile, McCain’s earlier margins in Florida and Ohio were slipping.
Florida, in particular, is seen as key to a Republican victory, and a CNN/Time poll showed Obama leading there with a slim 51-47 lead this week.
According to the source, the Republican National Committee — which is the source of money for many of the 100 or so people working on behalf of the McCain campaign in Michigan — called state GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis this afternoon and told him the campaign would be moving workers out of the state and ceasing to buy local airtime in the state for ads.
No reason for the move was given. The McCain campaign’s Michigan spokeswoman, Sarah Lenti, wouldn’t immediately comment.
Palin came out swinging. I have to give her credit for fighting for her party – she held her own. But Palin didn’t debate, she came with talking points and we were going to hear them whether or not we asked her about them. Forget the rules; she was going to get out her talking points come hell or high water! Palin asked herself her own questions and answered her own questions – especially about energy, energy, energy, amazing!
I believe that Palin had a personal victory since she did not implode and she did better that she has been for the past 3 weeks. However, Biden won the debate because he spoke about polices, specifics and answered questions voters wanted to hear.
Palin’s entire performance was rhetorical and abstract and metaphoric – she had no specifics. She never said what the policies of a McCain presidency would be nor did she say how McCain’s presidency would differ from Bush’s – not on the economy, on Iraq, on Afghanistan or on Foreign Policy – her responses were all abstract, not literal and figurative. Based on substance she didn’t help the McCain campaign and it was ‘embarrassing’ that she didn’t know McCain’s record therefore she contradicted McCain on things like his same sex marriage policy.
Palin was folksy, energetic, cartoony, gimmicky and seemed to be ‘playing the role of a character’ as if she was in a play or movie. She didn’t listen to questions; she just answered her own questions based on her talking points.
What was of particular interest was when Palin said she would expand the role of the Vice Presidency by changing the constitution so that the vice president would have more legislative power – very curious indeed. Hmmm.
But is it still a debate if Palin didn’t answer the questions or follow the rules of debating?
Can you or your family afford to lose a job next week or next month? Barack Obama will be best protector of our economy which is in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
“John McCain doesn’t seem to understand that this crisis isn’t two weeks old,” Ohio Governor Ted Strickland said earlier today in the Democratic Party’s address. “Maybe he doesn’t realize that we’ve lost jobs every month this year. He hasn’t said one thing he’d do to make his economy look any different than George Bush’s economy.”
Labor Department figures released on Friday shows that the U.S. lost 159,000 jobs in September, the most in five years! The jobless rate was unchanged from August at 6.1 percent but up from 5 percent as recently as April.
September’s unemployment data followed a 73,000 decline in jobs during August and showed that America’s economy – the world’s largest economy – may be headed for bigger job losses as consumers and companies cut back and economize on just about everything.
Obama strongly supports an economic recovery package. Following Friday’s jobs report, Obama said:
“Instead of Sen. McCain’s plan to give tax breaks to CEOs and companies that ship jobs overseas, I will rebuild the middle-class and create millions of new jobs by investing in infrastructure and renewable energy that will reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East. I also call on Congress to pass an immediate rescue plan for our middle-class that will provide tax relief, save one million jobs, and save our local communities from harmful budget cuts and painful tax increases.”
McCain opposes a stimulus package for working families and did not take part in the Senate vote on the first stimulus bill last spring.
As bad as the new jobs data are, the underlying picture is even worst because the number of long-term unemployed workers (those jobless for more than six months and may have stopped looking for work) grew to 2 million in September, an increase of 728,000 over the past 12 months.
Senator Obama would create 2 million new jobs by investing in rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, roads, bridges, and schools, Strickland said. He would give tax breaks to companies that create jobs in America, he said.
Obama yesterday criticized Governor Palin for saying in the vice-presidential debate Democratic economic policies would “kill jobs.”
“When Senator McCain and his running mate talk about job killing, that’s something they know a thing or two about,” Obama said yesterday at a rally outside Philadelphia. “Because the policies they’re supporting are killing jobs every single day.”
Earlier in September, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll showed more respondents said Obama would do a better job handling the financial crisis than McCain, and almost half of the voters said they believed he had better ideas to strengthen the economy than McCain does.
No longer can we assume that a high-school education is enough to compete for a job that could easily go to a college-educated student in Bangalore or Beijing. No more can we count on employers to provide health care and pensions and job training when their bottom-lines know no borders. Never again can we expect the oceans that surround America to keep us safe from attacks on our own soil.
The world has changed. And as a result, we’ve seen families work harder for less and our jobs go overseas. We’ve seen the cost of health care and child care and gasoline skyrocket. We’ve seen our children leave for Iraq and terrorists threaten to finish the job they started on 9/11.
But while the world has changed around us, too often our government has stood still. Our faith has been shaken, but the people running Washington aren’t willing to make us believe again.
It’s the timidity – the smallness – of our politics that’s holding us back right now. The idea that some problems are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them, sooner or later, they’ll go away.
That if you give a speech where you rattle off statistics about the stock market being up and orders for durable goods being on the rise, no one will notice the single mom whose two jobs won’t pay the bills or the student who can’t afford his college dreams.
That if you say the words “plan for victory” and point to the number of schools painted and roads paved and cell phones used in Iraq, no one will notice the nearly 2,500 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at Dover Air Force base.
Well it’s time we finally said we notice, and we care, and we’re not going to settle anymore.
You know, you probably never thought you’d hear this at a Take Back America conference, but Newt Gingrich made a great point a few weeks ago. He was talking about what an awful job his own party has done governing this country, and he said that with all the mistakes and misjudgments the Republicans have made over the last six years, the slogan for the Democrats should come down to just two words:
Had enough?
I don’t know about you, but I think old Newt is onto something here. Because I think we’ve all had enough. Enough of the broken promises. Enough of the failed leadership. Enough of the can’t-do, won’t-do, won’t-even-try style of governance.
I’ve had enough of the closed-door deals that give billions to the HMOs when we’re told that we can’t do a thing for the 45 million uninsured or the millions more who can’t pay their medical bills.
I’ve had enough of being told that we can’t afford body armor for our troops and health care for our veterans and benefits for the wounded heroes who’ve risked their lives for this country. I’ve had enough of that.
I’ve had enough of giving billions away to the oil companies when we’re told that we can’t invest in the renewable energy that will create jobs and lower gas prices and finally free us from our dependence on the oil wells of Saudi Arabia.
I’ve had enough of our kids going to schools where the rats outnumber the computers. I’ve had enough of Katrina survivors living out of their cars and begging FEMA for trailers. And I’ve had enough of being told that all we can do about this is sit and wait and hope that the good fortune of a few trickles on down to everyone else in this country.
You know, we all remember that George Bush said in 2000 campaign that he was against nation-building. We just didn’t know he was talking about this one.
Now, let me say this – I don’t think that George Bush is a bad man. I think he loves his country. I don’t think this administration is full of stupid people – I think there are a lot of smart folks in there. The problem isn’t that their philosophy isn’t working the way it’s supposed to – it’s that it is. It’s that it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
The reason they don’t believe government has a role in solving national problems is because they think government is the problem. That we’re better off if we dismantle it – if we divvy it up into individual tax breaks, hand ‘em out, and encourage everyone to go buy your own health care, your own retirement security, your own child care, their own schools, your own private security force, your own roads, their own levees…
It’s called the Ownership Society in Washington. But in our past there has been another term for it – Social Darwinism – every man or women for him or herself.
It allows us to say to those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford – life isn’t fair. It allows us to say to the child who didn’t have the foresight to choose the right parents or be born in the right suburb – pick yourself up by your bootstraps. It lets us say to the guy who worked twenty or thirty years in the factory and then watched his plant move out to Mexico or China – we’re sorry, but you’re on your own.
It’s a bracing idea. It’s a tempting idea. And it’s the easiest thing in the world.
But there’s just one problem. It doesn’t work. It ignores our history. Yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on individual initiative, on a belief in the free market. But it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, of mutual responsibility. The idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity.
Americans know this. We know that government can’t solve all our problems – and we don’t want it to.
But we also know that there are some things we can’t do on our own. We know that there are some things we do better together.
We know that we’ve been called in churches and mosques, synagogues and Sunday schools to love our neighbors as ourselves; to be our brother’s keeper; to be our sister’s keeper. That we have individual responsibility, but we also have collective responsibility to each other.
That’s what America is.
And so I am eager to have this argument not just with the President, but the entire Republican Party over what this country is about.
Because I think that this is our moment to lead.
The time for our party’s identity crisis is over. Don’t let anyone tell you we don’t know what we stand for and don’t doubt it yourselves. We know who we are. And in the end, we know that it isn’t enough to just say that you’ve had enough.
What is the trickle-down economy theory? It’s the set of economic policies based on the concept that you provide economic incentives to the wealthy by cutting their taxes (by letting them keep their money) while at the same time deregulating industry, you’ll let loose a tsunami of economic activities that will enrich even the least advantaged among us.
Wow, this sounds great in theory but as we all know now, it doesn’t work.
Trickle-down is largely a rationale for upward redistribution that’s been kept alive by those who benefit from it by paying less tax. Reagan put this stuff on the map, GW Bush brought it back with a vengeance and McCain intends to take it even further. McCain’s policy calls for an extension of the Bush tax cuts plus he adds pork fat of about $75 billion more in corporate tax cuts on top of that!
In the 1990s when Clinton came into office he would have nothing to do with allowing the rich to pay less taxes; he instead cut taxes on lower-income households and raised taxes on the wealthiest. Obama takes a similar approach.
Because of lowering taxes on the middle-class and raising the taxes on the wealthy in hind sight we see evidence of the strong real growth in median incomes and sharp declines in poverty that occurred during the 1990s compared with the opposite movement in the 2000s with Bush’s policies.
The income for the middle-class grew by 10% or by $5,200 in the 1990s (1989-2000); these same households saw a decrease of $2,000 in 2000s under Bush when he lowered taxes for the wealthy.If Bush had kept Bill Clinton’s policy of lowering the taxes for the middle-class, income would have continued to increase in the 2000s and middle class median income would have gone up $3,600 instead of falling $2,000.
So why do the republicans continue to push tax cuts for the rich?It seems that it is as simple as ‘because they and their friends are rich’ and it benefits them and their friends including heirs and heiresses.That’s straight-talk.
SARAH PALIN’S post-Couric/Fey comeback at last week’s vice presidential debate was a turning point in the campaign. But if she “won,” as her indulgent partisans and press claque would have it, the loser was not Joe Biden. It was her running mate. With a month to go, the 2008 election is now an Obama-Palin race — about “the future,” as Palin kept saying Thursday night — and the only person who doesn’t seem to know it is Mr. Past, poor old John McCain.
To understand the meaning of Palin’s “victory,” it must be seen in the context of two ominous developments that directly preceded it. Just hours before the debate began, the McCain campaign pulled out of Michigan. That state is ground zero for the collapsed Main Street economy and for so-called Reagan Democrats, those white working-class voters who keep being told by the right that Barack Obama is a Muslim who hung with bomb-throwing radicals during his childhood in the late 1960s.
McCain surrendered Michigan despite having outspent his opponent on television advertising and despite Obama’s twin local handicaps, an unpopular Democratic governor and a felonious, now former, black Democratic Detroit mayor. If McCain can’t make it there, can he make it anywhere in the Rust Belt?
Not without an economic message. McCain’s most persistent attempt, his self-righteous crusade against earmarks, collapsed with his poll numbers. Next to a $700 billion bailout package, his incessant promise to eliminate all Washington pork — by comparison, a puny grand total of $16.5 billion in the 2008 federal budget — doesn’t bring home the bacon. Nor can McCain reconcile his I-will-veto-government-waste mantra with his support, however tardy, of the bailout bill. That bill’s $150 billion in fresh pork includes a boondoggle inserted by the Congressman Don Young, an Alaskan Republican no less.
The second bit of predebate news, percolating under the radar, involved the still-unanswered questions about McCain’s health. Back in May, you will recall, the McCain campaign allowed a select group of 20 reporters to spend a mere three hours examining (but not photocopying) 1,173 pages of the candidate’s health records on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Conspicuously uninvited was Lawrence Altman, a doctor who covers medicine for The New York Times. Altman instead canvassed melanoma experts to evaluate the sketchy data that did emerge. They found the information too “unclear” to determine McCain’s cancer prognosis.
There was, however, at least one doctor-journalist among those 20 reporters in May, the CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta. At the time, Gupta told Katie Couric on CBS that the medical records were “pretty comprehensive” and wrote on his CNN blog that he was “pretty convinced there was no ‘smoking gun’ about the senator’s health.” (Physical health, that is; Gupta wrote there was hardly any information on McCain’s mental health.)
That was then. Now McCain is looking increasingly shaky, whether he’s repeating his “Miss Congeniality” joke twice in the same debate or speaking from notecards even when reciting a line for (literally) the 17th time (“The fundamentals of our economy are strong”) or repeatedly confusing proper nouns that begin with S (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain). McCain’s “dismaying temperament,” as George Will labeled it, only thickens the concerns. His kamikaze mission into Washington during the bailout crisis seemed crazed. His seething, hostile debate countenance — a replay of Al Gore’s sarcastic sighing in 2000 — didn’t make the deferential Obama look weak (as many Democrats feared) but elevated him into looking like the sole presidential grown-up.
Though CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t run a political ad with doctors questioning McCain’s medical status, Gupta revisited the issue in an interview published last Tuesday by The Huffington Post. While maintaining a pretty upbeat take on the candidate’s health, the doctor-journalist told the reporter Sam Stein that he couldn’t vouch “by any means” for the completeness of the records the campaign showed him four months ago. “The pages weren’t numbered,” Gupta said, “so I had no way of knowing what was missing.” At least in Watergate we knew that the gap on Rose Mary Woods’s tape ran 18 and a half minutes.
It’s against this backdrop that Palin’s public pronouncements, culminating with her debate performance, have been so striking. The standard take has it that she’s either speaking utter ignorant gibberish (as to Couric) or reciting highly polished, campaign-written sound bites that she’s memorized (as at the convention and the debate). But there’s a steady unnerving undertone to Palin’s utterances, a consistent message of hubristic self-confidence and hyper-ambition. She wants to be president, she thinks she can be president, she thinks she will be president. And perhaps soon. She often sounds like someone who sees herself as half-a-heartbeat away from the presidency. Or who is seen that way by her own camp, the hard-right G.O.P. base that never liked McCain anyway and views him as, at best, a White House place holder.
This was first apparent when Palin extolled a “small town” vice president as a hero in her convention speech — and cited not one of the many Republican vice presidents who fit that bill but, bizarrely, Harry Truman, a Democrat who succeeded a president who died in office. A few weeks later came Charlie Gibson’s question about whether she thought she was “experienced enough” and “ready” when McCain invited her to join his ticket. Palin replied that she didn’t “hesitate” and didn’t “even blink” — a response that seemed jarring for its lack of any human modesty, even false modesty.
In the last of her Couric interview installments on Thursday, Palin was asked which vice president had most impressed her, and after paying tribute to Geraldine Ferraro, she chose “George Bush Sr.” Her criterion: she most admires vice presidents “who have gone on to the presidency.” Hours later, at the debate, she offered a discordant contrast to Biden when asked by Gwen Ifill how they would each govern “if the worst happened” and the president died in office. After Biden spoke of somber continuity, Palin was weirdly flip and chipper, eager to say that as a “maverick” she’d go her own way.
But the debate’s most telling passage arrived when Biden welled up in recounting his days as a single father after his first wife and one of his children were killed in a car crash. Palin’s perky response — she immediately started selling McCain as a “consummate maverick” again — was as emotionally disconnected as Michael Dukakis’s notoriously cerebral answer to the hypothetical 1988 debate question about his wife being “raped and murdered.” If, as some feel, Obama is cool, Palin is ice cold. She didn’t even acknowledge Biden’s devastating personal history.
Hilarious! This skit shows also too a heck of a lot how difficult it is to get in all the ‘winks’ and mispronunciation of ‘nuculear’ in, also dog gone it also too, betcha!
Sarah Palin: “John McCain is the man we need to leave…uh lead” also.
“Our financial system in turmoil and John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy.”
The ad, slated to start running Monday on national cable, seeks to capitalize on John McCain’s response to the nation’s financial crisis while rebutting Republican attacks on Obama’s character.
As Congress worked to pass the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, McCain announced that he would suspend his campaign and skip the first presidential debate while he worked on a solution. He inevitably attended the debate even as the deal in Congress faltered.
Democrats say McCain tried to politicize the crisis with a campaign gimmick.
“No wonder his campaign has announced a plan to turn a page on the financial crisis, distract with dishonest, dishonorable assaults against Barack Obama,” the ad continues. “Struggling families can’t turn the page on this economy and we can’t afford another president who’s this out of touch.”
Last week we woke up to hear that Citibank “Citi” took over Wachovia’s banking/mortgage business.Citi was to have paid Wachovia $2.1 billion in stock in exchange for Wachovia’s banking and mortgage assets (over $700 billion in deposits+assets). Citi was also going to assume about $53 billion in debt.
Citi needed to cover losses up to $42 billion on mortgage related losses. Anything beyond that is guaranteed by the Federal government (FDIC). In exchange for that guarantee, the Feds would get $12 billion in preferred Citi stock, which pays 6% interest – so the Feds would most likely make money from the deal.
Wachovia owns a $300+ billion mortgage portfolio and has about $120 billion in option-ARM mortgages and expected losses on about 14% of those loans. The deal allowed Wachovia to keep its other businesses: Wachovia Securities, Evergreen Investments and Wachovia Insurance Services. The important question here is how much the remaining Wachovia businesses are worth – could Wachovia have sustained itself?
·Wachovia Securities is the nation’s second largest investment firm
·Wachovia Insurance Services is the 12th largest insurance brokerage firm
·Evergreen Investments is America’s 29th largest asset management company
So now each Wachovia share is worth $1 – a penny stock.
In pre-market trading last week, even before any details were announced, Wachovia stock dropped 90% and trading was halted at the NYSE on Wachovia (WB) for the day. In spite of everything the S&P still maintains its hold rating on WB but will revise its price target.
Up until early Friday October 3 your deposits at both Citi and Wachovia are safe and the FDIC didn’t need to spend any money to help those 2 banks. The only difference was that your local Wachovia would become a Citibank and Citibank had plans to move its banking headquarters to Charlotte, NC while keeping its investment headquarters in Manhattan. Since Citi and Wachovia don’t have much of an overlap in branches, not much was expected to change for depositors.
Late Friday the banking industry was shaken by news that industry regulators were working to resolve rival acquisition proposals by Citigroup and Wells Fargo for Wachovia.
Wells Fargo announced a surprise deal to buy Wachovia for about $15.1 billion in stock, four days after Citi agreed to acquire Wachovia’s banking operations in a government-backed deal valued at $2.1 billion.
So now we have a fight between Citi and Wells Fargo to see who will purchase Wachovia. Even though Wachovia said early Sunday that it is pressing ahead with its deal to sell itself to Wells Fargo for more money.
Wachovia responded to a judge’s order on Saturday to temporarily block the sale of the bank to Wells Fargo.But Wachovia says that it does not believe the order by the judge “has any effect on the validity of the Wells Fargo agreement with Wachovia.”
Meanwhile, across the pond, hopes of a formidable European response to their financial crisis dimmed ahead of a hastily arranged weekend summit by France, Germany, Britain and Italy. Germany has already rejected a French proposal to create an emergency EU fund for struggling banks. European governments have had to step in and bail out several major banks, including Britain’s Bradford & Bingley, Belgian-Dutch Fortis and Belgium’s Dexia.
The second presidential debate is scheduled for next Tuesday, October 7 at 9PM EST/8PM CST.
The debate will take place at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. The debate will be in the Town Hall format and questions will be taken from the audience and some from the internet.
Participants in the town meeting will pose their questions to the candidates after reviewing their questions with the moderator for the sole purpose of avoiding duplication. The participants will be chosen by the Gallup Organization and will be undecided voters from the Nashville, Tennessee standard metropolitan statistical area. During the town meeting, the moderator has discretion to use questions submitted by Internet.
The host will be Tom Brokaw of NBC who is a John McCain supporter. Mr. Brokaw has said that over the summer he had “advocated” within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Brokaw thought that Olbermann and Matthews used their time on air to engage in ‘commentary’. NBC said earlier this month that the two hosts would mostly relinquish their anchor duties to Mr. Gregory, while being present as analysts during debates and special election coverage.
Brokaw also said he has conducted some “shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks” between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure McCain’s aides that — despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular — Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News.
On the Sunday, September 28 edition of Meet The Press, Tom Brokaw moderated a debate between McCain strategist Steve Schmidt and Obama strategist David Axelrod on topics ranging from Iraq to the Wall Street bailout which Axelrod seemed to win. At the end, Tom Brokaw did something unusual, he opted to give himself the last word and told the audience:
“In fairness to everybody here, I’m just going to end on one note. And that is that we continue to poll on who’s best equipped to be Commander in Chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Gentlemen, thank you very much. “
In fact, the latest NBC poll actually has no question about Commander in Chief. It turns out that Brokaw was referring to a poll taken weeks ago – right after the Republican convention and well before the September 26 national security debate. In each of NBC’s last two polls, Americans chose Obama over McCain so Brokaw was being quite dishonest.
Brokaw is very blatant and bold with his support of McCain; can he be a fair moderator?
Armchair quarterbacks at home all believe that we know how to debate much better than Obama and McCain does. We’ll be hurling epithets at the television screen when our candidate misses an opportunity to verbally mangle his opponent or launch a one-liner that will soar the politician into the Lloyd Bensten Hall of fame:
One thing is certain: folks watching the debates are tough!
Does either Obama or McCain have an advantage?
On the surface, it can be argued that McCain has the home-field advantage. The town-hall format is something he prefers and has demonstrated much skill in.
The format allows for direct questioning of the candidates by the audience.
How to win
So what are the keys to victory? Much like when Terry Bradshaw and Mike Ditka outline what each team must do in this hallowed and sacred part of the year known as Football Season, two armchair political quarterbacks will analyze what must be done at tonight’s debate.
In the ‘D’ corner:
Chris Lehane is a Democratic strategist, frequent television commentator and former staffer in the Clinton White House. He provided:
O’s Five Principals of Combat
1. Error free ball: The trajectory of this campaign will not change unless O makes a real mistake that plays into a negative storyline (inexperience, elite/arrogant). And the history of presidential debates is that they usually alter the fundamentals of a campaign only when a candidate makes a major mistake that plays into a negative typecast. Thus, no mistakes on something that matters.
2. Counter-punch like Muhammad Ali: Ali, one of the greatest heavyweights ever, knocked out big punchers like Foreman, Norton, and Frazier by counter-punching. Like Ali, Obama needs to hit back when McCain attacks, because voters absolutely want to know that the person in the Oval Office will stand up and fight for them, and because McCain’s chin will be exposed when he bull-rushes Obama.
3. Be Michael Coreleone and not Sonny or Fredo: Obama can’t be like Sonny and go in swinging away without a real plan and he can’t be Fredo and not fight back. He needs to be Michael – smart and shrewd in taking on his opponent.
And being Michael in this debate – and campaign – means homing in on a character compare-and-contrast focused on “who do you trust to make the right economic decisions for you and your family.”
Trust on the economy is where Obama wins when he counter punches – it is the cut above McCain’s eye that he should just pound on at every opportunity (as Biden did in the VP debate).
4. It is Oprah, not a Harvard vs. Yale debate: The public watches these debates to get a sense of the character of the candidates. Voters are not scoring it like a Harvard versus Yale debate, but watch it the same way they would watch Oprah.
Given that it is a town-hall style debate involving direct interaction with the audience, the premium on connecting in terms of a candidate’s character is even higher than in a moderated debate.
Candidates have made mistakes in the past that badly hurt them – not just because of what they said – but how they looked. Bush Sr. at his watch; Nixon’s darting eyes; Gore sighs.
5. You don’t have to win: Obama does not have to win in a conventional sense. He just has to avoid doing anything that changes the fundamentals of the campaign. Thus, don’t let a need to win the debate lead to Obama being “hot” or “out of character.”
I hope all you Obama supporters are smart enough to see that this is a good Kenyan witch doctor preacher praying over Sarah – the Bible states that in the ‘end-times’ all roads will lead to Alaska because you will be able to see hell (Russia) from Alaska and pergatory (Afghanistan) is a neighbor of Alaska. Rolling my eyes.
Obama supporters are just too blind to see the truth and too sophisticated to understand about witches!
Barack Obama won last night’s ‘Town Hall’ unequivocally, clearly, indisputably! It wasn’t even close. McCain looked shaky, uncomfortable and uncertain. Obama seemed fit, energetic and commanded the stage. At times, when McCain moved around he almost looked lost.
In addition McCain did nothing to change the dynamic of the race and change it is what he fervently needed to do. Before the ‘Town Hall’ Team McCain said they were taking the gloves off and would assault Obama on his character – McCain did not even lay a glove on Obama on the character issue – I guess he knows the hate he spews while campaigning is crap.
I am shocked and perplexed that McCain did NOT mention how he would help the middle-class; not even ONCE! He has no plans on how he would help the majority of Ameicans – no plans!!!
McCain was very repetitive – he repeated almost verbatim full sentences about Putin and other issues that he said in the first debate. McCain looked very old last night; he used old lines and tried to use old tricks. Yawn.
When McCain called Obama “that one” he seemed dismissive and it simply looked and sounded bad. McCain came off like a grumpy old curmudgeon.
Obama’s entire demeanor was perfect. He was relaxed but serious, confident without being cocky and detailed enough without delving deep into the abyss of policies. He sat on the stool and looked comfortable, confident and cool.Yup, cool.
McCain in contrast was clumsy and he looked miserable. He said “my friends” waaay too often (22 times) and made weird gestures. McCain had no game.
Obama did well on foreign policy, particularly on an Iraq answer towards the end when he hit McCain firmly on the chin: “Senator McCain, in the last debate and today, again, suggested that I don’t understand. It’s true. There are some things I don’t understand. I don’t understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Sen. McCain’s judgment and it was the wrong judgment. When Sen. McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we’d be greeted as liberators. That was the wrong judgment, and it’s been costly to us.” Ouch!
The second best moment of the debate also came from Obama. McCain walked right smack into Obama’s gloved fist and almost knocked himself out when he talked about “speaking softly” with an ally like Pakistan. Obama responded by saying: “Now, Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I’m green behind the ears and, you know, I’m just spouting off, and he’s somber and responsible.” McCain interjected: “Thank you very much.” Then Obama moved in for the kill: “Senator McCain, this is the guy, who sang, ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran’, who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don’t think is an example of ’speaking softly’. This is the person who, after we had — we hadn’t even finished Afghanistan said, ‘Next up, Baghdad’.”
One thing that especially stood out to me was what happened AFTER the debate. Sometimes what a person chooses not to do is as important as what they do.
Instead of walking toward Obama to shake his hand, McCain instead walked to the audience and started shaking hands with people in the audience – peculiar. I’ve never seen that at the end of a debate before.
Obama started to approach McCain and backed off allowing McCain to continue what he was doing.When Michelle and Cindy came on stage for a few minutes it seemed that McCain had again forgotten how to behave politely especially in public when the eyes of the world was watching him.McCain seemed scornful of Obama and he avoided Obama’s offer of a handshake by instead handing over Cindy to Obama so that Obama shook Cindy’s hand, not John’s.Wow, how discourteous.
The most idiosyncratic thing though was when John and Cindy disappeared out the hall – they were gone; it’s like they vaporized into thin air – they were no where to be found almost immeadiately after the Town Hall ended. Damn, how unmannerly!
The Obamas stayed in the hall and graciously talked with the audience, shook hands and took lots of pictures for about 30 minutes.
John McCain has no diplomacy skills. He’s like a child who pouts because he didn’t get his way. Is this the person we want trekking around the world meeting with America’s friends and enemies to regain America’s status in the world? I think not!
Sometimes what a person doesn’t do is more important and telling than what they do.
Family and friends, now is the time to use your charm and personality to talk with people you meet each day. Don’t be shy.If someone is negative then don’t speak with them but we have to try and ‘touch’ each person that crosses our path each day.
We have to be ambassadors for Senator Obama.He can get us there 75% but we have to help him.Now is not the time to be comfortable or complacent no matter what the polls say.No is the time to work EXTRA hard for Obama.Onward!!!
Ask independents and undecideds what issue in particular is important to them as they make the final decision about who they will vote for.Is it the economy, healthcare, education, jobs, social security, Iraq, energy prices?
You can say something to them to the effect: I support Senator Obama because he UNDERSTANDS the struggles Americans are facing whereas John McCain does not.
Obama has been
·calling for an additional round of rebate checks to help Americans pay for the rising cost of gas,
·senior citizens WILL NOT have to file a tax return if they make less than $50,000
·Obama has offered a plan to make quality health care affordable and accessible for everyone,
·Obama will provide a middle-class tax cut of $1,000 per family for 95% of American families.If your family makes less than $250,000 your taxes WILL NOT increase by even a dime!
McCain will provide more tax breaks to corporations that ship American jobs overseas and McCain will provide NO direct relief AT ALL to more than 100 middle class families.
That’s why I support Obama, will you join us?
The presidential race is still too close to call and could come down to the very last weekend before voters decide if they like or distrust Barack Obama, a national pollster predicts.
“I don’t think Obama has closed the deal yet,” pollster John Zogby told the Herald yesterday.
Zogby’s latest poll, released yesterday in conjunction with C-Span and Reuters, shows Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat, with the Illinois Democrat up 48-45 percent.
Zogby said the race mirrors the 1980 election, when voters didn’t embrace Ronald Reagan over then-President Jimmy Carter until just days before the election.
“The Sunday before the election the dam burst,” Zogby said of the 1980 tilt. “That’s when voters determined they were comfortable with Reagan.”
Now voters are wrestling with two senators with opposite resumes – Obama, at 47, the unknown, and the established 72-year-old McCain.
This email comes from my friend Jeff Dearth, a media investment banker and former publisher of The New Republic. We also went to junior high and high school together in Michigan. He would not make this up. In 2005, Jeff attended a magazine industry conference at a casino hotel in Puerto Rico. (I was there, too, though not a witness to what follows.) The guest speaker was McCain. He put on a terrific performance, breaking up the friendly crowd by referring to journalists as “my base.” (To anyone who remembers this period in McCain’s history, his attempt this year to paint Barack Obama as Britney Spears or Paris Hilton because Obama is now the media darling seems especially cheap.)
McCain’s game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth’s. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and Jeff happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone’s hands are supposed to be above the table when the dice are about to be thrown. McCain — “very likely distracted by one of the many people who approached him that evening,” Jeff says charitably — apparently was violating this rule. A small middle-aged woman at the table, apparently a “regular,” reached out and pulled McCain’s arm away. I’ll let Jeff take over the story:
“McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME.’ The woman started to explain…McCain interrupted her: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME,’ he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?’ McCain continued, his voice rising and his hands now raised in the ‘bring it on’ position. He was red-faced. By this time all the action at the table had stopped. I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it, and in the space of about ten seconds. ‘Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,’ the pit boss said to McCain. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ASK ANYBODY AROUND HERE WHO I AM.”
Both John McCain and Barack Obama took turns during the second presidential debate on Tuesday night claiming credit for having warned of an imminent economic crisis.
Obama has referred frequently to his 2007 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. But Sen. McCain countered by saying that he had written a letter “warning of exactly this crisis.”As far as we can tell, this was the first reference McCain has made of such a letter, and we couldn’t find it. Despite multiple requests, the McCain campaign did not provide comment or the letter.
Obama likes to bring up the letter he wrote to Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Dated March 22, 2007, about six weeks after he’d declared his candidacy for the presidency, the letter stressed the need for immediate intervention to curb the “rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market”:
And while neither the government nor the private sector acting alone is capable of quickly balancing the important interests in widespread access to credit and responsible lending, both must act and act quickly.
Crediting the senator with a foresight others lacked, however, would be a stretch. The subprime mortgage crisis had been well underway for some time. See, for example, reporting by the New York Times in June 2005 on a growing housing crisis. A month later the Times wrote of the unease among federal banking regulators with regards to high-risk mortgage loans.
I think if we act effectively — if we stabilize the housing market, which I believe we can if we go out and buy up these bad loans so that people can have a new mortgage at the new value of their home; I think if we get rid of the cronyism and special interest influence in Washington so we can act more effectively — my friend, I’d like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Senator Obama’s name was not on that letter.
McCain may have been referring to actions he took in support of the bill he co-sponsored in 2005 — the Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act — which called for stricter regulations for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. When he joined as a co-sponsor in May 2006, about a year after it was first introduced, he made the following statement:
KITTANNING, Pa. — The steel mills and coal mines of western Pennsylvania helped fuel the nation’s economic engine. Today, old factory shells and boarded-up storefronts stand as bleak reminders of those once-prosperous times.
But the voters in working-class enclaves such as this still are a sought-after prize in presidential politics, and many are belatedly backing Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
In the Democratic primaries, working-class whites consistently supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Later polls showed them overwhelmingly favoring Republican nominee John McCain.
Now, driven by fears that their personal finances could further deteriorate, many see Obama as the better choice – their thinking in some cases driven more by concern about how McCain would handle the economy than any growing admiration for his rival.
“I don’t know that there’s anything I particularly like about him (Obama), but I dislike McCain, and I dislike the way the country is, and Republicans need to change,” said lifelong Republican Ruth Ann Michel, 64, a retiree shopping in a market in Butler on a recent day. She said her vote for Obama would be her first for a Democratic presidential candidate.
While talk in these parts is mostly about the economy, a prominent – if not unspoken subtext – is race. A study of the impact of racial attitudes on the election conducted by The Associated Press with Yahoo News and Stanford University found that whites without a college education were much more likely to hold negative views of blacks than those with a college education.
Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell says a drowning man doesn’t care what color the person is who throws him a life preserver.
“This election is going to be decided when a husband and wife sit at a kitchen table, or a single parent sits at the kitchen table, looks at their bills and figures out who is most likely to help them with their financial condition,” Rendell said. “If the answer’s Barack Obama, nobody’s going to care whether he’s black, green, orange, purple, fuchsia or whatever.”
If you’re drowning and someone throws you a rope, does it matter if the person is white, black, brown, red or yellow?
If Gov. Sarah Palin, by John McCain’s estimation, “knows more about energy than probably anyone in the United States of America,” then why is she getting such basic facts about our nation’s energy production wrong?
At a town-hall event in Wisconsin on Thursday, Palin was asked by a concerned questioner whether it was true that the United States was shipping 75 percent of its Alaskan oil overseas. She responded by proclaiming it impossible, since Congress had put strict bans on the amount of oil and gas that America could export.
No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.
And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.
The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.
Unfortunately, for Palin, this was not merely an inconsequential misstatement but rather another in a series of errors when it comes to discussing what is supposed to be her policy strength. For a while on the trail, the Alaska Governor was fond of declaring that her job – as head of state – “has been to oversee nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas.”
Alaska is the ninth largest energy supplier in the United States, accounting for a modest 3.5 percent share of the nation’s total energy production…
… After the non-partisan Factcheck.org pointed out Palin’s error in her interview with Gibson, the Alaska governor revised her claim somewhat, limiting it to oil and gas. But data compiled by the Energy Information Administration contradict her claim that she oversees “nearly 20 percent” of oil and gas production in the country. According to authoritative EIA data, Alaska accounted for just 7.4 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production in 2005.
One thing Palin did get right was her assertion that the U.S. does not ship three-quarters of its Alaska-drilled oil to other countries. The amount, in actuality, is quite minimal (523 million barrels of petroleum product), especially compared with the amount that the country imports (roughly 4 billion barrels).
After coming under much criticism, even from republicans, John McCain is trying to stamp out the flames of hate at his rallies. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday at Lakeville South High School in Minneapolis when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama’s character, he described the Democrat as a “decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”
A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of “traitor,” “terrorist,” “treason,” “liar,” and even “off with his head” have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.
McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. One woman called Obama “an Arab.” McCain shook his head no and, taking the microphone from her, said that’s not true.
A voter said, “The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight.” Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama. McCain prompted boos from his crowd when he called Obama “a decent person” and told an expectant father that he does “not have to be scared if he is President of the United States.”
An Alaska state legislative investigator on Friday found that Governor Sarah Palin abused her executive power when she and her husband engaged in a campaign to oust her former brother-in-law from the state police force.
In a lengthy report released in Anchorage, Stephen Branchflower found that Palin also improperly allowed her husband, Todd, to use the governor’s office to pursue a personal vendetta against the trooper.
“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: To get Trooper Michael Wooten fired,” said the report released by a bipartisan legislative committee.
The report will go to the Republican-dominated state legislature for possible further action.
Branchflower said Alaska’s ethics code discourages state employees from “acting upon personal interests in the performance of their public responsibilities and to avoid conflicts of interest in the performance of duty.” He identified 18 events to substantiate an effort over an extended period of time to get Wooten fired.
“She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act,” the report said.
Palin had been accused of dismissing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, a career law enforcement official, after he rebuffed attempts by her, her husband and Cabinet officials to reopen an investigation into Wooten’s conduct years after Wooten was disciplined by his department.
The report said Palin knew that “the disciplinary investigation was closed and could not be reopened. Yet she allowed the pressure from her husband, to try to get Trooper Wooten fired, to continue unabated over a several month-period of time.”
After his firing, Monegan said he believed that comments from the Palins and others were an attempt to get him to fire Wooten.
Branchflower investigated the charges for six weeks, interviewing 19 people, after he was hired by the Joint Legislative Council. He concluded that although Monegan’s rejection of the plea played a role in his firing, other concerns such as budgetary issues and trooper vacancies also were factors.
“I find that, although Walt Monegan’s refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a major contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety,” Branchflower wrote. “In spite of that, Governor Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.”
Branchflower also dismissed the Palins’ assertions that they were afraid of Wooten because of threats they said he made. “Such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins’ real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons,” he wrote.
During the time Palin said she and her family feared Trooper Wooten, Palin at the same time reduced her security detail at home, at her office and at public events so it is not credible that ‘they were afraid of Wooten’.Furthermore if Wooten was fired as a Trooper he would have been more of a threat since the Trooper’s office would no longer have any authority over Wooten on a day-to-day basis.
You never know where you are gonna find a political scoop, but Lynn Zinser at her NYT hockey “Slapshot” blog just posted that Sarah Palin, in her much-ballyhooed appearance dropping the puck at the Philly Flyers’ opener, was greeted by “resounding (almost deafening) boos from the Flyers crowd.” The NY Daily News declared, “They booed.” There’s loud music in the backgound but watch the video and judge for yourself.
But Zinser’s post had a lot more in mind: “I would object to this sideshow whichever political party it involved. Having vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin drop the ceremonial first puck at the Flyers’ opener Saturday night was problematic not because it was Palin — Flyers owner Ed Snider’s decision under the flimsy excuse of ‘honoring’ hockey moms — but because it is injecting politics in a place it should not be.”
The biggest problem: when Palin came out to onto the Wachovia Center ice Saturday night — greeted by resounding (almost deafening) boos from the Flyers crowd — the two hockey players who had no choice but to appear with her in that photo op were turned into props in a political campaign. If Rangers center Scott Gomez or Flyers center Mike Richards wanted to make some sort of political statement that would be fine, but in this case, they were thrust into a situation not of their choosing. Snider put them there with his ill-advised mixing of politics and sports.
The level of discomfort has been palpable for the Rangers’ two Alaska natives, Gomez and Brandon Dubinsky, as they have been asked questions about Palin and the election in recent weeks. Dubinsky, a 22-year-old who has shied away from nothing since he broke in with the Rangers last year, looks petrified when the topic gets brought up. I think both would rather play goalie in a shootout than weigh in on the presidential election. -- Greg Mitchell
Speech is arguably man’s greatest gift and simultaneously it is his most dangerous liability.
It is impossible to estimate the good speech has done when great men and women have truthfully instructed and inspired others. At the same time we cannot measure how much evil the tongue has perpetrated when it bears falsehoods disguised as truth that have destroyed reputations and even nations.
A good and devout Christian is a person who loves their neighbor as themself. A person who lives by example, shares the Lord with others and by living a life of example they make non-believers want to become followers of Jesus Christ – Christians. A good Christian is Christ-like and he or she practices and teaches tolerance and is not narrow-minded nor speaks evil of others. God loves us ALL.
Here is one such Evangelical who understands the complete philosophy of Jesus. Christ was not a one-issue deity He knew that the world was filled with different people who had different points-of-view but who could come together and live as one in unity for the greatest good of all mankind.
Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke [reason with] thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19: 17-18 (KJV)
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.Exodus 20:16
This forbids, speaking falsely in any matter, lying, equivocating, and any way devising and designing to deceive our neighbor or others.
WASILLA, Alaska — Levi Johnston, who’s having a baby with Sarah Palin’s daughter, can’t believe all the things he’s hearing.
No, he wasn’t held against his will on the campaign trail. No, he’s not being forced into a shotgun wedding with 17-year-old Bristol Palin.
“None of that’s true,” Johnston, 18, said in a rare interview with The Associated Press. “We both love each other. We both want to marry each other. And that’s what we are going to do.”
Standing in the driveway of his family home in this small Alaska town, Johnston spoke about the rumors swirling around him.
The soft-spoken teenager discussed his relationship with Palin and how life has changed with fatherhood fast approaching. He agreed to talk despite the presidential campaign’s advice in the days following Gov. Sarah Palin’s nomination to avoid the media.
“They’re not telling me anything right now,” Johnston said as he checked his Blackberry. “It’s pretty chill.”
Not surprisingly, Johnston was a little shocked when he learned about Bristol’s pregnancy, but he says he quickly embraced the prospects of fatherhood. The baby is due Dec. 18. Johnston has dropped out of high school to take a job on the North Slope oil fields as an apprentice electrician.
Johnston hinted he’s expecting a boy, but he declined to discuss baby names.
“I’m looking forward to having him,” he said. “I’m going to take him hunting and fishing. He’ll be everywhere with me.”
Johnston, a Wasilla heartthrob, said he wanted to set the record straight.
For starters, he said his much-maligned MySpace page was a joke _ the one that claimed he said: “I’m a … redneck,” and “I don’t want kids.” Johnston said his friends created the page a few years ago and he had nothing to do with it.
Johnston said he has dated Palin since his freshman year in high school.
“We were planning on getting married a long time ago with or without the kid,” he said. “That was the plan from the start.”
While Johnston provided few details about next summer’s wedding, the planning has started: A cousin will likely be his best man, and he has asked two hockey buddies, Ben Barber and Dane Wilson, to be groomsmen.
Barber doesn’t think anyone pressured Johnston into marriage.
“If he thought it wasn’t the right thing to do he probably wouldn’t do it,” he said.
Johnston is an avid hunter. He’s dark haired, tall and muscular, sports a bit of stubble and drives a red Chevy Silverado truck. He’d be the perfect cover for Field & Stream.
He’s bagged bears, sheep, elk, and caribou. Some of the antlers are scattered about his yard. Last July on a caribou hunt he lost a “promise” ring that Palin had given him. He said he decided to tattoo her name on the finger and not bother with more rings because he’d just lose them anyway.
Johnston said he wasn’t forced to campaign with Palin’s mother. Bristol Palin invited him and Johnston jumped at the chance. It was a whirlwind experience for Johnston, who was seated with the Palins at the Republican National Convention.
“At first, I was nervous,” he said. “Then I was like, ‘Whatever.’”
While Barber said his friend is a celebrity now, Johnston said it hasn’t changed him.
“I’m still the same old boy,” said Johnston. “I’m just a workin’ man.”
And now he’s also about to become a family man.
“We’re up for it. I’m excited to have my first kid. It’s going to be a lot of hard work but we can handle it.”
Wasilla hockey coach Bill Sturdevant, who was invited to the wedding, said he was sorry to hear Johnston wasn’t going to return for his senior year of high school. But he said he believes Johnston, a talented hockey player, will find his way.
“He’s a tough kid,” Sturdevant said. “He’s taking everything in stride.”
What about Johnston’s politics?
The young man said he wasn’t an expert on politics by any stretch. Asked about Barack Obama, he replied: “I don’t know anything about him. He seems like a good guy. I like him.”
But Johnston still rooting for John McCain and Sarah Palin.
“I just hope she wins,” he said. “She’s my future mother-in-law. She better win.”
Senator Obama delivered a phenomenal and absolutely brilliant economic rescue plan for Americans this afternoon in Toledo, Ohio. It is a comprehensive four-part plan that deals with the immediate crisis that is currently affecting American workers, families and communities that are struggling. A plan that will grow our middle-class and create J-O-B-S!
Obama’s plan includes four new major ideas about job creation, relief to families, relief to homeowners and responding to the financial crisis. His plan also calls for temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment insurance benefits; keeping all options on the table to help our automakers weather the financial crisis; having the Fed and Treasury prepare for guaranteeing a broader range of liabilities of the banking system; and instructing the Treasury to help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, loans for multi-family dwellings and credit card loans:
Job Creation: A New American Jobs Tax Credit. Obama is calling for a temporary tax credit for firms that create new jobs in the United States over the next two years.
Relief to Families: Penalty-Free Withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k) s in 2008 and 2009. Obama is calling for new legislation to allow families to withdraw 15% of their retirement savings – up to a maximum of $10,000 – without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.
Relief to Homeowners: 90 day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith. Financial institutions that participate in the Treasury’s financial rescue plan should be required to adhere to a homeowners code of conduct, including a 90-day foreclosure moratorium for any homeowners living in their homes that are making good faith efforts pay their mortgages.
Responding to the Financial Crisis: A Lending Facility to Address the Credit Crisis for States and Localities. Obama is calling on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work to establish a facility to lend to state and municipal governments, similar to the steps the Fed recently took to provide liquidity to the commercial paper market.
Is it about to ‘pop off’ at Hofstra University at the 3rd debate? John McCain seems to be talking loudly and carrying a small stick.
Taegan Goddard reports that John McCain confirmed this morning he would try to bring up William Ayers at Wednesday’s debate. McCain appeared to blame Obama for the move:
In an interview on a St. Louis radio station, McCain said Obama’s comments that “I didn’t have the guts” to talk about William Ayers in the last presidential debate have “probably ensured” that the former 1960s radical will come up in Wednesday’s debate.
The Huffington Post’s Seth Colter Walls wrote Monday that Ayers was “expected” to come up at the debate.
When asked if McCain plans to “go after” Obama on these topics this Wednesday, Bounds added: “So much of a debate is determined by the moderator and the questions that are posed to the candidates. I expect it could come up and I expect John McCain will ask Barack Obama to speak truthfully about his relationship with friend and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. I think that voters deserve to know, deserve to vet these candidates to the fullest extent… Certainly, Bill Ayers raises questions. Certainly, Tony Rezko raises questions.”
If it is McCain’s intention to raise the issue of Ayers — with or without moderator Bob Schieffer’s prompting — it would serve as something of an answered prayer to many of the Arizonan’s town hall attendees, one of whom even begged McCain to bring on the character attacks in the last presidential debate of the season.
Debate is scheduled for 9PM EST/8PM CST on networks, CNN, MSNBC
Did Early Vote start in your state as yet? If yes, VOTE TODAY!
SurveyUSA has a lot of good habits as a pollster, and one of them is breaking out the results of early and absentee voting in states where such things are allowed. So far, SurveyUSA has conducted polling in five states where some form of early voting was underway. In each one, Barack Obama is doing profoundly better among early voters than among the state’s electorate as a whole:
We should caveat that these are not hard-and-fast numbers. Estimates of early voting results are subject to the same statistical vagaries as any other sort of subgroup analysis, such as response bias and small sample sizes.Nevertheless, Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.
Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it’s not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry. In the past, early voters have also tended to be older than the voting population as a whole and more male than the population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama or most other Democrats.Now certainly, early voters tend to be your stauncher partisans rather than your uncommitted voters — just 1-2 percent of early voters in 2000 and 2004 reported that they would have voted differently if they’d waited until election day. So it’s unlikely that John McCain is actually losing all that many persuadable voters to the early voter tallies.
What these results would seem to suggest, however, is that there are fairly massive advantages for the Democrats in enthusiasm and/or turnout operations. They imply that Obama is quite likely to turn out his base in large numbers; the question is whether the Republicans will be able to do the same.
Keep in mind that there are veteran pollsters like Ann Selzer who think that most of her colleagues are vastly understating the degree to which youth and minority turnout is liable to improve in this election; Selzer’s polls have been 5-6 points more favorable to Obama than the averages in the states that she’s surveyed. So while these early voting numbers could turn out to be something of a curiosity, they could alternatively represent a canary in the coal mine for a coming Democratic turnout wave.
McCain came out fighting but it didn’t work.It was a mismatch. Obama was poised and presidential. McCain was angry and/or irritated.McCain’s best line of the last 6 months was, “Senator Obama, I’m not George Bush”.But the line fell flat because it seemed forced. This what Obama did with that line:
True … but you did vote with Bush 90% of the time,” says the announcer.
“Tax breaks for big corporations and the wealthy. But almost nothing for the middle class — same as Bush. Keep spending ten billion a month in Iraq while our own economy struggles — same as Bush.”
The spot, titled “90 Percent,” contains shots of McCain rolling his eyes, blinking and looking like a deer in the headlights — as sure a suggestion as any that the Obama campaign thought they won last night’s debate as much (if not more) on style as substance.
The ad will be airing across the country on national cable beginning today.
He’s an unlicensed and unregistered employee of a small plumbing and heating company in suburban Toledo, Ohio, who was mentioned 26 times during the 90-minute presidential debate — the war in Iraq received only six mentions. Go figure!
Before the debate was even finished, three local television stations had parked live satellite trucks outside Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s home on Shrewsbury Street in Holland, Ohio, and the networks were rushing to interview him.
Overnight, Joe the Plumber became a national celebrity.
Mr. Wurzelbacher is a 34-year-old plumber’s assistant and a registered Republican who thinks Barack Obama “can tap dance – almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”
On Sunday, he was playing football with his 13-year-old son outside his home, when Mr. Obama suddenly showed up to campaign in his neighborhood.
As Mr. Wurzelbacher watched his neighbours fawn over the candidate, he fumed.
“I didn’t think they were asking him tough enough questions,” he said on Thursday.
“So, I thought, you know, I’ll go over there. I’ve always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them.”
He shook hands with Mr. Obama and told him he wants to buy the business he works for, adding its income — $250,000 to $280,000 a year — would qualify for a tax hike under the Democratic candidate’s election proposals.
“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” he asked. Mr. Obama told him, “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success, too.”
“Because you’re successful, you have to pay more than everybody else?” Mr. Wurzelbacher said on Thursday. “That’s a socialist view and it’s incredibly wrong.”
But Joe the plumber also acknowledged he earns substantially less than $250,000 ($40,000) which would make Joe eligible under Obama’s plan for a tax cut!
“It’s pretty surreal, man, my name being mentioned in a presidential campaign,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said on Thursday.
But that was just the beginning.
When he went to a gym on Thursday morning he returned home to find 21 reporters camped out in his driveway, and newspaper columnists and Internet bloggers across the country earnestly debating the impact Joe the Plumber will have on the November 4 election.
Obama’s campaign took advantage of Mr. Wurzelbacher’s sudden popularity to buy a Google search ad linking Internet users to a Joe The Plumber’s Tax Cut Web site, which has a calculator they can use to work out their tax cuts under an Obama administration.
After the Washington Post reported it was unable to find a listing for Mr. Wurzelbacher in the database of the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board, the local newspaper, the Toledo Blade, reported Joe the Plumber is an unlicensed employee of Newell Plumbing & Heating.
He is not registered to work as a plumber in Ohio.
The newspaper also reported Mr. Wurzelbacher had a lien against him by the Ohio Department of Taxation in January, 2007, for failing to pay $1,183 in property taxes.
When the president of the Plumbing, Heating, Cooling Contractors National Association in Washington issued a press release applauding Joe the Plumber for helping small business owners play a role in the debate on the nation’s economic future, the business manager of the Toledo local of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters & Service Mechanics issued a statement complaining Joe the Plumber hadn’t even undergone apprenticeship training. “When you have guys going out there with no training whatsoever, it’s a little disreputable to start with,” union boss Tom Joseph told the Toledo Blade.
“We’re the real Joe the Plumber,” he added, noting his union backs Mr. Obama.
“I’m kind of like Britney Spears having a headache,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said on Thursday.
63rd Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner
When: Thursday, October 16, 2008
Where:The Waldorf=Astoria, New York City
Time:6:30 p.m.
Keynote Speakers:
Honorable John McCain, United States Senate, Arizona
Honorable Barack Obama, United States Senate, Illinois
Barack Obama and GOP rival John McCain traded their boxing gloves for formal wear – and some self-deprecating humor – at Thursday night’s Alfred E. Smith Dinner. The annual see-and-be-seen political roast, named for the famed 1920s New York governor, is “the last time they’re going to be together before the election,” said Smith’s great-grandson and namesake.
And with the excitement generated by the presidential candidates at the top of the marquee, this year’s sold-out soiree has surpassed its goal of raising $2.5 million for Catholic causes. Alfred E. Smith was the first Catholic to run for president of the U.S. and a former 4 time governor of New York.
Both McCain and Obama were very funny in their roast.
It must be nice to be Sarah Palin.The Associate Press requested copies of emails sent to and from Todd Palin to Alaskan officials.Governor Palin quickly said yes to the request but added a stipulation – cough up $15 million dollars!
Governor Palin’s office said it would take up to six hours of a programmer’s time to assemble the e-mail of just a single state employee, then another two hours for “security” checks, and finally five hours to search the e-mail for whatever word or topic the requestor is seeking. At $73.87 an hour, that’s $960.31 for a single e-mail account. And there are 16,000 full-time state employees.
Governor Palin’s office told the AP that if they send a check for $15,364,960.00 Governor Palin will gladly hand over the First Dude’s emails that showed that his wife gave him access to Alaskan state business that he should not have had access to.
In addition, the governor’s office says it can provide copies of the emails but AFTER November 4 and on paper only, not electronically. Why? Because lawyers need printouts so they can black out, or “redact,” private or exempted information. That task is more difficult because Palin and her senior staff have used government e-mail accounts for some personal correspondence, and personal e-mail accounts for much of their government correspondence. The photocopies of those printouts will be a relative bargain, only 10 cents a page.
Election Day is ONLY 17 days away and even though the polls reflect that Senator Obama is leading, I’m telling you – don’t be seduced by the poll numbers. Don’t believe the hype.
We (Democrats) can’t start celebrating in the 4th quarter; we have to end the game strong.We’re at the one yard line, now is the time to keep up the pressure, follow the game plan and guarantee the touch-down.
Senators Obama and Biden are depending on you personally – EVERY VOTE counts.Every person matters.Every state matters.
None of us should look at the numbers and think, ‘Obama is going to win anyway, so I don’t have to vote’.If enough people think that way Obama will not win.
Add that thinking to the allegations of illegal purging of voters all across the country – which will adversely affect newly registered voters – and it is even more obvious that every vote is needed to win this election.
A recent report in The New York Times stated that, “Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least 6 swing states have been removed from the voter rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law according to a review of state records and social security data by the NYT.”
The NYT said that this was attributed to errors in handling the registrations; it also said that it will adversely affect Democrats since there are more newly registered Democratic voters.This will also cause confusion and frustration on Election Day when all these newly registered voters who are excited to vote are challenged by election officials.
We only have to look at the stealing of the 2000 and 2004 elections to be reminded how seemingly ‘little things’ can change the results of an election. We only have to look at the current financial crisis in America and now globally to see that having the wrong person as president can and will affect us all and can result in loss of savings, loss of jobs, loss of opportunities and cause us to struggle with basic things such as putting food on the table.
“What a magnificent day the Lord has made,” Obama said. “And thank you for being here today.”
“Whoo! I am on a high to see so many people of so many colors,” said Nicole Brown, a young black woman who lives St. Louis. “I mean, I’m anxious — is this real?”
Saturday was also surreal for both Senators Obama and McCain.McCain was in North Carolina and Virginia defending red states while Obama was greeted by exceptionally huge crowds in Missouri which Republicans had considered safe just months ago.
According to the St. Louis Police Department about 100,000 people gathered to hear Obama speak at a rally earlier Saturday. If you live in Kansas City, Obama will be at the Liberty Memorial this afternoon.
Obama’s speech was focused on the economy.Here is an excerpt:
My opponent’s been talking a lot about taxes in his campaign. But here’s the truth Missouri – we are both offering tax cuts. The difference is who we’re cutting taxes for. It comes down to values – in America, do we simply value wealth, or do we value the work that creates it? For eight years, we’ve seen what happens when we put the extremely wealthy and well-connected ahead of working people. Now, John McCain thinks that the way to rebuild this economy is to double down on George Bush’s policy of giving more and more tax breaks to those at the very top in the false hope that it will all trickle down. I think it’s time to rebuild the middle class in this country, and that is the choice in this election.
Senator McCain wants to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut but absolutely nothing at all to over 100 million Americans. I want to cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 percent of all workers. And under my plan, if you make less than $250,000 a year – which includes 98 percent of small business owners – you won’t see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes – nothing. It’ time to give the middle class a break, and that’s what I’ll do as President of the United States.
Lately, Senator McCain has been attacking my middle class tax cut. He actually said it goes to, “those who don’t pay taxes,” even though it only goes to working people who are already getting taxed on their paycheck. That’s right, Missouri – John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people “welfare.”
The only “welfare” in this campaign is John McCain’s plan to give another $200 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations in America – including $4 billion in tax breaks to big oil companies that ran up record profits under George Bush. That’s who John McCain is fighting for. But we can’t afford four more years like the last eight. George Bush and John McCain are out of ideas, they are out of touch, and if you stand with me in 17 days they will be out of time.
We need new priorities in Washington. I think it’s time to give a tax cut to the teachers and janitors who work in our schools; to the cops and firefighters who keep us safe; to the waitresses working double shifts, the nurses in the ER, and the plumbers fighting for their American Dream. These workers are the backbone of our country. They are the ones that Washington has forgotten. They’re the ones I’ll fight for. And while Senator McCain ignores the payroll taxes you pay to score a few political points, I’ll put a tax cut into the pockets of working people so you can pay the bills, put away some savings, and pass on a brighter future to all our children.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president on Sunday, criticizing his own Republican Party for what he called its narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks over a serious approach to challenges he called unprecedented.
Powell, who for many years was considered the most likely candidate to become the first African-American president, said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was not supporting Obama because of his race. He said he had watched both Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for many months and thought “either one of them would be a good president.”
Watch Powell on Meet The Press:
But he said McCain’s choices in the last few weeks — especially his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his vice presidential running mate — had raised questions in his mind about McCain’s judgment.
“I don’t believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United States,” Powell said flatly. By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, “is ready to be president on day one.”
Powell also said he was “troubled” by Republican personal attacks on Obama, especially false intimations that Obama was Muslim and Republicans’ recent focus on Obama’s alleged connections to William Ayers, the founder of the radical ’60 Weather Underground.
Stressing that Obama was a lifelong Christian, Powell denounced Republican tactics that he said were insulting not only to Obama but also to Muslims.
“The really right answer is what if he is?” Powell said, praising the contributions of millions of Muslim citizens to American society.
“I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me,” Powell said. “Over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party has become narrower and narrower.”
Bolstering Obama’s international credentials
Powell, a retired Army general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first President Bush before becoming secretary of state in the current administration, is one of the most highly decorated military officers of modern times and an admired figure in both parties. The Obama campaign is likely to cite the endorsement as an answer to critics and undecided voters who have questioned the foreign policy credential of Obama, a first-term senator whose national experience amounts to four years in the Senate.
John McCain is stepping waist deep in elephant do-do.The Maverick McCain has sold his soul to the devil and is now digging to the depths of hell to marry Satan just so he can be president.McCain’s character has left his body completely!
He’ll even have Joe the Plumber create jobs for Americans?!WTH!
·What if McCain was a charismatic eloquent speaker?
·What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?
·What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
·What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
·What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?
You can easily add to this list.If these questions reflected reality do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism and prejudice does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference. For no other reason other than color.
Education background:
Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a specialization in International Relations
Harvard University School of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class Rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters: General study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters: Journalism
Matanuska –Susitna College – 1 semester
University of Idaho – 3 semesters: B.A. in Journalism
Education isn’t everything but this is about the two highest offices in the United States of America as well as our standing in the world.
You decide.Who will unite and rebuild America?Who is better for your pocket and bank account?Who will create jobs?
Voting has started in many states and gives voters the opportunity to cast their vote before Election Day. But early voting is not just about convenience for people who have to work during the week and would rather vote on a random day of the week or on the weekend. Nor is early voting just for the people who can’t be bothered to wait in long lines on November 4. Early voting is an opportunity for newly registered voters, or voters who have recently re-registered or moved to find out if there are any discrepancies so that they can fix the problem and still have time to cast their vote and make it count.
If voters wait to vote until November 4 and there is a problem, there will be no time to rectify the problem so you will not cast a vote that counts. So don’t get caught up in the ‘No Match, No Vote’trickery on November 4 because without a doubt there will be problems at the polls on November 4. Also read:
Folks, don’t be discouraged when you go to the polls and don’t let anyone stop you from voting – stay on line and cast your vote!
Be vigilant, be attentive and be alert.Read carefully. Bring a pen and make sure you fill-in, check the box or mark the area designated for Obama/Biden.
Can you imagine what kinds of problems will be at the polls on November 4 without there being enough time to fix the problems?! Can you imagine how many people will not get to vote?
In Duvall County, Jacksonville, Florida the electricity went off at many of the polling stations so people couldn’t vote. When the electricity came back on the machines didn’t work. Tricks, tricks and more tricks to discourage people from voting.
Some voters in Jackson County, West Virginia have had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk’s office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
“When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain,” said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.
When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge “responded that everything was all right. It was just that the screen was sensitive and I was touching the screen too hard. She instructed me to use only my fingernail.” (WTH!!!)
Even after she began using her fingernail, Matheney said, the problem persisted.
When she tried to vote for candidates running for two open seats on the Supreme Court, the electronic machine canceled her second vote twice.
On her third try, Matheney managed to cast votes for both Menis Ketchum and Margaret Workman, Democratic candidates for the two open seats.
Calvin Thomas, 81, who retired from Kaiser Aluminum in Ravenswood in 1983 and now lives in Ripley, experienced the same problem.
“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.
“The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican,” Thomas said.
“When I hollered about that, the girl who worked there said, ‘Push it again.’ I pushed Obama again and it stayed there. Then, the machine did the same thing for other candidates.
“Why didn’t she [the polling clerk] tell me before I even used the machine that might happen? And how many people, especially my age, didn’t notice that?
On Monday Palin granted an interview to an NBC affiliate in Colorado.3rdgrader (9 year old) Brandon Garcia from a local elementary school sent in a question asking Palin, “What does the Vice President do?”
Sarah Palin AGAIN wrongly answered that the Vice President is ‘in charge of the United States Senate’. Sorry Sarah, while the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it. The VP is not a senator and does not have any legislative authority. This is the third time Palin got this SAME question wrong – obviously Sarah Palin is NOT a quick learner!
Palin’s answer: “That’s something that Piper would ask me also! They’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.
Palin herself asked this very question in July – she still hasn’t learned the correct answer.
Article I of the United States Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.
In addition the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.”
My question is, ‘What has Sarah Palin learned while on the campaign trail for 7 weeks.
My answer, absolutely nothing! Betcha she thinks she can still see Russia from her front yard.
Hockey Mom and so called ‘Wal-Mart’ Mom Sarah Palin pays $4,000 for a haircut, spends $13,200 in seven weeks for someone to do her make-up, and spends $150,000 in seven weeks on a shopping sprees for clothing and accessories(Average of $21,400 each week!!!).
Go ahead, make a list of the things you could do with $150,000 that would change your life forever!
Each day Palin stands in front of Average Joes and Joans but when she’s off the stage she’s shopping like she’s a movie star from Hollywood! This kind of spending is selfish and hypocritical while MILLIONS of Americans are losing their homes to foreclosures, MILLIONS are losing their savings and retirement income, almost ONE MILLION have lost their jobs in 2008 and MILLIONS of Americans cannot put food on their table! SHAMEFUL!!!
John McCain owns 8 houses.Has 13 cars. Wears $520 Italian shoes. And Cindy McCain wears $300,000 dollar outfits.
Obama wears his shoes until there are holes in his shoes and then gets them re-soled – but Obama’s an elitist???
This shows me that Obama is more interested in solving Americans problems than in himself or material things.
Who do you think better understands spending money responsibly? There’s only one honest answer – Barack Obama.
”From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping,” McClellan told new CNN Host D.L. Hughley
Scott McClellan is the infamous former White House press secretary who sharply criticized President Bush in his memoir “What Happened” this past spring.
McClellan isn’t the first member of Bush’s inner circle to express support for Obama. In 2007, former Bush strategist Matt Dowd also said he had become disillusioned with the president and said Obama was the only candidate that appealed to him. This past Sunday former Secretary of State to Bush Colin Powell also endorsed Obama.
The interview will broadcast on Hughley’s new show – D.L. Hughley Breaks the News – this Saturday at 10 p.m. ET on CNN.
It’s been revealed that McCain campaign volunteer Ashley Todd made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having a backward ”B” (for Barack) scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack. Are you surprised?
Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division, says Ashley Todd is being charged with making a false report to police. Bryant says the 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false.
Todd is white. She told police she was attacked by a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night. She claimed she gave the attacker $60 before he pinned her to the ground and scratched the letter “B” on her right cheek.
Bryant says Todd can’t explain why she invented the story but we now know that she used a blunt knife to scratch the “B” onto her face. Very sad.
In most of our opinions Miss Todd needs psychiatrist help.But this was the fear – what fear?The fear these past several weeks that McCain and Palin would push people already on the edge, over the edge because of the hate rantings by themselves and their surrogates at their rallies which create a negative atmosphere and mind-set. The fear has been proven – this was bound to happen.Thank God that Miss Todd decided to mutilate herself and not shoot an innocent person.
McCain, Palin and their team individually and collectively lack judgment – this is the kind of energy they project onto their supporters – this is why Todd fabricated this entire episode – she probably felt that she was helping McCain. I wish Miss Todd and her family healing and health.
To make matters even more bizarre, Thursday night John McCain called Ashley Todd and praised her and thanked her for all she had been through.If McCain had not been so eager to get publicity from calling Ashley Todd, he would have taken the time to have someone in his campaign investigate the story to make sure that they had the facts correct before he called the media in to film him calling Ashley Todd. He should have at least waited for the Police report.
This is the same thing McCain did when selecting Palin as his VP – he did not ‘vet’ Palin.It was revealed last week that the decision to select Palin was an impromptu decision that came after a ½ hour discussion between McCain and Rick Davis his campaign manager about Palin.
McCain and his team consistently show that they are erratic in their decision making processes.McCain does not belong in the White House – he is too irrational and illogical in his thinking and he doesn’t surround himself with intellectual thinkers.
Law enforcement sources say that Jennifer Hudson’s mother Darnell Hudson was one of two victims shot and killed in Chicago earlier today; the other victim was Jennifer’s brother Jason.
A cousin who lived nearby discovered the bodies.
The two bodies were found dead on the scene at 2:44 PM. When the fire department arrived and discovered the bodies, police were brought in and the home was declared a crime scene.
7 yr old Julian King
UPDATE 6:40 PM: An all points bulletin has been issued for Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew who may have been taken from the scene. Police are looking for 1994 white Suburban with the license plate X584859.
We send our heartfelt sympathies to Jennifer Hudson, her family and loved ones. This is tremendously tragic.
Obama went to visit ‘Toot’ – short for “tutu” the Hawaiian word for grandmother. Grandma Dunham’s health had declined in recent weeks and doctors recommended that Obama visit her before it was too late. Toot helped to raise Obama from he was the age of ten and Obama considers her to be “one of the most important people” his life. Obama’s maternal grandparents acted as his surrogate parents in Hawaii for many years, while his mother, who had remarried, lived abroad.
Obama’s grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham during WWII in 1940.
Obama looked somber as he completed his one day – 22 hour – trip home.
Building Toots has lived in and where Obama grew up.
Obama believes that his will be the last time he sees Toots – Madelyn Dunham who turns 86 on Sunday.He has expressed anxiety in interviews that Toots may not live until Election Day. Obama visited his grandmother several times at her apartment on Punahou Circle where she has lived for about four decades. Obama attended Punahou High School.
Obama did not have any meetings or speak with reporters while in Hawaii. Obama has rallies scheduled in Reno, Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada and Albuquerque, New Mexico on Saturday.
”At this defining moment in our history, the question is not, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ We all know the answer to that,” Obama narrates. “The real question is will our country be better off four years from now? How will we lift our economy and restore America’s place in the world?”
Barbara West of WFTV conducted a satellite interview with Joe Bidenon Thursday – she kept pushing the line of question that Obama was a Marxist. She even quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn’t being a Marxist with the “spreading the wealth” comment.
“Are you joking?”asked Biden
West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America’s days as the world’s leading power were over.
“I don’t know who’s writing your questions,”Biden responded.
I believe that it was a good interview because it gave Biden an opportunity to debunk some of the foolishness being spewed by republicans.
Republicans have become unhinged, deranged, mad - stop the propaganda!
Palin’s rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand
Alaska enters its 50th-anniversary year in the glow of an improbable and highly memorable event: the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. For the first time ever, an Alaskan is making a serious bid for national office, and in doing so she brings broad attention and recognition not only to herself, but also to the state she leads.
Alaska’s founders were optimistic people, but even the most farsighted might have been stretched to imagine this scenario. No matter the outcome in November, this election will mark a signal moment in the history of the 49th state. Many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.
Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency — but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.
Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis — erratic is a kind description — shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.
Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn’t do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown’s root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.
On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.
Senator Obama chanted “si se puede,” or “yes we can,” in Spanish along with an outdoor crowd in Denver estimated at more than 100,000. Denver police Chief Gerry Whitman estimated the crowd at more than 100,000, which campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said was Obama’s largest U.S. turnout. A McCain speech two days ago in Denver drew 3,000 supporters.
Obama has a 12 percentage-point lead over McCain among likely voters in Colorado, according to a Rocky Mountain News/CBS4 News poll. The state hasn’t picked a Democrat for president since 1992. With nine days to go until the Nov. 4 election and leading in most national polls, Obama today continued to hammer his central message that a McCain presidency would mean four more years of the “failed” economic policies of President G.W. Bush. In recent days, Obama has poked fun at McCain’s efforts to distance himself from the Republican president.
“Senator McCain said that actually he and President Bush ‘share a common philosophy,’ ” Obama said. “That’s right, Colorado. I guess that was John McCain finally giving us a little straight talk, owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common.”
McCain said on NBC that he has found common ground with Bush, 62, on other issues, such as the need for the $700 billion financial rescue plan.
Obama is scheduled to hold a second rally in Colorado today, in Fort Collins, before heading back to his home in Chicago for the night.
“You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words,” McCain said. “We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe environment, blah, blah, blah.”
So who are these people in McCain’s crowds who think that nuclear safety is funny? Really, who are these nincompoops – don’t they realize that nuclear energy can be very dangerous and we still don’t know how to dispose of it safely?
Republicans have become seriously unbalanced! Also read:
Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.
Obama is one of the most intelligent presidential aspirants to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.
I say this as a white, former life-long Republican. I say this as the proud father of a Marine. I say this as just another American watching his pension evaporate along with the stock market! I speak as someone who knows it’s time to forget party loyalty, ideology and pride and put the country first. I say this as someone happy to be called a fool for going out on a limb and declaring that, 1) Obama will win, and 2) he is going to be amongst the greatest of American presidents.
Obama is our last best chance. He’s worth laying it all on the line for.This is a man who in the age of greed took the high road of community service. This is the good father and husband. This is the humble servant. This is the patient teacher. This is the scholar statesman. This is the man of deep Christian faith.
Good stories about Obama abound; from his personal relationship with his Secret Service agents (he invites them into his home to watch sports, and shoots hoops with them) to the story about how, more than twenty years ago, while standing in the check-in line at an airport, Obama paid a $100 baggage surcharge for a stranger who was broke and stuck. (Obama was virtually penniless himself in those days.) Years later, after he became a senator, that stranger recognized Obama’s picture and wrote to him to thank him. She received a kindly note back from the senator. (The story only surfaced because the person, who lives in Norway, told a local newspaper after Obama ran for the presidency. The paper published a photograph of this lady proudly displaying Senator Obama’s letter.)
Where many leaders are two-faced; publicly kindly but privately feared and/or hated by people closest to them, Obama is consistent in the way he treats people, consistently kind and personally humble. He lives by the code that those who lead must serve. He believes that. He lives it. He lived it long before he was in the public eye.
Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He has been. This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right.
Obama has a reservoir of personal physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Because as the first black contender for the presidency who will win, Obama, and all the rest of us, know that he is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our wounded and sinful country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white candidate ever has had to do. (And we all know how dangerous the presidency has been even for white presidents.)
Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn’t the only point. The greater point about Obama is that the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government’s capabilities and programs… President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times.
As luck, fate or divine grace would have it (depending on one’s personal theology) Obama is blessedly, dare I say uniquely, well-suited to our dire circumstances. Obama is a person with hands-on community service experience, deep connections to top economic advisers from the renowned University of Chicago where he taught law and a middle-class background that gives him an abiding knowledgeable empathy with the rest of us. As the son of a single mother, who has worked his way up with merit and brains, recipient of top-notch academic scholarships, the peer-selected editor of the Harvard Law Review and, in three giant political steps to state office, national office and now the presidency, Obama clearly has the wit and drive to lead.
Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. He is the healing presence at a time of national division and strife. He is also new enough to the political process so that he doesn’t suffer from the terminally jaded cynicism, the seen-it-all-before syndrome afflicting most politicians in Washington. In that regard we Americans lucked out. It’s as if having despaired of our political process we picked a name from the phone book to lead us and that person turned out to be a very man we needed.
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton will campaign together Wednesday in a special late-night rally in Kissimmee.
Doors for the free event open at 8:30 p.m. and the rally begins at 11 p.m. at Osceola County Stadium.
Tickets are not required, but an online reply to Obama’s Web site is suggested.
We have to give respect and kudos to the people in Clayton County, Jonesboro, Georgia – close to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
While the polls officially closed at 7 p.m. Monday night the line to vote at the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Riverdale didn’t clear up until 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Advance voting began in Georgia Monday — and the first day proved to be a long one for many voters.
Hillary and I have recorded a special message just for you. I hope you will watch it and then share with your friends, neighbors, and everyone you know. What we all do together in the next six days can make all the difference. Every vote counts!
Tonight CBS, NBC, Fox, TV One, BET and Univision will broadcast “Barack Obama: American Stories” .
The half-hour infomercial begins at 8:00 p.m. EST and will be a closing argument of Obama’s election campaign. At times Obama will speak directly into the camera about his 20-month campaign; at other times he will highlight everyday voters, their everyday troubles, and how he plans to address them.
Obama will hold a rally in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida tonight at 7:30pm, he will appear on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” at 11:00p.m. EST on Comedy Central (pre-taped) and then he is ending the evening with a rally at 11p.m. in Kissimmee, Florida -15 minutes from Orlando – with former President Bill Clinton.
Just in case Democrats needed a reminder of the importance of EVERY VOTE, 2000 Florida “Butterfly Ballot and Chad” victim Al Gore returned to Palm Beach County today to urge Barack Obama supporters to free themselves of the voting demons that plagued Democrats eight years ago.
“Right now we are in the final days of this historic campaign. Don’t let anyone take your vote away from you or talk you into throwing it away. Go and vote early,” Gore told a crowd at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
On November 27, 2000 Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris officially certified George W. Bush as the “winner” in Florida by 537votes.
Since that date, independent investigations by the media have revealed that many illegal votes were countedwhile many legal votes were not counted.
If the votes in Florida had been counted by non-partisan election officials in compliance with the law, Gore would have won Florida.
Unfortunately, George W. Bush, his brother Governor Jeb Bush, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a partisan Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Republican-owned media did everything in their power to prevent a fair and legal count of the votes.
In other words, the Republicans used their enormous power to steal the Presidency of the United States. After several recounts George W. Bush was selected by the Supreme Court by a vote of 5-4 to be president of the United States.
After decades of broken politics in Washington, eight years of failed policies from George Bush, and twenty-one months of campaigning – Tuesday is our opportunity to bring this country the change we need.
We face the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 760,000 workers have lost their jobs this year. Businesses and families can’t get credit. Home values are falling, and pensions are disappearing. Wages are lower than they’ve been in a decade, at a time when the costs of health care and college have never been higher.
At a moment like this, with so much at stake, we can’t afford four more years of the tired, old, trickle-down, on your own philosophy that got us into this mess.
America needs a new direction. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States.
Senator McCain has served his country honorably. But when it comes to the economy, John McCain still can’t tell the American people one major thing he’d do differently from George Bush.
At a time when so many families are hurting, John McCain wants to give a $700,000 tax cut to the average Fortune 500 CEO, but not one penny of relief to more than 100 million middle-class Americans. That’s not change.
In this election, the biggest gamble we can take is embracing the same old Bush-McCain policies that have failed us for the last eight years.
We’ve tried it their way. It hasn’t worked. It’s time to turn the page.
As President, I’ll give a tax break to 95 percent of workers and their families, and eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.
Unlike John McCain, I’ll end tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give them to companies that create jobs here in America.
We’ll create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and laying broadband lines that reach every corner of the country.
The prescription for tomorrow is comfortable shoes and patience.
It’s going to be awesome.
Never in recent memory has there been so much interest in a presidential election. More than one-third of Americans are expected to have already voted by the time the polls open tomorrow, a 50 percent increase from 2004. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot of people in front of you in front of you in line when you get to the polls.
Young people have signed up in unprecedented numbers. New voter registrations have broken records in almost every state. Turnout in many of the primaries was staggering. So be prepared.
Be aware also that tomorrow is a chance for all of us to strike a blow for democracy, and God knows she could use a shot in the arm. We’re at our best as a nation when we’re all involved. But that involvement tomorrow will come with a price. You’re probably going to have to wait. Maybe for a long time.
While you’re standing there grumbling that the line isn’t moving, or the machine is broken, remember what it was that got you into that line in the first place. This may well be the most important election we’ve ever had.
Here’s my question to you: How long are you willing to wait in line to vote?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Michelle from New Hampshire writes:
I am prepared and willing to wait all day. I have cleared my calendar to make sure I can spend the whole day. And the time I don’t spend waiting or voting, I will spend poll watching and holding signs. This is far too important not to make a personal sacrifice to make sure my vote counts. And, as an Army wife, one day of work loss is meaningless compared to the days my husband has and will spend on deployment. To all within the sound of your voice: Get out and vote!
LaShunda from Mobile, Alabama writes:
I am seven months pregnant and standing for long periods of time hurts my back tremendously, but in spite of my pain I plan on standing in line as long as it takes to exercise my right to vote, especially when those before me endured even greater hardships to have this right.
Bill from San Diego, California writes:
I appreciate the question, but if anyone honestly thinks that the wait is not worth it even if it’s all day, think about all of the people in places who can’t vote. Think about the people who have fought for voting rights. Remember that blacks and women were not allowed to vote not that long ago.
Patrick writes:
Not longer than about thirty hours.
Dawn from Florida writes:
My husband and I waited 2 1/2 hours here in Miami to vote early. About 1 hour into the wait, my husband started getting antsy and wanted me to remind him why we were wasting our time. I just looked at him and said “George W. Bush”. That did the trick!
Kim writes:
All day if I have to, but I’ll have my 3- and 4-year-olds with me. They may think differently. What a great opportunity to live by example. Never give up.
Bring folding chair(s), bottled water, blankets, umbrellas, a book, music and friends! Bring enough to share!
Obama wins in California, Connecticut, D.C., Delaware, FLORIDA, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin with expected wins in many other states!!!
Barack Obama is number 44, our next President of the United States!!!
I expect that President Obama will unite the U.S. and be the President to all Americans. I expect Obama to explore diverse causes and solutions. I think he will lead thoughtfully and selflessly and will implement policies that will be beneficial to us all.
I feel encouraged and hopeful that American will become the nation that it promises to be.We will have to work hard no doubt and it will take years to start benefiting from an Obama Presidency but there is light at the end of the tunnel!
If you voted for Obama, you own a part of this Presidency. It’s a new day, a new dawning!!!
Congratulations President Obama and family, congratulations to all and God Bless America!
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have formally announced their transition team.
John Podesta served as Chief of Staff to President Clinton. In that capacity, he was responsible for directing, managing, and overseeing all policy development, daily operations, Congressional relations, and staff activities of the White House from October 1998 until January 2001. He coordinated the work of cabinet agencies with a particular emphasis on the development of federal budget and tax policy. He served in the President’s Cabinet, and as a Principal on the National Security Council. A frequent guest of Sunday morning news programs, Mr. Podesta is known for his straight talk, acerbic wit, and fierce defense of the Clinton Administration.
Valerie Jarrett: Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran, where her father, Dr. James Bowman, ran a hospital for poor children.Her father, a pathologist and geneticist, is Professor Emeritus in Pathology and Medicine, University of Chicago. Her mother, Barbara Bowman, is an early childhood education expert and co-founder of the Erikson Institute for child development.Her maternal grandfather, Robert Taylor was the head of the Chicago Housing Authority in the 1940s.At age 5, the family moved to London for one year, then returned to Chicago in 1963.
Jarrett got her start in Chicago politics in 1987 working for mayorHarold Washingtonas Deputy Corporation Counsel for Finance and Development.
Jarrett continued to work in the mayor’s office in the 1990s. She was Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard Daley, during which time (1991) she hired Michelle Robinson, then engaged to Barack Obama, away from a private law firm. Jarrett served as Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development from 1992 through 1995; and was Chair of the Chicago Transit Board from 1995 to 2005.
She is currently the CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development and management company, which she joined in 1995. She was a Member of the Board of Chicago Stock Exchange (2000-2007, as Chairman, 2004-2007).
She is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago Medical Center,Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago and a Trustee of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.Ms. Jarrett serves on the board of directors of USG corporation, a Chicago based building materials corporation. Ms. Jarrett has experience in negotiation, persuasion and conflict resolution; a long record of outreach to the African-American community; fierce, almost familial loyalty to Mr. Obama and his wife Michelle.
Pete Rouse: Rouse is chief of staff for Senator Barack Obama. Rouse helped prepare a memo, “The Strategic Plan,” for Obama’s first year in the Senate. Helping Obama navigate Senate politics and yet remain an outsider, Rouse advised Obama against criticizing Democratic Leader Harry M. Reid while voting against ethics reform legislation. Obama worked with Senator Russell Feingold on strengthening amendments). Similarly, he suggested that Obama speak with Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Joseph I. Lieberman in the early stages of exploring his presidential candidacy. Rouse also is credited with persuading Obama to vote against the nomination of John G. Roberts, Jr., who is now Chief Justice of the United States (Bacon 2007). Known as “the 101st Senator” thanks to his knowledge and skills. Rouse has spoken against the partisanship in Washington politics: “We’ve got to try harder to find principled compromises.
For the past several months, a board of advisors has been working informally in Chicago planning for a possible presidential transition. Among the many projects undertaken by the transition board have been detailed analyses of previous transition efforts, policy statements made during the campaign, and the workings of federal government agencies, and priority positions that must be filled by the incoming administration.
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The Chief of Staff is often nicknamed ‘The Second Most Powerful Man in Washington’ because of the influence and access to the President.
“I announce this appointment first because the chief of staff is central to the ability of a President and administration to accomplish an agenda,” President-Elect Obama said in a statement. “And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel.”
Traditionally the Chief of Staff has been responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the President’s schedule and deciding who is allowed to meet with the President.Because of these duties, the Chief of Staff has at various times been called ‘The Gatekeeper’ and ‘The Co-President’.
Most White House Chiefs of Staff are former politicians and many continue their political careers in other senior roles once they leave the White House.Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff was Dick Cheney.Cheney became US Representative for Wyoming, then Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush and Vice President under George W. Bush.
The roles of the Chief of Staff are both managerial and advisory and can include the following duties depending on President Obama’s vision and style of conducting business:
·Select key White House staff and supervise them
·Structure the White House staff system
·Control the flow of people into the Oval Office
·Manage the flow of information to the POTUS
·Advise the President on issues, politics and policies and management issues
·Protect the interest of the President
·Negotiate with Congress and other members of the Executive Branch and other governmental political groups to implement the President’s agenda
Rahm Israel Emanuel, President-Elect Obama’s choice for Chief of Staff was born in Chicago, Illinois.His first name Rahm means ‘high’ or ‘lofty’ in Hebrew and his last name, Emanuel, means ‘God is with us.’
Rahm’s last name was adopted by his family in 1933 after Rahm’s paternal uncle Emanuel Auerbach was killed in a skirmish with Arabs in Jerusalem.
Rahm’s father, Benjamin Emanuel was born in Jerusalem.He is a pediatrician and former member of the Irgun – a staunchly nationalist Zionist militia active in the British Mandate of Palestine between 1931 and 1948.His mother, the former Martha Smulevitz, worked as an x-ray technician and was the daughter of a local union organizer.She became a civil rights activist and was also the owner of a Chicago- area rock and roll club.
Rahm attended Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School – a Jewish day school.After his family moved to Wilmette he attended public schools: Romona School, Wilmette Junior High School and New Trier West High School.He and his brothers attended summer camp in Israel. During high school while working at an Arby’s Emanuel severely injured his right middle finger.Instead of getting medical treatment he went swimming in Lake Michigan.His finger became severely infected and was partially amputated.
Rahm graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1981 and received a Masters in Speech and Communication from Northwestern University in 1985. While an undergraduate he joined the congressional campaign of David Robinson, Chicago.
Emanuel was a civilian volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and served in one of Israel’s northern bases.
Amy Rule, Rahm’s wife, is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.Amy converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism shortly before their wedding.They are active members of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel – a Modern Orthodox congregation in Chicago.They have three children: a son Zachariah and daughters Ilana and Leah.
The Bushes welcomed the Obamas to the White House on Monday where the Obamas will reside 71 days from today.
First Lady Laura Bush and First Lady to be Michelle hugged each other; the President and President-elect shook hands, smiled with each other and did not seem uncomfortable with each other at the South Portico.
They all went through the doors at the South Portico and shortly after Bush and Obama emerged and strolled along the colonnade to the Oval Office.This was the first time Obama has ever visited the Oval Office.
The men had their face-to-face session in the Oval Office while the ladies held their own meeting in the White House residence. Mrs. Bush was to give Mrs. Obama a tour of the first family’s living quarters, including the bedrooms used by children of past presidents. The two women were expected to talk about what it is like living in one of the world’s most famous building, from family life to the help provided by executive staff.
It was the President-Elect’s first visit to the White House since his victory.
Earlier in the day, the Obamas climbed into a black limousine with tinted windows, instead of the normal SUV; the limo looked just like the one that the president rides in, without the seal or flags. The entire motorcade was upgraded from campaign mode to presidential-level, with a second identical decoy limousine, a black haz-mat truck, a communications truck and the counter-assault team hanging out the back of an SUV.
Let’s work together and rebuild America and make it even greater than it was. UNITY!
Barack Obama’s story is truly about strength of mind, perseverance, courage and audaciousness. This man – from he was young – was determined to be a success and did all he had to and remains grounded. Barack Obama is truly an inspiration. This man has my respect!
This post was written on Tuesday, November 4
If the election goes the way the polls predict, every school kid should see the Manhattan alleyway where a future President spent his first night in New York.
Just across the street is the fire hydrant where young Barack Obama washed up with a homeless gentleman after waking that morning a quarter century ago.
Obama had come to New York as a transfer student at Columbia, having arranged to take over a friend of a friend’s apartment on W. 109th St. He arrived with his luggage just after 10p.m., only for nobody to answer the door.
Obama sat on the building’s stoop, rereading a letter he had received before he left California. The letter was from the father who had long since moved back to Kenya. The father urged him to carry through with plans to visit Africa after his graduation.
“The important thing is that you know your people, and also that you know where you belong,” the long-absent father had written. “Please look after yourself and say hello to your mum.”
Obama refolded the letter and gazed along what was then a row of boarded-up buildings on W. 109th St., keenly feeling the absence of a guiding paternal hand in a country where there seemed no clear place for a young black man.
“I looked down now at the abandoned New York street,” Obama later wrote in his autobiography. “Where were the fathers, the uncles and grandfathers who could help explain this gash in our hearts? Where were the healers who might help us rescue meaning from defeat? They were gone, vanished, swallowed up by time. Only their cloudy images remained.”
He waited past midnight before wiggling through a gate into an alleyway that by his description is almost certainly the one adjacent to 200 W. 109th St.
“I found a dry spot, propped my luggage beneath me and fell asleep, the sound of drums softly shaping my dreams,” he wrote. “I woke up to find a white hen pecking at the garbage near my feet.”
He rose and stepped from the alleyway.
“Across the street, a homeless man was washing himself at an open hydrant and didn’t object when I joined him,” Obama recalled.
Twenty-five years later, the hydrant has been given a cheerful coat of red paint by the Dominican superintendent of the building across from the alleyway.
The alleyway is no longer garbage-strewn but swept clean, the six trash cans kept in a neat row by the Montenegrin super in the adjacent building.
The supers were taking the extra care because that is their nature, just as the once-abandoned buildings along the block now fly American flags as a signal of the neighborhood’s restoration.
Nobody seems to have been aware that the alleyway and the hydrant might become one of the city’s most unlikely historical sights.
Here slept and washed up a future President who propelled himself beyond the soft drumming of his dreams, who appeared before us suddenly and so vividly, showing a young black man’s place is where he strives to be, presenting himself as a healer who can help black and white rescue meaning from defeat.
“It’s a privilege to live in a neighborhood where once a future President has spent the night,” the Montenegrin super, Ruzdija Jarovic, said in his native language.
Happy shouts rang out from the recess yard of Public School 165 just down the block. A whistle sounded and the youngsters filed inside past a bank of voting machines delivered for the election that could have such an impact on their future.
The man who slept in the alley just up W. 109th St. was on every ballot in the country. Obama’s father and mother died long before his nomination. His grandmother died yesterday, a day before she could have seen more than dreams come true.
Maybe the homeless guy who shared the hydrant is still around. The hydrant and the alleyway remain, and to visit there on Election Eve was to feel how audacious hope can really be.
During his reign King George used his executive powers to block Congressional requests for executive branch documents and testimony from former aides. Now that Bush will no longer rule, investigators are hoping that the Obama administration will open up Pandora’s filing cabinets and withdraw the declaration of executive privilege that Bush officials have used to keep from raising their right hands and swearing under oath.
“I intend to ensure that our outstanding subpoenas and document requests relating to the US attorneys matter are enforced,” said Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “I am hopeful that progress can be made with the coming of the new administration.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First have and Human Rights First already have detailed reports ready for the new administration calling for criminal investigations into severe allegations of abuse of detainees at Guantanamo and other American holding prisonoversees, etc.
With America and the world in the midst of a severe economic crisis, no one knows if President Obama will give his blessings to any such investigation, but we can hope.
Since Presidents don’t have crystal balls and don’t know what kind of prickly situations they might find themselves in during their tenure, some tend not to pursue investigations into their predecessor’s acts while in office. George W. Bush used executive privilege for the first time in 2001 to stop Congressional Republicans from investigating the Clinton administration.
In April Obama told The Philadelphia Daily News that people need to discern what warranties an investigation and shouldn’t be eager to investigate just for investigations sake.“If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” Obama said, but added, “I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.”
But even if Obama himself throws-out the calls for investigations, he cannot control what the courts or Congress does.
Let’s hope that Representatives Conyers and Kucinich stay vigilant and prosecute Bush and Cheney for all their transgressions.
Since Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States 12 days ago, he has largely remained out of sight, getting high-level government briefings and conferring with his transition team. But he surfaced on Friday afternoon in Chicago, alongside his wife Michelle to give 60 Minutes his first post-election interview.
Sarah Palin is back in Alaska and has resumed her hectic schedule filled with meetings talking about the country of Africa while watching Russians from her front porch.
Palin took time out of her demanding schedule to drive to Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey for Thanksgiving.
After Palin pardoned the Wasilla turkey she decided to give an interview to a local TV station. What makes this bizarre is that while Palin was chatting away about missing the limelight, the ‘hecticness’ and her great appreciation of the lower 48, turkeys were squawking behind her protesting their own slaughter.It seems that Palin did not hear their urgent squawks for help as she aimlessly chewed the fat.
Seeing is believing! Watch the video below.The video is grisly so be warned!
These are excellent choices! Americans are giving a collective ‘thanks’ becasue we have an intelligent, deep thinking President! Yeah!
President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden officially announced key members of their economic team today, naming Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury and Lawrence Summers as Director of the National Economic Council. Obama and Biden also named Christina Romer as Chair of the Council of Economic advisors, and named Melody Barnes and Heather Higginbottom to serve as Director and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
“Vice President-elect Biden and I have assembled an economic team with the vision and expertise to stabilize our economy, create jobs, and get America back on track. Even as we face great economic challenges, we know that great opportunity is at hand — if we act swiftly and boldly. That’s the mission our economic team will take on,” said President-elect Obama.
The economic team members announced today are listed below:
Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury
Timothy Geithner currently serves as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he has played a key role in formulating the nation’s monetary policy. He joined the Department of the Treasury in 1988 and has served three presidents. From 1999 to 2001, he served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. Following that post he served as director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund until 2003. Geithner is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Lawrence H. Summers, Director of the National Economic Council
Lawrence Summers is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University. Summers served as 71st Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006. Before being appointed Secretary, Summers served as Deputy and Under Secretary of the Treasury and as the World Bank’s top economist. Summers has taught economics at Harvard and MIT, and is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the American economist under 40 judged to have made the most significant contribution to economics. Summers played a key advisory role during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Christina D. Romer, Director of the Council of Economic Advisors
Christina Romer is the Class of 1957 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has taught and researched since 1988. Prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley, Romer was an assistant professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Romer is co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has been a visiting scholar at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Melody C. Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council
Melody Barnes is co-director of the Agency Review Working Group for the Obama-Biden Transition Team, and served as the Senior Domestic Policy Advisor to Obama for America. Barnes previously served as Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress and as chief counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee from December 1995 until March 2003.
Heather A. Higginbottom, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council
Heather Higginbottom served as Policy Director for Obama for America, overseeing all aspects of policy development. From 1999 to 2007, Higginbottom served as Senator John Kerry’s Legislative Director. She also served as the Deputy National Policy Director for the Kerry-Edwards Presidential Campaign for the primary and general elections. After the 2004 election, Higginbottom founded and served as Executive Director of the American Security Project, a national security think tank. She started her career as an advocate at the national non-profit organization Communities in Schools.
The crowd at ‘The Garden’ greeted number 23 with an ovation worthy of a King. Jay-Z, Beyonce, Spike Lee and other celebrities in the audience gave the night a big-game feel and Madison Square Garden sure like heck has not looked or sounded this good in years.
King James left the Garden Tuesday night with a message for Knicks fans, “You have to stay open-minded,” he said, referring to July 1, 2010 when he becomes a free agent.
As if there’s a single Knick fan out there who would oppose him coming to New York in 20 months. Heck no, we want LeBron in NYC! We can’t wait for his homecoming!
But that’s not the issue. It’s all about whether James wants to come to New York to play for a Knick team that right now doesn’t even exist. There’s no starting five. No bench. There’s just a team president with a game plan and all kinds of cap space to see it become reality, along with a coach who James calls “an offensive mastermind.”
That’s not a lot to sell, but that can change in an instant. It’s not as if James would want to join the current Knicks team, anyway. The Knicks were pathetic Tuesday night as they worked in two new players – Tim Thomas and Al Harrington – against one of the East’s top teams.
Mike D’Antoni wasted his time and money getting a technical near halftime. “When you get beat by 30,” he said later, “it’s OK.”
Actually, the final margin was 18, 119-101, but it did seem like a 30-point loss. With James scoring effortlessly and the Knicks a study in chaos, this was one was over after about 13 minutes. There must have been a time in the fourth quarter, when James did not play, when he must have wondered what he’ll be coming to in 2010 if he leaves Cleveland.
Beyond James, Knicks president Donnie Walsh’s strategy can be summed up in two words: Think big. Big as in a quality big man who can help get the Knicks back to title contention.
While James flirted with Knicks fans, Walsh won’t even concede that James will be free in two years, let alone be the top player on his board.
“It’s two years from now and guys are playing on other teams,” he said. “A lot of things can happen between now and then.”
But one thing almost certainly won’t change. Walsh will try his best to find a big man to pair with James.
He doesn’t have to be the second coming of Patrick Ewing but he can’t be a stiff. As Walsh explained, “I’ve always thought that you had to have a really good big man to have a great team.”
The NBA has become more and more of a wing player’s league, with James and Kobe and Paul and all the rest. But you still need a dominant big man to win. Just as the Celtics had last June with Kevin Garnett, and as the vast majority of champions almost always have.
“I think you have to have a big guy who can do the real important things,” Walsh said the other day. “Scoring, maybe. To me, it’s more about rebounding and blocking shots and providing the intimidation inside. You need those things to contend.”
The beauty of the deals Walsh made last week is that he’ll have plenty of money for James and a big man.
“It’s a huge advantage when you’ve got a great big man,” Walsh said. “When you have a guy like that, you can really succeed.”
The success will come when James signs a long-term deal at the Garden.
If you need to keep an open mind for that event, you officially need help.
President-elect Obama really, really wants to keep his BlackBerry.
The President-elect tells Barbara Walters in an interview airing Wednesday night that he’s trying to talk the Secret Service and others into letting him keep his wireless device.
Authorities fear hackers could break into his inbox and harvest data that’s potentially damaging to national security.
”This is a problem,”Obama said with a laugh in the interview which will broadcast on ABC at 10pm EST tonight. Obama believes that keeping his BlackBerry at hand will allow him to keep a better handle on his job because he will be ‘in-touch’ and not isolated from the ‘pulse’ of the nation.
“I’m negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House. Because one of the worst things I think that could happen to a President is losing touch with what people are going through day to day,”he told Walters.
In other news, Obama will come face-to-face with the Energizer Alaskan Governor who just won’t quit. Obama’s team announced yesterday that he would meet in Philadelphia next Tuesday, December 2 with Democratic and Republican governors to bring them up to speed on his plans to reverse the financial meltdown.
“We’re going to be working very closely with governors,”Obama said yesterday.“This economic recovery plan will require their input, their participation.”
Both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden will be at the governors’ summit.
Thousands write UNITY messages for President-elect Obama
at the wall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool in DC.
On this Thanksgiving, the table will be full and inviting as always but the prospect of very hard times to come is at the back of many of our minds.
We’ll enjoy each other’s company today. We will declare our gratitude for all the blessings we’ve received – and we should.
We’ll enjoy the smell of turkey in the oven, we’ll feast on delicious stuffing, and we’ll savor the lightest fluffiest mash and relish delicious cranberries and take pleasure in the bouquet and taste of warm apple and pumpkin pie. There will be plenty to go around, as always.
But this is a difficult Thanksgiving. The horizon is clouded. What seems likely is that in the months and, perhaps years ahead, many of us will lose jobs, lose investments, lose the prospect of the futures we’ve worked and saved for…I hope I’m wrong.
It is possible that we’re at a low point in the business cycle, that the economy will rebound, that the recession will be short-lived. No one knows. But most of us who work for a living are scared. We’ve seen enough to know we’ve not seen this before.
We are thankful today. What matters most is the support and company of family and friends, the joy that comes from a deep faith in God and the hope that lies ahead. In these times, we need to reflect more deeply on the meaning of giving thanks.
During the Great Depression President Franklin Roosevelt said, “The future of many generations of mankind will be greatly guided by our acts in these present years. We hew a new trail. Let us then on the day appointed offer our devotions and our humble thanks to Almighty God and pray that the people of America will be guided by Him in helping their fellow men.”
So as difficult as it maybe today or tomorrow or the day after – someone is worse off than you. Someone may need a little help or your time or your ears. You can help without giving money. So in these times remember to appreciate what you have and dwell less on what you think you don’t have.
So let’s look outward and look ahead as FDR advised. Let us give thanks for the opportunity to share and depend on each other in new ways, for our faith in each other and for the idealism that makes our America great.
We do indeed have cause to worry. But we also have an obligation – to each other – to hold on to hope. We may face the greatest test of our lifetimes. But as long as we have each other and that deep sense of what really matters in life and hope we have reason to give thanks.
Help a family member. Help a friend. Help a neighbor. Help a stranger.
Another great interview! President-elect Obama will be President for all Americans and he will work hard to make the life of ordinary Americans better.Of course that means that the wealthiest among us will do great as well.
It will take some time and effort to fix the economy but President Obama will work hard and diligently for us.
“Where there is unity there is always victory.”Publilius Syrus
“So this weekend — with one heart, and one voice, the American people can give thanks that a new and brighter day is yet to come.”President-elect Barack Obama
Poverty in the United States is no longer predisposed to rural American and the inner city.Poverty is spreading all across the nation and into the suburbs according to a study by the Federal Reserve’s Community Affairs department and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.
“It shows that concentrated poverty is still very much with us, and that it can be found among a much more diverse set of communities and families than previous research has emphasized,” said Bruce Katz, a director at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.
“Poverty is spreading and may be re-clustering in suburbs, where a majority of America’s metropolitan poor now live.”
The study was released ahead of next week’s conference on concentrated poverty. The study, by design, did not give an explanation for the causes of poverty but in the past research have linked the growth in poverty to loss of jobs in manufacturing, agriculture and mining.
The collapse of the US housing market has produced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and poverty could get worse.
“Not only does concentrated poverty affect the big, older inner cities in the North, but it also exists within smaller cities in the South and West,” said Katz.
The case study shows that poverty is growing in all communities amongst all people – black, white, Latino and Native Americans.
If you want a job in the Obama Administration join the very long line! Approximately 290,000 people have submitted resumes for a job in the President-elect’s administration. Interest in Obama Administration jobs is way higher than in previous administrations.There are only 8,000 non-career positions available according to the Plum Book – the official list of jobs in a president’s administration.
By comparison, President Bush received 44,000 requests for jobs in 2001 and President Clinton received 125,000 applications for jobs in 1993.
“You cannot predict what results will come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.”
The titans of Wall Street have taken a battering in the financial markets recently, but they are eating well and drinking more, according to the people who run Manhattan’s “power” dining spots.
At the 21 Club, a longtime redoubt of corporate chieftains and big names, alcohol sales are up 9 per cent from last year, and businessmen can be seen drinking $14-a-glass cocktails as early as 3pm on a weekday.
“Where people used to have one vodka on the rocks, now it’s a second one or maybe a third,” says Roger Rice, the floor manager. “I don’t know what to attribute it to. Maybe it’s the last year of the expense account.”
Others say their customers are drinking more to drown their sorrows. “People want to feel a little numb because it’s numbing out there,” says Steve Millington, general manager at Michael’s, the restaurant of choice for publishing and media executives.
He reports that alcohol sales are up a fifth from last year. “At dinner, hard liquor sales are up, cocktails and martinis. It’s less so at lunch. People are drinking wine at lunch, less the high-end wines and more medium-priced wines.”
The increase in alcohol sales is clear, says Mr. Millington, because overall customer levels are on a par with last year. “There’s a scent of fear,” he says.
Times are good at Delmonico’s, the 181-year-old fine dining restaurant, says Dennis Turcinovic, managing partner.
“It’s scary to say, but our business is up 6 to 7 per cent,” he says. “Alcohol sales . . . help a lot, they’re about 15 per cent up this year. The bar’s busy all day. I’ve had to hire extra barmaids.”
There are few signs that people are saving money on food either. At San Pietro, an upmarket Italian restaurant, business remains brisk. Gerardo Bruno, president, says overall business is up 12 per cent from last year.
In spite of the turmoil in the markets, one rule has held firm at San Pietro. “Americans, they never drink at lunch,” Mr. Bruno says. As for dinner, hard liquor sales are down, but after-dinner drinks, particularly grappa and cognac, are up, he adds.
Wine sales remain strong, especially at dinner, except for one noticeable change. “When times are fantastic, the host does not lead, he lets his guests lead in choosing the wine,” says Mr. Bruno. However, in the current climate, dinner hosts are turning to him to ask for wine recommendations, a clear sign that restraint is in order, according to Mr. Bruno.
Yet not everyone has suffered in the economic downturn. Mr. Bruno produced two empty bottles of 1947 Petrus, consumed recently by a Chinese customer who called ahead to order the wines.
Susan Rice, a Barack Obama confidant is reportedly the president-elect’s leading candidate for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
ABC News reports that an announcement on Rice will come this week.
The network appears to have an inside track on the story – Rice’s husband, a former Canadian journalist – Ian Cameron, is the executive producer of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
Rice, 44, was a member of President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council and the former assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Madeleine Albright.
She was, in fact, an Albright protégé and in 1997, advanced ahead of several more senior officials to become one of the youngest assistant secretaries of state ever.
Rice served as a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama during his presidential campaign. She’s been a vocal critic of the current administration’s stance on Darfur, describing it as a policy of “bluster and retreat.”
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 2007, Rice said the U.S. should take military against Sudan if the genocide in Darfur continued.
“Some might argue that it’s unthinkable in the current context,” she testified. “Yet to allow another state to deter the U.S. by threatening terrorism would set a terrible precedent. It would also be cowardly and, in the face of genocide, immoral.”
Rice’s acumen on African affairs would be an obvious asset for the UN position. Roughly two-thirds of all discussions at the UN Security Council regard situations in Africa.
“She was one of the few people to live in the foreign-policy world who understood global issues, transnational issues like human rights, climate change and terrorism,” Tim Wirth, head of the United Nations Foundation, said recently of Rice.
Wirth worked with Rice when she was at the National Security Council.
Rice and her husband married in Washington in 1992 after meeting at Stanford University. They have two children.
Rice worked in Toronto in the early 1990s as an international management consultant at McKinsey and Company while Cameron was employed by the CBC in the same city as a producer.
A Rhodes Scholar, Rice received the National Security Council’s Samuel Nelson Drew Memorial Award for distinguished contributions to the formation of peaceful, co-operative relationships between countries, and to U.S. security policy for global peace.
The Washington, D.C. born Rice has said that as a young girl, she “dreamed of becoming the first U.S. senator from the District of Columbia.”
Like all U.S. ambassadors, Rice must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The current UN ambassador is Zalmay Khalilzad, who succeeded acting ambassador Alejandro Daniel Wolff.
Wolff temporarily replaced John Bolton, who resigned in the face of poor confirmation prospects after the 2006 mid-term elections returned a Democratic majority.
Last weekend, President Bush attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima, Peru. Turns out you can’t do anything in Peru without someone handing you Peru’s national drink, the Pisco Sour (made with pisco, a brandy-like liquor). It’s a pretty potent drink and President Bush has supposedly been abstaining from alcohol for 22 years. He avoided an international incident and did not snub his hosts by happily guzzling down the cocktail.
Peru successfully promoted its national drink “Pisco Sour” during the entire Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit, Peru’s Environment Minister Antonio Brack said Sunday.
He noted that the flagship drink of Peru was well accepted by international guests, including Japan’s Prime Minister, Taro Aso.
“Pisco Sour has been the “star” of the APEC Summit, the drink was served in several meetings at the Government Palace and the APEC Summit venue,” he told CPN Radio.
“We have achieved to place our products including pisco on international markets, but also kiwicha, sweet potatoes and traditional Peruvian potatoes”, said Brack.
Bush who allegedly quit drinking at 40 was photographed drinking the Peruvian cocktail during a meeting on Saturday.
Can American afford another Bush in the White House? I don’t think so. I know that the Bushes want to see Jeb Bush as President someday but had pushed that hope to the side since Dubya was an inept President at best. Dubya invaded Iraq and started a war of choice with Iraq over WMD which never existed. Dubya flew over as New Orleans sank and now Dubya is standing on the sidelines drinking Peruvian Piso Sours as America’s economy is flushed down the toilet.
Now Jeb wants to be a Senator from Florida. Undoubtedly he sees this as a stepping stone to the White House.
Two sources close to Jeb Bush, including one who has spoken to the former Florida governor within the past few hours, say he is seriously considering a run for Senate now that incumbent Republican Mel Martinez has retired.“He is receiving a lot of encouragement from both in and out of the state,” a longtime Bush adviser said tonight. “He is going to take his time and approach this very methodically.” Bush will weigh, according to this adviser, how a run would impact his family, his business, and whether the Senate would be the best platform for the causes he’d advocate — education, immigration, GOP solutions to health care and energy.“the old white-guy party” and that it ought to modulate the way it handles the immigration issue. Bush, who speaks fluent Spanish and won the support of a majority of Hispanic voters during his 2002 re-election bid, favors a comprehensive approach to reform. But Bush said that Republicans can’t give up on conservatism, and, in what might be interpreted as a dig at Florida’s current governor, said that Republicans “can’t be Democrat-lite. We can’t just ‘get along.” The words echo some Republican criticism of Crist, who they view as accodomationist in his politics and unwilling to push for real reforms.
Bush did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
If he decides to run, Republicans expect the field to clear for him. Maybe. Governor Charlie Crist, with whom Bush has not had the warmest of relations, is said to be interested in moving to the Senate. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is weighing a bid, as is former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, Orange County executive Richard Crotty, and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack.
Bush, in an interview with Newsmax this week, said that the GOP risked becoming
In his weekly address, President-elect Barack Obama said he would invest record amounts of money in a vast infrastructure program, which also includes work on schools, sewer systems, mass transit, electric grids, dams and other public utilities.
Jobs will also include infrastructure projects to repair roads and bridges, while also pushing a federal effort to bring in new-era jobs in technology and green jobs.
Obama also promises to upgrade computers in schools, expand broadband Internet access, make government buildings more energy efficient and improve information technology at hospitals and doctors’ offices.
“We need action — and action now,” Obama, said in his weekly address to the nation.
Recently our 2008 eight-medal winning Olympic swimming champion smoked pot for the first time at a Michigan hotel. His reaction was a bit boisterous – the stoned Phelps broke all the televisions in his room, but later bought exact replicas so he could replace them before anybody at the hotel was the wiser. But we have to forgive Mr. Phelps since he’s been in training for most of his 23 years and this is the first time he has let loose.
Not too long ago we learned that Martha Stewart used a hand model for close-up shots in her latest book since she deemed her own hands too wrinkled.
Last week the still very, very sexy Susan Sarandon had her first face-lift. Susan is the mother of the statuesque and stunning 23 year old Eva Amurri.
We can’t speak of 2008 without talking politics, politics and more politics. This year was filled with characters, clichés and catchphrases!
It started early when Governor Spitzer of New York was identified as ‘Client # 9’ and ended in November when Jesse Jackson Jr. was identified as ‘Candidate # 5’ in the Governor Blagojevich investigation – you can’t make this stuff up!
The year also started with a no drama Obama campaign and came full circle with an all drama Rahm Emanuel for Obama’s White House Chief-of-Staff. Rahm gets the job done and that’s huge. It will be good to have a little ‘safe’ drama in the White House. It’s only fair since Obama doesn’t give the late shows and comedians food for fodder – Rahm will.
It’s a new year.It’s a new day.There are some new rules.
Financially, times are about to become hard for many of us but we the consumer still have some negotiating leverage.
Folks just don’t have the cash flow they had 6, 8 or 12 months ago.Not too long ago distressed borrowers might have avoided disaster by taking out an equity loan on their home, borrowed from 401ks or may even have borrowed from relatives or friends but in these dire times these are no longer options for many.
Lenders are realizing that many Americans will not be able to pay their bills as the economy gets worse and worst.
Some lenders have given the collection agencies that work for them the authority to get whatever cash money they can – even if it’s a fraction of the total debt – while they can.
Don’t get it twisted, creditors aren’t being nice – they are simply trying to get cash since cash is golden right now.In the months to come some people won’t have any extra cash to pay old debts so lenders are willing to negotiate today. As they say, ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. To paraphrase, it is better for creditors to accept what they can get today than to wait and risk getting nothing.
Some banks like Bank of America, Chase and even American Express are currently waiving late fees, lowering interest rates and are even reducing balances for nearly a million borrowers.Some lenders are offering to forgive their debtors between 20 and 70 percent of their debt.
As bad debts sky-rocket lenders are caught between a rock and a hard place so they will offer loan adjustments to people who meet certain criteria such as being delinquent for 90 days or longer, the borrower’s income, existing bank relationships and a credit record that suggests that missing a payment is an exception rather than the rule.
So, if you owe some money, now is the time to contact your bank, lender or collection agency and negotiate, negotiate, negotiate some sort of settlement.
I just came home from running errands and I am frustrated like hell. One thing has remained constant since I moved to Florida: my continued frustration with the way many people drive in Florida.
Honestly, how do you rate yourself as a driver?
Silly me.I take that question back. Of course you rate yourself as being above average. It’s a well-known fact that all humans consider themselves to be above-average drivers. No amount of physical evidence will convince a bad driver that he or she is a bad driver.
You take a driver who, while attempting to pull out of a parking space, mistakes “forward” for “reverse,” then, in an effort to correct this error, mistakes the accelerator for the brake and sends his car lunging across a sidewalk and into a diner whilst attaining a speed of 40 mph by the time it rams into the salad bar and car and driver are saturated by carafes of salad dressing.
Even as the paramedics are tweezing corn and peas from the ears and nose of the driver he will loudly insist that the restaurant was not there before and that there are plenty of people on the road who do not drive as well as he does.
And the scary thing is: he’s right! There are LOTS of worse drivers out there! In fact over 90% of all drivers are below average and most of them are here in Florida — I am not exaggerating – I have seen most of them! I don’t know what the driving experience is like in your state but it’s unusual in Florida.
Florida seems to attract inferior drivers like a magnet.In addition to this fatal attraction it seems to automatically issue a driver’s license to anyone who asks for one.Ask and ye shall receive a Florida drivers license.The “road” test is a joke – you don’t even go on the road.Driver’s license road tests are pretty much taken in a supermarket parking lot and licenses are issued to seventeen year olds and seventy year olds as freely as Gatorade at a football game on a really hot day!
As someone who recently moved to Florida it STILL boggles my mind whenever I see a car accident and there was only one car involved with absolutely no traffic on the road – WTH!!!Is it still an accident if there is only one car involved? Or is it a mishap, a mistake or simply a moronic episode?
But getting back to your driving ability – I can tell from the sympathetic way you’re reading this post that you truly are an above average driver. So am I, of course. Anyway, since you and I are such superior drivers, I wanted to share with you an excellent suggestion by Florida motorist Ana Garcia – her name was changed to protect this excellent driver. Ana begins by noting the annoying behavior of certain motorists, especially the ones who drift aimlessly along in the left, or “passing” lane, mile after clueless mile, never passing anybody and never noticing the 5 mile back-up of cars behind them flashing their lights, honking their horns, making explicit hand gestures while firing marine flares.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone the abuse of animals in any form and I believe that Vick being involved with a dog fighting ring even at a distance was dumb.
But let’s put this into perspective – former star NFL quarterback Michael Vick has been serving a 23-month prison term in Leavenworth, Kansas after being found guilty of financing a dog fighting ring (he’s scheduled to be transferred to a Virginia halfway house by January 20).
Did Vick steal from anyone?Did he irrevocably ruin anyone’s life other than his own? Did he shoot anyone?
We can’t say the same thing about Bernard Madoff who is living in the lap of luxury even though he ruined the lives of approximately 8,000 customers and additional untold thousands who benefit from the charities that his customers support.
Take for example Mr. Spencer, a 62 year old gentleman who lost his entire life savings of $10 million to Madoff’s scam.
This gentleman didn’t invest on a whim or foolishly.He has been investing with Madoff for 17 years.He started and sold two businesses and invested the money each time with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities – a company that had a GREAT reputation.He created his own spreadsheet and checked his monthly portfolio summaries and matched them with his trade confirmations and logged them into his spreadsheet every month.Every transaction added up each month for almost 2 decades.He was hands-on, sensible, and responsible – he did everything right but still got scammed big time by Madoff.
Take as a second example Mr. and Mrs. Thomas – they are in their mid-eighties and the money they invested with Madoff is the only money they have in the world.Mr. Thomas was an accountant all his life, understands numbers and spreadsheets.He did rigorous research before deciding to invest with Madoff.
He had planned for his retirement in a responsible way. He was beyond confident that he and his wife had no financial worries: he had become a millionaire and wealthy enough to afford $130,000 a year for assisted-living accommodations in a home for the elderly that provided round-the-clock health aides for him and his wife.
The computer-generated financial statements he received every month showed that he had $2.7 million, an impressive increase from the $400,000 he had originally invested with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities 20 years earlier. He thought he had made smart decisions.He thought that he and his wife could live their lives and pay their bills for the rest of their days. Not so.Now this elderly gentleman and his wife are almost penniless and will undoubtedly run out of money and will not be able to afford to pay to live in the assisted-living home they now reside in and they do not have children. They don’t know where they’ll live or who will provide the care they need on a daily basis since Mr. Thomas is 86 and have had three heart attacks and Mrs. Thomas had a stroke 8 months ago.They are now hoping that Medicaid will cover the 24-hour care they need. They are nervous and they are scared.
Before Mr. Thomas decided to invest with Madoff he visited the company’s office and met Mr. Madoff himself. Madoff impressed Thomas very much, as he did everyone else.There were tons of computers and people running all over the place and Thomas figured that Madoff’s operation had to be genuine because he couldn’t employ that kind of staff without money – everything looked so legit.
Thousands of people are ruined.Some young enough and will have to start all over.Some like the Thomas’s are too old.This is tragic.
Madoff could not have maintained this scam all by himself – who was helping him?Who was providing accurate data that was inputted into the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities computer system that generated accurate monthly statements for decades?
Bernard Madoff should not be walking around free and unfettered and able to mail one million dollars worth of jewelry to family while his investors who trusted him live an agonized and tortured life.
What does Madoff have to do to go to jail, kill a dog?
Being in Washington, DC during the Inauguration weekend was especially special. The depth and breath of the experience cannot be described by words – it’s a sensation that flows through the mind and body and yes Chris Mathews – I felt a tingle down my leg!
Without a doubt President Barack Obama was the ONLY star in town – no one else mattered much. Just seeing his motorcade drive by was enough to cause men and women to go buckwild and faint right there in the streets.
The thing that touched me most was the togetherness, unity and reaching out to each other by all there. There was no ‘incident’, no fuss, no fighting, no quarreling even as people accidently stepped on toes or elbowed you in the ribs. People were polite, cheerful and helpful.
If you fell someone was there to help you up. Complete strangers greeted each other with warm embraces and greetings. During this weekend in Washington race, age, religion or creed did not matter – they were simply forgotten. There was a sense of unity that I have never experienced in any other setting – ever; and I have been in some loving settings.
The tone truly comes from the top and our President set the tone. He said, ”out of many we are one” and we listened and we heard him loud and clear. We were one in DC!
A picture is worth a thousand words – here are are few thousand words!
This morning, we are one step closer to achieving health care reform in the United States of America. Can I get a “hip, hip!”
If you believe in conspiracy theories, then this is right up there with the “chilled” envelope pulled by David Stern in the 1985 Draft lottery, putting Patrick Ewing in New York. You mean LeBron, a die-hard Yankees fan, gets an up-close look while the city is being painted in pinstripes? Is there a better marketing opportunity? 
The Knicks hope the intoxicating celebrity factor will be enough to sway LeBron next summer as a free agent, because that’s all the Knicks really have in their favor. They can’t offer more money. They can’t offer a better collection of teammates, at least not right away. They can offer Spike Lee while Cleveland offers Drew Carey. They can (and will, you watch) get Spike and Chris Rock, among other celebrity row fixtures, to make a recruiting film in which famous people explain to LeBron why playing in New York will be far more enjoyable than playing in Cleveland.
A handful of the Yankees, still smelling of champagne, will be strategically seated at courtside Friday, making LeBron the second-most loved athlete in the house … if Derek Jeter shows up. 
Then there’s C.C. Sabathia, big basketball fan and friend of LeBron’s from when Sabathia played in Cleveland; he left for New York and scored an instant jackpot, both with money and a ring. The video screen will constantly show their faces and they’ll get a standing ovation, all designed to show LeBron what it’s like to be a champion in New York. And the fans, no doubt, will chime in, cheering LeBron at warmups (like, who else will they cheer this year?), gushing whenever he does something spectacular and chanting “MVP,” as they did last year, when he dropped 52 on the Knicks.
All this will play to LeBron’s ego and convince him that a star of his magnitude needs to be in New York. That theory, by the way, is obsolete. Maybe 20-25 years ago, a star could receive better perks in New York, as Reggie Jackson did when he left the small market A’s. But with the global media and advertising of today, that’s not really necessary. LeBron blew up commercially without ever leaving Cleveland, and that will continue to be the case if he stays in Cleveland.
Obviously, the big factor for LeBron is collecting championships and whether his best chance is in Cleveland with a Cavs’ team that’s probably third-best behind Boston and Orlando and lacks a starry supporting cast, or a Knicks team being furiously stripped and rebuilt on the fly. The Knicks hope it also comes down to the stars and whether LeBron wants to hang with his buddy Jay-Z after the game, or retire to his palatial pad in Cleveland and call it a night.
Recently our 2008 eight-medal winning Olympic swimming champion smoked pot for the first time at a Michigan hotel. His reaction was a bit boisterous – the stoned Phelps broke all the televisions in his room, but later bought exact replicas so he could replace them before anybody at the hotel was the wiser. But we have to forgive Mr. Phelps since he’s been in training for most of his 23 years and this is the first time he has let loose.
Last week the still very, very sexy Susan Sarandon had her first face-lift. Susan is the mother of the statuesque and stunning 23 year old Eva Amurri.
It started early when Governor Spitzer of New York was identified as 
The year also started with a no drama Obama campaign and came full circle with an all drama Rahm Emanuel for Obama’s White House Chief-of-Staff. Rahm gets the job done and that’s huge. It will be good to have a little ‘safe’ drama in the White House. It’s only fair since Obama doesn’t give the late shows and comedians food for fodder – Rahm will.
You take a driver who, while attempting to pull out of a parking space, mistakes “forward” for “reverse,” then, in an effort to correct this error, mistakes the accelerator for the brake and sends his car lunging across a sidewalk and into a diner whilst attaining a speed of 40 mph by the time it rams into the salad bar and car and driver are saturated by carafes of salad dressing. 
Florida seems to attract inferior drivers like a magnet.
Olbermann: Those Who Live In Ice Igloos Shouldn’t Throw Lipstick
Posted by Paulette on October 7, 2008
I hope all you Obama supporters are smart enough to see that this is a good Kenyan witch doctor preacher praying over Sarah – the Bible states that in the ‘end-times’ all roads will lead to Alaska because you will be able to see hell (Russia) from Alaska and pergatory (Afghanistan) is a neighbor of Alaska. Rolling my eyes.
Obama supporters are just too blind to see the truth and too sophisticated to understand about witches!
Posted in Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, Elections, International, John McCain, McCain, News, Politics, Presidential Debates, Republicans, Thoughts, Women | Tagged: Keith Olbermann Special Comments, Kenya, Palin, Witch Doctor | 2 Comments »