2008 Elections // Current

California Supreme Court to Reconsider Proposition 8, the Amendment Which Banned Gay Marriage

I believe that one day, Americans will see gay rights like they now see minority rights, women's rights, and the rights of... more

sunkisthappy
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A letter to the losers - CNN.com

Congratulations to all the team players, the winners and nonwinners who fought gallantly until the end. Take it from an old-timer... more

ESKCSG
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Now That Obama Has Won . . . There is No Excuse

Now that a Democrat has been elected president, the Democrats in Congress have no excuse. They can no longer pretend that they... more

maasanova
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Here's a little flashback from about a week and a half ago.

*******

As the McCain-Palin ticket heads for what looks like a blow-out defeat of historic proportions - the polling now shows even Republicans defecting from the GOP ticket and thus a double-digit lead for Barack Obama and huge, unprecedented early voting numbers - here is a prediction: the biggest fireworks of this campaign are going to come after the election.

And the two sides going after each other will be John McCain and his (few remaining) supporters, especially his alter ego/surrogate son/ Chief of Staff Mark Salter - versus Sarah Palin and her husband and any GOP leaders who remain allied with her in hopes of a 2012 candidacy.

At the heart of this conflict will be The Blame Game - who will get tarred with running one of the worst campaigns in modern political history.

In the case of this impending GOP Debacle on November 4th, several factors come into play:

• McCain will still be a Senator. He will want to resuscitate his reputation inside the Beltway. He will have to grovel to the very media types he has recently snubbed - like Time’s Joe Klein and MSNBC’s Chris Mathews - and he will throw Sarah Palin to the wolves and cast all the blame on her - and some on Bush, too.

• His private internal campaign polls now show the same thing that the NBC/WSJ poll showed two days ago: Palin has hurt the GOP ticket even more than Bush has - a remarkable achievement.

• Yes, she solidified and electrified a slice of the GOP Right, but she cost him invaluable independents, moderates and conservative Democrats. In other words, she lost McCain more votes than she brought to his ticket.

• McCain already knows he made a monumental mistake in picking her. And he must be embarrassed over this decision. But he has to soldier on through November 4th - and seem as if he is proud of her and his decision to pick her.

• NBC’s Chuck Todd was at the NBC interview yesterday in Dayton conducted by Brian Williams where McCain and Palin sat side by side - and then NBC was allowed a few minutes alone with just the Alaskan Governor. Todd felt “tension” between the two candidates - as if the Blame Game had already begun in private.

Here's a little flashback from about a week and a half ago. ******* As the McCain-Palin ticket heads for what looks... more

maasanova
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5 responses

2 months ago

Feel The Love

Just a fragment of the whole but it literally speaks volumes. Barack Obama is in touch with the American people and their needs.... more

JuliusBC
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1 response

2 months ago

Commentary: Republicans summon ugly old ghosts

This is an autumn of great discontent as not just the United States, but the entire world trembles on the brink of an economic recession that may bring the kind of pain that's known only to the oldest among us.

With days to go before Election Day, the nation watches as a presidential candidate and his political party unravel, frantically dragging every ugly ghost out of the closet in an attempt not only to fool everyone, but also to scare everyone.

They appeal to the worst remnants of racism that cling like kudzu to a dying magnolia. Their robot phone dialers intrude on millions of uneasy citizens with messages of hate and fear and envy and greed.

They try to paper their opponent with guilt by association: He associated with a man who, decades before they ever met, belonged to a group of wild-eyed student revolutionaries.

They and their forces of darkness falsely claim that he's a Muslim at the same time they attack him for belonging to a Christian church whose black minister aimed angry sermons at white America.

They have presided for the last eight years over a stunning redistribution of wealth: They've turned Robin Hood upside down, taking from the poor and the middle class and giving to the very rich.

Yet they tar their opponent for daring to suggest that it's time to turn the tables and redirect some of that wealth to those who are jobless, homeless and hopeless, and to the millions of other hard-working Americans who are likely to join those growing ranks in the months and years to come.

They call him a socialist for embracing a principle that's rooted deeply in the teachings of the Christianity that they wear on their sleeves but cannot find room for in their hearts.

They promise to "correct the mistakes" of their own president, their own members of Congress, their own appointed overseers and regulators, if only we give them another chance.

They promise to punish the Wall Street tycoons and the big bankers who in their greed built this house of cards that's crashing down onto Main Street. Yes they will. Surely they will smite the robber barons who brushed a few crumbs from their groaning tables of riches into the laps of the very people who now vow to punish their benefactors of great wealth.

This is an autumn of great discontent as not just the United States, but the entire world trembles on the brink of an economic... more

wlwatkins
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2 months ago

WSJ: Barack Wrote a Letter . . .

The Born supremacy, and other meltdown myths.

At the October 7 Presidential debate, John McCain said that Barack Obama had encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make risky loans, and that Mr. Obama was the second largest recipient of campaign cash from the government mortgage giants.
[Review & Outlook] AP

Mr. Obama replied that he "never promoted Fannie Mae" and that "two years ago I said that we've got a subprime lending crisis that has to be dealt with." And that's not all. "I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it," said the Illinois Senator.

There's more. Mr. Obama's March 2007 letter included a stirring call to "assess options" and boldly suggested that the two men "facilitate a serious conversation" about housing. He was even brave enough to suggest that "the relevant private sector entities and regulators" might be able to provide "targeted responses." Then in paragraph four, the Harvard-trained lawyer dropped his bombshell: a suggestion that various interest groups get together to "consider" best practices in mortgage lending.

Some may find it hard to believe that Mr. Obama had nothing to show for this herculean effort to shake up Washington. They may be shocked as well that such passionate language didn't move the Fed and Treasury to action. For our part, we note that nowhere in his letter did Mr. Obama suggest that the government should stop subsidizing loans to people who can't repay them.

This is the latest fad among Beltway liberals who spent years encouraging noneconomic mortgage loans. They now proudly announce that at critical moments they issued a press release, or wrote someone, suggesting that somebody do something. Since soured mortgage loans are a root cause of this panic, and since Democrats did so much to encourage mortgage lending, the most politically useful of these archived warnings are the ones blaming something other than housing.

For example, recent media reports have lauded the prescience of Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who has long called for increased regulation of financial derivatives. Not that this says much about derivatives. Mr. Markey has also called for increased regulation of the Internet, cable TV, telephones, prescription drugs, nuclear plants, natural gas facilities, oil drilling, air cargo containers, chlorine, carbon dioxide, accounting, advertising and amusement parks, among other things.

But derivatives are the irresistible story now, because they offer the opportunity to shift the blame from bad housing policy, and they suggest that a lack of financial regulation was the problem. While lauding Mr. Markey, the media also cast Brooksley Born, Bill Clinton's Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as the ultimate heroine in this drama. Like Horatio at the bridge, she tried to regulate the derivatives market over the objections of such dummies as Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, SEC chief Arthur Levitt, and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

cont...The Born supremacy, and other meltdown myths. At the October 7 Presidential debate, John McCain said that Barack Obama had... more

wlwatkins
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2 months ago

McCain vow to ‘fool pundits’ / Wake up Mac=Obama an average poll lead of 7.2 percent

John McCain on Tuesday insisted that opinion polls showing his impending defeat were wrong and that he would “fool the pundits” next Tuesday, even as a new survey of early voters showed him trailing Barack Obama by a large margin.

The evidence to bolster Mr Obama’s strong prospects came in a poll by Pew Research that gave the Democratic nominee a 53 per cent to 34 per cent lead over his Republican rival among those who have already voted.

Many Americans have taken advantage of early voting, including a million each in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, according to CNN.

US elections: Median wages stagnated during the Bush years while top earners piled up the cash. Those feeling the pinch will go to the ballot box in a disgruntled mood, writes Edward Luce

They may have been influenced by Mr Obama continuing to heavily outspend his opponent on the airwaves. Today the Obama campaign will take an unprecedented 30-minute prime-time slot on leading network television channels in a multi-million dollar pitch at voters. The advertisement will also run on Univision, the leading Spanish-language channel.

“Not since Ross Perot ran for president [in 1992 and 1996] have we seen a candidate make the claim that audiences are willing to listen to a candidate for 30 minutes,” said Rita Kirk, a professor of public affairs at the Southern Methodist University. “In an election where voters have shunned negative campaign tactics, we might anticipate this is Obama’s opportunity to rise above the fray and stake a claim for why he is the right leader for our time.”

Mr Obama is this week campaigning in states that George W. Bush won in 2004, including Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, where polls give him a better than even chance of winning.

The Pew poll also showed Mr Obama with a 15 percentage point lead among likely voters, with Mr McCain having a statistically significant advantage only among white evangelical Protestants. It found a far higher level of enthusiasm among Obama voters, with 74 per cent indicating “strong” support against 56 per cent for Mr McCain.

Political analysts continued to search for scenarios that could upset conventional wisdom and deliver a shock McCain victory. But most people, including a majority of the Republican’s supporters according to one poll on Tuesday, now expect Mr Obama to win.

To counter fears of complacency among its supporters the Obama campaign, which is planning a grand finale on Tuesday in Chicago’s Grant Park, continues to spend heavily on its get-out-the-vote operations in swing states.

Yet RealClearPolitics, a politics website, gives Mr Obama an average poll lead of 7.2 per cent, which would deliver between 306 and 375 electoral votes – far more than the 270 needed to win.

cont...John McCain on Tuesday insisted that opinion polls showing his impending defeat were wrong and that he would “fool the... more

wlwatkins
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1 response

2 months ago

Bad Blood Smack Down Is The Ticket In Trouble?

Most recently, Sarah Palin has been tagged as becoming a rogue diva by the republican campaign. The RNC is greatly troubled over... more

JuliusBC
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1 response

2 months ago

Evolution McCain Style

Nothing to say that hasn't already been said on this.

JuliusBC
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1 response

2 months ago

Why Should They Care

This is the most vital election in America's history. There are so many things that hang in the balance. The significance goes much deeper than some of the personal issues that so many quibble over. It is not about whether you are a republican or a democrat. Right now the entire world is holding their breath as to the outcome of what we do in this election. There is an extreme build up of energy and tension that is soon to be set free on a global scale. The direction this energy will take us (the human race) is why this election is so important. So many things are intertwined across the globe in such a way that we are no longer impacting only our selves with our choices.

We have two choices in candidates to pick from. They both have distinct differences in their perceptions, desires, and focus of purpose. McCain is of the nature to war first and use diplomacy second; just look at his and Sarah Palin’s response to the attack on Georgia. If we would have attacked Russia as they had implied that we should, Palin would have seen missiles rather than Putin’s head launched over her 40 mile stretch of Bering Strait into Alaska. War mongering is not the mentality we want to continue to spew into the world as a nation.

Diplomacy is extremely vital at this point in the journey of humankind as world tensions are mounting. Barack Obama is of the nature to use diplomacy first and then use military force as a last resort. This is not a weakness as some would like to imply. Look back at President Kennedy’s response to the Cuban missile crisis. If McCain and Palin would have been in power at that time, just imagine how different the world would be now! Please note that Obama will not hesitate to use military force if the situation is warranted.

The rest of the world recognizes these distinct differences between Obama and McCain. It is time for more Americans to see this difference as well. There are an increasing number of staunch republican politicians voicing their support for Barack Obama such as Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, and Chris Buckley. They are realizing that this country needs a change and it is not the one that McCain and Palin will bring. They will bring a change but let’s not go there. Vote Barack Obama and Joe Biden into office and the bulk of the world community will get behind us in making the world a safer, greener, and more stable place. Our economy and the rest of the world economies will once again become stable as well.
Peace
This is the most vital election in America's history. There are so many things that hang in the balance. The significance... more

JuliusBC
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31 responses

2 months ago

Campaigning for Liberty

Wes Upchurch, the Libertarian candidate for the office of secretary of state in Missouri, and Carl Werner, the Missouri state... more

jnmb8c
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0 responses

3 months ago

NC Early Voters Heckled by McCain Supporters, Tires Slashed

Early voters in North Carolina, most of whom were black, were heckled and mocked by McCain supporters as they their cast their... more

ESKCSG
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0 responses

3 months ago

Eating Their Own

First I must say; Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is one class act.
I have always admired him as an outstanding American and political leader. When he finally sided with Bush on the Iraq war I was greatly disappointed. His shine and luster for me took a nose dive. As time passed, it seemed he became aware of how he had been duped. George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their Gestapo cronies were literally causing a form of metastasizing of the Constitution and our great nation. At that point he decided to step down as his integrity finally got the best of him. I hated to see him go; however, I felt extreme admiration for Colin when he could no longer align or associate himself with the Bush Regime.

As many of you probably know by now, Colin Powell has finally decided to endorse Barack Obama. The following link is of his endorsement and his reasoning as to why he chose him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NMZv6Vfh8

He has taken a fair length of time to do his vetting on both candidates. In spite of his lengthy, 20+ year friendship and association with John McCain, Colin Powell has opted to side with Barack Obama and endorse him to be the most promising candidate for President of the United States. This literally speaks volumes and as a nation the choice should now be clear. Colin Powell has a tremendous list of credentials backing him with regards to his service for the United States. For a quick reference to his credentials, follow this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell.

The SS FAUX NEWS (Fox News) and Rush "Pumpkin Head" Limbaugh otherwise known as the God Owful Party’s (GOP) propaganda machines are already gearing up for the smearing and malignment of Colin Powell’s character and reputation.
Rush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFcEWgeixco
Fox: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHkCZ4VigNA

Talk about eating their own. The Republican Party will soon unleash an ongoing feast upon the flesh and bones of Colin Powell. Stay tuned. Let the republican show begin.
Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK1NfnNSn0c
First I must say; Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is one class act. I have always admired him as an outstanding American... more

JuliusBC
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13 responses

3 months ago

Rolling Stone: It's Already Stolen

when everyone is worried about ACORN because of the RNC and McCain/Palin, the REAL story tearing our democracy a new one is under... more

marfawkah02
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15 responses

3 months ago

Most Inbred McCain/Palin Supporters Voice Why

“I’m afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over. He’s not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is... more

ESKCSG
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1 response

3 months ago

10 common sense questions that should be asked during tonight's presidential debate

Each time the debates come up, be they presidential or vice presidential, it seems like they lack more pointed questions and most certainly pointed answers. Is it because they are afraid of tying themselves to a promise they can't deliver? Because saying something you can't twist later on is just against the code of politicians? More likely the latter. It's easy to notice.

A second problem arises, though, and that's the spin that is put on some of both the questions and answers given. The following are ten questions that, given direct answers, would shed great amounts of light on the person behind the answer.

1. Why are you so willing to tie our “dependence on foreign oil” to terrorism? Agreed, some of the oil sold to us by outside countries may help fund terrorism, however, it's pretty well known that most of our foreign oil comes from South America. In fact, why are we still tying Iraq to terrorism?

2 Most people who are voting probably have access to the internet at some point. The health care issue is always discussed in the most vague manner possible and most often from a tax standpoint. What exactly is your plan for healthcare? Why isn't it posted online somewhere? No. Blogs don't count.

3. We never should have been in Iraq to begin with. Their government is not much closer now to solidarity than they were 4 years ago. It takes police and military members in this country 2-3 months to train, with maybe a 6 month schooling afterwards. At this rate, we could have trained about 8 million Iraqis by now. Why are we still there?

4. President Bush has in many ways, by both legal and moral standards, rewritten a large part of our constitution. Would you change it back? A good example of this is wire tapping. Yes, the President did come up with a judiciary committee to oversee his actions, but there should be no need for a special committee made up of his friends or people he owes. We already have judges for this.

5. What is it about Israel? Why is it even an issue and why do we spend so much money on protecting them?

6. Why do we focus so much on drilling offshore when the focus should be on geothermal, wind, solar and other natural and renewable/sustainable energy sources? Drilling offshore will take a decade to produce a drop of oil. In that same decade, numerous people have laid out plans that you can find here: http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/287/, which will help us be independent as well as getting us weened off of oil and oil products.

7. This is an age old question that has been beat to death, but it needs to be asked: Why are both marijuana and hemp still illegal? Obviously the laws are completely outdated concerning these things and in fact hinder the production of something that could help our farmers out a great deal. What's the hold up?

8. Given the recent economic issues, in conjunction with 95 years of a bad banking platform, isn't it time we started backing our money up with something of value so we actually know how much we have? Printing it out of thin air just seems like a bad idea. And shouldn't the government be printing it themselves?

9. Why can't gay people just get married? Really. What's the big deal? We allow religious zealots to get away with tax evasion, hate crimes and tons of other things because they subscribe to some fairytale. Why can't two people who happen to be in love and the same sex be as miserable as straight people?

10. If you were elected president, would you then be able to answer questions in a pointed, open and honest answer? You couldn't possibly sound any worse than the guy who's running things now.
Each time the debates come up, be they presidential or vice presidential, it seems like they lack more pointed questions and most... more