Our Candidates on the Economy

Due to the four videos, I'll probably post a new thread fairly quickly. If the time to load up the page is bad, just let us know.

"They're keeping a list of foreclosed homes...suggesting that if you lost your home you've lost your right to vote."

From Biden's speech. Also, that sounds like...caging, right?

(This is from Michigan where Biden is speaking.)

Link to Biden's speech (transcript).

I especially love this line:

What about the people who don't invest in homes, but live in them? There's an important distinction between the predators and the preyed upon.

This is exactly the key. McCain/Palin are predators. They prey off you and will make money or full fill their ideology for their own pleasure instead of your well-being. We are the preyed upon.

And this section is very important:

It bothers me that -- as one media watchdog put it -- John's recent commercial is the, "latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the facts." As another news organization put it: The wheels have come off the straight talk express.

But what really bothers me, is that every punch thrown at us --- is an attempt to distract you. And they can be plenty distracting.

Like the McCain advertisements that misrepresent a vote by Barack Obama to protect young children from sexual predators. Like Senator McCain's effort to obscure the fact that Barack Obama's tax cuts will benefit 95 percent of all working people. Like John McCain's attempt to cloak himself in reform by misrepresenting his running mate's record.

It's disappointing to me to think that John McCain really does approve this message.

Every false debate we're drawn into is a real conversation we don't have with the American people. Character attacks get media attention, but they make this election about us when it really needs to be about you.

Barack Obama believes that progress in this country is measured by how many people have a decent job where they're shown respect. How many people can pay their mortgage. How many people can turn their ideas into a new business. How many people can turn to their kids and say "It's going to be okay" with the knowledge that the opportunities they give will be better than the ones they received.

That's the American dream. That's what the people in my neighborhood grew up believing. And I want our kids to have the same dream.

Barack Obama starts from that vision of progress and will do what it takes to get us there.

That's why his tax cuts - benefit the middle class. That's why he'll make it easier for families to afford college for their kids. That's why he says everyone should be able to have the same health care that members of Congress have. That's why his energy plan will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, bring down gas prices, and, in the process, we'll create five million new green jobs. Those are the changes we need.

Yes, this campaign is about change, but it's about even more than that. It's about what we value as a people. It's not just about a job, it's about dignity. It's not just about a paycheck. It's about pride. It's not just about opportunity. It's about respect. That's why Barack and I are in this race.

We know we need change if we're to restore dignity, pride, and respect. We know America's best days are ahead of us, and we know why we're here.

We're here for the for the cops and firefighters, the teachers and assembly line workers, the engineers and office workers, the small business owners and the retiree.

All of the folks who play by the rules, work hard, and do what is asked of them. They deserve a government as good and an economy as strong as they are.

We're all are Americans. There has never been a challenge too great. The stakes have never been higher.

It is that vision that we need to remember when we get bogged down in Palin-itus. (Palin-itus is the list of abuses of power and lies she tells.)

Obama's vision is closer to my vision--even if not 100% there. The fact is that too many people I know are losing their jobs, their homes, going bankrupt, and this trend MUST STOP.

McCain/Palin will not stop the trend. And we need to make sure people see that the vision of the American Dream is the same dream Obama has and that McBush/Palin don't have.

Regarding Palin -

MSNBC ran a one-hour special in glowing admiration of her Saturday night, painting her as a fighter and a reformer.

My father has been completely sold, and has forbidden me from criticizing her. He repeatedly stated that her speech at the RNC proved her ability to persuade the nation.

Good thing I am 6000 miles away from him now. Nobody stops me from saying the truth about Palin, McCain, W, or their benefactors right here in South Korea.

Also, my father asks me that I stay in Seoul for a long time - at least until after the election. He says that I need to take time off of the US politics.

Pure baloney. He doesn't want me to vote, so that he can get McCain-Palin in the White House, and get California's teen abortion ban and gay marriage re-ban passed.

I will do everything to stop the South Korean government and conservative/Christian movements from influencing American politics more than they have already done. But it's all toothless if I can't vote.

Is Wall Street meltdown moment of truth in White House race?

It took a real-world crisis to wrench the White House race away from lipstick and pigs, with the Wall Street meltdown offering a sudden chance of a breakout moment for Barack Obama or John McCain. ADVERTISEMENT

After feuding all year over who could best handle a "3 am" call in the White House, the candidates faced a real judgment call when iconic investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, sparking global stocks contagion.

Multiple polls show the staggering US economy is the number one issue 49 days before election day, but also reveal Democrat Obama and Republican McCain have yet to convince a majority of voters they know how to fix it.

snip

Both McCain and Obama went in search of that message Monday, courting voters who fear seeing their pension funds evaporate in the stocks freefall amid warnings other revered US financial instutitions were on the rocks.

snip

Obama Monday immediately blamed eight years of Republican rule for the crisis, and predicted McCain would bring four more years of the same.

His Republican rival promised a regulatory reform drive in Wall Street, and said Obama would hike taxes and thwart economic growth.

But the Arizona Senator, ...declaring in Florida that the fundamentals of the economy were "strong."

"Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?" Obama asked at a campaign event in Colorado, as his supporters immediately branded McCain as out of touch and the inheritor to the Bush administration's economic legacy.

snip

Republicans have controlled the US purse strings for eight years, the unemployment rate is at a five-year high of 6.1 percent, gasoline and food prices are soaring and house prices are tumbling.

Voice: Today many women work to help support their families but are paid just 77 cents to the dollar a man makes.

It’s one more thing John McCain doesn’t get about our economy. He opposed a law to guarantee women equal pay for equal work, calling it too great a burden on business.

McCain explains away the wage gap, saying women just need more education and training. A burden on business? How about the burden on our families?

snip

The Overnight News Digest is posted and includes the McClatchy story, Wall Street crisis is culmination of 28 years of deregulation.

~~~

DailyKos Meteor Blades

Yesterday, Matthew Carnicelli said:
This election truly is a test of what America is made of.

That statement had me thinking all day.

Hasn't the last 8 years shown in no uncertain terms what America is made of?

This election appears at the moment to be nothing more than what we've seen since 2001, and shows absolutely no signs of deviating from that path.

It's unfathomable to me that there hasn't been massive repudiation of what has taken place, and you can point fingers in a million directions, but the inability to mount any type of sustaibable opposition to what is CLEARLY horrible policy, or the refusal of the electorate to hold anyone even the slightest bit accountable, does indeed show what America is made of.

My hopes that this nation would show otherwise in this election cycle are gone... vanished, dust, vapor, nada, zip, zilch, kaput.

We suck.

Monkey, the difference is that our economic house of cards is now collapsing.

It's one thing to buy into spin and misinformation, or to look the other way when bad people do bad things, when your economic house is in order. It's not ethical or even patriotic IMHO - but it's understandable. Other people in other countries have done it over the centuries.

To buy into it after the crooks, adventurers, and authoritarians have utterly wrecked the foundations of the economy, putting your home, your job, and your economic security in dire peril, is simply suicidal.

As I mentioned yesterday, I don't fear McCain the way that I feared Dubya - because I think McCain is ultimately weak. I don’t care what he did in Vietnam – that was a LONG time ago. When faced with overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate in 2009, McCain will play ball. He may be willing to run one of least credible campaigns in American history, a campaign virtually devoid of intellectually honest rhetoric, but he gets what governing is about. And I continue to believe, in his heart of hearts, that he also gets what America is supposed to be about. He just can't sell it, especially in the Republican Party. And he knows it.

A democracy is only as strong as its electorate is conscious. The time for a tidal wave of recognition is now. Because in the universe that I believe in, the best to way to avoid unnecessary pain is to begin recognizing and responding to the challenges around you; and the best way to bring on a world of hurt is to remain numb, with your head buried beneath the ground, or beneath a mountain of religious or political indoctrination.
Everything evolves. Germs, plants, animals, human beings, cultures, nations - literally everything born or created on this earth. Everything. It's time for American politics to evolve towards a higher, more conscious, level of functioning.

McCain may "play ball", but when he blows his stack one day and decides to "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran", overwhelming majorities in the House won't mean squat.

I had hoped for a season of reason, but instead it's soap on a rope.

Actually, if McCain bombed Iran without Congressional Authorization, he would almost assuredly face impeachment.

Dubya actually had an authorization - a blank check, in fact. The key here is making clear to McCain that the Constitution will be followed.

Iran is not a serious threat to the domestic United States. And if anyone "post-Dubya" bombs Iran, it will be Israel. Israel has much more to fear from a nuclear Iran than does the US.

If this economic meltdown continues, the US will be in no position to fight anyone else's battles, or alienate any petroleum suppliers.

Op-Ed Columnist
Why Experience Matters
By DAVID BROOKS

Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.

The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.

There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html

Seems to me years ago there were several on the Kerry Blog pointing to the fact that "bombing Iran" was on the Bush/Cheney Neocon agenda...those who insisted this was true were labeled heretics and fools...now everyone seems to be getting on the band wagon...

And before anyone denies a "fear of McCain" let's just think for a moment...

George W. "I wanna be a cowboy, Baby!" Bush is dumber than a rock and could not think his way out of a paper bag...it is the machine behind the moron. Remember the Wizard of Oz?!?! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."

So if the same (or similar in ideology and agenda) machine...or as I like to put it...puppeteer's hand up the sphincter...are handling McCain, we can be assured of the absolute destruction of the United States as a world superpower for generations to come.

But wait! There's more...keep your eyes to the East...as in Far East...Japan is not so far behind. My woman from Tokyo is going to have to turn to the world's oldest profession just to keep rice on the table because her financial markets are crumbling along with our own.

I hope everyone has bought their copy of Rosetta Stone - Learning Mandarin Chinese.

Aregato, wakare mashte.

And now for a little musical interlude on topic...

Beach Boys - Bomb Iran Lyrics

Ah, ba ba bomb, bomb Bomb Iran!
Ba ba bomb, bomb Bomb Iran!

Oh Bomb Iran, Its a fine Plan
Bomb Iran
You got me rockin' and a-rollin'
Rockin' and a-reelin'
Bomb Iran ba ba
Bomb Bomb Iran!

Went to a Iraq, lookin' for some Peace
Problems with Iran, so I thought I'd take a Lease
Yeah! Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran
Its a fine Plan
You got me rockin' and a-rollin'
(Oh! Oh!)
Rockin' and a-reelin'
Bomb Iran ba ba
Ba ba ba bomb slack sheep

Ba ba ba bomb Bomb Iran
Ba ba ba bomb Bomb Iran!

Bomb Iran, Its a fine Plan
Bomb Iran
You got me rockin' and a-rollin'
Rockin' and a-reelin'
Bomb Iran ba ba
Ba Bomb Iran

Tried some talkin'
Tried more talkin'
Asked Ms. Malkin
But I knew I'd be walkin'
Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran
Its a fine Plan
Bomb Iran
Its a fine Plan
You got me rockin' and a-rollin'
Rockin' and a-reelin'
Bomb Iran ba ba
Ba Bomb Iran!

Ba ba ba bomb Bomb Iran
Ba ba ba bomb Iran
Bomb Iran
Its a fine Plan
Bomb Iran
You got me rockin' and a-rollin'
Rockin' and a-reelin'
Bomb Iran ba ba
Ba Bomb Iran

Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran
Oh, Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran
Yeah, Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran
Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran
You got me rockin' and a-rollin'
Rockin' and a-reelin'
Bomb Iran ba ba
Ba Bomb Iran NOW!

In my email:

Attention Students, Staff and Community Members:

Recently the college has experienced a surge in local organizations attempting to register voters. At the same time, we have also been warned that certain groups may be fraudulent. No group has been authorized by the college to register voters on college property with the exception of the approved tables by the bookstore. As of this week, to insure that we are not exposed to fraudulent organizations, only Student Development and Activities and associated student clubs and organizations will be permitted to register voters on campus. Students who wish to register to vote may do so in the Student Activities office during business hours

Thank you!