SC Southpaw

Only City Council Would Consider This a Good Deal

2009-06-23T11:58:00.004-04:00

Property downtown regularly trades for up to $50 a square foot. Assuming a conservative price of $30 per square foot, this property is worth $7.68 million. Personally, I think the sat is probably worth closer to $50 a foot or $12.3 million. SCE&G is on the hook for the environmental liability so unless I did my math wrong, we just gave away $3.68 million - at least. The reason for this - we need the cash today.

SCE&G-Columbia deal good news for buses - Local / Metro - The State

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Gov. Sanford at Naked Hiking Day?

2009-06-23T11:35:00.000-04:00

Sanford disappears to hike Appalachian Trail (on Naked Hiking Day)
By Jimmy Orr 06.23.09

We’re not suggesting that the formerly missing Governor of South Carolina specifically ditched his family and security detail to go hiking on Naked Hiking Day. But that’s what he ended up doing.

Until late yesterday, no one would say publicly where he was. Poof. He just disappeared.
The story started to resemble a John Grisham novel. A southern conservative governor and very vocal critic of a popular liberal president eluded his security detail and completely disappeared with his last known whereabouts — before he (or someone) turned off his cell phones — somewhere outside of Atlanta.

Staff was silent. Some were talking about succession plans. The First Lady though said she wasn’t concerned. “He was writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids,” she said.

But many wondered aloud how this traditional, family-loving, Republican governor of a southern state could miss Fathers Day. After all he’s got four children! Was something sinister in the air?

Then it took a Farrelly brothers screenplay type of twist. Sanford had not disappeared. According to his spokesman, he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Coincidentally, on Naked Hiking Day.

It’s a big tradition. Many hikers celebrate the summer solstice by hiking au naturel. It just so happened the solstice occurred on Fathers Day — one of the days Sanford was hiking.
Late last night his spokesman, Joel Sawyer expressed remorse for not divulging details earlier.
“The governor is hiking along the Appalachian Trail,” Sawyer said. “I apologize for taking so long to send this update, and was waiting to see if a more definitive idea of what part of the Trail he was on before we did so.”

If he did participate in the summer solstice celebration (which we acknowledge is not likely), he could get into some real trouble. Rangers and police warn that people caught outdoors in the altogether could be charged with indecent exposure. Managers of the Appalachian Trail, where the tradition is sometimes observed by those trekking from Georgia to Maine, also discourage nudity.

“It’s just rude,” said Brian King, spokesman for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. “People are out there hiking with their kids and families, and there are Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.”

When will Sanford re-emerge? His spokesman gave no details.

“We knew he would be difficult to reach, and that he would be checking in infrequently. Given the media attention this has generated, we’ll obviously update you once we have some more specifics to pass along,” Sawyer said.

“He’s an avid outdoorsman,” Sawyer added. “Nobody’s ever accused our governor of being conventional.”

I Wear My Hat Backwards

2009-04-30T12:32:00.004-04:00

I am not sure how we got so fortunate to have Michael Steele become the head of the RNC but he is almost a good as Biden at saying stupid stuff. Fortunately, he plays for them and not us.

Fed Fights a Record Global Bank Run (From Barron's)

2009-04-29T08:39:00.002-04:00

I know bailing out the banks is very unpopular but as the data from the 4th Q 2008 is beginning to show, it was necessary. Had we not done it we would be well on the way to a second Great Depression.

By RANDALL W. FORSYTH
New data show authorities' response was equal to the crisis -- unlike in the 1930s.

THE FEDERAL RESERVE has been roundly castigated in some quarters -- even former high officials of the central bank -- for its aggressive and unprecedented steps to combat the credit crisis.

But data just released by the Bank for International Settlements suggest that, if anything, the expansionary measures taken by the Fed (and in concert with the Treasury) were dwarfed by the record contraction in the global banking system brought on by the crisis.

According to the BIS, which acts as a central bank for central banks, total bank claims shrank by $1.8 trillion in the fourth quarter, or 5.4%, to $31 trillion. This was the largest decline ever recorded.

In other words, there never was a global run on the banking system such as the one seen in the final three months of 2008, which followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the near-collapse of American International Group (ticker: AIG) in September. The numbers serve to confirm the extent of the tsunami the swept through the world's financial system.

As the balance sheets of the global banking system threatened to shrink like a dying star and create an economic black hole that could suck in the world's economy, central banks and treasuries around the world responded in kind.

In the U.S., the Fed doubled the size of its balance sheet, to about $2 trillion from $900 billion in the fourth quarter, and is in the process of adding another $1.15 trillion to its assets through the purchase of Treasury and U.S. agency obligations and mortgage-backed securities. Meanwhile, the federal government established the Troubled Asset Relief Program to pump $700 billion into the banking system.

Meanwhile, authorities abroad have established similar programs, notably in the U.K. Central banks from Japan to Canada have embarked on similar "quantitative easing" plans, effectively printing money to offset the credit contraction that has taken place in unprecedented proportion.
Unlike in the 1930s, when central banks actually aided and abetted the collapse of the banking system, today's leaders responded to the unprecedented crisis in the fourth quarter with equally unprecedented force.

Yet, Fed officials find themselves uncharacteristically on the defensive for their actions, even from former, highly respected officials of the central bank. As with former presidents, retired Fed officials generally have followed the protocol of not criticizing their successors.

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who saw through the fight against inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s against fierce opposition from all quarters, has not been so reticent of late. While he kept mum during the term of his direct successor, Alan Greenspan, he has taken to task the Bernanke Fed, as well as the Treasury, for their aggressive counter-attacks against the credit crisis.

"I don't think the political system will tolerate the degree of activity that the Federal Reserve, in conjunction with the Treasury, has taken," Volcker said a symposium on monetary policy in Nashville, Tenn., last week.

Similarly, Bloomberg News quoted William Poole, the monetarist former president of the St. Louis Fed, as complaining that the central bank's actions threaten inflation. Fed officials are "dramatically underplaying the risks and the liability side of the balance sheet," said the economist who now is a consultant to an investment group.

Yet, the effects of the shrinkage of the private banking system's balance sheet are unequivocally evident. It's now history that fourth-quarter gross domestic product shriveled at a 6.3% annual rate. What's become apparent is that the real output of the finance industry shrank last year at nearly twice the previous record rate of decline, according to JP Morgan Chase (JPM) economist Michael Feroli.

Real output in the finance industry fell 3.0% in 2008, compared to the previous record of a 1.6% decline in 1958. Because finance looms much larger in the economy, last year's contraction shaved a hefty 0.24% from GDP, compared to just 0.05% in 1958.

From 1997 to 2000, finance typically kicked about 0.5 percentage points to GDP growth, Feroli notes. In 2008, only construction and manufacturing detracted as much or more than finance from GDP, 0.24% and 0.32%, respectively.

Construction and manufacturing are directly affected by the collapse in credit, so the financial travails extend far beyond Wall Street. Now, however, policy makers are accused of being too solicitous of Wall Street.

To be sure, banks, including the I-banks, have benefited from the actions of the Fed and the Treasury. But that is separate from the question of the macroeconomic impact of their actions.
Those who contend that the expansion of central bank balance sheets is inflationary ignore the contraction of balance sheets in the banking system, as well as the so-called shadow banking system of assets and liabilities not recorded on banks' books.

This analysis is very different from arguments that appeal to the "output gap," the difference between the economy's potential output and actual production. That analysis effectively says that high unemployment will hold down wages and prices, which manifestly did not happen in the staflationary 'Seventies.

Inflation, as Milton Friedman taught, is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Yet the current central-bank expansion is offsetting the contraction in the banking system -- which Friedman criticized the Fed for failing to do in the 1930s.

The new BIS data bear out the justification for the Fed's actions, notwithstanding the critics' claims.

More Evidence of Bush Administration Corruption

2009-04-20T12:45:00.003-04:00

There continue to be a trickle of these stories coming out. (DOJ dropping case against Sen. Stevens). I think in time we will collectively view the Bush administration as corrupt as the Nixon administration. It looks like DOJ was the nexus of lots of the problem (just like Nixon).

Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC
By Jeff Stein, CQ SpyTalk Columnist

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.
Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman.

“These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact,” Harman said in a prepared statement. “I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”

It’s true that allegations of pro-Israel lobbyists trying to help Harman get the chairmanship of the intelligence panel by lobbying and raising money for Pelosi aren’t new. They were widely reported in 2006, along with allegations that the FBI launched an investigation of Harman that was eventually dropped for a “lack of evidence.”

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington. And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House. As for there being “no evidence” to support the FBI probe, a source with first-hand knowledge of the wiretaps called that “bull****.”

“I read those transcripts,” said the source, who like other former national security officials familiar with the transcript discussed it only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of domestic NSA eavesdropping.

“It’s true,” added another former national security official who was briefed on the NSA intercepts involving Harman. “She was on there.”

Such accounts go a long way toward explaining not only why Harman was denied the gavel of the House Intelligence Committee, but failed to land a top job at the CIA or Homeland Security Department in the Obama administration.

Gonzales said through a spokesman that he would have no comment on the allegations in this story.

The identity of the “suspected Israeli agent” could not be determined with certainty, and officials were extremely skittish about going beyond Harman’s involvement to discuss other aspects of the NSA eavesdropping operation against Israeli targets, which remain highly classified. But according to the former officials familiar with the transcripts, the alleged Israeli agent asked Harman if she could use any influence she had with Gonzales, who became attorney general in 2005, to get the charges against the AIPAC officials reduced to lesser felonies. AIPAC official Steve Rosen had been charged with two counts of conspiring to communicate, and communicating national defense information to people not entitled to receive it. Weissman was charged with conspiracy. AIPAC dismissed the two in May 2005, about five months before the events here unfolded.

Harman responded that Gonzales would be a difficult task, because he “just follows White House orders,” but that she might be able to influence lesser officials, according to an official who read the transcript.

Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a “completed crime,” a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said.
And they were prepared to open a case on her, which would include electronic surveillance approved by the so-called FISA Court, the secret panel established by the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to hear government wiretap requests.

First, however, they needed the certification of top intelligence officials that Harman’s wiretapped conversations justified a national security investigation. Then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss reviewed the Harman transcript and signed off on the Justice Department’s FISA application. He also decided that, under a protocol involving the separation of powers, it was time to notify then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Pelosi, of the FBI’s impending national security investigation of a member of Congress — to wit, Harman.
Goss, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, deemed the matter particularly urgent because of Harman’s rank as the panel’s top Democrat. But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened. According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.

Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program. He was right.

On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

Pelosi and Hastert never did get the briefing.

And thanks to grateful Bush administration officials, the investigation of Harman was effectively dead.

Many people want to keep it that way.

Goss declined an interview request, and the CIA did not respond to a request to interview former Director Michael V. Hayden , who was informed of the Harman transcripts but chose to take no action, two knowledgeable former officials alleged.

Likewise, the first director of national intelligence, former ambassador John D. Negroponte, was opposed to an FBI investigation of Harman, according to officials familiar with his thinking, and let the matter die. (Negroponte was traveling last week and did not respond to questions relayed to him through an assistant.)

Harman dodged a bullet, say disgusted former officials who have pursued the AIPAC case for years. She was protected by an administration desperate for help.

“It’s the deepest kind of corruption,” said a recently retired longtime national security official who was closely involved in AIPAC investigation, “which was years in the making.

“It’s a story about the corruption of government — not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption.”

Ironically, however, nothing much was gained by it.

The Justice Department did not back away from charging Rosen and fellow AIPAC official Keith Weissman with espionage (for allegedly giving classified Pentagon documents to Israeli officials).
Gonzales was engulfed by the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal. And Jane Harman was relegated to chairing a House Homeland Security subcommittee.

Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com

Happy Patriots Day (by Paul Begala)

2009-04-15T12:42:00.000-04:00

(CNN) -- Happy Patriots' Day. April 15 is the one day a year when our country asks something of us -- or at least the vast majority of us.

For those who wear a military uniform, those who serve the rest of us as policemen and firefighters and teachers and other public servants, every day is patriots' day. They work hard for our country; many risk their lives -- and some lose their lives.

But for the rest of us, the civilian majority, our government asks very little. Except for April 15. On this day, our government asks that we pay our fair share of taxes to keep our beloved country strong and safe.

Freedom isn't free. That's what the courageous World War II veterans of the American Legion taught me back in Texas Boys State decades ago. That phrase had special meaning for them. Those guys had seen buddies blown apart at Anzio or Guadalcanal.

I grew up in a different era. There was no draft, and while I have friends and family members who joined the military, most of my peers, like me, opted for the security and prosperity of the private sector.

This country has showered me with the blessings of liberty. So what do I owe my country in return? Paying my fair share of taxes, it seems, is the least I can do. Thanks to President Obama and the Democratic Congress, 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut this year. No one -- not even the wealthiest 1 percent -- will have to pay higher income taxes until 2011.

So why are a bunch of Fox News clowns and right-wing cranks hosting "tea parties" all over the country? The Boston Tea Party, in case the clods at Fox didn't know it, protested "taxation without representation." Note the second word: without. The goofballs tossing tea bags today have representation. They voted in the election; they lost.

That a bunch of overpaid media millionaires would lead a faux-populist revolt is comical. They somehow held their populist instincts in check as George W. Bush and the Republicans cut taxes on the idle rich and put the screws to the working stiffs.

Bush's tax policies were a godsend to the Paris Hilton class, but they sent the country on the road to bankruptcy and helped ruin the economy. But now that we the people have decided to set things right, now that we've hired Obama to fix the mess conservatives created, now they're protesting?

Give me a break. Instead of tossing tea bags for the cameras, the Fox phonies ought to go to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There they would find better, braver men who have truly sacrificed for their country. They deserve nothing but the best -- not the shameful and shoddy conditions they endured during the Bush administration.

You want something to protest? How 'bout protesting how little we give back to our veterans? Or how 'bout protesting that the entire budget of the National Cancer Institute (where government researchers battle a disease that will strike half of all men and a third of all women) is 0.03 percent of what we gave the bandits at American International Group alone? Oh, but veterans benefits and cancer research might cost money. It might require -- dare I say it? -- paying taxes.

If the whiners at Fox News want to advertise their selfishness, they are free to do so. But please don't dress it up as patriotism. Patriotism is putting your country ahead of yourself -- which is the precise opposite of what the tea party plutocrats are doing.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Begala.

Great Opening "Chalkboard"

2009-03-30T15:10:00.001-04:00

Sanford Should Spend Time Creating Jobs

2009-03-13T10:43:00.000-04:00

Gov. Mark Sanford should spend his time recruiting industry to our state and finding ways to retrain our work force for the jobs of the future.

Since he took office in 2003, the state unemployment rate has moved from 6.4 percent to 10.4 percent. There are 102,114 more unemployed people in the work force now than when he took office.

Instead of wasting his time fighting efforts to keep people employed through government spending on police officers, road construction and public education via President Obama’s stimulus package, he could better spend his time focusing on retooling our work force for the jobs of the future — most of which the unemployed are not qualified for.

This means fully funding adult education, technical colleges and four-year institutions.

It will also require promoting and improving our public school systems instead of trying to destroy them through privatization via tax credits or vouchers.

To do this, Sanford will have to set aside his failed conservative ideology. While difficult to do, the 102,114 additional unemployed should be enough proof a new direction is needed.

CNBC Give Financial Advice

2009-03-06T09:41:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Another $100 million stimulus dollars found

2009-02-27T10:05:00.002-05:00

Our penny penching idiot of a governor and legislature have under funded road maintainance for years. Thankfully President Obama thought road maintainance was important. Here is another $100 million that will pulse through the economy.

Transportation Commission approves stimulus projects

Friday, 27 February 2009

Staff Report COLUMBIA -- Federal stimulus money headed to South Carolina for highway and bridge projects totals $463 million. So far, state transportation officials have released $200 million of that total for "shovel-ready" projects, including $100 million for resurfacing projects.Greenville County is slated to receive $5.26 million, the highest allotment. McCormick County will receive the least, with its $802,899 allotment, according to the Transportation Commission report.Shovel-ready refers to projects for which engineering, permits and other preliminary work has been completed or will be within 120 days so that contracts can be let, the department said. Transportation Department engineers have identified roads to be resurfaced in all of the state's counties. Before moving ahead, those projects are subject to a 30-day comment period.
For more information, visit the SCDOT Web site.Published Feb. 27, 2009

Bobby Jindal vs. the Volcano Monitoring

2009-02-26T16:44:00.004-05:00

This is the first in a series I call "fight the GOP BS machine". Make sure to pass these around. The GOP lies don't fly when people know the truth.

Gov. Jindal was critical of the volcano monitoring program in his speech. I doubt he would feel the same if we wanted to modernize the hurricane prediction center.

SC Southpaw

Taken from Fox News Site

After President Obama's speech on the economy last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal criticized government spending in the stimulus bill, citing examples including "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'"

The $140 million to which Jindal referred is actually for a number of projects conducted by the United States Geological Survey, including volcano monitoring.

This monitoring is aimed at helping geologists understand the inner workings of volcanoes as well as providing warnings of impending eruptions, in the United States and in active areas around the world where U.S. military bases are located.

Most of the money from the stimulus bill earmarked for monitoring (only about a tenth of the total going to the USGS) will go to modernizing existing monitoring equipment, including switching from analog to digital and installing GPS networks that can measure ground movements, said John Eichelberger, program coordinator for the USGS's Volcano Hazards Program.

Much of the expense of this technology comes from the manpower required to make and install it, he added.

"Ultimately most of this creates jobs or saves jobs that would have been lost" to recent budget shortfalls Eichelberger told LiveScience.

When he heard Jindal's remarks, Eichelberger said he "was frankly astonished" that the governor would use this particular example, given his own state's recent brush with a catastrophic natural disaster.

Among the scenarios in which the USGS’s monitoring can assist — the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people (including a geologist monitoring the mountain) and was the deadliest and costliest volcanic eruption in U.S. history ($2.74 billion in 2007 dollars).

This event was preceded by thousands of earthquakes in the two months before the volcano blew its top; some of these prompted the governor of Washington to declare a state of emergency and many residents were evacuated from a designated danger zone.

"This is a hazard we can do something about," Eichelberger said. "We can spend a modest amount of money and prevent a tragedy."

About 50 volcanic eruptions occur around the world every year, according to the USGS. The United States ranks third, behind Indonesia and Japan, in its number of historically active volcanoes (those for which written accounts exist).

Most U.S. volcanoes are located in the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, with the rest distributed around the West.

About 65 volcanoes in the United States are considered active; most of these are in Alaska, where an eruption occurs almost every year. Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is one of the most active volcanoes on Earth and has been erupting continuously since 1983.

The USGS has three volcanic observatories — in Alaska, Hawaii and the Cascades — set up to monitor volcanoes for signs of impending eruption.

USGS scientists are currently monitoring Alaska's Mount Redoubt, which has been threatening to erupt since late January.

Seismic rumblings from the volcano have alerted geologists that magma might be moving around underneath the surface, preparing to make a potentially explosive appearance.

Redoubt last erupted on December 14, 1989, for the fourth time in the 20th century, creating large ash clouds that clogged the air around Anchorage for days.

Monitoring of Redoubt's latest threat of eruption has been hampered by the lack of a GPS network which could not be put in place before because of a lack of funding, Eichelberger said.
"We're kind of half blind there," he said.

In addition to listening for rumbling of the Earth, researchers survey the surfaces of volcanoes, map volcanic rock deposits, and analyze the chemistry of volcanic gas and fresh lava to detect warning signs of eruptions and to determine what type of eruption is most likely to occur.
The USGS has issued several warnings over the past 10 years, though predicting the timing and size of eruptions remains a difficult task.

Volcano monitoring likely saved many lives — and significant money — in the case of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines (where the United States had military bases at the time), according to the USGS.

The cataclysmic eruption lasted more than 10 hours and sent a cloud of ash as high as 22 miles into the air that grew to more than 300 miles across.

The USGS spent less than $1.5 million monitoring the volcano and was able to warn of the impending eruption, which allowed authorities to evacuate residents, as well as aircraft and other equipment from U.S. bases there.

The USGS estimates that the efforts saved thousands of lives and prevented property losses of at least $250 million (considered a conservative figure).

Volcanoes, of course, aren't the only potential natural disaster that scientists monitor to give people warnings of imminent danger. Hurricanes, tornado-producing storms, earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding events are also watched and forecast.

While those predictions can result in mitigating the damage and losses that result from natural disasters, the research is only useful in a practical sense for residents if authorities pay heed to it.

For instance, in the case of Hurricane Katrina, the Natural Hurricane Center was watching the situation like a hawk, but the subsequent preparations and responses by authorities was insufficient to prevent wholesale destruction of large parts of New Orleans and the loss of more than 1,800 lives.

Jindal's comment comes at a time when President Obama has pledged to return science to the White House, an effort widely applauded by scientists who felt shunned by the previous administration.

The criticism of government funding of scientific research was similar to remarks made last fall during the presidential campaign by vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who was dismissive of fruit fly research.

By Andrea Thompson

Republican Attacks on Stimulus

2009-02-24T08:18:00.002-05:00

The SC Legislature has not finished the 2009 budget but it appears that the "stimulus" will actually force them to restore the school budgets to 2007 levels - meaning much smaller cuts for public schools. School districts around Columbia have been preparing for hiring freezes or teacher cuts. Administrative staff have already been cut. Now, where I come from, keeping people employed is stimulative. I doubt those folks whose jobs were saved would consider it wasteful spending.

In the same vein, I am going to begin documenting all the things the GOP leaders complain about in the package and try to post whose jobs were created or saved. My favorite complaint is about replacing the federal auto fleet ($300 million I think). Am I crazy or does that mean buying new cars? Aren't those cars made by Americans with American made auto parts? My second favorite is $4.5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security HQ building. Once again, unless they are building it in Taiwan, that will be spend in the US by US workers. Send me specific complaints and I will try to figure out who is getting paid and post it here. I need who said it, when, and in what publication.

Why Facebook is for Old Fogies

2009-02-17T08:08:00.001-05:00

Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies
By Lev Grossman Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

Facebook is five. Maybe you didn't get it in your news feed, but it was in February 2004 that Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, along with some classmates, launched the social network that ate the world. Did he realize back then in his dorm that he was witnessing merely the larval stage of his creation? For what began with college students has found its fullest, richest expression with us, the middle-aged. Here are 10 reasons Facebook is for old fogies:

1. Facebook is about finding people you've lost track of. And, son, we've lost track of more people than you've ever met. Remember who you went to prom with junior year? See, we don't. We've gone through multiple schools, jobs and marriages. Each one of those came with a complete cast of characters, most of whom we have forgotten existed. But Facebook never forgets. (See the best social networking applications.)

2. We're no longer bitter about high school. You're probably still hung up on any number of petty slights, but when that person who used to call us that thing we're not going to mention here, because it really stuck, asks us to be friends on Facebook, we happily friend that person. Because we're all grown up now. We're bigger than that. Or some of us are, anyway. We're in therapy, and it's going really well. These are just broad generalizations. Next reason.

3. We never get drunk at parties and get photographed holding beer bottles in suggestive positions. We wish we still did that. But we don't. (See pictures of Denver, Beer Country.)

4. Facebook isn't just a social network; it's a business network. And unlike, say, college students, we actually have jobs. What's the point of networking with people who can't hire you? Not that we'd want to work with anyone your age anyway. Given the recession--and the amount of time we spend on Facebook--a bunch of hungry, motivated young guns is the last thing we need around here.

5. We're lazy. We have jobs and children and houses and substance-abuse problems to deal with. At our age, we don't want to do anything. What we want is to hear about other people doing things and then judge them for it. Which is what news feeds are for.

6. We're old enough that pictures from grade school or summer camp look nothing like us. These days, the only way to identify us is with Facebook tags. (See pictures of a diverse group of American teens.)

7. We have children. There is very little that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children. Facebook is the most efficient engine ever devised for this.

8. We're too old to remember e-mail addresses. You have to understand: we have spent decades drinking diet soda out of aluminum cans. That stuff catches up with you. We can't remember friends' e-mail addresses. We can barely remember their names.

9. We don't understand Twitter. Literally. It makes no sense to us.

10. We're not cool, and we don't care. There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook. That time has passed. Facebook now has 150 million members, and its fastest-growing demographic is 30 and up. At this point, it's way cooler not to be on Facebook. We've ruined it for good, just like we ruined Twilight and skateboarding. So git! And while you're at it, you damn kids better get off our lawn too.

Where Did the Muppets Come From?

2009-02-10T12:21:00.001-05:00

By Stacy Conradt

Like a lot of people, I grew up on Sesame Street and the Muppets. But did you ever stop to wonder where they came from?

Many Muppets came from humble origins; Kermit once was made of a coat and ping-pong balls.

Some of the characters we know and love were recycled from other TV shows and commercials Jim Henson worked on, while others were invented by using whatever materials were around.
Be prepared for a little nostalgia, and I hope I didn't leave out your favorite -- not all of the characters have interesting background stories (sorry, Big Bird).

1. Cookie Monster: Jim Henson drew some monsters eating various snacks for a General Foods commercial in 1966. The commercial was never used, but Henson recycled one of the monsters (the "Wheel-Stealer") for an IBM training video in 1967 and again for a Fritos commercial in 1969. By that time, he had started working on Sesame Street and decided this monster would have a home there.

2. Elmo: The way it's described by a Sesame Street writer, apparently this extra red puppet was just lying around. People would try to do something with him, but nothing really panned out. In 1984, puppeteer Kevin Clash picked up the red puppet and started doing the voice and the personality and it clicked -- thus, Elmo was born.

3. Telly Monster was originally the Television Monster when he debuted in 1979. He was obsessed with TV and his eves would whirl around as if hypnotized whenever he was in front of a set. After a while, producers started worrying about his influence on youngsters, so they changed him to make him the chronic worrier he is now.

4. Count von Count made his first appearance in 1972 and was made out of an Anything Muppet pattern -- a blank Muppet head that could have features added to it to make various characters. He used to be more sinister -- he was able to hypnotize and stun people and he laughed in typical scary-villain-type fashion after completing a count of something and thunder and lightning would occur. He was quickly made more appealing to little kids, though. He is apparently quite the ladies' man -- he has been linked to Countess von Backward, who loves to count backward; Countess Dahling von Dahling and Lady Two.

5. Kermit was "born" in 1955 and first showed up on "Sam and Friends," a five-minute puppet show by Jim Henson. The first Kermit was made out of Henson's mom's coat and some ping pong balls. At the time, he was more lizard-like than frog-like. By the time he showed up on Sesame Street in 1969, though, he had made the transition to frog. There are rumors that he got the name Kermit from a childhood friend of Henson's or a puppeteer from the early days of the Muppets, but Henson always refuted both of those rumors.

6. Real Swedish Chef Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman claims he was the inspiration for the Swedish Chef. He was on "Good Morning America," he says, and caught Jim Henson's eye. Henson supposedly bought the rights to the show's recording and created the Swedish Chef (who DOES have a real name, but it's not understandable). One of the Muppet writers, Jerry Juhl, says that in all of the years of working with Jim Henson on the Swedish Chef, he never heard that the character was based on a real person.

7. Animal: The Who's Keith Moon may have inspired everyone's favorite member of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. This is speculation, but people who support the theory will point out that Jim Henson named one of the Fraggle Rock characters "Wembley," which is the town where Moon was born.

8. Miss Piggy is apparently from Iowa. She started as a minor character on "The Muppet Show," but anyone who knows Miss Piggy can see that she wouldn't settle for anything "minor." Her first TV appearance was actually on an Herb Alpert special. It wasn't until 1976, when "The Muppet Show" premiered, that she became the glamorous blonde with a penchant for frog that we know and love today. Frank Oz once said that Miss Piggy grew up in Iowa; her dad died when she was young and her mother was mean. She had to enter beauty contests to make money.

9. Rowlf the Dog, surprise, surprise, was first made in 1962 for a series of Purina Dog Chow commercials. He went on to claim fame as Jimmy Dean's sidekick on The Jimmy Dean Show and was on every single episode from 1963 to 1966. Jimmy Dean said Rowlf got about 2,000 letters from fans every week. He was considered for Sesame Street but ended up becoming a regular on "The Muppet Show" in 1976.

10. Oscar the Grouch is performed by the same guy who does Big Bird, Carroll Spinney. Spinney said he based Oscar's cranky voice on a particular New York cab driver he once had the pleasure of riding with. He was originally an alarming shade of orange. In Pakistan, his name is Akhtar and he lives in an oil barrel. In Turkey, he is Kirpik and lives in a basket. And in Israel, it's not Oscar at all -- it's his cousin, Moishe Oofnik, who lives in an old car.

11. Gonzo: What exactly is Gonzo? Nobody knows. Even Jim Henson had no particular species in mind. Over the course of "The Muppet Show," "Muppet Babies" and various Muppet movies, Gonzo has been referred to as a "Whatever", a "Weirdo" and an alien. Whatever he is, he first appeared on the scene in 1970's The Great Santa Claus Switch. His name was Snarl the Cigar Box Frackle. In 1974, he showed up on a TV special for Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. He became Gonzo the Great by the first season of The Muppet Show and developed his thing for Camilla the Chicken almost accidentally: During one episode where chickens were auditioning for the show, puppeteer Dave Goelz ad-libbed, "Don't call us, we'll call you... nice legs, though!" It was decided then and there that Gonzo would have a bizarre romantic interest in chickens.

12. You have to love Statler and Waldorf. I couldn't find much on their particular inspiration, but I can tell you that they've been around since the 1975 "Muppet Show" pilot. They are named after popular New York City hotels (the Statler Hotel was renamed the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1992.) Guess what Waldorf's wife name is? Yep... Astoria (she looks startlingly like Statler.) FYI, Waldorf is the one with the mustache and white hair. Statler has the grey hair. Apparently Waldorf has had a pacemaker for more than 30 years.

13. Beaker: I always thought of Beaker and his buddy Bunsen Honeydew as characters that came along later in the Muppet timeline, but they have been around since the "The Muppet Show." Although Beaker usually says things along the lines of, "Mee-mee-mee-mee!", he has had a few actual lines: "Sadly temporary," "Bye-Bye" and "Make-up ready!" Despite being word-challenged, he manages to do a pretty convincing Little Richard impression and, surprisingly, had mad beatbox skills. Beaker is one of the only Muppets that was never recycled from some other purpose -- he was created solely for "The Muppet Show."

14. Fozzie Bear. Poor Fozzie. He's the perpetual target of Statler and Waldorf because of his horrible jokes and puns. It actually created a bit of a problem during the first season of The Muppet Show, because when Fozzie got heckled, he got very upset and sometimes cried. Viewers didn't feel sympathy; they felt embarrassed. The problem was solved by making Fozzie an optimist so that even when he got heckled he was good-natured about it. It's often thought that he was named after Frank Oz, who was his puppeteer, but Frank said it's just a variant of "fuzzy bear." Yet another story says he was named for his builder, Faz Fazakas. Wocka wocka!!

15. Bert and Ernie are the Muppet version of Felix and Oscar ("The Odd Couple," for you young'uns). Lots of people think Bert and Ernie were named for some minor characters in It's A Wonderful Life, but according to the Henson company, that's just a rumor. Jim Henson always maintained that it was just a coincidence -- the names just went well together and seemed to fit the characters. Jerry Juhl, one of the head writers, corroborated this and said that Jim Henson had no memory for details like that and would have never remembered the name of the cop and the taxi cab driver in the old Jimmy Stewart movie. Other rumors to clear up: Bert and Ernie aren't gay and neither one of them are dead. Now that we've got that straightened out, here are a few more tidbits: the original Ernie used to have a gravelly voice similar to Rowlf the Dog's. Frank Oz was Bert's puppeteer and hated him at the beginning. He thought Bert was ridiculously boring, but then realized that he could have a lot of fun with being boring. Jim Henson once said, "I remember trying Bert and Frank tried Ernie for a while. I can't imagine doing Bert now, because Bert has become so much of a part of Frank."

16. Grover: Everyone's favorite "cute, furry little monster" made his TV debut on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1967. At the time, he was known as "Gleep" and was a monster in Santa's Workshop. He then appeared on the first season of Sesame Street, but sported green fur and a reddish-orange nose. He didn't have a name then, but by the second season he transformed into the Grover we know today, more or less -- electric blue fur and a pink nose. The original green Grover was reincarnated as Grover's Mommy for a few episodes. In Latin America and Puerto Rico Grover is known as Archibaldo, in Spain he is Coco, in Portugal he is Gualter and in Norway he is Gunnar.

17. Sweetums is one of a handful of full-body Muppets. He showed up in 1971 on the TV special "The Frog Prince." This is where he got his name -- when Sir Robin the Brave is about to defeat the ogre, a witch shows up and changes him into a frog (who later becomes Robin, Kermit's nephew). Apparently smitten with the ogre, the witch tells her darling "Sweetums" that he can have the frog for breakfast. Bigger fame awaited Sweetums, though -- in 1975, he appeared on Cher's variety show to do a duet with her to "That Old Black Magic". He officially joined "The Muppet Show" cast in 1976.

18. Rizzo the Rat might sound familiar to you, especially if you've seen "Midnight Cowboy" -- he is named for Dustin Hoffman's character, Ratso Rizzo. He was created after puppeteer Steve Whitmire was inspired by rat puppets made from bottles. He first showed up on "The Muppet Show" as one of a group of rats following Christopher Reeve around -- he's easy to spot because he hams it up more than any of the other rats. He occasionally performs with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

19. Pepe the King Prawn's full name is Pepino Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales. I heart Pepe. He was a chef in Madrid before going Hollywood on "Muppets Tonight" in 1996. He was paired with Seymour the Elephant (Pepe was originally going to be a mouse) on the show, but Seymour never developed quite the same following and was only in two episodes. He rarely gets names right -- some of his mispronunciations include "muffins" instead of Muppets, "Kermin" instead of Kermit and "Scooper" instead of Scooter. He's quite full of himself -- in addition to thinking that he's quite the ladies' man, he also fully expects to win several Oscars.

20. Herry Monster from Sesame Street was the Big Bad Wolf in his original incarnation, which you can kind of tell by looking at his fur. It's pretty wolf-like (if wolves were blue, I mean). He became a Sesame monster in 1970 to replace the Beautiful Day Monster, who looked kind of like Sam the Eagle and existed to cause destruction wherever he went, thus ruining the beautiful day people had been having before he showed up. Herry used to have a furry nose but got upgraded to his non-furry, purple nose in 1971.

Stimulus Bill

2009-02-06T13:03:00.001-05:00

The Republican’s should stop blocking the stimulus bill. Their economic philosophy of tax cuts followed by more tax cuts has been proven by President Bush and Governor Sanford to be a job killer not a job maker. The national unemployment rate when President Bush entered office was 4.0 percent. When he left, it was 7.6 percent. When Governor Sanford took office the state unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. It currently is 9.5 percent. Given this track record, I don’t find their economic policies to be credible. I don’t know who their policies helped, but it certainly wasn’t the millions who lost their jobs. Hopefully, Senators Graham and DeMint will recognize their economic philosophy is a proven loser and support going a new direction with President Obama.

Katon Dawson for RNC Chair

2009-01-30T09:34:00.004-05:00

I know the GOP could care less about my opinion about their party chair - but here it is. Katon Dawson would be an awesome party chair. Sure, he had the sense to disavow "Barack the Magic Negro". However, having his Lily white face on TV for four years would really underscore the problem the GOP has - they are at best uncomfortable with people of color. That his long time membership in a whites only country club was not immediately disqualifying is icing on the cake. I am sincerely glad he saw the light, protested the policy, and quit. However, it took the guy ten years to figure it out. If that is not symptomatic of how tone deaf the GOP is - I don't know what is. Demographically, the party that wants to ship immigrants out of the country and made its bones in south race baiting is not the party of the future. If you don't believe me - check out California. Until the anti immigration movement was co opted by the GOP in 1994, the GOP was actually a competitive party. After that, they had to run a marginal republican to win anything. Katon will do a great job carrying the whites only party banner. On that basis, he would get my vote (if I had one).

How to Tie A Bow Tie

2009-01-27T16:07:00.001-05:00

After many long and humorous attempts to tie a bow tie, I finally found good instructions. Of course, I had just about mastered this prior to finding this video.

Forest Lake Country Club

2009-01-23T10:28:00.003-05:00

At this point it is well documented that Forest Lake Country Club has a racial membership exclusion. Apparently, there is a deed restriction that prohibits "colored" members. As an advocated of the freedom of association, I absolutely respect the right of the club's membership to exclude or include whoever they want. However, you have to wonder who wants to be a member of a club when the President of the United States could not join if he wanted to. If you are curious here is a link from another blog where you can see an old membership list (around 2004).

http://schotline.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/schotline-exclusive-the-official-forest-lake-country-club-membership-directory/

What If

2009-01-23T09:39:00.004-05:00

After returning from the Inauguration, someone (white) said "I don't understand why they (African Americans) considered this inauguration such a big deal". I responded - of course not - you are white. For those of you who still do not get it - imagine living in a world where:

The first white person received the Heisman Trophy in 1961
The first white coach of the NBA was in 1966 (the year I was born)
The first white mayor of a US City was elected in 1966
The first white US Supreme Court Justice was appointed in 1967
The first white MLB manager was hired in 1975
The first white national network news anchor went on air in 1978
The first white Miss America was in 1983
The first white person on MTV was in 1983
The first white starting QB in a Superbowl was in 1988
The first white Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff was in 1989
The first white coach of an NFL team was hired in 1989
The first white Governor was in 1990
The first white CEO of a Fortune 500 company was hired in 1999
The first white US Secretary of State was appointed in 2001
The first white President of an Ivy League school was hired in 2001
The first white person became a billionaire in 2002
The first white coach to take a team to a Superbowl was in 2007
The first white candidate to win a national party primary was in 2008
The first white US President was in 2009

Then imagine that your parents and grandparents went to separate schools from everyone else. They had to ride on the back of the bus, could not stay in most hotels or eat at most restaurants, and had to pay money to vote. Imagine that when they protested this treatment, they were chased with dogs, beaten, and spat upon.

If that were the context of your life and the lives of everyone who looked like you, don't you think you would view the world differently? I think you most likely would view the Inauguration differently.

Tuesday was a remarkable day in American History that I was glad that me and my children saw in person. I don't suffer from the illusion that everything will change, but I know that it is a key point in the history of our great nation.

Flying Suits

2009-01-07T15:44:00.002-05:00

This is a very cool video of flying suits. You need to watch to understand.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1778399&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

New TV Season

2009-01-05T08:28:00.002-05:00

Pam and I watch too much TV. For those of you who think it is a tv wasteland, I disagree. Many of our favorites are returning. Here is what we are watching.

Nip Tuck
Damages
Big Love
Lost
Battlestar Gallactica
Survivor
Lost
Heros

Great PSA's from Animal Planet

2009-01-05T08:23:00.003-05:00

These are great public service announcements from the Animal Planet. Check them out.

http://www.animalssavetheplanet.com/media/swf/design_video.swf

A Bitter Twist of Irony

2009-01-04T21:31:00.002-05:00

The day my last post was run in the The State Paper, my wife and I went to the Sanctuary at Kiawah for our anniversary. There was a large wedding and a convention occurring when we arrived. To my surprise, the convention was a right wing group I had never heard of called Awakenings 2009. Here is there website: http://www.awakeninginc.org/default.htm. Governor Sanford was in attendance since he is on their board.

For those of you who thought Hillary was a little loony when she referred to the "vast right wing conspiracy", I assure you it exists and they have meetings. Needless to say, Pam and I had the only car in the parking lot with an Obama sticker.

Governor Grandstand

2008-12-31T12:37:00.001-05:00

Thankfully, Governor Sanford capitulated and requested the federal loan for unemployment benefits at the last minute. While I agree with his intentions to improve the information that the Employment Security Commission collects, I found his game of chicken with the agency reprehensible. The unemployed whose checks he nearly stopped did not deserve the added stress wondering if they would get their checks. The Governor should stop grandstanding and begin working constructively with the Legislature to fix problems he sees with independent agencies. Beyond that, he should focus his energy on reversing the state’s unemployment rate – now the third highest in the country. As a Republican, he should take responsibility for his six failed years of economic leadership instead of blaming it on the Employment Security Commission statisticians. I suggest he focus on improving our states public education system, adult job training, and infrastructure by building consensus with the Legislature for constructive solutions.

Republicans Shoot Themselves in Foot Again

2008-12-29T12:58:00.003-05:00

For many years, the GOP has made a very public effort to attract black and hispanic voters. However, they once again have managed to shoot themselves in the foot. It is not lost on most folks that the GOP was the party that attacked welfare mothers, illegal immigrants, ran Willy Horton ads, and now have two sullied candidates for the RNC chair. Chip Saltsman gave out a CD with the song "Barack the Magic Negro" thinking it was no big deal and Katon Dawson quit the Forest Lake Country Club after realizing it was a segregated club after being a member for 15 years (I guess he thought the members cooked, waited tables, and mowed the grass).

Given the demographic changes the country will see over the next 50 years, it is still a little surprising the party of Strom Thrumond be so shortsighted.

Here is the post from "The Hill".

RNC candidate distributes controversial Obama song
By Reid Wilson

RNC candidate Chip Saltsman’s Christmas greeting to committee members includes a music CD with lyrics from a song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” first played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular radio show.Saltsman, a personal friend of conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, sent a 41-track CD along with a note to national committee members.

“I look forward to working together in the New Year,” Saltsman wrote. “Please enjoy the enclosed CD by my friend Paul Shanklin of the Rush Limbaugh Show.”

The CD, called “We Hate the USA,” lampoons liberals with such songs as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Several of the track titles, including “Barack the Magic Negro,” are written in bold font.
The song, which debuted on Limbaugh’s show in late March 2007, latches onto an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times of the same title. That column, penned by cultural critic David Ehrenstein, argued that Obama could serve as a balm to whites who felt guilty about past treatment of African Americans.

Limbaugh first highlighted the column the day it ran, according to a contemporary report by Media Matters, the liberal watchdog agency. Media Matters reported Limbaugh repeated the phrase more than two dozen times the day the column ran.

The following month, Shanklin debuted his version of the song, sung to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and performed in Shanklin’s impression of Al Sharpton.

“See, real black men, like Snoop Dogg, or me, or Farrakhan, have talked the talk, and walked the walk, not come in late and won,” one verse in the song says.

Saltsman said he meant nothing untoward by forwarding what amounts to a joke more at Ehrenstein’s expense than at Obama’s.

“Paul Shanklin is a long-time friend, and I think that RNC members have the good humor and good sense to recognize that his songs for the Rush Limbaugh show are light-hearted political parodies,” Saltsman said.

Republicans searching for ways to attack Obama have been hesitant to embrace any reference to his race. Limbaugh presciently predicted his allusion to the column nearly two years ago would win attention from left-leaning organizations that would suggest he was using Obama’s race against him.

City Center Partnership

2008-12-29T10:02:00.004-05:00

The City Center Partnership in Columbia, SC is about 7 years old. I remember a debate at the time of its origination about its effectiveness. The debate appears to be settled. Since 2001, about 1,093,000 square feet of multitenant office space has been built in the region. Of that, 75% was constructed in the Downtown Columbia submarket. The remainder was divided amongst the submarkets. This happened despite a significant difference in effective rents (rent plus parking and other costs). Some naysayers would point out that adding the construction of the SCANA campus would even things out - which is true. However, as I and others have pointed out, SCANA's relocation was driven by several unusual factors. First, they had staff and equipment spread throughout the region. Second, they have unusual security requirements created by their business (public utility). Finally, as a regulated utility, it would be irresponsible for them to have their employees in expensive office space. Their isolated and secure campuses in Cayce accomplish their goals of increased security, consolidation of operations, and lower costs.

In summary, Columbia has done something most communities have failed to accomplish - make downtown more desirable for office construction than the suburbs. Look at most other major cities like Atlanta, Washington DC, and Philadelphia which continues to see a diminishing percentage of office space downtown as compared to their suburbs.

Tragic News from Alaska

2008-12-29T08:22:00.002-05:00

Rick Warren

2008-12-19T08:28:00.003-05:00

I disagree with Rick Warren on lots of issues. However, I think President Obama made a good choice for the invocation.

First, everyone who is upset needs some perspective. Warren is giving the invocation at the swearing in. He is not being appointed czar of gay rights for the Obama administration. While I understand having a significant nemesis of equal rights on the stage is insulting, it is not the end of the world.

Second, we have some serious problems to solve. The GOP really screwed the country up. It is going to take more than Democrats or Obama supporters to implement legislative change. Obama will need support from all quarters where we have agreement (as we do with Pastor Warren on several issues). Having Pastor Warren on stage signals that while we don't agree on everything, we can work together when we do. Obama talked about changing the atmosphere in Washington. That starts by working with people you disagree to build consensus where we can.

Third, Obama is running again in four years. The GOP will be back with a stronger candidate who is well funded (maybe even our dimwitted Governor). Winning will require building a centrist coalition of voters. This is a signal to many of those voters that while liberal, he is willing to work with anyone willing to talk.

In summary, I know people are upset but with a little perspective, I think folks will realize this is a necessary course of action. We cannot go on like we have burning bridges and demonizing our enemies. The country needs better.

Great Christmas Story

2008-12-15T10:13:00.001-05:00

This is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to find
out who had the wildest Christmas dinners. It won first prize.

As a joke, my brother Jay used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.

One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. you'll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, 'What does this do?'
'You're kidding me!' 'Who would buy that?' Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section.

I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour. Finding what I wanted was difficult. 'Love Dolls' come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for 'Lovable Louise.' She was at the bottom of the price scale. To call Louise a 'doll' took a huge leap of imagination.

On Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.

The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy, but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more.

We all agreed that Louise should remain in her pantyhose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. 'What the hell is that?' she asked. My brother quickly explained, 'It's a doll.' 'Who would play with something like that?'Granny snapped. I kept my mouth shut. 'Where are her clothes?' Granny continued.
'Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran,' Jay said, to steer her into the dining room.
But Granny was relentless. 'Why doesn't she have any teeth?' Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, 'Hang on Granny, hang on!'

My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, ' Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?' I told him she was Jay's friend. A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home.

The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the mantel, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants. Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car. It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember.

Later in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Louise's collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh. Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health.

I can't wait until next Christmas.

It is Bush's fault

2008-12-05T10:05:00.003-05:00

If there is one thing the GOP is good at - it is spin. No one should doubt that when Bush is gone in a couple of months the revision of history will begin in earnest. As Democrats, we can fight this by doing a couple of simple things.

First, always refer to the recession of 2008 -2009 as the second Bush Recession. Arguably the first in 2001 - 2002 was the result of the bursting of the dot com bubble and 9-11. However, the GOP owns the current mess we are in. They controlled the Presidency from 2001 - 2009, the House of Representatives from 1995 - 2007, and the Senate from 2003 - 2007. While the blame ought to be shared - I am treating them like they would treat us if we were in charge. Relentlessly place the current mess at their feet.

Second, don't let anyone forget whose bright idea it was to deregulate everything (the Republicans). Sure, lots of Democrats went along but the GOP has always claimed the mantle of deregulation. Let them have it. Those members of our team who went along were fools to listen to the Republicans in the first place. We now know that the market can not be trusted to do the right thing all the time. In fact, when left to its own vices, the free market (and especially financial services) can self emulate and take the rest of the economy with it.

In summary, we have a once in a generation opportunity to define the GOP as the problem. To do this, we need to consistently remind people who was driving when the bus went off the cliff.

Chambliss Victory

2008-12-04T13:07:00.003-05:00

Much has been made by the GOP of the Chambliss victory. While is certainly deprives the Democrats of a 60 seat majority, it is otherwise unimportant. Chambliss was never supposed to lose. No one with their head on straight thought the race would be close - so when it tightened in the end, that actually reflected the weakness of the GOP brand. A win is a win - except when it should never have been close.

Winterize Baby Winterize!

2008-11-25T14:02:00.003-05:00

In my opinion, if our country is going to borrow mountains of money to create jobs, we should spend the money in a way that solves two problems simultaneously.

Our nation has a terrible energy problem. We use more than any other country - about 23% of global total. We import about 70% of it - mostly from countries that do not practice or promote democracy or allow the most basic of human rights. Many of our energy dollars are funding the very people we are paying billions to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are very inefficient with our energy use. Moreover, energy production emits CO2 which adds to global warming.

Our economy is loosing jobs rapidly and will continue to do so through at least 2009. Our manufacturing sector has been particularly affected. As consumers lose their jobs or fear losing their jobs - they consume less. We are spending piles of money keeping the banks from failing but ultimately we are in a downward spiral that will continue until the labor market stabilizes and consumers begin to spend.

The solution in my opinion is a massive program to make our homes and commercial buildings energy efficient. Over two to three years, we could replace light fixtures, appliances, windows, doors, air conditioners, heating units, and insulate buildings better. The labor for installation would necessarily need to be local and the bulk of materials would be produced locally (because they are heavy - not because of source mandates). Once complete, this could cut our energy usage substantially - saving consumers money, reducing greenhouse gas production, and reducing our dependence on foreign energy supplies. While this would not be a panacea for our long term energy problems, it would buy us some time to develop alternative energy supplies, upgrade the national distribution grid, and create much needed jobs to reinvigorate the economy.

South Carolina Democratic Party's Future

2008-11-06T12:49:00.004-05:00

While the results of the election Tuesday were historic on a national basis, on a local basis, Democrats performed poorly in South Carolina. I don't accept the notion that SC is a conservative state or that the GOP will always have a lock on the state. However, if the party continues to do what it has always done, not much will change. Here are my thoughts on a strategy to succeed.

1. We need a common voter list that is can be used by any Democratic candidates campaign. It needs to be accessible via the internet and interactive. We should have a list vendor who will cross reference it with consumer databases so we can figure out which voters we should target going forward. This database should be integrated with social networking, fundraising, eblast, and blogging capacity so it can grow and take full advantage of the technology platform. This is a key item. Without a good list that we update continuously, we will always be at a disadvantage. Currently we don't have a lot of dems in the state, we need to know who they are to have any chance of winning. Also, as we interact with the public, we need to be able to capture their information for future use.

2. We need to target the suburban areas of the big counties for candidate recruitment. Specifically Richland, Charleston, Greenville, Lexington, Florence, Horry, Beaufort, Aiken, Spartanburg, York, Berkeley, Dorchester, Sumter, Georgetown, Orangeburg and Pickens should be targeted. We should try to field competent candidates for every race - even if we will lose. We should especially push to have state house and senate candidates in every race. These are high profile locally, but they are manageable in size. We should train the candidates running to use the database in item one. This will grow and refine the party list - giving the next round of candidates even better information to start their campaigns.

3. We need to integrate the lists with specific issue based campaigns to attract other voters. For instance, a transportation advocacy committee could be used to find people to write letters and make phone calls to advocate funding of public transit, roads, and greenways during the legislative session. This list could be used in future campaigns to identify potential voters to approach during future races. I would organize these around the state party platform.

4. The party platform needs to be clear, concise and advocate differentiating positions. Five or six big ticket items should be emphasised - making the party's message clear. We have to offer an alternative to the republicans.

5. We should make sure the voters know about the opposition's record on our platform issues. No bill that opposes our agenda should go without a press conference and lots of noise.

In summary, I think that we have written off 90% of the house and senate seats. Go look at how many candidates ran unopposed for the state house despite the litany of issues our state faces and the republican's mismanagement over the past decade. For SC to have a competitive Democratic party, we need to have candidates, infrastructure for them to use, and a clear message. If we consistenly use the model I am advocating, I think we could change the dynamics here within 3 to 5 cycles (6 - 10 years).

2008-11-05T10:50:00.004-05:00

It is a little hard to see but that pig has lipstick on it. This was taken at the SC Democratic Party celebration. I have never seen so many adults in tears. It was very exciting and, in my opinion, marks a new chapter in American history - one that affirms that persons of color can attain the highest office in the land. For those of you who share my skin pigment and sex, that has never been a question. For persons of color, it was a thought that most folks never seriously considered. For women, it remains to be seen how long it will be before a woman leads our country. I think it will be sooner rather than later. I think both Senator Clinton and Governor Palin's candidacy's moved the ball significantly forward. I guess only time will tell.

Thanks to the Sign Thieves

2008-11-04T15:04:00.002-05:00

To the thieves that stole all the Obama signs on my street - thanks. I pay the Obama campaign $3 a sign. All that money goes to the Obama turnout effort.

Another GOP Endorsement of Obama

2008-10-24T13:34:00.002-04:00

This is from the New Republic

Reagan Appointee and (Recent) McCain Adviser Charles Fried Supports Obama

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

Fried is exceptionally thoughtful and principled; his vote for Obama is especially noteworthy.
--Cass. R. Sunstein

Bush Endorses McCain Palin

2008-10-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

Great GOTV Video

2008-10-24T08:12:00.002-04:00

Don't be a Tim

Obama Endorsed by Opie, Fonzie, and Andy

2008-10-23T16:46:00.001-04:00

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

I guess this is progress

2008-10-23T08:15:00.004-04:00

I don't know if it is a sign that times have actually changed (the lawn jockey 10 feet to the left of the Postal Workers for Obama sign) or just how bad the GOP has screwed things up. I tend to think it is the later. The GOP has made things so bad even the bigots are voting for Obama.

I love America!!

Great Quote on the Redistribution of Wealth and our Current Financial Situation

2008-10-22T10:03:00.002-04:00

"As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption; mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped."

Marriner Eccles, FDR's Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank - 1959

Palin's Wardrobe

2008-10-22T09:46:00.004-04:00

I was going to give the GOP a pass on this but I could not resist passing on these statistics I found.

Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. Her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people for one year.

Realistically, she and her family need the appropriate clothing to campaign. They are on television continuously. Also, they will have to give them to charity after the campaign since they were provided by the RNC. So the clothes are actually loaners. I understand this sort of thing but I don't know how this will help the GOP connect to the working class "Joe the Plumbers" they so desperately need.

Has Palin Read the Constitution?

2008-10-21T15:04:00.003-04:00

After watching this, that is debatable. I would be embarrased if this person represented my party. To think, she could be President in three months if McBush dies.

Hit the Lifeboats!

2008-10-21T10:13:00.003-04:00

Here is an interesting endorsement from Ken Adelman - another Republican for Obama (more accurately - Republican scared of McCain). This is from New Yorker Magazine.

George Packer writes about foreign affairs, politics, and books.

October 20, 2008

First Colin Powell, Now…

Ken Adelman is a lifelong conservative Republican. Campaigned for Goldwater, was hired by Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon, was assistant to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld under Ford, served as Reagan’s director of arms control, and joined the Defense Policy Board for Rumsfeld’s second go-round at the Pentagon, in 2001. Adelman’s friendship with Rumsfeld, Cheney, and their wives goes back to the sixties, and he introduced Cheney to Paul Wolfowitz at a Washington brunch the day Reagan was sworn in.

In recent years, Adelman and his friends Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz fell out over his criticisms of the botching of the Iraq War. Still, he remains a bona-fide hawk (“not really a neo-con but a con-con”) who has never supported a Democrat for President in his life. Two weeks from now that’s going to change: Ken Adelman intends to vote for Barack Obama. He can hardly believe it himself.

Adelman and I exchanged e-mails today about his decision. He asked rhetorically,
Why so, since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?

Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment.

When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.

Second is judgment. The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.

That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.
I sure hope Obama is more open, centrist, sensible—dare I say, Clintonesque—than his liberal record indicates, than his cooperation with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid portends. If not, I will be even more startled by my vote than I am now.

Sarah Palin Insults Most of America

2008-10-20T12:46:00.003-04:00

For those of you who missed it, Sarah Palin has decided there are two Americas. Personally, I find this pretty insulting. I pay my taxes, vote in every election, and support my country in every way asked. I find it infuriating that she suggests that I am somehow different because I am from a big city. While I my differ from people with her opinions, I consider them as pro American and patriotic as myself.

Here is her quote on the subject.

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."

"This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."

No Time To Rest - Monday October 20, 2008

2008-10-20T08:41:00.003-04:00

My fellow Obama supporters, the race is not over. The GOP will unleash everything they have to win in the next two weeks. You should expect them to do everything possible to raise racial tension, paint Obama as a terrorist, Muslim, flag burning, radical leftist. The polls will tighten again in spite of Colin Powell and $150 million. The state by state polls are very likely to tighten again with FL, VA, NC, and OH moving back into swing status. Moreover, the ACORN issue is being ginned up to delegitimize a potential Obama presidency. The only way we make sure neither of these things are effective is to increase turnout so the margin of victory is beyond question. If you can volunteer, go to the Obama site and sign up. Every person volunteering will help. Never in my life have progressives had such an opportunity to make change. Now is the time to help.

Colin Powel Endorsement

2008-10-20T08:25:00.003-04:00

Most endorsements have a limited impact. However, I think some carry some weight and move folks. I suspect this is one of those.

We Won't Get Fooled Again

2008-10-15T15:42:00.003-04:00

Check this out from the Daily Show. It compares McBush's new stump speech to his old one.

Measuring the Drapes

2008-10-14T10:40:00.006-04:00

Sen. McCain was critical of Sen. Obama yesterday for 'measuring the drapes' at the White House. I think this sheds a negative light on Sen. McCain.

First, regardless of your persuasion, you would have to agree there are several significant issues the Bush administration will leave.

1. Two wars
2. The economic rescue
3. The budget and deficit
4. The war on terror
5. The situation with Russia, Iran, and N. Korea

Given this, I think both candidates should be earnestly preparing to take the reigns in January. To do otherwise would be imprudent and irresponsible. President Bush has already authorized his staff to work with both campaigns and Sen. Obama has a transition team planning. Sen. McCain has a transition team but according to press reports they are not doing much yet. In my opinion, with 60 or so days until the winner of the election is inaugurated, it is irresponsible not to plan to takeover. Sen. McCain should 'put country first' and get his transition plans together quickly.

Time to Get Medieval on His Ass

2008-10-06T08:16:00.004-04:00

John McCain want to play guilt by association. I guess he thinks Obama will ignore it. I won't. Make sure your friends and family know who John McCain pals around with.

Bill Timmons - Chair Emeritus of Timmons and Company. Bill has been tapped as the head of John McCain's transition team. He registered to lobby in 2008 for a wide range of companies and trade groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, the American Medical Association, Chrysler, Freddie Mac, Visa USA and Anheuser-Busch.

Phil Gramm - Vice Chair at UBS. Gramm was former campaign co-chair of McCain campaign until he said the country was a "nation of whiners". Sen. Gramm is widely credited with the deregulation of the banking industry and the loophole that Enron used.

Rick Davis - Owner of Davis and Manafort - a lobbying firm. From 2000 to 2005, he was the head of the Homeownership Alliance, a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac advocacy group. Its website said that the organization was dedicated to "exposing and defeating trends that would harm consumer access to the lowest-cost mortgage option." He was head of the group for five years, being paid more than $30,000 per month. From 2006 to August 2008, his firm was retained by Fannie Mae for $15,000 per month. While he owned the firm, he claimed he derived no income from the retainer.

Randy Scheunemann - McCain foreign policy advisor. Until May 2008, Scheunemann was co-owner of a two-person Washington, D.C. lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, LLC.[3] The firm has lobbied on behalf of the Open Society Policy Center, the Caspian Alliance and the National Rifle Association,among others.

Charlie Black - Former Chief Lobbyist for BKSH & Associates. His firm acted as registered foreign agents for a number of controversial regimes and oppositional figures, including Jonas Savimbi, the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Nigerian General Ibrahim Babangida, Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the countries of Kenya and Equatorial Guinea.

John Green - McCain's congressional liaison. He was a former lobbyist for Fannie Mae.

Wayne Berman - National Campaign Co-Chair. He was also a lobbyist for Fannie Mae.

Charles Keating - Former Owner of Lincoln Savings. Founder of the Cincinnati-based, self-described anti-pornography organization Citizens for Decent Literature, later Citizens for Decency through Law. Keating was a good friend of John McCains and a campaign contributor. In return for Keating's generosity, McCain made phone calls to the regulators overseeing Lincoln Savings. Lincoln Savings later failed - costing the taxpayers $3 billion.

For more of his buddies, check out this website. McCain has more lobbyist on his campaign than he wants to talk about.
http://mediamattersaction.org/freeride/lobbyists/

Great Picture

2008-10-06T08:13:00.003-04:00

I am sure there is a good explanation for this. Nonetheless it is pretty funny.

Beer Launcher

2008-10-06T07:56:00.003-04:00

I know I have talked about politics too much. Here is something to prepare for the post election season.

Sarah Palin and Punative Damage Caps

2008-10-03T15:54:00.003-04:00

Apparently, Sarah Palin opposes caps on punitive damages since she disagrees with the Supreme Court decision in Exxon Shipping v. Baker. Here is the clip of her Fox News interview where she answers one of the Katie Couric questions. (She was too annoyed to answer it the first time). Hopefully, someone told John McCain and the rest of the GOP since they want caps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3r9YnOvSJw

New Planned Parenthood Ad on McCain Palin

2008-10-03T15:03:00.002-04:00

I have written about this before but they made a killer ad they are putting up right now. This is gonna hurt. Move on and Planned Parenthoods PAC are raising money to get this on the air in the swing states.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_q3VxY0zqQ

Great Endorsement of Obama

2008-10-03T11:00:00.003-04:00

This is a very well written endorsement from the New Yorker.

The Choice
October 13, 2008

Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.

The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush Administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the “end of the American era.”

The election of 2008 is the first in more than half a century in which no incumbent President or Vice-President is on the ballot. There is, however, an incumbent party, and that party has been lucky enough to find itself, apparently against the wishes of its “base,” with a nominee who evidently disliked George W. Bush before it became fashionable to do so. In South Carolina in 2000, Bush crushed John McCain with a sub-rosa primary campaign of such viciousness that McCain lashed out memorably against Bush’s Christian-right allies. So profound was McCain’s anger that in 2004 he flirted with the possibility of joining the Democratic ticket under John Kerry. Bush, who took office as a “compassionate conservative,” governed immediately as a rightist ideologue. During that first term, McCain bolstered his reputation, sometimes deserved, as a “maverick” willing to work with Democrats on such issues as normalizing relations with Vietnam, campaign-finance reform, and immigration reform. He co-sponsored, with John Edwards and Edward Kennedy, a patients’ bill of rights. In 2001 and 2003, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. With John Kerry, he co-sponsored a bill raising auto-fuel efficiency standards and, with Joseph Lieberman, a cap-and-trade regime on carbon emissions. He was one of a minority of Republicans opposed to unlimited drilling for oil and gas off America’s shores.

Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A.

On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic Party’s nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalized language of “reform,” but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational, and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call—in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—for more tax cuts. Bush’s expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy.

In Washington, the craze for pure market triumphalism is over. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in town (via Goldman Sachs) a Republican, but it seems that he will leave a Democrat. In other words, he has come to see that the abuses that led to the current financial crisis––not least, excessive speculation on borrowed capital––can be fixed only with government regulation and oversight. McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern—a melodramatic call last month to suspend his campaign and postpone the first Presidential debate until the government bailout plan was ready—soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic.

By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, “A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.” Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector.

On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide, and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade program as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea—lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling—and placed it at the very center of his campaign. Opening up America’s coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term, and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be “insignificant.” Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”

The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the Justices of the Supreme Court, where four hard-core conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M. Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case.

McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If he means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v. Wade will be reversed, and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain’s views have hardened on this issue. In 1999, he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006, he was saying that its demise “wouldn’t bother me any”; by 2008, he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party’s platform opposing abortion.

But scrapping Roe—which, after all, would leave states as free to permit abortion as to criminalize it—would be just the beginning. Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it’s safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain Court. Efforts to expand executive power, which, in recent years, certain Justices have nobly tried to resist, would likely increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither—all with just one new conservative nominee on the Court. And the next President is likely to make three appointments.

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care.

In the shorthand of political commentary, the Iraq war seems to leave McCain and Obama roughly even. Opposing it before the invasion, Obama had the prescience to warn of a costly and indefinite occupation and rising anti-American radicalism around the world; supporting it, McCain foresaw none of this. More recently, in early 2007 McCain risked his Presidential prospects on the proposition that five additional combat brigades could salvage a war that by then appeared hopeless. Obama, along with most of the country, had decided that it was time to cut American losses. Neither candidate’s calculations on Iraq have been as cheaply political as McCain’s repeated assertion that Obama values his career over his country; both men based their positions, right or wrong, on judgment and principle.

President Bush’s successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will, and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain’s views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks “victory”—a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first Presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption, and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory.

Unimaginably painful personal experience taught McCain that war is above all a test of honor: maintain the will to fight on, be prepared to risk everything, and you will prevail. Asked during the first debate to outline “the lessons of Iraq,” McCain said, “I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.” A soldier’s answer––but a statesman must have a broader view of war and peace. The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness, and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain’s strong suit than the current President’s. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than willpower and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years.

Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international coöperation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation—the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam.

The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture, and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern Presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making, and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less—and likely more—overseas.
What most distinguishes the candidates, however, is character—and here, contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama is clearly the stronger of the two. Not long ago, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” The view that this election is about personalities leaves out policy, complexity, and accountability. Even so, there’s some truth in what Davis said––but it hardly points to the conclusion that he intended.

Echoing Obama, McCain has made “change” one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has actually provided has been in himself, and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his Presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump—so much so that it seems obvious that, in the drive for victory, he is willing to replicate some of the same underhanded methods that defeated him eight years ago in South Carolina.

Perhaps nothing revealed McCain’s cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for twenty-one months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama’s choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary, and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.

The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace.

By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.

Nowadays, almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama’s books are different: he wrote them. “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate. Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre’s usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama’s first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition.

A Presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama’s first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. “Dreams from My Father” is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama’s own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance, and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests—personal, spiritual, racial, political—that bear on his preparation for great responsibility.

It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama’s lack of conventional national and international policymaking experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama’s immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii’s racial rainbow, Chicago’s racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organizing among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law—these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.

The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.
We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

Charlotte Ocktoberfest

2008-10-02T15:16:00.003-04:00

This is a great event we have attended two years in a row. For $35 you get to taste about 1,000 beers.

McCain Pulls Out of Michigan

2008-10-02T15:10:00.001-04:00

Who thinks Pennsylvania is next?

Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau

John McCain is ending his attempt to win Michigan, a serious blow to the Republican's presidential hopes.

A Republican source with knowledge of the move told The Detroit News that Michigan Republicans were informed Thursday that the campaign would stop airing television ads in Michigan and pull most staff and other resources from the state.

McCain campaign officials were not immediately available for comment.

Winning Michigan's 17 electoral votes, captured in the last four presidential elections by Democrats, had been a major part of McCain's campaign strategy. But recent polls have shown Michigan slipping from the Arizona Republican's grasp, including a poll by Public Policy Polling released Thursday that showed Democrat Barack Obama with a 51 to 41 percent lead in the state.

The move likely means Obama's campaign can redirect resources to other battleground states, giving the Democrat who leads in most national polls a significant advantage in the final four weeks of the campaign.

Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits

2008-10-02T08:01:00.003-04:00

After the Charlie Gibson interview, I thought Gov. Palin made some mistakes but the questions were worded poorly. I missed the interview with Sean Hannity. I began to become concerned when I heard her babble some nonsense to a question an audience member asked. Finally, the third interview with Katie Couric has been the most enlightening. For anyone considering voting for Sen. McCain consider two things.

1. He has a 14 percent chance of dying before the end of his first term.

2. Sarah Palin's answers to some pretty simple questions. I have compiled them below.

Good Guys and Bad Guys (topic is Israel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Km8L3FBWI

Constitutional Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn9WduykYpA

Lifetime Learning (What She Reads)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF6RdhBXSfM

Neighbors (on Russia and Foreign Policy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRpmC9GXa-I

McCain's Support of Regulation and his campaign manager Rick Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpxMwOghLiY

The Bailout and Health Care

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npUMUASwaec

Energy Policy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8

In summary, Sarah Palin scares me. I never agreed with her policy positions. But, at a minimum, I would like a VP who can answer a question better than my seven year old. Frankly, I cannot imagine her negotiating with any world leader.

Someone asked how she got to be Governor if she was so incompetent. My experience has been that local government requires a lower threshold than national government. Frankly, running the state police department, picking up the trash, and managing a small budget (in contrast to the Federal budget) is very different. This means the issues are much less complicated to understand.

Secondly, because the threshold is lower and the questions easier, the media is much easier to answer. Politics is like baseball, there is a difference between major leagues and minor leagues. A select few move up. Most don't. Some grow into it. I think Governor Palin may grow into it but she got called up too soon.

More Palin Interview with Couric

2008-09-26T19:52:00.002-04:00

Here is another clip. I agree that Gov. Palin's mastery of the English language and the issues is suspect. I am sure she has opinions but it is pretty hard to find them in her nonsensical answers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8__aXxXPVc

Great Ad Attacking McCain

2008-09-26T06:41:00.001-04:00

I don't know who did this but it is very funny. This is must see.

http://www.236.com/video/2008/new_attack_ad_mccain_and_compu_1_9116.php

One Heartbeat Away

2008-09-26T06:20:00.004-04:00

Anyone considering voting for McCain should consider this interview. Can you imagine Palin negotiation nuclear reductions with Putin?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1PXHqrSp58

McCain - Putting Politics First

2008-09-25T10:16:00.002-04:00

When McBush announced his campaign suspension Wednesday, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. The more I reflect on this, the more obvious it becomes that it was a stunt. It was an attempt to change the subject. Here is my argument.

1. Listen to the McCain surrogates. They keep talking about how presidential it was and how he was putting country before politics. That only happens when everyone has talking points.

2. McCain admitted Monday (two days earlier) in an interview with Tom Beres,"I have not had a chance to see it in writing. I have to examine it." The original plan was three pages. Paulson released it Saturday. So, in three days, McBush never took the time to read a three page plan that would spend $700 billion and profoundly affect the economy for the foreseeable future. Two days later, he was so worried about it, he wanted to suspend his campaign to focus on it.

3. McCain, as a long time member of the Senate knows full well that the bill will have to come out of the Dodd and Franks' committees. He also knows that Richard Shelby (R) was integrally involved in the on going negotiations between the Congress and the Bush Administration. Most members of the Congress are not involved directly yet. They will be once a compromise bill is finalized. Until then, neither he nor Obama really have much to do with it - nor should they.

4. Under no scenario I can conceive would delicate negotiations be aided by the Presidential candidates. If anything, bringing the press and their entourages in close contact with the negotiations would politicize them more - not less.

5. Things have been going poorly recently for McCain. As the crisis has unfolded, it is reminding people that while Obama is new and different, McCain and the GOP have fumbled the football - big time. We are on the brink of a depression. The voters know who has been in charge. His campaign manager got busted taking money to lobby for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the shine is wearing off Sarah Palin as she does more interviews.

In summary, McBush needed to change the subject. Unfortunately, his gamble is predicated on people believing his motives were to "put the country before politics". I don't think most people are fooled.

The McCain Suspension

2008-09-24T22:15:00.003-04:00

At first I gave McBush the benefit of the doubt about his "suspension". However, when I heard his surrogates make the case that he was "acting above politics" and "presidential", I knew there were talking points. These are a standard set of key phrases used by multiple surrogates to emphasize and legitimize a message. When you hear them all say the say thing more or less the same way, someone wrote it down.

Palin Implodes

2008-09-24T22:10:00.003-04:00

This is the Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin. It is long but scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbg6hF0nShQ

McSame Wants to Postpone Debate

2008-09-24T17:00:00.004-04:00

John McCain has proposed suspending his Presidential campaign until Congress can create a consensus plan to move forward contingent on Obama's agreement to do the same. Initially, I thought it was a good idea. However, I have changed my mind.

First, McCain and Obama's presence is not really necessary for negotiations. They can send their representatives. In fact, I would be shocked if both don't already have their people in the room.

Second, the foreign policy debate is important. We will need a foreign policy whether we slip into an economic depression or not. I would like to hear what each of them thinks about the subject.

Third, no deal is going to get done without both agreeing to vote for it. Neither party will buck the popular sentiment out there right now without the other doing it too. It is nice to say everyone should put politics above this, but we are six weeks from an election. Incumbents in Congress have as much to lose as McCain and Obama. The only way to sell this is with near unanimity. If there is a partisan divide, there will not be a deal. People are mad and are pretty likely to throw out anyone who votes for it - unless the alternative candidate supported it too.

This looks suspiciously like a stunt. I like to think McCain is doing this for the right reasons, but six weeks from a tight election, I am a little jaded.

In summary, I don't see what value a campaign suspension brings to the ongoing negotiations. As long as McCain and Obama are involved via surrogates, a compromise both can live with seems just as possible.

Whatever the outcome, I hope Congress does this quickly. All the signs around here are pretty bad. The word on the street is banks have shut down lending on commercial real estate. If that does not change, I might have to do something else.

McSame should ask his campaign manager about the market meltdown

2008-09-24T08:43:00.004-04:00

Either McSame thinks we are all too stupid to figure this out or he does not care anymore about the truth. Last week he ran ads connecting Obama to Fannie and Freddie (all of which turned out to be untrue). This week it turns out his campaign manager was their lobbyist.

Here is the report from the AP.

Source: Freddie Mac paid McCain aide's firm
By PETE YOST – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Almost up until the time it was taken over by the government in the nation's financial crisis, one of two housing giants paid $15,000 a month to the lobbying firm of John McCain's campaign manager, a person familiar with the financial arrangement says.

The money from Freddie Mac to the firm of Rick Davis is on top of more than $30,000 a month that went directly to Davis for five years starting in 2000.

The $30,000 a month came from both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the other housing entity now under the government's control because of the nation's financial crisis.

All the payments were first reported by The New York Times, which posted an article Tuesday night revealing the $15,000 a month to the firm of Davis Manafort. The newspaper quoted two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

In response to the latest disclosure, the McCain campaign issued a statement saying that Davis left the firm and stopped taking salary from the firm in 2006.

A person familiar with the contract says the $15,000 a month in payments to Davis' firm started around the end of 2005 and continued until the past month or so. The person spoke on condition of anonymity.
The connection between Davis and the housing giants that figure centrally in the global financial crunch emerged after the McCain campaign unleashed a sharp attack on Democratic rival Barack Obama.

McCain has tied Obama to Fannie and Freddie's troubles and has called on Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines — both Obama supporters and former Fannie Mae executives — to return large golden parachute payments they received from the corporations after leaving.

McCain's campaign released a new television ad that says Raines is among those advising Obama on housing policy.

Obama's campaign released a statement from Raines, who says he is not an Obama adviser.
Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, criticized the McCain campaign's attack on Obama, given the five years of payments to Davis.

"It's either idiocy or hubris" on the McCain campaign's part, McCarson, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Great Simple Explanation of Mortgage Mess

2008-09-23T11:06:00.003-04:00

This is a simple cartoonish version of the mortgage mess. It is pretty accurate but has some objectionable language. It is very amusing.

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1

Time to Buy Commodoties

2008-09-22T15:17:00.004-04:00

As negotiations continue over the size and nature of the financial sector bailout, it appears more likely to happen. This drove up the price of oil today by $16 a barrel. Don't be surprised if we get $150 a barrel oil soon (and $4 a gallon gas returns). Essentially, to pay for the bailout, the U.S. plans to print money and devalue the dollar which creates inflation. This encourages investors to buy commodities - like oil, gold, and wheat. This makes us all a little poorer but it helps relieve the national debt by allowing us to pay back our debts with dollars worth less than the ones we borrowed. This is price we pay for eight years of profligate fiscal policies combined with the largest bailout ever. Maybe folks will learn the GOP is not that good at running the economy. Hope springs eternal.

Great Observation

2008-09-22T08:33:00.004-04:00

Last night at the Emmy's, Laura Linney noted that she was ”grateful for the community organizers that helped form our country." While that was clearly a swipe at Sarah Palin, it also is true. John Adams, George Washington, Ben Franklin, and the other founders of a nation were essentially subjects of the king, who organized themselves and their neighbors to throw of the yoke of the King. Thank goodness we had them.

McSame - Man of the People

2008-09-22T08:27:00.001-04:00

By Keith Naughton and Hilary Shenfeld NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 20, 2008

When you have seven homes, that's a lot of garages to fill. After the fuss over the number of residences owned by the two presidential nominees, NEWSWEEK looked into the candidates' cars. And based on public vehicle-registration records, here's the score. John and : 13. Barack and : one.

One vehicle in the McCain fleet has caused a small flap. United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger, an Obama backer, accused McCain this month of "flip-flopping" on who bought daughter Meghan's foreign-made Toyota Prius. McCain said last year that he bought it, but then told a TV station on Sept. 7 that Meghan "bought it, I believe, herself." (The McCain campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

Obama's lone vehicle also is a green machine, a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid. He bought it last year to replace the family's Chrysler 300C, a Hemi-powered sedan. Obama ditched the 300C, once 50 Cent's preferred ride, after taking heat for driving a guzzler while haranguing Detroit about building more fuel-efficient cars.

McCain's personal ride, a 2004 Cadillac CTS, is no gas sipper, but it should make Detroit happy because it's made by General Motors. "I've bought American literally all my life and I'm proud," McCain said in the interview with Detroit's WXYZ-TV. But the rest of his fleet is not all-American. There's a 2005 Volkswagen convertible in the garage along with a 2001 Honda sedan. Otherwise, there's a 2007 half-ton Ford pickup truck, which might come in handy on the Sedona ranch; a vintage 1960 Willys Jeep; a 2008 Jeep Wrangler; a 2000 Lincoln; and a 2001 GMC SUV. The McCains also own three 2000 NEV Gem electric vehicles, which are bubble-shaped cars popular in retirement communities.

Only the Cadillac is registered in the candidate's name. Cindy McCain's name is on 11 vehicles, though not the one she actually drives. That car, a Lexus, is registered to her family's beer-distributor business and is outfitted with personalized plates that read MS BUD.

The United States of France

2008-09-22T08:20:00.001-04:00

By Bill Saporito Sunday, Sep. 21, 2008

This is the state of our great republic: We've nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We're about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they're a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future where too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national healthcare? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.

Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by a half dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn. and FedExed to Washington D.C. to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We're now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride. Italy? Sure, it's had four governments since last Thursday, but none of them would have allowed this to go on; the Italians know how to rig an economy.

You just know the Frogs have only increased their disdain for us, if that is indeed possible. And why shouldn't they? The average American is working two and half jobs, gets two weeks off, and has all the employment security of a one-armed trapeze artist. The Bush Administration has preached the "ownership society" to America: own your house, own your retirement account; you don't need the government in your way. So Americans mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy overpriced houses they can no longer afford and signed up for 401k programs that put money where, exactly? In the stock market! Where rich Republicans fleeced them.

Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French word) regulation-averse Administration has made France's only Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterand did was nationalize France's big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn't have to deal with bankers who didn't want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn't have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world. Sure, France has its banlieus, where it likes to warehouse people who aren't French enough (meaning, immigrants orAlgerians) in huge apartment blocks. But the bulk of French homeowners are curiously free of subprime mortgages foisted on them by fellow citizens, and they aren't over their heads in personal debt.

We've always dismissed the French as exquisitely fed wards of their welfare state. They work, what, 27 hours in a good week, have 19 holidays a month, go on strike for two days and enjoy a glass of wine every day with lunch — except for the 25% of the population that works for the government, who have an even sweeter deal. They retire before their kids finish high school, and they don't have to save for a $45,000-a-year college tuition because college is free. For this, they pay a tax rate of about 103%, and their labor laws are so restrictive that they haven't had a net gain in jobs since Napoleon. There is no way that the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does.

Mitterand tried to create both job-growth and wage-growth by nationalizing huge swaths of the economy, including some big industries, including automaker Renault, for instance. You haven't driven a Renault lately because Renault couldn't sell them here. Imagine that. An auto company that couldn't compete with a Dodge Colt. But the Renault takeover ultimately proved successful and Renault became a private company again in 1996, although the government retains about 15% of the shares.

Now the U.S. is faced with the same prospect in the auto industry. GM and Ford need money to develop greener cars that can compete with Toyota and Honda. And they're looking to Uncle Sam for investment — an investment that could have been avoided had Washington imposed more stringent mileage standards years earlier. But we don't want to interfere with market forces like the French do — until we do.

Mitterand's nationalization program and other economic reforms failed, as the development of the European Market made a centrally planned economy obsolete. The Rothschilds got their bank back, a little worse for wear. These days, France sashays around the issue of protectionism in a supposedly unfettered EU by proclaiming some industries to be national champions worthy of extra consideration — you know, special needs kids. And we're not talking about pastry chefs, but the likes of GDF Suez, a major utility. I never thought of the stocks and junk securities sold by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as unique, but clearly Washington does. Morgan's John Mack calls SEC boss Chris Cox to whine about short sellers and bingo, the government obliges. The elite serve the elite. How French is that?

Even in the strongest sectors in the U.S., there's no getting away from the French influence. Nothing is more sacred to France than its farmers. They get whatever they demand, and they demand a lot. And if there are any issues about price supports, or feed costs being too high, or actual competition from other countries, French farmers simply shut down the country by marching their livestock up the Champs Elysee and piling up wheat on the highways. U.S. farmers would never resort to such behavior. They don't have to: they're the most coddled special interest group in U.S. history, lavished with $180 billion in subsidies by both parties, even when their products are fetching record prices. One consequence: U.S. consumers pay twice what the French pay for sugar, because of price guarantees. We're more French than France.

So yes, while we're still willing to work ourselves to death for the privilege of paying off our usurious credit cards, we can no longer look contemptuously at the land of 246 cheeses. Kraft Foods has replaced American International Group in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the insurance company having been added to Paulson's nationalized portfolio. Macaroni and cheese has supplanted credit default swaps at the fulcrum of capitalism. And one more thing: the food snob French love McDonalds, which does a fantastic business there. They know a good freedom fry when they taste one.

What is your Sarah Palin Name?

2008-09-19T08:28:00.012-04:00

What would your name be if Sarah Palin named you? Find out here.

http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html

Palin is an expert?

2008-09-19T08:28:00.010-04:00

I would not leave her in charge of my dogs for the weekend. Check out her answer to a question about a ban on selling domestically produced oil and gas to other countries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8

Great Obama Ad

2008-09-19T08:28:00.008-04:00

The only thing I would add to this is that HP (the company that Carly Fiorina ran until fired) just laid off 26,000 workers worldwide (half in the U.S.) this week.

Heck of a job Carly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPUuHCHRY4g

New Federal Bailout and Mary Poppins

2008-09-19T08:28:00.005-04:00

Thankfully, we awoke this morning to find that the Congressional leadership was in lock step with the Bush administration. (I cannot believe I am writing these words). I guess the realization that we were teetering on the brink of another depression scared everyone enough to listen to one another and begin cutting a deal to stop the hemorrhaging in the global financial markets. Hopefully, everyone will realize the gravity of the situation and get the legislation passed within the next week or so. Now is not the time for partisan games. If Congress and Bush cannot get this done - buy gold.

On another note, Joe Biden said it was patriotic for the wealthy to pay more in taxes. Sarah Palin criticized this. I have news for Governor Palin: the events of this week mean we will all have to pay more taxes. The rich are going to get the biggest hit simply because a small increase on the wealthy raises lots of money. We can trim all the pork out of the budget but we our existing financial commitments are overwhelming. Bailing out the mortgage market will at least $500 billion to the deficit - doubling it. We are currently in two wars that run $120 billion a year. We just bailed out four companies to the tune of $350 billion and we were already running a deficit of $500 billion annually.

Governor Palin - if you become VP, you had better find a good way to sell the medicine of tax cuts because you will have to implement them. Sen. Biden is following Mary Poppins advice - "a spoon full of sugar will make the medicine go down". Until you have a better plan, you should clam up (just like your husband and staff have done in Troopergate).

Dickipedia

2008-09-18T12:46:00.003-04:00

I just added a link to Dickipedia (on right). It is a spoof of wikipedia created by some very funny people. Check it out when you need a good laugh. For those of you wondering, the writers make fun of conservatives, liberals, and everything in between.

Social Security Privatization

2008-09-18T11:20:00.002-04:00

I am thrilled that Obama dropped the bomb on McSame today. Everyone should remember that McSame wanted to privatize social security. As events this week have reminded everyone, private accounts could return better results than the government but they can also return lesser results. McSame voted for the Bush privatization plan three times and has been an outspoken supporter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV9GZUtCgPc

Are You Better Off?

2008-09-17T12:40:00.009-04:00

Today the DJIA closed at 10,609 - below the level when Bush was inaugurated (10,749).

Heck of a job George!

Vote for Obama - No on McSame.

A Conservative for Obama (Reprint from D Magazine)

2008-09-17T12:40:00.005-04:00

My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country.

Leading Off By Wick Allison, Editor In Chief

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.
In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher.

Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions. Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results.

Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of “oughts.” We ought to do this or that because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether it works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling good rather than doing good.

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.

This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.

“Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.

McCain Staff Meeting

2008-09-17T12:40:00.004-04:00

This is a great clip from an Obama speech today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4avFVDKCIA

AIG Bailout

2008-09-17T12:40:00.003-04:00

This morning, my mom wondered why the feds were bailing out AIG. I told her it was the better of two evils. You either save AIG or we have an economic depression. As I watch Obama and McCain react and watch the polls - I have to wonder when most people will realize the obvious.

In general, the GOP wants to deregulate and the Democrats want to regulate more. This has been a staple of GOP rhetoric since 1980 with Ronald Reagan. With many Democrats help, they successfully deregulated natural gas, the airline industry, the savings and loan industry, the financial services industry, and the telecommunications industry. Moreover, the GOP has pushed to limit the quantity and quality of regulatory staff.

Today, as I watch my 401k shrink, you have to wonder if the "free market" philosophy has worked out all that well. I think the answer is a mixed bag. On the one hand, industries without regulation or with less regulation are in a stronger position to grow. That has lead to substantial expansion over the last 28 years. On the other hand, their unfettered and unregulated growth has apparently been done in pretty unsustainable ways - as evidenced by the collapse of the mortgage market and the subsequent destruction of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG (there will be more names on this list soon).

The funny thing is, the Republicans running the country are bailing some of these companies out. To date, we have nationalized AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. All of these companies made bad decisions, their leadership made boatloads of money, and we rewarded them with public dollars.

Where does it stop? That is a good question. I don't think the feds should stand by and let another depression occur. Kudos to the feds for trying to manage the meltdown. However, you have to wonder if it is fair to let 40 million Americans live without health insurance, 10,000 homeowners default on their mortgages, and the homeless sleep on the street while the management of AIG is protected. I guess in the end, it means the Republicans will sacrifice the principle of deregulation for the interest of the general welfare if needed. So much for principle before politics.

As far as the voters, I hope Obama finds a way to explain our current situation. I don't think there is a clearer example of the conservative revolution's impact than the current economic crisis. We would not be where we are today had we not deregulated the financial industry in 2000.

For those of you who believe we are where we are because of greed (John McCain said that today), there is some truth to that. Greed is the defining principle of capitalism. Without greed, there is no capitalism. Greed is good. Greed is the price we pay for our economic system. Does it have a downside? Of course, but it is silly to place the blame for today's events on greed. Today's events happened because there were not rules to monitor or control the market. Left to their own devices, the titans of finance ran the bus off the cliff. Now we have to perform triage - saving some (AIG) and letting others die (Lehman). The real question is where next?
We can either put the reins of the country in the hands of someone who has advocated deregulation his entire career (McSame) or someone who is prepared to regulate in a thoughtful manner (Obama).

P.S. - I never want to hear a Republican call me or any other Democrat a socialist. Bush just nationalized one of the worlds largest insurance companies. That insult will forever ring hollow.

John McCain the "Reformer"

2008-09-16T12:54:00.003-04:00

John McCain's solution to the meltdown on Wall Street is to create a commission to study it. He also said “unbridled corruption and greed caused the crisis on Wall Street.’’ Maybe he should appoint some of his closest advisers to help fix the problem - since they were direct participants in either the creation of the failed regulatory environment or some of the larger participants. Here are a couple of the folks he would likely include and their role.

Phil Gramm - former Co-Chair of McCain campaign (until he said we were a nation of whiners). As Senator, he crafted the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 that deregulated the financial markets. This led to the expansion of the use of collateral debt obligations (CDOs)- the chief financial vehicle that drove the boom and crash of the mortgage market. Senator Gramm also was one of five co-sponsors of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. This created the Enron loophole. Senator Gramm currently is a lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS - one of the current players in the meltdown.

John Thain - CEO of Merrill Lynch. Former head of the NY Stock Exchanges and President and COO of Goldman Sachs. Mr. Thain was hired to save Merrill Lynch in 2007 (now being purchased by Bank of America). Previously, he was the head of Mortgage Backed Securities at Goldman Sachs (this means he bought and sold CDOs - the instrument of Wall Street's demise).
Mr. Thain is a big donor and supporter of John McCain.

In my mind, leaving the folks in charge who created the regulatory environment and then took advantage of it are the last folks we should let "reform" Wall Street.

McSame the Hypocrite

2008-09-12T12:41:00.003-04:00

Listen to this clip of the old man putting down Giuliani and Romney for their lack of experience and compare it to today's rhetoric defending Gov. Palin. What little respect I had for McCain is gone. He will say anything to get elected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzhFDQIgGSg

Obama Kneecaps McSame

2008-09-12T12:34:00.003-04:00

Finally, Obama hit below the belt.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1463312854/bctid1789003018

Wasilla Charged Sexual Assault Victims for Rape Kit

2008-09-11T13:31:00.002-04:00

Palin was mayor from 1996 - 2002

Published on Monday, May 22, 2000 9:00 PM AKDT
JO C. GOODE / The Frontiersman / May 23, 2000

ANCHORAGE - Gov. Tony Knowles recently signed legislation protecting victims of sexual assault from being billed for tests to collect evidence of the crime, but one local police chief said the new law will further burden taxpayers.

The governor signed House Bill 270, sponsored by Rep. Eric Croft, D-Anchorage, outside the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) exam room at Alaska Regional Hospital. In attendance at the signing were members of victims advocate groups, law enforcement agencies and legislators.

The new law makes it illegal for any law enforcement agency to bill victims or victims insurance companies for the costs of examinations that take place to collect evidence of a sexual assault or determine if a sexual assault did occur.

We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence, Knowles said. Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.

According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.

Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.
The forensic exam is just one part of the equation. Id like to see the courts make these people pay restitution for these things, Fannon said.

Fannon said he intends to include the cost of exams required to collect evidence in a restitution request as a part of a criminals sentencing.

Palmer police chief Laren Zager said that to his knowledge, no sexual assault victim has ever been billed by the city of Palmer for an exam to collect evidence of a crime. Zager, who has been police chief since January, said he would never expect a victim to be burdened with the cost of a police investigation.

Im prepared to pay every dime in an investigation. As long as I am chief, I would never bill a victim, Zager said.

The new bill would also make law enforcement agencies that are investigating a sexual assault responsible for the costs of testing victims for sexually transmitted diseases and emergency contraception.

While Rome Burned...They Talked About Lipstick

2008-09-11T13:12:00.003-04:00

The Huffington Post September 10, 2008 08:47 PM

On Tuesday, as McCain campaign surrogates were dispatched far and wide to ensure railroad coverage of the contrived "lipstick" controversy, Barack Obama responded not with a harder counterpunch or attack ad, but a call for the country to keep its focus on...actual issues.
"You know who ends up losing at the end of the day?" Obama said about the latest dust-ups during a stop in Virginia. "It's not the Democratic candidate, it's not the Republican candidate. It's you, the American people, because then we go another year or another four years or another eight years without addressing the issues that matter to you. Enough."

So, if you've spent the last few days following what's become of the presidential race, here's the actual news you may have missed:

U.S. global leadership is dwindling: "An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades." According to the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, U.S. leadership is eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas."

Market diving, another massive bank may collapse: Stocks fell 280 points on Tuesday, a dive that was accelerated when concerns mounted about the Lehman Brothers investment bank's ability to raise capital. "Waves of selling wiped out nearly half of Lehman's value in the stock market on Tuesday, leaving the firm, one of the nation's oldest and largest investment banks, in an all-out fight for survival," the New York Times reported.

Fear of violence, terrorism slows Iraq withdrawal: "U.S. defense officials said the president's decision to withdraw only 8,000 soldiers from Iraq reflects a persistent concern among top commanders that the improvements in security could be temporary and that renewed violence could erupt. Officials fear that Iran might reactivate the Shiite Muslim militias it's armed and trained and that the Sunni group al Qaida in Iraq is trying to reestablish itself in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city."

Iraqi parliament gridlocked: "Iraqi lawmakers returned from their summer recess Tuesday, still gridlocked over the critical law on provincial elections and with no new vote in sight."
Economy weakening: "The U.S. economy continues to be marked by weak housing and labor-market conditions," the Wall Street Journal reported today, "suggesting economic performance will be sluggish at best through the end of the year."

On 9/11 anniversary, aviation still vulnerable: "The nation's top domestic security official," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, "said Wednesday aviation remains vulnerable to terrorist attack seven years after 9/11."

Unemployment rising: The nation's unemployment rate has "bolted above the psychologically important 6 percent level last month for the first time in five years," the AP noted over the weekend, "and it's likely to go even higher in the months ahead, possibly throwing the economy into a tailspin as Americans pick a new president." Moreover, a new study released yesterday showed that pending home sales dropped 3.2% in July, reversing gains made in June.

Federal deficit ballooning: The weak economy is not only devastating the federal government's coffers -- likely driving the federal budget deficit over the $500 billion mark by January, according to government estimates -- but is also depleting state unemployment insurance trust funds.

U.S. 'running out of time' in Afghanistan: "The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today the U.S. is 'running out of time' to get the war in Afghanistan right and announced that he was developing a "new, more comprehensive strategy" to cover the entire region."

Military suicides reaching record levels: Suicides among active-duty soldiers this year "are on pace to exceed both last year's all-time record and, for the first time since the Vietnam War, the rate among the general U.S. population," according to Army officials.

U.S.-Russia relations worsening: "Just three months ago, President Bush reached a long-sought agreement with Russia intended to open a new era of civilian nuclear cooperation and sent it to Congress for review. Now, according to administration officials, Mr. Bush is preparing to scrap his own deal."

OPEC trying to prevent oil prices from falling: The OPEC oil cartel announced its intention to reduce oil production by approximately half a million barrels per day in what the New York Times described as "a bid to stem a rapid decline in oil prices in recent weeks."

And that's not even counting the 36 million Americans living in poverty this year, the sky high prices of gas and food, the sinking consumer confidence, and the 46.9 million people without health insurance (about 16 percent of the total population), etc.

No, the stories above are just from the last few days...

Alaska Earmarks

2008-09-11T10:46:00.004-04:00

Apparently earmarks to study seal populations are pretty important in Alaska. Good to see where your dollars are going. Check out the last item on the bottom of page two. Click on the image to see the file.

Obama's New Message (Or it Ought to Be)

2008-09-10T15:39:00.001-04:00

My opponent's chief strategist just said, "this campaign isn't about the issues." Well, I've got news for you, America. The Republican Party is desperate. They are going to do anything to try and hold onto their power, because they know the damage they've done to our country, and they don't know how to fix it. They know that people are out of work, and they don't know how to help them. They know that people are dying because they don't have health insurance, and they don't know to save them. They know that families are struggling to put food on the table, and they know don't know how to provide for them.

So they're going to try and distract you, America, because that's the only thing they know how to do. They're going to try and scare you. They're going to try and tell you stories, instead of offering solutions. And yes, folks -- these are the same people that have been lying to you for the last eight years -- and they're going to lie to you again.

McCain on Bridge to nowhere

2008-09-10T15:20:00.003-04:00

A year ago, John McCain blamed the bridge to nowhere for the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. See for yourself. Good thing Gov. Palin changed her mind about its utility.

Make Your Own Map

2008-09-10T10:06:00.003-04:00

For all you junkies, here is my map predicting the outcome.

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Richland Transportation Tax

2008-09-09T12:26:00.003-04:00

The Richland County Council is considering whether to extend the transportation tax to pay to fund the CMRTA (bus system). Personally, I support it. I know it is not ideal, but the alternative is to either cut funding to the CMRTA or find another source of money (the general fund). Since the later is off the table, that means there will be less bus services (and less para transit service) sometime in 2009. It seems a little silly at the point when there is growing demand for bus service to cut service. However, that is where we are headed without a funding extension.

Why should they do this?

Public transportation only works with subsidization. Roads are heavily subsidized through gas taxes (federal and state mostly). It is a little unfair to say to the one percent that need bus service - pay for it yourself. And yet, that will be the result without funding. Moreover, any auto trip deferred to the bus will generate fewer emissions - helping us reach our regional air quality requirements (which are getting ready to be tougher).

Para transit coverage (mini buses for disabled) is linked to transit by law. Eliminate bus routes and you have to eliminate para transit. This means the disabled will be more hard pressed to be self supporting.

Some of our largest employers are dependent on the CMRTA. The hospitals, Fort Jackson, and the University of SC all depend on low income employees who ride the bus. Limiting access limits their employment pool.

If the bus system were properly funded, more people would ride. That is a fact well known by people who run and study transit systems. If you want people to ride, you have to have frequent, dependable, clean, and rider friendly route systems and service. Without it, ridership will limp along with only riders of last resort using the system. Once, when I lived in Austin, they let everyone ride for free for a month. Ridership soared overnight.

A quality region requires mass transit. Find me a growing major city without transit. You cannot do it.

The riders of last resort will suffer without it. Ride the bus sometime and you will find the disabled and working poor on the bus. Do we want to force them onto unemployment?

In summary, if Columbia wants to be world class, we cannot do it on the cheap. Richland County needs to support the bus system immediately.

True Blood

2008-09-09T10:42:00.002-04:00

It has been a long and very politicized two weeks. Thankfully, some mindless television has started. I time shift most of the TV shows I watch so I am a day or two behind. The first new show of the season I plan to watch was on Sunday on HBO - True Blood.

True Blood is great. It has all the elements of a show my kids cannot watch. Vampires, sex, violence, and adult language. The general premise is vampires are beginning to assimilate into society after the invention of True Blood - a blood substitute. So far the lead character, Sookie, a clairvoyant, has met a local vampire named Bill and is smitten with him. I think this show has some potential. The premise allows the exploration of those unlike us integrating openly. This is topped by the exploration of vampire legend - especially the sexual side of vampires. So far, so good. Unlike John from Cincinnati, I am not confused yet. Also, the creator is Alan Ball who also did Six Feet Under.

Now We Know Why Palin Doesn't Speak Without Teleprompter

2008-09-08T12:26:00.002-04:00

On Saturday Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking in Colorado Springs, Colo., said Fannie and Freddie had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers."

For the uninitiated, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private corporations that bundle and sell mortgages to private entities. Until yesterday, they had never taken public dollars (they still have not done so yet). Her statement indicates she has little or no understanding of these vital institutions. Whether you like them or not, they own half the mortgages in the US. They were taken over because they could not secure funding anymore due to the mortgage crisis (which they helped create). Unfortunately, letting them fail would have sent the global economy into a tailspin. That is why everyone (Bush, McSame, and Obama) all supported the takeover. Hopefully, McSame's advisers will train the hockey mom about the economy in case she ends up a heartbeat away from running it in January.

The Palin Effect

2008-09-05T08:31:00.003-04:00

While I will not vote for McCain-Palin even under extreme duress, I do think having a working mother of five on the GOP is good for women. I think the impact of the elevation of Palin and the almost successful run of Hillary has changed our country for the better. From a political perspective, I think Palin will change the GOP in ways that we cannot anticipate.

First, the reality is there have always been working mothers who supported the GOP. Now, among the many Republican's I interact with, working mothers have always been a little different. They were not necessarily bad - but they were not the ideal that the party seemed to promote either through policy or ideology. Palin suddenly has turned this on its head and I am not sure that either party has come to terms with this change.

For the GOP, this means they are explicitly endorsing the idea that a woman with children can manage a family and a career. More importantly, they are endorsing the idea that a woman can lead (at least economically) a household. This is a big deal. Look at most of the GOP. Most politicians have stay at home wives. Occasionally, I still hear rhetoric supporting the idea that mom staying home with the kids is best. My wife and I still get sneers and disapproving looks from acquaintances who think the stay at home model is best.

For the Dems, this is important too. While the Democratic party has always been more supportive of working mothers, there has always been an assumption that working moms were generally more Democratic leaning because of the GOP antipathy towards them. This is clearly a bad assumption that the Palin nomination has killed and buried.

Going forward, I am not sure how all this will play out. Hopefully, McCain will lose on his own and Palin will not be the cause. If McCain wins, the GOP will most certainly change - becoming more inclusive of women - especially working women - since their standard bearer will be one.

Maverick McCain

2008-09-05T07:55:00.002-04:00

Definition of Maverick - From the Free Dictionary

One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter.

Since John McCain and Sarah Palin claim to be mavericks, I thought it was worthwhile to explore their positions and compare them to the Republican party platform.

Abortion - John McCain wants to overturn Roe V. Wade. So does the GOP.
Taxes - John McCain wants to extend the Bush Tax Cuts. So does the GOP.
Energy - John McCain wants to open everything up for oil exploration except ANWAR. The GOP wants to open everything plus ANWAR.
Regulation - John McCain wants to deregulate as much as possible. So does the GOP.
Tort Reform - John McCain wants medical liability reform. So does the GOP.
Immigration Reform - John McCain wants comprehensive reform that begins with locking down the borders. The GOP does too.
School Choice - John McCain supports it. So does GOP.

In summary, while there are some slight differences on policy, it is a pretty far stretch to call someone whose positions almost entirely mirror his party a maverick. Sarah Palin is icing on the cake. While there are some differences between McCain and GOP - she is a true believer in the entire platform. Neither are mavericks. Both are just more of the same.

Great Jib Jab Video

2008-09-05T07:54:00.001-04:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Hypocrisy Watch

2008-09-04T14:10:00.001-04:00

Here is some of the greatest hits of GOP hypocrisy.

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=184086

We all knew they were full of hooey, but this really proves it.

Bad Drinking Game

2008-09-04T12:31:00.003-04:00

If you want to stay sober all night - play "Find the Person of Color" while watching the Republican convention. You drink every time you see a persons of color (anyone not white). In 2004, they made all the person of color sit near the cameras. Either they forgot to do that this time or they just don't have many in attendance.

For those of you Republicans familiar with the demographics of the U.S., this should scare you. The reason is the white population will lose majority status around 2042. Without racial or ethnic diversity, a political party will become irrelevant.

Have a good time.

Sarah Palin on Teaching Creationism

2008-09-04T12:02:00.003-04:00

Here is the GOP VP nominees view on the subject of teaching creationism in public schools. This is a quote from an interview when she was running for Governor in 2006.

“Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject — creationism and evolution. It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.”

My problem with this whole viewpoint is she is suggesting we teach kids a creation myth based on the Bible in science. The big problem with this is you cannot apply the scientific method to the Biblical creation story - whereas you can to evolution. Teaching them together connotes equivalency - which they lack. I would also note that creationism is very Judeo Christan. I doubt she would support teaching the panoply of creation myths as equivalents. This is another great example where she disqualifies herself simply by carrying the Christan Right's water.

What do Some Republicans Really Think about Palin?

2008-09-03T19:10:00.002-04:00

Check out this you tube clip when Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy went off air with a live mike. This is great stuff. They obviously think her selection was a mistake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrG8w4bb3kg