12 - Racism Rant

So yesterday the NY Times had an article about 2 men with hopes of killing Obama being arrested. You can read the full article here.

This is some scary shit right here. Yeah the article says they didn’t really have a plan and their ability to actually do it is questionable, but the fact is they wanted to do it. This is much more disturbing then the yelling at the republican rallies because it shows that some of those people seriously want him dead. Of course, that is not to mention they hoped to kill children at a predominantly African-American school.

I do believe this moment in America is a major step in the right direction towards ending racism, but its still just a step. Racism will probably never die, I mean truly die. So long as something is different between people there will be some kind of negative attitude about those differences. It can be skin color, culture, religion, anything really.

What needs to happen is people need to understand that all people being created equal does necessitate that everyone is the same. To say that in understanding this racism will die is not realistic. However if people understand this then any racism that exists will be minor, like crossing the street so as to not walk as close to a small group of Asians or African-Americans or whatever. That kind of racism will never completely die but it doesn’t hurt anyone either, it doesn’t try to make anyone subhuman, and in fact it could arguably be instinctual to a degree.

The desires to kill, or enslave is where the problem is. I really hope that should Obama be elected he can institute all the plans he has said he has for the white house. When the American people discover how much his policies help them, perhaps that will be the real turning point towards ending the extremes of racism in our country. Because just electing Obama won’t change racism in America, it will just show how much of the country has already changed.

11 - Freudian Slip?

So I’m always hearing those things about how some big mess up ruined whatever person’s chances to win the election. All those speculations are pretty far-fetched in my opinion, but this dailyshow segment had a very funny ending.

10 - Colin Powell and Socialism

So the big news over the weekend was obviously Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama. This really could be the end for McCain. Not that he will stop trying or anything, but realistically this could be it.

Colin Powell was the Secretary of State for the Bush white house. This is a man who has played a big part in republican politics. With him endorsing Obama, I think, a real shift in votes will swing Obama’s way. All those arguments being used to say Obama isn’t ready are pretty much null from this, because if Colin Powell thinks he is ready then why should anyone really doubt it?

This week has had lots of other little things happen though. My favorite being that the republicans, the ones who are so good about “reaching across party lines” and “country first” and all that shit, have begun to start calling all those heavy democratic areas of the country “un-American.” Those areas aren’t the “Real America,” they are just the America that was attacked on September 11th.



This week seems to be more about Barack Obama and the “socialism” he wants to bring to America while in office. This is actually very interesting to me because I have sometimes considered myself a sudo-socialist. I generally agree with many of the socialistic ideas, I just wouldn’t take them quite to the extreme that I think socialism might actually be associated with.

However what really interests me about this is not so much the attacks themself but the McCain economic plan. McCain says we should take an axe to spending plans, or have a spending freeze because “raising taxes and government spending” won’t get us out of the problem. Now, I am crazy or something? I could have sworn it was some socialistic policies to spread the wealth around and some massive government spending that got America out of the Great Depression.

And just for laughs, it seems the old McCain actually would have agreed with Obama’s plans.

9 - Debate Number 3

Well the third debate was last week. I watched it last week but here we are with me procrastinating with my response once again. Although, part of me feels it isn’t needed. It was a debate full of more of the same.

What I found most amusing however, was some of the things McCain said. Yeah big surprise huh? What I mean for example is when he said “my campaign is about getting this economy back on track,” even though Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, or his predecessor Alan Greenspan were not mentioned once. Or when he said he didn’t care about a washed up old terrorist (Ayers) only to start spouting about how America needs to know absolutely everything about Obama’s relationship to him. Not to mention that he continued this attack right after Obama explained everything about the relationship right there.

I am willing to admit that McCain did a better job, at least for the first half or so of the debate, then he did in the other 2. But this was definitely not going to save his campaign. And with exactly 2 weeks before election day, I am feeling hopeful that the lesser of the evils will be elected.

8 - "Kill Him" Again...

Well, McCain’s campaign doesn’t seem to be getting better about the people yelling scary things at their rallies. Sarah Palin went to Scranton today for a rally where a man yelled “kill him” once again. Although she wasn’t the one on stage at the time.

Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin.

Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly.

One man screamed "kill him!"

Supporters have been noted shouting “kill him,” “terrorist,” “off with his head” and other equally incendiary terms about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Others have directly suggested Mr. Obama is a Muslim, which he is not, or a traitor. Some comments even drew rebuke from Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Other than the lone man, there were no other such outbursts.

From The Times Tribune.

Its looking like I am going to be wrong about that turning point thing...

7 - McCain Draws the Line (and debate #2)

Well I was pleasantly surprised that the general consensus about the VP debate was not how I predicted. Perhaps I should trust the media a little more then I have in the past. Of course the McCain campaign started getting extremely ugly after that leading up to the second presidential debate.

I must admit that I expected some serious attacks from McCain. The whole debate seemed much less passionate then it seemed like it should have. I also don’t know why it was said that McCain was so great at the town hall style debates. Obama seemed just as good as McCain, in fact, McCain seemed more uncomfortable to me.

Just a few days ago however, McCain did something that really spoke out to me. I am not swayed in my voting preference but I feel like McCain really isn’t the bad guy he has been coming off as. After almost a full week of rallies with supporters yelling things like, “kill him” and “he’s a terrorist,” McCain drew the line.



Seeing him do that, even with his crowd beginning to boo him for saying it, makes me respect him. I don’t agree with him on the political issues, but I do respect him as a human being. Seeing this explains a lot in the debates to me also. It seems to me that McCain wouldn’t look Obama in the eye, or say any of mudslinging comments because he was, on a personal level, unhappy with the way his campaign was being conducted.

And frankly, with the economic problems we had over the week, he should be ashamed of the way his campaign was being run. This election cannot be about who seems like a more likable person. The problems we are facing are to great, this election must be about the issues, the issues that affect everyone on a day to day basis.

I think this week may have been a turning point in the overall campaign for both parties. And I think it will be a good one. This coming week, and the debate especially, we will see if I am right.

6 - Vice Presidential Debate

Well the vice presidential debate is over so here are my reactions to it. In short, Joe did better, I still don’t like Palin. I feel this way mostly because Palin didn’t answer questions. However, considering how terrible she did in her interviews this was a very nice performance for her. I think that most of the media and possibly some “swing” voters will find this debate to be a draw because of that.

Now for a bit more of the long answer stuff. I’m just going to start out with the whole, not answering questions thing. Now, don’t misunderstand, Joe Biden did a little question dodging stuff as well as both presidential candidates did in the first debate, but nothing to the extent that Palin did. I think it was about 20 minutes in, during the question about deregulation of the banks and who should be at fault for the crisis, that Palin said something I couldn’t believe. Here is what she is responding to for some context to:

BIDEN: The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she's referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way. It was a budget procedural vote. John McCain voted the same way. It did not raise taxes. Number two, using the standard that the governor uses, John McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes. It's a bogus standard it but if you notice, Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That's why we got into so much trouble.

IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?

PALIN: I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also. As mayor, every year I was in office I did reduce taxes. I eliminated personal property taxes and eliminated small business inventory taxes and as governor we suspended our state fuel tax. We did all of those things knowing that that is how our economy would be heated up. Now, as for John McCain's adherence to rules and regulations and pushing for even harder and tougher regulations, that is another thing that he is known for though. Look at the tobacco industry. Look at campaign finance reform.

I put what I thought was so amazing in italics. When called out about not answering the question she pretty much said, “I’m not going to answer the questions asked in this debate.” There are the lies in that block of text about how McCain pushed for regulation even though he is a big deregulation conservative, but I was expecting shit like that. To just flat out not answer the question and say you aren’t is ridiculous.

Of course she made other mistakes, mostly in stuff involving Iraq. Like saying “And with the surge that has worked we're now down to presurge numbers in Iraq.” Which is wrong, they have brought some troops back since the surge but we still have a larger number of soldiers there then before the surge happened. And “You guys opposed the surge. The surge worked. Barack Obama still can't admit the surge works.” Which is also wrong, something like 2 or 3 weeks ago Obama admit that the surge had worked beyond what could have been anticipated.

However the other big point in the debate was about them, and about the role of vice president. It was about the job of being vice president and how they felt about Dick Cheney’s interpretation of what the vice president is. You know what, I’m just going to put the direct transcript of what was said during that part here.

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

IFILL: Vice President Cheney's interpretation of the vice presidency?

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

Damn right Joe Biden. This was the real turning point for me. This question is when I truly felt that Joe Biden was the solid winner of this debate. The constitution is what this country is founded on. And there is NOTHING more patriotic then defending the what the constitution says, and following its directions on what each job is and how each section of the government is run.

Ok I’m done with the debate, but I do have one last thing I want to mention. This senate vote on the bailout bill thing that happened. Now see, things involving money are supposed to originate in the congress, and the congress voted down the last bailout bill and hasn’t voted on this one. So what the hell just happened? Why did the senate vote on any kind of legislation involving this money stuff? Does the constitution say that it must originate in the congress? Well hopefully I can find some answers to that stuff soon. That is all for tonight though.