Actually you're right. The fact didn't get major press but here it is.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 125 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq over that same period.

Also during the same period, an estimated 247 people were shot and wounded in the city.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An the reason why this is interesting.
*Obama voted against a proposal to criminalize contact with a gang for any convicts on probation or out on bail.
*In 2001, Obama was one of just nine senators to vote against a bill that toughened penalties for violent crimes committed during gang activity.
*Obama voted "present" on a bill requiring juveniles to be prosecuted as adults for firing a firearm on or near school property.
*Voted 'No' on making gang members eligible for the death penalty if they kill someone to help their gang. (HB1812, 2001)
*Obama is proposing to make it a felony for a gun owner whose firearm was stolen from his residence which causes harm to another person if that weapon was not securely stored in that home. (so a kid steals your gun and shots someone at school it's a felony for you, but the kid shouldn't be prosecuted as an adult?)
*Obama also voted against a bill permitting gun owners to claim self-defense when using a gun in their homes if the local community bans the use of handguns. (So a bad guy breaks into your house and you shot them and then they arrest you for having an illegal gun )

The last two really piss me off.
BTW, The National Criminal Justice Association gives him a rating of 75, which is only one point away from being labeled "soft on crime"

Actually any wrist-slapping of gang members gets me growling... If I was Prez Hellfairie I'd accept being impeached AFTER rolling out National Guard APCs onto every corner of a gang neighbourhood territory and round up gang leaders and put them all on a version of Devil's Island.... any mini Napoleon's that try to take over the vacated spots get rounded up too. I'm kind of serious with implementing such draconian methods. Young lives are getting blown away at horrific rates but we have successions of Presidents who don't give a damn to play hardball for once in order to let these neighbourhoods live in peace.... at the borders drug smugglers caught also take a trip to Devil's Island now matter how preppy they are either -no free passes or commuted sentences -> judges who pansy around with light sentencing also go to Devil's Island.... while we're at it, weak-assed politicians letting crime ridden neighbourhoods in their jurisdiction, also end up on the island.

Doh.

Foreign policy not her strength. She should dodge those questions.

This election cycle is just amazing
McCain has made some really good moves while Obama has made some stupid ones.
Obama's campaign has spent millions trying to enforce the idea McCain is more of the same. With the Palin pick McCain went contrary to what was expected leaving Obama's main criticisms by the side of the road. Not only that Palin helped him a lot more than Obama's safe pick of Biden.
Now in a desperation move, Obama has decided to go negative and has told the 527's to also go hard negative.
The move to negative makes Obama come across as weak and desperate. He plays a lot better as the positive candidate. He had a great opportunity to stick it to McCain over his recent negative ads but made the mistake to try an beat McCain at the negative add game. I think this was a huge mistake on his part, should have just left the 527's do the dirty work while he stayed positive and made McCain look like the bad guy. With his newest ad, he losses all right to claim moral outrage over the McCain's neg ad campaign.
Not only that but his 1st attempt at a negative add sucks ass...
McCain is so out of touch he doesn't know how to use a computer or email.
The Repub's will have a field day with this because the reason McCain doesn't use a computer is not because he's illiterate about modern technology. The real reason is he has limited dexterity in his hands and fingers. The wounds he received as a POW, prevent him from using a keyboard.
Of all the issues they could attack MCain on they pick this one? I think this is going to come back an hunt Obama over the next 2 months. Talk about Major failure, It's almost as bad as Biden saying he wasn't the best pick for VP. Think about it, how much support will the Repub's be able drum up over Obama's stupid attempt to us McCain's war injuries against him.
Now because of a few stupid mistakes by Obama an some smart moves by McCain, McCain is not only ahead in the popular vote polls ( Which don't really matter ) but also moved ahead in the electoral college. I don't think anyone expect Obama to lose his rather sizable lead in the electoral college, his campaign has to be freaking out right now.

Someone ask this chick how she is going to deal with Chavez.

I say put an American made grenade up his ass.

[quote name='Shred' date='09/14/08 6:38am' post='173502'] Someone ask this chick how she is going to deal with Chavez.

I say put an American made grenade up his ass.

For starters Shred she will be wearing this to the thier first meeting.Just to get his attention.



And if i know you, you'll love this outfit...shred you dog!!



"T.M."

Haha.... of course I disagree....

Obama made several dumb moves over the last 2 months , but to his credit, he still remains a mighty foe to the mighty McCain - many had LONG predicted it was now Obama would crumble under the weight of McCain's expected tornado of attacks. Obama still stands.

And now the Achilles heel of the McCain/Palin ticket is fully exposed and ripe to be slashed open.
First, Palin shows her TOTAL lack of aptitude for worldly affairs should she become President in taking over McCain [ in his early 70s and a multiple cancer survivor.]




I got my answer the day after -loud and clear!
To see her plainly bluffing her way through her concept of the Bush Doctrine was astoundingly disturbing. This is serious business. I'm inclined to believe she'd be totally dependant on being told how to dictate foreign affairs due to her apparent non-interest in the complexities of that facet of being a world leader.

Then we have McCain.... again making an astonishing comment on the day the market crumbles 500 points!He declares as he's done nearly 2 dozen times this year that the economy is 'fundamentally' sound.
The repeated remark clearly has the conservative base jittery.

Now McCain and Palin who belong to the party which is typically ALL for government deregulation -which led to the shenanigans of financial bigwigs screwing themselves up royally by running rampant with foolhardy schemes- these two candidates are puffing themselves up as the ultimate fighters to 'the old boys network' in Washington to bring change.

All that is going to be slammed against McCain and Palin with the upcoming one on one debates; We'll see Palin crumble like a house of cards in spite of the emergency heavy duty 101 she'll be getting on international affairs. McCain and Palin will now have to give specifics of their own policies and do away with making shallow cheerleading statements about promising to change Washington REALISTICALLY - the bulldog-sarcastic style of Palin will soon pale in comparison to how she'll be scrambling to give details of her party's stands on issues -> interestingly enough McCain and Palin differ on several issues.....

It seems now enough Dem-people have thrown cold water in Obama's face and told him to smarten up and get back in his normal stride-which in the past few days he's been doing very well..... Clinton's are now on board too.
The Repubs can feel the ground shaking under their feet.

i wonder how this guy will vote ?



http://www.atlah.org/broadcast/ndnr09-03-08.html

Can we just swap Palin with Tina Fey?

She knows more about politics.

Nice use of liberal talking points there.
I'm surprised you didn't go all the way an use the one about her being a heartbeat away from the presidency. You do realize this is a stupid attack point as Obama is just as lacking on foreign relations experience.
I didn't claim Obama was on his death bed but the 3 important battle ground states he previously had locked up are now back up for grabs. I guarantee you what has happened over the last 2 weeks was totally unexpected by Obama's campaign.





........ Only thing that concerns me is Palin as a VP in the international game/or if she needs to step in as Prez.... but I'll wait to see her in her debates on that to see what her intellectual/contemplative style is like.
I got my answer the day after -loud and clear! To see her plainly bluffing her way through her concept of the Bush Doctrine was astoundingly disturbing. This is serious business. I'm inclined to believe she'd be totally dependant on being told how to dictate foreign affairs due to her apparent non-interest in the complexities of that facet of being a world leader.
I got a lot of laughs the next day when the talking heads gave Palin scathing reviews about her supposed lack on information concerning the "Bush Doctrine". Want to know why I found it so funny? It's because 3 different political analyst all condemned Plain for supposedly not know what the Bush Doctrine was but all 3 gave completely different explanations about what it is.
The 1st one defined it as preemptive strikes to defend American interest.
The 2nd one said it concerned identifying states which protected terrorist as terrorist states and part of the new axis of evil
The last one was the only person to get it right because they referenced the 2002 National Security Strategy document, which is the Bush Doctrine as can be read here
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf
Even the way Gibson himself defined the Bush Doctrine in the interview would be inaccurate.
BTW I think it's worth pointing out this whole issue is stupid because the Bush Doctrine ends when he leaves office. I don't remember anyone asking Presidential nominee in 2000 about the Clinton Doctrine.

Speaking of Gibson's interview I found it laughable how he conducted it when compared to his interview with Obama
Obama interview:
How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to "win"?
How does your family feel about your "winning" breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor's [Clinton] speech?
Palin interview:
Do you have enough qualifications for the job you're seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren't you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

Can you honestly not see the difference between the two interview and the bias?
Obama's was a total fluff piece while thru crafty editing purposefully made Plain look bad.
I found this review of the Gibson interview dead on
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/...palin-interview
Or here is a full transcript of the interview, very different than what was broadcast
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5795641






Then we have McCain.... again making an astonishing comment on the day the market crumbles 500 points!He declares as he's done nearly 2 dozen times this year that the economy is 'fundamentally' sound.
The repeated remark clearly has the conservative base jittery.
Now McCain and Palin who belong to the party which is typically ALL for government deregulation -which led to the shenanigans of financial bigwigs screwing themselves up royally by running rampant with foolhardy schemes- these two candidates are puffing themselves up as the ultimate fighters to 'the old boys network' in Washington to bring change.
I agree it was a terrible sound byte, which Obama used to his full advantage.
Yet, Obama fell short again. while he complained about McCain's remark he made no statement about how he would improve things. All he could do if fall back on his stump speech of pointing out how bad thing are so vote for me "Mr Hope and Change", while completely failing to address how he will change things.

Also you completely mischaracterize McCain's stance on deregulation, he was the one calling for more oversight 3 years ago an partially predicted the financial collapse of Fannie May an Freddy Mac. Which is why he co-sponsered the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005. Which was shot down by demcrat leaders. Then the Republicains tried again two years later with the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2007.
Barney Frank the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee is the one who killed the bill stating
''Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.
Good call Mr. Democrat, yet people are jumping all over McCain for saving the fundamentals of the American economy are strong? Which BTW I wouldn't completely disagree with, after all it's not like Russia who had to shut down their markets because the loses were mounting
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...refer=worldwide
Would it have been better to run around crying the sky is falling?





You think Obama/Biden will devastate McCain/Palin during the debates?
Are you on drugs? Obama is the one who wanted to limit the debates and flatly refused to do any town hall style talks. It will be a waste for Biden to go after Palin during their debates because she will be busy going after Obama and his platform.
You mentioned how McCain an Palin differ on several issue. Are you aware the same thing could be said about Biden an Obama.
They differ on:
Iraq
The Surge
Obama previous stance on early withdraw from Iraq
Taxes
Military
Most importantly, while Biden was mainly picked for his foreign policy experience, Biden and Obama are very different on that subject.

Alrighty- ol'chum
How about we keep personal 'debasing' out of this -as well as the 'are you stupid' insinuations....
I'm pretty good too in colouring up my blabbering in that 'style', but I'd rather refer to you on 'clean' debating terms.

First my views are not straight from the liberal bandwagon.... I'm listening to Palin, McCain, Biden, Obama speaking regularly and determining my assessments from those direct sources chiefly.... if you like I can say you're a neo-con and that dear Robert is making all of his analysis based on right-wing agenda website blogs.... it's pretty easy to do so.
I'm sure the truth however is that you're thinking for yourself-as am I......

What I think the debates will be quite revealing, is my speculation /prediction.
The points I make are valid imo;
Palin is currently in scripted dialogue mode -one can imagine she's being boot-camp rehearsed in how not to sound to right-wing nor too neo-con/Bush doctriner-like. Her biggest drawback will be putting forth the dialogue of those who thrust her into her VP hopeful spot rather than how she'd comfortably put forth her own views. You can imagine in debates with Biden he will be knocking her off balance with precision questioning on the workings of critical-mode International affairs ....
ps. Palin should know the Bush Doctrine if asked should she not? ...it's a formula of her party boss and she's running for VP -so why deflect the issue as to who else is not sure about what it means....

Actually all those queries pointed at Obama you mention were very critical ones -they weren't mickey mouse fluff -at the time horribly answering those questions could knock off a few popularity points.
Palin's questions were pretty easy - what was so tricky about the questions... if she had a firm belief in her party's policies in those areas the questions covered there was no problem in answering them sincerely- any real conservative would be able to put forth answers easily to all of those questions without batting an eyelash -in so doing the respondant would make themselves look pretty good in their beliefs-McCain could answer those questions very easily -why should Palin find them difficult -nothing harsh at all in that interview -if she can't handle that, well.....

Of course you're right about Barney Frank having paved the way for the 2 fallouts you mentioned, but the condition were building up before that point due to lack of regulations.But beyond that there are more crunches coming up most likely on Wall st.
Perhaps you missed the various occasions McCain touted himself as all for deregulation;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQVd_FdRw6Q
the clip mentions a couple of occasions, but he's put himself in that same spot several times.
As much as you can claim McCain was predicting dire straits heading for Wall st. the same can be said about Obama giving such warnings.
http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/fina...n-bush-policies
Anyway see it for yourself while we're on the subject of fundamentals....
McCain here, says he's 'fundamentally a deregulator'
see the bottom of page 1 at this link...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/sto...4379&page=1


I think the Obama campaign could do alot more painting McCain as a tremendous flip-flopper. Like the end of the youtube clip above said near the end, McCain does alot of 'conversion of convenience' on many issues.

Ouch. You accuse Pat of spouting talking points, and then you trot out your own list...



All that proves is that you should be listening to some other talking heads!! LOL!



Hmmm, your facts seem out of alignment with McCain's facts.

On November 4, 2007 he stated during an interview with the New Hampshire Sentinel Source:

------------

"Question: Well the dimension of this problem may be surprising to a lot of people, but to many people, to many others there were feelings that there was something amiss, something was going too fast, something was a little too hot. Going back several years, were you one of them? ... Were you surprised?

McCAIN: Yeah. And I was surprised at the dot-com collapse and I was surprised at other times in our history. […]
I don’t know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said “wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.” So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not."

-------------

McCain relies on Phil Gramm for his economic advice. This is the man who pushed through legislation that repealed the Glass Steagall Act which effectively deregulated both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I believe this is the speech that McCain delivered in 2005 that you now use as evidence of his calling for oversight. Clearly, he had been aware that senior executives were ginning the system.

I bumped into this earlier in the day. I think it is one of the best columns I've read that sums up the fiscal conservative conundrum. I'd be interested in your feedback. The article is titled, "A Conservative for Obama
My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country."

You can find it here: http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm...6A3EF81822D9F8E

Actually, I was wrong about the above column being the best. This one comes a lot closer...your mileage may vary.

A long-time member of McCain's media "base," Richard Cohen admits that things seem different today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

To Hellfighter.
My Mostest an Sincerest apologies.
XOXOXOXO
Most of the political boards I frequent tend to get more heated an that particular line of reasoning about Palin ( heartbeat away from the presidency ) has gotten to be a pet peeve of mine.
I've no problem with disagreements on her stance on the issues, it just drives me nuts when people dismiss her. For example, Gibson asking implying during the interview she was conceited to think she could/should be VP. Same goes for the silly idea that Biden would stump her in the debates. I don't see that happening as I've gone back an watched her debates during the Governor race. A debate she was hit harder on because she was running against both the Dem and incumbent Repub an she did better than both of the more seasoned candidates. Not that debates are the end all of the race because Kerry won 2 of the 3 debates, decimating Bush in one of then, yet Kerry still lost.
It bothers me that people have this misconception about the presidency an who is so called qualified to be run for it. It's the voters choice to make that decision, not some hack of journalist.
In my humble opinion way to many people have this misplace idea that Obama is automatically qualified because he comes across as smooth talking, feel good, I don't know what.
Kind of like Hamma's remark about Obama writing his own books. Heck, one of my favorite writers is a huge conservative activist, doesn't mean I would vote for him. I may love the way he writes but I think his political views are nuts.







For both Hell and Hamma.
I still believe in deregulation. The problem comes from the fact when it's talked about, it's now a catch all for a 100 different things. People for government regulation of business act like it's either all or nothing an that's not really true. Also the support for it's normally brought up after the fact, in response to some catastrophe that has already happened, by then it's usually to late. It's easy to point fingers with 20/20 hindsight. Also it's worth pointing out, most industries which has been deregulated, were never deregulated correctly an I think that's why we often times haven't seen the expected benefit. Most of the deregulated industries were initially GOVERNMENT controlled monopolies, then became PUBLIC monopolies. While everyone agrees monopolies are inherently bad regardless if they are Government or Public one. To me, the government regulations people are talking about now have more to due with oversight for consumer/investment/public protection an not specifically deregulation.

I'm not near as concerned about what McCain said a year later in some interview as I am to what he did as a
legislator, that's what he's getting paid for. McCain absolutely was on the right side of that reform legislation, while several leading Democrat were on the wrong side of it including the one who just happen to be the #1 recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. The reform he tried to get pass wouldn't have prevented the subprime mess as it wouldn't have directly effected it but it would limited the mortgage collapse. Fannie an Freddy were not the cause but they definitely helped enable the mortgage meltdown.

Government regulation falls short all the time. For example Medicare is the most regulated insurance program in existence. When it started out it cost $3 Billion, now it cost $180 Billion with a fraud rate of somewhere between 20-30% depending on who you believe. Fully ran an regulated by the government.




I'll reply later to the articles you linked to, kind of busy right now.

You are onto something here. Lets keep the XOXOXOXO's flowing. Political debate in this country has become way, way, way too hostile. We used to be able to talk politics and then all go grab some beers. Now it seems we live in such a contentious political environment that politics only comes up once the group determines that everyone is like-minded.

I enjoy reading both Robert's and Hell's pure thoughts, not the stuff that comes bouncing off some talking-point laden political spin piece, but just your pure thoughts, impressions and honest opinions.

A problem I have with discussing and comparing any of McCain's past work with his current statements is the reason so few U.S. Senators have made it to the Presidency. The track records of Senators are just too diverse, votes can be pulled from their backgrounds to back up virtually any argument, either pro or con.

I wish the media would concentrate more on issues, and perhaps this is one of those rare times when issues will triumph. Certainly, the country and the world are anxious to hear their solutions to the current economic mess. Perhaps we'll get the chance to focus on their plans for the future as opposed to their plans for their campaign's future tactics. That would be a welcome relief.

Our current crisis was borne of rosy optimism. At the lowest common denominator it stemmed from a small family or a couple who wanted a bigger house than they could really afford. They jumped at the figure the mortgage lender claimed they were qualified and put the minimum money down. Hell, real estate prices always rise. What's the worry. They'll be ahead in no time. They maxed out their credit cards, fixing the place up, buying furniture and new appliances. "Hell, interest rates were low, why not buy that boat and motorcycle," they thought as they pulled out their plastic.

Bundlers came along and helped ease the burden on all those at-risk mortgage lenders. They too were surely optimists. After the dotcom bubble, real estate seemed the only viable investment. But, as the bundler's exposure grew and risk threatened to turn off foreign investors, those bundlers insured their risk with people like AIG. After all, we had to keep the Chinese willing to buy our debt, otherwise we'd be up shit creek without a paddle. Yet, now we find ourselves up that creek, with no paddle and the Chinese own our ass.

Did McCain get us here? No. Did someone like Phil Gramm, his most trusted financial advisor, have a heavy hand in greasing the wheels of this crisis. I'm sure if you asked Warren Buffet he would point directly at Gramm, a Senator who was only too eager to help these companies develop incredibly complex and deceptive financial tools like the derivatives that Buffet referred to in 2003 as "financial weapons of mass destruction."

In the article cited above, Buffet points directly at the derivatives that brought us the Enron crisis. The legislation for those was created by Phil Gramm and his 2005 Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

So, we've finally found Bush's WMD's! They were cleverly disguised to enrich only those who were destined to take the golden parachute route out of the chaos that was once a mighty economy.

More lemmings fleeing the ship. This time, the author of the book "Citizen McCain." Anyone read that book?

See thats why I enjoy political debates or most debates in general, I don't really expect to get anyone to change their opinion. For me they are very informative, not because what the other person says but it forces me to learn an research both sides of the issues.

Something I've already agreed with you about is how McCain was a much better candidate in 2000 then 2008. Sadly, the only way to get the nomination was for him to move more right. I firmly believe if elected he will again become the more outspoken maverick he was in the past. For me the single best credential MCCain and Palin have is they have both shown they are willing to go against party interest when they believed the party was wrong. The exact opposite is true of Obama and that's why he scares the hell out of me as President when people like Reid and Pelosie lead the congress.
As much as I personally dislike Hillary, I would much rather have seen her win then Obama as she would not be a Reid/Pelosie puppet.

Two questions for the Dem supporters.
1) Do you believe in Obama's campaign promise of being energy independent in 10 years?
This is something I firmly believe MCain has right because he's the only one calling for nuclear energy. Not that it will solve the problem but it will certainly help.
Sadly as much as ethanol is a failure, neither candidate will say so because of fear about losing those important Iowa votes.
2) Do you believe in his characterization of his tax plan. Only taxing the rich an closing corp tax loopholes? I'll give him credit, it play really well to the poor an middle class who want to lay their problems at the feet of the rich an corporations taking advantage of the poor working man. I think it will stifle both middle an large businesses, while having a negative effect on the economy. Any additional tax forced on business will only be passed onto the consumer, be it a service or manufacturing based industry. This will be a huge tax increase which doesn't even cover his large list of new entitlements.

BTW did you catch Biden's speech today where he said the rich paying higher taxes is their patriotic duty. This from a man who makes almost 4 times what I do but I had more charitable deductions on my taxes. Talk about a cheapskate, same goes for Obama with his 1 measly percent for his charitable contributions.

Reagen had a great line.
"If they get their way, they’ll charge everything on your “Taxpayers Express Card.” And believe me, they never leave home without it.'

Why he was without a doubt the most important president of my lifetime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS4yf723kmY&NR=1
Those words are even more true today.

1] LOL- I'm sure it's actually the two of US unknowingly pimp-slapping each other with vulgarities and insults in other forums
Amen -on opinion changing actuality -> my other purpose in 'discussions' is putting forth facts that I personally see are undisputable and seeing what arguments are put against them.

2] It's not the point about when/ where deregulation actually has its merits. It's the fact that on multiple occasions [not 1 or 2] early in this campaign McCain has stated profusely he's a deregulator. Now he's the trumpeting himself as the Sheriff who is going to shore everything with Uber-regulation. Note, in these attacks he steers clear of blaming Dems - because he knows its his 'old boy network' bearing a good chunk of responsibility in this issue.

I'd say Biden was referring to how most of his ticket's tax plan is aimed at $250,000+ earners sharing the burden more on their own shoulders like the average blue collar worker feels taxes pinching into their own take home earnings. So yes it's a patriotic duty to share the load in what actually pays to keep the nation's services moving.
Also middle class may see some tax increases in some aspects -capital gains primarily I believe -so its not just the filthy rich being sought out.
Taxes on businesses will only get passed onto the consumer if it hurts them very badly -just like gas price increases affecting transport of goods will affect prices. Businesses won't automatically raise prices everytime they have to payout extra elsewhere -> prices going too high too fast drives away customers.

Regarding Palin... I like alot of what she does as a Governor -she's in fact not too much of a right-wing IMPOSER from what I found out about her. I'm not concerned with interviewers/others views of her;
As I said- while the masses of anti-Paliners were focussed on her the right-wing stop gap/independant vote tactic, and before she did her infamous interview, MY only concern about her was her view on international affairs -to me, her ultra-cheerleading mode before that point failed to reveal any instinct she had towards how to run the world if push came to shove. I was worried if she was another saber-rattling Bush prompted by others behind the scenes; I'll give Bush credit for being genuinely nice in the company of others on the world stage -he makes dumb choices and is gullable however - > I still can't believe he was dumb enough to assume N.Korea wants to stop their nuke bomb intentions! they are clearly going all the way and merely bluffing at EVERY negotiations talk!
Palin makes me nervous because she doesn't seem to have an international stage comfort level; I'm sure foreign leaders would take this as worrisome jittery-ness. The interview served to tell me from solely my point of view -not bandwagons points or what lefty blogs are saying- that she's not naturally well versed on world affairs and she likely has some awkwardness in how she's now being prepped on what to say on International policies - I have a strong feeling she doesn't like other people telling her what she MUST say in order to tow the party line at so high a level. But she needs to get that briefing absorbed into her brain - typically along the lines of giving realistic answers re: her ideas on Georgia joining NATO. As a VP she can't say stuff like that -in particular so boisterously/challengingly.

Your questions.
1] Both candidates are naturally just puffing themselves up on energy answers. McCain limits himself though by wallowing in the idea that domestic oil is an eternal solution of sorts..... Science and alternative energy technology will be the answer for the true long term future -imo.
2] Tax plan answer as mentioned above.....

I'm glad mr.Hamma finds this dialogue even better than fish and chips he's indulging in every Friday - I'll wager you're now taking to putting your chips in grease paper/newspaper, guvnahh......
I hope Crossy is adapting well to having to make do with Canucksville's poor imitations melt-in-your-mouth chips. Maybe resorting to making them the real thing at home!!!

See y'all next week-probably after their first debate.

A few things

Concerning Gramm, I never liked him. I do find it interesting that the libs are trying to lay the financial mess at his feet over the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Are the purposefully forgetting to mention the voting was bipartisan? It passed 90-8, so it was even veto proof. While I don't like Gramm, I'm even less impressed by Obama's economic advisors. Two former CEO's of Fannie & Freddie, who combined walked away with over $100 million from a comapny they left in ruins.
BTW, remember the reform legislation McCain tried to get passes in 2005. One aspect of that bill was to prevent those golden parachutes like Obama's two advisors got after leaving Fannie and Freddie. Does it make since they walk away with millions when the mangaged the comapany so badly that the federal government has had to step in and save it.


As for the Richard Cohen editorial you linked to, not impressed nor surprised by it.
One thing I will give you, outside of the Palin pick I think McCain has ran a weak campaign.
While his negative ad game is unforunately effective, it's only short term an leaves mcCain open to all kinds of critisms. I think he should have ran smarter.

Something I forget to add earlier concerning deregulation.
One of the biggest problems is the current bail out scheme. We're talking about over 1 trillion in bailouts.
People's heads should be rolling not rewarding companies for their failures. The whole idea behind the current bailouts do nothing but perpetuate the problem. I could understand an support the government stepping into lend some support when needed but only at a fraction of the cost so far an it would have to be for better reasons. By most reports I've read, the 85 billion to AIG won't be enough to save the company.
People should be furious an it's hardly be talked about.
You can't save any American company by a trillion dollars worth of loans financed outside of the country.
On a happy note, I belong to a friendly investment group who took a risk on AIG. Bought in below $2 with options to sell at $4, just doubled my investment in a little over a day.
If I could always be that lucky, one day I might be one of those Rich Americans Biden refereed to as needing to pay more taxes as part of their patriotic duty.

I'll make it more interesting.......
While I still think Obama will win unles he continues to make mistakes ( even though he's a poor choice.) I would be willing to bet money he will be a one term president, for many of the same reasons Bush 41 was.

Gramm's high crime wasn't the repeal of Glass-Steagall, that was done in the light of day and was indeed supported by a super majority. I specifically was referring to the rider he attached to the omnibus bill, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. This was a "dead of night" attachment that no one bothered to read, let alone debate.

Shortly after George W. Bush was elected president, Congress and President Clinton were trying to pass a $384 billion omnibus spending bill, and while the debates swirled around the passage of this bill, Senator Phil Gramm clandestinely slipped a 262-page amendment into the omnibus appropriations bill titled: Commodity Futures Modernization Act. It is likely that few senators read this bill, if any. The essence of the act was the deregulation of derivatives trading (financial instruments whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables; the main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party). The legislation contained a provision -- lobbied for by Enron, a major campaign contributor to Gramm -- that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight. Basically, it gave way to the Enron debacle and ushered in the new era of unregulated securities. Interestingly enough, Gramm's wife, Wendy, had been part of the Enron board, and her salary and stock income brought in between $900,000 and $1.8 million to the Gramm household, prior to the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. - citation from InjuryBoard.com

I've never been impressed with Richard Cohen either! LOL!

We're aligned with our concerns over the bailout. Insanely pompous Jim Cramer claims that "we" can make money on the deal. I'm anxious to see how all of this real estate will be unloaded. Clearly, they have to hold that real estate for a significant period of time, or we'll see this mess simply snowball into an out and out disaster.

But back to the star of this thread, Palin. The polling trend is unmistakable, she is crashing and that crash is going to really impact the campaign.

I don't share your concern for the type of questions "Charlie" asked her. How could you possibly suggest that the questions were too tough? These candidates should be absolutely grilled. The questions can't be tough enough. Do you suggest that these candidates should face the type of softballs that Hannity lofted for her? I certainly hope not. Jon Stewart had an inspired take on that interview when he juxtaposed the questions and answers with those from an infomercial.

Palin does not have what it takes to be President. Period. Even if she can see Russia from her house.

I'll leave it to you and Hellfighter to predict the future, but it is starting to look like Palin/McCain was the stronger ticket and I don't doubt that she will prove to be a force in the years to come. If she is elected, I don't buy your theory that McCain will revert to the man he was in 2000. He has gone all in and if he wins he will be completely beholden to Palin and her neo-con handlers as they are the ones that have given him a fighting chance. We see the evidence of this so clearly right now. Crowds flock to hear her speak and then leave in the middle of McCain's speech. That is bad news, "my friends!"

"The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America," said Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. The U.S. Treasury's proposal would "take away the free market and institute socialism in America,"

HA! He got that very, very wrong. Oh so wrong.

It is clearly socialism if the State helps the poor and downtrodden citizen.

It is a bailout, or economic imperative, if it helps the corporation.

I may be able to vote for McCain if the lying stops.

But it has to stop at some point. Does it not?

I bear good tidings for you Robert....

Actually I am not sure if you've seen this; a slanderous anti-Palin piece of journalism by Canuck ranter/writer for CBC Heather Mallick
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...d=commentisfree
Its making some stir. Mallick has cut off comments to the piece and at her website - She is no doubt getting what he deserves -Disassociation by her fellow professional journalists would be better.
Hypocritically Canada has anti-hate laws to which Mallick comes very close to approaching.
It's a Palin bash but like many Canadians I find it divisive and repulsive in its racial/prejudice overtones and elitist snootyness....
It also sickens me that many Canadians liken this to freedom of speech satire rather than a ranty piece of crap. Normally it'd be easy to overlook, but its done by someone working for the CBC -using taxpayers money- its like a CNN reporter bringing up similar garbage.
In forum discussions sprouting up over it, these same Canadiana aldo babble idiocy about Canada having more freedom of speech in the press rather than most journalists in the USA -and Canada- use their power/freedom responsibly and write in such fashion.

So Robert [and other chums here perhaps] added to my own commentary denouncing the writing is cheap, lying+ prejudiced in various forum debates on the piece, I hope you'll show up in this particular forum to lay some smackdown on some anti-US pompous, fellow-Canadians.... ps. Canada's CBC are all snooty eggheads that have no visible minority representation in their staff at all and on the airwaves - so I find it funny they+ their supporters take the high road about others being prejudiced.

Go crazy chum;
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/09/05/...#socialcomments

It seems to be an amateurish hit piece that isn't even worth consideration. My guess was that the real intention behind the piece was clearly to give the writer some publicity.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a lot to be critical of Palin, but this kind of slam isn't worth the time it took you to link to it. I tried scanning the comments, looking for the HF sig, but there were so many replies, it amounted to searching for the elusive needle in the haystack.

Where have the fiscal conservatives gone? When I was young, we had a movement of like-minded folks who felt the key to sound fiscal policy was a conservative approach. Who couldn't support that? All of us certainly want leaders who guard our financial well being with the same vigilance that the military employs as they guard our shores.

As I look back over the past 8 years of this presidency, I'm stunned to count up all the financial disasters that have befallen our nation. No matter where you stand on the Iraq war, there is no denying that it has been a fiscal disaster for the United States on the highest order. It seems that at every turn, folks have been caught with their hands in the till, whether it was people like Chalabi, or our very own contractors, there were hundreds of documented cases where our hard-earned money was stolen from us. War profiteering suddenly seemed to be just one more line item in the budget, something we were forced to write-off.

I had family and friends who lived through the California Electricity Crisis, I watched in amazement as the very first electricity producers to face bankruptcy just happened to be all green power companies. It seemed as if someone was gaming the system and forcing alternative energy companies to go belly up. We now know that that someone was Enron, and their target wasn't just the alternative energy producers. Their true target was all of our wallets.

We all groan about $4 gas and $5 diesel, but have any of you heard a reasonable explanation as to why we are faced with these outrageous prices? Again, when I was a younger man, the mantra we heard about diesel costing less was because it required less refining. Today, diesel still takes less refining, but mysteriously it costs much more than gas. Why?? We are told that gas prices are a result of the free market system, that demand has been driving prices up. Yet, Hurricane Ike plows through the Texas refineries and takes major refineries off-line, demand spikes and somehow prices mysteriously GO DOWN. Why? Last summer, as demand allegedly soared, it was reported that U.S. refineries were experiencing an historical high level of idle time. They weren't working anywhere near capacity!

I'm starting to think that those of us who consider ourselves fiscal conservatives are simply chumps who are being played by the system.

I received a link to an article titled "Three Times is Enemy Action." Normally, I wouldn't share a link from the DailyKos, but I found this article to be an excellent summation of our current fiscal crisis. I post it here in the hopes that we can open up an indepth discussion over the major points of the article.

Robert, you rightly noted in a previous post that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was passed by a majority in Congress. To me, this illustrates the very problem that faces us all. We have a government that is no longer a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Instead, we have allowed leaders who claim to honor the fiscal conservative banner to work the back rooms of our governmental and fiscal institutions to line their own pockets. Whether it is Enron, Halliburton, Exxon or the banking industry, the equation seems to be the same, extract as much money from Americans as possible.

This article has left me feeling that we need substantive change in our country. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

wow ! i just printed this one!

Regarding the KOS article you linked to.
As with most of their stuff, it's written in a way which craftily hides the underlying bias of the article.
Peppering it with just enough facts to give it a feeling of honest investigative reporting not the hack piece it actually is.
Short list of my problems with the article.

"In 1982, the same year John McCain entered the Senate, a bill was put forward that would substantially deregulate the Savings and Loan industry. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was an initiative of the Reagan administration, and was largely authored by lobbyists for the S&L industry -- including John McCain's warm-up speaker at the convention, Fred Thompson."
An initiative of the Reagan Administration? They point out it was a Reagan Initiative, to try an lay the blame on him. What they forget to mention is.
President Carter made the initial call to do something to help the S&L's as they were heading for financial disaster as early as 1978
The bill was originated by a Democrat
The Act was passed by a democrat controlled house
Was finally passed with a super majority.
While the GSDI Act played a part in the S&L crisis, it was only 1 of a dozens factors.
People also forget thru the 70's an up until the early 80's, close to 90% of the S&L's showed a loss. This is what the GSDI Act tried to help. It didn't directly cause the S&L meltdown but it did make it worse since it allowed them to carry more high risk debt then they previous could. ( 5% increased to 10% )


"However, many savings and loans -- among them Lincoln Savings & Loan Association of Irvine, CA, which was headed by a fellow named Charles Keating -- promptly ignored these rules. A quintet of senators, among them John McCain, began having meetings with both the management at Lincoln and the regulators at the loan board. "
Of course they have to tie McCain to Keating. after all he was part of the Keating 5.
Let just skip right over the fact the only reason he's even part of the Keating 5 is because the Democrat chairmen of the investigation turned down the recommendation of the lead investigator who concluded McCain wasn't involved. The democrat chairmen of the investigation insisted on keeping McCain's name on the list because he was the only Republican, otherwise it would have been a solely Democrat problem.
The Senate Ethics Committee found McCain completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Not only that but during the investigation, one of the other Senators testified Keating an McCain had a falling out because McCain refused to interfere with regulators investigating Keating.

Even so, by 1999 Phil Gramm -- who had entered the Senate two years after McCain and quickly become the economic guru of the Keating Five maverick -- put forward the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This Act passed out of the Senate on a party line vote with 100% Republican support, including that of John McCain.
Again has to bring up the Keating 5 even though McCain was found not to have done anything wrong.
The they feel the need to point out how the GLB act passed with 100 Republican support, in a painfully obvious example of their bias. BTW they do really shitty research on this because it didn't pass with 100% Republican support as they claim.
Richard Shelby ® of Alabama voted againt the bill.
John McCain ® of Arizona didn't vote, yet they imply that he not only supported the bill but also voted for it.
So the final tally is 95% of the R's and 85% of D's supported the Act.
Apparently KOS was in such a hurry to put out their newsest political hack peice they couldn't take 60 seconds to verify the details of their article. Maybe it's some of the new Math, 95% equals 100% if helps them lay the blame for something at the feet of the Republicians. I'm surprised they didn't find some way to make excuses for the 85% of the Democrats who also supported it. They could always fall back on how Bush lied to them, as that has worked for them in the past.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley reversed those rules, allowing not only more bank mergers, but for banks to become directly involved in the stock market, bonds, and insurance. Remember the bit about how S&Ls failed because they didn't have the regulations that protected banks? After Gramm-Leach-Bliley, banks didn't have that protection either. Blatant misrepresentation about the effects on banking regulations.


Gramm wasn't done. The next year he was back with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which was slipped into a "must pass" spending bill on the last day of the 106th Congress. This Act greatly expanded the scope of futures trading, created new vehicles for speculation, and sheltered several investments from regulation.
A few things of interest here. This was actually the 2nd time the Commodity Futures Modernization Act was introduced. The 1st one which Gramm wrote, did NOT include what became know as the "Enron Loophole".
The 2nd bill did include the Enron Loophole but there is nothing saying who out of the 5 sponsors of the bill included the new addition ( may have been Gramm but maybe not ). This does point to one of the issues KoS bring up which is a huge problem. This important piece of legislation was not debated in the House or Senate. Then again that doesn't matter, lets just blame it on Gramm.
This is one of a dozen reasons I would support a presidential Line item veto.
To much crap gets added to bills which have nothing to do with the original legislation.

"Not coincidentally, Senator Gramm, the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Enron, was also key to legislating the deregulation of California's energy commodity trading."
KOS tries to lead people to the conclusion, Gramm was in Enron's pocket due to he was the 2nd largest recipient of campaign contributions. I guess they just want everyone to completely ignore the fact Enron was based in Texas so the majority of their campaign contributions automatically go to Texas politicians. This is a simple universal fact, not proof of some conspiracy. Undoubtedly during the time it was previously based in Omaha, the recipients of their campaign contributions would have been the leading Nebraska politician regardless of if they were D or R.

The part concerning the electricity trading in California would be one of the few parts of the story I agree with. BUT, I don't agree with their attempt to lay the blame with Gramm. I guess they think it's fair to skip right over the fact Enron was breaking several State an Federal laws. The part of the story which was accurate would be the effect of "credit default swap". What I don't agree with is their implication it was a foreseeable problem when the CFMA legislation was passed nor would I agree with KOS's characterization that CFMA was meant to block regulatory scrutiny. They purposefully take out of context what Greenspan said about them. It originally was a good thing because it did allow risk to be shared by several companies. It only became a problem when those same companies started cooking their books via credit swapping to enable them to take on more risk then allowed by law.
May as well mention while they condemn Greenspan for his initial approval of credit swapping. KOS purposefully fails to give him credit for early warning about Fannie an Freddie who enabled our current financial disaster.
Greenspan said in 2005
"If Fannie and Freddie continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road. We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''


Overall the article is just as dishonest as the view deregulation is what CAUSED the S&L crisis. The truth is the deregulation involving the S&l's was done in an attempt to SAVE the already failing S&L's.

So besides the obvious political bias, near constant misuse of facts an worse fact checking than a high school newspaper, it was a decent article.

I just noticed the article Hamma linked to is referenced on the KOS front page as
It's likely the single best piece of writing ever to grace this site
Yet it only took little 'ol me 60 seconds to show they didn't even bother to check the so called facts in their story.
LOL

Robert, you disappoint me. You must be busy with other things, as your usual outstanding research has fallen short. You failed to provide links to back up your counter-claims, so I'm left having to piece together where you were getting your data

Regarding the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act: the Senate debate and subsequent vote occurred May 6, 1999. McCain voted "Aye," along with 43 other Republican Senators for 100% of the Republican vote. One, repeat, one Democratic Senator voted "Aye", that was Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina. I base this statement on this accounting at the govtrack.us site.

Perhaps you were referring to the conference vote on the bill that combined the House and Senate versions. McCain did miss this vote.

You dismiss McCain's role in the Keating 5, yet you seem to overlook an awful lot of damning evidence. Keating was convicted in January 1993 of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud and served more than four years in prison before his conviction was overturned. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and was sentenced to time served.

In John McCain's biography, he called his meetings with Keating and regulators "the worst mistake of my life." He has said his involvement in the scandal "will probably be on my tombstone." McCain accepted at least NINE trips from Keating and didn't disclose those gifts until the scandal was revealed. At that point, he had to pay Keating $13,434 for those flights. Keating donated $112,000 to McCain's campaigns, and yes, he also donated a total of $300,000 to the five senators - the rest Democrats. But, this underlines my point. Both houses are corrupt. We need to clean up our government and drive this corrupt money out of Washington.

In trying to paint Gramm as an innocent Texas Senator who just happened to receive the second highest donations from Enron (Kay Bailey Hutchinson received the most), you chose to completely ignore Gramm's wife's key role in all of this. As chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988 to 1993, she pushed through a key regulatory exemption in 1993, just as she was about to leave office which exempted Enron and a group of other oil and gas companies from federal regulation on some of their commodities trading. Five weeks later, she joined Enron’s board of directors and served on the board’s audit committee. I'm sure you'll recall that the board of directors were forced to pay $13 million to settle claims of insider trading. So, despite your assertions that Gramm's relationship was only one of physical proximity, I think we can see that the relationship ran much, much deeper than that.

As a side note here, I covered Gramm and his wife as he ran for President in 1996. She was clearly the brains behind the operation. It was the first time I had seen such hands-on work by a future first lady. From my time with them, I would say she is the one who calls the shots in that relationship! She is a very bright woman. As another side note, Gramm was a Democrat until four or five years into his marriage to Wendy.

And now we learn that Gramm's Swiss Banking giant, UBS is seeking the same relief that American banks are getting, and given the relief package that Bush is pushing forward, he is the guy who might end up with the no-strings attached control over the $700 Billion as Treasury Secretary! Unbelievable!!!

You'll recall that when he left the Senate, Gramm was hired as Vice-Chairman of UBS's Investment Banking division. UBS had paid $120,000 to a lobbying firm to lobby in support of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. And, surprise, surprise, UBS was the company that acquired Enron's energy trading operations - no, I'm not making this up!!

I agree with you that the article was slanted. And I expressed my reluctance to put it forward simply because of the source, but I don't think their obvious bias negates the facts as they present them. If you are willing to dig a little deeper into these financial relationships, one begins to see a picture where certain people are taking specific steps to enrich themselves to the detriment of the country.

I now understand the confusion. The Gramm-Leach-Biley bill went thru twice.
Once in April-May of 1999 but nothing happen with it because of difference between the house an senate versions. It was then re-introduced in Nov where it was re-voted on by the House an Senate.
record of the senate vote
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll...&vote=00354
1 Rep voted no and McCain abstained. Not the 100% republican support the KOS article claims.
record of the house vote
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h1999-570

I guess KOS can claim they weren't wrong since they based their story on the vote that didn't count in stead of the vote which actually did count.

As I already said, I don't like Gramm nor am I trying to portray him as innocent.
I was only making the obvious distinction that he received such high donations from Enron because it was a Texas based company an he was a leading TX politician. If you want to argue his campaign donations were tainted, then you have to ignore the fact the highest donations went to the other leading TX politician, who did nothing wrong.


I'm not claiming McCain is perfect, I just don't agree with all the Keating 5 B.S.
1) After the preliminary investigation, the lead investigator recommended McCain be removed from the list because he did nothing unethical or illegal. The Dem chairmen refused, otherwise it would have been a purely Democrat scandal.
2) During testimony of the Senate probe, one of the people actually involved stated McCain an Keating had a falling out because McCain REFUSED to act on behalf of Keating an run interfernce with the regulators.
3) Even after the senate investigation found McCain innocent of any unethical or illegal wrongdoing, he donated all campaign donations from Keating to the US treasury.
Yet, the Libs desperately bring up the Keating 5 every chance they get when the reality is there was only a Keating 3. Only 3 were found guilty, McCain an Glenn were cleared.


I'm not disagreeing with you that there is a lot dirty dealing in Washington.
What I do disagree with is biased political hatchet job such as this article which didn't even get their facts rights. Not to mention the numerous misrepresentations in the article.

Here is a hack job biased more to the right but at least the facts are correct in it
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=aSKSoiNbnQY0

My real problem with how politicized this issue has become an all the Monday morning quarterbacks with their 20/20 hindsight pointing to this or that being the problem.
Show me someone who said this at the time an I would be more inclined to listen. The closest anyone has been to being proactive versus reactive would be MCain an the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act he introduced in 2005. The same bill shot down by the Dems who claimed Fannie an Freddie were financially sound.

As I've already said, I don't like Gramm. I wish McCain would drop him. So my question for you is what's your opinion of Obama's connection with Raines, A guy who made 90 million by defrauding Fannie May. The same guy who Obama now claims isn't any type of advisor even though Raines is who he had vetting his VP pick?

Change of topic.
Biden's newest screw-up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SKjTqgjq8E
Criticizing Obama's ad about McCain,

Before you ask. Yes I think McCain ad's are just as dishonest.

Robert, once again, you are muddling the issue and I'm really beginning to wonder where you are getting your information. Raines did not help Obama vet his VP pick. Obama claims to have only met with Raines once for five minutes. No one has stepped forward to refute that claim and a whole host of media watchdog groups have declared McCain's claim to be invalid.

This from this week's Newsweek magazine:

Never mind the fact that Raines never actually advised Obama on anything. The real problem here is that McCain's campaign is swarming with 26 advisers or fundraisers who have lobbied for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac--including nearly a dozen who lobby right now. As the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen wrote last week, "one of McCain's top policy advisers, Charlie Black, was lobbyist for Freddie Mac for 10 years, while his campaign manager, Rick Davis, lobbied to help Fannie and Freddie steer clear of additional federal regulations [and earned $2 million in the process]... Tom Loeffler, who serves McCain's campaign co-chairman, also lobbied for Fannie Mae. Aquiles Suarez, a McCain economic adviser, was a Fannie Mae executive. Dan Crippen, a McCain adviser who helped craft the campaign's health-care policy, lobbied for Fannie Mae (and Merrill Lynch). Arthur B. Culvahouse, who helped lead McCain's VP search committee, also lobbied for Fannie Mae." According to former Fannie Mae executive William Maloni, "photographs of Sen. McCain's staff... loo[k] to me like the team of lobbyists who used to report to me." Without these ties--which are far more extensive than Obama's--McCain would have every right to say that associating with officials from troubled financial institutions is a sign of bad judgment. Again, it's not like Obama's hands are spotless. But with them, McCain offers Obama an otherwise unavailable opportunity to remind voters that McCain's own judgment--at least by McCain's own standards--is worse. So much for "no seat... at the table."


The Dallas Morning News reports under the headline "Fact check: Obama's economic "adviser":

A McCain campaign video that claims former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines gave Barack Obama economic advice is "exaggerating wildly," The Washington Post says.

It takes just a few minutes searching through Google News to find many, many news organizations who have corrected McCain's false assertions. Hell, even Raines has denied them.

The Street ran a story under the headline, "McCain's Attacks Misguided" that stated, "McCain continues to demonstrate bad judgment by making spurious attacks, and he may again place his reputation in harm's way. In fact, he has been making disingenuous attacks on Obama for more than a month. FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan organization, investigates the claims of the candidates. McCain's facts prove so far from the truth that FactCheck has starting using Ronald Reagan's line: 'There he goes again.'"

What now rises up to bite McCain in the ass is the revelation that his campaign staff is filled with people who profited from lobbying for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Hell, even McCain's chief of staff has earned nearly two million as a lobbyist according to a report in the New York Times. Say what you will about the New York Times, the McCain campaign has not refuted their reporting of the facts.

How is that a screw-up? I'm missing something here. Biden offers his opinion that he wouldn't have put up that ad. Of course the ad was factual. McCain is on the record stating that he is a computer illiterate.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1884558/6206369

Then in July, McCain blew your theory that he couldn't use a computer because of his war injuries right out of the water when he stated that he was learning how to use a computer, "But I am forcing myself ... let me put it this way, I am using the computer more and more every day."

But, this isn't the kind of ad that either campaign should be running.

For our international friends:

How We Became the United States of France - Time Magazine

It was a screw up on Biden's part for being so quick to criticize Obama's ad. He's a 30 year politician, you would think he would be able to be a little more diplomatic about it. Then again, this is something Biden is known for.
McCain certainly didn't blow my theory out of the water as to why he doesn't use a computer.
It's due to a lack of dexterity, which is a result of injuries received during the war.
Same as why he always does his stupid looking thumbs up gesture, because he can't raise his arm to wave.
Much the same as Dole an the famous pen he always carried in his right hand to prevent people from try to shake his hand which was paralyzed from injuries received during WWII.
I wouldn't expect someone who's tone deaf to learn to play the guitar and I wouldn't expect someone who lacks the dexterity to easily use a keyboard to use a computer.
The Obama ad was just as stupid as if it complained about a blind man not being able to drive, thereby showing he's out of touch with the modern world.

As for the negative ads, it's done by both sides.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8092101207.html

I think it's rather funny the change in attitude by Obama people.
1st they down played th excessive donations he received from Fannie & Freddie
Not they are jumping all over lobbyist working for McCain for receiving money from Fannie & Freddie.
Direct association via campaign contributions is okay while while indirect association via a paid lobbyist is a big deal.

Have you read the piece of shit energy bill passed by the House?
That's the kind of junk I'm very afraid Obama will sign because of his past which shows he's always willing to walk the party line.

I do agree with many points in the Time article. The quick bailout seem is little more than socializing business. I understand the need for the bailout, I just don't believe it should have been so quick an all encompassing. I completely disagree with the assertion in the article the current financial mess is solely the blame of the Republicans. The dollar was already down, we now cut it's value even more in what I expect will be a failed attempt to prevent the crash coming.

Dear Robert and Hamma,

I'm watching the Legislation hearings going on and would like to know when the two of you will be both speaking to clear up the mess of those Wall St./legislator amateurs that clearly need your MIGHTY joint steering on course to stability !!!!

I know you're kidding but sadly you are not that far off.
I've been watching a lot of C-span over the last few weeks plus catching about an hour of it everyday at work depending upon whats being discussed in the house or senate. I've found it almost as entertaining as prime time television. Which is really sad because entertaining is the one thing C-span shouldn't be.

Every once an a while they do a historical re-broadcast, such as tonight with Kennedy-Nixon debate from 1960. It can be very interesting to see what were the problems of the day an each candidates solution. Not something something I would watch start to finish but may tune into for 10-20 minutes.

Once again, you put forth a talking-point that doesn't hold up to additional scrutiny. Delving into the issue of contributions/cash from Fannie and Freddie makes for an interesting study on how journalism is played today.

If you or I were to try to research the contributions made to the campaign, we'd undoubtedly head over to OpenSecrets and punch in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to see the contributions from those two firms. This is what John Gibson of Fox News did for a recent piece. Unfortunately, that is all he did. Mysteriously, his piece didn't even bother to list the total contributions to Obama, perhaps that was just too much of an effort for him to make for his weak-ass story. I'm certain that you would have filled out your lede with the precise dollar figure, I know I would.

Well, that piece caused quite a stir, and if you do a search on Google News, you'll find the right-wing blogs jumped all over the story.

But, wait a minute. Does the premise of this story even make sense? A search of OpenSecrets turns up contributions by any employee, so that tally lists the contributions made by secretaries, janitors and all the other low-level employees as well as upper management. Obama has been drawing the majority of his fundraising from individual donors, so I would bet a search on most any New York based firm would reveal that he receives more contributions from their employees than McCain.

Well, the New York Times took this amateurish approach to the professional level as they went directly to the records on file with the Federal Election Committee and then cross matched the donor list with a list of Fannie and Freddie's directors, officers and lobbyists. A $50 donation from a low-level employee at the firm says one thing, a $70,000 donation from a Director says something completely different.

What the NYTimes discovered is a fascinating contrast to the hysteria that John Gibson created. Here is the story that the NY Times published, but the attached graphic really tells the tale.

Click to view attachment

So, it doesn't surprise me that the Obama campaign is comfortable downplaying the "excessive" donations that employees of a New York firm made to his campaign because when you look at the bigger picture, well the writing is on the wall.

Tonight, we learn of new revelations published separately by the New York Times and Newsweek magazine that allege that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was receiving $15,000 per month from Freddie Mac through his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort until last month when the government took over the company. McCain had just denied openly that Davis was receiving money. What I find amazing is that their explanation is that Davis "wasn't doing anything" for the money. I don't know about you, but that sounds like graft to me. Perhaps that is too strong, but here is the money quote from the Times' article, "No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said."

Here is my point in all of this. I don't care if someone has an R or a D after their name. If they claim to represent the "people," then they damn better be representing the people and not working for their own financial gain. This country needs to clean house and get the stench of a corrupt system out of Washington. We can do that by demanding more transparency in our government and by encouraging open and honest debate.

Actually I got the list off CPR site
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/com...pr.asp?cycle=08
Which is about as non partisan as you can get. So I don't know where you get the idea it was from talking points. Speaking of talking points, after CPR published campaign donation numbers, Obama's camp had to pull back from their earlier suggestions MOST of his campaign donations came little average Americans giving $20-50. The truth is the majority comes from people donating over the $200 break limit for anonymous donations. Yes Obama is King of the presidential fundraisers, his total right now is about .3 billion. Which to me is just one more example of how screwed up out political system is.
Does it matter the Fannie money wasn't directly from the PAC fund, No. Bundling donations has been a part of politics for a while now an is done by both sides. All it requires is the upper management to pull their "private" donations, then present it to whoever. Corps do this all the time to hide buying political favors. You can go to Obama's site an view a partial list of his private bundler's.
Partial list of campaign donation bundler's
As I said, this is done by both sides. McCain has been the worse of the two as far as updating his list of bundlers. My point is just because money comes from private individuals doesn't necessarily make it any less tainted than money coming directly from Corporate PAC's.
Similar to how Obama denounced PAC funding as evil once he got the nomination but had no problem taking PAC money for his two senate races an to start his presidential bid.
BTW your NYT story is rather lacking.
They apparently didn't bother to go down the long list of VP's who all gave $1000 to Obama's or any other high ranking individuals at Fannie & Freddie.
They are all listed at CPR if you want to take the time to do some searching.
url=http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/committees/citizens-for-progressive-representation-cpr.asp?cycle=08



Speaking of talking points, give me your onion of this.
Why is Gramm the only name constantly brought up in regards to McCain;s economic advisor's?
There are actually 35 people on the list
Actually only 34 since Gramm was dropped near the end of July , after his America whinnier remark.
Kind of strange that Gramm was dropped almost 2 months ago but Obama's newest ad released yesterday refers to Gramm as "McCain lead economic adviser"


PS.
I missed your earlier post about Raine's. You're right he's not on the list of Obama's advisors.
He was originally contacted about acting as a mortgage and housing advisor but failed to get the 2nd casting call when Freddie & Fannie went down the drain. The ex Freddie & Fannie CEO who did advise Obama on his VP pick would be Johnson not Raines as I previously said.

Insightful questions, as usual.

I'm off on a two-day trip and will be back at it on Friday.

I too have wondered about Gramm. Of course, the main reason he is mentioned so predominantly is that McCain has put forward his name as his next Treasury Secretary, but now that you've mentioned this, I can't honestly say if that actually came from McCain's lips. That will be an interesting issue to look into.

Perhaps you could look at some other New York based companies and see how their ratio of donations compares with the Fannie/Freddie mix. My guess is that the donation ratio will be very much the same. I agree that bundling is a problem, but there are a hell of a lot of problems in our elections. That said, I'd much rather see a campaign raise cash by encouraging small donations from many people. It is a Federal crime to donate money that isn't yours, I wonder if anyone has ever been successfully prosecuted for doing so.

Damn you!! Now I'm going to be late! LOL.

Your question intrigued me so much, I had to do a quick search. Looks like the search may have to employ Lexis/Nexis as there is so much noise in the system thanks to Gramm's infamous "nation of whiners" remark. I did find an interesting article published by Texas Observer last May that does a great job of shedding light on the McCain-Gramm connection. It really is no wonder why Gramm is the one who continues to be mentioned.

Couric: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don't know, you know … reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

... good thing our financial system is melting down this very moment! Maybe no one will notice the presumptive nominee has a little too much air space!! LOL!

No wonder John McCain is desperate to cause a distraction. I've come to the conclusion that her "trainers" have decided she isn't trainable. And is that a surprise? A 4-year communications degree can teach you how to read from a teleprompter, but it certainly is no preparation for the myriad nuances of playing World Leader.

Exactly why Obama will never speak without a teleprompter.... Oh thats right he will do townhall style debates versus McCain.....

what was your point? that when a politican has a tought question they fold?
Well just let a little girl ask chosen one a question and watch him stutter.... not exactly the partisan questions that the Repubs get from the press ehhh?


At any rate Nice topic, with you and Druid... I wanted to post a lot, just did not want to break up the flow.... Keep it going and we all may learn something. Mostly what I'm learning is that all politicians practice dirty tricks, lies, and smear campaigns against their opponents that have nuggets of fact, that are spun for maxximim effect.

On principal I still cannot vote for Obama because the Dem's of today compared to the Kennedy era are so liberal they are socialists and marxcist. the repubs of today are closer to the old school dems, and no-one is really looking out for the people or the country, they are looking at getting re-elected.

on the + side the politicans have done a wonderfull job of dividing people into their voting block groups, controlling the rest, and only pander to the middle 10%.
So just vote within your group, and they will continue to ignore you...Err all will be good later

All you christions to the right... All you minority cultures to the left..... and to everyone else we promise.....

Well that's not true;
Alot of those in minority cultures are Christians, And some in minority cultures are Republican. The main divide of 'blocks' going on that count significantly is between classes.

That slight stutter Obama has is pretty insignificant compared to the fact that he he shows himself to be a thinker and weighs judgement. Fast smart-mouthed talkers like Palin and McCain seem to have the main problem with being impressive communicators. By all accounts, most 'experts' were saying McCain should be destroying Obama at this point in the race.

You must not be watching alot of Obama's speeches to see that he engages audiences lengthily without teleprompters.
Also why does he have to feel obligated to play into McCain's obvious tactic of trying to seem like he's controlling the tempo of the race regarding townhall meetings [and more recently the cunniving sham by McCain to suspend his campaign and call for Obama to do the same-which McCain actually never did -at least nobody in his troupe besides himself did!]. It's a childish ploy. Obama has his own campaign strategy-why should he play second fiddle to a desperado? There's this thing called debates which will give them both an opportunity to go at each other nationwide and globally
..... Oh that's right, McCain is trying to duck out of the debate versus Obama .... on the pretense he's got crucial business to do in Washington> which leads to something very interesting...........


Why does a person like McCain -self-professed as a fundamental deregulator- who 2 weeks ago stated boldly that the economy was 'fundamentally sound' THINK that he of all people is a crucial part of the equation regarding the current financial bail-out negotiations.
Was everyone in the negotiations ROFL when they heard the GURU of economics McCain was coming into Dodge to save them all!
Is this some kind of incredible morbid joke!? Or is he that desperate to duck out of the debate? Or is he again gambling by playing 'Saviour' of the situation - Maverick Johnny on the Spot to appear 'leaderly' -
Why is he gambling with screwing up the negotiations and risking collapsing the economy GLOBALLY just as part of strategy to become President.
He gambled on the surge working too- which was fumbling until the Sunnis revolted against Al quaeda -now may be that in itself was a spin-off from the Surge, but the Surge would never have succeeded with its deep thrust without the Awakening Councils. McCain never mentions this unexpected turnaround of events as the propulsion for the Surge's success -instead he claims he somehow orchestrated its success - never mind the Dems in congress feeding funding for the Surge to continue..... a few conveniently ommitted facts.

back on topic---->
And then there's Palin lately - McCain campaign shielding her from reporters recently at a small international chat. And in recent interviews, Palin is showing NO aptitude for International Affairs. She's having a hard time giving her vision of the world stage repeatedly- alarming.....

And then there's this.... media seems to be letting her off the hook lately; if this was Obama, we'd see this played up for weeks, 24/7.... It's a clip showing Palin being blessed in her 'church' by a pastor/witch-hunter -who also prays [in an exorcist/demon voice] to Jesus that she receives financial blessings too - and Palin is all fine with it,..... Geezus.
The Conservatives that were worried about her as 'the' VP choice are now seeing their fears materialize.
When trumpets fade...........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAWM7E_WMfo

There is a huge difference between giving a canned s[ech, and answerng debate style questons.
There is just as large a difference between townhall debates where any question is possible, and a made for TV debate with known questons and rehearsed answers.

To actually here what a politican believes from their heart about the answer to questions from the american people woul be refreshing, rather than rehearsed evasive answers that spew a lot of words but don't really say anything.

As ar as McCain going back.... Umm Chriss Dodd and Barney Frank are neck deep in the creation of this problem, and they are tasked to solve it?
Seems stupid to me

I'll agree Obama is not the strongest of debaters.
However I'm asserting that he gives many talks in front of large audiences without using teleprompters as was implied.
Working from home I get to regularly watch Obama, McCain, Palin speaking live at their various campaign destinations so I do know for a fact about how Obama speaks.
Stutterers don't 'spew words' - Obama's fairly thoughtful about his words and he doesn't say what people want to hear; is his policy for raised taxes what people want to hear?

Meanwhile we have McCain trumpeting "No new taxes".... Over a decade ago a former Repub prez [who I liked] said that once and look how things turned out regarding that wishful campaign promise.
The way McCain is flip-flopping and continuously nudging and hedging on various points in the last 2 months shows he's the one saying what the Conservative base he's trying to draw to his 'maverick' self wants to hear.
On McCain going to Washington - there are a whole bunch of people -Dems and Repubs- attempting to get something together pronto -some more than others. I'm not sure why the 2 'problem-makers' are being depicted by you as the ones solely going to solve the mess.
Just tell me what is McCain going to do that helps anything -apart from political reasons- all he's done since getting there is appear on camera to state what the current non-progress is -why is he there exactly as someone whose opinion was 180 degrees 2 weeks ago on the true state of the economy. He's revealing himself to be too much of a reckless gambler on huge issues in my view. Now he's seen how useless he is in the negotiations but has compelled himself to be stuck in Washington and missing the long awaiited crucial debate tonight because of his promise not to attend if no solution is set in Washington.
And that's too bad for him since he was much expected by Repubs and many Dems to show some ownage of Obama in the debate.

Hey Blitz, glad to have more input into these discussions.

Perhaps I shouldn't have posted what I did, I was just absolutely stunned by Palin's answer. I'm not alone, headlines around the world shared my sentiment.

Sarah Palin flunks CBS interview - Daily Telegraph UK
Palin talks to Couric -- and if she's lucky, few are listening - Los Angeles Times
Shameless and clueless Sarah Palin - Seattle Post Intelligencer
A Question Reprised, but the Words Come None Too Easily for Palin - New York Times
U.S. has achieved victory in Iraq, Palin tells Couric - Washington Post
I’m sorry — Sarah Palin is a bad joke - Atlanta Journal Constitution

And it isn't just newspapers, the right-wing author of "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back," Andrew Sullivan has posted some incredible statements on his blog such as:

"After reluctantly watching the Couric interview of Palin, I felt more strongly than ever -- viscerally -- that she and McCain must be stopped for the good of the nation and the globe. And it occurred to me that, should they lose, we will eventually hear the inside story from the campaign: that from the moment McCain impulsively picked her, every single move the campaign made, every hail Mary, the war on the press, the suspension of the campaign, etc., was focused first on containing the damage they knew would be caused by letting Palin open her mouth without a teleprompter. "

and

"To my mind, her constant public lies about almost anything, large and small, and the proximity of this strange, unvetted blank slate of a candidate to the Oval Office render all usual assumptions of good faith on the part of a candidate moot. The refusal of the McCain campaign to allow her to hold a press conference - unprecedented in modern American history - reinforces this skepticism. It is simply incredible that a vice-presidential candidate who is the governor of a state cannot hold an open press conference to clear the air on any number of issues of fact that are out there. Worse than incredible: dangerous. When we have six weeks to go and we still know very little about someone who could technically be president next January, I don't think we should lean on the side of complacency and 'deference'."

And now conservative columnist Kathleen Parker of the National Review is calling for Palin to step down!

If you missed it, here is the video of the interview.

I can't speak for Robert, but one of the things I most enjoy about these discussions is that we are seemingly trying to uncover provable fact. Robert's ability to pull Palin's name out of the air a month before the rest of the world shows all of us that he goes beyond the spin and the headlines and digs deeper into the issues. He certainly makes me think through an issue and he knows how to bring the facts. I try to show him the respect by only speaking in terms of readily provable information.

Your statements about Obama are perhaps justifiable, but I'd have to ask you to back up your claims. I can certainly point you to some interviews in just the last few days that he has done without a teleprompter. These show that your statement, "Exactly why Obama will never speak without a teleprompter," can not be backed up with reality. I certainly don't know how you can ever claim that Couric's asking Palin to clarify a previous statement is "partisan." Defies explanation.

Fox News's Brit Hume interviews Obama last night.

NBC's Brian Williams interviews Obama last night.

Obama answers questions at new conference last night.

Personally I would like to see a mix of classic moderated debates an open town hall style. I've gotten a lot of laughs from Dems over the last two days who have tried to push the idea McCain did this because he was afraid to debate Obama. That's plain laughable, Obama is the one who wanted to limit the debates, not McCain. Not to mention how the main stream news has conveniently overlooked Obama's current stance about how important it is the candidates answer the questions America is asking. Wouldn't that be the perfect description of town hall debates that he refused to do?

The current news machine when it comes to Palin goes far beyond typical liberal bias.
For example, the near constant rehashing of the Bridge to nowhere an how that stories plays out against her. I've only seen a single story pointing out the fact both Biden an Obama voted for the bridge to nowhere. Not once, but even the 2nd time when it was already starting to become a joke. Then to make it worse they voted against a Rep amendment to diverted the money to Louisiana.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/bid...arks/index.html

Then we have the ever popular, it's the Republican deregulation which caused the current financial crisis.
The fact McCain sponsored a bill to stop Fannie an Freddie from helping enable the subprime mess in 2005 an 2007 wasn't considered newsworthy. I guarantee you if Obama or Biden or any other leading Democrat had predicted the problem with F&F an tried to do something years ago, it would me the leading news story for days. Even poor dumbass Bush tried to call attention for the need of more oversight an regulation of F&F back in 2003
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...agewanted=print

Something else that drives me nuts about this whole notion Republican deregulation was the sole or even main cause for the current financial meltdown. Several economist also point to CRA ( Community Reinvestment Act ). This is a program dating back to 1977 which forces banks to take on a certain percentage of bad mortgage loans and was made even bigger by Clinton in 95. Then there is finally the consumers who turned to ARM loans to allow them to buy more of a house then they could afford. There is plenty of blame to go around but all you hear in the news is how it's a result of Republican deregulation.
I normally hate stuff like this but it sums up the problem very well.
Government has their hands all over this mess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6fuFrdCJY

Speaking of government regulation, the latest news about how bad it failed when it comes to health care
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26860289/

If someone wants to vote for Obama, thats fine.
What was he running on.....
* Smaller government? No, A large increase in Government
* Cheaper government? No, The biggest list of entitlements since FDR
* Immediate or quick pull out in Iraq? has increasingly backed away from his initial time lime, plus has always given himself several outs to allow him to change his stance on Iraq if needed.
* Experience? Nope
* Energy plan? Total BS 10 year plan with no specific on how he will achieve his goal.
* Fair Taxes? Nope, classic class warfare here. Going to raise the Corp taxes because those evil companies don't pay enough. One small problem, the US has one of the highest corporate taxes on the planet.
Obama will kill US competitiveness by raising corp taxes while ever other country is lowering theirs to become more competitive.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23561.html
BTW he is still using the line "lower taxes for 95% of Americans" when the best independent review puts that number closer to 80%. Which would still be a lie because it includes people who don't pay taxes. If they don't pay taxes, how can he lower them?
Also, the increased corp tax problem will only aggravate the already weakening dollar.


Hamma
Your question intrigued me so much, I had to do a quick search. Looks like the search may have to employ Lexis/Nexis as there is so much noise in the system thanks to Gramm's infamous "nation of whiners" remark. I did find an interesting article published by Texas Observer last May that does a great job of shedding light on the McCain-Gramm connection. It really is no wonder why Gramm is the one who continues to be mentioned.
Gramm continues to be mentioned for the same reason the Keating 5 are, both are bogus.
BTW I couldn't find a single legitimate source say McCain planned on making Gramm sec. of the Treasury.

Something else of interest which I just read about. So much positive press has been given to the fact Obama was an editor of the Harvard Law review. There was a time when it use to be based solely on grades, not anymore.
"seven to nine are selected by a discretionary committee, either to fulfill the reviews race-based affirmative action program, to select students who just missed the cut by either of the other two processes, or by some other criteria as the committee sees fit."
Linkage
This would go a long way to explain why Obama has never released his grades from Colombia or Harvard.
BTW he wasn't on the honor roll at Colombia, so it's pretty much a given he didn't get accepted to Harvard based on his grades.

Concerning Palin's poor performance with reporters which Hamma linked to.
You previously said everyone should be open to harder press scrutiny.
There is the problem, they are not. Go back an look at the comparison between the Gibson/Obama interviews and the Gibson/Palin interview I previously pointed out in this topic. The exact same could be said for almost every single interview given over the last few weeks. Hell even O'reily tossed Obama softballs.


I'll be very curious to see where the polls and news heads after the debate tonight.

I agree that McCain hasn't been pulling this stunt because he wanted to avoid the debate. What the McCain campaign was putting out was they wanted to RESCHEDULE tonight's debate to replace next week's VICE presidential debate. It was a feeble effort to push back Palin's show down with Biden.

The stunt now provides McCain with a potential upside if he does well. He has managed to create such a ruckus, this will undoubtedly be the most highly watched debate in Presidential history.

As for the Bridge to Nowhere - the reason it has endured "near constant rehashing" is because Palin continued to lie about her role - "I told Congress 'thanks but no thanks.'" That is what brought what should have been a minor issue to the front a center. I can't recall when a major candidate continued to spout a proven falsehood.

If you are going to criticize Obama for not supporting the Coburn Amendment which would have diverted those funds to Louisiana, you should first check to see if your guy supported it. McCain is on record as also having voted against the amendment ... oops.

And, you certainly can't blame anyone for "voting for" the Bridge to Nowhere if they supported the Omnibus bill. You yourself have stipulated the need for a line-item veto for just this sort of problem. If you are going to advocate that position, you certainly can't have both sides of the debate and claim a lawmaker was wrong for "supporting" a bill that's main purpose was to keep the budget flowing.

I would love to read a thoroughly researched piece on this financial crisis that can point anywhere else but the Republican deregulation as one of the major causes, but I doubt you could come up with one. Obviously, there were a lot of mitigating factors, and efforts like the Community Reinvestment Act were well in line with Bush's "ownership society" mantra.

As for any claims that either candidate has made about taxes, all of them are out the window at this point and hardly worth discussing. $700 Billion has a way of denting the most well-meaning plans. Maybe McCain can pound the rostrum and urge the viewers to "read my lips," but I doubt that will get him very far.

The debate I'm anxious to hear is over the concept of free market versus a regulated market economy and add to that the now twice-failed notion of the Trickle Down Economic Theory.

It doesn't matter much that McCain also voted for the bridge to nowhere. Whats interesting is the two people ( Obama/Bind ) who have mocked Palin over it, also voted for it.
Kind of the pot calling the kettle black.
This same plays right into bogus criticisms that Palin is the queen of earmarks. They come up with that by comparing Alaska with the rest of the US. A different story is told when you you compare Palin to the previous Alaskan Governor, which i think would be the more fair comparison. Then she comes out looking pretty goos since she cut spending by 20%.

I am intrigued by your suggestion the purpose of McCain's stunt was to increase the viewership of the debate. I can see why the McCain campaign would see it as a plus. Don't agree with the assessment it was to push or delay the VP debates. On an interesting note, I think this will probably be the most watched an discussed VP debate ever. I also think people will be surprised how well Palin does, same as they were at the RNC. Not that it will really matter, VP debates won't win or loss an election, do you even remember any of the previous VP debates? The only one I can remember is when Quayle was insulted by the other VP " You're no Kennedy!" . I can't think of another single memory from a VP debate.
There of course is this famous moment from the 80 Presidnetial debates.
Before this, Bush was actually ahead in all the polls.
The moderator got a little uppity an was put in his place
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO2_49TycdE