Well it seems that Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. Conservatives will say he is doing because he is black as if that stereotype is the ONLY reason that could be true. Powell gave some good reasons in his appearance on Meet the Press and to the press after the show.
I have always liked and respected Powell. Even though he is a Republican he is moderate. During his military career he never believed the military should be the first resort but it should be diplomacy.
Unlike many people of my political view of the Iraq war, I still believe that Powell was used by Bush, Cheney, and the other neo-cons to put lipstick on the pig for war. He based his presentation to the UN to make the case for war on faulty intelligence which the President knew was false but he let Powell sell the rotten fish anyway.
In September 2005, Powell was asked about the speech during an interview with Barbara Walters and responded that it was a “blot” on his record. He went on to say, “It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.”
Sorry, this part would have been in the previous post had I seen it earlier — dlb
John Seery, a Professor of Politics at Pomona College, wrote an article for the Huffington Post that was published yesterday.
In it he talks about Sam the Gas Station Guy, who he met at his gym the other day. Sam is a small business owner. He owns more than 100 gas stations and 25 restaurant franchises in southern California and has over 800 employees.
While talking about the current political scene Sam, a life long Republican said he would be voting for Barack Obama.
“My gas station businesses are hurting. I make the same profit margin–5 to 8 cents per gallon–no matter whether the price of gas is $1.99 per gallon or $4.99. The big oil companies are the ones raking in the profits when prices go up, not me. I can make money on gas only through volume sales–and if people are hurting, I make less on gas. Or I start to lose money, like now. Where I make money, though, is when they come inside and buy discretionary items–food, drinks, lottery tickets. Right now, people aren’t buying. I know 20 of my gas station colleagues are about to declare bankruptcy. It’s bad.”
“So I’m fed up with the Republicans. Tax cuts for the rich, the war–all that stuff. The middle class needs help. I’m finally convinced. I’m going for Obama. First time in my life, I tell you.”
I asked him about paying higher taxes.
“I don’t care about that. If I’m making money, I don’t care. I’ll pay my taxes. But I’m not going to make any money if the middle-class guy doesn’t have money in his pocket to buy my gas or my food. I don’t need the big tax cut right now. That’s not going to bring the customers into my gas stations.“
That is a better said reason why I don’t like McCain’s and the GOP’s view on taxes. Small businesses aren’t going to make money if the middle-class guy doesn’t have money in his pocket. Cutting taxes for the rich and those who invest doesn’t put money in people’s pocket quick enough to help small businesses – if at all.
Cutting taxes for the middle class are jumper cables for a broken economy and we need jumper cables right now.
Something most people may not know, but we aren’t the only people following the 2008 Presidential election. The world cares who we choose for the office because the US and its policies can affect others in the world. The world is VERY interested in this year’s election and Joe the Plumber is a prime example.
Joe was mentioned about 21 times during the last debate on Wednesday. First used by John McCain as an example of how Barack Obama’s tax plan would hurt small businesses (it really won’t), the world media flew into action to find and interview Joe.
Joe Wurzelbacher of Shrewsbury Street in Springfield Township, outside Toledo, Ohio, had stopped Obama during his pre-debate walkabout on Sunday. Obama had been walking in the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and talking to the average folks. Joe and Obama’s mini-debate hit YouTube and that brought him to the attention of McCain and the rest of the world.
While watching the debate at home with his father, he was interrupted several times by calls from the national media including CNN, Fox News, and Good Morning America. In addition, CNBC, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, and the BBC called The Blade in their quest to reach Joe the Plumber.
Basically Joe was concerned that in buying the business he worked for, Obama’s tax plan would “[tax him] more and more for fulfilling the American dream”.
That is the classic conservative mantra – “Why should I be penalize for working hard?”
I just never could understand the logic of “trickle down” economics where the rich get the tax cuts and then they would spend that money building jobs and increasing growth of the economy. The hope was that it would trickle down to the “unwashed”.
A better idea is to pass that cut to the actual people at the end of the down spout. Then the money passes into the economy immediately. It’s the difference between taking an aspirin versus injecting the medication directly into the vein. Sure the tablet may bring relief but the injection will work sooner.
But back to Joe:
Here is Joe making it on the BBC website and the site for the German national TV network ZDF.
Under further review it turns out that Joe wasn’t exactly what he claimed to be:
“Joe the Plumber” isn’t a plumber — at least not a licensed one, or a registered one.
A check of state and local licensing agencies in Ohio and Michigan shows no plumbing licenses under Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s name, or even misspellings of his name.
Questions were raised Thursday morning whether Mr. Wurzelbacher is a registered voter.
Linda Howe, executive director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said a Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher, whose address and age match Joe the Plumber’s, registered in Lucas County on Sept. 10, 1992. He voted in his first primary on March 4 of this year, registering as a Republican.
Ms. Howe said that the name may be misspelled in the database.
In January, 2007, the Ohio Department of Taxation placed a lien against him because $1,183 in personal property taxes had not been paid, but there has been no action in the case since it was filed.
So Joe isn’t a licenced plumber, may not be registered to vote, and doesn’t pay his taxes.
What a symbol for John McCain! Whooooo hooooo! Go GOP!
Well it seems Sarah Palin knows how to cram for an exam. Her debate with Senator Joe Biden lacked any “moose in the headlight” moments, mainly because there were no follow ups, but her folksy question avoidance didn’t win her or her ticket any help in the election. Tactically she did a good job but she lost the war. Her effort was a white flag of surrender for McCain-Palin.
The people have spoken:
CNN vote of debate watchers: Biden 51, Palin 36 CBS poll of undecideds: Biden 46, Palin 21
Most scary moment:
IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?
PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
Yes, she wants more power than Lord Cheney. Did you feel that chill?
In the lead up to the debate the right punditry went nuts about the fact that the moderator, Gwen Ifill, had written a book about blacks in politics – as if this some how made her biased. The right also complained about Palin mucking up her Katie Couric interviews – blaming the bad old liberal media and its “gotcha” journalism.
It is a the usual classic conservative attack mode – attacking the media.
Glenn Greenwald in Salon magazine summed this up perfectly:
Go pick whatever right-wing journals or polemicists you want and (with some isolated exceptions) what you will find is this simultaneously self-loving and self-pitying worldview permeating virtually everything they say, think and believe. You can reduce most of their arguments, and all of their group-based drives, to a rudimentary logical proposition: “I am X, and X is both superior and treated with deep unfairness.” It doesn’t matter what “X” happens to be for any one of them — conservative, male, Republican, Christian, Jewish, religious, white, Western, American — that is the formula that expresses how they perceive the world and their role in it.
Petulance and self-pitying grievance is what fuels them. This endless need to self-victimize would be one thing if the groups to which they belonged were small minorities targeted by a hostile and more powerful majority. But the exact opposite is true. By and large, the groups to which they belong (and therefore see as oppressed and treated with unparalleled unfairness) are the most numerous and the most powerful in the country and always have been. Yet still — nothing is their fault; they face hopeless obstacles imposed by Evil and Omnipotent Forces which hate them; “I am X, and X is both superior and treated with deep unfairness.”
They have run the country for the entire decade. For the last 14 years, they’ve controlled the House for all but 20 months. They spent substantial parts of the last eight years in control of all branches of government simultaneously. They’ve won 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections. The country’s largest and richest corporations — including the ones owning the most powerful media outlets — pour money into their party and perceive, correctly, that their interests are served by the Right’s agenda. But still — they can’t get a fair shake; everything is deeply oppressive to them; it’s all so unfair.
So as we get closer to the election – including the next 2 presidential debates – look for more whining from the right as they assume their place on the victimhood mantle.
Here are some media reports related to McCain’s rally set to be held in Columbus on Monday the 29th. Both articles are from the Columbus Dispatch – which normally endorses GOP candidates.
Along with Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain has embraced a $700 billion bailout of the nation’s troubled financial industry.
In a telephone interview with The Dispatch from Washington yesterday, McCain said that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke convinced him that the rescue plan is necessary.
“I’m sure everybody understands that this was something that just had to be done,” McCain said. “I’m kind of sorry in a way, but the tone of voice that Bernanke and Paulson used about this crisis, I’ve never heard anything like it in the years that I’ve been in public office, or alive.”
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will appear at a rally this morning at Capital University. In advance of the visit, McCain talked with The Dispatch about the financial crisis and other topics:
Dispatch: Some commentators criticized you for what they called erratic statements and actions last week heading into negotiations on rescuing the economy. Describe how you played a productive role in all this.
McCain: I’ll leave that up to others to make that judgment. This was an issue that was transcendent. I suspended my campaign and came back to Washington because I thought that it was vital to do so. Sen. Obama said he was available to discuss the issue by phone. I didn’t want to phone it in. I’m proud that we were able to get this done, and I’ll give the credit to everybody else.
Didn’t want to phone it in? It seems McCain going to Washington to butt in the talks actually caused them to break down.
Palin is ideal for southwestern Ohio, with her tough talk and conservative stances on issues such as guns and abortion, said Ryan Barilleaux, chairman of Miami University’s Political Science Department. However, he is surprised by the level of enthusiasm.
“Earlier in his career, John McCain seemed to go out of his way to poke people in the eye, conservatives in particular, and they resented that,” he said. “But now he’s kind of redeemed himself.”
In the town of Monroe, where voter turnout in 2004 was about 80 percent, Ernie Wilson has been cutting hair at Ernie’s Hair Place for 50 years. As the election draws closer, political talk heats up, and Wilson said he hears quite a bit about Palin.
“The one thing I hear all the time is that when she got elected (governor), she said she was going to change things, and she sold that state jet right away,” he said.
Sitting in Wilson’s waiting room, William Murphy, 66, is among the Democrats who scratch their heads at the obsession with Palin, whom he calls “probably the most-inept vice-presidential candidate we’ve had.”
“She’s a fresh face, but they didn’t know nothing about her,” said Murphy, an occupational safety consultant from Monroe.
Palin’s shine has dulled a bit since the Republican National Convention, as some of her assertions, such as her opposition to the “bridge to nowhere,” are rebutted and her experience is questioned.
But folks seem more concerned about Obama’s background. Some are very bothered by his affiliation with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his controversial former minister. A few mentioned Obama’s race as a factor.
Jayne Keys, 51, a restaurant controller from Wilmington, questioned Obama’s experience but called Palin a “refreshing face who will bring a lot to the table.”
Asked about Palin’s lack of experience, Keys’ husband, Don, responded: “She’s not running for president. My anticipation is that (McCain) would last for eight years, and she would gain eight years of experience.”
Cindy McCain did a satellite interview with one of our local TV stations (WBNS Channel 10) ahead of the McCain rally in Columbus on Monday. Notice in the video how the anchor focuses on the tax increase for those making more than $250,000 and giving short emphasis on the tax cuts for the middle class under Obama’s plan. He frames it that way twice in the video. He mentions Palin’s bad interview with Katie Couric last week but spins so Cindy can be a cheerleader.
A few months ago I had to write a letter to the station and complain about their biased reporting favoring McCain and there was only a short mention of the Obama event just after the convention when he stopped in Dublin.
The video does have some comments from Gov. Ted Strickland in Obama’s favor.
