'A NEW LOW' WOULD BE GOOD IOF WE WERE TLAKING ABOUT THE NATIONAL DEBT

Unfortunately it can only be used about the nastiest lies and campaign tactics eve seen,  Campaigns have never been without their 'stretching the truth' but they have not been so low as to insult a sitting president with lies of his being 'not one of us', in so many words.  Perhaps it is because we allow marketers to run campaigns.  They are only interested in scamming the public for better gain and selling their product, just as Bain Capital has never been a job producer but a their practices have been a means to make profit for the company which has done well.

John McCain who spoke in defense of Huma Abedin was to be loudly acclaimed as someone in our government with a sense of honesty and morality about defaming  the innocent.  Anderson Cooper also championed Ms. Abedin.  For more on this, click here.

Romney is a coward who hides behind the vitriol of people like M Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, John Sununu and others. Mr. Romney, clean up your act.  You are fooling no one.  You have no substance nor are you showing integrity.  You may be getting all the money for your campaign from those who know you will continue to be their puppet if they can get you elected but none of you re thinking of your country.  Stop projecting all your faults onto Obama.  He has everything you lack but the amount of your wealth.

BIPARTISANSHIP WITH REPUBLICANS? YOU MUST BE JOKING!

Watching some of the HealthCare Summit, I was left wondering on what planet the constituents live about whom the Republicans are speaking and think they are representing. They are not the 98% of the working and unemployed Americans making barely trying to survive with their families. Since the Republicans have effectively cut out a middle class, they need to watch themselves on the replays....they will be surprised at how ludicrous they seem. As far as I can see, they ought to be giving some of their salary back...they certainly aren't earning it. They haven't a clue about what people living of $40,000 with a family are doing. If you want to see what the House and Senate earn, click here.

It was a pleasure to see Obama in action. When John McCain talked about how unfair it was that Florida was getting such an unequal handout share, he clearly expected a defense. Instead, Obama just smiled at him and said, "You have a good point there." McCain looked ready to go on with more on his point, blinked, then looked like a deflated balloon.

James Clyburn, Dem. Senator from S. Carolina, was a guest on the Daily Show. When Stewart asked if people were cordial when the cameras weren't on, he described that everyone was polite and collegial throughout the day and that Obama talked considerably with Republicans on breaks. It just didn't look like it on the evening news and the talk shows. How nice to have a senator confirm the distortions the media presents.

Let's hope it is really clear that the Republicans just want to sabotage the Bill and let's get on with 'full steam ahead' on it without them.

DELIVER US, OH LORD, FROM THOSE WHO WOULD PUT WORDS OF THEIRS IN YOUR MOUTH

There is a suggestion, made by Mr. Peter String of the Family Research Council which wishes to criminalize gay sex. Now that we know that other primates have sex with same gender of their species we night begin to believe that homosexuality is NOT a choice...but these self-proclaimed morality setters, perhaps latently homosexual themselves as has been found in so many who are so verbally homophobic, might begin to listen to researchers, physicians and other professionals who have been studying this for years...but it probably won't happen!

An article, by Adele Stan can be read if full by clicking here. Be sure to watch the video clip at the bottom of the article. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, made a very sincere plea to rescind the current taboo of admitting gayness in the military. He made it an issue of integrity and raised the shame of this country expecting these many loyal-to-America patriots to defend our country while having to lie about who they are.

John McCain who used to be for the change before he was against it, is said to be for it again, now that Colin Powell has strongly endorsed getting rid of the 'Don't ask; don't tell' idiocy. I for one am happy he was not elected to be our President and regret that the Republicans ridicule those whom they call flip-floppers in derogatory fashion while turning their eyes away from their own flip-floppers.

IF YOU CAN'T WIN AN ELECTION, TRY TO MAKE THE ONE WHO WON, LOSE THE COUNTRY'S GOALS TO PUT OUT SILLY LITTLE FIRES YOU'VE SET

Why should I be surprised at the media, Michael Steele/Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the bad-loser neocons of CPAC are grown-ups acting like spoiled little children. Is there no respect for the Presidency any longer...is that the level to which GW has brought us? Has the grandiosity of the thrice married Limbaugh. who claims to be of family values; this drug addicted loudmouth who lies too readily to capture his audience, entertainer that he is, who dare to pretend that the President has nothing more important to do than debate him on his turf, on a radio station? Why does the media even spread it around?

Now Rush Limbaugh is trying to get Michael Steele out of his job. Lawrence O'Donnell was one of the soundest minds commenting on the whole infantile issue. He made it clear that Rush Limbaugh is not trying to make anything out of the Republican party, he is only looking out for himself and loving every minute of the publicity which seems to be bringing his ratings up. One of the mistakes the media is currently making is to allow every weirdo to speak their opinions even when it is clear they are as daft, outside reality as Michelle Bachman, Representative from one of those frozen north states, the temperature of which seems to have frozen her brain cells.

The news seems to be filled by all the losers, who are inept, inappropriate for the positions they were voted to fill, politicians...unfortunately, at this time, mostly Republicans. For a party that wants to come back, they need to get some of the A team up front though it doesn't look like there are too many suitable and electable candidates within the party for that spot.

What is stopping the loud mouths from seeing that Obama's priorities are not the little blips that stupid politicians insist on putting in his way...like those who sneaked earmarks into the bill. I'd love to see (if anyone had the time to check) which party politicians put most of them in.

Most shocking to me is McCain's treatment of Obama, criticism, continued negative campaigning, poor sportsmanship and teamwork for the good of all, when Obama has reached across the partisan aisle to be courteous and as cooperative as he can be.

I am reminded of the lawyer, Joseph Welch, in the McCarthy era who looked at McCarthy who had insinuated that one Fred Fischer, a young lawyer at Hale & Dorr, harbored communist sympathies. He said, "Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness....Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" McCarthy was undoubtedly psychotically paranoid....what excuse can we give today's indecent, bordering on treasonous bad actors who put themselves on the political stage though they hold no current office like Limbaugh, DeLay, Santoro and others who boldly state they hope that Obama's policies fail. Do they not see that if those fail, the country will also fail? They do not have a better plan, only that they wish to continue the failures thrust on us by the Bush administration's incompetence for so long.

GAFFES?

Apparently McCain gaffed yesterday and said, "My fellow prisoners" when he meant to say something like , "My fellow Americans" or whatever. The man has to be tired but, he will be tired as President, as well, if he were to win. We all make Freudian slips but is that what we can assume that was? Knowing how melanoma has a fondness for traveling to the brain, among other places, I would still like to see his medical records shown.

In February, McCain announced he was a 'proud Conservative, Liberal Republican', forced to correct himself quickly.

"You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran? Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." (Watch video clip) , another McCain special.

Even Barack has a few such as: "I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go." --at a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon (Watch video clip)

Palen: "There ya go, Joe...lookin' back instead of forward." Does she read or care? " Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." --George Santayana ...

Many people who know him and have observed McCain's loss of control and temper are deeply concerned about what might happen if he were President. He has been witnessed as striking a woman, using despicable profanity to his wife, and some have come forward to speak about it. Would these be called gaffes, as well? They sure aren't planned for great P.R., I would say!

LOTS OF NEW BEGINNINGS

O.J. Simpson was found guilty of several felony counts and will face a jail sentence soon.

Sarah Palin accuses Barack Obama of palling around with terrorists. She cited a New York Times report that Mr Obama had had links with a former member of a 1960s militant group. Since Palin has no real ideas about running the country, she has taken up the usual Republican style of character assassination. That Obama was too young too talk when the militant group was in action seems insignificant to her. Mr Obama, who served on a charity board several years ago with Mr Ayers - now a professor at the University of Illinois - has denounced his radical activities. Does Governor Palin assume this 60's activist was able to stifle all his urges for almost 50 years and is just waiting for his 'friend' to get into office to begin them again, though the war he protested against is over?

How sad to see John McCain, the Maverick who is a 'straight talker' allow his Vice Presidential nominee to stoop to such pig sty politics. Is that why he appointed the 'barracuda'...so he could try to stay as removed from her as he does Bush? Does that short distance explains his bragging so loudly about how great she did in the Biden/Palin debate?

Tonight, for nearly two hours, I had the distinct pleasure of being away from my TV and the political wrestling. I was always told, 'never wrestle a pig in sh...er, mud. The pig will love it and you will only get filthy.' Personally, I hope that Sarah Barracuda will show her lack of judgment, paucity of readiness for the Presidency, and wake up to find herself the only 'pig' in this fight with the stench of it coloring her future career in politics. Winning by character assassination of your opponents and nothing else to recommend you will get a reincarnated George W. Bush back, in her. I hope our country folk are smarter than that.

My two hours away from the TV were spent at Boston Symphony Hall listening to Andre Previn, Maestro, with a new piece by him, commissioned by the BSO, called OWLS. It was lovely and far preferable to the Carter commissions in the past few years, to my ears. Next was a stunning rendition of Violin Concerto in D by Stravinsky, played by violin virtuoso Gil Shaham. It is a beautiful piece played with breathtaking musicianship by Shaham. After Intermission, we heard Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. Now if only the concert could have lasted until after the elections, life would be considerably improved.

OTHERS ON PALIN

It amuses me to see how many of my friends still have to read their daily newspapers over coffee. I don't mean to sound condescending, it is not a criticism of my friends but of newspapers. It pleases me to find new sources for more interesting perspective. YouTube has filled that gap quite nicely. Here are a few. Bill Maher, who has always thought outside the box though he can at times be so narcissistic and even cruel, is still challenging to watch.

Has anyone other than I noticed the similarity of face between McCain and Charlie Chaplin without makeup in his later years?

Both have the ability to make up illusions that touch people. Both are funny when acting. Both are old in these pictures.
Both had and spent lots of money.





Jack Cafferty tells us, on CNN, how he really feels about Palin.

Well, tomorrow we will see what happens when Palin must show the public in the lower 48 states, as well as the rest of the world just how ready-or-not she is should she become President if she is elected Vice president and the necessity arises! May we live to survive yet another election (necessary with Karl Rove at the evil helm now), to mention only one of the 'bad guys'.

HOW WILL THIS STORY END?

For some time I have occasionally written about trying to live a stress-free life. Reading 'feel good' books and watching 'feel-good' movies has been helpful. However, as I note their template, these often run to hero meets heroine, they dislike each other and spend most of their time misunderstanding one another. At the tale end of the book/movie, the writers give us a few paragraphs of their finally seeing the light, the truth, and their amazing love for one another. They leave us in the last sentence with the impression that they will live happily ever after though they have certainly not managed much happiness until now. The reader often struggles to understand what happened between them that will allow that prediction to happen but is often too pleased by the resolution to take it further in speculation.

The McCain/Palin campaign reminds me of these stories. There is a broad assumption that, if we vote the two of them in, they will live and reign happily ever after. But Prince Charming likely had the same distasteful odors when relieving himself as McCain does when he makes his promises of change. If he was capable of effecting the kind of change we have needed for the past 8 years, why hasn't he mentioned it, instead of voting with Bush 90% of the time. His promises, even now, give no indication as to what will become of the country other than the same degradation of the lives of America's citizen's, with a continuation of all the failed policies of the past two terms of this Administration.

A second assumption is that McCain will live to serve out a four year term. I'm not sure where he, as a 72 year old having suffered four bouts with cancer, appears on the insurance actuarial tables but I do know that a third of VPs have gone on to be President while serving their own term as Vice President. Governor Palin, who governs fewer than people in the state of Rhode Island, and who was mayor of a town of slightly over 5000 when she was in office, seems to be as unsure of herself as one might believe Cinderella may have been when suddenly finding herself a Princess after knowing little other than being servant to her wicked step-sisters. One might think that Cinderella might have been shrewd enough to listen and learn before she jumped into all the demands of royal court as the Princess before she became Queen. Governor Palin seems to think she needs no tutelage for the move to the top responsibility, call for experience in governing globally, and with a finger on the red button. She has the effrontery to believe that she will win over Senator Clinton's voters. Such colossal hubris simply bears to mind the saying, "Ignorance is bliss." No wonder she can smile and seem to sincerely believe they are somehow equals. Instead of Hillary Clinton, Palin comes across as Caribou Barbie with John McCain as her Ken (or is it G.I. Joe?) They are playing at living in the real world and seem not to notice that people are not as easily fooled as they are insulted when they are the recipients of so many untruths and promises that do not fit their ideologies.

Like the books, we wait until the last paragraph to find out just what will happen to Prince Charming and Cinderella, who unfortunately will not leave our land for a distant one. If it is McCain and Palin, they will remain in the USA and practice their governing on a country already dying. Their political medicine is totally inadequate to save it. However, if Obama and Biden, who have already finished their residency and have a great deal of experience behind them for 'fixing' sick systems prevail, the USA might survive. It will feel like spooning the ocean with a teaspoon, but will take Herculean skill. As with Hercules, it will take thinking out of the box. Hercules rerouted rivers to clean out the Augean stables in a day. (Augeus reneged on his promise to give him one tenth of the cattle if he succeeded, so Hercules killed him and put in Augeas's son as king. There the metaphor slips away from the current Administrative task but matches its challenge.)

WHAT COULD VICTORY IN IRAQ LOOK LIKE?

While outgoing General Petraeus says he will never declare victory there, John McCain seems to be stuck in an outdated military thinking. This is not a typical war nor has it been run typically. Since 2006, most Americans have agreed that we will never be able to claim victory. In my memory, wars have been fought and when the loser surrenders, victory is declared. To whom should we look for surrender in Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no more (not ever having been a threat to us in the first place), but we have kept fighting. Why? The enemy isn't even in Iraq!

Why is McCain focusing on protecting Sarah Palin. Did anyone treat Hillary delicately? Did she ever describe herself as a pitbull with lipstick? Emphatically, no! Is a hockey mom without lipstick simply a pit bull? Why does McCain rarely mention Iraq and why did the RNC emphasize 9/11 and not the war when the war was conveniently manufactured, having shaken up the populace into a sufficient terror that anything was allowed after...especially by the bully type of American who thought only of punching out anyone to get revenge. Americans walked right into the spider-Cheney's web and we have been eaten alive ever since.

Osama bin Laden threatened he would break the American economy. He can now claim the only clear victory. He has succeeded due to the inability of this Administration to think of consequences. Can the USA claim a victory? Absolutely not. We succeeded in destroying the dictatorship of a country that didn't ask us to rescue them. This impulsive move destroyed almost the whole country. We allowed insurgents into Iraq who were fighting a 'war of terror' but we never really knew who they were nor was a formal war declared by any of them with the customary rules of engagement. There are, actually, rules to war as covered in the Hague Laws and the Geneva Convention though, since this is not a war to our enemy, they are not followed. We, on the other hand, consider it a war so we just choose to ignore them.

MICHELE OBAMA'S SPEECH AT THE CONVENTION

Confessing that my early fears about Michele Obama, the angry woman who let it all show to the entire TV viewing audience, repeated over and over in sound bites, that her children didn't want to enter their bedroom in the morning because their father's feet smelled, raised many early questions in my mind about whether she was to be an asset or a liability to her husband if she became First Lady.

Tonight, regardless of how many people may have participated in writing her speech, she had to deliver it by herself. And, deliver it she did. She not only brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience, but she brought tears to mine. I respond to emotion and affect in a room only when sincere touches me and when I perceive the emotion is shared by many there no matter how Ms Obama may have been coached and rehearsed, I knew that this woman was willing only to speak that which she believed from the great core of her being and integrity. It doesn't bother me an iota that her husband is ambitious and wants to be President. Anyone campaigning for the office should be. Fred Thompson's failure cannot wholly be attributed to his ambitious, young and beautiful wife pushing him into something he didn't wish. But that Fred Thompson never indicated that he wanted to be President enough to fight to convince a nation of voters that he had the proper 'fire in the belly' required probably cost him the candidacy..

Having been a working mother myself, long before it was accepted, admired or even socially tolerated, I felt I could identify with the hard work this woman has done to be able to stand by the side of a man as dedicated to not only succeeding to office, but truly believing that he could be helpful to the masses of people unable to help themselves. When one has come from poverty and succeeded, not through luck but through preparation, one has learned that you need never go back to poverty as long as you have your health, mental capacity, and a profession that assures you there will always be work for you out there somewhere because of your superior abilities.

Michele Obama, I believe, was able to convince most of the loving basis for her being on stage to support her life partner, the husband and father of her children, and for their combined hopes for making a more promising future for their children and those of all other Americans. Whereas I saw Barak Obama as a Pied Piper early in the campaign, I see this man as capable of raising the bar of honesty, morality and integrity in the White House promised but not delivered by G W Bush. The family resume is far more promising than four years with a man with an appearance of scarcely making it to the inauguration with his health and mind intact. After eight years of being lied to, all promises ignored or broken, conditions of living in the USA falling steadily lower for all but the top 1%, it is with much pain and sadness that I watch the most needy being the most gullible, believing that our great white-haired hope for our future is John McCain.

Since our Democratic candidate seems surely to be Obama, I believe that Ms Obama's speech tonight did much to alleviate my panic that the 'black rage', forced as protection on the difficult climb up the ladder to where she is today, will not be her most visible feature in the White House.

Good work, Mrs. Obama! Now we will hopefully hear what it is, stated clearly for all the non-believers, just what it is Mr. Obama plans and how, and with whose advice and assistance he will effect those plans.

AN ARTICLE BY A POW WITH MCCAIN

A fellow POW, Philip Butler, in Viet Nam with John McCain speaks out. I link it here because it is long. He cites the lack of being impressed with McCain's standing of 5th from the bottom in a class of 800 from the Naval Academy. Furthermore, he had arrived 2 1/2 years earlier than McCain, spending a total of 8 years of his life there at the 'Hanoi Hilton'. There is a major focus in his description that nothing a POW did would recommend his competence for being President of the USA. Most striking is his observation that he may be a maverick but his political views mimic those of the man he purportedly hates, G W Bush.

Another who writes on a similar theme is Michael Moore, who dares ask and say what the cowardly media does not dare write. I have not yet read the Michael Moore book, Mike's Election Guide 2008. Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet staff writer, she quotes Moore as asking what is so heroic about McCain being shot down while bombing innocent civilians? She does not "Swift Boat' him, merely puts what he did and who he is in proper perspective. If you have any interest in who becomes our next President, it would behoove you to read both articles and make your own conclusions after you've decided in whom you can place your trust of the red button control, the US economy, and the White House and all the appointments that a President will make for the next four years.

WHAT SEPARATED MCCAIN FROM LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS REALITY?

For the first time in a very long time, the nightly news had an Amber Alert, and seven swimmers sucked in by dangerous waters creating an undertow, rather than a rehash of political news. I remain saddened that John McCain has resorted to such dirty politics for a man we had come to revere for his long suffering in capture while fighting for his country. While respecting what he had come through, I never thought it made him presidential material. Instead, I thought some of his work as a Senator might qualify him, but he has managed to disqualify himself with his present positioning on too many issues.

He accuses Obama of a political decision about the war rather than what is best for the country while he shows his ignorance of the thinking of the majority in the country by insisting that a family consists of a father and mother. He insisted on the George Stephanopoulos Show that, rather than have a gay couple adopt a child, he thought it better that the children stay in foster or institutional care. The man hasn't a clue to what he subjects children nor a clue to the wonderful children some of whom are being raised by a single parent or gay parents become.

Huffington Post: "At another point in the interview, McCain was asked to specify his position on gay adoption, an issue where the Senator's political leanings remain somewhat opaque. He did little to clear the air. McCain stumbled in his response and wouldn't answer the question definitively one way or the other. Also, after saying initially that the gay adoption issue was "not the reason I am running for President of the United States," he made an about-face, claiming,
"I'm running for president of the United States because I want to help with family values. I think family values are important when we have two parent families that are parents of the traditional family."

Instead of furthering an understanding of issues for which people should vote for him, he remains negative and gives his reasons why Obama should not get votes. It is a pity he didn't stick to what he said he would not do...negative campaigning Today he did a great deal to prove why he will not make a good President.

TO WHOM ARE WE LISTENING ABOUT OUR WORLD?

It seems that McCain has been so busy campaigning and listening to his own line that he is fantasying something non-existent. He seems not to be hearing that the Iraqis are chewing us up and spitting us out as we did to them for the last 5 years. Listen up: They want us out of there!!!!
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are in Pakistan where we are now funding them, albeit indirectly.

"The superstitious Right fights global warming." Not since Keith Olbermann issued a series of open letters to Bush have I heard a case presented as coherently and honestly as David Michael Green, writing for Environment. It is well worth your reading of it.

DO NOT LISTEN TO PREDICTIONS

For as many years as I believed my parents knew better than I. I believed that TV political pundits also knew more than I. Indeed they do have more information. However, they are mostly unable to use that information to predict the entire political system. Beyond that, they are hampered by their own wish to appear ‘pundit-like’, to please their bosses, and like the legislature, to assure their continued employment.

To that end, also like the legislators, they pretend to speak for the average American with whom they long ago lost any contact they may have once had before they became victims of the Peter Principle. (“In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.") from Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in a humorous book which also introduced the "salutary science of Hierarchiology" "inadvertently founded" by Peter, their book in 1968 The Peter Principle, the principle has real validity.

The Audacity of Hope could better have been written about the predictions made publicly on the McLaughlin Hour for years, few of which came to pass. Those made by the self-described 'experts' for all major media outlets on newspaper, air or TV fare no better. There was a time when they could say anything and get away with it, but no more. Today there is a visual and audio recording of everything uttered. McCain has tried to lie his way out of things denying he has said what the media can play back, almost instantaneously, that which they accurately claim he said, leaving his denial a mere flap of his lips. So far, that fact has not quite sunk into the brains of some of the politicians and pundits. Cheney seems to be one of the worst at maintaining he never said what he did say, with abounding proof on archived TV files to the contrary. For those schooled in never admitting they lied and never taking responsibility for their actions, technology seems to be catching up to them.

If we assume that McCain actually has forgotten what he has predicted, promised or said, we enter another sphere of confusion. McCain's brain is 72 years of age while Obama's is 46 or so. In either case, whether he is fabricating that he never said something or indeed has actually forgotten, it is not a positive sign for the brain functioning of the President of the most powerful nation in the world.

So I am left with a real question. Will the pundits be as anxious to make a prediction with such vehemence in face of the likelihood that it may not come to pass if they know it will be played over and over to the country at large, win or lose?

WHAT HAPPENED TO DECENCY IN THE MEDIA

Apparently there are those who think that Howard Stern, the shock jock, is a model to emulate. They forget he is heard on a very protected venue. Do they not remember what Don Imus went through, nor the MSNBC guy, David Shuster, who is back on air again and who violated all decency with his remarks on Chelsea. I know that the Urban Dictionary allows a lot of things that John Q. Public would neither understand nor find acceptable, though some of us find it amusing. It would not be amusing at your grandmother's funeral, in church, grade school, or most state affairs. It seems that a few whose mouths are open on camera forget who is in their audience.

Randi Rhodes, an afternoon host for the progressive Air America radio network, was suspended Thursday after repeatedly insulting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event last month. Her network hadn't noticed until it was pointed out how badly she had behaved and what she had said. Then the network took action, probably in an effort to practice CYA, not because they found what had been said offensive. Michelle Obama's gaff got buried by the media, though the air is alive with tension over the negative feelings the media has for Senator Clinton and anything her spouse utters.

McCain has definitely been coddled by the media. Is it because some of them are nearing senior citizen status themselves? Bob Lobel might be a bellweather for those who are being asked to move over and make room for younger, lower paid 'stars'. "Tweety" and Russert, if you want to be remembered positively, start earning it again.