After President Obama’s Address to Congress, the Republican Party’s response was delivered from Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal.  I am loving that Sarah Palin, Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal are the new faces of the Republicans – they are the new Three Stooges!

I wonder if he even bothered to watch the President’s speech? I wonder what planet he’s living on? He’s got an interesting personal story, but his ideas? Just more of the same failed Republican policies that got us into this ridiculous mess to begin with – tax cuts for the rich, abandoning public education. Really, Bobby Jindal? Is that the best the Republicans can do in this time of economic crisis?

Tax cuts will increase the debt but not have an appreciable effect on the economy, except to encourage more borrowing – people will pay off old debts but not buy new stuff. Recent history has shown this to be the case. And while paying off debt is good, it won’t create any jobs right now, which we need.

And charter schools and vouchers? There’s plenty of indication that charter schools do not improve education over traditional public schools – they are essentially a wash.

And getting rid of corruption and increase transparency in Washington, DC?  No one has seen the text of the stimulus package?  I guess he hasn’t seen http://recovery.gov/ yet,  or the other websites the Obama Administration has published to enable the public to see how the money is being spent.

It’s no wonder that the Republican Party is becoming more and more irrelevant, and no longer a national party, but a regional party of the South.  If this is the best they can do, then I say let them fade more and more into obscurity.

But what I want to know is which of the Three Stooges is Jindal?  Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Curly Joe?

From the Washington Post:

Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric‘s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

Is this the kind of leadership we need at a time of serious challenges facing the nation?  This sort of behavior does nothing to bring people together, and instead only foments violence and hatred.

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of “Palin Power” and “Sarahcuda” T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. “One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” she said. (“Boooo!” said the crowd.) “And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’ ” she continued. (“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.)

“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.

Kill him?  The political answer to those with whom you disagree is to kill them?  And did she interupt her speech to advocate against that sort of thing?  No, she did not.  The Anti-semitic Sarah Palin, like the Anti-semitic John McCain before her, did nothing in the face of such threat.

How much worse is it going to become before it gets better?

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.

– John Burke

Do something – donate, volunteer, talk to your neighbors and family and friends.

The opening of the debate focused the first 25 minutes on economic policy, especially regarding the bail out of the banking industry. When pressed by moderator Lehrer on what specific programs or spending initiatives would be needed to be cut in light of the bail out package, both candidates largely dodged the question, although Obama did acknowledge that perhaps certain items of particular policy initiatives might go unfulfilled. McCain kept harping on earmarks, but Obama countered that they were relatively a small amount of federal spending.

When they moved to foreign policy, one would have thought Obama would have been trounced by McCain, but the Senator from Illinois more than held his own, and even correctly pronounced the names of the foreign leaders correctly, something McCain didn’t do. I’ll paraphrase Dale Carnegie – the sweetest sound to a man is the sound of his own name. IF you want to annoy or irritate someone, get their name wrong. More than once.

McCain tried to criticize Obama for his “naive” view that he would hold talks “without preconditions” with leaders of antagonistic countries. Obama countered that even Mccain’s own adviser, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed with that view. McCain tried to deny that, but as Juan Cole pointed out, Kissinger agreed with Obama’s viewpoint, more than once.

Obama stayed cool and collected, rarely stammered, and looked directly into the camera as if looking at the American people.  McCain barely even looked at Obama, never looked into the camera, and maintained some strange body language, especially with the incessantly blinking eyes, frozen mask of anger, that manic smile a few times, and his lifted up shoulders.  He kind of creeped me out a few times.

So even though no one in particular scored a knock-out punch, and there weren’t really any good zingers or litle sound bites, Obama’s presidential demeanout and command of the issues compared to McCain’s supposedly vastly greater knowledge combined with his creepy body language, I give this debate to Obama.

And it looks like most of the polls agree with me.

Is he really serious? After the debacle we are currently facing because of banking deregulation, John McCain wants even more deregulation? Wow, what crack is he smoking, and where can I get some?

Now, I’m not completely convinced that the bail out is even necessary, but certainly fewer regulations aren’t going to help us get out of it.

The Senate Banking and House Finance Committees are the servants in Congress who will amend and modify the Paulson Rape of the US Treasury.  We, the People, must call and email and write our servants in Congress – don’t let this travesty of legislation happen without the Government taking a serious equity interest in these companies.  If we’re going to do bailouts, we need to get equity in them, like the Swedes did in the 1990s when their banking industry was near collapse, or we need to do loans, like we did in 1979 with Chrysler.

You can contact one of the members of the above mentioned House and Senate committees to urge them to take an equity stake in the banks that we bail out.  Remember, with elections coming up, the people have extra power to influence events if we choose to exercise it.

The Keating Five was the corruption scandal that was a part of the larger Savings and Loan failure of the 1980s, and John McCain had a role in it back then. He claims to have learned lessons from that scandal, but if he has, he certainly isn’t showing it, based on how he treats one of his largest campaign contributors, Donald Diamond.

Back in April 2008, and it’s worth bringing this article back up, the New York Times reported on the questionable dealings John McCain has had with Mr. Diamond, a real estate developer from Arizona.

When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain
assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped
in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a
deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to
a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former
base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close
personal friend.”

and

A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite
fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls
Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr.
Diamond is sometimes referred to as “The Donald,” Arizona’s answer to Donald Trump
— an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his
flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds),
specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits
support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.

Mr. McCain has occasionally rebuffed Mr. Diamond’s entreaties as
inappropriate, but he has also taken steps that benefited his friend’s
real estate empire. Their 26-year relationship illuminates how Mr.
McCain weighs requests from a benefactor against his vows, adopted
after a brush with scandal two decades ago, not to intercede with
government authorities on behalf of a donor or take other official
action that serves no clear public interest.

In California, the
McCain aide’s assistance with the Army helped Mr. Diamond complete a
purchase in 1999 that he soon turned over for a $20 million profit. And
Mr. McCain’s letter of recommendation reinforced Mr. Diamond’s selling
point about his McCain connections as he pursued — and won in 2005 — a
potentially much more lucrative deal to develop a resort hotel and
luxury housing.

It makes you wonder how McCain can look himself in the mirror.    John McCain sold his integrity up the river a long time ago, and he never tried to buy it back.

Current Mood:  angry

Now look, I’m all for people making money and owning whatever they want, but methinks the Senator doth protest too much.

When you tell jokes about rape, what are you saying about how you feel about women (or men, for that matter)?

Rape and sexual assault aren’t funny. According to the U.S. Justice Department, there were 272,350 sexual assaults in 2006 (the most current number), approximately 60,000 of which were rapes. Rape is forced oral, vaginal, or anal penetration.

There is tremendous pain and suffering that goes along with being raped or sexually assaulted. I know this from personal experience. I was raped when I was 16 years old. And while healing and the sense of closure are possible, and certainly in my case that is true, to make light of or to joke about someone’s rape is the sign of someone who lacks compassion. That attitude is an anti-woman throwback, and those who hold such attitudes deserve to be exposed for their out-dated and unhealthy views.

Every person deserves to be free in their own body. Rape makes you a prisoner in your mind and body. And people like John McCain only hurt others with their unkind and unfunny jokes.

Combine that with his 1992 incident, as reported in the book The Real McCain,

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

Maybe it was a long day, or maybe he doesn’t have a good hold on his temper.

When you make up ditties about bombing a people, how does that square with having to engage in diplomacy with them?

The next president has some serious work to do in Middle East, and jokes about bombing one of the participant in the many conflicts there isn’t going to help them to trust the United States. McCain’s idiotic remarks only serve to make our relationship with Iran more strained, less trusting, and to make bridging the gap between our people a more difficult job.

John McCain is too damaged and angry to be President of the United States, and his ill-suited pick to replace him on the likely event of his death is too superficial and inexperienced.  Mccain’s judgment can clearly be questioned on this pick, on his sense of “humor,” and his angry outbursts.

Do we want to put our “Country First,” or “McCain First?”

Here we go again with more corrupt cronies of Sarah Palin.  From personal vendettas to censorship to mismanaging governance to a mangled family life (oh, wait, that’s personal vendettas), Sarah Palin only goes to show her self to be the venal, corrupt, lying incompetent handpuppet for the neo-conservatives and the extreme fundamentalists.