Shredderfood.Com

Your story on “Obama’s Truth Squads” (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/missouris_obama_truth_squads_2.html) is about as much fear-mongering tripe as I’ve ever seen in my life.

First off, the republicans *SHOULD* be afraid of any laws requiring truth-in-advertising because for months now they haven’t been able (nor have they even tried) to differentiate between truth and lies.

The odd part, is that they’re obviously aware of this, otherwise they would simply be pushing to make sure the law is enforced to both campaigns. Now they find themselves in a position where spewing their garbage might land them in jail, that’s definitely a fearful place to be.

If they don’t like Missouri laws as they stand, maybe they should abandon their campaign there, or at least their tactics.

The republicans have no fact left to cling to. John McCain has failed to take the high-road he’s promised and instead has spent more time talking about Obama than himself. This has me and millions like me to only hear one side of the story. The republican “fear-mongering” about Ayres, Religion, Abortion, etc. says NOTHING about McCain’s plan.

If McCain had spent half as much time talking UP his plan as he spent talking DOWN Obama’s he might have stood a chance at getting my vote. And as an independent voter in Virginia my vote does count for something.

In 2000 I would have voted for McCain over Gore had it come down to the two of them. The problem is, McCain has sold his soul for power. He’s abandoned everything that made him a “Maverick” in his quest for the white-house. And that, more than anything, speaks volumes about his character or lack therof.

I am voting for Barack Obama, quite simply because he’s the better man.

My middle son, aged 6, has Autism.

This was the reason Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Sheild of Virginia gave me for denying him *ALL* coverage.  In March of 2009, my COBRA coverage runs out and he will be completely uninsured.

*THIS* is one of my reasons for voting for Obama.  His “middle of the road” healthcare plan is worth voting for in-and-of itself.

My Aunt is 84 and living in a group-home for Alzheimers patients.  She has two sources of income, her investments and her social security.  Without either one she can survive.  Without both……

If McCain/Bush had succeeded in privatizing social security, and given the meltdown in the market, where would she be now?  With the market tanking and the value of any investments she’s got going through the floor, Social Security provides what it’s supposed to.  A safety-net.

*THIS* is one of my reasons for voting for Obama.   He is absolutely opposed to privitization of social security.

My sister is 54 and struggles to make ends meet.  She pays almost twice the percentage of her salary in taxes than I do, while I make ten times as much.  Is that fair?  Shouldn’t I pay the same percentage that I do?  Shouldn’t I end up paying the at least the correct rate?

*THIS* is one of my reasons for voting for Obama.  He is for taxing people FAIRLY and not giving tax breaks to people like me who don’t need it.

So these three people in my life have affected my decision.

What or who has affected yours?

Ok – My registered party affiliation is “Independent.”  I live in the DC/Northern Virginia area so I’ve gotten hit with *ALL* of the political advertising.

That being said – I’ve been watching the campaigns very carefully and have come to the conclusion that the Republicans have lost their way.  Obama’s adveritising is good, while McCain’s is VERY VERY bad.

They both have something in common:

Barack Obama is talking about Barack Obama.

John McCain is talking about Barack Obama.

I’ve not heard John McCain talking about what *HE* will do differently.  I’ve not heard a plan, an idea, even an original thought.

The only thing John McCain can talk about is why we should be afraid of Barack Obama.  I’m tired of the politics of fear.  If John McCain wants to convince people he’s going to be a “different” kind of politican, he needs to start campaiging like a different kind of politican.

All McCain has are lies.  Lies about Obama’s record, Lies about his past, Lies about what’s in store for the future.  You have nothing but lies until you prove otherwise.

To John McCain – Stop telling us why Obama is inferior to you, and start telling us why you are superior to Obama.  If you can’t do this, then be a man and admit it and step aside.

Let me qualify something.  I’m one of those people who may actually get hit with a slight increase under the new tax law.

I don’t mind it.  This election isn’t about *ME*, and it’s not about *MY MONEY* which is what the McCain campaign would like you to believe.  This is about *MY COUNTRY*.  This is about the welfare of the people around me.  Not just me.

Paying taxes is inevetable.  I keep hoping people will see that paying taxes is patriotic.  It keeps us from having to either print more money (causing runaway inflation and putting us at an economic disadvantage to the world.) or borrowing from countries like China and Japan, which is just plain not a good idea because it’s running us into a debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back.

The Ten dollar question is this.  If John McCain is going to give Billions of dollars in tax cuts to big business, big oil, and the other people who have bankrolled his campaign, who do you think is going to end up paying?  The money has to come from somewhere.  It’s going to come from us.

Basic economics states that if you want to stimulate the economy, you give the stimulus to the people who are going to spend it.  The ones who are going to put the money back into the economy.  THE ONES WHO ARE GOING TO TAKE THEIR $$$ down to target and SPEND IT.

In the grand scheme of things, someone who makes a quarter-million a year doesn’t even notice a couple-hundred-dollars in stimulus checks.  Most of them don’t even see the checks, and as such don’t change their spending habits.   Therefore, the stimulus checks don’t even make it back into circulation.

Now if you give a $500 check to someone who makes $40,000 guess what.  It’s going for diapers.  It’s going maybe for a new TV, maybe even just groceries.  It’s the money that then goes into the sales numbers of Best-Buy, or Target, or Walmart, and makes everything better.

So if you make over $250,000/year, you might end up paying a small amount more.  Only on the part of your income that is over $250,000.

But it will be worth it.

This roller coaster ride continues.

Harddrive failure in my laptop set me back a week or so.

Work is kicking my ass eight ways from sunday.

People continue to suck.

I’ll post more later.

Have you ever heard a republican bitching about whatever they are bitching about?

it’s always – they’re trying to raise MY taxes, they’re trying to infringe on MY rights.

Why is it that republicans seem unable or unwilling to see the bigger picture?  That we as a country, and as a planet, are made up of many many people who all have to function together.

The most common argument I hear is actually whenever the idea of education costs comes up.  Now in most communities, education is paid for out of property taxes.  Property taxes affect everyone, owners, renters alike.  Renters pay the tax through the owners (who raise their rent when the taxes go up to cover it if they’re smart)

There is invariably the idiot who says:  I don’t have kids so I shouldn’t have to pay for their schooling.

Idiot.  Short-sighted crap.  Everyone has a vested interest in raising the education level of their community.

A community has a lot to gain from good schools.  Besides the obvious goal of getting potentially delinquent kids educated and off the streets, you’re giving your community a potential future work-force.  Property values will fall due to graffitti and gang violence, vandalism, etc.

Undereducated people don’t contribute to a community, don’t contribute to the economy, they just plain don’t contribute period.

McCain is not who you think he is.

I have a new person to direct my ire against.  This illiterate redneck who calls herself “Rose” and whose meandering, misspelled postings are the epitomy of the far-right wing of the republican party posted this:

From “Roseforeveryone.com“  (I do this so the trackback annoys her)

“John McCain has dedicated his life for you all and his country.”

I’m not going to point out the numerous spelling and grammatical issues in this piece, because if I do she’ll just correct the errors, thereby skewing my example of rednecks being illiterate.   (Some people should learn how to use spell-check)

John McCain dedicated his life to serving John McCain.  After graduating 894 out of 899 in his class in Anapolis, he went on to crash 3 airplanes due to pure negligence.  (The other two planes were hit by fire, one friendly (on the Forrestal), one enemy (the one that resulted in his being captured)

Point of fact – people who graduate in the bottom 10 of their class (not 10% mind you, bottom 10) ONLY get to fly if they have an Admiral for a daddy who pulled in a lot of favors.  As a former Navy brat this is well within my scope of knowledge.

Also you might want to check out the following quote, from “The Rolling Stone: Make-Believe Maverick”

….On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

“I’m going to the Middle East,” Dramesi says. “Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran.”

“Why are you going to the Middle East?” McCain asks, dismissively.

“It’s a place we’re probably going to have some problems,” Dramesi says.

“Why? Where are you going to, John?”

“Oh, I’m going to Rio.”

“What the hell are you going to Rio for?”

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

“I got a better chance of getting laid.”

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. “McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man,” Dramesi says today. “But he’s still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.”

Explain to me why someone who is supposed to be all about Christian Family Values would want to head for Rio to get laid while leaving a Wife and three kids behind?  This is the same wife that shortly after she was crippled in an auto accident, he later ditched for his younger, prettier, and suspiciously un-crippled wife, Cindy.

Update:  The lug-nut that wrote this article fixed the spelling after the fact, probably within a minute of the trackback hitting her site from this post.  Oh – you can see the original spelling by looking at the link when you mouse-over it.

There is a reason the illiterate right wants one of their own in the white-house.  We’ve tried that, 8 years of illiterate and this is what it gets us.

Colin Powell a Trader to America

Says it all doesn’t it?  Anybody with at least a 6th grade education knows that a “Traitor” is someone who sells their country out to the enemy.  And since Obama is an American Citizen that really doesn’t apply technically, or literally for that matter.

I mean, I don’t refer to McCain as a traitor no matter how much damage he wants to do to our country.  An idiot, yes.  But that’s my right as a citizen to do so.

If you’re going to be critical of someone, at least you can bother to take the time to learn how to spell at a level beyond that of the average 6th grader.

Face it moron – you live in a two-party system.  And that means that sometimes you WILL be in the minority.

If it’s a one-party system, as you would like, the technical term is “dictatorship.”  And while I know that would thrill you to no end, you know, the goose-stepping and inflicting your idology on others, this isn’t the right country for that.

Fair&Unbalanced – Prisoner of His Own Campaign

Thank you to for your comment below, the article above, and for reminding me that I had forgotten about the “US Council for World Freedom”

And I think, by his own admission, that Obama was not 6 but 8 when Ayres was vandalizing statues and office buildings.  Which is only 10 years away from adulthod after all (as opposed to 12)  Come to think of it I think there were a few other people protesting the viet-nam war during those days, weren’t there?

So he *MUST* have known what he was doing – 8 is old enough, right?  (I myself was 4 when the charges were dropped, so I’m probably innocent.)

When I heard the advert that has been running on WTOP News here in the DC area over and over and over again, that “Ayres and Obama ran a radical education foundation together” I laughed so hard I almost hit the guy in front of me on Constitution avenue.  (Which probably would have gotten *ME* labelled a terrorist, the car had diplomatic plates on it)

The foundation they are referring to is the “Chicago Annenberg Challenge”  Oddly, named after Walter Annenberg – a prominent, lifelong republican, friend of the Regan family, ambassador under two very republican administrations, and creator of such radical publications as “TV Guide” and “Seventeen (Magazine)”

Obama served on the board of directors from the foundation’s inception in 1995 through it’s dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years.  Ayres never served on the board, but worked prior to 1995 to help out the foundation up and running – but never made a decision or had a vote.

There are two different definitions of the word radical.  The campaign appears to have confused the two.  Clearly the invitation referred to “a considerable departure from the usual or traditional,” rather than “advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs.”

Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s hardly “radical” in the same way Ayers’ Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded were not remotely controversial.

See the ad here:

<rant>

In other words, the McCain/Palin campaign.

For someone who promises to be a “Washington Outsider” and a “Reformer” and dare I say it, a “Maverick” it’s amazing how often he resorts to the Grand Old Party’s playbook time and time again.

McCain’s campaign knows (because at this point I’m not sure what HE actually knows) that the only way at this point that they are going to beat Barak Obama is to use the age old tactic of Fear, Uncertainty, and Disinformation.

Fear -

An easy example of this is “Hang Onto Your Wallet [if Barak Obama is elected]“  Here McCain is trying desperately to push the idea that if Obama is elected the middle-class will suffer.  Much in the same way G.H.W.Bush tried to make that case against Bill Clinton in 1992.  This is a patent falsehood and is engineered to make you forget the fact that by John McCain’s healthcare plan alone he’s going to take money out of your pocket.  The average cost of insurance is in the neighborhood of $15,000/year for a family.  Normally your employer picks up most of this, leaving you with $200-$300 per month.  Under McCain’s health-care plan, you will be taxed on the ENTIRE cost of your health-care coverage, because it will be considered “Income” in much the same way a company that gives you a “car allowance” has to report that as a part of your income.  So even at today’s tax rates that means most people will see their paycheck go down because you will be taxed on the Full $1,100-$1,200 per month.  Depending on your tax bracket that could be as much as $250.00 a month coming directly out of your pocket.  The $5,000 yearly credit will put about $416/month back in your pocket at the end of the year, provided you don’t end up owing it.  You are basically giving the government an interest-free loan for the duration.  Nice of you isn’t it?  Again, this is the healthcare plan alone.  McCain has to fund this somehow, along with the war that he wants to go on endlessly, and the MASSIVE tax break he’s proposed for the wealthiest 2% of Americans and Corporations.  (ExxonMobil corp. even admitted under oath that they don’t NEED the tax break they were being given and lobbying for.)

Uncertainty -

Well this is obvious.  McCain’s repeated weak attempts to link Obama to Bill Ayres with the advertising tagline “Do you really know who he is?” is an obvious attempt to get people to start questioning him, and a less obvious attempt to get people to associate the name “Obama” with terrorism.  (Much in the same way Osama is now, regardless of the fact that there are probably hundreds of thousands people named Osama, a miniscule percentage of which are linked to terrorism.  McCain’s attemps to cast Obama in an incertain light is not without it’s risk however, given his associations with Bush, Keating, and lately anti-american seperatist Sarah Palin.  (Ok, I’m sort of kidding on the last)

Disinformation -

Plain lies.  McCain’s camp has learned a lot from the Rove/Bush years and is putting every lesson into practice.  By either telling the truth but not all of it, or telling out and out lies he is lowering himself to the level of, dare I say it?  A politician.  An example would be the McCain / Palin claim that lowering taxes is “Patriotic”

*PAYING* taxes is patriotic.

Let me explain.  We have a war going that is costing us about US$12,000,000,000 per month.  We have three ways to pay for this war.

1. Print more currency.  This causes runaway inflation and the devaluation of the American dollar.  It means that our trade defecit skyrockets.  It means that $20.00 / gallon for gas is not out of the question, because the money is actually worth less on the world market.  (Basic law of supply and demand)

2. Borrow from foreign countries.  Right now we owe about $600billion to Japan, $400billion to China, $120billion to the UK, and about $100billion to the “OPEC” countries.  Is it really patriotic to willingly give foreign countries a bigger and bigger financial hold over us?

3. Pay more taxes.  This is the ultimate ownership experience.  With your taxes you buy civilization.  You are an American shareholder.  You make it work.

But since they (Republicans) are more worried about themselves (read: selfish) than others, they often vote with their wallet, not paying attention to the world disintigrating around them.  As long as they have their Japanese designed, chinese made 72″ plasma TV the rest of the world can go spit, right?

</rant>

Had to get this back to what I intended it for.  A place for me to brain-dump.

Someone may have noticed (but not likely) that I shut it down for a while, and walked away from Twitter..  The main reason seems to come down to the fact that I keep expecting people to give a fuck about what I say.  Not surprised at the result, not surprised at all.

I think I’ve given up that delusion.  Read the blog, don’t read the blog, comment or don’t.  i really don’t care.  This needs to be my place to write/vent/ponder without caring about what other people think.  Therapeutic in that I heave to learn not to give a fuck.

So I’ve cleaned it up – took most of the family references out of it, (because EVERYONE thinks their kids are cuter than everyone elses, and expecting people to fawn over my kids is egotistical at best, and damned annoying.)

The second part of it is that I have to admit to myself that I’m not a writer, I’m an engineer.  I need to go back to that before I let this distract me to the point of having my real livelihood flushed down the toilet.

So it’s time to change things.   I have to devote myself to actual work.  This if it (This blog) continues, will have to be a sideline at absolute best, but it will be my sideline damnit.