By Lindsey Ellerson

Oct 13, 2008 4:18pm

Biden Blasts McCain for Gambling with Economy

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Using as ammo a comment that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made earlier in the day, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Monday accused the GOP nominee of supporting President Bush’s gambles with the nation’s economy and now wanting to double-down on these "risky bets."

"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change," McCain said this morning in Virginia Beach, VA. "The hour is late; our troubles are getting worse; our enemies watch. We have to act immediately. We have to change direction now. We have to fight."

Just a few hours later, 600 miles north in Manchester, NH, Biden jumped all over the Republican’s remark, blaming McCain and Bush for the current economic crisis.

"What John McCain was saying in that statement is that we have spent the last eight years with the Bush administration – with him supporting it – gambling with our economy," the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said to 900 supporters at Southern New Hampshire University.

"John McCain’s plan is to double-down on the same risky bet we’ve been making the last eight years hoping for our luck to change," he said. 

"What’s new is John McCain proposing that’s different than quote – ‘waiting for our luck to change’?" Biden asked the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, so when Barack Obama is president we’re not gonna wait for our luck to change. We’re gonna change our luck. We’re gonna change this country."

"In the neighborhood I come from," said the Scranton-born senator, "you make your own luck."
After running down a laundry list of issues on which McCain sides with Bush – healthcare, social security, and job creation to name a few – the Delaware lawmaker did finally give the GOPer credit for one different proposal, the mortgage buy-out plan McCain proposed at last week’s Nashville debate.

"His only idea that is different is to use your money to bail out lenders who got us into this mess in the first place," Biden said, throwing one more jab at the bail-out plan that he has ripped daily on the campaign trail for the past week.

When he wasn’t mocking McCain’s comments today, Biden was directing his ire at the Republican’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, knocking her for a remark the Alaskan made at their Oct. 2 vice-presidential debate in St. Louis.

"I love being corrected by Gov. Palin when their slogan is ‘drill, drill, drill,’" quipped Biden sarcastically.

"She said, ‘No, it’s drill, baby, drill.’ Well, that’s an important distinction, isn’t it? I forgot to say ‘baby,’" Biden said as the crowd laughed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have three percent of all the oil reserves in the world. Three percent. We consume 25 percent of all the oil. Tell me, how do you ‘drill, baby, drill’ your way out of that? We need to drill for more oil, but it is not the answer. It is not the answer. Let’s start doing something real."

User Comments

I love Joe Biden!!

Posted by: hang | October 13, 2008, 4:37 pm 4:37 pm

Obama is sending out Biden to do the dirty work so Obama can look clean. America should know better. Biden is gambling our future with Obama.

Posted by: young_voter | October 13, 2008, 4:46 pm 4:46 pm

JOE BIDEN PLAYS POLITICS WITH THE
ECONOMY……..
DEMOCRATS CANNOT FIX THE ECONOMY.
OBAMA AND BIDEN ARE TAX AND SPEND
LIBERALS…..THEY’RE SOCIALISTS…
A VOTE FOR SOCIALISTS IS VERY DANGEROUS
FOR OUR STANDARD OF LIVING….
BEST CHOICE IS:
McCAIN/PALIN ’08
[LESS TAXES,SMALL GOVERNMENT]

Posted by: Nicholas | October 13, 2008, 4:47 pm 4:47 pm

I know drilling is not the answer it would by the democrats estimates take 7 or so years to benifit from that why did we not start 5 years ago when prices were starting to go up oh thats right the ban on drilling for offshore oil.FU(K!NG democrats

Posted by: reddog0216 | October 13, 2008, 4:49 pm 4:49 pm

THE PRICE OF OIL is the price in the world market. Oil companies do not sell us crude at a discount price.
So you have to ask yourself, self, how much can we increase the oil production in this country?
NO SERIOUS ECONOMIST or oil production engineer in the world thinks we can increase our world production even 1%, no matter how hard we try.
REMEMBER, we only have 3% of the world reserves. IF you count all of the available oil resources in the world, we have .03 of that total!
SO how much will a (optimistic) ONE PERCENT increase in the world production of crude decrease the world price of oil?
THINK!

Posted by: John | October 13, 2008, 4:50 pm 4:50 pm

Obama is sending out Biden to do the dirty work so Obama can look clean. America should know better. Biden is gambling our future with Obama.
Posted by: young_voter | Oct 13, 2008 4:46:37 PM
==========================================
What in the heck do you think McCain does with PALIN fool!!
The only difference is that the Obama campaign doesn’t try to incite ANGRY MOB SCENES, like McCain and Palin do!!!

Posted by: Davis | October 13, 2008, 4:59 pm 4:59 pm

@young_voter,
YOU should know better. Believing in McClown is playing with fire. An angry old man who wants to continue W’s horrific legacy.
And for those of you that are so stupid to associate Obama with “domestic terrorists”, why don’t you look at your own candidate’s associations with G. Gordon Liddy and Charles Keating? And you call Obama’s associations questionable? Voters like you are why we are in the mess we are in.

Posted by: zed | October 13, 2008, 5:00 pm 5:00 pm

The Chevrolet Volt that will run for 40 miles on battery and will use the gas (or maybe something else) engine just to extend range will be available as soon as 2010 or earlier. We are closer to alternatives from oil than from getting a single drop of oil from offshore drilling. So, electric/alternative is not only CLOSER, but also ‘the way to go’ for long term. The offshore drilling initiative is there only to pay off the lobbyists from oil companies, nothing more, it is not for the interest of the nation. We can be the first ones to produce the most efficient cars that run on alternative energy and sell them like crazy to Europe and Asia, where oil prices have been always much higher than in the US, they will sell like hot bread and will put us back at the leadership while making us energy independent for the first time. The only thing we need is FOCUS, like we had in our race to the moon, in our race for nuclear power.

Posted by: Charles | October 13, 2008, 5:01 pm 5:01 pm

Everything coming out of McCain’s campaign is incoherent… I would not want to risk four years under his leadership, when the man changes his mind every other day about what his priorities are and how he thinks he should best tackle them.. Ugh! how disappointing!

Posted by: MJ | October 13, 2008, 5:01 pm 5:01 pm

For those who keep saying tax and spend liberals, you might want to check the facts.
National Debt When Jimmy Carter … by Meteor Blades Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 06:50:13 AM PDT…arrived at the White House:
$660 billion.
Added during Carter’s four years: $337 billion.
Added during Ronald Reagan’s eight years: $1.6 trillion.
Added during George H. W. Bush’s four years: $1.6 trillion.
Added during Bill Clinton’s eight years: $1.5 trillion.
Added during George W. Bush’s seven years, nine months: $4.5 trillion.
Portion of the $9.5 trillion added to the national debt during the past 31 years and seven months that came during Republican presidencies: $7.7 trillion.
Percentage of that $7.7 trillion added during George W. Bush’s two terms: 58%.
Could somebody explain again what “fiscal conservative” means?

Posted by: Jack | October 13, 2008, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm

Now the McCain Campaign is promising an economic policy tomorrow, Again.
Is he for real?

Posted by: Thinking | October 13, 2008, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm

Biden may not have Sarah Palin’s appeal to wingnuts, but he does seem to have her number. Palin is a joke, McCain is drowing, and the GOP is on its way to a HISTORIC defeat. Let me repeat, as Joe would say, HISTORIC!!!

Posted by: Rick | October 13, 2008, 5:06 pm 5:06 pm

Wow plugs got 900 people to attend his show. He must have called rent-a-crowd.

Posted by: Norman | October 13, 2008, 5:06 pm 5:06 pm

reddog0216
The ban of offshore drill is renewed every year. I don’t know how to tell you this, but 5 or 6 years ago Congress was controlled by the republicans.
OH MY!!!!

Posted by: The Unshrub | October 13, 2008, 5:06 pm 5:06 pm

I agree with Joe, we make ur own luck but unlike Joe we do it without government handouts and pie in the sky promises. We also take advantage of the education opportunities available to all of us and should warn those who do not get a diploma, who do not get advanced training that you will be left behind and your chance of owning a home or affording good health care will not be good. We’ll help you if you are sick or disabled but we will not carry you if you are capable.
I like you Joe (and I like your wife better), but I don’t like your pandering.

Posted by: david | October 13, 2008, 5:06 pm 5:06 pm

Is Vera Baker the October surprise?
Are the Obama supporters on edge over this?

Posted by: ch | October 13, 2008, 5:07 pm 5:07 pm

Why report anything Biden says. The man is an idiot. Hardly a day goes by before he sticks his foot in his mouth. Also, why report on a guy whose “crowds” are laughable. The few who show up might actually waiting to see if he can do miracles and get the wheelchair bound “lame” to walk.

Posted by: Jack | October 13, 2008, 5:07 pm 5:07 pm

Wait. The Bush administration proposed the “bailout” of the banks.
Enough members of the House and Senate voted in favor of the bill (that uses taxpayer money) that it passed and is now law.
3 Senators who voted for the bill appear on Presidential tickets.
And Biden has the gall to say McCain wants to use taxpayer money? To say McCain is with Bush?
Who did Biden and Obama side with when they voted FOR the bailout? When they voted to USE your money for it?
Pot. Kettle. Black.

Posted by: Fed Up With Them All | October 13, 2008, 5:09 pm 5:09 pm

JOE BIDEN PLAYS POLITICS WITH THE
ECONOMY……..
DEMOCRATS CANNOT FIX THE ECONOMY.
OBAMA AND BIDEN ARE TAX AND SPEND
LIBERALS…..THEY’RE SOCIALISTS…
A VOTE FOR SOCIALISTS IS VERY DANGEROUS
FOR OUR STANDARD OF LIVING….
BEST CHOICE IS:
McCAIN/PALIN ’08
[LESS TAXES,SMALL GOVERNMENT]
Posted by: Nicholas | Oct 13, 2008 4:47:33 PM
=====================================
Yo Nicholas, have you opened a newspaper lately? Between your cliches and lack of understanding of current events, one could hardly take you seriously. “Tax and spend liberals” “Socialist” Wow, I suppose you’re one of the 20% who still thinks Bush is doin a bang up job!

Posted by: Brian | October 13, 2008, 5:09 pm 5:09 pm

Jack
If Biden is an idiot, he sure is an idiot that is admired and loved by many Americans, Deocrats and republicans.
By the way, how is Palin working out for you?

Posted by: The Unshrub | October 13, 2008, 5:10 pm 5:10 pm

I belive the October Surprise is going to be about the first Dude and his involement with the Aig Alaskin Independent Party and how those People Hate America! and as far as Bidens comments Mccain is known to have a gambiling problem!

Posted by: angie | October 13, 2008, 5:11 pm 5:11 pm

Senator Obama has refused to post his college grades. Could it be he flunked economics 101. One can not reduce income tax further for the 40% who pay absolutely income tax. His tax and spend agenda will have Americans going to Mexico to look for a job. His plans are nothing more than fairy tales. The Socialist Agenda in every way. He is talking to the weak minded and those who did not plan their futures and made faulty decisions.

Posted by: Mary | October 13, 2008, 5:12 pm 5:12 pm

Right you are Davis, all Obama and his campaign does is hang out with terrorists amd Muslim thugs ploting to take over this country fool!!

Posted by: bombem | October 13, 2008, 5:12 pm 5:12 pm

I want a republican to give me a example of a successful handling of the economy by a republican president. They will all mention ‘the most successful republican’ Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘reaganomics’. The fact is that, even when he lowered taxes, reduced government, and lots of support and had no mayor wars to deal with, the nation debt TRIPLED from 600 Billion to over 2 Trillion under Reagan! I call this an OBSCENE FAILURE. The only evidence of an economic policy that worked in modern era is Clinton administration, who paid off the debt in the biggest economic expansion ever and left the country with over 200 Billion surplus by keeping taxes affordable and pushing government programs that lowered unemployment to record lows. Search it out, don’t just trust me. That same Clinton economic team is with Obama. I trust historical evidence, not empty GOP claims.

Posted by: Charles | October 13, 2008, 5:13 pm 5:13 pm

young_voter,
That is the VPs job on the campaign trail. They are known to be attack dogs. However, in Palin’s case, she is the riot inciter.
reddog0216, why are you blaming the democrats when the Republicans had full control of the Executive and Legislative branches 5 years ago?

Posted by: Mack | October 13, 2008, 5:14 pm 5:14 pm

The new Washington Post/ABC News national poll puts John McCain behind Barack Obama by 10 points – his biggest deficit in the survey since the general election began in June.
But that’s not the worst news in the poll for McCain. A detailed look inside the poll shows just how toxic the national political environment has become for Republicans and suggests that McCain’s attempts to deprecate Obama and portray him as a risky pick have, to date, backfired.
To wit:
* Just eight percent of the national sample believe the country is headed in the right direction while a stunning 90 percent believe it is off in the wrong direction. EIGHT PERCENT!
* Twenty-three percent of voters approve of the job that President Bush is doing — his lowest rating ever in the Post poll and an approval score that rivals the lowly showing by President Harry Truman in a 1952 Gallup poll.
* Obama’s favorable rating are rising (!) while McCain’s are faltering. Nearly two-thirds of voters (64 percent) view Obama favorably in the latest poll while 33 percent view him unfavorably. In a September Post poll, Obama’s fav/unfav was at 58/36. Compare that to McCain’s favorable ratings, which slipped from 59 percent in September to 52 percent now, and his unfavorable ratings, which rose from 36 percent last month to 45 percent now.
* Obama has substantial edges over McCain when voters are asked which candidate is better equipped to handle the issues of the day. That includes a 16-point edge on the economy and a 29-point margin on health care — the two issues nearly six in ten voters cite as most critical in the fall election. McCain’s lone advantage over Obama comes on the issue of terrorism. Forty-nine percent of Americans believe the Arizona senator is better equipped to handle that issue while 43 percent name Obama.
* Nearly seven in ten voters believe Obama is “mainly” addressing the issues while just 26 percent say he is attacking his opponent. McCain, on the other hand, is seen as “mainly” attacking his rival by six in ten voters while just 35 percent said he is focused on issues.
* Fifty-five percent of the voters believe Obama is a “safe” choice for president while 45 percent said he would be a “risky” choice. On McCain, the sample split right down the middle; 50 percent said he was a “safe” and 50 percent said he would be a “risky” pick for the White House.
That laundry list of data is a stark showcase of the tough odds that McCain faces as he seeks to turn the race around over the next 22 days.
Not only is every leading indicator pointing to this being a change election focused on economic uncertainties but the data in the Post/ABC poll also suggests that McCain’s recent tactic of questioning Obama’s judgment via his past associations with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers is not working.

Posted by: heather | October 13, 2008, 5:17 pm 5:17 pm

The Democrats may be tax and spend but bush is responsible for the death’s of over 4,000 fine young Americans with his lies.

Posted by: dennis | October 13, 2008, 5:22 pm 5:22 pm

Everyone will be getting older.
When we are older, do we want to be respected? Yes!!!
Do we want to be dumped? NO!!!
That’s what we need to do now, respect the old ones, the experienced ones, especially the ones who have scars and wounds, because they used their life to fight for our country.

Posted by: golfgirlusa | October 13, 2008, 5:24 pm 5:24 pm

Everything coming out of the Obama campaign on our ecomony is PURE SOCIALISM. That is the biggest gamble and fraud ever imposed on American workers. Obama is talking to the weak minded and the lemmings are following.

Posted by: Mary | October 13, 2008, 5:24 pm 5:24 pm

Check out link on national debt by US president. Only with democrats the national debt decreased (negative percentage increase). With Reagan, the debt increased as much as 49% in his first term! I rest my case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

Posted by: Charles | October 13, 2008, 5:25 pm 5:25 pm

why did we not start 5 years ago when prices were starting to go up oh thats right the ban on drilling for offshore oil.FU(K!NG democrats
Posted by: reddog0216
…………………………………………..
Oh, are you referring to the ban put in place by REPUBLICAN president George H.W. Bush in 1988 when a scathing environmental study determined that in less than 10 years of offshore drilling in the Gulf Coast, a major reef system died and will never again be capable of supporting habitat? I think you meant to say FU(KING Republican’ts

Posted by: Mikey | October 13, 2008, 5:27 pm 5:27 pm

Mary,
You fool, Obama graduated as a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in 1991.
That is a little better than an “F” student like those idiots that McCain and Palin were you dunce!!

Posted by: Davis | October 13, 2008, 5:28 pm 5:28 pm

But in order to be respected you must respect yourself and show respect to others around you. McCain shows no respect nor does does he deserve any respect.
McCain is a shadow of what he once was and now he needs to retreat back into the shadows and be gone.

Posted by: dennis | October 13, 2008, 5:29 pm 5:29 pm

everyone needs to go to foxnews.com and check out what obama said to the plummer about how he needs to help spread then wealth. This is audio out of obamas own mouth, the guy ask about the tax cuts obama said because this guys doing so well he needs to help spread it around. you obama freaks try to get out of this. YOU WILL NOT SEE THIS ANY WHERE ELSE, NO ONE ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT IT. THE GUY IS FROM OHIO AND WAS ASKING HARD QUESTIONS, OBAMA SLIP ON THIS ONE , PLEASE CHECK THIS OUT.while msnbc, abc, cnn have already called the election, to obama people need to wake up and see what will just might get.

Posted by: ric | October 13, 2008, 5:29 pm 5:29 pm

Mary – Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard. It is Palin that stated publicly she received a “D” in Economics and McCain who said he didn’t know much about the Economy.

Posted by: Paige | October 13, 2008, 5:29 pm 5:29 pm

Check out link on national debt by US president. Only with democrats the national debt decreased (negative percentage increase). With Reagan, the debt increased as much as 49% in his first term! I rest my case
Posted by: Charles | Oct 13, 2008 5:25:53 PM
=========================================
You are absolutely right Charles. That old fool Alzheimer’s patient Reagan (McCain’s hero) is the idiot that started this whole mess!!
Ever since Reagan we have been living on a FALSE sense of prosperity. All the while BORROWING MONEY to keep things going! We only had a brief break from that when Clinton was president….
REPUBLICANS ARE NOTHING BUT LIARS, IDIOTS AND DUMMYS!!!!!
McCAIN AND PALIN ARE ONLY THE LATEST EXAMPLES OF THE UNEDUCATED FOOLS THE REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING TO GET IN THERE!!

Posted by: Davis | October 13, 2008, 5:36 pm 5:36 pm

Mary, yes, Harvard has confirmed Obama magna cum laude status and he was ‘an enthralling teacher’ too.
It is McCain who graduated bottom 4 of his class of 900, YET he managed to pilot planes thanks to his dad the admiral, and he crashed no less than 4 planes in accidents such as ‘flying too low and hit power lines’ and another going to a ‘football game’, etc. McCain was a reckless soldier, a reckless husband, a reckless senator, a reckless candidate, and would be no less than a reckless president.
But don’t worry, he has Palin as backup…er… oops! Five schools in five years, a D in economy, ‘graduated’ in journalism and yet she could not remember ANY newspaper or magazine she read. McCain/Palin would have been white trailer trash if it wasn’t for their luck. Do you want them to lead your country?

Posted by: Charles | October 13, 2008, 5:37 pm 5:37 pm

It was sometime in the mid 80′s when a radio station in Seattle first began to broadcast the Rush Lumbaugh radio show. I happened to be sitting in my car eating lunch and his show came on for the first time. It took me less than 2 minutes to realize that this man was poison. I turned him off and never listened to him again.
I remember when I got cable TV and happened to stop on the Fox network and watched all the “talking heads” yelling and screaming at thier guests. I never turned on that station again. I am always amazed how some of these posters on this blog believe everything that Lumbaugh and Fox spew out. Is this the “Education of America” I keep hearing about?

Posted by: dennis | October 13, 2008, 5:39 pm 5:39 pm

FOX NEWS FUNNY you want us to get our information from fox news hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I cant stop laughing hahahahahahahahahahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Posted by: angie | October 13, 2008, 5:39 pm 5:39 pm

how badly do you think McLamo wishes he had not selected the bimbo from the tundra and had mittens out there talking economy right now?
it was schmidt that forced Moose-a-looney on Mag00 and he was too weak to refuse the pressure pick.
he pandered to the whack-jobs at the fringe and now he is stuck with (yet another) awful decision.

Posted by: total lack of McJudgment | October 13, 2008, 5:39 pm 5:39 pm

HEY BRIAN….
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR OBAMA…..
WHAT IS GOING TO DO BETTER THAN McCAIN??????
NOTHING…..
HE WILL RAISE TAXES AND GROW THE
GOVERNMENT…..BAD FOR EVERYBODY…
BEST CHOICE IS:
McCAIN/PALIN ’08

Posted by: Nicholas | October 13, 2008, 5:39 pm 5:39 pm

Posted by: ric | Oct 13, 2008 5:29:41 PM
Yes, I will rush right over to FOX NOISE to listen to the tape Hannity doctored, you dumbass…
I will get to it right after the Election when Obama wins in a LANDSLIDE!!!!!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Davis | October 13, 2008, 5:42 pm 5:42 pm

Mary,
Are you trying to imply McCain’s buy all the houses in foreclosure and renegotiate the loans is not socialism? I guess since it is the GOP candidate’s idea it isn’t socialism, but helping the economy.

Posted by: Mack | October 13, 2008, 5:43 pm 5:43 pm

Gambling with the economy – let’ see – Obama wants 90 day moratorium on mortgages – how about the 90% of us that have struggled, stayed with our means, worked our A’s off, borrowed money out the A’s for our kids to go to college and still paind our debts. Do we get 90 days free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: jamescbuilder | October 13, 2008, 5:47 pm 5:47 pm

EVERYONE NEEDS TO CHECK OUT OBAMA’S COMMENT TO THE PLUMMER IN OHIO ABOUT SHARING THE WEALTH, YOU WONT BELIEVE IT, THIS GUY WAS ASKING HARD QUESTIONS, OBAMA SHOWED HIS TRUE COLORS ON THIS ONE, HIS TAX PLAN WILL KILL THE WORKING GUY, YOU CAN HEAR IT FOR YOURSSELFS AT FOXNEWS.COM, CHECK IT OUT AND YOU DEMS EXPLAIN THIS

Posted by: RICK | October 13, 2008, 5:48 pm 5:48 pm

Gambling with the economy – let’ see – Obama wants 90 day moratorium on mortgages – how about the 90% of us that have struggled, stayed with our means, worked our A’s off, borrowed money out the A’s for our kids to go to college and still paind our debts. Do we get 90 days free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: jamescbuilder | Oct 13, 2008 5:47:04 PM
========================================
James, you fool… That is a 90 day moratorium on foreclosures, not mortgage payments!
How dumb are you rednecks and Klan members anyway???

Posted by: Davis | October 13, 2008, 5:56 pm 5:56 pm

Fox Noise Sorry but Educated people do not watch that fake news show!

Posted by: angie | October 13, 2008, 5:57 pm 5:57 pm

Everyone will be getting older.
When we are older, do we want to be respected? Yes!!!
Do we want to be dumped? NO!!!
That’s what we need to do now, respect the old ones, the experienced ones, especially the ones who have scars and wounds, because they used their life to fight for our country.
Posted by: golfgirlusa | Oct 13, 2008 5:24:17 PM
====================================
Oh my, golfgirlusa should stick with her clubs and not try to think too hard.
McInsane is already showing more signs of dimentia than Reagan ever did. Respect? Maybe. Trust for president? Never!

Posted by: Brian | October 13, 2008, 6:03 pm 6:03 pm

John McCain couldn’t stand Geo. W. Bush (Shrub) when they were in competition because they are so much alike. Gut instincts (since Sarah can gut a moose–she may yet gut McSleasy) irresponsible behavior, third generation legacies got both into school and allowed them to graduate (McCain in a lower position that Bush), spoiled jokester boy behavior to cover low self-esteem, well, you read the Rolling Stone article…
They are both self-aggrandizing buffoons and we need better than that for President. Keep on truckin’, Barack. Peace and Love.

Posted by: Cullen Athey | October 13, 2008, 6:07 pm 6:07 pm

ric,
The exchange with the plumber was already reported on abcnews.com. But I do like how Fox news edits it to make it sound like Obama is going to tax small businesses, when he had told the guy he was going to tax only the businesses that make (profit) more than $250,000, which the vast majority do not. I guess selective use of information is not just confined to Palin and the troopergate report.

Posted by: Mack | October 13, 2008, 6:14 pm 6:14 pm

I respect free speech, but I also believe in the existence of fraud, and that we need to be protected from it. I believe there should be a law that prevents a media company like Fox News to claim it is a ‘news’ company, when they are clearly not. I’ve seem time and again in Fox violation of journalism ethic laws, by silencing opposing views, manufacturing false news, publishing falsehoods in documentary format, etc. Calling them a ‘news’ channel and posing as ‘journalists’ is fraud. Change the name to Fox Opinionated Spin Zone. I pity the uneducated folks that believe all these lies and think that ALL OTHER mainstream media in the world is wrong. Lunatics.

Posted by: Charles | October 13, 2008, 6:30 pm 6:30 pm

Does anyone really think Mc bush cares about anything other than “winning” in Iraq? Win what??? No one knows. He thinks middle class citizens earn $5,000,000 yearly.

Posted by: Rose Szymanski | October 13, 2008, 6:47 pm 6:47 pm

Obama’s 95% Illusion: Deception, Class Warfare, and the Punishment of Success
One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.
It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

Because Mr. Obama’s tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge “marginal” tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.
Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of “making work pay,” but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you’re a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year.
http://wsj.com/article/SB122385651698727257.html

Posted by: LightSeeker | October 13, 2008, 7:26 pm 7:26 pm

Obama: Tax the Rich (Except Me, of Course)
“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to raises taxes on the wealthy, but as a member of that social class, he isn’t eager to fall victim himself. He has invested at least $1 million in a fund that yields tax-free income.
The Illinois senator’s latest campaign-finance disclosure shows that his investments have nearly tripled in the past two years to as much as $7.4 million, and his income in 2007 surged past $4 million, not counting his government salary.”
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/MutualFunds/HowTaxBoostingObamaCutsHisOwn.aspx

Posted by: LightSeeker | October 13, 2008, 8:03 pm 8:03 pm

Typical spam by LightSeeker.. there is a reason that article was posted in the opinion section, and neglected to provide the authors name.. it contains factual errors, omissions and confuses income and payroll taxes. Given that it contradicts just about every other economists analysis, it would be laughed at by any who read it and know the facts. For a real analysis:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/
As for the msn article.. consider the flip side of it concerning McCain:
“If Republican presidential hopeful John McCain knows much about handling money, you couldn’t tell it from his campaign finance papers.”
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/MutualFunds/McCainsHisAndMostlyHerMoney.aspx

Posted by: Concerned American | October 13, 2008, 8:26 pm 8:26 pm

Lightsaber says that Obama is SMART with money! His investments nearly tripled in 2 years.
And yes, Obama is willing to pay taxes on his income. Only a tax dodging, off shore UNPATRIOTIC people think that ‘paying taxes is for the little people’. And John McCain.
Contrast that to John McCain who BANKRUPT his campaign last summer.
That is the McCain plan!

Posted by: John McCain's conscience | October 13, 2008, 8:37 pm 8:37 pm

This is LAUGHABLE Coming from
“Credit Card” Biden.

Posted by: aden | October 13, 2008, 11:22 pm 11:22 pm

Anyone looking for insight on the flaws and the solution (major overhaul) to the fix the system can find them on http://coinage.me
It goes into detail how the summary information needed to actually manage a fiat currency system is not available and therefore cannot be properly managed.
Furthermore our information system systems are not designed correctly to support such a system the data is all disparate.
The is referenced by one of Obama’s advisors and can be read at the Obama link below.
http://tinyurl.com/52bczy

Posted by: Richard Thomas | October 14, 2008, 1:33 am 1:33 am

Here is a good post on what Obama promises as President.
http://www.nevadapundit.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/social-engineering-is-anti-american/

Posted by: NevadaPundit | October 14, 2008, 1:39 am 1:39 am

As a dedicated Republican, I hate to admit it but like many others I have removed my McCain-Palin08 sign from my front yard. This is not the John McCain from 2000. Over the past 6 months he has accused Obama of playing the race card, hanging out with terrorists, not loving his country, not having enough experience in foreign affairs to protect our country and suggested he’s not sure about Obama’s religion. Now he “wonders” why GOP supporters doesn’t trust Obama. He “wonders” why GOP supporters are scared and don’t trust Obama. You are a hypocrite Senator McCain. YOU CREATED THIS HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT. It’s taken weeks for you to realize that you and Sarah Palin need to tone down the rhetoric. I now believe Obama was correct when he questioned your temperment. Since falling in the polls, the Campaign has been willing to do or say anything. With all this hate, I pray for Obama’s safety. This country deserves better Senator McCain. For the first time in my life, I will vote Democrat in the Presidential Elections.

Posted by: Jeff Barnes | October 14, 2008, 3:12 am 3:12 am

Wright 101
Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism
By Stanley Kurtz
It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.
John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.
African Village
In the winter of 1996, the Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore (CIESS) announced that it had received a $200,000 grant from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That made CIESS an “external partner,” i.e. a community organization linked to a network of schools within the Chicago public system. This network, named the “South Shore African Village Collaborative” was thoroughly “Afrocentric” in orientation. CIESS’s job was to use a combination of teacher-training, curriculum advice, and community involvement to improve academic performance in the schools it worked with. CIESS would continue to receive large Annenberg grants throughout the 1990s.
The South Shore African Village Collaborative (SSAVC) was very much a part of the Afrocentric “rites of passage movement,” a fringe education crusade of the 1990s. SSAVC schools featured “African-Centered” curricula built around “rites of passage” ceremonies inspired by the puberty rites found in many African societies. In and of themselves, these ceremonies were harmless. Yet the philosophy that accompanied them was not. On the contrary, it was a carbon-copy of Jeremiah Wright’s worldview.
Rites of Passage
To learn what the rites of passage movement was all about, we can turn to a sympathetic 1992 study published in the Journal of Negro Education by Nsenga Warfield-Coppock. In that article, Warfield-Coppock bemoans the fact that public education in the United States is shaped by “capitalism, competitiveness, racism, sexism and oppression.” According to Warfield-Coppock, these American values “have confused African American people and oriented them toward American definitions of achievement and success and away from traditional African values.” American socialization has “proven to be dysfuntional and genocidal to the African American community,” Warfield-Coppock tells us. The answer is the adolescent rites of passage movement, designed “to provide African American youth with the cultural information and values they would need to counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.”
The adolescent rites of passage movement that flowered in the 1990s grew out of the “cultural nationalist” or “Pan-African” thinking popular in radical black circles of the 1960s and 1970s. The attempt to create a virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world began to take hold in the mid-1980s in small private schools, which carefully guarded the contents of their controversial curricula. Gradually, through external partners like CIESS, the movement spread to a few public schools. Supporters view these programs as “a social and cultural ‘inoculation’ process that facilitates healthy, African-centered development among African American youth and protects them against the ravages of a racist, sexist, capitalist, and oppressive society.”
We know that SSAVC was part of this movement, not only because their Annenberg proposals were filled with Afrocentric themes and references to “rites of passage,” but also because SSAVC’s faculty set up its African-centered curriculum in consultation with some of the most prominent leaders of the “rites of passage movement.” For example, a CIESS teacher conference sponsored a presentation on African-centered curricula by Jacob Carruthers, a particularly controversial Afrocentrist.
Jacob Carruthers
Like other leaders of the rites of passage movement, Carruthers teaches that the true birthplace of world civilization was ancient “Kemet” (Egypt), from which Kemetic philosophy supposedly spread to Africa as a whole. Carruthers and his colleagues believe that the values of Kemetic civilization are far superior to the isolating and oppressive, ancient Greek-based values of European and American civilization. Although academic Egyptologists and anthropologists strongly reject these historical claims, Carruthers dismisses critics as part of a white supremacist conspiracy to hide the truth of African superiority.
Carruthers’s key writings are collected in his book, Intellectual Warfare. Reading it is a wild, anti-American ride. In his book, we learn that Carruthers and his like-minded colleagues have formed an organization called the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), which takes as its mission the need to “dismantle the European intellectual campaign to commit historicide against African peoples.” Carruthers includes “African-Americans” within a group he would define as simply “African.” When forced to describe a black person as “American,” Carruthers uses quotation marks, thus indicating that no black person can be American in any authentic sense. According to Carruthers, “The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.”
Carruthers’s goal is to use African-centered education to recreate a separatist universe within America, a kind of state-within-a-state. The rites of passage movement is central to the plan. Carruthers sees enemies on every part of the political spectrum, from conservatives, to liberals, to academic leftists, all of whom reject advocates of Kemetic civilization, like himself, as dangerous and academically irresponsible extremists. Carruthers sees all these groups as deluded captives of white supremacist Eurocentric culture. Therefore the only safe place for Africans living in the United States (i.e. American blacks) is outside the mental boundaries of our ineradicably racist Eurocentric civilization. As Carruthers puts it: “…some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture.” The rites of passage movement is a way to teach young Africans in the United States how to reject America and recover their authentic African heritage.
America as Rape
Carruthers admits that Africans living in America have already been shaped by Western culture, yet compares this Americanization process to rape: “We may not be able to get our virginity back after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist….” In other words, American blacks (i.e. Africans) may have been forcibly exposed to American culture, but that doesn’t mean they need to accept it. The better option, says Carruthers, is to separate out and relearn the wisdom of Africa’s original Kemetic culture, embodied in the teachings of the ancient wise man, Ptahhotep (an historical figure traditionally identified as the author of a Fifth Dynasty wisdom book). Anything less than re-Africanization threatens the mental, and even physical, genocide of Africans living in an ineradicably white supremacist United States.
Carruthers is a defender of Leonard Jeffries, professor in the department of black studies at City College in Harlem, infamous for his black supremacist and anti-Semitic views. Jeffries sees whites as oppressive and violent “ice people,” in contrast to peaceful and mutually supportive black “sun people.” The divergence says Jeffries, is attributable to differing levels of melanin in the skin. Jeffries also blames Jews for financing the slave trade. Carruthers defends Jeffries and excoriates the prestigious black academics Carruthers views as traitorous for denouncing their African brother, Jeffries. Carruthers’s vision of the superior and peaceful Kemetic philosophy of Ptahhotep triumphing over Greco-Euro-American-white culture obviously parallels Jeffries’ opposition between ice people and sun people.
More of Carruthers’s education philosophy can be found in his newsletter, The Kemetic Voice. In 1997, for example, at the same time Carruthers was advising SSAVC on how to set up an African-centered curriculum, he praised the decision of New Orleans’ School Board to remove the name of George Washington from an elementary school. Apparently, some officials in New Orleans had decided that nobody who held slaves should have a school named after him. Carruthers touted the name-change as proof that his African-centered perspective was finally having an effect on public policy. At the demise of George Washington School, Carruthers crowed: “These events remind us of how vast the gulf is that separates the Defenders of Western Civilization from the Champions of African Civilization.”
According to Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, Carruthers’s training session on African-centered curricula for SSAVC teachers was a huge hit: “As a consciousness raising session, it received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey….” These teacher-training workshops were directly funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Another sure sign of the ideological cast of SSAVC’s curriculum can be found in Annenberg documents noting that SSAVC students are taught the wisdom of Ptahhotep. Carruthers’s concerns about “menticide” and “genocide” at the hand of America’s white supremacist system seem to be echoed in an SSAVC document that says: “Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us.”
When Jeremiah Wright turned toward African-centered thinking in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the period when, attracted by Wright’s African themes, Barack Obama first became a church member), many prominent thinkers from Carruthers’s Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations were invited to speak at Trinity United Church of Christ, Carruthers himself included. We hear echoes of Carruthers’s work in Wright’s distinction between “right brained” Africans and “left brained” Europeans, in Wright’s fears of U.S. government-sponsored genocide against American blacks, and in Wright’s embittered attacks on America’s indelibly white-supremacist history. In Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine, as in Carruthers’s own writings, blacks are often referred to as “Africans living in the diaspora” rather than as Americans.
Asa Hilliard
Chicago Annenberg Challenge records also indicate that SSAVC educators invited Asa Hilliard, a pioneer of African-centered curricula and a close colleague of Carruthers, to offer a keynote address at yet another Annenberg-funded teacher training session. Hilliard’s ties to Wright run still deeper than Carruthers’s. A close Wright mentor and friend, Hilliard died in 2007 while on a trip to Kemet (Egypt) with Wright and members of Wright’s congregation. Hillard was scheduled to deliver several lectures to the congregants, and to speak at a meeting of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization, which he co-founded with Carruthers and other “African-centered” scholars. On that last trip, Hilliard accepted an appointment to the board of Wright’s new elementary school, Kwame Nkrumah Academy. Speaking of the need for such a school, Wright had earlier said, “We need to educate our children to the reality of white supremacy.” (For more on Wright’s Afrocentric school, see “Jeremiah Wright’s ‘Trumpet.’”)
Wright delivered the eulogy at Hilliard’s memorial service, with prominent members of ASCAC in the audience. To commemorate Hilliard, a special, two-cover double issue of Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine was published, with a picture of Hilliard on one side, and a picture of Louis Farrakhan on the other (in celebration of a 2007 award Farrakhan received from Wright). In short, the ties between Wright and Hilliard could hardly have been closer. Clearly, then, Wright’s own educational philosophy was mirrored at the Annenberg-funded SSAVC, which sought out Hilliard’s and Carruthers’s counsel to construct its curriculum.
Perhaps inadvertently, Wright’s eulogy for Hilliard actually established the fringe nature of his favorite African-centered scholars. In his tribute, Wright stressed how intensely “white Egyptologists recoiled at the very notion of everything Asa taught.” As Wright himself made plain, it seems virtually impossible to find respectable scholars of any political stripe who approve of the extremist anti-American version of Afrocentrism promoted by Hilliard and Carruthers.
Ayers’s Pals
An important exception to the rule is Bill Ayers himself, who not only worked with Obama to fund groups like this at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, but who is still “palling around” with the same folks. Discretely waiting until after the election, Bill Ayers and his wife, and fellow former terrorist, Bernardine Dohrn plan to release a book in 2009 entitled Race Course Against White Supremacy. The book will be published by Third World Press, a press set up by Carruthers and other members of the ASCAC. Representatives of that press were prominently present for Wright’s eulogy at Asa Hilliard’s memorial service. Less than a decade ago, therefore, when it came to education issues, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright were pretty much on the same page.
Obama’s Knowledge
Given the precedent of his earlier responses on Ayers and Wright, Obama might be inclined to deny personal knowledge of the educational philosophy he was so generously funding. Such a denial would not be convincing. For one thing, we have evidence that in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers. (See “No Liberation.”)
And as noted, Wright had invited Carruthers, Hilliard, and like-minded thinkers to address his Trinity congregants. Wright likes to tick off his connections to these prominent Afrocentrists in sermons, and Obama would surely have heard of them. Reading over SSAVC’s Annenberg proposals, Obama could hardly be ignorant of what they were about. And if by some chance Obama overlooked Hilliard’s or Carruthers’s names, SSAVC’s proposals are filled with references to “rites of passage” and “Ptahhotep,” dead giveaways for the anti-American and separatist ideological concoction favored by SSAVC.
We know that Obama did read the proposals. Annenberg documents show him commenting on proposal quality. And especially after 1995, when concerns over self-dealing and conflicts of interest forced the Ayers-headed “Collaborative” to distance itself from monetary issues, all funding decisions fell to Obama and the board. Significantly, there was dissent within the board. One business leader and experienced grant-smith characterized the quality of most Annenberg proposals as “awful.” (See “The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The First Three Years,” p. 19.) Yet Obama and his very small and divided board kept the money flowing to ideologically extremist groups like the South Shore African Village Collaborative, instead of organizations focused on traditional educational achievement.
As if the content of SSAVC documents wasn’t warning enough, their proposals consistently misspelled “rites of passage” as “rights of passage,” hardly an encouraging sign from a group meant to improve children’s reading skills. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge’s own evaluators acknowledged that Annenberg-aided schools showed no improvement in achievement scores. Evaluators attributed that failure, in part, to the fact that many of Annenberg’s “external partners” had little educational expertise. A group that puts its efforts into Kwanzaa celebrations and half-baked history certainly fits that bill, and goes a long way toward explaining how Ayers and Obama managed to waste upwards of $150 million without improving student achievement.
However he may seek to deny it, all evidence points to the fact that, from his position as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama knowingly and persistently funded an educational project that shared the extremist and anti-American philosophy of Jeremiah Wright. The Wright affair was no fluke. It’s time for McCain to say so.
— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Posted by: uncle sam | October 14, 2008, 10:45 am 10:45 am

Has anyone stopped to think that the president does not singlehandedly dictate legislation? The Congress has been controlled by Democrats in the years leading up to this economic mess. And as far as Obama and his claiming ignorance about his “former” associates, if he doesn’t figure out who he’s associating with after 20 years in a fanatic’s church and hanging out in the living room of a domestic terrorist, then do you really want him, someone who would have to be duller than a butter knife, as president?????

Posted by: Logic | October 14, 2008, 6:13 pm 6:13 pm

Joe ‘the Senator’, I’ll take a gamble on your former friend, over a certainty of another 8 years of an inexperienced Commander in Chief.
Sen. Obama, experience matters. I have made many mistakes in my short life. It is true, when I think about it, that each of those mistakes are among my greatest assets with respect to decision making, each and every one of them. This is because we all learn from our mistakes. At all times, I believe the best of my judgment is anchored in the cement that is my experience. I believe firmly that the longer I live, the more I will have experienced, and the better my judgment will be, on the balance. Sen. Obama, do you really believe that you have made enough mistakes to be the next President of the United States? I respect your ambition. I respect your charisma. I embrace your place in history, but I do not believe you have sufficient experience to lead this planet, not even close.
America, since the mainstream media has failed to examine Sen. Obama’s experience and lack of experience, you will have to determine for yourselves what exactly is Sen. Obama’s experience? What did he accomplish in the Illinois legislature? He was only there for a handful of years. What did he promise he would accomplish? What did he accomplish in the U.S. Senate? He has only been on the job as a U.S. Senator for 1xx days. What did he promise he would accomplish? What has he changed in this world? This country? The Presidency of the United States is an executive position Sen. Obama. Do you have any executive experience? Have you created a budget, negotiated a budget, revised a budget or managed adherence to a budget?
Sen. Obama insists on presenting Sen. McCain’s experience as being only an puppet of the Bush administration. I saw Senator McCain stand up to President Bush’s Defense Secretary. He stood in a manner that no other did. He changed the course of the war in Iraq. What percentage of all GOP legislative votes sided with President Bush’s? What percentage of all Democrat legislative votes sided with Presidents Clinton, Carter and Johnson’s policies? I have no idea, but I’d venture to guess that, had the media presented that information to the American public, we’d find rank and file partisanship throughout our recent history. How many Americans would be surprise by that?
Well Senator Obama, you might be able to claim that you did not support the Iraq war resolution, but what can you offer as proof that it was the right decision at that moment in our history? You were after all in the small minority. Our country was after all reeling from the worst terror attack in our nation’s history. How would history have judged President Bush had he not led our troops into Iraq and then, a massive terror attack occurred yesterday, perpetrated by terrorists that lived and trained in Iraq over the past few years, with or without knowledge of Saddam Hussein? I think about it this way: history failed to present enough evidence to push the World to coalesce and intervene in 1930s Europe. But modern history is 100% clear on that point, it would have been the correct decision. History might well judge the Iraq war to be not a right decision. History will judge the Bush administration on many points. One of those may even record it, in part, as a series of lapses in the judgment of a young President, swayed by the belief and conviction of an older, seasoned Vice President and the overwhelming circumstances of a world that had changed dramatically, in an instant. I agree with you Sen. Obama that we don’t need another eight years of the Bush Administration, we dont need another eight years of an inexperienced President.
Mr. Gibson, Ms. Couric, Ms. Behar, Ms. Mitchell … you do not get to dismantle the American vote. You and your colleagues might think you have the power to micro-filter democracy’s messages to your liking, but you do not get to dismantle the American vote. You might think you have the power to subtly, and not so subtly promote and gather others to blindly promote one candidacy, while casting another in the least flattering manner possible, but you do not get to dismantle the American vote. You do not get to dismantle America’s vote. The mainstream media bias in this election is at best described as repugnant and at worst, a slap to the face of democracy; an assault on the moral and righteous ideal that all American voters should be free to construct their vote on the basis of readily available, factually complete, accurate, relevant and unbiased fact. It is my opinion that, during this election cycle more than any other I have witnessed, the mainstream media has failed millions of American’s who rely on them, as a basis for constructing their vote. Am I wrong? I might be wrong, but I’ll ask you, the American voters to decide that for yourself, by asking yourself some questions. Questions such as why was so much time spent this election cycle mining for dirt in Alaska, why was so little time was spent tracking laundry in Illinois? Why has the mainstream media spent so little time illuminating the razor thin experience that the junior Senator from Illinois maintains as his credentials? Indeed, if the media was prepared to be fair and honest, they would have been able to report, with incontrovertible confidence, that they were reporting fact, that the candidate having the most experience directly relevant to the position of the Presidency of the United States is actually the candidate that has been relentlessly attacked by the media, both personally and professionally. The mainstream media owes an apology to American Democracy for its treatment of Gov. Palin. Why is it, that after finally deciding to give minimal airtime to the ACORN voter registration fraud issue, was it not mentioned that Sen. Obama’s campaign funded ACORN? Sen. Obama, in my mind, there is no distinction between committing voter registration fraud, serving as impetus to commit voter registration fraud or funding those serving as impetus to commit voter registration fraud. During the last debate, you did a fine job of distancing yourself from ACORN, but you failed to directly confront and condemn those that perpetrate or encourage voter registration fraud. You had a nationwide audience, and you chose not to act.
The President is the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces. That is a serious responsibility. I question how you can expect us to believe that you will effectively maintain the moral, skill and competence of our forces after you have insulted them. What will serve as your experiential basis for leading the U.S. Military? Do you have any military experience at all? Have you ever served in ROTC? Do you know firsthand the horrors of war? I believe that firsthand knowledge and experience is the most critical element one can use in formulating decisions, including the determination of when to and when not to deploy U.S. Military forces. Sen. McCain has that experience. That I know. That he has shown. The media can’t take that away from him.
With regard to foreign policy experience, do you think you are qualified to navigate the most powerful democracy the world knows during a time when the fundamentals of democracy are very much under attack? Are you ready to face Mr. Putin? Mr. Chavez? Kim Jung Ill? China? Iran? Are you ready to answer the 03:00 phone call? What experience do you have that I should judge gives you readiness? What is that experience? What foreign leaders have you negotiated with directly? What treaties have you signed? The media has presented none and neither have you. I have a good number of stamps in my passport Sen. Obama. I lived and worked in Germany for a brief period. Sen. Obama, I am not qualified by a longshot to make United States foreign policy, and you may only be marginally more qualified than I.
The oratorical is no substitute for judgment or experience Senator Obama. I do not believe that you have the experience to be President of our country. Experience matters Sen. Obama, and you are not ready, you have not made enough mistakes. But most glaring to me, Senator Obama is the one mistake that you seem willing to make over and over and it is the worst mistake one can make. That mistake is the action of not owning one’s mistakes.
Sen. Obama, you claim that you will cut taxes on 95% of all Americans. Is that true? Or let me rephrase, how can that be true? You told the voters of Illinois that you would cut taxes, but you have failed to do so in the U.S. Senate. Did you even try? Did you present a bill? Were it a committee issue did you encourage your peers to present one? Have you ever voted for a tax cut? What did you mean Senator Obama when you told Plumber Joe that you wanted to spread the wealth? Do you mean that you want to take money from Joe and give it to those with less money? Your running mate, Sen. Biden has commented that you would not be taxing additionaly those making under $250,000 a year. Sen. Biden commented that he knows no plumbers that make over $250,000 a year. I think that those who claim your tax policies embody class warfare are wrong. Wrong, because the policies are class warfare policies, but they are not directed against the haves, they are directed against the have-nots. Senator Biden, you may well be correct that few plumbers earn over $250,000 a year, but some that own plumbing contracting businesses probably do. What do those that spin your message have planned to say to that one plumber out of maybe six or seven that was employed by a plumbing company, but was laid off, because business is slow, new homes weren’t being built and President Obama’s tax increase forced the owner of the plumbing business to lay her off? The owner tried every angle possible, but was forced to make a tough decision. They were faced with the prospect of either making a tough decision or risk running the entire operation into financial distress and end up having to close operations and fire all workers? I guess you’d have Mr. Burton tell her that, even though she has no job, she does at least still have affordable healthcare? Senator Obama what will you say to the unemployed plumber in Ohio, father of two, that nearly had a job secured, the owner had just signed a good contract for a small building and he was ready to hire that plumber, but learned from his accountant, that Senator Obama’s tax increase has made it not possible to hire another employee? I guess you’d have Mr. Burton tell that plumber, that even though he still has no job, he does have a lower tax burden
Sen. Obama, you have stated over and over that Sen. McCain supports tax breaks for corporations that send their jobs overseas. The media has not reported on this one way or another, but if you are correct, then I commend Sen. McCain for doing so. What you don’t get, Sen. Obama, or perhaps don’t want the American public to get, is that income taxes, to a for profit enterprise are expenses not much different from the costs of raw materials and salary expenses for purposes of this discussion. All else equal, ladies and gentleman, a corporation will locate itself, and its jobs, or begin to locate itself and its jobs, in areas where it is least penalized in terms of taxes. This is how for profit American corporations behave and this is how they must behave. Their competitors are operating in that manner, continually scouring expenses to search for reduction opportunities. They have to. If they do not, they will be at a cost disadvantage and if their tactical errors are sustained, they may well go out of business in which case, even those jobs which remain in the United States, could also disappear. Even if the company does not fail entirely, some jobs may be eliminated, and chances are great that the highest cost jobs would be targeted first. Sen. Obama, America is not a low cost country, in these circumstances, they would be targeted first, all else equal. When those jobs are cut Sen. Obama, those new unemployed will not have money to support the ‘under $250k’ crowd…they won’t have money to support small businesses…is it sinking in at all?
Your position of not supporting tax breaks for corporations that export jobs overseas, indeed, only encourages them, at the margin, to further export jobs, or slow their job creation in the United States or end their job creation in the United States. This is global economic reality. The media can not distort this fact for you. At the final debate, I heard you add a carrot to your plans. You pulled that same tax string attached to the back of your head and out came the message you think the voters want to hear. If I got it correct, you’ll give tax credits to corporations that create jobs in America. In case you don’t know Senator Obama, this already happens today at the state and local level all across America. Have you thought about how much additionaly, it will cost the U.S. Treasury to employ workers, in an audit fashion, in order to verify which of all the xx million jobs that corporations claim they created actually exist? What are the time constraints? How long must they keep the job filled in order to receive the credit? What would happen when that time passes? Let me get this correct, you want to first keep tax rates on corporations high or raise them – thereby encouraging employers large and small to export their operations and jobs – and then at the same time you want to turnaround and give them a tax credit? You do realize that they are policy opposites don’t you? It looks to me that you might be trying to convince us that it would be a good idea to spend more on government for an unknown expected net job increase. If you can convince us of that Senator Obama, I’d suggest you also try to sell us a bridge to nowhere. Your tax policy is bigger government, bigger IRS, more regulatory burden on American Corporations and more administrative overhead makes them less competitive in the global market and less likely to employ. It is not the right policy Senator Obama.
Go back to the Senate and accomplish something Sen. Obama. Your candidacy is an insult to America.
oh and ps, the verdict has been in for decades on the effectiveness of spreading the wealth policies. Go visit an American Indian Reservation Sen. Obama. The only thing that has changed for the past several decades is the faces of the Washington politicians that have redistributed wealth to us. Do you have any clue what the average unemployment rate is in Indian Country Sen.Obama? Illicit drug use rate? Teen pregnancy rate? Pick a rate
Senator.

Posted by: 0bama = 8 more years of Bush | October 19, 2008, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm

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