By Lindsey Ellerson

Oct 22, 2008 6:28pm

Biden Follows Kennedy Footsteps to 40-Degree Pueblo

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., wrapped up his two-day Colorado swing with an outdoor rally this afternoon in 40-degree Pueblo before an announced crowd of 1500 shivering supporters.

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee noted that he was speaking at the same site where former President John F. Kennedy said 46 years ago that "a rising tide lifts all boats."

“Back then, John Kennedy knew and Barack Obama knows now that the middle class, when it’s strong, our communities are strong. And when our middle class and our communities are strong, it’s a tide that rises all boats. The rich do well, the poor do better. So folks, I’m here with a simple, straightforward message to you all: change is on the way.”

Perhaps due to the weather, Biden delivered an abbreviated 20-minute stump speech, emphasizing the importance of helping the middle class but also moving past “divisive” politics towards a more united nation.

“After this election is over, God willing if we win, we’ve got to embrace Republicans and independents," he said. "We’ve got to bring people in. We cannot stay blue and red. This nation has a purple heart.”

The Delaware lawmaker reiterated his disgust with Republican robo-calls hitting out at Obama, calls that Biden said "lie about his record" and "attack his character."

“I’m sick of this stuff," railed the six-term senator. "I’m sick of this notion of us being a divided nation. And ladies and gentlemen, they try to distract you from the issues that affect your everyday life and the well-being of your children and your grandchildren. Look, let me say this as clearly as I can: Barack Obama can take two more weeks of these scurrilous attacks, but our country cannot take four more years of this politics and these policies.”

The Pueblo rally concluded Biden’s week-long West Coast swing, as he prepared to head back East to North Carolina, West Virginia, and Virginia.

User Comments

Its amazing that both sides use devisive tactics. Its the way its been for as long as i can remember. one side acuses the an in the same breath throws a comment in to fuel the fire.

Posted by: will it end | October 22, 2008, 6:35 pm 6:35 pm

What was he wearing and how much did it cost?

Posted by: Mack | October 22, 2008, 6:37 pm 6:37 pm

“attack his character.”
===
Biden was right. It’s so unfair to attack his character since his character is Zero. Zero has zero records of accomplishments that do not benefit himself, has done nothing significant in the Senate (except earmarking a cool $1 mil to reward his wife’s employer who give her a warmping 150% salary increase after he was elected to the Honorable Junior Senator), did not even go to work for his day job in the most part of last 2.5 years, wrote zero articles, opinions, editorials as the President of Harvard Law Review, and will do nothing.
Yet, his character is to label his opponents giving big oil taxes credits, yet his opponents voted against Bush’s bill and Zero voted for giving these taxes credits.
He lied to his supporters to defend the constitution by voting against and filabuster the bill to allow Bush to spy the citizens, yet when he did not need them any more after he got the Affirmative Action nomination, he voted against it, taking your constitutional rights away.
His character is taking your hard earned money away to “spread wealth around”.
He lied to only raise taxes on those making $250K, yet it starts from couples making $110K – not so-good-middle class salary.
He twists his Harvard smart logic accusing his opponent giving taxes cut to the rich because his opponent does not increase taxes, as opposed to his increasing taxes.

Posted by: d0 | October 22, 2008, 6:44 pm 6:44 pm

He bought his own suit and shoes, and he looked damn good to this republican. Not like the other wanna-be fashion icon. Look fashionable on my donated money for the party.

Posted by: khatts98178 | October 22, 2008, 6:45 pm 6:45 pm

As a poor republican, I demand a REFUND.

Posted by: khatts98178 | October 22, 2008, 6:47 pm 6:47 pm

d0….put a sock on your broth. They have more degrees than our side. Sarah Palin took six or seven colleges just to get a what degree? And McCain…beside a POW? I guess we can use that as a degree to run the country.
Biden’s not lying about any tax. Tax is a fact of life here. Whether it’s a repub. or democ. tax will be raised one way or the other. So shut up and pay your taxes. And that’s an order. Hah. Anyway, our Sarah Palin and her family might need more shoes and make-up and clothes for next week.

Posted by: khatts98178 | October 22, 2008, 6:57 pm 6:57 pm

JOHN MCCAIN attacks health insurance of millions of Americans
What else could you call John McCain’s TAX on health insurance benefits? He wants to force employers to DROP the health insurance coverage, which currently covers 70% of Americans!
And then where do we go? Buy your health insurance IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT in the market without the buying power your employer enjoyed.
And what happens if you or a family member gets sick, really sick like cancer? SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR INSURANCE!
When you are buying insurance as an individual, you can only get it SO LONG AS YOU ARE NOT SICK! Ever here of “pre-existing conditions? The insurance companies sure have.
And don’t even think about going to your state legislature for help. Under John McCain’s plan, insurance companies will be regulated in a industry friendly state of their own choosing.
SO GOOD LUCK GETTING HELP FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS WHEN YOUR INSURANCE CO REINCORPORATES THERE!

Posted by: John | October 22, 2008, 7:01 pm 7:01 pm

its kind of ironic that we have a choice- more taxes for this or more taxes for that. i guess youre racist if you dont like social programs that benefit the “needy” and if you are in support of that you are a “socialist”. however if you dont want more taxes you are unpatriotic. government doesnt run anything efficiently-medicare, ss, etc.- so where does a person turn to to try to???
My point is government is not the answer

Posted by: will it end | October 22, 2008, 7:05 pm 7:05 pm

“My point is government is not the answer”
The Government doesn’t create jobs.

Posted by: Mack | October 22, 2008, 7:37 pm 7:37 pm

The Government doesn’t create jobs.
Posted by: Mack | Oct 22, 2008 7:37:29 PM
====
What the heck you are talking about? If government does not create jobs, what do you think Zero has been doing in the past 2.5 years, getting paid at almost $200K for not even showing up.

Posted by: d0 | October 22, 2008, 7:52 pm 7:52 pm

ABC: “Perhaps due to the weather, Biden delivered an abbreviated 20-minute stump speech”
———————————-
Perhaps Big 0 has told Biden to abbreviate his speeches, in order to avoid his ususal gaffes!…. :-)

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 8:11 pm 8:11 pm

Joe Biden: “Look, let me say this as clearly as I can: Barack Obama can take two more weeks of these scurrilous attacks, but our country cannot take four more years of this politics and these policies.”
———————————
Look Joe Parrot- our country can NOT take four years of Marxist Obama’s politics and policies taken right out of the “Communist Manifesto”, you get it, baby?

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 8:17 pm 8:17 pm

All you republicans need to get a grip of reality. McCain talked about bombing Iran, talked about annihilating North Korea (while opposing removing them from the axis of evil), said Cuba will be free when he’s president. He would even start war with Russia. He’s haunted by our loss in Vietnam and wants to make up for it. If McCain becomes president you can expect World War 3, martial law, nevermind keeping the so-called American Dream which is broken anyway because our economy is in $%^&. With all that’s at stake, you’re worried about your taxes? SERIOUSLY?

Posted by: McWAR | October 22, 2008, 8:23 pm 8:23 pm

Obama and Marx: A crash course
Published: Sunday, October 19, 2008 3:00 AM CDT
“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism.”
With those words, Karl Marx launched a revolution with “The Communist Manifesto.” Interestingly, the opening of his essay, cowritten with Friedrich Engels, begins with the assertion that the European powers are using the “branding reproach of Communism” to label their opponents. Marx then says, “It is high time the communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.”
If Marx were alive today and living in San Francisco, perhaps he would have instead written this: “A spectre is haunting Democratic politics — the spectre of socialism.” Certainly, the “branding reproach of socialism” is now publicly acknowledged to have been used against the Democratic Party, and against its standard bearer, Barack Obama. It is high time for Obama and his allies to publicly assert their political and economic philosophy. If it is socialism, say so. If it is not, please explain why.
This, of course, is made immediately relevant by Obama’s famous comment to Joe the Plumber that, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” In particular he was talking about his tax plan, which is a plan for redistribution of wealth from top to bottom.
This is a matter of fact. When Obama tells you that his tax plan will benefit 95 percent of taxpayers, he is misstating the truth. The fact is that 30 to 40 percent of Americans, the poorest among us, already don’t pay any taxes. But what Obama’s plan will do is allow them to sign up for a variety of tax credits, so the government will send them a check for a couple thousand dollars or more every year. Where does the money come from to make those payments? From Americans who do pay taxes. It literally is redistribution of wealth. Instead of using taxes to pay for the necessities of infrastructure and defense that they were intended for, the government as envisioned by Obama will be “spreading the wealth around.”
The question is whether Americans care. And if they don’t, why not?
Ask yourself, why did we spend 50 years after World War II fighting a Cold War to eliminate communism if we actually believe in it? Is this nation actually prepared to admit we were wrong, and Karl Marx was right? Marx’s credo, “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need,” has a nice ring. It can easily be seen as an institutionalized form of Christian charity — providing for the less able, or the less advantaged. But look at the results of communism and socialism in Europe, and you will quickly conclude that any philosophical niceties are vastly outweighed by the political realities.
When you look at Marx’s list of goals for communism in chapter two of “The Communist Manifesto”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm ,
you can see that socialism has already made great advances in the United States. But in particular pay attention to No. 2 — “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
In this regard, Obama has outdone Marx himself. A progressive tax just puts a greater share of the burden on the rich. We already have long since had such a tax. But now Obama wants to find a way to hand out money to the poor. Is it any wonder that he is ahead in the polls?
As Ben Franklin reputedly said, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com
© 2008 Northwest Montana Daily Inter Lake
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2008/10/22/opinion/columns/frank/columns01.txt

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 8:23 pm 8:23 pm

Obama’s plan CUTS TAXES on people making under $200k a year. I don’t know where you people get your figures from. First you said $40k a year, now it’s $110k. You just like to distort the facts, and say that Obama lies while you know absolutely nothing. Keep listening to McWAR aka McLIAR, aka McBUSH. McCain is worse than Bush can ever possibly be. If he gets in office, our country will be further in recession, in multiple wars with different countries, the world will hate us even more (therefore further reducing our security), and if anything happens to him you will have the most unqualified person in office in history, so you can pretty much kiss our beloved nation goodbye. Keep picking on Obama-Biden while ignoring all the things wrong (pretty much everything) about a McCain-Palin administration.

Posted by: McWAR | October 22, 2008, 8:29 pm 8:29 pm

Natasha,
If you want to keep giving the big tax breaks to the rich, who not only get that gravy but also either suck the life out of their employees or move their companies somewhere overseas where they can get cheap labor, then McCain is your man. He is the candidate of “I’ve got mine and the hell with everyone else”! Same as Bush.

Posted by: Donna Hughes | October 22, 2008, 8:35 pm 8:35 pm

$250,000 is an arbitrary number that can and will change. when he finds out that number wont cover what he needs to spend, it will be reduced to whatever number he decides at that point. Dont worry though, McCain will most likely do the same

Posted by: will it end | October 22, 2008, 8:37 pm 8:37 pm

“If McCain becomes president you can expect World War 3 blah blah blah…”
Posted by McWar
—————————————
Mickey Mouse- If McCain becomes President and Russia deared to mess with us or any of our allies our country – NATO vs Russia – will win Russia and declare VICTORY in 3 days!
Watch…
Video: NATO vs Russia – NATO ALWAYS WINS!
Search YTube or Google for the above video title or video ID#:
v=vU8bbgzfJu8
God Bless America!… Even the Baltic States want to be called the “United States of Baltics” (watch the video.
It appears to me that our allies are more patriotic – pro-America – than some Democrats and That One!

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 8:37 pm 8:37 pm

America is sick of hearing about your “obama=socialist” lies. Most people know that they will benefit and the economy will benefit under Obama’s tax and health care plans. Your arguments for Obama being a socialist are false. You would say that any democrat is a socialist because they believe the government should actually help people in need. People are sick of hearing about how it helps everybody if wealth “trickles down”. Sick of hearing about how private insurance helps the industry and therefore somehow helps the patients. The middle class needs help and they are not getting it with the Republican agenda. The economy is suffering, we are in 2 wars and the people that attacked this country are still at large. REPUBLICANS HAVE FAILED. TIME FOR CHANGE!

Posted by: McWAR | October 22, 2008, 8:41 pm 8:41 pm

ABC: “Obama Tweaks Tax Plan to Rebut McCain”
This is the “mother of all flip-flops” by Obama.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/obama-alters-ta.html?cid=135954375

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 8:42 pm 8:42 pm

It appears to me that our allies are more patriotic – pro-America – than some Democrats and That One!
That’s why recent poll of over 70 countries shows that 1 in 4 people prefer McCain? America is the most hated country in the world. Instead of changing that, let’s elect someone that the world hates even more! GREAT IDEA, REPUBLICANS!

Posted by: mcwar | October 22, 2008, 8:44 pm 8:44 pm

America is sick of hearing about your “obama=socialist” lies.
Posted by McWar
——————————
ABC: Obama Alters Tax Plan to Rebut McCain
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/obama-alters-ta.html?cid=135954375
Ahahaha! Another flip-flop by Barack Obama. This can certainly be classified as the “mother of all flip-flops”!!
Barack Obama is a closet Marxist!
America wake up.

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 8:46 pm 8:46 pm

YOU wake up, because if McCain gets in office, you’ll wake up too late to see America GONE, so enough with your socialist bs. America is sick of hearing lies. Go party with Joe the Plumber and his $40k a year job while our country goes down the drain. You are absolutely wrong in a time where we cannot afford to be anything but right. Goodbye.

Posted by: mcwar | October 22, 2008, 8:51 pm 8:51 pm

No, Natasha, it is just that some of you think that the more you wave the flag the more patriotic you are. This country is supposed to stand for the land of opportunity for all of it’s citizens, whom it proclaims were created equal.
The last eight years in particular though apparently the rich have been much more equal than the majority of the People, because Bush has taken good care of the richest people.
Now it is time for the richest people to trade with the rest of us so that WE can have the tax cut! They (the rich) will just go back to the place they were BEFORE they had that tax cut.
Why is it always the regular people who have to sacrifice, instead of the richest people, with you Republicans? Who do you think is going to buy the products that are produced if the regular people are living paycheck to paycheck? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Perhaps you think that we won’t notice these things if you wave the flag enough.

Posted by: Donna Hughes | October 22, 2008, 8:52 pm 8:52 pm

“they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
what do you think about that, Scranton boy?

Posted by: Clintonite for McCain | October 22, 2008, 8:53 pm 8:53 pm

Planting Seeds of Disaster
ACORN, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party.
By Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute
‘You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.” So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left “community organizers” called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness.
Militant ACORN
At the time, however, that 1995 Chicago newspaper article represented something of a triumph for Barack Obama. That same year, as a director at Chicago’s Woods Fund, Obama was successfully pushing for a major expansion of assistance to ACORN, and sending still more money ACORN’s way from his post as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Through both funding and personal-leadership training, Obama supported ACORN. And ACORN, far more than we’ve recognized up to now, had a major role in precipitating the subprime crisis.
I’ve already told the story of Obama’s close ties to ACORN leader Madeline Talbott, who personally led Chicago ACORN’s campaign to intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers. Using provisions of a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards — and to fill ACORN’s coffers to finance “counseling” operations like the one touted in that Sun-Times article. This much we’ve known. Yet these local, CRA-based pressure-campaigns fit into a broader, more disturbing, and still under-appreciated national picture. Far more than we’ve recognized, ACORN’s local, CRA-enabled pressure tactics served to entangle the financial system as a whole in the subprime mess. ACORN was no side-show. On the contrary, using CRA and ties to sympathetic congressional Democrats, ACORN succeeded in drawing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the very policies that led to the current disaster.
In one of the first book-length scholarly studies of ACORN, Organizing Urban America, Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes this group, so dear to Barack Obama, as “oppositional outlaws.” Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN, has no qualms about stating that its members think of themselves as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be.” “This identity as a uniquely militant organization,” says Swarts, “is reinforced by contentious action.” ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers. According to Swarts, long-term ACORN organizers “tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists…the only truly radical community organization.”
ACORN’s Inside Strategy
Yet ACORN’s entirely deserved reputation for militance is balanced by its less-well-known “inside strategy.” ACORN has long employed Washington-based lobbyists who understand very well how the legislative game is played. ACORN’s national lobbyists may encourage and benefit from the militant tactics of their base, but in the halls of congress they play the game with smooth sophistication. The untold story of ACORN’s central role in the financial meltdown is about the one-two punch to the banking system administered by this outside/inside strategy.
Critics of the notion that CRA had a major impact on the subprime crisis ask how a law passed in 1977 could have caused a crisis in 2008? The answer has a lot to do with ACORN — and the critical years of 1990-1995. While the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act did call on banks to increase lending in poor and minority neighborhoods, its exact requirements were vague, and therefore open to a good deal of regulatory interpretation. Banks merger or expansion plans were rarely held up under CRA until the late 1980s, when ACORN perfected its technique of filing CRA complaints in tandem with the sort of intimidation tactics perfected by that original “community organizer” (and Obama idol), Saul Alinsky.
At first, ACORN’s anti-bank actions were relatively few in number. However, under a provision of the 1989 savings and loan bailout pushed by liberal Democratic legislators, like Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, lenders were required to compile public records of mortgage applicants by race, gender, and income. Although the statistics produced by these studies were presented in highly misleading ways, groups like ACORN were able to use them to embarrass banks into lowering credit standards. At the same time, a wave of banking mergers in the early 1990′s provided an opening for ACORN to use CRA to force lending changes. Any merger could be blocked under CRA, and once ACORN began systematically filing protests over minority lending, a formerly toothless set of regulations began to bite.
ACORN’s efforts to undermine credit standards in the late 1980s taught it a valuable lesson. However much pressure ACORN put on banks to lower credit standards, tough requirements in the “secondary market” run by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac served as a barrier to change. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up mortgages en masse, bundle them, and sell them to investors on the world market. Back then, Fannie and Freddie refused to buy loans that failed to meet high credit standards. If, for example, a local bank buckled to ACORN pressure and agreed to offer poor or minority applicants a 5-percent down-payment rate, instead of the normal 10-20 percent, Fannie and Freddie would refuse to buy up those mortgages. That would leave all the risk of these shaky loans with the local bank. So again and again, local banks would tell ACORN that, because of standards imposed by Fannie and Freddie, they could lower their credit standards by only a little.
So the eighties taught ACORN that a high-pressure, Alinskyite outside strategy wouldn’t be enough. Their Washington lobbyists would have to bring inside pressure on the government to undercut credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Only then would local banks consider making loans available to customers with bad credit histories, low wages, virtually nothing in the bank, and even bankruptcies on record.
Democrats and ACORN
As early as 1987, ACORN began pressuring Fannie and Freddie to review their standards, with modest results. By 1989, ACORN had lured Fannie Mae into the first of many “pilot projects” designed to help local banks lower credit standards. But it was all small potatoes until the serious pressure began in early 1991. At that point, Democratic Senator Allan Dixon convened a Senate subcommittee hearing at which an ACORN representative gave key testimony. It’s probably not a coincidence that Dixon, like Obama, was an Illinois Democrat, since Chicago has long been a stronghold of ACORN influence.
Dixon gave credibility to ACORN’s accusations of loan bias, although these claims of racism were disputed by Missouri Republican, Christopher Bond. ACORN’s spokesman strenuously complained that his organization’s efforts to relax local credit standards were being blocked by requirements set by the secondary market. Dixon responded by pressing Fannie and Freddie to do more to relax those standards — and by promising to introduce legislation that would ensure it. At this early stage, Fannie and Freddie walked a fine line between promising to do more, while protesting any wholesale reduction of credit requirements.
By July of 1991, ACORN’s legislative campaign began to bear fruit. As the Chicago Tribune put it, “Housing activists have been pushing hard to improve housing for the poor by extracting greater financial support from the country’s two highly profitable secondary mortgage-market companies. Thanks to the help of sympathetic lawmakers, it appeared…that they may succeed.” The Tribune went on to explain that House Democrat Henry Gonzales had announced that Fannie and Freddie had agreed to commit $3.5 billion to low-income housing in 1992 and 1993, in addition to a just-announced $10 billion “affordable housing loan program” by Fannie Mae. The article emphasizes ACORN pressure and notes that Fannie and Freddie had been fighting against the plan as recently as a week before agreement was reached. Fannie and Freddie gave in only to stave off even more restrictive legislation floated by congressional Democrats.
A mere month later, ACORN Housing Corporation president, George Butts made news by complaining to a House Banking subcommittee that ACORN’s efforts to pressure banks using CRA were still being hamstrung by Fannie and Freddie. Butts also demanded still more data on the race, gender, and income of loan applicants. Many news reports over the ensuing months point to ACORN as the key source of pressure on congress for a further reduction of credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result of this pressure, ACORN was eventually permitted to redraft many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s loan guideline.
Clinton and ACORN
ACORN’s progress through 1992 depended on its Democratic allies. Whatever ACORN managed to squeeze out of the George H. W. Bush administration came under congressional pressure. With the advent of the Clinton administration, however, ACORN’s fortunes took a positive turn. Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisnersos pledged to meet monthly with ACORN representatives. For ACORN, those meetings bore fruit.
Another factor working in ACORN’s favor was that its increasing success with local banks turned those banks into allies in the battle with Fannie and Freddie. Precisely because ACORN’s local pressure tactics were working, banks themselves now wanted Fannie and Freddie to loosen their standards still further, so as to buy up still more of the high-risk loans they’d made at ACORN’s insistence. So by the 1993, a grand alliance of ACORN, national Democrats, and local bankers looking for someone to lessen the risks imposed on them by CRA and ACORN were uniting to pressure Fannie and Freddie to loosen credit standards still further.
At this point, both ACORN and the Clinton administration were working together to impose large numerical targets or “set asides” (really a sort of poor and minority loan quota system) on Fannie and Freddie. ACORN called for at least half of Fannie and Freddie loans to go to low-income customers. At first the Clinton administration offered a set-aside of 30 percent. But eventually ACORN got what it wanted. In early 1994, the Clinton administration floated plans for committing $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income home-buyers, which would amount to about half of Fannie Mae’s business by the end of the decade. Wall Street Analysts attributed Fannie Mae’s willingness to go along with the change to the need to protect itself against still more severe “congressional attack.” News reports also highlighted praise for the change from ACORN’s head lobbyist, Deepak Bhargava.
This sweeping debasement of credit standards was touted by Fannie Mae’s chairman, chief executive officer, and now prominent Obama adviser James A. Johnson. This is also the period when Fannie Mae ramped up its pilot programs and local partnerships with ACORN, all of which became precedents and models for the pattern of risky subprime mortgages at the root of today’s crisis. During these years, Obama’s Chicago ACORN ally, Madeline Talbott, was at the forefront of participation in those pilot programs, and her activities were consistently supported by Obama through both foundation funding and personal leadership training for her top organizers.
Finally, in June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration’s comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: “Out homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.” Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers “who have historically been excluded from homeownership.”
Disaster
In the end of course, Clinton’s plan cost taxpayers an almost unimaginable amount of money. And it was just around the time of his 1995 announcement that the Chicago papers started encouraging bad-credit customers with “dog-food” wages, little money in the bank, and even histories of bankruptcy to apply for home loans with the help of ACORN. At both the local and national levels, then, ACORN served as the critical catalyst, levering pressure created by the Community Reinvestment Act and pull with Democratic politicians to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a pattern of high-risk loans.
Up to now, conventional wisdom on the financial meltdown has relegated ACORN and the CRA to bit parts. The real problem, we’ve been told, lay with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, however, ACORN is at the base of the whole mess. ACORN used CRA and Democratic sympathizers to entangle Fannie and Freddie and the entire financial system in a disastrous disregard of the most basic financial standards. And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN’s economic madness every step of the way.

Posted by: Acorn, Obama and the Mortgage Meltdown | October 22, 2008, 9:02 pm 9:02 pm

That’s why recent poll of over 70 countries shows that 1 in 4 people prefer McCain? America is the most hated country in the world. Instead of changing that, let’s elect someone that the world hates even more! GREAT IDEA, REPUBLICANS!
Posted by: mcwar
————————————
Ahahaha! Here comes the known Obamabot under his 2 dozen different names.
Hey BOZO – forget what the liberal “Guardian” is saying (next time please reveal your sources) and look at the fact that 3 major allies (Canada, France, Germany) have replaced anti-Bush leaders with “conservative-right-wing” PRO-AMERICA leaders.
We do mot need Obama’s rhetoric to realize where our allies stand. We – patriotic Americans – saw what happened during the Russian invasion of Georgia. ALL our allies stood firmly with the US and President Bush, BOZO!
We also saw to whom the G7 ran in search of “leadership” during the recent global economic crisis. But of course, it was America they all ran to for help! The dollar has been sky-rocketing to a two year high because our allies know darn well that it is America’s economy that it recover first – America is their sounding board. Our allies are more patriotic – PRO AMERICA than you – BOZO – and your “comrades” for Marxist Obama!
BOZO – you are as inept and as naive in global geopolitical issues as THAT ONE -THAT BIG O!

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:03 pm 9:03 pm

At a time that Europe is awakening up – turning to the “right” after years of “failed socialism” it would be a crime to elect Marxist Obama as the next President of the United States of America.
Even France learned the lessons of its “failed socialism” and elected conservative Nicholas Sarkozy – a staunch friend of the United States. And here we are…Americans are about to let our country be destroyed by MARXIST BARACK OBAMA!
The following video is for the geopolitically savvy and morally sound American patriots – not for the “Obama Communist Youth”!
Sarkozy speaks to America: A most remarkable speech…
Video: Sarkozy’s Speech Before the US Congress (see below)
“France’s new leader Nicolas Sarkozy gave a speech before Congress that was, dare I say, almost…Reaganesque. He called America “the greatest nation,” among other platitudes.
You can view the whole thing here, and I really think you should all watch it.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/video_sarkozys_speech_before_congress/
He speaks of America in such glowing terms that you almost wonder if he isn’t, in some ways, more American than certain Democrats I could think of.
What’s particularly interesting is that, years ago when the Bush presidency was new and Iraq was a fresh issue, the left told us constantly that George Bush was making America less popular in the world. Yet during the President’s term in office three of our traditional allies (Canada, Germany and now France) elected leaders that displaced virulently anti-Bush and anti-American leaders with people more of Sarkozy’s temperament (Stephen Harper in Canada and Angela Merkel in Germany).
Sort of almost seems like…that whole “less popular America” thing just isn’t true.”
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/video_sarkozys_speech_before_congress/

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:09 pm 9:09 pm

Newsflash, whiner dems: Those rich people you critique for having so much scrimped and saved and worked hard to get what they have. They didn’t go out and buy the latest ipod or cell phone (or whatver was available if they chose to waste their money on it to keep up with the Joneses) Try it. You just might crawl out of debt and see the light. I doubt it, but it’s worth a try considering electing Obama isn’t going to do one thing for your wallet. I wish the Jones were frugal.

Posted by: Kitty | October 22, 2008, 9:15 pm 9:15 pm

And whom did Saakashvili ask to come over there in the midst of it, Natasha?
Joe Biden! When Saakashvili was over here recently he made a point of going out of his way to Wisconsin, where Joe Biden was campaigning just to thank him for coming to Georgia at a dangerous time to see how things were and to reassure him that he had US support.

Posted by: Donna Hughes | October 22, 2008, 9:15 pm 9:15 pm

Hey Donna, in case you failed to notice, Biden is from America.

Posted by: Kitty | October 22, 2008, 9:18 pm 9:18 pm

The Washingtom Times
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
EDITORIAL: Tax-cut socialism
He refers to it as “tax cuts,” hoping that the American public is too dumb to catch on and ridicule anyone who gets in their political way.
Mr. Obama promises to give 95 percent of American workers what he refers to as a “Making Work Pay” tax cut – a $500 refundable tax credit to every worker or $1,000 per couple. The key word here is “refundable.” This means that the one-third of taxpayers with zero income-tax liability (one-third of all tax returns to be filed in 2009 under current law) get a direct payment from the U.S. Treasury – in essence, a welfare check for working. And this will be paid by increased taxes on single filers making $200,000 or more per year and joint filers making $250,000 or more.
The issue was brought to the fore by Joe Wurzelbacher, a Holland, Ohio plumber who was playing football with his son in his front yard when Mr. Obama visited his neighborhood Oct. 11.
Mr. Wurzelbacher charged that Mr. Obama’s tax plan would be at odds with “the American dream.” Saying that he was preparing to “buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 per year,” he challenged Mr. Obama. “Your new tax plan is going to cost me more, isn’t it?” Mr. Wurzelbacher asked.
In recent days, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden sounded like they were dismissing out of hand the concerns expressed by Mr. Wurzelbacher, now known internationally as “Joe the Plumber.” When the mainstream media reported that Mr. Wurzelbacher lacked a plumbing license, Mr. Biden went on the “Tonight Show” to make light of that fact, saying he was worried about “Joe the Plumber with a license.” (Mr. Wurzelbacher says he works under the license held by his boss). Last week, Mr. Obama also sounded somewhat bemused by Joe the Plumber’s concerns: “How many plumbers do you know making $250,000 a year?”
The above comments by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden are examples of liberal elitism on display.
Mr. Wurzelbacher, so far as we can tell, never claimed to be making that much money from the plumbing business; it seems pretty clear that he was referring to his hopes and dreams for the future. But these facts seem lost on Democrats and the mainstream media. The latter appear more interested in learning whether Mr. Wurzelbacher might have been a McCain campaign “plant” who just happened to ask his question to embarrass Mr. Obama. To Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, however, the idea that a successful plumber could make more than $250,000 in a single year sounded like a vaguely stupid Republican Party dirty trick, and they weren’t having any of it.
Aside from ridiculing Mr. Wurzelbacher’s efforts to create a better life for his family, Mr. Obama’s campaign cites statistics purporting to show that less than 2 percent of small businesses will be affected by his tax increases. Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) claims the actual figure is closer to 10 percent, and it says that analysis of IRS statistics shows that in 2006, small businesses reported $700 billion in profits – two-thirds of which were earned in households that would be hit by the Obama tax increases.
If anything, the ATR figures probably understate the job-killing impact of Mr. Obama’s tax increases, because they don’t include his Social Security proposals – which cut taxes on workers making under $85,000 a year and significantly increase them for workers with incomes of $250,000 and above. When you factor these Social Security tax hikes into the mix, it is very likely that some of the country’s biggest job creators will find themselves paying marginal rates above 50 percent.
Furthermore, in his response to “Joe,” Mr. Obama told him that he needed to “spread the wealth around.” Since Mr. Obama has roundly rejected being called a socialist, the onus is on him to explain: What part of such government-engineered wealth distribution isn’t socialism?
The Washington Times
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/22/tax-cut-socialism/

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:18 pm 9:18 pm

Senator Biden,
Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy.

Posted by: geevill | October 22, 2008, 9:21 pm 9:21 pm

Kitty,
We aren’t in debt. In fact we have been rated lower from credit companies because we DIDN’T have a bank loan and half a dozen high-limit credit cards! Go figure!
We never believed in living beyond our means or in taking out huge loans, becuase you never know what might happen and leave you unable to pay them off.
We HAVE lost a good portion of our retirement money thanks to Phil Graham’s big push back in the late ’90′s to deregulate the mortgage industry, which contributed greatly to this financial mess! yeah, we want more of the same kind of leadership from McCain!
We don’t think it is fair for the rich people to get the best tax breaks, while those who are struggling get the crumbs.
Go wave your flag a little more.

Posted by: Donna Hughes | October 22, 2008, 9:25 pm 9:25 pm

Biden is about as American as it gets, and the Obama-Biden team puts America first, unlike John boy who puts himself and his winning at all costs first. And in the words of Natashas dream date:
“I think if history is our guide, we’ve had stronger economies, more wealth creation, under Democratic presidents than we have under Republican presidents.”
– Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild

Posted by: Lynn | October 22, 2008, 9:28 pm 9:28 pm

And whom did Saakashvili ask to come over there in the midst of it, Natasha?
Joe Biden!
Posted by Donna Hughes
————————————–
Hmmm, the usual Joe Biden “theatrics”.
Biden invited himself over because because he was trying to “undo” Obama’s screw-up with his 3 different statements by which he still failed to “slap” Russia – in the same manner that ALL OUR ALLIES AND OUR GOVERNMENT DID!
Biden went over there to say “I am sorry” to Mikheil Saakashvili on behalf of geopolitically inept and utterly naive Barack Obama.

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:28 pm 9:28 pm

**** geevill wrote *****
Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy.
****
You are right geevil.. Obama has a better education. Looks like we will have a real winner in the white hose once Obama is elected!

Posted by: Mack | October 22, 2008, 9:31 pm 9:31 pm

Poor Natasha, you do have quite the revisionist historical perspective don’t you!

Posted by: Mack | October 22, 2008, 9:33 pm 9:33 pm

The 3:00 AM call to the White House…
If Obama answers that “3:00 AM call to the White House” he would forward it to…the United Nations!!!!
Is this what you want America?
Do not vote left-wing-liberal Obama bin Biden to be our next Commander in Chief. It took 3 statements by him (after speaking with his 300+ advisors) to kind of condemn Russia (he still has not even come close to it) for invading a democratic and sovereign country – Georgia.
And, this while Senator McCain, Senator Clinton, our government, and ALL our allies – blasted Russia’s invasion of Georgia! Even China turned its back to Russia on the Georgia issue despite the fact that the Russian leaders – Medvedev (Putin’s hand picked puppet) and Putin himself were courting China’s support on the Georgia conflict!! Ha-ha!
Wake up America – do not vote for Obama Bin Biden!

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:35 pm 9:35 pm

Wake up America – do not vote for Dumb and Dumber!

Posted by: Mack | October 22, 2008, 9:36 pm 9:36 pm

John McCains stand on Taxes – Feb. 2, 2000
JIM LEHRER: There was a suggestion today from some of Governor Bush’s supporters that maybe you’re not really a true blue Republican, that some of the things you support like campaign finance reform and your opposition to tax cuts are more like Gore and Bradley and Clinton and Democrats than Republican.
SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, I’m much more like Ronald Reagan, actually, than the present hierarchy of our party. I’m for tax cuts, but I’m for working Americans. Governor Bush wants to give 38 percent of his tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent. I want to give it to working families.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/jan-june00/mccain_2-2.html

Posted by: willy | October 22, 2008, 9:36 pm 9:36 pm

Obama parallels Kennedy in many ways, and I’m positive will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents! Exciting times ahead.

Posted by: maryann | October 22, 2008, 9:41 pm 9:41 pm

Obama will save us, and will deliver us. Trust me.
Posted by: Karl
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/obama-alters-ta.html?cid=135954375
———————————–
Reply to Karl:
Yeap, exactly like Carl Marx saved his “comrades”. Trust me.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
CARL MARX
BOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:41 pm 9:41 pm

Natasha, your funny :)

Posted by: maryann | October 22, 2008, 9:42 pm 9:42 pm

Donna,
The partial repeal of the Glass Stegall act had absolutely nothing to do with the mortgage meltdown that has tanked the stock market…and ‘our’ retirement accounts.
Get your facts straight you liberal pig.
If you’re receptive to understanding the real cause, please read:
Planting Seeds of Disaster
ACORN, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party.
By Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute
‘You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.” So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left “community organizers” called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness.
Militant ACORN
At the time, however, that 1995 Chicago newspaper article represented something of a triumph for Barack Obama. That same year, as a director at Chicago’s Woods Fund, Obama was successfully pushing for a major expansion of assistance to ACORN, and sending still more money ACORN’s way from his post as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Through both funding and personal-leadership training, Obama supported ACORN. And ACORN, far more than we’ve recognized up to now, had a major role in precipitating the subprime crisis.
I’ve already told the story of Obama’s close ties to ACORN leader Madeline Talbott, who personally led Chicago ACORN’s campaign to intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers. Using provisions of a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards — and to fill ACORN’s coffers to finance “counseling” operations like the one touted in that Sun-Times article. This much we’ve known. Yet these local, CRA-based pressure-campaigns fit into a broader, more disturbing, and still under-appreciated national picture. Far more than we’ve recognized, ACORN’s local, CRA-enabled pressure tactics served to entangle the financial system as a whole in the subprime mess. ACORN was no side-show. On the contrary, using CRA and ties to sympathetic congressional Democrats, ACORN succeeded in drawing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the very policies that led to the current disaster.
In one of the first book-length scholarly studies of ACORN, Organizing Urban America, Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes this group, so dear to Barack Obama, as “oppositional outlaws.” Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN, has no qualms about stating that its members think of themselves as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be.” “This identity as a uniquely militant organization,” says Swarts, “is reinforced by contentious action.” ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers. According to Swarts, long-term ACORN organizers “tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists…the only truly radical community organization.”
ACORN’s Inside Strategy
Yet ACORN’s entirely deserved reputation for militance is balanced by its less-well-known “inside strategy.” ACORN has long employed Washington-based lobbyists who understand very well how the legislative game is played. ACORN’s national lobbyists may encourage and benefit from the militant tactics of their base, but in the halls of congress they play the game with smooth sophistication. The untold story of ACORN’s central role in the financial meltdown is about the one-two punch to the banking system administered by this outside/inside strategy.
Critics of the notion that CRA had a major impact on the subprime crisis ask how a law passed in 1977 could have caused a crisis in 2008? The answer has a lot to do with ACORN — and the critical years of 1990-1995. While the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act did call on banks to increase lending in poor and minority neighborhoods, its exact requirements were vague, and therefore open to a good deal of regulatory interpretation. Banks merger or expansion plans were rarely held up under CRA until the late 1980s, when ACORN perfected its technique of filing CRA complaints in tandem with the sort of intimidation tactics perfected by that original “community organizer” (and Obama idol), Saul Alinsky.
At first, ACORN’s anti-bank actions were relatively few in number. However, under a provision of the 1989 savings and loan bailout pushed by liberal Democratic legislators, like Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, lenders were required to compile public records of mortgage applicants by race, gender, and income. Although the statistics produced by these studies were presented in highly misleading ways, groups like ACORN were able to use them to embarrass banks into lowering credit standards. At the same time, a wave of banking mergers in the early 1990′s provided an opening for ACORN to use CRA to force lending changes. Any merger could be blocked under CRA, and once ACORN began systematically filing protests over minority lending, a formerly toothless set of regulations began to bite.
ACORN’s efforts to undermine credit standards in the late 1980s taught it a valuable lesson. However much pressure ACORN put on banks to lower credit standards, tough requirements in the “secondary market” run by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac served as a barrier to change. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up mortgages en masse, bundle them, and sell them to investors on the world market. Back then, Fannie and Freddie refused to buy loans that failed to meet high credit standards. If, for example, a local bank buckled to ACORN pressure and agreed to offer poor or minority applicants a 5-percent down-payment rate, instead of the normal 10-20 percent, Fannie and Freddie would refuse to buy up those mortgages. That would leave all the risk of these shaky loans with the local bank. So again and again, local banks would tell ACORN that, because of standards imposed by Fannie and Freddie, they could lower their credit standards by only a little.
So the eighties taught ACORN that a high-pressure, Alinskyite outside strategy wouldn’t be enough. Their Washington lobbyists would have to bring inside pressure on the government to undercut credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Only then would local banks consider making loans available to customers with bad credit histories, low wages, virtually nothing in the bank, and even bankruptcies on record.
Democrats and ACORN
As early as 1987, ACORN began pressuring Fannie and Freddie to review their standards, with modest results. By 1989, ACORN had lured Fannie Mae into the first of many “pilot projects” designed to help local banks lower credit standards. But it was all small potatoes until the serious pressure began in early 1991. At that point, Democratic Senator Allan Dixon convened a Senate subcommittee hearing at which an ACORN representative gave key testimony. It’s probably not a coincidence that Dixon, like Obama, was an Illinois Democrat, since Chicago has long been a stronghold of ACORN influence.
Dixon gave credibility to ACORN’s accusations of loan bias, although these claims of racism were disputed by Missouri Republican, Christopher Bond. ACORN’s spokesman strenuously complained that his organization’s efforts to relax local credit standards were being blocked by requirements set by the secondary market. Dixon responded by pressing Fannie and Freddie to do more to relax those standards — and by promising to introduce legislation that would ensure it. At this early stage, Fannie and Freddie walked a fine line between promising to do more, while protesting any wholesale reduction of credit requirements.
By July of 1991, ACORN’s legislative campaign began to bear fruit. As the Chicago Tribune put it, “Housing activists have been pushing hard to improve housing for the poor by extracting greater financial support from the country’s two highly profitable secondary mortgage-market companies. Thanks to the help of sympathetic lawmakers, it appeared…that they may succeed.” The Tribune went on to explain that House Democrat Henry Gonzales had announced that Fannie and Freddie had agreed to commit $3.5 billion to low-income housing in 1992 and 1993, in addition to a just-announced $10 billion “affordable housing loan program” by Fannie Mae. The article emphasizes ACORN pressure and notes that Fannie and Freddie had been fighting against the plan as recently as a week before agreement was reached. Fannie and Freddie gave in only to stave off even more restrictive legislation floated by congressional Democrats.
A mere month later, ACORN Housing Corporation president, George Butts made news by complaining to a House Banking subcommittee that ACORN’s efforts to pressure banks using CRA were still being hamstrung by Fannie and Freddie. Butts also demanded still more data on the race, gender, and income of loan applicants. Many news reports over the ensuing months point to ACORN as the key source of pressure on congress for a further reduction of credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result of this pressure, ACORN was eventually permitted to redraft many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s loan guideline.
Clinton and ACORN
ACORN’s progress through 1992 depended on its Democratic allies. Whatever ACORN managed to squeeze out of the George H. W. Bush administration came under congressional pressure. With the advent of the Clinton administration, however, ACORN’s fortunes took a positive turn. Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisnersos pledged to meet monthly with ACORN representatives. For ACORN, those meetings bore fruit.
Another factor working in ACORN’s favor was that its increasing success with local banks turned those banks into allies in the battle with Fannie and Freddie. Precisely because ACORN’s local pressure tactics were working, banks themselves now wanted Fannie and Freddie to loosen their standards still further, so as to buy up still more of the high-risk loans they’d made at ACORN’s insistence. So by the 1993, a grand alliance of ACORN, national Democrats, and local bankers looking for someone to lessen the risks imposed on them by CRA and ACORN were uniting to pressure Fannie and Freddie to loosen credit standards still further.
At this point, both ACORN and the Clinton administration were working together to impose large numerical targets or “set asides” (really a sort of poor and minority loan quota system) on Fannie and Freddie. ACORN called for at least half of Fannie and Freddie loans to go to low-income customers. At first the Clinton administration offered a set-aside of 30 percent. But eventually ACORN got what it wanted. In early 1994, the Clinton administration floated plans for committing $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income home-buyers, which would amount to about half of Fannie Mae’s business by the end of the decade. Wall Street Analysts attributed Fannie Mae’s willingness to go along with the change to the need to protect itself against still more severe “congressional attack.” News reports also highlighted praise for the change from ACORN’s head lobbyist, Deepak Bhargava.
This sweeping debasement of credit standards was touted by Fannie Mae’s chairman, chief executive officer, and now prominent Obama adviser James A. Johnson. This is also the period when Fannie Mae ramped up its pilot programs and local partnerships with ACORN, all of which became precedents and models for the pattern of risky subprime mortgages at the root of today’s crisis. During these years, Obama’s Chicago ACORN ally, Madeline Talbott, was at the forefront of participation in those pilot programs, and her activities were consistently supported by Obama through both foundation funding and personal leadership training for her top organizers.
Finally, in June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration’s comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: “Out homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.” Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers “who have historically been excluded from homeownership.”
Disaster
In the end of course, Clinton’s plan cost taxpayers an almost unimaginable amount of money. And it was just around the time of his 1995 announcement that the Chicago papers started encouraging bad-credit customers with “dog-food” wages, little money in the bank, and even histories of bankruptcy to apply for home loans with the help of ACORN. At both the local and national levels, then, ACORN served as the critical catalyst, levering pressure created by the Community Reinvestment Act and pull with Democratic politicians to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a pattern of high-risk loans.
Up to now, conventional wisdom on the financial meltdown has relegated ACORN and the CRA to bit parts. The real problem, we’ve been told, lay with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, however, ACORN is at the base of the whole mess. ACORN used CRA and Democratic sympathizers to entangle Fannie and Freddie and the entire financial system in a disastrous disregard of the most basic financial standards. And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN’s economic madness every step of the way.

Posted by: Glass Stegall > nothing to do with Fannie / Freddie | October 22, 2008, 9:44 pm 9:44 pm

The Wall Street Journal
Obama’s Tax Plan Is Really a Welfare Plan
Barack Obama’s tax plan is the opposite of supply-side economics. He proposes to raise marginal rates for just about every federal tax. He also proposes a raft of tax credits that taxpayers can receive if they engage in various government-specified activities.
Moreover, the tax credits would mostly go to those who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. His trick is to make the tax credits “refundable.” Thus, if the tax credit is for $1,000, but the taxpayer would otherwise only pay $200 in taxes, the government would write a check to the taxpayer for $800. If the taxpayer pays nothing in federal income taxes, the government would pay him the whole $1,000.
Such credits are not tax cuts. Indeed, they should be called The New Tax Welfare. In effect, Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand a slew of government spending programs that are disguised as tax credits. The spending on these programs is then subtracted from the total tax burden, in order to make the claim that his tax plan is a net tax cut overall.
On the tax side of the ledger, the details released by his campaign last week confirm what a President Obama has in mind for our most productive citizens. The top individual income tax rate, for example, would be increased by 13%, to 39.6%; the next-highest rate would be raised to 36%. The top rates on capital gains and dividends would rise by a third, to 20%
The Social Security payroll tax would be raised between 16% to 32% for families making over $250,000 a year. This means that the real returns these people get from their lifetime payments into the retirement program will be driven below 0%, according to my own previous research, which was published by the Cato Institute and elsewhere.
Mr. Obama also wants a permanent federal estate tax, with a top rate of 45%; his health-insurance plan includes a new payroll tax on employers; and he also contemplates several increases in the corporate income tax, including a new so-called windfall profits tax on oil companies.
Then there is the spending side of the ledger. Mr. Obama proposes a fully refundable Making Work Pay Tax Credit, which would have the government pay out $500 to each worker and $1,000 to couples — reminiscent of George McGovern’s 1972 election proposal for the government to send a $1,000 check to everyone.
His American Opportunity Tax Credit would provide a $4,000, fully refundable tax credit for college tuition expenses. His Mortgage Interest Tax Credit would provide a 10% credit — refundable — to offset mortgage interest payments for lower- and middle-income families. His Health Care Tax Credits, which the campaign says “will ensure that health insurance is available and affordable for all families,” include “a new refundable 50 percent health tax credit on employee premiums paid by employers.”
Currently existing tax credits would also become spending programs in the Obama tax program. The Savers Credit would be made fully refundable, and would be expanded, according to the campaign, “to match 50% of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn under $75,000.” The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit would be made refundable and expanded to allow “low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit on the first $6,000 of child care expenses.”
The Earned Income Tax Credit is already refundable. Mr. Obama would expand it to “increase the number of working parents eligible for EITC benefits, increase the benefits available to noncustodial parents who fulfill their child support obligations, increase benefits for families with three or more children, and reduce the EITC marriage penalty, which hurts low-income families.” In short, welfare spending is to be increased by paying more money out to low-income income tax filers.
The latest Congressional Budget Office data shows the bottom 40% of income earners already pays no income taxes. Indeed, they receive a net payment from the federal income tax system — meaning from the taxpayers — equal to 3.8% of all federal income taxes, because of the refundable tax credits under current law. The middle 20% of income earners, the true middle class, pays 4.4% of federal income taxes.
Overall, the bottom 60% of income earners pay less than 1% of federal income taxes on net. When “tax credits” primarily go to this group in the form of checks from the government (rather than a reduction in their tax burden) it is simply an abuse of the language to call the spending a tax cut.
Consequently, to say, as the campaign does say, that the candidate’s tax plan is a tax cut on net — and that it would limit taxes to 18.2% of GDP — is grossly misleading. The Obama tax plan would sharply increase real taxes. It also would come nowhere near to paying for the massive increases in federal spending he has proposed, including the spending that is disguised in the form of refundable tax credits.
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910303529751345.html?mod=most_emailed_day

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 9:44 pm 9:44 pm

and mccain is the answer? sorry but i think obama and mccain are the same. lets keep increasing the size of government, according to both, they are the ones weve been waitng for. see thru the rhetoric. more government is a bad thing. both will do it. the only difference is the judges they will appoint. but even that is not for certain. they all lie. and all are corrupted for their own power.

Posted by: will it end | October 22, 2008, 9:46 pm 9:46 pm

Those who buy into the acorn scam are the same who have bought into McCains scare tactics based on fear and ignorance.. and the sad part is most don’t even realize it.. this election, we are having a moratorium on ignorance! Obama is the man, the future is the plan!
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108043/Candidate-Support-Education.aspx

Posted by: Mack | October 22, 2008, 9:47 pm 9:47 pm

Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhatten, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections, cut his campaign in Florida by one day to attend this gathering.
“Even in 1998 when we had problems with Milosevic, McCain did everything that we asked of him to the benefit of the Albanian people, including arming the KLA”, announced DioGuardi. “We are American Albanians and we need a leader who will strengthen this country… We must support John McCain because he did everything we asked of him for Kosovo, from supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army to supporting the independence of Kosovo. Two years ago he spoke in Brussels and said that independence is the only solution”, concluded this former congressman who has been fighting for the independence of Kosovo and Metohija for more than twenty years.
And just who are the KLA that McCain is so fond of-
“The KLA – The Kosovo Liberation Army – is an Islamic terrorist group responsible for beheadings, torture, rape, burning down churches filled with Christians, and other atrocities. To this day, the KLA insurgency continues the systematic persecution and genocidal cleansing of Serbian civilians residing in Albania. The former leaders, enjoying life as high paid politicians in the Albania Government, are unapologetic for the crimes committed.”
McCain continues to support the KLA to this very day.

Posted by: KLA4Mac | October 22, 2008, 9:53 pm 9:53 pm

“Biden is about as American as it gets, and the Obama-Biden team puts America first, unlike John boy who puts himself and his winning at all costs first. And in the words of Natashas dream date…blah blah blah”
Posted by Lynn
————————————
Here comes yesterday’s Obamabot clown by the name “sara”, “janice” + 2 dozen different names…
Your “Obama bin Biden” are the biggest clowns in American politics – both of them… but Joe the Talking Parrot is the one that cracks me up the most!
Loin-Girding 101
Joe Biden wants you to gird your loins. Here’s how to do it.
http://www.slate.com/id/2202769/
Hey LynnObot did you take the “Dumb Test” yet? how did you do?
Here you may want to take it over…who knows, perhaps you can do better second time around…
THE DUMB TEST
http://www.quizrocket.com/dumb-test/1?tr=Take%20the%20DUMB%20TEST!&tr=Hey%20Dummy!!!!!&trt=9&gatherer_id=100522&utm_source=ValueClick&utm_medium=Pop&utm_campaign=DumbTestR1

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 10:07 pm 10:07 pm

KLA4Mac- you are an idiot. McCain supported the independence of Kossovo and he still does. IDIOT-O-BOT!
America will not stand for genoside in the Balkans. The Serbs learned their lesson. Period!

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 10:18 pm 10:18 pm

The Boston Herald
October 11, 2008
It is what it is: Obama allied with scoundrels
In the best tradition of Bill Clinton’s declaration that the answer to the question of whether he was having an affair depended on “what the definition of is is,” Sen. Barack Obama was clearly concealing the truth when he said that William Ayers was “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”
The Ayers-Obama connection was, in fact, an intimate collaboration that it led to the only executive or administrative experience in Obama’s life.
After Walter Annenberg’s foundation offered several hundred million dollars to American public schools in the mid-’90s, Ayers applied for $50 million for Chicago. His purpose was to “raise political consciousness” in schools.
After he won the grant, Ayers’ group chose Obama to distribute the $50 million, and the future senator raised another $60 million from other civic groups to augment it. In doing so, he was following Ayers’ admonition to grant the funds to “external” organizations, like American Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), to pair with schools and conduct programs to radicalize and politicize the students.
Reading, math and science achievement tests counted for little in the grants, but the school’s success in preaching a radical agenda determined how much money it got.
Obama should have run screaming at the sight of Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers has admitted bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, and his wife was imprisoned for failing to cooperate in solving the robbery of a Brink’s car in which two police were killed. Far from remorse, Ayers told The New York Times [NYT], in September 2001, that he wished he “could have done more.” Ayers only avoided conviction when the evidence against him turned out to be contained in illegal wiretaps. He was, in fact, guilty as sin.
So let’s sum up Obama’s Chicago connections. His chief financial supporter was Tony Rezko, now on his way to prison. His spiritual adviser was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, of “God damn America” fame. And the guy who got him his only administrative job is former terrorist Ayers.
Not a good recommendation for a president.
© The Boston Herald and Herald Media.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1124922

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 10:21 pm 10:21 pm

The Washington Post
Obama’s Iffy Numbers On McCain Health Plan
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
“How would your golden years turn out under John McCain? His health-care plan would cut Medicare by $800 billion. That means a 22 percent cut in benefits. Higher premiums and co-pays. More expensive prescription drugs. Nursing home care could suffer. . . . After a lifetime of work, seniors’ health care shouldn’t be a gamble. John McCain’s plan? It’s not the change we need.”
– Obama campaign’s “Your Golden Years” ad
Barack Obama has been telling seniors that their hard-won Medicare benefits are at risk if his rival wins the election. The message has been hammered home in a series of speeches and television ads, including the one shown above, set against a backdrop of spinning lottery balls. Is it true, as the Democratic senator asserts, that his Republican opponent is planning to “gamble” with Medicare benefits?
THE FACTS
The Obama claim rests primarily on a Wall Street Journal interview with McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, that was published Oct. 6. Holtz-Eakin told the Journal that McCain would pay for his health plan “in part” by looking for “savings” in Medicare and Medicaid. He was vague about where the savings would come from, other than talking about the need to cut fraud and waste in the programs.
“It’s about giving [Medicare and Medicaid recipients] the benefit package that has been promised to them by law at lower cost,” Holtz-Eakin told the newspaper.
In other words, contrary to the claim in the Obama ad, the McCain campaign was specifically promising not to “cut benefits” but to provide the promised benefits at a lower cost. The Obama ad misleadingly cites the Wall Street Journal interview as the source for the alarming “22 percent cut in benefits.”
How did the Obama campaign come up with the claim of an $800 billion cut in Medicare (described in another Obama ad as an $882 billion cut)? Answer: some back-of-the-envelope calculations by a liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress.
The think tank bases its findings on the assumption that McCain will need to save around $1.3 trillion over 10 years to pay for his health-care plan. (This is based on an analysis by the independent Tax Policy Center that has not been challenged by the McCain campaign.) The senator from Arizona has promised to give Americans a $2,500 refundable tax credit to be spent on health care in exchange for taxing the health benefits they receive from their employers.
It may be that McCain is wildly optimistic in believing that he can find sufficient savings in Medicare and Medicaid to pay for his promised refundable health-care tax credit. But such a criticism also applies to Obama, who is relying on similar cost cuts to fund his health-care plan. The senator from Illinois says that a shift to electronic health records will generate savings of around $120 billion a year, a claim termed “wishful thinking” by many independent experts.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
John McCain has not provided a convincing explanation for how he will fund his health-care plan. But it is a huge stretch for the Obama campaign to argue that the McCain plan will inevitably result in an $800 billion (or $880 billion) cut in Medicare programs over 10 years, or a “22 percent cut” in benefits paid to American seniors. McCain’s top economic adviser has specifically promised not to cut benefits.
THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/21/AR2008102102650.html

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 10:25 pm 10:25 pm

The Chicago Tribune
Editorial
Problems with endorsing Obama
October 21, 2008
My, my. In their dumbfounding endorsement of Barack Obama, it seems to me that members of the Tribune’s editorial board must not have first read some pages in their own paper. Obama’s negatives have been cited ad nauseam, so I won’t repeat all of them. But there are some downsides in his candidacy that were not addressed in the unpersuasive endorsement statement, and they are a big deal to me. They include:
• The senator is a radical socialist with stated preferences for the Marxist notion of redistributing the wealth. Does the editorial board want the U.S. to morph into the socialist model of a dying Europe? Does it want our culture destroyed?
• With the likely veto-proof Democrat majority in Congress, a President Obama will have the opportunity to name justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Is it the desire of the editorial board to have a leftist majority on that bench to creatively rewrite the Constitution and restructure society without regard to what citizens may think?
• Much closer to home, the editorial board has observed the wonderful things that happen in Illinois when one party controls Chicago, Cook County and the state. Does the editorial board want the entire nation governed as miserably as is Illinois with Democrats controlling the White House, Congress and the judiciary?
I don’t advocate any of these destructive directions for our country.
—Charles F. Falk, Schaumburg
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-1021vplettersbriefs0oct21,0,3600252.story

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 10:29 pm 10:29 pm

Natasha, Obama isnt marxist. His agenda is truly America first.
Posted by Bobba
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-invokes-s.html?cid=135660873
————————————–
Reply to Bobba:
Obama’s political ideology is shaped by the “Carl Marx Doctrine” – do you even know what that is?
You are deeply confused my friend. McCain’s agenda is truly America first.
Obama’s agenda is truly his “Big Ego” first. (common characteristic among Marxist leaders).

Posted by: Natasha | October 22, 2008, 11:23 pm 11:23 pm

Natasha,
It looks as though you think that if you huff and puff hard enough you will blow everyone away!
Go pounce! We already voted for Obama/Biden here!

Posted by: Donna Hughes | October 22, 2008, 11:46 pm 11:46 pm

Joe Biden if you are so concerned about the poor folk why have you only donated $370.00 to charity this year? I have donated so much more than you and my husband and I make so much less than you and have two teenagers to support and pu through College.Start practicing what you preach hypocrite…

Posted by: conf1689 | October 23, 2008, 12:07 am 12:07 am

The hateful attacks by McCain, Palin and their surrogates will not work this time around. The voters have figured out the Karl Rove strategies and have said enough is enough. Get that McCain, enough is enough! Get serious in your campaign for the American people, not your own elitist kind.

Posted by: Lou R | October 23, 2008, 12:39 am 12:39 am

Lou R Who’s the elitist here? And this registered Independent voter is saying enough is enough! Obama is a fraud and you are have all fallen for it.I can only hope in the next 13 days America wakes up and sees it is not too late to bring us on the right track and vote for McCain/Palin. What hatefu attacks? Obama doesn’t need to do any attacking the media is doing it for him. Just shows me what a coward he and Biden are. And forgive me I don’t think we need cowards in the White House.

Posted by: conf1689 | October 23, 2008, 1:03 am 1:03 am

Nastyasha,
Here’s the part you need to read about that poll, then read it again, again and again;
“The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a large sample of adults including 800 deemed likely to vote. Among all 1,101 adults interviewed, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among registered voters.”
PS – YOU LOSE!!!LOL!!!

Posted by: LOL | October 23, 2008, 2:55 am 2:55 am

A look into Obama’s spread the wealth:
AP – In this Oct. 28, 2005, file photo released by China’s official Xinhua news agnecy, North Korean leader … SEOUL, South Korea – The U.N. food agency has warned that millions of North Koreans could face starvation, but a South Korean official said Thursday that Seoul has not decided whether to respond to a request for food aid to the communist country.
Around 2.7 million people on North Korea’s west coast will run out of food in October, the World Food Program said in a report released on Tuesday.
North Korea has relied on aid to help feed its 23 million people since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its centrally controlled economy in the mid-1990s. Famine is believed to have killed 2 million people. The country’s food shortage has worsened this year following devastating floods in 2007.
The WFP also said the food shortages have especially affected urban households in areas with low industrial activity due to higher food prices, reductions in public food rations and lower employment.

Posted by: No Centrally Controlled Economy | October 23, 2008, 3:31 am 3:31 am

Well, I haven’t given up my vote to Obama yet. I don’t think I will. I am a die hard Hillary supporter. I see a vote for Obama as a nail in the Clinton political coffin. If Obama wins, Hillary can’t run for 8 years. If McCain wins, we can bring Hillary back in 4 years and she will win, I just know it. “Uncle Tedddy Kennedy” pulled every trick he could find, out of his hat, to get his Obama puppet in place. That whole business with Florida and Michican was rigged by the democrats to get Hillary out of the way.
A vote for McCain is a chance for Hillary in 4 years.
The democrats want a puppet in the white house, not an intelligent woman, with a mind of her own running things. If they had Hillary, first – there would be no contest,she would win. Second, there would be no power over her, which is a problem for the democratic party. The only reason Obama is where he is, is because the democrats want a person they can control, a puppet. They figured, yeah, put Obama in the running, he’ll get the black vote, the young vote and now the senior vote with that whole “Oh my granny is sick” bid. Emotional blackmail, works everytime.
The democrats needed a “monkey see, monkey do” puppet and that is what they have in Obama. He doesn’t need experience, he won’t really be running things anyway. So women don’t be swayed. Vote for McCain, so we can get our lady Hillary Clinton in the White House in 4 years!!!!

Posted by: Deann | October 23, 2008, 6:41 am 6:41 am

PLEASE DEMOCRATES, PLEASE READ THIS FROM A HIGH RANKING DEMOCRATE, A MAN WHO IS KNOW FAR AND WIDE AS A STAUNCH DEMOCRATE, JUST READ IT AND SEE HIS VIEW! IT’S CALLED:
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
REMEMBER, this was written by a Democrat….
http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html
*** I wonder how many Democrates will actualy care what one of thier owns states in his opinion piece ??? Do you even care anymore to read an un-biased reporter do his JOB…

Posted by: Mark Garnett | October 23, 2008, 8:09 am 8:09 am

McCain + G. Gordon Liddy, convicted multiple felon = best pals
G.Gordon Liddy
G.Gordon Liddy
G.Gordon Liddy
G.Gordon Liddy
G.Gordon Liddy
G.Gordon Liddy
G.Gordon Liddy

Posted by: William J. LePetomaine | October 23, 2008, 9:53 am 9:53 am

G. Gordon Liddy, “enemy of democracy”
Chicago Tribune, 10/23/08

Posted by: William J. LePetomaine | October 23, 2008, 9:54 am 9:54 am

Time to be more patriotic, you rich selfish buggers, and start spreading YOUR wealth.
http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/83/58.php
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the ELIMINATION of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.
House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.
Hmm …. “a system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.” That sounds very, very familiar, doesn’t it? Don’t we already do this with Social Security?
That means your employer can no longer write off their contributions to your 401(k), and your capital gains would be TAXABLE year-on-year. In other words, it becomes just another investment or savings account, with no tax benefit at all, and no employer contribution. Instead, Uncle Sam would give you your “matching” funds — up to a whopping $600 per year! Whoopee!
Maybe you’ll be lucky, and they’ll have Franklin Raines running the agency issuing those bonds.
The Democrats want to end the private retirement system that has allowed Americans to become a vast investor class and put them back in thrall of the federal government. This is nothing more than a second welfare system that would sit on top of the crumbling Social Security entitlement. It would leave the American working and middle classes with no retirement option other than a government handout.
If the Democrats control both Congress and the White House, kiss your 401(k)s goodbye.

Posted by: Democrats are Coming for Your 401k | October 23, 2008, 9:55 am 9:55 am

Perhaps Senator Obama would appreciate this speech by JFK:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/o-captain-my-captain/

Posted by: dragon | October 23, 2008, 9:56 am 9:56 am

Highly recommended! All about this you can watch here: http://tozm.com/wiD
Better to see once than a thousand times to hear or read!

Posted by: david | October 23, 2008, 10:03 am 10:03 am

McCain’s good friend and benefactor, convicted multiple felon G.Gordon Liddy after the 1993 Waco raid:
“Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Kill the sons of bi*ches.”
Why has McCain not disavowed this criminal?

Posted by: William J. LePetomaine | October 23, 2008, 10:11 am 10:11 am

I see so many comments Obama raises Txes for America. Not so total US taxes would be reduced until either plan.
COPIED FROM TAX POLICY CENTER-
The Obama plan would reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income families, but raise them significantly for high-bracket taxpayers (see Figure 2). By 2012, middle-income taxpayers would see their after-tax income rise by about 5 percent, or nearly $2,200 annually. Those in the top 1 percent would face a $19,000 average tax increase—a 1.5 percent reduction in after-tax income.
McCain would lift after-tax incomes an average of about 3 percent, or $1,400 annually, for middle-income taxpayers by 2012. But, in sharp contrast to Obama, he would cut taxes for those in the top 1% by more than $125,000, raising their after-tax income an average 9.5 percent.
YOU MAY GO TO THEIR WEBSITE
FOLLOW THIS LINK – HOPE IT GOES THROUGH ABC NEWS EMAIL SITE
http://womeninbusiness.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=womeninbusiness&cdn=money&tm=18&f=11&su=p560.7.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411750_updated_candidates_summary.pdf
Do get educated and hope this helps. Just remember I am average worker now since my husband died. Prior to this we were in top bracket.
I have a hard time when John McCain called me “The Welfare Citizen.” I am medical professional and have worked my whole life. I am insulted at his claims!!

Posted by: Sharonklim | October 23, 2008, 6:02 pm 6:02 pm

Agree with Joe Biden’s stump speech: after this campaign we’ll all need a “purple heart”. (The pitiful young woman who had a “B” for Barack cut into her cheek and her eyes blackened by the Obama supporter robbing her at the ATM has earned hers for sure). If you haven’t heard about it, he came back and cut her and beat her after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Posted by: XKarenX | October 23, 2008, 8:12 pm 8:12 pm

Agree with Joe Biden’s stump speech on one thing: after this campaign we’ll all need a “purple heart” it’s been so gruelling. (The pitiful young woman who had a “B” for Barack cut into her cheek and her eyes blackened by the Obama supporter robbing her at the ATM has earned hers for sure). If you haven’t heard about it, he came back and cut her and beat her after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Posted by: XKarenX | October 23, 2008, 8:14 pm 8:14 pm

John McCain and Sarah Palin are the worst combination the republicans could have chosen as presidential and vice presidential candidates. Ignorance can be cured by education, stupidity unfortunately is an uncurable defect. both of these candidates suffer from the latter (stupidity).

Posted by: walkerel2000 | October 23, 2008, 8:56 pm 8:56 pm

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