If you can't get up for voting in this election, you'd better check your heartbeat. What a joy to see unprecedented thousands of citizens standing up to be counted, and FINALLY saying "enough!" And their voices will be heard this time. No more elections stolen by voter purges and disenfranchisement tactics.
...no more buying off the middle class with a few bucks in tax cuts while the rich get huge tax breaks and insider access to government policy making.
...no more government to the highest special interest bidder.
...no more lying, fear mongering and trumped-up unprovoked wars.
...no more torture disguised and trivialized by euphemistic terminology (e.g., "enhanced interrogation techniques").
...no more suspending our Constitutional rights for "security reasons" (real or imaginary)....no more trickle down economy while jobs are shipped overseas.
...no more ignorant fiddling while Rome burns from global warming and myopic energy policies....and the list goes on.
In 8 short years, the neo-conservative overlords of the GOP have taken over a principled and venerable political party and savaged America - and in the process left this generation - and probably the next - in a hole from which we will be fortunate to extricate ourselves. America is seriously wounded. But we can't afford to simply bemoan these dire straits. WE, THE PEOPLE, must act NOW to reverse the damage the Neo-Con GOP has done to our economy, our environment, our Constitution, our Federal budget and our international reputation. We must not get complacent in these last days of the 2008 campaign.
Don't think that Obama has this election in the bag. Please vote!! Vote Barack Obama for President and, yes, vote the entire Democratic ticket to send a message that hard working Americans are committed to rising from the ashes of the Bush-McCain National Morass, to restore American values, prosperity and strength...and to regain our formerly respected position in the community of nations. Your vote is the first and most important step in that direction.
In the final Presidential debate John McCain signalled his latest desperate tactic to take the election. And this one might just do it. It works this way: You find some minor irregularity in voter registration activity, then assert it to be part of a huge conspiracy to commit voter fraud. Use that assertion as pretext for encouraging sympathetic Republican state voting authorities - and for forcing unsympathetic authorities, as attempted in Ohio, through legal action - to purge as many new registrations as possible across the nation. This works to the advantage of the GOP since new registrations have generally been more Democratic this year. Meanwhile you unleash a army of intimidators to target low income folks (who tend to vote Democratic) with calls and flyers suggesting that if you show up to vote on election day and have any outstanding parking tickets, you will be arrested. Why would McCain do this? Because it worked well for Bush in 2000 and was even more effective in the 2004 election. So we can expect the Republicans will keep doing it until it ceases to win elections for them.
John McCain asserts that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a grassroots group that has registered hundreds of thousands of new voters, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Except ACORN has not committed any fraud, in fact it was ACORN itself that first discovered the suspected bogus registration forms and notified the respective state voter authorities. By law ACORN must submit all completed voter registration forms to the states, even if they suspect some are bogus. So ACORN ethically pointed out the suspect forms. It is, of course, highly unlikely any of those questionable registrations could ever have resulted in fraudulent votes being cast anyway. Imagine someone showing up at the polls saying he was Mickey Mouse being allowed to cast a vote. Mandatory ID checks and poll watchers from both parties provide motivated and highly effective safeguards.
Here in Colorado, Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican, is working hard to disallow thousands of new registrations. It is interesting to note that through his efforts to disenfranchise new voters Coffman himself gains an advantage over his Democratic Congressional opponent, Hank Eng. How do you spell, "conflict of interest?" Where is the media scrutiny of these tactics? The GOP appears to have saved this strategy for the final weeks of the campaign so there will be little time to stop them before election day.
So good people of America, I ask, which is the greater threat to destroying the very "fabric of democracy" as John McCain asserts - some bogus registration forms which will not result in any fraudulent ballots being cast or a systematic campaign of voter intimidation and massive purges of voters the GOP has identified as likely to vote Democratic?
The ballot (the right to choose one's leaders and to hold them accountable) is the most fundamental right of a citizen in a democracy. Yet John McCain and his Bush-Rove campaign tacticians seem to believe some citizens (specifically, those likely to vote for his opponent) should NOT be allowed to exercise that most fundamental right of Americans. That sure makes McCain's "Country First" campaign slogan seem like a cynical, hollow promise.
Well folks it's official: John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin are waging a holy war against Muslims. They have apparently forgotten that those who attacked us in 2001 are radical fringe Islamists, not mainstream Muslims. McCain and Palin have forgotten that those same radical fringe Islamists have killed far more Muslims than non-Muslim people. McCain and Palin have forgotten that our enemy, Al Qaeda, is also the enemy of mainstream Islam. Instead the McCain-Palin campaign is engaging in blatant religious and racial stereotyping; exhorting Americans to be afraid of Senator Obama because his middle name is Hussein and suggesting Obama has ties to terrorists. Can any thinking America believe such preposterous innuendo and fear-mongering? Amazingly, this kind of tactic has succeeded before. Is this the "change" that John McCain has promised us? Sorry, but this is just more of the Bush-Rove Big Lie machine operation that has brought America the last 8 years of economic pain and international shame.
It is high time for America to send a message to those who use fear, lies and religious and racial stereotyping as weapons against ideas and truth to steal elections. Tell them we vote for truth, ethics and progress! Send the McCain-Palin-Rove campaign and their "snake oil" sales apparatus packing by voting for Obama-Biden for the Change We Need!! Our future - and our children's - depends on it.
Cindy McCain is absolutely right when she says this is the "dirtiest campaign in American history." However, it's not the Obama campaign that's slinging the most despicable lies and innuendos. It's the McCain campaign, with it's scurrilous attempts - especially in their recent utter desperation - to paint Senator Obama as a muslim and a friend of terrorists. Both of these images are fabrications of McCain's "Karl Rove Big Lie Machine" tactics that worked so well for George Bush in 2000 and 2004.
Ironically, it seems the McCain-Palin campaign has taken to behaving more like a terrorist organization, inciting their faithful with inflammatory racist lies. Anti-Obama shouts of "terrorist," "socialist," and even "kill him" have been reported by the media at McCain-Palin rallies, and fortunately the FBI is now watching. Meanwhile, Sen. Obama is staying rational and continuing a constructive conversation with America about how we are going to get out of the horrible mess that the Bush-McCain ideology has brought down upon us all.
Sen. McCain: Please turn off the Big Lie Machine and return to a campaign that does justice to the people of this great Nation...one that respects our intelligence to choose our next President based on truth. If you don't trust the AMERICAN PEOPLE to choose based on truth, how can you expect Americans to trust YOU with the most solumn duties and awesome power of the Presidency?
If America had any doubts that right wing extremists have hijacked the formerly venerable Republican Party, one need look no further than any McCain-Palin political rally this week. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have jumped on the old Joe McCarthy tactics of baseless character attacks, outright lies and not-so-subtle innuendo. They are whipping up their supporters with racist code words and outrageous insinuations that Senator Obama is (a) a muslim (psst, his middle name is Hussein), (b) unpatriotic and un-American (psst, he disagrees with Bush-McCain policies), (c) a dangerous "fringe" person (psst, he's a "socialist") and (d) - the most despicable lie of them all - a friend of terrorists (psst, he's in cahoots with a former Weather Underground member).
It is very alarming to see this happening in America, our beloved land of the free, home of the brave! These are the most cowardly political attacks most Americans have ever seen...and they are coming from people who claim to care about preserving and protecting our democracy. More and more, however, McCain and Palin are inciting the loony right wing fringe to start vocalizing the most horrible and racist things about Senator Obama at their rallies. And this is supposed to pass for political discourse? This week's McCain-Palin rallies look and sound more like those frenzied 1930s Nazi Party rallies that brought Hitler to power.
This is a very dangerous, irresponsible tactic for McCain to employ, and it's only a matter of time before those who are incited to publically vocalize those terrible mob-mentality thoughts, will try to act on them. This is not the Republican Party your parents knew and loved, my friends, not the "Grand Old Party" of Lincoln, or even of Reagan. Based on what we've seen and heard this week, it's now the Nationalist-Republican Neo-Nazi Party. Perhaps real Republicans can take back their Party...but it looks like that day that will have to wait until John McCain loosens his grip on it. Sad, very sad for the Republican Party and for America.
Eight years of Bush-Rove GOP control have brought America to the breaking point: the Katrina debacle and federal incompetence; $4.00/gal gas; a $2 Trillion dollar war without strategy or end; 6+% unemployment; a crashing banking industry and crushing housing market; climate crisis; assault on the US Constitution; government to the highest bidder; and free passes for elite GOP buddies to operate above/outside the law. Can your family survive more of that??Well, the Mockingbird Mavericks are here to give you more…lots more war, debt, exported jobs, poverty, unemployment, and Big Brother government that will take away a woman’s right to choose. The Karl Rove Big Lie Machine is working at warp speed to shape a McCain/Palin image that bears no resemblance to who the they really are or what they want to do to America. They preach “family values”…but what their ads don’t tell you is it’s really only THEIR wealthy elite families they value. No abortions, no contraception, no exceptions! No economic safety net for families in trouble (after all, doesn’t everyone who matters in America already have a golden parachute for a down market?). Tax breaks for special interests and the wealthiest, because they believe that increasing wealth for those at the top will someday create prosperity that will trickle down to those masses of “little people” in America. And they try to brand Obama as the elitist candidate…what a cruel, cynical joke on America! The Mockingbird Mavs have replaced straight talk with trash talk, sneering down on and mocking those who work to help communities in crisis. Graphic 9/11 footage was exploited at the GOP Convention for shock value. Speaker after speaker from the reactionary right told us to fear, hate, mistrust all but “enlightened” Republicans. Their arrogant Alaskan, Sarah Palin, potentially one heartbeat from the presidency, promotes her image as a plain-speaking regular American “hockey mom” - but fired her city librarian because she wouldn't agree to ban books Sarah didn’t like. She doesn't think we have any responsibility in the climate crisis...or perhaps she just doesn't care. She imperiously refuses to meet the press (except under very controlled terms) to answer legitimate questions Americans have about her views and record. How is it possible in our American democracy that such a person can be a seriously considered for the vice presidency? But there she is, John McCain’s incredible pick, as inexperienced in national and international affairs as McCain is experienced in the affairs of the preceding century. She’s a pure-bred product of 40 years of reactionary right cultural engineering. Right here, right now, in our lifetime. This is Karl Rove vaudeville at its best. Mockingbird Mavs McCain and Palin have nothing substantive to run on so are now scavenging Obama’s “change” theme and pretending it's theirs. Their records, however, reflect only more of the same failed Bush policies and worse. When they talk of change as "reform", McCain/Palin don't mean anything close to Obama’s "change we can believe in." Obama’s change means getting our economy humming again, adding jobs, lifting standards of living, developing alternative energy technology and creating international partnerships, not dismantling America's government for anything but padding special interests and waging war. Obama’s change means re-establishing ethical behavior and the rule of law, reining in special interests and fixing the mortgage crisis, not protecting wealthy GOP cronies at the expense of America's workers and unemployed. Obama’s change means respecting and honoring the US Constitution, not trampling our freedoms of speech, assembly, privacy and choice. Obama seeks to lead America out of this mess, not backward into more of the same.Are the Mockingbird Mavs the “strong leaders” Karl Rove would have us believe or are they mere knee-jerk “kick-a$$” reactionaries? The frightening truth is that the McCain/Palin ticket is the culmination of the reactionary right's assault on America's values of tolerance, empathy and social responsibility. It seems incredible, but the Rove Big Lie Machine is again churning out the politics of fear to scare us into believing a false image. McCain-Palin will not save America; they haven’t a clue how to fix the mess they got us into. If elected, they will squander perhaps our last chance to solve America’s serious economic problems, finish the bankrupting of our treasury and culture and continue America’s slide from greatness to “has-been” status. Now THAT’s an outcome to legitimately fear; yes fear, an emotion the Rove Big Lie Machine understands!
Barack Obama has been running an historic campaign for change in America. At first the Republicans attacked him for lacking substance in his appeals for a return to traditional values of hard work, tolerance, empathy and the concept of government as protector of those values. However, since the Republicans have no idea how to solve the mess that 8 years of Bush-Cheney "leadership" has visited upon America, they've just discovered they are for change too. They aren't yet sure what kind of change, just that it will be different somewhat from what got us in this mess. Oh yes, and their "leadership" will be tougher and more resolute and inevitably lead us to victory. As if national governance and international responsibilities can be managed like a Friday night football game.
The Republicans can keep their pompons, I have decided I'm voting for the Obama brand of change. For starters, Senator Obama's change means restoring honesty and integrity to government processes and honest talk to the American people. It means repairing the horrendous damage done to our economy, the environment, our military, the Constitution, the federal treasury and US credibility and prestige. It means emphasizing our common bonds and common interests in a strong healthy America, not magnifying our differences and exploiting our fears. It means unifying, not dividing us. It means service in our government should be a noble calling to protect our citizens and our way of life...not to plunder America on behalf of special interests.
The Republicans are not the Grand Old Party they used to be. That Party, coming under the control of the extreme right wing, is no longer the party of fiscal restraint...now they are just government to the highest bidder - opening the taxpayers' treasury to their corporate buddies by outsourcing government functions they are too incompetent, uncaring or unwilling to perform. However, this Party of Rove, Bush, McCain and, lately, Palin is darned good at soundbites...like these: We would never invade a nation without provocation, but we might employ a "doctrine of pre-emption" to take over a country that might have some oil we could use (provided we can manufacture some intel to convince folks there is a threat). Or, we absolutely do not "torture," we use "enhanced interrogation techniques."
I am enthusiastic about voting for Obama's version of change. Frankly, I've had a belly full of Bush-Cheney and their ilk. And I've seen enough specifics of what Obama proposes to change that I can support it gladly. I want to go after al Qaida and their protectors, not tragically waste American lives in a war that had nothing to do with defeating those who attacked us in 2001! I want to stop feeling ashamed to be an American and I want America to again be the tolerant, prosperous, caring, respected country we used to aspire to be. I want America to listen to its allies, and when we speak I want America to be believed by our friends and foes alike.
I am convinced that Senator Obama and the honest and dedicated braintrust he will assemble will start the arduous process of restoring America's economy, vitality and prestige. It will be change that's good for America and the world; yes, "change I can believe in"...and it's way overdue.
Well America, you saw it on your TVs all week...that Grand Old Party - the Republican Party - is apparently filled with old, smug, wealthy white folks...and not much else. They are also apparently very fearful folks. They told us again and again that the world is a very dangerous place today; that we should fear our enemies; we should fear change; we should fear the Democrats; and that John McCain is going to defeat the ‘axis of evil’ and all the other bad guys in this very malevolent, scary world. Are you relieved? Not me, by a long shot. Seems the McCain vision for the future is to continue to start wars as a first- not last-resort, rather than build alliances to apply other forms of pressure to bring “bad actors” to heel. I agree that the world has indeed become a dangerous place, but the bellicose Bush-McCain approach has unfortunately made the world far more, not less, dangerous and polarized.
The Bush-McCain partisans run from their own record of eight years of government waste and mismanagement, taking the Clinton surplus into unprecedented deficit, running up a nearly $10 TRILLION national debt, then shamelessly pointing the finger at what they call "tax and spend" Democrats. That’s logical – NOT! Do they really think they can convince us that they know best by just repeating smoothly crafted lies again and again...just like they did in taking us to war in Iraq? I hope the Bush years have taught us all to beware when we hear those smug Karl Rove Big Lies. Whenever Americans dare ask how the Bush-McCain approach to continue throwing American lives and national treasure into unnecessary wars squares with fixing our depleted, broken economy, they just repeat the mantra that they are great leaders and always put America first. Sure, right...they just left out a few adjectives…they mean they always put right-wing, wealthy America first.
The McCain camp asserts experience in national office is crucial in this campaign. Then McCain picks a relatively unknown, untested nominee for VP, who until recently, admitted she didn't really know what the Vice President of the United States does. Now there’s a confidence builder! A McCain win would put Governor Palin but a 72 year old heartbeat away from the Presidency…and she has zero U.S. Federal or international experience. Sure makes me wonder why John McCain would take such a cavalier, riverboat gambler approach to his first big decision as a presidential nominee. He must think America can be fooled once more into trusting the oligarchs with the fruits of hard working Americans’ blood, sweat and tears. With so much at stake for our economy, for our credibility in the world community, and for our children let's pray that John McCain doesn’t know us very well!
