MCAIN: "Oil drilling offshore now is vital so we can bridge the gap between imported oil ... and it will reduce the price of a barrel of oil. ... We've got to drill offshore and do it now."THE FACTS: The government estimates that opening the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling "will not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." (www. eia. gov) Even then, it would only increase domestic oil production by 3 percent.Since he refuses to vote for alternative energy unless it involves drilling, I guess this is Sen. McCain's energy plan?I think Sen. Obama was more specific on his tax plan, and the difference between Sen. McCain, who would give his biggest cut to the top 5%. (Tax Policy Center)Sen. Obama also scored points on health care, being more specific on his plan, and being direct to the false statements made about his plan. While Sen. McCain called health care a responsibility, Sen. Obama followed the standard set by Sen. Ted Kennedy calling it a right. Also, making clear that you can keep your private insurance under Sen. Obama's plan. And Sen. McCain thought he scored a point by saying "we still haven't heard how much that fine is", it's because there is no fine! (factcheck. org)As far as foreign policy, Sen. Obama again surprised the 'experts'. Sen. McCain said we should "talk small", so Obama throws Sen. McCain's own comments about Iran, N. Korea, and "Baghdad's next" at him. On Iraq specifically, bringing up the judgment by Sen. McCain to agree taking resources from Afghanistan to invade Iraq was strong. With the reasons for invading Iraq proven false, and Sen. McCain saying it would be cheap and quick, and saying we would "muddle through" in Afghanistan, and now the situation much worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Sen. McCain saying "I know how to get bin Laden" and yet he won't tell anyone? How can McCain attack Obama's judgment after this?So two debates down, and only four weeks until election day, and the only policy Sen. McCain has proven he'd change from the last 8 years is on global warming? Don't get me wrong, I give him credit for this, but there has to be more. We need change in our economic policy and foreign policy right now, and these are the issues that blur Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain together, as well as this notion that the only way to break from oil, is by drilling for more oil? As Sen. Biden said today, "you can't be a maverick, when you've always been a sidekick".
And another debate without Sen. McCain mentioning the 'middle class', not even once?
Gov. Palin has repeatedly said over the last two days that “the surge has succeeded”. That’s interesting, because as of 9/5/08, there are still 146,000 American troops in Iraq, thousands more then before the surge. Military leaders in Iraq are asking to hold off on troop reductions. The U.S. still spends $10 billion a month in Iraq. The Iraqi government still has not taken responsibility, not only to govern their country, but to use a significant amount of their $80 billion surplus towards rebuilding Iraq. So this is success? If it is success, why aren’t we already reducing troop levels, at least down to the pre-surge level? Sen. Obama has said, many times, that the surge has helped to reduced violence, but has not changed the political or economic issues in Iraq that the surge was supposed to support. The fact we still can’t reduce levels is not a sign of success. It has however prevented us from refocusing on Afghanistan, where we left the real war on terror, and where we are now seeing the highest levels of American casualties, a number that has been rising every month. Now U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan are asking for more support, and we don’t have troops available, because we sent them into a country that they should never have been fighting in. So this is success?
With Sen. McCain swinging closer to Sen. Obama's policies everyday, it will be interesting to see how he reacts to the recent news from Pakistan.
The CIA has found connections between officials in Pakistan's Diectorate for Inter- Services Intelligence and militant groups in Pakistan's tribal regions that have caused multiple attacks, including the Indian Embassy bombing in Kabul.
Sen. Obama has always said that the U.S. should expect more from Pakistani leaders and military to better the conditions on the border, to reduce stress on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. This has not been happening, and Sen. Obama has repeatedly raised this issue and asked why.
Sen. McCain would rather stay committed to Iraq, but it will be increasingly hard for him now to ignore the problems we opened the door for, by not finishing the job in Afghanistan and demanding more action from Pakistan.
Looks like another issue Sen. McCain will have to accept Sen. Obama's judgment on.
Much can be said about the many differences in American society, but while most, through breakthroughs in social reasoning, are beginning to decline, our differences in income and quality of life seem to be growing.
How does a corporate CEO get an increase in salary, while the corporation he's running records loses, drops employees, and closes places of employment? Why does 10% of our population control 90% of the wealth? This becomes even worse if you figure in that out off that top 10%, the top 1% controls most of their portion. Why is the gap between, not only the lower class and upper class, but even the middle class(well,what's left of it) and the upper class, growing so rapidly?
I'm not going to pretend to be a financial expert, but I don't think you need to be to see the problem with this distribution of wealth. Power follows money. When you control money and policy, policy will seem to work to your advantage. At least it has for the last 7 years. In 1998, the top 1% had more income than the 100 million in the bottom 40%. The 13,000 richest families have a net worth equivalent to the assests owned by the poorest 20 million people. (Bushwhacked;Molly Ivins,2003)
The Bush Administration has done everything in their power to increase this gap and keep their friends (foreign and domestic) fat-pocketed and happy. In the past 5 years, these differences in income have not been addressed by government, but more like fast-tracked instead. Enough already.
Classism is not an issue that will be fixed with one peice of legislation, but the right vision could get the process started. A process that will take generations to recover, but could show improvment rapidly. It will not be higher wages and more jobs alone, but a whole new mind-set on how we view ourselves and our concerns for our neighbors. This problem is so far along, it will take influence from the top to say enough, and set big business interests aside to lift up the rest of the nation that is suffering on their behalf.
Enter Sen. Obama. This issue of classism is what keeps uptown peole out of urban areas. It seperates the quality of education your child will get, sometimes depending on just which side of the road you live on. But more importantly, it decides who forms policy, and if an official is more concerned with their own interests, as we have seen for the last 7 years, there's a simple answer. Keep the public out of the circle, and ignore the general publics needs. President Bush and his staff successfully accomplished this for two terms.
This is where my faith in Sen. Obama comes in. The fact that he is encouraging the 'middle-class' and social outsiders to get involved, while running a grassroots campaign, and trying to stay as transparent as possible, shows he has faith in his own plans. I'm sure he realizes, as we need to once again, that the working middle-class keeps this nation running. Sen. Obama puts alot on the line by educating 'everyday' people on the way a democracy can work for the people, all people, because now that we are excited about the vision he has, he has to deliver.
His willingness to put himself out there, open and accountable to all of his grassroots supporters, makes me believe he understands the importance of closing the class-ism gap, and there is hope for the working class to pick up this country once again.
I must also mention the 8.5 million AMERICANS living in poverty. I understand their situation well, considering I was a welfare child to a single mother with mental disabilities, which made her unable to work. One thing I learned quick, it doesn't matter why you're poor. Poor is poor, and we were poor. I was able to succeed out of a life with no hope for success, not only because I busted my ass and started working at 14, but also because I was able to take sadness of community hand-outs for Christmas gifts, and know regardless of how the government saw me, I would not let the life I was born into dictate the life I would have. Thankfully, federal help for college allowed me to keep my word to myself. Without education opportunities, how can anyone advance? I know Sen. Obama also knows the importance of helping to educate anyone, regardless of income or family credentials, that truly wants to do better.
We have that high number in poverty, and say America is the land of opportunity. There is a reason for that. It is because we are the land of opportunity, we've just had the wrong people calling the shots. We can make a difference. We can vote for change this election. We can close the gap.
Some quick oil facts. We use 21 million barrels of oil a day. We import a little over 12 million of those. We use 70, yes 70% of our oil (domestic and imported) on transportation. So, a way to get off foreign oil? New transportation technology.
Brazil began changing their automobile industry, and fueling station infrastructure during the oil embargo of the '70', and today they are a completely energy independent state. How? Flex-fuel. In 1974, Brazil imported almost 80% of their oil, while the U.S was importing around 40 %. Now we are at almost 80% imported, while Brazil is at 0%. They now actually export oil.
So what could cause a change with success like that here in America? Not drilling, that is for sure. The Middle East has the largest known reserves in the world. Regardless of how much we pump here in the U.S., sometime in the future we will run out, and who will still be supplying with no problem? Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
That is why we need to be doing everything possible now to promote a new auto industry, oil-free. It will not be easy, no matter how logical the math is. Auto makers will not build flex-fuel cars without fuel stations to access. Likewise, fuel companies will not carry ethanol pumps, if there is not enough demand. Chicken and the egg. This is where government needs to step in and back, financially, at least one side of this equation, to get the transformation started.
Price at the pump is only one problem with oil. Think of the nations that receive our oil money. A large percentage of this money can be traced through NGO's who sponsor, train, and educate the Islamic extremist groups we are at war with. I would rather pay $4 for a gallon of ethanol, that will go into an American farm industry (by the way, ethanol can come from many more options then just corn), then pay $3 for a gallon of gasoline, that could possibly support a group against everything America stands for.
We can't drill forever. We need change now, so we don't face these same problems in future generations. I see no use in fixing a problem if we completly ignore the source.
Sen. Obama had his only foreign trip mishap with the cancelled hospital visit to see injured troops. Thankfully, we have the McCain campaign, as well as Sen. McCain himself, to spin this story, and run with a false ad long enough to make it a problem for them.
Sen. McCain would like the American public to believe Sen. Obama refused to visit troops because the cameras could not follow. The truth is the Obama campaign had no intention of the press coming in on this visit. The media was already aware of this restriction, so claiming that as a reason has absolutley no weight. The Pentagon had a problem with campaign staff, i.e. a retired Air Force General, going inside. The DoD then advised to not visit, to avoid questioning of his motives. Funny that it ends up being the McCain campain responsible for making this visit a political event.
Using injured troops for any caimpain reason, then endorsing the concept in his own interviews and speeches, shows horrible judgment once again from Sen. McCain. You would expect more from a POW vet.
What Sen. McCain doesn't want the public to know is that Sen. Obama has made multiple visits to hospitals, and has seen injured troops, in Iraq, on this foreign trip. The reason you won't hear about these visits (well, that is until Sen. McCain made this an issue) is because Sen. Obama has the respect for our troops to go out of his way, to not make these visits campaign events.
Oh yeah, and Sen. Obama caused the high oil prices too. Hold on tight, these stories from the McCain campaign spin pretty fast.
It's funny to me that Sen. McCain is still attacking Sen. Obama for not admitting the surge was successful. Sen. Obama has said repeatedly that he has never doubted the ability of our troops, only adding that many other agents factor into the level of stability we see in present day Iraq. Sen. McCain considers this a judgment failure on Sen. Obama's part.
What is funny is Sen. McCain, like much of the nation it seems, has forgotten the judgment failure made by himself, as well as many others in Congress, which was to invade Iraq in the first place. Has he ever admitted the mistake he made in voting for the war-swap from Afghanistan to Iraq, or the events that have followed that flawed decision?
Regardless of political interests, we as a nation can't afford to forget. So unless Sen. McCain still believes Iraq has WMD's, or that the Iraqi government had a part in 9/11, or that Iraq at the time was an immediate threat to us here at home, he owes Americans an apology. To say it was more important to invade Iraq then to finish the search for bin Laden, or continue breaking down Taliban and al Qaeda cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is definatly failed judgment. Unfortunately Sen. McCain, this was the most important decision of the 'War on Terror' saga, and you failed, while Sen. Obama was head-of-class.
The surge was Sen. McCain putting a band-aid on a broken bone, that he helped brake, then saying 'all better now', still unable to explain why our troops are there.
If we allow ourselves to forget how naive we were as a nation after the attacks, and how we allowed the Bush crowd to play puppet master with Americans' fears, we allow ourselves to let it happen again. Sen. McCain can not question Sen. Obama's judgment, while being let off the hook for his terrible judgment.
So the next time Sen. McCain decides to flaunt his great 'judgment', remember the reason we had to make a decision with our troops in Iraq. Remember why Sen. McCain thought it was so important to invade Iraq, more important then finding bin Laden(everyone knew he wasn't in Iraq), and his judgment at that crucial turning point.
So now, with the truth about the statements used to support invading Iraq completly destroying the credability of those statements, what was the reasoning behind his 'judgment'?
