Country First

What are you doing for the next 72 hours?

Peter B. — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:50:02 EDT

Right now my family and I are in Philadephia. We canvassed 106 homes today and we will be back out in the suburbs south of Philly tomorrow. Tuesday I am taking off from work and driving back down to Philly to work on getting out the vote on election day. I do not want to wake up Wednesday morning wondering what more I could have done to avoid an Obama loss.

I know you have work, or schools, or kids to watch, but find an hour or two somewhere. If you live in or near a battleground state they need you on the ground right now!. If you can't get to a battleground state physically then you can make calls from your living room to voters in those states to get the vote out. Go to http://my.barackobama.com and create a profile and sign up for one of the neighbor-to-neighbor calling campaigns.

Now back to the issues for a second. Taxes and Socialism. The rubish that has been sprouted by McCain/Palin really needs to be put in its place. They charge that Obama's plan is socialism. They point to 40% [an inaccurate figure] of people who do not pay income taxes but will receive an increased tax credit under Obama's plan. That 40% they talk about actually pay taxes everyday: payroll taxes, sales taxes, taxes on their mortgages, etc. The earned income tax credit -- which is what we are talking about -- was started by no one less than Ronald Regan. Look it up. Increasing the credit - a credit that goes to working Americans who earn low salaries but contribute everyday to our economy and local tax base - is an important step to maintain our economic vitality. This socialism rubish is a cheap shot. We have had a progressive tax scheme since Teddy Roosevelt [another Republican] created it almost 100 years ago. Nothing has changed except for some cheap simplistic rhetoric.

I am at a complete loss why anyone would support McCain's tax program. First 95% of us will get no break. not only that but he will tax our health benefits. So if you earn less than $200,000 if an individual or $250,000 as a couple and you receive health benefits through your employer, MCCAIN WILL TAX YOU MORE! Think about that. If you make less than that threshold then why are you supporting McCain? And if you are making more than that threshold, then how about putting Country First? Even then Obama will only increase taxes by 3% on the top 5% of wage earners, and even then the extra 3% will only apply to that part of income in excess of $250,000. Please, enough of the lies and the simplistic rhetoric. Get off these blogs and research it yourself and see that McCain/Palin are offering a false choice.

Remember, think ahead to Wednesday morning. If he looses, do you want to feel you could have done more? Act now.

Lipstick on a Pig

Peter B. — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:53:44 EDT

The Republicans have some nerve. For the three days of their convention they used every opportunity to insult Democrats: calling us names, turning "liberal" into an epithet, calling everyone with a brain and an education an "elitist," challenging our morals, values and patriotism. Yet the moment Barack invokes an image he has used since the primaries to illustrate how the Republican's cheap rhetoric cannot hide the fact they offer us no solutions for the problems facing the Country, they immediately fly into a tizzy and choose to be offended because the image has a passing similarity to the one offered by Gov. Palin: whereby she described herself as a dog wearing lipstick.

You gotta hand it to the Republicans. They really know how to play this game: call you every name in the book, then claim to be insulted by something you didn't say or mean, and then blame you for all the mudslinging that's been going on. Truly impressive. Now that is the definition of a Pig in Lipstick.

COUNTRY FIRST!

Peter B. — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:17:24 EDT

The hypocrisy of the Republican party continues to astound me. "Country First" is their slogan of choice at the RNC. I totally agree with the sentiment, which is what makes me so upset.

Country comes before your love of unnecessary guns. Country comes before your love of gas guzzling SUV's. Country comes before desperate and unworkable attempts to cling to non-renewable sources of energy. Country comes before keeping yourself comfortable no matter the impact on the environment, the world or those around you. Country comes before expanding the federal debt. Country comes before pandering to the public on taxes. Country comes before outright lying about your opponent's tax plan. Country comes before relying on trickle-down economics despite 20 years of evidence it does not work. Country comes before pretending your economic and tax policies are not the reason we are in a recession. Country comes before labeling Democrats "tax and spend liberals" when it is your party that has grown (by orders of magnitude) the debt, the trade deficit and the size of the Federal Government since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. Country comes before spying on its citizens. Country comes before forcing your religious beliefs down the throats of your fellow citizens. Country comes before continuing an illegal and immoral war in Iraq while our troops in Afghanistan lack sufficient support. Country comes before using a hero, posthumously awarded the medal of honor for his amazing act of selflessness, as a campaign ad.

Country First!

When you have no ideas of your own...

Peter B. — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:15:30 EDT

...then apparently you must deride and lie about the ideas of your opponent. Isn't that what we have seen the last few nights at the RNC? Last night was ridiculous. Speaker after speaker took the podium and outright lied about every part of Obama's plan. And did they offer any substantive alternatives? No. Only two actual policy actions were discussed last night between all the nasty rhetoric: drill now and kill radical islamists. That's it! Both of which are meaningless and misleading. Drill now is not even an option. Do the research on your own, don't take my word for it. It will take in excess of 20 years to produce any oil by way of new drilling efforts. 1) the equipment doesn't exist to do the job; 2) the oil reserves are a guess [lets say even a good guess] and actually need to be located before drilling can begin; and 3) our refinery capacity is not sufficient to turn that oil into usable fuel. Even then the usable reserves would be sufficient for only a few years. It is an absolutely hollow promise, but it made for a nice chant.
As for the radical islamist terrorists -- I really don't care what name you call them, I just care that you have an actual plan to do something about them. During the four nights of the DNC, I suppose they didn't call them "radical islamist terrorists" but they did provide us with a real plan for dealing with them: pull out of Iraq, a war we shouldn't have fought in the first place, and reinforce our forces in Afghanistan where the Taliban [radical islamist terrorists if you like] are regrouping. The Republicans literally offered us no plan. They just called the Democrats [Liberals if you like] a bunch of nasty names and insisted that it would be they [Republicans] who would not back down.
Then they found a clever way to keep the "experience" issue alive despite Gov. Palin's lack of it. They have reframed the debate from lack of foreign policy experience, to lack of executive experience. Leaving aside the obvious hypocrisy inherent in such a subtle and opportunistic shifting of your primary attack on your opponent [keep in mind McCain has no government executive experience], the Governor's executive experience is not particularly impressive. After you get past the "well at least she has some" argument, you realize we are talking about a couple years as a Town Manager for a town of around 5,000 people. A couple years as a mayor of a town with about 6,500 people and a first term governor of a State with a population 1/3 of the Borough of Queens where I live. Why am I supposed to be impressed with that experience when we are talking about the Presidency. Are you honestly impressed by that experience?
Right but then what about Barack? For over 20 years he has been actively engaged in either working with and advocating for the poor, the sick, the laid-off, the workers of this Country, or serving as a legislator at the State and Federal level. This work has been as a representative of a state 19 times the size of Alaska, with a vastly more diverse population than Alaska, and dealing with problems that are a lot more like the ones faced by you and I than by Alaskans. And what value is all of McCain's and Palin's experience if it nevertheless drives them to support failed policies and illegal and immoral wars? I care about actions, not promises. Barack voted against the War with Iraq, even when almost all of his own party supported it. He advocated talking to Iran and Syria, which is exactly what the Bush Admin is starting to do. He called for a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq, which is now exactly what is being discussed. These are facts, not rhetoric. The Republicans are offering a lot of red herrings to obscure the fact that they have few workable ideas and are simply out of touch with the problems facing so many Americans.
Want proof of that claim? Compare the first three nights of the DNC with the first three nights of the RNC. At the Democrats' convention, by this time there had been substantive discussions of health care, the economy, the environment - including development of a "Green Economy" to stimulate job growth, tax policy, foreign policy. However what have we gotten from the Republicans? Drill now and kill radical islamist terrorists. Seriously, that is it, other than some mean nasty "na na na na boo boo" type insults against the Democrats and total misrepresentations of the Democrats plans. Is this what we can expect for all the wisdom and experience McCain has to offer us? Thanks, but no thanks.