I am totally opposed to the bailout. Why should we spend our money to prop up faulty institutions rather than create real solutions. Our economy is sick to the foundation. We need to face this.
If Bush and his cronies are right and not bailing these institutions out will lead to job loss, loss of retirement funds, etc., then let it happen so we aren't just covering up the problem once more.
If that happens, take the same money and bailout the people who lose jobs and whose retirement funds are ruined, etc. Create jobs for alternative energy solutions, for example, and employ those people. Then start to focus on the deeper problems.
So it takes Dean Baker, a columnist from England's Guardian, to actually point out the obvious: McCain/Palin's current campaign of lies is meant to purposefully keep Obama off-track from talking about the REALLY important issue: The dismantling of healthcare and Social Security as we know it:
Dean Bakerguardian.co.uk, Monday September 15 2008 17:00 BST
The McCain-Palin ticket has developed an interesting campaign strategy. They don't want the public to see their plans to dismantle social security, Medicare and the system of employer-provided healthcare. To distract people from these policies that will directly affect their lives they are taking politics to new lows.Among the highlights for the cesspool two is the nonsense that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a barnyard animal when he used the old expression "putting lipstick on a pig". Then John McCain told us that he approved of an ad calling Obama a sexual pervert. These two are happy to throw out any sort of vile lie because the more time the media and the public spend focusing on this garbage, the less time they will have to notice that McCain wants to privatise and cut their social security. McCain thinks that America's workers have it too easy when they retire. He wants them to retire later and have less money when they do.In addition to cutting social security, he is also likely to cut Medicare benefits. He has railed about "entitlements" in the past, and because of our broken healthcare system, Medicare is the most rapidly growing entitlement. McCain has also supported measures that increase the cost of Medicare by subsidising private insurers that take part in the programme. In other words, McCain is likely to reduce Medicare benefits in order to increase the profits of private insurers.McCain has also explicitly targeted the system of employer-based health insurance through which most non-elderly people get their coverage. McCain proposes to take away the tax deduction for employer-provided insurance, a seeming violation of his no-tax-increase pledge. (McCain would provide a $2,500 tax credit for buying insurance.) Under McCain's plan, the money that employers pay for health insurance would be taxed in the same way as money paid in wages. That means that workers would pay taxes on money that they never see in their paycheques. When insurers increase their premiums, employers would have to pull more money out of workers paycheques for taxes, even if they covered the full cost of the premium hike. This means that workers see their take-home pay cut every time insurers raise premiums.As an employer, I can guarantee that this will create a big headache and no doubt lead many employers to just drop health insurance coverage. Dealing with insurance companies is bad enough. Having to constantly explain to your workers why their pay is falling is too much. McCain's plan will soon destroy the system of employer-based insurance, which is undoubtedly its intention. Before long, the vast majority of people will have to shop individually for their healthcare. This will lead to enormous waste of time as tens of millions of families will have to ask questions like: "Do you want the plan that's good on cancer but bad on heart disease, or the plan that's bad on cancer but good on heart disease?" Even worse, the people who have serious health problems and most need insurance will find it extremely expensive, if not impossible, to get insurance coverage. See, insurance companies don't like to insure sick people. They lose money on them. They have no choice if they get an employer-based pool that includes mostly healthy people, but also some with health problems. If insurers get to choose their customers individually, as they would under McCain's plan, then they can either refuse coverage or set exorbitant premiums for anyone with a serious health condition. In other words, McCain's system of individual insurance is just great for anyone who doesn't really need insurance.Anyhow, if the McCain-Palin ticket hadn't dragged this campaign into the gutter, then we would be having a serious debate right now over their plans to eliminate employer-provided healthcare. We would also have a debate over their plans for Medicare and social security. We might hear more about their budget plans, including their intention to extend President Bush's tax cuts to the richest people in the country.But the McCain-Palin positions on these issues are not popular. If the public clearly understood what they are proposing, they would lose in a landslide. Therefore, they are running a cesspool campaign to distract the public.
The McCain-Palin ticket has developed an interesting campaign strategy. They don't want the public to see their plans to dismantle social security, Medicare and the system of employer-provided healthcare. To distract people from these policies that will directly affect their lives they are taking politics to new lows.
Among the highlights for the cesspool two is the nonsense that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a barnyard animal when he used the old expression "putting lipstick on a pig". Then John McCain told us that he approved of an ad calling Obama a sexual pervert.
These two are happy to throw out any sort of vile lie because the more time the media and the public spend focusing on this garbage, the less time they will have to notice that McCain wants to privatise and cut their social security. McCain thinks that America's workers have it too easy when they retire. He wants them to retire later and have less money when they do.
In addition to cutting social security, he is also likely to cut Medicare benefits. He has railed about "entitlements" in the past, and because of our broken healthcare system, Medicare is the most rapidly growing entitlement. McCain has also supported measures that increase the cost of Medicare by subsidising private insurers that take part in the programme. In other words, McCain is likely to reduce Medicare benefits in order to increase the profits of private insurers.
McCain has also explicitly targeted the system of employer-based health insurance through which most non-elderly people get their coverage. McCain proposes to take away the tax deduction for employer-provided insurance, a seeming violation of his no-tax-increase pledge. (McCain would provide a $2,500 tax credit for buying insurance.)
Under McCain's plan, the money that employers pay for health insurance would be taxed in the same way as money paid in wages. That means that workers would pay taxes on money that they never see in their paycheques. When insurers increase their premiums, employers would have to pull more money out of workers paycheques for taxes, even if they covered the full cost of the premium hike. This means that workers see their take-home pay cut every time insurers raise premiums.
As an employer, I can guarantee that this will create a big headache and no doubt lead many employers to just drop health insurance coverage. Dealing with insurance companies is bad enough. Having to constantly explain to your workers why their pay is falling is too much.
McCain's plan will soon destroy the system of employer-based insurance, which is undoubtedly its intention. Before long, the vast majority of people will have to shop individually for their healthcare. This will lead to enormous waste of time as tens of millions of families will have to ask questions like: "Do you want the plan that's good on cancer but bad on heart disease, or the plan that's bad on cancer but good on heart disease?"
Even worse, the people who have serious health problems and most need insurance will find it extremely expensive, if not impossible, to get insurance coverage. See, insurance companies don't like to insure sick people. They lose money on them. They have no choice if they get an employer-based pool that includes mostly healthy people, but also some with health problems.
If insurers get to choose their customers individually, as they would under McCain's plan, then they can either refuse coverage or set exorbitant premiums for anyone with a serious health condition. In other words, McCain's system of individual insurance is just great for anyone who doesn't really need insurance.
Anyhow, if the McCain-Palin ticket hadn't dragged this campaign into the gutter, then we would be having a serious debate right now over their plans to eliminate employer-provided healthcare. We would also have a debate over their plans for Medicare and social security. We might hear more about their budget plans, including their intention to extend President Bush's tax cuts to the richest people in the country.
But the McCain-Palin positions on these issues are not popular. If the public clearly understood what they are proposing, they would lose in a landslide.
Therefore, they are running a cesspool campaign to distract the public.
Here is the original article at the Guardian. America needs to wake up--we need to get the word out that a McCain presidency means we will lose what healthcare we have! Spread the word!
When the NSA and Blue State Digital decided to isolate my blog, they didn't fully comprehend the problems they would cause themselves later on.
Now they understand the issues.
l will now expose the methods by which Blue State Digital have mismanaged my blogs and the methods by which the NSA and CIA have interferred with the political campaign of Barack Obama.
NSA and Blue State Digital staff involved better step down now and explain to Barack what was done...
I am going to hunt you down and hold you accountable when Barack is President and Cheyney and Bush, that goes for you too.
Mess with a political campaign that has invited the people to be involved and you have messed with the people themselves.
http://www.olympathon.org - Coming Soon- For the record:
Ben Darian Buchanan (ne: Benedict Armand Lusby) assisted the Barack Obama campaign in the lead up to Super Tuesday by running the NONEVADA (non-evader) campaign which prevented dirty tricks seen in the Nevada primary from being repeated at the critical Super Tuesday votes which saw Barack take the high ground definitively. By alerting intrenched Democrat's supporting Hillary that mobile phones and video cameras were going to be used to find instances of racism, 'Single candidate only tables' and dirty tactics (as seen in Nevada) the opposition kept their heads down, allowing Barack a clear run to the lead. As Bush and Cheyney saw Barack was the likely contender they ordered additional NSA and CIA resources to be deployed to 'prevent threats' that they perceived were counter to _their_ interests from utilizing the MyBO website (my.barackobama.com). The reason I was targetted for isolation was because Bush and Cheyney were involved in intellectual property theft from me when I worked at 3G Lab in Cambridge, UK in 2001 and 2002. Technologies I created there were stolen by GitWit (later Wildseed) corporation and renamed 'Smartskins', funded by ex-Microsoft and McCaw Cellular venture capitalists at Ignition Venture Partners and then sold to AOL. AOL later spun off the division for a loss after due dilligence turned up the patent theft attempts which Ignition persisted with for several years, even after French intelligence services did a deal which compromised the ability for the USA, UK and EU and handed the patent illegally to Nokia through a pre-dated 2000 filing to counter the US attempt at a pre-dated 2001 filing (which was later knocked back). The real invention date was December 2001. The claimed Nokia patent supposedly made by two UK and one German inventor was not entered into the UK patent system until 2004. Bush, Cheyney, Blair, Brown and Sarkozy are all implicated in the patent matter and have been struggling to maintain isolation of the case from entering the media, particularly since I came to China in 2006 and am no longer under British or colonial jurisdiction. I joined the Obama campaign with the knowledge to use the web to assist his campaign and did just that. I was co-founder of www.jboss.com and www.jboss.org in 1999 and have considerable technology expertise. I used this expertise and my repeated readings of the Art of War to determine several small but key strategies to help Barack and Michelle at key times during this campaign. I will be making sure that the actions of Blue State Digital and the NSA are known to the world and known to Barack and Michelle when Barack is president. This cannot be countered. Your best option if you have been involved in isolating my blog accounts is to now make a full disclosure and CYA. My cousin is a judge in the USA, my sister is a lawyer in the USA. I will be following through on the patent matter and on the attempts to undermine and isolate me after the patent theft occurred. All those involved owe me considerable compensation. That now includes Blue State Digital as well as Ignition Venture Partners, Wildseed, QUALLCOM, AOL and Nokia. The civil case for damages will be separate from the damages owed by the USA, UK, France and EU for their actions which involved theft not only from me but from 3i and all its investors and Hutchison 3G (3) and all its investors.
Next time you think to isolate someone, be aware WHO you are attempting to isolate!
There are currently 747 groups on My.BarackObama.com which have donation thermometers showing $1 or more in donations.
Here are the top 10 when ranked by per-capita donations:
Here are the top 10:
We get a ton of questions at BayAreaForObama.com requesting information about the location of local Obama offices. Some people are looking to volunteer but most simply want to pick up Obama gear.So, we put together a web page listing local Obama offices at: http://www.bayareaforobama.com/offices.htmlLet us know if you see any errors. And especially let us know if we omitted any local offices.Obama '08!
- Dem
My activity index just dropped from a ten to a one!!!! No idea why!!!
anyway....
1. Register voters - Please be aware of all the rules and regulations when registering voters.2. Canvass - Contact your local Obama office or your local democratic party office to see how you can volunteer to canvass neighborhoods.3. Make phone calls - You can call Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. Be aware of their voting rules as well. Remember to stress Unity because Hillary supporters are now on our list. The campaign is need of those who speak fluent Spanish to make calls and register voters. If you know of anyone who can and are willing to help, have them sign up here and volunteer. Here's the link to the phonemap:Link If you are not comfortable making calls, find a blogger who will make them for you for a small donation to the FR pages.4. Host an event - These are great events for undecideds and republicans turned Obamacans. With the convention coming up, this is a great way to celebrate history and make new friends.5. Don't forget to fight the email smears with our site fightthesmears.com and factcheck.org. These are great debunking sites.6. Don't forget to email MSM. This email campaign has worked wonders.7. If you answered yes to most of the above suggestions, keep up the good work. If you answered no, I have laid out some of the things you can do to help in your own community. 8. Take November 4th off. Volunteer to be a precinct captain or poll watcher. If you are an attorney or know someone who is an Obama supporter, please have them sign up. Here's the link for the attorney's. http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/vpcintro
9. Last but not least. Don't forget to donate. Donate here and the DNC. You can buy gear as well and it counts as a donation.
If you have more suggestions please add them as suggestions to the post.
My profound gratitude to the IT folks maintaining this website. Thank you very much for listening, for constructing solutions and your enormous dedication to make this tool work.
Aside from the ease of navigating this as a social network tool, it is quite easy to blog. After writing the blog, it allows me to preview what I wrote, edit it and a keystroke later, publish the blog. It could not be any simpler. My only wish is that it allows me to paste digital photos that I take of events. Is there a tutorial for this for those of us who live in the dinosaur age, meaning I did not live with computers all my life so it is not intuitive for me to experiment with the website. It takes awhile for me to discover what the website offers. Will a site map help? I am not sure. Will a tutorial help, not sure?
What I am sure is that I am able to navigate this website, study the issues, read enough blogs to be inspired, and read enough news items from all over the US and the world, and I feel updated again. So, I just want to say my thanks for all the hard work you do, Obama IT website folks!
Nearly a full year ago, we unrolled a new points system in My.BarackObama with a pretty simple goal: to make it easier for supporters to measure their impact on the campaign. The more you did on My.BarackObama.com, the more points you would accrue. A phone call got you three points. Hosting an event got you 15.From the start, the emphasis was on quantifying an activist’s contribution to the campaign – not on encouraging people to rack up points for the sake of racking up points. For some people, that wasn’t always clear.Today, we’re proud to roll out an updated points system called the Activity Tracker. The basic idea is the same: the Activity Tracker helps Obama supporters measure the work they’re doing on behalf of the campaign. Whereas before, the points system tried to measure lots of different activities down to a “point value,” the new Activity Tracker simply displays up front exactly what activity users have been engaged in.The second major change is how the system formulates a total number to gauge activity. The previous Points system consolidated all activity into a single cumulative metric, but now, the new Activity Index is time sensitive. The more work you’ve done recently, the higher the number will be.Finally, and maybe most importantly, the source of a given user’s points is now visible to everyone in the My.BarackObama community. Before, all a user could see when looking at another person’s dashboard was a total point value. Now, the full extent of the person’s campaign-related activity is available for other activists to see.And that information is not just displayed on individuals’ dashboard pages – it also displays on groups pages. So within a couple clicks, you can check out your favorite My.BarackObama group and immediately know how active the members are.The new Activity Tracker is just the beginning of some important new additions to the site that are coming up in the next few weeks. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how it works and how it can be improved.
** NOTE: The bug incorrectly calculating activity over the past seven days has been corrected.
I have just received information from another mybo friend that her Barack birthdya fundraiser was also cancelled yesterday at the last minute. She had raised $150.00 for the campaign. I had raised over $200.00 for the campaign. Now none of those pldges will be able to be fulfiled unless they had been prior to yesterday. I will not be able to thank those people for their efforts.
Is someone trying to sabbotage this campaign's fundraising events on mybo.com? It appears that way to us.
No we can't (stay awake)
Yes we can!
One of the largest groups on myBO is the Environmentalists for Obama Group. Unfortunately, something's wrong here - no blog posted, or listserve ever processed, and the listed administrators do not respond to emails.
Would someone please investigate who "owns" this group and why they have shut it down?
FYI I am a physicist, former Chairman of the Energy Committee of the National Security Industrial Association, Chairman of the Energy Advisory Committee for my governor, author of the Solar Energy-Environmental R&D Act of 1975, energy advisor to the Carter White House, president of Maryland Common Cause ... you get the picture.
I smell a rat.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
I had the terrible experience today of having one of my events removed from myBO.com without warning.
I had created a web event called "Blogging for Obama" in which people pledge to post 10 positive and honest blog posts about Obama in the next 10 weeks. The outpouring of interest and support I received was overwhelming, with over 70+ bloggers in 30+ states (and Canada) signing up to blog for Obama. (see the bloggers at http://rubycrushonobama.blogspot.com)
The event was removed from myBO.com because it doesn't have a distinct "date/time" and now I have no way to communicate with all those Obama supporters who want to organize together and participate in this web event from all over the United States. I have emailed repeatedly with no response from the campaign ... maybe someone here knows whom I should contact?
Even before this happened, I thought it would be a good idea to create an event category that would be for "Web events" or "ongoing actions" for Obama. I have participated in (and sponsored) several very successful web events, from getting 26 people to invite their friends to join myBO.com to getting about 30 people to send the link for an inspiring youtube video about Barack.
These web-based and ongoing events are essential to the success of Barack Obama's campaign: they provide a way for people who could never meet in person to collaborate and organize for Barack's presidential campaign. These events are based in the principles of community organizing and seeking common goals between people who might seem at odds: for example, we have Mormons, Republicans, and Hillary supporters blogging for Obama. We;ve had at least 15 first-time bloggers set up their first blog JUST to participate in this event--Barack's campaign is all about listening to the voices of people who have previously been silenced or marginalized...
How can this kind of collective action happen without a way to invite people to participate in ongoing or online events??
I'd love to hear what others have to say, so please comment on this post or feel free to email me (or "barackobama-friend" me) at rubymsw@gmail.com
(or email me if you want to join blogging for Obama--we're not stopping the event--just not posting it on myBO.com)
Hope you are well!!
