Monroe Anderson

McPalin's Ayn Rand economics

            As usual, John McCain and Sarah Palin are attempting to take a good thing and turn it inside out. This time it’s Barack Obama’s tax plan, which would increase income taxes for anyone making a quarter of a million a year and cut income taxes for the other 95 percent of us.
      In explaining his proposal, Obama, the McPalins point out, had the audacity to say that he wanted to “spread the wealth.” 
     McCain labeled that generous notion welfare and socialistic. The Republican wants to make sure that the ubber-rich get ubber richer. Rather than having Big Government take a little of the fat cat money to help the homeless, McCain would rather see swells like him have enough money to assure that their seven, or eight or nine homes are all well maintained and lavishly furnished. Many conservatives are quick to make the pitch that the top one percent of America's richest pay almost 35 percent of the nation's taxes, but they fail to mention that the same richest of the rich own nearly 35 percent of the nation's net worth or that the top 10 percent own 71 percent of the nation's wealth.
      That doesn't count to the GOP. For the last few days, McCain and his trusty Pitbull, Palin, have been on the stump, scolding Obama for being some kind of Robin Hood.
     I suggest that anyone tempted to buy into McPalin’s Ayn Rand economics--The Virtue of Selfishness--read an article about a United Nations report that’s just been posted by the Guardian, a publication out of England. The headline and the first few paragraphs explain exactly why the filthy rich ought to be willing to share the wealth more.
     Check it out.

Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

• By John Vidal, environment editor
• The Guardian,
• Thursday October 23 2008

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

In a survey of 120 major cities, New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya Abidjan and Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable "alert" line used to warn governments.

"High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies," said the report. "[They] create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity."

According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

"In western New York state nearly 40% of the black, Hispanic and mixed-race households earned less than $15,000 compared with 15% of white households. The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the US is far richer than the other two countries," it said.

Disparities of wealth were measured on the "Gini co-efficient", an internationally recognised measure usually only applied to the wealth of countries. The higher the level, the more wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer people.

"It is clear that social tension comes from inequality. The trickle down theory [that wealth starts with the rich] has not delivered. Inequality is not good for anybody," said Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat, in London yesterday. 

To read the rest of the Guardian article, click here.

Of course, the McPalins, the Bushites and other wingnuts may not be the least bit concerned because, according to some of my more paranoid friends, they already have contingency plans to control the teeming, angry masses. The solution, brought to you by FEMA, the Federal government organization that failed New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, is--concentration camps.

Here's a viral video claiming that FEMA has set up concentration camps. My friend, Bob Tutman sent me this video that's been making for rounds for two years now.

Obama at the bottom of his graduating class...what if?

      

    

     I get my fair share of viral emails like everyone else.      But I particularly like this one because it so adroitly flips the script, encouraging us to reconsider circumstances. It's something the right-wingers who so vehemently charge that Barack Obama isn't qualified to run this nation--and that Sarah Palin is--should think about. That applies to the undecided voters who question Obama's skills while blithely accepting McCain's as well:

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched
around?....think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different?
Could racism be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including
a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating
class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair
while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only bec ame addicted to
painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five
were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting
a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis
of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer
distribution?


You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected
reality,do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as
they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:

Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study University of Idaho -
2 semesters -journalism Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in
the land as well as our standing in the world.

You make the call.

    After you give it a little thought.

McCain-Palin appealing to ugly Americans

      Sarah Palin and John McCain are trash talkin and rummagin through the trash bin of the American electorate.

     To provide the Values Voters  with an excuse beyond "he's black," the two Republicans are painting their Democratic opponent as unAmerican and unpatriotic--someone who may be an uncover agent for the Holy Jihad.

      In McCain and Palin's desperate drive to brake their free fall to defeat, they're appealing to the lowest, ugliest elements of our nation's underbelly: what Chris Matthews calls "the low information voters" and  what I call the losers, bigots and haters. On the day the Dow Jones fell another 678 points, McCain and Palin were sticking to their back story about Obama "palling around" with '60s radical Bill Ayers.

     The Arizona senator and Alaska governor's lure is surfacing at their political rallies where their supporters have been overheard yelling "kill him," "off with his head" and "terrorist" when Barack Hussein Obama's name was mentioned.

    Their so-called culture pitch is resonating. Take a look at this video shot at a McCain-Palin political rally in Strongsville, Ohio by Tim, a citizen journalist, on Blogger Interrupted. (Hat tip to Alimum.)

    With 26 days left before we go to the poll booth and with the Gallup tracking poll reporting that Obama is leading 52 to 41 percent, the freshly-minted Mavericks are going to get as ugly as the Americans they're out to attract.

That One won the town hall debate

        

(New York Times photo by Stephen Crowley)

 

     So I’m looking at my savaged, decimated stock portfolio, fearing that I might have to come out of my early semi-retirement to find a job at the very moment when they’re being out-sourced or disappeared before my very eyes, as I hear the McCain campaign tell us that Barack Obama once hung out with Bill Ayers and worshiped with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
      Uh huh. That and $65 will fill up the gas tank in my seven-year old Honda Accord.
     Rather than old, unrelated news, I want to hear specific, concrete plans on how my financial ship will be steered back on course to Treasure Island. 

     I know Obama has a clue. I doubt that John McCain does.
    That’s why I couldn’t wait to watch the second round of the presidential debates. I wanted to see to if McCain was man enough to step to Obama with some in-your-face mud slinging or would he wimp out and pretend that he cared more about Main Street than Wall Street.
    I saw enough at the town hall meeting.
    For one shining moment, the Maverick showed up in Nashville. Right off the bat, he announced that as president he’d have his secretary of state “buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America” and have the banks renegotiate their jacked up rates.

    Once he got that off his chest, McCain rested on the tattered and tired conservative  clichés he’s been spouting ever since he steered the Straight Talk Express off the information highway to bounce along the bumpy back roads in Bush Country.
     McCain insisted on keeping taxes low, particularly for the fat cats. McCain evoked the right-wing idol,  Ronald Reagan’s name--as if that were some sort of white magic that would get us out of the mess eight years of W. misrule have put us in. McCain got stuck on spieling about how he supported the Surge and Obama had not. The Arizona senator also threw out the flag-waving slogans his peeps love to hear but refuse to give any serious thought.
     Never mind that the stock market has plunged 5,000 points this year, “Our best days are ahead of us.” And, never mind that we invaded Iraq—which had no Weapons of Mass Destruction and nothing to do with 9/11—leaving tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens dead and the nation in ruin.  “America is the greatest force for good in the history of the World.”
       And, my friends, McCain knows how to nail Osama bin Laden, lead us back to the promised land of good and plenty, win the occupation in Iraq and the Bush-botched war in Afghanistan—he’s just keeping it a secret until he’s sworn in as POTUS.
     The Republican candidate also knows what to do about making sure Americans have health coverage. Unfortunately for both us and him, his explanation of his insurance plan sounded like Palin's explanation of her readiness to move into the Oval Office—confused, bemused, befuddled, muddled.
      Meanwhile, Obama spoke to middle class frustration and anger with plain talk while sounding and looking presidential, which bottom-lined in “that one”--as McCain chose to condescendingly call him--winning the debate hands down.
    But tomorrow is another day for the right to play.
    With the polls giving Obama the win in both presidential debates and an ever-increasing lead in the national opinion polls, can we count on the McCain campaign to ignore our financial pain and return to the politics of personal destruction, pumped out by the right-wing fear and smear machine?
    You betcha!

You can find this one and others I've posted on EbonyJet.com. Also, you can watch the entire town hall presidential debate on the MSNBC video below.

Palin's pale performance undebatable

   

        Watching Sarah Palin debate tonight was absolutely delicious—she’s done!
        John McCain choice for his running mate served up one half-baked response after the next, short on specifics and heavy on platitudes and generalities. With the public souring on the moose dresser turned instant media star—only 38 percent of voters now believe she’s ready for the big time—this was the Arizona governor’s last best hope to demonstrate any competence or comprehension about national and international affairs.
     It didn’t happen. She wasn’t even close.
     Palin served up the same old leftover right-wing bromides that she’s been feeding us, during the infrequent availabilities she’s made since screeching out her acceptance speech in St. Paul 30 long days ago.
     “Can I call you Joe?”  Palin asked in a folksy right off the bat of Sen. Biden before winkin at the Joe Six Packs and Hockey moms sittin out there in Red state America hopin she wouldn’t end up soundin too stupid.
    Gov. Palin didn't. She didn’t say anything dumb. She said only one thing truly alarming—that she wanted to expand the power of the vice presidency over the senate. But she didn’t she say anything intelligent or knowledgeable. Heck, Palin didn’t even offer any straight talk to any of Gwen Ifill’s questions, choosing rather to ask her own softball questions before giving a practiced answer.
    There was plenty of sizzle but no moose steak. Just an oversized platter full of talking points and snippets of her standard campaign speech.

    So savor this: the elitist Eastern media, with its appetite for truth and substance, will have Palin’s poor debate performance for lunch before the week is out.

    Here's the full vice presidential debate on YouTube:

And here's the SNL spoof with Tina Fey and Queen Latifah:

Palin's a natural for comic relief on SNL

     Making fun of Sarah Palin is too easy. It's like shooting moose in a corral. So, naturally, Saturday Night Live had to bring Tina Fey back to take another shot. And, of course, it was another bullseye.
     In impersonating Palin, some of Fey's comedic lines were ripped virtually verbatum from the Katie Couric CBS News interview.  By comparison, it was at once painful and frightening to watch the network news interview, realizing that this unprepared candidate could conceivably be the leader of the free world anytime within the next four years and hilarious to have the Saturday Night Live parody have life imitate comedy.
     Here's the SNL script of Saturday night's skit (Videos of the skit and the CBS News interview follow):

POEHLER AS COURIC: "Did you enjoy your week in New York City?"

FEY AS PALIN: "You know I did, Katie, and I wasn't sure I would at first. New York is, of course, home to the Liberal Media Elite. But Todd and the kids had a great time goin' to the Central Park, F.A.O. Schwarz and that goofy evolution
museum."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "So, sounds like the trip was a success?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Well, there were some funny moments. For instance, I had fifteen to twenty false alarms when I thought I saw Osama Bin Laden driving a taxi. I was embarrassed to be wrong but mostly disappointed I wasn't right! Also, in an effort to bone up on foreign policy I went to the Times Square area to see a film called, 'The Bush Doctrine.' It was not about politics."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "You went to the UN for the first time. How was that experience?"

FEY AS PALIN: "You know, it was just amazing. So many interesting people. Though I have to say, I was disheartened by how many of them were foreigners. I promise that when Senator McCain and I are elected, we're gonna get those jobs back in American hands."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "How did the world leaders you met with, react to you?"

FEY AS PALIN: "They embraced me, Katie. Both figuratively and, a couple of them Pakistani guys, literally. But they were all so welcoming. Be it from Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq. Or Bono, the King of Ireland."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "On foreign policy, I want to give you one more chance to explain your claim that you have foreign policy experience based on Alaska's proximity to Russia. What did you mean by that?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Well, Alaska and Russia are only separated by a narrow maritime border. (using her hands to illustrate) You got Alaska here, this right here is water, and this is Russia. So, we keep an eye on them."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "And how do you do that exactly?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Every morning, when Alaskans wake up, one of the first things they do, is look outside to see if there are any Russians hanging around. And if there are, you gotta go up to them and ask, 'What are you doing here?' and if they can't give you a good reason, it's our responsibility to say, you know, 'Shoo! Get back over there!'

POEHLER AS COURIC: "Senator McCain attempted to shut down his political campaign this week in order to deal with the economic crisis. What's your opinion of this potential 700 billion dollar bailout?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this. We're saying, 'Hey, why bail out Fanny and Freddie and not me?' But ultimately what the bailout does is, help those that are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy to help...uh...it's gotta be all about job creation, too. Also, too, shoring up our economy and putting Fannie and Freddy back on the right track and so healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reigning in spending...'cause Barack Obama, y'know...has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans, also, having a dollar value meal at restaurants. That's gonna help. But one in five jobs being created today under the umbrella of job creation. That, you know...Also..."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "What lessons have you learned from Iraq and how specifically, would you spread democracy abroad?"

FEY AS PALIN: "Specifically, we would make every effort possible to spread democracy abroad to those who want it."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "Yes, but specifically what would you do?"

FEY AS PALIN: "We're gonna promote freedom. Usher in democratic values and ideals. And fight terror-loving terrorists."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "But again, and not to belabor the point. One specific thing."

(several seconds of FEY and POEHLER staring at each other)

FEY AS PALIN: "Katie, I'd like to use one of my lifelines."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "I'm sorry?"

FEY AS PALIN: "I want to phone a friend."

POEHLER AS COURIC: "You don't have any lifelines."

FEY AS PALIN: "Well in that case I'm gonna just have to get back to you!"

POEHLER AS COURIC: "Forgive me, Mrs. Palin, but is seems to me that when cornered, you become increasingly adorable. Is that fair to say?"

FEY AS PALIN: "I don't know, is it?" (She gestures 'cutely')

POEHLER AS COURIC: "Governor Palin, is there anything else you'd like to say other than 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night?'"

FEY AS PALIN
Yes, Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!!!

     Here's the real Katie Couric interview:

    And here's the SNL comedic sketch:

     After she helps John McCain lose the presidential election, if the governor of Alaska tires of her day job, there's no doubt that she has a future playing Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin.

Right pundit is wrong: Palin's Good for America

 

     In a perverse sort of way, I’ve come to realize that contrary to my earlier thinking, Gov. Sarah Palin’s number two spot on the Republican presidential ticket is good for America.
    The last thing we need is four more years of wrong-headed, out-dated, Keystone Cops governance. We can’t afford it any longer. And we may not be able to survive it. That’s why we must thank the powers of creative intelligence for Sarah Palin. In her stumbling, bumbling way, the Alaskan governor has brought clarity to this presidential election, underscoring McCain’s lack of good judgment while highlighting why anyone who really cares for this nation will not be voting Republican this November. Only the most mentally challenged of the right-wing still sincerely think Palin is capable of filling John McCain’s shoes in the event of his untimely death.
    And, fortunately, some brave, true Country First conservatives are beginning to speak up. One, Kathleen Parker, was both clear and concise in her National Review Online commentary discussing why Palin is a not-ready-for-prime-time player in the highest level of national and international politics.
    For the sake of the GOP, Parker asks Palin to step down. For the sake of the United States of America, I beg to differ. I think we shouldn't tamper with the Palin/McCain pairing because the know-nothing governor is living proof that the Republicans have a ticket to nowhere.
    Here’s the beginning of Parker’s commentary:

Palin Problem
She’s out of her league.

By Kathleen Parker

If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream — away from Sarah Palin.

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president — and possibly president — is to risk being labeled anti-woman.   

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

To read the rest of Parker's Palin indictment, click here.
   

The ins and outs of McCain's change agents

   

     John McCain’s change agents are way more interesting—although not as real or competent—than Barack Obama’s. There’s Rick Davis, who is apparently a closet reformer, but publicly a big time lobbyist.  In performing the delicate dance of having it both ways, Davis, who has re-fashioned his boss and himself as true reformers, was claiming to have kicked his old lobbying ways, while his firm was being paid $15,000 a month—or $345,000 in total, according to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff.
    And, of course, there’s Gov. Sarah Palin, the mouse-hunting mom, who rejects earmarks when she’s not pursuing them.
    But here’s the McCain connection that may be the most revealing:  Mark Buse.
    According to People.com’s Michelangelo Signorile, Buse, McCain’s senate chief of staff, is gay.
    You might want to think of Buse as Superman gay in that he’s socially out of the closet but professionally still disguised as Clark Kent. Or, maybe Dracula works better as a metaphor—straight by day, gay at night.
    It makes no difference to me.  I think it’s a bad idea to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation because I believe that most folks are born with straight or gay tendencies, just like some are born right-handed and others left-handed.
    My problem with McCain is that like a lot of black preachers, he’s been a practicing hypocrite. There are hundreds of black ministers that will deliver an homophobic sermon right after their blatantly gay choir director, following a chorus of amens, has signaled to his singers to take a seat. Similarly, McCain has hired gays on his staff but has campaigned in support of anti-gay marriage amendments and for the continuation of the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy.
    On her blog, Pam’s Houseblend, Pam Spaulding explodes the ins and outs of McCain’s hypocrisy and the reaction of the Log Cabin Republicans. Here is some of what she wrote:

LCR chides 'gay left' for discussing John McCain's gay chief of staff
by: Pam Spaulding

The fainting couch is needed for Scott Tucker over at BlogCabin. He's worked up over the reporting by Michelangelo Signorile and Mike Rogers about John McCain's professionally closeted Senate chief of staff Mark Buse and the hypocrisy it represents, given the Republican nominee's public anti-gay position on every major issue related to LGBT rights. (BTW, Mike Signorile has audio of an interview by Lisa Keen with yet another former Buse boyfriend who has gone on the record.)

The title of the post sums up the dilemma of the Log Cabin Republicans --  "The Politics of Personal Destruction at its Worst."

         Mark Buse has been openly gay for years and has acknowledged as      much.  So the notion that he has been "outed" is simply false.  But secondly-and this is the bigger point-this political stunt by Mike Rogers just proves what Log Cabin has been saying for years.  John McCain is an inclusive Republican who hires the best people, regardless of sexual orientation.

Then what is the "personal destruction" you are talking about? If Buse is out, then discussing the fact that Mark Buse is gay shouldn't be of any consequence -- unless there is something wrong with being out of the closet to the Republican base.

Isn't that the real problem here? If John McCain is personally inclusive, why can he not be so as a candidate? McCain might consider Buse a family friend and not fire him for being gay, but what about the young gay person working at a DQ with an anti-gay boss -- he has no protections from getting axed if that boss learns of his employee's orientation. It's not inclusion when it only means the people in your inner circle.

To read the rest of Spaulding's post, click here.

Before Obama was Obama

   

   

      This is a radio interview with Barack Obama before he was the Barack Obama we now know and are following. This interview ran on March 15, 2004 on WBEZ-FM, Chicago's outlet for National Public Radio.

      At the time, Obama was a relatively unknown state senator, running against several better-known Illinois Democrats for the party's nomination for the seat U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, a Republican, announced that he was vacating. During the interview on Chicago Public Radio's 848 show, host Steve Edwards thoroughly questions Sen. Obama on a laundry list of national issues.

      It's fascinating to hear what Obama had to say then and compare it with what he has to say now on immigration, the environment, farm policy, federal spending, if he's too elistist--for regular black folks, health, gays and lesbians, "the dumb" war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and his basketball skills. There are a couple of places in the interview where Obama admits that he's open to further investigating his position but, by and large, his positions then are his positions now.

     I'd love to hear comparable interviews from John McCain when he was running for the Republican nomination in 2000 or Sarah Palin when she was running for governor of Alaska a couple of years ago. The archival interview on Chicago Public Radio's blog lasts 23:30. Click here for a listen.

    

You can this one and others I've posted on Huffingtonpost.com.

Palin's positives gone negative

 

      That hissing sound you hear is the air rushing out of the Sarah Palin bubble. The vetting isn't over yet and already most thinking Americans are beginning to question if this former small town mayor,  governor of a small population state, is really prepared to become the leader of the free world.

      And while Gov. Palin is supposed to have an approval rating of 80 percent in conservative Alaska, those among the 20 percent are anything but the Silent Minority. Here's a post yesterday on the Progressive Alaska blog:

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Eight -- Palin's Positives Crash

Whatever her approval ratings might be in Alaska right now, Sarah Palin's national approval ratings are going down. Steadily and surely.

Additionally, I'm still waiting for an in-depth report by a credible national or international reporter who came up to Alaska since August 29th, who praises her record here. Anybody read one yet?

Palin's positives vs. negatives:

DATE------POSITIVE----------NEGATIVE----------------NET
9/11............52.......................35..........................+17
9/12............51.......................37..........................+14
9/13............49......................40...........................+9
9/14............47.......................42..........................+7
9/15.............47......................43..........................+4
9/16.............45......................44..........................+1
9/17.............44......................45...........................-1
9/18.............42......................46..........................-4

       My guess is that Sarah Barracuda's negative ratings are going to get worse before they get worst--and just like she took John McCain and the Republican ticket up, she's going to take them down.

      The three photos above are from what is being billed as the biggest political rally in the history of the Alaska. This women's rally took place last Saturday in Anchorage and was, as you can see,  anti-Palin.