If McCain Was Competent...

If McCain was competent his campaign wouldn't be relegated to bringing out past relationships of Obama's during the last leg of the race. He should have known about all of these people - Wright, Phleger, Ayers, Rezko, Khalidi, etc. The American people should have heard an extended list of all of these people and why they are frightening associations for a president. McCain should have made this information public at least a month ago. Now he and Sarah Palin look like they are gasping at political straws when they go after one Obama associate one week, and just one other associate this last week of the campaign. This is the time to educate the people on the negative effects Obama's policies would have on America. This is the time to harp on his terrible foreign policy. This is the time to harp on his class warfare speech. This is the time to tie Obama to Marxism and European philosophies that result in higher inflation, higher unemployment, and fewer freedoms. This is the time to harp on Obama's radical voting record-that he's the single most liberal voting senator and he tries to say he can unify our system. This is the time to call Obama out on his egregiously pro-abortion stance. This is the time to remind people Obama has only been a senator four years (two of which he campaigned through). This is the time to point out Obama's radical views of the Constitution and "social justice" for minorities. This is the time to teach the American people that taxing the rich means taxing everyone. This is when McCain should be giving America economics lessons. This is the time to point out that change for change's sake isn't a legitimate policy. This is when he should point out Obama's plan to increase spending by more than our average annual deficit. This is the time McCain should be hammering home reasons for conservatives to get out and vote. This is the time when McCain should point out he's much more of a unifier of Republicans and Democrats than Barack could ever dream to be. This is when he should remind America that his surge strategy worked. This is the time he should remind America that he knows what soldiers are going through. This is the time when he should be giving America hope. Yet, he and Palin are complaining about media bias and another radical friend. He is correct on both issues, but his timing couldn't be worse. If John McCain was competent...

If the Republican party could nominate someone that could give Americans hope. If the Republican party could nominate someone that could communicate. If the Republican party could nominate someone like Ronald Reagan. If the Republican party could nominate someone who excites the conservative half (and some) of America. If the Republican party was competent...

Poverty Monopoly

I would say it's unbelievable that the Democratic Party has the monopoly on the poverty vote, but it's not unbelievable. It is frustrating though. I think it is fair to say that the demographic below the poverty line is less educated than the middle class and upper class. Thus, it seems logical that the poor would be more easily swayed by election year rhetoric. And there is no greater modern rhetorician than Barack Obama.

The Democrats have a great message for voters: "Vote for us and we'll ease your problems." Obama's message to voters is that he will "spread the wealth around" because that's "good for everyone". He'll then take us out of an "unnecessary" war and spend that money to help the poor pay for medical expenses.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, Obama's plan involves cutting National Defense and International Relations spending by $72.6 billion dollars. Yet, he wants to spend an increased $139 billion in health care. His total spending plan will increase government spending by $292.9 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the US has had an average deficit of $285 billion the past four years. We are talking about spending an increased amount MORE than the current average deficit. And Obama plans on paying for that with increased taxes on the rich. YEEEEAAAH, RIIIIGHT.

According to the Laffer curve, a well-known economics tool, raising the tax RATE does not ensure raising tax REVENUE. The idea is that the higher the RATE is raised, the less incentive workers have to work hard for raises and to invest their earnings. The more of my income that I get to keep, I will work harder, produce more, and invest my money more frequently. So, raising the tax rate on the rich will not necessarily produce more tax revenue for the politicians to spend. In fact, the rich might just quit spending their money on trifles and save more. They will almost certainly hire fewer employees.

While this philosophy might sound like "social justice", it actually hurts the poor more than the rich. Ruppert Murdoch has lost over half of his value over the past few months. He's still a billionaire though. Employees of Murdoch will feel the hurt more than him. On one side, Murdoch's product prices will rise to offset taxes imposed on the supply-side, making our money less valuable. Inflation is a silent killer. On the other side, some will get lower wages, some prospective employees will not be offered jobs, and some employees will be laid off. These are the people that Obama wants you to think he's fighting for. We've seen these policies before with Jimmy Carter. They failed then and they will fail again. Obama may ask voters to overlook history in order that he may be elected. But once the effects of Obama's policies hit America, the poor will once again look to an up-and-coming politician for relief.

Government was never the answer to our problems. Government is not the answer to our problems. Government will never be the answer to our problems. Government IS the problem. If government spending were the solution, poverty would have ceased to exist in America decades ago. We keep throwing money that we don't have at issues that we don't understand and get frustrated when the problems don't go away. I yearn for the day a true conservative runs for office and coherently tells the American people this truth. Maybe then America will turn from its way of blindly following the deceiving ways of Obama and friends.

Biden Asked Serious Questions, Can't Handle Heat

FoxNews reports: "Barack Obama's campaign killed all interviews with a Florida TV station after Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, faced tough and critical questions from a reporter at the Orlando station, the Orlando Sentinel reported."

See the rest of the article here.

Logic Logic Logic

Thanks to Anthony Bradley for posting this on his blog at http://bradley.chattablogs.com/.

Zo makes some pretty good points here. Think a little bit before you vote for Obama. Actually follow the trail to see where his politically correct socialist policies will take America. That would be down.

Quest for the Truth

Absolute truths are eluding me.

I don't mean the truth that Yahweh created the universe or that Jesus of Nazareth died and rose again. I trust that those are truths. The truths that elude me are petty facts. Many times they are things that are construed in diametrically opposed directions by different people. Maybe some of the truths that I seek are simply unavailable to be found. Yet I continue the search; it's making me weary.

This political season brings out the worst in the truth-searching sport. McCain and Obama sit on stage at a debate. McCain claims Obama supported "Proposed Fact A". Obama responds by saying "That's just not true." McCain then responds, "It is true." And this happens in the opposite direction as well. How do we know who's telling the truth??? Most of us, I assume, believe the candidate that we are currently supporting. It's a he-said/he-said game. Some issues are verifiable. Did the candidate vote for or against an issue? That can be looked up in the voting records of the Senate.

Sometimes the candidates say the same thing...with completely opposite words and connotations. Obama says that our corporations pay relatively low taxes compared to other countries' corporations. McCain says our corporations are charged higher tax rates than almost any other country's corporations. At first look this looks like someone is lying. Look a bit deeper and they can both be true. The US REVENUE from corporate taxes is relatively low, yet the tax RATE is relatively high. This is an instance where the candidates frustrate us with seemingly different facts, but are both telling the truth.

Many of the claims both of the candidates make are difficult to verify. How is the common citizen supposed to check the validity of a claim that "My tax plan will be able to pay for all of these programs"? Even the candidates are using estimates. The common person is generally not interested in the specifics, but even if they are, it's nearly impossible to follow all of the numbers to a firm conclusion.

In this scenario voters are simply left to trusting candidates, campaign managers, or the media, all three of which have given us little reason to trust them. What we need are candidates, campaigns, and media members that are truly aspiring to tell the truth. Possibly most importantly we need media members who vigilantly report facts with disregard to the good or bad implications of those facts. Our society is over-saturated with "opinion-news" and editorials. Meanwhile we are left with a dearth of simple news reporting.

Until these three demographics (politicians, campaigns, media) show legitimate integrity, the American people will continue in their cynicism toward politics.

Obama and Ayers CNN Report

More Bailout Video

Should there be a comma?

I read this sub-headline from Fox News' website this evening.

"House passes, Bush signs $700B bill allowing Treasury to buy up bad debt crippling financial system."

I first read it as if there was a comma after "debt". Essentially, 'House passes, Bush signs $700B bill allowing Treasury to buy up bad debt, crippling financial system.' As in, what they just did with this bailout is crippling our financial system, not the bad debt crippling the system. We'll see in years/decades to come whether a comma belonged there or not.

How we came to a financial crisis

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I present to you exhibit A. This will show you why we are in a financial mess today. Some of our leaders tried to fix a potential problem years ago. However, many of our other "leaders" stopped any reform from happening to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two huge problems with our economy today. Interesting to see that Barney Frank, one of the most vocal congressman during the past week, was adamantly against reforming Fannie and Freddie. He claimed that there were no "safety and soundness" issues in these companies. You can clearly see today how wrong Rep. Frank was then. You should realize how wrong he just might be today as well. PLEASE don't vote these same democrat "leaders" back into office this November. If you didn't notice, the ones saying Fannie and Freddie were going to cause problems were the REPUBLICANS. The ones opposing the idea that Fannie and Freddie were bad at all were DEMOCRATS. Think about that.