For those of you who are stilled fooled that Senator Barack Obama is not a Marxist, then listen to this interview he gave to a Chicago radio station in 2001:
Wake up, America. Obama and his radical friends are out to destroy this country the way of life as you know it.
One out of seven voters is still undecided; and many of them are Hillary supporters, according to an A-P poll.
Wow! You’d never know that listening to the drive-by media.
The John McCain campaign may go down as one of the most brilliant in American history. And Barack Obama’s as one of the most stupid and arrogant as well as expensive.
I watched The Messiah’s infomercial the other night. I was struck that missing from the video were the Clintons. How arrogant. And don’t tell me that did not go unnoticed by the Clinton supporters who know that Hillary could end up challenging Sarah Palin in 2012 if Obama loses.
I have been saying for a year here that this election is going to be won in rural Ohio and Pennsylvania. With as many undecideds out there, Obama has not closed the deal. Between his put-down talk of these folks “clinging to their guns and religion” and Representative John Murtha’s “They’re rednecks” comments, the Democrats will lose this vote. People may be confused and upset between the economy and the war, but they won’t vote for candidates who are disdainful. As much as they should reject a dangerous radical dressed in a slick suit, the rurals in Ohio and Pennsylvania will vote their gut; and their gut tells them Obama and Murtha do not represent them. Many of the Hillary supporters will hold their nose and vote McCain.
McCain is going to win this. And nobody will be happier than McCain, except maybe Hillary Clinton.
In my journalistic past, I’ve been known to pull the rug out from under Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny — so why shouldn’t I do something of the same to prevent the mayhem caused by unruly small fry on this occasion, Halloween and the Great Pumpkin? You have to admit it. Halloween has careened out of control.
These days the costumes and the candy and all the bothersome gimmicks have inundated what used to be a simple event. On the other hand, because of religious and even political agitation, many kids can’t even have a carefree party at school with dressups and scary masks and way-too-rich Halloween candy.
But that doesn’t mean I like everything about present-day celebrations of Halloween. This evening, my spouse and I will take turns opening the door and pretending to be surprised and even frightened by the appearance of little gremlins wearing scary costumes and lugging large sacks or bags as they wait for a sugary handout.
And we’ll give each child shouting “Trick or Treat” some candy. However, we don’t like the “gimme something or else” attitude Halloween nurtures in kids. We ought to channel their fun into block or community parties, abolish the trick-or-treat idea, and quit turning the kids into ragged beggars. Most of all, we should bring back the reminder that this should be a religious day, not one that turns kids into beggars.
I have to confess that, under no circumstances, should Halloween be turned into the violent trickery that kids and their elders practiced in some neighborhoods like mine when I was a youngster many years ago in the community called Little Italy on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio.
On one occasion I can never forget because it turned out to be so vicious and unnecessary, the kids in my neighborhood, joined by two or three adults who should have known better, conceived of the idea of removing the front stairs of about 6 steps from the front of the house of a man who had warned the kids that he would confiscate any baseballs or soccer balls that landed in his front yard and damaged his flowers.
As a result, he was something of a “marked man” for the more unruly youngsters in the neighborhood. But he didn’t deserve what happened. As night came on and the lights went low in the community, the Halloween gang decided to play a joke on the old fellow, so they removed the front stairs and carried them away and out of sight.
I must add this note before I go on. I wasn’t one of that gang that Halloween night because I didn’t approve of their tactics. In addition, if I dared do what those kids did that night, my parents would have grounded me for some time and taken away many of my privileges. At any rate, it was a dark night on which the moon was blocked by many clouds. When the kids started beating on drums or whatever they held in their hands at about 10 o’clock in the evening, many people came out of their homes to see who was making all the racket. One who did was the elderly fellow, whose stairs were missing.
He ran out of his front door as if getting ready to chase the noise makers and, not realizing his front stairs were missing, he tumbled head first onto the walk below and was injured seriously, necessitating a quick trip to the hospital nearby. When the parents in the neighborhood discovered what had happened, the Halloween mayhem ended abruptly and the noisemakers were promptly punished. There were other similar incidents in that neighborhood in previous years — but never again. Happy Halloween?
Like typical political types, the Bush administration, Congressional lawmakers, and state lawmakers have been wringing their hands and proposing multi-trillion-dollar solutions that won’t work in the housing crisis they should be blamed for instigating in the first place for failing to use common sense.
The foreclosures continue to haunt the banking and insurance industries, and the unfortunate families squeezed out of their homes are desperate for solutions to the government-made crisis. Why, oh, why didn’t government officials and the banking and insurance moguls see the simple solution in the first place?
I have tried to use a common-sense approach so many times with my easy solution to the entire housing dilemma. That approach — and I must repeat it for “nth” time — is substantially this: The Bush administration and Congress should have ordered the banking and insurance industries to apply what I have called “the lifetime mortgage plan” to housing transactions.
Let me explain the common-sense plan once more: For years, banks and insurance companies have insisted on mortgages that require home owners to make monthly payments on 20-year and sometimes 30-year loan programs that set those payments on unreasonably high rates.
In the critical economic times we have faced in recent months, hundreds of thousands of home owners have defaulted in their payments and have had the banks foreclose their dwellings as a result. Now, under the so-called “lifetime plan” I’ve proposed, mortgages could be extended to 40-year, 50-year, or even longer periods of payment — thus permitting the owners to make monthly payments that are only half or less the current rate.
So the banks would receive reduced payments. So what? They would still receive payments — which is what they are not receiving today under the 20-year and 30-year plans resulting in the foreclosures. Doesn’t the lifetime idea make a lot more sense both to the banks and to the home owners?
Under the lifetime plan of mortgage payments, newlywed couples and money-strapped couples — and particularly elderly couples — would make home payments the same as they might be paying rent for condos, apartments, or other living arrangements. What the lifetime plan does is take the greed out of the equation — greed the banks and insurance companies have demonstrated for years.
I’m positive that adoption of the lifetime plan for mortgages would result in an almost immediate solution to the present housing crisis — and an early disappearance of the economic recession in the U.S. Of course, a few other decisions would have to be made to end the economic distress even sooner.
Those other decisions would include congressional action to end the bans on new oil refineries and on the construction of new nuclear-energy plants — bans that were imposed four decades ago by the Liberal Democrats in Congress.
The Seattle Times minced no words tonight about the latest Democrat court stunt aimed at Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi:
THE deposition of Dino Rossi was a farce. For four hours in Seattle Tuesday, two pro-Democratic lawyers took turns jabbing the Republican candidate for governor with questions mostly irrelevant to the legal matter for which he was required to be there.
The legal industry is filled with unprofessional and downright unethical lawyers. It’s time the industry police itself and rebuke the likes of attorney Knoll Lowney for cheapening the legal profession by his political grandstanding.
Shame on these lawyers and shame on the Democrats and shame on Chris Gregoire. She had to steal the last election; now she’s stooping to this crap in desperation to win this one.
A month or two ago the world learned that Senator Barack Obama’s half-brother was living in abject poverty in a Nairobi slum — and that the American socialist had done nothing to help his relative.
Now, comes the story that Obama’s Aunt Zeituni is living in a rundown public housing project in South Boston. Of course, just like the first story, it took a British paper to break this story:
Barack Obama has lived one version of the American Dream that has taken him to the steps of the White House. But a few miles from where the Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard, his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in modest circumstances in Boston, have a contrasting American story.
Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Mr Obama’s best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.
Obama sure wants to confiscate and spend your money, but he does damn little to help his family. Shame on you Democrats for nominating such a non-family valued radical for president.
Which general should we believe? In recent days, two generals in command of troops in Afghanistan — one British and the other American — have differed in exactly opposite terms about the course of the war in that beleaguered country and what we should do to put an end to it.
Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the senior British commander in Afghanistan, was quoted in a British newspaper as saying that a decisive military victory in Afghanistan is impossible and that the Taliban “may well be part of a long-term solution for the country.”
“We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army. We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural isurgency.” Carleton Smith also said a deal with the Taliban might be “on the table.”
He added this provocative comment: “If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.” He did not compare the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At almost the same time, General David McKiernan, the leading commander of more than 65,000 troops from 40 foreign countries (including 33,000 Americans), told reporters in Kabul just the opposite of what the British commander said. McKiernan told reporters there had been “too many reports in the news media recently asserting that the foreign forces and their Afghan allies were losing the war.” Then, according to the New York Times, he added:
“I absolutely reject that idea. I don’t believe it. It is true that there are many places in this country that don’t have an adequate level of security. But we are not losing in Afghanistan.” General McKiernan apparently was not aware of the reverse comment that had been made by the British commander.
In view of the markedly opposite opinions, one wonders whether the top generals in Afghanistan are talking to each other. Apparently not. At any rate, their clashing opinions concerning the Taliban and the Far Eastern nation leave one to wonder whether the Bush administration and the leaders of those 40 countries represented in the fighting forces in Afghanistan shouldn’t be meeting to determine what our future course should be there.
And isn’t it important to come up with a clear course of future action in view of the fact that our military leaders in Washington, D.C., are already making plans to send many more military units to Afghanistan, including hundreds of those who are scheduled to return home from Iraq in the next few months?
It seems to me that the most important decision to be made should be which commander is right concerning Afghanistan, the Briton or the American. If Carleton-Smith has gauged the situation more realistically than McKiernan has, we should arrange meetings with the Taliban, then withdraw all or most of our forces. Frankly, I believe the Briton is on the right track.
Mailed to me and worth posting:
CAPITAL GAINS TAX
MCCAIN
0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax.OBAMA
28% on profit from ALL home sales.How does this affect you? If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes. If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income.
DIVIDEND TAX
MCCAIN
15% (no change)OBAMA
39.6%How will this affect you? If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama become president. The experts predict that ‘higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit.
INCOME TAX
MCCAIN
(no changes)Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250OBAMA
(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750Under Obama your taxes will more than double! How does this affect you? No explanation needed. This is pretty straight forward.
INHERITANCE TAX
MCCAIN
0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)OBAMA
Restore the inheritance taxHow does this affect you? Many families have lost businesses, farms, ranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will probably lose them to these taxes.
NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY OBAMA
* New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet
* New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren’t high enough already)
* New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity)
* New taxes on retirement accounts And last but not least….
* New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other
third-world countries!!!
It seems there is no end to tragic incidents of people, young and old, falling or getting lost in the mountains or in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest — and, if they manage to stay alive long enough, banking upon rescue forces to find them and bring them back safely or in time for treatment at hospitals.
Why do we permit these incidents to go on without doing something to prevent them in the first place? Years ago, I first made a proposal in TV commentaries to put an end to such happenings with carefully planned rules, laws, and instructions concerning mountain travel and hikes in the wilderness.
I suggested that the state legislature lay down the law on any persons or groups contemplating journeys on foot into mountain ranges or hikes into dense forests without the guidance of professional guides who could keep them out of trouble and away from dangerous sites.
At the same time, I suggested that no individual or group should be permitted to venture into the mountains or the forests without one of the new homing devices that had been developed to help rescuers spot lost or injured persons immediately and find their way to get them out to safety or to treatment.
The new laws I proposed for the legislature would penalize those who refused to carry a homing device with them or refused to inform state rescue authorities about their intentions to venture up mountain ranges or into forested regions. Such information should include maps and other plans concerning the travel intentions.
As I put it in the many repeats of my proposal, I added an important segment to the law I proposed. It concerned the cost of rescue operations and the financial responsibility each mountain or forest traveler should assume whenever the state’s rescue squads have to be called into action.
Washington State provides rescue units consisting of experienced mountaineers and forestry guides that are available throughout the year and all hours of the day. These hardy experts must be paid a good wage and be provided with many types of rescue equipment, including helicopters, small planes, guide dogs, and other paraphernalia.
Persons failing to inform rescue units of their plans to climb mountain ranges or venture into forests should be required to pay a specified amount of the funds required to maintain the state’s rescue units — if they get lost or are injured and require the assistance of those rescuers.
Is such a system fair? You’re damned tootin’ it’s fair. And it’s high time the state legislature got around to writing such legislation. Maybe insurance companies could be alerted to the potential for policies providing funds for persons who like to climb mountains or roam the forests.
In fact, I believe Washington State should be the first state in the nation to write a law governing those “pioneers,” who love the outdoors — but who expect others to pick up the tab in case tax-supported rescue units have to devote hours, days, or even weeks to find injured or lost citizens.
Are governments in the United States and European nations suppressing reports of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects), and, if they are, what possible reason do they have for the secrecy? It’s one of the most vexing questions of the day, and, apparently, we’re not about to get a direct answer from any of the governments involved.
The latest report that has brought the disturbing question back into the spotlight is one from the Miami Herald concerning a retired American pilot, Milton Torres, who was serving in England back in 1957 when he was flying his fighter aircraft in British skies and locked on to an enormous object he described “as big as an aircraft carrier.”
Here’s how the Miami Herald put it:
From 15 miles away, he locked on to a target as big as an aircraft carrier, according to his radar screen. He was on course to intercept in 10 seconds but still hadn’t seen the thing when it started to move away. Within seconds, the UFO was off lock; it soon vanished.
When he returned to the airfield and reported his flight experience, Torres was immediately told by officials there that his entire mission would be considered “classified” and that he should not discuss it with anyone, which meant he was not to divulge it to the spoken or written press.
The Miami Herald account, continually fascinating and, I might add, exasperating, went this way:
The next day, an American who looked ‘like a well-dressed IBM salesman with a dark-blue trench coat’ debriefed him (Torres) and warned that he would be breaching national security if he talked about what had happened.
Breaching national security? What is it that governments know about supposed UFOs that citizens in free, democratic countries are not permitted to know? If government officials are aware of a threat from flying objects from outer space, why shouldn’t they share that information with the rest of us?
In the interview with the Miami Herald, Torres said he was glad that he never got that shot off from his F-86D Sabre Jet. His reasoning was that, “surely a craft capable of moving as that one did would have had weapons systems to match.” Torres reasoned that, if he had pulled the trigger, “I would have been vaporized.”
Was Torres referring to “fiction about UFOs and science-fiction books, magazines, and movies” or was he fantasizing about his venture, as a youngster might after reading a book of science fiction or seeing one of the movies presuming to know what the denizens of outer space look like and how their fantasy vehicles operate?
Whatever the case, I want to know why America’s news media don’t demand that the federal government remove the veil of secrecy around the entire subject of UFOs. If they have information about them, they should report all of it to the public — including each of the many UFO incidents that have taken place over the years.
Torres added in the Miami Herald interview that if he had fired at the UFO that was as large as an aircraft carrier he would have acted like “just a dumb little kid going to slaughter.” What I don’t understand is why Torres and other flyers who have reported sighting UFOs haven’t utilized the photographic equipment that are common to all aircraft, particularly those in the military, as was Torres’ jet. Doesn’t the failure of the news media to demand information from the government make them accomplices in the unwarranted secrecy?
The growth of independent expenditure organizations (IEOs) in political campaigning isn’t, by itself, a bad thing. There are many organizations, whose issues are worthy of pursuit and whose tactics are reasonable. They add meaningful information to a voter’s decision-making process. However, there are some groups whose tactics are giving the rest of the IEOs a bad name.
We’ve all seen outrageous ads on television, attacking Governor Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi. The Seattle Times has labeled many of the claims in those ads as untrue or half truths. It’s bad enough, when candidates, like Peter Goldmark, tell outrageous stories about opponents, like incumbent Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland. But at least one can fire back at the perpetrator. In the IEO market, there’s no way to effectively respond.
An organization called the Voter Education Committee; which is funded by SEIU Political Action Fund, Sheet Metal Workers Local 66, Washington State Council of Firefighters and others; sent out a flier recently, accusing Toby Nixon, Republican candidate for the legislature in the 45th District, of voting to privatize Social Security. State legislators have no vote on the management or organization of Social Security. The justification for this hit piece is apparently Toby’s vote on Senate Joint Memorandum 8014. This bill was carefully crafted to be an attack on President Bush, was full of misrepresented facts, and was designed to offend conservative and force them to vote no, so it could be used to beat them up later, during the election cycle. Toby voted against it, which does not mean he favors privatizing social security, but only that he favors factual legislation. So, the accusation is a reach, at best, and an outright lie, at worst. For Nixon, it has a poignant note, as he’s been one of the strongest supporters the Firefighters have had.
