Day: September 4, 2008

The Palin Speech

The media is all a-flutter with praise for the VP candidate and her canned speech. She gave an excellent Republican speech—condescending, no substance and lots of slogans. It was written by the best character assassins the Repubs have—of course it was going to be a good speech. To think any different would be moronic, that seems to indicate that you will most likely vote for McCain and his daughter.

The Repubs have two candidates—that is about it—two personalities. You know all about McCain and his POW status, McCain and his military status, but what are his issues? Does he have plans to handle the economy that is slipping quickly into recession? We know that he thinks that bomb Iran would make a great campaign song, but what else is there?

The media is saying that Palin is the future of the GOP. Only if they win. If they lose she will be the scapegoat and will stifle any further advancement of women in the GOP for a decade or more. We will see if she is the attack dog that she is being labeled as right now. I would suggest that the GOP keep her away from the mainstream media for awhile or she may just shoot the campaign in the ass.

We as Americans now know all about her family, the small gas station, the commercial fishing thing, the mayoral stint and being a governor. This is just ducky! But what does it have to do with the issues at hand? Wait! There are NO issues at hand for the Repubs. So that question has been answered for me. The McCain/Palin ticket is fluff, no substance. And yet the voters will somehow find this appealing. Then the term low information voter describes them perfectly.

As of Friday the election will fly into full force. We will just wait and see who is what and what they will do.

The Election Is Not About The Issues

Rick Davis made the remarks to editors at The Washington Post, which published them Tuesday.

“This election is not about issues,” Davis said. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”

Davis accused Obama of “misdirection” Wednesday in his attempts to criticize him for the comment.

“One of the points I made is that not only are issues of economics and trade and foreign policy and education and others very important to voters, but it is the composite of all that stuff, how the candidates … feel about those things and also their views on leadership and character and their values that will be the conglomerate of what makes the final decision for most voters,” he said on a conference call.

Obama is expected to use Davis’ Post quote as an example of how the McCain campaign is attacking him as a “celebrity” as a way to distract voters from issues. The campaign could hammer this theme in the coming days, potentially with TV ads.

“We appreciate Senator McCain’s campaign manager finally admitting that his campaign is not in fact about the issues the American people care about, which is exactly the kind of cynical old politics people are ready to change,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement. “Senator Obama will continue to make this election about the big issues.”

This should not be a surprise, with Repubs it is seldom about the issues that face Americans.  The really cool part is that they can convince the American people to vote against their own best interests.  That is an accomplishment that Repubs can be proud of and something for the polisci books to consider.

SAG UpDate #9

Thgis is a part of the Labvor Day message from the Union.

“This is what Labor Day commemorates — the dedication, commitment and tremendous courage of labor unions and union members throughout history. It is a tribute to our first president, Ralph Morgan and to other guild leaders like former president James Cagney and board member Humphrey Bogart, but Labor Day is also a tribute to you. It is a day set aside to honor all unions, but for us, it is an opportunity to honor SAG and the 120,000 members who reside within it.

Our efforts to reach agreement with industry representatives continue and SAG’s negotiators want to hear from you about your thoughts on the TV/Theatrical contract negotiations and Screen Actors Guild’s bargaining priorities. You will be receiving an important publication from SAG over the next several days. This Special Bulletin was mailed to all members across the country this week. The publication contains comprehensive information about our negotiations. Please look for your copy to arrive in your mailbox in the next several days.”

I could find no other updates on the progress of the negotiations.

Teen Suicides Still Rising

Suicides among U.S. children appear to be on the rise after a 15-year decline, and the trend may owe, in part, to fewer teens being prescribed antidepressants, a new study suggests.

Researchers thought a spike in youth suicides in 2004 may have been an anomaly. But the new study found the increase in suicides continued during 2005.

Looking at suicide trends among youngsters over a 15-year period, Jeff Bridge, from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, found the rates of suicide among youths aged 10 to 19 were higher in 2004 and 2005 than would have been expected, based on suicide rate trends from 1996 to 2003.

“This is significant, because pediatric suicide rates in the U.S. had been declining steadily for a decade until 2004, when the suicide rate among U.S. youth younger than 20 years of age increased by 18 percent, the largest single-year increase in the past 15 years,” said Bridge, an investigator in the Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice.

“We now need to consider the possibility that this increase is an indicator of an emerging public health crisis. Studies to identify causal factors are important next steps,” he added.

Remember the Deadly Fires In Sou. California?

mproperly maintained utility lines were to blame for three wildfires that swept through San Diego County last fall, killing two people and destroying 1,347 homes, state regulators said.

The California Public Utilities Commission said the October fires were started because San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Cox Communications violated state regulations regarding the maintenance of power lines.

Two of the fires started when utility wires touched in strong winds, the commission said in a report released Tuesday. A third started when a tree limb fell onto one of the utility’s power lines, the report said.

Two of the October fires merged to scorch more than 307 square miles, destroying 1,141 homes, killing two people and injuring more than 40 firefighters. The Witch Creek Fire was the largest of five major fires that ravaged San Diego County last fall, charring some 2,000 residences, causing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes and killing nine people.

The commission said one of the fires started when a broken Cox “lashing wire” used to bind other cables made contact with the utility company’s line. Cox officials said their fiber optic cables do not carry electrical current that would start a fire, and were intact prior to the extreme Santa Ana winds

Alrighty then, if a person had started these fires, then they would be charged as a criminal; let us see lust how far they will push that when it is a corporation involved.

Why Is Palin Popular In Alaska?

Welcome to the People’s Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state’s Republican governor. That’s $22,400 for a family of seven, like Palin’s. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. But Palin upped the ante by joining with Democrats and some recalcitrant Republican state legislators to share in oil company windfall profits, further fattening state tax revenue and permitting an additional payout in tax funds to residents.

No wonder she is popular with voters in a state whose residents pay no income or sales taxes but are blessed with state coffers rolling in cash at a time when all other states are suffering. Indeed, when the oil companies pay more taxes to the state of Alaska, they get to write that off against their federal tax obligation, leaving the rest of us to make up the shortfall.

The state of Alaska owns most of the oil-producing land and has been getting upward of 85 percent of its budget from the oil companies that lease the fields, even before Palin helped increase the state’s cut.

But wait!  Obama has suggested a windfall profit tax on the oil companies and McCain has ridiculed him for suggesting it.  But yet, his running mate has it in place in her state.  Just how will McCain justify this to the base.  Will he now support the tax?  JUst how will this play in this election?

Ron Paul Talks With Supporters

The unsuccessful Republican candidate for president told the estimated crowd of 12,000 boisterous supporters that while he would not take credit for the growth of their movement over the last year, “I would hope that our efforts did a lot to speed up the revolution, which was coming anyway.”

He and earlier speakers throughout the day directed much of their criticism at the other event across the way in St. Paul — the Republican National Convention — where they said Republicans, and specifically conservatives, who had lost their way continued to stifle alternative views within the party.

In fact, they have endured “treatment of exclusion, of marginalizing and just making fun of what we are doing,” said the 10-term congressman from Texas. “It didn’t surprise me much. But the more they did that the more it seemed to energize you more.”

“And guess what? Not one single taxpayer cent was spent on this rally,” Paul said with reference to the Democratic and Republican events — which primarily were financed with private donations, though they also required about $20 million each in public security support.

The rest of Paul’s speech included a laundry list of issues revolving around scaling back the federal bureaucracy, preserving civil liberties and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He lashed out at what he called a preventative war policy that has made the country less safe and has inflamed America’s enemies abroad. He got the biggest applause when suggesting the Federal Reserve system was unconstitutional, as are the federal income tax and the war on drugs.

He closed out his remarks by calling for more urgency, more action, a “peaceful civil disobedience” against big government and what he called unconstitutional behavior in Washington.

Repub Convention–Day 3

On the third day little has changed at the Repub convention….they are still selling a person, not issues.  Speeches by Guiliani, Huckabee and Mitt, but everyone waiting for the new VP to make her appearance and she did.  The speech was everything one would expect from a Repub.  There were insults, half truths and personal bio.  There was lots about country being safe and secure but nothing about the economy and the plight of working people.  It was the basic Repub  attack speech.

If one is a Repub then the speech was excellent, but if you are anything but a Repub then the speech was lacking in substance, but was full of BS.  Tina Fey will be a good candidate…oh…sorry…Sarah Palin.  Anyone that attacks her in any way will be a sexist.

How about the other speeches?  Guiliani was about as unappealing as usual.  Huckabee was…wsell…I had to take a dump…have no idea.  Then their was Mitt.  He talks down to people in a typical Repub way.  He also was very underwhelming.

Oh boy, one more day and the Big Kahuna speaks.  I am still waiting to hear about the planks in the Repub platform or what they will specifically do to help working people….you know the average American.