The McCain Plan for America

CNN listed both McCain's and Obama's plans for America. Here is a look at the proposals that John McCain gave:

Sen. John McCain's Proposals

Taxes

McCain said he would:

• Keep taxes low and cut them where he could.
• Double the child tax exemption from $3,500 to $7,000.
• Cut the business tax rate to help American companies compete and keep jobs from moving overseas.

Foreign trade

McCain said he would:

• Open new markets to American goods and services.
• Prepare workers to compete in the world economy.

Unemployment assistance

McCain said he would:

• Help workers who've lost a job that won't come back and find a new one that won't go away.
• Use community colleges to help train people for new opportunities in their communities.
• Retrain workers in industries that have been hard hit and cover the pay difference during retraining.

Economy

McCain said he would:

• Create millions of new jobs, "jobs that will be there when your children enter the work force."

Energy

McCain said he would have the United States:

• Produce more energy at home.
• Drill new wells offshore.
• Build more nuclear power plants.
• Develop clean coal technology.
• Increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas.
• Encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.

Education

McCain said he would:

• Make schools answer to parents and students.

Health care

McCain said he would:

• Make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance.

Federal spending

McCain said he would:

• Reduce government spending and get rid of failed programs to "let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit."

Foreign relations

McCain said:

• A serious blow has been dealt to al Qaeda, but the terror network has not been defeated and will strike again if able.

Dick Cheney in Secret Oil Talks [again]

The man has to be the greatest traitor in American history. Dick Cheney puts business interests ahead of the citizens he swore to protect. Those early 2001 closed-door meetings he conducted with the top executives of the oil, gas and coal industries opened his 8-year fascist movement and now, in the waning days of his administration, he, once again, puts business ahead of the citizens.

The headline: Cheney in Azerbaijan for talks on Georgia, energy.

The story line:

BAKU, Azerbaijan (CNN) -- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku Wednesday , the first stop of an overseas trip that will also take him to three former Soviet republics -- less than a month after the conflict between Georgia and Russia began.
That crisis will be a top issue on Cheney's agenda in Azerbaijan and further stops in Georgia and Ukraine. Cheney also plans to travel to Italy as part of the trip.
Azerbaijan, which borders Georgia and Iran and sits along the Caspian Sea, is an oil and gas-rich nation and a key U.S. ally in the region.

The man has no shame. He should have been impeached long ago. The fact that Congress did not move forward on Articles of Impeachment will haunt the governance of this nation for decades to come. It sets a clear precedent that the Executive Branch stands alone, above the other two, and cannot be impeded from moving forward with any plan they wish to drop on the citizens.

Never in our history has such a situation been allowed to proceed. It may be the death knell of our American democracy.

Well, He Spoke But I Didn't Learn Much

John McCain poorly read the teleprompter speech last evening, but that was not unexpected. Something about Sarah Palin's nose caught my attention. He read it as if it were a book report in front of the class with little expression; one could have easily dozed off.

The content was not much more than a rehash of everything we already know about him and his beliefs: drilling our way out of the energy crisis, God, lowering taxes [on the rich], despising regulations, hating unions, breaking-up of public schools, aggressive foreign policy, strict-interpretation Federal judges, more foreign markets, more war, soaring debt...

Nothing new. Saw all of that for the past 8 years.

I was very disappointed in him for having to tell us [again] his POW story. What a pander, what graveling. Apparently he was going after the 'poor me' voters. Pathetic at best.

So, the choice is clear: the same Bush stuff or a breath of fresh air. Open the windows, please.

Media In Alaska

CNN reported a couple of days ago on the
"Situation Room" that a team of media people
were going to Alaska to investigate Palin.
An initial report was on tonight concerning
her flip-flop on "earmarks". She had requested
tens of millions in earmarks for 2009. Then,
MSNBC announced that it had a crew in Alaska
as well, and they were carrying this story on
the state trooper who Palin is trying to have
thrown off the force.

Of course, the McCain campaign is immediately
firing back that McCain already knew all this, and
the media is just opposed to their candidate and
trying to make her look bad. I am sure that plays
well with the neoconservative theological Republican
Party base, but I hope the other 60-70% realize the
media is only doin its job. I seem to recall the
media thoroughly vetted the Rev. Wright issue against
Obama. It also vetted his "present" votes in the
Illinois Legislature. But to thoroughly vet "Hoot"
and "Annie Oakley" is unfair and with regard to Palin
is sexist. With all this attention, it would seem
that CNN, MSNBC, and whatever other major media is
searching her record, they will try to the utmost to give
a "fair and balanced" evaluation of her past.

Senate Nears Energy Compromise

The U.S. Senate today is closer to reaching
an energy legislation deal. It would permit
more drilling on the continental shelf which
some Republicans want and provide for alternative
energy for renewed solar, wind, and other
resources. It's a $90 Billion compromise, but
will be paid for by eliminating tax breaks for
oil and gas companies. Obama spokes people are
happy with the deal because it shows bipartisanship
and pays for itself by ending tax breaks on
wealthy companies. McCain is opposed at this
moment because it is viewed as a tax increase and
Bush is already threatening a veto. A new major
supporter of the compromise is Sanunu, Rep. Senator
of N.H who needs a bill like this to try and keep
his seat in the Senate. Will be interesting if the
bill actually comes up for a vote and where McCain
will fall on this issue. What is interesting is that
this is not a Democratic trip, rather it was the
Republicans who have insisted on a drilling bill.

Palin Slashed Funds for Teen Moms

From the Washington Post [that 'liberal' media outlet]

ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

----------------------------

Of course she 'slashed taxes' in her state. Any idiot can cut programs to the poor and disadvantaged and the rest of the citizens love the extra cash in their pockets. How does one spell 'hypocrite?'

Alaska Independent Party

Just a note to see if any one else has been
out on the Alaska Independent Party web
site. I was just there and noticed a
reference that said, Governor Palin to
address the Alaska Independent Party
Convention. When I clicked on it, there
was no other news. Has any one found
her involvement in that Party?

I did hear Wolf Blitzer say that CNN was
sending an entire news crew to Alaska to
check on her background......

God Answers Evangelical Pastor but Hits Wrong Area

"Stuart Shepard is invited to lead us in this prayer for rain any day," Pastor Wiley Drake, a former vice president for the Southern Baptist Convention, said in an announcement about his plan. "Other prayer warriors are welcome not only to pray for rain but repentance in America as well."

Shepard is the director of digital media for Focus on the Family Action, which pulled from its website and YouTube a video in which he asked people to pray for "rain of biblical proportions" during Obama's acceptance speech during the Democratic National Convention in Denver Aug. 28.

A Biblical rain on Obama? Looks as if the message got to God, but God missed the mark as well as the day. Could it be that this Evangelical Christian has lost his magic line to the Almighty? What did God say instead? "Let a hurricane strike the Gulf Coast on the opening day of the GOP Convention and distract the media from covering it!"

God has spoken. Let the congregation say, "Amen!"

John McCain Hiding in Toledo: UPDATE

UPDATE:

It seems that McCain slept in a Toledo hotel Sunday evening then, on then way back to the airport, stopped for a photo op at a relief supply center. After disrupting their efforts, he got back into his SUV and flew out at 10:15 AM

Where, oh where, is John McCain? He's in Toledo in an undisclosed bunker. His plane landed in Toledo last evening at 9:30 and he sped to 'a hotel,' the news reported. There was no disclosure of the details of his Labor Day activities.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is 25 miles north of Toledo at a Labor Day barbecue celebration. The secretive nature of the McCain visit reminds me all to well of Dick Cheney and his undisclosed bunker.

Of course, hurricane Gustav is spoiling the GOP convention and is a timely reminder of Katrina and 'heck-of-a-job- Brownie.' Did Brownie get some sort of tin medal from Bush like Rumsfeld's?

Then there is that photo of Bush and McCain on the morning that Katrina began to disassemble New Orleans- the one with the birthday cake. Video Surely, John McCain doesn't want to be asked by reporters today about that 'Let them eat cake' incident. Thus the bunker.

Sarah "Annie Oakley" Palin

Sarah Palin today announced the pregnancy
of her 17 year old daughter. She is about
5 months pregnant according to the
announcement. [ABOVE: Sarah Palin teachers daughter Piper about hunting caribou]

The daughter intends to wed
the father. Palin said she told McCain
and that McCain said that offered no problem.
The reason given for making this announcement,
she said, is to knock down the liberal press
story that Palin faked her own pregnancy to
cover for the daughter.

The "Annie Oakley" nickname comes from of
all people, Andrea Mitchell. Yesterday on
Meet the Press Mitchell used the name of
Annie Oakley, that gun-totting bitch of
yesteryear, to describe Palin. I suppose
Gustav has covered that remark up, as I
have not heard any demands for an apology
or a retraction. It's a good thing that a
vice-president doesn't have much to do as
Palin will have her mom hands full just
dealing with her family.

McCain's Gustav Gamble

McCain is playing the possible national
disaster of hurricane Gustav to his
advantage. In the first place, it has
taken the eye off of Palin which would
have been dominating the news. In addition,
he apparently won't have a very unpopular
President to deal with at the Convention,
let alone Cheney.Those rubs won't be there.
It would have been interesting to see Bush
speaking at the Convention today with his
blunders of Katrina being repeated over and
over. Gustav has given a great bonus just
with these two concerns to McCain.

Yesterday, Sunday, Mississippi Governor Barbour,
played a political card and invited McCain-
Palin to FEMA HQ here in Jackson. Great free
TV and press exposure as McCain announces that
it is "Country First". Barbour gave him a
briefing on the storm's status; Jackson is a
regional center for FEMA and it was connected
by video with Bush in D.C. They all patted
themselves on the back for how prepared they
are. Interestingly, Palin was kept in the
background and did not speak. Have to keep
in mind McCain has a leg up on support as MS,
AL, LA, and TX all have Republican governors.

Now, word is coming out that McCain will further
use the impact of Gustav to his advantage in the
presidential election. It is rumored that he
will not appear in person at the Convention to
accept his nomination, but give his acceptance
speech somewhere down here in the South. It will
show he is putting "Country First" over politics
as usual. McCain says, "I pledge...we'll act
as Americans, not Republicans."

Lets remember back three years ago when Katrina hit.
These 'twins', Bush and McCain, were in Phoenix
clelebrating McCain's birthday and posing together
with a big birthday cake. Bush then went on the
California for a fund raising event. Here we have
Gustav evoking memories of all those Katrina
events and the maligned response as Bush and McCain
partyed. Does this complete the circle for Bush
and McCain? How will the electorate view this
circle, a Republican scandal evoking unforgiveable
consequences of over 1600 death or of repetence and
that they learned from their ignoring of a national
disaster?

ADDENDUM: Three years ago with Katrina, here in
Jackson we had wind gusts of 70 mph. Our neighborhood
was without power for 3 days in mid-90s and 100%
humidity. We and our neighbors had a lot of wind
damage as in trees falling on houses and cars and
the loss of roofing shingles. This time around
the forcast is for an inch of rain and only 30 mph
gusts. Hopefully, except for some flooding maybe,
we will dodge Gustav. Jackson has had a hugh
emigration of people from New Orleans area. There
is no room in any inn here. The Red Cross has
opened a large number of shelters to care for the
homeless. Gas prices spiked Thursday, and it was
that great Ohio Corportation, Kroger, that started
the price gouging at the pump. Went up .30cents
in an hour. The Attorney General, a Democrat,
stepped in and told Kroger they were under investigation.
Prices have held since then. Can you believe Kroger
would use such a tactic in a time of crisis to increase
their cash flow and to take advantage of a national
disaster?

Company Towns

A guest posting from Engineer of Knowledge

I want to start off my posting with a poem by Carl Sandburg to set up the balance of my article in honoring this Labor Day Weekend. I think too many people have forgotten the battles of our grandfathers for the working class rights,’ breaking the economic yoke of dominant corporations of their times.

One of my favorite quotes of Thomas Jefferson is, “Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”

Company Towns
By Carl Sandburg

You live in a company house
You go to a company school
You work for this company,
according to the company rules.

You all drink company water
and all use company lights,
The company preacher teaches us
What the company thinks is right.

This poem written decades ago still speaks true today. With the consolidation of the dying newspaper industry by the one voice of Rupert Murdock, and talk radio under the guise of religious, conservative programming; one has to ask themselves, who is purchasing the advertising keeping these program and papers going. Is it the trade unions, the voice of the working class, the masses who pay the bulk of the tax base burden, or is it the same corporations that have recently participated in more and more labor abuses and environmental crimes that are now evermore going unpunished even though the laws are still on the books. Should one of these media venues report negative facts about one of these companies, they will quickly pull the advertisement funding, economically shutting down the programming and reporting from the source. Even in the late 15th century, Niccolo Machiavelli noted that, “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” Have we produced a whole generation that only repeats these corporate sound bites without giving any thoughts behind them?

Case in point:

Many are old enough to remember the worst thing to be called or labeled with was the name of Communist or Communist sympathizer. In the 1950’s you would be called before the McCarthy senate hearings for Crimes Against American Activities and have your life ruined from a mere accusation. It was at this same time that we added to the Pledge of Allegiance the line, “One Nation Under God” to make sure that this distinguished ourselves from Communism. I often wonder what his supporters, those good Christian Conservatives of the time, would think of the recent massive manufacturing job losses pro-actively sent to Communist China by American Corporations. The American population was so afraid that they were sure of nuclear ICBMs from Godless Communist Nations would be sent to destroy the Christian American way of life. People were building bomb shelters and stocking them to survive for months under their own back yards.

But now these same Medias broadcasting as the voice of Christian Conservatism have people convinced that it is a good thing to send the manufacturing jobs to low paying Communistic labor force along with our latest cutting edge technological trends and knowledge, only to have the goods returned and sold at the local Wal-Marts. Well the comments are from these corporate sponsored talk show media’s drones are, “That’s like getting a pay raise in you own check because you can buy things cheaper!”

In the 1960’s this country sent hundreds of thousands of our young men to Viet Nam because we had to stop the progress of Communism. When that failed then we turned our attention to South America because we HAD to stop Communism in our own hemisphere! This just could not be tolerated because Communism would be knocking at our own back door. So our Christian Conservatives of that time put Pinochet in charge of Chile and the Military Junta in control of Argentina. As we all know that worked out well representing the American Christian value way of life.

Now McCain has announced that his choice for Vice President Candidate is a bought and sold Oil Cartel mouth piece. Her views that there is no global warming and the dire need to drill in every point in Alaska and off-shore sites needs to have the counter point that all of the Alaskan oil being pumped for the last 25 years has been going to Japan and the oil industry is really just interested in processing the paperwork giving them the all oil rites to off-shore sites. Without investing another dime to develop these sites, the oil industry can then sell these rites to foreign interests at a large profit. Of course the “Company Line” is that we need these oil rite sites awarded to the oil industry to make the U.S. energy independent.

The Alaskan oil has all been going to Japan since the Regan years. In the early 1980’s Regan wanted to place sanctions on Iran to punish them but Japan was getting all of its oil from Iran. For Japan be able to go along with the sanctions, the U.S. guaranteed to supply all of Japan’s oil energy needs with the newly developed Alaskan pipe line oil. Since then all Alaskan oil in one form or another has been going to Japan and not a drop to the U.S. markets. In a Houston newspaper article eight months ago, they reported that Chevron sold 10 of their awarded off-shore gulf coast region oil sites and rigs to Japan. Those rigs now have Japanese crews working on the rigs and they are pumping the oil into Japanese tankers taking the crude oil to Japan to be processed. The oil industry right now has seven million square miles of off-shore sites awarded to them but have not invested any significance to develop these sites. I am convinced oil corporation lawyers are actively marketing these sites to the highest bidders right now with deals to be signed after the anticipated Republican win of the White House again for four more years.

In summation I ask, when will the good meaning, but naive citizens of the U.S. wake up and quit being led by the rebirth of the “Company Coal Mine Economic Enslavement” mentality of living in the company housing, hearing the company viewpoint news line, and SELLING their souls (and their grandchildren’s futures) to the Company Store.