Below is a screen shot of a Wall Street Journal opinion article.  If you click to see the full page view, and then click once more on the screen shot you will be able to make out the date.  September 26th, 2008. Note the McCain advert on the right hand side.

 As of the local time here 10:47AM the debates haven't occurred yet and won't for seven more hours.  At the worst, this is a reminder of what this campaign is about.  Lie, deceive, distract and repeat.  At best, it is a reminder that the Republican's 'A Team' has not been placed behind this campaign. That small but important details are being missed.  That the talent, contacts and professionalism are missing due to a fundamental lack of support by the real players in the party, in the face of what must have been every poll, survey and trend report showing that no matter what there would be a Democratic landslide.  Sending out the A Team here, only to try to come back from a defeat next election, would have made things that much tougher.  Whichever the case,  trying to tell the voters what to do and think by subliminal message or ad nauseam repeats of phrases is the same as telling them what to do and think outright, and that is something I've heard Republicans don't take to very well.

 And to top all of this off this is the man who, despite having no practical background in economics, stating he doesn't know the economy as well as he should (but will read Greenspan's book), and has missed more votes than any other representative, wanted to suspend democracy while he headed to D.C. to supposedly fix what career professionals cannot.  The video clip below sums it all up quite nicely for me.  America still holds the hope and expectations of the world, let's not let that slip away. We can do anything, lets start with fixing America. 

 by Stan Goff

I write this open letter to troops, brothers and sisters – of all branches – who profess the faith of Christ. I write you to ask that you remember your baptism, because at that baptism you declared your renunciation of evil.

I came across this posted letter over at lewrockwell. It moved me, so I thought I would highlight it here.  I hope you take the time to click through and read the entire article.

On February 1, 1996, I retired from the United States Army. I had served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam as an infantryman, the 82nd Airborne Division, the 4th Infantry Division, 2nd Ranger Battalion, the Jungle Operations Training Center, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, the United States Military Academy at West Point, 1st Ranger Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, 75th Ranger Regiment, and finally 3rd Special Forces Group. I worked all over "hot spots" in Latin America during the 80s and early 90s. I participated in Grenada and Somalia; and I was the team sergeant for a Special Forces A-Detachment during the 1994 invasion of Haiti.

In all that time, I was one of those atheists in the foxholes they say don't exist. I could never have known that I'd find the faith to follow Christ and be baptized on Easter of my 56th year. But I did, even when I'd never grasped for spiritual reassurance as I slogged through the Central Highlands of Vietnam, leapt from airplanes into the night, or had helicopters shot out from under me. I've been taking up residence close to death for a long time. My faith isn't about jumping over death. It's about reconciling with God, who Jesus Christ showed us is Love.

When I was baptized I continued to carry my history; but one identity was sloughed off in the water and a new one born out of it.

I write this open letter to troops, brothers and sisters – of all branches – who profess the faith of Christ. I write you to ask that you remember your baptism, because at that baptism you declared your renunciation of evil.

Click here to read:  Open Letter to Christian US Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by Stan Goff

UPDATE: CNN has posted a handy, side by side chart showing  how the average tax bill could change in 2009 if either John McCain's or Barack Obama's tax proposals were fully in place. You can find it at the bottom.

Recently I landed on yet another article spreading what fact checkers and watchdog groups have called "completely inaccurate" information regarding the differences and details between the Democratic and Republican parties' tax plans.  FactCheck.org- A New Stitch in a Bad Pattern, Even Fox Debunks McCain on Taxes. However FOX also drops the ball, as Media Matters explains. 

So, with a heavy sigh, I opened up notepad, found my 'tax plan' links and prepared to defend the truth yet again.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not voting for either of these candidates.  But the lies being told during this campaign, the disrespect and disregard for party values and members, compels me to do something.  After 8 long Bush years, the events unfolding from the GOP campaign have me wondering if I've suffered a head wound, am lying somewhere in a coma and this is all a horribly twisted fever induced nightmare.  From proclaiming "I Know More!" but not really, his veteran voting record and support, to the media that is doing nothing to wake me from this nightmare.  And then of course there's the lie near and dear to my heart, Drill,  Baby Drill.  I shouldn't have been surprised considering previous abuses of power.  But who could have imagined?  Only my desperate, confused, comatose mind one would think, right?  Well, this one time I was saved.  Someone with faster links, more organized or less weary? I'm thankful in either case, as he has granted me permission to re-post his comment here in my ongoing efforts to be a message force multiplier for truth.  It should make for a good Sunday read in pursuit of the truth:

Keep saying it long enough...and maybe you can convince yourself it's true. You sure won't convince people who actually live in a fact-based world.

Sorry, but this is pretty much just a bunch of hogwash. McCain's plan has been found by experts to cost more and to add even more to the deficit than Obama's will, and at a far greater cost to the middle class.

The independent Tax Policy Center has published A Preliminary Analysis http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411693_CandidateTaxPlans.pdf of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans.  Here is part of the abstract:

Here is the bottom line:

Senator Obama’s plan would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt (including additional interest costs) while Senator McCain’s plan would add $4.5 trillion."

According to the report, the deficit would increase by $1.2 trillion more under the McCain plan.

If enacted, the Obama and McCain tax plans would have radically different effects on the distribution of tax burdens in the United States. The Obama tax plan would make the tax system significantly more progressive by providing large tax breaks to those at the bottom of the income scale and raising taxes significantly on upper-income earners. The McCain tax plan would make the tax system more regressive, even compared with a system in which the 2001–06 tax cuts are made permanent. It would do so by providing relatively little tax relief to those at the bottom of the income scale while providing huge tax cuts to households at the very top of the income distribution.

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Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center's Tax Vox Blog: http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/blog/_archives/2008/6/11/3739543.html

Obama would use the money to provide modest tax cuts to low- and moderate-income people while imposing stiff tax hikes on the very wealthy. McCain would cut taxes a bit for the working-class and a lot for the rich.

...Despite McCain’s recent claim that Obama would raise taxes for all, it turns out that middle-class families would do better under Obama (who would cut their taxes by $1000 in 2009) than McCain (who would cut them by only $300).

...McCain, who once opposed President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cut as a give-away to the rich, but now embraces them, has designed a plan more consistent with the New McCain than the old. It is as Republican a plan as Obama’s is Democratic. The top 20% of taxpayers get a 3% reduction in after-tax income in 2009, while the lowest-earning 60% would get less than 1%.

For the distribution analysis of the respective plans, see here. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?template=simulation&SimID=266&relTTN=T08-0118

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On top of all that, Obama has clearly outlined how he intends to pay for his plan, while John McCain hasn't even come close to being able to explain his magic numbers seemingly plucked out of the ether. Economists and fact checkers have repeatedly stated that Obama's spending proposals and tax plans add up.

David Wessel, Wall Street Journal, 2/28/08:

One challenge is to tally up his tax cuts and spending increases to see whether they're matched by tax increases and spending cuts, as he says they are. To skip to the bottom line: Sen. Obama's probably do.

Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe, 7/11/08:

"[Obama] has offered a clearer - and politically braver - idea of how he'd pay for his tax cuts and spending increases and shore up other programs..."Obama has a very ambitious agenda, but he has identified some potential ways of paying for it," says Bixby. "Those may involve some heroic assumptions, but from what I can tell, the McCain pay-fors are all heroic assumptions." So, though Obama is a long way from being a deficit hawk, he deserves credit for giving voters a reasonable idea of how he'd operate. McCain is asking them to buy a pig in a poke."

IT'S MCCAIN'S BUDGET PLAN THAT WILL BREAK THE BANK

Analysts Say McCain's Plan Would Increase The Deficit More Than Obama's.

"Experts say that both the McCain plan and the Obama plan would increase the deficit... But several analysts have said they believe that Mr. McCain's plan would increase the deficit more, because of the size of the tax cuts he is seeking." [New York Times, 6/11/08]

McCain's Budget Figures Don't Add Up:  "Fiction may require a willing suspension of disbelief, but presidential campaigns shouldn't. Yet here's the fanciful proposition John McCain wants us to swallow: that he can extend the Bush tax cuts, pile other tax breaks and revenue reductions atop them - and still balance the federal budget in four years... "I don't think there is any there there," declares Bob Bixby, executive director of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, who says that in his attempt to portray himself as both a tax cutter and a deficit hawk, the Republican candidate is using "very vague numbers."..."It's preposterous," says Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As a round-number illustration of the difficulty, Horney notes that $400 billion would be more than 80 percent of the amount projected for fiscal year 2013 domestic discretionary spending." [Scot Lehigh Op-Ed, Boston Globe, 7/11/08]

McCain's Tax Cuts Will Explode The Federal Deficit: "Sen. John McCain is proposing tax cuts that would either cause the federal deficit to explode or would require unprecedented spending cuts equal to one-third of federal spending on domestic programs." [Wall Street Journal, 4/22/08]

McCain's Budget Will Add $150 to $250 Billion More To The Deficit Per Year Than the Obama Plan: "The Obama campaign claims it can pay for all this, and even reduce the deficit, through tax increases and spending cuts. I think a more skeptical look at its budget leaves you worried it may add something like $50 billion a year to the deficit. But applying the same arched brow to Mr. McCain's stated plans leaves you worried that he will add $200 billion or $300 billion or, depending on his voluntary tax system, even more." [New York Times, 6/18/08]

Just as Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said in response to McCain's misleading negative ads,

"Yet again, John McCain makes another false, low-road attack while he's offering just more of the same Bush economics that have failed us for eight years. The choice is simple: Barack Obama will give a real tax cut up to $1,000 to 95% of working Americans, while John McCain will follow in Bush's footsteps, adding to the deficit with huge tax breaks for oil companies and other special interests. No matter how many false negative ads John McCain runs, Americans can't afford more of the same Bush policies that John McCain promises."

That greatest champion of liberty, Thomas Jefferson, feared that if a small group of citizens became too wealthy, they would create an economic aristocracy which would cause a polarization between the rich and the poor and democracy would vanish. Jefferson said in a 1785 letter to James Madison, "Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."

In an 1825 letter to William B. Giles, Jefferson cautioned that economic powers "now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest steppingstone to it."

Jefferson also suggested amending the Constitution to "ban monopolies in commerce."

James Madison decried "inequality in fortunes" as a "malignant aspect in republicanism."

Thom Hartmann relates a story about Madison's views on where the responsibility of caring for the poor lay:

...on February 21, 1811, President James Madison vetoed a bill passed by Congress that authorized government payments to a church in Washington, DC to help the poor. Faith-based initiatives were a clear violation, in Madison's mind, of the doctrine of separation of church and state, and could lead to a dangerous transfer of political power to religious leaders.

In Madison's mind, caring for the poor was a public and civic duty - a function of government - and must not be allowed to become a hole through which churches could reach and seize political power or the taxpayer's purse.

I've gone on long enough, but there is a literal smorgasbord of history and current events that invalidate most every statement you make in this article.

And I want you to know that I am very conservative (in the real definition of "conservatism") when it comes to financial policy. I'm a member of the non-partisan group DownsizeDC, which seeks to end wasteful government spending and make government "smaller." I don't agree with their positions on everything, but I am tired of America being bilked by the government for STUPID stuff, and I'm sick of the rampant corruption and back-room deals made by DC politicians. For me, this does NOT mean destroying the social programs that many depend on to be able to live a life of dignity. It means getting rid of the waste and corruption within the programs, and cutting many of the other ridiculous programs that provide little or no benefit to the huge majority of Americans.

By JC Garrett Sept. 13, 2008

Thanks So Much JC!

 

Untruths Become Facts

From the moment Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declared that she had opposed the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," critics, the news media and nonpartisan fact checkers have called it a fabrication or, at best, a half-truth. But yesterday in Lebanon, Ohio, and again in Lancaster, Pa., she crossed that bridge again.

As the presidential campaign moves into a final, heated stretch, untrue accusations and rumors have started to swirl at a pace so quick that they become regarded as fact before they can be disproved. A number of fabrications about Palin's policies and personal life, for instance, have circulated on the Internet since she joined the Republican ticket.

    Palin and John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, have been more aggressive in recent days in repeating what their opponents say are outright lies. Almost every day, for instance, McCain says rival Barack Obama would raise everyone's taxes, even though the Democrat's tax plan exempts families that earn less than $250,000.

truthout|As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts

Failed Conservative Values

Every morning I can't get out of bed until I've heard Jim Hightower on my local NPR radio station. It's my inspiration to face another day. So, it was a real treat to meet him at the Netroots Nation Conference in his home town of Austin, Texas. I asked Jim about the failure of  conservative values.  He said the failure is the ethic of greed and the alternative to this are the progressive values of fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all people. 

 

  

OpEd News Failed Conservative Values by Edwin Rutsch

Evil: It's the new good!

The devil isn't evil, he just has lousy PR.

Examples? They are legion. Here's one the Powers That Be desperately hope you'll swallow, a nasty piece of marketing gall meant to stab at your intelligence and bitch-slap your intuition, but which is nevertheless being force-fed to you as happy environmental manna, a viciously deformed version of something called "progress."

Here is "clean coal." Isn't it beautiful? Truly, the hell-bound ad agency that coughed up that one even had the nerve to film a commercial featuring Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate" playing over perky scenes of manic Americans sucking down electricity like John McCain sucks down extra oxygen, claiming that coal is America's namesake resource and we should therefore kneel before it and worship it like apple pie and horrible sex-ed and Lindsay Lohan's nipples. Did I mention the coal industry's PR people are going to hell for this? Count on it.

There is, of course, no such thing as "clean coal." It's as impossible as a humanitarian Republican, as insulting as Homeland Security. Even Obama gets it wrong in his support of this lethal oxymoron. There are only two options: Brutally pollutive coal extraction and burning techniques, rapacious strip mining and millions of acres of destroyed forest and contaminated water tables and toxified air and one of the most environmentally destructive energy sources on the planet; or new and slightly less horribly pollutive coal extraction/burn techniques that attempt to rein in a few of the more toxic pollutants, but not including carbon dioxide or, you know, cancer and death. That's about it.

Evil: It's the new good! Shut up and drink your high fructose corn syrup, sucker

You don’t hear often politicians seriously talking about shifting the power from the few to the many, and even less often do they actually do anything to shift the power or promote increased citizen engagement. If the dynamic of citizen engagement is strong, elected officials can be pressured to do what rightfully and justly shifts power to the American people.

As a result, many people may be turned off by a third-party candidacy. You may be wondering why exactly I am supporting Ralph Nader, of all people, for President of the United States. The answer consists of two main aspects: Nader’s career and history serving citizens of the United States (taking on corporations and the powerful time after time, advocating for consumer safety); and his progressive, intelligent, and civic-minded thoughts on the issues. Frankly, these two aspects make Nader completely different from the two major-party candidates. These things make him unique, irreplaceable, independent, worthy of a vote.

 

Why I support Ralph Nader for President : Click to continue reading the article.

Below is a playlist of Various Nader related videos.

Whatever half-hearing convention the Republicans cobble together in Minnesota this week, you’re going to hear the same lies they’ve been peddling for years. Under the weight of the Bush administration’s failures, though, even pretense is collapsing. Let’s finish off the job.

Here are their top five lies:

1. Republicans are Fiscal Conservatives

Bush is leaving office with the deficit through the floor.

2. Republicans are Strong on National Security

Republicans have been running against Jimmy Carter since 1980, despite the fact that Democrats have strong traditions of military service and tactical skill in wartime. So where is the proof that the GOP can win wars or keep our country safe?

3. Republicans Defend Individual Rights

Another good joke. You want to tell me how Democrats might take your gun away? Let me ask you this: what good will the Second Amendment do you without the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth?

4. Republicans Represent Family Values

By their own standards, Republicans have failed to live out the values they affirm. A corrupt party full of self-loathing homosexuals (for whom I have pity) and child molesters (for whom I have only anger) can no longer claim to represent anyone’s values - whether it be conservatives or liberals.

5. Republicans Just Want Everyone to Have the Same Opportunities

When Republicans rail against affirmative action, universal health care, or social programs, they claim to want a society where everyone “starts in the same place.” But as we’ve seen above, Republicans always create at least two sets of rules. One for the politicians, another for the voters.                      

Click below to see the complete information on the five biggest Republican lies.

The Five Biggest Republican Lies - The Seminal :: Independent Media and Politics