SP4: orOct 31st, 2008 - 21:12:02

...shutting the Iraq war down

or

Shutting the Afghanstan war down

all of the talk we heard even 6 months ago about ending some of these things is now gone. Instead of shutdown, it's case review, a nice pledge considering the exec branch is already mandated to do that by law...

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More untruthsOct 31st, 2008 - 21:18:31

'President George W Bush has also said he wants the prison closed but his administration has struggled to find countries willing to take the prisoners.'

Utter crap. Bush will release only those that his own team of torturers has cleared, which is about 12 out of almost 300.

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we are in a war, people.Oct 31st, 2008 - 22:16:32

'Utter crap. Bush will release only those that his own team of torturers has cleared, which is about 12 out of almost 300.'


No, over 50 have been released and many have returned to fighting Americans.

Obama will let them go and tuck them in at night.

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Please vote for McCain.Oct 31st, 2008 - 22:19:16

10 Reasons Why McCain Might Win

1) One poll has undecided voters at 14 percent on the last weekend, which means most of them probably really aren’t undecided, that they are either going to stay home or vote preponderantly for McCain and pull McCain across the finish line.

2) Most pollsters are claiming the electorate this year is six to nine points more Democratic than it is Republican. That would be an unprecedented shift from four years ago, when the electorate was evenly divided, 37-37, Republican and Democratic, and a huge shift from two years ago, when it was 37-33 Democratic. A shift of this size didn’t even happen after Watergate.

3) Obama frequently outpolled his final result in primaries, which might have many causes but might also indicate that he has difficulty closing the sale.

4) The argument in the past two weeks has shifted, such that many undecided voters who are now paying attention are hearing about Obama’s redistributionist tendencies at exactly the right moment for McCain.

5) The tightening in several daily tracking polls indicates a modest surge on McCain’s part that could continue through the weekend until election day. If he is behind by three or four points right now, a slow and steady move upward could push him past the finish line in first place.

6) In terms of the electoral map, the energy and focus McCain is directing at Pennsylvania could pay huge dividends if he pulls it off. If he prevails there, it might follow that the message will work in Ohio too. And if he wins Pennsylvania and Ohio, he will probably win even if he loses Virginia and Colorado.

7) Early voting numbers are not oceanic by any means, which may indicate the degree of enthusiasm for Obama among new voters is not something new but something entirely of a par with past candidates, like John Kerry. And they show more strength on the Republican side than most people expected.

8) What happened with the Joe the Plumber story is that Obama has now been effectively outed as a liberal, not a moderate; and because liberalism is still less popular than conservatism, that’s not the best place for Obama to be.

9) The fire lit under Obama’s young supporters in the winter was largely due to Iraq and his opposition to the war. The stunning decline in violence and the departure of Iraq from the front page has put out the fire, to the extent that, like the young woman who made a sexy video calling herself Obama Girl and then didn’t vote in the New York primary because she went to get a manicure, they might not want to stand on line on Tuesday.

10) Hispanic voters, who are always underpolled, know and appreciate McCain from his stance on immigration and will vote for him in larger numbers than anyone anticipates.

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Please put country first, vote for McCainOct 31st, 2008 - 22:21:00

For the past seven years, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has time and again put the Chicago machine through the prosecutorial cleaners. Come next week, a product of the Windy City's political culture may be on his way to the White House. Now would be a good time to know if a President Obama would keep the pressure on his friends back home.

One of the first Obama political boosters, Tony Rezko, is at the center of the state's highest profile corruption case. Recall that in June the Chicago real-estate developer and Democratic fundraiser was convicted on 16 counts of influence peddling. His sentencing was delayed this month to let Mr. Rezko 'engage in discussions' with prosecutors. In other words, Mr. Fitzgerald wants him to spill the beans on Illinois corruption, possibly up to Governor Rod Blagojevich, perhaps in return for a shorter prison term. (Mr. Rezko still faces trial in Chicago in a $10 million business fraud case, as well in Nevada over unpaid casino-gambling debts.)

The Blagojevich administration has been under investigation for years. Mr. Rezko, who raised money for the Governor, solicited $7 million in kickbacks from private firms in exchange for steering state contracts their way. Prosecutors are now interested in toll highway vendor contracts granted by the administration with Mr. Rezko's involvement. They also are looking into who paid for the renovations of the Blagojevich home in Chicago; Mr. Rezko's defunct construction company was the contractor on the project. Meantime, the Governor's approval ratings have sunk to 13%, and Democrats in the state House may move to impeach him.

Mr. Obama has a Rezko image problem himself. The Democratic candidate met the Syrian-born businessman in his final year at Harvard Law School, and they stayed on friendly terms in the next two decades. When Mr. Obama started his run for the state Senate in 1995, Mr. Rezko gave him $2,000 on the first day of the campaign. The Illinois Senator says his political career didn't start in Bill Ayers's living room, but the Rezko wallet certainly launched him on his way. Over the next decade, Mr. Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for him and served on the Obama Senate campaign finance committee in 2004.

A year after his election, Mr. Obama bought his home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood with Mr. Rezko's help. At the time, he was the subject of a (then rumored) federal investigation. The men together looked at a house listed at $1.95 million. The seller insisted an adjoining lot must be sold simultaneously, though it was bound by a restrictive covenant that severely limited what the purchaser could do with the lot.

Nevertheless, on the same day that the Obamas offered $1.65 million -- the highest bid on the property -- Mr. Rezko's wife put in for the lot at the listed price of $625,000. (Mrs. Rezko earned $37,000 a year at the time and had assets of $35,000.) In 2006, Mrs. Rezko sold a 10 foot wide strip of her property to Mr. Obama for $112,000 to expand his garden. He paid nearly double the assessed value, but the sale made the Rezko lot less attractive to develop.

As Mr. Obama considered a Presidential run, he gave $159,000 in past donations traceable to Mr. Rezko to charity, and he called the house purchase 'boneheaded' and 'a mistake in not seeing the potential conflicts of interest or appearances of impropriety.' Speaking of Mr. Rezko earlier this year to the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Obama said, 'He hadn't asked me for favors.' Mr. Rezko hasn't yet told his side of the story. Following his conviction this summer, Mr. Obama said, 'This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew.' The Senator said the same about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, after his longtime pastor's 'God D--- America' YouTube turn this spring.

Mr. Obama was never the formal target of a government investigation or Senate ethics probe, or charged with any wrongdoing. 'I think that I have done a good job in rising politically in this environment, without being entangled in some of the traditional problems of Chicago politics,' he told the Tribune.

Chicago is a small political town, and other politicians, including the Daley family and prominent city Republicans, are linked to Mr. Rezko and feel the heat from Mr. Fitzgerald. Before the Rezko case, the prosecutor won a racketeering conviction against former GOP Governor George Ryan. He has indicted a number of aides to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley for corruption in hiring practices at City Hall.

Along with John McCain, Mr. Obama explicitly pledged he wouldn't dismiss Mr. Fitzgerald. But does that mean the prosecutor won't be 'promoted' out of Chicago? And while we're at it, will Mr. Obama rule out a pardon for Tony Rezko? Clarifying both points could keep the wheels of justice turning against corruption.

There's a different question for American voters. Mr. Obama pledges to clean up our nation's politics and outpolls John McCain on honesty and ethics. Yet in Chicago, he moved with the Tony Rezkos and endorsed pols like Mayor Daley and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. Can a politician so steeped in his hometown's ways really be an agent of change in Washington?

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SP4: Chnage thisNov 1st, 2008 - 01:09:56

This was preventable.Sep 21st, 2008 - 01:59:13
John McCain predicted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crises, pushed 2005 legislation to prevent trouble:

The 'FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005' would have headed this off but it was killed in the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs by Chris Dodd who recieved the most money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

President Bush sought to rein in Fannie and Freddie in 2003.

The Democratic response to Bush in 2003:

“These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

“I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

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Chnage thisNov 1st, 2008 - 01:13:59

it's change sp-idiot to much crack hey...?

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SP4: Professor BongNov 1st, 2008 - 16:17:18

Change is not progress. Change + Improvement is Progress.

Go smoke that with your stepdaddies...

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