McCain's Anti-Environment Record

Despite his posture in the debate, McCain has an abysmal record on voting for renewable energy. Here's the truth from the League of Conservation Voters:

McCain has rejected even the weakest renewable energy programs. Sen. McCain voted against giving increased funding to solar and renewable energy programs in 1994 and 1999.³ In 2005, he voted against a national renewable electricity standard (RES) that would have required utilities to get 10 percent of their electricity from alternative energy.⁴ Last year, he missed all of the renewable electricity votes.⁵ Sen. McCain supports giving billions of dollars in subsidies to the nuclear industry while actively opposing similar support for wind and solar energy.⁶ Renewable energy must be an essential part of any global warming plan, yet Sen. McCain has stood in the way of such progress throughout his career.⁷

You can read the full details (with footnotes) here.

Additionally, his overall record on environmental voting is pitiful:

McCain LCV lifetime voting score - 24%
Obama LCV lifetime voting score - 86%

And in 2007 (most recent year available)?

McCain LCV 2007 voting score - 0%
Obama LCV 2007 voting score - 67%

You can find the full details on that here.

Is is possible to have a worse environmental voting score than McCain did last year? I don't think the scale goes into negative numbers.

Don't believe McCain's lies. He's no friend of the environment.

McCain vs. Everybody

Watching the debate at the moment, I want Barack to ask McCain this question, "John, is there anybody in the world you don't want to fight?"

Just now, McCain is posturing to fight both Iran and Russia. And, of course, he doesn't want to get out of Iraq or Afghanistan. Of course, there's no mention of how to pay for any of this adventureism, nor where we're going to get the troops for it, as our military is already stretched near the breaking point.

I think our President should not only stick up for America, but he also needs to pick our fights carefully. I see no signs of such care in McCain.

Obama On the Economic Crisis

Barack's press conference today (longer than many of Bush's) where he talks about the current economic crisis, the tack he thinks we should take on it, and how that relates to postponing Friday's debate (or not).



It's worth hearing his rational (as usual) approach to the country's problems.

Do we want calm and reasoned reactions like this, or a series of "Stop everything!" crisis points and knee-jerk reactions -- which is what McCain seems to be offering.

And here's what Barack sent out in a letter on the crisis yesterday. I'm leaving in the "ads," because some of you might want to sign aboard at this point:

The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has created a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression.

Congress and the President are debating a bailout of our financial institutions with a price tag of $700 billion or more in taxpayer dollars. We cannot underestimate our responsibility in taking such an enormous step.

Whatever shape our recovery plan takes, it must be guided by core principles of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another.

By clicking here, you are signing on to support an economic recovery plan based on the following:

• No Golden Parachutes -- Taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward the irresponsible Wall Street executives who helmed this disaster.

• Main Street, Not Just Wall Street -- Any bailout plan must include a payback strategy for taxpayers who are footing the bill and aid to innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

• Bipartisan Oversight -- The staggering amount of taxpayer money involved demands a bipartisan board to ensure accountability and oversight.

Show your support and encourage your friends and family to join you:

http://my.barackobama.com/ourplan

The failed economic policies and the same corrupt culture that led us into this mess will not help get us out of it. We need to get to work immediately on reforming the broken government -- and the broken politics -- that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place.

And we have to understand that a recovery package is just the beginning. We have a plan that will guarantee our long-term prosperity -- including tax cuts for 95 percent of families, an economic stimulus package that creates millions of new jobs and leads us towards energy independence, and health care that is affordable to every American.

It won't be easy. The kind of change we're looking for never is.

But if we work together and stand by these principles, we can get through this crisis and emerge a stronger nation.

Thank you,

Barack

Burlington For Obama Grand Opening

I'm Voting Republican Because . . .

This is hilarious! http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQJ9Xp0xxU

Speaking of hilarious, does anyone know if Paul Ryan is still pushing Ryan's Reactionary Roadmap after the events of this past week? Could even the Paul Pandering Privateer himself still be ideologically blind enough to think handing Social Security and Medicare over to the fast hands on Wall Street would be anything but a complete disaster? Could he still promote this worn out idea to his constituents with a straight face?

Voter Bias

An interesting article Kay dug up about why people vote irrationally:

http://www.salon.com/env/mind_reader/2008/09/22/voter_choice/index.html

I'm all for putting our candidates through challenges that test their thinking before we elect them.

How Ignorant Do You Have To Be?

Just how ignorant do you have to be to vote Republican this time around? After 81 long months of lockstep GOPsupport for the Bu$hite regime and it's extreme Un-American criminality, immorality, secrecy, deceit, and bloodshed not to mention incompetence and ideological myopia, people all around the world know (and the American people should) that under this brand leadership you just can't trust America anymore.

-You can't trust America on International Law
-You can't trust America on use of Military Force
-You can't trust America on Foreign Policy
-You can't trust America on Human Rights
-You can't trust America on Environmental Issues
-You can't trust America on world Leadership

And the final straw?-You can't even trust America on Financial Management

If after all this we're collectively ignorant enough to elect another member of this partynow, the rest of the world may very well shake their heads, wash their hands and turn their backs on us to suffer the consequences of our folly. And they would be more than justified in doing so.

Alas It's Constution Day

To day is the 221st anniversary of the signing of our Constitution of the United States of America. Flags, which represent the Constitution should be flying at half-mast in mourning. For eight years of treacherous rule by the GOPsters have left our founding document and our principles that it embodies in tatters. Without that document and those principles, I don't know what it is, but it sure as hell ain't America!

My Proposed New Obama Ad

*This proposed ad was written by Steve Sullivan. See note at end.*

Hello, I’m Barack Obama, and I approved this message.

Republican John McCain and his running mate are lying to you about me and my positions.

Here’s the truth:

My tax plan will mean lower taxes for every American earning less than $250,000 a year—that’s 95% of all Americans. And the cost for my plan will be covered by rolling back the tax rate for the people earning more than $2 million a year, back to the same tax rate we had under Bill Clinton. And, if you remember, people all across the US—even the very rich—did pretty well under Bill Clinton.

That simple roll-back pays for tax cuts for everyone else: working families who are struggling to make ends meet. If you’re earning less than $250,000, you’ll get a $500 rebate—$1000 if you’re married or have children. And I will completely eliminate income taxes for senior citizens earning less than $50,000.

Don’t take my word for all this, check the report by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.

John McCain and the Republicans don’t want you to know that. He’s trying to muddy the waters, and you have to ask yourself, “Why?”

Maybe it’s because, for the past seven years, John McCain has been part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. By his own admission, he’s voted with George W. Bush over 90% of the time. That’s not change—that’s more of the same.

My name is Barack Obama, and I stand for Change You Can Believe In: lower taxes and a government that cares about working people.

Please vote for me on November 4^th.

*This proposed add was written by Steve Sullivan, based on position papers by Barack Obama. I believe all of the statements in it to be correct representations of Barack’s positions—though I cannot personally speak for the candidate.

I'm John McCain, and I approved these LIES.

Here's a short film that calls McCain out for many of his lying campaign ads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk

Our current president lied us into the Iraq war. Do we need more liars in the White House?

I don't think so.

If you agree, and like this film, please pass it along to your friends and family.

And if anyone has a link to McCain saying -- as I and others remember -- that he wouldn't use negative ads or Swift-Boating this campaign, I'd love to add that to this post.

ADDENDUM: Okay, here's two links (Thanks, Matt!) to McCain promising not to do what he's now doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2BA_9QJRrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZf05ijVFtc&feature=related

And here's a juxtaposition between those promises and what he's actually done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rUTXfuz6S0&feature=related

As I said at the top, "I'm John McCain, and I approved these lies."

GOP vs. America

Just some random links about this week's Republican National Convention -- which tend to prove that what was said at the convention bears no resemblance to what is scientifically known as "reality" or morally known as "the truth."

First up, John Stewart of the Daily Show on Palin playing the Gender Card. (Click on the link to see the video.)

As a follow-up, Steven Colbert points out that Alaska has Mt. McKinley, which is the highest point in America and the part of our country closest to outer space. Therefore (following GOP logic) Sarah Palin has outer-space policy experience.

Next, an AP analysis of the Palin Speech on Huffington Post. (Click link to read.)

A few days back, Fresh Air was talking rationally and calmly about Sarah Palin's positions on things from Abstinence Education to Global Warming, here's a link for that. Today, they did a similar analysis of John McCain. To know these people is to be able to better counter her spin.

Here's the definitive article about the candidates' plans on health care -- something we should all care about. You can read the NE Journal of Medicine assessment here, or listen to the recent talk about it on Fresh Air, but the gist is that McCain wants to tax the health benefits you get from your employer, deregulate the health care industry, give people a tax rebate (less than the cost of the coverage), have people buy their own coverage individually, and let the market take care of things.

And in case you've forgotten what kind of antidote Obama offers for all this greed, hypocrisy, bullying, and irrationality, here's a link to Obama's Acceptance Speech.

Now that the Obama office in Burlington is open, there's plenty of opportunities to help fight the good fight. See you there! (Check the top of the page for the address.)

Bush Calls Kettles Black

I know Bushieboy probably can't spell hypocrisy, let alone pronounce it. But you'd think he'd at least know what it is and have a minor sense of shame and irony for the situation he and his minder Dick have put America in. Last week before attention was diverted to the Caucasus, the Torturor-In-Chief was lecturing China on its human right record. This is a man who through his lies and criminal acts created a humanitarian crisis in Iraq where some 5 million people are refugees and tens to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and more than 30,000 Americans where mislead to there deaths and dismemberment. This is a man who has knowingly presided over the imprisonment, torture and murder of the innocent along with the guilty and consistently shredded the very bedrock of what America is, the Constitution, all in the name of an imperial presidency.

This week Bush and his neocon bretheren are waging their fingers at Russia for invading a sovereign nation and calling on the U.N. Security Council (on which Russia sits) to condemn the action because it wasn't authorized by by the Security Council. Russia is claiming that its response is humanitarian because Georgian president Saakashvili attacked his own people (he did) and that Russia is acting its own interest, pre-empting a threat to national security. Oh and by the way, there is control of natural gas and oil at stake as well.

If this doesn't all sound familiar it should. Bush did not have the U.N Security Council authorization required for all military action against another nation with the exception of when actually attacked and he used the rationale that Saddam had attacked his own people. And we're not in Dafur why? Oh right, no oil there. Bush and Cheney have also claimed and acted on the right to attack another country if there is even a perceived 1% threat that they might threaten America's security (The Bush Doctrine AKA the 1% Doctrine).

The bushites have undermined international law and America's moral standing in the world. Bush condemning the Chinese and Russians for their actions simply exposes him for the empty-headed hypocrit that he is and the world is laughing at him. Putin isn't just laughing though, he's using Bush's own actions to poke him right in the eye. And since we're so bogged down in his Iraq boondoggle there's nothing Bush can do about it because he has also undermined America's strategic position by bring America's all volunteer military to the breaking point. And Vlad, the man whose soul Bush gazed upon with approval when he looked into his eyes is calling Georgie's Georgian bluff and proving that when Bush look into his eyes he saw only exactly what his "friend" Vlad wanted him to see. Just another piece of evidence among many that Bushieboy was never really up to the task that he thought was his by right of descent. The more Bush wags his finger the more foolish he looks for paving Putin's way (and perhaps others) in justifying his actions by mirroring those of Dubya.

CIA Forged Letter Linking Saddam to Al Qaeda

Ron Suskind's new book The Way of the World, with the support of on-the-record CIA officials, states that the Whitehouse ordered the CIA to forge a letter from Iraq's head of intelligence to Saddam stating that 9/11 ring leader Mohammed Atta was trained in Iraq for the attacks.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/05/10809/

This letter published by the Sunday London Telegraph in December 2003 was designed to provide justification for the invasion that had been planned since Bush took office before 9/11.

Suskind further claims that based on a report by British Intelligence (among other sources, including inspectors on the ground) that the bushites knew that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and no programs to produce such weapons. They of course ignored this information because it didn't suit their goals of war on Iraq and war on reality.

This provides one more set of evidence in an ever mounting pile of evidence that George W. Bush is murderer and a traitor and should be brought to legitimate justice before the law.

Paul Ryan's Reform Misses The Mark

Paul Ryan completely missed the mark with his opinion piece about the need to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in last week’s Standard Press. Although perhaps that was intentional since what really needs reform is the Republican Party. The problems faced by these two institutions are not the result of internal flaws, but rather the deeply flawed and greed motivated deregulation agenda of the GOPsters. You see in 1999 the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed under the sponsorship of none other than former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), millionaire and McCain’s “economic advisor” before he had to be thrown under the Straight Talk Express for among other things, calling the American People “whiners”.

Glass-Steagall was enacted after the Great Depression to prohibit banks from owning brokerage firms and vice versa, to prevent conflicts of interest between these two sectors of the financial system and it worked well for 60 years. But greed got the better of the banking industry and our representatives and upon repeal the big banks went on a feeding frenzy, buying up the brokerage firms. So when all these bad loans were made and sold as quickly as possible to the big banks to keep the fees but offload the risk, the big banks in turn used their brokerage arms to bundle these loans into securities to sell for investment. But whereas there was once an incentive for the brokerage to check the teeth of what they were buying from the banks for bundling and resale to their customers, now there is in fact a disincentive to question the value of your own assets. Bad for business don’t you know. So they passed along bad paper and Freddie and Fannie along with financial institutions and investors around the world bought it on good faith in the American financial system, faith that was unfortunately misplaced.

Of course Paul Ryan isn’t going to point out these facts. Instead he sees it as another opportunity to push the shock doctrine capitalism and privatization agenda of the far right who don’t believe that we should share in anything in this country, that nothing should be public. Paul makes the laughable argument that, if privatized, the citizenry would not be called upon to bail out these entities again in the future should the need arise. Apparently Ryan has never heard of Bear-Stearns & Co., a private “too big fail” firm bailed out by the Federal Reserve just last spring.

There is a constantly repeated theme of GOPish deregulation followed by financial meltdown and public bailout from the savings & loan crisis to WorldCom, to Enron (also the result of Sen. Gramm’s manipulations) to the current sub-prime mortgage mess. I know that it’s an article of faith in the GOP that all corporate regulation is bad, but it’s an article of blind faith that in revelation has been shown to be wrong over and over again. You’d think the American people would learn from this history. A certain amount of regulation actually makes sense for the public good and obviously in the end for the good of the overall business sector as well, except for the few greedy and corrupt individuals who manage to profit from debacles like these. Not that Mr. Ryan will ever come around to see that, but at least if you’re going propose cures you ought to treat the cause of the disease and not just address its symptoms, or we’ll be right back here again in a few years with another GOP inspired fiasco, throwing more good money after bad. That’s just plain old common sense.

Sign Of The Times

Last week I was afforded a sight that warmed the cockles of my heart (whatever they are). I was coming back down from the north woods and went past the Hummer dealership on HWY 45 in Menominee Falls. I've been driving past and cursing this this temple to glutonous excess for several years now, but this time to my delight it was being torn down. And to add a knife twist to to GM's nearsightedness, there was a Smart Car dealership going up right next to it.

I've never figured out just exaclty what deficiency the drivers of these monstrosities are trying to compensate for, but I do know this HUMMERS ARE FOR DICKHEADS!>

Supreme Hackery

It’s long past time to publicly finance Wisconsin’s Supreme Court races. Last week we saw the injustice and cost to the citizenry that results from allowing democracy subverting special interests to buy seats on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court as Annette Ziegler led the charge for her corporate sponsors at Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC). The corporatists at WMC paid millions of dollars to put the ethically bankrupt Ziegler on the bench and now she’s dutifully returned their investment to the detriment of the citizenry.

Menasha Corporation bought SAP, a several million dollar canned software package, thousands of copies of which are sold worldwide, and they had to pay sales tax on it. They then claimed it was a custom package, therefore tax exempt because they had to pay consulting fees to integrate it and learn how to use it. They then sued the state, in conjunction with WMC, who filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of Menasha.

Annette of course sided with the corporate interests rather than the citizen’s interest and ordered not only Menasha’s money to be returned, but another $300 million in similar taxes. Talk about your judicial activism!

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson stated correctly that the citizens of Wisconsin will now have to make up for the returned money and an estimated $100 million every year from now on because of this ludicrous ruling. That’s a pretty sweet deal for the corporatists. Spend a few tens of thousands of dollars in “consulting” fees and skate on the $300,000 tax bill owed to the People of Wisconsin.

In her former position Zeigler not only didn’t recuse herself from cases that involved her husband’s business, but kept those conflicted interests secret from the parties involved. For this violation of ethics rules she got a slap on the wrist from her fellow “justices” on the bench and as a result the citizenry has been slapped in the face. And once again she failed to recuse herself, in this case involving the group who paid for her seat on the bench. But then again there really is no conflict in her interest, we know exactly where that lies.

Justice Abrahamson is up for re-election next year and you can bet that WMC and national groups interested in forcing the corporatist agenda on America will spare no expense in buying that seat as well (as they did for Gableman this year) to put the final nail in the coffin of supreme justice here in Wisconsin.

Fortunately a good corporate citizen, Epic Systems of Verona has stepped in and made the following statement; “We believe that what we tolerate is what we stand for, and as corporate citizens, we stand for the preservation of the foundation of the judicial system," "… After careful consideration, we made a decision to try to work only with vendors that do not support WMC with its current management. This was not a decision we made lightly, but believe it is the right thing to do.” BRAVO!

These ”justices” can put on robes if they want to in a vain effort to instill a sense of mystery and awe surrounding their deliberations. But there’s no mystery about what lies beneath the robes of the likes of Zeigler and Gableman, a couple of bought and paid for supreme political hacks. It’s time for the citizens resume ownership of their court and the justices that sit on it by funding the elections with public money.

Campaign Office grand Opening Celebrations!

The Grand Opening Celebration of the Racine for Obama Campaign for Change headquarters is next Wednesday July 16th – 6:00 PM at 522 6th Street in downtown Racine.

The Walworth Co. Democrats are celebrating the opening of their campaign office at 21 E Walworth St. in downtown Elkhorn tomorrow Sat. July 12th at 3:00 PM, with Congressional and State Assembly candidate speeches beginning at 4:00.

As many people of goodwill as possible are encouraged to attend both events!

Great News!

Dr. Jeffrey Thomas did not file his 1st CD nomination papers to reprise his repeated role as a non-viable democratic candidate. This makes it far more likely that we will get a real candidate running as democrat to unseat the regressive Mr. Ryan.

Empirial Over Reach

This is what the Bushite Neocons mean establishing a free and sovereign Iraq. Yeah turn Blackwater and CACI loose with immunity on the already beleaguered citizens of Iraq, that'll go well. Not to mention the launching pad for war with Iran and then Syria that this is intended to facilitate. From today's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/13/headlines

Iraqi PM: Talks With US at "Dead End"

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is claiming talks on a long-term agreement with the US have reached what he calls "a dead end." US demands have included maintaining fifty-eight permanent military bases in Iraq, immunity for American troops and contractors, a free hand to conduct military operations without Iraqi approval, and control of Iraqi airspace. Speaking in Jordan, Maliki said, "We have reached an impasse, because when we opened these negotiations we did not realize that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty, and this is something we can never accept." The Independent of London reported last week the US is leveraging tens of billions of dollars in seized Iraqi assets to push through its demands. The Bush administration has angered Iraqi officials by refusing to lift support for Iraq's UN designation as a threat to international security. The New York Times reports Iraqi officials will ask the UN Security Council today to expend its protection of Iraq against compensation claims.

Pre-Existing Political Condition (You're Denied!)

Below is a piece by Jack Lohman of www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org from most recent edition of his bimonthly newsletter on clean elections and healthcare reform. It's an excellent snapshot of the train wreck we find ourselves in with regard to healthcare and disfunctional politics, with a republican party both in denial of the problem and ideologically unequiped to address the healthcare issue and two parties that are enmeshed in the status quo of money driven politics. The full newsletter can be viewed at www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org/eNewsletter71.htm You can sign up for this excellent source of information by sending a blank email to jlohman@execpc.com with “Subscribe eNewsletter” in the subject line.

Three steps to Health Care Reform
By Jack E. Lohman
I’ve got it!
Step One: Refuse insurance coverage for 15% of our politicians, under-insure another 15%, and put the rest on a high-deductible health savings account.
Step Two: Ban all campaign contributions moving from the healthcare and insurance industries to the politicians.
Step Three: Actually, step three isn’t needed. Without health insurance or industry money, the politicians will fix the system virtually overnight. Even if we just eliminated the industry money, the politicians would do the right thing.
Sad, isn’t it? That the guys and gals that are paid by us actually work for them. But that’s the world we live in.
That’s the way it’s going to be until November and we throw out the old and bring in the new.
Yeah, some of the indestructible young bucks will be okay with the high deductible plans, at least until one of their kids is diagnosed with genetically contracted diabetes or something of the like. No amount of, what do they call it, personal responsibility and keeping fit, will protect them from this family tragedy.
Then they’ll want to convert to a standard policy, but it’ll be too late. It’s that “pre-existing disease” thingy we’ve been talking about.
It is what it is; live with it.
This just puzzles the hell out of me. We are all paying for everyone’s health care already. . . . in cost shifting, bankruptcy costs, and when businesses add their costs to the price of their product and we (even us old geezers) reimburse them at the cash register.
Why don’t we just pool everybody into one system and all share the costs in a forthright manner, and pay less dollars than we are paying today? And at the same time make our businesses more competitive with imports!
For the same amount of dollars we are spending on health care today, we could provide first class care to 100% of our population. We’d use the same private doctors, the same private hospitals and we’d have wait times no longer than we have today.
Under a single-payer universal healthcare system, no one would have to declare bankruptcy because of exhorbitant healthcare costs, where those costs are now borne by the rest of us.
Why are we spending more to avoid doing it the right way, than it would cost to do it right in the first place?
I know of no intelligent business leader that would design a system like today’s. But I do know of many politicians who would. What’s that tell you?

Source: http://moneyedpoliticians.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/three-steps-to-health-care-reform/