The Trail: A Daily Diary of Campaign 2008

it appears the writer of this article is incapable of understanding the fundamental distinction between "negotiation" and "talking."

Who is editing this article?

Frank Lee,
Israel will remain a "stinking corpse" as long as they continue their racist and fascist policies against Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. Stop stealing their land and murdering and starving their women and children. You don't like to be called stinking? Then go clean up your filthy act. Olmert is the real Hitler.

Oil spiked $4 Friday on new evidence of Venezuela's deep involvement in terrorism. There's no glossing over such news: Hugo Chavez intends to destabilize the region. The U.S. will need to take action.

So long as America buys Venezuelan oil, Chavez will have the money to help FARC eventually destroy Colombia. He won't stop on his own, and the clandestine nature of his aid suggests he'll seek new ways to do it on the sly.

It's part of Chavez's strategy to use his petrodollars to take over the hemisphere -- or at least become its main power broker.

Meanwhile, Obama, who had a Che Guevara poster in one of his campaign offices doesn't mind if Cuba, with Chinese assistance, explores for oil 45 miles off Florida while U.S companies are blocked from further Gulf of Mexico production.

When Ob wins the white house, you can bet there will be big time toasting and clinking of glasses In Pyong and Tehran. Four years of reprieve. Oh sure there will be the traditional 72 useless sanctions and threats of more sanctions. There's a sucker born every minute, unfortunately this ones gonna be the pres.

Frank Lee | May 20, 2008 10:30 AM
" ... In Friday's speech, Obama's proposed weapons against Iran were "deeper isolation and steeper sanctions." Would such tactics have changed Hitler's behavior in the 1930s? Why would it change that of another madman like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who calls Israel a "stinking corpse"...?

...

However hard Obama fights the label of appeaser, his inability to recognize evil disqualifies him from the presidency in wartime."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You know - I find it interesting that people are so focused on Iran and Iraq and etc, but totally IGNORING the would-be-Hitler in Venezuela. Talk about "Inability to recognize evil!" This guy is "exporting revolution" to the tune of tens of millions of US Oil dollars and has even started his own version of Hitler Youth - RIGHT IN OUR BACK YARD, but we sit here and worry about Iran.
Why is that?

Many would say it's about oil - but I dispute that since the process of coal gasification can turn coal into oil, and the process yields high grade oil at a current cost of $55 a barrel. According to some sources (the Governor of Montana) we have enough coal to provide ALL of our nation's oil needs for 400 years without buying a DROP of the stuff from the Sand Fleas in Arabia or anywhere else - and that's without pumping even one drop of OUR oil resources!!! And when it comes to energy, we have LOTS of uranium ore buried under our soil.

So maybe it's not about oil/energy. Maybe it's more about a few loose canons running the oil companies that our Congress and Bush41 (and Bill Clinton) allowed to complete the vertical integration mergers and acquisitions that gave them an unchallenged defacto monopoly in the early '90s? And maybe it's about Bush 43 and the current Congress allowing them to continue to screw us and do nothing about it?

And maybe it's more about Oil's connections with the power elite - people like Cheney and Bush and our sitting Congress that plays along, rubber-stamping their demands, failing to impeach both Cheney and Bush for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, sitting on their hands - selling us down the river for a few dollars in "campaign contributions", and who send our children off to die in unnecessary wars without talking to the people we attack first? Maybe it's really all about the acquisition of POWER and about GREED?

And maybe, just maybe, McCain has abandoned the people he fought for over Vietnam for fame, or money, or whatever floats his boat?

All I know is both McCain and Clinton are part of the problem. I want to vote for someone who at least didn't HELP to get America in the trouble it is in today. There is absolutely NO way Obama could screw us worse than the Bushs and the Clintons and EVERY sitting member of Congress have.

TATBO - Throw ALL The Bastids Out!

Posted by: Ricahrd | May 20, 2008 10:24 AM
"So Obama's endorsement by Hamas is not all that surprising. The man who wants to be president has a consistent and disturbing pattern of associations with influence peddlers, racist preachers, terrorist professors and people who wouldn't mind if Israel just went away."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I believe in Politics those types of people are referred to as "the usual suspects?" ;-D

In slamming President Bush and John McCain, Barack Obama seemed to follow political consultant Jim Carville's rule: "You've got to be willing to fight." But what Obama is defending is indefensible.

Obama's Web site says he will negotiate with terrorists. "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions," it states.

In Friday's speech, Obama's proposed weapons against Iran were "deeper isolation and steeper sanctions." Would such tactics have changed Hitler's behavior in the 1930s? Why would it change that of another madman like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who calls Israel a "stinking corpse"...?

Iran may be blowing up U.S. troops in Iraq and sponsoring terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, but what Obama worries about is that "Osama bin Laden is still at large sending out videotapes with impunity." Since 9/11, how many al-Qaida videotapes have crashed into crowded buildings on U.S. soil?

However hard Obama fights the label of appeaser, his inability to recognize evil disqualifies him from the presidency in wartime.

Barack Obama would like us to believe that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright who ranted anti-American profanities at the National Press Club was not the man he saw from the pews of his church for two decades.

He'd also have us believe that Weatherman terrorist bomber William Ayers, who played host to his first fundraiser and with whom he would later serve on a board, is just a "guy in the neighborhood."

Similarly, Obama would have us believe he doesn't accept the recent endorsement of his candidacy by Ahmed Yousef of the terrorist organization Hamas. John McCain, he said, had "lost his bearings" for asserting, "If Sen. Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly."

Obama told CNN that McCain's remarks were "offensive" and that it was "disappointing" his Republican rival would engage "in that kind of smear . . . particularly since my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his."

Oh, really? If McCain's remarks were a "smear," senator, why did you tell the Atlantic magazine:

"It's conceivable that there are some in the Arab world who say to themselves, 'This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he's not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush." Except these people launch rockets at Israel and oppose its existence.

By the way, isn't it funny how Obama can mention his middle name in a national forum when convenient, but if a Republican uses it, it's racist and offensive? Imagine the reaction if McCain had mentioned his legal name was Barack Hussein Obama or had made the above comments about Obama. When a warm-up speaker at a McCain event said "Barack Hussein Obama" repeatedly, media hell broke loose.

So Obama's endorsement by Hamas is not all that surprising. The man who wants to be president has a consistent and disturbing pattern of associations with influence peddlers, racist preachers, terrorist professors and people who wouldn't mind if Israel just went away.

As John McCain says, the American people should make their judgments accordingly.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Throughout history this has been a tested and proven art of effective diplomacy. Most of 9/11 highjackers were Saudi, however Bush still hold hands with the Saudi rulers, because he has to keep the oil flowing. The best thing the USA can do to ensure it's standing in the world is to talk to its enemies, with no preconditions. You have to know want your enemy wants before you can come to a fair compromise.
When you break this down to its basics:
"I won't talk to you unless u do this for me." It's quite immature and just plain silly.
If we just talk to Iran, hey we might be able to become great friends by investing in the development of their oil fields, nuclear plants and gas fields.
You cannot impose your will on other countries just because they don't agree, that is called dictatorship. Does the great USA want to go down in history as the second Rome, the great dictator and imperialist or the greatest peacemaker in history?

By the way, I'd like to hear opinions about the fascinating political gamesmanship here, using the metaphor of a boxing match.

Bush pulls McCain into the corner by raising the diplomacy question during a speech in Israel. McCain, having tied himself to Bush's Iraq policy, has no choice but to go along with Bush. Seeing himself at a disadvantage, McCain tries to punch his way out of the corner. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much in his punches, mostly fine parsing of Obama's words taken out of context.

Obama seems eager to pummel McCain over the issue, not only because Obama has the advantage in the argument, but also because he can demonstrate strength and seasoning, which also defeats the Republican narrative that Obama is weak and immature.

Great fight, eh?

nofluer: The point of my post was that Bush and now, regrettably, McCain have stuck with the Cheney plan, with minimal regard for the facts on the ground and no regard for the wishes of the American people (Cheney: "So?")

I avoided the question of "why did we fight this insane war?" because I wanted to stick with documented facts, and we can only guess at the answer to the "why" questions. I agree the arguments in other posts are persuasive, though we are still left to speculate, especially with Cheney guarding the records of his meetings with the oil execs so jealously. McCain gave us more circumstantial evidence with that gaffe about never having to go to war for oil *again*.

So, I will concede the point regarding the "why" question until someone has enough backbone to compel those Washington scoundrels to open up the records that we're entitled to see.

nofleur writes: "... a possible REAL reason why we're there - it would be the one that has to do with the switch of some of the OPEC countries from selling their oil for US Dollars, to Euros & etc."

You know, check what the analysts are saying is the true value of a barrel of oil. I think it may have been a Citigroup (???) analyst that said recently the true value is around $98 per barrel, up from the initial $80 estimate.

Convert that to Euros. $80 x $1.55 (euro value vs. dollar).

ANSWER ... $124. And what is oil currently trading at? Around $127. To reach the estimated $98 equivalent, oil would have to be selling at $152 per barrel. I figure that will happen by the end of summer.

In short, oil is already trading in Euros by way of the market's manipulation of the price per barrel. So much for a war / occupation of Iraq.

Scott in NC - excuse me, but how do cheney's calculations of being met with flower tossing citizens square with being grounded in reality?

First - Neither Chaney nor Rummy had ANY meaningful experience in ground military operations - yet they chose to micro-manage the combat loading of the supplies, and Rummy told Zinni (and Franks?) how many troops he would need after, IIRC, both of them told him he'd need at MINIMUM 400,000 boots on the ground to secure the country.

The only "local" they listened to was a guy (Chalabi) who hadn't been incountry for YEARS! and was a known liar and grifter. Where's te reality in THAT?

Etc etc etc.

If you scan back down the comments, you'll find a fairly reasonable comment about a possible REAL reason why we're there - it would be the one that has to do with the switch of some of the OPEC countries from selling their oil for US Dollars, to Euros & etc.

May be right - maybe not. But it makes more sense than WMDs (especially after the US PROVIDED Saddam with WMD dual use materials, probably KNOWING he was gassing the Kurds.)

"Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless."

--Adolf Hitler

I hear a lot of nice talking in these comments. Talking about calculations that suggest that you still have potent ion and money to buy the things you want. That may be true for the brutal part of the western hemisphere people. But there is another problem rising at the horizon, a large crowd is growing larger and larger, the victims of foreclosures and the people that are laid of, the unemployed reserve army Karl Marx talked about. About 12 percent of the western hemisphere population. This group is growing pretty rapidly and has become already a power that changed the American government. The establishment reacts with hiring more policemen to keep control over the unhappy masses. In the end of this ongoing difference in income, a revolution will be inevitable. The new rich of today will be mass slaughtered within this decade, and a new sort of communism will grow from within the peoples of the western hemisphere to cope with the problems of mondialization of labor and trade. This development will give a new political entity that will take over the one we have now, that of the grabbers. An interesting development which I will see grow, but with my age don't have to live in, god thanks.

This is an argument about negotiating. Sort of by definition negotiating means talking to your enemies. How is this in any way a sign of weakness or appeasement? It's only weakness or appeasement if YOU GIVE AWAY things you SHOULD fight for. Kennedy negotiated with Khruschev and not only got the Soviets to take their nuclear missiles out of Cuba, but in the bargain saved the world from mutual nuclear destruction.

This Bush/McCain stunt is just more of the same double speak and "framing" the GOP playbook has called for since the Moral Majority days. Orwellian sloganeering that masks the truth. They seem to think we are all still dining on Freedom Fries. Ignorance is strength.

Ok, you want grounded in reality? The Cheney plan was to win Iraq, where we be greeted as liberators, which would free us up move on to Operation Iranian freedom. But Cheney's grand plan had a few hiccups:
* we continue to be pinned down in Iraq
* 70% of the American people caught on to the fact that our pretense for going to war in Iraq was an illusion (at best) or a lie (at worst)
* our military is stretched so thin that Bush and McCain don't want to give our Vets decent physical and mental health care for fear that they won't re-up
* the war in Iraq has cost us $1T (didn't Mr. Wolfowitz tell us that Iraqi oil revenue would cover our cost?)
* our own NIE says that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, thus undermining our pretense for invading Iran (by the way, I can pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly, unlike the current POTUS)
* Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain never got the memo about the NIE, or if so, didn't read it

And we can find all this information freely available from our own government sources, no liberal MSM required!

Oh - and for those who think that Obama is a babe in the woods, you should perhaps recall that his political career was forged in the foundry of Chicago's "Daily Machine" - very similar to the Kansas City "Pendergast Machine" that forged Harry S Truman. With training and success in that environment, there aren't a lot of world leaders who could hold their own against such a politician.

And although the Clintons tried to make it a negative, Obama also was involved in helping the ghetto people to get decent housing from slum lords and others who were not amenable to giving it - surely comparable to discussing nukes with President Ahmadinejad?
:-)

Posted by: alex

They are going to eat obama's lunch.

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

And his breakfast waffles too!

Barry Hussein doesn't understand that the Soviet Union did not have a death wish?
That their military and gov't weren't comprised of suicidal killers engaged in jihad? Didn't lop off the heads of
civilians (like the journalist) and
videotape it for recruiting purposes?

Osamobama reacted to Bush's description of
appeasers so defensively because the shoe fit. He is a pathetic sell-out to Soros,
moveon types. Out of one side of his mouth
he says Jimmah Carter shouldn't have met
with Hamas, and out the other side says
Iran isn't so bad and sure I'd talk with
the cretin president.

Keep fighting Hillary! The more Osamobama
speaks, the more he shows what a slime he
he really is.

Ahh... I see the night shift is out... as is logic and knowledge of how the world works (in real life - not according to someone's propaganda minister or favorite "news" station.) Must be a full moon...

I'd answer some of the silliness y'all have been posting, but most of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, is not grounded in reality, and you prob'ly wouldn't understand the responses because you don't know the basics of world politics and economics.

Go to school. Get an education; but mostly LEARN TO THINK FOR YOURSELF!

I suggest all y'all who think Iran is going to launch hundreds of ICBMs at any moment should get your stuff and crawl down in your fallout shelters now. We'll leave the power on so you can watch Fox News 24x7. You can come back out after November. If you want to stay down there until there's another GOP President, that's fine, but bring some extra grub -- it may be a while.

The idea of the United Nations the bond between countries in the Western hemisphere is appears to be fake. Different views on how to master and profit from this world has weakened the western union. We put too much energy in talking. China, India and Oilrabia profit from this attitude. But nobody wants to give in on salary, luxury etc. The only choice for the western hemisphere that is left is become outlaws and mass produce weapons to help us get what we want. In stead of making friends all over the world, we western hemisphere peoples are doing our utmost to do the opposite by considering the rest of the world as terrorists. We already see the signs on the wall, whoever goes to oilrabia asking for oil is turned down. Attacking Iran want give cheaper oil for the western hemisphere peoples. What we must do is drastically adjust to a new situation in which salaries should be quartered, prices of immobiles en ground should be reevaluated and anew set to an acceptable price. Because of the greediness of the western peoples the contrary will happen. End of this song is the total collapse of property prices in the western hemisphere. A worldwide war would be seen as an option to overcome a downfall like this. It is my view that humanity is a mistake of the cosmos we only must hope that the total destruction of mankind does not take to long.

They are going to eat obama's lunch.

Obama scares Americans and his foreign policy scares them even more.

Obama could release nuclear energy technology to Iran who could sell it to Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries.

Obama still does not have the nomination because he scares a lot of voters. Now Jewish voters are terrified about Obama.

does anyone know what obama would say when he meets Kim Il or Ahmed ?"nice weather we're having...how about those yankees? "They are going to eat him alive.Obama comes in with his tail between his legs.Its gonna be a good propaganda day in Iran and North Korea.Obama will stumble into a war. Evan Joe Biden ,head of the foreign relations committee said Ob made a mistake when he announced these meetings.Lefties will get some sense knocked into them after NK , Iran run roughshod over a fresh faced newbie Obama.

Right. Obama is naive and inexperienced.

So, Mr. McCain, by ruling out any kind of diplomatic discussion or conversation with an enemy, what other options do you propose to forge a peace?

Will someone please ask him this question?

Because the only option I came come up with is a military option: Force. And we know where Ws foreign policy has landed us these past five years.

Of course we negotiate with terroists. "surrender or die" is a negotiating tactic. Even McCains position is a negotiation with terroists. We wont't talk to them until they recognize Israel and stop the violance. We negotiatied with Japan, you unconditionally surrender and we will stop bombing your cities. Libia, IRA.... Who are the idiots and fools (the MSM) who have not yet called McCain on this.

McCain is a North Vietnemese Manchurian candidate. According to these very reliable blogs, McCain was cloned with dna from a rat's intestine, and sent back to the U.S. to run for President.

Yeah, Senator John. You're right about Obama being reckless for actually stating that he would TALK to the Iranian president. What a fool! To actually communicate! My god, how reckless can you get!! And you've also already shown how intelligent, restrained and sophisticated your approach would be for dealing with Iran..... ba, ba, ba, bomb, bomb Iran. Remember singing that song, John? While kissing the Shrub's a$$? You are a stupid neocon moron who brings the word "reckless" to a whole new level.

Here we go again with MCBUSH. If you liked Bush's domestic agenda and his failed foreign policies you are going to love John MCain. MCCAIN running for Bush's third term

Remember when Nelson Mandela was a "terrorist?"
Remember when Gerry Adams was a "terrorist?"
Would you like some more names?

Commonwealth countries spell funny. ;-D

I'm not really worried about China. Even if they buy all of the US Iron mining companies in the US - and bring their own workers over to mine them, those folks gotta eat, they gotta have a place to get out of the cold, etc. The US/Australia will make money off of the Chinese expansion because, just as BonzoBucks are only redeemable here, your DingoBucks are ONLY redeemable at Kangaroo Jack's in the outback and ONLY when you buy genuine woolaroo!! ;-D

Trade is ALWAYS a two way street. It may go one way for a while, but then it HAS to go back the other way! And a truth - the most prosperous nations/city-states in history have had absolutely NO trade barriers!!!

Then there's that - ummm - OTHER thing about China. The dirty little secret that they're not talking about.

(Whispering now) Y'see mate, they've gone and buggered themselves politically and they don't even seem to know it, or if they do, they haven't the slightest what to do about it! They went and allowed their peasants to create a middle class!!! You can't have a totalitarian State with a strong middle class. And once that middle class starts driving the economy - the Mr I'm In Charge Fearless Leader has to get his bum into the back seat! Eh? (End whispering)

So - I'm having a GREAT deal of fun watching China these days! ;-D

the smart lead with diplomacy .... then we have McCrazy flip flop McCain.

"The first thing that I would do is call in John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Joe Biden, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel, and several others and say, 'We've got to get foreign policy, national security issues back on track.'" (When asked the first thing he would do if elected President, 3/00)

"Well, it's common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That's well known. And it's unfortunate." -before correcting himself by saying Iran was training "extremists," not Al Qaeda

"There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today." --prior to visiting a Baghdad market while being flanked by 22 soldiers, 10 armored Humvees, and two Apache attack helicopters

wonder if he still feels the same.??

"We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously. I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history."(John McCain
On Iraq War, February 2007)

Nofluer, I got a greal laugh out of your BonzoBucks - how true that is... (GRIN). And yes, I'm an Aussie.

Regarding gold, sure it's a commodity like everything else and changes value depending on how much anybody is willing to pay for it - HOWEVER - gold is an internationally recognised item of valuta, which means that it does have intrinsic value in literally every nation on the planet, unlike the BonzoBucks that can only be spent in BonzoLand, er, sorry, the United States of America, for ever-diminishing value.

The problem with handing those BonzoBucks to China all those years is that sure, the USA benefited all that time by getting cheap Chinese goods. But the price is about to be paid in a very damaging way and we have suffered this in Australia already, but it's too late for us.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Australia had a massive manufacturing infrastructure. We made radios and TVs, whitegoods, clothing, cars and literally everything we needed. But then the Japanese and Chinese started making those goods for a fraction of the price of Aussie-made products, so instead of insulating this nation from cheap slave-labour made products, we let them flood into Australia and we paid the price by watching our entire industrial base go bankrupt and export hundreds of thousands of Aussie jobs to Asia.

Now Australia has no whitegoods industry, not one TV or radio is made here, virtually all clothing comes from China and other Asian nations and luckily, all we have is an abundance of raw materials. However, China is looking to buy our big resources companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto, so eventually if this occurs, Australia will be owned lock, stock and barrel by the Chinese. They didn't have to invade us - they just used our greed and stupidity to buy us out. Aussies used to look at Chinese as uneducated coolies - now we are going to be their waiters and busboys.

Why I am saying this is that the same thing is happening to the USA. China now holds 1.3 TRILLION dollars of US debt, cheap Chinese goods are flowing into the USA while American jobs are going down the gurgler. Look at the job losses in the US car industry for starters - GM and Ford are going broke. How many sneakers are being manufactured in the good old USA? None, I bet.

Nofluer, I've got a fair idea of how this game works. You are right about the BonzoBucks and I had a good giggle over it, but the bottom line hasn't changed. Notwithstanding Bretton Woods, BonzoBucks and other fiscal machinations, the fact is that the US dollar is going to become just another worthless fiat currency if this situation continues and the Petrodollar scam comes to an end.

Ziggy:

Oops - forgot something that may be of interest... the mega-corps that off-shored all of their manufacturing capacity? They're about go get it shoved up their dorsal orifices as it becomes CHEAPER to manufacture in the US - and we make better quality stuff, too.

It's already happening in the Call Center industry.

I don't think Bush really understands all of this - but believe it or not, he has been GOOD for the long term health of the US economy - again just like the Marshal plan. Although I personally revile him (especially for the violation of the Geneva Accords), history will probably be much kinder to him than we are being.

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."

--Abraham Lincoln

Ziggy! You don't REALLY understand how it works. You're right on the EDGE of understanding, tho.

You got it EXACTLY correct when you said the dollars have to be honored (are you a Brit or a Canuk? Aussie maybe?).

But we are not on the gold standard, and besides, like dollars, gold is just another commodity. It's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it with something else in a mutually agreed upon exchange (aka Fair Market Value) So it's REALLY doubtful we could or would pay off the debt with gold.

We're currently "monetizing" the debt to beat the band. That means if we borrowed $100 in 2000, after cumulative inflation between 2000 and 2007 (40% devaluation) and the approx 10% devaluation since the first of the year (do the words "free fall" mean anything to you?) we now only owe about $50 in real value. Do you follow that? Great! So we've already paid off half of our national debt in just 8 years! Wooo!

What this means is that we've been handing China BonzoBucks! BonzoBucks are an imaginary currency (I just made it up). If you want BonzoBucks you have to get them from me. No one else has them UNLESS they got them from me. And although they may develop a secondary market of collectors, they ain't worth squat anywhere else!

UNLESS you bring them to MY store where I'll let you pay for up to 20% of your purchases from ME with BonzoBucks! So you're going to bring them to me, spend 80 cents on the dollar in US Currency on merchandise and 20 BonzoBucks cents on the dollar to pay for it.

NOW - what happens to MY STORE's SALES??? For every BonzoBuck tendered, I actually make a gross sale of 80 cents. Right? My sales revenues are going to go CRAZY! I don't even have to SELL BonzoBucks at a discount - I can GIVE them away and STILL make money!

So the US will be HAPPY to redeem the US dollars when presented by China for GOODS - N'est ce pas? And the US Trade deficit will do WHAT? And US Manufacturing and GDP will do WHAT? JUST LIKE WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE MARSHAL PLAN!!! (

There's an unfortunate fly in the ointment, however. We happy few US citizens will have to undergo a BRIEF PERIOD of Austerity Measures to fight the coming HYPERINFLATION! Sucks to be so smart, huh.

(Independent economists currently estimate REAL inflation of the US Dollar at around 10 to 15% per year.)

Where did shrink2 go to???

JakeD, I'd love to answer your question about McCain, but I'm an Aussie and have not been following the finer details of McCain's or Obama's funding. We Aussies do follow American news with interest, but we have our own pack of idiots in government with whom we we have to contend.

The morons in our electorate have just put a socialist government into power for the third time in our history and already we are seeing the effects of their semi-Marxist philosophies. Twice before, those Socialists brought Australia to tbe brink of Banana Republicanism and I fear that this time it is heading slowly in the same direction, after 11 years of fantastic fiscal management by the Conservatives.

But this proves that democracy doesn't work, because morons who get the privilege and power to vote have no idea for who or what they cast their ballots for. Here is something for you to do - it's an eye-opener. I've done this here in Australia.

Walk into any bar and ask any of the barflies whether they have read the GOP or Democrat manifestos, whether they have analysed the platforms of the presidential candidates and actually understand their fiscal policies for the nation and the actual meanings and reasons for foreign policy stances.

I found that in Australia, about one adult in every thousand had any concept of what our two major political parties stood for. The rest were completely ignorant of virtually everything tangible, but just swallowed the crap that they were fed on TV every night.

I'd rather have a benign dictatorship running Australia, because one smart guy with a proven track record in big business and realpolitik, who knows what he is doing and hopefully is far too wealthy to be bought off by anybody, would run the nation far better than a gang of inept, corrupt, power-hungry, self-serving bastards who lie to the stupid electorate and get elected on the basis of those lies, then proceed to wreck the nation until the next bunch of corrupt bastards are elected to do it all again.

The USA would be better served to have Bill Gates as Life President than that bunch of candidates you're stuck with.

dcwsano:

Did you see McCain on "Saturday Night Live"?

Listening to the good people of Culpeper, I sympathize with those that have lost their homes and say that 'rent' is a four letter expletive.

I found it hard to understand one Culpeper lady, a minister with the local Baptist church. This lady made it clear she could only vote for a Republican because it was Bush who bought God into the White House.

How can she reconcile the slaughter and torture in Iraq and the lack of thought for people's lives and caring and wanting to help when the levees broke. How can she think this man Bush is close to a God who has taught us to love, understand and think unselfishly of others much less fortunate than ourselves.

I believe we must work hard to break the spell these people, ( yes we know that rapture and spirituality can also deceive), break this terrible spell many Republicans have succumbed to.

It is our duty to help these people to know right and wrong.

Obama must now concentrate his policies on helping ordinary people, farmers and small business owners recover from the massive rise in energy costs, mortgages and supermarket prices. Obama must have a firm, clear plan how he will recover America.

America has done so well in the last 100 years, when she is struggling, the world will struggle with her.

Earth to McSame supporters:

Being around for a long, long time does not make you qualified to be president. It just make you an old coot. There is nothing wrong with being old, only with being out of touch.

Obama: The Con
Obama has fixed this race by deception to Americans. He has lied about his background and his connections with radical, Anti American, anti semitic leaders until just a few months ago. He has hidden his relationship with Reverend Wright,, Farrakhan, the "Nation of Islam' leader, Syrian Criminal, Anton Rezko and his Black Liberation Theology since the beginning of the primary. Most of my community have changed their minds about this man and will not vote for him in the general election because of this lies and deception

This whole election process, especially not seating Florida and Michigan with almost 400 delegates, is a disgrace for the American people. John King keep showing his map with only 48 states. These maps and math are convincing superdelegates that Obama is in the lead. There are 50 states in our country. Obama has done everything in his power to convince everyone that there is only 48 by not having a revote or even seating them. The postponement of seating these state is a deliberate act. Senator Obmama is deliberately postponing this decision to brag about his lead.

For those people that were too young to know President Clinton.He is not liked, but loved through out the world. Our country was thriving, the era was "upbeat" and there was peace in our country.

There is no way to compare "Bush" and Clinton. The Clintons were the BEST!
The media has painted President Clinton as a racist in spite of the fact that he has an office in Harlem His years in office were spent fighting for civil rights and for the underdog, especially African American.
The coverage of this campaign is disgraceful in this regard above all. African Americans should be ashamed of how they have treated all of the Clintons.

Trinity United Church of Christ, Tony Rezko the Syrian Criminal, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers a 60's radical that bombed government buildings and Muslim upbringing should be a wake up call to Democrats. Please don't blow the change with a man that has not only little known about these issues before the first primary and kept it away from the media until the end of this race. Senator Obama will lose this election if he's the nominee. Lastly and something that needs to be evaluated is the race issue; There will never be a fair an accurate poll determining how many people will really vote for Obama. McCain will win if the Democrats don't wake up.

On Fox News Sunday, Williams claimed Obama's Muslim father "presents a problem"
On the January 21 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams noted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "comes from a father who was a Muslim" and added that "given that we're at war with Muslim extremists, that presents a problem."

How much more bad news do we need to know about a Democrat candidate before we realize that this man is laughing up his sleeve at all of us.
Wake up Democrats. We can not and will not win this election unless we run from Obama and start supporting the Clintons.

Please keep the unsettling issues pertaining to Senator Obama in the forefront.
There are too many issues surrounding this man that disturbs many Americans and believe me, there will be many more to come.

dcwsano:

OH MY GOSH! A logical post! (Are you sure you belong here?)
;-D

Nofluer, you are absolutely correct about the US dollar apart from one thing. The US dollar may theoretically be backed by "the full faith and credit of the United States of America", but in the world of realpolitik, the US dollar has to have some intrinsic value apart from hollow American promises.

Thus NYMEX and IPE were established to force energy-seeking nations to only be able to use US dollars to buy oil and the scam was up and running. However with oil producers bypassing these exchanges, the scam is slowly coming to an end.

As for China having to accept US paper money for its treasury bond holdings, that's not necessarily true. Because the US dollar is allegedly backed by alleged good faith and credit, the USA has to be seen to honour its debts by offering tangible exchange for those Treasury bonds, such as hard goods or gold. The second that the USA reneges on recompensing its creditors in any way, the nations that hold US debt will unload those US dollars and get whatever they can for them and never hold them again. However this will bankrupt the USA on the spot, making the Great Depression of the 1030s look like a picnic by comparison.

So Nofluer, you make some valid points, but you have to realise that "the full faith and credit of the United States of America" is a lot less than it used to be, and is shrinking daily as the rest of the world wakes up to the US Petrodollar scam. This is easily observed by the diminishing value of the US dollar against other currencies.

I repeat myself - US citizens would be wise to start hoarding as much gold as they can lay their hands on, because once a few US creditors start divesting themselves of US currency and bonds, the US dollar will go into freefall.

ME? REASON with someone?

Why, that'd take all the FUN out of these things. I'm a wild-eyed rototiller totin', gardinin' fool! Who needs nukes? If any were foolish enough to invade MY part of the world, I'd hide in a tree and drop rotten tomatoes on 'em - they'd not soon be back, I'll tell ya!

Can someone name one presidential nominee who lost the election because he was accused of bring inexperienced? The issue doesn't fly. The differences between McSame and Obama involve approach and different world views, not experience.

Since when is the ability to handle a crisis is measured by the number of years spent as a Washington pol inside the beltway?

Claiming "experience" is just another way of admitting you plan to keep doing things the way they have always been done.

There is zero correlation between length of experience in government and success as President. Some of the greatest failures as President had the most government experience, such as Hoover and Nixon, and to a lesser extent, Lyndon Johnson and Bush Sr. All had failed Presidencies.

Correction - Breton Woods was in 1944/45 - '71.

Nixon abrogated the agreement in 1971, ending the gold convertibility of the US Dollar and essentially establishing the Dollar as the basis for trade in the world economy.

sorry 'bout the err.

Ziggy:

I'll gladly allow Nofluer this opportunity to "reason" with you ...

shrink2:

Yes, I said that I want more of the same. Especially more Supreme Court Justices like Roberts and Alito. Now that I answered your question, care to answer mine:

"McCain raised $8 million in one NYC fundraiser recently. But, he would gladly stop doing that for his own campaign IF Obama kept his word and accepted public financing for the general election campaign. Do you think that will happen?"

Ziggy dude...
"...such as China are getting the idea of divesting themselves of US dollars by demanding redemption - however, the USA is too far in debt to be able to buy those dollars back, thus would be bankrupt. ..."
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Ummmm sounds good but there's a tiny flaw in the batter. The US dollar isn't BACKED by anything. When Breton Woods took us off the gold standard (Nixon? Was it '72?) the US Dollar became a free-floating currency backed by "the full faith and credit of the United States of America" - which means that if you believe it has value, and the US can still borrow money, then the dollar is good. Otherwise it makes pretty good washable toilet paper after the crispness is gone.

So - the idea that China might want to "redeem" the bonds (redeemable only in US dollars) or the dollars is bogus. The ONLY thing that gives them ANY value is their continued value... Gotta LOVE economics, eh? ];-D

One of the basics of trade these days was learned during the Marshal Plan after WW II - if you give them US Dollars - eventually those dollars HAVE TO COME HOME!!! Someone somewhere has to spend them HERE 'cause once we went off the gold standard, they ultimately aren't any good anywhere else.

And if you're going to be mad at Hugo (the creep) and others for attacking US currency, then you need to get PO-ed at France too as they nearly destroyed our economy when they attacked it by demanding redemption in gold (when we were still on the gold standard) and N Korea makes (literally) TENS OF MILLIONS of US dollars in counterfeit currency every year (that's so good, it's undetectable.)

JakeD wrote:

"I want more of McSame."

Ooops sorry, He wrote, "I want more of the same."

Iran is tiny?

It didn't take a country the size of the Soviet Union to take down the World Trade Centers.

Let me paraphrase McCain's statement, since I assume it is like all of his addresses.

"War surge war surge cut taxes no surrender war pork war cut taxes war."

Never any mention how we can survive fiscally when we cut every conceivable tax AND increase military spending AND continue to escalate the war in the Middle East.

Those details are for worry warts and naive people, I guess.

JakeD said, "To all of you in favor of Obama speaking to Iran with no pre-conditions being met, go ahead and try convincing just Ziggy that Iran should give up it's nuclear ambitions."

JakeD, tell me why Iran should give up its nuclear ambitions when Iran is legally entitled to pursue them? After all, Iran is a signatory to the NPT and has suffered intrusive IAEA inspections for years that have concluded that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.

So what business does the USA have in trying to coerce any nation to forgo its legal rights or activities? I'll tell you -no business at all.

JakeD, if you want to do something positive, go and convince the USA to start adhering to its own obligations. The USA is a signatory to the NPT and pledged to reduce and eventually divest itself of all nuclear weapons. In complete abrogation of its legal obligations, the USA still maintains a huge nuclear arsenal and is continuing to develop new generations of nuclear weapons.

The USA also abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and has not adhered to any international law that I can think of. IT has rampaged around the world, overthrowing legally elected governments, assassinating leaders, funding terrorist organisations such as the Contras in Nicaragua and now the Jundullah on the border of Pakistan.

The world is really fed up with the machinations of the USA, the lies, the wars based on phoney pretexts, such as the invasions of Grenada and Iraq, the unwarranted and illegal aggression against Yugoslavia and much more.

JakeD, read some history instead of listening to those presidential candidates who have great difficulty remembering whether they came under fire at airports and other memory lapses and outright lies. It's just a good thing that Bush and Cheney will be leaving the White House soon, but I just wonder which pack of idiots are going to take their place.

On this issue, Obama is in over his head. If this were 1962, would have Obama quarrantined Cuba as JFK did? Hardly!

You guys sound like a bunch of WAR hungry Mongols!! Don't you learn form the mistakes that GOP Foreign Policies always lead to instability and very little gain . Example: Noriega in Nicaragua, Iran in the 80's , Kosovo and the Serbs in the 90's, Israel in the 70's . These were all projects the U.S Govt. created to gain interests in those areas and they fell apart. The Govt. doesn't like Jews but they sure use them to gain an excuse to hang around the Arabs. Don't you see its all about interests. The U.S is the like the 3 horses of the apocalypse, for you religous nuts, and the Terrorist threat for you Army mongols!!

P.P.S. to Anonymous (Nofluer?):

If whatever President McCain does for the NEXT 8 years results in NO TERRORIST ATTACK ON U.S. SOIL, will you then finally concede that the GOP must have been on to SOMETHING right?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yep - me again (I'm used to using web sites where they have auto-id so you don't have to SAY every time...)

It's a possible - but that comment would be predicated on a good analysis of changes in the overall situation. I mean, if you were a bank robber, would you rob a bank with a heavy division around it facing out, or one with wood walls and no guards?

Which brings up the question - what price freedom?

We both remember Chicago and Kent State, the bombing of the Senate Cloak room, etc. We had more attacks by domestic terrorists than from foreign terrorists now - but no one ignored/suspended habeas corpus or went around invading homes without warrants and telling people if they said anything about it, they could disappear! and the nation and the Republic survived.

Oh - and for the moron who called JakeD a "Baby boomer?" Wrong - he's older than that. (No boomers fought in Korea - we were MUCH too young - the oldest of us would have been about 5 or 6 years old when Korea kicked off.)

LOL, Ziggy -- you probably think there were controlled demolitions at the WTC too -- I am still waiting for anyone else out there to talk Ziggy down from the ledge. Come on, liberals, now's your chance to prove how talking can solve all problems ...

O.K. then, Nofluer, you said "I do not expect the hiatus to continue ..."

If whatever President McCain does for the NEXT 8 years results in NO TERRORIST ATTACK ON U.S. SOIL, will you then finally concede that the GOP must have been on to SOMETHING right?

After reading feedback about the Iran issue, I am convinced that most Americans have no idea why the USA is threatening Iran constantly. It's not aboout nukes, because Iran is no threat to the USA in this regard. It's not about oil, because the USA has massive deposits of oil anyway. It's all about propping up the US dollar and US economy.

Since the USA broke away from the gold standard and cut a cosy deal with OPEC to force the rest of the world to use nothing but US dollars to buy oil, the USA has been having a free lunch. Every nation that needed oil had to obtain US dollars, so they sent goods to America, received US paper Monopoly money and bought their oil. The USA didn't have to do anything for its oil except keep the printing presses rolling, making more Monopoly money that the rest of the world had to accept. Inflation was the mechanism used to devalue this Monopoly money, so that any nation that tried to redeem their dollar holdings from the USA would get less for them than what they had to exchange to get them. A very cosy scam that has been perpetrated on the world since 1973 or so.

However, the scam started falling apart when Saddam Hussein started selling Iraqi oil directly to the Europeans for Euro and the US dollar suddenly plummeted when the world saw that it didn't have to hold worthless Yankee dollars to buy oil. So Saddam had to be stopped - and he was, with a war and invasion based on a pack of lies. But it was too late - the cat was out of the bag.

Venezuela saw what was happening and started selling its oil for Yen, Euro and other currencies and literally overnight, there were two CIA engineered attempts to overthrow Hugo Chavez, which failed.

Then Iran decided to get out from under the US thumb and started selling its oil for Euro and Yen and suddenly pretexts for "regime change" started flowing from the White House. The crazy thing is that if Iran guaranteed to only sell its oil for US dollars, all of a sudden the nuclear weapons rhetoric from the USA would vanish into thin air.

The bottom line is this. Since the mid 1970s, US currency has been backed by oil. But Take away that backing and the US dollar is worthless - the free lunch is over. The Iranians have done this by trading oil for currencies other than US dollars and holders of huge US debt such as China are getting the idea of divesting themselves of US dollars by demanding redemption - however, the USA is too far in debt to be able to buy those dollars back, thus would be bankrupt.

This is the big weapon the Iranians have, not the nukes but the destruction of the entire US economy, which of course funds the US military that thinks it can impose its will on the rest of the world. The problem for the USA is that the Iranians are succeeding. Look at the plummeting value of the dollar. Venezuela is doing the same as Iran and Russia will sell its oil and gas for Euro and Ruble.

This is why the USA is scrabbling to stave off economic destruction, because once the world gets access to oil for Euro and other currencies, the USA may be forced to buy its oil for those other currencies and who will accept the ever-diminishing US dollar?

So citizens of the USA, I suggest you start hoarding as much gold as you can lay your hands on, because somewhere down the track, your US dollars are going to be about as good as Argentinian pesos.

OBAMA 2008

P.S. to Anonymous:

I have never been to Sydney.
>>>>>>>>>>>

That would have been me. Getting old is a bittch. ;-D

(VN - 1970 & 72/73)

David O'Grath:

Regardless, Bush is an American citizen. This thread is about McCain blasting Obama for meeting with FOREIGN-BORN terrorists.

George Bush is an attack on US Soil.

JakeD - so, you're a baby boomer with an overwhelming sense of entitlement still trying to force your 1950's values on everyone who lives in the present day.

McCain retires, Obama inspires!

McCain is less intelligent. Suffers from severe memory loss because of his age of 72, is very similar to Bush as both of them offer no solutions but are coordinated by neocon think tanks and lobbyists. If McCain would run like a Democrat he will win in November, but I don't think the GOP wants him to loose its core support (special interests) and change the GOP brand significantly. How the GOP will rebrand its brand is gonna be interesting to see. Obama has to focus on domestic issues instead of foreign issues. The GOP is weakest on healthcare,education and economy (look what a mess Bush will leave after 8 years of devastating policies)

P.P.S. to Anonymous (Nofluer?):

If whatever President McCain does for the NEXT 8 years results in NO TERRORIST ATTACK ON U.S. SOIL, will you then finally concede that the GOP must have been on to SOMETHING right?

I think it would cause most Republicans a lot of shame to have a black man take office and clean this country up the way they have claimed to be the only politicians capable of doing so, yet have always found a distraction in foreign affairs.

Dave Neville, NO:

Because, I did my combat tour already in Korea. How about you?

P.S. to Anonymous:

I have never been to Sydney.

For the record - while McBush were playing in their sandbox in Iraq, North Korea got nukes.

But, they don't talk about that anymore do they?

To all of you in favor of Obama speaking to Iran with no pre-conditions being met, go ahead and try convincing just Ziggy that Iran should give up it's nuclear ambitions ...

Jake - how come you're not serving your country in Iraq?

JakeD

Sydney? Been there...

I did not know one way or the other whether we would be attacked again in short order or long term. There was insufficient data and incomplete knowledge as to exactly what we were dealing with at the time. We had no idea of the length or resources available to the planning cycle we were dealing with to get inside it. Hopefully that situation has been improved upon since... oops. There's that "hope" word again! ;-D

I do not expect the hiatus to continue, however. Our borders are too open (keeping in mind that the 9/11 people came in legally and we're currently bringing in HUGE numbers of Somalis and etc), resources are too available here. ie we're just a HUGE fat target - or as we used to say, we're "fat, dumb, and happy."

And the current administration taking credit for the lull is like them saying they were happy to provide a sunny day for parts of the country.

Here's the bottom line: Iran wants the bomb. Period. They aren't gonna voluntarily stop until they have it. Sanctions aren't gonna work. Neither will "negotiations" and "diplomacy", nor any of the other fig leaves that the pacifists typically trot out. The mullahs want their bomb and they're just stalling for time. Anyone who seriously believes otherwise is an idiot.

Given this situation, we have two choices here:

1) Continue to dither, hem & haw, taking the "high road" while the mullahs get their bomb, then cross our fingers and hope to God that they don't ever actually use it (or, more likely, give it to a terrorist group to use while they sit back and watch). This is what you'll get with President Obama.

2) Send in the US Air Force and the US Special Forces to reduce Natanz to a pile of rubble. This is what you'll get with President McCain.

There is no third option, people.

For my part, I'm going with #2, and it's not even close. Anyone who has ever studied Shia islam knows that devout shia believe that for The Mahdi to return to Earth and usher in an era of perfect peace & justice, there has to first be a period of global conflagration to wipe out the existing order.

Barack Obama showed his ignorance when he stated that Iran isn't as big a threat as the Soviets were. The Soviets, at the end of the day, valued life more than ideology. The religious zealots running Iran value ideology more than life. Religious extremists are capable of actions that normal people cannot comprhend, and this is precisely why the idea of an Iran with nuclear weaponry is patently unacceptable to all but the most delusional, pie-in-the-sky liberals.

John McCain understands this. Barack Obama does not.

Karl Rove endorses McCain!!! If the wisest American endorses McCain so am I!

I love a spicy meat pickle.

These US figures all bluster about persuading or coercing Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but why should Iran do this? The bottom line is that Iran is a signatory to the NPT and thus has all the right in the world to pursue nuclear ambitions, including enriching uranium. The USA has absolutely no right to attempt to make Iran abandon its legal activities and of course the threat of attack is highly illegal under international law. But of course the USA has never adhered to international law, but expects every other nation to do so. With the litany of crimes against sovereign nations committed by the USA, including the overthrow of elected governments, assassination of leaders, funding of terrorist organisations and much more, the USA is by far the greatest terrorist nation this planet has ever seen. For example, right now, the USA is occupying two nations, one of which had war inflicted on it on the basis of a deliberately fabricated pack of lies. Right now the USA is funding Jundullah, a terrorist group on the border of Iran. Right now, the USA has allocated $75 million to foment "regime change" in Iran, a completely illegal act. Personally, I wouldn't blame the Iranians for trying to get nuclear weapons, merely to defend themselves from the warmongering USA. We saw the difference in treatment that North Korea received from the USA when Bush toadied up to Kim Jong Il, simply because the USA would never dare attack a nuclear armed nation and see its Seventh Fleet vaporised. But Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, so threats of attack are constantly flowing from the USA. More power to any nation that stands up to the world's greatest terrorist and international bully, the USA.

James:

Do you think terrorists are not willing to inflict total nuclear annihilation?

The only chance the Republikkkans have of winning this November is to deliver Bin Laden.

I hear he's working at the Dominos in Crawford.

Obama forgot to add "And 9/11 was only 2 buildings"

AL:

I may be "old" but not THAT old!!!

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. ---Sun-tzu, The Art of War

McCain is full of the old Bush rhetoric - tough-talking, saber-rattling, cowboy diplomacy that does nothing but exacerbate problems and make solutions farther away and more costly in money AND blood.

Admittedly, there are some people that you cannot negotiate into changing their minds. But if you don't talk to them AT ALL, you'll never know how stubborn they are, how strongly they will hold to their positions. You will never know if a compromise is possible if you don't even find out what they want.

But the Bush (and now McCain) policy is that we won't talk to you unless you're ALREADY doing what we want you to. It's a self-defeating attitude. We lay out our demands, and until you meet them, we're not even going to listen to what your demands are.

Can you imagine that in business? "You're going to pay me $24,000 for that minivan, and until you agree to that, I'm not even going listen to what kind of car you want."

And this, they call foreign policy.

One final fact: Obama's statement about 'tiny' nations was not to dismiss their threat, but to point out that Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr were all willing to sit down with the leaders of the Soviet Union, at a time when they represented the greatest threat the US has ever known - the threat of total nuclear annihilation. If we can negotiate under THAT threat, then shouldn't we be strong enough to talk to pipsqueaks like Kim Jong-Il or Ahmadinejad?

GOP = Good Old Petroleum

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."

--Abraham Lincoln

"The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed."

--Abraham Lincoln to JakeD

Luke Gilmore:

Thanks for posting that yet again. Did you look up "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance reform? As I said, whether you want to believe him or not, McCain has apologized and maintained a crusade to change campaign financing ever since the Keating Five scandal.

Posted by: Cantabrigian | May 19, 2008 5:36 PM

The core of the 2008 presidential election:
"EXPERIENCE versus HOPE"
The voter must determine their priority.
------------------------------

Don't you mean: "MAVERICK vs WISHFUL-THINKING" ?

Personally McCain wouldn't be my perfect choice, but what I do like about him is that neither DEM or GOP's base likes him much.

McCain is a strong fighter, Obama a weak talker. I understand why liberals vote for the weak guy, but my fellow republican friends? That pisses me off, people that turn their back on their party when sometimes it's getting rough. So what!? I will never betray the GOP nor America!

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty."

--Abraham Lincoln

"JakeD:
GO ARMY!! BEAT NAVY!!"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In your dreams.
;-D

John McCain is a liar. Just ask Charles Keating about the Senator's involvement in the Savings and Loan scandal.

Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.)

Though he was not convicted of anything, McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating's airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain's wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a "sweetheart deal."

In 1996, on the eve of the retrial of the federal case, Keating entered a plea agreement -- he admitted to having committed bankruptcy fraud by extracting $1 million from American Financial Corp. while already anticipating the collapse that happened weeks later. In return, the federal prosecutors dropped all other charges against him and his son, Charles Keating III. He was sentenced to the four years he had already served.[3]

Keating remains essentially unrepentant, maintaining that not his mistakes but regulators' actions were ultimately responsible for the losses. He repeated these claims in an interview in 2006. The 2004 book The Savings and Loan Crisis: Lessons from a Regulatory Failure makes similar claims and presents Keating in a favorable light.[4]

In an April 2008 opinion piece titled "The Keating Five Legacy," William K. Black, Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, presents his views about Keating (among others). Black was counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and was a whistleblower in the Keating Five scandal. His book on the crisis "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One" was published in 2005 by the University of Texas Press.[5]

Some who lost their life savings committed suicide. When Charles Keating was prematurely released from jail, the living victims and family members of those who took their own lives felt as if they had been double crossed again.

This old man should go back to his luxurious ranch and spend his remaining days barbecuing and riding his horses.

His idea of who is a "terrorist" is probably anyone who lives in a foreign country.

Not this time.

Please McCain we don't need stupid ignorant and old President like you in the White House again, we need a fresh blood like Obama, how r u going to solve the problem without having a talk with Iran, We have enough suffering from the stupid bush.

What is not Fine is that I am among those Americans who are tiny.

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed."

--Abraham Lincoln

McCain is now projected to win the majority of swing states so if Obama wants to win in November he has got to appeal more to the blue-collar voters. Or he has to win a bunch of red states which is hard in the South. Unfortunately Wholefoods liberals are not mainstream here. They are actually hated by the vast majority as they are considered to be arrogant, atheist and elitist regardless of whether Obama's policy would favour their interests.

Hah, Americans are funny. Who says Iran would even talk to the baboons who attacked their neighbors and keep threatening them every single day? America is the terrorist number one to them and talking to terrorists may not be in their best interest at all.

Posted by: Farzad5 | May 19, 2008 5:27 PM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Farzad5 - I understand your feelings on this, but may I suggest that it IS in Iran's best interests to talk to the US?

It wasn't the Good Fairy that destroyed your Navy after I believe it was one of your frigates that shot a missile at a US Navy ship? (I could have the details wrong... but the result was the same.) If you can talk a guy with a big stick out of whacking you with it, then that's a GOOD thing, right?

What's McCain drinking?
I'd like a swig of that hooch.

McBush in 2008!

Sam:

If the post is about sex or drugs, you can be sure that is the FAKE JakeD, not me.

nofluer:

Fine, you are among the very tiny minority of Americans then who thought we wouldn't be attacked again in the next 6 years and 8 months later ; )

Farzad, when McCain becomes President, he will blow you all with bombs.

Hamas worked for Obama

The Times on Line
May 10, 2008
Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas
Times on Line
One of Barack Obama's Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.
Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama's Middle East advisory council.
"I've never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people," he added.
Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr Obama, responded swiftly: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future." The rapid departure of Mr Malley followed 48 hours of heated clashes between John McCain, the Republican nominee-elect, and Mr Obama over Middle East policy.

Mr Obama, who has been trying to assuage suspicion towards him among the influential Jewish and pro-Israel lobby, spoke at a Washington reception marking the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence on Thursday when he promised that his commitment to the country's security would be "unshakeable". However, Mr McCain has high-lighted the Democrat's pledge to negotiate directly with nations such as Iran - whose leaders talk of wiping Israel off the map - and a statement from Hamas saying that it hoped that Mr Obama would win the presidency.
This was denounced as an offensive smear by Mr Obama, who repeated earlier statements saying that Hamas was "a terrorist organisation [and] we should not negotiate with them unless they recognise Israel, renounce violence".
He went on to suggest that Mr McCain's attack showed that he was "losing his bearings". This remark triggered a furious reaction from Mark Salter, the Republican's senior adviser, who said that Mr Obama was "intentionally raising John McCain's age as an issue" - a claim the Democrat vehemently denied. The intensity of this dispute reflects both Mr Obama's desire to move beyond his battle with Hillary Clinton and how Republicans are already beginning to train their sights on him.
The Republican National Committee has amassed a 1,000-page dossier on Mr Obama, with researchers spending weeks in Chicago seeking fresh material. He is already being criticised for his links with Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor who has branded Israel an "apartheid system in creation".
Mr Malley, a respected commentator on Middle Eastern issues and part of President Clinton's negotiating team at the Camp David talks, has come under attack in recent months from right-wing bloggers. Yesterday, asked if Obama campaign was aware of his contact with Hamas, he said: "They know who I am but I don't think they vet everyone in a group of informal advisers."
Randy Scheunemann, Mr McCain's foreign policy chief, suggested that Mr Malley was part of an emerging pattern in which other advisers had been repudiated after throwing confusion over policies on trade and Iraq. "Perhaps because of his inexperience Senator Obama surrounds himself with advisers that contradict his stated policies," he said.

The core of the 2008 presidential election:

"EXPERIENCE versus HOPE"

The voter must determine their priority.

Posted by: Farzad5 | May 19, 2008 5:27
Hah, Americans are funny. Who says Iran would even talk to the baboons who attacked their neighbors and keep threatening them every single day? America is the terrorist number one to them and talking to terrorists may not be in their best interest at all.
-------------------------------
Hey Sam, I'm sure you can change the attitudes Farzad5 is expressing. If that is his view, why don't you try first to convince him to have a different world view against US?

"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in ALL lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors."

--Abraham Lincoln

JakeD legalizing drugs is so anti GOP. You are a disgrace to my enemies party!

The problem that McCain has is that every mention of the middle east gives Obama an opportunity to ram Iraq down his throat. It's textbook Republican strategy to play tough on National Security - unfortunately, in 2008 it makes McCain sound a lot like Bush. Advantage Obama.

"Did you think we would go EIGHT YEARS without another 9/11 attack (or worse)?"
>>>>>>>>>>

Oh - that one. Sorry - there are a lot of questions flying around and I wasn't sure which one you meant.

Well... 8 years would be in 9/11/'09 so we actually haven't yet - but that aside...

We haven't gone 6.5 years without another attack either. The US does not exist in a vacuum - we are not the only enemy of the terrorists. The US and its allies have been attacked with a fair amount of regularity including the bombing of the train in Madrid that cost them several hundred innocent citizens dead and us Spanish troops and support in Iraq.

If you're only going to count attacks in North America - given the lead time to plan and train and execute a successful attack on a large scale - it's really too soon to say. If you'll remember, the WTC attack was conceived early in the Clinton presidency, set in motion during the Clinton Presidency, and actually executed almost a year after the Bush people took over.

Clinton didn't have a "balanced budget", the "Bush recession actually began in the last quarter of the Clinton Presidency, and there were destructive hurricanes during the Clinton presidency. Unlike some, I do not try to assign official Presidential blame to such things as hurricanes, economic business cycles, or terrorist planning cycles... which should give you a hint about the real reasons WHY we haven't been attacked in N.A. since 9/11/01.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

We were attacked on 9/11 under this administration, after it cut funding to our intelligence agencies. Then we get into a war we can't figure out how to or what we're supposed to be winning. We disregard alternative proposals on negotiating with our enemies, yet we claim they're still getting stronger and more threatening. And McCain wants to keep this strategy going? C'mon, can somebody open a window and get real here?

"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

--Abraham Lincoln

Yeah and Luxemburg can also declare a war to us but would you consider that to be serious? It would be like Rhode Island declaring a war to New York.

Obama went to Rev. Wrights church for 20 years and said he wasn't aware of some of his more controversial statements. Sort of like attending a KKK meeting thinking its the PTA. Yeah, im gonna vote for Barrack! He sounds qualified to me.

Unlike Sam, who is probably at some foreign cyber cafe, I plan to vote in favor of legalizing hashish in US cyber cafes.

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

--Abraham Lincoln

I'm posting from a gay cyber cafe in second life.

Hah, Americans are funny. Who says Iran would even talk to the baboons who attacked their neighbors and keep threatening them every single day? America is the terrorist number one to them and talking to terrorists may not be in their best interest at all.

Liberals I'm sorry but I love our president as I love this country. It is unfair to compare McCain to one of our greatest presidents we've had. Bush has saved us from the ashes of evil. He protected us, he has decent values, therefore a better choice to follow him up would be Huckabee. McCain is better than Obama, that is true. Obama supports gay-mariage, does not want to protect America from terrorists and does not even want to protect honoust families from criminals by supporting anti gun legislation. Shame on you!

LOL! :-D

Sam- Sooo, you don't think Iran is a Problem or a Threat?

Are YOU aware, IRAN is in a DECLARED State of WAR with the Great Satan(US) ?

Have been for decades!

Yeah, they appear to be a little Gnat. But, the little Gnat is able to justify every single casualty they cause anybody BECAUSE THEY have Declared WAR!

We ignore their declaration, at ours, and our allies, Expense!

We really need to call them on that declaration, or take them at their Word, and shoot down any Iranian Flight outside their Airspace.

War is best played by BOTH Sides! :-)

Posted by: Sam | May 19, 2008 5:16 PM

What I forgot to mention, Iran does not pose a threath to the US and HAS NEVER IN HISTORY POSED A SERIOUS THREATH TO US. They do pose a threath to Israel and therefore we should tell Amhedinejad that if he would even fire a hand granate on Israel, the US and Israel will wipe at least Teheran (their capital) from the map.
So we want start, but react if necessary. Nothing more and nothing less, so lets try to find a way to meet both goals.
----------------------------------------
And you know this for sure? How? I guess they didn't take hostages during the Carter admin. Gee all Carter wanted to do was "Talk" to them and they'll surely see the errors of their ways and give back our hostages....Did that work?

Timothy McVey was harmless until he blew up the building in OK, Hitler was harmless until he started killing Jews in mass, Japan was harmless until Perl Harbor....the list goes on. S