November 2008
12 posts
“[N]o character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks,...”
– Alexander Hamilton, “Observations on Certain Documents continued in No. V and VI of The History of the United States for the Year 1796” (1797) in: The Works of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 7, p. 377 (H.C. Lodge ed. 1904)
“To understand Sarah Palin and her following in the conservative ranks, you must...”
“The Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 was the first Patriot Act.”
“Fear removes the thin varnish of small-government and states rights from the...”
– Me
5 tags
Congressional Republicans are whelping that Obama has shown his hand to be a liar because he has brought on Rahm Emanuel as his first staff appointment. Emanuel, the grand strategest who brought about the 2006 Democrat surge and is arguably the Democrat’s Karl Rove, has a reputation for brusque, bull in the china shop politics. They argue that this shows that Obama hs no inclination to run a...
“The Constitution was written to be vague by design. This is its greatest...”
– Me
“I think of this race like NASCAR. They traded paint until mid-September, when...”
– Me
October 2008
40 posts
2 tags
“Obama “is going to go fight the fight in Afghanistan. That is where Osama bin...”
– Randall Stagner, 48, of Raleigh, who retired this summer as a U.S. Army colonel in special operations, said he is supporting Obama because it’s time to wind down the war in Iraq and concentrate U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which he described as the focal point of the fight against terrorism.
New and...
8 tags
Hollywood conservatives: Abandoning McCain? Part 2 →
I recommend this read. Michael De Luca, a center-right Independent from Hollywood (props for sticking to his guns in a very hostile terrain) explains how he is balancing his decision between McCain and Obama. I respect his sharp analysis.
9 tags
A Short History of the Southern Conservative...
I am not a fan of the Democratic party. Unions, Nadar-New Age leftists, urban Northeast political machines all get under my skin. The Democrats take in as much soft money and troll K Street for lobby love as much as the Republicans. The true Left is as prone to be as self-righteous as the true Right. Both lack the quality of introspection, both see themselves as martyrs to the cause. I did not so...
Dear 'Evangelicals', Spread the wealth, Jesus is...
John 3:17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
Timothy 6:17-19 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich...
“The reason Obama is winning, and that Reagan and Clinton will applauded in...”
“Honestly, at this point, time is working against McCain. Every day he slips...”
To my social conservative friends
Consider this. If you rally and McCain wins the White House, he will inevitably return to his RINO roots to repurchase his internal sense of honor which was mortgaged in that shameful, gutter-slogging election. If you thought Bush Jr. played you with the fake Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and promising to stack the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, then wait until you give McCain the...
Joe the Plumber
The whole premise of the Joe the Plumber attack is weak. A tax cheat is whining that if he somehow got a line of credit to buy the business where he works, making $40,000 a year, and would miraculously bring home as personal income OVER $250,000 during a catastrophic recession - that’s more than $20,00 a month! - that 3% more for his tax rate would be a evil, foul thing.
Lame.
11 tags
Air Force That One
Obama is dominating the air space of the electoral map. Only North Carolina, Missouri, and Nevada now are up for Obama with an aggregate 4% or less. Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico are 6% or more outside of McCain now. This makes it a 306-232 Obama victory in the electoral college. McCain is seeing his numbers roll back in the red bastion states of Indiana, Georgia, Montana, North...
8 tags
Bail money
On an employee-only conference call, a JP Morgan Chase employee asked:
“Chase recently received $25 billion in federal funding. What effect will that have on the business side and will it change our strategic lending policy?”
A JP Morgan Chase executive answered this nugget of love:
“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he...
11 tags
Carolina on my mind
I am calling that North Carolina will go for Obama based on the following observations.
Dems outvoted Reps in their respective primaries by 3 to 1, signaling a greater intensity of partisan interest and voter turnout on the Dems’ part.
Obama’s voter registration drive has added 630,000 Dems to the state party rolls, 400,000 since the primary at the end of May. Republicans added less...
Get ready for the 2012 election season. It starts...
GOPers were polled for their favored candidates for President in 2012. Results: Romney 23%, Huckabee 21%, Palin 18%, McCain 15%, Newt 11%, and 1% for Jeb.
source
16 tags
No candidate left behind.
If you count every battleground state where Obama is UP by 4% or less as a McCain win, Obama still wins the electoral vote 273-265. This means that even if Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Missouri, and North Dakota all go for McCain, he will still lose the race.This is a more pro-McCain accounting than even Karl Rove is giving at Rove.com.
If McCain can flip Colorado or New...
12 tags
W
The best scene from the Stone biopic of George W Bush was a war room conference where they are discussing why Iraw must be invaded. Cheney, played by Richard Dreyfus, goes to the big display screen which projects a big red Iran in the middle of the Middle East and he explains that without secured oil supplies the US would not have global dominance in the next generation. The invasion of Iraq and...
“Vote early, vote often.”
– Me
“The Bradley Effect combines with a massive voter suppression effort by the GOP...”
– Patrick Goggins, Esq. (Florida) commenting on Politico’s Arena to the question:
‘Sketch out a scenario—plausible or not—in which McCain turns this around and is the next president.’
My natural pessimism harbors this same sentiment. Dems need to chill. The payback for...
“Dear Republicans,
The reason that Obama is on the cusp of winning the...”
– Me
12 tags
The Quandrous Quagmire of My Unfair Lady
The McCain campaign quickly muzzled down Palin after her spat of incoherant interviews to give her a My Fair Lady-style, firehose-meets-gullet foreign policy tutorial.
‘You betcha, gosh darn it, the premier of Spain is a pain to McCain,’ Sarah tossed off with a wink that was more palsy than folksy to ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the gravely dowager of failed Republican...
All the President's men
According to Gallup, W’s performance approval rating is 25%, the lowest of his presidency and just a point above Nixon’s at the height of Watergate. While the number is abysmally low, especially compared against the fact that W held the highest ever Presidential approval rating of 92% right after 9/11, it means the 25% of Americans still approve of Bush’s performance. 1 in 4...
13 tags
Let's not speculate...
I recommend banning speculation from the financial markets. No micro-term holdings. Use the financial markets for what they are best at - systems for long term, stable business capital generation and investor wealth growth. In return, remove the capital gains tax for equities held for a long-term period of time, say 5 years. For commodities, which require a much shorter instrument life cycle,...
12 tags
“There’s very little a candidate for president can say and very little the...”
– McCain McCampaign manger Rick “I just don’t get the ‘economy’ thing” Davis
- from Politico: Ben Smith’s Blog
18 tags
Laissez-faire is lazyfare. If you want to save the...
Deregulation is key to a better America; a financially, economically, and most importantly, morally better America. It just needs to be done correctly - no more ‘Lazy-Fare’ practices where lobbyists wheedle for special privileges and access to the national Treasury while Congress and the Executive bind down regulatory agencies with oversight prohibitions and budgetary constraints and regulators...
Laissez-faire is lazyfare. If you want to save the...
I love me some deregulation! Don’t you? Can I get an amen? Silence. Crickets debate, tumbleweeds tumble. These are not the glory days of deregulation. In fact, right about now the only people clamoring for deregulation are a few leftover zealots bunkered down in the Masada of the Vice President’s Office. Rot on them. Unfortunately, they are right…for the wrong reasons. Deregulation is a...
7 tags
“See, my problem is that I see politics from a historical viewpoint. I see the...”
– The Immoderate Moderate
6 tags
McFaust and the high cost of character
The irony of the McCain campaign is that the John McCain of 2000, of the original Straight Talk Express, would despise the craven, dishonorable campaigner using his name in 2008. Somewhere during the Bush Administration, McCain decided that he would latch himself to the President’s coattails, and ride them into the White House, this time with conservative approval. The price tag of this...
Et tu, JP?
JP Morgan was Lehman Brothers’ primary clearing house, settling and processing daily, in-house transactions to the tune of about $190 billion. When the credit agencies threatened to yank Lehman’s sterling credit rating because of its huge critical mass of sub-prime mortgage securities and 75% fall in share price from the begining of 2008, Lehman reached out to its private banker, JP...