Category: United States

US politics

Posted on by — 6 Comments

I watched the debates on CSPAN

I intended to just pick up the highlights of the debates today but I got dragged in. I want to understand the McCain/Palin love. I feel like I’m missing something. One of my neighbors has a McCain/Palin yard sign and I simply do not understand what they see in these two.

I watched the debates on CSPAN with their wonderful split screen and no over talking the candidates with commentators! Did anyone else notice that CSPAN gave Palin 53% of the screen while Biden was squeezed, with his head often bobbing offscreen, in 47%. On my 20 inch tv (that’s the diagonal measurement), Biden had 7.5 inches and Palin had 8.5 inches. Perhaps that was intended to be a metaphor for Biden being more in touch with the average American while Palin supposedly swings a big stick.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Don’t Vote! (registration ends Monday)

(mature language warning)

Leonardo DiCaprio, will i. am, Tobey Maguire, and Forest Whitaker have created public service announcements to encourage American youth to register to vote. The non-partisan PSAs, produced by DiCaprios Appian Way, were created to engage and inspire young people to register and vote and participate in the upcoming election. Celebrities appearing in the PSAs include: Amy Adams, will.i.am, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, Halle Berry, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Connolly, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ethan Suplee, Kyra Sedgwick, Michelle Trachtenberg, Usher, and Forest Whitaker.

Have you reached out to an unregistered voter and encouraged them to participate in the election? Time is running out. Find voter registration information at http://maps.google.com/vote

Posted on by — Leave a comment

In PA the vote is split between Obama and McCain

This is why you should never get your news from FOX! I really like the lady in the back right smacking her husband’s arm as he tries to raise it for McCain.

Note for when Youtube takes the video down. A reporter asks for a show of hands for McCain voters vs Obama voters. Almost every hand is down for McCain and up for Obama but the reporter declares the vote "split."

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Congress Is Under Martial Law!

I said martial law was coming October 1st. I was wrong. Apparently the Speaker of the House declared martial law on Saturday night (September 27th) according to Rep Burgess.

Anyone have any clarification on Rep Burgess’ statement? Ah! Apparently Congressional Martial Law is different than Martial Law from the Executive Branch. Explanation:

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Disney’s Hockey Mom President Trailer

College Humor delivered an embed that was too large so I couldn’t post it when it first came out. I have no idea how BoingBoing got this smaller one but I hope it works for everyone. If the video doesn’t play, watch it at CollegeHumor.com.

This video was created in response to Matt Damon’s exception commentary. Even though you have already watched it, you really should re-watch Matt Damon speaking after watching the College Humor video.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

I Support the $700bn Bailout!

Dear Gov’ment, Barack, and John,
I think you are all doing a fine job! Please let the $700,000,000,000 bank bailout pass. You have my full support with one small request. Please ear mark a measly $250k, just a drop in the bucket, for me. My own $250k bank bailout will afford me to clear debts and invest in certain assets to be a far more productive citizen with a greater contribution to the GNP.
Thank you! And keep up the great work!

Posted on by — 5 Comments

Stand up Dave, Lose the election

McCain canceled on David Letterman at the last minute to rush to Washington in order to solve our economic crisis but stopped for an interview with Katie Couric first. Dave was less than thrilled and less than complimentary.

Update 25Sept2008 8:20am: Wow! When I posted that video there were 300 views and 125 comments. Now there are 403,936 views and 985 comments! That’s incredible.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

October 1st martial law begins in the United States

First off, isn’t civil unrest and crowd control part of the duty of the National Guard and the local police?

The Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. [0:36-0:41]

Does an active military unit on US soil sound reasonable to you in the name of national security? Has fear and brainwashing led you to not question your leaders? Watch this next video as people sitting in a park are handcuffed, pepper sprayed, beaten, and arrested and ask yourself if we really need the Army doing crowd control on American soil.


Mass Arrest on Labor Day in the Park RNC from GlassBeadCollective on Vimeo.

The story of the park and the buried tape comes from The Minnesota Independent and Twin Cities Indymedia. Watch a really big version at Blip.tv.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Bank bailout unnecessary

The bank bailout is unnecessary is Naked Capitalism’s assessment of Bert Ely’s comments from an interview at Institutional Risk Analytics.

A banking industry expert, Bert Ely, who has a stellar track record in predicting crises and calling false alarms says that the banking industry can handle this mess internally and does not need subsidies. [Source, Naked Capitalism, Banking Expert: Bailout Not Necessary, Industry Can Take Losses]

Update: Bailout has been planned for months and The New York Times says the Issue Is Payback, Not Bailout.

How come he gets horsies?

Update 25Sept2008: Billionaire George Soros says Paulson cannot be allowed a blank check.
Update: Ron Paul lectures Bernanke on the flaws of the bailout plan and the hazard of the attempt to fix prices versus letting them correct naturally in the free market.
Update: Newscoma points to another billionaire, Mark Cuban, who is harsh on the bailout. "The bankers that we hope will reflate the economy with loans to the people and companies who need it ARE THE SAME BANKERS THAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS." Watch for comments at No Silence Here.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Bushanomics


[Source, ImageShack]

Commenter Horn56 keeps it real:

…Bush had nothing to do w/ bill that lead to the mortgage crisis and banks collapsing, but he’s not clean and innocent from this situation either.

To blame Clinton is to only look at date of who was in office. The bill was written by 3 republicans after 20 years and $300 million in lobbying, passed by the republican dominated congress and shoved into an “essential spending measure” Clinton had to sign. I believe only 6 democrats voted “yea” on this, and that was only after they added privacy stipulations to the sales of loans.

There was nothing in this that applied directly to how you can give a loan, it just made the banks feel more secure in giving loans to unqualified people thinking they now had a backing if the loan was not repaid. Of course with everything being sold on speculation now because of this change in laws, the money wasn’t really there to back anything. One deadbeat after another started to default on the loans they couldn’t afford and never should of been given, the backing was not really there…peace banks.

The fact that the main person that wrote this bill deregulating banks, who also wrote the legislation that deregulated energy and allowed oil to be sold the way it s now, was named as one of McCain’s top advisors… If McCain claims to not understand the economy, and the economic adviser he picked caused the problem, who exactly is going to fix it if he gets in?

[Source, ImageShack comment]

It’s still a very funny picture and caption!