Obama's Economic Agenda

Barack Obama's campaign is releasing a new television ad in which the Senator, speaking directly to the camera, lays out his economic agenda. Obama says in the new ad, "The truth is that while you've been living up to your responsibilities, Washington has not. That's why we need change. Real change. This is no ordinary time and it shouldn't be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track."

Obama's Economic Agenda

• Tax Cuts for Ordinary Americans
  
• Jump Start the Economy
• Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
• Trade
• Job Creation
• Support Small Business
• Labor
• Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud
• Address Predatory Credit Card Practices
• Reform Bankruptcy Laws
• Work/Family Balance

Lies And Phony Outrage And Swift-Boat Politics

The McCain campaign attacked Barack Obama with an internet ad which accuses him of insulting Sarah Palin by using the phrase "put lipstick on a pig" in reference to the McCain campaign. (The ad falsely used an out of context clip, misleadingly captioned "Katie Couric on: This Election" that CBS News demanded be withdrawn.)

Obama responded by calling this a "made-up controversy" and describing the ad as "lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics."

The McCain Campaign seeks to find a daily faux outrage to distract the news media to keep them from writing stories about: Highest Unemployment Rate In Five Years... Housing Crisis... Stretched Military... Resurging Taliban... Energy Drought... Never-Ending War... Growing Nuclear Enemies... Global Warming... Lack Of Healthcare... Underperforming Schools...

A Republican Legacy To America

Highest Unemployment Rate In Five Years... Housing Crisis... Stretched Military... Resurging Taliban... Energy Drought... Never-Ending War... Growing Nuclear Enemies... Global Warming... Lack Of Healthcare... Underperforming Schools...

"F--- You," McCain Publicly Tells Texas Sen. Cornyn

In separate interviews with Politico during the last week of August, Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said they have seen McCain “explode.”

“He has a huge anger problem,” Boxer said. “And he never hid that. ... I have seen it happen on the Senate floor many, many times. … He has exploded at me a couple times.”

Boxer said McCain has always apologized after the dust-ups. Nonetheless, she insinuated that McCain’s temperament makes him unfit for the White House.

“It’s all well and good to apologize,” Boxer added, “but if you are in charge of that black box, I worry about that.”

Durbin noted McCain’s temper is “well documented,” saying that he had been on the receiving end of it for what he considered “minor things.”

McClatchy Newspapers - McCain's History of Hot Temper Raises Concerns By David Lightman and Matt Stearns September 7, 2008 WASHINGTON — John McCain made a quick stop at the Capitol one day last spring to sit in on Senate negotiations on the big immigration bill, and John Cornyn was not pleased. Cornyn, a mild-mannered Texas Republican, saw a loophole in the bill that he thought would allow felons to pursue a path to citizenship. McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. Cornyn grimly told McCain he had a lot of nerve to suddenly show up and inject himself into the sensitive negotiations. "F--- you," McCain told Cornyn, in front of about 40 witnesses. It was another instance of the Republican presidential candidate losing his temper, another instance where, as POW-MIA activist Carol Hrdlicka put it, "It's his way or no way." There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: Read the rest of the story

Slate.com - One Angry Man Should we worry about John McCain's temper? By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 We are still obliged to ask ourselves whether the senior senator from Arizona is a brick short of a load or, as heartless people in England sometimes say, a sandwich or two short of a picnic. Because "anger," make no mistake about it, is the innuendo for instability or inadequacy. What if McCain doesn't really have both oars in the water or is either too tightly wrapped or not tightly wrapped enough? Read the full story

McCain Is No Maverick

John McCain together with all of his spokespersons, which too often includes the established news media, are "marketing" McCain as a "Maverick Centrist Republican." In truth, when the vote really counts, McCain has always voted with other far-right conservatives in the U.S. Senate to enact the far-right conservative philosophy into federal law and to confirm far-right conservative judges for the U.S. Federal and U.S. Supreme Courts. This is particularly true on the issue of women's rights.

• McCain JustMoreOfTheSame.com
• McCain Campaign's Descent Into Ugliness
• McCain: Make-Believe Maverick

The Truth About Sarah Palin

The McMansion in McCain's Nomination Acceptance Speech

While I was watching McCain's nomination acceptance speech Thursday night I was puzzled why he had the picture of a McMansion projected behind him after the flap of him not remembering how many McMansions he owns. The tight camera shots only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions. Josh Marshall at TPM may have solved the mystery in this posting - "I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this [picture of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California] instead.

At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this [North Hollywood middle] school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility."

Statement from Walter Reed Middle School principal, Donna Tobin, "It has been brought to the school's attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view."

Corndog

Sen. Cornyn: Tax Workers On Health Insurance Received From Employers

U.S. Senator John Cornyn, who is running for reelection this year, endorses Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain's proposal to shift employer provided health insurance from being an untaxed employee benefit to an insurance policy that Americans must purchase in the private marketplace for themselves and their families. "There's no reason today to have health insurance policies tied to employers," Cornyn told reporters on Monday.

McCain's plan, that Cornyn supports, would tax workers on the value of any health insurance they continue to receive from their employers. Under McCain's plan employees would have to report as income any insurance premiums paid by their employers. In contrast, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says he wants to expand Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, and require employers to either provide health insurance to their workers or contribute to a newly created public insurance program.

Dallas Morning News McCain's health insurance plan: More radical than Democrats' North Texas employers are not saying they would drop employee coverage altogether if Mr. McCain's plan were enacted. But some do say the plan, which Mr. McCain detailed in July, would encourage young and healthy workers to forgo company coverage, purchasing insurance on their own rather than paying income taxes on the benefit. That would leave employers with only the costly sick workers to insure. And that, they said, could eventually lead to the death of company-provided health plans.

Rick Noriega, the Democratic Candidate running for the U.S. Senate seat against Cornyn, supports guaranteed coverage through partnerships between the federal government, states, employers, and private health care providers.

Dallas Morning News Blog Rick Noriega Assails John Cornyn's Embrace of McCain Health Care Plan Rick Noriega's Senate campaign has harshly criticized freshman Republican Sen. John Cornyn for seconding John McCain's plan to wean Americans off employer-provided health insurance and push them to buy their own coverage. Noriega spokesman Martine Apodaca called McCain's plan "radical." Apodaca predicted that treating the employer health [benifits] as wages, as McCain proposes, will price families out of health insurance because the Arizona senator's $5,000 tax credits won't make up for the new burden they absorb. "Cornyn thinks forcing Texas families to fend for themselves in the individual insurance market is better than the employer based health care system. But people don't choose to be sick like they choose to buy a car or a pair of shoes," Apodaca said. "Under the Cornyn scheme, the majority of Texans would be paying higher taxes, paying more for less coverage and employers would lose incentives to offer health insurance to their employees"

The Sarah Palin Smokescreen

The Nation
The Sarah Palin Smokescreen
by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 09/04/2008

"Here's the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction," Bob Herbert wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday. "She's meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign--the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions." Herbert's right on target. Barack Obama honed in on that point in Denver too, "If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things." On cue, Sarah Palin attempted to paint an absurd caricature of Obama in her speech at the Republican Convention last night: "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world." More than anything, this election should be about the big issues of our time--ending a disastrous war, restoring America's reputation in the world and building an economy that works for more than just the very rich. The challenge for Democrats is to frame these issues in a way that connects with traditional American and progressive values, exposes Republican callousness and extremism, and in doing so trumps the GOP's political marketing which cynically and cleverly plays on symbolism. As George Lakoff wrote, "Just arguing the realities, the issues, the hard truths should be enough in times this bad, but the political mind and its response to symbolism cannot be ignored..... Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy." Read the rest of the story

Rock The Vote In 2008

From now until Election Day November 4th your Democratic friends and neighbors will be working in your neighborhoods to Get Out The Vote.

The objective of GOTV is to get more Progressive voters to the polls in Collin County this year than ever before by reminding them again and again why it is so important for them to vote in 2008; This is what "Get Out The Vote" is all about.

When the Democratic Party has a strong GOTV effort, our Democratic Candidates have a much better chance of winning. Your Democratic neighbors are already working hard with all our Democratic Candidates to Get Out The Vote in 2008 by Registering Voters, Phone Banking and Block Walking.

This year early voting starts on October 20th and continues until October 31st and Election Day falls on November 4th. We need Democrats to line up to vote starting at 7 A.M. on October 20th and keep lining up to vote until 7 P.M. on November 4th.

Please be a good Democratic friend this year and help your neighbors get out and vote starting October 20th. To sign up to help Get Out The Democratic Vote all across Collin County send an email to the GOTV coordinator, Barb Walters, at this email address: gotv@collindems.us. Barb Walters is working closely with the County Chair and all Precinct Chairs of the Democratic Party of Collin County as well as the campaign staffs of all the candidates whose name will appear on Collin County ballots on November 4th to Get Out The Vote.

Our Democratic candidates running for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, Rick Noriega, Tom Daley and Glenn Melançon, need our support! President Barack Obama will need all the help he can get in Congress when he takes office January 20, 2009!! PLEASE, please help send Rick Noriega, Tom Daley and Glenn Melançon to Washington to help President Obama quickly turn our country onto the right road to a 21st century America!!

And, don't forget -- Other State of Texas and Collin County Democratic Candidates will appear on Collin County Ballots for the 2008 General Election too. They must also have your support!! For a list of all our local Democratic Candidates Click Here. Please go to any or all of the candidate's websites and contribute any money and any volunteer time to their campaigns you can spare to help them get elected.