THE DAY I MET PAUL NEWMAN

Many years ago Kansas City was visited by Paul Newman & his wife during the filming of MR. & MRS BRIDGES. I was working downtown and my wife was working at Fedora's on the Plaza at the time. Mr. Newman developed a fondness for Fedora's and my wife saw him there frequently. He was always friendly with the staff, liked all types of food but preferred hamburgers. He also liked his privacy. Very rarely did he ever speak to other guests or care to meet them.

I happened to be walking down the street on Baltimore one day just as he and his entourage came walking past. I knew he valued privacy, but I couldn't resist. I called out, "Mr. Newman, I watched SHADOW BOX (a movie starring his wife & directed by him) last night and it was incredible!"

To my complete surprise he stopped short and spun around asking, "Where did you see that at?"

I explained that I had rented it and asked a couple of questions about some of his choices as a director. He answered the questions and asked me a couple of questions about the film. Then the door to his trailer opened and Joann Woodward stepped out looking for him. The look on his face was incredible. You could tell that he loved her greatly. He turned back to me, flashed me that movie star grin and said, "Isn't she lovely?"

He then realized that other people has noticed us and he nodded to me, said "thank you" and walked quickly away.

I've always remembered that brief meeting. Not so much because he was famous, but because he so obviously loved her. I'm sure she knows that. I hope she also knows that his love for her was one emotion that this intensely private man didn't mind sharing with a complete stranger on the street.

Our thoughts are with you, Ms. Woodward.

God Speed, Mr. Newman.

OBAMA AND THE BAILOUT

On Sunday, Sen. McCain attacked Sen. Obama for not having offered a plan to solve the latest financial crisis to hit Wall Street. He accused Sen. Obama of once again playing politician and not offering the leadership the country needed from a president. This would have a certain level of humor if the subject was not so serious. McCain is a man whose first reaction was to threaten to fire the head of the SEC. (Which is not something the President can do.) Even George Will called McCain's behavior "unpresidential" But in one respect Sen. McCain was correct, Sen. Obama did not offer presidential leadership! This may have had something to do with the fact that Sen. Obama is not currently the President of the United States and this is a crisis.

Sen. Obama's response was to stay calm and wait for the designated leader of the country to make the decisions that are his to make. Obama made frequent calls to many legislators on both sides of the aisle to discuss the problem. Then on Sunday after the President had offered his plan, Sen. Obama spoke on 7 principals that he felt the plan must meet to be approved by Congress. He did not say he would not support a bailout. He stressed the importance of this legislation passing Congress quickly, but he refused to write the President a blank check. He spoke as a Senator entrusted to be the legislative branch of the government. He also showed us what would be important to a President Obama if he were faced with a similar situation as President Bush is currently. (It should also be noted that several of these principals are things he has spoken on in the past on the campaign trail as early as last year. Unlike Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama seems to have seen some form of this problem coming.) So here are those principals taken directly from a transcript of Sunday's speech.

No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check.
Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them.
Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance.
Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities.
A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets.
Main Street, not just Wall Street. The American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do the emergency on Wall Street. That is why I call on Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, save one million jobs through rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance to help ensure that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built in America.
Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century. While there is not time in a week to remake our regulatory structure to prevent abuses in the future, we should commit ourselves to the kind of reforms I have been advocating for several years. We need new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy, together with the means and willingness to enforce them.

As a Senator, these points clearly show a legislator who understands his role in the process. The executive branch has proposed a solution, the legislative branch discusses the idea focusing on how the plan solves the problem and makes recommendations and changes before making it a law for the executive branch to enforce. Sen. Obama played his part in the process during a crisis. Sen. McCain campaigned.

WHY I SUPPORT OBAMA: ENERGY

I am often asked WHY “I SUPPORT OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT.” This is usually followed by the comment that he doesn’t give a plan and I probably only support him because of his pretty rhetoric. So, I would like to address one of several areas that Sen. Obama has a plan for that is better than Sen. McCain’s plan: ENERGY. This is not the only reason I support his candidacy, but it is a major reason for that support.

Both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain have fairly similar plans for a comprehensive national energy policy. Both want to improve auto mileage standards (although the Obama plan is more aggressive), both want to make better use of alternative energy sources that include bio-fuels, wind and solar. Both see alternative energy as the “space race” of the new millennium, a way to increase American technology and to create jobs for a struggling economy. Leading Americans forward to develop new resources is a goal of both men. The differences are mainly found in their stance on drilling and their view on nuclear energy.

So why is this one of the MOST important reasons I support Sen. Obama? Because it is so important and we are so short of time to make progress. The issues we discuss today are issues that we knew were issues in the 70’s….we just did nothing about them. And that is one of my fears of McCain. He has been in Washington as a Senator for 28 years and has done nothing to develop alternative sources. In fact, Sen. McCain has voted AGAINST bills that would have promoted their development on at least nine separate occasions. Drilling, nuclear energy, new sources will all take time to bring on line. We don’t have much time. The longer that we wait for the RIGHT solution, the harder it will be to break our dependence on foreign oil. The Middle East is extremely unstable and unfortunately our livelihood as a nation is tied directly to our need for foreign oil. Due to the Iraq War, we have lost what little diplomatic influence we had. The Iraq War has proved the difficulty of using military force to stabilize one country much less the entire region.

It will be essential for the next president to lead us into a new way of thinking about our energy usage. That requires both vision and the ability to inspire Americans to support the changes needed. I think Sen. Obama is the one best suited to inspire us to change. I also think that his younger age gives him the ability to think outside the box more than Sen. McCain. I feel he is more in touch with the younger generation who will ultimately have to change their lifestyle to adjust to the new technology.

One of the greatest critiques of alternative energy is that the technology has not been available. But now it really may be. Over the past two years there have been two massive developments concerning alternative energy. The first is the development of a flexible solar panel. It is made of a flexible film that converts ALL wavelengths of light from ALL angles. It can be bent to fit any shape and placed anywhere. It currently has limited availability but will be widely available in three years. The second is the plan proposed by T. Boone Pickens to turn large areas of the Midwest into wind farms. These wind farms are located in remote areas and have the added advantage of bringing a viable industry to rural America. Having a major business figure behind a company designed to seriously promote alternative energy is a major asset that has been missing from the equation for too long. Both McCain & Obama have expressed interest in his plan.

But if the plans are so similar, why do I support Obama on his energy policy? Because of the differences! Sen. McCain is too intent on drilling to solve our problems. While more drilling is going to be necessary in the future, it is not the answer to our problems. For one thing we don’t have enough oil to make a significant difference. America uses 25% of the world’s petroleum, but we only control at best estimate 10% of the world’s oil. No matter how much we drill, we will need to come up with other sources of energy. Not only would it take years to drill, we do not currently have the refining capacity to make the oil useful. There is also a backlog in the industry of new well installation as it is. (Just because you authorize more drilling doesn’t mean that the drill platforms will get set up any quicker.) Also, the oil will be placed on the world market for bid, not kept solely for U.S. consumption. So drilling would be advantageous for oil companies, but Americans get no such promises.

There are those who insist that we have more oil than the experts think. “How do we know how much oil we have until we drill”, they ask. The problem with that philosophy is that we don’t know. This philosophy is a little like going “all in” on a poker hand without knowing for sure what your hole cards are. It’s a suckers play.

Sen. McCain also favors nuclear power. The problem with that is three fold. One, if an accident happens the consequences are unbelievable for anyone nearby. While I realize that we have gone for many years without an accident at a nuclear facility…it only needs to happen once. Two, we have to store the used uranium somewhere safe. That becomes a real issue as the French are discovering. (They supply most of their energy needs through nuclear power, but are discovering that they are running out of space to store the waste. Never confuse the term “LOTS” with infinite. Eventually you have more waste than safe places to store the waste.) Three, the cost and time to build ONE new reactor is huge. Sen. McCain’s energy plan calls for 45 new reactors at a total cost of 315 Billion dollars! There are other avenues that will show results sooner and cheaper than we can bring new reactors on-line. Those are the options we should focus on.

Senator McCain has also seen a tendency to pander to us with silly energy ideas. He offers a huge reward for the first American to build a better battery for auto use. The reason this is silly is simple. Anyone who invents such a battery will make a fortune off of the patent rights! People are already researching hard to achieve this goal without the “reward” because the idea is worth so much on its’ own. His battery reward is a trick of smoke & mirrors to make you forget that Sen. McCain has been in the Senate for 28 years without working on this issue before.

He also advocates a “gas tax Holiday”. But those gas taxes are what we use to maintain and build new infrastructure for our highways. So while I am able to save about $100 a summer (I drive a lot for my job) it won’t save me money if I bust an axel on a road that hasn’t been properly maintained. Sen. Obama has been honest with us about why he sees it as a bad idea and that is refreshing in this election.

It seems that most of America falls within two camps now, those who feel that drilling will save us because we have more oil than we realize and those of us who think it is essential that we move away from an oil based energy policy. At this stage, nobody really knows who’s right or who’s wrong. The difference is that if I’m wrong and we build this great infrastructure that emphasizes alternative energy...we have the alternative sources and more oil. That means the price of oil goes down. If I’m right and we run out of oil (or are cut off by embargo or the wells are damaged in a hurricane) then your children will spend some future winter night sitting in a very cold and very dark house telling stories to your grandchildren about the “good old days”.

THE EXPERIENCE OF JOHN McCAIN

We are often told in this election that only a fool would vote for an untested politician like Sen. Obama. In these times of crisis the man with the most experience is the one who must be President. But experience is useless without the virtue of learning from your experiences. And here I think John McCain comes up short.

One of the original Reagan foot soldiers, John McCain has held a life long belief in the private sector being unfettered by government regulation. In the late 1980's that lack of regulation led to the collapse of the savings & loan industry. (It also earned the young Senator from Arizona a reprimand from the Senate Ethics Committee, but that's another story.)

Now some 20 years later, following six years of a Republican Congress and Republican President, we have had the opportunity to again test the principal that ALL government regulation is bad. And in the last few weeks we have seen the results. The bailouts being proposed now make the Savings & Loan Bailout look like small change.

But up until 48 hours ago, Sen. McCain continued to insist that we MUST DEREGULATE! Which of course is the teachings of his top economic advisor Phil Gramm who engineered the original deregulation of the banking industry some 10 years ago.

Sen. McCain has even proposed putting Social Security into privatized hands (which of course meant your retirement was in your hands, same as your mortgage and your mutal fund.). Looking at the ups & downs of the market this last week make that a bit scarier today than it was six months ago.

But the best is this quote that will be appearing in an upcoming magazine article written by the EXPERIENCED John McCain. The title of the article is BETTER HEALTH CARE AT LOWER COST FOR EVERY AMERICAN from the Sept/Oct 08 issue of Contingecies.

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

I don't know about you but that quote makes me feel a little ill. (Note: He also plans on making your health care contribution taxable as opposed to both the present system & Sen. Obama's health care.)

So what we have is an article that was written so recently that it is yet to be published that describes a health care system with all the safe guards of the banking industry. It trumpets the wisdom of deregulating the banking industry. Current events seem to call into question his judgement, since for the last 48 hours he's been "Mr. We-Need-To-Regulate-This-Problem McCain". We know he promises to fix it "so it never happens again", but wouldn't it had been nice if he had learned his lesson during the 80's?

And we know he also wants to do the same thing to Social Security. DOES THIS SEEM WISE TO YOU? Experience without wisdom is nothing to brag about.

OBAMA DELAYS WITHDRAWING TROOPS?

The latest Obama news story to sweep the internet is one that comes from that bastion of excellence in journalism, THE NEW YORK POST. Amir Taheri wrote that in July, Sen. Obama spoke with members of the Iraqi government and urged them to delay any agreement with the US to begin troop withdrawals. Every conservative blogger (and several major news sources, including Fox News) not only ran with the story but they all expressed similar outrage over the indignity of wanting to keep the troops there. “WHAT??? Sen. Obama is willing to keep our soldiers over there longer because it helps his political career? It only goes to prove he doesn’t “put country first”! He’ll do ANYTHING to win an election! And besides, he’s a Muslim too!”

Taheri wrote a great article for the Post. Very in-depth, with quotes attributed to the Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari that claimed Sen. Obama made the delay a focal point of his talks with the Iraqi government.

Being a supporter of Obama’s and knowing the less than sterling reputation of the Post for journalistic standards, I wondered about truthfulness of the story.

So I googled the author of the article; Amir Taheri, and found some interesting facts about the man. He was a Senior Editor for a major Iranian newspaper under the Shaw of Iran’s government. He is now a political refugee from Iran who has advocated for the overthrow of the present government. He is also an advisor to Pres. George Bush. Here is a man who’s ONLY hope of returning to his homeland rests on the hopes that either the US or Israel will overthrow the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Now if that doesn’t raise an eyebrow and make you question the authenticity of this story I don’t know what will.)

Unless of course it’s the number of times he has been caught fabricating sources, quotes and story lines before in his writing. What you ask? He lied? How could that be? I read in on the internet!

Here are the real facts about the man accusing Sen. Barack Obama of meddling in George Bush’s foreign policy.

1) Most famously, on May 19, 2006, Taheri wrote a story for Canada’s NATIONAL POST about a new Iranian law requiring Iranian Jews and other religious minorities to wear colored badges at all times while on the streets of Tehren. This caused an immediate sensation and was picked up by many mainstream media sources and ran as a legitimate story. The bloggers went crazy with this story. But the story was simply NOT TRUE! Within hours the NATIONAL POST was alerted to the problem and had pulled the story from their website, blaming Taheri for misleading them.

2) In 1989, Taheri published a book about the rise and fall of the Shah of Iran entitled “NEST OF SPIES”. Larry Cohler-Esses wrote of the book in THE NATION, that it cited "nonexistent sources," it fabricated "nonexistent substance in cases where the sources existed," and distorted the facts "beyond recognition.” Other than that it was a really nice read.

3) In 2005, he said that Iran’s Ambassador to the UN had taken an active part in the takeover of the US embassy in Tehren in 1979. This too went all over the internet. It was however disproven by the Ambassador’s teacher! "This allegation is false," San Francisco State University professor Dwight Simpson wrote to the New York Post (which had published a Taheri column making the claim). "On November 4, 1979 [the day of the seizure], Javad Zarif was in San Francisco. He was then a graduate student in the Department of International Relations of San Francisco State University. He was my student, and he served also as my teaching assistant." Somebody is obviously lying, and I know who I’m betting on.

So we now have a highly provocative story written by a questionable source with no outside confirmation by any other news source. But that hasn’t stopped Fox News and other media outlets from running with it as if it were gospel. It hasn’t kept it from being the blog of the hour on numerous sites.

It’s hard to decide who you want to blame more for this type of shoddy journalism: The media that doesn’t do it’s job in checking sources or the conservative bloggers who happily spread rumor without thought to truth. Or maybe as Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy and they is us.” You know; US, people like you and me who know better but don’t demand the standard of excellence from our media that we deserve both individually and as a nation.

So if you see this story printed anywhere, let the person promoting it know that you know who Amir Taheri is…and you expect more from them than slander, innuendo and lies. You expect NEWS!

MORE LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS?

Many in the media have recently begun to question some of the claims of Sen. McCain. Some have dared to call him a flip-flopper or even liar. And the response from the conservative right has been predictable. It's not Sen. McCain's fault, it's the liberal media's bias that is really behind these accusations. It has nothing to do with lies and false statements on the part of Sen. McCain...and besides Obama's worse!

But apparently it's not only the liberal media that is starting to call him out. Recently, Sen. McCain spoke in Lee's Summitt, MO. This resulted in McCain being written up as a flip flopper and fibber by THE ARMY TIMES?

At the rally he attacked Obama for trying to "slow our development of Future Combat Systems" McCain excalaimed, "This is not a time to slow our development of Future Combat Systems."

Now Future Combat Systems (FCS) is an Army program that is exactly what it sounds like, research into new weapons. The program is constantly behind schedule and overbudget. Nobody denies that fact. But to hear Sen. McCain tell it, Obama has already cancelled the program and given our soldiers socker boppers to defend themselves with.

The truth is that Sen. Obama wants to “cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending....I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of Future Combat Systems.”

The Army Times then went to an Obama military advisor for followup questioning. “Obama had said that he wanted to review FCS and he thought that he might want to slow the fielding,” former Sec. of Air Force F. Whitten Peters (and Obama advisor) said. “His feeling is there really needs to be an overall strategic review of larger weapon programs to decide which ones are sufficiently important to keep going and which ones may need to be scaled back.”

So McCain lied about Obama's stand on the issue. But even worse is that as recently as July of this year, McCain was telling the Washington Post that he wanted to cut FCS entirely from the Pentagon budget. No review, no tweaking the program....JUST CUT IT!

The Army Times then quoted Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute (a conserative think tank) who compared the two Senators views on the military budget.

“Future Combat Systems is the centerpiece of Army modernization. However, McCain has been more critical of it than anyone else in the chamber. Obama has been much more detailed and thoughtful in his comments about future military investment than McCain’s very superficial statements.”

So we end with a news outlet associated with the military quoting a conservative think tank spokesman who says Obama is detailed & thoughtful while McCain is superficial. It must be media bias! That's what made the Army Times run a headline reading "Flip Flop or Fib"!

And to no one's surprise, the McCain campaign declined to comment to the Army Times regarding the article.

In this next election Americans must decide between a leader who looks to "detailed and thoughtful" analysis versus the "grill buddy" who's "superficial" views decide the direction of our country. But hey, that's probably just more liberal media bias.

EATING BOOGERS & BRIDGETTE McCAIN

In the last 24 hours I have seen two different people ask Sen. McCain the same basic question. "Why do you approve the message of campaign commercials that are proven lies?" I've wondered how the engineer of the "STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS" would answer this question. I have had no idea how he could reconcile his sense of fairness with the lies being put out by his campaign presumably in his name. And I have not been alone in my wonderment. Many of McCain's friends on the left (most notably James Carville and Chris Mathews) swear that it must be the campaign and not Sen. McCain. "He's too good for that", they say. Well now we know.

Sen. McCain's answer was in two parts both times and the same both times. First he tells us that the tone of the campaign would have been different if Sen. Obama would have done town hall meetings with him. Then he tells us that "this is a tough campaign". How incredibly first grade of him! You remember back in grade school, when you didn't want to play at someone's house so they told the rest of the class that you "eat boogers"! It's pretty much the same mentality. Whether Sen. Obama was right or wrong to turn down the town hall meetings, it should not influence your personal behavior. Come on Senator, show some personal responsiblity.

This is something new for McCain. He really didn't start these "swift boat-esque" attack ads until his campaign hired the same people who smeared Sen. McCain in the 2000 primary. You know the people who claimed he was crazy and had an illegitimate black daughter? Worked for Karl Rove & George Bush. Now they work for McCain and they are still very good at their job!

I suppose that the bottom line is that it's politics. But I had hoped for better from Sen. McCain.

One does wonder what Bridgett must think about this? Who's Bridgett you ask? Bridgett McCain is the adopted daughter of Sen. John McCain. She is never seen on the campaign trail (and rarely mentioned). Years after the 2000 election, she googled her father's name on the internet and was horrified by the terrible things said about her. She was embarrassed. Cindy McCain said that to protect her, they don't take her out on the trail anymore. (And I'm not blaming her for that. It shows parental responsibility) But I do wonder what Bridgett thinks about this. How must it feel to know that your step-father wants to win so bad, he's willing to hire the man who smeared his daughter.

Sen. McCain, you probably do eat boogers!


UPDATE:

This Sunday on Fox News, Karl Rove weighed in on McCain's attack ads.

"McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test," said Rove. "Both campaigns ought to be careful about... there ought to be an adult who says: 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad?"

WHEN KARL ROVE THINKS YOUR TV ADS GO TOO FAR, YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY "JUMPED THE SHARK"

REMEMBERING

Seven years ago, at just about this time of morning....our world changed forever. Today, is to be a day of rememberance and mourning. A day that we should remember not only for the loss and the terror, but for that fleeting time that we as a nation came together in common cause. For in the days following the attack, we as Americans became one nation, united in purpose.

So let us put aside our differences today to remember. Remember Flight 93. Remember the Pentagon. Remember the towers crumbling while filled with the brave souls of the firemen and office workers. Remember the pain we felt as we asked each other, "did you know anyone...?"

But most of all remember...that we as a nation are greater than the sum of ourselves. That we are the greatest nation on earth and that is a reputation that we have earned, but must re-earn each day. Remember, reflect and let us honor those who died with the actions we take today and tomorrow. Remember!

VOTE YOUR POCKETBOOK

Those tax & spend Democrats are at it again. Recently, the Tax Policy Center did a review of the tax differences between Obama and McCain. We’ve all seen the ads that tell us that Obama will raise your taxes and Sen. McCain will lower your taxes. Obviously, it is in your best interest to vote for McCain because it will save YOU money! In fairness, Sen. McCain is not lying! He will lower the tax rate for every American!

The catch (because there’s always a catch in politics) is HOW MUCH your taxes are lowered depends upon how much you make. For instance if you make $50,000.00; your taxes will go down by $319.00 or 0.6%. But if I make $600,000.00 my taxes will decrease by $45,361.00 or 7.6%. Huh? Pardon my cynical nature, but why does the man who is making TWELVE times more than you GET A TAX CUT THAT IS 7% MORE THAN YOURS? (Guess I must have worked harder for my $600,000 than you did for your paltry $50,000.)

Now under the Obama plan, the taxes on my $600,000.00 WILL go up. I will spend an extra $115,974 in taxes. So McCain didn’t lie! Sen. Obama will raise taxes ON EVERY AMERICAN MAKING OVER $600,000.00. How dare he? And how much will Obama raise taxes on your $50,000.00? NOT AT ALL. In fact, if you make $50,000.00, under the Obama tax plan you will pay $1,042.00 less than you do now. (That’s a 2.1% decrease in your taxes as opposed to Sen. McCain’s 0.6% decrease.) And how does Senator Obama plan to make up the difference? By cutting the tax breaks given to the rich by President Bush!

If you want to see where you will fall under each plan go to the following link:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidat
es_taxproposals_tpc/?postversion=2008061113

Another difference between the two plans: If you are retired and making less than $50,000 per year, under the Obama tax plan you won’t pay taxes on that $50,000.

And another: Currently if you receive employer-based health insurance it is not taxed. Under the McCain health care plan you WILL pay taxes on the money paid towards your health care. (This doesn’t get much mention in his stump speech but it is in his Health Care Plan.)

Several years ago, multi-billionaire Warren Buffet made an offer to donate $1,000,000.00 to the charity of choice of any Fortune 500 CEO who paid the same percentage tax rate as the CEO’s secretary. The money remains unclaimed to this day. Senator Obama may cost Warren Buffet a million dollars by leveling the tax rate in America.

Some people will try to tell you that it is not fair for the rich to have to pay more than anyone else. But the reality is that during the Bush Administration we have been fighting a war in Iraq on credit. Borrowing as much money as we have has caused the dollar to plummet. This means different things to different classes. I recently listened to a woman in a grocery store with two small children try to decide between milk or meat because she couldn’t afford both. That’s what a weak dollar means to the poor. Today, I stood behind a woman at the bank who was forced to cancel her vacation to Europe. So instead, she’s going to Latin America for vacation because the dollar is so much stronger there. That’s what a weak dollar means to the wealthy.
Bottom line, regardless of what the Republicans try to tell you…Sen. Obama is much friendlier to the middle class than the McCain Campaign ever dreamed of!



VOTE YOUR POCKETBOOK!

McCAIN CALLS THIS SUPPORTING THE TROOPS?

One thing that always bothers me in blogging is the number of people who are willing to call me Un-American because I tend to be more liberal than they would like. Somehow being anything other than Super Conservative gets you labeled as unpatriotic. People constantly throw Republican's out as the ones who support both troops and America as if the rest of us do not.

This especially makes me mad when no one questions John McCain's support of the troops. I know he was a POW (he's told us many times). But that does not necessarily make him overly supportive of the troops. In fact, it seems to make him even harder on them, expecting more & more from them because after all they have it easier than he had it.

A recent example is that he did not support the Veteran's Benefit package that recently passed Congress. Some would have you believe that it was because it was laden with pork....but according to Sen. McCain it was because the education benefits would be so good that people would leave the service to go to school rather than enlist for another term of service. The military's own analyists claimed that the number of troops who left the service would be offset by the number of new enlistees who wanted to earn the benefits. But that didn't matter to McCain. (Maybe someone who ranked 894 out of 899 in the Naval Academy doesn't see an advantage in education.) The really sad part is that all the bill did was improve today's benefits to equal what was given to our WWII vets. (Come to think of it, it was also the same thing offered to John McCain for his service.)

But on Sunday, McClatchy News ran a story that really questioned McCain's concern for our troops and their families. Apparently in the late 90's he was approached outside his office by a group representing Vietnam MIA families. They were trying to find out information about thier missing family members. During this period they were very vocal and very much underfoot in the Capital. Still, I think the sacrifice made by thier children earned the parents better treatment than how six separate people claimed John McCain treated them on this day.

"Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.


As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.

"McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.

McCain's staff wouldn't respond to requests for comment about specific incidents."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/51660.html>


IF YOU ARE SUPPORTING ACTIONS LIKE THIS, HOW DO YOU QUESTION THE PATRIOTISM OF THE LEFT?

GUSTAV & PUTTING AMERICA FIRST

Dear Senator McCain:



You have constantly told the American people that the reason we need to vote for you is because you (unlike Sen. Obama) put America First....Always.



Now with Hurricane Gustav making landfall (and Hurricane Hannah right behind) you have the opportunity to show us that you mean what you say. The safety and needs of the people living on the Gulf Coast override the needs of either campaign.

I applauded your decision to alter your convention schedule to "take care of necessary business" only. That is a wise move. I love the idea of turning the Republican Convention into a "telethon for Hurricane Victims". That is a wonderful idea that helps people.

My only question about your handling this is your insistence upon traveling to the area. DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT YOU AND YOUR ENTOURAGE ARE NEEDED IN THE GULF AREA?

Seriously, I was horrified to see that less than 24 hours before a major storm hits, you & your VP are touring the disaster relief coordination center. Did it ever occur to you that the line of people standing around to shake your hand might have something more important to be doing during the 24 hour countdown to landfall? Did some poor nurse in a local hospital start muttering obscenities when she was told that she not only had to prepare for possible hurricane refugees that she must also meet the protocols that are required of hospitals when a president or candidate are in the area? Was there a cop who had to pull an extra 5 hours of duty to make sure you were safe when he had no idea if his own family was taken care of?

I realize as a candidate you have to be aware of what is going on. But for the love of God, country and every individual that had to make time during their preparation for the storm....send a trusted advisor with a cell phone! It's a great device. It gives you instant communication with a trusted set of eyes to report back to you. If there is a problem, you can respond....without the interruption of Emergency Service Personnel. All of whom, have thier hands full right now. Call a governor on the phone. If Bobby Jindal was good enough to be on your short list for VP, surely he can give an accurate report of the facts on the ground.

On Thursday, BE IN ST. PAUL for your speech, not the Gulf. They need to clean up. They need to get Americans back in their homes. They need to get electricity back to those homes. THEY DON'T NEED TO BE CARING FOR YOU! Seventy two hours after a hurricane, the personnel needed to watch you are needed for other things...and if not, there is always SLEEP. (Which no disaster relief worker ever gets enough of)

Remember how insulting it was that during Bush's great speech from the center of New Orleans that he was the only person for miles that had access to electricity? Wouldn't he have been thought better of if he had put the crews that set up his speech to providing generators for those that lived there & had no electricity?

There is nothing you can say from the Gulf that can't be said from the Convention Stage. (Put a damn picture of the damage behind you on a screen & say you're there for all I care. But stay away! Leave the workers in peace to do thier job.)

The only real advantage for you in being in the Gulf is that of the Photo Op! Photo Ops do not show you putting America First! Maybe you are concerned about photo ops this time around. Remember the photo op you had with Bush during Katrina? That great picture of you & W. eating Birthday cake as Katrina roared ashore?

I have news for you. That photo is no reflection upon you. You were at the time the Senator from Arizona. You are responsible for disasters in Arizona...not the Gulf. George Bush should be ashamed of it, but it's no reflection on you. You are still only the Senator from Arizona, so stop trying so hard and think about the people in the path of the Hurricane. Stay out of the way of the rescue effort and spend time in St. Paul raising money to help.