I have my doubts about the Diebold machines. There have been problems in many places where they have been tried. Could there be cases where product liability may need to be investigated at the level of criminal negligence?
Disenfranchisement, if linked to flawed technology or misleading marketing could be a tragic conspiracy to violate the civil rights of voters.
From a Sunday, Oct. 25 A-P story:
A majority of Americans — 51 percent in a poll by Gallup this past April — said they support "heavy taxes" on the rich to redistribute wealth. That is significantly higher than when the same question was asked in 1939, at the tail end of the Great Depression, when 35 percent agreed.
But people's support for higher taxes on the wealthy are tempered by their own aspirations.
"Most Americans hope to some day be wealthy and as a result, the idea of kind of redistributing income is not as popular as (government policies resulting in) making a bigger pie so everybody does better off," said Dennis Jacobe, chief economist for Gallup.
... People don't seem as willing to accept: "The rich get richer" as the status quo when they are far from rich.
Sometimes we get lost in the big picture.
For most people, it's about a wallet, a checkbook, lunch money, gas money, family, jobs, the house the block and maybe the neighborhood.
I know news and history look at the big picture, but many of us feel the pain of our times in our guts...
That's all about the individual.
W. Brad Johnson and Gregory Harper have taught at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. They have written the following:
" The linkage of men's ethics, reputations, and fates can be studied in even more vivid detail in prison camp. In that brutally controlled environment a perceptive enemy can get his hooks into the slightest chink in a man's ethical armor and accelerate his downfall. Given the right opening, the right moral weakness, a certain susceptibility on the part of the prisoner, a clever extortionist can drive his victim into a downhill slide that will ruin his image, self-respect, and life in a very short time.
To succeed as leaders, midshipmen learn from day one that integrity is nonnegotiable. Evidence of lying or dishonesty is grounds for separation. No argument."
John McCain, presidential candidate has two things in common with this statement:
1) He is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate.
2) He is a former prisoner of war who came home honorably after five years captivity.
My points here are that there is no room for partial truths, no room for anachronistic positions that place an opponent in a light that has little relationship to the truth.
Have we become so cynical that the codes one embraces as a way of life in youth become obscured when we don the suit and pin of privilege of a U.S. Senator? Do we completely forsake the Code of Honor of U.S. Military Officers when we run for president?
if so, I think that's sad.
These have been amazing months. Who would have thought that a young candidate from a working class background would have more money to spend on a campaign than a longtime senatot and retired military officer from a long line of Flag-rank admirals married to an heiress.
I wish some of the people who helped raise me had lived long enough to see this.
This is tough.
If you really think about it, does anyone really care about Bill Ayers?
I figure you're more concerned with dollars and cents....
finding dollars to keep the few cents you have left from
rattling around in your pocket.
How would you feel if good people, concerned about their country and worried about its prospects, couldn't get past their life's experience?
There are very bright people who grew up hearing stories from their parents and grandparents:
-- The Great Depression.
--The War
-- The Red Scare
-- Korea
-- The Iron Curtain
-- The Cuban Missile Crisis
-- Vietnam
... Add two Gulf Wars, numerous recessions, Watergate and 9-11...
They've also heard and known their families' views on ethnicity, religion, race, sexual preferences, gender identity and nationhood.
How would you feel if this jaw dropping, judgmental affirmation directed at you or your neighbor flowed from someone's lips?
'You're voting for John McCain because he's.......'
the real question is can the outgoing administration stabilize the situation before they head out the door.
Micro, macro? You can pick and choose your style of economics, but unless you know more than all the experts, in the end you are rolling the dice.
Somebody needs to fix this...
Let me know if you figure out who has a real plan.
In five years, we'll all be older.
If you want to hold national elected office, you need to know the American people. We do not all live in the country or the suburbs.
Some of us live in cities.
Come see us Sarah, come see us, ya hear!
With just a month to go before election day, it's really time to hear about substance.
I'm one of those voters who will watch Tuesday's debate with an ear toward meaningful discussion.
There's just too much at stake to settle for anything less.
The case will likely be appealed but it will not get the headlines cases dealing with Simpson have gotten in the past....
His football career, his acting career, his Brentwood lifestyle and all that went with them are so long ago...
The world has tired of O-J Simpson.
This is the worst kind of negative campaigning....
While the McCain campaign may point to Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground as the substance behind this comment, it reeks of a "those people" kind of comment.
People who hear this will have no clue about Ayers or the Weather Underground, they will have images of Obama hanging around with Arabs and Muslims and unfortunately they will paint them with broad brushes in dubious shades of misinformed hatred.
I am reminded of Menachem Begin's association with the Haganah in the 1930s and 40s. Or the labeling of America's founding fathers as terrorists by the British who later said the same of Jomo Kenyatta.
The "palling around with terrorists" catch-phrase is more about Willie Horton than it is about Bill Ayers... It is designed to link Barack Obama to Muslims and Arabs in a "those people" kind of way.
Sarah Palin might as well be using the horrifically offensive term "Raghead" as she slithers around the country seeking out "Joe Sixpacks and Hockey Moms in areas where they don't have to live around "those people."
If this is the case Republicans are embracing a strategy built upon the three "r's of negative campaigning Race+Religion+Righteousness=Rabble Rousing.
