The Smoking Argus

Editor’s Note: No official Statement is available from Senator John McCain’s office.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona compares the struggle for American Independence to the ongoing protests in Iran. He attempts to oversimplify opposition by stating that those seeking to link the C.I.A. to the current Green Revolution based on the C.I.A.’s 1953 overthrow of then Iranian Prime Minister Mossadeq are both cynical and on the wrong side of history. Finally, Senator McCain admonishes the Iranian regime for conducting brutal torture and spreading fear of a feigned foreign enemy as a means to justify a loss of liberty domestically.

Source(s): Senator John McCain’s Official YouTube Channel

Jeff Lewis

Last Wednesday night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann threw down the gauntlet at Fox News’ Sean Hannity and declared that he would pay $1,000 per second and donate it to charity for every second Sean Hannity lasted while being water boarded.  The challenge was the result of an interview Hannity had with Charles Grodin on Hannity’s Tuesday night broadcast on Fox network.  Hannity was making the statement to Grodin that water boarding didn’t really constitute torture because it wasn’t severe enough to be labeled as such.

Grodin paused and asked Hannity if he would be willing to be water boarded?  Hannity paused for a second and half-heartedly said, “Yea, if it was for charity for the troop’s families.”  Grodin immediately asked, “Will you do it this Sunday?”  Hannity grinned and quickly changed the subject.

The next evening on “Countdown”, Olbermann re-aired the Hannity/Grodin segment and at the conclusion said that he would personally pay $1,000 a second for as long as Hannity lasted.  As of this post, Hannity had not responded.

2002 DOJ Torture Memo Right click to Save

My guess is Hannity won’t accept Olbermann’s call of his bluff to be subjected to being water boarded for the simple reason that Hannity, like all the others who claim that water boarding is not torture are cowards, or downright “Chicken-shits!” behind their false bravado.  Many extreme right wingers love to regale in tough talk and bluster about how “tough” they’d be on terrorists, unlike the candy-ass liberals they relish in bashing over their supposed timidity in dealing with the terrorists of Al Qaeda and such.

Recently, Rush Limbaugh has taken to audibly slapping himself on his face to illustrate how that interrogation technique doesn’t constitute torture, during his daily radio broadcasts.  You sure are a “tough guy”, Rush.  We all remember how Rush mocked Michael J. Fox’s physical impairments of Parkinson’s disease that were manifest in the actor’s TV endorsements of two Democratic candidates(McKaskill of Missouri and Webb of Virginia) for the U.S. Senate back in the ’06 congressional campaign.  Rush acted out a series of gyrations on camera during his program, while claiming that Fox was using these supposed physical afflictions as a ploy to draw sympathy for his candidates.  Some years ago I happened to hear Limbaugh making fun of homeless people on his radio show, as I was scanning the radio dial for a local traffic/weather update.  Limbaugh is an utterly shameless, despicable, and pitiful character.  I am constantly amazed at the number of people who will surrender their decency and intelligence to listen to his rants, let alone fear his wrath.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday night, retired U.S. Army Colonel, Lawrence Richardson, and former right hand man for General Colin Powell, commented on the mind set of fear that grips so many members of the extreme political right wing.  He speculated that former Vice-President Dick Cheney lives in mortal fear at all times.  He referred to Cheney’s five medical deferments he received to keep himself out of military service during the Vietnam War.  But, Cheney like all of the other neo-cons that were the driving forces in the Bush administration in urging America’s pre-emptive invasion of Iraq for fear of what Sadam might do to us if he could. None of them ever served in any branch of the U.S. military and had no real understanding of what it was like to wear the nation’s uniform in combat, real or imagined.  However, they had little reticence in sending thousands of others in harms way to fight and risk death or maiming.  No one articulated these “chicken hawks” better than President Bush, in his defiant bluster, “Bring ‘em on!”  Our country is 4,000+ deaths, and 40,000+ permanent injuries of brave American military soldiers, and billions and billions of dollars later because of the neo-con, tough guy fears.  The devastation on the country of Iraq has been incalculable.  The Middle East is as unstable as at any time since the 67′ war.  But, Sadam Hussein is dead.

That our country would orchestrate a campaign of torture on captured prisoners adds a new chapter of national disgrace.  I have been stunned to learn that according to two recent national polls, almost half of the American public condones extreme interrogation techniques in some circumstances involving national security.  Expert after expert, in the interrogation field, claim unequivocally that torture produces less reliable intelligence than other measures.  No less than Senator John McCain, a victim of torture as a prisoner in Vietnam, has made his opposition to such measures abundantly clear and claims they are an ineffective means to gather information from an enemy.  In its simplest terms, the torture policy is reactionary stupidity. Water boarding has been illegal in this country since 1898 and illegal by declaration in international treaties of which the U.S. is a signator.  Japanese officers were executed by the U.S. following WWII for water boarding prisoners.  Two Sheriff’s deputies in Texas were sentenced to four years in prison each, and their Sheriff for ten years for water boarding prisoners, during George W. Bush’s gubernatorial days.

This great nation of ours has suspended rational judgment before many times under the guise of national security.  Some of the “highlights”: During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.  In WWI, President Wilson imprisoned Eugene V, Debs, among other dissenters, for opposing America’s involvement in the war, and President Roosevelt OK’d the California Attorney General’s plan to inter all Japanese citizens in labor camps in other Western states during the war; that Attorney General was none other than Earl. B. Warren, later to become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and one of the greatest civil libertarians in U.S. judicial history.

Momentum is gathering in both houses of Congress for additional information on the perpetrators and development of the interrogation plans in the Bush administration.  It is worth pointing out that 52 people from Nixon’s administration went to jail after the dust settled in the Watergate upheaval  This controversy is far from over and has developed legs of its own, much to the chagrin of Obama’s planners and members of the far right.  This past week marked the one hundredth anniversary of the passing of the great American, Mark Twain, who was noted for saying, among countless insights and observations, that, “In a Republic, the function of the Government is to obey orders. Not originate them.”

Guest Contributor

Demian

Demian currently lives in Denver, Colorado.  He has been a software engineer in the telecommunications industry for almost 10 years.  Before getting a degree in computer science he served as an infantry rifleman in the US Marines.  He is a political independent but went to the Colorado Republican convention to support Ron Paul for president.  He is an atheist but would gladly and literally fight for the right of anyone to practice their religion. His political principals center around personal liberty, sound money, a return to the Constitution, the right of consenting adults to do absolutely anything that doesn’t harm others, economic freedom and making America a republic once again.

Do you have relatives that think they understand the political landscape in America?  Maybe they consider themselves conservative, but do not understand why George Bush does not care about securing our border.  They could be a liberal that does not understand why Barack Obama voted for FISA.  Perhaps they saw the debates and did not see it as the theater that it is; with President-Elect Obama¹, Senator John McCain², and Tom Brokaw³ all sharing the stage; each one either closely tied via their advisers or actual board members on the Council on Foreign Relations.

How do you go about sharing what you know and prepare the people whom matter most in your life?  I have concluded that the information we know cannot simply be communicated and absorbed outright.  It has to be a gradual path of discovery.

We have to come up with a curriculum or an approach, an optimal way so to speak, in order to share what we know with others.  This may sound as appealing as an Amway pitch, but the stakes are high and change is happening now.

I do not know exactly how this needs to happen but initially we need to encourage people to become their own editor, consuming news and information on their own terms.  If getting information is a passive activity for the people you know then they do not know what is happening in the world around them.

Nevertheless, enough with the high-minded platitudes, a good potential first step is to introduce family and friends to RSS feeds.  Sure, it sounds pedestrian but I think it is a critical tool in getting a variety of news sources.  If we could convince people to use an RSS reader as their home page instead of CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC, I think we have a chance for getting them interested in alternative news.

RSS lends itself to getting multiple feeds.  So once they understand the mechanics of RSS, show them how they can get alternate opinions.  You do not have to agree with Al Jazeera, but it is interesting to see their take on the Israeli ground invasion.  It is interesting to see what the St. Petersburg Times has to say about our ever-worsening financial crisis.  You can get feeds like this while still getting the remainder of your news from the mainstream media outlets.

Source(s): ¹ Chicago Council on Foreign Relations n.k.a Chicago Council on Global Affairs FAQ #7 /Michelle Obama – Board of Directors – CCGA / President-Elect Obama’s appointment for Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner • ² Washington Post “Senator John McCain” (1997 – Current) member of CFR • ³ Council on Foreign relations-Leadership and Staff-Board of Directors-Tom Brokaw

Allison Bricker

When I was little I recall my first exposure to our Founding Fathers some where around the 2nd grade just before Thanksgiving of that year. We covered a very basic watered down version of the “1st Thanksgiving” and “Revolutionary War”. The memory that sticks out most in my mind is that our nation, America, was the first place where the individual was to be the standard bearer of liberty and not controlled by kings or a state-church. That in order to protect us from the designs and ambitions of future kings, the Founders wrote two documents, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This “Cliffnotes” version of our country coupled with heavy doses of ABC’s Saturday morning Schoolhouse Rock instilled in me a deep infatuation and love affair with the noble ideal that was to be the American Republic.

Granted in second grade my comprehension of all of this was severely limited, thus proven by me thinking Thomas Jefferson was an African-American and then wondering why it took so long for baseball to let a black man play in the major leagues??? My ignorant bliss would not last, time passed and as one dug beneath the surface, Lady Liberty had more than her fair share of bruises. From the slaughtering of Native Americans, to the utter hypocrisy of slavery in a nation where all men were supposedly equal, to women’s suffrage, etc. Despite all of this, the enthusiasm in how my teacher told the stories must have been contagious. Her eyes would get big as she excitedly explained the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and President Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware River.

Nevertheless, little by little as I dug through the cobwebs of our history it became apparent, that those Kings our Constitution was intended to protect us against, never gave up their fight to reassert their so called aristocratic “divine right”. That even while America has attempted to right the wholly unjust policy of slavery, that we as women are now considered “equal”, the pull-peddling Aristocrats who sought out power, repeatedly picked at the parchment, the ideals, the philosophy of individual liberty, until it was a mere shadow of a document, left only in memoriam, no longer applicable in a “post 9/11 world”.

They set up “opposing methods” to an aristocratic philosophy and called them “political parties”. The philosophy is socialism under the guise of freedom . The “Democrats” believe in social engineering and wholly indebting individuals to the state in the form of social welfare programs.

Republicans set out to prove their methodology via conquest and military occupation. Now let it be known their labels have switched and have been interchanged several times, from federalists, to progressives, to liberals, to conservatives. However the end to their pandering has always remained the same, centralized control of their “subjects”.

Somewhere along the line, they rediscovered the best way to gain more power, a method as old as humanity itself; divide and conquer. These “politicians”, from the Latin (poli) meaning “many” and (tics) meaning “Blood sucking creatures”, began an appeal to an individual’s core sense of fairness. The politicians promised to right whatever problem was most pressing to them as a demographic, in exchange of course, for a vote for the pull-peddler. No matter the cause, from retirement, education, to saving the trees, to homelessness, to healthcare, the politician promised a centralized cure to their ailment. Yet the politician was not done, they imbued the particular demographic of the moment with the notion that this group cause was superior to any and all other causes, and thus demanded, as well as justified the legal use of force, i.e. government coercion, i.e. the trampling of others rights in order to achieve its end. Slowly the country’s philosophy began to change from “live and let live”, whence unless an individual suffered from harm to themselves or property, to a nation that believed they are “entitled to trample” for the benefit of the group, dissenting opinion be damned. This my fellow readers is the root to collectivism, the division of individual Americans into neat little “people groups”.

One need not look too hard in order to find how the pull peddlers craft a strategy and coral these “people groups” into election campaign pawns to be used and cast aside. No just look at the groups up for grabs this most recent cycle. Democrats hoped to embolden the LGBT community, anti-war activists, and Hispanics with promises of the “Big Rock candy Mountain” while Republicans returned to the well for evangelical Christians, Hispanics, and business men, with “both” using the same old scare tactics of gays and terrorists. Politicians promised “change” spoken with cryptic vaguery, national security from an invisible boogeyman, “free” healthcare from a financially bankrupt Treasury Department, civil unions to create separate but equal distinctions, war to protect us from war, and an end to war, yet more saber rattling to a new enemy “Iran”, energy independence via a 19th century technology, all in the ruthless support of their continued power. We the sheeple have been sold a bill of goods by the Washington D.C. Snake oil Salesmen. How much longer shall we suffer this incremental despotism?

Joseph Marohl

After the 7/7 bus bombings in London in 2005, the news media stopped a number of citizens on the streets for their off-the-cuff reactions. I remember one Englishwoman in particular, who, when asked for her reaction to the coordinated attacks on her city’s public transportation system, responded, matter-of-factly, “Well, it is a bit of a bother, now, isn’t it?”

Ah, the British talent for understatement! Fifty-six people dead, including the four perpetrators, and it’s a “bit of a bother”! Her response is all the more refreshing for us Americans, for whom an unsatisfactory experience with a search engine is an “unmitigated disaster.”

Now over seven years later, I dare you to find an American who doesn’t still view the events of 9/11 as the most monumental catastrophe of all time—bigger than the failure of the Banqiao Dam in China in 1975 (which took 9 times as many lives immediately, with another 145,000 dying subsequently of famine and disease), bigger than Hiroshima (where in 1945, 22 times as many people died as in the WTC in 2001), and bigger than the Holocaust (9/11 times about 3,666)*.

Of course, the British stiff upper lip is something of a ridiculous pose, too, most effectively lampooned in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life in a sketch on a British military officer’s sang froid over the fact that his leg’s been bitten off by a tiger (“A tiger? … in Africa?”).

In the United States, however, overstatement or hyperbole is the tendency, and the more tinged with violence, the better (“My boss will KILL me if she ever finds out”).

I suspect this fondness for exaggeration is somehow linked to the tall tales that enriched American folk culture back in the nineteenth century—Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, et al.—which were, in turn, probably inspired by the continent’s wide open spaces in the Plains states and CinemaScope and Technicolor vistas of the West.

Out of this rich crop of fictitious amplification, combined perhaps with immigrant dreams of assimilation and high ideals, came the superheroes—most typically, Superman, an illegal from the planet Krypton who came to embody Truth, Justice, and the American Way, as well as the divided souls of first generation immigrants, half American, half European.

Since then, Americans have produced Super Bowls, Super Tuesdays, supermarkets, super-sized fast food, superhighways, superconducting super colliders, Super Mario Bros., and supermodels. And on and on.

You name it and we have the biggest one (until fairly recently, anyway). And we can get it for you deluxe, jumbo, XXL, ultra, and extreme.

Add to this already rich mix, Madison Avenue—where hype and optimism became profitable as well as entertaining. American braggadocio, irritating to some and charming to others, spun out of equal parts P.T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Cecil B. DeMille, and Teddy Roosevelt. Now it’s an indelible part of how we communicate.

Today’s joint statement from a reunited Obama and McCain—now with TWICE the Hope and Maverickiness—starts thus:

“At this DEFINING MOMENT IN HISTORY, we believe that Americans of ALL parties want and NEED their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can SOLVE the common and URGENT CHALLENGES OF OUR TIME. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to LAUNCH A NEW ERA of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to RESTORE TRUST in government, and BRING BACK PROSPERITY and opportunity for EVERY hardworking American family.”

Fuck qualifiers. They never were particularly inspiring anyway. Say it BIG or keep yer yap shut.

* Taking nothing away from the true tragedy of 9/11, of course, since tragedy cannot be measured in spoonfuls. But American self-absorption and exaggerated self-pity obscure the fact that fewer people died in the World Trade Center than died in the seaborne petroleum fire in the Philippines in 1987 (killing over 4,000), or in the release of 42 metric tons of lethal gas at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984 (killing 8,000 in the first two weeks, and subsequently another 8,000), or in the Great Smog of London in 1952 (killing 4,000 initially, with another 8,000 dying later of complications).

Joseph Marohl

To prove something means to put it to the test, not necessarily (in fact, seldom) to provide certainty on the matter. In that sense, the phrase “the exception proves the rule” makes sense, that is, a counter-proof gives us the opportunity to put a position’s logic on trial.

A good many things can’t be proved. They are, in fact, the very same things that cannot be disproved—life after death, the existence of a personal deity who creates and provides for all that exists, the assurance that your dog loves you, and so on.

To prove your position, provided it is a position and not a matter of verifiable fact, you must state your position precisely—that such-and-such exists, that it is good or beautiful or useful, that it means something, that it has causes and effects, or that we should conduct ourselves in particular ways because of it.

“The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.” Experience and experimentation are the guidelines to solid proof.

It must be publicly testable. Your intuition and feelings and the way you were brought up may all be excellent ways for you individually to be certain about the world around you, but they don’t constitute proof. They are almost useless, by themselves, in reaching the sort of compromise and consensus that life in a democracy demands. (Note: The Athenians who gave us Western democracy also gave us logic and argumentation.)

Proof must be available to the senses—especially other people’s senses, not just your own—a tangible object, an observed event, a predictable and immediate cause or effect, a deduction from premises which are themselves available to sense and experience, a comparison to something already known, a settled definition, or something that can be measured or counted.

Ideally, proof does not depend on authority or expertise, but if authorities, experts, or eyewitnesses are allowed into an argument, they must be credible—that is, knowledgeable on the matter under discussion, honest, and disinterested.

And our conclusions must be valid—which means they must follow directly and inevitably from the proofs we use.

If something can be proved, it can be argued about—it can also be disproved. Some things—such as that the earth orbits the sun, that human life has value, or that every independent citizen in a democracy should vote—have been already proved to the extent that most people no longer argue about them—and the proofs against them have fallen into disrepute—but these matters have been argued in the past, and they could be argued again sometime in the future, should new, reputable counter-proofs ever appear.

Thus, some things that used to be unarguable—that torture is never justified, that marriage can exist only between one man and one woman, that what’s good for General Motors is good for America—have recently become arguable because circumstances and change have provided new evidence for putting these assumptions to the test.

A good measure of what a society is all about is what it chooses to put to the test—and how swiftly and how carefully controversies are put to rest.

It is not a good reflection on American culture, for instance, that the issues of abortion, civil rights, and the death penalty have been allowed to roil over decades with little or no effort to rise above prejudice, preconceptions, and self-interest to study these matters and test them according to fact and reason.

Likewise, it is not a good reflection on America or its leaders that they have been swifter in declaring a new war, in a matter of a week usually, with hardly a word of debate on the matter, than in fixing its infrastructure, which—from its education system to its levees to its prisons to its voting booths—has been sagging for decades now.

What we tend to focus on in this society—in the mass media and beside the office water coolers—is almost never what proves to be the matters of much importance.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the neglect we have paid to poverty and racism, and 9/11 revealed how slipshod our security is and how arrogant our view of the rest of the world is, and the current financial crisis draws our attention to the nation’s burgeoning debt and the greed and illogic betrayed by its sense of luxury and entitlement.

Yet up to all this, we fussed over (I choose not to say “argued”) whether O.J. was or was not guilty, or whether Lindsay is or is not a lesbian, or whether George W. Bush deserved his Yale degree or his honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard.

This summer, when McCain selected Palin as his running mate, how quickly our attention shifted from what qualified her to be vice president to how well McCain’s staff “vetted” her (i.e., followed standard operating procedures) and how funny she was and how much her clothes cost. Just for the record, her qualifications were matters that could, with some effort, be put to the test. Her sense of humor, to take the weakest link, is harder to prove or disprove. What her clothes cost was just a matter of verifiable fact.

Here’s my point:

We are a nation primed to act on impulse and feeling—not altogether bad things and certainly necessary to motivate action. But we lack the patience to put matters of great importance to the test, to ask for proof when it is needed and, instead, to ask for too many lurid and sensationalistic details when they are irrelevant.

What does that say about us, as a people? (The answer is not altogether bad—but it’s not flattering either, for a nation as rich and powerful as we—still—are.)

Do I know what I know because it “feels” true inside me, where it cannot be touched by reason or fellow feeling, or because I have confidence that, if I have to, I can put it to the test?

Both, I think (and feel).

Allison Bricker

With “Election” day upon us, some thoughts for your consumption as we play make-believe:

It is most certainly my opinion that the continual march of bigger government and the further erosion of inherent liberties is never a good thing.

Regardless of the window dressing, the government grows, liberty shrinks, and our Republic teeters closer to the edge.

The republicans give us bigger government via conquest and empire wrapped in the guise of “National Security”

The democrats give us bigger government via nanny state and welfare policies wrapped in the guise of “compassion”

Both are merely just different roads to the same end, welcome to Feudalism 2.0

No matter what, poverty does not end, schools do not improve, boogie-men are everywhere, and the government needs more money to fix the problems they created and exacerbated in the first place. The casualty in all of this is liberty and justice.

If the American people finally wake up and realize that we are in a wholly abusive relationship solely to the benefit of the plutocrats, it will indeed “be morning in America”

But alas America loves to root for a team, so thus the illusion of false choice will be with us for just a bit longer.

The question to ask oneself, are we more or less free than we were 8 years ago? 20 years ago?

Are we more or less safe than we were 8 years ago?

In the next 4 years will we see more or less liberty?

In the next four years will we be more or less safe?

The predictable outcome using the past 90 years as the mean makes the answer quite obvious, ergo less in both respects.

Allison Bricker

Fellow readers my disdain for the junior Senator from Illinois emanates not from any of the numerous wild emails circulating the internet nor individuals attempting to link him to radical organizations in his distant or recent past. No, my principles will not allow me to vote for Senator Obama based solely on his record, his public comments, or the complete lack thereof.

First, his stated tax plan will raise taxes, not only on those making $250,000 or more, but all Americans. The good Senator’s stated threshold for those receiving a “tax reduction” changed several times over the last week from $250,000 to $200,000 to $120,000,¹ to $150,000 as of today². Additionally, it is imperative that we understand the reality behind his plan is actually a “tax credit” not a “tax cut”. Meaning, payroll taxes, the money taken from paycheck withholding, actually might go up according to the Obama plan. Laughably Senator Obama’s plan then calls for issuing a $500.00 dollar welfare government check.³

Moreover, while it is a populist sentiment to “soak the rich” in the form of higher income and corporate taxes, raising the corporate tax rate has historically always resulted in higher costs in the form of goods sold to the consumer, lower wages paid to employees, or less business reinvestment in the industry. Thereby leaving us as the recipients of what is referred to as an “indirect tax”.⁴

Even more deflating is that reading over Senator Obama’s official tax plan, yields not one cut in any specific government program but instead just an endless list of goodies promised for the “average” person. (If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is) Again this is not a difficult concept to understand, although some would like to pretend otherwise. Spending more than you take in results in one of two things: deficit spending or increased tax rates to offset the shortfall. It should be obvious to all of us now that living on a “credit card” does not work for individuals nor government. It puts us in the perilous situation of being solely at the mercy of our creditors. Also, no matter how many times Senator Obama calls me “selfish”⁵ or Joe Biden tells me paying taxes is “patriotic”⁵ will I be convinced that less money to feed and cloth our family thus resulting in more money to Washington makes for sound fiscal policy.

Secondly, Senator Obama voted yes for H.R.6304 “FISA Amendments Act of 2008″. H.R.6304 is the warrantless wiretapping bill illegally abused by the Bush administration to gut the remnants of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Senator Obama originally stated that he would not support any legislation which included blanket immunity for complicit telecom companies and administration officials⁶. The bill as enacted however does in fact provide complete immunity for all telecom companies who help the government listen in to American’s phone conversations as well as administration officials. Worse, the bill abolishes the original FISA court set up in 1978 and grants the district court administrative oversight authority.

Further, Senator Obama voted to renew the USA PATRIOT act⁷, originally passed at the behest of the Bush administration’s fake war on Terrorism. A 342 page behemoth printed at 5:00 in the morning, read by no one in Congress, and voted into law six hours later. The USA PATRIOT act gutted many inherent and civil liberties and gave the government unprecedented “tools” to intrude into our lives all under the guise of a fake enemy.

Next, the man who promises “change” illustrated his further lack of leadership and loyalty to the Constitution when he took the wet noodle stance of “undecided”⁸ in regards to his support for S.1959 the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” which currently resides in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which Senator Obama is a member. This bill defines homegrown terrorism as:

“the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”

Further the bill goes on to define “ideologically based violence” as:

“the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs,”

Finally in a vagueness that only government can craft, the bill loosely defines violent radicalization as:

“adopting or promoting an extremist belief system,”

The question we need to ask is, who gets to define what is an extremist belief system? The centralized Federal government of course. The same Federal government that has repeatedly abused its powers as it has become less and less restrained by the shackles of the Constitution. No government, no President, needs this sort of authority in a “free society”.

Next, his support of the “Wall Street” bailout bill, approving the use of our tax dollars to bailout the corrupt criminal financiers and bankers who created toxic mortgage security packages and lost billions on their devil’s gamble.

Finally, his belief that “we need a Civilian National Security Force” to support the military. At best it sounds like another massive expansion of government, at worst another large erosion of our liberty.

There is no doubt in my mind that Senator Obama will win tomorrow’s election coronation and there is also no doubt that there will be “Change”. However, his record leads me to believe that it will not be change to benefit the Republic or restore the Constitution.

In conclusion, my vote will also not be cast in support of either major “party” candidate who offer only the illusion of choice. Instead my vote will go to Ralph Nader as a write in, seeing how the Democrats and Republicans in Indiana have succeeded yet again in continuing their prohibition of actual opposition candidates appearing on the ballot.

Yes my vote will be a protest vote, but at least my conscience will be clear when the time comes.

Source(s): ¹Washington Times “Obama camp changes tax-cut beneficiaries” • ²CNBC “Closing Bell” originally aired November 3rd, 2008 • ³ Washington TImes “Obama’s spread-the-wealth plan” • ⁴ The Tax Foundation • ⁵ The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin “Obama: Taxpayers Are Selfish” • ⁶ CNN video of Obama Press Conference • ⁷ Senate Roll Call Vote no. 29 – 109th Congress, 2005 • ⁸ The Indypendent “Obama “Undecided” on S. 1959″ • ⁹

Rob Obringer

As a lifelong political junkie I’m a little surprised at myself that during the homestretch of this Presidential election I’m getting fatigued of it all. Sure, it’s gone on forever, a good year and a half now. There was a lengthy primary battle which was interesting, but then it lasted until June so we didn’t really get a break before the general election shenanigans started. And now, 8 days away, I’m dreaming of watching the news or reading the paper without seeing one of the candidates at a podium spewing the same old lines we’ve heard already.

I’m even sick of the comedy shows. I used to live for Saturday Night Live, and the skits skewering each of the candidates. But I’ve seen it, and am now done with it.  Even Tina Fey, she’s great as Sarah Palin, but I’m done.

Anderson Cooper 360, Larry King, Hardball, Keith Olberman…Blah Blah Blah. Done with them all.

Something needs to be done about the elections for our politicians in this country. It’s too long of a process. It’s too much money. It’s too much time. Some politicians, like our House Representatives, are constantly running for office because their terms are only two years.  I don’t even remember Senator Obama being my Senator, he’s been running for office for so long. John McCain has been running for the last decade, and he looks a little too comfortable doing it.

The length of this election has turned excitement into apathy for me. It’s turned promise into bitterness. The excess of this election as our country suffers an economic collapse makes me sick. Hopefully I will be able to walk to my voting place and cast my vote on November 4th. It won’t be the pundits, the attacks, and the unending election season that gets me there. In many ways I will be voting to end the election cycle, so we can move on.

Kelly

Despite the fact that we, as American citizens, are given the illusion of choice between two Presidential candidates, and despite the fact that I will vote for neither of them, to watch the drama unfold this political season is still, for me, a form of hysterical yet cumbersome entertainment. This election cycle, for all of its historical achievements, is just as ridiculously sleazy as any soap opera. Before you know it, Joe the Plumber will have a role on Desperate Housewives. You see, just as these television dramas recycle the same monotonous story line, each election cycle recycles the same empty promises, and now, it’s not only in color, but it’s on youtube.

The most satisfying at this point is that my humble state of Indiana has gone from flyover state to battleground state since the heated primary between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. Lake County, Indiana Democrats did all they could to produce an Obama victory, taking it’s sweet ass bureaucratic time to count the ballots while keeping Wolf Blitzer and Co. waiting, and still coming up short.

As of this moment, or the most recent poll, Senator McCain and Senator Obama are virtually tied. Understandable, given Indiana’s proximity to Illinois, especially given the second largest county in Indiana is not only dominated by democratic politics, but is cozily nestled directly next to Chicago. On the other hand, the prospect that Indiana could very well indeed deliver it’s 11 electoral votes to Senator Barack Obama is nothing short of astonishing. It is no secret that Indiana has been home to many a despicable Klansman.

My prediction? Indiana will go blue, join it’s neighboring states, as I predict Ohio will go blue this year too. And as we cross the threshold on November 4, 2008, it will be merely a hollow victory for this once democrat who wanted as much as the next to believe in change.