What are you doing for the next 72 hours

Right now my family and I are in Philadephia. We canvassed 106 homes today and we will be back out in the suburbs south of Philly tomorrow. Tuesday I am taking off from work and driving back down to Philly to work on getting out the vote on election day. I do not want to wake up Wednesday morning wondering what more I could have done to avoid an Obama loss.

I know you have work, or schools, or kids to watch, but find an hour or two somewhere. If you live in or near a battleground state they need you on the ground right now!. If you can't get to a battleground state physically then you can make calls from your living room to voters in those states to get the vote out. Go to http://my.barackobama.com and create a profile and sign up for one of the neighbor-to-neighbor calling campaigns.

Now back to the issues for a second. Taxes and Socialism. The rubish that has been sprouted by McCain/Palin really needs to be put in its place. They charge that Obama's plan is socialism. They point to 40% [an inaccurate figure] of people who do not pay income taxes but will receive an increased tax credit under Obama's plan. That 40% they talk about actually pay taxes everyday: payroll taxes, sales taxes, taxes on their mortgages, etc. The earned income tax credit -- which is what we are talking about -- was started by no one less than Ronald Regan. Look it up. Increasing the credit - a credit that goes to working Americans who earn low salaries but contribute everyday to our economy and local tax base - is an important step to maintain our economic vitality. This socialism rubish is a cheap shot. We have had a progressive tax scheme since Teddy Roosevelt [another Republican] created it almost 100 years ago. Nothing has changed except for some cheap simplistic rhetoric.

I am at a complete loss why anyone would support McCain's tax program. First 95% of us will get no break. not only that but he will tax our health benefits. So if you earn less than $200,000 if an individual or $250,000 as a couple and you receive health benefits through your employer, MCCAIN WILL TAX YOU MORE! Think about that. If you make less than that threshold then why are you supporting McCain? And if you are making more than that threshold, then how about putting Country First? Even then Obama will only increase taxes by 3% on the top 5% of wage earners, and even then the extra 3% will only apply to that part of income in excess of $250,000. Please, enough of the lies and the simplistic rhetoric. Get off these blogs and research it yourself and see that McCain/Palin are offering a false choice.

Remember, think ahead to Wednesday morning. If he looses, do you want to feel you could have done more? Act now.

Shameful Politics

I am truly dissapointed and saddened that John McCain, someone I once had great respect for and could even contemplate voting for some years ago, has resorted to truly base and undignified campaign tactics. I speak of course of the slanderous attack that Obama "pals around" with terrorists. Barack was eight years old when Ayers was founding the Weather Underground. The same New York Times article the McCain campaign cites to goes on to debunk this claim that there is any real association between Obama and Ayers -- as have several other investigations [except for those of the radical right of course]. This cheap shot is reminiscent of the McCarthy era witch hunts, where guilt by association was an acceptable standard for conviction. The John McCain of Hanoi and of his early senate career has abandoned us. In his place is a cynical, win at any cost politician whose tactics will cost him his dignity and the dignity of this country. Remember, Country First! Do not let him represent us to the world.

As for why he has done this; it is obvious that his campaign has become so desparate that they have no where else to go but into the mud. McCain seeks to change the topic away from issues and policies that of real meaning to most American, and direct it instead to innuendo, gossip and out right lies. Don't let him. Read and watch the following and share with your friends.

Last month, 159,000 Americans jobs were lost. It's no surprise that the top priority for a majority of voters is the economy. But the McCain campaign doesn't share those concerns, admitting yesterday that "There's no question we want to change the subject here," and that they're "looking forward to turning the page on the financial crisis." McCain has laid his cards on the table. And to everyone tired of the politics of past, this latest announcement is as disheartening as it is disturbing. It's up to you to keep this election on track. Watch our latest web video showing just how disastrous the Bush-McCain economic policies have been, then share it with your friends: John McCain can't connect with the anxiety Americans feel about everyday things like buying groceries or paying for health insurance. He's out of touch, and his own policies and track record have him cornered. As more and more people look to Barack Obama's steady leadership for the solutions we need to protect the middle class, McCain's attacks will become more toxic and destructive. John McCain is desperate, and he'll do anything to distract voters and smear Barack's character. But when McCain clouds the issues with gimmicks and despicable tactics, your voice will help steer this race back on track. You can spread the truth about Barack Obama's plans for the change we need. Watch the video and share it with your friends: http://my.barackobama.com/offtopic Keep fighting the good fight, Obama Action Wire The Obama Action Wire is a grassroots rapid response group for supporters to fight smears, spread the truth, push back on misleading media, and take positive action. Forward this email to everyone you know or sign up for the Obama Action Wire now.

VP Debate and 477 Tax Increases

I am at a bit of a loss at how anyone could see that debate as a tie let alone as a win in any sense for Palin. On foreign matters, she flat out didn't know what she was talking about. On domestic economics things were not much better, and she largely avoided answering any substantive questions choosing instead on multiple occassions to return to her taxes talking point, that had obviously been prepared and rehearsed extensively before hand. Come off it! Why on earth would we want this woman, at this time - given the state of the economy and our troops fighting wars abroad - to be a heart-beat away from the Presidency and to be an advisor to McCain????

And with respect to her tax claims, check out this message and video that once again lays bare the amazing hypocrisy of the "Maverick" McCain:

John McCain was at it again today, releasing yet another ad full of lies about Barack Obama and taxes. The McCain campaign is using a manipulative, dishonest method to calculate how many times Barack has voted to raise taxes, and they came up with the number 94 -- completely unsupported by any independent analysis of the record. So we turned it around and used the McCain campaign's bogus counting method on his record. And guess what? Using his own standards, John McCain has voted 477 times to raise taxes! Our team put together a fun video to help you and your friends see just how desperate John McCain looks when he runs the same tired attacks Republicans have used for years. Check out the video and share it with your friends: http://my.barackobama.com/447taxincreases A report out today shows that McCain has almost completely stopped running positive ads and is focusing virtually his entire advertising budget on attacking Barack. More of these attacks will come, but with your help we can make sure they don't gain traction. Keep fighting the good fight, Obama Action Wire The Obama Action Wire is a grassroots rapid response group for supporters to fight smears, spread the truth, push back on misleading media, and take positive action. Forward this email to everyone you know or sign up for the Obama Action Wire now.

Bailout Fallout

Monday, the economic bailout plan failed to pass a vote in Congress, and the Dow Jones had its biggest single-day drop in two decades. As soon as that happened, McCain rushed to say we shouldn't point fingers -- and then in almost the same breath, he blamed Barack. Tuesday, the Republican Party followed McCain's lead and launched a $5 million ad campaign attacking Barack and the bailout plan. The bottom line is that with families hurting and banks failing, we need to start helping families and the middle class.

While John McCain is figuring out who else to blame, Barack released a new two-minute ad today outlining an economic plan that will put people like you first.Watch the ad and make sure everyone you know sees Barack's plan to get us out of this crisis:

http://my.barackobama.com/baracksplan

Barack Obama has consistently called for a solution based on a core set of principles that will address our problems and put middle-class Americans first. He has proven he's a leader who will stay calm and steady during times of crisis. We cannot solve our economic problems by taking the same path of the last eight years.

Keep fighting the good fight,

Obama Action Wire

Explain this one to me...

I wish I could take credit for the following, but credit is due to "nitwashing" of the Yahoo Group ObamaBrigade. I had to post it though as it really highlights the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of the McCain/Palin candidacy.

*****
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.... .

• If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're"exotic, different."
• Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.


• If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
• Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, you're a maverick.


• Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
• Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.


• If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
• If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.


• If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising two beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
• If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.


• If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
• If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.


• If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.
• If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Lipstick on a Pig

The Republicans have some nerve. For the three days of their convention they used every opportunity to insult Democrats: calling us names, turning "liberal" into an epithet, calling everyone with a brain and an education an "elitist," challenging our morals, values and patriotism. Yet the moment Barack invokes an image he has used since the primaries to illustrate how the Republican's cheap rhetoric cannot hide the fact they offer us no solutions for the problems facing the Country, they immediately fly into a tizzy and choose to be offended because the image has a passing similarity to the one offered by Gov. Palin: whereby she described herself as a dog wearing lipstick.

You gotta hand it to the Republicans. They really know how to play this game: call you every name in the book, then claim to be insulted by something you didn't say or mean, and then blame you for all the mudslinging that's been going on. Truly impressive. Now that is the definition of a Pig in Lipstick.

Lying on the Record

The McCain campaign is lying about their candidates' records.

Today, they're out with a new ad that pushes blatant lies to dress up these party-line politicians as agents of change.

Let's set the record straight:

Palin was a supporter of the infamous Bridge to Nowhere -- the symbol of the Republican culture of corruption -- only turning her back on it after the project's bloated pork-barrel waste was exposed.

In just six years, John McCain has voted for nearly $150 billion in earmarks -- just like the Bridge to Nowhere.

Watch our hard-hitting response ad and share it with everyone you know.

The McCain campaign will say or do anything to sound like "mavericks" or reformers -- but the record shows that their ticket is in lockstep with George Bush and his dead-end policies.

But a little straight talk cuts easily through these lies.

While the ad trumps up the pair's reformer credentials, McCain and Palin are defending the very things they claim to fight against. How can they be trusted to change the same system they've exploited?

Barack Obama and Joe Biden understand the change we need in Washington.

Watch the ad and spread the truth to stop the McCain campaign's lies right now:

http://my.barackobama.com/nomavericks

Keep fighting the good fight,

Obama Action Wire

Schoolyard Bullies

If you watched any of the Republican convention this week, you probably noticed that they spent a lot of time attacking Barack and sneering at people who try to improve their communities.But they hardly spent any time at all telling us how they're going to help people across America who are hurting. That's because they knew they had adopted the most extreme, right-wing platform in their party's recent history. And they knew the American people don't want any more of the same. Yesterday in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden gave a blistering response at a rally in a high school gymnasium, and our team was there to capture it on video. With all the uncritical coverage the Republican speeches are getting this week, we need to make sure everyone who couldn't be at that high school in Pennsylvania gets to see Joe calling out the Republican bully tacticsWatch the video of Joe's response and make sure everyone you know sees it, too.

By the end of the week, Joe had had enough. And when he got going yesterday, it was really something to see.The issue isn't so much what we heard from the Republicans. The attacks the Republicans launched were the same tired, old lines we heard in 2000 and 2004. The issue is what we didn't hear.We didn't hear about the middle class, or housing, or a concrete plan to keep American jobs here. It can be tempting to listen to all the jeering and get sucked in, but it's no substitute for a plan. And Joe Biden saw right through it. Check out Joe tearing apart the Republican distraction tactics and share the video today:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/m/6f13787abeedf224/ph9VDF/VEsF/

Keep fighting the good fight, Obama Action Wire

The Obama Action Wire is a grassroots rapid response group for supporters to fight smears, spread the truth, push back on misleading media, and take positive action.Forward this email to everyone you know or sign up for the Obama Action Wire now.

Fahrenheit 451

The Boston Herald and other news sources are reporting that as mayor of Wasilla, Gov. Palin confronted the town Librarian on several occasions and asked her if she would be willing to pull certain books off the shelves if the need arose. The Librarian said the books in the Library were based on national standards for a library of that size and that she had severe problems with any type of censorship. Shortly thereafter, the then Mayor fired the Librarian.

The more we learn, the scarier the prospect of Gov. Palin being a heartbeat away from the Presidency becomes.

• She apparently is comfortable with the idea that it might be necessary to censor what books can be accessed by citizens. Unless we are talking about porn, it is never acceptable. The First Amendment guarantees this;
• She is open to the idea of teaching creationism in our public schools [again, so much for the First Amendment];
• Funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" was actually pulled by Congress before Palin was elected governor and she actually voiced support for the project during her campaign for Governor; and,
• That Jet she had put on E-bay. Well she did put it on E-bay, but it didn't sell there. It eventually was sold at a loss by an aircraft broker.

The Republicans are using smoke and mirrors -- empty rhetoric and simplistic arguments -- to disguise their failures and their hypocrisy. They are very good at inflaming people's passions and getting people to vote on those passions rather than slowing down and seeing what is really going on. If you have never read it, pick up a copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It is a relatively short novel, but the parallels between the future society discussed in that book and today are truly frightening. The Republican political machine somes times feels like it has taken a page or two right out of that book.

McCain Concedes the Republicans failed us

I guess Obama was right. John McCain just told us so himself. So what is the argument for electing McCain to be our President? When you vote for President, you are also voting for their party to assume the Presidency. It will largely be his fellow Republicans who will be his advisors, be members of his cabinet and staff his agencies. The same Republicans who John McCain tells us have failed during the past eight years.

When you combine that with the fact that he is simply on the wrong side of so many issues: Iraq, abortion rights, civil liberties, education, the environment and health care to name a few [none of which received any substantive treatment in his speech] then it quickly becomes apparent that any effort to articulate a reason to make him our President rings hollow. And that is before we consider his running mate who is not only not qualified for the position, but is being revealed daily to be a right wing extremist.

I respect and honor the sacrifices John McCain has made for our country, but "Country First," demands that I look deeper than his heroism and question whether this is a man, who at this time in history, will make the world a better, safer, cleaner place for my boys. He isn't.

When you have no ideas of your own...

...then apparently you must deride and lie about the ideas of your opponent. Isn't that what we have seen the last few nights at the RNC? Last night was ridiculous. Speaker after speaker took the podium and outright lied about every part of Obama's plan. And did they offer any substantive alternatives? No. Only two actual policy actions were discussed last night between all the nasty rhetoric: drill now and kill radical islamists. That's it! Both of which are meaningless and misleading.

Drill now is not even an option. Do the research on your own, don't take my word for it. It will take in excess of 20 years to produce any oil by way of new drilling efforts. 1) the equipment doesn't exist to do the job; 2) the oil reserves are a guess [lets say even a good guess] and actually need to be located before drilling can begin; and 3) our refinery capacity is not sufficient to turn that oil into usable fuel. Even then the usable reserves would be sufficient for only a few years. It is an absolutely hollow promise, but it made for a nice chant.

As for the radical islamist terrorists -- I really don't care what name you call them, I just care that you have an actual plan to do something about them. During the four nights of the DNC, I suppose they didn't call them "radical islamist terrorists" but they did provide us with a real plan for dealing with them: pull out of Iraq, a war we shouldn't have fought in the first place, and reinforce our forces in Afghanistan where the Taliban [radical islamist terrorists if you like] are regrouping. The Republicans literally offered us no plan. They just called the Democrats [Liberals if you like] a bunch of nasty names and insisted that it would be they [Republicans] who would not back down.

Then they found a clever way to keep the "experience" issue alive despite Gov. Palin's lack of it. They have reframed the debate from lack of foreign policy experience, to lack of executive experience. Leaving aside the obvious hypocrisy inherent in such a subtle and opportunistic shifting of your primary attack on your opponent [keep in mind McCain has no government executive experience], the Governor's executive experience is not particularly impressive. After you get past the "well at least she has some" argument, you realize we are talking about a couple years as a Town Manager for a town of around 5,000 people. A couple years as a mayor of a town with about 6,500 people and a first term governor of a State with a population 1/3 of the Borough of Queens where I live. Why am I supposed to be impressed with that experience when we are talking about the Presidency. Are you honestly impressed by that experience?

Right but then what about Barack? For over 20 years he has been actively engaged in either working with and advocating for the poor, the sick, the laid-off, the workers of this Country, or serving as a legislator at the State and Federal level. This work has been as a representative of a state 19 times the size of Alaska, with a vastly more diverse population than Alaska, and dealing with problems that are a lot more like the ones faced by you and I than by Alaskans. And what value is all of McCain's and Palin's experience if it nevertheless drives them to support failed policies and illegal and immoral wars? I care about actions, not promises. Barack voted against the War with Iraq, even when almost all of his own party supported it. He advocated talking to Iran and Syria, which is exactly what the Bush Admin is starting to do. He called for a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq, which is now exactly what is being discussed. These are facts, not rhetoric. The Republicans are offering a lot of red herrings to obscure the fact that they have few workable ideas and are simply out of touch with the problems facing so many Americans.

Want proof of that claim? Compare the first three nights of the DNC with the first three nights of the RNC. At the Democrats' convention, by this time there had been substantive discussions of health care, the economy, the environment - including development of a "Green Economy" to stimulate job growth, tax policy, foreign policy. However what have we gotten from the Republicans? Drill now and kill radical islamist terrorists. Seriously, that is it, other than some mean nasty "na na na na boo boo" type insults against the Democrats and total misrepresentations of the Democrats plans. Is this what we can expect for all the wisdom and experience McCain has to offer us? Thanks, but no thanks.

ENOUGH!

For the last couple of elections I have found myself screaming at the TV that the respective candidates and their surrogates need to stand up for themselves, the party and ME. No one has a monopoly on patriotism. No one can tell me I do not love my country simply because I have taken to the streets to denounce failed policies and wars that should not be fought. It is for the very love of my country and my hopes for my children, family, friends and fellow Americans that I have spoken out and denounced my "Government" not my Country. So among the many things I liked about Barack's speech, it was this defense of who we are as democrats and of our ideals that stands out the most for me this morning.

It is deeply troubling that there are those who buy into this idea that you can only show your patriotism and prove your loyalty if you accept what the Government tells you. This is as "un-American" as I think one can get. This republic was formed on the very basis that no King, no Government, is supreme. No ruler has the right to dictate to us right and wrong. The Government's authority is nothing more than a short term lease governed by hundreds of volumes of restricted covenants. Patriotism is reserved for your Country, your people. A less tangible concept, but a far more powerful and righteous one.

The Republicans for many elections, have proved themselves to be masters at the overly simplistic attack. Turning "Liberal" into a bad word, despite all the major achievements this country has enjoyed under "Liberal" administrations. They accuse us of being against the brave men and women of our armed forces and of being unpatriotic merely because we oppose an administration that lied to us -- and to those brave men and women -- and took this country into war against a Country that in reality posed little or no threat to us while at the same time they mismanaged the fight against our true enemies.

They profess to be the party of family values and of individual liberties yet they have passed and proposed laws that curtail fundamental freedoms, spy on our citizens, and discriminate against people who have committed no crime but to love another of their gender. Not to mention the hypocrisy inherent in all of the actions I discuss here.

They claim that unlike the "Liberals" they are the ones who understand the need for fiscal responsibility and the dangers of enlarging government bureaucracy. However, it is under the Republican administrations going back to at least Reagan that this country has seen ballooning deficits, unbalanced budgets, growing trade imbalances, devaluation of our currency, and the largest growth of government bureaucracy since the New Deal. We are in debt to the Chinese to the tune of more than $503 billion and growing -- foreign countries overall hold $2.6 TRILLION of our debt.

They pander to us by talking about tax cuts, and making misleading claims that the Dems will tax people out of their homes, even though under this administration the vast majority of tax relief has been for already wealthy corporations and the government's mismanagement and lack of oversight of the mortgage industry has literally forced people from their homes. Talking about taxes, understand that there is a "zero sum" aspect to all this. Your tax burden is made up of more than just your Federal taxes. Whose state and local taxes have not gone up over the past eight year? The Republicans can cut all the federal taxes they want, but that just means the Federal government will have less money to share with States and localities -- which is why your local taxes go up. Republican tax policy will not only not lower your tax burden, but the opposite may very well be true while simultaneously continuing to increase our national debt; financed by dozens of different countries, including China and Russia.

They insist on returning to "trickle-down" economics despite it having been proved a failure during Regan and Bush I, and despite any undergraduate Econ TA being able to explain to you how and why money in the hands of the poor and middle class has a far greater economic impact than in the hands of the wealthiest few [google "multiplier effect"]. This means that tax cuts should be targeted to individuals and corporations who both employ large numbers of Americans and pass on their profits to the employees in the form of higher profits. But instead this administration creates tax breaks for the wealthiest corporations with insane and irresponsible executive compensation packages.

Enough.

Commander-in-Chief Palin

The Republicans have chosen to defend against Gov. Palin's inexperience by touting two primary roles she has played during her relatively short political career: 1) her executive experience as a small town manager, her mayorship of a slightly larger town, and her Governorship of a state with a population of less than 700,000; and 2) her role as Commander-in-Chief of the Alaskan National Guard.

The problem is that these roles perhaps to do more to highlight the limitations of her experience than to suggest that she is qualified to be President. For instance, the Alaskan Army National guard has less than 2,000 members. A regional manager for Target or Walmart probably has more people under their control than the Commander-in-Chief of the Alaskan National Guard. Of course the rejoinder from our clever friends across the aisle will be "well that's more than BoBama has..." Hardly.

The National Guard is primarily controlled by the Pentagon not the Governor's office. While a Governor has certain authority and control over the National Guard, it is extremely limited. I was just watching one of McCain's spokesmen being grilled on this issue and he could not answer the very simply question of "identify a single executive decision Governor Palin has made in regards to the National Guard." He couldn't. Undoubtedly there are some decisions the Governor has made, but it is wholly disingenuous to suggest that her exceedingly limited experience as Commander of a small military unit primarily controlled by Washington somehow qualifies her in any substantive way to assume the duties of the Presidency. Being a town manager and then a mayor of towns with populations in the area of 6,000 people - while important to the people of those towns - is of almost laughing irrelevancy here.

Has she lived overseas? Studied abroad? Hosted a foreign exchange student in her home? Volunteered to help the poor? I would find all of those things to be of more value than town manager and commander of a battalion of part time soldiers. Does she have an advanced degree in law, history, economics or business? No she has a Bachelors in Communications. No disrespect to the holders of such degrees but honestly, do you feel qualified to be President, and wouldn't you admit you had class mates who squarely fit some of the negative stereotypes associated with that degree?

Would I prefer Barack had more foreign policy experience? Yes. But he has lived overseas, studied overseas, is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate and was a State Representative in a State with a population almost 19 times that of Alaska -- the home of one of the World's major economic and trading cities. Besides, his domestic experience is unrivaled in this election and he already got the single largest foreign policy issue of this decade right when he voted against the war in Iraq. Not only did everyone else get it wrong, but McCain has an almost irrational insistence on staying the course.

Lastly, a brief point on Gov. Palin's family. I generally agree that one's personal and family lives should not be placed under the microscope. This is especially true when we are talking about a candidates' children. And I think Barack was very right to unequivocally say that the candidates' families, especially their children are off limits. However, with that said, there are some relevant and important points to consider, which Gov. Palin and the McCain campaign themselves have put in play. I stress that I aim these comments at Gov. Palin, not her children.

First, Gov. Palin is proudly supporting her son's deployment to Iraq. Now, I understand when your child has made that decision and is about to go in harm's way, they need and deserve your support. But did Gov. Palin support this choice from the beginning? Did she just stand back and let her son sign up to join in the fight of what ultimately was an illegal and immoral war? If you agree that the Iraq war is wrong and that the civilian leadership of our military has acted in an irresponsible and immoral way, then does Gov. Palin deserve your support because she is proudly sending her son off to that war? [we can debate later the many differences in the case of Beau Biden, starting with Sen. Biden's wish his son wasn't going].

Secondly, the Governor's family values credentials. I wish her pregnant daughter the very best. This is a very difficult time for her even if the whole world wasn't suddenly watching your every move. However, this does deserve some examination. Not with respect to the daughter, but with respect to the way Gov. Palin has raised her family, the values she has instilled, the judgment skills she has passed on to her children, and the attention she has paid to the development of her children. She is touted as returning to work three days after the birth of her fifth child with Down's syndrome. Three-days! It is lauded as a sign of her devotion to duty and the People of Alaska. A noble act. But what about her duty and devotion to her family??? I am sorry, I am the father of two boys, and I take issue with how noble it is for a mom to return to work just three days after the birth of a baby, let alone a baby with Down's syndrome, who are often born with severe complications. It is one thing when you have no choice because you have to return to work or face the loss of your job - though Clinton's Family Medical Leave Act saves most families from making this decision [a nugget to keep in the back of your mind the next time Republicans talk about family values]. But Gov. Palin faced no such dilemma. Alaska had its Lieutenant Gov. holding the reigns; she could have taken the time. Contrast this with Biden's complete willingness to give up the U.S. Senate and not move from his son's hospital bed after the tragic loss of his wife and daughter. For that matter, consider her decision to accept the Vice President nomination knowing full well that her teenage daughter would now come under intense scrutiny. This starts to make you wonder what other decisions has Gov. Palin made - or failed to make - regarding her family?

I normally wouldn't bring this up -- few families are perfect and I wouldn't suggest mine qualifies as one of them [though my boys are awesome]. But Gov. Palin was introduced to us as a leader with strong family value credentials. Her selection as McCain's running mate was specifically intended to suggest to us that one reason we should consider voting for a McCain/Palin ticket was that they best represented what American Family Values was all about. Now, however, as we begin to examine her a bit more closely, I don't buy it and suggest neither should you.

To me this is an issue about McCain's leadership and decision making. It now turns out that his campaign did a very brief background check and vetting of Gov. Palin [a three hour interview and a 70 question test is nothing, let me take her deposition for six hours and then we'd know something]. And when the campaign is very legitimately asked to defend its vetting process, and a McCain spokesman is challenged directly to identify what key decisions Gov. Palin has made in regards to the National Guard -- whoa -- the "liberal media" is accused of engaging in making up scandals and perpetrating a sexist attack against the governor. Please. Stop the drama. Answer the question if you can. And if you can't then why should we believe you?

COUNTRY FIRST

The hypocrisy of the Republican party continues to astound me. "Country First" is their slogan of choice at the RNC. I totally agree with the sentiment, which is what makes me so upset.

Country comes before your love of unnecessary guns. Country comes before your love of gas guzzling SUV's. Country comes before desperate and unworkable attempts to cling to non-renewable sources of energy. Country comes before keeping yourself comfortable no matter the impact on the environment, the world or those around you. Country comes before expanding the federal debt. Country comes before pandering to the public on taxes. Country comes before outright lying about your opponent's tax plan. Country comes before relying on trickle-down economics despite 20 years of evidence it does not work. Country comes before pretending your economic and tax policies are not the reason we are in a recession. Country comes before labeling Democrats "tax and spend liberals" when it is your party that has grown (by orders of magnitude) the debt, the trade deficit and the size of the Federal Government since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. Country comes before spying on its citizens. Country comes before forcing your religious beliefs down the throats of your fellow citizens. Country comes before continuing an illegal and immoral war in Iraq while our troops in Afghanistan lack sufficient support. Country comes before using a hero, posthumously awarded the medal of honor, as a campaign ad.

Country First!