4) Replacing the UN’s role of preserving and extending international order

Bare in mind that figures for the regular military budget exclude the costs of the current wars that the United States is engaged in. A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq of $141.7 billion brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II - higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup. There will also be a proposed supplemental of $93.4 billion added to this year’s (FY 2007) budget, bringing the total for the year to $622.4 billion. (Of course, George also tried to eradicate the current social security system, but failed there. Oh well, NeoCon dudes, can’t win them all!) Over all though, his enormous defense spending should make the NeoCons very pleased in regards to their #1 agenda. Yeah, Go George!

Numbers 2 and 3 are obvious NeoCon successes. We’ve gotten our greedy fingers (and sadly many boots, thousands that are now empty) in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraq of course was a “preemptive” strike, giving Georgie W. an extra gold star for NeoCon agenda number 3!

As to number 4, putting John Bolton in for our Ambassador to the U.N. was most likely punishment and damaging enough to get George at least a silver star in that department. Of course pretty much ignoring the U.N. during the buildup to Iraq also put a few feathers in his cap.

And if you think McCain would be any different, guess again. McCain has surrounded himself with the best and brightest from the now-defunct Project for the New American Century: Randy Scheunemann, one of its directors, is serving as McCain’s top foreign policy advisor. He is joined by PNAC’s founder, Bill Kristol, along with Gary Schmitt (President), Robert Kagan (director), and James Woolsey (signatory).

The NeoCons have made huge advances in their agenda over the past 8 years. They will not “go gently into that dark night”. Lets see what dirty tricks they can pull off tomorrow to retain their now global power.

If their exists any doubt that the Republican party is dominated by the NeoCon philosophy, John Dean, in his new book, “Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches” puts it to rest. In a recent web article Dean remarks:

Republicans’ authoritarian rule can also be characterized by its striking incivility and intolerance toward those who do not view the world as Republicans do. Their insufferable attitude is not dangerous in itself, but it is employed to accomplish what they want, which it to take care of themselves and those who work to keep them in power.

The NeoCon primary directive is to “rape and pillage”, figuratively if not literally (although some of the literal does take place as “collateral damage” to their agenda, i.e., endless war). The organization that embodies the NeoCon movement is called “The Project for the New American Century” and their agenda can be summarized as follows:
1) Increase an already enormous military budget at the expense of domestic social programs
2) Toppling of regimes resistant to our corporate interests
3) Forcing democracy at the barrel of a gun in regions that have no history of the democratic process
4) Replacing the UN’s role of preserving and extending international order

Their exists a mentality amongst certain people who are terrified of choice, they consciously or subconsciously want life choices made for them. Many prisoners are or become like this, and would rather stay in prison than have to face an existence in the outside world. Are the majority of Americans of this frame of mind? How about you “Joe the Plumber”? We’ll find out in a few days if Americans want control of their lives, or to be controlled by an increasingly authoritarian government.

if Obama is elected President, he would funnel needed support to “green” business, such as solar, clean coal, and other companies that will do their best to get us out of our OIl Habit. Maybe a better move for Joe the Plumber would be to reinvent himself, and become “Joe the Solar Guy”. I should think plumbing skills would transfer nicely to such businesses. We don’t need another plumbing business, we DO need something that will help Joe as well as help get America out of the Oil Ditch. With Obama’s plan Joe would likely get the “tax break” everyone is so excited about, AND probably some low-cost federal “start up” funding to boot.

A new paradigm, “thinking outside the box”, is what this country needs, not another plumbing business. I could listen and watch news about “Joe the Solar Guy” until the cows come home.

I have two words for McCain: “Who Cares!!”? A number of third countries, the majority being allies of the U.S., including Canada, France, and England, have what most would consider “socialist” programs. And guess what, they work, they work well, and they have worked well for decades.

The obvious example is Health Care. While our health care system is coming apart at the seams, the countries sited have a reasonably smooth running, decent quality, and relatively inexpensive health care program. If you don’t believe it, ask their citizens. Better yet, ask an American that has been living in one of those countries for a number of years. In interviews I’ve seen, they of course miss America, but they LOVE the ability to get good local quality health care without having to hoc the house. Our system isn’t working. Theirs is. It’s a no brainer.

Higher education is another area that lends itself well to federal subsidization. Most of us struggle to send our kids to college. In many European countries, where the government assists those wanting to go to college, this is not a problem. Sure, in most cases taxes are higher in these countries, but analysis suggests with these two major costs covered, the average European ends up much better of financially than the average American. And they don’t go through the financial up, downs, and sideways gyrations that we, as Americans, seem to have to endure. Aaaahhh. Wouldn’t that be nice!

Yesterday the Obama Campaign registered a request for investigation with the Dept. of Justice. They are requesting that the White House, the DOJ, and the McCain Campaign be included in an investigation regarding the whole “ACORN voter fraud” allegation.

Basically, here’s how it works:

1. A number of Republican officials send in letters to the DOJ suggesting that ACORN is committing voter fraud. (NOTE: some theorize that the whole “firing” issue within DOJ has to do with certain folks not willing to go along with this scheme. Read on)

2. The republicans cry “voter fraud” within the ACORN organization, then try to associate ACORN with the Obama Campaign (remember McCains pointed accusation about ACORN during this weeks presidential debate?)

3. The FBI and DOJ initiate an investigation into ACORN, and the states that have filed a complaint (13 states, I think).

4. The states are inundated with Feds and lawyer types looking into their voting processes, thus getting in their way, slowing and process down, and often causing the states to “tighten up” their procedures. Ohio is an example of this. Fortunately their shenanigans (an attempt to disenfranchise over 200,000 voters) didn’t work there, and was recently rejected in court.

5. These investigations (#4 above) often target newly registered voters, and others that may not have had the luxury of a stable home year after year. In other words, students, lower income folks, etc. In other words, people who would most likely vote for the Democrat TIcket.

If the allegations made by the Obama campaign are true, this would indeed be the greatest attack against our democracy to date. It would be an outright conspiracy to undermine American’s right to vote.

So, what do we have here? If you can’t win the vote, get rid of the vote. “Country first”? I don’t think so. America, the shining light of democracy? No.  Carl Rove, are you in on this dude?  It sure smells like it.

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Exactly. Based on the reports, the profits of Wurzelbacher’s small business are well under $250,000, so Obama’s proposal wouldn’t adversely affect him at all. He’s apparently concerned that he may someday have those kinds of profits, though, which is obviously his prerogative. In the meantime, depending on some of the details, Wurzelbacher would probably get a tax break under Obama’s plan, and if he’s like most of the middle class, his break would be bigger under Obama than under McCain.

Joe the Plumber” is a perfect example of a puzzle I’ve been trying to solve. Help me understand this. I can’t figure out why anyone making less then $250,000 would vote Republican. Their basic domestic economic theory is “trickle down”, which means they tend to put money in the hands of corporations (in the form of tax breaks, etc. Already it has been shown that most corporations pay ZERO taxes!) and subsequently their top management, hoping that they will use the money to hire more people. Of course we’ve all heard of the outrageous salaries corporate managers pay themselves, but I suppose some of the money does get down to “the little guy”. But why would the ordinary worker want to purposefully put money in the hands of someone else, in the hopes that they will see some of it in some form or another, rather than put it directly in their own hands? Why would they want to forfeit that control? For power and control, always look to “where the money is”.

In Republican ideology, they want to put the money in the hands of your and my boss. This puts us “worker guys” in a compromised position, hoping that “the boss” will share the gold. In my experience, most bosses I’ve worked for take the majority of it home for themselves. If you’re demanding enough, he/she might share a piece of the pie and give you a raise. But again, if you control the money, you control your financial future directly.

It’s puzzling to say the least.

The Times’ Maeve Reston was at the event, and she passed along the key passage from Conrad’s words:

I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.

And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.

Oh Lord, we just commit this time to you, move among us, make your presence very well felt as we are gathered here today in Jesus’s name I pray.

Your “reputation”? We wouldn’t want God to get a bad rep would we? Geez, their must be a lot of Gods running around up there. I wonder if each state has a God? Does the “Fed” God control the state Gods? In that case, won’t the Fed God be upset if the Ohio God doesn’t deliver? Stay tuned!

It was supposed to be not much more than a photo-opportunity, a demonstration of national unity in the face of economic crisis. There, for the first time in anyone’s memory, the incumbent President was meeting the two candidates battling to succeed him, together with the entire leadership of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The aim was to conclude the week-long deliberations over the plan announced by Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, for a $700 billion bailout of the nation’s banks and to get legislation through Congress by the weekend.

When the photographers had been dismissed, President Bush spelt out what was at stake. According to senior advisers briefed on the detail of the meeting, he told the assembled leaders that it was not just the US financial system that was in peril. He made it clear that the entire architecture of the global economy was at stake.

John Boehner, the leader of the House Republicans, had been listening with evident irritation. Now he spoke up to denounce the Paulson plan. Mr Boehner and his party colleagues had been deluged all week with angry calls from constituents protesting at what they saw as a huge taxpayer giveaway to undeserving Wall Street bankers. He told the gathering that he and his colleagues could not support the plan and produced one of their own.

As the meeting seemed to be breaking up in disarray, the focus of administration turned to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Speaker. Numerically speaking, with a big Democratic majority, Mrs Pelosi already had enough votes to pass the plan. With a big majority assured in the Senate, why did she not just press ahead, she was asked? The whole deal could be done without the House Republicans.

But Mrs Pelosi would not take the political risk of passing a potentially unpopular measure with only Democratic support, leaving Republicans free to attack her and her colleagues in the campaign for congressional elections to be held in little over a month.

An agitated Mr Bush said, as the meeting finally unravelled: “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”

I try to project being in that meeting, to feel the tension and hear those words from the President of the most powerful nation in the world, home to over 300 million human beings. After all that we have gone through, revolution, civil war, WWI, WWII, emancipation, absolution of slavery, ups, downs, and sideways, one man, sitting there in that crowded room, he says this “sucker” could go down.

I can’t help but wonder what kind of man could put it in those terms. It’s as if a single man, head of a single government with an out-of-control financial system that is primarily to fault of his administration, shrugs and says “oh well, it was fun while it lasted”. Good luck, and good night.

When Mike Scott took charge of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in 2005, he became just the 12th person to oversee the agency since 1887. Already, he has made his mark in the community – and the state.

“People could say running for sheriff took either courage, ignorance, or a combination of both,” says Scott. “People have to respect the campaign. It was more than a fluke.”

“If the new sheriff is doing what appears to be a good, honest and focused job, you will stay in office. … I have every intention of doing a job that I can be proud of,” says Scott, citing the tenure of former Sheriffs Flanders “Snag” Thompson, Frank Wanicka and John McDougall, who served a combined 51 years between 1949 and 2000. Scott defeated first-term incumbent Sheriff Rod Shoap in the fall 2004 election.

On October 6th, 2008, fter delivering brief remarks in support of Palin, Sheriff Scott flipped the switch and used Barack Obama’s middle name in order to incite the crowd of thousands of people who have already gathered here.

“On Nov. 4, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened,” the law enforcement officer said.

I wonder who bought him his uniform? It would seem, since he’s wearing it at a Republican rally, that it must be totally funded by Republicans, yes? His status, office, car etc. funded only by Republicans?

Fortunately, their is still a remnant of justice left in our country, and in this case it comes in the form of the “Hatch Act”. The Hatch Act stipulates that it is illegal to wear a state or federal uniform to conduct such partisan activities. Evidently Sheriff Scott is under investigation, and the county may loose certain federal and/or state funding, or the Sheriff may get outright booted. Personally, I think they should do both.

The new program, announced Wednesday, is on top of the $85 billion the federal government agreed to lend to AIG last month to prevent the global company from collapsing. AIG said last Friday it had drawn down $61 billion (no wonder, those parties are expensive! See previous techimoto article about AIG spending $440,000 on a party at the St. Regis!).

The latest announcement does not jeopardize the government’s ability to recoup its loan to AIG, experts said.

“AIG will repay the loan,” said Stewart Johnson, portfolio manager at Philo Smith, an investment bank specializing in insurance. “It’s just a matter of how much of themselves they will have to sell.” (NOT MUCH IF THE PARTIES CONTINUE!)

“We fully expect to emerge from this with a capital structure that’s fit to fight (AND DRINK?) ,” he said. “Our insurance businesses…are strong and well-capitalized.”

But some analysts are more skeptical. “The current disruption in the credit markets could make it difficult to sell businesses at attractive valuations,” ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said.

Hey dude, those parties are expensive! They need more capital! Partey on dudes!