If Obama Ran his Campaign like McCain

We would be hearing things like:

Prepared to lead when he can't even take care of his Senatorial commitments?

• McCain holds the record as the most absent senate member having missed 64% of his votes. At one point he missed five straight weeks! I can understand his absence during the campaign, but even prior to it he was among the most absent Senators. Ah well, he doesn't need to work! His wife is loaded! Why bother to show up?
  

McCain supports torture

• in 2006, McCain voted AGAINST an amendment before the Senate that would establish one interrogation standard across all government, military and CIA, and would ban waterboarding.
  

McCain supports teen pregnancy

• By repeatedly voting against amendments that would expand sex education and contraceptive education for teenagers with the intention to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
  
• Strongly opposes public funding for birth control
• Strongly supporting abstinence-only sex education for teens (because it works so well!)
  

McCain says he believes in the sanctity of life ... except when he wants to see people killed

• Strongly supports the death penalty
• Supports broadening the use of the death penalty
  

McCain: more of the same -- yet another underachiever floating through life on the benefits of nepotism

• Like the current administration lead, McCain graduated at the bottom of his class. 394 out of 399.
  

McCain: more of the same -- uses his family's pull (or his wife's money) to get what he wants

• Despite his extremely low standings at the Naval Academy, he was pushed ahead of more qualified candidates and trained as a Navy pilot where he promptly destroyed five navy planes

McCain: an honorable man who leaves his crippled wife for a newer, younger, richer one?

• While McCain was a POW in Vietnam, his first wife, Carol, was horribly injured in a car accident. When McCain returned his former swimsuit model wife did not look anything like the woman he'd last seen. He stayed with her another six years using his pull as a Navy Pilot to fly off to carouse and have extra-marital affairs. Then he divorced the now misshapen and broken Carol and married Cindy one month after the divorce. Cindy is the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune and young enough to be John's daughter at eighteen years his junior. (I'm trying to see the honor in this. Trying. Squinting real hard. Coming up with bupkus.)
  

Ahh, but thankfully, that's not the kind of campaign Obama's run.

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Barack Obama's Message to America

While I cannot get the channel that played this tonight (it's American and doesn't come in for me), I did watch the video on Youtube.

Here is a run-down of his policies (editorializing is my own, everything else is directly quoted):

He begins by mentioning the current economic crisis that is a result of the past 8 years' failed economic policies. Immediately he promises to restore the wealth of US economy and its middle class.

Obama's rescue plan for middle class:

• cut taxes for families making LESS than $200k
• tax credit for hiring new employees in the US
• eliminate tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas
• freeze foreclosures for 90 days
• low-cost loans for small businesses

What laws he has in mind, I do not know, but he feels that companies should be held legally accountable for promises made to their employees. If a company spends its employees' retirement funds and then files bankruptcy, leaving those workers without their retirement -- that company should have to pay! (YES!)

Health care reform

• improve information technology to improve the healthcare that is provided
• required coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions (most insurance companies will exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions with some outrageous exception like the second Tuesday of the third week of the 15th month of the year.)
• lower health care costs for families by $2,500/year (my own insurance cost just about that much out of my own pay, my employer chipped in the other half. However, many employers do not offer health care coverage so those employees have to pay the FULL amount. I have been unable to find a policy that would cost me as an independent buyer what my employer-sponsored plan cost both my employer and myself.)
  

Obama's Plan for Energy Independence

• will invest $15billion/year in energy efficiency & renewables --- wind, solar, and bio-fuels --- this will create 5 million clean energy jobs over the next 10 years
• help auto companies retool for fuel efficient cars
• tax credit to help people afford fuel efficient cars
• tap the US' natural gas reserves to further reduce dependence on foreign oil (yet mcCain says all we need to do is dig more oil wells)
• expand domestic oil production
• call on all Americans to conserve in a new era of responsibility
• invest in clean coal technology

Federal Spending

• Plans to cut government spending beyond expenditures
• Promises to go through the federal budget, line-by-line, eliminating programs that do not work & make the ones we do need work better & cost less

Obama's Plan for Education Reform
Opening his plan with the statement that we have a moral obligation to provide EVERY CHILD a world-class education, he lists these plans:

• Invest in early childhood education
• Recruit new teachers and pay them higher salaries (new teacher salaries are at or below the national poverty level)
• Demand higher standards & more accountability
• Tax credit to cover tuition @ public colleges/universities in exchange for serving their communities or their country

Obama's plans to Defend our Liberty

• Change policy in Iraq (currently spending $10b /month in Iraq) yet Iraq has a $79b surplus
• Rebuild the military
• Renew tough direct diplomacy to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons
• Curb Russian aggression
• Refocus efforts on finishing the fight against Al Qaeda & the Taliban in Afghanistan

If you'd like to watch the video yourself, here it is:


I am simply so impressed by Barack Obama. He is insightful, incredibly intelligent, unafraid to think and act "outside of the box." He is decisive and optimistic. He's honest. He plainly states again and again that we are not going to get out of this economic crisis overnight. Warren Buffett approves Obama's economic plan. I think that he is the hope for tomorrow.

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Dispelling more Barack Obama Lies, Innuendo, Conjecture, Rumour and Distortions

Lie #1: Obama wants to kill babies. John McCain made that statement in the final presidential debate. McCain knew the statement was an extreme perversion of the truth. McCain knew he was doing more than distorting facts. McCain knew the facts behind Obama's vote in Illinois against a bill requiring doctors to make life-saving efforts for an infant that was the subject of a late-term abortion. There are two reasons Obama (along with nearly all the others voting on that particular bill) voted against it: 1) there is already a law on the books regarding this instance, not to mention doctor's Hippocratic oaths demand that they do exactly that regardless what the laws say and 2) the bill, as it were written, made no provisions regarding saving a mother's life and essentially outlawed late term abortion in any case whatsoever, including a case where it would save the mother's life. For detailed information on Barack Obama's stance on abortion read these excerpts from his own speeches and interviews.

Lie #2: Obama wants to subjugate all women in the style of radical Islam. Obama is not Muslim. This lie is just another spin on the proposition that Obama is Muslim. First, there's nothing wrong with being Muslim. Second, Obama is not a Muslim. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that claim. There is a wealth of evidence to support Obama's Christianity. If Obama wanted to subjugate women, why on earth would he fight so tenaciously to preserve her right to choose?

Lie #3: A vote for Obama means death to Israel. This is from Joe the Plumber. Apparently, Joe the Plumber is nervous about having higher taxes should he hit the magical $250,000 income bracket. So he's been making campaign stops with John McCain and talking to the people. This is one of his assertions. Joe the Plumber is now an expert on international affairs. Everything Obama has asserted regarding Israel and Iran sum up to he knows exactly what the score is. He knows fully well that Iran is Israel's biggest threat. He has stated repeatedly that the Iran's threat to Israel is very real and his goal is to END THAT THREAT. No splitting hairs on that one. The source for the lie: John McCain himself. He distorted several speeches given by Barack Obama by cutting out copious amounts of text so that the end result didn't even come close to resembling Obama's original statements. Do we want someone so utterly deceptive and duplicitous in office as John McCain has proved he is again and again with his dirty campaign tactics? I sure as hell don't. We've had enough of the lies and cheating with W.
Check it out for yourself at factcheck.org.

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Polls aren't looking too good for McCain

There are about a million polls out there. I don't consider them an accurate predictor of the election, but I'm enjoying the diversion a bit.

Here are a few:

Electoral Projections Done Right by Five Thirty Eight

The notoriously ultra conservative Fox has lots of anti-Obama rhetoric, but even their polls show Obama's favour.


USA Election Polls are reporting some momentum for McCain, but not enough to pull off a win.

Even Florida has pegged Obama in the lead.

Real Clear Politics shows 10 nationally recognized polls, all of them showing Obama in the lead.

And, if the world could vote in the 2008 US Presidential election, this poll shows the results.

By all means, people, this does NOT indicate Obama's got the Presidency all but tied up. YOU STILL MUST GO VOTE. Don't forget. If you need to file for an absentee ballot you have until the day AFTER the election to get your papers in to your local election office.

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So good, you have to go see it for yourself

This links to a photoblog of Barack Obama. Just gives me chills. Incredible pictures.

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Chicken Waldorf Salad

This is one of my favourite dishes. My family loves apples. Our staple meat is chicken breast. We probably have 100 different ways of preparing them, but tend to vacillate between 10 standards.

I had some leftover chicken breast (intentional leftovers so that I could have a quick & easy meal another night though I should admit, the first one was quick and easy too!)

I had some celery in the garden begging to be plucked.

I have a bushel of organic apples which make me drool just thinking about them. OH they're so good.

I use one apple per person for this recipe. Tonight we served four. Here's my quickie recipe:

4 Red Delicious Apples diced (a firm apple is best. I also like a mix of red delicious & granny smith)
4 ribs celery diced
leftover chicken breast
1/4 cup salad dressing (not mayonnaise unless that's your preference. We don't like the stuff. Besides it has WAY more fat in it than salad dressing like Miracle Whip. Miracle Whip Lite is gluten free!)
Paprika
Sea salt

Wash the apples & celery. Core the apples, slice and dice them--don't peel them. Dice the celery. Sweet apples tend to oxidize quickly (turn brown) so I squeeze or sprinkle lemon juice on them as I place them in the bowl (don't overdo it -- it doesn't take much). I toss frequently so all the apples get some lemon juice on them. Dice the chicken breast. Stir in the salad dressing. You may need more salad dressing depending on the size of your apples and the quantity of chicken in your mix. Don't overdo it, though...you don't want the salad dressing to dominate, just to accent and hold everything together. Top with sea salt and paprika to taste. Stir well. Serve cold.

Other additions: you can add grapes, sliced in half. I add walnuts when I don't have much meat to add.

Serving suggestions: have this as a sandwich filler stuffed into pitas, or open-faced on focaccia bread. Have this on a bed of lettuce. Have this all by itself!

The kids ate it all gone! Not a bit was left. The boys both had seconds!

Want another apple recipe? Check out my Apple Puff Pancake recipe.

I'll get back to posting more regularly now. I hadn't been feeling well for a while but things are looking up.

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What's Wrong With Men?

I have to wonder this now and again. Despite the fact that I'm married to the greatest guy on earth, he still sometimes makes me wonder....what the hell?*

Tonight we're tag-teaming dinner prep. We're having apple puff pancake and breakfast sausages. Hubby's making the apple puff pancake. It's a Betty Crocker recipe. Of course, the Betty Crocker cookbook is MIA. Hubby goes to the computer and goes to the Betty Crocker site. It's no longer there. I tell him, "I blogged it. Just go to my blog & pull it up." He's got a bookmark toolbar link to my blog. All he needs to do is click it. Does he? No. He has to enter another recipe site and search for it. Now...there are lots of recipes out there for the apple puff pancake. Some of them require so many eggs they taste more like souffles than pancakes. So I roll over to his desk, steal his mouse from his control and click on my blog's link. Pull up the recipe and there it is. He gives me a look. You know....a look like, I woulda got there eventually, you just didn't give me a chance.

So tell me, why is it that when it comes to directions men always have to drive the longest route, pass 14 gas stations without stopping for assistance until finally and at long last he must stop because the car's damned near out of gas so that the wife can go inside and say "how the hell do we get to....?" Why?

:)

The pancake was good. Even if the journey was a bit odd.


*I'm sure I never illicit this response in him. hahahahahaha

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