I sit at my desk at my 9 to 5 wishing I could be doing something different. I'm not short on ideas. I could afford to take a pay cut do what I dream of. What I can't afford is to go without healthcare for my family. I need the 9 to 5 for that. My question is would universal healthcare create jobs by allowing people like myself to leave my job and pursue my dream knowing that I can afford healthcare? Leaving my job creates an opening for someone else to fill. I don't know if anyone has ever done studies on that, but it seems to me this could be an added bonus to the health reform push.

Thoughts?

Jake Tapper over at ABC posted this link that John Stewart found. It mostly contradicts Mcforgetful's current stance against the rich paying more.

 

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/mccain-in-2000.html

 

Where has the old Jonny-boy gone?

I have to give much credit to my governor, Ed Rendell of PA, for this point. I had thought of it many times, but not in such a succinct example: You are in a lake struggling to keep your head above water...drowning. You look to the bank of the lake to see if there maybe anyone there to help you. There's a man standing there and he's holding a rope ready and willing to throw it out to you... Does is matter what color skin he's wrapped in?

I grew up in an inner city. Philly, to be exact. Walk down many of those streets and you are bound to walk by a young woman pushing a stroller, whom you know should not be a mother. She is too young and most likely not prepared to be someone's mother. I feel for them and those whom it affects. I have cousins who got pregnant at 15 and 16 years old. I was 21 when my first was born on the 1st day of my junior year in college. That put me on the 5 year plan to graduate...and I had to take 18 credits my last semester just to accomplish that. I say all of that so the reader knows that I understand first hand how hard this can hit a family.

Here's my problem. The conservatives are harping on/praising  the fact that Bristol Palin is having the baby, and not addressing the fact that she got pregnant in the first place. It is commendable that she is having the baby, but it's almost as if they are glossing over the real issue. Dr. James Dobson says that they are "living out pro-life values." He does not address the issue of avoiding getting pregnant. No one is perfect. We all have our flaws. He makes this clear in his statement. I just can't help wondering if he would have even come out with a statement had this been one of Barack Obama's children or anyone else who was from where I come from. You don't have to tell me. I already know the sad answer to that one.

Teenage pregnancy is a major crisis in this country. We have to tackle it from both sides. Liberal and conservative. And because this particular pregnancy involves the republican candidate for VP, it should not be used as a political football used to score points by us democrats, but it also must not be glossed over by conservatives. If it happened to a democrat, I don't think it would get glossed over.

Both sides. Step up and address this without demonizing the young lady or her family. Let's not sweep it under the rug either. And if you're going to make a statement on this important issue or one like it, make it so it helps everyone and not just your party.

Mark Halperin is reporting  that Biden is the pick. My first choice was Mark Warner of VA, but Biden is a pit bull with brains. I don't care about the "gaffe machine" label because everyone says dumb stuff. The point is he is on the right side of the issues and is passionate about them. He connects with so many people. This would be a great pick.

This is an actual quote from an interview this morning with Matt Lauer on NBC. I was on the elliptical machine as he said it and damn near fell off. This kind of straight talk is what is wrong with this country today. John McCain showed his true feelings with that statement. Just another way of saying "you're on your own".  I'm pissed that someone who wants to lead the free world would let something like that come out of his mouth.

Another thing on the war, John McCain keeps with the mantra that the surge is working. I'm not there, he has been so, I'll take his word for it. But my issue is when he says he can't say when we will pull the troops out. He also said that it doesn't matter when we pull the troops as long as deaths are down. Hey John McCain, how 'bout we bring them home so that are NO deaths!!!

One last thing, the death toll in Iraq is somewhere near 4,100. Does that number include the suicides that have occured as a result?

It's time for the people of the house of love, opportunity, and justice - the democratic party, to unite. As an African-American, I have been wounded, intentionally or not by some of the things that have gone on in this campaign. I think it is just as important to recognize that "white" people and women have been wounded as well.

At one point in my life, I lived in a 4 bedroom 1.5 bath house with 12 other people. There was only so much room to move, so much food to eat, so much hot water, and one phone line (no cell phones at the time). We developed unhealthy attitudes and sometimes expressed them in unhealthy ways - which left scars. I distinctly remember an argument between my uncle and aunt which resulted in my aunt hurling an ash tray at him that left a cut behind his ear. In the span of 10 minutes, my uncle approached my aunt with a sincere apology, a big hug and kiss, eventhough he was the agrieved party in that situation. She apologized as well. The uplifting part was that they helped each other heal those wounds inflicted upon each other, fairly quickly.

My people, we have that power as well!

We have 5 months instead of 10 minutes to get it right. There is no need or reality to agree on everything. Just the realistic need to heal. The need to understand that this was a major fight that was bound to leave scars. They are battle scars, but not everlasting scars.

I am an Obama supporter with an extended hand to you, Hillary supporter, and all that wish to walk together on this long, hard, yet fulfilling journey. Take my hand.

     This is old terrain, I know, but I feel I need to give it one last shot. I have a list of VP candidates including Kathleen Sebelius, Mark Warner, Ed Rendell, and Ted Strickland, but my top choice is John Edwards.
     I say this with the full understanding that he could not even deliver NC for Kerry in '04. I say this knowing that those two did not have the smoothest of campaigns - fighting over the damn campaign slogan for crying out loud.
     My argument is this: Simply, WE ARE READY! In '04, I distinctly remember thinking the GOP could not possibly win this election with all of the spit and ferver and anger towards George Bush. What I underestimated was the fear factor that Rove and the boys instilled in the people of this country (Bush is the only one that can protect you). Today, I think the people see it for what it was, and do not wish to make the same mistake.
     Of course McCain is not Bush, but he's damn close. It will be the Obama/Edwards campaign, the media and the people to make that stick. I include the media because there seems to be this attentiveness by them to call out fear tactics when they see them. I could be way off, but I do not recall the media calling the parties out in '04 when fear tactics were used like they are doing this cycle.
     Back to Edwards. I think he is that final ingredient to this movement. He is a movement unto himself when it comes to the poorest of our society, and the fighter spirit he presents. Edwards, of course reaches that working class segment that Obama has not reached so far.  Obama is speaking more to the middle class. The working class will vote for Obama/Edwards this time because the economy , not the war,  is issue number 1 (jobs), 2(fuel prices), and 3 (mortgage crisis). To the working class right now, Obama's message is a little like backround noise with all the distractions (his race, smear emails, flag pins) drowning out his message. Edwards will make that message live, like memorex (remember those commercials?). Edwards will free the people of certain fears and apprehensions.
     The other thing is that Edwards seems ready to throw a punch. Something that has been a nice surprise to most when it comes from Obama. (I knew Obama had it in him all along. He's more fighter than people give him credit for). But this is also a key duty of the VP. Of the other players I named above, Rendell is the only one that I know throws punches (and connects often).
     This election is ripe for the taking. With this tag team of fighters for the poor and middle class, I envision a knockout.

In a Washington Post article today, Hillary Clinton talks to the sexism she has encountered during her run for the White House. One guy yelled to her to "Iron his shirt". As an African-American MALE, I say, he needs to be smacked with the iron and then made to iron his own damned shirt.

The thing I find interesting about the article is Senator Clinton's willingness to go on record with her (very legitimate) gripes on the issue. I then wonder if Barack Obama did an article talking of the racism he's faced, how would that play. I've noticed Clinton has been running on "let's go ladies" type of mantra lately. I don't know that this is costing her votes. Imagine Obama running on "come on black people". My belief is that this would cost him votes.

Let me be clear that arguments can be made for either prejudice to claim the status of most damaging.

In history, women, while not in chains, were made to stay home and "iron shirts", tend to children and tend to injuries of the body and soul of the entire family. Blacks, while in chains, were made to tend to the crops of that home, trying to hold on to any body and soul they have left. Today, women bang their heads against a glass ceiling all too often. While a select few blacks can earn millions shooting a ball through a hoop or running down a field with one.

I'm married to a half Italian, half Irish woman (when she's angry the hands and words are flying everywhere. I just duck), two daughters and a son in between (he gets it from both sides. I just stay out of the way). I get a front row seat in my own family to the damaging effects of both kinds of prejudice. They are fights we take on often, but they are righteous fights that will only help those that follow us. The democratic party has two great examples of what a righteous fight can bare.

I'm an Obama supporter, and I'm against the unity ticket for different reasons, but that does not mean these are not fights that Obama and Clinton can't fight together. Me and mine will be right there fighting with them. Join us?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902729.html

The following is the reason I could not be a writer. I just don't get down into the deep thinking Frank Schaeffer (or any other writer for that matter) gets to. Read this exerpt from his article in the Huffington Post:

It is no accident that McCain's memoir is titled Faith of My Fathers. Faith is the operative word here, faith as in religion, faith as in blind belief in things that reason might refute.

On the cover of McCain's memoir are pictures of McCain's military ancestors and of course Senator McCain as a young military man. To McCain and his family, military service is a religion, a self-defining way of life, the question and the answer.

McCain's reasons for keeping America at war in Iraq are religious, the expression of the cult of the warrior -- the liturgy of combat. No matter what war we were in right now McCain would say "stay the course" and "on to victory!" He'd do this in the same way that any priest would want to finish a liturgy, mass or service once begun, no matter what disturbances might threaten to interrupt it.

McCain is dangerous because he wants to do what is "honorable" according to voices the rest of us -- including ordinary sane men and women in uniform -- don't hear. McCain isn't driven to do what is good for America, or even good for our military men and women. For instance, he is against the new GI Bill that would give fair educational benefits to our men and women. McCain doesn't want to give them anything that might entice them to do anything but go to war, again and again and again. McCain serves the warrior god of his warrior ancestors, not America's best interests or even the interests of our soldiers.

McCain doesn't want to let down his grandfather, John Sidney McCain or his father, the admiral. Morality has nothing to do with it. America has nothing to do with it. Iraq as nothing to do with it. McCain is keeping faith with ghosts