Fighting the Rumors….Again…

There really are important things to talk about here, but I want to get something out of the way first.

I have recently run into a barrage of misinformation, which I had honestly though of as dismissed, about our president elect. Talk of his being a Muslim. Talk of him not really being born in the United States. Ridiculous, but let’s look at it once again, just to clear things up once and for all, shall we?

Second point first. Barack Obama was Born 7:24PM August 4th, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to his birth certificate. When the birth certificate was released, there were immediate statements flying around that it was a forgery, that it was fake, even though what was out there was not an Original, but a scanned copy of his birth certificate. In August 2008, a Philadelphia lawyer by the name of Philip Berg challenged in court then Senator Obama’s eligibility for the Presidency o the grounds that he was in fact born in Kenya and was a citizen of Indonesia, and therefor inelegible to run for the Presidency. The complaint was dismissed by district court Judge R. Barclay Surrick. A quote from the philadelphia daily news website, philly.com:

In a 34-page memorandum and opinion, the judge said Berg’s allegations of harm were “too vague and too attenuated” to confer standing on him or any other voters.

Surrick ruled that Berg’s attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion.”

The judge also said the harm Berg alleged did “not constitute an injury in fact” and Berg’s arguments to the contrary “ventured into the unreasonable.”

For example, Berg had claimed that Obama’s nomination deprived citizens of voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton in November. (Berg backed Clinton in the primaries.)

Not to mention there was a birth announcement of one Bouncing Baby Barack that came out 9 days later in the Honolulu Advertiser.

You people need to pay closer attention, I’m not saying this stuff again.

Next Up. The Muslim Thing.

Barack Obama is not a muslim. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim. BARACK OBAMA IS NOT A F$#%$% MUSLIM! GOT IT? GOOD! NOW SHUT THE F*** UP ABOUT IT.

Sorry, I was channeling Rahm Emanuel for a second there.

Two facts to chew on. One: He was Sworn in to the U.S. Senate on His Family Bible. Let me repeat that for the ignoramuses out there. HIS FAMILY BIBLE. BIBLE. CHRISTIAN BIBLE. (I’m shaking my head in disbelief that I even have to mention this)

The actual “Obama: Secret Muslim” thing was made up by right wing nutjob Andy Martin about two weeks after President-Elect Obama’s keynote address in 2004. Out of the Blue.

He was heard once when talking to George Stephanopolous, about his religion, and he said “My Muslim Faith”, and he was corrected by George and the conversation went on. People have latched on to this as the clinching proof that Preseident-Elect is a muslim. One word suffices as an answer to this.

PLEASE.

Like I have said numerous times both here and On my personal blog, there is nothing reasonable or intelligent about this. The people who are latching onto this are looking for a reason to dislike and distrust him. I will say the following to you who believe that Obama really is a muslim.

Why search for a reason to hate him? Hate, like love, needs no reason. Plus I think most mature adults know the real reason why peole latch onto this fluff.

The horse-manure never ends with these people, does it?

Do you dislike the President-Elect, and if so, Why, and If not, why not? Do you let reason rule when making political decisions about politicians, or do you, like most Americans, go with gut level instinct and then look to see what they are about? I’m curious to see what you think America! Drop me a Line!

Uncle Mikey

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This is the Question du Jour in the days after the Election Of Barack Obama as our next President. There are a few names that are bouncing around, and since this person, whoever it is, will be guiding our fiscal ship through some really choppy waters, I think we all need to take a close look at the possibilities for this post closely.

The First name I heard for Treasury Secretary I heard only a few hours after I watched Barack Obama win the Presidency. He is current New Jersey Governor, Former senator and CEO of Goldman Sachs Jon Corzine. Corzine has been something of a free spender in his political campaigns, is a liberal democrat who saved Goldman Sachs after it nearly collapsed in 1994 Later in Corzine’s tenure as CEO of Goldman he was asked to help compose a rescue package Long Term Capital Management, a large hedge fund that nearly collapsed in the fall of 1998. When he decided to help this company, which the Treasury department had decided was too big to fail (sound familiar?) He was replaced at the head of Goldman, leadership at the firm was actually seized from him by…. Hank Paulson.

Small World. He has in past served on the U.S. Treasury department borrowing committee as well.

The Next Big Name on the List is award winning economist Larry Summers. Larry has actually had the Job before, from July 1999, to Jan, 2001, the final Treasury Secretary of the Clinton Administration. He has also been the World Bank’s Chief Economist. Summers is on record as saying that he thinks the Economy will get back on track by late 2009, but it won’t be in any way near as good a shape as it was when he was Treasury Secretary. Much of what Mister Summers has said is in line with the beliefs and stated goals of President-Elect Barack Obama.

One other name to look at is Timothy Geithner, The Current President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He has served with both Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, and has also worked as Director of the Policy Development and Review Department in the international monetary fund. Rather than give you a biography of the man, I think it best to just let you read about him yourself right here.

Since this may be the most important position the President-Elect will have to fill, it is important for us to know something about them. Do you think these men can do the job that is necessary to fix the economy and set the right policies in place to make that easier? Tell me what you think about our financial future in an Obama Administration with any of these men at the helm of the Treasury, America! Drop me a line and talk to me!

Uncle Mikey

What are the Priorities of the next administration? Money, Money, Money.

First, President-Elect Obama should pare down the debt and balance the budget while keeping the promises he made on the campaign trail. This will Involve a few things. He has to make sure that the tax breaks for the the middle and working classes that he said he would put through go through. He has to make sure as well that the other end of that, the Tax increases for the rich goes through as well.

Balancing the Budget may, insofar as getting America out of debt, be impossible. You can’t just cut out $10,000,000,000,000 in debt in one fell swoop, but with a little belt tightening and cutting out some poorly put together programs we can pare down the debt over time and put the nation on a more stable financial footing. There are tens of billions of dollars we can save by simply streamlining some programs, like medicare.

Increase in Capital gains taxes will also have to occur, and the IRS should disallow deferment of Capital gains taxes, from 1031 exchanges to structured sales. I do not, it must be told, know enough about the tax code to know how this would work exactly, but the need to build up the amount of money the government takes in is as large as the need to pare down the size of government, and every revenue stream that could provide funds should be looked at seriously.

Next up, National Security and money:

A Combination of things have to occur, simultaneously. The Increase of force strength in Afghanistan, while bringing the forces in Iraq home. We will save money when we start bringing the troops home from Iraq, and the faster we kill off al-qaeda the better for all of us in both the short and long run. We also need to decrease defense spending. That much is absolutely necessary.

I know, there are plenty of people who saw that and flipped out. But it is necessary. This nation has seen it’s defense spending go up by 75% over the last 7 years, and frankly it is the single largest drain on funds in America. The Defense Budget is now larger than at any time, ever. Not even when America was at the height of the cold war were we spending as much as we are now, and it is just too damned much. Half a trillion dollars for Fiscal 2009 is far too much. That is what Dubya has saddled us with. More in any measurable way than even LBJ, who was a big spender, the biggest spender in the last 45 years than any president EXCEPT Dubya.

Oh, yeah, we have to CLOSE THE ENRON LOOPHOLE. President-Elect Obama has proposed the repeal of this loophole, to curb speculation when Oil prices spiked earlier this year.

What do you think P.E. Obama should do? Do you think the economy will stabilize? Do you think anyone can balance the budget? Drop me a Line and let me know America!

Uncle Mikey

There are a million different stories to tell about the events of yesterday, every one of them compelling in their own way. The election of our first African America President. The fundamental alteration off the electoral map. The Blowout of John McCain. The victories of Kay Hagan and Jeanne Shaheen. The tightest race of the day, between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Sen. Ted Stevens resiliency in the face of being found guilty of seven felonies.

I’m going to look at one thing which bears some looking at. I’ve heard the words “Death of American Conservatism” when talking about this victory of President-Elect Obama. But I tell you that I do not for a minute believe it. We are not at our heart a liberal nation, politically, even if we have moved to the left somewhat. We still believe in smaller government, we all want to pay less taxes, we all want to make sure everyone gets the best of what this nation has to offer. This election showed more of our changed national mood than a change of our basic political philosophy. Both parties believe in the same things, freedom, liberty, justice.

The reason the Republicans were defeated so soundly yesterday is that George Bush ran the Republican brand into the ground for 8 years. That, more than anything else, made it easier for the Democrats to do to the Republicans exactly what they did. By following the extreme right wing policies and big government ideology that George Bush and the Republicans did, that made it much easier for the average person, who may have in past called himself Republican to drop that veneer and call him or herself independent instead. In the last few years the independents rosters swelled while the Republican ranks shrank. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidence, not here anyway.

The American people did not leave the Republican party, the Republican party left the American people. The beliefs those people hold has not changed tho. Barack Obama became something of a populist centrist, and in this way garnered more support from those jilted former Republicans. The word Obamacan does have meaning, it is more than just a cute neologism.

By supporting tax breaks for the middle class and promising to retool business to make them green and to keep jobs here, he seemed to be hearkening back to a day when Americans cared about the little guy, back before the days of Dubya, and Rove, and Rumsfeld.

Barack Obama even stole from the Republicans the “Strong national defense” argument that they have always made so well for the last quarter century with his talk of beefing up the fighting forces in Afghanistan and his aggressive stance towards elements of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. He reclaimed that title that the Republicans themselves took from the Democrats a number of years earlier in the 1960’s, with LBJ and another unpopular war, that one in Vietnam.

The views that conservatives espouse are very much still there, they have simply moved out from under the umbrella of conservatism. It is the Ideological aspects of conservatism, which tend to skew towards semi-fascism, at least as they are espoused by right wing nutjobs like Karl Rove, that were skewered yesterday, the main concepts are still alive and well in the people and places that they have always existed in before.

Wow, I spoke about American Conservatism, and didn’t once mention the christian conservatives, who are the heart of the future of the Republican party, and were the one coalition that held tight for the republican party in the South and Mid-west.

What do you think made for the drastic turn that America took yesterday…or was it even a drastic turn at all? Talk to me about the good things that happened yesterday, and the bad things too, America! Drop me a Line!

Uncle Mikey

Barack Obama has Just been elected President of the United States of America. At 11:00 P.M. Eastern time, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii were all called for Sen. Obama, sending him over the 270 electoral college vote requirement for victory in the race for the presidency.

At this point Florida still looks like they will go to Sen. Obama padding his already impressive numbers. Virginia has gone to Sen. Obama, as has Colorado.

So Far, with only about 45% of the population’s vote actually counted, Barack Obama, excuse me, President Obama has 306 electoral votes and over 2 and a half million more votes than John McCain. And speaking of John McCain, It is official, he has called Barack Obama and conceded the race.

When the crowd in Chicago at Grant park heard the news, The crowd exploded. The crowd was more energetic and frenetic than one would normally expect to see in New York City on New Years eve.

This, ladies and gentlemen is perhaps one of the most important events you may ever see. There are a great number of people who never thought they would see something like this happen. An African American President.

A few words for the democrats of the nation. Today you are champions, but there is much work to be done. An economy in crisis. The biggest deficit in the history of this nation. A nation at war. Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden are still at large. Many parts of the constitution have been attacked and weakened by Dubya. All these problems need to be resolved, and quickly.

You have a majority in the House. You have a Majority in the Senate. You run the White House. Now you need to take the reins and lead America in a new direction and lead us out of the deep morass we find ourselves in. It will be hard work.

Let’s get to work.

That’s it for Me. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with an overview of the days events.

Uncle Mikey

Get Out And Vote!

As dawn creeps in on a normally chilled November New York morning, 41 degrees as of this writing, I am hoping that everyone will head out to vote, and if you live in the any of the early voting states and you have voted already, America thanks you. I’ll be heading out to do My civic duty around 10:00 AM or so, it should be slow then and the lines should be short. Regular off days in the middle of the week do, on occasion, have some advantages.

I am hoping everyone gets out and votes because this election has taken on a tenor I have not ever seen in my life. With The Nation struggling economically in a way it hasn’t in over 70 years, with a President who may be the most reviled man to hold the office in living memory, and with the world in chaos, we Americans have it within our grasp to change it all, with the push of a button, the pulling of a lever, the writing of a name. With the choosing of a new President, you will be helping to choose the path this nation takes for years to come, and will help to pull the nation out of it doldrums and help restore it’s tarnished greatness. The good you do now will echo deep into the future and help make or break a world in chaos. Everyone running for office has an idea of what they want to do for you, America, and they all think they are the best for the job. The plans and dreams of untold millions will be made or broken on the choice you Make today.

Choose Wisely.

America needs you. It doesn’t matter who you vote for. Vote because you love your country. Vote because you think the country is moving in the wrong direction and you want change. Vote because you think the country is moving in the right direction and you want things to remain the same. Vote to stop someone you dislike from getting to the white house. Vote to put someone you admire in a position to get into the white house. Vote because you think your voice is important. It does not matter the reason. America Needs you. Let America Know what you think.

Clean house in the House of Representatives. Create the Senate you want to see. Make the White House your house. Show’em who’s boss. Do Your Civic Duty. Vote.

I will probably drop a few blogs here today as things happen, from whatever stories of election fraud and irregularities that occur, to concession and victory speeches, and everything in between. I will, like I said yesterday, be on twitter for as much of the day as I possibly can. Look for miketherhino.

Uncle Mikey.

Election day is just about 24 hours away. Have you made your choice for president yet? No? Well, Allow me to help. I won’t give you any information, what I’m gonna do is ask you to answer a few questions about what you think is important. I’ll keep the questions as broad as possible, and explain the reasoning behind asking them in a few spots.

If you’ve made your choice, just tag along and see what happens!

1 ) How do you feel about the candidates foreign policy stances? I ask this because John McCain will be more or less a mirror image of our current president in regard to national security, while Barack Obama seeks a more diplomatic tone in dealing with the world. If you think this is THE main issue of this election, and you feel a strong national security stance is more important than diplomacy, then John McCain is your man. If you think America has been doing it wrong of late and want a more civil tone to our world discussions, Then Barack Obama is your candidate on this Issue.

2 ) When should we leave Iraq? 16 Months? When were done? When the Iraqis tell us to?

3 ) How do you feel about both candidates reactions to the economic meltdown?

4 ) Is prior experience, or lack thereof, a reason to not vote for a candidate?

5 ) Is the Second Amendment Important to you? Do you think any candidate will try to take your guns away from you? Has any other President tried to? And if So, were they successful? Those last two questions here in part 4 were just something to chew on while you answer the second one.

6 ) How much Power should the President have? Could you picture any of these candidates lessening the power of the Presidency? And whom do you trust with the immense power over the people and the world at large? Anyone? If so why, and if not why not?

7 ) Should Social Security be Privatized? Kept as it is? What about other entitlement programs? Are entitlement programs a solution to problems or a cause? Why?

8 ) How much have you thought about the House races in your state? How about Senate races, if you have any? Your vote there will swing the election and all the legislation that will pass through both houses of congress for at least the next two years! Do you know your candidates? If Not, Brush Up!

9 ) How important are the Vice Presidential candidates here anyway? In all likelihood the next President will live out his term, barring a calamity, so knowing that, how important are the #2’s here, really?

10 ) Has either sides campaigning left you wondering why they did what they did? Did the rhetoric of the campaign make more of an impression on you than the issues? Did you let that have an impact on you? If not why not, and if so why?

I personally think it is more important to get a grasp on policy issues and stances than rhetoric and campaign posturing, but that’s just me….Which means i let about 90% of it, from all sides, go in one ear and out the other. I had my bullshit detector turned up to maximum sensitivity all election cycle, and I am hoping that you did as well.

I could ask 100 other question, or have asked these questions in 100 other ways. I wanted to, with these questions, get away from the campaign rhetoric and get back to the meat of the issues, so that when you walk into that voting booth on election day, you are doing so not with thoughts of how much money was spent on clothes or who called who a socialist or any other nonsense like that.

A few more quick things. Get plenty of rest today. The lines tomorrow may be long at your polling place, and you’ll want to be well rested for what may be an hours long wait on line. For those who are interested, I will be on twitter for most of the day tomorrow, I am guessing from about noon, after I vote. Click the top of the page on twitter where it says “Hot Political Topics” and Look for MikeTheRhino. And click here to take a political quiz.

I’ll Talk to you Tomorrow.

Uncle Mkey

One Final look at the Polls before Tuesday’s Election.

And I have to tell you, the Polling is tightening up nationwide. In the Real Clear Politics polling average, where every major national poll is added together and given equal weight, gives Barack Obama a 6% lead overall. That is down frm 5 days ago when he had a 7.9% lead. John McCain has added 1.4%, while Barack Obama has lost .5% in the average over that timespan. This can be largely attributed to the three point surge in Polls By McClatchy/Ipsos and GWU/Battleground and a 2% uptick from Rasmussens latest polling data. The Obama loss where it exists is 1%, and it exists in polls by GWU and Reuters/C-Span/Zogby to name two of them.

There is less historical data when it comes to the battleground states, less of a chance to see how the candidates numbers have turned around over time, at least with single individual polls, but overall, give an indication that things are turning for The Illinois Senator.

In Indiana, Polling up until last Tuesday gave John McCain a somewhat comfortable 4% lead, that lead has now disappeared, and Barack Obama holds a slim 1.7% lead in the state, which has not gone Democrat in my lifetime. It is still within the margin of error, so at this point Indiana is a statistical dead heat.

North Carolina has been tight for a while, unlike Indiana. There has not been a lead larger than the MOE(margin of error) since September 27th. In Fact Barack Obama has held a razor thin lead in the North Carolina since the Sept. 28th.

Missouri has been within the standard 3% MOE for the entire month. Heartening for the McCain camp would be the numbers that suggest that he is making up ground here. While the race has been tight, and there have been three lead changes in the last month, most of the last 12 days or so have been on the upper end of that 3% margin, around 2.7%. But in the last four days it has gone from a 2.7% poll average lead for Obama, to a .2% lead, largely on the strength of the SurveyUSA folks, who went from Having Obama with an 8% lead 51%-43%, to a dead heat at 48% apiece.

Florida has also, like North Carolina and Missouri, been tight for a while. Barack Obama has held a lead in this state since October first, but that lead has been, for the most part within the MOE. That has only really disappeared over the last two days, but just barely. The Obama lead in Florida is now at 3.5%, nothing earth shattering at all.

I was going to speak extensively on Pennsylvania, but the Numbers there haven’t been close for a month. Obama has been up by as much as 14% and is now up by 11%.

Now, what can you learn from this? A few things. One, John McCain, despite being part of the Party in power in the White House, with the most unpopular President in living memory, is still holding on to a fairly large segment of the population. Two, Barack Obama has a large base of support in these normally republican strongholds.

Three, Things are gonna be Reeeeeeeeeeeeeal Interesting next Tuesday.

What do You Think America? Do the Poll Numbers reflect accurately the way America feels? Is it really that close? How does it look in your home state? Who do you think will win your states electoral votes when this is finally done? Drop me a Line and Let me Know!

Uncle Mikey

Every Campaign has one advertisement that catches the attention of the electorate.   Every Campaign has one advertisement that is seen as the game changer, the highlight of the campaign season, that pulls into focus everything that the campaign is about.  This campaign has been without that ad, until now.  The ad, the first long form commercial since Ross Perot put one out 16 years ago is here in it’s entirety, all 27 minutes of it. A link to it below.

Click here to Watch the entire 27 minute Obama ad.
    
I’ll spare you a detailed description, seeing that you can watch the thing yourself by clicking the link above.

The ad ran on all the major networks, except ABC, which wanted to air it on a different night to protect it’s Wednesday night lineup. The Obama campaign refused, and the network eventually relented and would have shown the ad, but, the campaign had already made the buy, and passed up ABC’s offer.

And contrary to popular belief, the World Series was not delayed because of the commercial. The Pre-game was pre-empted, always a good thing in my book.

Now to the Ad itself. It features a few very important things for the Obama campaign.  It showed the stories of common everyday Americans trying to make ends meet and having difficulty doing so.  It showed that he will cut the taxes of most Americans, undercutting the Main McCain message that Obama will raise YOUR taxes.

It gave a clear cut answer to those who say they don’t know the man, don’t know what he stands for.  Put simply, if you watched this and you still don’t know this man and what he wants to do for America, you are being willfully ignorant.  If you like being ignorant, well….enjoy that, and keep whatever you think to yourself, we as a nation don’t need your ignorance. 

There were parts of this Ad that really caught my eye. The opening shot, with “Amber waves of grain”.   Juanita Stewart rubbing medication on her fingers, bent from rheumatoid arthritis. The Fathers in two of these families reading to their children.  The story of Sen. Obama’s own upbringing.  The shot of the man who had worked all his life and had most of his pension robbed by the company he worked for.  Larry Stewart proudly talking about the work he put into his home proclaiming “that floor down there, I put that floor in this house”  This man,72 years old, still jackassing to work to make ends meet because his wife can’t afford the medications she takes. 

He put four families from various walks of life on camera and showed the struggle they are going through, be it the aforementioned Stewart family, or any of the other families fighting to make ends meet.  He put his plan out there for all to see, to silence the critics with just 6 days before the election, with facts.  He made his case to the American people for an Obama presidency by contrasting what is under George Bush and what can be with him as President.

He spoke about his tax policies, about how he won’t burden America with additional spending. He spoke about Education, and his plan to give tax credits to cover tuition for students in public colleges in exchange for serving their community.  He spoke about Renewing tough direct diplomacy and rebuilding our military, and ending the war in Iraq, while hunting down Osama Bin Laden.

His interspersing pictures from his family, a view of other families around the nation, and speeches given and his talking directly to the American people and telling them exactly what he is going to do if elected made this the strongest and the most important ad of the campaign season. 

Did you watch, America? I Know I did.  What did you think?  Did you find information there that was meaningful?  Was the story presented meaningfully to you?  What did you take from the Ad?  Has the Ad changed the way you view The Junior Senator from Illinois?  Drop me a Line and Let me Know!

     Uncle Mikey

    Man of the Hour, tower of power, or so the media seems to think.  This race is going to end a lot closer, I think, than most people do, but I see this man pulling this victory out.  How?

       First off, The Polling just seems a bit… well… off.  I am a democrat, so i don’t have an issue with the democratic parties candidate pulling off a big win, but I just do not see, with the fractious nature of the campaign, this being anything but a hotly contested race.  And when you see poll numbers that are as disparate as they are, with Battleground having Obama with a 3 point lead, and CBS/NYT having him up by 13, there is no way to get a really coherent fix on exactly where the electorate stands….

     …With one clear exception.  The Economy.  John McCain has clearly made a mess of the biggest issue in politics today, and the Obama campaign has successfully made the label “Weak” to his economic policies, and John McCain has hurt himself in this regard.  From his admission that he doesn’t really understand economics early in the year, to his statement the day the Market Imploded that the “Fundamentals of the economy are strong”, he has painted the picture of himself as entirely hapless on this front.

      This Economic weakness, both in the economy and in John McCain, has left  the Junior Senator from Illinois finding footholds in states normally considered Republican territory.  Ohio, which has only twice in 30 years vote for a democratic President, is leaning towards Obama.  Colorado which has voted only Once in 40 years with the Dems, looks like it may well go Democratic this time around.  Florida, which has gone Dem only two times during my life, which began when dinosaurs roamed the earth, looks like it is inching towards the Democratic side of the ticket.

     There are a myriad of scenarios out there that would lead to an Obama electoral victory, but I think the most plausible is one where most, but not all of the states I just mentioned go Blue as well as the normally reliable Democratic Voting states.  The States I think Obama will win are as follows.

    Hawaii, California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, The District of Columbia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

    And that would be a win 293-245 victory for The Obama-Biden Ticket. I am being generous here I think, but I believe this can happen, given current circumstances.

     What do you Think, America?  Think The Obama campaign has what it takes to make this scenario, or something similar, happen?  Think Ohio will Go Blue?  Missouri? Drop me a your idea of what’ll happen Next Tuesday! 

       Uncle Mikey