Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Laugh...........

Mike, where have you been? This is all you have got for us?

Americans are learning from the past, as well as the present. They're learning if you give the rich tax cuts it doesn't trickle down - if it did Wall Street would be flush in cash from Bush's last batch of cuts. They're learning when you let Wall Street do whatever it wants - deregulation - it'll take catastrophic risks that can threaten the international economy. They're learning that when politicans back every trade deal that comes down the line - like John McCain does - it weakens the value of their own labor. Some Americans have learned that under president Dwight Eisenhower we had a 92 percent tax rate on capital gains, and those Americans certainly think labelling Obama's call to increase the capital gains rate to 28 percent as "socialism" is something to "smirk and laugh" at. Americans are looking at who and what got us here, and they know it wasn't Barack Obama or his policies.

Will it be enough to win? I think it'll still be a very tight race. Too many Americans are still invested in lies; that tax cuts solve everything; that unrestricted trade with countries where a child workforce can compete with Americans is "free;" that when we meet with China and then say meeting with Iran would endorse their cruelties, we haven't just endorsed China's cruelties; that a corrupt, barely-democratic Pakistan is our ally; that being in Iraq doesn't expend resources better used where al-Qaida's leadership is based; that lawyers and ministers should get to tell surgeons what surgeries they can and can't perform; that due process is an act of kindness and not how guilt or innocence is ultimately determined; that if you give law enforcement the right to listen in on phone calls without warrants they'll use the authority to catch terrorists rather than listen in to deployed soldiers' phone sex.

I usually try to avoid Third Reich discussions, Godwin's Law and all, but since you brought it up: The National Socialist Party effectively quit being Socialist when Hitler assumed control, he was not a socialist, capitalist, or syndicalist, Nazi Germany had a mixed economy, and Hitler's personal economic philosophy was anti-Semitism. He'd tell capitalists - numerous still-successful corporations co-existed with Nazi rule well - that Marx was a Jew and Communism and Socialism Jewish plots to undermine the economy, then tell Socialists capitalism was a conspiracy of rich Jewish bankers - he'd tell everybody to blame economic problems on the most identifiable, urban group of non-Christians around.

Hitler didn't need redistributionist tax policies to fund the German state because they simply stole the wealth of the governments and provinces he invaded, as well as the private wealth of the non-Christians and homosexuals he detained and ultimately killed.

I'm not sure how you think you have the right not to be told homosexuality is normal. You still have the right to tell others it's abnormal, don't you? Who's trying to take that away from you, and how? Rush Limbaugh should have the right to say Colin Powell's commission as a general was a Republican favor but because you dislike "smut" on television someone else shouldn't be allowed to tell a dirty joke?

And it is fantastic the America of 50 years ago when African-Americans couldn't vote and people of two different races couldn't marry, when the government actively investigated and harassed people because they had different views on economic policies, is gone. Thank God, who I don't need a taxpayer-bought monument at my courthouse to worship, those days are behind us.

Bazookaman.........AMEN to everything you have stated here. There are UGLY days ahead for this great country.

My vote for Obama will not be a fashion-trendy statement, it'll be a vote for the competitive candidate more likely to get us out of Iraq, give tax relief to the middle-class, not reward every dictatorship we talk to with a propaganda coup just for some counterproductive posturing on Iran.

What is a vote for McCain/Palin for? Stalling for time in Iraq until they can shove a South Korea-style, decades-long money drain down our throats. And then, since they'll have their "victory," doing it all again in Iran. Ignoring that middle-class earnings have been steadily falling behind for decades while shifting the tax burden of heiresses and Wall Street speculators on to our backs.

I can think of some specific people I'd have loved to see the Democrats nominate. I'm happy with Obama - he's better than the Clintons and Al Gore, none of whom I voted for, better than John Kerry, who I liked well enough that, given the alternatives I did vote for. Howard Dean or Russ Feingold would've been great.

Even though it was wrapped up before it got to Pennsylvania, I voted in the 2000 primary for John McCain, back when he was a tolerable Republican, a critic of anti-Americans like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and of Bush's first disastrous tax cuts, interested in reforming corruption. But now he's a military interventionist -well, he ALWAYS was - at a time it is particularly dangerous for America to have one of those in the White House. And he's sold out on taxes.

The Republicans had a couple of other candidates who could've been intriguing. Not Mitt Romney, tool for Wall Street promising to give your taxes to corporations. Not Ron Paul, objectivist who took campaign funds from the neo-Nazis at Stormfront and who named his child after a philosopher who glorified rape and taught selfishness as a virtue.

Nominating Hillary or John Edwards would've forced me to vote McCain, right up until he chose Palin, which would've stuck me with Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SOMEONE THAT WILL NOT SALUTE OUR FLAG AND THINKS THAT OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM IS OFFENSIVE TO SOME. HE WOULD PREFER "I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING".

THAT'S ENOUGH FOR ME.

In 2000 and up til the past few years - McCain won a lot of my respect when he called out slavery-profiteer Pat Robertson - someone who at the time benefitted financially from gold-mining interests in Liberia where slave labor, POWs from Liberia's civil war, were being used. Other conservatives and Republicans looked the other way on Robertson adopting anti-American values when it suited his investment portfolio. And the "liberal, deck-stacking media" called very few of them out on it.

Make sure you mention that when you tell people I found McCain tolerable - and then ask what policies Republicans are pursuing to end slavery-profiteering by U.S. business interests.

My only prediction for election day is, whoever wins, it'll by no more in the irrelevant national numbers than by 4 percent. And I think less than 2 percent is more likely.

As far as people who voted for Clinton in the Democratic primary voting for McCain-Palin, they'll be some, but, well, I register in March in whichever party still looks to have the more competitive presidential primary by May and vote for the least-worst candidate - had the GOP primary lasted until Pennsylvania I might have voted for Fred Thompson or Duncan Hunter. I disagree with both on a lot of issues but each has one or two ideas that I'd love to see happen - Duncan Hunter is quite possibly the only Republican to run for president in 16 years to understand trade - and both gave thoughtful, intellectually-sound answers in debates. So I think there are a lot of primary voters who don't feel beholden to support their party's candidate in the fall.

You know year's ago I watched a mini series with Chris Cristofferson,Called "AMERICA" and it was about the sleeping American, and It ended up having Russian tank's running down the street's of our American town's large and small. I have watched the good folk's of America fall asleep.TV, Video, Movies, video game's, no honest news reporting, has turned quite a few, I won't say all but quite a few Americans blind to what is happening around us.There telling our young kids that the horrable thing's that happened in WWII never happened. And we sit back and let it happen.They have stripped all the good and great thing's that our country was founded on to go down the toilet. Any of us 50 and older find it harder to understand the insanity that has taken over the country and goverment. We try to vote the correct way and it turn's out backfiring on us. What to do?? We can't give up we still have to beleve that our vote count's our voice can be herd. They are putting chip's in our animales, car's, TV's, radio's, phone's, so they can find us. I worked at Micron for 4 year's they have developed a chip for humen use, to put in our hand or forehead. Sound familiar?? Well from here I will do the best I can from falling asleep. Keep trying to make the correct decision's for my town and country. This is still the best country to live in and I love America.