Take the Money and Tube

As my friend Alex said, this may beat tube to work day.

MONROE, Wash. -- Police here say a man who robbed an armored car driver at a bank Tuesday morning jumped into the Skykomish River on an inner tube to get away. Officers are searching the water and riverbank, and a Sheriff helicopter was circling the area, but so far there's no sign of the man. Police spokeswoman Debbie Willis said the man robbed an armored car driver at the Bank of America branch at 19917 Old Owen Road about 11 a.m. Mitch Ruth, who works across the street from the bank, said the robber sprayed the armored car driver with pepper spray and wrestled a bag of money away from the driver. The robber was wearing a surgical mask and wig, said Ruth, who tried to chase the man down but lost him in the woods. "He was a lot faster than I was," Ruth said. Willis said an inner tube was recovered in the area. Investigators believe accomplices could have picked the robber up at a nearby boat launch or park.

$700 Billion in Corporate Welfare

The Bush Administration has asked Congress to give it a check for $700 million dollars to bailout various financial institutions that are in crisis due to poor decision making and lack of regulatory oversight. The administration has tried to fast track this bill, but fortunately, it looks as though Congress isn't going to rush into a rash decision. Part of the original bill given to Congress even included a section that states: "Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." That is simply unacceptable. Based on the past track record of the Bush Administration, I have little faith in them handling this crisis properly.

Barack Obama gave a press conference to discuss the financial crisis that can be viewed here. Earlier in the week, Obama released a Statement of Principles for the Treasury Proposal. The statement includes the following stipulations for the proposal:

• No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check.

• Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them.

• Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance.

• Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities.

• A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets.

• Main Street, not just Wall Street. The American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do the emergency on Wall Street. That is why I call on Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, save one million jobs through rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance to help ensure that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built in America.

• Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century. While there is not time in a week to remake our regulatory structure to prevent abuses in the future, we should commit ourselves to the kind of reforms I have been advocating for several years. We need new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy, together with the means and willingness to enforce them.

Obama has not been reactionary in handling this crisis, but has been speaking about it for quite some time. He has attempted to pass legislation and spoken about it at various times on the campaign trail. You can read the transcripts of a speech he gave in March here. I find that his vision and ideas for helping to solve the financial crisis are strikingly different from John McCain. It is so hard to understand where John McCain stands these days, as his stance on issues is constantly changing. Don't forget that on September 15th, the day that the stock market suffered its greatest loss since the week after 9-11, he stated that the economy is fundamentally sound. Now, he finally says it is in a crisis. But if you review his history, you will understand a great deal more about McCain's economic past. McCain has been a supporter of deregulation that led to the Savings and Loan Scandal of the 80's, the Enron scandal, and now this one. Read this blog post, as it quickly summarizes McCain's past related to these scandals. I truly find it hard to believe anything that he is saying these days.

Now don't misinterpret me. We don't need heavy handed regulatory oversight, but we do at least need some. Many supporters of a free market society believe that the invisible hand of capitalism will cause the market to correct itself. Well, obviously that isn't the case, as the current "free market" Administration is now proposing a huge welfare check for Wall Street. Sensible regulations and oversight are needed to prevent crises such as this, which was a direct result of deregulation and greed.

Man Survives Being Hit by Car and Train

A transient survived getting hit by a car and then eight hours later a train in the Boulder.  According to the press release, Boulder Police have learned that the victim of a train accident that occurred this morning at 4:45 a.m. was also the victim of a reported hit-and-run accident at Folsom Street and Canyon Boulevard at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 23.

 

Robert Evans, a 46-year-old transient, has told investigators that he had been released from the hospital at 3 a.m. this morning after being treated for injuries from the previous night's incident. He was attempting to get to his campsite and decided to try to beat the train across a narrow railway bridge that spans the creek in the 4700 block between Valmont Road and Pearl Street. He was hit by the railing of a stairway on the side of the locomotive and fell 10 feet into the water below.  He was pulled from the creek and taken to Boulder Community Hospital to be treated.

 

He faces a ticket of trespassing in connection with the train accident. Boulder Police are continuing to investigate the reported hit and run accident from the previous night.

Register to Vote

I am sure that all of you are already registered to vote, but if you aren't, please go to http://www.voteforchange.com.  If you are already registered, you can also obtain information about your polling location at this site or voting by absentee ballot.
 

Obama Ad

Finally, a decent political ad. I, like many of you, absolutely hate political commercials. They are typically misleading, if not outright dishonest. However, below is an ad by Barack Obama that actually has some specifics and substance. What a novel concept!



Also, here is an article from Time about McCain's lack of straight talk, plus, you might want to visit PolitiFact's assessment of John McCain's claims on the campaign trail.

Live From New York...

This is just too funny not to post. Tina Fey is so good, it is scary. (commercial at the start, no control over that)



Also, I know that some of you probably are getting sick of all the political posts on this blog. Sorry. I think that electing Barack Obama as President is too important right now. Some of you have told me that you appreciate the information that I post on here, as it keeps you informed. After the election, it will be back to my normal boring stuff.

Palin Breakdown

All sorts of interesting news about John McCain's vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been coming out lately. It is hard to sort through it all. Here are a few items about her that concern me. Some of these are her extreme views, some are items where she has misstated the truth, and some of them are areas in which her past actions do not match the current picture that the McCain campaign is trying to paint about her.

-Sarah Palin did not sell the Governor's jet on Ebay, or sell it for a profit, as McCain stated at a campaign stop.

-She is not against earmarks, and Alaska actually gets more money per person from earmarks than any other state. She also hired a lobbyist to obtain earmarks as Mayor of Wasilla.

-She supported the infamous "bridge to nowhere" project, until she found it would be politically advantageous nationally to denounce the earmark, but still accepted the $223 million in federal funds to be used on other projects.

-She is under investigation for "Troopergate". It should be noted that the Republican controlled Alaskan legislature approved the $100,000 for the investigation.

-She has opposed transparency in government.

-She believes that creationism should be taught in schools. (Would the flying spaghetti monster be included in the syllabus?)

-She said that the Iraqi war was a "task that is from God."

-She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list.

-She is a skeptic of global warming and is at odds with environmentalists.

-She believes in abstinence only sex education and does not support comprehensive sex education or birth control.

-She does not believe women who are victims of rape or incest should have a right to an abortion.

-She asked the Wasillia town librarian about removing books from the library (note that she did not actually ban any books, but did reportedly inquire about it).

-She did not fire her chef, but rather, the chef was reassigned. To be fair, Palin did not explicitly say in her convention speech that she fired her, but a news article from the time quotes a staff member saying she did it to save costs (which she didn't).

-She has been avoiding the press or the McCain campaign has been keeping her from the press. (She is finally doing an interview with Charles Gibson tonight.)

-She was not a member of the Alaska Independence party, but she has attended their conventions and wished them good luck. Her husband was a member though.

-She has little foreign experience.

-She has had a close relationship with indicted Senator Ted Stevens, including running a 527 group for him and she also received campaign contributions from VECO.

I really don't want to write about Palin much more, as I think it is a distraction. John McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, stated last week that this presidential election “is not about issues,” and I for one, will not be blinded by the smokescreen and ignore the important issues of this presidential campaign. It just goes to show that the McCain campaign realizes that they cannot win on the issues, but rather must make this a popularity contest in order to win.

Interior Department Ethics Scandal

The Interior Department's Inspector General is alleging that 13 former and current Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington operated in a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" that included having sex with energy company employees, abusing narcotics, accepting lavish gifts, and rigging contracts to favored firms. These government officials were responsible for collecting billions of dollars in federal oil royalties. It sounds like it was a big old party. The oil industry and unethical activities. No way!

Intellectual Dishonesty

Yesterday, I read an editorial by Pulitzer Prize winning opinion columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald that did a much better job of discussing Republican's intellectual dishonesty than I did in my previous post. Read it here.

RNC Rebranding Campaign

After watching the Republican National Convention, the first word that comes to mind is bitter. The speakers seemed bitter that the Republican party has fallen so low and that the majority of American people have rejected the policies of the Republican party that sent us into this tailspin. This resentment led many of the speeches to be filled with falsehoods and insults to broad segments of the U.S. voters.

They even tried to blame America's woes on the Democrats in Congress. Now let's review the past few eight years. The Republicans have controlled the White House and Congress for the majority of the time. The Democrats have controlled the Senate for only 3 and a half of the past eight years and the House for only the last 2 years. The Senate is currently composed of 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans. The other two offices are held by Independents Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both of whom caucus with the Democrats, giving the Democrats the majority and the Republicans the minority. When you add in that the Republicans broke the record for the most filibusters in history in 2007 and are adding to that record, you realize that the Democrats in Congress have had little chance to make any changes. Kind of ironic, seeing as Republicans were so opposed to filibusters when they had the majority.

McCain and Palin also attacked Washington politics in general, attempting to cast themselves as reformers. However, McCain's record over the last eight years shows that he isn't the Maverick that he either used to be or claims to be. Over the last 8 years, McCain has voted with President Bush 90% of the time, and in 2007 voted with President Bush 95% of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly. McCain has even bragged about this point.

The McCain campaign is on a major advertising campaign now to re-brand and re-cast themselves as being different than Bush-Cheney. But the more that you research the topics, the more you realize how similar they are. I will post more over the next few weeks showing how McCain-Palin does not equal the change we need, but is, as the Obama campaign says, more of the same.

What did you say?

Jon Stewart skewers the right wingers with their own words. Unbelievable levels of hypocrisy and outright lying.

Palin Pregnancy

There has been total media overload this week surrounding John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. This should be expected, as she is new to national politics and quite unknown. Of course, one of the biggest revelations has been the pregnancy of Palin's 17 year old daughter. Barack Obama responded to a reporter's question after the news broke on Labor Day.

At a brief press availability in Monroe, Mich., ABC News asked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., if he had any response to Gov. Sarah Palin's statement that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant.

"Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits," Obama said, "and people's children are especially off limits.

"This shouldn't be part of our politics," he continued, "It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.

"And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories," he said. "You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off limits."

I have to say that I agree with Obama's statement, but at the same time, it is difficult not to be interested in the story. I will not condemn Palin's daughter, as there were several unplanned pregnancies in my family, and I must say that they were all blessings, as a couple of them lead to me being born. Pregnancy out of wedlock is not the huge issue that the religious and conservative right has made it out to be in the past, and it is a welcome change to see them accept Palin's daughter. I just wonder if they would have been so accepting if Chelsea Clinton or one of Gore's daughters had become pregnant as a teenager.

Actually, on September 1, Fox "News" host Sean Hannity said, in reference to Internet rumors about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter, "[T]hey tried to make the attack that she has a young daughter, pregnant and engaged. Is that fair that they would attack that? I mean, I don't remember Chelsea Clinton being attacked. I don't remember Al Gore's children being attacked. I thought there was a general rule that children of candidates ought to be left alone." Well, Hannity has a habit of making false statements, and this is just another example. Republicans did attack Chelsea Clinton, including John McCain and Rush Limbaugh.

McCain reportedly told a "joke" about Chelsea Clinton in 1998, saying, "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." She was 17 or 18 at the time.

On his TV show, early in the Clinton administration, Limbaugh reportedly put up a picture of Socks, the White House cat, and asked, 'Did you know there's a White House dog?' Then he put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, who was 13 years old at the time.

To avoid lowering myself to that level, I am going to try to respect Obama's request and not discuss Palin's pregnant daughter. But, if I am pushed by the hypocrisy of the Republican party and their media arms, I might have to break this promise. Still, I will only try to discuss those items and not her or her boyfriend.

Obama Speech Part II

Part One Here

The rest of the day was spent listening to speeches, with video messages or musical performances interspersed between. The speakers included Howard Dean, who was his usual, slightly odd self, Gov. Bill Ritter who spoke about Colorado and renewable energy, and Bill Richardson who gave a rousing speech, which included the crowd chanting, "Si Se Puede." Will.i.am and John Legend performed together and Sheryl Crowe played a few tunes also. But we missed both of them, as we decided to watch I-25 shut down.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Denver, Interstate 25 is one of the main thoroughfares that cuts right by the city, and Mile High Stadium sits directly to the west of the highway. Due to security concerns, the Secret Service closed both directions of I-25 between I-70 and Highway 6 for the evening. The City of Denver then lined up snow plows across all lanes of the interstate at the closest exits to the stadium. It was surreal to see the busiest road in Denver completely devoid of traffic.

While watching I-25 close, we also got to see Al Gore arrive at the stadium (I think it was him, although it could have been Obama). There was an SUV with 12 SWAT team officers hanging on the side of it. The SUV was followed by a stretch limousine, and another SUV followed behind it. As I have stated earlier, they weren't taking any chances with security.

We returned to our seats and listened to a few more speakers. I then decided to go get something to eat, just as Al Gore took the stage. I hauled ass back to my seat before the rousing applause ended, and only had to shove one elderly couple out of the way. As someone who voted for Al Gore, somone who understands that he enabled the creation of the Internet through legislation (not invented it as is misreported), and someone who admires his work to increase knowledge of global warming, I was quite excited to hear him speak. Fortunately, I was not disappointed, as he met my expectations. Still, whenever I see or hear him, I always find myself asking what-if.

Stevie Wonder and Michael McDonald also performed. Plus, some regular Americans were invited to speak to the crowd. They were pretty enjoyable, as they gave a personal touch to the proceedings. But soon after came the big event. The main man, Barack Obama.

Mile High stadium was rocking when Senator Obama came out. It reminded me of the old Mile High stadium when John Elway led the Broncos to a comeback victory in the playoffs against the Houston Oilers in 1991. When I returned home, everyone asked me what I thought of Obama coming out to the U2's "City of Blinding Lights." Truth is, the crowd was so loud that I didn't know music was playing.

The speech, which Obama wrote himself, covered so many important issues that I can't possibly report on all of it. It was moving, thought provoking, hard-nosed, and inspiring. About everything that you could hope for in an acceptance speech.

One of my favorite lines from the speech was, "Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility — that's the essence of America's promise."

It is one of the messages Obama has promoted throughout his candidacy that has rung true for me. We are all responsible for our actions, but we also have a responsibility to each other. By eschewing both greed and a sense of entitlement, we can correct the dangerous course that the current administration has put us on.

It made me think of how regular americans built this country and also made me think of certain rights which we are entitled to, as discussed in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Obviously, we aren't in the same situation as our founding fathers, but, fortunately, they set up the framework for a Republic in which we have the opportunity to change our government by entering a voting booth and not a battlefield. We have the opportunity to vote for Barack Obama. A man with the vision, honor, compassion, intelligence, and leadership to lead the United States of America to a better tomorrow.