Over the course of the last 10 days or so, the drama surrounding the debate of the stimulus package has revealed a few things for us.
1) Obama firmly believes in Keynesian economic solutions.  I've said before that I'm not a big economic guy, I've only had one year in grad school, but I understand enough to break this down.  Basically there is a large group of economists (maybe 50-60%) who believe that in deep recessions or depressions, like the Great Depression, a major problem is a drop in Demand.  There is less spending, which leads to less jobs, which leads to even more decreased spending, etc.  They believe that the way the U.S. under FDR got out of the Great Depression was that FDR used government to increase Demand by increasing government spending.  The government employed people to bulid roads, infrastucture, etc thus making sure there were more people who had money to spend on goods (increasing Demand), which led to more people employed to make and sell those goods.  Obama's economic advisors, who are some of the top Establishment economists, Treausry Secretary and former head of the New York Fed Tim Geithner and Chief Ecnomic advisor and former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton Larry Summers are all in this large school of economists.  They are legitimately trying to fix the eocnomy.  I know there were some people who believed when the economic problems hit the media last fall that the Establishment was trying to deliberately just destroy the U.S. economy but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

2)  The overall Establishment/elite are confused about what to do.  When it came time for the bankers to get their bailout last fall, the elite were in lockstep.  The bankers said without the bailout the whole economy would crash, and Bush, Obama, and McCain fell in line to support and vote for the bailout.  This is not the case right now.  With no consensus from the bankers, the stimulus has fallen along partisan lines.  Because although 50-60% of economists believe FDR's increased federal spending turned around the Great Depression, a good 20-30% of eonomists think FDR prolonged the depression.  Government spending isn't free.  It takes away from the value of the dollar, it increases debt, and it slows down private investment that grows the economy more. (Think of it this way, if you have 100 workers working in a safe government job, or 100 workers competing in 4 companies with 25 workers apiece, who do you think is going to be more innnovative over ten years?)  Most of the economists who fall into this group are Republicans or libertarians.  So there is no elite consensus in this debate like there has been in big decisions in the past few years like the bailout last fall or going into Iraq.  But once again, people on both sides of the argument are trying to turn the economy around.  Republicans playing hardball on the stimulus aren't doing it because they think blocking the stimulus would crash the economy and that's what they want.  They legitimately believe that what Obama and that 50-60% majority of economists are calling for is the wrong thing and counterproductive.

3. Obama tried to be too cute and it backfired on him.  Obama is a natural as far as political skills, but he got beat down bad this past week.  He put together this gambit he thought was real clever.  He is a Keynsian economics guy, but he tried to take a Republican lean when negotiating the Stimulus package with Pelosi and the democrats in the House.  He thought that by doing this, and by wining and dining the Republicans, he could trick the Republicans into believing he was taking their side against Pelosi, and therefore get a lot of Republican votes for Obama's Stimulus proposal.  But what happened was, Obama pulled the Stimulus package more towards the Republicans, and away from what Pelosi and himself really wants, but the Republicans still didn't vote for it in the House.  Which meant that even though Obama already pulled the package more towards the Republicans, he still had to go to the Republicans senators on his knees begging for a few of them to cross over.  He finally got Specter, Snowe, and Collins to cross over, but only after cutting $100 billion of things from the package that by Keynesian economics are the best things to have to stimulate the economy.  So now a lot of Keynesian economists like the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman believe that the Stimulus package is too small to turn around the economy by Keynesian theory. (Of course their other motivation in saying that it is too small to work now is to cover their ass because it may not work simply because their economic theories about FDR getting us out of the Depression through government spending was simply wrong on its face and they don't want to have to admit it when this doesn't work)  But basically, Obama got his clock cleaned by the Republicans and they and the whole Establishment is less in awe of his political skills than they were two weeks ago.
 

Well the time has finally arrived. Bush and his cronies are gone, already upset over the fact that they are seen with derision and scorn around the country and the world. America has its first black president. No matter what Obama does or doesn't do as president, you can't take away from the fact that he beat tremendous odds to become president.

I remember when I was 12-13 years old and thought about trying to be president. People thought I was crazy. It was in 91-92. After Clinton's election I tried to think about what it would take to break that barrier. I thought if a black man was going to get to the presidency he couldn't have any kind of drug use in the past. So I never did drugs. (Obama showed I was wrong about that one). I thought that you had to have unassailable degree credentials, so there was no question whether or not you were intelligent. Obviously Obama has that. That factored in my decision to go to Harvard and my decision to major in biomedical engineering without really liking it. I felt that he would have to be married with kids to a black woman. And I felt he would have to be able to have universal appeal, unlike a Jesse Jackson, etc. More like Bill Clinton when he was at the top of his game. Say what you want about Bill Clinton, he was one of the best natural politicians in recent times. He could walk in to a community gathering of the poorest of the poor in the inner city or got to the most elite mansion party in Martha's Vineyard and charm everyone in the room. (Of course Bill is clearly not on top of his game anymore, as the democratic primary showed). I also felt that the first black president would have to be fluent in Spanish and have strong ties to the Latino community. Obama doesn't have that, and did poorly with the Latino community during the democratic primary, but all the Republican led immigrant bashing pushed most of them to Obama anyway. And finally, I felt the country would be ready for a black president by the time I was in my 50s or 60s. Obama showed how ridiculous that notion was. I remember parents having me talk to their kids etc. just for actually having that as my goal. Think about that, it was considered special that I actually believed that it was possible. So I'm glad for all the young kids today who will never know a time where they didn't know it was possible. It's also historic in the sense that nominally, Obama is now the most powerful person on the planet. There are higher ups in global financial circles, etc. but as portrayed to the world, the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military the world has ever seen is the most powerful man on the planet. And that has never been a black man. That person has been north African (pharaohs of Egypt, 2-3000 BC and a couple of the Roman emperors around 200 AD) and that person has been a woman (Queens of England like Elizabeth I and Victoria). It will be interesting to see what effect this has in the upcoming decades. I have no idea.

Obama is doing a good job with the easy parts of being president after a hated administration. Reverse the bad stuff that the last president did. Signaling a closure of Gitmo, stopping torture, and closing the CIA black site prisons are all good. We'll see how much it is actually carried through. Reaffirming FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) is also beneficial and will allow people to dig up stuff that is still buried. And we know there is still an awful lot to uncover. Saying that he's willing to talk unconditionally to Iran is also good. Although the media keeps persisting in the lie that Iran has any sort of nuclear weapon program, they don't. Calling on Israel to open the Gaza borders is also a good thing. Eliminating the ban on funds going to aid agencies who include family planning is a good thing.

The economy is obviously the #1 issue for Obama. He has the Establishment's heavyweights around him, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, etc. and they are going to push forth the Establishment's solution to the economy, which is basically a Keynesian solution (Keynes is a famous economist). Basically, to get out of a severe recession or depression, you raise demand in the economy by massively increasing government spending and putting people back to work. This done through running up the government's deficit, basically taking money from future generations in order to right the economy. This is their solution and it is the standard economic line given for how FDR got us out of the Great Depression. Now, there are a some people who say FDR prolonged the Great Depression, and it was really just WWII and the fact that Europe was ruined, thus leaving the U.S. by default the economic superpower of the West, which got us out of the Great Depression. I don't know who's right, but I know that the second view is considered fringe. The Establishment right now is trying to turn around the economy, they are losing money around the globe. So with all the political histrionics, you can still expect Obama to get through a $900 billion stimulus package. Now, the danger of that package is that one, a lot of that money will be stolen just like with the TARP $700 billion bailout. We are talking about thieves at the highest levels giving money to their coconspirators all to try and fix an economy collapsing from too many people stealing, creating money out of thin air, and leveraging massive debt that they knew would never be paid off. Secondly, if the economy doesn't turn around, the value of the dollar could suffer. That's actually less of a risk than you would think though, because everyone around the world is suffering. The dollar has actually gained value over the last couple months because no one has faith in anybody's currency. Iceland's economy crashed. UK's economy might be in worse shape than ours. Much of Europe is in recession. Japan is in a recession. China's growth is slowing because if American's aren't buying anything, they have no one to sell to. So in this sense globalization has created a dance where we are all going to go down together.

As far as the wars go, Obama is doing the politically smart thing of making them a lower priority. He can still get out of Iraq on schedule in 16 months though. Obama killed his first innocent people the other day, in a drone attack in Pakistan that killed a few women and children along with the standard line that "senior al queda leaders" were killed. There have been thousands of "senior al queda leaders" over the last 7+ years. If al queda actually existed according to the description of the US government half the people in the middle east would have to be al queda. Obama's plans to double the troops in Afghanistan is idiotic. You think Iraq is bad, Iraq actually had a structured country in the 70s, 80s, and 90s with a healthy middle class and government agencies, universities, manufacturing, modern military, etc. You know what Afghanistan had at that time? Warlords, opium, and religious extremists in the 70s. Warlords, opium, and religious extremists armed by the CIA and trained by Pakistani ISI in the 80s. Warlords, opium, and religious extremists once armed by the CIA and continuing to be trained by Pakistani ISI in the 90s. And now warlords, opium, and religious extremists once armed by the CIA and continuing to be trained by Pakistani ISI who hate the USA. There is no nation. There hasn't been anything resembling a nation for decades. The recognized leader of Afghanistan, Karzai, controls the city of Kabul. That's about it. And he's barely doing that. We have no objective in Afghanistan other than to kill people who hate us and cause more people to hate us. And Obama is going forward full speed ahead.

Well, the Bush era is ending very quietly. I will admit I didn't think it would end like this. After all of the well documented illegal acts like torture, secret prisons, wars of aggression, spying, and violations of civil liberties, I thought that Bush would feel a little nervous that his administrations actions couldn't be adequately covered up. The internet has caused too much non-propaganda related information to spread quickly, and Bush's co-conspirators in Congress like Democratic congresspersons Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller couldn't stem the inundations of calls from constituents demanding investigations of the Bush administration. But Bush has made it out to retirement in Dallas. He did not escalate the middle east war into Iran despite being pressured to by the right wing Israelis and neocons here in America. He did not use some domestic emergency, real or staged, to suspend the Constitution or stay in office. He did not end up pushing the world to the brink of a region wide Middle East War. After all the destruction and desolation he has meted out, at least there is a blessing in what he didn't end up doing the last year or so in office. Now Bush will cede power as being the most unpopular president around the world in recent history.

Obama has finished filling the major posts in his administration.  I'll list them below and go into what I believe the overall cabinet tells us about Obama and the bipartisan ruling establishment in DC.

Vice President: Joe Biden
Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
Treasury Secretary:  Timothy Geithner
Attorney General: Eric Holder
Commerce Secretary: Bill Richardson
Homeland Security Secretary: Janet Napolitano
UPDATE:
Secretary of Veteran Affairs: Eric Shinseki

Other key picks:
Chief Economic Advisor: Larry Summers
Chief of Staff: Rahm Emmanuel
UN Ambassador: Susan Rice
National Security Advisor: Gen. Jim Jones

Obama has been widely praised by the mainstream media for these picks, and is enjoying anywhere from 67-78% approval rating right now (much higher than Bush or Clinton or Bush Sr. had going into office), with similar approval levels for his picks.  Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Obama is a hell of a politician.  There is a reason why he knocked over famous establishment picks like Hillary Clinton and John McCain.  The guy is a very, very savvy politician.  I didn't think we'd see someone as naturally gifted as Bill Clinton for a long time, but Obama is showing impressive political intuition and skill.  He is making sure with his picks that he basically has the entire middle of the country to him, with not being too offensive to his left flank that he loses them.  That's why he is at around 70% support.  He has also neutralized two major establishment bases of power, the Bushes and the Clintons.  They will not throw him under the bus.  He neutralized the Bushes by keeping Gates.  If you don't know much about Robert Gates, think about this:  Bush Sr. (Poppy Bush), ran the CIA in the 70s.  He chose Gates to run the CIA for him in the late 80s.  Gates was involved in or knew about all the Bush dirt that he did in the 70s and 80s.  Iran Contra, etc.  Bush Sr. would never let a lightweight run the CIA. Gates is one of the smartest guys the Bush clan has.  He was brought in to W's cabinet to clean up Rumsfeld's mess.  Now he'll finish cleaning up Bush's mess in Iraq for Obama.  The Clintons are now personally invested in Obama's success with Hillary running the State department.  There's still an outside chance of Hillary running at age 68 in 2016.  She was too ambitious to sit in the Senate.  Even if she helped some kind of universal health care pass, people would contrast how Hillarycare died in 1993 while Obama got it passed.  Obama now coopts the legions of Clintonites who will talk up everything Obama and Hillary do as far as foreign policy.  Hillary will not be trying to cause trouble.  Obama is too popular for her to try shenanigans because they would be blamed on her. 

2. The economic crisis is real and the Establishment is suffering.  The bubble bursting in the last four months was not a planned destruction of the world wide economy.  Sure some people knew it was coming, but they didn't want to see it and they are trying to turn it around.  The big bankers stole hundreds of billions of dollars from the bailout "solution," but they are also worried about the global downturn.  Obama has the best guys the Establishment has on his team.  Larry Summers has been a top guy for a couple decades.  I believe he'll replace Bernanke when his 7 year term is up.  I don't know Geithner but if he was head of the New York Fed, you know he's one of the establishment's TOP, TOP financial guys.  The decades long scheme by the establishment and the federal reserve to print money and make money off of increasing debt is starting to show itself as an unsustainable model.  Once you turn everything into a credit card, like houses, eventually people max out all their credit cards and you can't think of anything else to give them as a credit card.   The dollar is strengthening compared to other currencies because every one is suffering so the most prolific currency looks the best long term.  The Establishment is NOT trying to crash the dollar right now.  They want Obama to use their top guys to turn things around and try not to crash the dollar even though their solution is to spend their way into creating economic growth.

3. The neocons have been pushed to the side.  Obama's foreign policy will not be neocon in nature.  It will be like the foreign policy of Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton.  This is by no means perfect, and definitely not fair or moral, but it's a lot better than the neocons running things in my opinion.  The bipartisan foreign policy establishment of people like Brent Scowcroft, Madeline Albright, Jim Baker, Colin Powell, Wesley Clark, John Kerry, etc. will influence Hillary, Jim Jones, and Joe Biden.  It won't be Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle.  Iraq has officially failed as a neocon mission.  Remember, Iraq was billed as being something that would be so successful that we will want to repeat the scenario in Syria, Iran, etc.  That has failed utterly.  Now the Establishment is just hoping that maybe the U.S. won't be embarrassed on its way out, and maybe the worst of the ethnic cleansing has already happened that come 2011, 2012, and 2013 you won't see several hundred thousand Iraqis die the way we've seen a million Iraqis die in the last five plus years.  Obama's foreign policy focus will be Afghanistan & Pakistan, not Iran, which is good as well.  You notice, you don't hear so much breathless news things about Iran and nuclear weapons.  Why?  Because it was completely made up in the first place.  Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program.  It was all neocon propaganda trying to get Bush and Cheney to attack Iran.  Now, with Iran's money troubles with the price of oil below $45, Obama and Hillary Clinton should have a fairly easy time getting Iran to agree to more inspections of their benign nuclear power program in exchange for economic incentives, thus making it look like they 'solved' the Iran problem.  The main thing is, Obama's establishment people aren't trying to start another phony war.  They have too many other things to do.  I'll talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan (and India) in another post.
UPDATE: Obama on Sunday made his pick of Sec. of Vet Affairs, General Shinseki.  This pick is a giant middle finger to the neocons.  If you remember, Shinseki was pushed out by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the other neocons for having the audacity to tell congress that walking in to Iraq with only a couple hundred thousand troops would end very badly.  Of course he was correct.

4.  Obama's domestic policy will be a fairly standard democratic establishment one:  I've written many times before about when a democrat is in office, the establishment does certain things and when a republican is in office, the establishment does certian things.  Obama will be no different.  Eric Holder, a Clintonite, will run the justice department the way it was under Bill.  Which is actually an improvement compared to what Bush did with Gonzales.  Overall, there will be more regulations and more spending on people in need.  More spending on healthcare, education, employment programs, infrastructure development, etc.  Republican presidents increase spending just like Democrats, but the spending increases are focused in different areas.  Obama will increase spending on veteran benefits rather than a new missile defense system, for example.  Obama will increase spending on health without regards to religious qualms.  Although the Republican mantra is small government solutions, you have seen how the Republican establishment treats real small government proponents like Ron Paul.  Of course the problem for us out of the mainstream is that a fairly standard democratic administration will seem so good after the clowns who were there under the Bush administration.  Competence is already being seen as manna from heaven.  The bar is so low for Obama right now it's ridiculous.  And the only thing that could bring him down is the economy not turning around.  And as I wrote earlier in this post, the establishment definitely wants the economy turned around and they have their best people with Obama trying to turn it around.  If Obama fails to turn around the economy, it will be the entire financial establishment who has failed. 

I think some new strategies need to be undertaken by those of us who would be described as members of the fringe in America.  It has nothing to do with numbers, there are plenty of us, but because many of the things we espouse are either ignored or mentioned with derision on television, I'm just using the word fringe to collectively describe us as an overall group.  You may belong to one or probably many of these groups I'm talking about:

Supporters of Ron Paul for president
Supporters of Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, or Cynthia McKinney for president
Supporters of Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, or Ralph Nader for president
Member of a political party besides Democratic and Republican (Libertarian, Constitution, Green, Socialist, etc.)
Strongly anti-Federal Reserve
Supporters of the 9/11 truth movement
Consider yourself part of the "Patriot movement"
Strongly anti-neocon
Strongly believe the U.S. is too pro-Israel or pro-zionist
Strongly against interventionist foreign policy
Consider the U.S. an "empire" with its 700 military installations around the globe
Believers that the U.S. government has been involved with terrorist groups and terrorist acts around the globe for decades.
Believers that the leadership of both major political parties act in concert with each other against the American people at least some of the time
Believers that both major parties have been and still are working deliberately over time to strip Constitutional rights and freedoms from the American people
Believers in a North American Union / eventual world government conspiracy
Believers in satanic agendas and ritual among the U.S. and world elite
Fans of Alex Jones and others like him
Detractors of mainstream or traditional media

I know I'm missing other big categories but you get the point.  Some of these viewpoints and groups have been around for a long time (e.g. North American Union, anti-Federal Reserve while others have exploded in recent years especially online (e.g. Ron Paul, 9/11 Truth).  How do we effectively move ahead, now that U.S. voters have rejected the Bush years and the establishment now must back at left leaning president for the next four years?  Here's my advice:

1. Cut the racist/bigoted crap.  This is the same advice I gave to the Republican ticket in this election.  While they didn't promote it, they didn't stop it, and the videos and stories and Youtubes of their rallies cost them dearly with young and independent voters.  People do not want to be associated with bigotry and racism period.  This is especially true for those of us who's base of support and contacts is online.  An example of this is Ralph Nader asking if Obama is going to be an Uncle Tom  All this does is render salient points ineffective.  Using racially offensive ways to describe Obama will do nothing except turn off the people you want to be communicating with. 

2. Focus on Bush.  Yes, that's right.  A good thrust to make in the next few months and maybe the first year of Obama's presidency, before he's actually done anything to call him out on, is to focus on the presidency of George W. Bush.  There are so many illegal, immoral, and unethical things that have occurred under his administration.  And although people in the 'fringe' community are aware of them, there are a lot of people who just refused to listen to us because it is terrifying and shaming to think of your president being part of those acts.  But once Bush is seen to be in the past, those same people will be able to listen to the facts.  An example of this is LBJ's shady activities surrounding the Kennedy assassination, or George H.W. Bush's activities surrounding Iran-Contra.  People are fine with looking at critical things once the president is out of power, but get squirmy while they are still in power.  By 1990, without the internet, the American people had a large majority believing that Oswald wasn't a sole assassin of JFK.  I think 9/11 truth could skyrocket in the next few years.  We could get 75-80% believing that the Bush administration with the help of the mainstream media deliberately lied this country into the Iraq war.  That could go a long way in discrediting the mainstream media as a legitimate source of news.

3. We must come up with a way to unite.  Some of the groups that I listed above war with each other, like the pro-9/11 truth Ron Paul supporters and the anti-9/11 truth Ron Paul supporters, or the believers in a satanic elite vs. the believers in a zionist controlled elite.  There is a lot of spent energy that does nothing except distract the collective members of the fringe.  We have to be able to bury the infighting and focus on getting things done like raising the public awareness of domestic spying supported by both sides of the aisle, raising the public awareness that innocent people were tortured to death under the Bush administration, and raising the curious nature of America's supposed hunt for Bin Laden over the last seven years.

4.  Focus on what Obama has done, instead of asserting what he might do.  Ranting that "Obama is going to do so and so, this and that," just makes a listener think to themselves, well, I'll just wait and see.  And they'll also be thinking that you aren't giving Obama a chance.  For example, you can't make headway with a statement like, "Obama's going to keep us in Iraq."  Maybe he will.  But no one knows that, so saying it isn't effective at all.  Statements like, "Obama voted for FISA," and "Obama pledged to increase soldiers in Afghanistan and attacks into Pakistan, do you think that will work?" are far more effective.  People in the fringe need to accept that Obama is wildly popular in the world right now, for the primary reason of not being Bush.  While people are more amenable right now to hearing about how terrible Bush is, they will be less amenable to hearing how terrible Obama is going to be.  And in this political and economic climate, attacking Obama for being just a regular democratic politician will be just like giving him praise.  55-60% of this country liked the way things were going under Bill Clinton, and that was with Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, and Paula Jones.  A democratic politician who is a good family man, following the disastrous Bush administration and the Jerry Springer-like Clinton administration is basically golden at this point. 

I wrote this back in the spring, and frankly nothing has changed.  I just cut and pasted from the earlier post, and eliminated the part about Hillary Clinton.  The last 6 months has been boring beyond belief, as far as the presidential race has gone.  A lot of bells and whistles, but it all boiled down to this.  Obama saying McCain=Bush over and over in different ways, and McCain calling Obama a scary black Muslim terrorist socialist in different ways. 

Like it or not, there are only 2 people who will possibly lead this country and be the most powerful person on the planet in 2009, John McCain or Barack Obama.  Neither of them was my first choice for president, but they are the ones left standing.  The choice between the two I think is fairly easy.  I'll break each person down individually.

JOHN MCCAIN

This picture pretty much tells it all.  John McCain has reluctantly, pathetically, and dangerously embraced the centerpieces of George W. Bush's disastrous and criminal presidency.  But let me start with the good things about him.  He's a true war hero who courageously served this country, and lost years of his life being held captive for his effort.

The problems?  He's a converted neoconservative.  He actually believes that we should go around the world and bomb whoever we want and not care about the consequences.  He believes that we should occupy Iraq for a 100 years.  He thinks the war was a great idea in the first place, and the surge is going wonderfully, and that we should bomb Iran. Following Ron Paul's candidacy, I've seen plenty of debates where McCain spews the most idiotic things about the war and foreign policy.  He thinks guys in caves with AK-47s are as dangerous as Hitler.  Go to youtube and find Ron Paul / John McCain debate exchanges.  If you are an anti-war Republican or right-leaning independent, do not vote for McCain because you think he'll end the war.  I don't know why I have to even say this, but I do, because amazingly McCain got the majority of the antiwar Republican vote.  McCain has neocon foreign policy advisers like Bill Kristol.  If that doesn't make you sweat, do some research into "neoconservatives" and "PNAC (Project for a New American Century)".  Basically, if you liked the Bush presidency, vote for McCain.  The other centerpiece of Bush's presidency was his tax cuts during a time of war that caused the national debt to balloon to over 10 trillion dollars.  McCain would continue this policy, even though he initially was against it, to the tune of adding 4 trillion more dollars in debt.  If you think the value of the dollar is horrible now, think about what it will be after a few years of McCain.

The other big problems with McCain are his personal attributes.  He isn't too bright.  He wouldn't have gotten into the Naval Academy if it weren't for the fact that his father and grandfather were famous admirals.  And then at the Naval Academy he was a horrible student and finished fifth from the bottom of his class.  Does that kind of pedigree remind you of anyone?  Also, he has a famous temper.  Some of his GOP colleagues are afraid of someone with his temperament being in charge of the most powerful military the world has ever seen.  If they're nervous, we should be terrified.  He also thinks he is mister squeaky clean, with the utmost integrity.  But he's surrounded by lobbyists throughout his campaign.  He was involved in the Keating 5 scandal (look it up).  The only thing worse than a dirty politician is a dirty politician who thinks he's a saint.  (I wrote all of that in the spring, and nothing has changed except that the American people got to see his temperament under pressure with the stock market crisis and they did not like what they saw.)

BARACK OBAMA

..

Since it's obvious I think he's the best of the two, let me start out with my problems with Barack Obama.  First, he's just your average politician, as far as the level of his political courage and level of conviction.  He'll lie, he'll go against principle, he'll make empty promises, etc.  Because he hasn't been in the public eye that long, when he peddles bullshit banalities, they sound less stale.  Close your eyes, and imagine McCain, Clinton, Joe Biden, Arlen Specter, John Kerry, George Bush Sr., or any old familiar politician saying his speeches.  Doesn't sound that good does it?  He also is advised by many of the same DC establishment figures (like Brzezinski, Powell) who have been running this country into the ground the last few decades.  Many of them jumped into his camp early on because they want to continue their horrible ideologies but they felt the country would be too tired of the Clintons so they latched on to him.  Obama won't bring that much significant change because of all of the people around him, and just how entrenched the power is in this country.  Believe me, if he was really going to change DC, the media would have destroyed him a long time ago, so that he would have no chance of getting on the ticket of a major party. 

His candidacy also gives a lot of the behind the scenes crooks an easy out.  Most of America and most of the world knows how terribly the U.S. has acted in recent years, and many people know that the Bushes and Clintons are intertwined.  An Obama presidency would give off the vibe that America is totally different now, as far away from the Bush presidency as you can get, yet none of the crooks under Bush will ever get indicted, and many of them will keep their jobs.  America will appear more different than it actually will be in 2009, which is good for these establishment scumbags.

Obama will also not address some of the fundamental and underlying problems we face as a nation, like the falling value of the dollar or the national debt.  The interventionist foreign policy that causes many of our problems around the world will continue.  We will still have the Federal Reserve printing money like gangbusters and we'll still be meddling in and policing every corner of the globe.  One day this will cause our financial collapse, and Obama will only keep moving us toward that day.  We will save some money by having troops home from Iraq but that money will be spent on the domestic plans Obama has proposed (it's still better to spend it on programs here than spend it on wrecking, rebuilding, re-wrecking, re-rebuilding Iraq). 

So, now on to the good things.  Barack Obama isn't as tightly in the fold of the establishment as John McCain.  He shouldn't even be here in this election.  This was supposed to be Hillary's turn.  The longer you are in D.C., the more ties the establishment throws on you (or they marginalize you like Ron Paul).  He's only been there 3+ years, so he isn't as deep into the criminality and corruption as McCain.  He may have some shady advisers, but his campaign isn't owned by lobbyists and the military industrial complex like McCain's.  This makes a huge difference.   Have you noticed some of the scum hanging around the McCain campaign (Lieberman, Kristol, Phil Gramm, Rove's main protege Schmidt, Giuliani, his running mate that moron Sarah Palin? ) 

Obama's campaign has been funded on a grassroots level, with the most number of donors (now over 3 million) ever seen in a primary election.  So if Obama wins, he won't owe favors like his big donor opponent will.  He's also run his campaign competently.  Neither he nor McCain has any real executive experience, so the most significant thing they've actually run has been this campaign.  Obama has run a very smooth campaign and has run fiscally smart.  John McCain's campaign basically went bankrupt twice in this election, and he had to leverage his email contact list to a bank to get a few more million dollars to keep it running last winter.  This doesn't bode will for how he will run our three trillion dollar annual federal budget. 

Obama is also the only candidate left who has an actual movement.  Ron Paul had a movement, but since he was a 'fringe' candidate, the movement was smaller.  Having a movement means that people will actually get off their ass to help you do what you want to do.  I'd rather have a candidate with a movement win than a candidate without one because the one without one will easily just absorb themselves in D.C. backroom wheeling and dealing, never caring about what their public base actually thinks.  Young people are voting in numbers that we haven't seen before, and many people who usually don't get involved in politics are flocking to Obama's campaign.  Less apathy is a good thing, even though I personally think some people are fooled by what Obama can actually bring, or just getting involved because he's the rock star. 

Obama will sit down and talk with countries who we have problems with.  This is a big difference between him and McCain.  This makes it less likely we'll end up in a new war in the next few years.  With the Iran issue on the horizon, I want the next president to be the least likely to start a war with Iran that could bring the entire middle east to flames.  He'll also bring troops home from Iraq, and I actually believe him.  The main reason is that he was not involved in this strategic disaster in the first place.  I can't stress how important electing a person who did not aid and abet Bush with the Iraq invasion is.  We need to send a signal to every politician for the next generation that playing politics with a war vote and sending brave American troops into war under false pretenses will never be rewarded.  I want Hillary Clinton to go to her grave knowing that she could have been president if she had voted against invading Iraq.  Although I find many other politicians spoke in a more detailed and eloquent manner against the war (like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, hell even Pat my bigotry is starting to show Buchanan), Obama had the basics a lot better than McCain.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

Barack Obama will also close down Guantanamo, and restore habeas corpus.  He'll stop torture.  You would think that McCain would do these things, but he won't, as he voted against banning torture several months ago.  So sad.  Obama is also a strong proponent of opening up government, especially using technology and the internet, so that we can actually see what's going on in D.C.  The more we see, the more corrupt stuff we can catch in the information age.  Maybe we can get to the bottom of the next big cover up more quickly if Obama is president and enacts those policies.  He's released all of his tax returns and medical records, unlike McCain.  If the only thing they have on him is the Rezko thing (which he cleared up to the satisfaction of both major Chicago newspapers a couple weeks ago), Reverend Wright, and knowing Bill Ayers, that's pretty clean for a politician.  He'll also enact policies with data and science in mind, not just ideologies like Bush and McCain.

So there you have it.  If you are voting with conviction for a third party candidate like the Green (Cynthia McKinney), Libertarian (Bob Barr), Constitution party (Chuck Baldwin, endorsed by Ron Paul), Independent party (Ralph Nader), or writing in your favorite candidate (Paul, Kucinich, etc.) I understand and wholeheartedly support your decision.  But if you are trying to decide between the two main candidates that's my take.  The choice is clear for Obama.  He'll go away from Bush policies, he has less ties to the DC lobbyists, he wasn't involved in taking us into Iraq, he'll close Gitmo and restore habeas corpus, and his campaign is funded by a grassroots coalition instead of special interests. 

This is crucial.  Everyone needs to vote.  Especially people from demographics who have historically voted at rates less than the average, such as young people, black people, and Hispanics.  You don't have to vote for Barack Obama.  I don't care who you vote for, but you must vote this election.  This is the first true internet election.  This is the first post-Myspace, post-facebook, post-Youtube election.  This is the first election since blogging became mainstream.  It's very important to show that you are engaged through voting.  And because Barack Obama is a political rock star who's popular on the 'net and with minorities, political observers will be watching those demographics closely.

It doesn't matter if you vote for Barack Obama, or John McCain, or Bob Barr (Libertarian), or Cynthia McKinney (Green), or Ralph Nader (Independent), or Chuck Baldwin (Constitution), or writing in Ron Paul, or Howard Zinn, or even Stephen Colbert.  It doesn't matter.  The news sites will all be looking at how much of an increase there was in voting this year.  If there isn't much of an increase in certain groups, they will be written off after this.  Just go to the polls and vote if you are registered.  I don't care if you don't have a strong affinity to anyone.  Go to the polls and write in your own name.  We must show strength at the polls in 2008 if we expect to build upon what has gone on in the last couple years.  The power of fundraising over the internet has been proven and has gotten people's attention.  Ron Paul's money bombs, Obama's insane September fundraising of $150 million have all shocked the political world.  But nothing is as visceral as seeing millions of people vote who haven't ever voted before.

I know some of you are worried about vote machine rigging.  It doesn't matter.  We still need as many people as possible to show up to the polls.  Whether or not your vote gets flipped by benign error or something more sinister, it still will be counted and it still will make a difference.  If you are angry about the $850 billion bailout, you must show up at the polls.  Just vote against your congressperson if they voted for the bailout, and vote for one of the other presidential candidates (both Obama and McCain voted for it).  Just show up at the polls and vote.

I haven't seen anything more predictable in a long time.  I said last week the race was going to get ugly and it has.  But what gets me the most is just how boring this thing is.

America hates Bush.  Americans want the Republicans thrown out for supporting Bush.  Americans are worried about the economy and blame Bush and the Republicans more than the Democrats.  Because of these things, John McCain can't win in 2008.  It's just that simple.  Don't we all know this by now? 

McCain can't win, but the only thing he can do to knock Obama is come up with new ways to say Obama is a scary black Muslim terrorist.  I mean c'mon.

Ayers!  Palling around with terrorists!  Obama bin lyin!  Terrorists!  Obama=Osama!  Black people voting!  ACORN!  Rezko!  Obama is Arab!  Muslims!  Reverend Wright!  Obama & Farakhan!  Obama is Kenyan and African!  Obama wasn't born in America!  Scary!  Terrorists coming to kill you!

That's McCain's best material.  It is beyond pathetic.  These are going to be the longest 3 weeks ever.  You can say Obama is a scary black Muslim terrorist a million times, but it doesn't matter because Americans hate Bush and are worried about the economic disaster they blame the Republicans for.   Barring Obama being found in bed with a live boy/dead girl, or an assassination, he's going to be the next president. 

As an aside, I think we should do a national poll, after the election is over, when people have some time to calm down from the democratic vs. republican fervor, and ask Americans if they would be comfortable with Sarah Palin as being leader of the free world as President of the United states.  Whatever % of people say yes, that's how many morons we have in our country.  We can't do anything about it, but it would kind of be nice to have an accurate count. 

Another aside, isn't it funny that after the bankers got their 700 billion dollars, selling it that we HAD to do a specific plan of buying up all the bad debt with that money, they get their money, take some time, and then do an entirely different plan of partially nationalizing all the major banks.   It's like, 'Give us the damn money!' now, let me think about how to use this money to best benefit us.  And not a peep from Congress or the President or the mainstream media on the reality that Congress should vote on this new plan.  If we had a democracy that wasn't run at the top by a bipartisan establishment, as soon as the Treasury Secretary said I actually want to try a different plan and use 250 billion initially to nationalize major banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Congress should have repealed the 700 bailout and reconvened to vote on the nationalize banks & buy up bad credit new plan.  It's an appropriations bill, a bill related to where the taxpayers' money is going to.  Constitutionally there shouldn't be any blank check appropriations bills.  The American people have the right to vote on where their money is going to.  You can't say, vote on your money going to buy up 700 billion of bad credit, and then use at least 250 billion of that money to nationalize U.S. banks.  But sadly, we aren't living in a Constitutional based representative democracy any more.  It's a weird oligarchy masquarading as one. 

 

McCain has basically lost the election at this point.  The mainstream media won't tell you that because for ratings purposes, they need the race to be neck and neck and will do whatever they can to try and make it that way.  But by the numbers, the poll average is basically 50-51% for Obama and 42-44% for McCain.  Even if the remaining 5-8% break mainly for McCain, you are looking at a race where the closest margin will be Obama 51%, McCain 48% but could go as high as Obama 55%, McCain 44%.

The main problem for McCain is of course Bush.  Bush is now, by the Gallup poll which has been around for 71 years, the most disliked president in the history of presidential polls.  He has a 70% disapproval rating.  And a -45% net approval rating.  While Nixon got a 1% approval rating lower than Bush, 24 compared to 25%, he never had a disapproval or net approval as bad as Bush.  Same with Harry Truman who got 3 points lower than Bush.  Jimmy Carter was never as low as Bush.  I have no idea who are the 25% in this country who still approve of Bush, because it's nobody I know.  The American people want to get as far away from Bush as possible (around 12% like the direction the country is going in right now) and in terms of policy, Obama would clearly be less like Bush than McCain.

The second problem for McCain is that the number one issue is the economy.  The economy is always the democrats' strong suit.  When it's going well, the Republicans can get people to vote based on social issues like gay marriage or single issues like gun control.  But when the economy is bad, the American people prefer to have people in power who at least pretend to care about middle and working class Americans and struggling families.  No one cares about gay marriage right now.  People don't care that much even about Iraq.  People care about jobs, wages, 401ks, stocks, health care costs, and gas prices.  Obama beats McCain handily in economic issues.  McCain's one big chance to flip things was the $700 billion bailout bill.  If he was a true conservative with principles, he would have opposed it like the majority of Republicans in congress.  But he took his marching orders from the bankers and voted for the bill with Obama.  He would have had a chance against Obama if he were a true maverick and voted and ran against the bill. 

The third problem for McCain is Palin.  No one can believably say that Palin is prepared to be president.  If you are 72 years old and you've had four bouts of cancer, picking a moron with no experience studying national or international issues (outside of drilling for oil) is not a reassuring mood.  Palin should be a national embarrassment.  She is around the globe.  No wonder Bush won twice, if Americans get excited because a woman shoots moose, winks, and uses poor grammar.  She may excite the deadenders (people who still love Bush) but a lot of people are worried about the stewardship of this country with all the serious problems and don't want to put someone like her in a position where she may be the steward of this economy.

Enough people have soured on the McCain/Palin ticket that the state of the race is as follows:  Obama is winning all the states that Kerry won by comfortable margins.  You need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.  Kerry won 252.  Obama is also comfortably ahead in Iowa (7 votes) and New Mexico (5 votes) to have a base of 264 right now.  From there, he only needs to win one of the following eight battle ground states to win the presidency: Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, and Indiana.  Since the economic crisis has began, Obama has moved ahead in seven of those eight states.  The only one he is behind in right now is Indiana, by about a point.  If the race ended today, Obama would win the presidency in about as big a win as Clinton got over Dole in 1996 (with assist from Perot). 

So what will McCain/Palin do?  Go racist.  Go fear mongering.  Go hate mongering.  They are calling Obama a terrorist.  They are calling him 'unamerican'.  And there are plenty of nervous people out there eating it up.  I expect nothing less than the ugliest four weeks we've seen in American politics since I've been alive.  I don't think the establishment cares who wins.  McCain is a known quantity to them with the right kind of psychological quirks to be a useful tool as a right wing president.  Obama is in Hillary Clinton's spot, but I think he's shown himself to be a good politician and has won over enough of the establishment to convince them he can be a successful left leaning president for them just like Bill Clinton was.  McCain will most likely have a free hand to smear Obama as much as he wants, and Palin is practically frothing at the mouth to get at Obama.  It won't be pretty folks, starting with tonight's second debate.