35 posts tagged “mccain”
Did I mention that I got four Republican mailings this weekend and picked up my boss’s phone to four robo calls from the Republicans this morning? I got a real education, let me tell ya!
Have you ever been in a tough spot without health insurance, yet in need of medical care by no faulty of your own? I have. I remember a season of our lives when our dogs saw the vet more than we saw the dr. And even though we have health insurance now, I live like we don’t. My recent visit to the Doc trying to figure out my pain condition racked up well over a thousand dollars of stuff that insurance wouldn’t touch and we’re still working at paying that. So no, even though I have been struggling with a bad cold and very likely should go to the Dr for some antibiotics… I’m not going to. I can’t afford it right now. I don’t know if Obama’s health care plan would help me or not, (doubt it) but I think it’s good if SOMEONE out there is being helped. I remember when my husband was working construction and cut himself pretty badly. I insisted that he go to the emergency room and he just about came unglued as I drove him there because we both knew we had no way to pay for the visit, but felt we had to go. It took us a while but we paid it off.
Have you heard the recent talk from the Republicans? According to a robo call I got in the office this morning, Obama wants to take money out of YOUR pocket and give it to the LAZY. Yep, those uninsured sick people. Like me. Like my hubby.
I remember a time when hubby and I were both working at part time volunteers at our church, and combined with our regular jobs we worked long hours. And we struggled to make ends meet from time to time. Isn’t volunteering a Republican value? Aren’t faith based organizations that are working in improve their community (I ran a food pantry among other things) a Republican value? I was a little underemployed at that time, though I don’t know how I would have fit more working hours around my other responsibilities. Obama wants to take money out of YOUR pocket and give it to the LAZY. Yep, those people who are so involved in doing something they think is really important that they don’t have a tremendous amount of time to work… you know – like mothers… Lazy volunteers, Lazy mothers, Lazy dads.
There was a time after we’d move from Indiana to Virginia that we had a mortgage on a house on the market in Indiana and a house we were renting in Virginia, plus two sets of utilities. We worked our asses off to make it through that year. We were doing whatever it took to make it. I worked construction and we took on anything we could to make money in those days. We didn’t go to the government for handouts, we just survived, sometimes just barely. I don’t know if we would have qualified for some kind of assistance or not, we didn’t have time to spend in some government office to find out. Just remember, Obama wants to take money out of your pocket and give it to the LAZY… like us back then.
If you’ve ever been uninsured and in need of health care, the Republicans are talking about you. If you’ve ever hit a rough patch and worked many hours but still didn’t have enough to make your bills, the Republicans are talking about you. If you were ever home taking care of the kids and working whenever you could, the Republicans are talking about you. Do you have friends or family that have been through a rough patch and needed some temporary help? The Republicans are talking about them also. Yeah, the Republicans want you to get good and mad that Obama wants to take money out of YOUR pocket and give it to the LAZY. But those LAZY people vote also. And there are a heck of a lot of us. And I’m just wondering how calling Americans LAZY is supposed to get them to vote for McCain? I’m really confused!
Thank God this will be over soon (except for the legal wrangling.) All you LAZY LAZY people,
Please. Go. Vote!
The first few days of November have brought significant changes to the electoral collage numbers. There are now nine states in the “toss up” category where there had been only seven last week. And the margin heading toward Obama has slipped from 311 to 278 electoral collage votes. Now one only needs 270 to win, and I don’t see any math that could get McCain the top job based on these numbers, but the win does not look as broad as it earlier appeared.
The states now in question and leaning toward McCain include: Missouri, Indiana, Georgia, Montana, and Arizona. All of these states went to Bush twice. The toss up states now expected to go to Obama include Florida, Virginia, and Ohio. All of these states went to Bush twice. The one state considered a “tie” at the moment is North Carolina.
Even if all the “toss up” states went to McCain it would bring him to a total of 260 electoral votes, and the total needed is 270. I am really surprised that it is getting this close.
On the other hand, in my mail box this weekend were five fliers from different Republican interests. And my husband and I use cell phones only so we’ve been missing the onslaught of phone calls. However at work I get the messages for a local gentlemen who used to be mayor of our town. And on his messages this morning were five calls from the McCain campaign. Now usually I listen to them all the way through just to see which scare tactic they are using this time but not this morning. Seems like mainly it’s the “Obama is out to get your money and give it to lazy Americans.” Sad really, that a campaign would resort to class warfare. Oh well, it is what it is.
Please vote. No matter how long you have to stand in line, no matter how much propaganda you have to wade through, please, please vote.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=5
In a recent post I talked about letting my family in on the little secret of my political leanings, including the link to my blog. We had a dinner party Saturday evening together to celebrate three birthdays and it was a lovely time with excellent food and the miracle of us all around the same table.
So here are excerpts from the political conversation between my family (who will vote against Barack Obama – not for John McCain) and us (my hubby and I who are voting for Barack Obama this year.)
Riveting isn’t it?!
Yep, that’s it. Those are the highlights. It’s all there. Practically word for word.
My Mom was the only one to actually respond to my email, and her comment was in a phone call before the party. She said her “prayer was that we could all come together in unity as a family for this evening.” Which struck me as quite odd since this isn’t a group that fights with each other. After thinking awhile I chalked that comment up to the fact that I “came out.”
So there you have it. I guess this was one of those town hall meetings that McCain keeps talking about. And I was totally looking forward to hearing their thoughts. Tsk!
(The second in a series about the reasons for my vote on November 4th.)
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
I’ve been thinking about this now for a while. What does it mean to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly in an election year? I think it means that we need to be careful and discerning when making the important choice of how to vote.
WAR IN IRAQ
Early on in this political season, the War in Iraq was the central debate of the year. Since then many things have transpired that pushed this issue to the back burner of the debate between candidates. On the Republican side McCain was the strongest possible voice in praise of this war, even ramping it up and calling for the surge, which by some opinions has been successful. On the other side was a rather uncongenial conversation between Democrats on who was right on this issue from the start, Clinton and Edwards both offered limited support initially while Obama condemned the Bush Administration’s choice.
The genesis of this war is of little consequence now, whether it was faulty intelligence, proclivity for paranoia, and/or manipulation of American media with outright lies, the fact is that the American people supported this President in this war at its inception. And so we find ourselves in this mess that has drawn on and on. And we share the blame, having been equally hoodwinked. How do we face the future in light of that stark reality?
Act Justly, Love Mercy
The attack on American soil on September 11 took 2974 lives plus an additional 24 people who are missing and presumed dead. Well over 100k of our own soldiers have been killed or wounded in the resulting war in Iraq. Iraqi deaths due to the war near 1.3 million. If we think of this in terms of the Old Testament “an eye for an eye” then we should all be blind as we are long past a Just or Merciful response to the events of 9-11. If we think of these events in terms of the New Testament “love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you” then this war is a grim atrocity. It is important to bring this battle to an expedient end, whether or not the conflict among Iraqi’s continues.
And walk humbly…
It is important that we recognize our nationalistic reticence to losing a battle, and that we know it for what it is – arrogance and pride. We have enthroned the golden calf of victory and lost the entire battle over pride. We have chosen the loss of human life, including our own soldiers, over the loss of face. This is to our shame. It is time to humble ourselves, bring our young men and women home and ask for God to have mercy on us and the messes we have made.
Unfortunately, the War in Iraq was not enough of a crime against humanity, the additional crimes have included torture, extraordinary rendition and the concentration camps of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. With the War in Iraq came the Bush Administration’s unwillingness to uphold international law in the form of the Geneva Convention on torture.
President George Washington refused torture in the Revolutionary War against the British who treated American prisoners with great cruelty, starvation and torture. Lincoln drafted the first formal code of conduct for the humane treatment of prisoners in 1863 that became the basis for the Geneva Convention. Eisenhower guaranteed honorable treatment of German POWs in WW2 in the war against Hitler. Even in the Korean War and the Vietnam War the United States supported the Geneva Convention. (Source)
And yet, this Administration saw September 11th as a reason to throw our honorable heritage out the window. The Bush Administration cited the fact that the enemy does it to our soldiers. “They” have always done it to our soldiers, a reason that has never been good enough, and still isn’t. And in engaging in this cruelty, and defending its use, we have become no better than the ones we disdain.
Many would like to believe that the torture at Abu Ghraib that brought those shocking photographs to the public was the work of a few rogue soldiers. And while some individuals may have indeed shown a special knack for hurting other humans, the use of torture was not limited to a few isolated events. It was systematic. It was enabled by changes in legal terminology from the Bush Administration that made things like water boarding, hypothermia and stress positions sound mildly uncomfortable instead of life threatening. This legal redefining of terminology to sound less objectionable is familiar. It was exactly the same path the Nazis followed.
The BBC reports that torture is now worse than it was under Sadam Hussein.
Torture is widespread and continues.
The Bush Administration took on Amnesty International on charges of human rights abuses by the US in Iraq.
There is more, but that seems like so much already...
Listening to the Republican National Convention showed the remarkable absence of this issue, except in relation to John McCain’s personal experience. To their credit John McCain and Ron Paul are the only Republican candidates that have spoken out against torture. Senator McCain insists that the US “may not torture, engage in cruel treatment or engage in conduct that shocks the conscience.” He has clearly stated that he is against water boarding and has called the Bush Administrations legal analysis of the use of torture dishonest and flatly wrong. He’s right, this shameful chapter in American history needs to come to a close.
Unfortunately, McCain voted against the Feinstein Amendment that would have accomplished those goals. The debate apparently centers on the application of the Army Field Manual to branches of the military and questions as to what degree the CIA is allowed to use severe and life threatening treatment to extract information from prisoners. It’s a sad state of affairs when politicians wrangle over what degree of abuse of prisoners is expectable, while half a world way prisoners are being tortured and killed.
In McCain’s own words: “The laws and values that have built our nation are a source of strength, not weakness, and we will win the war on terror not in spite of devotion to our cherished values, but because we have held fast to them.” It’s an honorable statement and a marked evaluation of the actions (and silence) of his own party. But in an election year where the candidates are separated by more than shades of grey on this issue – saying you are against torture and yet voting against the Feinstein Amendment is just not a consistant anti-torture stance.
Senator Barack Obama is against torture. In a statement on October 5th, these are Obama’s words: "The secret authorization of brutal interrogations is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security. We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture or kill terrorists, but torture is not a part of the answer - it is a fundamental part of the problem with this administration's approach. Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it. It's time to tell the world that America rejects torture without exception or equivocation. It's time to stop telling the American people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows. No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When I am president America will once again be the country that stands up to these deplorable tactics. When I am president we won't work in secret to avoid honoring our laws and Constitution, we will be straight with the American people and true to our values."
In addition, here is a link to the full text of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on the floor of the US Senate in reaction to S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which approved US torture of detainees and strips Constitutional rights away from detainees.
The war in Iraq, torture, extraordinary rendition and the concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will perhaps be one of the saddest legacies of the Bush Administration. And it’s sadder still for the soldiers who were faced with these unconscionable acts in the course of their service. (One soldier’s story: “I blame myself for our downfall in Iraq.”) And it’s even sadder still for the Iraqi people who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9-11.
In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, while on a bed of straw as a prisoner in the Russian Gulag: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts.”
I would like to see that line between good and evil move toward the Light in this country. And on the issue of the Iraq War and the atrocities that came with it, I prefer John McCain to George W. Bush. And I prefer Barack Obama to John McCain. Because we can and should appeal to our better selves to bring about change in our own hearts, in our country and in the world.
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
I’ve been pondering this verse for a while. What does it mean to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly in an election year? I think it means that we need to be careful and discerning when making the important choice of how to vote.
ABORTION
Some would say that abortion is the single issue that determines a person’s vote this year. I think abortion is wrong and I could not and would not ever abort a child, should that even become an option. Personally I would not even abort my child to save my own life. I would just have to trust that God knows what He is doing when He chooses who lives and dies. But those are my personal beliefs and values. I would not and could not impose them on a nation!
I have five main issues with the abortion debate. I believe the Democratic party is too beholden to the portion of the party that wants to keep abortion legal for any woman, for any reason, at any point in her pregnancy. Each party could stand to shake its more radical elements in this debate.
I find it disingenuous that the Republican Party speaks strongly against abortion and yet did nothing about it at the point when they controlled both houses and the white house for six years. I am also surprised that the party that wants less government intervention really wants to intrude on the sex lives of Americans. These are incongruous thoughts in my opinion.
It is never enough to be against something if you ignore the reasons the problem exists. The abortion rate fell under the Clinton Administration because of a proactive approach to the reasons women wind up in crisis pregnancies. And I’m impressed by Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that the right number of abortions in this country is ZERO. I respect her plan to cut the abortion rate through sex education, money for family planning and requiring health insurers to cover contraceptives. (http://www.slate.com/id/2112712/)
Finally, the debate on abortion should not go without a conversation on adoption. Adoption in this country is difficult, over-legislated and obscenely expensive. John McCain is the only candidate I’ve heard speak compellingly on the issue of making adoption easier and less expensive.
If I were voting on this sensitive issue alone, my vote would go to Hillary Clinton. Too bad that's not an option.
There have been some shifts in the numbers in the news today. There was a dip in New Hampshire’s support for Obama in the last few days but now he appears to be up by 12.4 points now. We have a new ‘toss up’ state in Georgia where support for McCain is waning. Indiana and Montana are both still on the fence but leaning more for McCain as far as we can tell. The 3 point margin of error makes these fence dwellers particularly interesting. Missouri, North Carolina and Florida all appear to be headed for Obama. Florida is still the one to watch with 27 electoral votes. Obama has 311 electoral votes in his column at the moment so Florida isn’t going to swing the election this year from the looks of things, but it may impact how big the win is. Here in Virginia Obama is ahead by 7.6 points, which is pretty amazing considering how strongly Republican the small towns are, balanced by the Democratic majority in the more populated areas.
I’m having my parents and my brother and sister in law and their children over for dinner Saturday evening. And at that meal it will be 4 for McCain and 2 for Obama. It should be an interesting evening.
Sarah Palin glasses, $375, Sarah Palin wardrobe $150,000. Being in this sketch on Saturday Night Live? Priceless!
Holy Smokes! Montana had been leaning toward McCain and now it is a toss up state. Now since Montana only has 3 electoral votes, it’s unlikely that you’re going to see it in the news. The bigger news however, is that Ohio with 20 electoral votes appears to be heading for Obama. Both states went to Bush twice. This is bringing the numbers to Obama 306 electoral votes and McCain at about 157 with toss up of a shrinking 75 electoral votes. This is an upturn for Obama. The states that are in the toss up (within the three point margin of error) are: Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana, and now Montana. Indiana and Montana are expected to go to McCain while the rest go to Obama. This is getting interesting!
