So, this is turning out to be a Clinton game yet once again.

Reported from Alternet:

Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama’s team.

Amid the euphoria over Obama’s election and the end of the Bush era, it is critical to recall what 1990s U.S. foreign policy actually looked like. Bill Clinton’s  boiled down to a one-two punch from the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism. Clinton took office and almost immediately bombed Iraq (ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged plot by Saddam Hussein to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush). He presided over a ruthless regime of economic sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and under the guise of the so-called No-Fly Zones in northern and southern Iraq, authorized the longest sustained U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam.

Under Clinton, Yugoslavia was bombed and dismantled as part of what Noam Chomsky described as the “New Military Humanism.” Sudan and Afghanistan were attacked, Haiti was destabilized and “free trade” deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade radically escalated the spread of corporate-dominated globalization that hurt U.S. workers and devastated developing countries. Clinton accelerated the militarization of the so-called War on Drugs in Central and Latin America and supported privatization of U.S. military operations, giving lucrative contracts to Halliburton and other war contractors. Meanwhile, U.S. weapons sales to countries like Turkey and Indonesia aided genocidal campaigns against the Kurds and the East Timorese.

The prospect of Obama’s foreign policy being, at least in part, an extension of the Clinton Doctrine is real. Even more disturbing, several of the individuals at the center of Obama’s transition and emerging foreign policy teams were top players in creating and implementing foreign policies that would pave the way for projects eventually carried out under the Bush/Cheney administration. With their assistance, Obama has already charted out several hawkish stances. Among them:

– His plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan;

– An Iraq plan that could turn into a downsized and rebranded occupation that keeps U.S. forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future;

– His labeling of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a “terrorist organization;”

– His pledge to use unilateral force inside of Pakistan to defend U.S. interests;

– His position, presented before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem “must remain undivided” — a remark that infuriated Palestinian officials and which he later attempted to reframe;

– His plan to continue the War on Drugs, a backdoor U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Central and Latin America;

– His refusal to “rule out” using Blackwater and other armed private forces in U.S. war zones, despite previously introducing legislation to regulate these companies and bring them under U.S. law.

Wow.

Idiot. From ThinkProgress:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

I don’t want a Palin fudging around with the Senate.

This is the base of the GOP.

First, I need you to watch this video:

Colin Powell: Country First

Now then, reported by MSNBC:

Powell also told NBC’s Tom Brokaw that he was “troubled” by Republicans’ personal attacks on Obama, especially false intimations that Obama was Muslim and the recent focus on Obama’s alleged connections to William Ayers, a co-founder of the radical ’60 Weather Underground.

Powell said a major part of his decision to turn his back on his own party was his conclusion that Obama was the better option to repair frayed U.S. relations with allies overseas.

“This is the time for outreach,” Powell said, saying the next president would have to “reach out and show the world there is a new administration that is willing to reach out.”

In particular, he said, he welcomed Obama’s president to “talk to people we haven’t talked to,” a reference to Obama’s controversial statement that he would be open to direct diplomacy with Iranian leaders.

“It isn’t easy for me to disappoint Senator McCain as I have this morning,” said Powell, who emphasized that he would not campaign for Obama because of his admiration for McCain’s long record of service in the military and in Congress.

But as he examined both campaigns in the last few weeks, he said, he became “concerned” that “in the case of Mr. McCain, he was a little unsure how to deal with the economic problems.”

“Every day, there was a different approach,” he said, adding that he also “would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.”

McCain would be a good president, Powell said, but Obama is “a transformational figure” who would be an “exceptional” leader.

“I truly believe that at this point in America’s history we need a president who will not just continue … basically the policies we have followed in recent years,” he said. “We need a president with transformational qualities.”

For that reason, he said, “I will be voting for Barack Obama.”

Are you kidding? VOTE OBAMA!

This is the 25% that you have to watch out for. This is absolutely out of control.

It just gets more unbelievable with time. From the Capital Beat blog:

I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.

As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.

“Hey, hey,” I said. “I’m trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay?”

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of “U.S.A” by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?!” the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. “Yeah, that’s real funny…” he said.

And then he kicked the back of leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

I’m assuming that the pro-Obama rap song is the Obama Dance, which I am dutifully executing as I type this.

Do you really want a President with supporters like this in the ranks? Not McCain’s fault, but it is McCain’s problem.

From the Press-Enterprise - You can click the link if you want to see the graphic, I’m not putting it on this site.

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn’t think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

“I didn’t see it the way that it’s being taken. I never connected,” she said. “It was just food to me. It didn’t mean anything else.”

The people that get these sorts of things in ‘a number of emails’ are the only reason that this election isn’t already over. Those, and the people that are sending them. It is your duty to call these people out if you’re on their hate mail lists.

After hearing so much last night about the aspirations of Joe the Plumber to become a businessman, you’ll be happy to know that he thinks Social Security is a joke.

Maybe we should privatize it, ‘ey Joe?

On the eve of the last Presidential debate of 2008, the candidates have released their Economic Policies. Obama proposed a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures, a new lending facility for US states and cities, penalty-free withdrawals from savers’ retirement accounts, and rolled out a 3,000 dollar tax credit for every job created by a company in the United States. The McCain plan unsurprisingly focuses on the ‘trickle-down’ ideology of wealth, where the Obama plan is to strengthen the Middle class.

As reported by Sciam.com:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has said that some of his goals may have to be delayed, but reiterated that there are some things that “just can’t wait,” such as his proposed $150-billion investment in clean or sustainable energy programs (toward his goal of freeing the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil) and the attendant creation of five million “green collar” jobs.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s proposal to offer a taxpayer-funded $300-million prize to the developer of a battery package that could cost-effectively power cars may have a game show element about it, but his supporters view it as a counterbalance to his “drill baby drill” approach to energy and the environment.

Yet just about the same time that Obama released an 11-page plan (PDF) for science and innovation, on the heels of his endorsement by dozens of Nobel Prize winners (PDF),  his opponent’s campaign started talking about a one-year freeze in discretionary spending.

Some of Obama’s key points provided by USA Today:

• • Penalty-free withdrawals of up to $10,000 from IRAs and 401(k)s in tax years 2008 and 2009.
• • A $3,000 tax credit for every new full-time job created in the USA by businesses in 2009-10.
• • A requirement that banks benefiting from the federally funded bailout provide a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures to give homeowners time to work out a payment plan.
• • Empowering the Federal Reserve to provide short-term loans to state and local governments caught in the credit crunch.

Direct from Washington Post:

On the economy, McCain offered gloom about the immediate situation but also an optimist’s predictions, saying the country will prosper and will be safer. McCain described his new proposals as an effort to “revive the market by attracting new investment.”

They include:

• A proposal to lower the tax rate on seniors who tap their IRAs and 401(k)’s after reaching 59-and-a-half years old. Under his proposal, which he estimated would cost the government about $36 billion, the first $50,000 of withdrawals would only be taxed at the 10 percent rate, his aides said.”Retirees have suffered enough and need relief, and the surest relief is to let them keep more of their own savings,” McCain said.
• For those who sell stocks at a loss, McCain would increase the amount they can deduct from $3,000 to $15,000, making it less of a burden for those who need immediate cash to survive the economic downturn, his advisers said.
• Capital gains taxes would be cut in half, McCain said, for two years, from 15 percent to 7.5 percent. His aides said that would cost the federal government about $10 billion, but would provide an incentive to save and invest.

Obama’s spokesman mocked the idea.”Senator McCain also shows how little he understands the economy by offering lower capital gains rates in a year in which people don’t have an awful lot of capital gains,” Burton said.

• For people looking for work whose income for the year is under $100,000, McCain would eliminate taxes on the unemployment benefits they receive. Aides said that would cost the government about $6.5 billion.

And a blog excerpt that you should read, by Ben F. Terton:

Senator Obama’s plan was shocking for many reasons.  So far ahead in the race, it was unexpected that he would release such a bold, detailed plan.  But more than that, it was truly shocking to see, for the first time in a generation, a politician hit a mark so directly on the head.  Delivering exactly to the true middle class, rather than to either the poorer people or the richer, Obama’s simple, relatively cheap economic rescue plan, if enacted, would immediately and significantly alter the course of the American economy for the better.

There are a number of very important things to notice about this plan:  unlike a tax cut stimulus plan, this doesn’t cost the government a massive amount of money the nation would have to borrow.  This plan allows people to help themselves get out of the mess they made.  And, at the same time, it both:  1)1 injects a bunch of cash into the economy, particularly helping fend off bank collapses by having people be able to pay off their debts - all without government borrowing - and, 2)  gets people instantly out of the holes they are in, enabling them to begin spending again, and so instantly reviving every layer of the economy, from the corner pizza store to the car dealer.

You know the deal. VOTE OBAMA!