Just when it looked like the Coleman-Franken race couldn’t get any more ridiculous.  This afternoon Norm Coleman banned a media member from a press conference in St. Paul.  The Uptake may not be a main stream media outlet, but I respect them more than many of the members of the MSM.  Why in the world did Minnesota vote for this guy? Read more…

President-Elect Barack Obama.  I can’t believe I am able to say those words and not be presumptuous.  I am a mix of emotions.  I will admit that selfishly I am  happy that I was finally able to vote for a winner of a presidential election.  I’m excited for our country for so many reasons.  Having the successor to Bush elected is just the start. Read more…

This is all I have to say today.  It is your right and responsibility please take it seriously.  If you don’t know where you need to go, Google comes to the rescue.

If you want to find out what I’m thinking today expect a deluge of Twitter updated starting around 4:00 or so.  Follow me here.

Regardless of the outcome of tomorrows election, have some things that I wish would happen.  I have no hope they will but it would be nice.

1. Make election advertisments illegal.  There is no reason we need to allow our politicians to smear each other on the airwaves.  In fact I will go so far as to state that anyone who decides who to vote for based on a political advertisement should be banned from voting.  It’s a giant waste of money that could be put to much better use.
2. Limit political donations to $50.00 per person.  This would include ban on donations from companies and organizations.  Our government is for people not companies, only people should be able to donate.  If we ban political advertising this will also elimite the problem of organizations not affiliated with candidates getting huge donations to be used for a candidates benefit.
3. Stop putting D, R, or I next to politicians names.  Why do we need to know this?  If you don’t already know which party someone is affiliated with does it really matter?  I understand party is an important part of our political process, but too many people just support and vote for candidates based on party and don’t have a clue what that person really stands for.
4. Open up the government.  Government web sites should be simple enough for my Grandmother to use.  We need a Mint.com for government spending, a Twitter for government, and a Facebook for politicians.  Unless a meeting has national security implications it should be recorded and posted to the web, and those that have those implications should be documented as occuring.
5. Stop pointing fingers.  The last eight years have been a massive failure and not one person, party, or branch is solely responsible.  It’s going to take a lot of work to fix things and if those Ds, Rs, and Is are not willing to compromise we are in serious trouble.  Quit trying to place the blame on someone else.  Step up and take responsibility.
6. Start following Canada’s example for elections.  Canada has started and finished an election in less time than it took us to select the actual candidates in ours.  Our election cycle takes away too much time from our best and brightest leaders.  Just look at John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s voting record during the 110th Congress.
7. Get religion out of government.  The Declaration of Independence and Constitution should be the handbooks of government, not the Bible, the Koran, or the Bhagavad Gita.

These are just some of my hopes for the meetings of the 111th and 112th Congresses and the first four years of the 44th President.  List your wishes in the comments.

As things stand this morning, all signs are pointing to an Obama victory tomorrow.  I am hoping for this result.  One of the reasons I am hoping for an Obama win is the candidate’s tax proposals.  As the election reached the final stages, other than negative ads, the only argument McCain seemed to throw at Obama is that his tax policy is going to cost America jobs.  At first glance, the logic does seem to back up McCain. What McCain and other conservatives seem to ignore is that some of their own policies show Obama’s plan will be better for the economy.  

It is true that until recently, Bush’s tax plans seemed to be working.  Companies were profitable and other than post 9/11 the markets were growing.  This did not continue though, and for the last two or three years, economic indicators showed that the economy was slowing down.  

The fact that the economy slowed down is not an argument against Bush and McCain’s tax plan.  The argument is the economic stimulus plan that both Republicans and Democrats supported in an attempt to stop the slowdown. The economic stimulus plan gave the middle class extra income.  The hope was this extra income would go towards the purchase of goods and services in an attempt to jump-start the economy.  This is counter to the trickle down tax policies of Bush’s eight years.  If trickle down economics worked, the solution to the economic slowdown would have been to send the stimulus package to large companies so they could pay their employees more, or show more profit on their balance sheet.  One could argue that the reason this was not proposed is it sounds insane.  I say that Bush’s argument for trickle down economics sounded just as insane.  

Looking at the two presidential candidate’s tax plans in this context may not be 100% correct, but it is interesting.  In this context, Obama’s plan acts like an economic stimulus plan for anyone making less than $200,000.  Granted he will repeal Bush’s tax cuts, which will hurt some upper income tax payers.  This is not a problem if you believe as I do that everyone is better off if everyone who makes less money than them makes more money.  Why do I think this?  It is simple, for business to thrive it needs customers.  For people to be customers they need money to spend on goods and services.  If you run a business, chances are you can afford your product.  If everyone who bringing home less income than you has more disposable income, you have more potential customers.  More customers mean more opportunities to bring home a profit, which will trickle up to those hurt by Obama’s tax policies. 

Obama’s tax plan acts like an economic stimulus plan.  It gives the middle class extra take home income to the middle class that they can use to purchase goods and services.  If a $600 per person economic stimulus package is good for the economy, how can anyone say that Obama’s tax plan is going to kill job creation.  If that was the case then conservatives should have fought tooth and nail to keep the economic stimulus package from going through.

During my roundup of the debate post, I took an exception to comments made by Biden in the VP debate and to McCain’s new housing plan.  Each talked about taking home loans that were on the verge of foreclosure and allowing renegotiation of the terms to lower the interest rate and the principle.  I wanted expand on my thoughts in this post. Read more…

First two things I need to disclose,  I didn’t watch the second presidential debate as intently as I watched the first presidential debate or the VP debate.  I actually participated in a fantasy basketball draft at the start of the debate.  Still, I want to make a some observations.   Second, if you don’t read my blog, I am an Obama supporter.  I’m not overly happy with some of the things he’s done, but he has my support. Read more…

Don’t get me wrong I don’t like the idea of the bailout, but the more I read the more I realize we need to do something.  Maybe the deal on the table wasn’t the right thing, but read this quote.  From the NYtimes.

Mr. McCain had already met with House Republicans to hear their concerns. He later said on ABC that he had known going into the White House that “there never was a deal,” but he kept that sentiment to himself.

Read more…

The McCain campaign, it’s surrogates, and some media members enjoy prodding Barack Obama about his stance on the surge in Iraq.  They constantly attempt to force him to state he was wrong for opposing it.  The fact of the matter is that they being illogical.  They can state that Obama was wrong all they want, but the logic just doesn’t support their argument.

Their first statement is  the surge in troops worked.  This isn’t an easy thing to answer.  Defining “worked” is like trying to define “happy”, there are just too many variables.  Did the violence in Iraq go down once the surge began, yes is the obvious answer.  And I will assume that is the definition of “worked” in this case.

Can you really state that the entire decrease in violence was caused by our troops?  And that we wouldn’t have reached the current levels of violence without it?  For the argument in questions to work you have to be able to answer those questions.  To be honest though we could say that the Sunni Awakening is responsible.  I tend to come down on the side of our troops and state that they were a big part of the decrease in violence.  Obama has already stated that he agrees the troop surge was successful.  And the fact violence is down it’s easy to see.  The logic of the McCain camp fails though when they say he was wrong to oppose the surge because violence is now down.  To make that conclusion, they need to successfully state that without the surge, violence would not have decreased.  That is a failed assumption.  The only way to prove this is to be able to go back in time, not implement the surge and see the results.  If violence remained at the same levels or accelerated Obama would be proven wrong.  And inversely, if violence decrease Obama would be correct.

Unfortunately this is impossible.  It may be that without the surge the Sunni Awakening along with the existing US troop presence would have decreased the violence.  You could argue that it would have taken longer, but you could also argue that there would have been less US troop casualties without the surge.  So that is a double edged sword.

To make a sports comparison, the logic that Obama’s detractors are using is the same as stating that without that mid-season trade, a sport team would not have made the playoffs or won the championship.  Everyone can see that the trade was successful, but to state that without the trade they would be out of the playoffs is impossible.

Another comparison would be stating that without a book being chosen by Oprah for her book club the book wouldn’t be successful.  Once again,  Oprah choosing the book makes it a best seller, but who can say that without Oprah selecting it, that it wouldn’t have become a best seller on it’s merits alone.

Anyone who is willing to look at the logic can see stating Obama was wrong about the Surge is a fallacy.  Arguing that the supports of the surge were also wrong is illogical by the same token.  Obama hasn’t done this though, he has admitted that the surge worked, but to admit that he was initially wrong would be to state that without the surge we wouldn’t have seen progress, and you can’t prove that without a flux capacitor.