Bill finally passed

Bush quickly passed the bailout plan and we now have a basis for our economy to restore. That's not to say that years of debt and mistakes will just disappear with the presence of 700billion dollars. In fact, our economy will probably still be hurting for weeks and months to come. But at least now, we were able to get something passed that will hopefully slow down the current crisis that is going on. And even if our economy heals, I think regulations definitely need to be made in terms of housing and the borrowing/spending of banks. This solution technically is a bailout for the rich sector of the population that is partially to blame for this mess and hopefully, but I still think that in this time of chaos and recession, something needed to be done, and done quickly. So I am not going to complain or disagree with the passing of this bill.

It's Friday, I couldn't help myself

Though a celebrity's vote is just the same as a vote that you and I will have in a couple of years, celebrities seem to hold a little extra power. Over the past few years, celebrities have been more open with their political beliefs and have openly supported candidates of their choice. And though the American public has probably already made up their minds, I can't help but think that there are a few unsure people out there that may be inspired by the speeches and support of Hollywood's A-list celebs.

ON PALIN:
"Is our country so divided that the Republicans' best hope is a narrow-minded, media-obsessed homophobe?" --Lindsay Lohan
"It's as if [Sarah Palin] became celebrated. Every woman in the world has applauded her strength and her convictions and poor little old Jamie Lynn – you saw how she was crucified." --Lynne Spears on Jamie Lynn
"I feel bad for Sarah Palin for all this YouTube stuff that's being done about her." --David Archuleta told PopEater.com
"The lady's nice ... she's cool. [But] she’s a heartbeat away from President. What in the hell? That is completely irresponsible." --Diddy

and a slightly frightening message from Diddy:


ON OBAMA (after his DNC speech):
"I cried my eyelashes off...I think it's the most powerful thing I have ever experienced...He's a candidate for Americans" --Oprah Winfrey
"What I hope happens is the country doesn't forget the jubilation and excitement that's been generated here," --Daniel Dae Kim

As a side note: I don't know guys...after yesterday's debate and a day of polling, pretty much everywhere is showing that Biden won the debate...

California may need a $7 billion federal loan

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warns that California may have to ask for a $7 billion dollar federal loan to help pay for things like "teachers' salaries, nursing homes, law enforcement and every other state-funded service". Not only is California facing a "credit crunch" many other states are in the same situation as California. Unless the national crisis subsides and California can secure short term loans, the financial situation in California does not look too good. However, Schwarzenegger seems confident that the market or the federal government will come through and help improve California's current situation. When questioned what will happen if the feds or the market doesn't come through he goes as far as to say “This is no such thing in my vocabulary as ‘what if not.’ We will.” Personally, if Schwarzenegger was asking me for money I would give him some with out thinking, so i wonder what the federal government is going to do.

Fact check on VP debate

Fact Check on Cost of Iraq combat v. Afghanistan reconstruction
In the Vice Presidential debate last night Joe Biden said that the United States spends "more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country … or six-and-a-half years in Afghanistan." I think someone in class asked if this was true or not. Well according to figures from the Congressional Research Service he is right. However, Biden was only considering the costs of developement in Afghanistan, not the $17.2 billion the United States has spent on security in Afghanistan and $1.3 billion on "governance, rule of law, and human rights" efforts. In the debate Biden made it clear that he was referring to development projects only, and i thought he put a good spin on the information. Personally, i thought that Biden was referring to all US spending and was aghast that the US has spent so much money in combat in Iraq and so little in Afghanistan. Even after adding the other US spending in Afghanistan i still feel like the US should spend more money helping out in Afghanistan.

The VP debate for any of you who missed it on television last night. Enjoy :)

Vice Presidential Debate

Surprisingly Sarah Palin didn't do that bad, but i think that Biden won the debate. I thought that Biden had a very good night. He appeared comfortable and poised. He answered the questions and backed up his points of view with alot of hard facts. Sarah Palin did a good job too. She didn't fall on her face like alot of people expected her too and had no major mistakes. She appeared very poised and certain. The reason that i think Biden won the debate is because Sarah Palin didn't answer the questions sometimes. I thought it was kinda weird that the moderator didn't redirect the question to her after she failed to answer it. I also felt that Sarah Palin didn't offer any specifics on how McCains policies were different from George Bush. Throughout the whole debate Biden was attacking John McCain and why he was a bad choice for President. Palin did attack Obama, but not as consistently as Biden.

To me it appeared as if Palin's main goal for the debate was to appear as an average women who knows the troubles of life, and as a "Washington outsider". While Biden's main goal for the debate was to attack John McCain constantly. I also thought Palin was a little hypocritical when she said something along the lines of being a very tolerant person and for civil rights and equality, but she doesn't believe in marriage between two men or between two women. I also thought that one of the major weak points for Palin in the debate was when she failed to respond to Biden's claims that McCain has the same foreign policy ideas as Bush.

Governor Palin's main points in the debate
-Governmental Reform (need to fix all the greed and corruption on wall street and in Washington)
-Energy Independence through more drilling
-Win the war in Iraq
-cut taxes on corporations

Biden's main points in the debate
-Alternative Energy
-Raise taxes on wealthy to fund healthcare and education programs
-End the war in Iraq

P.S. was it just me or does Palin say "nuclear" like George W. Bush?

Open Thread- inspired by DBell.

So I just got back home and I was listening to part of the debate on the radio on my way home.
Just a few of my thoughts really quickly
-Palin's doing better than I thought she would. Definitely not perfect. I feel like she's kind of dodging certain questions and attacks that Biden have addressed her with (esp. plans for Iraq).
- Biden speaks in 3rd person. and outlines his thoughts (number one...number two...lastly). ooh and he also likes to address Gwen a lot.
- There seems to be a lot of a mix up between what Obama and McCain have voted for/supported in terms of foreign policy. I'm sure there's voting records out there so someone must have their facts wrong...

Okay so anyways I need to get back to watching it or catching it on youtube so feel free to blurt out and rant. Thanks for the idea Douglas!

Breaking News: Bailout Plan passed by the Senate!

A slightly different plan from the plan proposed to the House a couple days ago has just been passed by the Senate by a vote of 74-25. Since the last post concerning the bailout generated such large amounts of feedback, I would like to hear everyone's opinion and reactions to the passing of this slightly tweaked plan.

Here's several details on how the plan is different from the plan proposed to the House (quoted from a cnn article)

"
- The package adds provisions to the House version - including temporarily raising the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000 from $100,000.
-the bill allows the FDIC to borrow from the Treasury to cover any losses that might occur as a result of the higher insurance limit.
-It would extend a number of renewable energy tax breaks for individuals and businesses
-The Senate bill would also continue a host of other expiring tax breaks.
-The bill includes relief for another year from the Alternative Minimum Tax, without which millions of Americans would have to pay the so-called "income tax for the wealthy.
"

Anticipation

Although most believe that the VP debate tomorrow will be the moment that seals Palin's fate as a complete wreck and disaster, I'm starting to think that things may not turn out as planned. In general, the underestimated person is more likely to arise as the underdog. With a lot of negative press and low expectations, people are naturally expecting Palin to be crushed (considering her lack of knowledge towards foreign policy and such important ideas like the Bush Doctrine). But, as expected, Palin has been studying hard for this debate, and I'm thinking that she's not the type to roll over and die (after all, she is a pitbull). In terms of speech-giving and debates in Palin's history before she was even chosen as VP, Palin was considered a pretty good debater. In the 2006 debates for governor, many people were even impressed with Palin's debate skills (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1-B-OyQ-KI). In this debate, Palin seems much more certain about her ideas and is not stumbling and mumbling as she did with the few interviews that she did do after being declared VP. Of course, the 2006 debate was not on a large global scale.

And though Biden is quite the charismatic speaker, I think he should be careful with the way he approaches this debate. While it seems Biden may have an advantage in this debate, his wording and tone of voice may affect the words and beliefs that he expresses. If he comes on too strong or too confident, this could be taken condescending, disrespectful, or even sexist.

Palin, Biden On Roe V. Wade

I thought that Joe Biden handled himself very well in the interview and responded well to the questions. It made me feel confident in him because he knew specific facts about Roe v. Wade. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, seemed unprepared for the interview in my opinion. When asked "What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?" she couldn't name any. I also thought that Couric did a pretty good job of making Sarah Palin look pretty dumb after Sarah Palin declared she was pro-life.
Couric: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?
Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.
Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.
This wasn't the worst interview for Sarah Palin, but i thought she looked really meek in comparison with Biden. I wonder how the VP debate is going to turn out.

P.S. I know this is kinda mean, but I can't help but laugh when Couric gives Palin those blank stares in the interview (like at 2:22).

Political Cartoon

I am not sure if the animation is going to show up for this clip, but if it doesn't you can see it here. (Basically Bush says, "Look, John, the House GOP is saluting you...They're waving a finger. They must be chanting 'your #1'") This cartoon reminded me of when we were talking about the bailout in class. I remember someone saying that the House Republicans have basically abandoned John McCain, this cartoon reminded me of that.

A Little Jingle

I think that Obama certainly has a slight advantage over McCain in his widespread support from locals and grassroot politics. I found this video on youtube of a large group of children from a city in California got together and recorded an original song in support of Obama. Though these children probably only vaguely understand what they're singing about, the image of a group of small children singing for "change" is pretty heartwarming. And though it probably does not change the views of those who have already made up their minds, the involvement of communities and families sends across an image of hope and unity.

Voting for President can be Hazardous to your Health

I read this article (linked in the title above) and said wow. Who knew that you had an 18% increase on election day to get in a car crash and die or that an additional 800 people suffer disabling injuries from car crashes on election day? I was skeptical at frist, but it appears that this data has been consisted for the last 8 elections. Even Roy Lucke, senior scientist at Northwestern University's Center for Public Safety, said the "science is good". So, on November 4th when you plan on getting in a car to drive to school, or to vote, or to go where ever drive safely because apparently many drivers experience a lot of "road rage" that lead to an increase in accidents. Drive Safely on November 4th...

Update on the Bailout Plan

On Wednesday the Senate plans to vote on the bailout plan that the House of Representatives failed to pass. If passed the bill includes new provisions like the raising of the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000. This raised cap will hopefully provide assurance to people and businesses and keep them from extracting their money from banks like during the Great Depression. The bill also has added tax breaks. Despite the failure of the first bailout plan to pass in the House of Representatives, most people seem confident that the bill will pass in the senate. In response to the confidence that the new version of the bailout plan will pass, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 485 points, or 4.7 percent.

Although the US' current economic situation resembles many of the events that happened before the Great Depression, i think the US is a long way off from the Great Depression II. The Great Depression II is always possible, but when I think of all the changes in the global economy it doesn't seem likely. In 1929, Europe was the only major economic player besides the US and they were in economic troubles in the 1920s. So when the United States economy crashed there was no backup. However, now the US is not the world's main economic player...theres China, India, and Europe. If the US economy does slump drastically there are other countries that could pick up our slack. And before people start freaking out that the US economy is doomed, they need to put in perspective that compared to Europe and China the US is not looking so good...but there are countries in Africa and other places across the world with unemployment rates as high as 75%.

I haven't taken economics yet so this could be totally wrong, but yeah...

a short little rant...

So as I was checking my email today, I stumbled upon this article on yahoo (linked in the title). Elisabeth Hassleback, one of the stars of the morning show "The View," is getting frustrated with the political debates that occur on the talkshow. As the lone Republican, thrown in with a group of strong-minded Democrats, she often finds herself overshadowed and disregarded by her fellow co-hosts. To me, this article was especially off-putting, and frighteningly similar to the actions of the American public today.
Perhaps my view is unique to me since I can honestly say that I am not yet very opinionated when it comes to politics. I have my views, but I am not dead-set on anything. With a little bit of knowledge or negotiation, my views could very possible be changed: not by a lot, but I could definitely concede a few points. However, I feel as though many people have gotten to the point where they have an absolutely hatred for people that have different views than themselves. In fact, I found an article that expresses very similar views. Here's a quote from the article:

"Here's why: Hate has the annoying tendency to turn into hypocrisy. I laugh with glee when my side catches the other's lies and follies. To a point, that's healthy and cathartic.

But you don't hear me laughing when the other side returns the favor. Then I discount the point and quietly fume at the attack itself. Don't they understand our side is the good one?"

During the Bush/Gore campaign 8 years ago (I was about 9 or 10 at the time), my neighbors across the street were one of the few Republicans in my neighborhood. Despite the majority of people that disagreed with them, they stood up for what they believed in a proudly put a Bush/Cheney sign on their front lawn. After a couple of days, my parents had heard that someone had broken the windows at the side of their house. A couple days later, there was dog poop smashed all across the sign and the lawn. After my neighbors cleaned this all up, people still managed to write obscenities all over the sign with sharpie markers. One day, I happened to arrive home from school right at the time that someone was vandalizing my neighbor's property. To my amazement, these kids were young (they looked like they were from Borel, so they were probably in their 12s or 13s), and they were viciously marking up the sign and didn't even bother to move or run away when they saw me. First of all, vandalizing someone's property is absolutely ridiculous. When an opinion is so strong that one feels the need to take it out on someone elses things, the beliefs of that individual must be considered unhealthy. But what really threw me off was the age of these people. When I was a 6th grader, I practically knew nothing about politics. That's not to say that these kids truly did know nothing, but they didn't look like the people that were seriously educated and informed about current events and politics. Chances are, they probably had very strong-minded and opinionated peers or parents that swayed them into acting in that way. That's what is beginning to annoy me...is when people, especially teenagers, mindlessly believe in everything that their parents believe in, or everything that their peers pressure them into believing. I myself, come from a family that is pretty politically diverse. I have family members that are on polar opposites of the political spectrum, and I don't plan on letting any of them sway me into believing everything that they are saying. I definitely respect their opinions and the "facts" that they give me, but when it comes time for me to vote, I would like to say that I made my own decision based on what I believe...not on what someone told me to believe...

well I could continue but I have a game to attend and I'm sure you guys get where I'm going with all of this. anyways, GO DONS!

Is Sarah Palin Hiding From the Media?

Compared to Joe Biden, Sarah Palin has done less interviews with the media. Interviews that she has done with the media have turned out disastrous, most notably here interview with Katie Couric (it looked like she was even reading notes when she was answering the questions...heres a clip of the interview if you missed it). Sarah Palin has failed to hold a major press conference which makes me question if she has something to hide or if she isn't prepared. As a potential Vice President of the US it makes me uneasy that she is so recluse from the media. The media has been extremely harsh on Sarah Palin, making fun of her for her claims on foreign policy and other comments she has made, so i understand if she is reluctant to talk to the media. However, I think that it is in her best interest to get more involved in the media after she has been given some time to learn about some issues in the US like the Bush Doctrine to try and prove to everyone that she is a good candidate for the VP. Maybe the VP debates coming up will giver her a chance to prover herself, but it could also be a chance for her to further prove to everyone that she is not prepared to be VP of the US. Either way I think that Biden has a difficult task in the VP debate. I think that he will have to be extremely careful not to come off as sexist or pompous.

UK Reaction to the Rejection of the Bailout Plan

Britain is currently facing many of the same problems as America like rising mortgage payments and soaring food and fuel costs along with the fear of a recession. The bank issues that the US is facing now closely mimics the bank issues that Britain is facing. For instance Washington Mutual, the giant mortgage lender which had assets valued at $307bn, was sold to its rival Citigroup around September 25. In Britain the mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley was nationalised on the 29th of September. The British government took control of the bank's £50bn mortgages and loans, while its savings operations and branches were sold to Spain's Santander.

The UK's reaction to the US House of Representatives rejection of the bailout plan seems to be very disappointed. Gordon Brown seems especially disappointed in the decision and claims that Britain has taken decisive action to ensure the stability of their system and will take whatever action necessary to ensure the stability of their system. With the failure of the bailout plan the uncertainties surrounding how banks will deal with their exposure to toxic loans and how credit markets can begin to operate more normally are left unsolved, I think the US and Britain are headed for even worse economic troubles. With Gordon Brown's claims of decisive action maybe Britain will come up with a solution to the current financial crisis. However, it appears that the Bush administration and congressional leaders are scrambling to reintroduce the bill again on Thursday. I don't think the bailout plan is the best idea but something needs to happen before the situations in the US and Britain gets even worse.

NO bailout

As most of you probably already know, the bailout plan has been declined by a vote of 228-205. As a result, the stock market has begun a record plunge of almost 800 points in one day. With the government scrambling to figure out the next move to make to heal this crisis and prevent a potentially devastating depression, many people have attempted to decipher this 228-205 vote. Prior to this vote, both parties experienced mixed feelings toward the bill. After the revision of Bush's original bailout plan, most people believed the plan would be voted through in the House due to the potential danger of the current economic crisis. However, after this vote-down, many people are pointing fingers across party lines. Republican House members are associating the failure of this bill passing with Pelosi's speech given right before the vote. They blame the vote-down on Pelosi's seemingly partisan attack on the Bush administration and Republican Party. Here's a clip of part of Pelosi's speech given earlier today:



This week is likely to become more hectic and this ongoing economic crisis will be an interesting factor in this year's presidential election.

Obama Maintains a Healthy Lead?

A recent poll by Gallup has shown that Obama has gained and maintained an 8% lead over McCain since Friday’s presidential debate. And while I have always perceived this lead to be a little more than 8% (since we’re in such a liberal area…), I believe that this lead has been maintained due to several factors

1. McCain’s VP pick of Sarah Palin: At first, I found this pick to be completely random. Then, people were buzzing about how Palin was actually a wise choice for the ticket. And after various speeches and interviews done by the pair, I’m starting to think that this may turn into a disaster. Considering John McCain’s slightly older age, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with the governor of a small state with very little foreign policy experience ruling over our entire country. And watching the interview that Palin had with Katie Couric made me feel even more uneasy. Though I do think that SNL and other parodies have been slanted against McCain/Palin, the statements that Palin has made have only been asking for it…especially her comment that she has experience from foreign policy due to Alaska’s “maritime border to Russia.” And while this parody of McCain/Palin has been going on for quite some time now, it seems as if Obama, and especially Joe Biden, have been able to float slightly under the radar.

2. McCain’s stunts: A lot of the actions that McCain has made in the past week are rather questionable. He blows off Dave Letterman and even attempts to postpone the entire presidential debate. And though he argues that he is putting the country over the debate, I think it may have backfired. As a potential president of the United States, he isn’t going to be able to postpone events whenever he wants to. To me, and I’m sure to many others as well, the president should be able to balance multiple issues at once. I think this was more of a publicity stunt that was SUPPOSED to show McCain as heroic, but instead flopped and ended up making him look rash and undecisive.

3. McCain’s responses in the debate: Although McCain did give some good answers during the debate, I think that his body language and demeanor may have hurt him big time. First of all, when the candidates were forced to confront each other, the debate became slightly awkward. McCain seemed flustered and angry at times when confronted about unanswered questions, while Obama maintained a fairly calm demeanor. Obama also appeared in a more friendly light, referring to McCain as “John” while McCain referred to Obama as “Senator Obama.” And when Obama confronted McCain about his 90% voting record in agreement with Bush’s budgets, I felt as though McCain kept brushing it off with the same line “I was never Ms. Congeniality in the Senate.” So although Obama was no where near perfect (as pointed out in previous posts), I think that he appealed to more of the Independents and people that still remain on the fence.

It should be interesting to see how these polling results change after the VP debates later this week.

PS: I would love to hear arguments from a different point of view. I think someone pointed out earlier that this blog has kind of become a one-sided rant…

SNL's Take on the Presidential Debate

I thought this was halarious...hope you guys enjoy it. :)

Tying Up Loose Ends

Wow, what a week we have had, and boy, did I pick a crazy week to take over this blog. This week has seen major political drama and could likely be seen as the biggest week in the campaign thus far, and the economic news that has come out this week has been the biggest bunch of bad news since the Great Depression.

Let's see if I can remember everything. This week started out with the massive bailout of AIG and the calling of Congress to hash out a $700 billion bailout plan called for by the head of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Secretary of the Treasury. This caused John McCain to abruptly suspend his campaign, bypass David Letterman for Katie Couric, and go to Washington, D.C. for a photo op while threatening to skip the debate. Then he changed his mind and attended the debate with Obama, which turned out to reveal very little about their opinions on the financial crisis. And in the meantime, Washington Mutual (or WaMu, the in-my-opinion very stupid name they prefer to be called) filed bankruptcy on Friday in the biggest bank failure in American history. "Whoo hoo!"
In the meantime, Sarah Palin appears in a humiliating interview with Katie Couric and goes on her first big foreign policy tour in that strange foreign city known as New York, President Bush goes on TV on Wednesday night in with another one of his classic "we're all going to die" speeches, and our do-nothing Congress fights over each other once again about the amount of the bailout and whether or not they should succumb to the Bush Administration's demand that there be no oversight or accountability on that bailout plan.

Yep, just another typical week in the United States of America. All I can say is that it's been fun trying to keep on top of this week and blogging about it, and it's reminded me why I don't do political blogging full time.

So, for my last post of this crazy week, before the torch is passed along, I couldn't resist embedding this latest Saturday Night Live parody of the Palin-Couric interview as a way to close out this week and kick us painfully into this next one. (And to Tina Fey, I too hope that you won't have to play Sarah Palin again after the election is over!)



For those of you who for some strange reason can't get enough of my blogging, feel free to check out my personal blog, which does contain the occasional political post among others.
--Douglas Bell