These things I believe

I believe that every family has a right to a family doctor, and that as long as the employer will not provide it, in large part because the consumer does not want to pay for it, the taxpayer must expect to pick up the cost.

I believe that we need to know our enemies — how they live, what they believe — before we move in with guns, treasure and young people’s lives trying to force a way of life they will never accept.

I believe books about other cultures are written from the perspective of their authors, and the only way to really know another people is to live among them, to share their bread and drink.

I believe the American middle class is a special interest, and must have as much representation in the halls of government as the upper-level captains of industry and finance.

I believe there are wasteful earmarks such as bridges to nowhere, and valuable earmarks such as investments in a broad education for our children and entrepreneurial research into ways to provide sustainable and non-destructible energy.

I believe we need to put on our nation an international face that says we are accepting of people of varied race and ancestry; that our president must be welcomed by our allies and respected by our foes, not because we have the biggest guns, but because we have shown by example we are willing to share the planet with people who may not agree with some of the specifics of our lifestyle.

I believe that when hundreds of thousands of citizens of other nations gather to applaud our leaders, they will gather to convince their leaders to join with us in times of great stress, and when those citizens walk away from our leaders, their leaders will walk away from us

Those are the main measures by which I will chose the person to get my vote for president.

Where has all the money gone?

We’re spending $10 billion a month in Iraq and we’re about to put the economic bailout tab to more than $800 billion about $15B to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, $85B to AIG, and now a proposed $700B to the banking industry). We owe our soul to China, which has picked up a large portion of our national debt. Our banks are charging higher interest, denying credit, and going under.

How many things could we do to make life better for our citizens that are not going to be possible because of the greed of a few and the need to now merely save the many from extinction.

And what’s really amazing is how willing now for federal help are the very industrial leaders who until about a year ago decried socialization or federal regulation of anything! Let the market take care of it, they said.

The market place is a great place to determine what sells and what doesn’t. But there have to be some rules, like in some sports, where the game ends if one team gets behind by some preset limit, the other is declared the winner and the game stops —before the final score becomes too embarrassing to the loser.

Trade missions = foreign policy?

“Putin rears his head, where do they go? Alaska,” quoth Sarah Palin to Katie Couric.

So there it is. Putin’s going caribou hunting with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. He’s going to shoot them like buckshot, multiple warheads on each missile.

In an effort to foster more friendly relations with the Russian Bear, Gov. Palin will send a trade mission to Moscow to sell him a non-resident hunting license and a trip afield with Palin and her husband the First Dude, who will bring the snowmobile to haul out the carcasses.

Vote for John McCain

My first thought when I heard McCain had suspended his campaign to go fix the economy was that it was a joke.

No, I was told. Look up CNN. It’s real.

So my next thought was whatinell does he think he can do in Washington. There’s 100 folks in that room, minus him, and we’re supposed to believe that he’s putting the rest of the world on hold because he has to go to Washington and tell all those other guys and gals how to fix this mess they’ve made?

And then it came to me. They don’t have TV in the United States Senate. If he has to rely on them getting his views by watching him talk on the stump, the country is going to implode. He’ll win the election and there’ll be no United States to be president of.

So now it makes sense.

I think.

He hopes.

McCain’s the One

For years, the guy has been part of the marketplace crowd. Companies will survive or die on their own. They don’t need the government making their rules, governing their operations, and getting a piece of the action.

All of a sudden, John McCain’s had an epiphany. There needed to be more oversight (spelled r-e-g-u-l-a-t-i-o-n). And the companies need help from the taxpayers — the very folks they’ve been screwing all these years.

If anyone should know how to clean up this mess, it should be John McCain. He helped make it.

A maverick she ain’t, but man get a load of those eyes!

We’ve just had eight years of a vice president who operates in secret and isn’t embarrassed to say so. He started with the energy summit, when he refused to say who was at the meeting (mostly because when we found out, the answer was pretty ugly), and climaxed with setting himself up as a fourth branch of government, and declaring himself untouchable.

The Alaska legislature subpoenaed folks about Troopergate, wishing to investigate whether their governor misused her power and authority — only now she is candidate for vice president of the United States, and to prove her qualifications for the job, she told the legislature to kiss off. And it did!

By the way, Sarah Palin claims her foreign relations experience stems from being able to see Russia outside her window. With that kind of eyesight, maybe she should be elected. The closest point of Russia is nearly 1,300 miles from Juneau, Alaska’s capital.

She’s a little closer from her kitchen window in Wasilla. Only 700 miles to Siberia from there.

What can a president do?

He can influence our world neighbors and he can set the course of constitutional interpretation for the next several decades.

That’s it. The whole thing. Ask any of them.

It would be nice if the president could increase teachers’ salaries, as well as those of the single moms working at the local convenience store. I would like him (since the next one is going to be a “him” for at least a few months) to put fuel-efficient motors In high-priced luxury SUVs. I would like him to fully fund social services. I would like him to create at least a few hundred thousand jobs that pay more then $15 an hour. I would like him to cut corporate welfare so that Big Business would only build widgets on which they can make a profit. And I definitely would like him to prohibit CEOs from taking home mega-millions in severance packages when the taxpayers are forced to rescue failed corporations. My list could go on.

So when Barrack Obama drew huge crowds in Europe, we could get the idea those countries’ leaders would be more likely to stand with us than, say, the leaders of nations which did not accompany us into Iraq.

But chances are pretty good he won’t get some of his national service and alternative energy initiatives through unless we a) elect him in landslide or b) send a bunch of like-minded folks to Congress.

Unfortunately, the president is the only candidate we all get to select. Congress-folk only have to be concerned with a small number of local voters who sent them to Washington.

And for all the talk about earmarks, Sarah Palin was not opposed to $235 million for a bridge until enough folks in the Lower 48 raised Cain. And even then, she didn’t give the money back.

Something to think about when we’re in the booth Nov. 4.

What an act!

Every would be star needs a warm-up act. McCain’s got Palin. She cracks the jokes, tosses some sarcastic belittlement at her boss’s opponent …

I can see the McCain-Palin cabinet meetings.

Palin enters the room, cracks a few one-liners about Democrats, Russians and “Abuminijad, er, Ahmed in-Jihad, ah, oh heck, …

“Here’s John!”

Enter Pres. John McCain, who immediately declares war on — whoever we’re not fighting with already.

Living up to potential

When I was in school, teachers regularly made notation on my reports cards that I was not “working up to potential.” Looking back, I see it was teacher code for “it’s not our fault your kid can pass the test without doing the homework.”

The Republicans this week are working to their potential.

“Women start small businesses at twice the rate of men,” said Republican strategist Carly Fiorini, conveniently leaving out that women get lots of help from state and federal programs just because they are women, and men don’t get any for being men.

To McCain, or at least his surrogates, all questions are unfair attacks. Sarah Palin, who said Hillary Clinton was “whiny” when she complained of media bias against her, now says the media is unfairly attacking her.

OK, it’s inappropriate for the supermarket tabloids and their televised versions such as “Entertainment Tonight,” to make big news about Palin’s 17-year-old daughter being pregnant.

But let’s face it, those tabloids are peddling a product with a proven market — how else do they pay millions of dollars for a picture of a movie star’s baby.

We had a president who complained about the press his entire political career, right up to the part where he said the press wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore.

We’re trying really hard to get rid of a president other nations can’t stand to see coming, so we had to attack Iraq virtually alone.

So they’re living up to their potential. For years, we’ve been told anyone who questioned the need to be in Iraq was somehow not supporting the troops. Now, anyone who questions Sarah Palin’s qualifications is sexist.

She’s governor of the smallest state in the union, population-wise. Much of her population is Eskimo. Less than six percent of her 670,000 people lists American as its ancestral source. Sixteen percent of the people she governs is Native American.

“A small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except you have responsibilities.” Like cutting the ribbon for the grand opening of the local Wal-Mart.

She’s not going to Washington to become a member of the elite, but guess who’s writing her speeches. And a fine job we did, too.

Mitt Romney: “It’s time to elect the party of big ideas, not big brother.” So who’s in power that has cameras on street corners, uniformed minions pawing through our luggage, and the NSA monitoring our telephone calls?

Rudy Guiliani: He is the least experienced candidate for president of the United States in at least the last 100 years.

In fact, he may be the least experienced presidential candidate since Abraham Lincoln, who had an almost identical record.

Pay no attention to that guy behind the curtain.