LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTI

McCain is still a maverick. The choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "on the edge of the bubble" to some, but she is an excellent VP candidate. I'm betting that she's dealt with blowhards like Biden before, and will kick his butt in their debate. Her experience should be an issue, because it compares so favorably to Obama's. Sarah Palin took on corruption in her own party, and has an 80% approval rating. She has been more than bipartisan in her appointments, by including "independents," as well as Democrats. She fits well with McCain, who should now change his stance on drilling in ANWR. Her story will come out, and she will impress the nation. Alaska deals with more international issues than most states, so her experience may be greater than Obama's, on a practical level. Granted, he just did the "big tour" of Western Europe, but what does he know about keeping the Russians from claiming all of the oil in the arctic circle? Less than she d...

Drs. Cornell West and Julianne Malveaux panned Sen. Obama's acceptance speech, in an interview with Tavis Smiley, on PBS. Tavis Smiley got them to open up, and gives us a real insight into their point of view. This link has 4 minutes of it, and I'm hoping the most critical parts aren't edited out. I saw the whole interview, but didn't view the online excerpt. Dr. West said that Obama's speech was "running away from history," and Dr. Malveaux called it a "whitewash," and stood behind that word, when challenged by Mr. Smiley. I f you don't know who Drs. West and Malveaux are, see their websites ( Dr. Malveaux , and Dr. West ), or just search the web. It is safe to say that they come from the liberal end of the political spectrum, and they are both African-American. It's an interesting interview, and deserverves to be transcribed fully. PS: I have to commend Tavis Smiley, because I am a huge fan of his. He is ten times as good at interviewi...

Michelle Obama said: "All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do--that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be." I have a few quick questions: How does a US president change "the world?" Who decides "how it should be?" What does "just won't do" mean, in this context? It "won't do" what, for who? Okay, if I take it as a figure of speech, meaning "is unacceptable," it still doesn't make sense, because "the world" has never "been acceptable" to everybody. Everyone has competing ideas on ethics, morality, and culture. Does her "obligation to fight for the world as it should be" extend to Iraq? Not likely, given her husband's advocating abandoning Iraq before the surge, when things were rough. Unfortunately, her husband is the one who "just won't do," and it's not because of his race. It's because of his equi...

C artoon by Sean Delonas , from Page Six of the NY Post. Want to know how corrupt NYS politics are? Here's the latest from Fredrick U. Dicker of the NY Post, in another great expose. This one's about NYS Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, who expects to be majority leader after the Nov. elections. (link) SENATE Minority Leader Malcolm Smith told a conclave of lobbyists in Kingston last week that their clients would be shut out of a Democrat-controlled Senate in January if they didn't pony up large contributions now, a "shocked" longtime lobbyist has told The Post... ..."The whole thing was incredible. Malcolm got up there and thanked everyone for coming and told them we should think of his fund-raising event as being like an IPO, an initial public offering. "He said we should get in early because then it doesn't cost as much. The longer you wait to get in, he said, the more it will cost you and if you don't get in at all, then it will be p...

After Saturday's Presidential Forum with Rick Warren, Obama tried to jump on McCain's answer to the question "On taxes, define rich." McCain tried to define it in terms of a person's wealth, not income. He said that it "Should be defined by a home, a good job and education, and the ability to hand our children a more prosperous and safer world than we inherited." When pressed on income, he said "If you're just talking about income, how about five million." When the audience laughed, he used the words "but seriously" several times, trying to finish his point, which was that he wants to keep everyones taxes low, even "the rich," and focus on out-of-control spending. There is a larger point here. Someone may only make the kind of money that the government taxes at the highest rate for very few years. People move up and down the income scales, and many of them sacrifice much to get there, and lose it all long before they pas...

Crossposted from GRAFFITI POLITTI on Gather (08/11/08), with an update below: South Ossetia was the flashpoint. Now, other provinces, notably Abkhazia, are also under seige. There are naval blockades, and other nations are denying port access to Russian vessels. The US is going to transport 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq to Georgia. Russian Prime Minister Putin has said that Georgia's President Saakashvili "has to go," according to one press report. Will this war result in a "regime change" in Georgia? How can it be averted? Was the "Rose revolution" totally in vain? Reality check: It's not 1968, and this ain't Prague. My US Dollars are still betting on freedom, in the longer term. In the near term, I see lots of fighting, death, and destruction. Same as it ever was. There are some interesing angles to this story. Georgia was applying to become part of NATO. This should be a lesson not to accept any nations with "provincial" disput...

How about them apples? US oil consumption dropped by the largest amount in 26 years, and world oil consumption still increased! I suppose it would have risen more, if not for all of us Americans conserving our resources. High prices will do that, you know. ( source ) Does this have anything to do with the recent falling of oil prices? You bet it's a large factor. There are also new sources being found all the time. Oil prices are coming down, because the market says so. Watch the pols line up to take credit, when they did nothing.

Something I didn't remember was that the offshore drilling ban passed by Congress expires on Sep. 30th. This is an interesting twist to this issue. What are they going to do, a month before the election? The markets already have this one figured out. Congress is going to let it expire or pass something expanding offshore drilling. Here's an excerpt from the Evans Novak Political Report , which is still publishing without Mr. Novak, who has a malignant brain tumor. I want to wish him all of God's grace, and my prayers for his health, as I quote his successor, Timothy P. Carney: Republicans are winning the energy debate and will continue to highlight the issue until Democrats are forced to either renew the existing offshore ban when it expires on September 30, or allow it expire. Democrats need to hope for prices to come down and stay down until the election. Whether they have a legislative way to bring that about (such as releasing fuel from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve)...

Anyone who didn't see this coming is living in another reality. The man who had the nerve to call Pres. Bush "the Devil" in front of the UN a while back has once again shown where the stench of brimstone really came from. Who wants to bet he stays in power beyond his term limit? I ask all of the people who think that Bush is a "dictator" (if not the Devil) to make an objective comparison. Read the AP piece linked here , and you will realize why I laugh off the allegation of Bush's "tyranny." Speaking of tyranny, Rep. Maxine Waters recently threatened to try to nationalize America's oil industry. Chavez did this a long time ago, which shows what path Rep. Waters wants to take this nation down. I doubt that even a potential Pres. Obama (or a majority of Democrats) would go along with this, but it's important to know that we also have a faction that is as tyrannical as the Chavez regime. Watch out for "El Diablo," and his American a...