John McPain & Sarah Ailing In '08!

NOW I AM GETTIN" CRANKY

Let's talk MISERY!


Some excerpts from Bill Moyers' journal:

Working Americans, and that's most people, are experiencing the "big squeeze." In fact, they're trying to survive one of the most profound social and economic changes in our history. The middle class is disappearing, facing a decline in standards of living.

As wages stagnate, prices are soaring. Economists call this pain the "misery index." It's a combination of the unemployment and inflation rates, and it's what politicians have in mind when they ask, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Well, the misery index is the highest it's been since George Bush's father became president, seventeen years ago.

When it comes to feeling the misery index, however, you don't go to the economists or the politicians. You go to where regular people live. And that's what we have been doing on this broadcast for months now. We've seen how the mortgage crisis has devastated neighborhoods in Cleveland, how workers in Los Angeles are scrambling for a living wage, and how gas and food prices are choking the ability of food pantries to stave off hunger here in metropolitan New York.

This year oil hit a record high - $147 a barrel when last year, it was less than half that - around $68. A loaf of bread is up 14% from last year, a dozen eggs is up 33%, and pizza makers have seen the cost of their cheese soar from $1.30 to $1.76. Flour used to make the dough has tripled in price. As these prices soar, the value of homes is sinking. One in three home buyers since 2003 now owe more than their property's estimated worth. Not only has home equity plummeted, so has the value of other holdings, like stocks and bonds and pensions, the investments families count on as a cushion during hard times.

So America's middle class, our "fearful families" as some people call them, is taking it on the chin.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08222008/transcript4.html

Will the American people really vote for four more years of hardship?

Will they really choose to subject themselves to more misery?

Have they learned anything from past eight years???


I hope we don't wake up the day after the election to another headline:

How Can ____ Million People Be So Dumb?

The M in McCain will be for MISERY!

U.S. Economy: Payrolls Drop, Unemployment at 6.1% (Update1)

By Shobhana Chandra

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. lost more jobs than forecast in August and the unemployment rate climbed to a five- year high of 6.1 percent, a sign that the economic slowdown is worsening two months before Americans elect their next president.

Today's figures increase the risk that President George W. Bush will become the first president since Richard Nixon to oversee two recessions, and may hurt fellow Republican John McCain's campaign to succeed him.

Today's report is the penultimate look at the job market before the Nov. 4 U.S. election, with McCain vying with Democratic candidate Barack Obama to take the White House. McCain yesterday addressed the Republican Party convention, pledging to ``keep taxes low'' and rein in unnecessary government spending.

``Americans are hurting and we must act to create jobs,'' McCain said today in a statement. Obama, in a statement, said ``today's jobs report is a reminder of what's at stake in this election.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home


So the GOP is both the cause of our misery and the cure for it?

McCain/Palin - Four More Years of Lies and Deception

10 September, 2008

If the actual policies of John McCain and Sarah Palin aren’t enough to convince you, that if elected they will be 4-8 more years of George Bush, maybe this will. McCain and Palin are proving, that they have learned from the Bush administration, that truth is not as important as perception.

So… Even if you’re o.k. with four more years of a Bush economy.

Even if you’re o.k. with four more years of Bush healthcare (crisis) policy.

Even if you’re o.k. with four more years of Bush foreign policy and the Iraq war.

Even if you’re o.k. with four more years of Bush corporate welfare.

Even if you’re o.k. with skyrocketing gas prices.

Even if you’re o.k. with eroding women’s rights.

Even if the last eight years of the Bush administration have served you well…How do you feel about four more years of lies and deception? Are you o.k. with that? Just in case you are not o.k. with that, you should know how much lying and deception has been going on in the last ten days.

McCain and Palin are not just more of the same Bush policies, they are more of the same Bush deceptions. Is this really what you want for the next four years?

If not, here are some ways to fact-check the McCain/Palin ticket:

http://politicsanew.com/2008/09/10/mccainp...-and-deception/

Market crashing, recession, and McCain said today he can fix it.

He also has a secret plan to get Osama but he won't reveal it unless he's elected. (Keith reported on this.)

Enough?

Palin + McCain Equals More Bush

Friday, September 19, 2008

by Helen Thomas

The new Republican ticket seems like the current White House tenant. Neither McCain nor Palin appear to have any significant doubts about President Bush's disastrous policies. Palin's gubernatorial tenure in Alaska is personified by massive firings when she took office. She does not tolerate dissent and shuns the media.

It seems clear to me that we would have another imperial presidency if McCain and Palin win the hearts and minds of the American people in the November balloting. Bob Woodward of The Washington Post has been privy to the workings of the Bush White House and has written four books to prove it. In his latest Book, "The War Within," Woodward depicts Bush as a "man of few doubts" who is "still following his gut, convinced that the path he has chosen is right."

Bush, who has switched from using the word "win" in speaking of Iraq to "succeed," has the gung ho McCain-Palin team behind him. The question is, why? Woodward also wrote that Bush was intolerant of confrontations and in-depth debate. He said Bush maintained an "odd detachment" in the management of the war in Iraq "and too often failed to lead."

Bush has never explained why he invaded Iraq -- a country that had no doomsday weapons and did us no harm. It's doubtful that McCain or Palin could explain Bush's mindless mission in the Middle East if they gained the White House.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/19-7

Market plunges 777 points!

Elect McCain and give us more of the same!!!

Convict Bush, McCain and the GOP for the Economy

By Marie Cocco
September 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama, accused so often of taking too lawyerly an approach to the rough-and-tumble of presidential politics, delivered a brilliant summation at the very outset of his first debate with John McCain.

The question was about the gargantuan bailout being forced upon taxpayers as a way of rescuing the economy from the clutches of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The answer was crisp and complete.

"This is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to (those who have) the most and somehow prosperity will trickle down," the Democratic presidential candidate said.

Were George W. Bush himself in the defendant's chair, this would be one of those cases in which the jury would be sent to the deliberation room and the judge would have to quickly return from his chambers to hear the verdict. Does anyone doubt that Bush would be found guilty as charged?

With this latest, grotesque mismanagement of a financial disintegration that showed its first signs years ago, Bush has done for the global economy what he did for New Orleans. He has allowed it -- allowed all of us -- to drown in a failure that is catastrophic, and he has done so through his usual combination of ineptitude and ideologically inspired indifference to the consequences of refusing to take early action.

Obama is fundamentally right. We have on Nov. 4 an opportunity to deliver the final verdict on a crowd that has been negligent in too many ways to count. McCain wasn't the ringleader, but he has been complicit.

Bush and the Republicans are guilty as charged. They deserve to be put away.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...and_the_go.html

McCain’s Social Security Privatization: Bad Idea When Bush Proposed It, Bad Idea Now

Oct 1, 2008

The events of the last two weeks have illustrated the volatility of America’s financial markets. Today, the Dow closed below where it was on George W. Bush’s first day in office.

And yet, John McCain still supports a Bush-style Social Security privatization plan that would encourage Americans to risk their retirement benefits on the stock market.

Social Security provides the majority of income for most seniors and is a vital insurance system for disabled workers and dependent spouses. Income provided by Social Security keeps 13 million seniors from living in poverty.

McCain’s proposal, which would allow workers to divert their social security payments into private accounts, is risky, expensive, a financial boon to Wall Street, and would undermine, not shore up, the long-term solvency of Social Security.

This is a debate that’s been had before. When Bush proposed a similar plan in 2005, analysts were able to assess its impact and debunk its myths. Here’s what they concluded:

Private accounts are risky: BUSH AND MCCAIN tout the potential for higher returns as a reason to shift Social Security payments into the stock market. But an analysis by Robert Shiller of Yale University of a standard “lifetime” personal account, as envisioned by Bush and McCain, show they actually lose money one-third of the time. Furthermore, projections of rosy growth used to justify personal accounts stand in stark contrast to the projections of slower growth that indicate there may be an eventual shortfall in Social Security.

What McCain won’t tell you: The cost of closing the long-term shortfall in Social Security is less than the cost of extending Bush’s tax breaks for the richest 1% of Americans, as John McCain has proposed.

But McCain seems less interested in saving Social Security than gambling it away.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/...ation-bad-idea/