VOTE FOR OBAMA????? | Arthritis Information

May 5, 2008 issue of Newsweek

'Questions for Obama' by George F. Will
"Senator, concerning the criteria by which you will nominate judges, you said: 'We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.' Such sensitivities might serve an admirable legislator, but what have they to do with judging? Should a judge side with whichever party in a controversy stirs his or her empathy? Is such personalization of the judicial function inimical to the rule of law?
• Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you said: Deciding 'truly difficult cases' should involve 'one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.' Is that not essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case? Should other factors—say, the language of the constitutional or statutory provision at issue—matter?
• You say, 'The insurance companies, the drug companies, they're not going to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care.' Why should they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable? When pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable suffering and death? What other industries should 'give up their profits'?
• ExxonMobil's 2007 profit of .6 billion annoys you. Do you know that its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft's and many other corporations'? And that reducing ExxonMobil's profits will injure people who participate in mutual funds, index funds and pension funds that own 52 percent of the company?
• You say John McCain is content to 'watch [Americans'] home prices decline.' So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How? Why? Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator know ideal prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their first house that declining prices are a misfortune?
• Telling young people 'don't go into corporate America ,' your wife, Michelle , urged them to become social workers or others in 'the helping industry,' not 'the moneymaking industry.' Given that the moneymakers pay for 100 percent of American jobs, in both public and private sectors, is it not helpful?
• Michelle , who was born in 1964, says that most Americans' lives have 'gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.' Since 1960, real per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has increased by seven years, infant mortality has declined 74 percent, deaths from heart disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has stopped being a death sentence, depression has become a treatable disease, air and water pollution have been drastically reduced, the number of women earning a bachelor's degree has more than doubled, the rate of homeownership has increased 10.2 percent, the size of the average American home has doubled, the percentage of homes with air conditioning has risen fro m 12 to 77, the portion of Americans who own shares of stock has quintupled. Has your wife perhaps missed some pertinent developments in this country that she calls 'just downright mean'?
• You favor raising the capital gains tax rate to '20 percent or 25 percent.' You say this will not 'distort' economic decision making. Your tax returns on your 2007 income of .2 million show that you and Michelle own few stocks. Are you sure you understand how investors make decisions?
• During the ABC debate, you acknowledged that when the capital gains rate was dropped first to 20 percent, then to 15 percent, government revenues from the tax increased and they declined in the 1980s when it was increased to 28 percent. Nevertheless, you said you would consider raising the rate 'for purposes of fairness.' How does decreasing the government's financial resources and punishing investors promote fairness? Are you aware that 20 percent of taxpayers reporting capital gains in 2006 had incomes of less than ,000?
• You favor eliminating the cap on earnings subject to the 12.4 percent Social Security tax, which now covers only the first 2,000. A Chicago police officer married to a Chicago public-school teacher, each with 20 years on the job, have a household income of 7,501, so you would take another ,642 from them. Are they undertaxed? Are they too rich?
• This November, electorates in four states will vote on essentially this language: 'The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.' Three states— California , Washington and Michigan —have enacted such language. You made a radio ad opposing the Michigan initiative. Why? Are those states' voters racis ts?
• You denounce President Bush for arrogance toward other nations. Yet you vow to use a metaphorical 'hammer' to force revisions of trade agreements unless certain weaker nations adjust their labor, environmental and other domestic policies to suit you. Can you define cogni tive dissonance?
• You want 'to reduce money in politics.' In February and March you raised million.

Good questions, wonder if they'll ever be answered.

Awesome questions!!! All the answers will be bullsh!!!!t, regardless who answers them.

The questions won't be answered, Obama will do a dance of bullsh*t. No experience, no answers. Most Liberals don't care about these ??? and others. They just want " Change " So a Bi-racial candidate suites there needs. Liberal whites feel better about themselves and 90% of blacks ( maybe more ) will vote for him no matter what the issues are ( racism at it's best ). He is a one term senator with No real experience. Seems to be a nice guy but has a lot of skeletons in his closet same author wrote this 5 days later

Questions For McCain
You say 'some greedy people' on Wall Street 'perhaps need to be punished.' So, government should treat greed as a crime?

George F. Will
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:17 PM ET May 10, 2008
Peripatetic John McCain, the human pinball, continues to carom around the country as his rivals gnaw on each other. Although action, not reflection, is his forte, perhaps he should go to earth somewhere, while the Democrats continue the destruction, and answer some questions, such as:

• You say you are not "ready to go to war with Iran," but you also say the "one thing worse" than "exercising the military option" is "a nuclear-armed Iran." Because strenuous diplomacy has not dented Iran's nuclear ambitions, is not a vote for you a vote for war with Iran?

• You say that although Russia has blocked "everything we have tried to do" through the United Nations, you are confident that a "league of democracies" that "control so much of the world's economy" can modify the behavior of Iran, which has "a lousy economy." Does that mean war can be avoided only if France, Germany, Japan and China, which have important commercial relations with Iran, impose severe sanctions, and they break Iran's nuclear ambitions?

• Your goal in Iraq is "success," which you define as "the establishment of a generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state." Would a "generally" peaceful, stable, prosperous but authoritarian state be unacceptable? Or a mildly prosperous and "generally" stable state but one with simmering violence—which describes a number of nations today, including Iraq? Does the task of making your four adjectives descriptive of Iraq require and therefore justify more years of military involvement in the suppression of groups that are manifestations of sectarianism, criminality and warlordism? What other nations should we police?

• In 1999, during U.S. intervention in the Balkans, you advocated mobilizing infantry and armored divisions to show Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic that there was "no self-imposed limit to our determination to liberate Kosovo from his tyranny." You described your policy as "rogue-state rollback" against those who threaten "our strategic interests and political values." How did Serbia threaten America's strategic interests? Are America's political values threatened by any state that does not practice them? If so, how long is your list of nations eligible for "rogue-state rollback"?

• You vow to nominate judges who "take as their sole responsibility the enforcement of laws made by the people's elected representatives." Their sole responsibility? Do you oppose judicial review that invalidates laws that pure-hearted representatives of the saintly people have enacted that happen to violate the Constitution? Does your dogmatic deference to popular sovereignty put you at odds with the first Republican president, who nobly insisted that there are some things the majority should not be permitted to do—hence his opposition to allowing popular sovereignty to determine the status of slavery in the territories? Do you also reject Justice Antonin Scalia's belief that the Constitution's purpose is "to embed certain rights in such a manner that future generations cannot readily take them away"? Does this explain your enthusiasm for McCain-Feingold's restrictions on political speech, and your dismissive reference to, "quote, First Amendment rights"? Would you nominate judges who, because they think those are more than "quote … rights," doubt McCain-Feingold's constitutionality?

• You say that even if global warming turns out to be no crisis (the World Meteorological Organization says global temperatures have not risen in a decade), even unnecessary measures taken to combat it will be beneficial because "then all we've done is give our kids a cleaner world." But what of the trillions of dollars those measures will cost in direct expenditures and diminished economic growth—hence diminished medical research, cultural investment, etc.? Given that Earth is always warming or cooling, what is its proper temperature, and how do you know?

• You propose a "cap and trade" system to limit the carbon dioxide that many companies can emit. Is not your idea an energy- rationing proposal akin to Bill Clinton's BTU tax?

• You say "some greedy people" on Wall Street "perhaps need to be punished." So, government should treat greed as a crime—as punishable? What other departures from virtue deserve punishment? How do you distinguish between greed and the socially useful pursuit of personal gain? Your top 20 contributors include this dozen: Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Bank of New York Mellon, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia Group, Bridgewater Associates, Blackstone Group and Bear Stearns. Are any contributions from these financial institutions so tainted by greed that you are returning them?

• Having raised million in February and March, Barack Obama is reconsidering whether to rely on taxpayer funding in the general election, which would limit him to spending only .1 million. You denounce Obama for this, but your adviser Charles Black says, "We could sit down in July or August and say, 'Hey, we're raising a lot of money and maybe we should forgo [taxpayer financing].' We don't have enough data." Really, how does your position differ from Obama's?

• More than 90 percent of taxpayers refuse to use the checkoff on their tax forms to fund campaigns—even though doing so would not increase their tax bill. Given such annual landslide "votes" against taxpayer funding, why is relying on it more virtuous than Obama's expected reliance on voluntary contributions from dedicated individuals?

Just wondering.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/136308[QUOTE=6t5frlane]Most Liberals don't care about these ??? and others. They just want " Change " So a Bi-racial candidate suites there needs. Liberal whites feel better about themselves and 90% of blacks ( maybe more ) will vote for him no matter what the issues are ( racism at it's best ). He is a one term senator with No real experience. Seems to be a nice guy but has a lot of skeletons in his closet [/QUOTE]

Why does it have to be "a Bi-racial"candidate? Why not the Demacratic candidate?

He does not come without any experience, he has some.

After collage he worked as a community organizer in Chicago.Working with local

residents on housing projects and organizing Registration drives.

He later tought constitution law and worked as a civil rights lawyer before serving

8 years in the Ill. state legislature.

There was a Republican candidate for presidency whose political experience was one term in the House of Representatives representing Illinois, and an unsuccessful run for the Senate. He gained notoriety and ultimately the presidency based primarily upon his eloquent speeches. Perhaps you have heard of him, his name was Abraham Lincoln.I'm sure we all have our OPINIONS on the presidential candidates. Opinions, as I'm sure you know, are subjective, not objective.

Jan

I'm a Repulican and do not support Obama. I would like to point out one of America's favorite Presidents of all times was Ronald Regan. What expereince did he have?

I can't really say much about Ronald Regan. While he was Pres I was just a dumb teen who couldn't have cared less about politics. In fact, (as embarrassing as it is now) the only thing I distinctly remember about his Presidency is that the assasination attempt broke while General Hospital was on and I was really PO'd. I don't think comparing the issues of the 1800's to now has any validity[QUOTE=Hillhoney]There was a Republican candidate for presidency whose political experience was one term in the House of Representatives representing Illinois, and an unsuccessful run for the Senate. He gained notoriety and ultimately the presidency based primarily upon his eloquent speeches. Perhaps you have heard of him, his name was Abraham Lincoln.[/QUOTE]

Sorry this is where I meant to post.....

I do not think comparing the 1800's to now has any validity. A lot of peoiple did not like Lincoln. He paid with his life.

You are absolutely right. Lincoln faced tremendous opposition, and had to deal with a nation divided, with hatred and racial issues, with a social and economic structure resisting change, and with a nation at war. And using your criteria for determining competence for being President, he did not qualify. However, I think he did remarkably well, don't you? And I think it is very relevant to today's issues and election.

I'm not sure what your comment about "he paid with his life" meant. Are you implying Obama may pay with his life? I'm very sure he recognizes the dangers involved. How could he not? John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King came before him with very similar ideals, and they all paid for it with their lives. But because of their sacrifices, he is in the position he is in today. And he understands the risks, and the importance of his candidacy. Every day there's a new vile, repulsive, and untrue email being sent around the country about him - perhaps you have seen them?

Hillhoney2008-07-02 06:18:30Honestly, I think that whatever is being circulated that is untrue should be laid to rest. Their are so many questionable (to say the least) things that we know are true about Obama I really don't know why anyone would even bother to make something up. What I don't understand is why McCain supporters don't spend their time promoting McCain and his positions, rather than trashing Obama? I haven't said anything nasty or degrading about McCain, nor have the most of us awful liberals. But the whole time has been spent with personal attacks on Obama.

For other opinions, go to:

www.fightthesmears.com

Scroll down on left hand side to "Who is behind the lies" for some very interesting information. Note these lies have been told about G. Bush and others too.
Politics does not have to be full of hatred and racism and half-truths.
Ann

Well it looks like Jesse Jackson ain't none to happy with BHO. Wants to cut his " Nuts " off. Holy Crap. Isn't funny what people say when they think the mike is off? [QUOTE=6t5frlane]Well it looks like Jesse Jackson ain't none to happy with BHO. Wants to cut his " Nuts " off. Holy Crap. Isn't funny what people say when they think the mike is off?[/QUOTE]

I must comment on this. Jesse Jackson basically has made a career of the media, right? Radio, TV, it is a mantra: Every mike is a hot mike. That means, if you are miked, keep your mouth shut.

I know he knows this. He has to. He never would have made it this long. And miked for a Fox broadcast? Come on, everybody, the man did not just fall off the turnip truck. He wanted those comments heard.
I'm sure Jesse is VERY Jealous of BHO. After all Jesse did run for President and got no where. Now is apologizing etc. Like seeing Bill Clinton with Barrack. It's just not believable

A NICE COLD BEER WOULD GO GOOD RIGHT NOWBecause without a tele promter he cannot think on his own so McCain would probably make him look bad. Obama is going to be on Larry King tonight...Give it a watch! GG2008-07-15 13:04:11Nobody was watching .....Historic All Star game @ Yankee Stadium. Even Non Baseball people were talking about the game today. Plenty of time to listen too the candidates I watched a part of the Senator Obama/Senator McCain (by Larry King proxy) debate. It was pretty easy for Senator Obama to win the debate. I know why Senator Obama doesn't want to debate Senator McCain. Senator McCain isn't a Hillary Clinton. Hillary lost against Obama because she let Obama set the rules and instead of knocking him out and stomping on his head when he was down, she instead helped him back up and tried to play nice, (his one sided rule) while he and his group bitch slapped her everytime she turned the other cheek. It's one thing to be Chicago street smart. You can eloquently take from some elite white woman. We are so lucky she lost. She couldn't even compete with street smart, let alone a world leader hell bent on destroying the United States. It was an embarrassment to watch her blush at Senator Obamas sweetness and hugs while he was actually slapping her down. Keep in mind that it was her husband that gave, yes gave the north koreans the nuclear weapon after kim promised not to use the nuclear technology given by President Clinton for weapons purposes. Street smarts isn't enough training when going to war against a Senator McCain, it's just that simple.

LEV