The Only Presidential Candidate Who Will Cut Spending

I’m pretty annoyed with Barack Obama right now. His current plan to expand Faith-Biased initiatives, to me, shows a lack of seriousness about balancing the budget. I’m all for helping the poor, but I’m not all for borrowing money from China and the Middle East to do so. So far the CBO and the Tax Policy Center have said that both Obama and McCain’s projected budget’s would run in the red.

So I thought I would give a quick shout out to Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President. Yes, he’s not going to win. But at least he’s campaigning hard on two things that matter: a balanced budget and restoring the writ of habeaus corpus. So even though I don’t support Bob Barr, I think it’s important that at least his voice on these matters is heard.

Obama is Listening to His Handlers Too Much, Denies Little Boy a Fist Bump

Remember when Al Gore tried to be an alpha male? And then there was that whole thing with earth tones? A man who was once a reasonably inspirational speaker was transformed by his political consultants into the dullest political candidate in recent memory.

I think Barack Obama is listening to the same people.

It was the fist bump heard around the world — and apparently the backlash has gotten to Senator Obama because he’s acting all funny about it.

He recently refused to share a fist bump with a young supporter when visiting a school:

As he left [the classroom], a boy tried to give him a fist bump. Obama said no.
“If I start that …” his voice trailed off.

If you start that, what? What, Senator Obama?

Will your supporters offer you fist bumps instead of handshakes? Probably.

Will your supporters start using the fist bump to salute one another? They already have. I know I certainly have.

Will right wing commentators with nothing better to do pick on you for it? Duh!

Will you retain your humanity, your authenticity, your relatability, your pizazz? I should hope so.

Come on dude! Please don’t go the Gore route. Fist bumps for all!

Update: Almost forgot to give due props for the story to my good friend Jason Preston. That would have been unfortunate.

Wilshire & Washington: Obama the Flip Flopper?, The Wives Face Off, and The Town Hall Meetings

Ted, Maegan and I sound off. Join us.

Since When am I a Republican?

It’s obvious that I’m pretty proud of MTV’s coverage of TeresaCentric last week. And I’m really excited that the video has been a featured story on ChooseOrLose.com. But I’m not so darned excited about the fact that they’re misrepresenting me as a Republican.

I’m not a Republican. I’m an independent with a particular take on conservatism. Technically I was a Democrat until a few weeks ago when Obama clinched the nomination and I reverted to Independent status. I’ve been a member of the Republican party, but I hate political parties and participate in them only when great leaders like Senator Obama, or Senator McCain eight years ago come along.

So my challenge to MTV is: get it right. I’m not a Republican. I’m a conservative, kay?

I Love This Video

Quick Rant

After working from noon until 11PM without a break, seeing that your car has been towed is generally the last thing you want to see. Especially after you paid five dollars for parking. But apparently on certain streets on Capitol Hill, certain zones become tow-away only between 4 and 6PM. I just figured that if I parked next to a parking meter, the curb is gray, and the parking meter said pay for parking from 8AM-6PM, that I could park there if I paid for parking. This especially sucks because today was the literally the first day in almost a year that I went from in the red to in the black. Well, that was a nice day in the black.

Obama’s Faith Based Initiative Seems Fair to Me

I’ve always been a big proponent of the separation of church and state — but I’ve never had a huge problem with the idea of a faith-based initiative. For a number of reasons, I don’t see government as a natural solution for many social problems. Oftentimes, poverty and suffering are most directly alleviated by groups that are more closely knit with the communities they serve. In our society, those groups are often religious.

For a number of reasons — many of which are well outlined outlined in David Kuo’s thought-provoking Tempting Faith and in Michelle Goldberg’s chilling Kingdom Coming — President Bush’s take on government-church partnerships in the interest of alleviating real suffering was a non-starter. In a nutshell, the faith-based initiative under Bush was under-resourced and ineffective. In addition, the office discriminated in favor of Christian charities, and organizations that received government money were allowed to hire and fire based on religion, sexual orientation, and other protected factors.

But I’ve always thought that with proper guidelines in place — no proselytizing, no discrimination in hiring, and allocation of funds based on effectiveness rather than religious denomination — a faith-based initiative would be an effective strategy for helping the poor. It looks as though Senator Obama — who after all, once taught Constitutional law — has thought the issue through and is not afraid to propose radical solutions to radical problems.

It’s easy to be a high-minded idealist about secularism when your stomach and checking account are full, but what about for those who are desperate? Our society should rush aid to those who need it most in whatever form will get it to them most expediently. If that happens to be through a religious charity that’s fine by me, just as long as they obey the rules.

A Horrible Customer Service Experience, Courtesy of the Chelsea Savoy Hotel

I was in Manhattan last week for business and stayed at a lovely hotel in Chelsea that I won’t mention here because I want to stay there again and I don’t want any trolls to show up when I do. This post isn’t about the hotel I stayed in, anyway. It’s about the hotel I almost stayed in.

I had to stay in New York a night longer than I’d originally planned and the hotel I was staying at didn’t have a room available. They recommended that I check out the Chelsea Savoy Hotel, which was close by.

I was wowed by the reasonable prices and rave reviews on Yelp and decided to book a room. Just to be safe, I also asked my current hotel to get me a room if they should happen to have a cancellation.

Less than 24 hours later, that’s exactly what happened. A colleague of mine decided to head home a night early and cancelled his room, giving me another night in the same hotel as my team. In turn, I gave the Chelsea Savoy more than 48 hours notice that I wouldn’t need the room. When I called back later that day to confirm that my reservation had indeed been cancelled, I was told that it was no longer in the system.

That was the last I thought of the Chelsea Savoy until I saw the $235 charge from the Chelsea Savoy on my online bank statement this morning. Convinced I’d been the victim of an honest mistake, I called the hotel and asked to speak to the billing department. That’s when it became clear that they were trying to fleece me.

The woman in billing was rude and combative. She practically accused me of lying about canceling my room and told me that she “wasn’t going to take sides” in the matter. Furious, I told her that I planned to dispute the charges with my bank, which is exactly what I’ve done.

Bottom Line: The Chelsea Savoy may be inexpensive, but fraudulent credit card charges are never cheap.

Say It Aint So ‘O’

I’m still in shock over Obama’s announcement that he will vote to give the telecom’s retroactive immunity after they allowed the NSA to illegal wiretap people without warrants. Obama said that “given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay.”

I have yet to hear any evidence that the wiretapping has made us any safer. President Bush has already whited out the Eight Amendment with his policy of torturing potentially guilty “enemy combatants”. The wiretapping vote effectively whites out the Fourth Amendment. I was hoping that Obama would move the debate back into the realm of reality. This hope is the reason that as many as 65,000 people have turned out to see him at rallies.

Instead, it appears that Obama is instead going to be playing the “security scare” game, where we pretend like the threat of terrorist attacks is so grave that we must ignore the principles this country was founded on in order to fight “a new kind of war.” Maybe this vote will make Obama a stronger “general election candidate”. But before he votes for this bill, I will need to hear him give a speech on why terrorists threats outweigh the Bill of Rights.

I’m ROFLCopter @ “Tyson Homosexual”

A rabidly anti-gay news site — “Your Latest News From a Christian Perspective” — apparently has a filter in place to change the word “gay” to “homosexual.”

And that’s how sprinter Tyson Gay — who would have set a world record in last night’s Olympic qualifier had it not been for a slight tailwind — became “Tyson Homosexual.”

All I can say is:

[Via Slog]

Attacks on McCain’s Military Record are Deplorable

Just because the Republicans did it to the Democratic candidate four years ago doesn’t make it right for the Democrats to do it to the Republican candidate this time around.

Barack Obama needs to stop abandoning the principles that made me so gung-ho about him in the primaries and come out unequivocally against smears on McCain’s military experience.

This is an opportunity for Senator Obama to show the American people that he can truly rising above the deplorable politics of the past eight years. It’s an opportunity he needs to take full advantage of.

McCain: The Biggest Long-Term Economic Threat to the US is … Terrorism?

The latest issue of Fortune has caused quite a stir in political circles due to some extremely bad judgment on the part of McCain chief strategist Charlie Black. In an article about McCain’s evolution, Black went on the record with reporter David Whitford saying that a terrorist attack on the United States in the coming months would be, “a big advantage to [McCain].”

The stir came not over the content of the revelation — which is painfully obvious — but its source. Chief campaign strategists are not supposed to be quite so forthcoming, especially when it comes to fearmongering tactics that have earned widespread repudiation in recent years.

Still, fearmongering appears to be the only tactic the McCain campaign can come up with at this juncture. In the same issue of Fortune, McCain answered the question, “what do you see as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy?” by saying:

I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we’re in against Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.

I suppose that Islamic extremism is also the biggest threat to the environment, to the education of our children, and to our health care system. I’m sure that McCain could find a way to spin them as such, anyway.

I don’t mean to downplay the potential economic impact of another terrorist attack. Such things have tremendous impact on the national psyche, but only because we let them. The only exception would be a nuclear attack, something that Obama has worked tirelessly to prevent via nonproliferation legislation.

But I digress from the economic argument, which is as one blogger put it, “science fiction territory.” The Israelis have to put up with the daily threat of suicide bombers, and yet their economy hums along. Even their war with Hezbollah in 2006 didn’t significantly derail their prosperity.

If politicians stopped talking about another 9/11-style terrorist attack as though it were a catastrophe on the scale of Hiroshima, perhaps our economy wouldn’t go into massive spasms when such things occur. Of course, that would undermine the whole point of McCain’s campaign of fear.

MTV Street Team ‘08 Does a Piece on TeresaCentric!

Many thanks to Washington State Street Team reporter Cory Midgarten for covering TeresaCentric.

More Push-Polling And Scamming

801-623-4621. Just got a call from them, no voice, just dead air, and did a look up. Apparently this number comes from a calling company in Provo, UT that does push-polls and/or scams. Looks like they are going to be out this election season.

Kid Rock Says “Steal Everything”

Hillary Clinton - Help Me Pay Off My Debts

Hillary Clinton overspent by about 20 million dollars. Now she wants help paying off the debt she racked up.

Now maybe I’m wrong about this, and its a common practice for politician to try to continue to raise money for their campaigns after an election is over so that they can pay off huge debts. But this seems really messed up to me.

George Carlin Dies at 71

He will be missed. Classic Carlin below.

Next Page »