The-Asterisk

I just watched the Sean Hannity - McCain/Palin interview. Seems that every time Sarah said something that went to the heart of the matter in her plain-spoken, folksy manner that simply answered the questions, John said "Can I say something else?" and then commenced to tell how Obama voted 94 times for this or said That when he really did something else. Totally wonked out. I am a self-admitted political crack head and I am sick of this $h!+. I can't stand it anymore. One cannot believe any statistics, anytime , let alone in a political campaign... especially the same statistics or figures repeated AD NAUSEUM until I have to hold my hand over my mouth to stave off the retching reflex every time I hear them. Say what you want about Gov. Palin, she gets to the heart of the matter. Especially when she isn't speaking in that kindergarten teacher, sing-songy voice that she (and Tina Fey) do so well. Totally refreshing. But does she know how DC works? Does she have foreign...

I have listened over the past three months about all of the different solutions, fixes, schemes or inaction that have been proposed to solve the housing crisis. I think that I may have come up with something that can fix it. First, let's be clear what the problem is. For the past several years we have had inflating housing prices, caused by a number of things previously discussed, and these houses have mortgages on them that the owners took out in order to purchase them. Some, if not most, of the mortgagees got mortgages based on their actual ability to repay the original loan amount. In other words, a conventional mortgage. However, as the prices were skyrocketing, lots of speculators and average citizens saw the ever expanding bubble as a way to make either a quick profit by flipping the house, or as a way to buy way more house than they could normally afford by entering into a risky mortgage with the hope of refinancing it in a few years, leveraging the increased equity create...

Thoughts about last night's second Presidential Debate: Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Boring. Opportunities squandered. Town hall format? What town hall format? Uncomfortable. Massively uncomfortable. Blah, blah, blah. Same old, same old. Joe Lieberman? Can I turn the channel to a rerun of Dancing with the Stars? Oh my God! President Obama. Sigh...........

To the McCain Campaign (and handlers) I know that your campaign is going on the attack and I like McCain's response that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. Bill Clinton proved that fact. In fact it is the modus operandi of the Democrat Party. However, I emplore the campaign to start telling Americans what you as President are going to do. Pretend Obama doesn't exist. Tell us how you will push for energy independence, how we will get off of foreign oil in 10 years, how you will nominate non-activist jurists, how you will get legislation past the Do-Nothings in Congress, etc. We need to hear positive examples of how these things are going to get done. Obama speaks in generalities and platitudes. Show us all that you have a plan (I assume you do.) I follow politics like some people follow baseball stats, and I don't really know what your plan is for any of these things. When false accusations are made, respond swiftly and don't be nice about it. Hit ...

During the debate, "Fact Check" Biden stated "And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit." If anyone cares, here is a direct quote from the US Constitution " The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States ." The only other mention of duties of the Vice President is to succeed the President in a variety of circumstances. I know that the Constitution is supposed to be a "living, breathing document", but u...

Well, it was a good night for Sarah Palin. She held her own, and though at times she seemed scripted (what politician doesn't), I thought that her composure was confident and she didn't make a lot of obvious mistakes. Right after the debate started, Joe Biden stated that Barack Obama "warned us two years ago on the Senate floor about the subprime mortgage mess". I was curious about this and I wondered why a junior senator would go before Congress to warn about something that he and his party had made a centerpiece of their housing policy. I pulled up Google and typed in "barack obama warned about subprime mortgages". The first hit was factcheck.barackobama.com . I swear that within 30 seconds of the words leaving Biden's mouth, these guys had literally 5 paragraphs written on this site about how Palin was wrong. I watched this during the debate and with every question, there was an instant (almost prescient) rebuttal of how Palin was wrong and Obama/Bid...