According to MyFox Washington DC, “Chesterfield County [VA] police are investigating the theft of a resident’s campaign sign supporting Barack Obama’s historic bid for the presidency. The 4-by-8-foot sign in the yard of a black resident was replaced by a Confederate flag.”

If I can find his mailing address, I will send Leroy C. McLaughlin, owner of said campaign sign, a Rednecks for Obama sign as a replacement. I’m going to see if I can find an address, but meanwhile if anybody reading this knows, let me know.

P.S. - I’ve finally recovered functionally from my disk crash, though there’s still a boatload of data I’m sifting through to try and piece my work back together. Let this be a lesson to you - back up everything! I backed up most of my stuff, and figured I’d get around to backing up the rest at some point.

Republicans are looking pretty desparate these days, not happy with the democratic process at all. They’ve been cooking up these (probably) false ACORN accusations and getting Fox News and other GOP propaganda outlets to cover the stories.

But they’ve also been illegally purging voters from the rolls, and making it difficult for certain black voters to vote. Bad things could happen if they are successful in their evil plan - for one thing, we could have a Constitutional crises on our hands.

There’s a handy article that lists just a few of their assaults, summarized below.

• A Republican sheriff in Greene County, Ohio, has demanded social security and other records from 302 local voters whose ballots he apparently wants to negate.
• In Franklin County[, Ohio] …observers have documented Republican operatives taking photographs and writing down license plate numbers of voters.
• In 2004, African-American students from Wright State, Central State and Wilberforce were regularly challenged on their registration credentials and forced to endure waiting in lines to vote for hours. Students at Cedarville, a Christian school, made no such reports.
• U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith, a Reagan appointee, has approved a GOP lawsuit demanding that the state give county boards of elections great leeway in attacking new voter registration forms.
• The New York Times has reported that boards of elections in at least nine crucial states, including Ohio, have violated federal law in conducting purges and have been illegally using Social Security data bases as part of those purges.
• The Times has also reported that boards of elections in Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio have illegally used federal Social Security databases to flag and possibly eliminate voters whose registration applications were suspected of irregularities.
• Michigan elections director Christopher Thomas said his state had removed about 11,000 voters in August, while the Times estimated the real number to be closer to 33,000. Thomas refused to make the purged files public.
• A CBS News report has revealed organized caging attempts by the GOP to eliminate registered voters from the rolls in 19 states.
• The grassroots organizing group ACORN has come under serious attack in Nevada, Missouri, Ohio and elsewhere from Republicans attempting to negate the thousands of generally low-income citizens ACORN has registered to vote.
• The GOP continues to resist attempts to subpoena Michael Connell, a Republican computer operative who programmed the 2000 Bush-Cheney web site. Connell was also hired by former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in 2004 to tabulate the Ohio vote count. Under Connell, Ohio’s vote totals were shunted to a computer bank in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that housed the servers of the Republican National Committee. In the early hours of the morning after election day, vote totals mysteriously began shifting from Kerry to Bush, swinging the 2004 election.

Oh man, my disk just crashed and I’ve apparently lost about 100G of data. I have a lot of stuff backed up, but only from a month ago. That means all my Obama Redneck artwork is gone. Bummer! The worst part will be reassembling all the assorted downloads I’ve done.

edit: I found some software called GetDataBack that seems to be recovering most of my data. Only thing is, my backup drive is one of those USB things, but my drive I’m using to recover the data won’t update to the USB 2.0 drivers, so I’m having to do it over USB 1.0, which is quite slow.

I like to let things settle a bit on my mind before making comment, but a two days later there’s not much to remember about this debate.

Obama didn’t say anything new, as far as I recall, and as far as I can tell from re-reading the transcript. His main points were that he would focus on health care, energy, and education. It’s all stuff he’s talked about before, and though he doesn’t talk much about details in his public appearances, they are on his website for all to read.

Like McCain, Obama thinks energy is one of the number one priorities, but unlike McCain, Obama’s emphasis is not on oil but on alternative energy sources. McCain just came across as a shill for the oil companies.

One thing I liked a lot was Obama’s talk about making college affordable again. For too many years, private lenders have been using shady tactics to get money from college students, it’s time to go back when education was partly subsidized by the government. That’s something I would not mind spending my tax dollars on, and it wouldn’t cost much either.

On the subject of using US force to fight genocide and similar activities, Obama gave a very good answer to that, contrasting his willingness to work within the world community with the approach of our current Administration and the likely approach of a McCain administration.

On foreign policy in general, Obama showed a good command of the facts and the challenges. He recommended getting the Iraqis to step up quicker so we can shift some of our troops to help in Afghanistan. He also recommended anticipating problems in the global arena rather than just reacting to them.

In short, he showed himself to be cool headed, forward looking, knowledgeable, and competent, which is all he really needs to do at this point, maybe that’s why there’s so little to report. He did defend himself against some of the accusations of the McCain/Palin camp, but he never went for the jugular.

Of course, the more entertaining part of a discussion of the debate would be to run McCain over the coals, which would be easy, but at this point I think it’s unnecessary.

I wasn’t going to focus so much on Sarah Palin, but here’s what she said in her debate with Biden:

No, in fact, when we talk about the Bush administration, there’s a time, too, when Americans are going to say, “Enough is enough with your ticket,” on constantly looking backwards, and pointing fingers, and doing the blame game.

There have been huge blunders in the war. There have been huge blunders throughout this administration, as there are with every administration.

But for a ticket that wants to talk about change and looking into the future, there’s just too much finger-pointing backwards to ever make us believe that that’s where you’re going.

Then of course she made her famous remarks about Obama and Bill Ayers. Maybe she made the connection between 8 year old Barack Obama and 25 year old Bill Ayers because she has so little respect for history? Here’s what former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said about Ayers:

“It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier,” said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. “It’s ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It’s nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It’s so silly.”

I’m not going to say any more about that, I think it mostly speaks for itself. I’m pretty sure there are rednecks who support McCain/Palin, but I’m also pretty sure there are plenty of rednecks who don’t appreciate being taken for fools and being spoken down to by Sarah Palin, with her fake northern redneck accent. This is just another example of her utter disdain for the people who are voting for her. Don’t forget, if they are elected, McCain doesn’t have to die for her to be President, he just has to be incapacitated, as by a stroke.

According to Simon Tisdall in the Guardian,

Aggressive advertising by Obama claiming, contentiously, that McCain would tax healthcare and privatise social security has had a big impact on older Floridians, the analyst said. Obama is currently an average three points ahead in the Sunshine state. A similar picture obtains in traditionally conservative Virginia, Ohio, and Nevada. The Democrat has even edged ahead in stereotypically redneck North Carolina.

One of my favorite websites for obsessing over the presidential polls, FiveThirtyEight, shows the phenomenon in color,

Electoral Projection 2008-10-05 by FiveThirtyEight.com.

I have to say the Chicken Fried Bacon at the State Fair of Texas this year is quite tasty. It costs about 10 coupons, which is $5, and you get about 7 pieces of bacon for that, with a side of ranch or honey mustard sauce. A side of gravy, though, would be just perfect. We just bought one and split it between 4 people.

One thing I enjoyed that was cornier than a corn dog was the “Live Action Bull Riding” over in the Dodge Truck Zone. It was weird, man, like that scene in Apocalypse Now where the Playboy Bunnies are helicoptered onto a stage in the middle of the jungle.

We were headed in that direction, when we heard the barker with a thick, country Texas accent whipping up the crowd. It was back behind a huge arch towering over some Dodge trucks on display, one of which was some kind of turbo-charged-looking, cammo-painted thing. When we got up to it there was already a sizeable crowd, the Young Country music was pumping and some Coyote Ugly-style “cowgirls” were dancing it up and tossing beads to the audience.

The arena was just a tiny thing, compared to what I’m used to. It was like “Hey, Bubba, let’s thrown down some dirt righ’ch’ere and put up a fence and do us some bull ridin’ - wooohaaa!” Probably a 25 yard square. They had three bulls, three rodeo clowns, and maybe a half-dozen riders. One of them was the Texas circuit champion, I forget his name, but he was standing up over the bull pens like some kind of rodeo god while the announcer built him up.

They even had the flag riders, a couple of good looking women, one with the Texas flag and the other with the Stars and Stripes. Usually the flag riders come out pretty fast and kick up a lot of dirt as they tear around the arena, but there wasn’t enough room, so they just circled a couple of times at a leisurely gallop.

Buildup was so long, by the time the bull riders came out we were already pretty tired from standing in the Texas sun (yes, even in October). Only the first one lasted over the required 8 seconds. We watched three others get tossed into the dirt in 4 to 6 seconds, and left.

But aside from it lasting way too long, it was pretty good spectacle. I don’t even like all that Coyote Ugly/Young Country/Dodge Ram stuff, but I found the mood infectious.

That was a tiring “debate” to watch, the one between Biden and Palin. Whenever she spoke I felt like I was being beat over the head with a cornpone stupid stick. She babbled incoherently, lied, contradicted herself many times per minute, and tried to gussy it all up in some kind of small town act trying to appeal to rednecks, but I’m pretty sure most rednecks are smart enough to see through all that.

There was one moment though, near the end, that none of the pundits seem to have noticed in the post debate banter. It was when she said

I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?

Biden’s face kind of fell on that remark, because of course, his first wife Nelia and daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash just before Christmas in 1972. [edit: A clarification on a point brought up by a reader. Senator Biden's second and current wife, Jill, is a professor, and that is who Governor Palin was talking about. Biden knew Palin wasn't talking about Nelia, but the wording of the comment still brought up the pain of remembrance.] Senator Biden became more combative after that, and brought it home near the end with remarks about his understanding of parenthood.

Look, I understand what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it’s like as a parent to wonder what it’s like if your kid’s going to make it.

Palin didn’t know how to respond to this heartfelt passion, so she followed with more incoherent babbling until she regained her composure somewhat, and went on a campaign rant about John McCain being a maverick. And that’s when Biden really hit back with a heated rebuttal with regard to McCain’s maverickness.

The pundits all thought she did well, but surely it’s only because the bar of expectations was so incredibly low for her. Look at some of these sentences!

In fact, 96 percent of his votes have been solely along party line, not having that proof for the American people to know that his commitment, too, is, you know, put the partisanship, put the special interests aside, and get down to getting business done for the people of America.

I do take issue with some of the principle there with that redistribution of wealth principle that seems to be espoused by you.

I had to take on those oil companies and tell them, “No,” you know, any of the greed there that has been kind of instrumental, I guess, in their mode of operation, that wasn’t going to happen in my state.

What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

Education credit in American has been in some sense in some of our states just accepted to be a little bit lax and we have got to increase the standards.

Also, John McCain’s maverick position that he’s in, that’s really prompt up to and indicated by the supporters that he has.

Okay, but that’s more about style than substance, you say. Maybe, or maybe it’s an indication of her scramble-headedness, that there are times, a lot of times per minute when she just doesn’t think straight. You sure you want to have her being Commander in Chief? McCain looks like he’s been having some microstrokes lately. He doesn’t have to die for her to be president, he just has to be mentally incapacitated.

But there’s a lot of substance in her babbling that’s just plain wrong, and still more of it that’s self-contradictory. I don’t have time to go into a lot of it right now, but just look at her statement about the “white flag of surrender.” That is a complete misunderstanding of a timetable for withdrawal. The timetable is for the Iraqi troops, not for Al Qaeda! If we stay there forever, they’ll never have a reason to man up and take charge, unless it’s to go against us. But if we give them a timetable for when we’re going to leave, they’ll have an idea of how long they have to get prepared.

And then there’s all that malarkey about Wall Street being greedy and corrupt. Come on, lady! You just said you wanted to give rich people some big tax breaks so maybe they’ll give middle class folks some jobs. And what is it with these “hungry markets” that are “hungry” for oil? What’s their problem, are there places in the US where you can’t buy oil with money?

To me it just seems like she’s pandering to rednecks as if they’re stupid and provincial. But I’ll tell you what, a country boy can survive, and bein’ a naïve dumbass ain’t a part of his survival skills. I got yer cornpone right here, lady!

Pete Sessions is my Representative in Congress, I don’t much like his politics, but he’s sending out this message about the bail out which I feel offers a good perspective on it. I’m still not completely convinced it will do any good, but I’m willing to listen to what others have to say about it. If they’re going to pass it, I hope the House is able to take out all the crap the Senate just put in there, the stuff about Puerto Rican rum, certain wooden arrows designed for use by children, and whatnot. I do notice that it the Senate version is now sporting a Termination Date, so that’s good.

For some reason, Mr. Sessions has not put this up on his website, but he did send it out in an email, and so, without further ado:

Dear Dale:

Thank you for contacting me and providing me with your opinion on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. I appreciate having the benefits of your thoughts on this difficult issue for American taxpayers and the American economy. Over the last few days, I have received a great deal of feedback from my constituents, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the problem underlying this emergency and what is happening in Washington to address it.

How We Got Here, and the Stakes Involved

The root cause of today’s crisis is simple: the unchecked proliferation of losses from “N.I.N.J.A.” (No Income, No Job or Assets) loans throughout our financial system. After infecting the financial services sector, this problem spread to the commercial credit markets that are used by businesses of all sizes and across all sectors - and now threatens to hit Main Street as hard as it has already hit Wall Street.

While the effects of this freeze in the commercial credit markets may seem like they could be contained to the financial services sector, we learned last week that a number of large corporations that have nothing to do with financial services have completely stopped extending lines of credit to franchisees - which means countless small business owners will not have access to the credit they need to pay employees and purchase inventories.

When this fact is coupled with testimony from economists that a failure to address this crisis may cause a wholesale failure of the banking system - severely affecting the lives of everyday Americans - it is clear that the ill effects of this bad decision-making by Wall Street will not be borne only by those bad actors that caused it, but by every American.

The Administration Proposal and the “Paulson/Pelosi Plan”: From Bad to Worse

The Administration’s response to this crisis came in the form of a three-page proposal from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking Congress for unlimited authority over $700 billion to buy this bad debt at taxpayer expense. Unsurprisingly, this proposal was met by stiff resistance - especially by me and my Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives who believe in smaller government and limiting taxpayer exposure.

When it became clear that this proposal had no support in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank then negotiated a number of changes with the Administration intended to shore up liberal support for the measure - including earmarks for trial lawyers and community organizers like ACORN - that went even further away from my goal of protecting the taxpayer.

The House Republican Revolt

In response, House Republicans offered their own counter-proposal to this constantly-evolving compromise between the Administration and Democrat Leadership. The conservative Republican proposal - which I have cosponsored - would insure mortgage-backed securities through the payment of insurance premiums instead of providing taxpayer-funded purchases of frozen mortgage assets as the current proposal would do.

This counter-proposal also includes measures to reform accounting practices such as “mark-to-market” that have unnecessarily fueled this crisis, increase transparency and prevent Wall Street Executives from benefiting from taxpayer funding, as well as measures that would increase private capital involvement in the recovery and reduce taxpayer exposure while addressing the underlying issues that created the crisis.

Republican Victories for Main Street

A number of the provisions from this counter-proposal were incorporated in the final version. These provisions enforced the Republican position of saying “no” to a blank check to the Treasury Department and special interest and demanding more accountability for Americans. In having these measures included, House Republicans achieved a number of significant victories for Main Street, including provisions to:

oEnsure that after five years, if the government has a net loss as a result of the purchase program, the President must submit a proposal to recoup those losses from the entities that benefited from this program.

oProvide for taxpayer ownership in companies receiving assistance, so that taxpayers have an opportunity to profit from any gains.

oAllow community banks to take capital losses on Government Sponsored Entity (GSE) assets against ordinary income, providing much needed relief for local banks.

oAuthorize government agencies that hold mortgages to do work-outs with troubled borrowers - provided such workouts do not harm the interests of taxpayers.

Republicans Stand Up for American Taxpayers
Some other accomplishments achieved by House Republicans through these negotiations include standing up for American taxpayers, including provisions to:

oCreate an insurance guarantee program fully paid for by participating companies at no cost to the taxpayer.

oShrinks the upfront Treasury authority to $350 billion. The remaining $350 billion is subject to future Congressional approval.

oEstablish a bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel and a Special Inspector General to monitor the program.

Republicans Eliminate Special Interest Provisions
And some of the House Republicans’ most important achievements are reflected by what is no longer included in this legislation, including terrible Democrat-proposed provisions to:

oProvide unions and other activist groups with proxy access to corporate boards.

oDivert funds from the program into a housing fund to support left-wing activist groups like ACORN.

oAllow federal judges to arbitrarily adjust mortgages, creating a bonanza for trial lawyers.

oRequire the government to sell homes it has acquired as a result of foreclosures to state and local governments at a discount.

The House Proposal: The Best Available Option

While the final product does not include all of the Republican counter-proposals, nor all of the reforms that I or my free-market colleagues would like, it represents a huge improvement over both the Administration’s original blueprint and the subsequent Paulson-Pelosi plan.

Because of my and other House Republicans’ insistence, the Emergency Economic Rescue plan the Congress voted on Monday, September 29, went much further to protect taxpayers and no longer contains the special interest earmarks to benefit labor unions, trial lawyers or community organizers. The overall size of the plan was reduced by half and ensures that Wall Street must fund this plan - not Main Street or American taxpayers.

Like every other member of this House, I did not agree with every provision included in this legislation. However, the House was not given the opportunity to debate an alternate measure.

The choice put before this House was as stark as it was serious: vote for a bill that has been much improved by the efforts of House Republicans, or oppose it and allow Democrats to pass a subsequent bill that looks more like the Paulson/Pelosi Plan and that protects taxpayers far less, spends far more, and is far worse for taxpayers and our country. As a result, I reluctantly supported its passage.

Where America Goes From Here …

The total effects to the entire American economy are not yet known, but in coming days it appears likely that Congress will again take up some yet-undefined measure to deal with this emergency. In doing so, the Democrat Leadership in the House has two choices - they can either include negative, special-interest provisions to the bill to appeal to their liberal base, or they can recognize the objections of Republicans and the American people by adding provisions that deal with the root of the problem, provide help to Main Street and minimize risk to the taxpayer.

Three proposals I support that could be added to substantially improve the bill are:

oIncreasing Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Insurance limits - increasing the federal insurance guarantee on accounts from $100,000 to $250,000 would protect individuals’ hard-earned savings, help small businesses to make payrolls and buy inventory and provide a much-needed boost of confidence in the overall banking system.

oEnding “N.I.N.J.A.” loans - half of the root problem underlying this crisis are bad loans that were made despite the fact that those taking out the loans had an inability to repay them. Lending standards need to be improved to ensure that these kinds of toxic loans are no longer made to people who simply cannot repay them.

oSuspending “mark-to-market” accounting rules - the other half of the problem has been created by forcing companies to value assets based on their immediate price, instead of their rational value in a functional marketplace. Under current rules, declining housing prices haven’t just reduced the value of defaulting mortgages - they have reduced the value of all mortgages because the housing collateral protecting them is worth less. And as the companies in the worst shape sold off their assets, they established new, artificially-low valuations of these assets for everyone - setting off an unintentional and entirely avoidable chain reaction. I have urged the SEC to take immediate action to correct this problem and to prevent arbitrary values from being assigned to these assets unless there are actual losses on them.

Please be assured that I will continue my previous efforts to protect the taxpayer and prevent any legislation from passing that puts special interests ahead of the best interests of our economy. If you have any other feedback on this or other legislation that you would like to share, please contact my Chief of Staff Guy Harrison or Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Saltzman at 202.225.2231.

Sincerly,
Pete Sessions
Member of Congress

I saw this in a forwarded email while setting up someone’s new computer and asked them to forward it to me.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.’

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.’

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain.

‘You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.

How original, I thought! Then I did some snooping on google and got 57,500 hits for the phrase “post turtle”, the top one being for Bush in the starring role, and many others having Obama as the turtle in the minds of Hillary supporters.

But now the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak, in their proper place. If anybody ever deserved the post turtle description, it’s Sarah Palin. So without further explanation, as I’m sure you’ll agree none is needed, I’m adding my little blog post about it, adding to the current 11,600 hits for that in Google.