The Gwen Ifill story has turned into a total debacle. By writing a book about Obama, positive or not, it creates a conflict of interest in moderating the Vice-Presidential Debate tonight.

First, she has been called out by the right for having a bias, and it doesn't help that the same accusations were levied toward her after moderating the 2004 debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney. Second, by not informing the debate commission about her book in advance, it can only appear that she was trying to cover things up.

The problem however is that no matter what happens in the debate tonight, Ifill will be seen as having biased questions. Should Biden appear to wipe the floor with Palin, it will only add fuel to the fire that she is favoring the Obama camp. However, should Palin appear to do well, liberals will simply respond that she was pressured into favoring Palin as to save her own skin, and therefore try to downplay any positives shown by the Alaska Governor.

Ifill should have informed the commission regarding the book, but that is too late now. There will be no winner in this debate, other than partisan politics now.

If things weren't so serious, all of the bailout issues would be comedic gold. All of the issues going on just prove how out of touch the politicians on both sides are with the American people.

The first bill failed due to extreme opposition from the American public, with many constituents calling or writing their disapproval of the bill. So, rather than improving the bill, they "improved" the bill according to congressional standards. As reported by Politico, the bailout "keeps growing." The problem with the growing bill is simply not that it is growing, but that the added features aren't related to the economic crisis at all:

And tucked away in the tax provisions is a landmark health care provision demanding that insurance companies provide coverage for mental health treatment—such as hospitalization—on parity with physical illnesses.

So rather than try to improve on the bill, earmarks were added to both sides. Sure, lets just bribe those who voted against the bill to make the deal irresistable. The bill itself is what's at fault here - not sweetheart deals to get the votes required. If anything needs to be changed, it is the core $700 billion deal.

The Detroit News has a great article today emphasizing how voters will still opposed to the bill, and were unable to get through to their representatives.

Edward Cardenas, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, said a majority of callers are still against the bailout bill, but not like before Monday's huge drop in stock prices.

"This is definitely the strongest response (on an issue) we've had in some time," said Cardenas, whose boss, Miller, is one of the nine Michigan House members who voted against the bill.

Jameson Cunningham, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia, said their office has received up to 1,000 phone calls a day.

"The calls are still a solid majority against (the bailout bill)," said Cunningham, whose boss also voted against the bill Monday.

As someone who grew up in Livonia, 1,000 calls per day is HUGE. That is anywhere from 5-10% of average voter turnout in the city in any given election. For that many people to be vocal about it is astounding. I'm vehemently against the bailout, but simply don't have time to waste my breath talking to my representatives, instead venting here and by word of mouth.

If that's not enough, extremist George Soros thinks the bailout won't go far enough and believes a more socialist route is beneficial. McCain and Obama either don't have a financial clue of how to fix the bailout by trying to draw up support for it, or are simply trying to give the impression that they are trying to do something. When the bill has soared from the original three pages, to forty-two pages, to the current four-hundred fifty-one pages, no good can come from it.

As I type, Drudge reports that the Senate version of the bill has passed. Here's hoping the house doesn't fall for the bribes being presented and actually listens to the American people. As stated previously, I will no longer support any representative who votes for the bill - Republican or Democrats alike.
 

Both sides have come out swinging claiming the others have caused the financial ruin of America by opposing the bailout. But that's simply political speak and not what really happened...

The vote was close, admittedly, and was 228-205, with a 12 vote shift away from it passing. But this wasn't something along party lines. More than two-thirds Republicans and forty percent of Democrats opposed the bill.

The Republicans blamed a speech by Pelosi for the bill not passing -

"We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," Minority Leader John Boehner said. Pelosi's words, the Ohio Republican said, "poisoned our conference, caused a number of members that we thought we could get, to go south."

On the other hand, Democrats blamed the Republicans for having hurt feelings -

"Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decided to punish the country." - Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee

But both sides forget that the overwhelming majority of Americans are against the bailout! We aren't looking to bail out companies that made bad decisions based on problems originally created by government intervention. The American people are sick of elected representatives doing whatever they feel like without listening to those who represent them. I'll not be supporting any representative who voted for the bailout - Republican or Democrat. Our country wasn't founded on socialism, and adopting it in a rush to fix a problem that took decades to manifest itself is simply not prudent.

So lets sit back down and find a reasonable fix for the problem - but don't piss on our leg and tell us it's raining. Unfortunately the voice of the American people, and the votes of the House mean nothing, as the Fed pumped $630 billion into the financial system. Oh, didn't you know - the Fed can do whatever it wants, with no government oversight or accountability to the people.

This was a hectic weekend, but I finally had a chance to put some of my notes from the debate on here...

I watched the debate on CNN HD and was interested to see they had the audience reaction meter, even though Jim Leher said they were to be quiet - so what audience was it? A selected CNN audience off site, or did they have a button to rate on site...

CNN also had a scorecard from analysts with pluses and minuses throughout. They used Paul Begala, Bill Bennett, Gloria Borger, Donna Brazile, Alex Castellanos and John King.

While this was interesting, this was exactly the reason why I recommended watching the debate on PBS or C-Span, or listening on an unbiased source such as XM's POTUS '08. The problem that arises is you've got heavily partisan folks like Paul Begala and Donna Brazile for instance, which influences the opinions of the audience.

I really liked how Leher directed the candidates to speak to one another, rather than to him, but saw what appeared to be absolute hatred toward the other candidate - on both sides. Neither candidate was impressive when it came to the bailout as when asked what programs they would cut - both were squeamish and just stated what was important, although McCain focused on cutting spending. Were they afraid of upsetting certain voter groups by cutting a program? Probably, but it looked like weak leadership from the rest of us.

McCain got some huge points from me when he vowed to cut ethanol subsidies as I'm vehemently against them. McCain also was smart to bring up Obama's own statement of meeting leaders of hostile countries with no preconditions. Obama's response was essentially that as President he can meet with whomever he wants, and that McCain's advisor - Henry Kissinger - agreed with Obama. Kissinger wasn't too happy about this mischaracterization and said so:

"Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality."

Finally, I noticed that Obama was trying in vain to compare McCain to Bush and equating it as a third term. While folks such as myself will always feel this is untrue - McCain wasn't conservative enough for the base - and those heavily in the Obama camp will cite the 90% voting record with George Bush, the connecting of the two hasn't gone anywhere. The campaign has gone on for long enough where we know the basics of each candidate. Those left undecided are trying to fine-tune the issues, but won't be swayed by someone trying to redefine the other person. McCain is guilty as well, in painting Obama as inexperienced, but was able to pull it off somewhat better by keeping Obama on the defensive the whole evening, with Obama many times breaking the first rule of the campaign and telling your opponent they are right.

As mentioned before, the debate was, in hindsight, a draw, but if there had to be a winner, it was McCain. Furthermore, as the Drudge poll showed, an overwhelming majority of folks believe that McCain indeed did win. Of course, as is typical, those with a certain agenda to push will write off these as being biased, and cite their own polls/studies as being the correct ones.

As someone in Michigan, many of my friends and family work for or have worked for the big three. However, the recent bailout loan to the auto industry is another step in the wrong direction. Call me skeptical, but these loan guarantees seem like they will never be repaid. There is nothing wrong with rewarding innovation and ingenuity, but the big three haven't done so in some time. The only positive I see is with GM investing money towards production of the new Chevy Volt.

While I wish bankrupcy on no company or individual, letting folks fail and then picking themselves back up makes them stronger. Who chooses which companies and individuals are too important to fail?

I desprately hope that I'm wrong, but history proves otherwise...

By now it should come to no surprise that the financial bailout is a mess. It should also be no surprise that the solution is more taxes.

We've played this game for too long. The answer to our problems is not to increase taxes, but to decrease spending.

How ironic is it that those in charge of much of this politically have also received the most contributions from the failed companies such as Fannie and Freddie. Of course they aren't going to be for legislation to crack down on the corrupt companies if they're essentially receiving a paycheck from them as well.

The ones in charge of this bailout have criticized John McCain for injecting "Presidential Politics" into the mix, while he's simply doing his job - you know, representing the people as an elected official. Adding another idea is not a bad thing - unless you're only interested in one side, which appears to be the case as the evening negotiations taking place have gone from being a 4 person bipartiasn team, to involving other senior Democrats, balancing out the talks with 9 Democrats, 2 Republicans and Secretary Paulson.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice breakdown of some of the major players:

Here's hoping that the members of Congress actually settle down and think for a small amount of time, rather than try to pull a fast one of the American Public and pass a deal over the weekend while we're all away from things. This is one of the biggest issues of our time, and we need to be looking at the long term consequences from any bailout over any short term ones. Unfortunately, politicians on both sides of the aisle all too often are only concerned with the short term to try and get re-elected.

As mentioned previously, here is the latest John McCain commercial:

I've got many thoughts regarding the debate tonight with John McCain and Barack Obama, but I'll touch on a few for the time being...

First, as the graphic shows, McCain overwhelmingly won according to the poll taken by Drudge immediately after the debate.

Both campaigns are going to spin it so they feel they've won, but the poll shows otherwise. Drudge is as independent as they come, so this poll isn't skewed by partisan readers.

I watched the full debate on CNN HD and will cover that in more depth tomorrow. What I immediately noticed during this debate was apparantely not only picked up by me. Throughout the debate, Barack Obama made the statement You're right John or something similar. From what I understand, this has already been picked up and turned into a commercial from the McCain campaign...talk about speed! I took notes during the debate and planned on doing one myself, but of course there's no need now...

It will be interesting to see how the media spins the debate. While I feel McCain performed better, I also understand that this debate was essentially a wash, and will not be a game-changer this election. Tomorrow, I'll have a more detailed analysis of the debate, along with audio analysis. For now however, and you won't find this anywhere else - Here is full, unedited audio of the debate, as I captured during the debate. Please note, the audio is a very large file at just under 55mb for the full debate, so it may take some time to load on slower connections.

Tonight, the debate will go on in Oxford, Mississippi. The economy is on the top of the list of issues for all Americans. Unfortunately, tonights topic is that of foreign policy. While, many accuse McCain of a political stunt, it was anything but that - rather, it was apparent political suicide. John McCain will either be responsible for destroying "the bailout that would save America" or for causing "the largest spending bill in American history" depending on what happens with the bailout.

Here's my thoughts on the bailout - Uggggggggggg. Yes, I said uggggggggggg. The bailout is flawed on many levels, with no real positive outcome. We'll either see a larger government entity with a greater national debt, or a collapse of our economic system - neither which is helpful to the country, either in short or long-term.

The proposed bailout package can be compared to cancer treatment. The economy has cancer. The bailout is the "cure" in the form of chemotherapy or radiation. Unfortunately, there is a very fine line to saving the economy. If we do nothing, the economy dies of cancer. However, if too much is done, we are poisoned by the cure of too much chemotherapy and radiation. From an economic standpoint, too much done via the government is what caused the Great Depression to last for so long. The policies of Roosevelt didn't stop the Depression as many like to think, but rather slowed down the recovery and only got us out of it by increased production from entering World War II.

There should be no question on the theme of tonight's debate. Detailed planning of how to proceed with this debate means nothing when the fate of our country is at stake. Foreign Policy is the strong point of John McCain without a doubt, and by offering to change the topic to one where Obama appears stronger - the Economy - it is an option Obama could not refuse. However, the thought from the Obama camp is that they want to keep the current debate schedule and talk about the economy in the final debate, to maintain any perceived momentum gain from it throughout the final stretch run.

In any event, I urge all to tune into the debate, and with an open mind. Yes, the independents and undecideds are the only ones who will likely be influenced by the debates, but those of us on both sides should watch/listen to the debate with an open mind, and carefully decide who should be the leader of our country for the next 4 years. The best recommendation is to bypass the commentary by pundits on the networks and watch a direct feed or one with no commentary, such as C-Span or XM's POTUS '08. Too many citizens are influenced by the pundits analysis and the standard talking points, without being able to make an educated decision on their own.

I'll be recording the direct audio feed and *fingers crossed* will be able to have it, along with my analysis on here as soon as possible.

If you've been here before, you can probably tell I've updated the site. Other improvements will be forthcoming over the near future to hopefully have all functionality equal to that of the old site. All posts were copied over, but unfortunately comments were unable to transfer. Please vote and let me know what you think of the new layout!

Thanks,

Anthony