Current Political Scene

Amid A Resignation of One, McCain Says Another Obama Vice-Presidential Vetter Tainted By Pardon of Mr. Rich

http://777denny.wordpress.com/

"Just when Obama thought all his troubles over the vetting of his vetters for his V.P. slot would all go away - especially since he already told Americans that he doesn’t go around vetting his vetters - McCain points out to the news media that there is a problem with yet another of his V.P. vetters.

Republican officials had just days ago seized on a report in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal about James A. Johnson, saying that Johnson received discounted rates on two mortgage loans from Countrywide Financial Corp. after he stepped down a decade ago as the head of Fannie Mae.

RNC spokesman Alex Conant had charged the issue “raises serious questions about Obama’s judgment when we learn members of his campaign leadership are receiving favors that the average American would never get.”

According to the Journal, overall, Johnson received $7 million in loans from Countrywide.

McCain thinks another member of his vice-presidential selection committee, Eric Holder, should be scrutinized as well.

“Mr. Holder recommended a pardon for Mr. Rich, and all of those things should be taken into consideration by the media and the American people,” McCain said. “Especially when you are entrusting these individuals with one of the most important decisions that a presidential candidate can make before he’s elected, and that is who his running mate is.”

Mr. Rich is Marc Rich, a financier who was charged with 51 counts of tax evasion along with allegations of illegal oil dealings with Iran. He fled to Switzerland during his prosecution. Denise, his wife, was a donor to President Bill Clinton, who eventually pardoned Rich during the last week of his presidency. Mr. Holder, being the number two official at the Justice Department at the time, helped Clinton obtain the pardon for Rich.

”I think people in the media and observers will make a decision as to whether these people, individuals, should be part of Sen. Obama’s campaign,” McCain said in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday. “I think it is a matter of record that Mr. Holder recommended the pardoning of Mr. [Marc] Rich.”

Republican Party spokesman Alex Conant called Obama “naive” and “hypocritical” after Obama’s remarks Tuesday, before Johnson stepped down.

McCain spokesman, Tucker Bounds, said Johnson’s resignation “raises serious questions about Barack Obama’s judgment.”

In other presidential news, McCain and Obama differ on Supreme Court decision favoring Guantanamo Bay terrorist.

“These are unlawful combatants,” McCain said. “They are not American citizens.” But he also reiterated his stance that the prison should be closed. “I always favored closing Guantanamo Bay, and I still think we ought to do that,” McCain said.

“This is an important step,” Obama said of the ruling, “toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy.”

McCain was one of the chief Senate architects of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees a right to challenge their status in civilian courts, which Obama opposed.

In still other news, read here about McCain getting some attention from Jewish Democrats.

“Many Jewish Democrats are sensing there is such an existential threat to Israel that you have to vote for an individual who strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), chairman of the GOP’s Jewish Victory Coalition, told The Hill.

In related news, Cantor also berated Obama as being “out of touch.”

“So clearly it’s not just working families. It’s communities across the country who are struggling up under these high costs, and for Sen. Obama to indicate that we’ll just have to get used to them is clearly an indication that he is out of touch,” Cantor said yesterday in a McCain campaign conference call.

“Clearly the country is in shock when they see escalating gas prices,” Cantor said. “It’s time for us to act.

Also, McCain is renewing calls for town hall meetings with Obama.

“My position on the war is clear,” McCain told reporters yesterday. That would be that the surge of troops is working, that it would be surrender to withdraw before Iraq is stable, and that he can envision a longer-term peacekeeping role in which US troops would not take many casualties.

“That’s why we need town hall meetings,” McCain said, so the candidates can clearly and fully explain their positions.

Also, there seems to be trouble brewing on Obama’s Hillary flank.

“We will not be bullied, brainwashed, or bossed into falling in line,” a spokesperson for the group calling itself Party Unity, My Ass (PUMA) recently wrote. One member has told NEWS.com.au: “They pushed the weaker of two candidates over the edge and will have to deal with the consequences - President McCain.”

Also of note is co-chair of the University of Iowa chapterof Students for Hillary Clinton, Cody Eliff, who the co-chair in question, wrote:

“This was a VERY tough decision, those of you that know me know I am extremely passionate about our party. I feel that it has moved away from me. We will not campaign for John McCain, but we will vote for him, and urge others to do the same.”

Finally, McCain, it is believed, will be the first US presidential candidate to speak in Canada during a US presidential election campaign."

 

McCain, Obama offer different visions on taxes

by Liz Sidoti, townhall.com

"Make more than $250,000 a year? Watch out. Barack Obama wants to raise your income taxes. Social Security taxes, too.

Run a corporation? Lucky you. John McCain wants to cut your business taxes.

Those positions illustrate pieces of two vastly different approaches to the economy, an issue at the forefront of voters' minds given that the country is teetering on the brink of _ if not already in _ a recession as gas prices soar and layoffs rise amid a credit crisis and a housing slump.

Obama, the Democrat, seemingly has a traditional liberal outlook of taxing the rich more while having the government help people of more modest means through tax breaks. McCain, the Republican, advocates a classic conservative vision of cutting taxes _ many geared toward businesses _ to promote competition within a free-market system.

Neither plan is cheap.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, gives a preliminary estimate that over the next decade, McCain's tax proposals would reduce federal revenues $3.7 trillion while Obama's cuts would amount to $2.7 trillion.

The center said the cuts would slice roughly 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively, of the federal revenues scheduled for collection under current law. But the center's estimate _ seemingly the first nonpartisan comprehensive comparison of the plans _ is incomplete because it doesn't account for health care tax proposals or, at least in McCain's case, consider how proposals to slash spending would offset some costs.

A crusader against wasteful spending, McCain asserts that he will veto bills that are too costly and cut the federal budget enough to make up for the costs of tax cuts and other proposals, although he has yet to show he can save enough to do it. At the same time, the Republican says that Congress must continue to fund an Iraq war that already has cost more than $500 billion.

Obama, in turn, has proposed billions of dollars in spending to create jobs and pad government programs aimed at helping the less fortunate. He has said that the money will come from ending the Iraq war, slicing tax breaks for corporations, and raising taxes on high-income earners, efforts he says are intended to shift more of the tax burden to wealthy Americans.

The two candidates have been haggling over the economy for more than a week now and seem to agree only on one point when it comes to it _ that they disagree on just about every other point.

"On tax policy, health care reform, trade, government spending, and a long list of other issues, we offer very different choices to the American people," McCain says at every turn.

Concurs Obama: "When it comes to the economy, John McCain and I have a fundamentally different vision of where to take the country."

Major changes to the tax code are at the heart of both candidates' sweeping economic plans, given that most cuts enacted since President Bush took office expire at the end of 2010 and the alternative minimum tax (AMT) is poised to hit much of the middle class _ two years into the next president's first term.

In 2001 and 2003 to jump-start a lackluster economy, Bush proposed and Congress passed a series of tax cuts _ including rate cuts for most taxpayers, increasing to $1,000 the per-child tax credit, relief from the so-called marriage penalty and estate tax cuts. The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure the wealthy paid at least some tax, but it now also threatens about 20 million additional taxpayers _ many in the middle class _ with levies averaging $2,000 if Congress doesn't annually renew a so-called patch to fix the problem.

Making permanent Bush's tax cuts and making sure the AMT keeps pace with inflation would have a direct cost of $3.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office estimates, with government borrowing costs rising more than $800 million over the same period.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, twice voted against Bush's tax cuts, probably the significant domestic accomplishment of his presidency, but now embraces them and wants to permanently extend them for low-income and high-income people alike. He also long has said he would eliminate the AMT, and while some middle-income taxpayers would benefit, so would the wealthy, who no longer would have to pay it.

Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, wasn't in the Senate when they first passed, but he's willing to go along with permanently extending them except for their chief beneficiaries, the rich. Those who make more than $250,000 a year would see their taxes increase; Bush's tax cuts for them would be rolled back. Obama would extend and index the current AMT patch.

In the vein of taxing the rich more, Obama also supports making some higher wage-earners pay Social Security taxes on more of their income. He has called for higher payroll taxes on wage-earners making more than $250,000 annually, a step that would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans.

The 6.2 percent payroll tax is now applied to all wages up to $102,000 a year, which covers the entire amount for most Americans. Under Obama's plan, the tax would not apply to wages between that amount and $250,000. But Obama has said all annual salaries above the quarter-million-dollar amount would be taxed under his plan.

Conversely, McCain has ruled out higher payroll taxes for now _ an adviser says that McCain would not consider an increase "under any imaginable circumstance" _ but the Republican has said he would consider "almost anything" as part of a compromise to save the senior citizens' program.

Both want to slice the estate tax, McCain more so than Obama.

The estate tax is phasing out and is completely eliminated for 2010, but it snaps back to 2001 levels _ a 55 percent top rate with the first $675,000 exempt _ at the end of that year. McCain wants a 15 percent rate, and a $5 million exemption, while Obama advocates a 45 percent rate and a $3.5 million exemption.

Overall, the Tax Policy Center said people with very high incomes would benefit the most under McCain's proposal, while low- and middle-income taxpayers would see larger tax breaks under Obama's plan and wealthy taxpayers would see their taxes increase.

Seeking to spur growth, McCain proposes cutting the maximum corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, and he would allow businesses to immediately deduct the full cost of capital business equipment in one swoop, instead of gradually over several years.

McCain also wants to increase the $3,500 income-tax exemption for dependents by $500 each year beginning in 2010 until it reaches $7,000.

Among Obama's other proposals: raising the tax on capital gains and qualified dividends. However, Obama has raised the possibility of deferring some of his tax hikes on the wealthy given the ailing economy.

To help others, Obama has offered a series of tax breaks, including eliminating the income tax for senior citizens who make less than $50,000 a year and giving a $1,000 income tax credit for families with income of between $8,000 and $75,000; individuals would receive half that amount. Obama also proposes a universal mortgage credit that would allow people who don't itemize their taxes to be eligible for a 10 percent tax credit of their mortgage interest up to $800."

 

Obama, Pelosi and the Don't Drill Democrats
Hugh Hewitt - townhall.com

""You can't drill your way out of this problem" Nancy Pelosi declared last week after House democrats refused to lift the ban on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf --at least 50 miles from American shores.

Of course the only way to get more oil and thus decrease the price is to in fact drill. Oil is obtained only by drilling. The casual indifference to reality displayed by the Speaker mirrors the Democrats' indifference to the economic pain being inflicted by their steadfast refusal to allow America to tap its own reserves.

The Don't Drill Democrats will have a lot to answer for at the polls in November if the GOP keeps the focus on the extremism of the majority on this issue. Perhaps the House GOP ought to offer this amendment: When and only if oil hits $200 a barrel then exploration on the outer continental shelf can begin.

Is there any cost the democrats are unwilling to see average Americans bear without acting?"

 

OIL PRICES: '08’s DEFINING ISSUE

By DICK MORRIS

"Gas prices are the first important issue in the 2008 elections. But both parties have been pathetic in their solutions and, one suspects, in their understanding of what is going on.

Democrats call for windfall profits taxes. Bad idea. How can you get oil companies to explore and drill if you tax away their profits? Republicans focus on a gas tax “holiday,” an 18-cent palliative to gas prices that now top $4.50.

Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research for Oppenheimer and Co., and Jim Norman, author of the book The Oil Card, coming out next month, say that speculation is responsible for a huge part of the run-up in prices.

The growing demand for oil by India and China and the instability of oil supplies certainly account for much of the increase. But the recent spike, they say, is equally due to the weakness of the dollar and massive speculation.

They argue that oil prices are, indeed, determined by supply and demand — not only the supply and demand for oil, but also the supply and demand for oil futures. (Oil futures are a commitment to buy 1,000 barrels of oil at a certain date at a certain price.)

Formerly, most of the investments in oil futures came from energy companies. The federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sharply limited investments by those outside the business, to prevent precisely the kind of speculation now gripping the market.

But when the stock market slowed down in 2000–2002, outside investors decided to speculate in oil futures.

The new players were institutional investors like corporate and government pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments and other investors, guided by brokerage firms like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

To avoid the CFTC caps, these investors moved their operations to London, setting up the International Commodities Exchange. Now they can buy all the oil futures they want.

Michael W. Masters, of Masters Capital Management, told Congress that the volume of investment in commodities futures soared from $13 billion at the end of 2003 to $260 billion by March of 2008.

After a while, the CFTC rescinded its limits on how much speculators could buy as long as they went through special “swap” desks at the major brokerage houses.

You can buy oil futures for only 5 percent down on margin, a bargain considering the 50 percent margin requirement for stock market equity investments. Because the margin requirement on oil futures rises as the due date approaches, few investors actually end up buying the oil; they just roll over their investments.

So the willingness of sellers to unload their oil futures, and of buyers to acquire them, sets up its own market of supply and demand that has more to do with determining the actual price of oil than even the global demand and supply for the product itself.

On May 20 of this year, Masters told Congress: “Commodities futures prices are the benchmark for the prices of actual physical commodities, so when index speculators drive futures prices higher, the effects are felt immediately in spot prices and the real economy. So there is a direct link between commodities futures prices and the prices your constituents are paying for essential goods.”

Gheit and Norman suggest that the CFTC regulate the domestic oil futures market (NYMEX) and the participation of U.S. companies in the ICE, restoring the caps on the amount of oil futures speculators can buy. Gheit also urges raising margin requirements for them.

Both worry that the oil futures bubble is going to burst and cost a lot of investors — particularly pension funds who channel their investments through the swap desks of the brokerage houses. We don’t need another sub-prime or savings-and-loan crisis on our hands right now.

The Senate recently tried to force CFTC regulation of all commodities speculators, but the bill was loaded down with a windfall profits tax, so the Republicans killed it.

John McCain needs to get with this program. In his town hall meeting in New York City last Thursday night, he attacked speculators for driving up oil prices but didn’t propose remedies or really explain the problem.

Americans will pay close attention if he does. For McCain, this is the issue and now is the time to use it."

 

IMAO: Obama Visits Illinois Flood Damage

"Quincy, IL (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has given hands-on help in a flood zone in Illinois. He helped locals in the town of Quincy to fill sandbags to place on the banks of the Mississippi river, which is swelling to dangerous levels.

"Gimme my shovel back, ya starched-shirt photo-poser!""
"Today I'm acting in my role as a fellow citizen to help those in need," said Obama. "Sometimes you have to set politics aside and do the work that needs to be done."

Robert "Rusty" Jones, leader of the local Red Cross chapter and supervisor of the sandbagging project, was grateful for the Illinois Senator's help. "Well, he DID pick up a shovel eventually, and actually put some sand in a couple bags. Gotta give him credit for that much. Mostly he just pranced around & got his picture took, though. And would ya think one of them strapping Secret Service guys could pick up a shovel? 'Bout as useful as a porcupine in a lifeboat."

Obama said: "Since I've been involved in public office we've not seen this kind of devastation." He pledged to push federal and state governments to provide aid to the affected areas.

"Well," said Rusty, "we don't need 'aid' so much as people who bring their own damn shovels & work gloves. Big Tom over there owns the Ace Hardware in town, and he brought every digger & mitt he had in stock. All Barry's entourage brought was a whole bunch of standin' around & gettin' in the way."

Mr Obama had been scheduled to campaign in nearby Iowa, but that state is also badly affected by flooding and he did not want to draw government resources away from battling the problems.

"Hope Iowa's 'government resources' don't take as many sit-downs & smoke breaks as ours did," said Rusty."

 

lol

 

Obama team weighs Nunn, Edwards as running mates
By KEN THOMAS, www.townhall.com

"Former Sens. John Edwards and Sam Nunn are on a list of potential running mates for Democrat Barack Obama, a congresswoman said Thursday, one day after she met with the team Obama has reviewing possible candidates.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said members of her caucus asked her to forward the names of Edwards and Nunn when she met Wednesday with Obama's vice presidential search team. The team, Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, indicated the two were on the list.

"We've been brainstorming in the Congressional Black Caucus. Former Senator Sam Nunn's name has come up, as well as John Edwards' name has come up among our CBC members. I reported that to them and they had both of those names on their list," Kilpatrick said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Kilpatrick said she made several suggestions during the 45-minute meeting, including former Vice President Al Gore, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. Gore endorsed Obama on Monday.

"I asked them what type of person the senator is looking for? And they said in general someone who could help him rebuild the country ... talking about change. How we reinvest in America, get people back to work and reinforce our education system and bring the jobs back," she said.

She declined to say which names were put forth by Kennedy and Holder. The prominent Democratic attorneys have been meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to receive feedback on Obama's potential running mate. Obama has said he won't discuss the process until he's made his choice.

When Kilpatrick said Gore was her personal choice, "they had a smile on their face. They have a list of candidates. I think I may have been the first to do that. They didn't say one way or the other."

But she wasn't the only one to mention Gore.

Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, met Wednesday with Kennedy and Holder. A former Clinton supporter, he offered Clinton's name but said he mentioned others, too. Those included Edwards, Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, Gore, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.

"These are all good names," Baca said. "Ultimately the decision will be up to Obama."

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who was John Kerry's running mate in 2004, could help Obama appeal to white, working-class voters who largely favored Clinton in the primary and will be a critical voting bloc in the general election. The drawback is that Edwards was the vice presidential nominee on a losing ticket four years ago, while Obama's campaign is about turning the page.

Edwards has said he is not seeking the vice presidency _ but hasn't ruled out accepting if asked.

"I'd take anything he asked me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something I've done and it's not a job that I'm seeking," Edwards said last Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Nunn would bring national security credentials to the ticket, having served as the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman. The former Georgia senator is a member of Obama's foreign policy advisory group.

But Nunn has not been in office for more than a decade so he is not well-known nationally. He is a conservative Democrat who supported school prayer and opposed gays in the military, while Obama tends to have a more liberal viewpoint. Nunn will turn 70 in September.

Other lawmakers who have been briefed say there about 20 names on the list Obama's team has been discussing. The list includes current elected officials, former elected officials and retired military generals, lawmakers have said.

Kilpatrick said most of the names she was asked about were in the Senate."

 

Signs Of Progress

You know those messages we all get from Nigeria etc about partnerships that will net us millions in a few days?

Well, I just received a very respectable one from Baghdad, Iraq. Looks like a good sign to me - people finally have computers and internet connections and are trying to make an honest living, right?

Sort of

 

James Dobson Terrified by President Obama

"In a one-two punch, Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson ripped into Barack Obama, saying that Obama terrifies him, while on Tuesday night’s "Hannity & Colmes" show, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned that the Illinois senator’s views on such issues as partial birth abortion takes away the equality of unborn children, and that Obama makes him uncomfortable.

Dobson appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show Tuesday.

During the show, Hannity commented that he found Obama to be dishonest overall, noting that “I think he was dishonest to the American people” when speaking of his former pastor and spiritual adviser the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama said that Wright had never expressed his vitriol to Obama stating "this is not the man I knew" though he had sat in a pew and listened to him for 20 years.

Said Hannity, “I think he’s fundamentally dishonest and has been on a variety of issues, the most recent is his flipping and flopping on public financing, etc. I think he’s got some character issues as relates to honesty.”

Dobson then unleashed this broadside against Obama: “What terrifies me is the thought that he might be our president . . . might be in the Oval Office . . . might be the leader of the free world . . . might be the commander in chief — because as I said a minute ago, the man is dangerous, especially in regard to this issue of morality. I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about this.

“He’s saying that my morality has to conform to his because we all have to agree or else it’s not democratic. Do you remember the position that he’s taken on the Born Alive Protection Act that was passed in Congress in 2002? It kept medical people who were unsuccessful in killing an unborn baby — they took their best shot at [the baby] and [the baby] managed to limp into the world — and so Congress said if he comes out alive you can’t murder him.

“That came to the fore of the state of Illinois legislature, and the only person to oppose it was Barack Obama and he was chairman of the committee, and got up and spoke in opposition to it. [He said] ‘We’re saying that a person is entitled to the kinds of protections provided to a child — a 9-month old child delivered to term — it would essentially bar abortions because the Equal Protection clause [that he was opposed to] does not allow somebody to kill a child.’

“This is what this man believes; [that it’s acceptable] to kill children that you don’t want or need . . .”

Dobson asked, “Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what’s right in regard to tiny babies?”

During Tuesday night’s "Hannity & Colmes" show on Fox Cable, after Alan Colmes asked if “the rest of us” are required to conform to Dr. Dobson’s view about tiny babies, Huckabee said, “ It’s about the collective view of Americans who believe that all people are created equal, and that every human life has intrinsic value and worth. And when Barack Obama believes that we can have partial birth abortion, then we’ve taken away the equality of that unborn child and we’ve said that he’s expendable — that he’s not as valuable as he would be if he were born five minutes later.

“That defies something beyond anybody’s politics. That goes to the heart of what we are as a civilization . . . we have elevated and celebrated life. That’s why we don’t leave our soldiers on the battlefield when they are wounded. We say to leave no man behind, because we don’t view their worth and value as their soldiering, we view it as their personhood.

“And when you rob a human life of its personhood, as you do with the kind of abortion policies that Barack Obama supports, that’s a serious issue, I think, for many of us who don’t see this as a religious issue but see it as something even deeper.”

Responding to Hannity’s complaint that Obama lacks core values guiding him, Huckabee said, “it is a concern; and I think it’s a legitimate one, when you have a person who says I want to change the politics of Washington but then becomes one that’s even being criticized by the leftist media because he’s decided he is going to bypass all the very public financing that he so embraced until he could get more money into his coffers by not doing it.

“That’s exactly the kind of thing that just makes people say, There he is — another politician.”

Asked if he agreed with Dobson’s statement that the idea of Barack Obama as president terrorizes him, Huckabee said: “There are many things about Barack Obama that make me very uncomfortable. There are potholes and there are sinkholes and what Barack Obama has done is to drive his campaign into a sinkhole by saying some things regarding religion that I think will make people who are religious very uncomfortable.

“Am I concerned? Yes. We don’t need to make up things about Barack Obama, because I think that the record is going to be the best weapon to defeat him.

"We need to ask what is it that he believes. What he believes is that the Sermon on the Mount is outdated.”

Huckabee added, “I always found it interesting that liberals want it both ways — they don’t want to bring religion into the public square unless they bring it and get to reinterpret it.”

 

James D. is a lost soul, a talking head, a promising cloud which never gives up rain. He knows nothing of what I taught, knowing nothing, knowing not what he does. His religion damns everyone in my name, and looks for saviors among politicians. A politico himself, he would save mankind by man, for man. I would save the Son of God by the Son for the Son. Man is the problem, not the solution. Remove man from the mind of the Son and the Son will be saved. Man is an insane form of mental masturbation which blinds the Son of God to his own reality. Man is a "sin": a seriously insane notion taking himself way too seriously. Nothing man says or does makes any sense whatsoever. For every problem man solves, he makes two more. The Son "looks" at man as a dark fantasy in his own mind. While he looks at man, he blinds himself to himSelf. Man is not the Son of God, nor is man the "children of God". Man is a splinter in the eye of the Son. It is preferable to pluck out of your mind the ability to percieve than to look at man. Indeed, perception is a useless mechanism, designed soley to see man and his madness. The Son does not "see" or "percieve". The Son knows. But while he percieves, he appears as a know-nothing talking head. Knock it off, pluck it out...do whatever you have to do to get rid of whatever it is that James D. promotes: Confusion. Where is there gnashing of teeth but in hell? This, then, must be hell. How is James D. not a hells angel? There is no way James will successfully remove the tiny obstacles that prevent Obama [or the nation] from seeing while he himself retains a huge blinding, plank of wood in his own eye.

Jesus