Acting White: How Liberal is Obama?

I keep hearing how Obama is the second most liberal Democrat in all of Washington, a bad thing, and how John McCain is a 'maverick' within the Republicans. Now being labeled as very liberal is suppose to taint you with bloated government, ear-mark spending, over-regulation, and bureaucracy. Being a maverick, on the other hand, is suppose to mean that you somehow do not run with the big-business, special-interest crowd, whether to right or the left of center.

So with all of this, I searched and found this interesting graph prepared by Keith T. Poole PhD., Professor of Political Science, University of CA, San Diego. Poole presents that Obama, McCain, and Clinton, are all much closer to the average voting ideology of their respective parties, compared to what they, or others, want us to believe. His work utilizes DW-NOMINATE, a system which measures Congressional legislators’ ideological locations over time.

If McCain was the maverick that he claims, we would expect him, over time, to be on either end of his party's ideology, rather than near the middle. If Obama was the flaming liberal-socialist his opponents say he is, why does he not show up at the far left of his party voting?

This is just one small exposé of the magic show we are watching called election 2008. Food for thought.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: UNBELIEVABLE!!!

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Hacking Democracy 9 of 9

"This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren't safe, then our democracy isn't safe either. The documentary exposes the dangers of voting machines used during America's mid term and presidential elections. Electronic voting machines count approximately 90% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections. The technology is also increasingly being used across the world, including in Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and Latin America. Filmed over three years this expose follows the investigations of a team of citizen activists and hackers as they take on the electronic voting industry, targeting the Diebold corporation. "Hacking Democracy" uncovers incendiary evidence from the trash cans of Texas to the ballot boxes of Ohio, exposing secrecy, votes in the trash, hackable software and election officials rigging the presidential recount. Ultimately proving our votes can be stolen without a trace "Hacking Democracy" culminates in the famous 'Hursti Hack'; a duel between the Diebold voting machines and a computer hacker from Finland - with America's democracy at stake. The two Ohio election staff who feature in "Hacking Democracy" were sentenced on March 13th 2007 for rigging the 2004 presidential recount. Incriminating footage from the documentary was used in their court case as evidence." http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/

LET THE VOTER BEWARE!!

Diebold Letter (in their defense)

Independent Review by California Secretary of State: Security Analysis of Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter by University of California, Berkeley (2006).

James C. Collier



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Acting White: The Perfect Lie

"John McCain has an illegitimate black daughter!" When the George Bush campaign of 2000 made this claim, they set the standard for the 'perfect lie'. A perfect lie stops a voter dead in their tracks, via some minuscule measure of truth, wrapped in a big ugly. Indeed, Senator McCain has an adopted daughter, not borne by either of his wives, and whose skin is dark complected (making African ancestry plausible). Beyond this, all lies. Bush made this up and sank McCain with it. Now McCain is desperately searching for his perfect lie to sink Obama. But he has two problems. He has not found the lie and his delivery/deliverer, Sarah Palin, is all wrong. Perfect lies must be whispered under the radar of the press, those pesky fact checkers. Bush used telephones, hundreds of thousands of them, while publicly denying their smear effort. Palin is openly accusing Obama of 'paling with terrorists', while the press repeats 'not true, not true'. This is nothing but sloppy dirty-campaigning on McCain's part. It is the same as McCain getting shot off his horse by his Republican peers when he suspended his campaign to save us from the economic crisis. Sloppy, stupid and despicable. I really expected more from big John, son of an admiral. Where's the strategy, where's the cunning and guile? But really, where's McCain's self-respect. This is what some Republicans mean when they tell him to muzzle Palin, but he does not get it.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: OJ Simpson Guilty!

NYT Story

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Biden v. Palin 2008

I know who I wanted to win the debate, but more importantly I want to maintain some modicum of objectivity. So here goes...

On one side you have Biden, a career politician and trained lawyer, with a penchant for an attack-dog style and putting his foot in his mouth on lesser issues (gaffes). Not a change agent, rather a consummate insider. He did not attack. He tasted none of his shoe. And said nothing he regretted. Still, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

On the other side you have Palin, a political new-comer and self-proclaimed evangelical hockey-mom. Consummate intellectual lightweight (five colleges in six years). Runner-up beauty contestant, small-town mayor, small-state (pop.) governor. Josephine six-pack, campaign spokes-energizer model. Didn't mention seeing Russia out her window. Winked and nodded at the camera. Tricked by that sneaky gay question. Admitted to not answering questions if they don't suit her (just about all of them).

I call the debate a tie against their respective benchmarks, but Joe is clearly about 30 years ahead in knowing something about anything.

However, when you throw in the probability of either of them replacing their bosses, due to incapacity in office, (with all due respect to McCain) the winner is ultra-clear.

Biden.

BTW, Ifill's moderation was impressive, as expected.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: NPR News & Notes

The good folks at News&Notes, with Farai Chideya, had me on their blogger round-table today, along with bloggers from Racialicious (Carmen Van Kerckhove) and BookerRising (Shay Riley). We talked about black folks getting blamed for the mortgage melt-down, the 'Dump Palin' campaign by Republicans, and PBS Gwen Ifill writing a book about Obama (with promotion tied to his winning) while she is set to moderate the upcoming VP debates. The discussion was pretty tame with good input all the way around.

Shay was a bit curious when she went off on a rant about 'big government' and the mortgage melt-down. I sensed that we needed to move the dialog along, but it seems to me that Greenspan and his protégé Bernake are way guilty of being too hands off with aggressive bank lending for the past 'umpteen years, while Bernake is now putting his fat-govt-fingers into the taxpayer wallets to clean up the mess. So it looks like instead of 'big' we have 'no' government preceding a good old-fashion shake-down. Maybe she will come on this blog and clue me in from the right. (She has a good radio voice, BTW).

James C. Collier

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