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Okay, so I generally think that Family Guy is a decent show, but tonight the show stepped over the line. In an episode where Mort, Stewie and Brian go back in time and end up in Berlin at the beginning of World War II. They mug a trio of SS officers and on one of the uniforms they find a McCain-Palin campaign button.

To be honest, I don’t mind if actors and writers and animators have an opinion on politics. That is their American right.

However, I do find the political commentary offensive in this context. I was offended when Democrat Dick Durbin (one of my senators unfortuantely) compared American soldiers to Nazis and I am equally offended at the concept of the Nazis endorsing McCain-Palin.

There is absolutely no reason that Americans should resort to such an ugly way to characterize political opponents.

Yup, I can endorse having different opinions. I suggest open debate. I think name calling like this is petty and degrading to the entire political process.

I’ve seen a lot of people who think that Joe the Plumber won the debate for McCain last night.

If so, then the campaign is in even worse trouble than I thought. See, if it took a Joe the Plumber to get the McCain campaign a win, when his exchange with Senaotr Obama was nothing new, you have to consider the McCain campaign dry toast. Done and over with.

Rush Limbaugh and his ilk would like you to believe that Joe the Plumber represents traditional blue collar Americans everywhere. He does not. My plumber doesn’t make enough that he could buy out his boss and small business owners are not traditional Democrats–employees are.

Let’s look at what Senator Obama actually said. He told Joe that he wanted to see the people that helped get him there (to the $250,000 income mark) benefit as well, to see the wealth spread around. The McCain campaign and conservatives everywhere gasped and said,” ooh, he’s a socialist”.

What they missed is that Obama never once suggested that Joe’s “wealth” be given to random people on the street. He suggested, shock! faint! that the people who did the work that made the money ought to be entitled to a share of it too. Arguably, the senator needs a better political flak. His is doing a remarkably poor job controlling the spin on anything.

Here’s how the Joe the Plumber remark should be interpretted. Executives from Enron to Tyco to Lehman Brothers have spent decades trying to make millions while the little guy, the factory worker or the low-level sales manager, does all the work. It’s great that Joe has a boss who has paid him what he is worth and made it so that he can move up to an ownership position, but that should not mean that Joe can rest on his laurels and make other people do the work.

The reality is that owning a small business, any business, creates stresses on the owner, but if all the owner does is take and take from his employees than sometimes there has to be an equalizing force. Generally, we call this government. We all know that no matter how poorly an employer treats his staff, in desperate economic times, someone will tolerate the injustice just to work. Barack is fighting that injustice.

Now, I don’t know. Maybe Joe the plumber will be a great boss, but the reality is that most business owners do not play fair with their employees and Barack knows that.

Rush Limbaugh reported today seeing a photograph of Sarah Palin, with the Secret Service in tow, stopping at Wal Mart to buy diapers.

He seemed to believe that this photo if circulated would give Sarah more street cred with working mothers everywhere.

I call “Bullshit.”

Shopping at Wal Mart does not make Mrs. Palin seem more like the working mothers I know unless she did it at 6 a.m. on the way to drop the baby off at a daycare that she can barely afford, but has to pay just so she can work to keep said baby in diapers. In fact, my most recent friend to become a working mom wouldn’t get caught dead buying diapers at Wal Mart. She hates the evil empire.

But more importantly than whether or not shopping at Wal Mart makes Sarah Palin seem more like common folk is Limbaugh’s assumption that it did. For a man who goes on and on about the class warfare in this country and who likes to blame it on the Democrats, his comment was absurdly offensive.

First, it assumes that all working mothers shop at Wal Mart. Seriously, Rush, there are women who make enough money to shop other places. Really, we do.

Second, it assumes that all mothers can take their child to work with them. Mrs. Palin has the luxury of taking her five-month-old son to work. Most employers from on this.

Third, it assumes that “common folk” are more interested in where she shops or that Mrs. Palin is “like them” than in her politics.

Let me assure you, Sarah Palin is nothing like me even though I once bought diapers at Wal Mart. I went to one college for my undergraduate career and had two majors. i finished both degrees in four years. I have never had a job where I could bring my child to work and in fact, I lost a job once because I took part of a day off to take my four-month-old daughter to the doctor. When my daughter was born, I worked until 2 days before her birth and got 5 weeks, including my 2 weeks of vacation time, off after she was born. Bringing her with me was never an option.

My husband has never been part of a secessionist organization, nor does he drink and drive. I’ve never used the power of my position to get someone fired and I believe that when it becomes time for my daughter to have children of her own, I will not use her boyfriend/fiance/whatever as a stage prop.

No, Sarah, shopping at Wal Mart does not make you one of us.

Much debate has been made in the race for the Presidency about the future of American health care. it doesn’t take a genious to see that it’s all screwed up.
Now, some would say that handing it to the government to fix it does not inspire confidence.
Obama responded that John McCain seems pretty happy with his government funded health care.
And, he was probably right.
But today, Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes began a series of town hall meetings around the state focusing on the problems of state-funded healthcare, specifically the Illinois Medicaid program.
Now, to be fair, we have to mention here that the state of Illinois was, last week, just under $2 billion and 42 days behind on its bills. That’s 42 days after it reaches the comptroller’s office for payment. Before that, it spent as long as three months (maybe more) getting kicked around in the various state agencies before being approved for payment.
So, doctotrs aren’t taking Medicaid. There is no neurologist within 100 miles of my hometown that takes it and few other specialists. There is one company that takes the Medicaid card for glasses for children in the southern 11 or 12 counties of Illinois. Don’t like the Marion Eye Center? Then, pay for the glasses yourself.
Primarily, it’s specialists that are turning down the Medicaid card, but the longer the budget crisis continues, the fewer doctors accept it. Two years ago, when the state was only about $500 million behind on its bills and I still worked for the Marion Eye Center, they hadn’t been paid in more than 6 months and the state owed them close to $2 million.
It makes it hard for a relatively small business (less than 200 employees) to stay in business when they aren’t getting paid.
Imagine how much that has increased now.
Comptroller Hynes was not looking for an argument against state-funded health care, but was seeking to put a human face on the raw numbers. He thought maybe it would make his fellow politicians notice the crisis that is brewing.
I hope it works, but somehow, i expect more rhetoric from the likes of McCain. I expect that we’ll hear once again that the working poor choose not to have health care, choosing to spend their income elsewhere (like on food and gas).
I hope I’m wrong and that while we are looking at the cost of saving our economy we also take a good hard look at the cost of saving lives.

I heard a lot this weekend about the massive debt swap on Friday and the cost involved. Essentially about $400 billion in bad loans were insured against loss and when it came time to pay the piper, the loans were worth about 8.5 cents on the dollar. That meant the insurance companies who wrote insurance policies for the banks saying that if the loan was bad the insurance would pay off paid out about $365 billion on Friday.

Guess what segment of the American economy is in trouble next?

Yup, insurance companies. By the end of the week last week, insurance stocks were trading significantly lower because of the huge payouts that are coming. Reagan’s trickle down economics are coming in a tidal wave against the American people, but the sad truth is that neither the presidential candidates nor the American people seem to understand basic economics.

Just the other day, I was talking to a friend about the coming election and she asked why journalists couldn’t write comprehensively about the economy and explain what is happening and why. She was shocked when I told her most journalists don’t get business classes or study economics. We are too busy teaching them about the history of their profession to teacch them what they need to know about the things they will be covering.

Sadly, the problem extends beyond journalists. Most Americans who are not accountants could not read a profit and loss statement or understand double entry accounting. That means they often can’t read the handwriting on the economic wall. Even fewer understand business practices and business ethics.

So, instead, we elect politicians who sound good, but who might have no understanding of the real world we live in. As a result, what impacts one section of the economy soon impacts another and most of us are left with absolutely no understanding about why.

I read a piece in my local paper the other day pointing out how often McCain has voted against something desparately needed by our military and then claimed to be a friend of the military. The writer was most offended by his vote against improved equipment for our national guardsmen, including helmets, because he thought that though they were nice to have, we couldn’t afford to purchase them at that minute.

Ummm, yeah. I was pretty offended by that too. I have a dear friend who is an Army Reservist serving in Iraq. I would be ashamed if my country did not supply ehr with her basic needs including a weapon and helmet. Oh, wait…

But even more offensive was the concept that McCain voted against a bill that would have demanded troops get an adequate rest between deployments. Have you seen the length of time some of our volunteer soldiers are being required to stay in a war zone? Have you heard, Senator McCain, about the wartime extensions of service that many of our original troops sent to Iraq endured?

The closer the election gets the more I agree with a fellow today.com blogger who wrote about how she loathes Cindy McCain.

It’s not just Cindy though, it’s the entire Republican ticket. John thinks that he should get the military vote because he served, Cindy thinks that Gucci makes her an average American. Sarah thinks its appropriate for the woman who wants to be vice president to issue “shout outs” and Todd, well, he makes the Michelle Obama statement that she was finally proud to be an American look like a statement from a saint. The man has been convited for drunk driving and belonged to an organization promoting dissolution of the fifty states, knocking it back down to 49.

In the column published today, Leonard Pitts wrote about the lack of family values discussion in the Republican Party this eyar. Could that be with a history of drug abuse (Cindy McCain), DUI (Todd Palin), infidelity and divorce (John McCain) and more they have nothing to talk about?

It’s time for the American people to reexamine those values that they have been assuming should be attributed to the party on the right. it would seem that they are dead wrong.

A few weeks ago, I bloggged about an attack on the owner of a store called The Country Goddess. Crystal was attacked by a woman throwing kerosene on her and then trying to light her on fire. Police are investigating, but so far, there have been no arrests.

So today, I was catching up with Crystal whern we heard from another patron that something similar had happened elsewhere. Wondering if it could be related, I investigated.

This story came out of Michigan. Apparently, a professor there had his students reading Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible”, a play about the Salem Witch Trials. One of the students assumed that this meant the professor was a witch and doused the professor with holy water and had a lighter, reportedly saying they should “burn the witch.”

You can read the story here.

Strangely, I think this is a product of the religious intolerance shown in our election debates. Mitt Romney was vilified because he is a Mormon. Attempts have been made to “smear” Barack Obama by claiming thast he is a Muslim.

What the hell happened to religious freedom? Since when did it become okay to discriminate based on religion? You might remember that this country wasx founded by people fleeing religious persecution. Sure, they were debating the way to practice their Christianity not Christian versus Wicca versus Muslims versus whatever else, but this is ridiculous.

I’m ashamed of many members of my country and my faith. What happened to God is love?

Last night, after the abyssmal thing that passed for a debate between the candidates, my husband and I were talking politics again. Not surprising I guess, givent he state of the American nightmare these days.

But what we both wanted, neither candidate has provided at all. Joe Biden comes the closest, but I’m not sure he can count in this context.

Quite simply, we want a platform. Yup, I want campaign promises. I want specific to do lists and things that the candidates stand for–not change and maverick, but real honest to goodness, “If I am elected, I will..” type statements.

I’m glad the candidates were relatively civil during the debate, but I’d also like them to call each other out on the outrageous lies and misleading implications. I’d like to hear Barack ask John how he would really solve the economic crisis given his previous statements about understanding economics. In fact, I don’t weant school room debates with points and counterpoints. I want policy statements and proof that they are thinking about governing and not just getting elected.

Today, Barack said in a speech he finds it odd that Sen. McCain doesn’t want to expand government health care for the average American when Sen. McCain has government health care and it seems to be working for him. My first impressionw as “Nice shot” and then, “Why didn’t you hit that last night?”

Neither candidate seems willing to talk about specifics in anything and I really want a platform. Joe Biden seems to be the only one of the four candidates that has expressed a plan for anything. How sad is that?

I don’t want to hear, Senators, what your party stands for or more buzz words. I want a specific platform and I’d like it now please! What will you accomplish in the first 100 days, first year or first term. If you don’t know, then I don’t know how I can vote for you.

Apparently, Governor Palin is willing to do anything to promote the economy of her state…including destroying the environment via slaughtering the natural predators in the state. Yup, she supports helicopter hunting and bounties on wolves.
You can see the video here..
To be fair, let it be said, I support hunting to control the populations and to put food o the table, but this wholesale slaughter of an animal just years away from the endangered species list is terrifying…and disgusting. My brothers hunt. I enjoy wild game. Elk roast is one of the best foods on the planet. This is butchery. The wolves are needed to keep the populations in check and prevent disease.
Sarah’s plan makes leg hold traps look humane.
And that’s just one aspect of Sarah’s Alaska.
She also is married to a man who belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party and gave the 2008 welcoming address to the AIP convention. AIP claims Alaska was illegally made a state and should be allowed to leave the union. By that logic, why did we fight the Civil War? Shouldn’t Virginia and the other states have been allowed to leave if they wanted to?
Half of Colorado, most of New Mexico, Arizona and parts of California under the 1848 treaty with Mexico should never have been part of the United States. We said, then, that Mexico could have them. Does Senator Palin intend to give them back?
What about Texas? I know there are Texans who view the rest of the country with disdain. Are we letting Texas go?
sarah Palin appears to have forgotten many old adages. In fact, i think that instead of letting her brush up on foreign policy that she doesn’t udnerstnad anyway, we ought to teach her about people who live in glass houses.
Then, we should teach her about the goose and the gander. You know that one right? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander?
In this case, the goose is married to a man who has in the past had anti-American leanings and wanted to separate his state from the country. The goose is a known political association of an indicted U.S. Senator and the goose obviously doesn’t give a hoot about the environment. Either that or she doesn’t understand the balance of nature.
Either way, I don’t want her visiting the White House, much less in line for it.
Michele Obama took a lot of heat for saying she is finally proud of her country. Too bad Todd Palin still hasn’t exhibited any pride in his.

Sarah Palin decided to go on the attack this weekend on Barack Obama regarding the company he keeps or has kept in the past.

She accused the Senator of paling around with a domestic terrorist (Ayers) and made allusions to his long-time affiliation with Wright. Of course, Governor Palin has not yet made the connection that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Yes, Barack is a Chicago Democrtat and as such has at times been in the company of some less than respectable people. The same could safely be said about Alaskan Republicans. Does the name Ted Stevens mean anything to you governor?

I think one could easily argue that you probably paled around with the man you now accuse of using a taser on your nephew. His association with you as your sister’s ex-husband is a lot more easily defined than the business acquaintanceship that Barack held with William Ayers.

Governor, I would suggest that unless you do a background check on everyone you encounter, the real question about William Ayers is whether we as a country believe that people can change their ways. The question is when do your surrender your right to have a say in American politics?

Is it when you are convicted of domestic terrorism? Oh wait, Bill Ayers was never convicted of anything. Or is it when you are charged with taking bribes that influence your actions in office? At this point, Bill Ayers is a respected professor of English and Ted Stevens is a disgraced Senator. Which one do you count as a supporter, Sarah?

The simple truth is that Sarah doesn’t know her Bible very well, lest she would be able to quote Jesus and know that he who is without sin should be the one casting the first stone.