At least five people I have brief conversation with are assuming that Obama will increase tax. It’s not false if your family income is between $600,000 to $2.87 million or above. Most of us Vietnamese-American, I assume are in the $66,000 to $200,000 range, would actually get some decrease. A chart on Washington Post compares and contrasts Obama and McCain tax proposals. Notice that McCain cuts more tax for the wealthy (-4.4%) than the poor (-.2%).

At a town hall meeting in Concord New Hampshire, Obama focused on the issues, continued to grill McCain, but hardly mentioned Palin. I am impress to see that he is not taking the bait from the negative ads and Palin effect. He recognizes the political garbage McCain is throwing at him, but he is not going down to that level. As for Palin, her interview with Charlie Gibson and the same-speech-different-location clips showed on 20/20, in which she repeats her word-for-word speech from the RNC, prove that she is not even a competitive candidate in this race. I have enough of her, and he should be done with her also. Let’s move on.

For once McCain is telling the truth:

It’s easy for me to go to Washington and frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have.

The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund’s ad shows the brutality of Sarah Palin’s Aerial wolf hunting. (graphical content)

A great response to McCain’s smeared ad on children sexual abuse. Yet McCain still doesn’t want to admit his lies when confronted on the View. I am sorry, but can’t see this dishonest, dishonorable man as the next president of the United States.

Gibson: Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?
Palin: In what respect, Charlie?
Gibson: What do you interpret it to be?
Palin: His worldview?
Gibson: No, the Bush Doctrine, enunciated in September 2002, before the Iraq War.

Palin is pretty much clueless.

Please read “Why this lifelong Republican may vote for Obama” by Michael Smerconish. The excellent article points out the failing of the Bush and McCain party in the hunt for Osama bin Laden since September 11, 2001:

Where the hell are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? And why does virtually no one ask anymore? What’s changed since the days when any suburban soccer mom would have strangled either of them with her bare hands if given the chance? And what happened to President Bush’s declaration to a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11 that “any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” Doesn’t that apply to Pakistan?

Smerconish saw some hope in Obama:

Things changed somewhat on Aug. 1, 2007, when Barack Obama delivered a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets, and President Musharraf won’t act, we will,” he said.

“We can’t send millions and millions of dollars to Pakistan for military aid, and be a constant ally to them, and yet not see more aggressive action in dealing with al-Qaida.”

Finally, I thought, a presidential candidate saying something about this foreign-policy failure.

The reaction? Ridicule.

Smerconish interviewed Obama on March 21, 2008 regarding to Taliban and Pakistan:

“What’s clear from … what I’ve learned from talking to troops on the ground is that unless we can really pin down some of these Taliban leaders who flee into the Pakistan territories, we’re going to continue to have instability, and al-Qaida’s going to continue to have a safe haven, and that’s not acceptable.”

“And al-Qaida is stronger now than at any time since 2001, and we’ve got to do something about that because those guys have a safe haven there and they are still planning to do Americans harm.”

Smerconish interviewed McCain on June 13, 2008:

“I have promised that I will get Osama bin Laden when I am president of the United States, but … you can go on the Internet, and look at that countryside, and there’s a reason why it hasn’t been governed since the days of Alexander the Great. They’re ruled by about, it’s my understanding, 13 tribal entities, and nobody has ever governed them, not the Pakistani government, not the British — nobody, and so it’s a very, very difficult part of the world.” He added, “I agree with you that we should’ve gotten Osama bin Laden, but I can’t put all of it at the doorstep of the Pakistani government.”

Smerconish concludes with frustration and disappointment:

But it’s about 2,555 days late and $11 billion short. Seven years after 9/11, the country is stoking what was supposed to be a complete and consuming “war on terror” with faint signs of a sustained operation in the country where the bad guys have been hiding for years.

How appalling. I doubt the families of the 3,000 innocents murdered on 9/11 — and of the 4,000 Americans killed in Iraq — are content with it. After all, it’s seven years, thousands of troops and billions of dollars later, and our country has failed to deliver on what we really owe them: justice.

Russell Brand:

The best safe sex message of all time: Use a condom or become a Republican.

Mike:

It’s an old expression, and I’m going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin; he didn’t reference her.

CBS pulled a recent McCain’s webad, which attacks Obama regarding to his lipstick-on-a-pig comment, because a CBS anchor Katie Couric was quoted saying, “One of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life.” The problem is that the clip was referring to Hillary Clinton, not Sarah Palin. Damn McShame!