Wrapping it Up

Well the election is coming to a close. We have one week left and we will see what comes of the last two years of fanangling. Who will win? I am astounded at this point that I still do not think the American public knows the candidates very well. There is a list of surprising developments that shouldn't have taken this long for media coverage to produce. My most recent favorite is Barack Obama's past.

For example:

Did you know that in 2001 he expressed his sorrow that the Supreme Court didn't use it's position to force wealth redistribution? Wow that one would have been important to know sooner! If he hadn't slipped while talking to Joe the Plumber, the media never would have investigated it. Aren't they supposed to do independent investigative research?

This media in this election has left an unsavory flavor in my mouth. During the primaries why were there not more stories on John McCain's flaws? I think the media dropped the ball. I feel the same about thier current handling of Barack Obama's campaign. Biased media. I amazed that with an election that has been going on for more then a year and a half, that bombshells can somehow be coming out one week from the election.

Polls Can be Decieving

When you are listening to poll numbers braodcast through the media, make sure you find out more about the particular poll. What is the margin or error? What is the confidence level within that margin of error? How was the poll conducted? What kind of sample did they use? What is the poll really telling you?

For example:

Real Clear Politics Average shows Obama up by an average of 7.3% with one poll show Obama up nationally by 14% and another showing Obama only up by 1%. If you look closer at the polls you see they are all sampling the entire US population, though they are using different methods with different margins of error and confidence levels. What does that really tell you? It says if you were ask everyone in the US who they support that the research company is confident at whatever level they express (usually expressed in terms like 95% confidence level, if it is under 85% confidence the poll sucks) you will find that the real numbers are within the margin of error (usually expressed as something like +/- 3%).

IBD/TIPP Polls show Obama ahead by only 3.7%* with a margin of error of . Why the big difference? Well for one IBD/TIPP polls different people. They only poll likely voters, or people who are statistically likely to vote this year. In other words, they are confident that if you ask all likely voters that you will find that Obama's lead will be 3.5% above or 3.5% be the declared 3.7% lead.

* New IBD/TIPP Poll shows the lead for Obama down to 1.1% with the same 3.5% margin or error.

So what do these polls mean as to who will win the election? Well not a whole lot since even IBD/TIPP polls show that with a week and a half to go until election day somewhere between 9%-15% of likely voters still don't know who they will vote for.

The latest in Iraq

Onward to victory in Iraq. Lately on the news we have heard either nothing about what is happening in Iraq, or only focussed discussion on the expiration of the UN mandate on Dec. 31st of this year. So what has been happening in Iraq?

This week the US turned over control of another Iraqi province; Babil. This region was once known as "Death's Triangle" because of the insurgent attacks, road side bombs, and suicide bombs. In the last year and a half the number of attacks and deaths have dropped 80%. Strange doesn't that coincide with the troop surge? The coalition plan has always been to turn control of provinces over to the Iraqi government as quickly as possible. Now 12 of the 18 Iraqi provinces have returned to Iraqi control.

So what is happening with the UN mandate? Are the Iraqi's going to just ask us to leave? Would you be surprised if I told you NO? The current negotiations between the Iraqi government and the US government concerning our future relationship with Iraq do not hinge around whether we remain close. They do not even hinge around whether we keep troops there. The negotiations right now are encountering the heaviest resistance regarding whether or not the Iraqi government will have the authority to prosecute US military personnel, or whether those trials will be handle by military tribunals.

The current agreement states that as of June 2009 all US military personnel will be stationed in bases in Iraq, instead of deployed throughout the country in the streets. Evidently the notions that the Iraqis want us to leave are wrong. I'm sure they do not want our tanks driving up and down thier streets. I do not want our tanks driving up and down my streets! I would like to point out that we already have an agreement with Iraq for continued support.

Of those provinces now left under the control of US troops, excluding Iraq, they are all part of a desert region bordering Iran. In other words, Iraq seems very content to let us sit between them and there arch nemesis. We ought to be grateful for this development. It allows us the ability to stop insurgents from recieving weapons from Iran, which has happened with ridiculous abandon. It also gives us cites for bases to spy on Iran. We now have ability to help isolate Iraq as it grows and strengthens.

How are things in Iraq? They seem to be going fairly well to me. That's probably why we haven't heard much about it on the news.

Voter Fraud

The one question we don't want to be asking right now we all need to consider. "How will we know who was elected President?" The polls are really too close to call a clear winner in most of the battleground states, and once again John McCain is closing the gap in the battleground and national polls. Tight races like this one have recently been fraught with bad feelings and difficulty in declaring a winner. One thing that will definately make this one more difficult is a group called ACORN. ACORN is already under investigation in 5 states for voter fraud. In Ohio a teenager declared that ACORN gave him money and cigarettes to illegally register 73 times. It is estimated that nearly 30,000 fraudulent voters have been registered and possibly have already voted in Ohio alone.

In Nevada, Ohio, Missouri and Florida the group has been entering downtown areas and registering homeless people to vote. With recent elections being decided by a few votes this is very disturbing information, at least for Republicans. ACORN is so far left it nearly leaves the scales. It rubs shoulders with Moveon.org and the likes. Acorn actually registered Mickey Mouse to vote. This is not the first election ACORN has attempted to through. In 2006 the group was instrumental in possibly throwing elections in Missouri and Nevada in the Senate race. With investigation looming in all five states and others concerning ACORN's illegal actions I am confused with a couple of things.

1. The Media isn't covering the story completely. In 2006 moved to force Attorney General Gonsalez out of his position. The Democrats alleged that Mr. Gonsalez fired state attorney generals because they wouldn't prosecute voter fraud. The Democrats declared there wasn't sufficient evidence that a group called ACORN had anything to do with voter fraud. The Bush adminstration and Attorney General Gonsalez both acknowledged firing state attorney generals who would no longer prosecute voter fraud effectively. The case that received the most attention was that of David Iglesias of New Mexico.

The adminstration acused Mr. Iglesias of looking the other way while a little group called ACORN committed voter fraud by registering imaginery voters, felons, illegal immigrants and homeless people in New Mexico. The Democrats called the firing illegal and partisan. They alleged that it was focused merely on hurting Democrats. It definately hurt the Democrats more then the Republicans. Have you ever heard of a Far Right group committing national voter fraud? I personally think it is about time that the Congress apologize to Mr. Gonsalez for partisan bull crap.

2. Who was it that was heavily involved with ACORN, spoke at thier conventions and pledged to call them in to help shape the countries agenda? Oh, that's right, community organizer Barack Obama. At least this part of the ridiculousness is starting to appear in the national spotlight. However, it is almost always followed up with, oh McCain talked to ACORN once also. Really, is that the best there is? McCain gave a speech to ACORN that is the defense for ACORN's ridiculous actions and Obama's involvement with the organization? Come on! There is an obvious difference between speaking at a couple of events and promising the organization that they can help shape your administration. Obviously all of these illegal votes will be going to Barack Obama.

Is the election thrown? I don't know for certain but it appears so in at least Ohio. What can we do about it? Well maybe in the future the US public won't throw such a fit when the US Attorney General fires people who are prosecuting voter fraud.

Socialism

The US government, along with many governments in Europe, is looking to nationalize, to differing extents, the banking systems. How did we get here? In reality we are talking about an institution which required financial institutions like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to make loans to people that couldn't afford them. The same institution through corruption, mostly in the Democratic Party, ignored false earning numbers coming out of the financial institutions. Now we are saying, "Why don't we give them control over more financial institutions?"

I can think of a couple of great reasons.

First, where exactly do you think that are going to get the money to pay for these purchases? Your pocket book and mine. Taxes, taxes, taxes. It is impossible to cut taxes to the extent both candidates claim they want to, and then increase the budget so drastically. Wealth redistribution NEVER works. It NEVER has been successful anywhere, at any time. It has ALWAYS led to the eventual extinction of any society dumb enough to try it on a national basis. The same people who argue this is a good way to go will argue that the US military is corrupt enough that they need to be held accountable by a court comprised of people from other countries. Oh, I get it. The US military is corrupt, but the Congress isn't that bad.

Second, isn't the US already in debt? This doesn't make sense. Why would we give control of a financial market to a government entity that cannot balance it's own books? Most times they don't even know where they are at?

Illegal immigrant loans

Here is just a very short article about illegal immigrant who stole identities and then took out mortgages under the social security numbers. HUD estimates there are 5,000,000, such loans at least in the US.

Scary International Events

There are two events I will write more on later.

First, Iran forced a Hungarian plane to land and there are problems breeding in the region.

Second, Kenya has detained a US citizen Jerome Corsi, who is an openly anti-Obama figure. He was scheduled to announce today his findings from research into Barack Obama's past and connections. He was detained shortly before he could make the announcement.

UPDATE

Jerome Corsi was deported from Kenya for "not having a work permit". More later.

Beware of Falling Stocks

A three ring circus and an approval for 700 billion dollars and today the DOW Jones falls below 10,000 points for the first time in 5 years. Do I still think we are over reacting? Yes. First it rebounded over 10,000 points.

Lets look at the chart from before but with more current data. In January of 2002 the stocks also fell well below the 10,000 mark after being well over. Between January and April the market seemed to be on a course for serious depression or recession. However, it pulled out. The recent lemming reaction of the US people to pull their money out of the market is actually leading the American people on a straight course for the cliffs ahead.

Irresponsible individuals including NBC's Jim Cramer appear to refuse to be satisfied until the entire market crashes. It is irresponsible to stand up as an investment individual and tell everyone to take their money out of the markets if they will need it in the next five years because there is no way it will recover. The 2002 market slump lasted almost a year before the market began to climb again. When it finally stopped, the US had hit the highest point ever in the history of the market.

Self-fulfilling prophets and irresponsible individuals need a straight jacket until this is over. The stock market never was meant for individuals with weak constitutions. At a time when so much seems uncertain, there is one thing is stable; it is better to be in the American markets right now then in the other markets in the world. The US dollar hit a 13 month high on the markets. While people here at home at freaking out, the world is saying, the US has a better chance of making it through this well then anybody else.

Senate Bill

Here is a copy of the bill that the Senate passed yesterday, actually this is a summary of the different sections, the real bill is 475 pages long.