I find this election rather dishearening, because Obama is truly disappointing me with his approach, especially on health care, so I have decided not to vote in this one (not that it matters; with me being a Hawaiian resident my vote will not matter for Obama's victory there).

I would point out that this election, more so than at any other time in living memory, has an absolutely critical element to it that should be heavily considered by everyone, regardless of what they think about each candidate. It is that the Supreme Court during this next cycle could be completely overbalanced, by as much as 8-1 even, in favor of the conservatives. My belief is that America works best when we have a relative balance between the two major parties; thus it is best for the Supreme Court to have a 5-4 balance, regardless of which side it favors. To go so far in one direction (either way) is dangerous to our country. I believe we need to elect Obama EVEN IF ONLY to help the Supreme Court retain a semblance of balance.

Jesse Ventura wrote the book "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me" and re-entered politics. But now he has decided not to run for Senate. He wanted to shield his family from the press, and said the US voters prefered church goers. Pity. Can't get enough of honest, straight talking politicians.

Yeah, I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to be president nowdays. It appears, whether true or not, that the American public prefers pithy soundbites to actual substance or truth.

This is BS. There are only two types of spending, balanced and deficit. In time of serious war, rational leaders do two things: one, they introduce a wartime economy; two, they introduce a universal draft. In late 1941 Churchill called up all men between the ages of 19 and 51! He understood warfare.

When you run a deficit, all you succeed in doing is ruining your currency. It is taxation by different means. By failing to introduce a wartime economy and a universal draft Bush has totally wrecked our means of waging serious war. We need troops in Afghanistan to counter a Taliban escalation; we cannot send them because we have no men. Why? Because we have no draft. Instead, we pay contractors like Blackwater a fortune to recruit away our best troops, then we pay Category IV recruits $40,000 bonuses to enlist. We are losing middle-level Army officers (like captains) because they are only getting $30,000 bonuses for reenlisting.

Why can't we pay more? Because Bush's deficit spending for the war halved the value of the U.S. dollar. We print more and more money with less and less value. Collapse is inevitable. Thankfully, January 20th is not far away.

So the comparison of "peacetime" spending with "wartime" spending is specious. You either spend your money wisely or foolishly, and we have spent it foolishly ever since Eisenhower left office.

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If you want to say well he got us in the war so its his fault and I therefore blame him for our economic woes, you should consider how much you your economic policy is driving your military. For example lets say attacking a certain country would help our economy. How much should economics play a role in our decision to go to war? I'm not necessarily saying no role but a very limitted one.

This is more BS. Business hates war, as does the military. Business hates war for three reasons:

1. It dries up credit;
2. It increases the taxes business must pay;
3. It takes away the work force and curtails consumer spending.

Bush has tried to avoid this by repeating the mistakes of Johnson, that is, waging war with deficit spending. We can look forward to about four years similar to what happened in the early Reagan years--a recession will be necessary to squeeze out the inefficiency the economy has accumulated during the Bush years.

The military hates war for two reasons. One, many military men know that men get killed, and this is an awful thing. But there are many desk-riders who only know that war destroys all the expensive toys they get from Congress. One part of the military are men who mourn the loss of young life, the other part of the military are children who crank about losing their playthings. We see this right now: Secretary Gates cancelled the purchase of about 100 F-22 fighters, which are so advanced (and so expensive) that they can only be used against Martians. What has happened? Air Force generals complained. All AF generals who complained should be stripped of their rank, transferred to the army, and sent to Afghanistan as a grunt infantrymen. That ought to give them perspective.

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If we must go to war then we need to go to war. If that is a bad decision then the president should be criticized for it but I don't think much of the criticism should be economic in nature.

When Russia entered World War I, Czar Nicholas II, in a fit of righteous piety, cancelled the sale of vodka. Apparently he forgot that vodka provided one-third of the Imperial budget. George W. Bush is the first 'wartime' president to cut taxes, thus crippling the government. Bush repeats the mistake of Nicholas--what a surprise, given their mental development.

The whole 'war' thing is a sham. If it were a real war there wouldn't be an SUV on the street, there wouldn't be one young man not in uniform, and the price of gas would be 50% tax.

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

I have a great book entitled For Good or Evil. It is a history of taxation, and it is a fascinating book. The tone is a bit hysterical, but the author makes a number of valid points. He claims (with good demonstration) that taxation is the driving power in history. He claims that one reason for the vast expansion of Islam lay in its taxation policy. Many early conquests came when Byzantine provinces realized that paying the jizya to the Muslims was considerably less than the tax to the Byzantine emperor.

He makes a good point also about a period of time in British history; the end of it comes in a rather British way sometime during the reign of the latter Hanoverians, George III or George IV. Starting under the Stuarts (or even earlier, maybe under Henry VIII--I'd have to check) Parliament raised taxes and the crown spent the taxes. The Crown, except for some perpetual revenues like ship money, had no say in levying taxes. All monies raised by Parliament by taxation were 'gifts' to the Crown for the Crown to spend as the monarch thought fit. Parliament, in turn, had no say on how the money was spent. This, the author says, is the perfect system. The legislature cannot be stingy or profligate in taxation, lest the blame for runaway spending fall on them. Likewise the executive cannot spend profligately or too tightly, lest the legislature cut off the funds. This system worked well until Parliament demanded more power in running affairs, and used the 'power of the purse' to interfere--this led to Charles I's "Personal Rule" and then the Civil War.

The last time an American Congress and President had such a struggle was in the Clinton presidency, where Congress lost--we all remember the government shut down, don't we? After that we had some fiscal responsibility, but we haven't seen that again, even with the Congress in the hands of the Democrats since 2006.

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

You ought to do it the other way. The Presidency is easy to change, not the least because of term limits. Total Congressional controlled has turned over something like three times since 1950, while the presidency flip-flops. You ought to peg who will win the Congress and vote the other way for president. I expect a large number of Americans to do the same, which is one reason why I think McCain will win.

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

Here is a fascinating article on Ohio voting patterns: well-named, take note!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/07/swing_state_review_ohio_1.html

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

Yes, neither can I, knight_tour!!


Chess Fan

You could always vote for some nutter party, like the Greens or the Libertarians. Being in Hawaii, you could even go royalist:

http://www.higovt.org/

Now that's a party I could get behind!

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

Nah, I just hope enough people begin to realize what is really at stake in this election: it really all comes down to the Supreme Court balance. If McCain gets in then the Supreme Court will most likely become 8-1 conservative, which will do more to wreck our country in the coming years than anything else. We have never had such an overbalanced SC in our history, and it could be truly scary, enough that I could imagine actual civil unrest, say, when they overturn certain rights that we have now.