The World Around You

Someone you may know had a letter to the editor published in the Montgomery Advertiser this morning:

Alabamians should expect more than lip service from their elected officials on energy policy. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have failed to deliver a comprehensive energy policy that will take us into the next millennium.

We have the chance in this election to replace one of those who has been a consistent opponent of comprehensive energy reform, Rep. Mike Rogers. He’s taken more than $85,000 from big oil, including Exxon, and then voted for over $28 billion in tax breaks for the same oil companies.

That’s not representing those of us in the 3rd Congressional District. That is not in our best interest.

This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s about who’s right and who’s wrong on energy policy. Mike Rogers is wrong and Josh Segall is right. Josh Segall is in favor of more domestic drilling, but he’s also in favor of big investment in alternative fuels, producing more nuclear energy and building our energy infrastructure.

Investing in comprehensive energy reform can bring good jobs to Alabama, but being good friends with the oil companies is not going to get us there. Your vote can make a difference.

For those who doubted that the “credit crunch” was real…

The company with the largest chain of Chevrolet dealerships in the country filed for bankruptcy protection against a “perfect storm” of woes including soaring gasoline prices, declining demand for big vehicles and the nationwide credit crunch.

Bill Heard Enterprises Inc., the Georgia-based firm which operated in seven states before it shut down last week, said its 14 dealerships were losing from $2 million to $5 million a month because of a drop in sales coupled with a lack of available credit.

A judge scheduled a hearing Monday on the bankruptcy petition, filed Sunday in federal court in northern Alabama.

This is just the beginning, over the next week, we will see other businesses go into bankruptcy at a rapid pace. I had an interesting discussion with co-workers yesterday who are a bit older than I and have been very responsible spenders. I can certainly understand their desire to not want to bail out those who didn’t make the sound decisions they did. So, the question for me becomes are we trying to prevent the fall, or just trying to make the landing softer. There is little doubt that the time has come for the economy to slow down as part of the natural cycle. I don’t believe it will take $700 billion to make the landing softer. The $700 billion was to try to keep the economy flying high (artificially) for another couple of months to get through the election.

We will see what comes out of Washington today…

Car dealer Bill Heard Enterprises files Chapter 11 - Forbes.com.

Swing State Project gives Bobby Bright big-time credit for being able to turn the Christian Coalition of Alabama against Freedom Watch, who has been running attack ads against him. What Swing State Project doesn’t mention is that Randy Brinson, the current head of the Christian Coalition of Alabama is a very different animal from the leaders the organization has had in the past. He isn’t a party-line Republican partisan, and Bobby is using that to his advantage.

Swing State Project:: AL-02: Bobby Bright’s Religious Jujitsu.

The first two playoff games in Tampa Bay Rays history now have times, Game 1 will be Thursday at 2:30pm eastern and Game 2 will be Friday at 6pm eastern. We still don’t know who they’ll be playing, as the White Sox play a make-up game today that they must win to force a one-game playoff tomorrow with the Twins.

Go Rays!

Rays Report - Marc Lancaster Sports - from TBO.com Blogs.

As part of the 50 states in 50 days series for USA Today, Sebastian Kitchen focuses in Alabama on the 2nd Congressional district race between Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright and State Senator Jay Love.

“This is the best chance the Democrats have had in many years to take that seat,” said William Stewart, a longtime political observer in the state and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama.

Despite their hopes for Bright — who has not endorsed Barack Obama for president and is a self-described fiscal conservative — both Stewart and strong Obama supporters such as Democratic Rep. Artur Davis do not expect Bright’s possible success to translate to a win at the top of the ticket.

Anyone who believes Brett Blackledge was some kind of right wing partisan when he was giving Alabamians the real story on two-year colleges and the corruption of state Democrats should check out his piece from yesterday for the AP about Sarah “the Lipsticked Robot” Palin.

That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man’s fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn’t have the authority.

Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent running a city with a population of less than 7,000.

Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city’s repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.

Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such issues, but that didn’t stop her from pressing them, according to minutes of council meetings.

She sometimes followed a cautious path in the face of real or potential conflicts - for example, stepping away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.

But mostly, like other Wasilla elected officials at the time, she took an active role on issues that directly affected and sometimes benefited her. Her efforts to clear the way for the $327,000 sale of the Palin family home on Lake Wasilla is an example.

Good stuff, Brett.

AP News | The Union.com - California-Nevada County-Grass Valley | News | The Union.com.

h/t: Del at Birmingham Blues

Michael Moore contends the federal bailout is nothing more than out and out robbery…whose to say he couldn’t possibly be right?

This bailout’s mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It’s to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It’s to make sure their yachts and mansions and “way of life” go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something — NOW! Here’s what you can do immediately:

1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they’ve made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what’s the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.

2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).

3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.

When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!

Let me say, I do support the bailout package, but I can certainly see why Moore would believe what he does…and there will be millions of Americans that agree.

Bill’s coming to the Mobile-area to raise money to pay-off Hillary’s campaign debt.

Howard Dean is coming on October 8th, also to raise money, for Barack Obama.

Some interesting responses here…I was especially intrigued by differences between Mike Rogers and Jay Love (the two Republican candidates). It seems like Jay still has some work to do in understanding some of these issues.

Congressional hopefuls discuss agriculture | montgomeryadvertiser.com | Montgomery Advertiser.

Immediately Post-Debate

**Biden speaks immediately following the debate on NBC, they asked for Palin, but got Rudy (shocking!)
**Rudy thinks Obama got schooled by McCain? Interesting spin…agreement=you don’t really know anything, you’re just copying my answers. On how many of these issues do we really have other options?
**Olberman thinks McCain admitted we have tortured, for the first time. McCain said, “so we make sure that we don’t torture ever, ever again.”

Follow-Up

**Political Wire reports:

During and after the debate, Democracy Corps conducted focus groups among 45 undecided voters in St. Louis, Missouri.

Though these voters “had an unmistakably Republican tilt,” McCain “could only manage a draw among this group. Of our 45 initial undecided voters, a quarter moved to Obama and a quarter to McCain after the debate with the rest remaining undecided. Moreover, by a 38 to 27 percent margin these voters said that Obama won this debate.”

Videos of the focus groups and dial testing will be posted tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder notes a finding from a Democratic strategist running another focus group: “Whenever Sen. McCain leaned on Obama for being naive and repeated the phrase ‘Sen. Obama doesn’t understand,’ the tracking lines nosedived.”

**Both CNN and CBS polling showed an advantage to Obama

**The Obama campaign sought to lower expectations for the next debate by suggesting that McCain is the unquestioned “master of town halls”