Who is Roger Stone?

People have been talking about the actions taken against Roger Stone by the FBI recently. So who the heck is this guy? I googled him. Found out there is a Netflix documentary about him. He seems to be a complex guy with a long history.

Let's start with some facts. He has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back. He was 19 years old during Watergate. Stone is best known as a political consultant / lobbyist. He created the DC consulting firm Black, Manaford, and Stone. Most says he intimately knows the convention process.

Stone says that everyone in Washington is for sale. He charges money for access to elected officials. He created a PAC to get around the $5k campaign donation limits for candidates. He thinks morals are a weakness. He also says that Julian Assange (of WikiLeaks) is a hero.

Stone has had successes and failures during his long tenure. He was a regional director for Ronald Reagan in 3 states. But he also was an advisor for Dole/Kemp. Recently he is in the limelight for his dealing with the Trump campaign. He recommend that Trump run for president way back in 1987. He served as Trump's chief political advisor in 2015. Based on who you talk to, he was either fired or quit from Trump's camp.

What does Stone say for himself? Well he has a list of rules that he calls Stone's Rules. Here is a notable quote from him: "You have to be outrageous to get noticed."

The Rise of Donald Trump

With the recent charges filed against Roger Stone, I am reminded about how Donald Trump came to be president. You hear a lot of people talking about him wanting to "Make America great again." However on the campaign trail, he also wanted to make America safe again. He wanted to make America strong again.

Donald also stated that the American dream is dead. However he said he would bring it back. He promised a new way. He said he was going to go to DC to drain the swamp. Strong words. Is there going to be follow through on that promise?

At the end of one campaign speech, Donald said to the crowd, "God bless you. I love you." He talked about going back to some basics to get elected. He said, "We are going back to the old way. You vote; you win."

Mitt Romney Past and Present

I was not excited that Romney won the 2012 Republican nomination for presidential candidate. To tell the truth, I did not know much about the guy. His PR must not have been too good to start. Then I heard a disturbing story about Romney's high school antics.

Romney allegedly got a gang of high school students together to terrorize some poor schmuck. They held the guy down as Romney shaved off his long hair. It was your basic bullying/harrasment/hazing. That was a long time ago. The other perpetrators showed remorse for their actions. Romney just said he could not recall the incident.

I guess Romney is doomed either way in this scenario. He showed that he could respond with a typical slimey politician response. However I wish he would have come clean, accepted responsibility, and shown some spine. It may have alienated some voters. But it would have solidified my own.

It takes a big man to openly admit some mistakes. An apology would have been the response of a brave man. Romney only could provide a politcal and cowardly response. I am a die hard Republican. But this candidate has me thinking I will probably vote for Obama in 2012. That's how you know we have backed the wrong nominee.

Sonya Sotomayor

It looks like Sonya Sotomayor will be sworn in as a supreme court justice. This was a good move by Obama. It also uplifts the Latino community. I don't think this decision was made lightly.

Here is the bottom line. Sotomayor has a lot of experience on both sides of the bench. I had never heard of her before her nomination. But I have no qualms with it.

Now some other decisions by Obama might be questionable. But just not this one. Good luck Sonya. George Lopez gots your back.

Swing Vote

I just watched the movie Swing Vote. It had an interesting scenario. A presidential election came down to a tie in electoral votes. One election district became the one which would decide who got the rest of the electoral votes to win the election. Furthermore the the district count was equal with one vote making the decision.

This is an interesting scenario. I am not sure how accurate it is regarding the electoral votes. However I do know that there comes a time when a certain vote is the one that counts. You can't know for sure beforehand which vote that will be. Therefore it makes sense to make sure you vote in the election.

In the past I used to think my vote did not count for much. I registered to vote. But I have skipped a presidential election before because I was busy. These days I truly believe every vote counts.

I take a little time off on election day to make sure I get to the polls and cast my vote. This is not always easy to do given a hectic work schedule. However I make it my priority. You should too. And while you are at it, consider watching Swing Vote. Kevin Costner does pretty good a "Bud", the man who casts the deciding vote.

Former President Bush

Former president George Bush is leading a quiet life down in Texas. I had thought he would retire to his ranch. He and his wife Laura do spend time on his ranch. However they bought a new house down in Texas. That is where they currently live.

Bush is planning write a book that should be available in stores in a year or so. The book will cover the eight years he was in office. The goal of the book is to provide insight for analysts in years to come when the judge his presidency.

George Bush does not comment much on sitting president Barrack Obama, except to say that Obama has his silent support. Bush occasionally does speeches to raise money for a future project which I may blog about later.

Cybersecurity Act of 2009

There is a new bill being discussed on Capitol Hill. It is the known as the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. People are worried because they say it gives the president the authority to shut down the Internet if there is a cybersecurity emergency. I was concerned about this myself. So I read through the entire draft of the bill.

The overall goal is to protect the economy from cybersecurity threats. This is a bill covering many areas. Here are some highlights that I found interesting. It would establish a national certification program for security professionals. It would also require professionals to be licensed in a couple years before doing business in the cybersecurity field.

This bill also discusses creation of a new secure domain name addressing system (DNS). I assume this would protect against people spoofing domain names they do not legally have. There is also to be a federal cyber scholarship to be established by the National Science Foundation (NSF). There is also to be cybersecurity competitions administered by the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST).

It will be most interesting to see whether this bill passes as written. For more information on cybersecurity in general, consult the Black of Hat blog.

AIG Bonuses

I cannot help but write and comment about the AIG Bonus Debacle. AIG has been bailed out will billions of taxpayer funds. Then these jokers turn around and award themselves multi-million dollar bonuses. This has resulted in a public outcry. Why should a company that almost went bankrupt and required government bailout deserve any bonuses.

Whose fault was this in the first place? Obviously something was going wrong at insurer AIG. The financial market as well has been dismal over the past year. But let’s take those facts for granted. When the government decided to step in and bail out the company, should they have ensured the bailout money come with some restrictions to prevent nonsense like big bonuses.

Where does the buck stop with the responsibility? Is the treasury secretary to blame? How about President Obama? Somebody is sure to blame here. Congress is smartly reacting by creating a new law to heavily tax these bonuses. In other words, the taxpayer is going to recoup the money paid out by these4 bonuses.

The American people are not placated. AIG is reporting that they are worried about their employees’ safety. There have been death threats on the employees. Luckily AIG has not released the names of the specific employees who received the bonuses. They do not want to put a target on the heads of these employees.

This could have been prevented by not issuing the bonuses in the first place. Even if there were some contracts in place, the bonus should not have been paid. Let any employees who think that they deserve a bonus sue the company for the bonus. I bet a judge will agree that helping drive a company into bankruptcy is not reason for a bonus.

Blagojevich Impeachment

The Illinois house voted to impeach govern Blagojevich today. This guy is charged with trying to sell the senate position being vacated by Obama. Is it any wonder that dirty deeds have happened. We are talking about Chicago here. The previous governor is currently serving a prison sentence.

A state senate trial will decide Blagojevich's fate. Even Harris, who was his eventual choice to replace Obama is having problems. Harris was denied entry to the senate in Washington DC this week. There is too much controversy for the governor's choice to count yet. I believe that problem will work itself out. Both the democrats and the senate want the Illinois seat matter resolved.

Blagojevich is still claiming innocence in the matter and has refused to step down from office. One thing is for sure. The governor has a lot of enemies in the Illinois house. Only one person out of over 100 state senators decided to vote against impeachment.

Democratic Agenda

A prominent blog author stated that he voted for Obama. That was not surprising. However he also said that he voted Republican for everything else. He explained himself by saying he just did not want a lot of tax increases. And that is what the Democratic party means to him.

The Obama vote was to keep the American dream alive that anybody can make it big. It was also because he believed that Barrack’s vision, leadership, and motivation would help the USA. The guy did not want to appear too far to the right with his Republican voting. So he did admit that he did not think tax cuts would help us at this point. But he definitely did not want any tax hikes either.

There was a lot of commentary on the blog post. There is a growing concern that with all the government bailouts, we are becoming a socialist nation. There is also worry that with the House, Senate, and presidency controlled by the Democrats, we have lost some level of checks and balances. Even Sarah Palin has come out and said that we cannot leave this happen.

Going further on the socialism idea, I keep hearing people say they don’t want the government to take from those who work, in order to give to those who don’t. Nobody likes free handouts like welfare unless it is you yourself who is on welfare.

And lest we get a little to serious here on this blog, I will say that I voted for McCain. However I hope that Obama can do a good job and get the United States out of the financial mess we are in. I liked one comment I saw recently that just said, “Gobama.”

Results Snapshot

I write this late in the evening on election day. NBC is calling Obama the winner. It is a tricky business to estimate who is going to win. However the outcome seems clear given the electoral vote advantage that Obama has. As of a little after 11PM, Obama has 284 electoral votes compared to 146 for McCain. You only need 270 electoral votes to win the election. It appears that Obama was victorious.

Obama won a number of key states that corresponded to many electoral votes. For example he won New York with 31 electoral votes. And he also won California with 55 electoral votes. McCain on the other hand, seemed to win smaller states with less electoral votes. The one big state McCain won was Texas with 34 electoral votes. The only state too close to call that had many electoral votes was Florida with 27 electoral votes.

It had been a long and hard race for McCain. He seemed to lose steam after the current financial crisis reached its peak. There was a blip in the radar with excitement over his choice of Sarah Palin as Vice Presidential running mate. That did not last for long. Obama had the staying power. Record number of Americans came to the polls. I heard reports that this many voters had not come out since 1920 when women won the right to vote.

This event winds down the 2008 race. I might post some more about the events that lead up to the January inauguration of Obama. However the election portion is done. Who knows? Perhaps I shall start writing about Election 2012 a bit early. I feel like I want to do more for my chosen candidate than I did this time. Yes I went out and rocked the vote. Sometimes it takes more than that to get your candidate to win.

I Voted

Today was the big day. I actually woke up a little late. So I was worries that going to vote would make me really late. Nevertheless, I had to do my civic duty. The girlfriend tagged along. Last election I was in a different house in a different county. So this would be the first time I would vote at the local school by my new house. I was pleased to see that there was actually some parking near the school. I was in a hurry after all.

Outside of the school I saw a guy talking to people walking up to vote. When I got near him, I recognized him as a member of the local civic association that had come door to door. He asked us if we had any questions. I told him we were good. Maybe he was not one of those guys who try to harass you to vote for their choice. Perhaps he was just part of the election staff. Who knows. There were not any signs as directing your where to go. I just went inside one of the open doors.

When I got in, there was a large sign that said, "One line starts here". I stood in line. When my turn came, and a man shouted "next in line", I went up to him. However some lady cut in front of me. Normally that would mean she needed to get the beat down. But she was older, and was pushing an even older guy in a wheelchair. So I decided she would get a little grace. But by then I was in the middle of nowhere with nobody to service me. I decided to get back into line.

I told the guy who eventually serviced me my name. He did not ask for any identification which was strange. The only needed me to verify my birth date. I signed a paper that came out of a little printer. Then I got a voting card. And I went to stand in yet another line. I stepped to a voting machine when the time came. I put my voting card in the machine. However I knew something was not right when I tried to select English as the language. I had to keep hitting the button to start the voting session.

It was a total chore voting on this machine. I think the touch screen was totally hosed. Either that or the machine was very slow. I kept hitting the buttons I wanted. Somehow I got through all the questions and submitted my vote. It was a little confusing on the way out. I tried to give my stuff to a lady that looked like she worked there. But she said I needed to give it to the other guy that was handling the line coming in. Overall the voting experience felt a little more disorganized than at my last location in a different county. All of these people are volunteers. So I doubt much more can be done to improve this, unless I myself decided to volunteer and step in.

Palin on SNL

Last weekend vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin appeared on Saturday Night Live. Tina Fey continued her impersonation of Palin from the previous week. The SNL ratings were off the charts. They got around 14 million viewers. SNL viewership is up this year, sharply contrasting with last year's numbers. The real question is whether Palin's visit to SNL will impact the election. Like everyone else, I did some Google searches to see what various authorities on the subject were saying.

ABC News reports that this showed Parlin could take a joke. She only spent 6 minutes on camera during the show. There are a lot of other people doing Sarah Palin impersonations these days. Nothing on the SNL show was too outrageous. Speaking of impersonations, Lisa Nova is doing Palin impersonations on YouTube. However I will not be watching Lisa Nova for her brilliant satire any time soon. If you have ever seen a Lisa Nova video, you know what I am talking about.

Yahoo News reported that the Palin visit to SNL made her favorability ratings drop a bit. However experts agree that it will have no impact whatsoever on the election results. The greatest impact is to the SNL show itself. Some Republicans may be thinking that this is too serious a time for Palin to be appearing on SNL.

The Wired Blog said that people all over the United States were doing Google searches on SNL plus Palin. Like I mentioned earlier, I did my own Google searches to research what others were thinking about the SNL appearance. NBC Universal has been diligent in issuing take down notices to YouTube so that the SNL skit would not be shown. I doubt this has anything to do with Palin herself or the election. This is just NBC protecting its copyright.

Personally I enjoyed the first impersonation done by Tina Fey on SNL. It was actually funny. I did not tune in to see Palin herself come on the show the following week. However I do credit her with having the audacity to actually appear. It takes strong character to be able to laugh when people are making fun of you.

VP Debate

Palin came out in the vice presidential debate, proving she is a force to be reckoned with. She walked up to Biden and asked if she could call him Joe. I confess I did not watch the actual debate. However I caught a couple shows with analysts going bonkers over Palin's part in the debate.

You had to love how Palin controlled the debate, connecting with the crowd and the viewer audience. She was seen winking on more than one occasion. She shocked analysts when she mentioned that she advocated an expansion of the vice presidential powers. LOL.

Biden had a tough job. He could not come out swinging. Otherwise he would look bad as if he was beating up a woman. Biden was careful not to correct Palin so as not to appear to aggressive. I give him some credit. He did hold his own. Then again he has a lot of experience.

Palin was the underdog. Nobody thought she would fare well in the debate. She proved them wrong. Now its up to McCain and Obama to duke it out in their second debate.

McCain Blasts SEC Chairman

John McCain has called for the firing of Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). This is quite an aggressive move by McCain. He cites poor wall street oversight by the SEC. In doing so, McCain states that Cox has betrayed the public trust.

There is no question that the economy and stock market have been hit hard recently. Speculator have been selling stocks short. In other words, they have been betting that stock prices will go down. Not only that, some have been doing naked short sales. Investors often blame these short sellers when stock prices fall. Whether or not they are the direct cause is a point of debate.

We should return to some facts of the matter. The SEC did eliminate something called the uptick rule for short selling. Essentially you could not sell a stock short unless the price was increasing. Another fact is that even good companies are suffering due to the recent events in the stock market.

Now let’s discuss the fate of chairman Cox. The chairman of the SEC is appointed by the president of the United States. Bush has come out and said Cox has his full support. Cox also rebutted McCain’s call with a 10 point list of positive actions the SEC is taking to deal with the stock market.

So why would McCain make such an aggressive move against Cox? He previously had stated that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Big mistake. His campaign is also losing some steam as the news of Sarah Palin wears off. I would hope that McCain would work on some real action to help the economy instead of some cheap methods like declaring the SEC chairman should be fired.

Sarah Palin's Daughter

The big news for a while was that Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant. Luckily the democrats are very gentle when dealing with Palin. They don't want to appear to be attacking women in general.

A funny thing about this story is that it generated all kinds of Internet rumors. I would be reading message boards about company stocks, and I would see stories about Palin, her children, and her future grandchildren. That was spooky.

Personally I don't care if Sarah Palin is pregnant. I don't care if her daughter is pregnant. And I do not care if her daughter is married or not and pregnant. All that matters is whether Palin can do the job of Vice President well. I suspect she can given her experience in Alaska. Her choice as Vice President may have been the move that pulled me to the McCain side.

Another Reason to Vote McCain

Here is another reason to vote for John McCain. Heidi Montag (of The Hills fame) has thrown her support behind McCain. This in and of itself is of no great consequence. However you normally hear about her so called real life relationship with Spencer. It is refreshing to hear something about her that has nothing to do with The Hills.

McCain Chooses VP

John McCain has announced his choice for Vice President. It is Alaska governor Sarah Palin. This was quite a bold move for McCain. It seems obvious that McCain is targeting women voters. But enough about McCain. Let's talk about Palin.

Sarah Palin is a 44 year old mother of five. She has a newborn baby less than a year old. Her son enlisted in the army just last year. She used to be a union member. Her husband still is. She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. What a resume!

There are some challenges with McCain's choice. He is 72. She is almost 30 years younger than him. She does not have experience with foreign policy. However she does have a track record of fighting oil companies in Alaska.

The real question is whether Palin can lure Democratic supports of Hillary Clinton to vote for McCain-Palin.

Edwards Affair

John Edwards has finally come out and admitted that he had an affair with Rielle Hunter. He also confessed that he had lied about this relationship in the past. However Edwards continues to deny he is the father of Hunter's daughter Frances. The National Inquirer broke this story back in October 2007. They insist that Frances is the love child of Edwards and Hunter.

Hunter has professed her love for Edwards. But Edwards on the other hand denies being in love with Hunter. A staffer for Edwards has come forward stating that he instead is the father of the baby. Why am I having a tough time believing that one? Oh yeah. Edwards lied to the press repeatedly.

Apparently Hunter traveled with Edwards for about six months. That left plenty of time for extramarital activities between them. There are some additional sketchy details involving Hunter. Her company was paid $100k by Edwards' political action committee for 4 videos she produced. Nice touch.

The only real question is what impact will this have on Edwards. Bill Clinton lied and had an affair with minimal damage. Can Edwards pull this off as well? I do not think so. We already knew that Clinton was Slick Willie. However Edwards came across as a different kind of man sticking by his wife that had cancer. Now that the truth is revealed, coupled with the fact that he is not as good a liar as Clinton, might spell the end of his political career. I can say for sure that I am never going to vote for the man. What say you?

Terrible But Funny Ad

I have been seeing a certain commercial on TV a lot recently. It starts out by talking about the high gas prices. Then it asks who is responsible for the evil high gas prices. You see a picture of Obama on a podium. The crowd starts chanting the answer to who is responsible for high gas prices: Obama, Obama, Obama.

You have to give the McCain media people some credit. This commercial is absolutely hilarious. The commercial never comes out and says that Barack is to blame for high gas prices. And they do not point to any facts behind the commercial.

One good thing about the commercial is that, at the end, John McCain comes out and states that he approved the commercial. He does not behind some committee. McCain won some points from me with this ad. Now it is time for Obama to do something just as inventive. I am waiting.