I’m signing off for the day, enjoy the rest of the day!

IRS rules include the following elements for churches and religious organizations:

All IRC section 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches and religious organizations, must abide by certain rules:

■ they must not devote a substantial part of their activities to attempting to influence legislation,
■ they must not participate in, or intervene in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office

Yet I see activities that blatantly violate these rules.

Don’t get me wrong, I think every person should be able to vote and campaign for whoever they support, That is their right. What I oppose is that they use the power of their position and advocate on behalf of that position for a political candidate and then claim tax exempt status at the same time. If you want to campaign as a priest or a church, fine, but then be honest about it and pay taxes.

Why don’t churches pay taxes anyway?

Sarah Palin actually said this today:

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Wow.This statement is so wrong on so many levels, least of which is the fact that the 1st amendment ensures freedom of the press. I’m getting to the point where I can’t see the red flag for the forest of red flags…

American intelligence officials believe that Taliban commanders are convinced that they are winning. Not only are they establishing themselves in larger swaths of the country, but their campaign of violence is shaking the will of European countries contributing troops to the NATO mission

Not good news, and worse, they are probably right. The effort in Afghanistan was doomed, the day President Bush decided (The Decider!) to invade Iraq and divert resources. So now we are faced with double down or nothing. Not pretty either way.

As predicted, we are seeing global rate cuts continuing.

The ECB will likely be following suit next week.

The hunt for Osama bin Laden became a rallying cry and central theme for the American President following the attacks on September 11, 2001. “Dead or alive” was the phrase President Bush used in one of his press conferences. Yet the evidence that has emerged since points to a very different picture and is hardly reconcilable with the public rhetoric. Two well researched articles that spoke with CIA and Delta Force leaders present at Tora Bora describe an almost unfathomable string of decisions that led to the escape of America’s public enemy number one.

From the New York Times:

By now, the Taliban’s stronghold in Kandahar had fallen or, more correctly, had been abandoned by the soldiers of the regime. The Taliban retreat from Kandahar was emblematic of the war. None of Afghanistan’s cities had been won by force alone. Taliban fighters, after intense bombing, had simply made strategic withdrawals. A number of American officers were now convinced that this was about to happen at Tora Bora, too.

One of them was Brig. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of some 4,000 marines who had arrived in the Afghan theater by now. Mattis, along with another officer with whom I spoke, was convinced that with these numbers he could have surrounded and sealed off bin Laden’s lair, as well as deployed troops to the most sensitive portions of the largely unpatrolled border with Pakistan. He argued strongly that he should be permitted to proceed to the Tora Bora caves. The general was turned down. An American intelligence official told me that the Bush administration later concluded that the refusal of Centcom to dispatch the marines - along with their failure to commit U.S. ground forces to Afghanistan generally - was the gravest error of the war.

A week or so after General Mattis’s request was denied, the turning point in the battle of Tora Bora came. It was Dec. 12…..So, through a series of intermediaries and then directly, Hajji Zaman made radio contact with some of bin Laden’s commanders and offered a cease-fire. The Americans were furious. The negotiations - to which Hazarat Ali acquiesced since he, too, was now holding secret talks with Al Qaeda - continued for hours. . Then he requested additional time to meet with other commanders. He would be back in touch by 8 the following morning, the younger bin Laden said…..American intelligence officials now believe that some 800 Qaeda fighters escaped Tora Bora that night.

So how many actual military troops did the US commit to the ground in its war against the great threat of terrorism. According to Newsweek’s interview with the head of the Delta Force team:

In late November of 2001, I was given the choice to go after Osama bin Laden or Mullah Mohammed Omar. I chose bin Laden. I was given 40 Delta operators and sent to Afghanistan with specific orders to link with an Eastern Alliance opposition group, self-proclaimed Gen. Hazret Ali, the CIA and move to the Tora Bora mountains to go capture or kill bin Laden.

What am I missing? Even the locals on the ground thought that something was amiss:

I think General Ali gave an awful lot of credit to the terrain and the caves Al Qaeda had. He understood them because he helped build the same caves and trench lines back in the Soviet jihad. He told us that first day that the Soviets couldn’t take Tora Bora with 10,000 fighters—what made us think that we could do it with a handful of Delta fighters and his basic ragtag mujahedin?

How did the greatest high tech military in the world pursue bin Laden on the ground?

..and loaded 33 Delta operators in nine pickup trucks and took off to the battlefield..With our orders of the mujahedin taking the lead and making it look like the Afghans were doing this by themselves, we were basically stuck.

This strange lack of resources and support was later justified by stating the US never really knew if Bin Laden was actually at Tora Bora:

Defending its decision not to commit forces to the Tora Bora campaign, members of the Bush administration - including the president, the vice president and Gen. Tommy Franks - have continued to insist, as recently as the last presidential campaign, that there was no definitive information that bin Laden was even in Tora Bora in December 2001. “We don’t know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora,” Franks wrote in an Oct. 19, 2004, Op-Ed article in The New York Times.

Oh really?

On Dec. 14, we heard a real-time voice from bin Laden. He apologized to his fighters for getting them into this mess and allowed them to surrender.

So what happened? Negotiations and ensued, the bombing was stopped and bin Laden and his followers escaped that night.

Just a few months later Bush changed his tune:

I truly am not that concerned about him’, said President George W Bush on 13 March 2002, after being asked the million-dollar question ‘where is bin Laden?’ once too often

These decisions have never been fully explained. On the surface they do not make sense and can lead one to believe that there was an alternate agenda or a frighteningly high level of incompetence. It may have been well justified, or it may not. But I think the American people deserve an explanation especially in the light of the enormous expenses associated with the “war on terror”.

No candidate for President or Vice President in modern times has ever NOT released their medical records. It’s standard transparency. After a curious delay on Palin’s part she seemed to indicate on October 22 in an interview with Brian Williams that she’s be glad to release them, although I noticed a little caveat here: “If they are released”.

The election is in 5 days, No records have been released. Red flag anyone?

The press is calling out the BS and I’m loving it. We still have a press! See, follow-up questions work.

Watch Goldfarb self-destruct on CNN:

If you talk to any Realtor today they will tell you that foreclosures are killing the market. We are hopelessly oversupplied and foreclosures and adding only to the downward price pressure. The poison must be drained from the system so that the market can improve. Restructuring mortgages guaranteed by the FDIC is a practical solution that would help. Yes it’s another form of government bail-out, but the reality is that the distressed housing market was the culprit of the current crises, and it is the sector that needs to lead us out of this mess.

For the better part of a year we had to listen to our economic and political leaders that the economy was “fundamentally sound”. Others saw it coming, like Jim Cramer in this now infamous CNBC interview from August 2007:

The alternative is of course to let itself all sort out on its own. While you could make the argument on principle, you then have to be prepared to be in a 10 year economic slump. Who’s for that on principle?

“Where’s Joe?, Joe I thought you are here today…. You are all Joe the Plumber. Give Joe a round of applause for what he has done for America” Oh John, seriously please.

Joe the plumber a no show at McCain’s campaign….

“Obama is still relatively unknown”. Priceless.

America, 2008. Why can’t we still get this right? In an age where we do all our online banking without flaws, trade stocks online, download myriad of content off of the Internet and we still don’t have error free voting machines?

With early voting under way in 31 states, these problems have already surfaced. In recent weeks, voters in West Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas have reported that touch-screen machines registered their votes, at least initially, for the wrong candidate or party.

“It’s a huge mess,” Greenhalgh told CNN. “This is the most important fundamental characteristic of our country. It is our democracy … and our votes need to be recorded and counted in a way we can trust.”

Seriously. Get it together.

I guess you can get away with anything if you’re deemed a religious organization and you have plenty of followers. News hits the wires today that the Vatican wants to implement a “psych” test for potential applicants to determine if they are gay. I’m not making this up:

Candidates for the Catholic priesthood should undergo psychological tests to screen out heterosexuals unable to control their sexual urges and those with strong homosexual tendencies, the Vatican said Thursday.

The document said it was “not enough to be sure that (a candidate) is capable of abstaining from sexual activity” but also to “evaluate his sexual orientation.”

So women can’t be priests and gay man can’t either. The truth: The Vatican is a discriminatory organization.

Why know of course why they are heading in this direction. Having mismanaged one of the largest, if not the largest child abuse scandals in modern history, the Vatican is now equating being gay with being a child abuser, or at least having the propensity to be one, which is, of course, nonsense.

What’s closer to the truth of course is that they require unnatural behavior of their priests by requiring celibacy.

But what does one expect from this racket? The current Pope, Herr Ratzinger, as Pope John Paul II’s chief enforcer of Church policy, was originally working very hard to keep these cases wrapped up in secret past the time the statutes of limitations were to expire. Call me confused, but that strikes me as obstruction of justice.

But maybe it’s the Vatican that is confused as it continues to push policies that inherently are in conflict with themselves. Take the “life” issue. The Vatican is vehemently opposed to all forms of abortion and contraception as they all represent “a violation of the fundamental right to life”. No compromise, no exceptions.

Yet, at the same time, we have evidence that the Vatican for years presided over global efforts of lying to people about the effectiveness of condoms against Aids. Of course these efforts centered in the regions with some of the highest Aids infection rates in the world, i.e. Africa where people often do not have access to modern health care systems or information. How many people have been infected and/or died as a result of these vicious and reckless lies? A violation of the fundamental right to life? Please. Hypocrisy abounds.

Fortunately, many faithful disagree with the Church bureaucracy on its policy.  I would hope they would disagree on more issues.

What is the track record of this organization, but if nothing but a series of misjudgments and coming out on the wrong side of history and reason? Some well known examples:

Inquisition: “Mistake, but legally justified”. Are you kidding me?

Limbo: Oops, not so, after instilling horror and fear in millions of parents for centuries

Holocaust: Sorry we were silent

Galileo: Oops, he was right after all

Excommunication of women: Don’t dare to become ordained

Everyone makes mistakes, and to the church’s credit it has admitted some of them, but why did it take until 1992 to admit the obvious, that the earth revolved around the sun?

My question is, why give the Catholic Church credibility when it comes to the otherworldly when it can’t get the worldly (the presumably easier part) right?

After all, it was the same organization that so many years ago decided (with only a 15% attendance record) what the faith was to be. And if you are unclear who won the debate, it was the one with the army. If anyone has any doubts whether it was a real debate go ask the Donatists.

Things are moving fast. The CSM is taking the consequences and is killing its print edition moving online exclusively. As reported previously they were struggling with subscriptions.

The Christian Science Monitor plans major changes in April 2009 that are expected to make it the first newspaper with a national audience to shift from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day.

This will be an ongoing trend, the world is changing. I can hear the questions from children in a few years already: “Daddy, what’s a newspaper?”

No suprise here, but 3rd quarter GDP came in at a negative 0.3%. Much of this of course was driven by the month of September when much economic activity fell off a cliff. So likely we are looking at a much lower GDP number for Q4, unless consumers ramp up their spending, but based on what? Their net worth has been much reduced due to lower home prices and 401Ks. The drag on the economy remains housing. Mortgage rates have actually jumped dramatically and the Fed’s easing has little impact. Credit remains tight with slight signs of improvement.

And another ethics complaint has been filed against Palin for expensing family member travel as governor of Alaska. In addition, the government is looking into per Diem charges she charged the state while doing work from home:

The complaint alleges that the Republican vice presidential nominee used her official position as governor for personal gain. It follows a report by The Associated Press last week that Palin charged the state more than $21,000 for her three daughters’ commercial flights, including events where they weren’t invited, and later ordered their expense forms amended to specify official state business.

As a principle issue, at least in the business world, it is very rare that a spouse’s travel gets reimbursed. I’ve seen it happen at special events or corporate retreats. But in general, when you are on a business trip you are on a business trip. I do realize that often governments do things differently.

I think final judgment should be withheld until more information is available. If this was standard business practice then she could claim legacy status, even-though it would be a bit shaky as it stands. The per Diem at home looks really weak, I’ve never heard of such a thing. If I were a tax payer in Alaska, I’d demand my money back.

Since the facts are not at dispute (she did expense all these items) I can say that this action raises another red flag. On top of the Trooper investigation findings and the numerous lies she told in public I think it’s fair to assume that voting her into office would be a major mistake. She has not been vetted enough and some of the items will not be concluded by next Tuesday.

Things may have slowed a bit in China amidst the global slowdown, but make no mistake, China will continue to build enormous infrastructure. Boeing announced today that it expects China to purchase 3,710 planes in the next 20 years. I have a feeling this implies building lots of airports as well.

So despite all the talk of global demand destruction the long term run on commodities will continue.

I was in Beijing and Shenyang just two weeks ago, and it was pretty obvious, China keeps building its infrastructure!

You cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama

Janet Porter, Worldnet Daily

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States

Article VI, United States Constitution

And they call themselves patriot pro-Americans. What am I missing?

As expected the Fed cuts rates by 50 basis points. The Fed language is gloomy. While inflation is finally on the back-burner (that was obvious a year ago, when housing went bust) economic activity is slowing down dramatically. The offset to lower commodity prices is the obvious headwind of a consumer that is heavily leveraged with losses in both housing and equities (i.e. 401Ks). Many baby boomers who were looking forward to retiring now have to face the destruction that is their net worth as a result of this crises.

Hard to fathom, but another new low in American campaign politics, and yes, Elizabeth Dole went there:

The expectations for Obama are high. People have felt so bad and negative for a long time (as evidenced by ever low approval ratings for both President and Congress) and the amount of angst is high. An Obama victory will help improve the mood among his supporters, although to some of his more fanatical opponents he is bound to turn the country into an Marxist-Islamic theocracy ( What will they say of he doesn’t and the economy actually improves?).

In any event, when Obama is President he needs to manage expectations and set realistic goals from the outset. He will face a myriad of problems that will take time to address and the American public needs to understand this, otherwise he will set them up for a dissapointment. I expect Obama to address the American people shortly after his inauguration and lay out the issues, his priorities, and set the proper stage.

Since the issues are complex but require speedy resolutions, I’m favoring a 60 seat Senate majority for the Democrats in this election to give the country a chance to get things done. The constant partisan wrangling has been a disaster. The pressure on the Democrats will be high though, and they need to deliver. Failure to do so will cause a major retrenchment in the 2010 congressional elections.

You are heading toward year 8 in a war and you talk about having to double the needed extra troops. What do you call that, a success? I doubt it, more a likely a deteriorating situation with no end in sight:

Military planners now think they may need to send more than double the number of extra troops initially believed necessary for the war in Afghanistan.

Two defense officials spoke on grounds of anonymity Wednesday. They said the buildup in the increasingly violent campaign could now amount to more than 20,000 additional troops. Officials had been saying for months that they needed more trainers and two more combat brigades — some 10,000 people.

Afghanistan has been a mess for years. The US never committed enough troops to do the job right since President Bush decided in his infinite wisdom what Iraq was more important. The plain fact is that the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated for years, requiring more and more resources. Despite being hopelessly outmatched by weaponry and technical know-how the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are actually mounting an effective guerilla war.

Case in point: A former colleague of mine from the corporate world was called back into the special forces a couple of years ago (he was a reservist). He was telling me of harrowing stories of chasing Taliban on horse back (I’m not kidding). He and his platoon got caught up in an ambush, they all survived, but he was shot multiple times and fortunately survived thanks to his Kevlar vest.

So what’s the end game? Nobody knows, least of all the American tax payer. We keep on paying. President Bush has decided to push his unsolved messes to the next President, and the new President is likely faced with damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

It’s a mess and a failure in political and military leadership.

Since the US media basically is not reporting on the US military strike inside a sovereign nation (wonder what their reaction would be if another country conducted a raid in, say, southern Texas?) we’ll keep an eye on it here.

For now it looks like a one time event that may have killed a minor al-Qaida  figure, Abu Ghadiyah, although he is being trumped to being a major figure. How many al-Qaida number two’s have we killed in Iraq? They come, and they go. Certainly he was a thorn in the US military eyes organizing supplies of fighters and weapons. But he has done this for a long time. So why now? Why just days in front of the US general election? We won’t know the answer of course since the story didn’t gain traction in the US, so, in this sense, did not have a major impact. So no big deal? Well the world is, again, not really happy with the unilateral bully that the US has branded itself to be:

criticism of the unilateral attack has been intense. In Paris, the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy released a statement Monday expressing “serious concern” and calling for “the strict respect of the territorial integrity of states.” Javiar Solana, the EU’s top foreign policy official, said that he was “worried” and hoped matters would quickly return to normal. The foreign ministries of China and Russia both joined the chorus, focusing their criticism on US violation of Syrian territory.

And:

The raid has also put the Iraqi government in an awkward position. In response, a government spokesman told reporters Tuesday that his government “rejects US aircraft bombarding posts inside Syria.”

So, nobody is really happy about it. Yes the US claims it was necessary, nobody can really say for sure, but US credibility keeps being eroded. When Russia sent troops into Georgia in the summer, the US was screaming bloody murder, “territorial integrity must be respected” was the tag line. Yea, well, nobody likes a hypocrite.

Fair play to Shepard Smith to call out the nonsense that is the media circus surrounding “Joe the Plumber” directly challenging him and the McCain campaign on the non-fact based assertion that a vote for Obama would imply the end of Israel. This is an example of what the media should do!

Tough times for traditional media outlets. Newspapers, magazines all see declining sales in their print media. Lay-offs are the result:

Time Inc., the world’s largest magazine company, is set to announce a revamping that will result in job cuts of 6 percent — more than 600 positions — and a reorganization that could radically alter the culture at the venerable publishing house.

Yesterday the LA Times announced the lay-off of 75 editorial staff. The trend continues. What the key factors:

1. Online access. More and more people get there news from online sources

2. The news cycle has accelerated. By the time the print medium comes out the news is already old

3. The traditional media are, quite frankly, OK, but not great. If they were great, blogs and online sites would not attract as much traffic. Hence, their need to reorganize and adopt a different business model (online).

We could see a world in the not too distant future which will be exclusively digital.

Can Republicans look themselves in the mirror?

When you appeal to the lowest emotional fears in the uneducated, you get a mob mentality. Where are the moderate Republicans? Will they speak out, and take back control of the GOP?

Yesterday this site pointed to a possible imminent turnaround in the market as signaled by a turn to the positive in copper. Certainly this was one in many factors, but the timing couldn’t have been better with a move to the upside of almost 900 points today. And you heard it here first!

In this now infamous interview with Senator Biden, WFTV anchor Barbara West is asking a number of questions that have little to do with substance, in fact are absurd in fact and premise. Biden handled the “interview” as best as he could, but was clearly surprised and shocked at what he got. What did he get? A hit job. West claims the questions were legitimate because people liked to know the answer. Which people? Republican partisans? These were faux questions. Obama is not a Marxist, it’s simple fact and to try to paint him this way is a dishonest attempt to smear him. West may as well have asked Biden if Obama beats his wife. “Well people want to know the answer to that question”. West should be ashamed. But is she? She certainly did not disclose the following facts on the air:

Several readers questioned how objective West could be because her husband, Wade West, was a Republican strategist who contributed $2,250 to Republican candidates from 2000 to 2006…..Asked her political affiliation, West said, “I don’t think I should say.” Voting registration records show she is a Republican.

The American people deserve better.

The hits keep on coming, confirming the red flags:

a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description, calling her “a whack job.”

More:

 Moreover, McCain campaign sources say, Palin has developed quite a reputation on the campaign trail for shopping.

During this controversy, McCain insiders were appalled to read a blog account from Nevada noting that the day before Palin held an event in Reno, “Palin’s assistant stopped in at the Ann Taylor at the Summit Sierra Mall and bought the skirt suit that she wore during to her speech Tuesday at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. ‘She bought a short, three-quarter sleeve jacket, a skirt and a couple other items,’ store manager Suzette Ludden said.”

Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: “Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.” It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus. I was told that Palin chafed at being defined by her discomfiting performances in the Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Sean Hannity interviews. She wanted to get back out there and do more. Well, if you’re Eskew and Wallace, what do you say to that? Your responsibility isn’t the care and feeding of Sarah Palin’s ego; it’s the furtherance of John McCain’s quest for the presidency. 
Ane now comes reporting from Jake Tapper that reflects more unhappiness toward Palin from McCain advisers.