Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
From: Campaign for America's Future (www.OurFuture.org)
www.OurFuture.org
The Key to National Health Care: The Public Plan Choice
Last week, President-Elect Barack Obama promised to act quickly and boldly “to modernize our health care system for the twenty-first century; to reduce costs for families and businesses; and to finally provide affordable, accessible health care for every American.”
The health insurance industry is worried. And they have begun to attack the key feature of Obama's health plan—his proposal that Americans should be able to choose a public insurance plan (like Medicare) in addition to a variety of private insurance plans. This idea of "public plan choice" has been endorsed by Obama, by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, and by Congressman Pete Stark and over 160 other Members of the new Congress. Sources...
Opponents of health care reform want to limit our options to the same health insurance companies that got us into the current mess. We can’t let that happen.
* A new report by Jacob Hacker, entitled The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform was released on December 17 by the Institute for America ’s Future and the Center for Health, Economic, and Family Security. The report shows why forcing the insurance companies to compete with a public option is vital to (1) control costs, (2) improve quality, and (3) set a high standard for private plans. To see the full report, click here.
* A Medicare-style public insurance plan is better able to contain health care costs than private insurance. Between 1997 and 2006, health spending per enrollee grew faster under private health insurance than under Medicare. Public insurance has lower overhead. For example, Medicare’s administrative costs (in the range of 3 percent) are well below the overhead costs of large companies that self-insure (5 to 10 percent of premiums), companies in the small group market (25 to 27 percent of premiums), and individual insurance (40 percent of premiums). And public insurance can use its purchasing power to reduce costs. In 2006, for example, Medicare physician payments were significantly lower than rates paid by private insurers, yet 97 percent of physicians are accepting some new public Medicare patients. Sources...
* Public insurance has pioneered quality-improvement methods that have frequently set the standard for private plans. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) created a model evidence-based quality-improvement program that significantly increases the percentage of patients who receive the care they need. Elderly Americans with public Medicare report that they have greater access to physicians for routine care and in cases of injury or illness than do the privately insured. They are also half as likely as nonelderly Americans with private insurance to report common access problems, such as skipping a medical test, treatment, or follow up, and failing to see a doctor when sick. Sources...
* A public plan option will set a high standard against which private plans must compete. Transparency in Medicare has helped to identify areas where higher health spending has not increased quality. In contrast, 126 private plans refused to provide data to a national accrediting agency that was needed for the magazine to rank plan performance. Driven by profit, private insurance companies seek to avoid insuring those with chronic and costly disease, yet they are the ones most in need of innovations in treatment and care coordination. A public plan, which by nature will take all comers, is best able to treat them and disseminate the lessons learned. Sources...
Progressive Solutions
Get ready for a fierce fight. The insurance companies and the drug companies will spend hundreds of millions seeking to eliminate or weaken a public plan option in health care reform. They are looking for a plan that will provide more money to their coffers, not more competition for them to meet.
The Key to National Health Care: The Public Plan Choice
Last week, President-Elect Barack Obama promised to act quickly and boldly “to modernize our health care system for the twenty-first century; to reduce costs for families and businesses; and to finally provide affordable, accessible health care for every American.”
The health insurance industry is worried. And they have begun to attack the key feature of Obama's health plan—his proposal that Americans should be able to choose a public insurance plan (like Medicare) in addition to a variety of private insurance plans. This idea of "public plan choice" has been endorsed by Obama, by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, and by Congressman Pete Stark and over 160 other Members of the new Congress. Sources...
Opponents of health care reform want to limit our options to the same health insurance companies that got us into the current mess. We can’t let that happen.
* A new report by Jacob Hacker, entitled The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform was released on December 17 by the Institute for America ’s Future and the Center for Health, Economic, and Family Security. The report shows why forcing the insurance companies to compete with a public option is vital to (1) control costs, (2) improve quality, and (3) set a high standard for private plans. To see the full report, click here.
* A Medicare-style public insurance plan is better able to contain health care costs than private insurance. Between 1997 and 2006, health spending per enrollee grew faster under private health insurance than under Medicare. Public insurance has lower overhead. For example, Medicare’s administrative costs (in the range of 3 percent) are well below the overhead costs of large companies that self-insure (5 to 10 percent of premiums), companies in the small group market (25 to 27 percent of premiums), and individual insurance (40 percent of premiums). And public insurance can use its purchasing power to reduce costs. In 2006, for example, Medicare physician payments were significantly lower than rates paid by private insurers, yet 97 percent of physicians are accepting some new public Medicare patients. Sources...
* Public insurance has pioneered quality-improvement methods that have frequently set the standard for private plans. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) created a model evidence-based quality-improvement program that significantly increases the percentage of patients who receive the care they need. Elderly Americans with public Medicare report that they have greater access to physicians for routine care and in cases of injury or illness than do the privately insured. They are also half as likely as nonelderly Americans with private insurance to report common access problems, such as skipping a medical test, treatment, or follow up, and failing to see a doctor when sick. Sources...
* A public plan option will set a high standard against which private plans must compete. Transparency in Medicare has helped to identify areas where higher health spending has not increased quality. In contrast, 126 private plans refused to provide data to a national accrediting agency that was needed for the magazine to rank plan performance. Driven by profit, private insurance companies seek to avoid insuring those with chronic and costly disease, yet they are the ones most in need of innovations in treatment and care coordination. A public plan, which by nature will take all comers, is best able to treat them and disseminate the lessons learned. Sources...
Progressive Solutions
Get ready for a fierce fight. The insurance companies and the drug companies will spend hundreds of millions seeking to eliminate or weaken a public plan option in health care reform. They are looking for a plan that will provide more money to their coffers, not more competition for them to meet.
Friday, December 12, 2008
text of GOP action against union memo
From: edited out by source
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:12 AM
To: edited out by source
Subject: Action Alert -- Auto Bailout
Today at noon, Senators Ensign, Shelby, Coburn and DeMint will hold a press conference in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery. They would appreciate our support through messaging and attending the press conference, if possible. The message they want us to deliver is:
1. This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.
2. This rush to judgment is the same thing that happened with the TARP. Members did not have an opportunity to read or digest the legislation and therefore could not understand the consequences of it. We should not rush to pass this because Detroit says the sky is falling.
The sooner you can have press releases and documents like this in the hands of members and the press, the better. Please contact me if you need additional information. Again, the hardest thing for the democrats to do is get 60 votes. If we can hold the Republicans, we can beat this.
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:12 AM
To: edited out by source
Subject: Action Alert -- Auto Bailout
Today at noon, Senators Ensign, Shelby, Coburn and DeMint will hold a press conference in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery. They would appreciate our support through messaging and attending the press conference, if possible. The message they want us to deliver is:
1. This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.
2. This rush to judgment is the same thing that happened with the TARP. Members did not have an opportunity to read or digest the legislation and therefore could not understand the consequences of it. We should not rush to pass this because Detroit says the sky is falling.
The sooner you can have press releases and documents like this in the hands of members and the press, the better. Please contact me if you need additional information. Again, the hardest thing for the democrats to do is get 60 votes. If we can hold the Republicans, we can beat this.
Per Media Matters, the media efforts to create another Whitewater
Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago
by Jamison Foser
To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.
Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase "Blagogate" to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix "-gate" to the end of a word.
Sanchez's efforts to create a catchphrase aside, the criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich this week isn't the Watergate of the 21st century -- though it shows signs that it may become this decade's Whitewater.
Right about now, you may be scratching your head, trying to remember what, exactly, the Whitewater scandal was. Didn't it have something to do with a bank? Or a land deal? But didn't the Clintons lose money? How did the congressman who shot the pumpkin fit in?
But Whitewater is quite simple, when it is understood as it should be -- as a media scandal, not a presidential scandal.
As an endless series of investigations, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, revealed, the Clintons broke no law and violated no ethics regulations in connection with Whitewater. They lost money on a failed land deal in which their business partner cheated them. That's all there was. Republicans Ken Starr, Robert Fiske, Robert Ray, Al D'Amato, and Jim Leach, among others, investigated the matter, and none of them found illegality. There was simply nothing there -- except year after year of obsessive, and often dishonest, media coverage, fueled by conservatives who would stop at nothing to destroy the president.
As Joe Conason explains today, "The madness that was eventually classified under the quasi-clinical rubric of 'Whitewater' began, in no small degree, with the dubious idea that Arkansas, the Clintons' home state, was a peculiarly corrupt place -- and that any politician from Arkansas by definition was suspect (but only if he or she happened to be a Democrat)."
Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons noted in Fools for Scandal, his 1994 book about how the media invented Whitewater, "Scarcely a Whitewater story has appeared in the national press that hasn't made references to the state's uniquely 'incestuous' links between business, government, and the legal establishment -- concepts utterly foreign to places like Washington, D.C., and New York City, of course." (Conason and Lyons co-wrote The Hunting of the President, a book that -- along with Fools for Scandal -- are must-reads for anyone interested in the media or politics.)
By portraying Arkansas as thoroughly, and uniquely, corrupt, the media (and Clinton's political opponents) tied him to a long line of misbehavior that had nothing to do with him -- and created the impression that Clinton must be corrupt merely for being from such an ethical cesspool.
Of course, Arkansas was neither thoroughly nor uniquely corrupt.
In addition to the ages-old clichés -- big cities like New York and Chicago; the anything-goes Wild West of Las Vegas and Texas; perennial whipping boy New Jersey -- countless other states and cities have reputations for "unparalleled" corruption. People experienced in Connecticut politics will forcefully argue that their state takes a back seat to no other when it comes to the frequency with which public officials are caught in various degrees of wrongdoing. Then there's Florida, about which the less said, the better. And on and on and on.
Such reputations stem not only from actual examples of actual corruption -- California gave us Nixon; Maryland gave us Agnew; two of the Keating Five, including John McCain, hailed from Arizona -- but from the fact that many people, particularly those who work in politics and the media, tend to engage in a bit of tongue-in-cheek bragging about their home city or state's propensity for scandal.
The point isn't that everyplace is corrupt, or that nowhere is. It's that no location has a monopoly on crooked politicians (nor has there yet been a location over which crooked politicians held a monopoly) -- and that any claim of a city or state's unique history of public officials abusing their office should be taken with a whole shaker of salt. (For what it's worth, USA Today determined this week that "[o]n a per-capita basis ... Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007," behind both Dakotas, Alaska, Alabama, Florida and several other states.)
And yet, here we are again, with an incoming Democratic president who hails from a city we are all supposed to believe is the most corrupt place this side of Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. Chicago, we are told, is a den of villainy so irredeemable it defies credulity to suggest anyone could emerge from so much as a long layover at O'Hare without a closet full of skeletons.
This nonsense was well under way during the presidential campaign, during which John McCain suggested a lack of integrity on Obama's part simply because he is from Chicago. You might think that a man who was a participant in one of the most notorious scandals in the history of the U.S. Senate would be laughed at if he tried to claim his opponent lacked integrity simply because of his ZIP code. Instead, the national media laughed along with McCain, endlessly repeating his witty zinger about Chicago.
And so this week, we've heard over and over how politics in Illinois are rotten to the core.
At Obama's press conference yesterday, the third questioner asked, "What's wrong with politics in Illinois?" Chris Matthews made sure viewers knew that "Barack Obama, of course, rose to political power in a city, Chicago, in a state, Illinois, known for corruption."
ABC's Rick Klein chimed in: "[W]ith one stiff wind, Chicago has grabbed Obama and his transition -- and blown it off-course. ... The underbelly of the Obama political operation, with all its Chicago tints and taints, is now fair game for reporters looking for a story." (Nonsense. If the "Obama political operation" has an "underbelly" featuring actual wrongdoing, it's fair game whether or not a governor is busted in a scandal that has nothing to do with Obama. And if that "underbelly" hasn't actually done anything wrong, Blago's bust doesn't change that -- regardless of tint or taint.)
On his radio show, Bill O'Reilly asked Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass if it is even possible for Obama to have existed in Chicago without being dishonest, leading Kass to reply: "Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that he was found as an infant in a reed basket floating in the Chicago River."
The similarities between the media's current behavior and their shameful performance in the 1990s doesn't stop with their bizarre suggestions that geography is destiny.
One of the central flaws of the media's coverage of the Clintons was that they portrayed nearly everything as evidence of guilt. Perhaps most perverse was the suggestion that the conviction of Clinton Justice Department official Webster Hubbell was evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. What made that so perverse? Hubbell was convicted, essentially, of stealing money from the law firm in which he and Hillary Clinton were both partners. Hubbell, in other words, stole from Hillary Clinton. The Clintons were Hubbell's victims -- and yet many journalists portrayed his conviction as evidence of their guilt.
Which brings us to Tuesday's New York Times. As Will Bunch has explained, the Times reported that Obama supported an Illinois ethics reform package that passed over Blagojevich's veto, which led to Blagojevich pressing state contractors for contributions before the reform takes effect, which "indirectly contributed to the downfall." Good news for Obama, right? He supported a reform package, even urging the state Senate to pass it over Blagojevich's veto. And yet the Times concludes that this story demonstrates that Obama "has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics" -- as though the fact that Blagojevich allegedly did something improper in an effort to avoid the effects of the reform Obama championed somehow taints Obama. Bizarre.
Most telling is the tendency of many journalists to speculate that the Blagojevich scandal may ensnare Obama without acknowledging that the complaint against Blagojevich contained absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, or that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said, "I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct." (You may remember The New York Times' reaction to the Resolution Trust Corporation investigation that exonerated the Clintons of Whitewater wrongdoing in 1995: The "paper of record," which had been relentlessly hyping the non-scandal, all but ignored the RTC report and continued pushing Whitewater.)
Even worse than ignoring Fitzgerald's exculpatory comments, Time actually suggested they are bad news for Obama:
On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal.
Got that? Fitzgerald said there's no evidence Obama did anything wrong. Bad news for Obama! (For the record: The reason Fitzgerald "has to go out of his way" to distance Obama from the scandal is that news organizations like Time keep going out of their way to baselessly link Obama to the scandal.)
Such attempts to link Obama to scandal via tortured logic and geography rather than more substantive ties were necessary because of the complete lack of substantive ties.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media's attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative -- and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don't even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future, for some reason. It's little more than, "Maybe Obama will be involved." Well, sure. And maybe he'll play shortstop for the Washington Nationals next year.
Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti set the standard for pointlessly speculative news reports with an "analysis" piece declaring that "President-elect Barack Obama hasn't even stepped into office and already a scandal is threatening to dog him." In the very next sentence, Sidoti had to admit that "Obama isn't accused of anything" -- but that didn't stop her from continuing to offer ominous warnings that Obama could be implicated in the scandal, interspersed with concessions that he, you know ... isn't.
Not that Sidoti was unique in stringing together a bunch of coulds and mights and maybes and ifs to create something that vaguely resembles -- but is certainly not -- an actual news report.
ABC's Rick Klein, for example:
The scandal surrounding Blagojevich, the Democratic governor of Illinois, may or may not implicate members of Congress, in addition to at least the outer ring of advisers in the incoming Obama administration.
Got that? The scandal may or may not implicate members of Congress. Awfully hard to argue with that. The modifier "at least" is a nice touch, too -- suggesting that the outer ring of Obama advisers has already been implicated in the scandal (they haven't).
That was par for the course this week, as reporters breathlessly asked what Obama knew and when he knew it (the decidedly non-scandalous answers are apparently "very little" and "very recently").
If you want to make a "scandal" stick to someone despite the inconvenient truth that they aren't actually guilty of the purported wrongdoing in question, one thing you do -- if you're the media covering a Democratic president, or an overzealous conservative -- is continually expand the scandal's definition. So the "scandal" grows and evolves into an amorphous mass of innuendo as political opponents and journalists begin throwing everything against the wall, hoping something will stick.
Eventually what begins as a land deal (in which the Clintons did nothing wrong and lost money) includes an investigation of the tragic suicide of a White House staffer -- and the next thing you know, some B-list congressman is traipsing into his backyard with a shotgun, taking aim at a perfectly innocent pumpkin because the voices in his head told him that gunning down some produce would somehow "prove" that the staffer was murdered as part of an elaborate cover-up of ... well, of nothing. There was nothing to cover up, and no murder to cover it up. The pumpkin died in vain.
And so on Wednesday, the Associated Press issued an article headlined "Questionable associations of Obama." Prompted by the Blagojevich scandal -- which, again, involves no indication that Obama did anything wrong -- the article announces, "In his life and career in Illinois, President-elect Barack Obama has crossed paths with some notable figures who have drawn scorn and scrutiny."
From there, the AP proceeds to describe several such "notable figures," most of whom have little if anything to do with Obama -- or the Blagojevich scandal. What, for example, is Jeremiah Wright doing here? None of their connections to Obama involve so much as a hint of an allegation of legal or ethical wrongdoing. To the extent they are controversial, it is for their views. They couldn't possibly have less to do with the Blagojevich scandal; there is no conceivable reason for the AP to bring them up now -- except to try to fling a bunch of garbage against the wall in hopes of something, somehow, sticking. It's as though the AP, recognizing how tenuous Obama's ties to the Blagojevich scandal are, tried to make it look more substantial by tossing in a bunch of other "notable" ties.
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz complained that it took Obama "24 hours" to decide that Blagojevich should resign, worrying "that kind of excessive caution" could "define his presidency."
Obama called for Blagojevich's resignation within 24 hours, and Howard Kurtz thinks that wasn't fast enough. It's so fast, Kurtz had to measure the time elapsed in hours rather than days. And yet, Kurtz thinks it constituted excessive foot-dragging. This is simply not a sane assessment. It's a desperate attempt to find something to criticize about Obama. Obama is not involved in the scandal, so Kurtz sits by with a stopwatch, trying to document Obama's slow response to it.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer announced yesterday that "some are calling this Obama's first presidential scandal." It isn't. There is no evidence he has done anything wrong. This is not Obama's first presidential scandal -- but it shows signs of becoming the first media scandal of the Obama presidency.
Obviously, the news media should aggressively investigate and report on actual involvement in actual wrongdoing by public figures. There was far too little of that reporting during the Bush administration. (Remember when the media refused to report on the Downing Street Memo? Good times.)
If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally good thing, and it should be applauded.
But this week brought signs that much of the media is set to resume the absurd and shameful behavior that defined the 1990s -- guilt by association, circular analysis whereby they ask baseless questions about non-scandals, then claim they have to report on the "scandal" because the White House is "besieged by questions," grotesque leaps of logic, downplaying exculpatory information, and too many other failings to list.
If that happens -- if the media continue to behave as they did in covering Whitewater -- they will damage the country. It's really that simple. We cannot afford to be distracted from serious problems by overheated conjecture and baseless insinuation masquerading as journalism.
Not to mention the outright fabrications. To take just one of many examples, Jeff Greenfield and ABC selectively edited Hillary Clinton's comments during a Whitewater press conference, then accused her of lying -- an accusation that, based on Clinton's full comments, was clearly false. It was a shockingly dishonest report; Greenfield and ABC were simply lying about Clinton -- there's really no other way to put it. Those involved should have seen their reputations take a serious hit -- at the very least. Yet they suffered no consequences due to their dishonorable and unprofessional actions.
That's how the media behaved the last time we had a Democratic president. They devoted wall-to-wall coverage to invented "scandals," ignored exculpatory evidence, saw evidence of guilt everywhere, took people out of context in order to accuse them of lying, and generally behaved like a pack of wild animals who couldn't tell right from wrong or truth from fiction -- or who simply didn't care. As a group, they behaved without ethical standards and without regard for the truth.
It's our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
by Jamison Foser
To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.
Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase "Blagogate" to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix "-gate" to the end of a word.
Sanchez's efforts to create a catchphrase aside, the criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich this week isn't the Watergate of the 21st century -- though it shows signs that it may become this decade's Whitewater.
Right about now, you may be scratching your head, trying to remember what, exactly, the Whitewater scandal was. Didn't it have something to do with a bank? Or a land deal? But didn't the Clintons lose money? How did the congressman who shot the pumpkin fit in?
But Whitewater is quite simple, when it is understood as it should be -- as a media scandal, not a presidential scandal.
As an endless series of investigations, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, revealed, the Clintons broke no law and violated no ethics regulations in connection with Whitewater. They lost money on a failed land deal in which their business partner cheated them. That's all there was. Republicans Ken Starr, Robert Fiske, Robert Ray, Al D'Amato, and Jim Leach, among others, investigated the matter, and none of them found illegality. There was simply nothing there -- except year after year of obsessive, and often dishonest, media coverage, fueled by conservatives who would stop at nothing to destroy the president.
As Joe Conason explains today, "The madness that was eventually classified under the quasi-clinical rubric of 'Whitewater' began, in no small degree, with the dubious idea that Arkansas, the Clintons' home state, was a peculiarly corrupt place -- and that any politician from Arkansas by definition was suspect (but only if he or she happened to be a Democrat)."
Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons noted in Fools for Scandal, his 1994 book about how the media invented Whitewater, "Scarcely a Whitewater story has appeared in the national press that hasn't made references to the state's uniquely 'incestuous' links between business, government, and the legal establishment -- concepts utterly foreign to places like Washington, D.C., and New York City, of course." (Conason and Lyons co-wrote The Hunting of the President, a book that -- along with Fools for Scandal -- are must-reads for anyone interested in the media or politics.)
By portraying Arkansas as thoroughly, and uniquely, corrupt, the media (and Clinton's political opponents) tied him to a long line of misbehavior that had nothing to do with him -- and created the impression that Clinton must be corrupt merely for being from such an ethical cesspool.
Of course, Arkansas was neither thoroughly nor uniquely corrupt.
In addition to the ages-old clichés -- big cities like New York and Chicago; the anything-goes Wild West of Las Vegas and Texas; perennial whipping boy New Jersey -- countless other states and cities have reputations for "unparalleled" corruption. People experienced in Connecticut politics will forcefully argue that their state takes a back seat to no other when it comes to the frequency with which public officials are caught in various degrees of wrongdoing. Then there's Florida, about which the less said, the better. And on and on and on.
Such reputations stem not only from actual examples of actual corruption -- California gave us Nixon; Maryland gave us Agnew; two of the Keating Five, including John McCain, hailed from Arizona -- but from the fact that many people, particularly those who work in politics and the media, tend to engage in a bit of tongue-in-cheek bragging about their home city or state's propensity for scandal.
The point isn't that everyplace is corrupt, or that nowhere is. It's that no location has a monopoly on crooked politicians (nor has there yet been a location over which crooked politicians held a monopoly) -- and that any claim of a city or state's unique history of public officials abusing their office should be taken with a whole shaker of salt. (For what it's worth, USA Today determined this week that "[o]n a per-capita basis ... Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007," behind both Dakotas, Alaska, Alabama, Florida and several other states.)
And yet, here we are again, with an incoming Democratic president who hails from a city we are all supposed to believe is the most corrupt place this side of Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. Chicago, we are told, is a den of villainy so irredeemable it defies credulity to suggest anyone could emerge from so much as a long layover at O'Hare without a closet full of skeletons.
This nonsense was well under way during the presidential campaign, during which John McCain suggested a lack of integrity on Obama's part simply because he is from Chicago. You might think that a man who was a participant in one of the most notorious scandals in the history of the U.S. Senate would be laughed at if he tried to claim his opponent lacked integrity simply because of his ZIP code. Instead, the national media laughed along with McCain, endlessly repeating his witty zinger about Chicago.
And so this week, we've heard over and over how politics in Illinois are rotten to the core.
At Obama's press conference yesterday, the third questioner asked, "What's wrong with politics in Illinois?" Chris Matthews made sure viewers knew that "Barack Obama, of course, rose to political power in a city, Chicago, in a state, Illinois, known for corruption."
ABC's Rick Klein chimed in: "[W]ith one stiff wind, Chicago has grabbed Obama and his transition -- and blown it off-course. ... The underbelly of the Obama political operation, with all its Chicago tints and taints, is now fair game for reporters looking for a story." (Nonsense. If the "Obama political operation" has an "underbelly" featuring actual wrongdoing, it's fair game whether or not a governor is busted in a scandal that has nothing to do with Obama. And if that "underbelly" hasn't actually done anything wrong, Blago's bust doesn't change that -- regardless of tint or taint.)
On his radio show, Bill O'Reilly asked Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass if it is even possible for Obama to have existed in Chicago without being dishonest, leading Kass to reply: "Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that he was found as an infant in a reed basket floating in the Chicago River."
The similarities between the media's current behavior and their shameful performance in the 1990s doesn't stop with their bizarre suggestions that geography is destiny.
One of the central flaws of the media's coverage of the Clintons was that they portrayed nearly everything as evidence of guilt. Perhaps most perverse was the suggestion that the conviction of Clinton Justice Department official Webster Hubbell was evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. What made that so perverse? Hubbell was convicted, essentially, of stealing money from the law firm in which he and Hillary Clinton were both partners. Hubbell, in other words, stole from Hillary Clinton. The Clintons were Hubbell's victims -- and yet many journalists portrayed his conviction as evidence of their guilt.
Which brings us to Tuesday's New York Times. As Will Bunch has explained, the Times reported that Obama supported an Illinois ethics reform package that passed over Blagojevich's veto, which led to Blagojevich pressing state contractors for contributions before the reform takes effect, which "indirectly contributed to the downfall." Good news for Obama, right? He supported a reform package, even urging the state Senate to pass it over Blagojevich's veto. And yet the Times concludes that this story demonstrates that Obama "has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics" -- as though the fact that Blagojevich allegedly did something improper in an effort to avoid the effects of the reform Obama championed somehow taints Obama. Bizarre.
Most telling is the tendency of many journalists to speculate that the Blagojevich scandal may ensnare Obama without acknowledging that the complaint against Blagojevich contained absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, or that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said, "I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct." (You may remember The New York Times' reaction to the Resolution Trust Corporation investigation that exonerated the Clintons of Whitewater wrongdoing in 1995: The "paper of record," which had been relentlessly hyping the non-scandal, all but ignored the RTC report and continued pushing Whitewater.)
Even worse than ignoring Fitzgerald's exculpatory comments, Time actually suggested they are bad news for Obama:
On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal.
Got that? Fitzgerald said there's no evidence Obama did anything wrong. Bad news for Obama! (For the record: The reason Fitzgerald "has to go out of his way" to distance Obama from the scandal is that news organizations like Time keep going out of their way to baselessly link Obama to the scandal.)
Such attempts to link Obama to scandal via tortured logic and geography rather than more substantive ties were necessary because of the complete lack of substantive ties.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media's attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative -- and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don't even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future, for some reason. It's little more than, "Maybe Obama will be involved." Well, sure. And maybe he'll play shortstop for the Washington Nationals next year.
Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti set the standard for pointlessly speculative news reports with an "analysis" piece declaring that "President-elect Barack Obama hasn't even stepped into office and already a scandal is threatening to dog him." In the very next sentence, Sidoti had to admit that "Obama isn't accused of anything" -- but that didn't stop her from continuing to offer ominous warnings that Obama could be implicated in the scandal, interspersed with concessions that he, you know ... isn't.
Not that Sidoti was unique in stringing together a bunch of coulds and mights and maybes and ifs to create something that vaguely resembles -- but is certainly not -- an actual news report.
ABC's Rick Klein, for example:
The scandal surrounding Blagojevich, the Democratic governor of Illinois, may or may not implicate members of Congress, in addition to at least the outer ring of advisers in the incoming Obama administration.
Got that? The scandal may or may not implicate members of Congress. Awfully hard to argue with that. The modifier "at least" is a nice touch, too -- suggesting that the outer ring of Obama advisers has already been implicated in the scandal (they haven't).
That was par for the course this week, as reporters breathlessly asked what Obama knew and when he knew it (the decidedly non-scandalous answers are apparently "very little" and "very recently").
If you want to make a "scandal" stick to someone despite the inconvenient truth that they aren't actually guilty of the purported wrongdoing in question, one thing you do -- if you're the media covering a Democratic president, or an overzealous conservative -- is continually expand the scandal's definition. So the "scandal" grows and evolves into an amorphous mass of innuendo as political opponents and journalists begin throwing everything against the wall, hoping something will stick.
Eventually what begins as a land deal (in which the Clintons did nothing wrong and lost money) includes an investigation of the tragic suicide of a White House staffer -- and the next thing you know, some B-list congressman is traipsing into his backyard with a shotgun, taking aim at a perfectly innocent pumpkin because the voices in his head told him that gunning down some produce would somehow "prove" that the staffer was murdered as part of an elaborate cover-up of ... well, of nothing. There was nothing to cover up, and no murder to cover it up. The pumpkin died in vain.
And so on Wednesday, the Associated Press issued an article headlined "Questionable associations of Obama." Prompted by the Blagojevich scandal -- which, again, involves no indication that Obama did anything wrong -- the article announces, "In his life and career in Illinois, President-elect Barack Obama has crossed paths with some notable figures who have drawn scorn and scrutiny."
From there, the AP proceeds to describe several such "notable figures," most of whom have little if anything to do with Obama -- or the Blagojevich scandal. What, for example, is Jeremiah Wright doing here? None of their connections to Obama involve so much as a hint of an allegation of legal or ethical wrongdoing. To the extent they are controversial, it is for their views. They couldn't possibly have less to do with the Blagojevich scandal; there is no conceivable reason for the AP to bring them up now -- except to try to fling a bunch of garbage against the wall in hopes of something, somehow, sticking. It's as though the AP, recognizing how tenuous Obama's ties to the Blagojevich scandal are, tried to make it look more substantial by tossing in a bunch of other "notable" ties.
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz complained that it took Obama "24 hours" to decide that Blagojevich should resign, worrying "that kind of excessive caution" could "define his presidency."
Obama called for Blagojevich's resignation within 24 hours, and Howard Kurtz thinks that wasn't fast enough. It's so fast, Kurtz had to measure the time elapsed in hours rather than days. And yet, Kurtz thinks it constituted excessive foot-dragging. This is simply not a sane assessment. It's a desperate attempt to find something to criticize about Obama. Obama is not involved in the scandal, so Kurtz sits by with a stopwatch, trying to document Obama's slow response to it.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer announced yesterday that "some are calling this Obama's first presidential scandal." It isn't. There is no evidence he has done anything wrong. This is not Obama's first presidential scandal -- but it shows signs of becoming the first media scandal of the Obama presidency.
Obviously, the news media should aggressively investigate and report on actual involvement in actual wrongdoing by public figures. There was far too little of that reporting during the Bush administration. (Remember when the media refused to report on the Downing Street Memo? Good times.)
If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally good thing, and it should be applauded.
But this week brought signs that much of the media is set to resume the absurd and shameful behavior that defined the 1990s -- guilt by association, circular analysis whereby they ask baseless questions about non-scandals, then claim they have to report on the "scandal" because the White House is "besieged by questions," grotesque leaps of logic, downplaying exculpatory information, and too many other failings to list.
If that happens -- if the media continue to behave as they did in covering Whitewater -- they will damage the country. It's really that simple. We cannot afford to be distracted from serious problems by overheated conjecture and baseless insinuation masquerading as journalism.
Not to mention the outright fabrications. To take just one of many examples, Jeff Greenfield and ABC selectively edited Hillary Clinton's comments during a Whitewater press conference, then accused her of lying -- an accusation that, based on Clinton's full comments, was clearly false. It was a shockingly dishonest report; Greenfield and ABC were simply lying about Clinton -- there's really no other way to put it. Those involved should have seen their reputations take a serious hit -- at the very least. Yet they suffered no consequences due to their dishonorable and unprofessional actions.
That's how the media behaved the last time we had a Democratic president. They devoted wall-to-wall coverage to invented "scandals," ignored exculpatory evidence, saw evidence of guilt everywhere, took people out of context in order to accuse them of lying, and generally behaved like a pack of wild animals who couldn't tell right from wrong or truth from fiction -- or who simply didn't care. As a group, they behaved without ethical standards and without regard for the truth.
It's our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Transcript: Sarah Palin meeting with panel of Foreign Policy Advisors
After failing miserably crash course Foreign Policy 101 and the quiz with the media, Palin had a roundtable with a panel of foreign policy advisors:
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 1: Sarah, Russia is much, much larger than the part you can see from your house.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 2: Sarah, Sunni and Shite are different ethnias of the Iraqui society.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Come on Sarah, you should know how to use a dictionary to find out the meaning of ethnia!
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 3: No Sarah! Shite has nothing to do with human biological functions. (dang woman!)
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 4: No Sarah! Sunni has nothing to do with the weather or orange juice either!
Palin's roundtable w/ foreign policy advisors: Lesson 5: Sarah! I said Middle East, not middle and to the east, there is nothing sexual here.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Again Sarah, there is nothing sexual about Middle East. No!, you can't ban it either.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 6: Sarah, Turkey is our ally and has nothing to do with Thanksgiving dinner.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: No Sarah, we do not eat our allies. Turkey is our ally.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: No Sarah, the reason we do not eat Turkey has nothing to do with a presidential pardon.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Sarah, we do eat turkey in Thanksgiving, not Turkey, the NATO member. We need to move on.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 7: No Sarah, the Europe we are talking about cannot give you an autograph. Asia cannot give you an autograph either.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 8: Sarah, you do not need to contact Canada's Prime Minister for some canadian bacon.
Sarah, hang the phone! Again, no need to call Canada's Prime Minister.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 9: Sarah, we will talk now about Israel...No, not your old stalker H.S. boyfriend.
Palin's roundtable w/ foreign policy advisors: Lesson 10: Sarah, for the nth time. No war with Russia. Russia didn't invade the U.S. That was another Georgia
Palin's roundtable panel of foreign policy advisors after trying to educate her..."Gosh...what a headache!!!!...We Quit..."
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: No Sarah, we don't have a whole town full of terrorists. It doesn't matter its name is Palestine (Palestine, TX).
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 1: Sarah, Russia is much, much larger than the part you can see from your house.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 2: Sarah, Sunni and Shite are different ethnias of the Iraqui society.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Come on Sarah, you should know how to use a dictionary to find out the meaning of ethnia!
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 3: No Sarah! Shite has nothing to do with human biological functions. (dang woman!)
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 4: No Sarah! Sunni has nothing to do with the weather or orange juice either!
Palin's roundtable w/ foreign policy advisors: Lesson 5: Sarah! I said Middle East, not middle and to the east, there is nothing sexual here.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Again Sarah, there is nothing sexual about Middle East. No!, you can't ban it either.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 6: Sarah, Turkey is our ally and has nothing to do with Thanksgiving dinner.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: No Sarah, we do not eat our allies. Turkey is our ally.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: No Sarah, the reason we do not eat Turkey has nothing to do with a presidential pardon.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Sarah, we do eat turkey in Thanksgiving, not Turkey, the NATO member. We need to move on.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 7: No Sarah, the Europe we are talking about cannot give you an autograph. Asia cannot give you an autograph either.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 8: Sarah, you do not need to contact Canada's Prime Minister for some canadian bacon.
Sarah, hang the phone! Again, no need to call Canada's Prime Minister.
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: Lesson 9: Sarah, we will talk now about Israel...No, not your old stalker H.S. boyfriend.
Palin's roundtable w/ foreign policy advisors: Lesson 10: Sarah, for the nth time. No war with Russia. Russia didn't invade the U.S. That was another Georgia
Palin's roundtable panel of foreign policy advisors after trying to educate her..."Gosh...what a headache!!!!...We Quit..."
Palin's roundtable with foreign policy advisors: No Sarah, we don't have a whole town full of terrorists. It doesn't matter its name is Palestine (Palestine, TX).
Saturday, October 18, 2008
ACORN smear campaign by McCain/GOP continuation of U.S. Attorneys firing scandal
During the pastweek we have seen a GOP phony outrage on 'voter fraud' mainly on allegations of fraud commited by ACORN. However the truth is that all this outrage is a stunt coordinated between the Departmentof Justice, the White House and the Mccain campaign. The DOJ & the FBI leaked to media the 'investigation on ACORN voter registration practices' with the purpose of giving McCain & GOP ammunition against Obama. We should remember that the FBI raided ACORN offices in Las Vegas using higher level of violence & hostility than situation demanded. The purpose was to create a spectacle. The reality is that the Department of Justiceis in collusion with theMcCain campaign on this ACORN smear. The Obama campaign is calling the DOJ to investigate the relationship between DOJ, FBI, White House and McCain campaign on the ACORN investigation. We may also remember the scandalof the 7 U.S. Attorney were fired by Bush Administration for political reasons under Alberto Gonzalez's tenure. Among the reasons for Bush Administration to fire these U.S. Attorneys were their negative to pursue phony Karl Rove/GOP voter fraud cases.Now we see that the ACORN leak and smear campaign onto which the GOP and McCaincampaign have jumped is just a continuation of the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal The U.S. Attorneys firing scandal doomed the tenure of Alberto Gonzalez and Michael Mukasey promised he would conduct DOJ business honestly. We will see soon if Michael Mukasey is up to the task and his word to clean the DOJ of undue political pressure. |
The Miami Herald Endorses Obama
| The Miami Herald lauded Obama's handling of the nearly two-year long presidential campaign and said he offers "pragmatic solutions for problems instead of relying on ideology and worn-out slogans." "Sen. Obama represents the best chance for America to make a clean break with the culture wars and failed policies of the past, and begin to restore the hope and promise of America as the world's greatest democracy," The Herald wrote. |
The Denver post endorses Obama
| an editorial posted on the paper's Web site and set to run in its Sunday edition, the Denver Post praised the Illinois senator as "the right man to lead America back to prosperity." "In unsteady times, it may seem obvious to gravitate toward the veteran politician, but in this campaign, it's been the newcomer who has had the steady hand," the paper's editorial said. The Denver Post also praised Obama's history as a community organizer and said it well prepared him to lead the country through its current financial woes. "Republicans love to mock Obama's history as a community organizer," the paper said. "But here was a man with no money to offer, no patronage to dispense, no way to punish his opponents. All he could do was to work with people from all walks of life, liberals and conservatives, business people and the unemployed, and bring them together in common cause for a better community. Could there really be better preparation to reunite a worried and divided America to again pursue our "more perfect union"? |
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Barack's Small Business Rescue Plan: Key Points
Expanded Access to Capital
Barack will unlock credit needed to keep small businesses growing by implementing a nationwide emergency lending facility for small businesses.
Provide Temporary Tax Relief
To stimulate investment and job growth and spark our long-term recovery, the Small Business Rescue Plan will provide temporary business tax incentives through 2009.
Eliminate Capital Gains Taxes
Barack's plan will eliminate all capital gains taxes on investments made in small and start-up businesses, encouraging investment and innovation.
Cut or Freeze Taxes for 99% of Small Business Owners
To help individuals with small business income -- including the country's more than 20 million self-employed individuals -- Barack will provide a $1,000 Making Work Pay tax credit to 95 percent of workers and their families, and freeze any tax increases for the remaining 4 percent.
Lower Health Care Costs and Ease the Health Care Burden
Barack will give small businesses new incentives, help cut costs, and improve efficiency for all firms to provide health care to their workers at an affordable rate.
Expand Opportunity for Small Businesses
Barack will put in place far-reaching reforms to expand the ability of women-, service-disabled veteran-, and minority-owned firms to compete in today's marketplace.
Join Small Business for Obama
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/sbsignup
Barack will unlock credit needed to keep small businesses growing by implementing a nationwide emergency lending facility for small businesses.
Provide Temporary Tax Relief
To stimulate investment and job growth and spark our long-term recovery, the Small Business Rescue Plan will provide temporary business tax incentives through 2009.
Eliminate Capital Gains Taxes
Barack's plan will eliminate all capital gains taxes on investments made in small and start-up businesses, encouraging investment and innovation.
Cut or Freeze Taxes for 99% of Small Business Owners
To help individuals with small business income -- including the country's more than 20 million self-employed individuals -- Barack will provide a $1,000 Making Work Pay tax credit to 95 percent of workers and their families, and freeze any tax increases for the remaining 4 percent.
Lower Health Care Costs and Ease the Health Care Burden
Barack will give small businesses new incentives, help cut costs, and improve efficiency for all firms to provide health care to their workers at an affordable rate.
Expand Opportunity for Small Businesses
Barack will put in place far-reaching reforms to expand the ability of women-, service-disabled veteran-, and minority-owned firms to compete in today's marketplace.
Join Small Business for Obama
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/sbsignup
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Hill's Blog Roundup: September 26, 2008
BLOG ROUNDUP - SEPTEMBER 26, 2008 McCain: The Gambler in an Age of Gamblers, Bankruptcies and War
John McCain says the economy is strong and sound. Days later, John McCain says we might have a depression and cancels his campaign. McCain has not been in the Senate since April. Now McCain airlifts his desperate campaign and presidential politics into the heart of sensitive negotiations on a subject he knows nothing about and has been wrong about for 26 years.
Here is McCain's latest lie: that he wants to deal with the crisis in a bipartisan manner. Obama calls him early Wednesday morning seeking bipartisanship. McCain does not take the call and does not return the call for half a day. He then talks to Obama about being bipartisan and minutes later runs to the cameras to cancel the debate and airlift himself into the crisis. What a phony!
Congress must and will pass a program, though it must be carefully devised, written and done in stages rather than dumping nearly a trillion dollars on the problem ad hoc. But get this straight: There may be a recession but anyone who even uses the word "depression" is either ignorant about economics or outright lying to frighten people to serve their blind financial greed or blind political ambition.
Of course the loud-mouthed traders on CNBC predicting doom and depression without full immediate funding don't tell you this. They are the ones who caused the problem. They are the ones whom taxpayers are bailing out. Their conflict of interest is extreme, and never disclosed. Of course they want all the money, now, because it is an income transfer from hard-hit Americans to wealthy speculators who made bad bets. They are phonies, too, and liars if they try to scare Americans with extreme and hot-tempered talk of fear when what they really want is for scared taxpayers to bail out of their greedy bad bets.
The market is corrupted by gamblers, and John McCain is the biggest gambler of all. The market is corrupted by dishonesty and John McCain is one of the most dishonest candidates in years, reduced to cheap political stunts, erratic extremes on policy, claiming economic strength one day and promoting fears of depression the next, and phony bipartisanship, refusing to talk to Obama for half a day, then running to the cameras. In the America of Wall Street speculators, George Bush, John McCain and Republican economics, we are treated like a banana republic nation with a finance of greed, a politics of fear,] and a bread and circus of falsehoods and deceptions.
Of course McCain does not want a debate, but it is a debate he will have, like it or not, and the question is this:
Do Americans want another reckless gambler in the White House? I think not |
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Palin field trip to the United Nations
Sarah got her first ever passport last year and she is like a little girl with a new toy, "daddy, daddy look at what I got". It just shows how little respect John McCain has for the institution of the presidency. While Obama called his decision of a running mate the most important decision he had to make as a candidate and selected Joe Biden because he is a complement to him; McCain selected an extreme right wing beauty queen, completely unprepared, under ethics investigation with a record of shady accomplishments. She even had to lie to beef up her poor resume. I am ashamed that Palin could be seen as representing the United States of America. |
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Message from Barack Obama to the American people
"In the past few weeks, Wall Street's been rocked as banks closed and
markets tumbled. But for many of you – the people I've met in town
halls, backyards and diners across America – our troubled economy
isn't news. 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January.
Paychecks are flat and home values are falling. It's hard to pay for
gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card they've probably
raised your rates. You're paying more than ever for health insurance
that covers less and less.
markets tumbled. But for many of you – the people I've met in town
halls, backyards and diners across America – our troubled economy
isn't news. 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January.
Paychecks are flat and home values are falling. It's hard to pay for
gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card they've probably
raised your rates. You're paying more than ever for health insurance
that covers less and less.
"This isn't just a string of bad luck. The truth is that while you've
been living up to your responsibilities Washington has not. That's why
we need change. Real change. This is no ordinary time and it shouldn't
be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed
by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or
how we get America back on track.
"Here's what I believe we need to do. Reform our tax system to give a
$1,000 tax break to the middle class instead of showering more on oil
companies and corporations that outsource our jobs. End the 'anything
goes' culture on Wall Street with real regulation that protects your
investments and pensions. Fast track a plan for energy
'made-in-America' that will free us from our dependence on mid-east
oil in 10 years and put millions of Americans to work. Crack down on
lobbyists – once and for all — so their back-room deal-making no
longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our
common interests as Americans.
"And yes, bring a responsible end to this war in Iraq so we stop
spending billions each month rebuilding their country when we should
be rebuilding ours. Doing these things won't be easy. But we're
Americans. We've met tough challenges before. And we can again. I'm
Barack Obama. I hope you'll read my economic plan. I approved this
message because bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left
and the right won't solve the problems we face today. But a new spirit
of unity and shared responsibility will."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Colbert Report: Repo Man, A Bush Economic Success Story
Courtesy of C&L
Windows Media: http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/32748/1/tcr-repo-man-091108.wmv
QuickTime: http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/32748/2/tcr-repo-man-091108.mov
At least the Bush years have been good for someone.
“I love the economy. I’m going to miss Bush. Ol’ Bush gets out of office I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I’m speaking for all repo men, Bush, we’re going to miss you buddy. Ha ha, ha ha. For real.”
Do you think John McCain will say that his economic plan will increase the number of Repo Men in our country which will stimulate the job market?
Windows Media: http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/32748/1/tcr-repo-man-091108.wmv
QuickTime: http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/32748/2/tcr-repo-man-091108.mov
At least the Bush years have been good for someone.
“I love the economy. I’m going to miss Bush. Ol’ Bush gets out of office I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I’m speaking for all repo men, Bush, we’re going to miss you buddy. Ha ha, ha ha. For real.”
Do you think John McCain will say that his economic plan will increase the number of Repo Men in our country which will stimulate the job market?
McCain and Palin have lied at least 31 times on the Bridge to Nowhere
http://thinkprogress.org/lies-nowhere/
From the day he nominated Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AZ) to be his vice presidential running mate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his campaign advisers have been repeating the lie that Palin opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. (In fact, Palin repeatedly expressed strong support for the project.)
From the day he nominated Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AZ) to be his vice presidential running mate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his campaign advisers have been repeating the lie that Palin opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. (In fact, Palin repeatedly expressed strong support for the project.)
So-Called Energy Expert Sarah Palin Doesn’t Know How Much Energy Her State Produces
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/13/palin-alaska-energy/
On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) defended Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s “experience does she have in the field of national security” by asserting that “she knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.” McCain’s claim to Palin’s expertise was undercut the next day, however, when Palin severely overstated Alaska’s energy production in an interview with ABC News’s Charlie Gibson.
Challenged by Gibson on her “national security credentials,” Palin cited her experience as the governor of a “state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy” as a credential that she “brings to the table“:
PALIN: Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
But, as the non-partisan FactCheck.org points out, Palin’s claim about Alaska producing 20 percent of America’s domestic energy supply is “not true. Not even close.” In fact, “Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent.”
On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) defended Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s “experience does she have in the field of national security” by asserting that “she knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.” McCain’s claim to Palin’s expertise was undercut the next day, however, when Palin severely overstated Alaska’s energy production in an interview with ABC News’s Charlie Gibson.
Challenged by Gibson on her “national security credentials,” Palin cited her experience as the governor of a “state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy” as a credential that she “brings to the table“:
PALIN: Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
But, as the non-partisan FactCheck.org points out, Palin’s claim about Alaska producing 20 percent of America’s domestic energy supply is “not true. Not even close.” In fact, “Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent.”
McCain Strategy: Lie, Baby, Lie
McShame is desperate, and desperate times require desperate measures.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
McCain Once Blamed Palin's Bridge for the MN Collapse
Taken from http://www.dailykos.com/
by Kagro X
Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 11:45:57 AM PDT
We now know that the truth is that Slick Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she "opposed" it.
But did you know that the man responsible for foisting her on America blamed that bridge and Palin's hunger for federal pork for the collapse of the infamous August 2007 I-35 bridge collapse in Minnesota?
Read it from The Minnesota Independent (there are videos and everything)
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/8052/mccain-connected-35w-bridge-collapse-to-palins-pork
by Kagro X
Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 11:45:57 AM PDT
We now know that the truth is that Slick Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she "opposed" it.
But did you know that the man responsible for foisting her on America blamed that bridge and Palin's hunger for federal pork for the collapse of the infamous August 2007 I-35 bridge collapse in Minnesota?
Read it from The Minnesota Independent (there are videos and everything)
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/8052/mccain-connected-35w-bridge-collapse-to-palins-pork
Maureen Dowd's List of Questions For Sarah Palin
by Todd Beeton, Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 07:15:41 PM EST
Taken from http://www.mydd.com/
What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?
Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn't all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?
What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs -- as mayor and as governor?
When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?
Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?
Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter's pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?
As Troopergate unfolds here -- an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law -- it raises this question: Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.?
Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter? And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian?
Just how is it that Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers money (since they haven't yet)?
Taken from http://www.mydd.com/
What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?
Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn't all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?
What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs -- as mayor and as governor?
When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?
Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?
Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter's pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?
As Troopergate unfolds here -- an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law -- it raises this question: Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.?
Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter? And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian?
Just how is it that Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers money (since they haven't yet)?
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
McCain: "I work for you"...REALLY??
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/09/mccain.lobbying/index.html
7 Top McCain Officials are or were lobbyists!
One: Campaign manager Rick Davis is a major telecommunications lobbyist.
Two: Senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann recently faced scrutiny over his foreign lobbying on behalf of the Republic of Georgia, which has been embroiled in a military conflict with Russia.
Three: Senior adviser Charlie Black was a foreign lobbyist for dictators in Zaire and Angola in the 1980s, fodder for the liberal group MoveOn.org.
Four: Frank Donatelli, the Republican National Committee's liaison to the McCain campaign, has had clients including Exxon Mobil.
Five: Economic adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer has lobbied for corporate giants like Koch Industries.
The final two lobbyists are McCain's congressional liaison, John Green, and national finance Co-chairman Wayne Berman. They both lobbied for Fannie Mae, the troubled mortgage giant.
In addition at least 169 lobbyists run McCain's campaign.
Let's chant all together C.A.M. - CHANGE MY ASS!
7 Top McCain Officials are or were lobbyists!
One: Campaign manager Rick Davis is a major telecommunications lobbyist.
Two: Senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann recently faced scrutiny over his foreign lobbying on behalf of the Republic of Georgia, which has been embroiled in a military conflict with Russia.
Three: Senior adviser Charlie Black was a foreign lobbyist for dictators in Zaire and Angola in the 1980s, fodder for the liberal group MoveOn.org.
Four: Frank Donatelli, the Republican National Committee's liaison to the McCain campaign, has had clients including Exxon Mobil.
Five: Economic adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer has lobbied for corporate giants like Koch Industries.
The final two lobbyists are McCain's congressional liaison, John Green, and national finance Co-chairman Wayne Berman. They both lobbied for Fannie Mae, the troubled mortgage giant.
In addition at least 169 lobbyists run McCain's campaign.
Let's chant all together C.A.M. - CHANGE MY ASS!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
A few more facts about Sarah "Barracuda" Palin
Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task." She's even admitted she hasn't thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'"
Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.
Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade."
Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP.
Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn't even support abortion in the case of rape or incest.
Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches.
As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, "news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor."
She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."
Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'"
Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.
Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade."
Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP.
Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn't even support abortion in the case of rape or incest.
Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches.
As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, "news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor."
She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."
Obama campaign response to McCain's speech
“Tonight, John McCain said that his party was elected to change Washington, but that they let Washington change them. He’s right. He admonished the ‘old, do-nothing crowd’ in Washington, but ignored the fact that he’s been part of that crowd for twenty-six years, opposing solutions on health care, energy, and education. He talked about bipartisanship, but didn’t mention that he’s been a Bush partisan 90% of the time, that he’s run a Karl Rove campaign, and that he wants to continue this President’s disastrous economic and foreign policies for another four years. With John McCain, it’s more of the same.
“That’s not the change Americans need. Barack Obama has taken on the special interests and the lobbyists in Illinois and in Washington, and he’s won. As President, he’ll cut taxes for 95% of all working families, provide affordable health care to every American, end the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
“That’s not the change Americans need. Barack Obama has taken on the special interests and the lobbyists in Illinois and in Washington, and he’s won. As President, he’ll cut taxes for 95% of all working families, provide affordable health care to every American, end the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
McCain, an agent of change?...
Ha ha ha...!
26 years in the Senate
169 lobbyists running his campaign
His "solutions" are just 20th century old republican ideas
McCain/Palin = 100% Recycled Bush/Cheney
10% Chance on Change (and is not guaranteed)
26 years in the Senate
169 lobbyists running his campaign
His "solutions" are just 20th century old republican ideas
McCain/Palin = 100% Recycled Bush/Cheney
10% Chance on Change (and is not guaranteed)
Fight with me!
Fight with me!, Fight with me!
Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran
100 years, 10,000 years if necessary in Iraq
The Russians are coming! Get Ready to go to war and destroy those communists bastards! (they hurt me so much for years while I was a POW and never got a chance for revenge)
Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran
100 years, 10,000 years if necessary in Iraq
The Russians are coming! Get Ready to go to war and destroy those communists bastards! (they hurt me so much for years while I was a POW and never got a chance for revenge)
Dull speech...as the speaker himself
McCain speech did not excite anyone. However that is not the important thing. McCain has nothing to offer in terms of ideas other than Bush's economics.
Hope is worthless
I need to check the transcripts, but at least two of the republican speakers downplay hope. It is not worth having hope according to the republicans. That is big difference between Obama and McCain and why Obama is winning and will win this election. It is not wise to tell a nation that is hurting in so many aspects that it is not worth to have HOPE.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sarah Palin's 17 year old pregnant daughter is not the issue...McCain's judgement is the issue
This is serious business. Palin's pregnant daughter is not the issue. The real issue is McCain's ability to run things, do things right, do things professionally and his judgement.
It is clear that McCain did not do his homework when vetting Sarah Palin. McCain met Palin only once months ago and at some moment later had 15 minutes phone conversation with her. The next thing she was at one of McCain's houses in Arizona to be offered the job.
Is this the way McSame plans to run the nation? Shoot first and ask questions later. McCain's incompetence coupled with his temper and bellicose behavior only spells trouble for the nation.
With McBOOM as president, the next time he faces a Georgia crisis, he will explode again, as he did when faced with the Russia invasion of Georgia and without all the facts, push the red button and BOOM! we will be at WORLD WAR 3.
It is clear that McCain did not do his homework when vetting Sarah Palin. McCain met Palin only once months ago and at some moment later had 15 minutes phone conversation with her. The next thing she was at one of McCain's houses in Arizona to be offered the job.
Is this the way McSame plans to run the nation? Shoot first and ask questions later. McCain's incompetence coupled with his temper and bellicose behavior only spells trouble for the nation.
With McBOOM as president, the next time he faces a Georgia crisis, he will explode again, as he did when faced with the Russia invasion of Georgia and without all the facts, push the red button and BOOM! we will be at WORLD WAR 3.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
McCain's dangerous choice
Last Saturday 8/29 was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.
Huh?
Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:
She was elected Alaska 's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1
Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing women's right to choose and abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2
She supported right-wing extremist and racist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3
Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools instead of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.4
She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change and global warming.5
She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.
MoveOn asked its Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here's a sample:
She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK
She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK
As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK
Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK
She's vehemently anti-choice and doesn't care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK
I think she's far too inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get our vote by putting "A Woman" in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK
So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically inexperienced.
In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very dangerous decision for our country.
In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain's vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.
Sources:
1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin
2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=1
3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=2
4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=3
5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=4
6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=5
"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=6
"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=7
7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=8
Huh?
Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:
She was elected Alaska 's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1
Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing women's right to choose and abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2
She supported right-wing extremist and racist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3
Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools instead of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.4
She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change and global warming.5
She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.
MoveOn asked its Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here's a sample:
She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK
She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK
As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK
Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK
She's vehemently anti-choice and doesn't care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK
I think she's far too inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get our vote by putting "A Woman" in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK
So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically inexperienced.
In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very dangerous decision for our country.
In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain's vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.
Sources:
1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin
2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=1
3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=2
4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=3
5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=4
6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=5
"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=6
"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=7
7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-3524619-hwaHpBx&t=8
McCain/Palin - The Blind Date
DRUDGE CALLS IT THE 'BLIND DATE.'
Chicago Sun-Times: 'MAVERICK ROLLS THE DICE.'
Question: Is this the way McCain plans to handle the national afairs? Lack of judgement anyone?
Chicago Sun-Times: 'MAVERICK ROLLS THE DICE.'
Question: Is this the way McCain plans to handle the national afairs? Lack of judgement anyone?
notes from 8/30/08 POLITICO's Mike Allen's Playbook
N.Y. Daily News' Tom DeFrank: 'Can you say Dan Quayle? Unfortunately for Sarah Palin, that was the nightmare flashback for some Republican mandarins after McCain chose the Alaska governor as his surprise running mate.'
BIGGEST RISK OF PALIN: Democrats are now the ticket of experience – 40 years in Washington vs. 36 years for the Republicans. Senator McCain is asking voters to assume he was just kidding about a basic premise of his campaign, both in the primaries and the general -- that national-security experience matters when the country is at war.
BIGGEST REASON FOR PALIN: As always, NBC's Chuck Todd sticks his landing -- 'This is about getting a piece of the 'change' argument. They've conceded experience cannot win this election. They have to get on the right side of change.'
THE UNTOLD STORY OF PALIN, per Politico toppers Jim VandeHei and John Harris: 'The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state the matters -- and too close for comfort in several states like Indiana and Montana the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election -- and very sick of the Bush years. McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike. McCain's pick shows he is not pretending. Politicians, even 'mavericks' like McCain, play it safe when they think they are winning – or see an easy path to winning. They roll the dice only when they know that the risks of conventionality are greater than the risks of boldness.'
MOST ASTONISHING FACT – MCCAIN HAD MEET HER ONCE, AND OFFERED HER THE JOB BY PHONE – THE CAMPAIGN'S OFFICIAL NARRATIVE: 'John McCain first met Governor Sarah Palin at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington in February of 2008 and came away extraordinarily impressed. John McCain followed her career and admired her tenacity and her many accomplishments. She was scheduled for a high profile speaking role at our convention and included in the VP selection process because of his admiration for her strong reform credentials. Last Sunday, Governor Palin and John McCain had a conversation over the phone. Governor Palin was at the Alaska State Fair, and John McCain was at his home at Phoenix. Previously, Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, had also been in regular contact with the Governor as part of the on-going selection process. This past week, Governor Palin arrived with Kris Perry in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Wednesday evening. Upon arrival, Governor Palin and her longtime aide Kris Perry met with Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter of the McCain campaign at Mr. Bob Delgado's home in Flagstaff. Mr. Delgado is the CEO of the Hensley corporation, which is Mrs. Cindy McCain's family business. On Thursday morning, Governor Palin and staff were joined by Mrs. Cindy McCain and later joined by John McCain at the McCain family home in Sedona, Arizona. At approximately 11:00 a.m. Thursday August 28, 2008, John McCain formally invited Governor Sarah Palin to join the Republican ticket as the vice presidential nominee on the deck of the McCain family home.'
DRUDGE CALLS IT THE 'BLIND DATE.'
Chicago Sun-Times: 'MAVERICK ROLLS THE DICE.'
BIGGEST RISK OF PALIN: Democrats are now the ticket of experience – 40 years in Washington vs. 36 years for the Republicans. Senator McCain is asking voters to assume he was just kidding about a basic premise of his campaign, both in the primaries and the general -- that national-security experience matters when the country is at war.
BIGGEST REASON FOR PALIN: As always, NBC's Chuck Todd sticks his landing -- 'This is about getting a piece of the 'change' argument. They've conceded experience cannot win this election. They have to get on the right side of change.'
THE UNTOLD STORY OF PALIN, per Politico toppers Jim VandeHei and John Harris: 'The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state the matters -- and too close for comfort in several states like Indiana and Montana the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election -- and very sick of the Bush years. McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike. McCain's pick shows he is not pretending. Politicians, even 'mavericks' like McCain, play it safe when they think they are winning – or see an easy path to winning. They roll the dice only when they know that the risks of conventionality are greater than the risks of boldness.'
MOST ASTONISHING FACT – MCCAIN HAD MEET HER ONCE, AND OFFERED HER THE JOB BY PHONE – THE CAMPAIGN'S OFFICIAL NARRATIVE: 'John McCain first met Governor Sarah Palin at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington in February of 2008 and came away extraordinarily impressed. John McCain followed her career and admired her tenacity and her many accomplishments. She was scheduled for a high profile speaking role at our convention and included in the VP selection process because of his admiration for her strong reform credentials. Last Sunday, Governor Palin and John McCain had a conversation over the phone. Governor Palin was at the Alaska State Fair, and John McCain was at his home at Phoenix. Previously, Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, had also been in regular contact with the Governor as part of the on-going selection process. This past week, Governor Palin arrived with Kris Perry in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Wednesday evening. Upon arrival, Governor Palin and her longtime aide Kris Perry met with Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter of the McCain campaign at Mr. Bob Delgado's home in Flagstaff. Mr. Delgado is the CEO of the Hensley corporation, which is Mrs. Cindy McCain's family business. On Thursday morning, Governor Palin and staff were joined by Mrs. Cindy McCain and later joined by John McCain at the McCain family home in Sedona, Arizona. At approximately 11:00 a.m. Thursday August 28, 2008, John McCain formally invited Governor Sarah Palin to join the Republican ticket as the vice presidential nominee on the deck of the McCain family home.'
DRUDGE CALLS IT THE 'BLIND DATE.'
Chicago Sun-Times: 'MAVERICK ROLLS THE DICE.'
POLITICO: 'disrespectful to the office of the presidency.'
If it said something admirable about President Bush that he chose a running mate who would be more helpful in governing than in campaigning, what does it say about Senator McCain that he did the opposite? One of the most loyal Bushies calls the selection 'disrespectful to the office of the presidency.'
Sunday, August 24, 2008
McLame, McCain has nothing to say about himself
Have you noticed that McSame is only talking about Obama lately and now Hillary and Biden.
Are McCain voting for Obama? No...
Then why McCain has nothing to say about himself and his ideas and policies?
Answer, because they are just the same ideas and policies of George Bush's that have sunk the country in crisis domestically and internationally. So McBush wants to keep the negative smoke screen to avoid scrutiny.
The golden rule of credibility, when you spent more time talking about your opponent than yourself, there is something wrong with you.
Are McCain voting for Obama? No...
Then why McCain has nothing to say about himself and his ideas and policies?
Answer, because they are just the same ideas and policies of George Bush's that have sunk the country in crisis domestically and internationally. So McBush wants to keep the negative smoke screen to avoid scrutiny.
The golden rule of credibility, when you spent more time talking about your opponent than yourself, there is something wrong with you.
AP's Ron Fournier Bias Against Obama
On Saturday, the Associated Press (whose articles are published in thousands of newspapers nationwide) wrote a story about Barack Obama's vice presidential pick that sounded more like right-wing FOX than an unbiased news organization. Under the headline "Biden pick shows lack of confidence," the AP wrote:
The candidate of change went with the status quo. In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness—inexperience in office and on foreign policy...He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate—the ultimate insider...The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative..."1
This isn't an isolated incident for the AP reporter who wrote this story, Ron Fournier—who was recently appointed as the AP's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Media watchdog group Media Matters wrote a report showing that Fournier's presidential coverage has consistently smeared Democrats and favored John McCain.2
You can email AP reporter Ron Fournier and CC his boss, Managing Editor Mike Oreskes. Tell them that the public's faith in the 160-year-old AP will be gone if Ron Fournier is allowed to continue his slanted articles against Democrats and for McCain.
Here are their emails:
Michael Oreskes, AP Managing Editor, mOreskes@ap.org
Ron Fournier, AP reporter and Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, rfournier@ap.org
A congressional investigation recently uncovered an email Fournier sent to Karl Rove in 2004, telling him to "Keep up the fight."3 Plus, it was recently revealed that Fournier talked to top McCain campaign operatives in 2007 about being a senior McCain political adviser!4 Given all this, Fournier has an obligation to the public to show that he's not a partisan McCain supporter.
But during the 2008 primary, Fournier wrote what amounted to a bunch of smear jobs on Barack Obama and the Clintons. Here are some of the "fair and balanced" pieces he wrote:
Headline: "Sen. Hillary Clinton an Artful Dodger" Excerpt: "Slick Hillary? Former President Clinton earned the nickname 'Slick Willy' for his mastery in the political arts of ducking and dodging...His wife may not be as smooth, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is doing a passable impression of the ever-parsing former president."5
Headline: "Obama walks arrogance line" Excerpt: "There's a line smart politicians don't cross—somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step. He's bordering on arrogance."6
Headline: "Clinton's Politics of Pity" Excerpt: "Poor Hillary. After trying to save her sinking candidacy with awkward turns of flattery and sarcasm, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton resorted to a new tactic in Tuesday night's debate: self-pity."7
Meanwhile, Media Matters could only find one negative piece Fournier wrote about Republicans during the entire primary—and that was trashing Mitt Romney for beating John McCain in Michigan!8 (Fournier called McCain's loss "a defeat for authenticity in politics" and glowingly called McCain "the man who spoke hard truths." Seriously! That's unbiased journalism?)
Sources:
1. "Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence," Associated Press, August 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4083&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=4
2. "The AP has a Ron Fournier problem," Media Matters, July 22, 2008
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200807220006
3. "Fournier to Rove: 'Keep Up the Fight," TPM, July 14, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4002&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=5
4. "One of Fournier's job options: McCain," Politico.com, July 30, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4001&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=6
5. "Sen. Hillary Clinton an Artful Dodger," Associated Press, June 20, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4006&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=7
6. "Obama walks arrogance line," Associated Press, March 17, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4007&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=8
7. "AP Opinion: Clinton's politics of pity," Associated Press, February 27, 2008
http://www.katu.com/news/16028377.html
8. "Analysis: Mitt won, authenticity lost," Associated Press, January 15, 2008 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4004&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=9
The candidate of change went with the status quo. In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness—inexperience in office and on foreign policy...He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate—the ultimate insider...The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative..."1
This isn't an isolated incident for the AP reporter who wrote this story, Ron Fournier—who was recently appointed as the AP's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Media watchdog group Media Matters wrote a report showing that Fournier's presidential coverage has consistently smeared Democrats and favored John McCain.2
You can email AP reporter Ron Fournier and CC his boss, Managing Editor Mike Oreskes. Tell them that the public's faith in the 160-year-old AP will be gone if Ron Fournier is allowed to continue his slanted articles against Democrats and for McCain.
Here are their emails:
Michael Oreskes, AP Managing Editor, mOreskes@ap.org
Ron Fournier, AP reporter and Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, rfournier@ap.org
A congressional investigation recently uncovered an email Fournier sent to Karl Rove in 2004, telling him to "Keep up the fight."3 Plus, it was recently revealed that Fournier talked to top McCain campaign operatives in 2007 about being a senior McCain political adviser!4 Given all this, Fournier has an obligation to the public to show that he's not a partisan McCain supporter.
But during the 2008 primary, Fournier wrote what amounted to a bunch of smear jobs on Barack Obama and the Clintons. Here are some of the "fair and balanced" pieces he wrote:
Headline: "Sen. Hillary Clinton an Artful Dodger" Excerpt: "Slick Hillary? Former President Clinton earned the nickname 'Slick Willy' for his mastery in the political arts of ducking and dodging...His wife may not be as smooth, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is doing a passable impression of the ever-parsing former president."5
Headline: "Obama walks arrogance line" Excerpt: "There's a line smart politicians don't cross—somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step. He's bordering on arrogance."6
Headline: "Clinton's Politics of Pity" Excerpt: "Poor Hillary. After trying to save her sinking candidacy with awkward turns of flattery and sarcasm, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton resorted to a new tactic in Tuesday night's debate: self-pity."7
Meanwhile, Media Matters could only find one negative piece Fournier wrote about Republicans during the entire primary—and that was trashing Mitt Romney for beating John McCain in Michigan!8 (Fournier called McCain's loss "a defeat for authenticity in politics" and glowingly called McCain "the man who spoke hard truths." Seriously! That's unbiased journalism?)
Sources:
1. "Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence," Associated Press, August 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4083&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=4
2. "The AP has a Ron Fournier problem," Media Matters, July 22, 2008
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200807220006
3. "Fournier to Rove: 'Keep Up the Fight," TPM, July 14, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4002&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=5
4. "One of Fournier's job options: McCain," Politico.com, July 30, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4001&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=6
5. "Sen. Hillary Clinton an Artful Dodger," Associated Press, June 20, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4006&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=7
6. "Obama walks arrogance line," Associated Press, March 17, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4007&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=8
7. "AP Opinion: Clinton's politics of pity," Associated Press, February 27, 2008
http://www.katu.com/news/16028377.html
8. "Analysis: Mitt won, authenticity lost," Associated Press, January 15, 2008 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=4004&id=13566-5452283-3.ZI8Vx&t=9
Monday, August 18, 2008
McCain "judgement" is dangerous for America
John McCain uses the Georgia crisis as an example of his foreign policy expertise and judgment.
But I say that on the contrary, the Georgia situation is clear example of why McCain is not qualified to be commander in chief.
McCain's first reaction to the Georgia crisis was explosive. We saw aggressiveness, bellicosity and belligerent behavior. He used harsh words, rhetoric and almost insulted Russia for his actions.
Now, regardless if Russia is the bad guy (but remember also that Georgia started the crisis) and regardless if we are suspicious of Russia, do you think is it good judgment to start the process of solving a conflict by insulting one of the parties? Does that show "expertise" in working with international situations and crisis? I don't think so.
As a matter of fact I think it is dangerous to have as commander in chief a person that shows no self control and only shows aggressiveness, bellicosity and belligerent behavior. Do we really want a person with those character traits to be the one with the finger on the button of the most powerful army and nuclear arsenal of the world?
I don't like to take things in isolation, but look it as part of the whole. McCain has an history of aggressive behavior in the Senate, there have been rumors of abusive behavior against his own wife and it has been documented McCain's tendency of always being in conflict against everybody around him: own party, family, colleagues, own campaign, the American people.
McCain fought in Vietnam as a pilot, a war that we could not win. He was shot down, taken prisoner and tortured. He is a war hero and he is respected for that, but those experiences leave psychological damage, scars and traits. McCain has repressed anger and subconsciously wants revenge against those who hurt him. And even though the actual people who hurt him may not be around anymore, they were all communists. So for McCain communists are not only the big enemy of America, communists are also his personal big enemy. The fact those communists Russians attacked a smaller democratic country that also happens to be a U.S. ally, was unbearable for McCain.
According to psychologists, repressed anger can manifests itself in different ways and McCain aggressive behavior is just a typical example of that. His explosive behavior on the Georgia crisis is an example, of not only his mid 20th century cold war mentality, but also an example of an open psychological wound that has not closed and that probably will never close, as long as the "big bad enemy" who hurt him is not punished.
So my question again is do we want someone like that to be our next commander in chief?...
Let me add another piece of the puzzle.
McCain's agrees with Bush over 90% of the time and Bush put us through an unnecessary war wasting 4000+ American lives, tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of civilian lives) and trillions of dollars.
Now you may be able to see my concerns.
Do we really want someone like McCain in the White House with a history of aggressiveness and bellicose behavior, mentally disturbed, an itching for war, a desire to punish his communists enemies, and his love for George Bush's policies?
A president McCain can very easily put us through World War 3, if he as president faces another Georgia.
But I say that on the contrary, the Georgia situation is clear example of why McCain is not qualified to be commander in chief.
McCain's first reaction to the Georgia crisis was explosive. We saw aggressiveness, bellicosity and belligerent behavior. He used harsh words, rhetoric and almost insulted Russia for his actions.
Now, regardless if Russia is the bad guy (but remember also that Georgia started the crisis) and regardless if we are suspicious of Russia, do you think is it good judgment to start the process of solving a conflict by insulting one of the parties? Does that show "expertise" in working with international situations and crisis? I don't think so.
As a matter of fact I think it is dangerous to have as commander in chief a person that shows no self control and only shows aggressiveness, bellicosity and belligerent behavior. Do we really want a person with those character traits to be the one with the finger on the button of the most powerful army and nuclear arsenal of the world?
I don't like to take things in isolation, but look it as part of the whole. McCain has an history of aggressive behavior in the Senate, there have been rumors of abusive behavior against his own wife and it has been documented McCain's tendency of always being in conflict against everybody around him: own party, family, colleagues, own campaign, the American people.
McCain fought in Vietnam as a pilot, a war that we could not win. He was shot down, taken prisoner and tortured. He is a war hero and he is respected for that, but those experiences leave psychological damage, scars and traits. McCain has repressed anger and subconsciously wants revenge against those who hurt him. And even though the actual people who hurt him may not be around anymore, they were all communists. So for McCain communists are not only the big enemy of America, communists are also his personal big enemy. The fact those communists Russians attacked a smaller democratic country that also happens to be a U.S. ally, was unbearable for McCain.
According to psychologists, repressed anger can manifests itself in different ways and McCain aggressive behavior is just a typical example of that. His explosive behavior on the Georgia crisis is an example, of not only his mid 20th century cold war mentality, but also an example of an open psychological wound that has not closed and that probably will never close, as long as the "big bad enemy" who hurt him is not punished.
So my question again is do we want someone like that to be our next commander in chief?...
Let me add another piece of the puzzle.
McCain's agrees with Bush over 90% of the time and Bush put us through an unnecessary war wasting 4000+ American lives, tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of civilian lives) and trillions of dollars.
Now you may be able to see my concerns.
Do we really want someone like McCain in the White House with a history of aggressiveness and bellicose behavior, mentally disturbed, an itching for war, a desire to punish his communists enemies, and his love for George Bush's policies?
A president McCain can very easily put us through World War 3, if he as president faces another Georgia.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
McCain: Georgia crisis won't ignite Cold War
McCain dreams with the 1960's. He lives in the 60's and the cold war era.
He has an inner desire for vengance from his capture and torture by the communists and that's why he is always fighting with everybody. Those repressed feelings.
We do not need an aggressive, repressed person with PTSD having war flashbacks as president.
He has an inner desire for vengance from his capture and torture by the communists and that's why he is always fighting with everybody. Those repressed feelings.
We do not need an aggressive, repressed person with PTSD having war flashbacks as president.
Truths about McCain
McSame that voted with Bush 95% of the time killing the economy.
McIgnorant who admitted that he knows jack about economy.
McShame who has the nerve to say that he is for the middle class when his tax cut plan is just to keep Bush's benefits for the rich.
McWar that his plan for Iraq is to stay for 100 years...to bomb bomb bomb Iran and now is getting beligerant again using Russia as excuse. There is no lack of desire for war with John McCain.
McTroubled that returned from Vietnam mentally disturbed and is always fighting with everybody around him: his own party, supporters, other countries.
McDoom that will probably start World War 3 if elected.
McIgnorant who admitted that he knows jack about economy.
McShame who has the nerve to say that he is for the middle class when his tax cut plan is just to keep Bush's benefits for the rich.
McWar that his plan for Iraq is to stay for 100 years...to bomb bomb bomb Iran and now is getting beligerant again using Russia as excuse. There is no lack of desire for war with John McCain.
McTroubled that returned from Vietnam mentally disturbed and is always fighting with everybody around him: his own party, supporters, other countries.
McDoom that will probably start World War 3 if elected.
Time to question McCain's foreign policy "expertise"
The question is if the media will finally start doing its job and scrutinize McCain instead of their destructive obsession with Obama. The media decided long time ago that McCain just deserves to be president and keep giving him free passes, while at the same time it obsesses with scrutinizing the dot in every "i" and the cross in every "t" for everything Obama.
http://pundits.thehill.com/2008/08/12/mccain-plagiarizes-wikipedia-%e2%80%94-more-foreign-policy-gaffes/
August 12, 2008
McCain Plagiarizes Wikipedia — More Foreign Policy Gaffes (Peter Fenn)
@ 9:36 am
CQ reports that Mr. Foreign Policy, John McCain, just plagiarized Wikipedia in his recent comments on Georgia.
Remember, this is the man who confused Sunnis and Shiites and had to be corrected on his third attempt by Joe Lieberman. Also, the one who brags about his foreign travel but seems to think that there is an “Iraqi-Pakistan Border,” referring on "Good Morning America” to the “hard struggle” on the non-existent border.
The editor complained to CQ that McCain lifted lines without attribution, as required by their terms of use. Here are two instances, according to CQ:
First instance
one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)
vs.
one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)
Second instance
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked [sic] by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)
vs.
After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)
Strange that McCain would crib Wikipedia for his speeches — stranger still that he would need these Cliff’s Notes, if he is such a “foreign policy expert.”
Is it time we question his competence and experience — and, of course, his judgment?
http://pundits.thehill.com/2008/08/12/mccain-plagiarizes-wikipedia-%e2%80%94-more-foreign-policy-gaffes/
August 12, 2008
McCain Plagiarizes Wikipedia — More Foreign Policy Gaffes (Peter Fenn)
@ 9:36 am
CQ reports that Mr. Foreign Policy, John McCain, just plagiarized Wikipedia in his recent comments on Georgia.
Remember, this is the man who confused Sunnis and Shiites and had to be corrected on his third attempt by Joe Lieberman. Also, the one who brags about his foreign travel but seems to think that there is an “Iraqi-Pakistan Border,” referring on "Good Morning America” to the “hard struggle” on the non-existent border.
The editor complained to CQ that McCain lifted lines without attribution, as required by their terms of use. Here are two instances, according to CQ:
First instance
one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)
vs.
one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)
Second instance
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked [sic] by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)
vs.
After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)
Strange that McCain would crib Wikipedia for his speeches — stranger still that he would need these Cliff’s Notes, if he is such a “foreign policy expert.”
Is it time we question his competence and experience — and, of course, his judgment?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
McCain...WRONG on Georgia crisis
When McCain heard that the Russians had invaded Georgia, McCain dusted his 1960’s Vietnam uniform and was ready to declare war on Russia, until one of his aides clarified that the Georgia invaded was the small republic of Georgia in southwest Asia, Caucasus region.
Now McCain, looking to score some cheap political points, is beating the drums of war, saying things like Russia wants to “revive the old empire” and other scare tactics from cold war era. McCain is still stuck in the 20th century and all he knows is the old Soviet era.
But there is a small little fact that McShame forgot in his deteriorating and senile mind. All this crisis was GEORGIA’S FAULT! Georgia is our ally and we need to defend and stand by our allies, but stupidity has no excuse. President Saakashvili made the big tactical error of invading South Ossetia knowing that Russia wouldn’t like it and would respond. I don’t know what that guy was thinking. Did Saakashvili really believe that the U.S. and the West would bomb Russia and start WWIII because of him?
It is no surprise that the only response from the U.S. is condemning Russia’s actions as disproportionate response. First we do not have arguments to go against Russia on this and second thanks to the damage that McCain’s friend, George Bush, has done to our standing and reputation, we almost have no leverage anymore.
This is another example why McCain is unfit to be commander on chief. Can you imagine a president McCain, that all he does in an international crisis is beat the drums of war and start threatening everybody with violence. But remember that McSame is Bush third term so, that should not be a surprised.
Now McCain, looking to score some cheap political points, is beating the drums of war, saying things like Russia wants to “revive the old empire” and other scare tactics from cold war era. McCain is still stuck in the 20th century and all he knows is the old Soviet era.
But there is a small little fact that McShame forgot in his deteriorating and senile mind. All this crisis was GEORGIA’S FAULT! Georgia is our ally and we need to defend and stand by our allies, but stupidity has no excuse. President Saakashvili made the big tactical error of invading South Ossetia knowing that Russia wouldn’t like it and would respond. I don’t know what that guy was thinking. Did Saakashvili really believe that the U.S. and the West would bomb Russia and start WWIII because of him?
It is no surprise that the only response from the U.S. is condemning Russia’s actions as disproportionate response. First we do not have arguments to go against Russia on this and second thanks to the damage that McCain’s friend, George Bush, has done to our standing and reputation, we almost have no leverage anymore.
This is another example why McCain is unfit to be commander on chief. Can you imagine a president McCain, that all he does in an international crisis is beat the drums of war and start threatening everybody with violence. But remember that McSame is Bush third term so, that should not be a surprised.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
McCain hits new lows and the media just watches and parrots back
John McCain's campaign hit new lows with their attacks and distortions.
And all too often, the so-called "referees" in the news media are spending a lot of time repeating his false attacks and very little time holding him accountable.
Here's the latest from McCain and the media:
Just last week, McCain and his party attacked Barack Obama and ridiculed the idea that keeping your car tires inflated is an effective way to improve fuel efficiency and keep down the cost of gasoline. The thing is, everyone from AAA to NASCAR agreed with Barack. McCain finally had to face reality this week and reverse his position. But the media had a good laugh about McCain's petty, misguided stunt and ignored his effort to distort the truth to win a few cheap political points.
Earlier this week, the McCain campaign put out an ad saying that Washington is broken. It's gotten a lot of press so far, but it didn't mention that John McCain spent the last 26 years in Washington -- failing to fix this broken system. He portrays himself as a so-called "maverick" but doesn't want people to know that he has voted 95% of the time in support of George Bush's policies.
Another ad uses scare tactics to claim Barack's tax policy will hurt middle class Americans. Press coverage of the ad repeated McCain's smears, but omitted the fact that Barack's economic plan will cut taxes for 95% of American families. Not to mention that McCain's upper class tax cut plan leaves out more than 100 million middle class families.
The media may not be informing the public very well, but you don't have to sit back and wait for them to start telling the truth about John McCain.
And all too often, the so-called "referees" in the news media are spending a lot of time repeating his false attacks and very little time holding him accountable.
Here's the latest from McCain and the media:
Just last week, McCain and his party attacked Barack Obama and ridiculed the idea that keeping your car tires inflated is an effective way to improve fuel efficiency and keep down the cost of gasoline. The thing is, everyone from AAA to NASCAR agreed with Barack. McCain finally had to face reality this week and reverse his position. But the media had a good laugh about McCain's petty, misguided stunt and ignored his effort to distort the truth to win a few cheap political points.
Earlier this week, the McCain campaign put out an ad saying that Washington is broken. It's gotten a lot of press so far, but it didn't mention that John McCain spent the last 26 years in Washington -- failing to fix this broken system. He portrays himself as a so-called "maverick" but doesn't want people to know that he has voted 95% of the time in support of George Bush's policies.
Another ad uses scare tactics to claim Barack's tax policy will hurt middle class Americans. Press coverage of the ad repeated McCain's smears, but omitted the fact that Barack's economic plan will cut taxes for 95% of American families. Not to mention that McCain's upper class tax cut plan leaves out more than 100 million middle class families.
The media may not be informing the public very well, but you don't have to sit back and wait for them to start telling the truth about John McCain.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
CNN: McCain: High price of oil one justification for Iraq war vote
That's very convinient Johnny McShame...
After the fact it is very, very easy...
Now that Saddam is not in power and the GOP/Bush/McCain oil friends are strangulating all of us to make a quick buck... it is very very easy...
Of course! Why we did not think of that before...if Saddam Hussein would have still be in power not only he would have blackmailed the US with Iraq's oil...
but also he would have probably staged a 9/11 part deux...maybe on 9/12/2002...
or he would have nuked NYC and D.C. with all the nuclear weapons he was producing...
or gas Wall Street, Chicago and Los Angeles with all the biochemical weapons he had...
or Iraq would have become Al-Queda and Taliban heaven part 2 after Afghanistan...
etc, etc, etc...
The end of the world would have came to us if it wasn't for McCain, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Halliburton, the GOP, 4000+ American lives and 3 trillion dollars of the taxpayer's money that saved the world from big bad Saddam Hussein and his evil plot.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
McCain: “Washington's broken..."
McCain: "Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse
off than we were four years ago,"
Not Mentioned: McCain has been part of that broken system for 30+ years. And what Mr. McMaverick-by-Convinience has done? Aligning himself with George Bush 95% of the time parroting the same old and failed policies.
McCain=4 more years of Bush...
McBush...dangerous for the economy, the constitution and our image
McSame... not good for America!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Americans Demand Action on the Economy
Campaign for America's Future
http://www.ourfuture.org/
Americans Demand Action on the Economy
------------------------------------------
“We’re in a recession, and Washington is doing nothing about it.” According to recent survey research, that’s one of the most powerful arguments progressives can make right now. The White House says “we have avoided a recession.” But Americans overwhelmingly disagree. They describe the economy as in recession and support an economic growth package—for good reason.
* America is rapidly losing jobs. On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that employers cut 51,000 jobs in July, the seventh straight month in which more jobs were lost than created. Our country has lost 463,000 payroll jobs so far this year. The unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, the worst jobless rate in four years. Nearly 9 million Americans are now unemployed; 1.6 million lost their jobs in the last 12 months.
* For those who remain employed, real wages are declining. Companies are cutting workers’ hours. In July, average weekly hours worked slipped to the lowest level since November 2004 and weekly earnings grew at the lowest rate since September 2005. At the same time, costs are rising much faster than wages—the Commerce Department reported today that inflation hit a 27-year high in June.
* While Americans struggle to make ends meet, big oil companies are raking in windfall profits. The six biggest oil companies reported over $50 billion in combined profits for the 2nd quarter of 2008. Called “gargantuan, record-breaking earnings” by the Associated Press, this is their largest combined profit in history. Exxon Mobil’s $11.6 billion quarterly profit was the largest in the history of any American company.
* The McCain-conservative economic plan will help big corporations, not families. The McCain-conservative proposal to “create jobs” is simple—cut taxes for big corporations. McCain would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent and give corporations larger tax deductions. Big oil companies would receive an additional $3.8 billion every year under his plan—$1.2 billion a year for Exxon Mobil alone.
Progressive solutions:
Provide families with a $1,000 stimulus check ($500 for individuals) this fall. Provide $25 billion to state governments to fight the effects of recession, and another $25 billion to repair crumbling bridges, roads, and schools. The $50 billion investment will save more than one million jobs. Fund most of the economic growth package with a windfall profits tax on big oil companies.
http://www.ourfuture.org/
Americans Demand Action on the Economy
------------------------------------------
“We’re in a recession, and Washington is doing nothing about it.” According to recent survey research, that’s one of the most powerful arguments progressives can make right now. The White House says “we have avoided a recession.” But Americans overwhelmingly disagree. They describe the economy as in recession and support an economic growth package—for good reason.
* America is rapidly losing jobs. On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that employers cut 51,000 jobs in July, the seventh straight month in which more jobs were lost than created. Our country has lost 463,000 payroll jobs so far this year. The unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, the worst jobless rate in four years. Nearly 9 million Americans are now unemployed; 1.6 million lost their jobs in the last 12 months.
* For those who remain employed, real wages are declining. Companies are cutting workers’ hours. In July, average weekly hours worked slipped to the lowest level since November 2004 and weekly earnings grew at the lowest rate since September 2005. At the same time, costs are rising much faster than wages—the Commerce Department reported today that inflation hit a 27-year high in June.
* While Americans struggle to make ends meet, big oil companies are raking in windfall profits. The six biggest oil companies reported over $50 billion in combined profits for the 2nd quarter of 2008. Called “gargantuan, record-breaking earnings” by the Associated Press, this is their largest combined profit in history. Exxon Mobil’s $11.6 billion quarterly profit was the largest in the history of any American company.
* The McCain-conservative economic plan will help big corporations, not families. The McCain-conservative proposal to “create jobs” is simple—cut taxes for big corporations. McCain would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent and give corporations larger tax deductions. Big oil companies would receive an additional $3.8 billion every year under his plan—$1.2 billion a year for Exxon Mobil alone.
Progressive solutions:
Provide families with a $1,000 stimulus check ($500 for individuals) this fall. Provide $25 billion to state governments to fight the effects of recession, and another $25 billion to repair crumbling bridges, roads, and schools. The $50 billion investment will save more than one million jobs. Fund most of the economic growth package with a windfall profits tax on big oil companies.
Who's thinking better, Obama or McCain?
http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/050921_tire.html
"Want to save hundreds at the gasoline pump? It's easy. Instead of hunting for the best price in town, try checking the air pressure in your tires. Proper air pressure results in better gas mileage, which at $3 per gallon could save you as much as $432 per year, according to an informal study conducted by Carnegie Mellon students last spring. "
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml
"You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires. Properly inflated tires are safer and last longer."
Compare this to the $30 McCain's summer gas break gimmick he proposed that would have given oil companies millions in additional tax breaks...remember?
Or McCain's oil drilling gimmick that MAY give us some oil in...let's see...10 years?
Saturday, August 2, 2008
McCain gave us "The One". LeMonton gives him "One"
McCain gave us the ad "The One". In response, I dedicate to McCain the Metallica song "One".
Metallica
One
This is lyrics from www.lyrics007.com
I can't remember anything
can't tell if this is true or dream
deep down inside I feel to scream
this terrible silence stops me
now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I cannot see
that there's not much left of me
nothing is real but pain now
hold my breath as I wish for death
oh please God, wake me
back in the womb it's much too real
in pumps life that I must feel
but can't look forward to reveal
look to the time when I'll live
fed through the tube that sticks in me
just like a wartime novelty
tied to machines that make me be
cut this life off from me
hold my breath as I wish for death
oh please God, wake me
now the world is gone I'm just one
oh God, help me hold my breath as I wish for death
darkness imprisoning me
all that I see
absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
trapped in myself
body my holding cell
landmine has taken my sight
taken my speech
taken my hearing
taken my arms
taken my legs
taken my soul
left me with life in hell
Metallica
One
This is lyrics from www.lyrics007.com
I can't remember anything
can't tell if this is true or dream
deep down inside I feel to scream
this terrible silence stops me
now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I cannot see
that there's not much left of me
nothing is real but pain now
hold my breath as I wish for death
oh please God, wake me
back in the womb it's much too real
in pumps life that I must feel
but can't look forward to reveal
look to the time when I'll live
fed through the tube that sticks in me
just like a wartime novelty
tied to machines that make me be
cut this life off from me
hold my breath as I wish for death
oh please God, wake me
now the world is gone I'm just one
oh God, help me hold my breath as I wish for death
darkness imprisoning me
all that I see
absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
trapped in myself
body my holding cell
landmine has taken my sight
taken my speech
taken my hearing
taken my arms
taken my legs
taken my soul
left me with life in hell
Thanks McCain for "Celeb" and "The One"
Thanks McCain for "Celeb" and "The One". That's just what I needed to sleep better at night knowing you are taking care of things.
I also appreciate your great idea of a $30 summer tax break that would have helped me a lot and for the offshore drilling thing that has great potential producing some oil in... maybe...10 years. In the meantime there is no short term solutions, no investment in renewable sources of energy and the planet keeps dying.
Thanks again McCain, your hard work and your 19th, 20th century ideas and solutions. It is really inspiring.
I also appreciate your great idea of a $30 summer tax break that would have helped me a lot and for the offshore drilling thing that has great potential producing some oil in... maybe...10 years. In the meantime there is no short term solutions, no investment in renewable sources of energy and the planet keeps dying.
Thanks again McCain, your hard work and your 19th, 20th century ideas and solutions. It is really inspiring.
Obama: Republicans, "They're very good at negative campaigning. They're not so good at governing."
Oabama:
"In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign was being racist," Obama said. "I think they're cynical. And I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues."
"In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign was being racist," Obama said. "I think they're cynical. And I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues."
"What I'm interested in, ultimately, is going to be governing," he said. "What that means is we're going to have to try to get things done."
"None of you thought I was making a racially incendiary remark, or playing the race card," he said. "It wasn't until John McCain's team started pushing it that it ended up being on the front page of The New York Times two days in a row."
"I don't come out of Central Casting when it comes to presidential races for a whole range of reasons," he said. "I'm young, I'm new to the national scene, my name is Barack Obama, I'm African-American, I was born in Hawaii, I spent time in Indonesia, I don't have the typical biography of a presidential candidate."
"You've got statistics that say we've lost another 50,000 jobs, that Florida is in a recession for the first time in a decade and a half and what was being talked about was Paris and Britney,"
"They're clever on creating distractions from the issues that really matter in people's lives," he said. "We've got to make sure we keep focused on people's day-to-day concerns. We don't take the skill of the Republicans in engaging in negative campaigning lightly."
"At some point people are going to have to make decisions. Are we going to keep arguing or are we going to get things done?"
"What I don't want to do is for the best to be the enemy of the good," he said. "And if we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise, in which I have to accept some things that I don't like or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don't like in exchange for actually moving us in the direction of actual energy independence, then that's something I'm open to."
"In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign was being racist," Obama said. "I think they're cynical. And I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues."
"In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign was being racist," Obama said. "I think they're cynical. And I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues."
"What I'm interested in, ultimately, is going to be governing," he said. "What that means is we're going to have to try to get things done."
"None of you thought I was making a racially incendiary remark, or playing the race card," he said. "It wasn't until John McCain's team started pushing it that it ended up being on the front page of The New York Times two days in a row."
"I don't come out of Central Casting when it comes to presidential races for a whole range of reasons," he said. "I'm young, I'm new to the national scene, my name is Barack Obama, I'm African-American, I was born in Hawaii, I spent time in Indonesia, I don't have the typical biography of a presidential candidate."
"You've got statistics that say we've lost another 50,000 jobs, that Florida is in a recession for the first time in a decade and a half and what was being talked about was Paris and Britney,"
"They're clever on creating distractions from the issues that really matter in people's lives," he said. "We've got to make sure we keep focused on people's day-to-day concerns. We don't take the skill of the Republicans in engaging in negative campaigning lightly."
"At some point people are going to have to make decisions. Are we going to keep arguing or are we going to get things done?"
"What I don't want to do is for the best to be the enemy of the good," he said. "And if we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise, in which I have to accept some things that I don't like or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don't like in exchange for actually moving us in the direction of actual energy independence, then that's something I'm open to."
Friday, August 1, 2008
WSJ: Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart.
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.
According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.[..]
The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don’t specifically tell attendees how to vote in November’s election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.
“The meeting leader said, ‘I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won’t have a vote on whether you want a union,’” said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. “I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote,” she said.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Obama compared to Paris Hilton
The other side (pssst...Republicans) are really scared.
The golden test of credibility is that when you don't have anything positive to say about you, then you spend your time (and money) saying negative things about the others. That's old Karl Rove tactics used by Bush 2000 and Bush 2004.
Another proof that McCain=McBush.
Same old candidate
Same old politics,
same old tactics,
same failed policies.
McSame as Bush 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
McCain has mole removed
Again!...Another One!...at this rate there won't be much left of McCain for the election...
Come On!...Honestly...McCain should be retired at a nursing home or better yet in one of his "humble" houses or cabins enjoying his grandchildren and let the new generation take over and move America forward.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
CNN's Cafferty: Confident McCain can deal with Iraq?
John McCain has staked much of his campaign on the war in Iraq and the surge. He tells us every day how he was right about the surge – how the surge was the answer to all our problems in Iraq. Maybe not exactly.
Last night McCain proved his timeline about the surge is all wrong. In an interview on CBS, Katie Couric pointed out that Barack Obama says while the increase in troops helped security, a Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after the militias before the surge were also major factors in reducing the violence.
McCain replied: "I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history."
Wrong again, Senator. The Sunni awakening in Anbar happened before President Bush ever announced the surge in January of 2007. In fact, the now-General Sean McFarland briefed the media in September 2006 about tribal leaders who were cooperating with Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda. Several news organizations reported on the Anbar Awakening taking place months before the surge.
CNN: "McCain camp rips Obama for cutting troop visit"
CNN: "McCain camp rips Obama for cutting troop visit"
Very pathetic of McCain and his camp to criticize Obama for not visiting troops, while overseas, when it was the Pentagon that raised "concerns".
As a matter of fact, McCain would have criticized anyway. If Obama would have visited the troops in Germany, McCain would have argued that he was using the troops for political gain (as the trip to Europe was a political trip). If Obama would have cancelled (as he did) to avoid that perception, then you see their comments now.
Can you believe a politician complaining that the opponent did not visit more people while on a campaign trip? Not only was the pentagon that show "concerns", but it is also highly inappropriate of McCain to criticize Obama on this and it shows the level of desperation, emptiness and lack of message and solutions of McCain.
Friday, July 25, 2008
CBS News needs to broadcast the complete John McCain interview from the July 22 Evening News
This looks to me like another proof of the love affair of the media with John McCain. They decided long time ago that John McCain just deserves to be President.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
CNN: Rep. Wilson calls Obama 'frighteningly inexperienced'
Obama is frrrrrrightening...brrrrr....buuuuu!
I am sure Obama is very frightening...but to republicans. Change is always frightening to lovers of inaction and status quo.
But I am sure that for the soldiers in Iraq, the unemployed and the uninsured at home, they all crave for the change and hope that Obama brings and November 4 can't just arrive fast enough.
On Experience - Dick Cheney and Ronald Rumsfeld. Two of the most experienced public figures in D.C. Rumsfeld had proven himself to be the most inept war manager. Under Cheney's presidency our economy, our constitution and our global standing are down the drain.
And for McCain, he is so experienced that after 40+ years in Washington and public service, what does he offer as solutions...to continue Bush presidency for 3rd term and Cheney's policies for 4 more years...
WOW! that experience in action!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
When press, the public and organizations will take a closer look to McCain's record toward women?
When press, the public and organizations will take a closer look to McCain's record toward women?
I am not referring to his record toward women access to birth control, women's rights to privacy healthcare or women rights in the workplace. That record is clearly horrible. I am referring to what appears to be a clear record of abuse and misogynistic behaviour and mentality.
McCain divorced his first wife who was an injured woman and after she waited all those years for him while he was a POW. And only five weeks later he marries the multimillionaire Cindy (probably for her money and influence). It is not too difficult to see that there was adultery involved. Then there has been constant reports that McCain has abused Cindy, if not physically, at least psychologically (she got addicted to prescription drugs and spousal abuse could be the root of it).
Add to the equation that McCain's has a record of hot temper. Add also his "jokes" against women (like the "joke" that women who get raped savagely really enjoy it).
McCain was a POW for many year, so he suffered lots of abuses that leave psychological damages and probably left sentiments and repressed anger that may very well manifest in violence. John McCain's famous public demonstration of hot temper could very well be only the somewhat controlled manifestation of that anger. But in private, that repressed anger may very well be manifested as violence against the people close to him...like his wife for example.
In summary, I see a disturbing pattern of a mentality that thinks less of women, a pattern of aggression and violence that also reflects against women. A person that is someway mentally disturbed and damaged.
If this is the person that aspires to be the next commander in chief, I hope that someone better really scrutinizes this person's psychological and mental health before it's too late.
I am not referring to his record toward women access to birth control, women's rights to privacy healthcare or women rights in the workplace. That record is clearly horrible. I am referring to what appears to be a clear record of abuse and misogynistic behaviour and mentality.
McCain divorced his first wife who was an injured woman and after she waited all those years for him while he was a POW. And only five weeks later he marries the multimillionaire Cindy (probably for her money and influence). It is not too difficult to see that there was adultery involved. Then there has been constant reports that McCain has abused Cindy, if not physically, at least psychologically (she got addicted to prescription drugs and spousal abuse could be the root of it).
Add to the equation that McCain's has a record of hot temper. Add also his "jokes" against women (like the "joke" that women who get raped savagely really enjoy it).
McCain was a POW for many year, so he suffered lots of abuses that leave psychological damages and probably left sentiments and repressed anger that may very well manifest in violence. John McCain's famous public demonstration of hot temper could very well be only the somewhat controlled manifestation of that anger. But in private, that repressed anger may very well be manifested as violence against the people close to him...like his wife for example.
In summary, I see a disturbing pattern of a mentality that thinks less of women, a pattern of aggression and violence that also reflects against women. A person that is someway mentally disturbed and damaged.
If this is the person that aspires to be the next commander in chief, I hope that someone better really scrutinizes this person's psychological and mental health before it's too late.
The Hill: Maliki: 'Obama is right' about troop withdrawal
Day after day and development after development, evrything shows that only OBAMA has the judgement, intelligence and courage to lead this country in the right direction; domestically and internationally.
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http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/maliki-obama-is-right-about-troop-withdrawal-2008-07-19.html
Maliki: 'Obama is right' about troop withdrawal
By Klaus Marre
Posted: 07/19/08 10:33 AM [ET]
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has backed the withdrawal plans of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, saying the Illinois senator “is right” when he talks about withdrawing U.S. troops within 16 months.
Maliki also appeared to disagree with Republican presidential candidate John McCain on other issues, such as the importance of the surge in making Iraq more secure and whether troop withdrawal equates surrender, as the Arizona senator has indicated.
Asked in an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel of when he would like to see American forces leave Iraq, Maliki said: “As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned.” He then added that “Obama is right when he talks about 16 months. Assuming that positive developments continue, this is about the same time period that corresponds to our wishes.”
The White House announced Friday that Maliki and President Bush agreed that there should not be any artificial withdrawal timelines and that troop reductions should be tied to situations on the ground. However, while saying that he is not making an endorsement in the U.S. election, the Iraqi prime minister left little doubt that the Iraqi people and its government prefer Obama’s plan.
“Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems,” he said, adding, “Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.”
The Iraqi prime minister argued that the troop surge was not the main reason that violence in his country has been curbed.
“There are many factors, but I see them in the following order. First, there is the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve in central Iraq. This has enabled us, above all, to pull the plug on al-Qaida,” Maliki stated when asked what had contributed to the improvement of conditions in the Middle Eastern country. “Second, there is the progress being made by our security forces. Third, there is the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias. Finally, of course, there is the economic recovery.”
With regard to working on a bilateral agreement that covers U.S.-Iraqi cooperation on many sectors, including security, the economy, culture and health, Maliki said the Bush administration has “had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat.”
“But that isn't the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaeda and the militias,” he stated.
Maliki's comments come as Obama is visiting the Middle East, including Afghanistan and Iraq.
-----------------
http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/maliki-obama-is-right-about-troop-withdrawal-2008-07-19.html
Maliki: 'Obama is right' about troop withdrawal
By Klaus Marre
Posted: 07/19/08 10:33 AM [ET]
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has backed the withdrawal plans of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, saying the Illinois senator “is right” when he talks about withdrawing U.S. troops within 16 months.
Maliki also appeared to disagree with Republican presidential candidate John McCain on other issues, such as the importance of the surge in making Iraq more secure and whether troop withdrawal equates surrender, as the Arizona senator has indicated.
Asked in an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel of when he would like to see American forces leave Iraq, Maliki said: “As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned.” He then added that “Obama is right when he talks about 16 months. Assuming that positive developments continue, this is about the same time period that corresponds to our wishes.”
The White House announced Friday that Maliki and President Bush agreed that there should not be any artificial withdrawal timelines and that troop reductions should be tied to situations on the ground. However, while saying that he is not making an endorsement in the U.S. election, the Iraqi prime minister left little doubt that the Iraqi people and its government prefer Obama’s plan.
“Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems,” he said, adding, “Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.”
The Iraqi prime minister argued that the troop surge was not the main reason that violence in his country has been curbed.
“There are many factors, but I see them in the following order. First, there is the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve in central Iraq. This has enabled us, above all, to pull the plug on al-Qaida,” Maliki stated when asked what had contributed to the improvement of conditions in the Middle Eastern country. “Second, there is the progress being made by our security forces. Third, there is the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias. Finally, of course, there is the economic recovery.”
With regard to working on a bilateral agreement that covers U.S.-Iraqi cooperation on many sectors, including security, the economy, culture and health, Maliki said the Bush administration has “had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat.”
“But that isn't the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaeda and the militias,” he stated.
Maliki's comments come as Obama is visiting the Middle East, including Afghanistan and Iraq.
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