John McCain has approved a multitude of lies against Senator Barack Obama. It is the old propaganda technique of “if you repeat it enough, people will think it is true.” But he and his campaign’s continued use of lies and half-truths is doing a terrible thing to the morals of America.
Any devout Christian, Jew, or Muslim worth his or her salt should decry the terrible example the McCain-Palin lies give to our children and youth. What is honorable about telling lies?
Writer Joe Klein, in Time magazine, points out that McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. "His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent—and witting—disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both."
Klein also writes that worse than the lies have been the smears, such as when McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) It appears, says Klein, “that the McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions.” I could not agree more.
McCain's campaign has been a series of snide and demeaning ads accompanied by the daily gush of untruths that have now been widely documented and exposed. As Klein writes, “the strategy is an obvious attempt to camouflage the current unpopularity of his Republican brand, the insubstantiality of his vice-presidential choice, and his agreement on most issues — especially economic matters — with an exceedingly unpopular President.”
Jonathan Chait writes in the New Republic that “McCain's untruths, in their frequency and their audacity, defy any modern historical precedent. He has been concocting falsehoods for months on end, all of which serve a clear political purpose.
Chait reveals that even after Sarah Palin’s lie that she said “no to the Bridge to Nowhere”, was revealed, and that she had, in fact, vigorously championed the project until it was no longer tenable, the McCain campaign continued to assert it anyway, day after day, dozens of times in all. Even after its falseness had been affirmed in almost every media outlet, they kept playing the untrue ads.
Chait states that what happened after that was even more unusual, and possibly without precedent: McCain's supporters simply suggested that the truth or falsity of their statements didn't matter. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said this to Politico about the increased media scrutiny of the campaign's factual claims: "We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."
Republican strategist John Feehery made the point even more bluntly, telling The Washington Post: "The more The New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there, and the bigger truths are: She's new, she's popular in Alaska, and she is an insurgent." Then, he added, "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."
This reminds me of the time, years ago, when I was a night manager at a Burger King in central Florida, when I called the police on a group of young people (who none of us had ever seen before) who were soliciting donations for an alleged youth center in town, using particularly aggressive techniques, and bothering customers. The police came and investigated, discovering there was no youth center really planned, and the young people were actually from Miami – they were “Moonies” affiliated with the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, and they went by the motto, “a lie to stop a bigger lie is not a lie at all.”
Well, sorry Rev. Moon, but I called it a lie then, and I call what McCain and his henchmen are doing a bunch of lies in our time. This is an insidious thing the Republicans are doing here, folks, and it is ruining our country.
Chait writes with a wonderful clarity: “Here we have the distilled essence of the McCain campaign's ethos: Perception is reality. Facts don't matter. McCain has presented himself as the grizzled champion of timeworn values. But the defining trait of his candidacy turns out to be a postmodern disdain for truth. How could McCain--a man widely regarded, not so long ago, as one of the country's most honor-bound politicians, and therefore an unusually honest one--have descended to this ignominious low?”
Well, Jonathan, and everyone else, I will tell you. McCain went to the prevarication bed with the Bush boys and girls and they converted him to Bush-Rove politics – which is lying, cheating, and smearing at the lowest possible levels.
It got Bush-Cheney elected twice. That was a travesty. But the even bigger problem is that it is also how Bush-Cheney governed.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Erratic McCain, With His Flipflop Thinking and Pinball Decision Making, is Too Reckless to Trust
Here we are with our nation in shambles because of Republican mistakes. There has been a terrible lack of leadership and oversight from the Bush-Cheney White House. McCain-Palin, stocked with Bush aides and ideas. promises to be just more of the same. Four more years of the last eight years.
An economic Katrina has been shattering the confidence of hardworking, middle-class Americans. The war that should never have been in Iraq is dragging on way too long, draining our economy of $10 billion a month that could be used at home for things that matter, like education, better health care, and much needed repaired roads and bridges. We need a change of direction with new drivers at the wheel, not the same folks under a different name at the top.
At a time of huge challenge, the candidate with the intelligence, temperament and judgment to lead our nation to a better place is Sen. Barack Obama. Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent.
Obama is a young visionary, not as long in the tooth as McCain, but Obama is also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that is actually a good thing. We need a president who is the smartest person in the room, not a hot-tempered flyboy or a blank slate beauty pageant runner-up. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.
As Clive Crook writes in the Financial Times about Obama’s performance in the current financial crisis: “I do think Mr Obama is handling the crisis much better than Mr McCain - not because he is suggesting better remedies (he continues to say little), but because his instinct to reflect before opening his mouth and his impeccable taste in advisers are both working to his advantage. These factors, I think, are much more important than the supposed popularity of standard Democratic positions on economic management.
“Unlike Mr McCain, Mr Obama offers no instant bold responses needing to be qualified or withdrawn or forgotten soon after. As ever, he looks calm, methodical and unruffled - and has his picture taken in conference with Paul Volcker, Bob Rubin and Larry Summers, who command wide respect. His response may be thin, so far, on content, but it is an altogether more reassuring posture than his rival's tendency to hasty and exaggerated certainty. This difference of intellectual temperament has often been seen as one of Obama's biggest drawbacks, including by many of his own supporters. But the complexities of the crisis are putting those traits in a much better light.”
McCain’s mercurial temperament and pinball machine style of decision-making has been on full display in recent weeks, as he lurches from one side to another, sometimes having different positions on the same issue within a few hours. And McCain and his Bush-Rove henchmen proudly proclaim him and Palin as “the original mavericks”, as if that is a wonderful thing. Actually, it just speaks to their instability.
As Matthew Dominowski points out in the Staten Island Notebook, The classic definition of the word maverick is said to derive from an Old West rancher named Sam Maverick, who didn't bother to brand his cattle. “That can't be what McCain's referring to,” Dominowski remarks, “The Republican brand on him is pretty clear and visible."
Dominowski tells us that the term maverick eventually came to refer to an unbranded range calf that, through carelessness or willful recklessness has become separated from its mother. Any cowboy will tell you that mavericks are quickly rounded up and returned to the herd, lest they get picked off by wolves or a mountain lion, or rustled by some of the bad guys out there.
That is McCain in a snapshot – a renegade range calf, willfully reckless – we know he fancies himself as being unpredictable, trying to posit that as some kind of strength. But he has shown himself to be just what the dictionary definition of unpredictable is: capricious, changeable, erratic, fickle, inconsistent, inconstant, mercurial, temperamental, uncertain, unstable, unsteady, variable, volatile…there are more synonyms, but the point is made.
I ask you America, are these the qualities you want in the President of the United States, the man (or woman) with a finger on the nuclear button?
An economic Katrina has been shattering the confidence of hardworking, middle-class Americans. The war that should never have been in Iraq is dragging on way too long, draining our economy of $10 billion a month that could be used at home for things that matter, like education, better health care, and much needed repaired roads and bridges. We need a change of direction with new drivers at the wheel, not the same folks under a different name at the top.
At a time of huge challenge, the candidate with the intelligence, temperament and judgment to lead our nation to a better place is Sen. Barack Obama. Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent.
Obama is a young visionary, not as long in the tooth as McCain, but Obama is also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that is actually a good thing. We need a president who is the smartest person in the room, not a hot-tempered flyboy or a blank slate beauty pageant runner-up. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.
As Clive Crook writes in the Financial Times about Obama’s performance in the current financial crisis: “I do think Mr Obama is handling the crisis much better than Mr McCain - not because he is suggesting better remedies (he continues to say little), but because his instinct to reflect before opening his mouth and his impeccable taste in advisers are both working to his advantage. These factors, I think, are much more important than the supposed popularity of standard Democratic positions on economic management.
“Unlike Mr McCain, Mr Obama offers no instant bold responses needing to be qualified or withdrawn or forgotten soon after. As ever, he looks calm, methodical and unruffled - and has his picture taken in conference with Paul Volcker, Bob Rubin and Larry Summers, who command wide respect. His response may be thin, so far, on content, but it is an altogether more reassuring posture than his rival's tendency to hasty and exaggerated certainty. This difference of intellectual temperament has often been seen as one of Obama's biggest drawbacks, including by many of his own supporters. But the complexities of the crisis are putting those traits in a much better light.”
McCain’s mercurial temperament and pinball machine style of decision-making has been on full display in recent weeks, as he lurches from one side to another, sometimes having different positions on the same issue within a few hours. And McCain and his Bush-Rove henchmen proudly proclaim him and Palin as “the original mavericks”, as if that is a wonderful thing. Actually, it just speaks to their instability.
As Matthew Dominowski points out in the Staten Island Notebook, The classic definition of the word maverick is said to derive from an Old West rancher named Sam Maverick, who didn't bother to brand his cattle. “That can't be what McCain's referring to,” Dominowski remarks, “The Republican brand on him is pretty clear and visible."
Dominowski tells us that the term maverick eventually came to refer to an unbranded range calf that, through carelessness or willful recklessness has become separated from its mother. Any cowboy will tell you that mavericks are quickly rounded up and returned to the herd, lest they get picked off by wolves or a mountain lion, or rustled by some of the bad guys out there.
That is McCain in a snapshot – a renegade range calf, willfully reckless – we know he fancies himself as being unpredictable, trying to posit that as some kind of strength. But he has shown himself to be just what the dictionary definition of unpredictable is: capricious, changeable, erratic, fickle, inconsistent, inconstant, mercurial, temperamental, uncertain, unstable, unsteady, variable, volatile…there are more synonyms, but the point is made.
I ask you America, are these the qualities you want in the President of the United States, the man (or woman) with a finger on the nuclear button?
Sunday, September 28, 2008
McCain's Poor Judgment Showcased in Palin Choice -- He is Unstable, Erractic Maverick
Where was the great Barracuda Pit Bull, Sarah Palin, after the debates? She was invisible. Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden was on numerous channels on Friday, supporting his campaign partner Barack Obama. Biden's counterpart, Palin, was nowhere to be seen. So where's Sarah? For what must be obvious reasons, Palin is being kept on a short leash by the McCain campaign.
Palin remains out of her league and far from presidential. McCain's camp knows this, of course, which explains why Gov. Palin is staying out of sight and far from open microphones. And it just amplifies the questionable, dangerous judgement of McCain.
If you want to know about Sarah Palin, take a look at people who know her best – Alaskans. Many have serious questions about why McCain picked such a novice to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
"It's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency." The Anchorage Daily News
From the Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks: "Sen. John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate was a stunning decision that should make Alaskans proud, even while we wonder about the actual merits of the choice.... Alaskans and Americans must ask, though, whether she should become vice president and, more importantly, be placed first in line to become president…Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's interests when he created the possibility that she might fill it."
And you have to see the great wisdom in what the Republican State Senate President Lyda Green said: "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Even presidential scholars are astounded at Palin's minuscule educational background and qualifications. Presidential scholars say she appears to be the least experienced, least credentialed person to join a major-party ticket in the modern era. So unconventional was McCain’s choice that it left scholars of the presidency literally “stunned,” in the words of Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and scholar of the vice presidency. “Being governor of a small state for less than two years is not consistent with the normal criteria for determining who’s of presidential caliber,” said Goldstein.
Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Christian evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, wrote powerfully, and with a bit of well-founded fear, about the warped political strategy behind it all -- in the Huffington Post: “We have seen the next Mussolini and she's wearing a skirt. Don't let Palin's "hockey mom" image fool you. Sarah Palin is the face of a post-democracy America, post-constitutional and post-freedom America. She is the home town "little Austrian" vice presidential candidate to a cancer-riddled old man who, chances are high, won't see the end of his first term in office if he becomes president due to illness and old age. The woman who said that we don't need to read people their rights (in her acceptance speech) may well be the next president.”
This is the path that America is on with Palin and McCain. Severe lack of knowledge of foreign affairs does not matter to this bunch. Palin looks good in designer glasses and that is all they need. She is not part of the dreaded “educated elite!” as conservative radio talk show hosts proudly proclaim, like being a dumb ox is worthy of a medal of valor. Talk about the dumbing down of America!
“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek, a Woodrow Wilson fellow and professor at Virginia Tech.
That should be enough to cause one to vote for Obama and Biden. Who picked this hot air, photo op candidate to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? Why John McCain, he who was officially found, by the bi-partisan Senate investigation, to have exercised “poor judgment” in the Keating Five scandal, which was another financial mess he helped create.
McCain still has a double portion of poor judgment! Witness Sarah Palin. We cannot risk him as President of the United States.
Palin remains out of her league and far from presidential. McCain's camp knows this, of course, which explains why Gov. Palin is staying out of sight and far from open microphones. And it just amplifies the questionable, dangerous judgement of McCain.
If you want to know about Sarah Palin, take a look at people who know her best – Alaskans. Many have serious questions about why McCain picked such a novice to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
"It's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency." The Anchorage Daily News
From the Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks: "Sen. John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate was a stunning decision that should make Alaskans proud, even while we wonder about the actual merits of the choice.... Alaskans and Americans must ask, though, whether she should become vice president and, more importantly, be placed first in line to become president…Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's interests when he created the possibility that she might fill it."
And you have to see the great wisdom in what the Republican State Senate President Lyda Green said: "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Even presidential scholars are astounded at Palin's minuscule educational background and qualifications. Presidential scholars say she appears to be the least experienced, least credentialed person to join a major-party ticket in the modern era. So unconventional was McCain’s choice that it left scholars of the presidency literally “stunned,” in the words of Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and scholar of the vice presidency. “Being governor of a small state for less than two years is not consistent with the normal criteria for determining who’s of presidential caliber,” said Goldstein.
Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Christian evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, wrote powerfully, and with a bit of well-founded fear, about the warped political strategy behind it all -- in the Huffington Post: “We have seen the next Mussolini and she's wearing a skirt. Don't let Palin's "hockey mom" image fool you. Sarah Palin is the face of a post-democracy America, post-constitutional and post-freedom America. She is the home town "little Austrian" vice presidential candidate to a cancer-riddled old man who, chances are high, won't see the end of his first term in office if he becomes president due to illness and old age. The woman who said that we don't need to read people their rights (in her acceptance speech) may well be the next president.”
This is the path that America is on with Palin and McCain. Severe lack of knowledge of foreign affairs does not matter to this bunch. Palin looks good in designer glasses and that is all they need. She is not part of the dreaded “educated elite!” as conservative radio talk show hosts proudly proclaim, like being a dumb ox is worthy of a medal of valor. Talk about the dumbing down of America!
“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek, a Woodrow Wilson fellow and professor at Virginia Tech.
That should be enough to cause one to vote for Obama and Biden. Who picked this hot air, photo op candidate to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? Why John McCain, he who was officially found, by the bi-partisan Senate investigation, to have exercised “poor judgment” in the Keating Five scandal, which was another financial mess he helped create.
McCain still has a double portion of poor judgment! Witness Sarah Palin. We cannot risk him as President of the United States.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
I See Bush People! It Does Not Take a Sixth Sense to Know That McCain is Four More Years of Bush
The first debate showed two starkly different visions of America. Barack Obama is looking to the future. The Illinois Senator chose his words carefully, made salient debating points, and was overall a man of grace and reason. He exhibited a calm, reasonable temperament and he has a record of good judgment.
McCain offered more of the same old bromides, the same old people, the same old ways of thinking, all in a herky-jerky, angry style. He lacks the proper temperament and has too poor a record of judgment to be the president of the United States.
McCain is looking to the past, locked in his own ancient memories, and he will give us four more years of the last eight years. After all, when I look at his top campaign staff, I see Bush people. And that should scare any thinking American.
All the proof you need that electing John McCain will continue the Bush White House is that he is surrounded by Bush people in his campaign. Indeed, without the Bush-Cheney soldiers and the ever-present lobbyists, McCain would have no campaign staff. It tells you what a McCain White House would be like – a continuation of the Bush-Cheney White House.
Contrary to the lying ads and cleverly crafted propaganda for the erroneous "McCain is still a 'maverick' idea", the Bush veterans at the core of McCain’s presidential campaign tell the true story. Far from being a group of outsiders to the Republican Party power structure, it is now run largely by skilled operatives who learned their crafts in successive Bush campaigns and various jobs across the Bush government over the past eight years. They know how to get elected (by hook and mostly crook), BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GOVERN!
Heading up day to day campaign operations is Karl Rove-disciple Steve Schmidt. Here is what he did in the Bush-Cheney administration:Spokesman for the Republican National Congressional Campaign Committee; Chief strategist in charge of Supreme Court nominations of Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Chief Justice John Roberts; Counselor and spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney; and a key member of the exclusive "breakfast club" led by top White House adviser Karl Rove that ran President Bush's re-election campaign. (2004).
Also from Bush-Cheney: Senior Advisor Nicolle Wallace, former Bush Communications Director; Senior Advisor Matt McDonald, former Associate Communications Director in Bush White House; Senior Advisor W. Taylpr Griffin, Deputy Communications Director, Bush-Cheney ’04; E-Campaign Director, Micheal Palmer, E Campaign, Bush-Cheney ‘O4; Senior Economic Adviser Gerald Parsky, co-Chair Bush-Cheney; Director of Messaging Brett O’Donnell, debate preparation, Bush ’04. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more.
And the Palin part of the campaign is also overrun by Bush people. According to the New York Times, advising Sarah Palin are a multitude of Bush people, from Mark Wallace, a Bush appointee to the United Nations, to Tucker Eskew, who ran strategic communications for the Bush White House, to Greg Jenkins, who served as the deputy assistant to Bush in his first term and was executive director of the 2004 inauguration. According to the Washington Post, Palin was surrounded on the recent trip home to Alaska recently by operatives deeply rooted in the Bush administration.
Sarah the Barracuda is surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers. Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both.
The ranks of the McCain-Palin team are now full of those Bush-Chemey veterans. Nicolle Wallace, Mark Wallace's wife, was communications director at the White House and is now offering senior-level communications expertise to both McCain and Palin (and joined Palin on her Alaska trip). Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is now McCain's domestic policy adviser (and accompanied Palin to Alaska as well). Bush confidant Mark McKinnon stopped formally advising McCain once Obama became the Democratic nominee -- but he, too, is continuing to advise the group and crafted Cindy McCain's convention speech. A former Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully, wrote Palin's convention speech.
Some of those now working for McCain-Palin have overcome past political conflicts to join the team. In one of the strangest tales of the campaign, McCain has embraced Eskew, who was once reviled by McCain loyalists for his role running Bush's especially nasty 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina, where they LIED about McCain in order to win. But now we see that Eskew not only joined Palin on her trip home to Alaska, but also he is serving as one of her closest aides. Stephen E. Biegun, a former member of Bush's National Security Council, was on the trip, too; he is helping give Palin foreign policy briefings.
Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt worked on the Bush campaigns and, more recently, at the Republican National Committee. Two other Palin press officers, Maria Comella and Ben Porritt, worked on Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. W. Taylor Griffin, who worked on the 2004 campaign, is helping manage Palin's communications effort in Alaska. Another Bush advance pro, Chris Edwards, is helping to stage-manage Palin's appearances around the country.
Judge for yourself. But don’t be fooled by the packaging. If you like what Bush/Cheney has brought us, you might be happy to pull that filthy Republican lever again. But if you think the country is on the wrong track, you must THINK long and hard about voting another way.
If you cannot vote for Obama, who is clearly the most honest, careful, compassionate candidate, then vote for Bob Barr, a decent man not surrounded by Bushites. But for the nation’s sake, do not vote for McCain -- it will just be four more years of the last eight years.
McCain offered more of the same old bromides, the same old people, the same old ways of thinking, all in a herky-jerky, angry style. He lacks the proper temperament and has too poor a record of judgment to be the president of the United States.
McCain is looking to the past, locked in his own ancient memories, and he will give us four more years of the last eight years. After all, when I look at his top campaign staff, I see Bush people. And that should scare any thinking American.
All the proof you need that electing John McCain will continue the Bush White House is that he is surrounded by Bush people in his campaign. Indeed, without the Bush-Cheney soldiers and the ever-present lobbyists, McCain would have no campaign staff. It tells you what a McCain White House would be like – a continuation of the Bush-Cheney White House.
Contrary to the lying ads and cleverly crafted propaganda for the erroneous "McCain is still a 'maverick' idea", the Bush veterans at the core of McCain’s presidential campaign tell the true story. Far from being a group of outsiders to the Republican Party power structure, it is now run largely by skilled operatives who learned their crafts in successive Bush campaigns and various jobs across the Bush government over the past eight years. They know how to get elected (by hook and mostly crook), BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GOVERN!
Heading up day to day campaign operations is Karl Rove-disciple Steve Schmidt. Here is what he did in the Bush-Cheney administration:Spokesman for the Republican National Congressional Campaign Committee; Chief strategist in charge of Supreme Court nominations of Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Chief Justice John Roberts; Counselor and spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney; and a key member of the exclusive "breakfast club" led by top White House adviser Karl Rove that ran President Bush's re-election campaign. (2004).
Also from Bush-Cheney: Senior Advisor Nicolle Wallace, former Bush Communications Director; Senior Advisor Matt McDonald, former Associate Communications Director in Bush White House; Senior Advisor W. Taylpr Griffin, Deputy Communications Director, Bush-Cheney ’04; E-Campaign Director, Micheal Palmer, E Campaign, Bush-Cheney ‘O4; Senior Economic Adviser Gerald Parsky, co-Chair Bush-Cheney; Director of Messaging Brett O’Donnell, debate preparation, Bush ’04. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more.
And the Palin part of the campaign is also overrun by Bush people. According to the New York Times, advising Sarah Palin are a multitude of Bush people, from Mark Wallace, a Bush appointee to the United Nations, to Tucker Eskew, who ran strategic communications for the Bush White House, to Greg Jenkins, who served as the deputy assistant to Bush in his first term and was executive director of the 2004 inauguration. According to the Washington Post, Palin was surrounded on the recent trip home to Alaska recently by operatives deeply rooted in the Bush administration.
Sarah the Barracuda is surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers. Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both.
The ranks of the McCain-Palin team are now full of those Bush-Chemey veterans. Nicolle Wallace, Mark Wallace's wife, was communications director at the White House and is now offering senior-level communications expertise to both McCain and Palin (and joined Palin on her Alaska trip). Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is now McCain's domestic policy adviser (and accompanied Palin to Alaska as well). Bush confidant Mark McKinnon stopped formally advising McCain once Obama became the Democratic nominee -- but he, too, is continuing to advise the group and crafted Cindy McCain's convention speech. A former Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully, wrote Palin's convention speech.
Some of those now working for McCain-Palin have overcome past political conflicts to join the team. In one of the strangest tales of the campaign, McCain has embraced Eskew, who was once reviled by McCain loyalists for his role running Bush's especially nasty 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina, where they LIED about McCain in order to win. But now we see that Eskew not only joined Palin on her trip home to Alaska, but also he is serving as one of her closest aides. Stephen E. Biegun, a former member of Bush's National Security Council, was on the trip, too; he is helping give Palin foreign policy briefings.
Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt worked on the Bush campaigns and, more recently, at the Republican National Committee. Two other Palin press officers, Maria Comella and Ben Porritt, worked on Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. W. Taylor Griffin, who worked on the 2004 campaign, is helping manage Palin's communications effort in Alaska. Another Bush advance pro, Chris Edwards, is helping to stage-manage Palin's appearances around the country.
Judge for yourself. But don’t be fooled by the packaging. If you like what Bush/Cheney has brought us, you might be happy to pull that filthy Republican lever again. But if you think the country is on the wrong track, you must THINK long and hard about voting another way.
If you cannot vote for Obama, who is clearly the most honest, careful, compassionate candidate, then vote for Bob Barr, a decent man not surrounded by Bushites. But for the nation’s sake, do not vote for McCain -- it will just be four more years of the last eight years.
Friday, September 26, 2008
John "Pinocchio" McCain, Says One Thing, Does Another, Playing Games With America's Future
So that famous “only one task at a time” candidate, John “Pinocchio” McCain, “suspended” his campaign (although his campaign ads still ran, and Sarah Palin still made appearances, and offices were open, and it seemed he lied about the suspension, too). The nation’s erstwhile economic savior went back to Washington where a deal seemed to be forming to bail the country out of the mess he helped start. And then, once he got there, with all his grandstanding and photo-opping, the wheels of the negotiations fell off. Thanks McCain! You really made a difference.
The current Republican Administration came up with the idea of the bailout. Bush himself said the situation was dire. The Federal Reserve chairman warned of terrible results if nothing was done. The working plan was presented by the Republican Treasury secretary. Republicans and Democrats had worked together for seven days on a compromise plan based on the original Republican administration plan. Now, if you hear Republicans on television, the bailout was a Democrat idea. Give me a break!
Now McCain gets to town, and since the Republicans are running against themselves this year, the House Republicans have revolted, and I suspect his devious campaign is behind it. They want to solve their totally free market mess with more of the questionable economics that got us here. Oh, let's just throw some more gasoline on that fire!
This is what happens when you play politics with our children’s future, which the Republicans have been doing for the last eight years. McCain pulled what pundit Pat Buchanan called a “Hail Mary pass.” I describe it not with a sports analogy, but a literary one: it was a Trojan Horse maneuver, deceitfully seeming to be one thing, but being done for deviously self-serving reasons. He hit the reset button of the news cycle to take attention away from Palin’s ineptness, his own complicity in the financial collapse, and his campaign manager’s revealing scandal.
Yes, my friends, John McCain’s campaign manager, the wonderfully duplicitous Rick Davis, super lobbyist, was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say, according to the New York Times and Newsweek.
McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. But he is in cahoots with one!
Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played a large role in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000.
“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.
Newsweek reports that “Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's vice president for external relations, because "he [Davis] was John McCain's campaign manager and it was felt you couldn't say no," said one of the sources.”
The New York Times reports that one of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Davis. Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, paid Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort. Davis took a leave of absence in 2006 to run McCain’s campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder he continues to benefit from income of Davis & Manafort.
Apparently, Davis did next to nothing for the money. Columnist Andrew Sullivan says thus “was classic corporate insurance, shaken down by someone in their pocket.” And this person, Davis, is running the McCain campaign, and it was he who told the Washington Post that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues.
"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." Obviously, this is the Republican strategy – distract the voters from the issues and the supreme fact that POLICIES, not personality, REALLY MATTER! (In other words, do things razzle-dazzle things like “suspend” your campaign.)
Meanwhile, McCain has no clue on the Davis scandal, as he seems to have no clue about Palin:
In an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, McCain responded to a question about Davis's role in the advocacy group through 2005 by saying that his campaign manager "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it." Yeah, right! McCain’s right hand man was a key cog in the terrible collapse. Do you really want this bunch giving us four more years of the last eight years?
Or, perhaps better stated, as columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote in The Daily Dish this week, “Do we really want an out-of-it president surrounded by corporate lobbying sleazeballs?”
The current Republican Administration came up with the idea of the bailout. Bush himself said the situation was dire. The Federal Reserve chairman warned of terrible results if nothing was done. The working plan was presented by the Republican Treasury secretary. Republicans and Democrats had worked together for seven days on a compromise plan based on the original Republican administration plan. Now, if you hear Republicans on television, the bailout was a Democrat idea. Give me a break!
Now McCain gets to town, and since the Republicans are running against themselves this year, the House Republicans have revolted, and I suspect his devious campaign is behind it. They want to solve their totally free market mess with more of the questionable economics that got us here. Oh, let's just throw some more gasoline on that fire!
This is what happens when you play politics with our children’s future, which the Republicans have been doing for the last eight years. McCain pulled what pundit Pat Buchanan called a “Hail Mary pass.” I describe it not with a sports analogy, but a literary one: it was a Trojan Horse maneuver, deceitfully seeming to be one thing, but being done for deviously self-serving reasons. He hit the reset button of the news cycle to take attention away from Palin’s ineptness, his own complicity in the financial collapse, and his campaign manager’s revealing scandal.
Yes, my friends, John McCain’s campaign manager, the wonderfully duplicitous Rick Davis, super lobbyist, was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say, according to the New York Times and Newsweek.
McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. But he is in cahoots with one!
Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played a large role in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000.
“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.
Newsweek reports that “Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's vice president for external relations, because "he [Davis] was John McCain's campaign manager and it was felt you couldn't say no," said one of the sources.”
The New York Times reports that one of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Davis. Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, paid Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort. Davis took a leave of absence in 2006 to run McCain’s campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder he continues to benefit from income of Davis & Manafort.
Apparently, Davis did next to nothing for the money. Columnist Andrew Sullivan says thus “was classic corporate insurance, shaken down by someone in their pocket.” And this person, Davis, is running the McCain campaign, and it was he who told the Washington Post that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues.
"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." Obviously, this is the Republican strategy – distract the voters from the issues and the supreme fact that POLICIES, not personality, REALLY MATTER! (In other words, do things razzle-dazzle things like “suspend” your campaign.)
Meanwhile, McCain has no clue on the Davis scandal, as he seems to have no clue about Palin:
In an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, McCain responded to a question about Davis's role in the advocacy group through 2005 by saying that his campaign manager "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it." Yeah, right! McCain’s right hand man was a key cog in the terrible collapse. Do you really want this bunch giving us four more years of the last eight years?
Or, perhaps better stated, as columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote in The Daily Dish this week, “Do we really want an out-of-it president surrounded by corporate lobbying sleazeballs?”
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Nicolle Wallace -- Hidden Harridan, Cheshire Cat, Talking Points in Hand, is a Devious Spinner
I just finished watching some of the morning news shows and I want to throw up. The Republican spinmasters were out in force, fashioning what seemed to be truth out of downright lies, as they do so well. They have become word magicians, painting false pictures so well that half the population thinks it is unadulterated truth. Emperor McCain really has no clothes, but the spinmasters make some believe he is arrayed in the finest patriotic, country first threads.
Give me a break. This is political gamesmanship at its most shameless, disguised as something it is most certainly not. Yet here is Nicolle Wallace, the lovely mythmaker and teller of tales, armed with her McCain-Palin talking points,fervently making the case for McCain's "courage." She is such a good actress!
On another channel, there was Douglas Holz-Eakin, he of "McCain developed the Blackberry" fame, using the same talking points. He and McCain and Bush got us into this financial mess with their "totally-free market" ideology, but now they are going to fix it. It is like hiring the arsonist to be your firefighter.
Answer me this: If the campaign is suspended, why are they on television trumpeting McCain? If the campaign is suspended, why were talking points sent out so the suspension could be used politically for McCain's politcal gain?
Yes, you can be sure the Republicans had the lifeblood of their propaganda campaign, the Bush-Rove talking points. CNN reported that the talking points went out. McCain's Colorado campaign director Tom Kise inadvertently sent out the campaign's internal talking points regarding the suspension of the campaign to the media.
The blog Daily Kos posted these talking points. Among them was:
"*John McCain is calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including himself and Senator Obama. *John McCain is directing his campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night's debate until action has been taken to address this crisis.*It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem. This is a time to put our country first. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved."
There are others, but they are laced with the same Bush-Rove bull malarkey. Notice how the campaign theme "country first" is woven into the talking point. If it really was country first, it would be one thing. But it is really politics first, McCain first, a Trojan horse move by people who tell lies with such very straight faces, just like has been done for the last eight years in the Bush-Cheney White House. (Was it not great to hear Bush, who did his best Nero impression with financial crisis, fiddling our money away in Iraq while the financial heart of America burned. But now and he and McCain are casting themselves as saviors of the crisis they enabled to happen.)
It should not surprise anyone that Nicolle Devenish Wallace is so skilled in doublespeak and spin -- she is a Bush-Rove operative, trained in the Rove academy of political lies. Wallace served as communications director for Bush-Cheney '04 and held the same post in the White House at the start of the president's second term. How can anyone ever believe what she says?
This is the same Nicolle Wallace who said on the Joe Scarborough show on September 4th that the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads! Wallace is a shill for McCain-Palin and will say whatever it takes to aid the campaign, whether it is true or not.
And what about the wonderful economic adviser Douglas Holz-Eakin? He was the director of the Republican congress's Congressional Budget Office from 2003-2005, so he is also part of the gang that got America into this mess. But he is good at sticking to talking points, (except when he says McCain helped create the Blackberry, then the wizard behind the curtains is revealed).
The truth is that McCain, campaigning for what will really be Bush's third term, is surrounded by former Bush operatives and big time corporate lobbyists and none of them know what truth is because they always speak in spin. It is their native language.
Pardon me, I need to go upchuck again. I just saw that harridan Nicolle Devenish Wallace on television again. The Cheshire Cat of political liars is let loose again on America.
Give me a break. This is political gamesmanship at its most shameless, disguised as something it is most certainly not. Yet here is Nicolle Wallace, the lovely mythmaker and teller of tales, armed with her McCain-Palin talking points,fervently making the case for McCain's "courage." She is such a good actress!
On another channel, there was Douglas Holz-Eakin, he of "McCain developed the Blackberry" fame, using the same talking points. He and McCain and Bush got us into this financial mess with their "totally-free market" ideology, but now they are going to fix it. It is like hiring the arsonist to be your firefighter.
Answer me this: If the campaign is suspended, why are they on television trumpeting McCain? If the campaign is suspended, why were talking points sent out so the suspension could be used politically for McCain's politcal gain?
Yes, you can be sure the Republicans had the lifeblood of their propaganda campaign, the Bush-Rove talking points. CNN reported that the talking points went out. McCain's Colorado campaign director Tom Kise inadvertently sent out the campaign's internal talking points regarding the suspension of the campaign to the media.
The blog Daily Kos posted these talking points. Among them was:
"*John McCain is calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including himself and Senator Obama. *John McCain is directing his campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night's debate until action has been taken to address this crisis.*It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem. This is a time to put our country first. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved."
There are others, but they are laced with the same Bush-Rove bull malarkey. Notice how the campaign theme "country first" is woven into the talking point. If it really was country first, it would be one thing. But it is really politics first, McCain first, a Trojan horse move by people who tell lies with such very straight faces, just like has been done for the last eight years in the Bush-Cheney White House. (Was it not great to hear Bush, who did his best Nero impression with financial crisis, fiddling our money away in Iraq while the financial heart of America burned. But now and he and McCain are casting themselves as saviors of the crisis they enabled to happen.)
It should not surprise anyone that Nicolle Devenish Wallace is so skilled in doublespeak and spin -- she is a Bush-Rove operative, trained in the Rove academy of political lies. Wallace served as communications director for Bush-Cheney '04 and held the same post in the White House at the start of the president's second term. How can anyone ever believe what she says?
This is the same Nicolle Wallace who said on the Joe Scarborough show on September 4th that the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads! Wallace is a shill for McCain-Palin and will say whatever it takes to aid the campaign, whether it is true or not.
And what about the wonderful economic adviser Douglas Holz-Eakin? He was the director of the Republican congress's Congressional Budget Office from 2003-2005, so he is also part of the gang that got America into this mess. But he is good at sticking to talking points, (except when he says McCain helped create the Blackberry, then the wizard behind the curtains is revealed).
The truth is that McCain, campaigning for what will really be Bush's third term, is surrounded by former Bush operatives and big time corporate lobbyists and none of them know what truth is because they always speak in spin. It is their native language.
Pardon me, I need to go upchuck again. I just saw that harridan Nicolle Devenish Wallace on television again. The Cheshire Cat of political liars is let loose again on America.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Will Calls McCain the Queen of Hearts, But Old Flipflop John is Not Playing with a Full Deck
John McCain's suspension of his campaign is just another desperate campaign tactic disguised as being done for the good of the country. But it is not "Country First," but rather "McCain First." His campaign has been sliding under the sheer weight of its own lies, and he is trying for a "time out" to slow things down so he can attempt to set the "reset button," as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow so aptly put it.
Conservative political columnist George F. Will recently hit a rare home run with his characterization of McCain as the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Certainly, most of the things that he approves for his campaign ads have the truth of a fairy tale, so I agree with Will that McCain's judgment is questionable.
Will writes: "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
Will added: "It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"
I do not think so, not when the person in question is 72 years old. And I feel Barack Obama, one of the smartest, most reliable people in government, is a quick study, and already has quite a bit of knowledge and good judgment, and the experience he does possess is quality experience.
Plus, he will surround himself with good people, not Bush-Cheney retreads and Washington lobbyists like McCain has in his campaign. And the Vice-Presidential choice shows Obama makes clearer, more conservative, (in the best sense of the word), common sense decisions than McCain. He put the whole country at risk with his choice of hockey mom-cypher Sarah Palin.
This suspending the campaign is surely a political gambit, though cloaked in McCain's best "Country First" rhetoric, and it feels like a wild improvisation, as John Dickerson of Slate wrote, with "someone in the McCain team mapped out on his chest: OK, you run to the fire hydrant, cut left, and then when he gets to the Buick, John, you heave it."
It is more of the Flip-Flop Express, the roller coaster ride of positions and ploys that campaign strategist Steve Schmidt (a Bush-Rove operative) plots for good soldier McCain. You must admit, McCain still follows orders well.
Dickinson pointed out that it's not clear what exactly McCain is going to do in Washington. He doesn't sit on any of the relevant committees and everyone is already deep in negotiations. Still, he's coming anyway. It doesn't make much logical sense. (Not much McCain does makes sense in the honorable use of the word). The only way to understand it is politically: As Dickinson states, "In a presidential campaign, the surest sign that a candidate is playing politics on an issue is when he claims not to be playing politics on an issue. The only way for McCain to convince everyone that his intentions are 100 percent pure is for him to drop out of the race completely. A campaign doesn't end—and its distracting affects don't disappear—just because one candidate says so."
In response to McCain, Obama pointed out that he had actually started the bipartisan ball rolling, reaching out to McCain privately earlier in the day to issue a joint statement. McCain then one-upped him and went public. This shows you what a man of honor McCain still is -- NOT! McCain was judged a war hero because he was shot down and spent five and a half years in prison. But so much of his life sense that time, from his failed marriage to the Keating Five to his sellout to Bush in the last eight years (just to be elected President, no matter how much of his soul he had to sell)-- so much of his life shows him to NOT be a man you can trust.
McCain was not only being transparently political in this suspension, but also reckless. Imagine what that recklessness would be like if McCain were in the Oval Office. On Wednesday Joe Biden warned that McCain is actually too risky and dangerous to be a calm, deliberative commander-in-chief. McCain's mercurial, bipolar campaign proves Biden's point.
Yet the people who will vote for McCain, the ostrich-lemming part of America, will think he is a true patriot for suspending his campaign and not wanting to debate. The ostrich-lemmings are usually one or two issue voters -- anti-women's choice or anti-gay rights (even though a gay couple getting married has no real impact on them, the propaganda makes them afraid, so they vote Republican). Or gun lovers, or anti-Mexican folks (they call it immigration, but it is usually racism), or anti-black folks (racism again, even though Obama is half-white). The Republicans win by fear, not by a real look at what is best, overall, for the country as a whole. It is so deeply sad.
Conservative political columnist George F. Will recently hit a rare home run with his characterization of McCain as the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Certainly, most of the things that he approves for his campaign ads have the truth of a fairy tale, so I agree with Will that McCain's judgment is questionable.
Will writes: "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
Will added: "It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"
I do not think so, not when the person in question is 72 years old. And I feel Barack Obama, one of the smartest, most reliable people in government, is a quick study, and already has quite a bit of knowledge and good judgment, and the experience he does possess is quality experience.
Plus, he will surround himself with good people, not Bush-Cheney retreads and Washington lobbyists like McCain has in his campaign. And the Vice-Presidential choice shows Obama makes clearer, more conservative, (in the best sense of the word), common sense decisions than McCain. He put the whole country at risk with his choice of hockey mom-cypher Sarah Palin.
This suspending the campaign is surely a political gambit, though cloaked in McCain's best "Country First" rhetoric, and it feels like a wild improvisation, as John Dickerson of Slate wrote, with "someone in the McCain team mapped out on his chest: OK, you run to the fire hydrant, cut left, and then when he gets to the Buick, John, you heave it."
It is more of the Flip-Flop Express, the roller coaster ride of positions and ploys that campaign strategist Steve Schmidt (a Bush-Rove operative) plots for good soldier McCain. You must admit, McCain still follows orders well.
Dickinson pointed out that it's not clear what exactly McCain is going to do in Washington. He doesn't sit on any of the relevant committees and everyone is already deep in negotiations. Still, he's coming anyway. It doesn't make much logical sense. (Not much McCain does makes sense in the honorable use of the word). The only way to understand it is politically: As Dickinson states, "In a presidential campaign, the surest sign that a candidate is playing politics on an issue is when he claims not to be playing politics on an issue. The only way for McCain to convince everyone that his intentions are 100 percent pure is for him to drop out of the race completely. A campaign doesn't end—and its distracting affects don't disappear—just because one candidate says so."
In response to McCain, Obama pointed out that he had actually started the bipartisan ball rolling, reaching out to McCain privately earlier in the day to issue a joint statement. McCain then one-upped him and went public. This shows you what a man of honor McCain still is -- NOT! McCain was judged a war hero because he was shot down and spent five and a half years in prison. But so much of his life sense that time, from his failed marriage to the Keating Five to his sellout to Bush in the last eight years (just to be elected President, no matter how much of his soul he had to sell)-- so much of his life shows him to NOT be a man you can trust.
McCain was not only being transparently political in this suspension, but also reckless. Imagine what that recklessness would be like if McCain were in the Oval Office. On Wednesday Joe Biden warned that McCain is actually too risky and dangerous to be a calm, deliberative commander-in-chief. McCain's mercurial, bipolar campaign proves Biden's point.
Yet the people who will vote for McCain, the ostrich-lemming part of America, will think he is a true patriot for suspending his campaign and not wanting to debate. The ostrich-lemmings are usually one or two issue voters -- anti-women's choice or anti-gay rights (even though a gay couple getting married has no real impact on them, the propaganda makes them afraid, so they vote Republican). Or gun lovers, or anti-Mexican folks (they call it immigration, but it is usually racism), or anti-black folks (racism again, even though Obama is half-white). The Republicans win by fear, not by a real look at what is best, overall, for the country as a whole. It is so deeply sad.
Senator Hagel, a True American Patriot, Says Sarah Palin is NOT Qualified to Be President
Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska became the nation's most prominent Republican officeholder to publicly question whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has the experience to serve as president. It goes to show we still have some good Republicans, although most of them are on the Un-straight Talk Express headed for Spinville and Propaganda City.
"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published last Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say."
Could Palin lead the country if GOP presidential nominee John McCain could not? "I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president," he said.
McCain and other Republicans have blindly defended Palin's qualifications, citing Alaska's proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska."
Hagel took issue with that. "I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."
Hagel, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, serves alongside Senator Barack Obama and he knows Obama is not a lightweight on foreign relations. Indeed, Obama has immersed himself in the facts and policies that will make America a respected leader in the world once again.
Not only is Palin a cipher in foreign relations, no matter that she had a day of photo opportunities at the United Nations yesterday (no questions were allowed from reporters – imagine that!), but her education does not compare to Obama’s, or even Biden’s. He went to Columbia and graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School. Biden has a law degree from Syracuse University.
In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest (playing the flute and winning the "Miss Congeniality" award as well), then finished third (second runner up) in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship. Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College -- now known as Hawaii Pacific University -- in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College. In 1987, Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho. So she has a Bachelor's degree in communications, and no post graduate studies.
Not only is Palin under qualified educationally and experience-wise, but she obviously has little regard for the laws of the land. Sounds a lot like Bush-Cheney, does it not? Palin's husband has refused to testify in the ethics investigation of his wife, and a key lawmaker said Thursday that uncooperative witnesses are effectively sidetracking the inquiry until after Election Day.
Todd Palin, who participates in state business in person or by e-mail, was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. McCain-Palin presidential campaign spokesman, super lawyer Ed O'Callaghan, said Thursday that Todd Palin would not appear, because he no longer believes the investigation is “legitimate.” It is so nice that he and Sarah Barracuda can pick and choose what investigation by the state legislature is legitimate. Give me a break!
State Sen. Bill Wielechowski of Alasaka, a Democrat, said the McCain-Palin campaign is doing all it can to prevent the Legislature from completing a report on whether the GOP's vice presidential nominee abused her power as governor. This shows us what the McCain-Palin administration will be like if elected to office – MORE OF THE SAME: FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE LAST EIGHT, TERRIBLE YEARS! REPUBLICANS DO NOT DESERVE IT, AMERICA! Wake up and fire the party that got us into this mess!
"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published last Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say."
Could Palin lead the country if GOP presidential nominee John McCain could not? "I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president," he said.
McCain and other Republicans have blindly defended Palin's qualifications, citing Alaska's proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska."
Hagel took issue with that. "I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."
Hagel, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, serves alongside Senator Barack Obama and he knows Obama is not a lightweight on foreign relations. Indeed, Obama has immersed himself in the facts and policies that will make America a respected leader in the world once again.
Not only is Palin a cipher in foreign relations, no matter that she had a day of photo opportunities at the United Nations yesterday (no questions were allowed from reporters – imagine that!), but her education does not compare to Obama’s, or even Biden’s. He went to Columbia and graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School. Biden has a law degree from Syracuse University.
In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest (playing the flute and winning the "Miss Congeniality" award as well), then finished third (second runner up) in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship. Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College -- now known as Hawaii Pacific University -- in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College. In 1987, Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho. So she has a Bachelor's degree in communications, and no post graduate studies.
Not only is Palin under qualified educationally and experience-wise, but she obviously has little regard for the laws of the land. Sounds a lot like Bush-Cheney, does it not? Palin's husband has refused to testify in the ethics investigation of his wife, and a key lawmaker said Thursday that uncooperative witnesses are effectively sidetracking the inquiry until after Election Day.
Todd Palin, who participates in state business in person or by e-mail, was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. McCain-Palin presidential campaign spokesman, super lawyer Ed O'Callaghan, said Thursday that Todd Palin would not appear, because he no longer believes the investigation is “legitimate.” It is so nice that he and Sarah Barracuda can pick and choose what investigation by the state legislature is legitimate. Give me a break!
State Sen. Bill Wielechowski of Alasaka, a Democrat, said the McCain-Palin campaign is doing all it can to prevent the Legislature from completing a report on whether the GOP's vice presidential nominee abused her power as governor. This shows us what the McCain-Palin administration will be like if elected to office – MORE OF THE SAME: FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE LAST EIGHT, TERRIBLE YEARS! REPUBLICANS DO NOT DESERVE IT, AMERICA! Wake up and fire the party that got us into this mess!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Will World Leaders Hear More Pegler? -- Palin Quotes Him, Though His Values Are Repugnant
Mrs. Palin goes to New York City. The moose hunting hockey mom is in the big city representing American women to the world. Pray, please pray, for America!
Let us hope she does not quote again her literary hero Westbrook Pegler, who authored one of the key quotes of her well-received (by Republicans and especially the extreme, extreme right) acceptance speech. Pegler's fascist values are not what we want to present to the world as American values.
This untried, untutored small state official, the 20-month governor, who only acquired a passport last year, and admits she has never (so far) met a foreign leader, is now center stage at the United Nations today. The McCain-Bush campaign is trying to cover this incredible gap of knowledge and experience in her resume with a quickie fix of photo opportunities at the U.N. (Even though the Republican Party and its platform is very anti-United Nations!)
The Wall Street Journal's Web site quoted a campaign strategist as saying that next week's gathering would give Mrs. Palin "some exposure and experience with foreign leaders," adding: "It's a great idea." Give me a break! Isn't that really impressive for foreign policy exposure? What a joke, and what a bad one with all of our lives hanging in the balance if and when she ever takes over as president!
What actually will happen is that she will stand in a room with foreign leader. Do you really think she will have substantive talks with them? It is sad that she is representing American women, when so many other women are more qualified. She no HillaryClinton, or Madeline Albrecht or Condoleeza Rice, or Christine Todd Whitman or Kay Bailey Hutchison.. Well, at least foreign leaders will get a good look at Republican Stepford Wife, so that may be helpful to them.
And if Sarah Palin is the "candidate of American values" (as Sean Hannity proclaims --he of softball interview questions that make him a top Fox news propagandist), then what are her real values. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had a salient point when he wrote: "Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”
As some wise folks have pointed out, it might be worth asking Sarah "Barracuda" Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list. Pegler was also a pit bull, but he did not, (as far as we know), wear lipstick. He is not someone that should be quoted in a revering way in a national acceptance speech. But Palin did, and the Republicans said not a discouraging word as they ran like lemmings to the sea to sing her praises. Ah, the power of propaganda! It is sickening.
Let us hope she does not quote again her literary hero Westbrook Pegler, who authored one of the key quotes of her well-received (by Republicans and especially the extreme, extreme right) acceptance speech. Pegler's fascist values are not what we want to present to the world as American values.
This untried, untutored small state official, the 20-month governor, who only acquired a passport last year, and admits she has never (so far) met a foreign leader, is now center stage at the United Nations today. The McCain-Bush campaign is trying to cover this incredible gap of knowledge and experience in her resume with a quickie fix of photo opportunities at the U.N. (Even though the Republican Party and its platform is very anti-United Nations!)
The Wall Street Journal's Web site quoted a campaign strategist as saying that next week's gathering would give Mrs. Palin "some exposure and experience with foreign leaders," adding: "It's a great idea." Give me a break! Isn't that really impressive for foreign policy exposure? What a joke, and what a bad one with all of our lives hanging in the balance if and when she ever takes over as president!
What actually will happen is that she will stand in a room with foreign leader. Do you really think she will have substantive talks with them? It is sad that she is representing American women, when so many other women are more qualified. She no HillaryClinton, or Madeline Albrecht or Condoleeza Rice, or Christine Todd Whitman or Kay Bailey Hutchison.. Well, at least foreign leaders will get a good look at Republican Stepford Wife, so that may be helpful to them.
And if Sarah Palin is the "candidate of American values" (as Sean Hannity proclaims --he of softball interview questions that make him a top Fox news propagandist), then what are her real values. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had a salient point when he wrote: "Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”
As some wise folks have pointed out, it might be worth asking Sarah "Barracuda" Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list. Pegler was also a pit bull, but he did not, (as far as we know), wear lipstick. He is not someone that should be quoted in a revering way in a national acceptance speech. But Palin did, and the Republicans said not a discouraging word as they ran like lemmings to the sea to sing her praises. Ah, the power of propaganda! It is sickening.
Monday, September 22, 2008
McCain is the Incredible Two-Faced Man, A Puppet of the Republican Spinmasters
John McCain has become the Incredible Two-Faced Man. The former Straight Talk Express is now the Flip Flop Special. Witness his "evolving" positions on a wide range of issues, from off-shore drilling to the "fundamentals" of the economy to last week's differing opinions each day on the Wall Street debacle he helped create.
He went every which way on that one and probably will have a different take today. On the other side, Barack Obama has consistently called for more supervision of the Wall Street and housing greed-based juggernaut that has run this nation into the financial wilderness.
Back in 2000 a lot of us were pulling for McCain as he really was a maverick then, fighting Bush in the primaries, and being derailed by the lies of the Karl Rove led campaign. In the infamous South Carolina primary, the Bush forces, never known to let the boundaries of propriety stop them from telling lies, started a massive "whisper" campaign, literally stealing the election with lies. For the full story see "What Bush Did to McCain":
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?forum=8&topic_id=522&az=show_topic
and this article in the Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/banks
as well as this encyclopedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_campaign
Suffice it to say that it was a terrible smear campaign, using racism, and totally below the belt, as Bush-Rove campaigns are. Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.
McCain was badly hurt by those buzzards, but in his ambition, he decided to support Bush (by his own words, more than 90 per cent of the time), he got on board with the Bushians, and for the greater part, he sold out. I guess the old adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" applied to McCain, because he embraced Bush. He went from maverick to foot soldier for Bush-Cheney. Now his campaign is run by Bush operatives and confidants, using the Rovian political game plan.
The Republican mantra is not really "Drill, Baby, Drill." It is "Spin, Baby, Spin." And McCain has become the puppet of the spin masters. It is a sad thing to see.
He went every which way on that one and probably will have a different take today. On the other side, Barack Obama has consistently called for more supervision of the Wall Street and housing greed-based juggernaut that has run this nation into the financial wilderness.
Back in 2000 a lot of us were pulling for McCain as he really was a maverick then, fighting Bush in the primaries, and being derailed by the lies of the Karl Rove led campaign. In the infamous South Carolina primary, the Bush forces, never known to let the boundaries of propriety stop them from telling lies, started a massive "whisper" campaign, literally stealing the election with lies. For the full story see "What Bush Did to McCain":
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?forum=8&topic_id=522&az=show_topic
and this article in the Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/banks
as well as this encyclopedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_campaign
Suffice it to say that it was a terrible smear campaign, using racism, and totally below the belt, as Bush-Rove campaigns are. Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.
McCain was badly hurt by those buzzards, but in his ambition, he decided to support Bush (by his own words, more than 90 per cent of the time), he got on board with the Bushians, and for the greater part, he sold out. I guess the old adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" applied to McCain, because he embraced Bush. He went from maverick to foot soldier for Bush-Cheney. Now his campaign is run by Bush operatives and confidants, using the Rovian political game plan.
The Republican mantra is not really "Drill, Baby, Drill." It is "Spin, Baby, Spin." And McCain has become the puppet of the spin masters. It is a sad thing to see.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Beware of Republicans Bearing Gifts -- McCain's "Health" Plan Guts Employer Coverage
BEWARE MacPalin's health insurance plan, or should I say, non-plan. For those who do not have health insurance, they get what Bush-Cheney offered -- TAX CREDITS -- which is nothing if you do not make enough money to pay taxes or pay little taxes. If you have employer provided insurance, he has something that should make you shudder -- (READ THIS CAREFULLY) --
Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) health plan would eliminate the current tax exclusion of employer payments for health coverage, replace the exclusion with a refundable tax credit for those who purchase coverage, and encourage Americans to move to a national market for nongroup insurance. Middle-range estimates suggest that initially this change will have little impact on the number of uninsured people, although within five years this number will likely grow as the value of the tax credit falls relative to rising health care costs. Moving toward a relatively unregulated nongroup market will tend to raise costs, reduce the generosity of benefits, and leave people with fewer consumer protections. [Health Affairs 27, no. 6 (2008): w472-w481 (published online 16 September 2008; 10.1377/ hlthaff.27.6.w472)]
A description of Senator McCain's plan is available on his Web site and in several speeches he has given.1 These sources reveal a vision of what, from Senator McCain's perspective, a desirable health care system would look like. At its heart, the system he envisions is one in which many more--perhaps most--insured Americans would buy health insurance and health services in a national, relatively unregulated, competitive market, either on their own or as members of fluid, voluntary associations, such as churches or clubs. Because this would be a radical departure from the current system, its likely effects deserve close attention.
Eliminating the tax exclusion would greatly reduce the number of people who obtain health insurance through their employers.7 This decline would be driven by three factors: the effective price of employer-sponsored coverage would increase, the nondiscrimination rules would no longer apply, and low-risk employees would have less incentive to remain in employer-sponsored groups.
According to the respected journal Health Affairs, "Achieving Senator McCain's vision would radically transform the U.S. health insurance system. His plan would alter the nature, source, and financing of coverage for the nearly 160 million Americans who now receive health insurance through their employers. We estimate that twenty million Americans--about one in every eight people with job-based coverage--would lose their current coverage as a result of the change in the tax treatment of coverage. Initially, this loss of job-based coverage would be offset by an increase in coverage in the nongroup market (although not necessarily for the same individuals). Within five years, however, the net effect of the plan is expected to be a net reduction in coverage relative to what would have been observed if the tax treatment of employer-sponsored coverage remains as it is now.
"The decline of job-based coverage would force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system--the nongroup market--where cost sharing is high and covered services are limited. Senator McCain's proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in it would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not, -or someday will not be--in perfect health."
In other words, the McCain-Palin plan will not come near accomplishing national health insurance coverage for all people, or even make more people insured, but actually will result in less people insured, because his plan is an ideological, supposedly "free-market", deregulated plan, not a practical, real-life plan to meet people's real needs. Deregulation is the Republican watchword, and it did so much for us in housing loans and on Wall Street, did't it?
By contrast, the Obama-Biden team has a plan written for real people and real needs. It is pragmatic and puts people first, not ideology. Check their plan out at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ It is a serious plan for helping folks, not a sophisticated smokescreen like the McCain and AMA proposals.
Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) health plan would eliminate the current tax exclusion of employer payments for health coverage, replace the exclusion with a refundable tax credit for those who purchase coverage, and encourage Americans to move to a national market for nongroup insurance. Middle-range estimates suggest that initially this change will have little impact on the number of uninsured people, although within five years this number will likely grow as the value of the tax credit falls relative to rising health care costs. Moving toward a relatively unregulated nongroup market will tend to raise costs, reduce the generosity of benefits, and leave people with fewer consumer protections. [Health Affairs 27, no. 6 (2008): w472-w481 (published online 16 September 2008; 10.1377/ hlthaff.27.6.w472)]
A description of Senator McCain's plan is available on his Web site and in several speeches he has given.1 These sources reveal a vision of what, from Senator McCain's perspective, a desirable health care system would look like. At its heart, the system he envisions is one in which many more--perhaps most--insured Americans would buy health insurance and health services in a national, relatively unregulated, competitive market, either on their own or as members of fluid, voluntary associations, such as churches or clubs. Because this would be a radical departure from the current system, its likely effects deserve close attention.
Eliminating the tax exclusion would greatly reduce the number of people who obtain health insurance through their employers.7 This decline would be driven by three factors: the effective price of employer-sponsored coverage would increase, the nondiscrimination rules would no longer apply, and low-risk employees would have less incentive to remain in employer-sponsored groups.
According to the respected journal Health Affairs, "Achieving Senator McCain's vision would radically transform the U.S. health insurance system. His plan would alter the nature, source, and financing of coverage for the nearly 160 million Americans who now receive health insurance through their employers. We estimate that twenty million Americans--about one in every eight people with job-based coverage--would lose their current coverage as a result of the change in the tax treatment of coverage. Initially, this loss of job-based coverage would be offset by an increase in coverage in the nongroup market (although not necessarily for the same individuals). Within five years, however, the net effect of the plan is expected to be a net reduction in coverage relative to what would have been observed if the tax treatment of employer-sponsored coverage remains as it is now.
"The decline of job-based coverage would force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system--the nongroup market--where cost sharing is high and covered services are limited. Senator McCain's proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in it would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not, -or someday will not be--in perfect health."
In other words, the McCain-Palin plan will not come near accomplishing national health insurance coverage for all people, or even make more people insured, but actually will result in less people insured, because his plan is an ideological, supposedly "free-market", deregulated plan, not a practical, real-life plan to meet people's real needs. Deregulation is the Republican watchword, and it did so much for us in housing loans and on Wall Street, did't it?
By contrast, the Obama-Biden team has a plan written for real people and real needs. It is pragmatic and puts people first, not ideology. Check their plan out at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ It is a serious plan for helping folks, not a sophisticated smokescreen like the McCain and AMA proposals.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Todd Palin Thumbs His Nose at the Law -- One More Abuse of Power by the Power Mad Palins
Now Todd Palin, Mister Sarah Palin, has thumbed his nose at a subpoena. The law does not matter to him or his "wonderful" wife. Does it surprise you that a candidate for the party that has shredded the Constitution the last eight years (the REPUBLICANS) would have a husband with little or no regard for the law?
What is more, his plays for influence in state government raises red flags all over the place. In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, (a good man done dirty by Sister Sarah), one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power? After all, Nancy Murkowski or Susan Knowles (previous Alaska governor's spouses) were never accused of pressuring a commissioner or inappropriately sitting in on meetings that should have been private.
The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels went to a a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd's presence was at meetings with the governor. Last week, on the Alakan televsion Dan Fagan Show, Representative Jay Ramras mentioned that Todd was working lawmakers offices often during the legislative session.
Most alarming indication of Todd Palin's reach into state government is this: last month, a group of Alaskans filed a freedom of information act for emails sent from the computers of both Frank Bailey and Ivey Frye. Along with several boxes of documents, they received a cover letter along with 78 pages detailing the emails that were not released due to "Deliberative Process and Executive Privilege". The serious concern about these emails is that they were prohibited from being released to the public due to executive privilege, even though Todd Palin was copied on these same emails. Todd Palin is not a member of the executive branch, nor is he even a government employee. Todd Palin is a member of the general public. But he has been the shadow governor of Alaska in a very large way. This shows you how the Palins do business -- secretively, like Cheney-Bush.
Sarah Palin initially welcomed the investigation of accusations that she dismissed the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. "Hold me accountable," she said.
But she has increasingly opposed it and she has "covered it all up" since Republican presidential candidate John McCain tapped her as his running mate. The McCain campaign dispatched a legal team to Alaska including the McCain campaign's super lawyer Edward O'Callaghan, a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York to bolster Palin's local lawyer. Mighty high powered help for much ado about nothing. What are they trying to hide with these squash the truth tactics?
Apparently, not only does Sarah Palin abuse her powers, but so does her husband, Todd. Do we want this seemingly power-mad couple just a heartbeat away from the presidency?
What is more, his plays for influence in state government raises red flags all over the place. In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, (a good man done dirty by Sister Sarah), one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power? After all, Nancy Murkowski or Susan Knowles (previous Alaska governor's spouses) were never accused of pressuring a commissioner or inappropriately sitting in on meetings that should have been private.
The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels went to a a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd's presence was at meetings with the governor. Last week, on the Alakan televsion Dan Fagan Show, Representative Jay Ramras mentioned that Todd was working lawmakers offices often during the legislative session.
Most alarming indication of Todd Palin's reach into state government is this: last month, a group of Alaskans filed a freedom of information act for emails sent from the computers of both Frank Bailey and Ivey Frye. Along with several boxes of documents, they received a cover letter along with 78 pages detailing the emails that were not released due to "Deliberative Process and Executive Privilege". The serious concern about these emails is that they were prohibited from being released to the public due to executive privilege, even though Todd Palin was copied on these same emails. Todd Palin is not a member of the executive branch, nor is he even a government employee. Todd Palin is a member of the general public. But he has been the shadow governor of Alaska in a very large way. This shows you how the Palins do business -- secretively, like Cheney-Bush.
Sarah Palin initially welcomed the investigation of accusations that she dismissed the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. "Hold me accountable," she said.
But she has increasingly opposed it and she has "covered it all up" since Republican presidential candidate John McCain tapped her as his running mate. The McCain campaign dispatched a legal team to Alaska including the McCain campaign's super lawyer Edward O'Callaghan, a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York to bolster Palin's local lawyer. Mighty high powered help for much ado about nothing. What are they trying to hide with these squash the truth tactics?
Apparently, not only does Sarah Palin abuse her powers, but so does her husband, Todd. Do we want this seemingly power-mad couple just a heartbeat away from the presidency?
Friday, September 19, 2008
Remember the Keating Five? McCain Exercised "Poor Judgment" Then, And He Still Does Today! Do Not Trust America to Him!
There is no doubt that the Democrats and Barack Obama and Joe Biden can do a better job with our economy that Palin-McCain (as the pit bull with lipstick proclaimed their ticket on Thursday). McCain only offers verbal gymnastics (fundamentals means workers? We all know that is not what he originally meant, but remember the propaganda mantra -- say it enough and a lie becomes truth).
McCain only offers more of the same policies and people that got us into this mess. And remember, he was part of the last such financial collapse, as part of the Keating Five in the Savings and Loan Debacle.
For those of you who do not remember or have not heard, the Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).
After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly, but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment."
Obama is right when he says McCain is sticking with "an economic philosophy that has completely failed, and he represents a party that has embraced this philosophy for years." Sen. Barack Obama laid out his approach to managing the current financial crisis -- promising to play a proactive role if he is elected president in order to prevent future meltdowns.
Obama has delivered a series of economic speeches over the last year-and-a-half on the campaign trail, and he recapped some of his top proposals the last three days. But the core of his argument was against Sen. John McCain, who has a long record of promoting deregulation and who has repeatedly said the fundamentals of the economy are strong.
Obama poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."
"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess," Obama said. "What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election." Obama also pointed to a history of Democratic presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, who commanded the country through rough financial waters. And he hammered McCain repeatedly -- for failing, he said, to grasp the root of the problems and for only belatedly deciding that greater regulation is needed.
"John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," Obama told a crowd of about 2,100 at the Colorado School of Mines on Tuesday."In fact, one of the biggest proponents of deregulation in the financial sector is Phil Gramm -- the same man who helped write John McCain's economic plan," Obama continued. He said Gramm is "the same man who said that we're going through a 'mental recession,' and the same man who called the United States of America a 'nation of whiners.'"
"So it's hard to understand how Senator McCain is going to get us out of this crisis by doing the same things with the same old players," Obama said.Obama, appearing in the same town that the darling of the extreme right, Sarah "Barracuda" Palin, visited a day earlier, drew an enthusiastic response. As he wrapped up his speech, reminded the audience of two statements by key advisers to McCain -- economic adviser Doug Holt-Eakin's claim that McCain had created the BlackBerry, and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's admission that neither Palin nor McCain would be qualified to run a major corporation.
JOHN MCCAIN IS AGAIN EXERCISING "POOR JUDGMENT" JUST AS HE DID AS A MEMBER OF THE KEATING FIVE. He exercised poor judgment in being a non-regulator as a Senator. He exercised poor judgment in buying into the Bush economic plan. He exercised poor judgment in selecting the academic and experience lightwieght, Sarah Palin. He continues to exercise poor judgment in approving the lies of his campaign.
McCain, like Sarah Palin, is proving not prepared to be President. Hers is on resume and integrity. His is on integrity and judgment.
McCain only offers more of the same policies and people that got us into this mess. And remember, he was part of the last such financial collapse, as part of the Keating Five in the Savings and Loan Debacle.
For those of you who do not remember or have not heard, the Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).
After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly, but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment."
Obama is right when he says McCain is sticking with "an economic philosophy that has completely failed, and he represents a party that has embraced this philosophy for years." Sen. Barack Obama laid out his approach to managing the current financial crisis -- promising to play a proactive role if he is elected president in order to prevent future meltdowns.
Obama has delivered a series of economic speeches over the last year-and-a-half on the campaign trail, and he recapped some of his top proposals the last three days. But the core of his argument was against Sen. John McCain, who has a long record of promoting deregulation and who has repeatedly said the fundamentals of the economy are strong.
Obama poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."
"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess," Obama said. "What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election." Obama also pointed to a history of Democratic presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, who commanded the country through rough financial waters. And he hammered McCain repeatedly -- for failing, he said, to grasp the root of the problems and for only belatedly deciding that greater regulation is needed.
"John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," Obama told a crowd of about 2,100 at the Colorado School of Mines on Tuesday."In fact, one of the biggest proponents of deregulation in the financial sector is Phil Gramm -- the same man who helped write John McCain's economic plan," Obama continued. He said Gramm is "the same man who said that we're going through a 'mental recession,' and the same man who called the United States of America a 'nation of whiners.'"
"So it's hard to understand how Senator McCain is going to get us out of this crisis by doing the same things with the same old players," Obama said.Obama, appearing in the same town that the darling of the extreme right, Sarah "Barracuda" Palin, visited a day earlier, drew an enthusiastic response. As he wrapped up his speech, reminded the audience of two statements by key advisers to McCain -- economic adviser Doug Holt-Eakin's claim that McCain had created the BlackBerry, and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's admission that neither Palin nor McCain would be qualified to run a major corporation.
JOHN MCCAIN IS AGAIN EXERCISING "POOR JUDGMENT" JUST AS HE DID AS A MEMBER OF THE KEATING FIVE. He exercised poor judgment in being a non-regulator as a Senator. He exercised poor judgment in buying into the Bush economic plan. He exercised poor judgment in selecting the academic and experience lightwieght, Sarah Palin. He continues to exercise poor judgment in approving the lies of his campaign.
McCain, like Sarah Palin, is proving not prepared to be President. Hers is on resume and integrity. His is on integrity and judgment.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Un-American Palin Poor Choice to Represent America in a Visit to the United Nations
So now John McCain sending Sarah "Barracuda"Palin, the self-described pit bull in lipstick, to the United Nations next week in order to “boost” her foreign policy credentials, according to media reports. The McCain campaign seems to think that having Palin rubbing elbows with the global elite and international bureaucrats will make her look good and somehow give her "instant foreign policy credentials." But that’s like having her visiting Lehman Brothers to accentuate her economic expertise.
Palin and her “Country First” running mate may want to take a look at the Republican Party platform they are supposed to be running on. It is highly critical of the United Nations she will be visiting. The platform calls the U.N. “scandal-ridden and corrupt.” Perhaps McCain should think about these facts before sending "Barracuda" Palin out to meet and greet the world leaders at an institution his and her political party does not respect.
What is more, McCain is sending a woman to represent America who, just a few years ago, supported Alaska seceding from the United States of America. Don’t believe me? John McCain’s crack vetting process (not) may not have found it, but it is a fact that "patriotic" Sarah Palin supported the Alaska Independence Party. A Party that what? Wait for it… advocates seceding from the United States of America.
That’s right. Sarah Palin supported an organization that hates America so much that they want to break up our union, leave the country and become a nation unto themselves (or join Canada— seriously). What’s more un-American than that?
Now a few years later Sarah Palin wants to run a country she advocated leaving? And believe me, wanting to break up The United States of America is not a patriotic stance. Disliking your country so strongly that you not only want to leave it, but want to take one of our 50 great states with you when you go? How is this not unpatriotic?
Please, ask yourself what would happen if Barack Obama or his wife Michelle Obama had belonged to such an organization? Would Sean Hannity ever shut up about this? Would bombastic opportunist Bill O’Reilly get on the bandwagon? Of course he would! Even a draft dodger like Rush Limbaugh would go on and on and on about how un-American the Obamas are, and we’d spend the next six weeks debating whether or not the Obamas love this country.
However, let a Republican advocate breaking up the United States of America and conservatives can’t wait to put her in the White House. Talk about hypocritical! And now she is representing McCain (and our country because of the publicity surrounding her visit) at the United Nations!
How disrespectful!
Palin and her “Country First” running mate may want to take a look at the Republican Party platform they are supposed to be running on. It is highly critical of the United Nations she will be visiting. The platform calls the U.N. “scandal-ridden and corrupt.” Perhaps McCain should think about these facts before sending "Barracuda" Palin out to meet and greet the world leaders at an institution his and her political party does not respect.
What is more, McCain is sending a woman to represent America who, just a few years ago, supported Alaska seceding from the United States of America. Don’t believe me? John McCain’s crack vetting process (not) may not have found it, but it is a fact that "patriotic" Sarah Palin supported the Alaska Independence Party. A Party that what? Wait for it… advocates seceding from the United States of America.
That’s right. Sarah Palin supported an organization that hates America so much that they want to break up our union, leave the country and become a nation unto themselves (or join Canada— seriously). What’s more un-American than that?
Now a few years later Sarah Palin wants to run a country she advocated leaving? And believe me, wanting to break up The United States of America is not a patriotic stance. Disliking your country so strongly that you not only want to leave it, but want to take one of our 50 great states with you when you go? How is this not unpatriotic?
Please, ask yourself what would happen if Barack Obama or his wife Michelle Obama had belonged to such an organization? Would Sean Hannity ever shut up about this? Would bombastic opportunist Bill O’Reilly get on the bandwagon? Of course he would! Even a draft dodger like Rush Limbaugh would go on and on and on about how un-American the Obamas are, and we’d spend the next six weeks debating whether or not the Obamas love this country.
However, let a Republican advocate breaking up the United States of America and conservatives can’t wait to put her in the White House. Talk about hypocritical! And now she is representing McCain (and our country because of the publicity surrounding her visit) at the United Nations!
How disrespectful!
Sarah Palin's Actions are NOT Pro-Family -- Her Choices Do Not Put FAMILY FIRST!
What kind of American pro-family values is Sarah Palin actually promoting? Saint Sarah, christened a paragon of virtue by the Republican propaganda machine, is certainly anti-gay and anti-choice. But are those two incendiary issues enough to be a real pro-family Christian? Is not pro-family putting FAMILY FIRST. No amount of Republican spin can change the fact that this mother chose not to be with her baby or her family in her own home for an extended period of time. She chose celebrity over family.
What is Sarah Palin, mother of five, doing with her family? She has a recently born baby with downs syndrome, but she chose to parade around the country for John McCain. Before you call me sexist, let me say that "traditional" values, which Sarah Palin "seems" to support, have felt a mother's careful care was important to the children in her family. Palin's husband makes enough money that she could have chosen to stay home with the new child, since she chose to bring him into the world.
Dena Fox, a Wasilla, Alaska Christian writing in the Alaska Dispatch on September 3, 2008 raised some questions that must be considered by thoughtful Christians and others in America:
Fox writes: "Considering that the Palin family includes four minors and that the income from either Palin parent would support the family, is this the position of evangelical Christians – for both parents to choose demanding jobs that require frequent and extended absences from home? Up until now, (James) Dobson would have criticized that lifestyle. Now, he calls it a ‘personal matter.’
I would argue that a true pro-family stance insists on far more than not aborting one’s offspring. Responsible parenting acknowledges the need for individuals to take responsibility for their actions starting with the procreative act which brings with it the potential of long-term consequences. These consequences do not come cheap. Caring for a child is emotionally draining, expensive, and time-consuming. Yet, it remains the Christian duty of both parents to ensure that between mother and father, provision and parental presence are available until the child achieves the maturity to make wise choices for him or herself as an adult.
I think evangelicals need to be clear here No, it is not ideal for parents to put career before kids. No, it is not ideal for struggling teens to be forced into the national media by their parents’ decisions. No, it is not ideal for daily hours of therapy young Trig will need to be carried out by people whose congratulatory smile is not Mom’s (or Dad’s) and whose cheers will not likely be, “Who loves Trig? Mama does!”
"Over the past eleven years, I have learned that a child with Down syndrome requires somewhat more time, instruction, and advocacy than my other children. These demands have been intense, but the rewards just as great. I agree with Governor Palin’s assessment that her son is a gift and God’s will for her life. But if it is God’s will that Sarah and Todd Palin raise a child with Down syndrome, it seems just as clear to me that God would will Sarah and Todd to be physically available to hold him, care for him, and – over the next twenty-plus years – raise him.
"It would be nice to think that we could fix America’s broken values by supporting this attractive woman who seems to embody the pro-life value. But I stop short of identifying Palin with pro-family values. No law can change the morality and behavior of immature people who lack solid role models and supervision. More than a law or a position, America needs models of responsible parents raising responsible adults to be responsible parents. Palin may be a fine politician, but hers is not the example of Christian family values my family strives to live by, nor is her model of family values I want my family to emulate.
This is not about politics. By all means, vote Republican if that ticket represents your views. But please, don’t confuse smokescreens and media spin with Christian values. Christ was selfless and sacrificed himself for others. Palin may worship Christ, but in accepting this nomination, may be sacrificing family in order to serve herself."
I agree with Dena Fox on everything except voting Republican -- it is the most anti-family thing you can do. Save Sarah Palin's children -- and the rest of our children -- send her back to Wasilla.
What is Sarah Palin, mother of five, doing with her family? She has a recently born baby with downs syndrome, but she chose to parade around the country for John McCain. Before you call me sexist, let me say that "traditional" values, which Sarah Palin "seems" to support, have felt a mother's careful care was important to the children in her family. Palin's husband makes enough money that she could have chosen to stay home with the new child, since she chose to bring him into the world.
Dena Fox, a Wasilla, Alaska Christian writing in the Alaska Dispatch on September 3, 2008 raised some questions that must be considered by thoughtful Christians and others in America:
Fox writes: "Considering that the Palin family includes four minors and that the income from either Palin parent would support the family, is this the position of evangelical Christians – for both parents to choose demanding jobs that require frequent and extended absences from home? Up until now, (James) Dobson would have criticized that lifestyle. Now, he calls it a ‘personal matter.’
I would argue that a true pro-family stance insists on far more than not aborting one’s offspring. Responsible parenting acknowledges the need for individuals to take responsibility for their actions starting with the procreative act which brings with it the potential of long-term consequences. These consequences do not come cheap. Caring for a child is emotionally draining, expensive, and time-consuming. Yet, it remains the Christian duty of both parents to ensure that between mother and father, provision and parental presence are available until the child achieves the maturity to make wise choices for him or herself as an adult.
I think evangelicals need to be clear here No, it is not ideal for parents to put career before kids. No, it is not ideal for struggling teens to be forced into the national media by their parents’ decisions. No, it is not ideal for daily hours of therapy young Trig will need to be carried out by people whose congratulatory smile is not Mom’s (or Dad’s) and whose cheers will not likely be, “Who loves Trig? Mama does!”
"Over the past eleven years, I have learned that a child with Down syndrome requires somewhat more time, instruction, and advocacy than my other children. These demands have been intense, but the rewards just as great. I agree with Governor Palin’s assessment that her son is a gift and God’s will for her life. But if it is God’s will that Sarah and Todd Palin raise a child with Down syndrome, it seems just as clear to me that God would will Sarah and Todd to be physically available to hold him, care for him, and – over the next twenty-plus years – raise him.
"It would be nice to think that we could fix America’s broken values by supporting this attractive woman who seems to embody the pro-life value. But I stop short of identifying Palin with pro-family values. No law can change the morality and behavior of immature people who lack solid role models and supervision. More than a law or a position, America needs models of responsible parents raising responsible adults to be responsible parents. Palin may be a fine politician, but hers is not the example of Christian family values my family strives to live by, nor is her model of family values I want my family to emulate.
This is not about politics. By all means, vote Republican if that ticket represents your views. But please, don’t confuse smokescreens and media spin with Christian values. Christ was selfless and sacrificed himself for others. Palin may worship Christ, but in accepting this nomination, may be sacrificing family in order to serve herself."
I agree with Dena Fox on everything except voting Republican -- it is the most anti-family thing you can do. Save Sarah Palin's children -- and the rest of our children -- send her back to Wasilla.
You Cannot Vilify with Truth -- Palin Criticism is Justified -- the "Palin Myth" is Crumbling
The Republican propaganda talking point this morning is that Sarah Palin, new darling of the extreme right, has been "vilified" in the media by the left wing Democrats. Here they go again! Facts are just coming out about Palin that are different from the glowing narrative they presented at their myth making convention. So the Republican shills on cable television are chattering anew about how Palin's honor has been attacked, according to them, "unfairly."
Here is woman who ran in no primary, who has not had a regular news conference as a candidate for vice-president for over two weeks, and the Republicans do not want any negative stories or criticism. They want to continue to manipulate and control all media, as they have pretty effectively during the last eight years of Bush-Cheney Republican rule. But a real investigative spotlight will send the Palin Myth crumbling.
They are playing the old change of direction game that they do so well, but which is death to democracy. When Palin gets caught with having a lack of experience or a real-life lack of commitment to conservative family 'values'--it's always THE LEFT who are wrong, not the duplicitous candidate ! Isn't it nice to take things out of context and claim ignorance all at the same time? This is a prime Republican tactic. What is so sad is that it works with half the population.
The truth is that Palin is a lightweight candidate picked for reasons of perceived electability and not on her qualifications to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. There were far better candidates in the Republican party, but she was picked by the bosses to be the one to carry on the Bush legacy, because, I believe, of her malleability. One things the Republicans have proved is that they can get elected, but they do not govern well. Palin goes along with this pattern.
It amazes me how hypocritical the right is on the issue of Palin. If Palin were a democrat with the list of things found out on her, Hannity...Limbaugh...and the right wing bloggers would be having a field day with it.
And vilfied? Your'e talking about vilified, what have they been doing for months to Barack Obama? That is okay, but hands off our icon Sarah, who no one may question -- (because, in truth, she might not be able to answer the question).
If we stuck to issues and policies, there is no doubt in my mind that a majority would feel it is time for a change from the ideas of McCain-Palin-Bush. This is the bunch that has driven this country into a very deep ditch. We need to elect some folks who will govern us well, who will make government work. You cannot make government work when you are trying to deconstruct it, as Bush-Cheney has done, as McCain-Palin will do.
But now the Republicans are running against themselves -- and they are winning.
Heaven help us!
Here is woman who ran in no primary, who has not had a regular news conference as a candidate for vice-president for over two weeks, and the Republicans do not want any negative stories or criticism. They want to continue to manipulate and control all media, as they have pretty effectively during the last eight years of Bush-Cheney Republican rule. But a real investigative spotlight will send the Palin Myth crumbling.
They are playing the old change of direction game that they do so well, but which is death to democracy. When Palin gets caught with having a lack of experience or a real-life lack of commitment to conservative family 'values'--it's always THE LEFT who are wrong, not the duplicitous candidate ! Isn't it nice to take things out of context and claim ignorance all at the same time? This is a prime Republican tactic. What is so sad is that it works with half the population.
The truth is that Palin is a lightweight candidate picked for reasons of perceived electability and not on her qualifications to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. There were far better candidates in the Republican party, but she was picked by the bosses to be the one to carry on the Bush legacy, because, I believe, of her malleability. One things the Republicans have proved is that they can get elected, but they do not govern well. Palin goes along with this pattern.
It amazes me how hypocritical the right is on the issue of Palin. If Palin were a democrat with the list of things found out on her, Hannity...Limbaugh...and the right wing bloggers would be having a field day with it.
And vilfied? Your'e talking about vilified, what have they been doing for months to Barack Obama? That is okay, but hands off our icon Sarah, who no one may question -- (because, in truth, she might not be able to answer the question).
If we stuck to issues and policies, there is no doubt in my mind that a majority would feel it is time for a change from the ideas of McCain-Palin-Bush. This is the bunch that has driven this country into a very deep ditch. We need to elect some folks who will govern us well, who will make government work. You cannot make government work when you are trying to deconstruct it, as Bush-Cheney has done, as McCain-Palin will do.
But now the Republicans are running against themselves -- and they are winning.
Heaven help us!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sarah Palin is the Real-Life Not Ready for Prime Time Player -- She Does Not Compare to Hillary!
Is it not a wonderful thing that the McCain campaign, led by his Bush henchmen and henchwomen have discovered the word "sexist." Since they discovered Sarah Palin and her ultra right wing views, they have tried to shield her from questions or criticism with the word "sexist" thrown around like confetti at their convention. It is nice that they are now such seemingly strong feminists (and have been so for all of two full weeks).
Now the McBush campaign, ever so audacious, is slamming Tina Fey’s impersonation of Governor Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live,” while Cindy McCain is calling out the ladies of “The View.” They are doing their best to censor any criticism. How much farther will they go if half of the country stays brain dead and votes them into office?
“SNL” had its highest rated season premiere since 2002, but some members of the McCain campaign were not laughing. Millions of viewers tuned in to see “30 Rock” star and “SNL” alum Tina Fey portray Sarah Palin alongside Amy Poehler, who did her Sen. Hillary Clinton impression.
“The portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial,” McCain advisor Carly Fiorina told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday. “I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes I would say sexist.”
The Fey/Poehler sketch satirized such topics as Palin’s religious beliefs and foreign policy.
“Just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance,” Fiorina said.
Give me a break! First, Sarah Palin, supposedly so qualified to be President, cannot be interviewed except when the campaign "approves" of the interviewer, and she has yet to have a full-scale press conference. Now she cannot be satirized like every other major candidate for office has been. The fact is, Hillary Clinton, with eight years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as First Lady, and having done amazingly well in one of the most challenging Presidential primary campaigns in history, IS far more substantial than Palin. No question about it!
The truth is clear in the McBush campaign SNL debate: Sarah Palin is the Real-life, Not Ready for Prime Time Player!
Now the McBush campaign, ever so audacious, is slamming Tina Fey’s impersonation of Governor Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live,” while Cindy McCain is calling out the ladies of “The View.” They are doing their best to censor any criticism. How much farther will they go if half of the country stays brain dead and votes them into office?
“SNL” had its highest rated season premiere since 2002, but some members of the McCain campaign were not laughing. Millions of viewers tuned in to see “30 Rock” star and “SNL” alum Tina Fey portray Sarah Palin alongside Amy Poehler, who did her Sen. Hillary Clinton impression.
“The portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial,” McCain advisor Carly Fiorina told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday. “I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes I would say sexist.”
The Fey/Poehler sketch satirized such topics as Palin’s religious beliefs and foreign policy.
“Just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance,” Fiorina said.
Give me a break! First, Sarah Palin, supposedly so qualified to be President, cannot be interviewed except when the campaign "approves" of the interviewer, and she has yet to have a full-scale press conference. Now she cannot be satirized like every other major candidate for office has been. The fact is, Hillary Clinton, with eight years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as First Lady, and having done amazingly well in one of the most challenging Presidential primary campaigns in history, IS far more substantial than Palin. No question about it!
The truth is clear in the McBush campaign SNL debate: Sarah Palin is the Real-life, Not Ready for Prime Time Player!
Republican Lack of Supervision Brings Economic Mess -- Obama and Biden Have Answers
The overwhelming greed of a large part of America is coming home to roost -- and the waste from their precarious perches is messing up our economy big time. Lehman Brothers collapses, Merrill Lynch is sold in a panic. What is next in this Republican induced economic house of cards. Will the dominoes of greed made, bubble fueled, "emperor has no clothes"companies keep falling down?
Without a doubt, the "let the market run free" mentality of the Republican Bushites has helped bring us to this precipice. This administration has provided little supervision, (a process aided and abetted by McCain adviser Phil Gramm and his ilk when he was in congress, when the Elephants controlled everything), and greed has run rampant. People knew better, but without any supervision by the government, they did not DO better. The depravity of humanity shows forth in the form of unadulterated greed. And the Republicans want no safeguards, because they might "hinder the marketplace." Well, capitalism does not work well without some safeguards.
We must put some responsible adults back in charge of this country, such as we had with the Clinton economic team. One such brilliant, compassionate American is Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor and current college professor in California. He writes why we are in trouble. It all comes down to an economy that has lost sight of the importance of the middle class:
"As a result, typical Americans have run out of coping mechanisms to keep up their standard of living. That means there's not enough purchasing power in the economy to buy all the goods and services it's producing. We’re finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the real earnings of middle and lower-middle class Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway. Nor is the answer to give tax breaks to the very wealthy and to giant corporations in the hope they will trickle down to everyone else. We've tried that and it hasn't worked. Nothing has trickled down.
"Rather, the long-term answer is for us to invest in the productivity of our working people -- enabling families to afford health insurance and have access to good schools and higher education, while also rebuilding our infrastructure and investing in the clean energy technologies of the future. "
Reich's prescription aligns with Senator Barack Obama's plan for America. McCain is more of the same. Obama and Biden bring hope for the future and a plan for tomorrow!
Without a doubt, the "let the market run free" mentality of the Republican Bushites has helped bring us to this precipice. This administration has provided little supervision, (a process aided and abetted by McCain adviser Phil Gramm and his ilk when he was in congress, when the Elephants controlled everything), and greed has run rampant. People knew better, but without any supervision by the government, they did not DO better. The depravity of humanity shows forth in the form of unadulterated greed. And the Republicans want no safeguards, because they might "hinder the marketplace." Well, capitalism does not work well without some safeguards.
We must put some responsible adults back in charge of this country, such as we had with the Clinton economic team. One such brilliant, compassionate American is Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor and current college professor in California. He writes why we are in trouble. It all comes down to an economy that has lost sight of the importance of the middle class:
"As a result, typical Americans have run out of coping mechanisms to keep up their standard of living. That means there's not enough purchasing power in the economy to buy all the goods and services it's producing. We’re finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the real earnings of middle and lower-middle class Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway. Nor is the answer to give tax breaks to the very wealthy and to giant corporations in the hope they will trickle down to everyone else. We've tried that and it hasn't worked. Nothing has trickled down.
"Rather, the long-term answer is for us to invest in the productivity of our working people -- enabling families to afford health insurance and have access to good schools and higher education, while also rebuilding our infrastructure and investing in the clean energy technologies of the future. "
Reich's prescription aligns with Senator Barack Obama's plan for America. McCain is more of the same. Obama and Biden bring hope for the future and a plan for tomorrow!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
If McCain were Pinochio, His Nose Would Soon Reach Europe -- He Has Lost Integrity and He Approves the Messages of Calculated Lies!
Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are one of the terrible travesties of presidential campaigns, and the Republicans have become masters of it. Doublespeak and stretching the facts to fit their cause is usual for them and they do it pretty much nonstop ever since the 2000 campaign when they belittled Al Gore and used misrepresentations and smears to defeat him in the electoral vote. (Never forget he was our popularly elected President that year).
But Senator John McCain has approved more blatant lies than ever, and, thankfully, he has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.
According to the New York Times, Mr. McCain has found himself under particularly heavy fire for a pair of headline-grabbing attacks. First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)
Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adult predators).
Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.
A McCain advertisement called “Fact Check” was itself found to be “less than honest” by FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group. The group complained that the McCain campaign had cited its work debunking various Internet rumors about Ms. Palin and implied in the advertisement that the rumors had originated with Mr. Obama.
In an interview Friday on the NY1 cable news channel, a McCain supporter, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, called “ridiculous” the implication that Mr. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment was a reference to Ms. Palin, whom he still also defended as coming under unfair attack.
“The last month, for sure,” said Don Sipple, a Republican advertising strategist, “I think the predominance of liberty taken with truth and the facts has been more McCain than Obama.”
Indeed, in recent days, Mr. McCain has been increasingly called out by news organizations, editorial boards and independent analysts like FactCheck.org. The group, which does not judge whether one candidate is more misleading than another, has cried foul on Mr. McCain more than twice as often since the start of the political conventions as it has on Mr. Obama.
A McCain spokesman, Brian Rogers, defended the campaign of lies, saying the campaign had evidence for all its claims. “We stand fully by everything that’s in our ads,” Mr. Rogers said, “and everything that we’ve been saying we provide detailed backup for — everything. And if you and the Obama campaign want to disagree, that’s your call.” It is the old Republican way, used adroitly and disgustingly by the current administration -- IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE TRUE, JUST SAY IT ENOUGH AND PEOPLE WILL THINK IT IS TRUE!
If McCain were Pinochio his nose would soon reach Europe. OF course, I think that is a good characterization of what has occurred -- McCain is now becoming the great Pinochio of politicians.
Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer, to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters, and the truth does not matter to them in this despicable endeavor.
“On Friday on “The View,” generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized his new advertisements. “We know that those two ads are untrue,” Ms. Behar, a courageous American if there ever was one, said. “They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?”
"Actually they are not lies,” Mr. McCain said crisply. Which proves what a really good liar he is.
But Senator John McCain has approved more blatant lies than ever, and, thankfully, he has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.
According to the New York Times, Mr. McCain has found himself under particularly heavy fire for a pair of headline-grabbing attacks. First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)
Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adult predators).
Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.
A McCain advertisement called “Fact Check” was itself found to be “less than honest” by FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group. The group complained that the McCain campaign had cited its work debunking various Internet rumors about Ms. Palin and implied in the advertisement that the rumors had originated with Mr. Obama.
In an interview Friday on the NY1 cable news channel, a McCain supporter, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, called “ridiculous” the implication that Mr. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment was a reference to Ms. Palin, whom he still also defended as coming under unfair attack.
“The last month, for sure,” said Don Sipple, a Republican advertising strategist, “I think the predominance of liberty taken with truth and the facts has been more McCain than Obama.”
Indeed, in recent days, Mr. McCain has been increasingly called out by news organizations, editorial boards and independent analysts like FactCheck.org. The group, which does not judge whether one candidate is more misleading than another, has cried foul on Mr. McCain more than twice as often since the start of the political conventions as it has on Mr. Obama.
A McCain spokesman, Brian Rogers, defended the campaign of lies, saying the campaign had evidence for all its claims. “We stand fully by everything that’s in our ads,” Mr. Rogers said, “and everything that we’ve been saying we provide detailed backup for — everything. And if you and the Obama campaign want to disagree, that’s your call.” It is the old Republican way, used adroitly and disgustingly by the current administration -- IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE TRUE, JUST SAY IT ENOUGH AND PEOPLE WILL THINK IT IS TRUE!
If McCain were Pinochio his nose would soon reach Europe. OF course, I think that is a good characterization of what has occurred -- McCain is now becoming the great Pinochio of politicians.
Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer, to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters, and the truth does not matter to them in this despicable endeavor.
“On Friday on “The View,” generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized his new advertisements. “We know that those two ads are untrue,” Ms. Behar, a courageous American if there ever was one, said. “They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?”
"Actually they are not lies,” Mr. McCain said crisply. Which proves what a really good liar he is.
Friday, September 12, 2008
There You Go Again! The Newest Republican Propaganda Ad -- How Disrespecful to America!
"There you go again!" said Ronald Reagan in his second debate with President Jimmy Carter in 1980. The way he delivered that line, in response to what he thought was Carter's misrepresentation of his record, was a hit, was effective, and is a part of presidential history.
Barack Obama needs to re-use that good line, because the devious Republican propaganda machine continues to release one false television advertisement after another in order to muddy the waters and distract the proverbial cable news cycles, and, most importantly deceive the voters with trumped up issues that have no real basis in fact. First it was lipstick on a pig-gate, and now it is: what they said about Sarah Palin, "how disrespecful!" The things that were said are taken out of context and placed together to tell the ad's story, which is false -- Obama and Biden have not shown disrespect to Palin. But it is the old Republican tactic -- if you say it enough and use a big enough megaphone (television), then lies will be received as if they are true.
The sad thing is this -- print media tends to catch McCain-Bush (it is the Bush team that is running this campaign) in their deceptions, but television gives it little airplay. Instead of calling the McCain campaign to task for its outright twisting of the real facts, for coldly calculating that they will be able to get away with it, we hear the pundits declare how "smart" the Republicans are, and how "it works!"
Well, going up to a bank teller with a gun works, too, for a nice withdrawal, but the police keep that from happening most of the time, because society knows it is not right. What works is not right when it is WRONG -- and the Republicans are killing our democracy with these falsehoods and the media needs to be the referees in order to make democracy work. Even such a usually honest newsman as NBC's Chuck Todd called the most recent ad "disingenuous." but then compared teams winning football games with dirty play to what the Republicans are doing.
Hey Chuck, the last eight years should show you that who wins, and how they win, effects millions and millions of people in very real pocketbook ways, unlike a college team winning a football game. The stakes are much higher, so the news media must do a better job!
Here is the truth about the Republican ad machine and particularly this new ad defending Sarah Palin's honor (which was NEVER attacked, but straw dogs are a Republican specialty):
the ad itself shows a complete disregard for the truth and plays to a seeming belief in the fact that many Americans are non-thinkers and will believe whatever they see on television, if it is colorful and well-packaged, like any effective automobile or toothpaste ad. That is contemptuous of the American people and of the democratic process.
HOW DISRESPECTFUL!
Barack Obama needs to re-use that good line, because the devious Republican propaganda machine continues to release one false television advertisement after another in order to muddy the waters and distract the proverbial cable news cycles, and, most importantly deceive the voters with trumped up issues that have no real basis in fact. First it was lipstick on a pig-gate, and now it is: what they said about Sarah Palin, "how disrespecful!" The things that were said are taken out of context and placed together to tell the ad's story, which is false -- Obama and Biden have not shown disrespect to Palin. But it is the old Republican tactic -- if you say it enough and use a big enough megaphone (television), then lies will be received as if they are true.
The sad thing is this -- print media tends to catch McCain-Bush (it is the Bush team that is running this campaign) in their deceptions, but television gives it little airplay. Instead of calling the McCain campaign to task for its outright twisting of the real facts, for coldly calculating that they will be able to get away with it, we hear the pundits declare how "smart" the Republicans are, and how "it works!"
Well, going up to a bank teller with a gun works, too, for a nice withdrawal, but the police keep that from happening most of the time, because society knows it is not right. What works is not right when it is WRONG -- and the Republicans are killing our democracy with these falsehoods and the media needs to be the referees in order to make democracy work. Even such a usually honest newsman as NBC's Chuck Todd called the most recent ad "disingenuous." but then compared teams winning football games with dirty play to what the Republicans are doing.
Hey Chuck, the last eight years should show you that who wins, and how they win, effects millions and millions of people in very real pocketbook ways, unlike a college team winning a football game. The stakes are much higher, so the news media must do a better job!
Here is the truth about the Republican ad machine and particularly this new ad defending Sarah Palin's honor (which was NEVER attacked, but straw dogs are a Republican specialty):
the ad itself shows a complete disregard for the truth and plays to a seeming belief in the fact that many Americans are non-thinkers and will believe whatever they see on television, if it is colorful and well-packaged, like any effective automobile or toothpaste ad. That is contemptuous of the American people and of the democratic process.
HOW DISRESPECTFUL!
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