2008 U.S. Presidential Election Mega thread

[4PointOh]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/18/1415527.aspx

From NBC's Mark Murray:

In an interview with the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) suggested that Palin doesn't have the foreign-policy experience to be president. "'She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials,' Hagel said in an interview. 'You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything.'"

Check out this other Hagel line: "'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.'"

And this one: "'I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States,' Hagel said."

[KevinTBrown]

And while everyone will jump on the fact that Hagel is a Republican, he's been backing Obama for a long time now. So it's really no surprise he'd say that about Palin.

[Paul McEnery]

And while everyone will jump on the fact that Hagel is a Republican, he's been backing Obama for a long time now. So it's really no surprise he'd say that about Palin.

One reason why Jews for Push-Polling Annihilation tried to take him off the board months ago.

[Royal]

Chuck Hagal: Last Republican On Earth

[FalconX2000]

Chuck Hagal: Last Republican On Earth

Too bad we don't have anyone in congress by that name.:tongue:

[Royal]

Too bad we don't have anyone in congress by that name.:tongue:

Leme lone. Haven't had my coffee yet.

[KevinTBrown]

Too bad we don't have anyone in congress by that name.:tongue:

Leme lone. Haven't had my coffee yet.

Yeah, Falcan, leave Rayal alone.





:biggrin:

[king mob]

You'll have to decide for yourself whether the painful interview above, which John McCain gave yesterday to a Spanish journalist in Florida, really does seem to indicate that he didn't know that Jose Luis Zapatero is the prime minister of Spain, and that he perhaps even thinks Spain might be in Latin America. (The relevant bit starts at around 2m58s.) Josh Marshall, who's pushing this story hardest, seems to think that's possible McCain is that confused. At the very least, McCain's odd insistence on answering a question about whether he'd invite Zapatero to visit the White House by talking only about Mexico suggests he might have thought the topic under discussion was Mexico's Zapatista movement. McCain's foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, meanwhile, claims McCain's refusal to confirm that he'd meet with Zapatero was deliberate. (It's true that there's no love lost between Zapatero and the Bush administration, but McCain has said he'll patch up relationships of this sort, damaged by Iraq.)


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/oliverburkemanblog/2008/sep/18/uselections2008.johnmccain1

[4thHorseman]

Obama ad causes stir: and Limbaugh is a hypocrite (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/obamas-limbaugh-ad-causes-stir/)

[Kevinroc]

Latest Gallup Poll: Obama = 48%, McCain = 44%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110473/Gallup-Daily-Obama-48-McCain-44.aspx

[Paul McEnery]

Obama ad causes stir: and Limbaugh is a hypocrite (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/obamas-limbaugh-ad-causes-stir/)

Don't you just love the way racist pigs think that calling them out = racism?

They even tried this one with David Duke. Pointing out he was in the Klan is racist!

Just goes to show that for tossers like this, "racist" and "bigot" doesn't mean anything more to them than calling names, and they're too stupid to think it through.

[4PointOh]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/palins-transparency-proposal-already-exists-in-dc/

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) – Sarah Palin likes to tell voters around the country about how she “put the government checkbook online” in Alaska. On Thursday, Palin suggested she would take that same proposal to Washington.

“We’re going to do a few new things also,” she said at a rally in Cedar Rapids. “For instance, as Alaska’s governor, I put the government’s checkbook online so that people can see where their money’s going. We’ll bring that kind of transparency, that responsibility, and accountability back. We’re going to bring that back to D.C.”

There’s just one problem with proposing to put the federal checkbook online – somebody’s already done it. His name is Barack Obama.

In 2006 and 2007, Obama teamed up with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, also known as “Google for Government.” The act created a free, searchable web site – USASpending.gov — that discloses to the public all federal grants, contracts, loans and insurance payments.


In June of this year, Obama and Coburn introduced new Senate legislation to expand the information available online to include details on earmarks, competitive bidding, criminal activities, audit disputes and other government information.

Palin might also have noted that her running mate, John McCain, was an original co-sponsor of the 2006 transparency bill that became law.

[the4thpip]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/palins-transparency-proposal-already-exists-in-dc/

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) – Sarah Palin likes to tell voters around the country about how she “put the government checkbook online” in Alaska. On Thursday, Palin suggested she would take that same proposal to Washington.

“We’re going to do a few new things also,” she said at a rally in Cedar Rapids. “For instance, as Alaska’s governor, I put the government’s checkbook online so that people can see where their money’s going. We’ll bring that kind of transparency, that responsibility, and accountability back. We’re going to bring that back to D.C.”

There’s just one problem with proposing to put the federal checkbook online – somebody’s already done it. His name is Barack Obama.

In 2006 and 2007, Obama teamed up with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, also known as “Google for Government.” The act created a free, searchable web site – USASpending.gov — that discloses to the public all federal grants, contracts, loans and insurance payments.


In June of this year, Obama and Coburn introduced new Senate legislation to expand the information available online to include details on earmarks, competitive bidding, criminal activities, audit disputes and other government information.

Palin might also have noted that her running mate, John McCain, was an original co-sponsor of the 2006 transparency bill that became law.


Heh. Preempted by the opposition.

[Kevinroc]

Huffington Post has a link to many articles pointing out the problems of McCain. Some of these are already detailed in this thread but just look at them all at once.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/the-big-whisper-whats-up_n_127435.html

[FalconX2000]

Yeah, Falcan, leave Rayal alone.





:biggrin:

Sob through mascara while saying that and upload it to youtube and I garuntee I'll be too busy dying from laughter to harass him.

[Grazzt]

Interesting article (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html) by a psychologist on why poor Republicans vote against their economic self-interest.

[Kevinroc]

Palin calls it a "Palin and McCain administration" (as opposed to what she should say, which is "McCain and Palin").

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/the-palin-mccain-administ_n_127567.html

[kingdom2000]

As Cafferty points out, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN00rFIn8ig) ene thing the economic problems have shown is thank god Bush didn't get to privatize Social Security like McCain and the Republicans wanted. We wouldn't just be talking about the collapse of several institutions but what damage it would have done to SS and its ability to make payments. Its bad enough that probably millions of people took massive 401k hits and probably thousands of retirees are going to have to rethink those plans.

[KevinTBrown]

So..... we're an adversary of Spain..???

Really?

SPAIN?!?!? (http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/McCain_camp_stands_by_tough_talk_on_Spain.html)

:eek:

[Paul McEnery]

So..... we're an adversary of Spain..???

Really?

SPAIN?!?!? (http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/McCain_camp_stands_by_tough_talk_on_Spain.html)

:eek:

That's a bit unfair.

When he was asked about Zapatero, McCain obviously misheard.

In fact, we're at war with shoes.

[section 8]

Can't we wage war on Pants?

[Arrogantcur]

That's a bit unfair.

When he was asked about Zapatero, McCain obviously misheard.

In fact, we're at war with shoes.

LOL! :tongue:

[KevinTBrown]

That's a bit unfair.

When he was asked about Zapatero, McCain obviously misheard.

In fact, we're at war with shoes.

Appropriate.


McCain (and Palin) does seem to suffer from "foot in mouth" disease.

[Michael P]

Can't we wage war on Pants?

I could get behind a war on bras.

[Buzz Dixon]

I could get behind a war on thongs.Fixed it for you.

















(If yer gonna take the low road, take the low road all the way home...:eek: :biggrin: :wink:

[the4thpip]

Too bad it's too late for him to run again in this election:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley isn't expected to face charges after a lengthy investigation into his lurid messages to underage congressional pages, two federal law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the results of a state investigation would be announced Friday.

They said neither state nor federal charges were expected, although an FBI investigation has not been closed yet.

Foley resigned in 2006 after being confronted with the e-mails and instant messages he sent to male pages. He has since been under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI.

No justice - no pants.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7809551

[the4thpip]

I have an actual question....

Outcome of the 2004 elections. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=11)

Right now, it doesn't look like McCain can turn any of the 2004 blue states red. In the polls, Obama is ahead in formerly red states Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico - plenty to win the presidency, even without Ohio and Florida.
However, what if he only wins Colorado, where he has the biggest lead in some polls? Then it would be a 270-270 tie. What does the constitution foresee as a tie breaker?
Edit: I did the math wrong. If all Obama manages to do is keep Kerry's states and win Colorado, he will lead 270 - 268.

[Tages]

I have an actual question....

Outcome of the 2004 elections. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=11)

Right now, it doesn't look like McCain can turn any of the 2004 blue states red. In the polls, Obama is ahead in formerly red states Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico - plenty to win the presidency, even without Ohio and Florida.
However, what if he only wins Colorado, where he has the biggest lead in some polls? Then it would be a 270-270 tie. What does the constitution foresee as a tie breaker?

The House of Representatives votes on who gets to be president.

The House that, currently, has a Democratic majority.

So in the scenario you described Obama still wins.

[the4thpip]

The House of Representatives votes on who gets to be president.

The House that, currently, has a Democratic majority.

So in the scenario you described Obama still wins.

Cool... Of course, there's congressional elections the same day, but it only looks like the Democratic majority in the house will get stronger.

[Spike-X]

Bristol Palin and her fiancee Levi Johnston were seen looking unhappy together at a Sarah Palin event. HuffPost OfftheBus'er Donald Mitchell describes the expectant parents as such:

"But not once did they look at each other, speak to each other, or in any way acknowledge each other's physical presence. Not once. For an entire hour. Instead, Bristol stared straight ahead and Levi had the glazed look of a trapped feral animal."

Aw heck, that doesn't sound fun.

Boy, aren't family values wonderful?

[Tages]

Double-post

[Tages]

Cool... Of course, there's congressional elections the same day, but it only looks like the Democratic majority in the house will get stronger.

Even if the Democrats lose control of the House, the vote would take place before those who lost their seats were forced to vacate them.

McCain needs a clear win. And even with that, a solidly Democratic Congress is going to fight him every step of the way (add in that it's likely that Democrats and moderate Republicans that don't vote every issue along party lines may have a veto-proof majority).

[the4thpip]

Even if the Democrats lose control of the House, the vote would take place before those who lost their seats were forced to vacate them.

McCain needs a clear win. And even with that, a solidly Democratic Congress is going to fight him every step of the way (add in that it's likely that Democrats and moderate Republicans that don't vote every issue along party lines may have a veto-proof majority).

They could block his supreme court appointments as well, if the worst happens, right?

[the4thpip]

Salon scrutinizes Palin's record on development and the environment. (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/19/palin/)

"Sarah's legacy as mayor was big-box stores and runaway growth," said Patty Stoll, a retired Wasilla schoolteacher who once worked in the same school with Palin's parents, Chuck and Sally Heath. "The truth is, Wasilla is just plain ugly, it's not a pleasant place to live. It's not thought out. And that's a shame.

"Sarah fouled her own nest, and I can't understand why. I hate to think it was simply greed or ambition."

"Sarah," a recent biography of Palin by Kaylene Johnson, features a photo of a beaming Palin, sitting in a rowboat on Lake Lucille clutching a fishing rod. But, according to local fishermen, the Republican vice-presidential candidate would have to be very lucky to reel in something edible.

Because the lake, it turns out, is dead.

[the4thpip]

New Bumper Sticker:

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/184/mccwatpk8.jpg

[BnL]

Boy, aren't family values wonderful?

Ouch. I feel really bad for those kids. I predict a Britney-style implosion/breakdown/mega-rebellion in their near future, at this rate.

[KevinTBrown]

The House of Representatives votes on who gets to be president.

The House that, currently, has a Democratic majority.

So in the scenario you described Obama still wins.

Assuming, of course, everyone will vote down party lines.....

[the4thpip]

Boy, aren't family values wonderful?

The McCain campaign must be having night sweats about this. What if Levi runs off? Or gets drunk and shoots a moose and stuffs its head into somebody's mailbox? You know, like George Allen (http://wonkette.com/402870/republicans-announce-racial-hero-george-allen-will-perform-minority-outreach#more-402870)?

[the4thpip]

The House of Representatives votes on who gets to be president.

The House that, currently, has a Democratic majority.

So in the scenario you described Obama still wins.

I had a brain fart anyway. Colorada moving would mean Obama 270, McCain 268. So only if a single elector switched his vote could a tie happen.

[LtMarvel]

I have an actual question....

Outcome of the 2004 elections. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=11)

Right now, it doesn't look like McCain can turn any of the 2004 blue states red. In the polls, Obama is ahead in formerly red states Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico - plenty to win the presidency, even without Ohio and Florida.
However, what if he only wins Colorado, where he has the biggest lead in some polls? Then it would be a 270-270 tie. What does the constitution foresee as a tie breaker?
The incoming House breaks the tie (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/like-kissing-your-sister.html). But each state only gets one vote. So Obama would have the inside track, but not a sure thing.

So presuming everyone votes party lines, Obama has a 22-14 lead among the most likely outcomes. Throw in the close races and Obama wins 27 - 20.

[Tages]

They could block his supreme court appointments as well, if the worst happens, right?
They have to be confirmed by the Senate. McCain can't nominate anyone too hard right or pro-life because they'll get torpedoed; no Democratic Senator whose seat depends on the money his reelection campaign gets only because he's pro-choice is going to vote to confirm a judge that promises to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Interesting fact: according to the Constitution, the Senate also has the power to impeach and remove Supreme Court justices. This has never happened, but it theoretically could.

Assuming, of course, everyone will vote down party lines.....

I can think of a lot more Republicans in the House who would vote for Obama than Democrats who would vote for McCain.

The thing with McCain is, I'm glad he was the guy nominated, and not just because I'm convinced now he's going to lose. While the "maverick" label is overblown, it's not entirely inaccurate; the GOP wasn't the united front we saw in 2000, and there was no "establishment" candidate this year, but the closest we got to one was Romney, and McCain clobbered him. Everyone saw the troubadours rush to support Romney after McCain won New Hampshire, and it didn't take. President McCain was never in the original plan of the Republican Party.

So the GOP leadership that's in charge of the Party now is, more or less, the Reagan-Gingrich axis of neocon creeps and "movement conservatives" that wrested control from the moderates in 1980. They have a choice; lose the presidency and try to retain control of the Party, or retain the presidency and lose the Party. Ann Coulter said as much earlier this year. Now that the Palin bump is over, it's back to the lackluster enthusiasm we saw before the RNC, and it's clear to me that their hearts aren't in it, that McCain isn't on as short a leash as the Powers that Be would like, the religious wing wouldn't be playing at all if it weren't for Palin, and that Palin herself is a complete embarrassment whose choice was a concession to short-term sensation that in the long run will be disastrous, especially once she gets in the debates.

So, if McCain wins, we'll have a Democratic Congress to gridlock, er, I mean, soften the blow, and Palin, from what I can tell, wouldn't be able to get anything done, since she's a dupe being used for her Cinderella story and no one on the Republican side actually cares about her ideas or what she has to say. McCain's role, absent another major act of terrorism on American soil, would be to wear his veto hand out, not get much of anything done, and go down as a one-term loser when Hillary takes his crown in 2012. Meanwhile, the consolidated leadership of the GOP is broken, and the different factions get to bicker and squabble for four years, using up a ton of energy that can, therefore, not be used to make the rest of us miserable.

If McCain loses (which is getting more and more likely the more obvious it becomes that the man has no principles to speak of besides a fondness for being in charge), the Republicans get to lick their wounds and do damage control for a comeback next election, our president is no longer a chimp-fucking illiterate, America's image in the world is on its way to rehabilitation, and we get to badger Obama to junk as much of the last 8 years of Bushian police state legislation, and I'm hoping he can at least try to unfuck our foreign policy at least a wee little bit.

Sure, in my ideal world we could have a national debt on its way to being paid off, a noninterventionist Federal Reserve that doesn't encourage ruinous consumer debt accumulation, less taxes, less spending, and a foreign policy based on nonintervention, free trade for all, and an attitude towards terrorism as a law enforcement rather than a military issue. I won't get that with either plausible candidate this year. But still, I would prefer to be an optimist today.

[KevinTBrown]

And more lies and deceptions from the McCain campaign:

http://news.yahoo.com/story//cq/20080919/pl_cq_politics/politics2955173

[the4thpip]

Even if the Democrats lose control of the House, the vote would take place before those who lost their seats were forced to vacate them.


The link LtMarvel posted says this, actually:

The Cliff's Notes version of the 12th Amendment is as follows:

1. The incoming (newly-elected) House votes on the President. But they don't take a straight up or down vote. Instead, each state's delegation gets a vote. So California, which has 53 representatives, gets one vote based on what a majority of those representatives decide. Delaware, which has just one representative, also gets one vote. In order to win the Presidency, a candidate must receive the votes of an outright majority of 26 state delegations. This is more difficult than you might think, because delegations with an even number of members can be split, and a couple probably will be -- right now Arizona has four Republican representatives and four Democratic ones, for instance.

2. If no candidate receives a majority of the House delegations, the House is supposed to continue voting until one does. But naturally, the Constitution provides for a default option if the House is unable to come to agreement. That is because the incoming Senate votes on the Vice President, and the Vice President becomes the acting President if no President is chosen by the House by Inauguration Day.

3. A tie is also possible in the Senate, since the outgoing Vice President (Dick Cheney) does not get a vote under the 12th Amendment. In fact, if the Senate held such a vote today, a tie would be somewhat likely, assuming that Bernie Sanders voted with the Democrats and Joe Lieberman voted for John McCain. If the House hasn't picked a President and the Senate hasn't picked a Vice President, succession defaults to the Speaker of the House ... which means we'd have President Pelosi.


Fun!

[Charles RB]

SPAIN?!?!? (http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/McCain_camp_stands_by_tough_talk_on_Spain.html)

:eek:

What the FUCK?

Spain, the left-leaning NATO-and-EU-member democracy, that Spain? Please tell me he's not doing this because they pulled out of Iraq four years ago, a policy the then-opposition was saying they'd do all through the Spanish election.

Boy, aren't family values wonderful?

Now now, that might not be because they're forced together.

It might be because Palin's forced them to be at a media event, thus continuing to shine the spotlight of an entire planet on their wobbly marriage and upcoming-child, so she can pick some votes up.

[kingdom2000]

http://www.crosscut.com/politics-government/17341

Interesting letter where a Wasili resident lays out what utter crap of a choice Palin is. The woman is pretty much a classic republican in everyway - incompetent, frequent use of intimidation, fear, fiscal irresponsibility, business first, etc. "Maverick" my sweet ass. If you think about it though, its pretty amazing that she got the label of going against the establishment by doing one thing and one thing only - "outing" a fellow republican to the press who was simply fined. She herself has taking no real direct action in any way, shape or form to "fight" corruption. So the lesson is set up your good press early so can use it later.

[Demon Heart]

I got a question about Sarah Palin. What so important about being a hockey mom?

[Alix Harrower]

The link LtMarvel posted says this, actually:
3. A tie is also possible in the Senate, since the outgoing Vice President (Dick Cheney) does not get a vote under the 12th Amendment. In fact, if the Senate held such a vote today, a tie would be somewhat likely, assuming that Bernie Sanders voted with the Democrats and Joe Lieberman voted for John McCain. If the House hasn't picked a President and the Senate hasn't picked a Vice President, succession defaults to the Speaker of the House ... which means we'd have President Pelosi.
Fun!

That's almost certainly not going to happen -- There are no likely GOP Senate pickups this year and the Democrats are at minimum going to pick up seats in VA, NH, NM, and probably CO, giving them (with Sanders but not Lieberman) 54 seats. Plus GOP-held seats in AK, OR, NC, and MN are in play -- if everything breaks in the Dems' favor they could be looking at 57 or 58 seats in the next Senate.

[Charles RB]

I got a question about Sarah Palin. What so important about being a hockey mom?

It means she's just like YOU, John and Jane Q Voter!

[the4thpip]

I got a question about Sarah Palin. What so important about being a hockey mom?

Lipstick.
:tongue:

[the4thpip]

Palin's peculiar lie

As I noted Wednesday night in a post about her interview with Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin told an odd story recently.

Asked by Hannity, "What was your family's reaction [to McCain choosing her as running mate]? Was that time to huddle and have a hockey team meeting?" Palin responded:

It was a time of asking the girls to vote on it, anyway. And they voted unanimously, yes. Didn't bother asking my son because, you know, he's going to be off doing his thing anyway, so he wouldn't be so impacted by, at least, the campaign period here. So ask the girls what they thought and they're like, "Absolutely. Let's do this, Mom."

The reason I say that's an odd story is that it conflicts with the official account the McCain camp released the day Palin's spot on the ticket was announced, as well as the story Palin's husband told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren in an interview broadcast earlier this week. In those accounts, the Palin children were not told that John McCain had tapped their mother as his running mate until they'd already arrived in Ohio for the announcement.

Politico's Jonathan Martin has now gotten some clarification from the McCain camp, but it doesn't actually clarify much. Martin writes:

Asked about the discrepancy, Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said: "She asked the girls to vote once they arrived in Ohio."

When it was noted that that would have been after the decision had already been made, Schmitt said Palin was still in Arizona at the time.

This, of course, doesn't change the fact that the children were already in Ohio for the express purpose of announcing he (sic) news.

By itself, the tale is a small thing. Perhaps Palin was more running it by them then asking them. But why, when many of her policy-related statements are coming under question, would Palin embroider something that is so easily proven untrue?

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't that seem like an odd way to hold a vote? "Hey, kids, you're in Ohio so that you can participate in the announcement that your mom is going to be the Republican nominee for vice president. Now, what do you think? Should she run? Or since she's clearly already said yes, should she commit what could well be career suicide by pulling out right now?"

salon war room

[kingdom2000]

I got a question about Sarah Palin. What so important about being a hockey mom?

Exactly! (if your smart and use critical thinking skills)

Means she is just like me, the average jane and joe!! (if your an idiot that ignores her wealth, connections and so forth that average jane and joe will never have).

[the4thpip]

Exactly! (if your smart and use critical thinking skills)

Means she is just like me, the average jane and joe!! (if your an idiot that ignores her wealth, connections and so forth that average jane and joe will never have).

Please, consider the difference between your and you're in the future. Thank you.

[kingdom2000]

Please, consider the difference between your and you're in the future. Thank you.

I could...but that would require proofreading. I am entirely to lazy to bother. But now that I no it annoys you, I make effort here and their to make moore errers in my grammer then usual.

[KevinTBrown]

I could...but that would require proofreading. I am entirely to lazy to bother. But now that I no it annoys you, I make effort here and their to make moore errers in my grammer then usual.

Wel playd.

[KevinTBrown]

Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/ap_yahoo_poll_football)

That's only because Obama can "high 5" and McCain can't. :biggrin:

[Buzz Dixon]

Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/ap_yahoo_poll_football)

That's only because Obama can "high 5" and McCain can't. :biggrin:BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA--you should be ashamed of yourself--HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[Buzz Dixon]

Interesting look at the Palin Implosion.

http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=90e31ecd-60d8-4a84-aaf2-0d92e09bd9f3

Money quote:
After initially casting Palin as a dedicated foe of earmarks, and then having it revealed that she asked for and received enormous sums of earmarked projects, the McCain campaign has fallen back to the defense that she requested fewer earmarks than other Alaska pols. This is true: Even though Palin took ten times the national per capita average in earmarked spending, in this regard she still rates somewhat below average by the standards of the petro-kleptocracy of the state from which she hails.

...ouch...

[Paul McEnery]

I got a question about Sarah Palin. What so important about being a hockey mom?

Everyone likes a good puck.

[KevinTBrown]

Everyone likes a good puck.

But how does she feel about high sticking...?

[Infra-Man]

Sarah Palin seems to be persuading undecided voters to choose... Obama

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article818181.ece


One thought pushes fence-sitters to the left: Palin
By Adam C. Smith, Times Political Editor

ST. PETERSBURG — Five weeks ago, the St. Petersburg Times convened a group of Tampa Bay voters who were undecided about the presidential election. Their strong distrust of Barack Obama suggested it was a group ripe for John McCain to win over.

Not anymore. The group has swung dramatically, if unenthusiastically, toward Democrat Obama. Most of them this week cited the same reason: Sarah Palin.

"The one thing that frightens me more than anything else are the ideologues. We've seen too many," said 80-year-old Air Force veteran Donn Spegal, a lifelong Republican from St. Petersburg, who sees McCain's new running mate as the kind of "wedge issue" social conservative that has made him disenchanted with his party.

"I'm truly offended by Palin,'' said 37-year-old Republican Philinia Lehr of Largo, a full-time mother with a nursing degree who voted for George Bush in 2004. Like Palin, she has five children and she doesn't buy that the Alaska governor can adequately balance her family and the vice presidency.

"You're somebody's mom and what are you going to do, say, 'Excuse me, country, hold on?' ... She's preaching that she's this mom of the year and taking that poor little baby all over everywhere. And, you know, what she's doing to her 17-year-old daughter is just appalling.'' Lehr said she's bothered by the way Palin's pregnant daughter has been brought into the national spotlight.

Of the 11 undecided voters participating in the free-wheeling discussion one recent evening at the Times — four Republicans, five Democrats, and two registered to no party — only two Republican men applauded the selection of Palin.

Nobody had finalized a choice, but seven of the panelists said that McCain's running mate selection had made them more likely to vote for Obama, and in several cases much more likely.

"And that ticks me off because I do not want Obama,'' said Democrat Annette Kocsis, 68, a former Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter from Clearwater, scoffing at "the pit bull in lipstick," as Palin has called herself.

Palin, who makes her first Florida campaign stop Sunday in a Republican stronghold in north-central Florida, has generated loads of enthusiasm among conservatives. But at least with this randomly selected group of swing voters, she appears to be a serious obstacle to McCain's winning over disillusioned Democrats or moderates.

"That was almost insulting," Democrat Rhonda Laris of Temple Terrace, another strong Clinton backer skeptical of Obama, said of the Palin pick. "Do they think we're really stupid? ... I'm definitely leaning toward the Democratic side now. Sarah Palin scares the crap out of me."

Independent voter Bill Chever, 56, another Air Force veteran from St. Petersburg, said he has voted Republican four times and Democrat three times in the last seven presidential races. He likes and trusts Obama but not Obama's party. Democrats have done nothing of consequence while controlling Congress, Chever said, but he's particularly bothered that the Palins are not cooperating in the "Troopergate" investigation into whether she fired the state police chief for not firing her former brother-in-law from the Alaska state police.

"Here we go with Dick Cheney and his group that's not going to talk to anybody," Chever said. "She is Dick Cheney with a dress on."

Obama is not making inroads because of anything he has done or said. It's more that McCain has repelled these swing voters in the biggest battleground region of the biggest battleground state. In several cases voters who had sounded hungry for a reason to vote for McCain now sound resigned to settling for Obama.

"It's McCain's beliefs," said Annette Maakestad, 57, of St. Petersburg, explaining why she's shifting toward Obama. "I don't think he's changed or he's going to change his party that much. … People who think that someone's going to get in there and make changes that are that dramatic, they're off their rocker."

But they're still not sold on the Illinois senator.

"I really wanted someone youthful and someone who could relate more to the future generations," said Republican Jim Soltis, 70, of Holiday, who is weighing his desire for expanded health insurance access with maintaining Bush's tax cuts. "So I keep watching and watching and hoping for Obama to say the right things, and he's not saying them."

Most of the members of the panel participated in a similar focus group meeting in August, though three new voters joined the group this week. To a person, this is a group of bright, well-informed voters paying close attention to the election and frustrated they're not hearing more specifics and substance from the candidates.

The conventions did nothing for them — bored them, in many cases — and they're looking for the debates starting Friday to finally make up their minds.

"I'm not crazy about Obama, and I'm really not crazy about McCain," said Democrat Carlos Gonzalez, a 70-year-old higher education administrator from Oldsmar, who preferred Clinton. "I really have not heard anybody saying what they're going to do with this mess we have. ... Obama keeps saying they're going to change, but what are they going to change? He doesn't say how he's going to do it, what he's going to change, what's he going to do?"

Rebecca Montilla, a 22-year-old premed student at the University of South Florida, began questioning her Democratic allegiances when it struck her in the primary that the Democrats were sounding more and more reckless about hastily yanking troops out of Iraq. Obama's inexperience worries her, but she comes from a lower-middle-class family in Orlando that is increasingly struggling to keep food on the table. McCain offers no reassurance.

"I go back and forth, like, every day,'' she said. "It just seems like a lot of bickering, and it's really difficult for me to see what McCain's going to do and what Obama's going to do."

Mark Sayre, a 49-year-old St. Petersburg Republican, also wants to hear a clearer agenda from the candidates, but he likes the fresh faces.

"If we could switch and put Barack Obama and Sarah Palin together and put the two in Washington, it would be a clear vote for me. Now it's up in the air," Sayre said.

But enthusiasm for any of the candidates was rare.

Said Lehr: "I wish we could put them both back in the hat, shake it up, and start over and pick two new candidates."

[Infra-Man]

Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/ap_yahoo_poll_football)

That's only because Obama can "high 5" and McCain can't. :biggrin:

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BB441_Obamac_20080222103119.jpg

[the4thpip]

I could...but that would require proofreading. I am entirely to lazy to bother. But now that I no it annoys you, I make effort here and their to make moore errers in my grammer then usual.

What, this thread (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=92198&) did not tip you off?

[Briareos]

The House of Representatives votes on who gets to be president.

The House that, currently, has a Democratic majority.

So in the scenario you described Obama still wins.

Actually that's not accurate. Each state only gets one vote I believe. So all the California delegates would vote and then their group would get 1 vote overall. I might be wrong though...

[Infra-Man]

Fungible wha...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8

PALIN: Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first.

EDIT:
It totally reminded me of this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[the4thpip]

Fungible wha...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8

And Iraq and such as.

[Infra-Man]

And Iraq and such as.

You read my editing mind, Pip.

[the4thpip]

Sarah Palin's favorable/unfavorable numbers as shown in Research 2000 daily tracking poll

http://images.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/09/19/palin_favs/story.gif

[Corrina]

Sarah Palin is a perfect example of celebrity in this day & age.

Supernova to flame-out...in, what, a month? That poll tracking is completely predictable.

This is one of the reasons that McCain should not have gone with an unknown--any unknown was sure to cause a media frenzy. Which McCain counted on as positive. But once you unleash the hounds, you can't call them back. And there's really not enough time in two months for anyone to gain perspective on Palin, either, like with Obama and the drug use in his younger days. That came out, was digested and is now met with a shrug. If it had come out NOW, then that would be different.

[PatrickG]

Sarah Palin is a perfect example of celebrity in this day & age.

Supernova to flame-out...in, what, a month? That poll tracking is completely predictable.

This is one of the reasons that McCain should not have gone with an unknown--any unknown was sure to cause a media frenzy. Which McCain counted on as positive. But once you unleash the hounds, you can't call them back. And there's really not enough time in two months for anyone to gain perspective on Palin, either, like with Obama and the drug use in his younger days. That came out, was digested and is now met with a shrug. If it had come out NOW, then that would be different.

If the economy was stronger and oil was stabilizing, she might be weathering this better.

However, right now, she's a liability. Being governor of Alaska isn't seen as experience on energy issues but as being a part of the problem.

And the shakier the market gets, the scarier the thought of President Palin becomes simply because she's a fighter aesthetically and in uncertain times, I think people want reassurance.

McCain picked the wrong time to latch onto the "change" message. People wanted change six months ago. With the market expected to "Meltdown" next week, people want security.

Obama's not anybody's first pick for the security message but his baritone voice and aging running mate seem to aesthetically project more security than the injured McCain with his high pitched, wavering voice and "you betcha" fighter of a running mate.

Palin's best shot at a revamp would be to drop the pitbull and the beauty pageant lipstick and abandon the hockey while playing up the "mom".

The best tack for the Republicans is to cast McCain and Palin as reassuring parent figures, taking the edge off and making "My fellow Americans" come out sounding like "little punkin". In reasonable times, that would be condescending.

However, the "brand" I would push as a Republican strategist would be to paint Barack Obama positively as a bright kid who isn't ready yet while casting McCain and Palin as blue collar, reassuring parent figures to the country.

[K-DoG7p7]

My signature

[FalconX2000]

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/09/after_obama_call_emil_jones_de.html

The Illinois legislature is going to hammer out an ethics bill that was about to be left for dead because Obama called up Emil Jones to encourage him to do it.

[KevinTBrown]

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/09/after_obama_call_emil_jones_de.html

The Illinois legislature is going to hammer out an ethics bill that was about to be left for dead because Obama called up Emil Jones to encourage him to do it.

And Blagojevich telling to "butt out": http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/09/blagojevich-warns-obama-of-gop-trap.html

:rolleyes:

The Gov needs to look in his own "rear view mirror".

[FalconX2000]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/19/1427108.aspx

McCain is either lying or just couldn't be bothered to check that F&M's CEOs were paid with shareholder money, because he's saying its taxpayer funds and he wants to somehow get them to "give it back".

And Blagojevich telling to "butt out": http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/09/blagojevich-warns-obama-of-gop-trap.html

:rolleyes:

The Gov needs to look in his own "rear view mirror".


Sorry Kevin, all I see is one paragraph where the govenor is warning it's a trap. No details.

[Crowley]

Sarah Palin is Quayle to McCain's Nixon/Dole.

[GozertheGozarian]

Rod can suck a dick. The capitol is in Springfield, you douche.

[KevinTBrown]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/19/1427108.aspx

McCain is either lying or just couldn't be bothered to check that F&M's CEOs were paid with shareholder money, because he's saying its taxpayer funds and he wants to somehow get them to "give it back".




Sorry Kevin, all I see is one paragraph where the govenor is warning it's a trap. No details.

That link was "breaking news", here's the full story: http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/09/blagojevich-war.html

[Briareos]

Is Obama above the law?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2M3MDA2OTYxODVlYTcwMDJjZWJmODM3ZmI3ZWE3NTY=

[Paul McEnery]

Is Obama above the law?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2M3MDA2OTYxODVlYTcwMDJjZWJmODM3ZmI3ZWE3NTY=

Is the National Review above publishing dodgy stories?

[TCJohnson]

Is Obama above the law?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2M3MDA2OTYxODVlYTcwMDJjZWJmODM3ZmI3ZWE3NTY=

Amhir Taheri has a documented history of making up facts. If that is all the proof they are going on, they need a lot more evidence.

[TCJohnson]

Lending significant credence to Obama's response is the fact that -- though it's absent from the Post story and other retellings -- in addition to Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, this July meeting was also attended by Bush administration officials, such as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the Baghdad embassy's legislative affairs advisor Rich Haughton, as well as a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.



Two officials of the Bush administration say that if Obama had done what the Post story asserted –- which they believe to be untrue -– Crocker and embassy officials attending the meeting would have ensured that the Bush administration heard about it immediately. If such an incident occurred in front of officials of the Bush administration, it would have constituted a foreign policy breach and would have been front-page huge news; it would not have leaked out two months later in an op-ed column.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/undermining-mcc.html

[the4thpip]

Fungible wha...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8



EDIT:
It totally reminded me of this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

I'm not sure I fully grasp that, though I am relieved to know that they, whoever they are, don't have to sit around flagging individual molecules all day long. I think, despite her saying that Congress is "not going to allow the export bans", that she is actually recommending such a ban. At any rate, what she says makes a lot more sense on the assumption that either the 'not' or the 'bans' was a slip than it does on the assumption that she thought that lifting nonexistent export bans would keep our oil here at home.

It seems pretty clear to me that Sarah Palin has no idea at all what she's talking about here. But let's pretend this is a serious statement, and consider it seriously. Who do we presently export oil to? Well: in 2007, the two main recipients of our oil were Mexico and Canada, who between them received some 170,716,000 barrels of what the Energy Information Administration calls "petroleum and products." That's nearly a third of our exports. But guess what? When you look at the analogous table of imports, who turns up in first and second place? Canada and Mexico again! They sold us 1,455,280,000 barrels between them in 2007, or about eight and a half times as much as we sold them. If you check crude oil alone, it turns out that all our exports in 2007 went to Canada, which was also our number one supplier, selling us nearly seventy times as much crude oil as we sold the Canadians.

Do you think that they would keep on selling us all that oil if we unilaterally stopped selling oil to them? Maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn't. Do you think Sarah Palin knows the answer? I hope so. It would be pretty strange for the nation's foremost expert on energy to come out in favor of an embargo without knowing whether or not it would cost us nearly 1.3 billion barrels of "petroleum and products" a day year (oops), including about 19% of our total crude oil imports. Annoying our neighbors so much that they cut off our oil supplies would, I suppose, be one way of helping us achieve energy independence, but it doesn't seem like a particularly good idea.

Call me cynical, though: I don't think Sarah Palin had any idea what she was talking about, any more than I think John McCain had any idea what he was talking about when he said she "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America". Because if she does, we're in much deeper trouble than I had imagined.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/09/energy-expertis.html

[FalconX2000]

That link was "breaking news", here's the full story: http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/09/blagojevich-war.html

Thanks. From what I've read so far, it seems the gov's bill could violate the constition.



In other news,

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/09/19/2008-09-19_sarah_palin_abuse_of_power_probe_to_be_f.html

It appears the ethics investigation into Sarah Palin will finish on time, with or without her cooperation.

[the4thpip]

OK, a correspondent directs me to John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. You might want to be seated before reading this.

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/mccain-on-banking-and-health/

Oops.

[Alex L]

Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/ap_yahoo_poll_football)

That's only because Obama can "high 5" and McCain can't. :biggrin:

Terrorist fist jab!

http://irregulartimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/obamafistjab.jpg

[king mob]

It is a case of pots calling kettles black but Hazel Blears has a point, even if she is equally horrendous herself.

Hazel Blears can be an uninspired performer in the House of Commons, but at lunchtime, at a Fabian Society fringe in the neo-gothic splendour of Manchester's town hall, she outshone a fairly heavyweight line-up. And made the most outspoken remarks.

Blears said that Sarah Palin's success in the US was due to the fact that she was seen as an "anti-politics" candidate. "Her politics are horrendous, but she's struck a chord with people - 'I'm a maverick, I'm not part of those powerful people' - and people identified with that."

Gordon Brown irritated the John McCain campaign recently with the publication of an article that was interpreted as an endorsement of Barack Obama.

Maybe someone is going to make a fuss about the "horrendous" remark, but I guess the McCain campaign has better things to worry about than what the UK communities secretary said to a party conference about the Republican candidate for vice-president. Besides, Harriet Harman said something similar on Question Time on Thursday.

Blears was speaking alongside John Denham, the universities secretary, Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, Labour MPs Jon Cruddas and Jon Trickett and the journalist Sunny Hundal. They were talking about what Labour could do to win back the support of the white working class.

Cruddas and Trickett both argued that New Labour had not paid enough attention to the interests of the working class.

Cruddas said that New Labour assumed "that the working class was withering away" as a result of changes to the economy and that this had turned out to be a mistake.

Blears outperformed them, not just because she was willing to take a pop at Palin (which was only really an aside, but which went down well with the audience), but because she was just a bit more spiky and impassioned when it came discussing about ordinary life.

She talked about her working-class upbringing (her brother is a bus driver) and she had a polite for rebuke for those middle-class idealists who think that the Labour party was founded by people inspired by a philanthropic concern for others.

"The Labour party has never been that," she said.

"Miners, dockers, textile workers, steel workers – they didn't do it out of altruism. They did it to get better wages, better healthcare, better food and a better life for their families."

I was also taken by the robust line she adopted when someone suggested compulsory voting. Some Labour figures believe this is the solution to electoral apathy. But Blears was having none of that.

"If you have to have compulsory voting, you've lost the argument. Any party that introduced it would be punished dramatically by the electorate", she said.

Two weeks ago the Economist published an article about British "rednecks" and asked where was the Sarah Palin figure who would speak up for them. (The Economist meant disillusioned working class voters, not disillusioned rightwing voters.)

When I read the piece, I would never have replied "Hazel Blears". But having heard her this afternoon, it doesn't sound such a ludicrous answer.

[Sabrinaset]

And now, for some more stories in the news ...

Sandra Bernhard with a reasoned, well-thought-out critique of Palin: She'd be gang-raped by Blacks in Manhattan. (http://media.newsbusters.org/stories/sandra-bernhard-palin-would-be-gang-raped-blacks-manhattan.html)

Maybe it's just me, but parts of the left seem to be in meltdown mode over Palin. It's weird. And I thought Sandra was supposed to be funny ... when did simply being angry and cursing become comedy? :confused: Note to Sandra: You're not Lenny Bruce.

And MORE bad news for Obama: (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080919193927.ite7zfed&show_article=1) He's been endorsed by Woody Allen, clinching the Voters Who Marry Their Adopted Daughters Vote! :biggrin:

...and Rangel screws up too regarding Palin. (http://wcbstv.com/campaign08/congressman.charles.rangel.2.821541.html)

Biden is out there, just in case you forgot about him (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/us/politics/20biden.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1221934657-TgfFTdIs/VVqP2PPmqMSvg) ... and providing some strange moments ...

The Obama campaign was hoping to reintroduce Mr. Biden this week as running mate attack dog. But his penchant for verbal rambling ensured that much of the attention he drew was unwanted: he said wealthy Americans had a “patriotic” duty to pay more taxes, a remark the McCain campaign mocked relentlessly.

Yet Joltin’ Joe has also become a fascinating Off Broadway spectacle in his own right. He is a distinctive blend of pit bull and odd duck whose weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything — “gaffes,” out-of-nowhere comments (pivoting midspeech to say “Excuse my back!” to people seated behind him), goofy asides (tapping a reporter’s chest and telling him, “You need to work on your pecs.”)

Blacks against Obama? (http://www.breitbart.tv/html/178233.html) Is this like an adjunct of PUMA?

And for those people who keep saying Conservatives and/or Republicans are generally bigoted, this may come as a bit of a shock. (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93AIV882&show_article=1)

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks—many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles...

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents—voters Obama can't win the White House without—agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president—white, black or brown.

I'm hiding this last quote from the article so that N*v*y* H*v*c doesn't go nuclear ...

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries—particularly whites with high school education or less—were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

[Arrogantcur]

But his penchant for verbal rambling ensured that much of the attention he drew was unwanted: he said wealthy Americans had a “patriotic” duty to pay more taxes, a remark the McCain campaign mocked relentlessly.

Maybe it was how he phrased it, or maybe it's another case of Republicans trying to make a joke out of something that isn't really funny (see "community organizer"). Whatever it is, I don't get how saying that is silly.

Taxes are supposed to be used to keep everything running smoothly and improve the quality of life, right? Doesn't always work out that way, but that's the basic idea behind taxation as I understand it. Taxes are not always bad.

Inevitably, because of the law of averages, a certain percentage of your tax dollars are actually going to go towards something helpful, something that even Republicans would be forced to say "gee, it's a good thing that we have taxes to pay for this!" Like, say, police or national defense...or hey, how about THE TROOPS!

Therefore, by paying taxes you are helping to make your country better and thus is a patriotic thing to do. If you have truckloads of money and you say "mine! All mine! I don't want to give ANY of this to my country! My country doesn't deserve this money!", then that strikes me as pretty UNpatriotic. That's not "Country First", that's "Me First."

So what Biden says makes sense.

[C-Cool]

This election is starting to become like one of those kangaroo court cases.

You have a blatantly unprepared side up against a prepared side with a dude and most of the facts on their side.

And still the sides are almost even in voting. With others sticking up for the first side with no true facts backing it up.

Weird.

I know who they would vote for in Nigeria (Oil Reserves, my home country too), though. And France (Allies). And England (Allies). Especially Spain (Allies, yet enemies in McCain's blurb) too. Overwhelmingly Obama.

I think that's an omen from an objective point of view. We need objective points of view in this race. Especially the "Country First" side.

[Sabrinaset]

Therefore, by paying taxes you are helping to make your country better and thus is a patriotic thing to do. If you have truckloads of money and you say "mine! All mine! I don't want to give ANY of this to my country! My country doesn't deserve this money!", then that strikes me as pretty UNpatriotic. That's not "Country First", that's "Me First."

So what Biden says makes sense.


It only makes sense if you have a federal government as well as government officials who view themselves as Keepers of the Public Trust and who realize that it's the people's money and not their own. Instead, you have a bunch of power-mad bureaucrats who see the amount of money they get to spend as some kind of measuring stick of how much power they have, providing useless programs as a means of getting votes at home, and the like. My personal opinion is that I can spend my money better than Washington DC can. Hey, at least I can maintain a budget. The last thing I want to do is reward these guys with even MORE of my money.

[Buzz Dixon]

What's the difference between an ingenious pygmy and Sarah Palin?



























































One is a native of Africa, and the other is a native of Alaska.













































Why, what did you think I was going to say?

[Corrina]

Sandra has always specialized in cussing & such and has never really been funny.

[KevinTBrown]

Sandra has always specialized in cussing & such and has never really been funny.

She's funny only if you're counting looks.....

[Chris Hansbrough]

She's funny only if you're counting looks.....

says Kevin :p

[kingdom2000]

Sandra has always specialized in cussing & such and has never really been funny.

I didn't even know she was still around. I thought she had died or something since the last time she was "big" was in the nineties.

[Michael P]

What the hell are you people talking about?

[Buzz Dixon]

http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-09-19.gif

[4PointOh]

http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-obama-race

Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.


More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.

The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks' troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.

Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

[Crowley]

one good thing about McCain... his daughter is smoking and by many accounts seems to be a decent young woman:
http://thebosh.com/upload/2008/09/06/sen_john_mccains_daughter_meghan_feels_for_17-year-old_bristol_palin/Meghan-Mccain.jpg

[Charles RB]

So what Biden says makes sense.

I'd be somewhat worried by a party that mocked the idea that paying money that maintains the country is unpatriotic.

an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

Oh lovely.

[Michael P]

one good thing about McCain... his daughter is smoking and by many accounts seems to be a decent young woman:

I think I've said this, but I met her once, completely at random (she and a friend lived in the same building). She seemed like good people. Apparently she's into sci-fi.

[Arrogantcur]

It only makes sense if you have a federal government as well as government officials who view themselves as Keepers of the Public Trust and who realize that it's the people's money and not their own. Instead, you have a bunch of power-mad bureaucrats who see the amount of money they get to spend as some kind of measuring stick of how much power they have, providing useless programs as a means of getting votes at home, and the like. My personal opinion is that I can spend my money better than Washington DC can. Hey, at least I can maintain a budget. The last thing I want to do is reward these guys with even MORE of my money.

Yes, some of your tax dollars get wasted. That is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast.

But not all of your tax dollars do. Surely you realize that if the Republican tendency to lower taxes were taken to its extreme--if taxes were completely eliminated--everything would fall apart.

As a matter of fact, something did fall apart because nobody bothered to spend tax dollars to fix it up: the bridge in Minnesota that collapsed. You can't just blame that on wasteful spending, or the distribution of pork to various constituents. Part of the reason that happened was because there was not enough money for upkeep.

Like it or not, you need taxes.

Do you really think that the Bush tax cuts have been good? In the last two elections neither Obama nor Kerry has said anything to the effect of "what I want to do, for the good of the country, is raise taxes even HIGHER than they were during the Clinton years." Instead, they have talked about raising taxes back to what they were pre-Bush. If we take them at their word, how is that a bad thing? Were the Clinton years really so terrible?

I'd be somewhat worried by a party that mocked the idea that paying money that maintains the country is unpatriotic.

Indeed.

[kingdom2000]

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Republican's are against bailing out individuals and people but jump at any chance to bail out their rich friends?

Its seems that the republican call to deregulate anything and everything continues its streak of never leading to good things. The current economic crisis probably wouldn't have occured (because the tactics would have been illegal) except that Repubs deregulated pretty much all banking rules. Literally, can anyone name one area of deregulation that didn't lead to abuse, monopolization (via cartels), high interests rates, and so forth?

And guess what, McCain is how wanting to deregulate the heath insurance market (god, its like this now with regulation!?!?!).

McCain: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

So you repub/conservatives, where deregulation is a central tenat, please explain to me when has deregulation ever lead to "innovative products", increased competition and a benefit to the consumer?

[stealthwise]

From all I've read and heard (a good deal more than I have about Canada's own policies and political situation, thanks to the media attention the US election's been getting for the past two+ years), if McCain were to take office, and I lived in the States, I'd just get the fuck out of there as quick as I could.

Hell, I know more than one person who had plans to continue their university careers in the USA, only to change/cancel those plans upon Bush's re-election. Smart people they turned out to be.

[Buzz Dixon]

Will the b-slappin' ever stop?
http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-09-21.gif
Short answer: No. Longer answer: Hell, no.

[Sabrinaset]

Yes, some of your tax dollars get wasted. That is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast.

But not all of your tax dollars do. Surely you realize that if the Republican tendency to lower taxes were taken to its extreme--if taxes were completely eliminated--everything would fall apart.

I could turn that argument around and say that the same might occur if the Democrat tendency to raise taxes was also taken to the extreme, but that wasn't really my point.

The problem isn't in the paying of taxes per se as they are necessary for society to function, but rather the fact that the people we're paying taxes to, irregardless of party, don't seem to see this as a matter of us trusting them to do the right thing with it, nor do they appear to see this as an important responsibility to their constituents. Rather, they see it as an issue of power ... the more money they can get from us, the more they can spend on their own pet projects. And yes, I can blame bridge falling apart on wasteful spending, or the distribution of pork to various constituents, because if it weren't for that, the money would certainly be available for the upkeep. But we don't have honest people working in government anymore, if we ever did, so there you go.

Frankly, I don't see any signs of fiscal responsibility from either side of the aisle, and until I do, the idea of giving them any more of my money willingly seems like a bad one to me. Your mileage may vary.

[Arrogantcur]

And yes, I can blame bridge falling apart on wasteful spending, or the distribution of pork to various constituents, because if it weren't for that, the money would certainly be available for the upkeep.

I should've said that you can't blame it exclusively on one or both of those things. They were part of the problem. Another part of the problem: in addition to the money collected being distributed in less than ideal ways, there simply was not enough of it.

But we don't have honest people working in government anymore, if we ever did, so there you go.

I don't believe that. There are certainly some honest people in government, it's just a question of how many there are. Of the dishonest people, it's a question of whether they're mildly dishonest or pathologically greedy or somewhere in between, because (as I see it) the level of dishonesty affects how much harm they do and how much good they do.

My idealism hasn't been totally crushed just yet, so here's what I believe. I believe that the government is going to collect a certain amount in taxes. Let's say it's a billion dollars, hypothetically.

I realize that this Senator or that Representative is going to decide to give their district or home state something it wants, so that the people there will be grateful and will vote for them again. A certain percentage of that billion dollars will end up getting pissed away as a result.

After that, there will still be some money left over, and that money is going to be spent on things that really matter.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that if the government gets two billion dollars instead of one billion dollars, they'll basically pocket the extra cash and nothing will get better.

Whereas I believe that regardless of how much money is taken in by taxes, a certain percentage is going to get misused and a certain percentage is going to be used to improve things or at least keep things from getting any worse. If we're talking about a 50-50 split, which we'll say it is because this is purely hypothetical and it makes the math easier (:wink:) then that means five hundred million dollars wasted and five hundred million used to keep everything running smoothly if tax revenues total a billion dollars. If tax revenues total two billion, that's one billion wasted and one billion used for worthwhile stuff.

So if you're right, then things are always going to be pretty much the same regardless of how much everybody pays in taxes. If I'm right, raised taxes will mean things will get better (and also mean more pork, but as I said, that's the nature of the beast).

[FalconX2000]

Hilarious post Buzz.

[Arrogantcur]

And yes, I can blame bridge falling apart on wasteful spending, or the distribution of pork to various constituents, because if it weren't for that, the money would certainly be available for the upkeep.

I should've said that you can't blame it exclusively on one or both of those things. They were part of the problem. Another part of the problem: in addition to the money collected being distributed in less than ideal ways, there simply was not enough of it.

But we don't have honest people working in government anymore, if we ever did, so there you go.

I don't believe that. There are certainly some honest people in government, it's just a question of how many there are. Of the dishonest people, it's a question of whether they're mildly dishonest or pathologically greedy or somewhere in between, because (as I see it) the level of dishonesty affects how much harm they do and how much good they do.

My idealism hasn't been totally crushed just yet, so here's what I believe. I believe that the government is going to collect a certain amount in taxes. Let's say it's a billion dollars, hypothetically.

I realize that this Senator or that Representative is going to decide to give their district or home state something it wants, so that the people there will be grateful and will vote for them again. A certain percentage of that billion dollars will end up getting pissed away as a result.

After that, there will still be some money left over, and that money is going to be spent on things that really matter.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that if the government gets two billion dollars instead of one billion dollars, they'll basically pocket the extra cash and nothing will get better.

Whereas I believe that regardless of how much money is taken in by taxes, a certain percentage is going to get misused and a certain percentage is going to be used to improve things or at least keep things from getting any worse. If we're talking about a 50-50 split, which we'll say it is because this is purely hypothetical and it makes the math easier (:wink:) then that means five hundred million dollars wasted and five hundred million used to keep everything running smoothly if tax revenues total a billion dollars. If tax revenues total two billion, that's one billion wasted and one billion used for worthwhile stuff.

So if you're right, then things are always going to be pretty much the same regardless of how much everybody pays in taxes. If I'm right, raised taxes will mean things will get better (and also mean more pork, but as I said, that's the nature of the beast).

[the4thpip]

I should've said that you can't blame it exclusively on one or both of those things. They were part of the problem. Another part of the problem: in addition to the money collected being distributed in less than ideal ways, there simply was not enough of it.



I don't believe that. There are certainly some honest people in government, it's just a question of how many there are. Of the dishonest people, it's a question of whether they're mildly dishonest or pathologically greedy or somewhere in between, because (as I see it) the level of dishonesty affects how much harm they do and how much good they do.

My idealism hasn't been totally crushed just yet, so here's what I believe. I believe that the government is going to collect a certain amount in taxes. Let's say it's a billion dollars, hypothetically.

I realize that this Senator or that Representative is going to decide to give their district or home state something it wants, so that the people there will be grateful and will vote for them again. A certain percentage of that billion dollars will end up getting pissed away as a result.

After that, there will still be some money left over, and that money is going to be spent on things that really matter.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that if the government gets two billion dollars instead of one billion dollars, they'll basically pocket the extra cash and nothing will get better.

Whereas I believe that regardless of how much money is taken in by taxes, a certain percentage is going to get misused and a certain percentage is going to be used to improve things or at least keep things from getting any worse. If we're talking about a 50-50 split, which we'll say it is because this is purely hypothetical and it makes the math easier (:wink:) then that means five hundred million dollars wasted and five hundred million used to keep everything running smoothly if tax revenues total a billion dollars. If tax revenues total two billion, that's one billion wasted and one billion used for worthwhile stuff.

So if you're right, then things are always going to be pretty much the same regardless of how much everybody pays in taxes. If I'm right, raised taxes will mean things will get better (and also mean more pork, but as I said, that's the nature of the beast).

And what Obama helped do to make government spending more transparent (you know, that thing that Palin would have done if he hadn't done it first) certainly is a step in the right direction to hold them accountable on how money is spent.

But I kind of fear a lot of campaigns against "5 million to study jellyfish" while bridges to nowhere go unnoticed. A lot of those scientific studies do deserve public funding, even if they sound stupid as heck when you reduce them to a soundbite.

[the4thpip]

q11 If the 2008 election for U.S. House of Representatives were being held today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate in your district?
Republican: 31%
Democrat: 51%





http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Sep08b-Elec.pdf

Ouch. 20 point lead for the Dems.

[Major Comma]

I bet if you ask them about specific candidates those numbers get a bit smaller.

[KevinTBrown]

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Sep08b-Elec.pdf

Ouch. 20 point lead for the Dems.

I have a feeling that's what the election is going to end up being.....

[KevinTBrown]

Training wheels are off: Palin's on her own in FL. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080922/ap_on_el_pr/palin)

Not sure it helped though..... McCain's once near double digit lead there is: down to a 1 point lead. (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flaprezpoll0921sbsep21,0,7609474.story)

[Infra-Man]

I bet if you ask them about specific candidates those numbers get a bit smaller.

Yeah, I'd agree. Probably a lot of secure Republican incumbents, though some may be given a run for their money.

[the4thpip]

Actually, some formerly "secure" Republican candidates are behind in their individual polls due to the anti-Republican climate and/or their own personal scandals.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/house.html
(First poll there: Incumbent Young in Alaska down 14 points against his Dem challenger!)

Same in the Senate - I don't get why the Republicans didn't make a better effort to purge corrupt achilles' heels like Ted Stevens (down 6).

[KevinTBrown]

Edit:

Never mind.

[the4thpip]

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain defended deregulation on Wall Street even as he endorsed a $700 billion bailout of financial firms in an interview broadcast Sunday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/financial_meltdown_candidates;_ylt=Atgm_t.B38Marym fNRV7I0Fhr7sF

So... the free market will handle it, except when it won't, and then taxpayers are fucked?

[Calybos]

By the way.. Does anyone else find it troubling that we have to see just HOW bad the Republicans have to screw up before people will quit voting for them by default?

What kind of idiots are doing all this Default-Republican voting, anyway? Since when did "stupid" become our starting point?

[BnL]

By the way.. Does anyone else find it troubling that we have to see just HOW bad the Republicans have to screw up before people will quit voting for them by default?

What kind of idiots are doing all this Default-Republican voting, anyway? Since when did "stupid" become our starting point?

I don't understand it either. The Republican party no longer stands for anything it says it does. Nothing. But those old, empty sentiments still work on the public. It's ingrained in people's minds that the Republican Party has the foreign policy expertise and the economic responsibility. Meanwhile, the Democrats are scary, because...well, I still don't know why. Probably because so many people are afraid of the idea of progression that the Democrats represent, while Republicans represent the comfort of the status quo. I've developed a theory that the Republican party has become the default party of America, because, somehow, enough people are comforted by their empty sentiments to keep them in power. And the Democratic Party's sole function is to keep the Republicans somewhat in check and prevent them from full, unfettered fascism. I'd love to be proven wrong on election day.

[Charles RB]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/financial_meltdown_candidates;_ylt=Atgm_t.B38Marym fNRV7I0Fhr7sF

So... the free market will handle it, except when it won't

If he really believed in deregulation, he should indeed be trying to block the bailout because it will distort the market.

But he's not, so he's either:

a) In favour of the state as a safety net after all
b) Is compromising what he believes to be the best way of repairing the market because bailouts look better to voters and he wants voters to like him.

[TCJohnson]

McCain said some things this week I actually agree with...like getting rid of Karl Rove's political office.

[KevinTBrown]

I don't understand it either. The Republican party no longer stands for anything it says it does. Nothing. But those old, empty sentiments still work on the public. It's ingrained in people's minds that the Republican Party has the foreign policy expertise and the economic responsibility. Meanwhile, the Democrats are scary, because...well, I still don't know why. Probably because so many people are afraid of the idea of progression that the Democrats represent, while Republicans represent the comfort of the status quo. I've developed a theory that the Republican party has become the default party of America, because, somehow, enough people are comforted by their empty sentiments to keep them in power. And the Democratic Party's sole function is to keep the Republicans somewhat in check and prevent them from full, unfettered fascism. I'd love to be proven wrong on election day.

Why? Because being Liberal is being "dirty".

We're all for people having these things called Human Rights. You know, like having all people, regardless of skin color and sexual orentation, being able to get married; or letting a woman have a choice in a medical procedure; or having people who make millions pay their fair share in taxes (like everyone else).

All those eviiiiiiiiiiil things... :rolleyes:

[Royal]

http://www.bartcop.com/ad-apocalypse.jpg

[KevinTBrown]

McCain's plan for the Nation's health care system:

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Uh.... what?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/quicktakes/1177139,CST-NWS-qt22.article

[the4thpip]

Meanwhile, the Democrats are scary, because...well, I still don't know why.
THEY WILL KILL YOUR FETUS AND FORCE YOU TO MARRY A GAY!

[the4thpip]

If he really believed in regulation, he should indeed be trying to block the bailout because it will distort the market.

But he's not, so he's either:

a) In favour of the state as a safety net after all
b) Is compromising what he believes to be the best way of repairing the market because bailouts look better to voters and he wants voters to like him.

I think you mean deregulation.

[Charles RB]

I think you mean deregulation.

...cock. :frown:

[Major Comma]

I think most of the public supports the bailout.
It would be political suicide for McCain to oppose it.

[TCJohnson]

THEY WILL KILL YOUR FETUS AND FORCE YOU TO MARRY A GAY!

Can my gay be Portia Di Rossi? Pretty please?

[Charles RB]

I think most of the public supports the bailout.
It would be political suicide for McCain to oppose it.

Ah - so he's supporting a move that he thinks will harm the economy and free market, because he wants his career to not have a nasty bump that'd stop him getting the top job.

A lovely man.

[Trench]

People, we have lost sight of something here.

Won't someone think of Ralph Nader? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rvuF7p2uwE)

Everyone all together.... Awwwwwww. Now back away slowly.

[K-DoG7p7]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h209/7p7/1222097132010.gif

[Buzz Dixon]

By the way.. Does anyone else find it troubling that we have to see just HOW bad the Republicans have to screw up before people will quit voting for them by default?

What kind of idiots are doing all this Default-Republican voting, anyway? Since when did "stupid" become our starting point?Read this.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

It may help you avoid bigoted thinking.

[Grazzt]

Interesting article (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html) by a psychologist on why poor Republicans vote against their economic self-interest.

Read this.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

It may help you avoid bigoted thinking.

Hah! Beat you by a dozen pages. :tongue:

[Grazzt]

Same in the Senate - I don't get why the Republicans didn't make a better effort to purge corrupt achilles' heels like Ted Stevens (down 6).

I hear Alaskan politics are pretty corrupt overall. Maybe they don't have anyone better to run in his place.

[KevinTBrown]

I hear Alaskan politics are pretty corrupt overall. Maybe they don't have anyone better to run in his place.

Wait.... are you saying McCain doesn't care about corruption??

Well, he sure does here: http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/mccain_camp_runs_ad_on_obamas.html




Fuck you, John McCain. :mad: Learn some facts.

[KevinTBrown]

And McCain's campaign reaches for more "whine": http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13733.html

[kingdom2000]

The reason McCain is for the bailout is the same reason most republicans are...suddenly their own bad policies are effecting them directly and so they cry to mama for assistance. Funny how when the average american needs a bailout (medical, financial, no job, whatever) they are sucking off the working tit of america but when the rich do it its aok and necessary part of the process.

I am curious to know how Sam, Bri, etc justify this considering it slaps in the face of so-called republican ideals. Now I know it really doesn't, business first is the only ideal republicans really have, but the illusion is all that other crap people believe in though it doesn't really exist.

[Calybos]

Read this.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

It may help you avoid bigoted thinking.

Already read it. How is it "bigoted" to point out that voting on autopilot is , in fact, stupid?

[K-DoG7p7]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h209/7p7/1222108085883.gif

[Paul McEnery]

Read this.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

It may help you avoid bigoted thinking.

I'm afraid this:

What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.

Doesn't sound very different from Gary Yonge's explanation: 35% of Americans are malevolent and stupid, and thus deserving of bigotry.

I may read the rest of the article later, but I'm sure there's a more cognitively flexible explanation.

[Royal]

They found the "HAXXXORZ" (http://gawker.com/5053224/fbi-nabs-man-who-guessed-sarah-palins-password)

So the vile HACKER who HACKED poor Sarah Palin and her precious emails? Some kid from Tennessee. His dad is a Democratic state representative, which means of course that he was paid by Barack Obama personally to HACK the shit out of that poor woman. The kid (the ALLEGED HACKER) is obviously a brilliant computer genius. Didn't you hear how he hacked all that hacking he hacked? He went to the "I forgot my password" screen and correctly guessed the answers to the "security questions." HACK HACK HACK.

[K-DoG7p7]

Actually.. he is more of a Script kiddie then a hacker

Besides.. the Correct term is Cracker.. )

[Royal]

Actually.. he is more of a Script kiddie then a hacker

Besides.. the Correct term is Cracker.. )

You think Tenn. courts are going to care about semantics?

[Royal]

Holy Fuck! You use that ammo on deer! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebXA7EpEVLw)

[Dreadstar]

Holy Fuck! You use that ammo on deer! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebXA7EpEVLw)

You *do* realize that all six of those cartridges are being held (easily, I might add) in the palm of one hand in the picture, right?

[Arrogantcur]

Already read it. How is it "bigoted" to point out that voting on autopilot is , in fact, stupid?

It isn't. I agree with you.

[Buzz Dixon]

Actually.. he is more of a Script kiddie then a hacker

Besides.. the Correct term is Cracker.. )I can just imagine the prosecution's opening statement: "Your honor, that tallywhacker Barack backer is a cracker hacker!"

[Stressfactor]

You *do* realize that all six of those cartridges are being held (easily, I might add) in the palm of one hand in the picture, right?

Huh. My brother-in-law -- who has family that hunts -- told me that you really were not supposed to use a rifle for deer hunting anyway out of the fear that the bullet might actually go THROUGH the deer and still have enough velocity to hurt or even kill another person if they were nearby.

[kingdom2000]

In a non-shocke (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html?_r=3&ei=5070&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1222121323-xZtXYQWMeVmV8Y53OxuIJg)r, it turns out that "Senator John McCain’s campaign manager 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."

At this point, it would be hard not to find a lobbyiest on McCain's staff that was behind some recent disastrous policy. When most of your staff is lobbyiest, the odds are against you that some of them are neck deep into some form of stupid policy. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy about the policies they will create when they get in the white house. What new mistakes will they add to the Bush dogpile?

[Dreadstar]

Huh. My brother-in-law -- who has family that hunts -- told me that you really were not supposed to use a rifle for deer hunting anyway out of the fear that the bullet might actually go THROUGH the deer and still have enough velocity to hurt or even kill another person if they were nearby.

There are too many factors involved to cut it down to a single simple "if-then" statement like that. Suffice to say, if you fear the possibility, then you shouldn't do it.

Honestly, you probably shouldn't get into a situation where it's a possibility to begin with. Again, determining that requires taking into account a lot of factors as well.

[Sabrinaset]

There are too many factors involved to cut it down to a single simple "if-then" statement like that. Suffice to say, if you fear the possibility, then you shouldn't do it.

Honestly, you probably shouldn't get into a situation where it's a possibility to begin with. Again, determining that requires taking into account a lot of factors as well.

Although I can count on one hand the number of times I've hunted, this is essentially correct and there's so many factors that go into choosing what you fire based on what you're hunting (and where) that I could spend several pages talking about it.

Meanwhile, in the news ...

Bill says Hillary didn't want to be Obama's running mate? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dns6oX4p98)

And Bill says he understands Palin's appeal. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008195867_apbillclintonpalin.html)

Sarah Palin to meet with 7 world leaders at UN (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93BUITG0&show_article=1)

Is Biden at it again? (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/the-story-behin.html)

"If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where Bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden said. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."...

We hadn't heard before about Biden's helicopter being forced down, so we did some Googling.

After all, earlier this month at a fundraiser, he made a similar remark, when discussing how he doesn't care about the Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's controversies like whether she sold a state plane on eBay, or when she went from supporting to opposing the Bridge to Nowhere.

"What I care about is: What in God's name is she going to do -- along with John McCain -- about the thousands of people who don't have health care?" Biden said according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Biden said he would ask Palin about "The superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down...John McCain wants to know where Bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That's where Al Qaeda is. That's where Bin Laden is. It's not in the country of Iraq."

In February 2008, Biden -- along with Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. -- was on a chopper that made an emergency landing in the mountains of Afghanistan.

A snowstorm had forced them down.

No one was injured, and the Associated Press reported at the time that "the senators and their delegation returned to Bagram Air Base in a motor convoy, and left for Turkey.

"The weather closed in on us," Kerry told the AP at the time in a phone interview from Turkey. "It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges. So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed...We sat up there and traded stories."

Kerry joked, "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it…Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."

McCain aide: NYT not legit news source. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13733.html) Well okay, it's no National Enquirer, but still ...

Am I evil because I read this ...

Bill Burton ... said the Times had published more than 40 "probing stories ... over the course of the campaign about Barack Obama...

...and thought Obama had been kidnapped by aliens? :redface:

[K-DoG7p7]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h209/7p7/1222140598228.jpg

[kingdom2000]

I am looking at Clinton making the rounds much like he did post 9/11, trying to make the public feel ok about the company collapses. All I can think of is thank god most Americans are too stupid to understand how serious the situation is right now.

And to bad we are stuck with a president who is too damn dumb to understand choosing to once again focus on expanding power and protecting his friends then trying to create a solution that doesn't allow a repeat of this debacle.

Even worse, I don't think they are focusing on what is important. Any plan can't just bail out AIG and others. It has to bail out homeowners, even the stupid ones that helped get us in this mess.

To me the focus should be on interest rates in all areas. If the variable interests rates had not sky rocketed to make up for shortfalls and forclosures, we probably wouldn't even be in this mess (of course regulation would have helped much). Why interest rate caps are not being discussed is beyond me.

Any plan must include an interest rate cap that is x points over prime for morgage loans. Any bank that exceeds gets stiff penalties. Any current loads that excced the value immeidatly drop to the lower value (maybe add a retroactive clause of y months that drops the amount owned in the long term).

The plan should extend to to the credit card companies and other lenders. Basically 30% interest rates on CCs should be flat out illegal. Anything 5 points over prime really should be. This type of usiary law should extend to pretty much all lenders of interest where money can still be made but the current abuses of interest rates end.

Can you imagine the positive impact this would have on the economy is suddenly people lost upwards to 20% off their debt because excessive interest rates are ended? Sure there will still be acts of stupidity but right now the solution people are demanding is because of the few stupid, we all must suffer because make no mistake if AIG falls, we will have a second Depression. People's lack of understanding of the situation is probably the only reason we don't have a run on the banks.

I hope congress works out a solution that works for current problems and stops a repeat but sadly I have a feeling they will once again kow tow to big business and give bush the blank check and power he is currently asking for.

But hey at least Republicans and conservatives got their unfettered free market that they claimed would fix all that ails us.

[Arrogantcur]

I felt like stealing something today.

I decided to steal Buzz's tendency to post installments of Sinfest here, because today's is good. :wink:

http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-09-23.gif

(Seriously, thanks for getting me hooked on this comic, Buzz. I've been enjoying it!)

[the4thpip]

McCain's Temperament Fails Again


WASHINGTON -- 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."

In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people.



http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/mccains_temperment_fails_again.html

[Michael P]

Gotta love how, even as the Wall Street Journal turns on McCain, they still sneak in a dig at Obama.

[Lester C.]

I wonder why Obama isn't doing better in the polls. The economy is in shambles with a possible collapse and we are in a very unpopular war on two fronts with more to be possibly added. An obvious answer might be racism, but logically that doesn’t make sense as he won the primary when nearly all of his competitors were white.

[the4thpip]

I wonder why Obama isn't doing better in the polls. The economy is in shambles with a possible collapse and we are in a very unpopular war on two fronts with more to be possibly added. An obvious answer might be racism, but logically that doesn’t make sense as he won the primary when nearly all of his competitors were white.

Mostly Democrats voted in those primaries.

[Arrogantcur]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/mccains_temperment_fails_again.html

Looking for reasons to be optimistic about the debates, I watched parts two and four of the interview Obama did with Bill O'Reilly, having previously watched part one.

Obama didn't lose his temper, which a lot of people would do if Billo were talking to them the same way. Obama didn't allow Billo to make him uncomfortable or nervous, which a lot of other people would be if Billo talked to them the same way. Obama never seemed unprepared for any of the questions either, and he didn't allow O'Reilly to talk over him.

So having seen that, coupled with this latest instance of McCain acting like a petulant child, makes me feel good about this upcoming debate. John McCain is a lot of things, but if O'Reilly is unable to get a rise out of Obama or throw him off his game then John McCain won't be able to do it either.

Obama, on the other hand, may succeed in getting a rise out of McCain, causing McCain to say something he regrets or act in a way that hurts him. Let's hope for the best...

[Corrina]

I saw Bill on the View.

I kept thinking "why can't this guy be in charge for a little bit more? Things were going relatively good for a while."

Of course, that might not be all due to him. But I did like how he explained some of the financial crisis and he's a great spokesperson for saying "if we're going to bail out Wall Street, we need to include something to help out the mortgages too."

Damn, he's a good salesperson.

[the4thpip]

Fernando C' de Baca, who heads the GOP in Bernalillo County, was quoted by BBC reporter Jon Kelly on Friday as saying that even though the polls show Barack Obama with a substantial lead over John McCain among Hispanic voters, "The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors. African-Americans came here as slaves. ... Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won't vote for a black president."

The Hispanic community has reacted to de Baca's remarks with anger. Ralph Arellanes of the Hispanic Roundtable of New Mexico told CNN, "I'm insulted and I'm outraged." The Obama campaign issued a similar statement by the speaker of the New Mexico House, Democrat Ben Lujan, saying, "I am outraged. ... It is an insult to the Hispanic community and to all of the voters of New Mexico.."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/GOP_official_Hispanics_above_blacks_0922.html

[Infra-Man]

I think this Atlantic piece from their last issue pretty much sums up how Obama should approach the debates...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200809/fallows-debates

Keyes never had a chance in that election--he was a sacrificial fill-in for a Republican nominee who dropped out at the last minute during a divorce scandal--but he can hold his own in any debate with anyone. He was a successful schoolboy orator and debater who has all the skills of repartee Obama seemed to lack during the primary debates: he answers immediately, he talks very fast, he has a theory and an illustration to buttress every point. If we applied the conventional wisdom of this year’s debates, we would assume that he would talk his way around the more deliberate and thoughtful Obama.

But in 2004, he didn’t. Obama matched him in speed, aggressiveness, and swagger. Anyone who looks at these old debates will see it. The Obama of the presidential debates seemed to be enduring the sessions; the Obama who took on Alan Keyes seemed to be having fun. When attacking Keyes’s background and ideas, which he did frequently, he sounded wry rather than ponderous or angry. He didn’t seem to mind needling or attacking Keyes, or seem upset when Keyes attacked.

The Obama of 2004 didn’t spend much time on his now-familiar “new age of politics” theme (or need to). If asked about steel-industry jobs, tax rates, or the death penalty, he would address the specifics of those issues, without bothering to stress the need for Americans to bridge their partisan divides. Every now and then, he would make those larger points--after all, this was six weeks after his famous speech at the Democratic convention about moving past red states and blue states, to the United States of America. But they seemed incidental rather than central.

That previous Obama also sounded very little like a professor. With dismissive ease, he reeled off rebuttal points and identified errors as if he had been working in a courtroom rather than a classroom all his life. Keyes had said that Jesus Christ would not have voted for Obama. Obama was asked for his response: “Well, you know, my first reaction was, I actually wanted to find out who Mr. Keyes’s pollster was, because if I had the opportunity to talk to Jesus Christ, I’d be asking something much more important than this Senate race. I’d want to know whether I was going up, or down.”

All in all, Obama seemed in his element and having fun--two things no one has detected about his debate performances this past year. The ease with instant retorts he had shown against Keyes seemed to desert him against Edwards and Clinton, along with his unflappability under personal attack.

[sic]

For Obama the key is: look at John McCain, and see Alan Keyes.

[KevinTBrown]

Looking for reasons to be optimistic about the debates, I watched parts two and four of the interview Obama did with Bill O'Reilly, having previously watched part one.

Obama didn't lose his temper, which a lot of people would do if Billo were talking to them the same way. Obama didn't allow Billo to make him uncomfortable or nervous, which a lot of other people would be if Billo talked to them the same way. Obama never seemed unprepared for any of the questions either, and he didn't allow O'Reilly to talk over him.

So having seen that, coupled with this latest instance of McCain acting like a petulant child, makes me feel good about this upcoming debate. John McCain is a lot of things, but if O'Reilly is unable to get a rise out of Obama or throw him off his game then John McCain won't be able to do it either.

Obama, on the other hand, may succeed in getting a rise out of McCain, causing McCain to say something he regrets or act in a way that hurts him. Let's hope for the best...

That's the key there.

If this week continues to be difficult for McCain, he's going to head into the debate on edge. McCain lucked out though with the first debate focusing mainly on foreign policy, though you can guarantee the economy will be mentioned heavily.

Here's the debate schedule for those who are curious:

September 26, 2008: Presidential debate with foreign policy focus, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

October 2, 2008: Vice Presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

October 7, 2008: Presidential debate in a town hall format, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

October 15, 2008: Presidential debate with domestic policy focus, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Each debate will begin at 9pm eastern, 6pm pacific time and last for 90 minutes. They will be aired on every major broadcast network such as CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. They will also be aired on cable outlets such as Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and many others.

[K-DoG7p7]

September 26, 2008: Presidential debate with foreign policy focus, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

October 2, 2008: Vice Presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

October 7, 2008: Presidential debate in a town hall format, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

October 15, 2008: Presidential debate with domestic policy focus, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Each debate will begin at 9pm eastern, 6pm pacific time and last for 90 minutes. They will be aired on every major broadcast network such as CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. They will also be aired on cable outlets such as Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and many others.


Lets predict winners now shall we?


First Debate: Biden
Secound Debate: Biden
Third Debate: Technically McCain but Obama takes the price (Think Nixon-Kennedy in 1960..)
Fourth Debate: Technically McCain but Obama takes the price

[KevinTBrown]

And CNN has Obama over McCain 51-47: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/22/republicans-blamed-obama-gains-over-financial-crisis/

When including only those people most likely to vote, the results are pretty much the same: Among likely voters, Obama has a 4 point lead, 51 percent to 47 percent.

[KevinTBrown]

Lets predict winners now shall we?


First Debate: Biden
Secound Debate: Biden
Third Debate: Technically McCain but Obama takes the price (Think Nixon-Kennedy in 1960..)
Fourth Debate: Technically McCain but Obama takes the price

There's only one VP debate....

[K-DoG7p7]

There's only one VP debate....

shit.. I thought the first one was VP too...

never mind.. you know what I think the outcome will be

[FalconX2000]

I wonder why Obama isn't doing better in the polls. The economy is in shambles with a possible collapse and we are in a very unpopular war on two fronts with more to be possibly added. An obvious answer might be racism, but logically that doesn’t make sense as he won the primary when nearly all of his competitors were white.

Actually, latest polls of 4 battleground states indicate Obama is up in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado.

I think this Atlantic piece from their last issue pretty much sums up how Obama should approach the debates...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200809/fallows-debates

I've watched 3 debates between Obama and Keyes. He wasn't all that good. There was no question in my mind he won, but Keyes was just so damn offensive that he destroyed himself.



http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isOFwdbq0tsqatW6vJpkDRTI1gMgD93CFATG0

Obama volunteered some realism that he'd have to slow down the rate at which he introduces his programs due to the economic troubles. This is straight talk, and I hope it doesn't get twisted politically.

[KevinTBrown]

Palin bans reporters from meetings with world leaders (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/palin_leaders).

:rolleyes:

[K-DoG7p7]

Palin bans reporters from meetings with world leaders (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/palin_leaders).

:rolleyes:

good move during an ELECTION!!


EDIT: also interesting that shes meeting the presidents of the 2 largest drug nations in the world.. and its closed off from the press...



OMG!

PS: Afghan farmers are now switching from opium farming to wheat.. since wheat is not more expensive then heroin..

[Charles RB]

Palin bans reporters from meetings with world leaders (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/palin_leaders).

:rolleyes:

How bad does she or the party think she'll be if they think this is the option that'll bring down less shit?

[Buzz Dixon]

I felt like stealing something today.

I decided to steal Buzz's tendency to post installments of Sinfest here, because today's is good. :wink: You only beat me to it 'cuz I went to bed early last night. :wink:

[Buzz Dixon]

I wonder why Obama isn't doing better in the polls. The economy is in shambles with a possible collapse and we are in a very unpopular war on two fronts with more to be possibly added. An obvious answer might be racism, but logically that doesn’t make sense as he won the primary when nearly all of his competitors were white.Whaddya mean "nearly all"?

Obama is currently enjoying a period of not having to worry about looking good 'cuz all the attention is focused on how bad the opposition looks. I've made this observation elsewhere, but only partisans vote for a candidate, independents vote against.

Right now the GOP, McCain, and Palin are giving the independents plenty of reasons to vote against 'em.

[KevinTBrown]

Whaddya mean "nearly all"?

Obama is currently enjoying a period of not having to worry about looking good 'cuz all the attention is focused on how bad the opposition looks. I've made this observation elsewhere, but only partisans vote for a candidate, independents vote against.

Right now the GOP, McCain, and Palin are giving the independents plenty of reasons to vote against 'em.

It was bound to happen to McCain though. Numerous people who have posted in this thread have commented about waiting for McCain to fall apart in some way, and he's doing so.

If the media pressure on the economy is still strong against McCain heading into Friday's debate, McCain will be primed to explode.

[KevinTBrown]

Palin bans reporters from meetings with world leaders (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/palin_leaders).

:rolleyes:

good move during an ELECTION!!



How bad does she or the party think she'll be if they think this is the option that'll bring down less shit?

Oh lookie here..... Palin press may boycott UN conference (http://news.yahoo.com/story//politico/20080923/pl_politico/13783).


You'd think by now the McCain campain (no, not a misspelling...) would learn its lessons. :rolleyes:

[the4thpip]

Alan Keyes Was Unavailable?

I see that the person John McCain has playing Barack Obama in debate prep is... Michael Steele. Does the McCain campaign realize that he needs to prepare to articulate his agenda, not just general talking-to-a-black-guy preparation?

--Jonathan Chait


The comments to that blog entry are downright mean. :tongue:

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/22/alan-keyes-was-unavailable.aspx

[the4thpip]

So, what is the least conscientious and agreeable state in the US?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211987961064719.html?mod=yhoofront#articleTab s_interactive-PERSONALITY08

[KevinTBrown]

McCain ♥ Gramm (http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=2&threadid=1463638)

[Nick Soapdish]

Whaddya mean "nearly all"?


Bill Richardson.

[kingdom2000]

Oh lookie here..... Palin press may boycott UN conference (http://news.yahoo.com/story//politico/20080923/pl_politico/13783).

You'd think by now the McCain campain (no, not a misspelling...) would learn its lessons. :rolleyes:

Naw, McCain knows at the end of the day the press is more concerned about losing access then principles. They will not boycott anything, too worried might miss something.

[Royal]

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/7/2008/09/custom_1222184456199_20080923__82875236AW011_SENAT E_HOLDS_fail_p1.jpg

[Buzz Dixon]

Bill Richardson.Ah! Okay, point taken.

[Samurai]

http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-massive-obama-defeat-becomes.html

Friday, September 19, 2008
HOW A MASSIVE OBAMA DEFEAT BECOMES A MASSIVE DEMOCRATIC VICTORY.
The best thing that can happen for the country and the Democratic Party this November is a massive defeat of Barack Obama.

While Obama is arguably the most unfit, unqualified, dishonest,dishonorable, deceitful and underhanded candidate ever to run for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket, a snake oil salesman who talks out of both sides of his mouth and will lie to anyone about anything, its also no secret that he wouldn't even be the candidate had the Democratic Party leadership not corrupted, devalued, and rigged the system in order to produce him.

Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Donna Brazile and all those in the DNC and the Democratic Party who went along with this fiasco corrupted the party during the primaries in ways that hadn't been seen since the days of Boss Tweed. And they topped it off with a brazenly rigged roll call vote that violated every rule and procedure in the Democratic Party, throwing away 18 million votes, disenfranchising almost 1700 delegates, and disregarding the 800 super delegates who Democratic rules said were supposed to decide the nominee. And they did all this to produce a candidate that is the most unfit the party has ever put forward. This is why this is election will be studied in the years to come, not by political scientists, but by psychiatrists.

Not only is Obama completely unqualified to be President and on that basis alone should be defeated, but for those Democrats who have never wanted to see a Republican elected over a Democrat, they should be reminded that it was Obama who said earlier this year that the Republicans were the party of ideas. He has reversed himself on so many positions that now are aligned with Republican positions so he can pander to Republican voters in the general election ( FISA, gun control, off shore drilling) that John McCain is actually more at odds with the Republican Party than Obama. Another tid bit psychiatrists will find fascinating to study in the year to come.

A massive defeat of Obama, one of Reagan - Mondale like proportions will not only keep an unqualified and untrustworthy, and certainly undeserving candidate out of the White House, it would have the secondary, longer lasting, and immediate benefit of ridding the party of those who corrupted it in the first place and produced the coming fiasco.

It would not only be a huge defeat for Obama, but the entire Obama wing of the party, starting with Howard Dean and the wicked witches of the west and east, Nancy Pelosi,and Donna Brazile, and all the Munchkins in the Democratic Party who went along and supported this fiasco, from elected Democratic officials to the super delegates of the Lollipop League whose worthless declarations in June helped short circuit the process.

As for Dean, Pelosi, Fowler, Brazile and those in the DNC who sanctioned this dishonest and corrupt exercise in Democratic Party futility, their resignations should be and will be demanded and they will have no choice but to resign after engineering a humiliating defeat in a year the Democrats should have won in a cake walk. That will take the Democratic Party out of the hands of the dishonest brokers and back into the hands of those who respect its principles and processes.

To this end the Denver Group has created an off-shoot effort called Democrats For Principle Before Party, a group aiming at a two pronged attack -- one, running ads in the congressional media holding Dean, Pelosi and the rest of the leadership accountable and demanding their resignations in the face of a Democratic defeat, and secondly, running ads and commercials in battleground states aimed defeating Obama, and bringing about the change that's really needed -- keeping an unqualified candidate out of the White House and reforming the Democratic Party. After 8 years of an incompetent Republican the last thing we need is four years of an incompetent Democrat.

And now with the news yesterday that it will be Obama who will choose the next Chairman of the DNC ( in the best traditions of Boss Tweed and Mao) a massive Obama defeat at the polls is really the only way the Democratic Party can be reformed. Not a close defeat. A massive one.

For those who want to contribute to that end, and who believe a massive Obama defeat is not only necessary but what is best for the country and the party, you can do two things -- withhold your vote for Obama (vote for another candidate or don't vote the Presidential line at all) while voting for down ticket Democrats you feel deserve your vote and secondly, you can contribute to the Denver Group's new off-shoot, Democrats For Principle Before Party by clicking on the "donate" button at the end of this post.

There is really no amount too small. A $5 contribution from a thousand people buys as much advertising as $5,000 from one person and there are a lot more people with $5 to donate than there are with $5,000. Coming from Democrats these ads and commercials will have a lot more credibility and have more of an effect than attack ads coming from the sources you would expect. Secondly, the group will also be targeting Democrats in congress and the DNC to demand resignations and reform after an Obama defeat.

Any amount can help achieve those goals of a massive Obama defeat and restoring the Democratic Party to the kind of institution its supposed to be, run by people who understand what its supposed to be and who will protect its rules,procedures and democratic values. This is how a massive Democratic defeat will turn into a lasting Democratic victory.


Posted by Marc Rubin at 6:13 AM

It would be nice to have a loyal opposition again, rather than the hate-filled, Olbermann-watching, Kos-reading, blame-America-first crowd that are running Obama's dog and pony show...

[Buzz Dixon]

http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-massive-obama-defeat-becomes.html



It would be nice to have a loyal opposition again, rather than the hate-filled, Olbermann-watching, Kos-reading, blame-America-first crowd that are running Obama's dog and pony show...Wherever that guy is buying his drugs, he should get his money back.

[Buzz Dixon]

David Letterman had Bill Clinton on his show.

His next guest was Chris Rock.

He won't make that mistake again.

http://gawker.com/5053486/chris-rock-to-bill-clinton-hillary-lost

[Paul McEnery]

Wherever that guy is buying his drugs, he should get his money back.

Peed skills!

[KevinTBrown]

Wherever that guy is buying his drugs, he should get his money back.

You may need to contact Cindy McCain to find out......

[kingdom2000]

"Obama is arguably the most unfit, unqualified, dishonest,dishonorable, deceitful and underhanded candidate ever to run for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket, a snake oil salesman who talks out of both sides of his mouth and will lie to anyone about anything,"

So Obama does have lots of experience! This is usually used to describe a lifelong politican like McCain. It never ceases to amuse me how easily republicans lie to themselves. I am betting if you ask the guy for specifics it will be vague things about being a muslim and the like. I can't decide if it takes a special kind of stupid or if I should simple feel pity for them.

Even if you assume the above is correct, how much worse does that make McCain by comparison then as those traits would fit that man to a tee and then some. And unlike Obama, the list to support each accusation for McCain is rather extensive.

[kingdom2000]

On a side note, you ever notice that the same reasons that Republicans claimed that Kerry was unfit for President fit McCain to a tee?

By this I mean the flip-flopping, using military record, marrying a wife that inherited her money, allowing said wife to participate in the campaign in a decision making capacity, confusing speeches, frequent use of "i have a plan" and so forth? Just ironic that the things people despised about Kerry they embrace in McCain.

[Sabrinaset]

marrying a wife that inherited her money,

Well now, in defense of McCain here, he married a BEER heiress, while Kerry married a KETCHUP heiress ... definitive proof McCain is smarter than Kerry! :tongue:

[Paul McEnery]

"Obama is arguably the most unfit, unqualified, dishonest,dishonorable, deceitful and underhanded candidate ever to run for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket, a snake oil salesman who talks out of both sides of his mouth and will lie to anyone about anything,".

Plus, he's black.

[Paul McEnery]

Well now, in defense of McCain here, he married a BEER heiress, while Kerry married a KETCHUP heiress ... definitive proof McCain is smarter than Kerry! :tongue:

The more I think, the more we should have had a Kerry/McCain ticket last time after all.

With someone married to a BACON heiress for Attorney General.

[Tages]

http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-massive-obama-defeat-becomes.html



It would be nice to have a loyal opposition again, rather than the hate-filled, Olbermann-watching, Kos-reading, blame-America-first crowd that are running Obama's dog and pony show...

Fixed as the Northern Star you are.

I direct everyone to Exhibit A (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=7512040#post7512040) as to why Samurai calling anyone else "hate-filled" is a knee-slappingly hilarious.

For a moment I thought you'd quit CBR for good, and I wouldn't get to laugh at your antics anymore. This brightens my day considerably!

[Samurai]

Fixed as the Northern Star you are.

I direct everyone to Exhibit A (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=7512040#post7512040) as to why Samurai calling anyone else "hate-filled" is a knee-slappingly hilarious.

For a moment I thought you'd quit CBR for good, and I wouldn't get to laugh at your antics anymore. This brightens my day considerably!

Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much.

When McCain / Palin win the election, it'll be easier for me to come back, but until November, expect only short glances and a few posts and comments now and then, not the long debates I typically engage in.

[Joe Rice]

Nothing like a corrupt fool to get Sam excited.

[FalconX2000]

http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-massive-obama-defeat-becomes.html



It would be nice to have a loyal opposition again, rather than the hate-filled, Olbermann-watching, Kos-reading, blame-America-first crowd that are running Obama's dog and pony show...

Disappointing Samurai. You used to be able to make a somewhat convincing case regardless of the truth. This is Brareos level.

[Nick Soapdish]

http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-massive-obama-defeat-becomes.html



It would be nice to have a loyal opposition again, rather than the hate-filled, Olbermann-watching, Kos-reading, blame-America-first crowd that are running Obama's dog and pony show...

I think that Nova just found a friend.

[Samurai]

Disappointing Samurai. You used to be able to make a somewhat convincing case regardless of the truth. This is Brareos level.

I didn't write the article, a Democrat did... one who is tired of the corruption and radical extremists in his own party. Talk to him if you don't like what he wrote, here's the website: http://tdg.typepad.com/democrats_for_principle_b/

[Corrina]

Country First!

*Unless it's your husband because he can be forgiven for belonging to a party that advocates a vote on separating his state from the United States.

Otherwise, Bully!

[Corrina]

"Obama is arguably the most unfit, unqualified, dishonest,dishonorable, deceitful and underhanded candidate ever to run for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket, a snake oil salesman who talks out of both sides of his mouth and will lie to anyone about anything,"


Hey, hey!

Recycling a Bill Clinton tirade? Well, I guess it's economical.

[Royal]

Country Breakfast First!

*Unless it's your husband because he can be forgiven for belonging to a party that advocates a vote on separating his state from the United States.

Otherwise, Bully!

Fixed it for ya, because it's true!

[Nick Soapdish]

I didn't write the article, a Democrat did... one who is tired of the corruption and radical extremists in his own party. Talk to him if you don't like what he wrote, here's the website: http://tdg.typepad.com/democrats_for_principle_b/

It's also the bits that you bolded.

It's sad that a 66% liberal rating (by votes) qualifies one as a radical extremist, but you have to have be at 90+% to be on the far right.

[KevinTBrown]

Country First!

*Unless it's your husband because he can be forgiven for belonging to a party that advocates a vote on separating his state from the United States.

Otherwise, Bully!

Remember.... McCain hasn't said WHICH country yet. :wink:

[Royal]

http://gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2008/09/davidkernell-1.jpg

Behold! Our Palin "Hacker"! (http://gawker.com/5053972/heres-the-sarah-palin-email-hacker)

His lawyer is so gonna fuck him up.

[KevinTBrown]

The more I read of Biden, the more I like the guy....

Take his comment HERE (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/biden) about McCain shielding offshore tax loopholes.

Makes the FDR "whoops" (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/biden_mistaken_history) seem like nothing.

:smile:

[Buzz Dixon]

http://gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2008/09/davidkernell-1.jpg

Behold! Our Palin "Hacker"! (http://gawker.com/5053972/heres-the-sarah-palin-email-hacker)

His lawyer is so gonna fuck him up.If THIS guy can penetrate your security, you have no right ro be running a cash register at WalMart, much less the state of Alaska!

[Tages]

Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much.

When McCain / Palin win the election, it'll be easier for me to come back, but until November, expect only short glances and a few posts and comments now and then, not the long debates I typically engage in.
Tell me, what is it you admire "Sarah" for?

And how, in any way, was this a defense of Sarah Palin when the article is about the Democratic Party?

Also, if Obama's an extremist, you have an extremely strange definition of "extremism."

The more I read of Biden, the more I like the guy....

I was indifferent until I read his positions on intellectual property and encryption.

The guy is bought and paid for by the RIAA.

[kingdom2000]

"Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much."

Yeah, I can't figure out what your talking about. What lies? And what has she done that is worth admiring really? Excluding looks, as far as I can tell she is no more impressive then 99% of the politicans for either party.

[Paul McEnery]

Country Fries!


Royal misses the easy target.

[kingdom2000]

The guy is bought and paid for by the RIAA.

Yeah Biden seriousily concerns me. Any other election where the republican candidate isn't promising more of the same and Biden might have been enough to get me to vote Republican. May not believe me but notice I rarely speak pro-Obama anything. To me Obama is all talk but I doubt he will accomplish much. I just don't think he will make things worse, while McCain will as he has clearly demostrated he believes Bush's policies and is buried neck deep in lobbyiest. My election choice is anti-McBush based and those that supported is disastrous policies with no concern for the consequences. I am just hoping that like Palin, Biden never becomes President.

[BnL]

Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much.

When McCain / Palin win the election, it'll be easier for me to come back, but until November, expect only short glances and a few posts and comments now and then, not the long debates I typically engage in.

Could you possibly BE more full of shit? In the past, you've prided yourself on the fact that you continue to post in defense of the Republican party among a mostly liberal group. Now suddenly, cwiticism of poor wittle innocent Sawah is too much for you. What a crock. The real reason you've been keeping a low profile is because there IS no feasible defense of Palin or McCain for you to champion. They reach new levels of incompetence and dishonesty with each day, and you know it. We ALL know it. We're well past the stage of deniability.

[Nick Soapdish]

Yeah, I can't figure out what your talking about. What lies? And what has she done that is worth admiring really? Excluding looks, as far as I can tell she is no more impressive then 99% of the politicans for either party.

Well, there has been a lot of criticism for her inexperience, the fiscal excesses that mark the experience that she does have (moving a small town from zero debt into $20M in just 6 years and getting massive amounts of pork both as mayor and then governor), the hypocrisy of then claiming that she didn't ask for earmarks and specifically didn't want the bridge, the hypocrisy of giving her daughter a choice, but being in favor of denying that to other women, her ignorance on foreign policy and energy, and her unwillingness to talk to the press.

Presumably, these are the sort of things that Sam admires.

[Nick Soapdish]

Could you possibly BE more full of shit? In the past, you've prided yourself on the fact that you continue to post in defense of the Republican party among a mostly liberal group. Now suddenly, cwiticism of poor wittle innocent Sawah is too much for you. What a crock. The real reason you've been keeping a low profile is because there IS no feasible defense of Palin or McCain for you to champion. They reach new levels of incompetence and dishonesty with each day, and you know it. We ALL know it. We're well past the stage of deniability.

C'mon.

That hasn't stopped him before.

[40footwolf]

Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much.

When McCain / Palin win the election, it'll be easier for me to come back, but until November, expect only short glances and a few posts and comments now and then, not the long debates I typically engage in.
I feel like anyone who becomes inspired by somebody who doesn't know basic foundations of her own party is somebody we're not going to miss on Election Day.

[FalconX2000]

I didn't write the article, a Democrat did... one who is tired of the corruption and radical extremists in his own party. Talk to him if you don't like what he wrote, here's the website: http://tdg.typepad.com/democrats_for_principle_b/

It's not his fault you put it up here. What crap that guy wants to write is his problem. That you're trying to use said crap to convince us is pitiful.



On another note, another poll I do not believe has Obama up 52-43 among likely voters.
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/Story?id=5866046&page=4

[Royal]

Royal misses the easy target.

Country Breakfast is more patriotic and more fitting for the GOP.

A meal in excess made for one person who can't really stomach it all down.

[Paul McEnery]

Country Breakfast is more patriotic and more fitting for the GOP.

A meal in excess made for one person who can't really stomach it all down.

Yeah, but Country Fries is what they've done to us.:evilsmile:

[the4thpip]

Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much.



Oh, that poor, defenseless Sarah Palin! (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/23/palin/)

[the4thpip]

Tell me, what is it you admire "Sarah" for?



Lipstick. ...

[the4thpip]

On another note, another poll I do not believe has Obama up 52-43 among likely voters.
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/Story?id=5866046&page=4

Wonder why RCP hasn't included that one in their average?

[Arrogantcur]

Third Debate: Technically McCain but Obama takes the price (Think Nixon-Kennedy in 1960..)

I wondered if it would be anything like Nixon-Kennedy as well. Not that I think McCain's going to sweat all over the stage, mind, but because of the difference in the way the candidates sound.

The reason is that a lot of times when I listen to McCain speak, my mind starts to wander. I have to make a conscious effort to pay attention to him. There are exceptions, such as when he says something to piss me off. Then I can't help but focus on him, because I'm angry at him. Or when he tells a bald-faced lie. Or when he actually says something that I agree with and I say "I guess I have to admit that's a good point, grumble grumble grumble..."

But the rest of the time?

ZzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZ.....

Obama, by comparison, could read the ingredients listed on the back of a Pepsi can, and make it sound important, do it with the kind of energy that McCain simply lacks.

So, all other things being equal, or maybe even slightly unequal in McCain's favour? Obama comes out looking better. :cool:

Watching Larry King interviewing Ahmadinejad tonight, they played a clip of McCain saying the following (http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN2335713320080723)...

MCCAIN: "I am concerned about the Iranian nuclear build-up, particularly when you have a president who comes to the United Nations and says that his country is going to 'wipe Israel off the map.'"

Meanwhile we have McCain's sock puppet, Sarah Palin, talking about Iran causing a "second holocaust." (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/palin-warns-aga.html)

Let's pretend that the "map" statement was translated correctly (which, I've read, it was not), and that a term like "this country should be wiped off the map" exists in the Farsi language of Iran. Even assuming that, the President of Iran never said "my country is going to wipe Israel off the map", he said "Israel should be wiped off the map." Which taken literally does not mean the same thing as "Israel should be destroyed". The U.S.S.R. was wiped off the map and replaced by Russia and a number of smaller breakaway nations, wasn't it?

So here we have McCain contending that Ahmadinejad made a direct threat against Israel when he did no such thing. It sounds an awful lot like what we were hearing in the days before the invasion of Iraq. In addition, McCain knows that he is not accurately quoting the translation of what Ahmadinejad said. He knows that he is adding the part about "my country", that he is lying in order to either make people scared for themselves or scared for Israel, and this is just all in a day's work for him.

One more reason he deserves to suffer a humiliating defeat in November.

Not for good, but the constant lies and hatred directed at Sarah Palin around here have encouraged me to seek a friendlier, more upbeat forum elsewhere and spend more of my time there right now. I'm not a fan of McCain, never have been, so that criticism didn't bug me very much. But the rabid attacks against Sarah, who I really admire and who has rekindled my interest in the Republican ticket enormously, have just been too much.

Awwww, poor widdle defenseless Sarah who never hurt a fly or said an unkind word to anybody or about anybody in her life!

Oh, wait a minute. She actually does like to kill things, and she has launched many many vicious attacks against her opponents, and ridiculed Obama mercilessly.

But still, how DARE they give her a taste of her own medicine?!!

*plays the world's tiniest violin*

Make sure the door hits you in the ass real hard on the way out, Sam. :biggrin:

Lipstick. ...

Of COURSE! :wink:

[the4thpip]

A secret US intelligence report which says the political and military situation in Afghanistan is "grim" will be withheld from the public until after the election, a new report says.

Intelligence officials are finishing up the National Intelligence Estimate on Aghanistan, according to ABC's Brian Ross, "but there are 'no plans to declassify' any of it before the election," an official said.

Keeping the intelligence report under wraps would likely help Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). McCain has focused on what he sees as the success of the Iraq "surge," in which the US added troops to lessen violence. Attention to problems in Afghanistan would put the spotlight on President Bush's failures, which might rub off on the Republican presidential nominee.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_Administration_will_keep_secret_grim_0923.htm l

[the4thpip]

Wonder why RCP hasn't included that one in their average?

It's up there now. Guess they slept in. :tongue:

[KevinTBrown]

Wonder why RCP hasn't included that one in their average?

They are right now.

[the4thpip]

Last week, Republican presidential candidate John McCain called for a commission to "find out what went wrong" on Wall Street. It was an excellent suggestion: Public inquiries into Wall Street practices served the country well in the 1930s.

And Mr. McCain has a special advantage to bring to any such investigation -- many of the relevant witnesses are friends or colleagues of his. In fact, he can probably get to the bottom of the whole mess just by cross-examining the people riding on his campaign bus. So the candidate should take a deep breath, remind himself that the country comes first, pull the Straight Talk Express over at a rest stop, whistle up his media pals, and begin.

(...)

Maybe the McCain Commission on Deregulation can kick off with a statement from the candidate himself. It will be helpful for the public, if painful for the senator himself, to hear about Mr. McCain's own close brush with one of the towering figures of financial deregulation, Charles Keating, the master of Lincoln Savings and Loan. Keating had a special, urgent interest in getting Big Brother off our backs: in 1986 some meddlesome agency suspected him of massive violations of S&L regulations. Keating fought back by recruiting a handful of legislators, including Mr. McCain, to pressure S&L regulators to leave his S&L alone. A few years later, Lincoln became one of the largest financial failures in U.S. history.

After that, Mr. McCain can get on to witness No. 1: Phil Gramm, a former adviser to the candidate on economic issues and for many years the heavyweight champion of financial deregulation. It was this very fellow who, as a senator, co-authored the Financial Services Modernization Act, largely trashing the old financial regulatory structure and allowed banks, insurance companies and investment houses to merge into what Mr. Gramm called "a supermarket for financial services" -- supermarkets whose lousy decisions are now the wonder of the world and whose losses we will be underwriting for years to come.
(...)


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122221440058969313.html

[AllisterH]

I saw Bill on the View.

I kept thinking "why can't this guy be in charge for a little bit more? Things were going relatively good for a while."

Of course, that might not be all due to him. But I did like how he explained some of the financial crisis and he's a great spokesperson for saying "if we're going to bail out Wall Street, we need to include something to help out the mortgages too."

Damn, he's a good salesperson.

Unfortunately, even though I thought he was great on the View and David Letterman, many of the Obamamaniacs think he was too "tepid" in his support for Obama.

Of course, I wonder how many independents and leaning Obama would be turned off by Chris Rock's rant. Apparently, unless you're fellating Obama, you're not doing enough....

And Obama fans wonder why we have people like Novaya Havoc

[the4thpip]

And Obama fans wonder why we have people like Novaya Havoc

Ooh! I know the answer to that one.

"Because the federal government is not doing against meth addictions in the rural Midwest."

[Charles RB]

I direct everyone to Exhibit A (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=7512040#post7512040) as to why Samurai calling anyone else "hate-filled" is a knee-slappingly hilarious.

I am masturbating at the sight of Exhibit A.

(PS not really)

Tell me, what is it you admire "Sarah" for?

How she's a new figure in this level of politics and thus will think outside the box, as opposed to Obama who is inexperienced and won't know what she's doing?

[KevinTBrown]

And McCain pissed off the wrong guy: Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1179920,daley092308.article)

Love this quote: In essence, Daley warned McCain that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. He was talking about McCain’s role in the so-called “Keating Five” savings and loan scandal.

“You had the Keating Five. We had the biggest scandal in America called savings and loan. The biggest scandal. People lost their homes because of greed. And no one is inferring [wrongdoing by] Sen. McCain and the others, who were always known as the Keating Five. So, if people start throwing dirt and mud, remember it comes back and hits you right in the face,” Daley said.

[Infra-Man]

CNN's Campbell Brown says the McCain campaign is being sexist for hiding Palin away from the media like "a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/23/campbell-brown-rips-mccai_n_128782.html

Tonight I call on the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment. This woman is from Alaska for crying out loud. She is strong. She is tough. She is confident. And you claim she is ready to be one heartbeat away form the presidency. If that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now.

Allow her to show her stuff. Allow her to face down those pesky reporters just like Barack Obama did today, just like John McCain did today, just liek Joe Biden has done on numerous occasions. Let her have a real news conference with real questions.

[sic]

Sarah Palin has just as much a right to be a real candidate in this race as the men do. So let her act like one.

[Infra-Man]

Wilco and Fleet Foxes covered Bob Dylan's "I Shall be Released."

Want to get it free? All you need to do is pledge that you will vote.

http://wilcoworld.net/vote/

Such tumultuous times. And in the spirit of giveaways that seem to be sweeping the nation, we've got something free for you. No it's not a pile of cash (sorry) but rather an audio postcard of sorts from a summer's night in Oregon with our friends the Fleet Foxes & a lovely Bob Dylan tune. All we ask is you check the "I pledge to vote in the 2008 Election" button below. If you can spare it, we also encourage you to consider a donation to Feeding America. (and please feel free to pass this link along to friends, family members, etc.).

Yet another reason why Wilco is awesome... and, you know, Fleet Foxes are pretty keen too.

[K-DoG7p7]

Unfortunately, even though I thought he was great on the View and David Letterman, many of the Obamamaniacs think he was too "tepid" in his support for Obama.

Of course, I wonder how many independents and leaning Obama would be turned off by Chris Rock's rant. Apparently, unless you're fellating Obama, you're not doing enough....

And Obama fans wonder why we have people like Novaya Havoc

Did you see him on The daily show?

he was literally screaming Obama..

[AllisterH]

Did you see him on The daily show?

he was literally screaming Obama..

*LOL* I thought it was great and again, how he explained the financial mess was so bloody straightforward and simple that even the people that are anti-elitist and pride themselves on being uneducated (sarah Palin fans) could understand it

Yeah and again, those on huffingtonpost are still complaining. "He's talking too much about his wife and not about Obama". (wait, why the hell shouldn't he point out how much his wife is stumping for Obama when Stewart asks, him how much does he have to do to prove his love for Obama?)

"He didn't say unequivocally that Obama would win in a 3-way contest between him, Mccain and Obama" (Um, again, why the hell would he answer, Oh yeah, Obama would be a better president than me)

No wonder democrats lose in presidential elections. If they're going to disrespect the man responsible for giving them the white house 8 years out of 12 in a long wilderness of 40 years, they got serious issues. Reading huffingtonpost, you get the impression that the last 8 years of Bush are directly because of Clinton and not Kerry and Gore losing.

Obama's biggest problem isn't McCain. It's his damn base now...(Chris Rock really, REALLY, pissed off many Clinton supporters. What the hell, Stewart is right, unless both Clinton do a Lewinsky, apparently theyre not doing enough)

[the4thpip]

CNN's Campbell Brown says the McCain campaign is being sexist for hiding Palin away from the media like "a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/23/campbell-brown-rips-mccai_n_128782.html

Brilliant strategy!

[Alix Harrower]

Nothing like a corrupt fool to get Sam excited.

Given Sam's twin penchants for lying and whining, it makes sense that he's all excited now that McCain has made lying and whining his strategy for the rest of the campaign.

[LtMarvel]

capital C Conservative George Will on McCain (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/will/s_589548.html):


McCain unchained


By George F. Will (georgewill@washpost.com)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 "The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."
-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

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."

To read the Journal's details about the depths of McCain's shallowness on the subject of Cox's chairmanship, see "McCain's Scapegoat" (Sept. 19, Page A22). Then consider McCain's characteristic accusation that Cox "has betrayed the public's trust." Perhaps an old antagonism is involved in McCain's fact-free slander. His most conspicuous economic adviser is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who previously headed the Congressional Budget Office. There he was an impediment to conservatives, including then-Congressman Cox, who as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee persistently tried and generally failed to enlist CBO support for "dynamic scoring" that would estimate the economic growth effects of proposed tax cuts.
In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Washington Post of Sept. 17, Page A4; and The New York Times of Sept. 20, Page 1.)

By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases."

The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?

On "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, McCain, saying "this may sound a little unusual," said that he would like to replace Cox with Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat attorney general of New York who is the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo. McCain explained that Cuomo has "respect" and "prestige" and could "lend some bipartisanship." Conservatives have been warned.

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

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?

[KevinTBrown]

I just took a look at RCP's Electoral Map to see what, if any, changes have occurred and my jaw nearly hit the floor.

Ohio, Florida and Indiana are all now considered toss-up states. Indiana and Florida, for the longest time, were solidly in McCain's "camp". Granted, occording to the polls, McCain still leads, but it's by 2 points or less! That is huge.

Things are beginning to swing.....

Also, without toss-ups included, Obama has increased his electoral lead to 202 to 147. With toss-ups, it remains the same with Obama in the lead, 273 to 265.

[Buzz Dixon]

As if another reason were needed not to vote for McCain, the McCain/Palin ticket won't release her health records until after the election:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092400797_2.html

[KevinTBrown]

As if another reason were needed not to vote for McCain, the McCain/Palin ticket won't release her health records until after the election:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092400797_2.html

Palins have also not released their tax returns. Obama, Biden, and Mccain all have though.




By the way, great speech by Biden: McCain often wrong on national security (http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080924/ap_on_el_pr/biden). He may have the occasional gaffe, but most of the time he hits it dead on.

[the4thpip]

I just took a look at RCP's Electoral Map to see what, if any, changes have occurred and my jaw nearly hit the floor.

Ohio, Florida and Indiana are all now considered toss-up states. Indiana and Florida, for the longest time, were solidly in McCain's "camp". Granted, occording to the polls, McCain still leads, but it's by 2 points or less! That is huge.

Things are beginning to swing.....

Also, without toss-ups included, Obama has increased his electoral lead to 202 to 147. With toss-ups, it remains the same with Obama in the lead, 273 to 265.

I think what makes this even more important is that this time around (for a change) the Democratic candidate has more money in his war chest than the Republican (whose campaign almost went bankrupt during the fricking primaries!). I don't think the McCampaign had intended to spend much money in Indiana. Now they will have to, and that money might be missing to help them keep Colorado, or take Pennsylvania.

[Corrina]

*LOL* I thought it was great and again, how he explained the financial mess was so bloody straightforward and simple that even the people that are anti-elitist and pride themselves on being uneducated (sarah Palin fans) could understand it



Yes. I kept thinking of that scene in "I, Claudius," where the guards surround Claudius after killing Caligula and say (in Cockney accents, of course) "Let's have 'im for our emperor!"

Which I wouldn't really, but it was nice to understand what a President was saying and also believe he wasn't talking down to me.

[the4thpip]

As if another reason were needed not to vote for McCain, the McCain/Palin ticket won't release her health records until after the election:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092400797_2.html

Free Sarah Palin!!

[Arrogantcur]

And Obama fans wonder why we have people like Novaya Havoc

There's a huge f#$%ing difference between not liking Obama and fawning over the GOP ticket, Allister! One doesn't necessarily have to follow the other! :mad:

I tell people "If you don't like Obama, that's fine with me. Not everybody likes Obama, and he definitely isn't perfect. But if you're pro-McCain/Palin, after the shit they've pulled? Then you and me've got problems."

[the4thpip]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6E2pDxLZNM&feature=related


the View isn't safe anymore, the WSJ isn't safe anymore ... Today isn't safe anymore...

[Typo Lad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6E2pDxLZNM&feature=related


the View isn't safe anymore, the WSJ isn't safe anymore ... Today isn't safe anymore...
"I do not know the details of what happened"

...

Y'know, I don't mean to be a jerk, but it seems to me that if you're hiring someone to be your Fiscal Advisor, you should know the details of how she did on her last job.

Or, you know, if you're going to run for President, read the dang Fiscal Section once in a while.

Of course, I'm sure he did know and this is just a "get out of the line of questioning" tact.

[KevinTBrown]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6E2pDxLZNM&feature=related


the View isn't safe anymore, the WSJ isn't safe anymore ... Today isn't safe anymore...

Damn the news media for seeking out the truth. How dare they?

[the4thpip]

Free Sarah Palin!

a snippet from the poll report following the meeting John McCain and Sarah Palin had with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko:

McCain then looked around the room and gestured as if to welcome questions. The AP reporter shouted a question at Gov. Palin ("Governor, what have you learned from your meetings?") but McCain aide Brooke Buchanan intervened and shepherded everybody out of the room.

Palin looked surprised, leaned over to McCain and asked him a question, to which your pooler thinks he shook his head as if to say "No."

Update: My friend Steve Benen's comments on this were too good not to share. At his new(ish) home at Washington Monthly, he writes:

Look, "What have you learned from your meetings?" is an easy one. It's not a trick question, or a "gotcha" question, or even a question intended to do test Palin's limited understand of international affairs. She could have easily said something like, "I've been encouraged by how much support the United States continues to enjoy around the world." No muss, no fuss. It's not rocket science.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/09/24/qotd/index.html

[the4thpip]

McCain on tv now saying he wants to stop the campaign and not do the debate until after they have worked on the bail out package...

[Arrogantcur]

McCain on tv now saying he wants to stop the campaign and not do the debate until after they have worked on the bail out package...

Pussy. :rolleyes: