Daily Archives: Thursday September 4th, 2008

Obama Defends Community Organizing

Speaking of the Republican convention speakers, a clearly riled Obama said, “They haven’t talked about the fact that I was a civil rights lawyer; they haven’t talked about the fact that I taught constitutional law; they haven’t talked about my work in the state legislature, in the United States Senate. They’re talking about the three years of work that I did right out of college as if… I’m making the leap from two or three years out of college into the presidency.”

Obama acknowledged that his campaign had focused attention on his experience as a community organizer. But he said, “I would argue that doing work in the community to try and create jobs, to bring people together, to rejuvenate communities that have fallen on hard times, to set up job-training programs in areas that have been hard hit when the steel plants closed, that that’s relevant only in understanding where I’m coming from, who I believe in, who I’m fighting for and why I’m in this race.

“And the question I have for them is? Why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they fighting for? Who are they advocating for?

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Obama concluded. “Maybe that’s part of why they are out of touch and don’t get it because they haven’t spent much time working for those kind of folks.”

***I would like the GOPs to answer that.

My mind is just racing on how pissed off I am at the GOP!  They are such lying hypocrites!!  They say it is all about the military, but do most of the them serve?  HELL NO!!  That is for the poor family…sure in the hell isn’t for the rich fat cats of the GOP.  Do they help on VA benefits?!  HELL NO!!  McCain voted against more VA Benefits…..they are quick to send our men and women to war but don’t give a damn about them if they need help.  The only reason why McCain got the medical help that he did after getting out the POW camp was because of his Father and his Grandfather….if that was my father out of the POW camp, he sure in hell won’t have gotten the therapy that was needed.  Hell, he can’t even get the VA to do what they promised him even through he served 21years with ‘Nam!  How fucked up is that?!?!?

McCain is calling everyone to service?!?!  But yet they total make being a community organizer is a low life?!?!  Like regular people getting involved is nothing and have no responsibilities?!? They just contradicted themselves by asking people to get involved in their communities.  What is even more fucked up, is they don’t even see it?!?!

On Obama, Earmarks, Palin Less Than Honest

•PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”

FACT: The meaning of “major” is open to debate, but Obama worked with Republicans, including Sen. Richard Luger of Indiana, to pass legislation that would expand efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. While a state senator in Illinois, he sponsored two contentious bills, one that studied racial profiling by police and another that ordered interrogations in potential death penalty cases to be recorded.

•PALIN: “And I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending: nearly half a billion dollars in vetoes. I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

FACT: While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin hired Steven Silver, a former chief of staff for Sen. Ted Stevens, to lobby Congress for earmarks. Wasilla received around $27 million in federal money, about as much as Boise, Idaho. Boise has a population of 200,000 people, compared to Wasilla’s 10,000. Earmarked funds went to sewage improvements and improving roads connecting the town to a local ski resort.

As for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” Palin initially supported using federal funds to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, which has 50 residents and a small airport. It was not until the plan was ridiculed that she withdrew her support. Critics contend she still supports using federal money to build a 3.4 mile “road to nowhere” on the island for $26 million — from the funds for the bridge.

**The GOP has nothing but lies and spin.  Palin reminds me very much of the crappy Coulter/Limbaugh…..All they doing is using Rove scummy tactics.  Another reason why to lose respect for McCain…he has totally, totally sold out.  He is using the same shit that Rove used on him.

Report: McCain Rips Bush in Woodward Book

“Everything is f—ing spin,” McCain is quoted as saying of Bush in a new book by Bob Woodward, according to the Fox report which appeared on its website Thursday

**Here is a prime example that he sold out….he bitches about spin, but that is all he does now…..spinning like a top.

Here are more lies:

GOP Convention Spin

 The Truth on Taxes (Again)
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who was in the race himself earlier this year, banged the now-familiar tax drum in his denunciation of Obama when he said, “You don’t lift an economic downturn by imposing one of the largest tax increases in American history.”

We’ve been here before (repeatedly), but we’re happy to reiterate: What Obama is proposing is indeed a substantial tax increase for some, but not for most. Overall, Obama says he would raise income, capital gains and dividend taxes only for taxpayers with family income above $250,000 or singles making more than $200,000. He would also raise corporate taxes through selective “loophole closings.”

For most taxpayers rates would go down. The nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has described his plan this way:

Tax Policy Center: The Obama plan would reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income families, but raise them significantly for high-bracket taxpayers. … By 2012, middle-income taxpayers would see their after-tax income rise by about 5 percent, or nearly $2,200 annually. Those in the top 1 percent would face a $19,000 average tax increase — a 1.5 percent reduction in after-tax income.

It’s true that Obama’s tax proposals overall would raise federal revenues by $627 billion over 10 years. Is that “one of the largest tax increases in American history” as Thompson claimed? And would it be a drag on the economy as he says?

When it comes to assessing the effect that a tax change will have on the economy, the single most relevant figure is the size of the increase or cut in relation to the size of the overall economy. And by that yardstick, Obama’s increase is hardly a history-maker. The largest was the 1942 increase enacted as the U.S. plunged into World War II, and it amounted to 5.2 percent of the entire economy in its first year.

President Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, which Republicans regularly and misleadingly call the largest in history, was actually about one-tenth as large, amounting to 0.5 percent of the economy over its first two years. The TPC calculates that Obama’s overall tax increase, as described by his aides and on his Web site, would be roughly 0.1 percent in its first year, and 0.3 percent on average over 10 years, compared with what people are paying now.

And how would that affect the economy? Not much. The TPC says, “Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.” The tax plans of both Obama and McCain would leave the federal government wallowing in huge deficits for years to come, and compared with the economic drag created by deficit spending, the effects of either man’s tax plan is negligible.

A Maverick Misleads

Praise in Context
The ad uses a partial quote – she “has a record of bi-partisan reform” – from an Aug. 29 Associated Press report. Those words do appear in the article, but so do several others that aren’t as flattering.

In fact, the AP report raises some questions about Palin’s credentials, saying: “She is younger and less experienced than the first-term Illinois senator, and brings an ethical shadow to the ticket.” It also says, “Palin’s lack of experience undercuts GOP charges that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief.”

The ad also quotes the Wall Street Journal as saying, “Governor Palin’s credentials as an agent of reform exceed Barack Obama’s.” But those words didn’t come from the newspaper’s reporters, they came from the WSJ’s editorial board, which is notably conservative and generally friendly to Republicans and hostile to Democrats.

Can someone explain to us why the hell is Jon Stewart the only one really calling this asses on their lies and two-faceness?