Politics

I know, I know…most of my entries are politics/news related lately.  But I’m like this at every election time and this one has me going even more then 2004/2000 did….and I ended up in depression for 2 weeks after those.  Sometimes I still think it was nightmare.

But our elections also really brings up a lot of social & political issues that are normally ignored and swept under the rug.

I know that the dems are no better then the reps, they are both corrupt and messed up…I’m an independent and have voted for rep in the past.  But the GOP of the past is no longer there….Reagen destroyed that, it just became a party of bigger hypocrites…..Bush/Cheney/Rove really, really destroyed it.  Not all GOP are radical right wing extremists trying to get into your business.  True reps believe that government should stay out of our lives and be smaller.

I think what really pisses me off, is how obviously the lies are with today’s internet and available information, yet people STILL fall for it.  It is like they drank the kool-aid….So that is why I keep posting news stories.

I also think what has really being bothering me is the that McCain is just pandering and has totally sold out with this Palin.  In a lot of ways, she is true Alaskan and I like that part, but in others she is just lying mouth piece that hasn’t got a clue.

When Charles Gibson asked her about the Bush Doctrine, she had no FUCKING clue what it was and they want her the next inline if McCain dies?!?!  How messed up is that?  Then she wouldn’t answer the questions, just nothing but sound bites…..she is a puppet, with out a clue.  And don’t give me that shit that Gibson was being patronizing or condensending…hell, he was too soft on her.  Every one wants to treat her with kid gloves because she is a woman, bullshit…she is a politiction and deservers the same hardball questions that Hillary got and the men get.  THAT is a sign that we have come a long way in a man’s world….when you are treated no differently.
Commentary: Race, age, gender are taboo in election

(CNN) — One of the most intriguing conversations I had at either the Democratic or Republican convention was with a white labor leader from Ohio.

I can’t remember his name, but he made it clear that he is going all around the Rust Belt state looking his white union brothers and sisters in the eye and essentially shaming them into supporting Sen. Barack Obama for president.

No, he’s not saying vote for the black man for president because he’s black.

He said he’s telling them that it’s shameful that as Democrats, they agree with him on various political issues, but because of his skin color, they are refusing to cast ballots for him.

“We have gone to our black brothers and sisters for years to support our [white] candidates, and it’s wrong for us to stand here and not support one of their own, even though we’re Democrats,” he barked.

There is nothing more in-your-face than to hear someone speak truthfully to the inherent racism that is at play in this election.

**I thought this was an excellent article on the issue of race, because it is so true.  We’ve lived in the midwest and there are still bunches of people that will not vote for Obama just because of his race….if it was a white man, it would’ve been a whole different story.
‘Lipstick on a pig’: Attack on Palin or common line?

McCain’s campaign said Obama’s remarks were offensive and a slap at Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin — despite the fact that the Arizona senator himself used the phrase last year to describe a policy proposal of Hillary Clinton’s.

Obama shot back Wednesday and accused the McCain campaign of engaging in “lies” and “swift boat politics.”

“I don’t care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift boat politics,” he said in Norfolk, Virginia. “Enough is enough.”

**Anyone with half a brain (which leaves out 70% of the GOP) knows it meant nothing to do with Palin.  No one accuse McCain of sexism when he referred to Clinton’s policies.
A Brief History of “Putting Lipstick on a Pig” 

� One of the oldest published quotes using the entire phrase appeared in The Washington Post in November 1985. Asked by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to put his station’s $20,000 fundraiser earnings toward the renovation of Candlestick Park, KNBR personality Ron Lyons scoffed, “That would be like putting lipstick on a pig.”

� While on the campaign trail with John Kerry in September 2004, then-vice presidential nominee John Edwards derided the Republicans’ attempt to make lackluster job-creation numbers into a shining moment for the Bush administration. “They’re going to try every way they know to put lipstick on this pig,” he said. “But you know when you put lipstick on a pig, at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.”

Ad on sex education distorts Obama policy

In referring to the sex-education bill, the McCain campaign is largely recycling old and discredited accusations made against Mr. Obama by Alan Keyes in their 2004 Senate race. At that time, Mr. Obama stated that he understood the main objective of the legislation, as it pertained to kindergarteners, to be to teach them how to defend themselves against sexual predators.

“I have a 6-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old daughter, and one of the things my wife and I talked to our daughter about is the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean,” Mr. Obama said in 2004. “And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse, because I have family members as well as friends who suffered abuse at that age.”

**Another sick and disgusting spin that the McBush camp has put on Obama….

Ad Hawk: McCain’s Fact-Free ‘Fact Check’

Earlier this afternoon, Team McCain released “Fact Check” (video above). The title must be ironic. Over images of bloodthirsty wolves prowling a shadowy forest, a female announcer gravely intones that “The [Wall Street] Journal reports Obama ‘air-dropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers’ into Alaska to dig dirt on Governor Palin.” Meanwhile, a banner over Obama’s grim visage claims that “the attacks” on Palin have been called  “completely false” and “misleading” by the nonpartisan researchers at FactCheck.org. “As Obama drops in the polls, he’ll try to destroy her,” concludes the announcer. “Obama’s ‘politics of hope’? Empty words.”

So what’s the problem? Where to begin. First of all, there’s no evidence the “Obama” sent anyone to Alaska to “dig dirt” on Palin. Originally published by conservative writer John Fund in a Wall Street Journal opinion article–not a “report,” as the ad alleges–the charge, which Fund attributes to unnamed “sources,” has been denied by both the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. “I sent no lawyers, no investigators and exactly zero researchers to Alaska to research Sarah Palin,” said DNC research director Mike Gehrke; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor added that the charge is “fiction,” “made up” and “absolutely, unequivocally false.” What’s more, the McCain campaign misquoted Fund, who actually wrote that “Democrats” (not “Obama,” as the ad claims) have dispatched a “mini-army” to Alaska “dig into [Palin’s] record and background”–not to “dig dirt.” As FactCheck.org said this afternoon, “Maybe the McCain-Palin campaign knows something we don’t about what’s in Palin’s record and background.”

Which brings us to the ad’s most insidious conflation. By flashing those quotes about the “completely false” and “misleading” attacks on Palin over an image of Obama’s face–as the announcer warns that “they’ve just begun,” no less–McCain is suggesting that FactCheck.org attributed the attacks to Obama himself. But as the organization noted earlier today, “there is no evidence that the Obama campaign is behind any of the wild accusations that we critiqued.” They continue: “there is no more basis for attributing these viral attacks to the Obama campaign than there is for blaming the McCain campaign for chain e-mail attacks falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim, or a “racist,” or that he is proposing to tax water. The anti-Palin messages, like the anti-Obama messages, have every appearance of being home-grown.” Earlier this year, McCain spoke out against the Obama rumors; recently, Obama has denounced the Palin smears, as well. For Crystal City to suddenly imply that Obama is behind this stuff is completely disingenuous.

Obama to Palin: ‘Don’t Mock the Constitution’

But Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeus corpus.

Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.'”

The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don’t always have the right person.”

“We don’t always catch the right person,” he said. “We may think it’s Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it’s Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.”

Obama turned back to Palin’s comment, although he said he was not sure whether Palin or Rudy Giuliani said it.

“The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It’s because that’s who we are. That’s what we’re protecting,” Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. “Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

**This is what I don’t get about the GOPers….they say they are for the Constitution and our founding fathers, but yet are the first to undo the work that they did.  I don’t see many of them belonging to the ACLU……which it’s purpose to do DEFEND the Constitution and what our country was founded on.
McCain, Palin Stress Biography Over Issues

When John McCain’s campaign manager said last week that this presidential election “is not about issues,” it wasn’t a Freudian slip. It was an unvarnished preview of McCain’s new campaign plan.

In the past week, McCain – with new running mate Sarah Palin always close by his side – has transformed the Republican campaign narrative into what amounts to a running biography of this new political odd couple.

In McCain’s new stump speech and first post-convention ad, the impression his strategists hope to leave is unmistakable. McCain is the war hero. Palin is the Every­mom. And together, they will rattle Washington.

Considering the big challenges the country faces – two wars and a wobbly economy, for starters – the focus on personal narratives might strike some as jarringly superficial for the times.

There is also significant danger for a campaign that emphasizes the personal over policy: The allure of even the most compelling – or unorthodox – life story can fade, begging the question: Where’s the beef? For McCain, the answer comes largely in policy positions that mirror those of an unpopular president, and for Palin, her brief time as a public figure prompts many more questions than answers.  

Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin team will crow about riding into Washington with six-guns blazing to clean up a dirty town. But beyond clamping down on congressional spending – something Palin didn’t make a priority as governor of a state that is legendary for its take from the federal treasury – they offer precious few specifics of how they’ll do the deed or how their maverick personas would actually fix rising unemployment levels, energy dependence or hobbled education and health care systems. Still, the campaigning-by-biography plan seem to be working – for now. McCain and Palin are drawing bigger-than-ever crowds and leading in the polls, and even the Republican Party as a whole is seeing an uptick in popularity. 

***The following articles and just showing the lies behind the stump speeches.   They speak for themselves.
Palin: Government Can Fix Social Ills

During Palin’s recent convention speech she sharply criticized Senator Barack Obama for wanting to end Bush’s tax cuts. She pointed to her sister and husband who are new small business owners in Alaska, “How are they going to be any better off if taxes go up?”

But in fact, the way the hockey rink was built was by raising taxes. Palin funded the project by pushing a special referendum that raised the sales tax by 25 percent. City hall records show the referendum was passed by twenty votes.

One Wasilla resident who voted for the complex is Mike Edwards. He says he spends about an hour a day at the facility watching his son play. He says he’s glad government stepped in to build the new ice because privately run rinks are much more expensive, costing teams as much as $300 an hour to practice compared to $185 at the public rink.

CBS News obtained 86 pages of city council documents that show Palin sought to justify the tax increase to fund the sports complex in part because the private sector had not stepped in to fill the gap. She noted the strong support in the community as a reason to move ahead.

But her most striking argument for raising taxes is one you might not expect from a fiscal conservative. She writes that the rink offers an opportunity for government to stop a social ill like drug abuse or juvenile delinquency before it starts.

Setting The Record: Palin’s Earmarks

Palin’s record on earmarks is mixed. Compared to the previous governor, Palin’s earmarks are down 44 percent, but stills totals more than $450 million over two years.

By repeating the claim she said no thanks to the bridge, the implication is that she confronted a spendthrift Congress recklessly wasting money.

The record shows she wanted that bridge until the end and kept the money. 

Palin Billed State For Nights At Home

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a “per diem” allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official “duty station” is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

Did Sarah Palin Try to Ban Library Books?

Palin has acknowledged she twice raised the issue in 1996 of how books could be removed from the shelves, but said it was only a “rhetorical question” and that she did not ask for any books to be banned.

Palin’s church at the time, the Assembly of God, had been pushing for the removal a book called “Pastor I Am Gay” from local bookstores, according to the book’s author Pastor Howard Bess, of the Church of the Covenant in nearby Palmer, Alaska.

“And she was one of them,” said Bess, “this whole thing of controlling information, censorship, that’s part of the scene,” said Bess.

Warned by the Court

Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers’ union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were “not job-related,” and that Wooten was being “harassed” by Palin and other family members.

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten’s behavior and character. “Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse,” the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: “Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives.”