Who do you think should be elected in 2008?

[Valandil]

You guys need a reality check.

1. Sarah Palin's ties with the oil industry have been connected with fighting abuses.

2. Incidentally, she has fought against political corruption... in her own party!

3. Do you hate the fact that she was in a beauty pageant? She was also a key player on a state championship basketball team. Played through a lot of adversity. Later coached and then went into politics, where she has been known as a reformer.

4. Sarah Palin was a GREAT choice. Maybe you folks are just disappointed McCain didn't make some boring pick (like Lieberman, Romney, Ridge, et al), whom the Democrats could have rolled over with ease. There's nothing to 'expose' - except that a sharp, young talent - with some actual experience - has been 'discovered'.

5. So far, she has 'changed' a whole lot more than Obama has.

[Valandil]

And PS: She's got an 80% approval rating by the people she governs (Alaskans).

Obama, meanwhile, has never done much of anything for his constituents in his congressional district in Illinois (while in the state senate) or in his last four years in the US Senate.

'cept make a good speech now and then.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Valandil

And PS: She's got an 80% approval rating by the people she governs (Alaskans).

Obama, meanwhile, has never done much of anything for his constituents in his congressional district in Illinois (while in the state senate) or in his last four years in the US Senate.

'cept make a good speech now and then.

Let's take a look at some of things Obama did in the State Senate of Illinois:

- Successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform, the Gift Ban Act.

- Successfully sponsored move to shield Illinois workers from federal rules that threatened overtime pay for some employees.

- Successfully sponsored the Health Care Justice Act, a study of ways to implement a universal health care system statewide.

Voted against making permanent the repeal of the state’s 5 percent sales tax on gasoline.

Helped pass a 5 percent earned-income tax credit for low-income working families in 2000; made the credit permanent in 2003.

Voted to raise the minimum wage in Illinois from $5.15 an hour to $6.50 an hour over two years.

and just to round it off, Obama's speech against invading Iraq in 2002. Anyone say good judgement? What was that? Evidence? What? Lies? Bush? GOP? Didn't hear you right? Oh, you didn't know S. Hussein was weak? Nobody told you? Not your fault? Everyone did it? Yeah? That makes it okay? No? Yes? Um?
Not exactly Obama! Not exactly too much, at all, Barack Obama:

Senator Barack Obama (D-Il), then an Illinois state senator, delivered these remarks in October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.

"I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You Want a Fight, President Bush?

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

Obama was right. He spoke of Al Qaeda, undefeated. He spoke of the unintended consequences of Iraq, currently in pieces,and an inflamed Middle East. He spoke of an unresolved Afghanistan. He spoke of a dilapidating economy. That's called good judgement.

[Coffeehouse]

It'll be fun though, to watch the Vice Presidential Debate. I will almost cheer on Palin, out of pity, when she is going to argue the Economy and Foreign Relations with Joe Biden. Poor girl!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Valandil

You guys need a reality check.

1. Sarah Palin's ties with the oil industry have been connected with fighting abuses.

Actually the tie I was referring to is the fact that her own husband works for BP on their North Slope operation. Spin that all you want saying it doesnt matter or hes not important enough but it still is a major red flag. The saving grace is that she has had a small history of taxing the oil companies in Alaska despite this.

But it will be the experience thing and the many tiny cuts you see just coming out now that will cause this to hurt more than it helps in the end. It will be a decision that they look back on after the fact and realize mistakes were made. Its ridiculous to expect non-republicans to vote for someone who has VERY conservative traditional republican beliefs just because they are the same sex. Although it does seem to be turning the religious right sector onto the ticket and that will provide a boost. But Im thinking between now and November the press will have worked themselves so deep into her life and turned up so many little things that theyll have to be constantly on defense and will make no ground up to the Obama machine.

[Rían]

So have you guys heard the Internet rumors flying around about how her youngest son is really her daughter's child?

The Innertubes are such fun!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

So have you guys heard the Internet rumors flying around about how her youngest son is really her daughter's child?

The Innertubes are such fun!

Yes- definitely in the tinfoil hat conspiracy range.

Apparently she first announced her pregnancy when she was seven months along, and totally shocked even her closest aides, according to news reports at the time.

Her sixteen-year-old daughter had been out of school with mono for five months.

She was attending a governor's conference in Texas while she was 37 weeks pregnant
Her water broke at 4 am, she made a speech at 10 am, and then took an eight-hour flight to Alaska (she said she called her doctor and got an OK).
Most airlines won't fly someone who is more than 36 weeks; she said the flight attendants didn't notice she was pregnant.

Against that, you'd have to believe the entire operating room crew in an induced birth were in on the conspiracy.

Mind, it's happened before- Eric Clapton grew up believing his mother was actually his sister- she was sixteen at the time she got pregnant, and his grandmother claimed him as her own.

A lot harder to get away with in this day and age, especially if you're a governor!

[GrayMouser]

Early on in the conversation before Palin started to crack up, Lester referred to Sen. Green as a jealous woman and a cancer. Palin, who knows full well Lyda Green is a cancer survivor, didn't do what any decent person would do, say, "Bob, that's going too far."

But as the conversation moved on, Lester intensified his attack on Green.

Lester questioned Green's motherhood, asking Palin if the senator cares about her own kids. Palin laughs.

Then Lester clearly sets the stage for what he is about to say by warning his large audience and Palin. He says, "Governor you can't say this but I will, Lyda Green is a cancer and a b----." Palin laughs for the second time.

What were teenage boys thinking when they heard the governor laugh at someone being called a b----? How about the teenage girls who look up to Palin. What did they think when they heard her laugh?

But there is more. Lester then describes Green's chair as big and cushy. A clear reference to the senator's weight. Palin laughs a third time. She's just having a grand old time.[apparently Lyda Green is a heavy woman-GM]

Palin was clearly enjoying every second of Lester's vicious attack on her political rival.

So, after hearing her opponent, a cancer-survivor, being called a cancer, she laughs while the shock-jocks call the woman a bitch and make fun of her weight. Sweet.
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=AKkydr.../30/31130/3584

[GrayMouser]

Early on in the conversation before Palin started to crack up, Lester referred to Sen. Green as a jealous woman and a cancer. Palin, who knows full well Lyda Green is a cancer survivor, didn't do what any decent person would do, say, "Bob, that's going too far."

But as the conversation moved on, Lester intensified his attack on Green.

Lester questioned Green's motherhood, asking Palin if the senator cares about her own kids. Palin laughs.

Then Lester clearly sets the stage for what he is about to say by warning his large audience and Palin. He says, "Governor you can't say this but I will, Lyda Green is a cancer and a b----." Palin laughs for the second time.

What were teenage boys thinking when they heard the governor laugh at someone being called a b----? How about the teenage girls who look up to Palin. What did they think when they heard her laugh?

But there is more. Lester then describes Green's chair as big and cushy. A clear reference to the senator's weight. Palin laughs a third time. She's just having a grand old time.[apparently Lyda Green is a heavy woman-GM]

Palin was clearly enjoying every second of Lester's vicious attack on her political rival.

So, after hearing her opponent, a cancer-survivor, being called a cancer, she laughs while the shock-jocks call her a bitch and make fun of her weight. Sweet.
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=AKkydr.../30/31130/3584

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

My brother in law says "Women's groups can't have any objection to her."

He's straight trippin'. Elizabeth Dole is a Republican woman of weight. If McCain had nominated her, I'd take it as a serious choice. This woman is an utter token. And it offends me, personally. It's like Obama picking Scarlett Johanson as a running mate. I could hardly toss an apple in our statehouse without hitting a REPUBLICAN woman more qualified. I hugged 3 of them, yesterday. That McCain picked this woman to be an elderly heartbeat away from being the actual president tells me two things. One is, he's vain beyond belief, like many men "middle aged" and beyond...nothing's going to happen to him. The other is, getting elected is his plan, not governing. Both of those things make me clean MAD!

McCain has achieved one thing. I've been concerned all year about local elections, and primaries. When I looked at the presidential race I thought, "Well, it'll work out." I've had preferences, but other things keep me up.

Not any more. I have 90 days now to keep those people out of office, and that's my new family priority.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Mind, it's happened before- Eric Clapton grew up believing his mother was actually his sister- she was sixteen at the time she got pregnant, and his grandmother claimed him as her own.

Same thing happened with Jack Nicholson.

[D.Sullivan]

I don't think this will bode well for McCain, in the end. Look at this article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_122823.html

I think a lot of people are reacting like Sis did and it's only getting worse as more articles like this come out about Palin.

Fox News has made attempts at making this look good, like trying to argue she has foreign policy experience because she lives close to Russia(), but even they can't make it happen. People aren't buying it.

I think McCain has really shot himself in the foot now...and I'm glad. I don't want a president who politicizes disasters like hurricanes.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/211849.php

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by D.Sullivan

I don't think this will bode well for McCain, in the end. Look at this article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_122823.html

I think a lot of people are reacting like Sis did and it's only getting worse as more articles like this come out about Palin.

Fox News has made attempts at making this look good, like trying to argue she has foreign policy experience because she lives close to Russia(), but even they can't make it happen. People aren't buying it.

I think McCain has really shot himself in the foot now...and I'm glad. I don't want a president who politicizes disasters like hurricanes.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/211849.php

As Alaska's Governor, Palin has made deals with Canada - if that helps you. What's Obama's international experience? Having uncertain citizenship?

Here's an interesting article about Palin's selection by McCain - from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...002377_pf.html

[The last sane person]

But it's kinda funny that her mum promotes abstinence and virtues of marriage and blah blah blah... Yet can't even convice to her own daughter to keep her legs crossed. Oh well. At least the girl is lucky that she has a rich family that can help her take care of the kid and go to school. A lot of kids I know weren't that lucky.

[GrayMouser]

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the...l?hpid=artslot

Hey, my kid's looked after- to hell with everybody else's.

[BeardofPants]

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.


Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... 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."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

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."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

___

Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report.

From here.

[D.Sullivan]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

From here.

Good post - thanks for that, BeardofPants. I think the bit about the Alaskan National Guard is particularly funny. Do they really think we're that stupid?

This guy clearly thinks we are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMCp1vydEI

[Curufin]

Er?

Again, EAR I will ask you - do you even know what socialism is? Or do you just speak like an ignorant bumper sticker and throw around soundbites?

[Curufin]

Er, no.

You state what socialism is (sort of), then say 'in other words' and describe something completely different.

Have you read The Communist Manifesto? Das Kapital?

We would be working for for others, not that it is bad, but ppl will take advantage of it.

Er. . .and we're not doing this now???

[Curufin]

Me?

I'm a socialist, and I couldn't disagree with you more. In fact, I don't even know where to start disagreeing with you.

About me: I'm a grad student who works full time while trying to afford to live. I can't afford health care because I have to pay tuition and take care of myself. So right now I'm in the middle of a serious medical crisis because I'm really sick and can't go to the doctor. What's happening to me right now could cause serious and permanent damage to my heart. But since we have to pay privately for health care, and insurance would make it so that I can't pay my bills (or eat, for that matter), I have to sacrifice my health (and possibly my life).

Is that right?