Sarah Palin and John McCain have tried to blame her disjointed television interviews on the “media elite,” but it just doesn’t fly. Both have accused the media of “gotcha journalism” for asking follow up questions when she has tried to avoid answers. Friday, while pledging to be more available for questions from voters and the media, Palin complained: “If you cease to answer a question, you’re going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go on to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that, too.” There a simple solution: Answer questions.
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288 Comments
any politician who doesnt answer questions, doesnt deserve a vote…. palin, biden, mccain, or obama, or any other as well…. no answer, no vote…. remember that on november 4….
Just what in the heck are “gotcha questions” anyway? Either you are a “leader” with knowledge of the issues and an ability to answer any question or you’re not.
McCain has nothing to talk about concerning Obama’s knowing Ayres. People who reside on racist boards, shouldn’t throw BS:
“”It was the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub who wound up involved in the Iran Contra scandal. It was an ultra conservative right-wing group.
“The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League, the parent organization which ADL said had increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racist and anti-Semites.”"
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Begala_McCain_sat_on_board_of_1005.html
How is asking what magazines and newspapers Palin reads a “gotcha” question? She couldn’t think of something as simple as Time or Newsweek?
Then there’s the Supreme Court decision question. How many times is the Dred Scott decision mentioned in history class? Or being the Alaskan governor she could have ranted against the recent decision letting Exxon off the hook for paying huge costs for the oil spill.
I suppose a “gotcha” question is one that makes her look like a beauty contestant trying to run out the clock on a question she can’t answer.
Heaven forbid, should she get elected, some head of state from another country attempts to engage her in a topic she’s not up on. She’ll complain she was “clobbered” by the guy.
And a “gotcha” question, is a question on anything she’s not up on, evidently.
Ahh, thanks.
Sarah Palin may not be ready to be President of the United States, I’ll admit that… but… she is just as qualified to be VP as Obama is to be Prez.
That is where the media is letting Mr Obama off the hook. The man should have never been the Democratic nominee. Once again.. we are having to choose between two bad candidates, or throw our vote away on a third party candidate. IMHO.
Hearing Republicans who voted for Bush twice say Obama is not qualified falls on deaf ears.
In my opinion I rate the major news media right next to our lowest rated congress with a dem majority. Bottom feeders
I voted for a Bush everytime I could vote. I regret every moment of it.
And McCain won’t last his first term. Palin will “take over” and thus become taken over. She is just another pretty-face…oh wait…she’s real rugged too. Yeeeah.
Mindless people cheer on!
When Palin said “I read ‘em all,” I had an terrible image of sitting in a hair salon browsing through McCall’s, Better House and Garden and People.
Watching Palin avoid questions is like trying to buy a used car. Every time you ask a question, the salesman says, “Let me check on that,” and he wanders off to run it by the managers, who are off in the corner office somewhere. In Palin’s case, the managers are her neocon handlers. The VP contender and her sidekick are riding into town on the maverick mobile, but the tires are worn and you’ll be fixing a leaky manifold. It’s the result of having a product made of plastic: cheap, but low quality.
Doug…
Just because you don’t listen doesn’t make it any less true!
Last election just proves my point of what happens when the 2 major parties do not nominate acceptable, qualified candidates.
FOX News is major media.
Rush Limburger is also “major media”.
This from the same woman who called Hillary a whiner! Man oh man she sure does whine.
Hillary is a whiner. We love for weinee’s to rule us.
Watch, after Barney Frank is made the patsy, how many sick stories get leaked on lots of politico’s. Watch. He got away with having underage male’s at some of his parties in Washington, got caught and somehow had no charges brought against him. Now that someone has to take heat for this banking crap, he’s gonna let loose on a bunch of craziness.
Oh please. Whether or not the crappy interviews were the fault of the media, there is plenty in the unconscionable treatment of Sarah Palin that was. Brownlee, on behalf of the media claiming innocence in that treatmentis like a thief entering a home and when caught blaming the victim because they left the window unlocked.
99% of the Media tells their “Opinion” and doesnt post or publish exact quotes. They “Opinionate, Mis-Quote”. Example, I stated, “people in the U.S. could tax deductable donate up to an average of $100.oo a family or $8.oo a month per family, too their local city or county government for tax relief, budget assistance etc:..” In a county with 5000 families, this could bring in $500,000.oo a year to said county for tax relief and budget assistance. Well, the Newspapers in Miami County Kansas, stated, “Mr West wants all families to donate to the Sheriffs Office only and then have you vote for him and he controls the $500,000.oo in Donations as he sees fit”. I never said that! I also stated, the City Councels, and Commissioners control those donations. Each department head would be notified if any “ADDITIONAL” funds are possibly available. “If they are, each Department has to ask and justify the request for these Donated Relief funds, in regards to their regular substantiated budgets”. If all counties do this at $5000 per county, at 105 counties in Kansas and all 50 states, this would generate an average of $2,612,000,000.oo a year in city/county relief. That is an amount the states dont have to pay to the city/counties and the Federal Government doesnt have to pay to the states. The papers in Miami County did not like this because I also have decided to “Write-In” campaign to become a Senator and Representaive as well as become Sheriff. As a Democrat, the Republicans who work for these papers in Miami County Illegaly favor and assist in the Republican Candidates runs. As the Media they opinionate and refuse to give proper coverage of QUOTES!! As to Governor Sarah Palin, when she is in the mind set for important questions, why ask her stupid little questions to throw her off? When did anyone ask Barack Obama during an interview off beat questions? Ask him how many apples are in a bag of apples, ask him how long it takes to boil water. She deserves to be asked the issues, not questions that are mediocior. When anyone is in a mind set for certain topics and discussions, the Media should not throw in, lame of beat questions just to stump anyone, for ratings and hype. Governor Palin has heart and backbone. She has put it to use and is willing to expand these strenghths to us all at the National Level. She remembers where she came from in life by never leaving. She talks too and with us, not above us. She sets the example of the tone for a “Proper” Washington/America. I will be Voting, McCain/Palin as a Democrat this Nov. The Media can opinionate that all they want. Quote me, I support Honest, Heart and Backbone. Regardless of the Media Opinions. “Vote the Quotes”, McCain/Palin, not Obama/the Media. Herbert West 3rd, Candidate for Sheriff, Miami County Kansas, “Write-In” hopeful for State Senator and State Representative. Yea, the local Media doesnt find it news worthy that I am attempting to become a Senator, Representative Sheriff all at once. It has never happened nor has anyone ever tried in the U.S. History. Yet the KC area Media and Miami County Media doesnt find it, “News Worthy”. Herbert West 3rd, http://www.HerbertWest3rd.com, Candidate for Sheriff, MI.CO. Kansas.
“unconscionable treatment of Sarah Palin”
Now what does that mean? Cry babies.
There should be no notes or prep at all before a debate or interview. For anyone. I want my leader’s to know their sh.it.
And I vote none of the above.
Lil Sarah…
“My answers are stooopid and no one wants to listen to what I wanna talk about.”
McCain whines “life isn’t fair” when Obama starts to move up in the polls.
Waa waa waaaa. Republicans are crybabees.
Hey Sarah?
Go ahead and hide.
Tina Fey is better at being you than you are.
Sarah is quite the disgrace to all women that she is supposed to be representing. Did the republicons do that on purpose as a way to get women out of politics?
I’m glad she’s on the other side.
And I’m still mad at Biden for his answer to gay marriage and Obama for his non support too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CohwuiyhyWA
I will bet money either that friend doesn’t exist or she’s madder than hell at Sarah for using her and calling her existence a choice.
Did you all ever see this?
LISTEN CLOSELY TO HER…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYPyIRETe0A&feature=related
Te media is so concerned about the minutia of anything Sarah Palin. Yet barely a peep from the MSM about the radical associations of the possible next president of the United States. They need to do their job.
—————
“Forty years ago this month, Paris exploded in left-wing student riots that led to a nationwide general strike. The revolutionary fervor of France’s soixante-huitards (’68ers) spread widely, including to American campuses. If you’re wondering when the Good ’60s of peace, love and civil rights gave way to the Bad ’60s of anarchy and violence, May 1968 is as good a historical pivot point as any.John McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton at the time. Barack Obama was 6 years old. Yet the restless spirit of ‘68 haunts this year’s presidential campaign, especially the White House bid of Mr. Obama, who, having pretty much missed the ’60s – “Civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by,” he told The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan last year – was supposed to take us beyond those divisive traumas.
It’s not working out that way. His former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an unreconstructed ’60s radical, a fire-breathing disciple of James Cone’s period-piece black liberation theology. Mr. Obama wrote in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, about his attraction to the leftist pastor’s church as a vehicle for social change. If black nationalism would uplift the race, he wrote, “then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”
That’s a remarkable admission of a racialized “ends justify the means” morality. It helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to stick with a crackpot like Dr. Wright. It also might explain why an up-and-coming Barack Obama found nothing particularly wrong with rubbing political elbows with Bill Ayers, the Chicago university professor and onetime fugitive member of the revolutionary, communist Weather Underground.
Mr. Ayers, an unrepentant ’60s domestic terrorist, is an academician in good standing and an active member of Chicago’s progressive community. It is unremarkable that a rising star in Chicago Democratic politics would collaborate with Mr. Ayers, which tells us something about the soixante-huitard generation.
They may have failed at revolution, but they succeeded in changing the culture. (A famous soixante-huitard slogan: “Live without limits, and enjoy without restraint.”) They did so in large part by, to use the Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s phrase, “marching through the institutions.” Pulpits. Professorships. Publishing and media. And in some cases, politics.
It’s not “guilt by association” to inquire to what extent Mr. Obama – whose moral and political conscience was shaped by his education at elite universities, his street activism and his tutelage at Dr. Wright’s knee – shares the views and assumptions of the soixante-huitards . In terms of style, he’s plainly not one of them. But his deeply liberal voting record marks him as at least a fellow traveler. Besides, as Rolling Stone magazine put it last year in a sympathetic profile, Mr. Obama’s is “as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from.”
This may be of no matter to the left, but Mr. Obama is not running for mayor of Berkeley, president of Harvard or prime minister of The New York Times.
But if the ’60s radicals went too far, they had ample cause to protest – especially against the war in Vietnam, which the U.S. government had been lying about and would continue to lie about. The radicals weren’t all wrong about American power. Know why the terrorist team of Ayers & Dohrn never went to jail? The FBI broke so many laws trying to catch them that putting them on trial would have been futile.
“By any means necessary” was not just an ethic of the far left (ask Ollie North). Nor is it a thing of the past, as the Bush administration and its allies have so amply demonstrated in relentless pursuit of the president’s prerogatives. If it’s fair to judge Mr. Obama by the ideological company he keeps, Mr. McCain deserves the same. Meaning well is not exculpatory.
That said, Mr. Obama’s radical baggage is more politically damaging because it deflates the hope many voters invested in him. He was once the man to deliver American politics from the storm and stress of the ’60s generation – “Goodbye to all that,” as The Atlantic headlined Mr. Sullivan’s much-read pre-primary encomium to Mr. Obama’s transformational potential.
Not yet, alas. Against his own conscience, the ambitious but insecure young Mr. Obama compromised with the malevolent spirit of ‘68 for the sake of worldly gain. For the consequences are not proving to be as little as he expected.
Said the Devil to Faust: “In the end, you are exactly – what you are.” Yes.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-dreher_11edi.ART.State.Edition1.462aff3.html
Rod Dreher is a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.
Dear Worthless Wingnuts,
Barack Obama just brought out the big guns at McCain-Palin’s would-be knife fight.
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
Palin’s going to go after Obama for his supposed “associations?” Fine. Get ready for four weeks of Charles Keating’s “patronage” of John McCain that ended up bankrupting 20,000 retirees and putting the taxpayers on the hook for $120 billion.
And the best part is that the Keating stuff is all true while the Ayers nonsense is lies–every bit of it. So peruse the Keating site. Lots of nice PDF’s and primary source documents that tell the story of how McCain hounded bank regulators when Charlie Keating told him to. What was that Ed Rendell said? McCain isn’t a maverick–he’s a sidekick.
If anybody had any doubts about whether Barack Obama has the smarts and temperament to be Commander-In-Chief, then look at how he held his fire until he could see the whites of John McCain’s ailing left eye. And nobody should doubt whether Obama will go all the way when necessary.
And just in time for tomorrow night’s debate, to boot. McCain best get working on his anger issues ASAP.
outlander writes:
“there is plenty in the unconscionable treatment of Sarah Palin that was. ”
Damn staight outlander! MCCain’s use of her whether it was looking at her butt while she was speaking or hiding her away and trotting her out when convenient is the epitomy of sexism.
McCain and the campaign’s treatment of Palin has been to treat her as an object. A useful tool to fire up the base but not allow her to speak her own mind.
She agreed with Obama that we should go into Pakistan if need be to root out terrorists but the McCain camp immediately retracted her position for her.
She has many other ideas that they prefer she not speak about so they sequester her.
Male chauvinism at its worst.
Just look pretty pretty and talk cute Sarah…that’s what the Republicans want of you.
What do you mean by “gotcha” journalism Sarah Palin?
Are you afraid they are gonna getcha if you answer a question?
Katie Couric asked what it is you read. You evaded with “most of it”.
When pressed for specifics, you retreated to “all of it”.
SO rather than be specific about where you get your information or admit that you are just not that well informed YOU ask us to believe that you read everything from Archie comic books to Scientific American?
Gotcha.
Heyyyyyyyyyy there,
I love Archie comix, Veronica Lodge is super hot.
The whole Palin attack mode is intended to deflect the spotlight from where it belongs. Squarely on Barrack Obama, his lack of experience and judgment, his incredibly liberal voting record, and last but not least, his radical associations.
But folks are catching on. Let’s see if the MSM continues to ignore the important issues.
Heh
Lil’ Sarah is on right now.
Talking point, platitude, “some of your signs make me wanna cry”.
But alas, it is for a crowd of the already deluded.
“I was just tryin’ ta keep Tina Fey in business.”
Tina Fey is a successful writer, and comedienne.
She makes fun of lil’ Sarah once a week for FUN.
If Sarah Palin goes back to Alaska and finds people in her home state are paying more careful attention than before, will we hear directly from her more of how she was used by the McCain / bush / rove team? It doesn’t seem she will be able to go back to the same life she led and there are indications she gets even. Could be an interesting look behind the scenes.
“Mr. Obama’s radical baggage”
And how about McCain’s baggage?
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/
U.S. documents proving POW McCain seriously “collaborated” was obtained in 1991 by the US Veteran Dispatch through the Freedom of Information Act – these transcripts are 5 of the approximately 20 interviews McCain gave the communist.
And LOTS more …
“The whole Palin attack mode is intended to deflect the spotlight from where it belongs. Squarely on Barrack Obama…” — outlander
——-
YEAH! It was the Democratic Party who chose an unknown and then kept them unknown so speculation went wild. It was all planned in advance. Wonder how they got McCain to choose her and then hide her? Wow! Those Democrats sure have a lot of power, don’t they?
Can we just move this election up four weeks and get it over with?
Everybody wants to know what a “gotcha” question is. That’s pretty simple. It’s a simple question that could be answered by most people, but Sarah doesn’t have a clue.
Below is just a short excerpt from an article which shows a glimpse into Sarah Palin, who she is and what she’s about. It also explains why she hates “gotcha” questions.
Barracuda
by Noam Scheiber
The resentments of Sarah Palin.
Post Date Wednesday, October 22, 2008
By 1996, a cultural shift in Alaska had emboldened Palin to take on Carney and Stein and enforce her own sense of right. Since it came online in the 1970s, Alaska’s oil pipeline had attracted legions of Sunbelters–oil men from Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. They were largely right-wing evangelicals who preferred Wasilla–where land was cheap, zoning was minimal, and taxes were low–to the more uppity environs of Anchorage. Their presence led to a proliferation of conservative churches and anti-government attitudes. By 1994, the same Republican tide that swept the Democrats from Congress had reached the Mat-Su Valley as the conservative hordes came of age.
In 1996, Palin was also asserting herself more and more. For example, she’d demand to know why Stein, the mayor, had “raised the budget.” Stein and Carney tried to explain that he’d done nothing of the kind–that, when a city grows, businesses collect more in tax revenue, but that new residents also increase demand for public services. Palin wasn’t appeased. She’d say things like, “‘Oh, okay. Well, that’s the way you think about it,’” Stein recalls. “I was thinking–these are things she should know better. Why is she asking me these stupid questions?”
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8c130fe3-adab-4cb3-8443-c363f085cf13&p=1
Guilt by association …
I have a very dark admission to make. I have been associated at one time with known nutcase extremists. I once met both Paul Rossell and Mark Gietzen.
More from the article…
The city had traditionally put up part of the purse for the Iron Dog competition–the grueling, 2,000-mile snow machine race that usually starts in Wasilla–and one year the council considered upping its ante. (First prize could be tens of thousands of dollars.) When a colleague pointed out that Palin should recuse herself because her husband was a perennial Iron Dog contender, she protested, “I don’t think I have a conflict of interest here because Todd won it last year. There’s no guarantee that he’s going to win it this year.” As others chimed in to explain the problem, Palin dug in her heels. “Well, it could be perceived that way, but it isn’t,” she harrumphed.
Bread and Circuses…
“Both sides” keeping all of us occupado while they destroy us.
bth,
Gietzen is a creepy, creepy man. I was in the Starbucks on Central once when he and Cheryl Suellenger were there meeting with Robin Jennison. Ick. The son that he was prosecuted for beating was there, too. Very, very sad.
John McCain had better watch his back. With Sarah’s hatred of the “elite” aka anyone with more education or money than she has, there’s no telling what she’ll say about him or do if he’s elected and she decides she deserves to be president.
I’m still waiting for Sarah Palin to make good on her numerous statements of ‘my life is an open book’. If that is true, then Palin and her husband Todd need to cooperate with the Troopergate investigation that her fellow Republicans called for. What is she hiding?
With all this sympathy from the Republicans about Sarah Palin’s treatment at the hands of the media, where were these same Republicans when it was Hillary Clinton being drilled by the media (while she was First Lady, Senator and presidential candidate)? I didn’t hear any of these Republicans bemoaning the fact the media was after Hillary.
Of course the media would never be to blame for anything, would they.
CF2K- Dear Worthless Wingnuts,
And the best part is that the Keating stuff is all true while the Ayers nonsense is lies–every bit of it.
——————————————–
Wow.
C2FK – that makes you guilty too!
“When Palin said “I read ‘em all,” I had an terrible image of sitting in a hair salon browsing through McCall’s, Better House and Garden and People.”
Heheheheheh. HAHAHAHAHAHHA.
Dont forget Field and Stream and whatever rag the NRA publishes. Probably a few fish and game cookbooks too, since man does NOT live by moose pie alone…
Good point predestined. Maybe now that she has thrown Bush under the bus she will follow up by throwing Sidney McBush under with him.
“I once met both Paul Rossell and Mark Gietzen.”
Ewwwwww.
And CF, did you momentarily blind after seeing cheryl and robin too???? Just askin’.
““I was just tryin’ ta keep Tina Fey in business.”
Cha-CHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder how much Tina donates to “librul” charities?
Thanks, Sarah. Everytime you open your pretty little mouth, a librul charity gets its winger.
Er, a donation.
Keep yappin’…..
Dont forget Field and Stream and whatever rag the NRA publishes.
I was thinking more like Hustler and Penthouse (I bet she digs those reader letters). Wouldn’t they be considered in the “all”?
Well then, Hussein Obama should have no objections of doing interviews with Rush Limbaugh, Neal Bork and Sean Hannity and stop avoiding them like he has been.
So Obama, get some interviews with some conservative radio and tv talk show hosts and as Brownlee states “Answer questions.”
Or, you can continue to avoid them like you did O’Reilly for almost 18 months.
More on McCain …
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/1
Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation’s capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It’s the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.
McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.
There’s a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a “confession” to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn’t survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service’s highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as “one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met.”
On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.
“I’m going to the Middle East,” Dramesi says. “Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran.”
“Why are you going to the Middle East?” McCain asks, dismissively.
“It’s a place we’re probably going to have some problems,” Dramesi says.
“Why? Where are you going to, John?”
“Oh, I’m going to Rio.”
“What the hell are you going to Rio for?”
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
“I got a better chance of getting laid.”
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. “McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man,” Dramesi says today. “But he’s still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.”
McCAIN FIRST
This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.
In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches.
In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.
Page 1 of 10 …
I want to see Palin sit down with Brokaw or Stephenopalous on Sunday morning. I think she’ll only make herself available to pro-McCain media.
Simple campaign slogan for Obama:
Four New Years of Four More Years
If she can’t take the heat, she needs to get out of the kitchen…if she’s qualified to be a heartbeat away, she’d better be prepared to stand up to harder scrutiny than Katie Couric can dish out.
It’s obvious she can’t hold her own to those who do their homework and are informed.
Don’t know about you guys, but I’d put Obama’s knowledge of the Constitution, economy, and foreign policy up against Sarah Palin’s any day. Or even McCain who, for all his experience, was officially found to have “poor judgement” during the last financial system crisis as a member of the Keating Five. That official finding means he didn’t intentionally crash the financial system, but he did get played by those who would manipulate his dereglatory philosophy for their own gain.
Obama taught Constitutional Law. I for one am looking forward to having a President who actually knows the Constitution.
Pity the politician running for an office anywhere the news media is just waiting to pounce on any thing they might disagree with. Some of it is quite petty.
“In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.”
Tee hee! Except that even Dubya managed to crash a plane.
“I was thinking more like Hustler and Penthouse (I bet she digs those reader letters). Wouldn’t they be considered in the “all”?”
Heheheh. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah Pre, I bet she buys them for the articles….
“Some of it is quite petty.”
Yeah. Like the ayers smears.
ANd some of it is just a lie.
Like the “obama is a muslim” meme.
BIG eye roll….
A gotcha question is one her handlers didn’t anticipate being asked. In fairness to her handlers they did anticipate most of the questions at the debate, except for a couple, or maybe it was just a problem of sequence.
Obama better not take the bait, and go ultra negative like mccain, that would put them on equal footing and give mccain a fighting chance, even an advantage, because mccain isn’t limited to truthful attacks.
Better Obama force the discussion back on the Repub economy fiasco. If the attacks start working he can be prepared with a heavy barrage, just in case.
Carl Cameron of Faux News managed to get the answer that Palin could not tell Katie Couric (apparently, she needed time, ahem, to think about it).
Palin said she read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist. Ahem.
One might presume such a literate, erudite VP would have some serious, detailed solutions for the economic crisis instead of, say, misquoting the Times for an utterly stupid attack on Obama. Hell, I don’t read the Economist (I actually turned down a trial subscription, but that’s another story).
Again: Let’s see some press conferences from the governor, just like we’ve seen from Biden, McCain and Obama. If there’s some pernicious bias making her say dumb things, then let’s see more of her to counter it. As Jello Biafra used to say, don’t hate the media: become the media.
But ya know what?: The McCain campaign won’t do it, and nobody will care (including me). Stick a fork in the governor: she’s done. And, from the looks of it, so is McCain.
Blaming the media is a traditional last-ditch strategy of losing candidates.
From a right-wing source …
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Headlines/Default.aspx?id=276588
Analysis: Palin’s words may backfire on McCain
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL – Associated Press Writer – 10/5/2008 1:35:00 PM
By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.
And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.
First, Palin’s attack shows that her energetic debate with rival Joe Biden may be just the beginning, not the end, of a sharpened role in the battle to win the presidency.
“Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo. A deliberate attempt to smear Obama, McCain’s ticket-mate echoed the line at three separate events Saturday.
“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said. “We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.”
Obama isn’t above attacking McCain’s character with loaded words, releasing an ad on Sunday that calls the Arizona Republican “erratic” — a hard-to miss suggestion that McCain’s age, 71, might be an issue.
“Our financial system in turmoil,” an announcer says in Obama’s new ad. “And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy.”
A harsh and plainly partisan judgment, certainly, but not on the level of suggesting that a fellow senator is un-American and even a friend of terrorists.
In her character attack, Palin questions Obama’s association with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground. Her reference was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.
Obama, who was a child when the Weathermen were planting bombs, has denounced Ayers’ radical views and actions.
With her criticism, Palin is taking on the running mate’s traditional role of attacker, said Rich Galen, a Republican strategist.
“There appears to be a newfound sense of confidence in Sarah Palin as a candidate, given her performance the other night,” Galen said. “I think that they are comfortable enough with her now that she’s got the standing with the electorate to take off after Obama.”
Second, Palin’s incendiary charge draws media and voter attention away from the worsening economy. It also comes after McCain supported a pork-laden Wall Street bailout plan in spite of conservative anger and his own misgivings.
“It’s a giant changing of the subject,” said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist. “The problem is the messenger. If you want to start throwing fire bombs, you don’t send out the fluffy bunny to do it. I think people don’t take Sarah Palin seriously.”
The larger purpose behind Palin’s broadside is to reintroduce the question of Obama’s associations. Millions of voters, many of them open to being swayed to one side or the other, are starting to pay attention to an election a month away.
For the McCain campaign, that makes Obama’s ties to Ayers as well as convicted felon Antoin “Tony” Rezko and the controversial minister Jeremiah Wright ripe for renewed criticism. And Palin brings a fresh voice to the argument.
Effective character attacks have come earlier in campaigns. In June 1988, Republican George H.W. Bush criticized Democrat Michael Dukakis over the furlough granted to Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who then raped a woman and stabbed her companion. Related TV ads followed in September and October.
The Vietnam-era Swift Boat veterans who attacked Democrat John Kerry’s war record started in the spring of 2004 and gained traction in late summer.
“The four weeks that are left are an eternity. There’s plenty of time in the campaign,” said Republican strategist Joe Gaylord. “I think it is a legitimate strategy to talk about Obama and to talk about his background and who he pals around with.”
Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.
The fact is that when racism creeps into the discussion, it serves a purpose for McCain. As the fallout from Wright’s sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America’s promise to treat all people equally.
John McCain occasionally says he looks back on decisions with regret. He has apologized for opposing a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He has apologized for refusing to call for the removal of a Confederate flag from South Carolina’s Capitol.
When the 2008 campaign is over will McCain say he regrets appeals such as Palin’s?
Palin sounds pretty paranoid to me. I wonder if the voices in her head compete for speaking time and that’s why she come off sounding so bizarre?
A cancer-ridden gambler on pain meds with a paranoid schizophrenic as his backup.
You really can’t make this stuff up.
If educational/training makes any difference, I think I’d rather have a constitutional law professor who edited the Harvard Law Review in charge, as opposed to a hard-partying navy man (the phrase “drunken s–”, nah, wont’ go there) who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class.
I’ll give McCain his due: he turned out a great deal more thoughtful and adept that one might have in such circumstances (being the son of an admiral probably didn’t hurt). And if Obama had no Washington experience, I might have to hold my nose and vote Republican.
But, c’mon, folks: these two have been compared head-to-head ever since McCain wrapped up the nomination in the spring. Let’s not pretend this is a new question, or no one’s ever thought about it.
I do like her little girl voice!
I predict she will start showing more cleavage to try to make the polls go up.
Palin complained: “If you cease to answer a question, you’re going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go on to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that, too.”
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I found this an interesting part of the topic thread. Why does Palin presume to know that Americans want to hear about something else other than the current question being asked? It is her duty to answer the questions, as presented. If she does not know the answer, then simply say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘no comment’.
If this the same thing she wants to do in her belief that the Vice President has more role in Congress than just being the tie-breaker vote in the House?
Palin seems to be the female version of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney – only THEY know what is best for Americans and what information the Americans ‘need to know’? Nevermind the fact the Constitution does not give them power to do what they want to do.
The danger to palin/mccain attacks is that the media isn’t playing along, and Obama gets more media coverage (free) when the media corrects the lies.
It’s picked up on the cable news as well as the big 3 broadcasting stations. Mccain’s a slow learner.
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mxyzptlk
Posted October 6, 2008 at 9:34 am | Permalink
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You really can’t make this stuff up.
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This reads like another statement another Lib makes on this blog.
Switching nics? :D
The only thing that might save Palin is a Mrs. America swim suit competition!
Obama showed his temperament in the first debate and throughout this Wall Street crisis.
Obama kept his cool during the debate, despite having McCain not even looking at him and grimmacing the entire time. I was counting the minutes until McCain was going to lose it and show the country his infamous temper.
During the first week of the Wall Street crisis, McCain made a spectacle of himself by suspending his campaign and rushing down to Washington DC to solve the problem and then actually arrive the next day, at the same time Obama arrived in Washington. Now that made McCain look foolish. Even after all that, McCain could not deliver his own side of the aisle to get anything done.
And we still have less than a month for McCain’s temper to rear its ugly head. I am betting on his temper getting the best of him yet.
Phantom,
After 5 kids, I wouldn’t bet too heavily on that, no matter how much exercise and running. At the age of 44 (I think that’s right), things have already begun to “go south”.
DavidB
Posted October 6, 2008 at 6:45 am | Permalink
When Palin said “I read ‘em all,” I had an terrible image of sitting in a hair salon browsing through McCall’s, Better House and Garden and People.
—————
David you and KFG need to change hairdressers. Mine only has hairstyle books so you can show them how you want your hair cut. The idea of a Hustler in a woman’s beauty shop is one of ‘I didn’t think before I said it’ answers.
You people are pathetic this morning. Serious things are happening in the world around us and we are debating what Palin reads. Where are the issue questions of the men running for prez?
Wake up. Stop letting the media drive this election. Think for yourselfs. Ask the important questions. What is relevant to todays world? Bring up the Keating mess and get answers from McCain. Bring up the recent association with Ayers and let Obama answer the questions?
Stop being sheep led to the paddock with not an original thought between you all.
BJ, Tina Fey is an entertainer and not a candidate for VP. Pull your head out man.
” I was counting the minutes until McCain was going to lose it and show the country his infamous temper.”
I have a feeling we just might get to see that this week.
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Predestined
Posted October 6, 2008 at 9:54 am | Permalink
Phantom,
After 5 kids, I wouldn’t bet too heavily on that, no matter how much exercise and running. At the age of 44 (I think that’s right), things have already begun to “go south”.
———————–
Depends on the female.
Genetics plays a role, but the comfort food-eating, couch sitting mama isn’t going to have a youthful figure at 44 if she doesn’t take care of herself.
ksgrm/(j)okobserver,
Get real. John McCain’s “deregulate ’til it hurts!” economic philosophy is at the heart of the Wall Street Meltdown. And it was as an advocate of market deregulation and a friend of Charlie Keating that he leaned on regulators.
By contrast, the “guilt by association” right wing smear campaign tying Barack Obama to Bill Ayers is as irrelevant as it is phony.
And coming from somebody who recycles more than her share of spin from Little Lulu / aka Michelle Malkin, you’re a fine one to tell anybody else to “stop letting the media drive this election. Think for yourselfs.” (sic)
mom
Posted October 6, 2008 at 9:54 am | Permalink
Obama showed his temperament in the first debate and throughout this Wall Street crisis.
Obama kept his cool during the debate, despite having McCain not even looking at him and grimmacing the entire time.
——————–
Mom will you ever get it. The presidential one went back to DC to do the job the people elected him to do. The dims tried an end around and the house minority leader said no go.
McCain stayed on to try to do what he attempted to do in 2005 when Maxine Watters led the opposition saying how great fannie and freddie were doing. She was joined by Rangle, Franks, and other dims in allowing this predator to continue their destruction. Now we make fun of McCain for returning to sort out the mess.
Where was Obama? He was in Florida, by the phone of course, preparing for his debate. Very presidential.
No, Phillip. It is your fault. It’s all your fault. All of it is all your fault. Whatever happens for the next four years, it’s all your fault.
CF2K
Posted October 6, 2008 at 10:13 am | Permalink
By contrast, the “guilt by association” right wing smear campaign tying Barack Obama to Bill Ayers is as irrelevant as it is phony.
===============================
Osama Obama has made it a point to surround himself with far left wing radicals, from former PLO officers when PLO was considered a terrorist group to Ayers, leader of the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group.
You are known by the company you keep.
Osama Obama appears to have been highly selective in the past on the company he kept and it was a conscious choice.
Mccain went back to washington, sat silent in the oval office meeting, went back to his office and ‘phoned it in’, only difference was whether the calls were being made long distance or local, between Obama and mccain.
Mccain did ‘empower’ house repubs to go there own way, now that’s leadership. He shouldn’t have brought campaign politics into the mix.
Mom will you ever get it. The presidential one went back to DC to do the job the people elected him to do
Okie – and what part of McCain could not even get his OWN Republicans to join him do you not get? How presidential was that?
And as reported, McCain was not seen on Capitol Hill – he used his phone also. What’s the difference between using your phone locally or by long distance?
Blaming the media is a traditional last-ditch strategy of losing candidates.
Rage, rats, you beat me to it. The first thing losers do is blame the message and messenger. They want to play in the big leagues, but they start whining the second someone calls them on their BS.
Dennis
The Keating five coming back, will drive mccain completely over the edge.
CF I don’t read Maulkin. I was raised by democrat parents in a state that expected you to have a good dose of common sense. The democrat party today doesn’t fit that picture anymore. Raise all of the questions you want about McCain. Answer the questions asked about Obama. They are the candidates. What is the lefts obsession with Palin?
As for my nic – I owned up to the change right away. Check the history. If it makes you feel better to address me as you did feel free to go ahead, but just to be fair be sure to address Capn by all of his other nics that he has never admitted to but were exposed. Address Chas as das, sugar, northern neighbor, sfreader, ::, square peg, etc.. Those are just the ones I have caught his in. Are you getting the picture? Who is honest here?
So when the left starts to throw your little zingers remember what we are doing here. As adults we are attempting to address real issues in an intelligent way.
Since Osama Obama has been in office, he has taken almost one billion dollars in earmarks in less than four years – that’s 1,000,000,000.
Number of earmarks for McCain in 31 years?
Zero
Yeah, the change candidate – looks to me to be more of the same with Osama Obama.
You are known by the company you keep.
___
You are talking about McCain, right? Keating, lobbyists and his campaign staff who are up to their necks in the Wall Street crisis?
Or are you talking about the McCain when he goes gambling to the Indian casinos during the time that he sits on the committee which oversees them?
Or the McCain which was courting Cindy while still married to his first wife?
Which McCain are you talking about and which company is he keeping?
Mom the republican party is a party of people capable of thinking for themselves. Obama’s Goldman Sachs sidekick had told him the fix was in and that is why he went ballistic and didn’t show up at his own press conference when the meeting went south. The empty mikes said it all.
I’m not letting anyone off the hook. But Obama has to own up to what he did and didn’t do to cause this whole debacle. Honesty isn’t in this man. That is what is being asked of him now. Come clean about Ayers, Rezko, et al.. Just as McCain has to answer questions about the Keating 5.
Regular
Posted October 6, 2008 at 10:25 am | Permalink
Since Osama Obama has been in office, he has taken almost one billion dollars in earmarks in less than four years – that’s 1,000,000,000.
Number of earmarks for McCain in 31 years?
Zero
–
And Sarah Palin has no problem requesting and receiving earmarks for Alaska, which has a total population of 700,000 (?). Alaska ranked #1 for receiving earmarks.
But yet McCain does not say anything to Palin about those earmarks – does he?
Regular this ‘change’ that is coming if Obama is elected scares me to death. What is his plan? Where is he going?
All I have heard is ‘raise taxes’ or providing health to the uninsured, refer back to raise taxes, or give $50 BILLION to the UN to fight world hunger, refer back to raise taxes, or start a massive job creation for the unemployed to work on the infrastructure, refer back to raise taxes.
Government can’t be in the job creation business. We still have the brick roads from the 40s and 50s but this was a temporary fix. It didn’t solve anything.
What is this plan he has? All I ever hear is ‘I have a Plan’.
Okie – Obama has come clean about Ayes and Rezko. Just because you don’t like the answers, does not make them untruthful.
As for Rezko, that was investigated and Rezko was convicted on his OWN dealings. Obama was cleared by the investigation.
If you’re so hellbent on the truth, then why don’t you insist on Sarah Palin cooperating with her investigation? Obama cooperated with the Rezko investigation but yet Palin and her husband is refusing to cooperate with her investigation.
That same shoe should fit both candidates, don’t you think?
Mom Sarah Palin is not running for prez. McCain is. Obama is. Zero earmarks for McCain and over 1 billion for Obama.
The gambling is a non-issue unless someone has evidence that there is special treatment for the casinos because he gambles there.
You would be hard pressed to find a casino in Arizona or California that isn’t run by one Indian tribe or another.
Use logic in your arguments.
The Chicago political machine ‘cleared’ Obama. The party who coined the phrase ‘vote early and vote often’. Yep I believe their investigation was fair and unbiased.
And where have I said ‘dont look at McCain’. I say look at them both. Sarah Palin is the VP. That person who attends state dinners and funerals of foreign dignitaries. What is this obsession with her?
I can’t help but think that all this debating about whether the media is or is not biased against Sarah Palin would be a moot point but for one thing – McCain picked a woman who was not known to the other 49 states and then McCain wonders why the media is digging into her past (which is their job, by the way).
Besides, if McCain had picked someone like Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Olympia Snowe to run with him, then I doubt very much if this issue of the media bias would even be an issue.
I still have to wonder if no prominent woman Republican would run with McCain?
And Mom I don’t believe he has ever come clean about Ayes or Rezko. I believe the media has rolled over and allowed him to escape serious questioning about these and other associations.
ksgram,
T’was you who wrote the following:
“I have respect for Michelle Maulkin [sic] because she states what she believes whether it is popular or not.”
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/10/open-thread-1-9/
But you don’t read her. Of course not. Silly of me to think so.
okobserver
Posted October 6, 2008 at 10:37 am | Permalink
Mom Sarah Palin is not running for prez. McCain is. Obama is. Zero earmarks for McCain and over 1 billion for Obama
–
Guess again, Okie – Palin is running for president by being the vice presiential candidate. Do you not know that the vice president takes over if the president dies? It is a big deal about the vice president also!
My only point was – McCain is famous for saying he will take his pen and cross out those earmarks and make their names famous. If he feels so strongly about wiping out earmarks – then why doesn’t he say Sarah Palin was wrong for requesting her earmarks? You still cannot answer that one, can you?
And there are questions being asked about McCain’s gambling interests – you just choose to not recognize it.
okobserver
Posted October 6, 2008 at 10:42 am | Permalink
And Mom I don’t believe he has ever come clean about Ayes or Rezko. I believe the media has rolled over and allowed him to escape serious questioning about these and other associations
___
Again, you only choose to recognize what will make McCain and Palin look good. You really do need to get out more and discover there are facts that you may not like.
And what did the media about the Keating 5? McCain came out of that one with being reprimanded for his poor judgement but didn’t his wife Cindy have some investments with Keating? The McCains were in thick with the Keating 5 and no way around that one, either.
ksgrm,
As for your rhetorical “Sarah Palin is the VP. That person who attends state dinners and funerals of foreign dignitaries. What is this obsession with her?” question, well, ksgrm, seems to me it’s probably a REPUBLICAN who had that yard sign I saw today which read as follows:
“SARAH!
McCain/Palin”
Reality denial, ksgrm, ought to have its limits. But this evidently is not the case for you and for your effort to pretend that the McCain Campaign hasn’t had Sarah Palin front and center since before the GOP convention. As well as the conservative media, from Ed Rollins (”she’s now the frontrunner for 2012″) to Rich Lowry (”she winked at me and made me feel all tingly in my pants!”) I mean, ksgrm, get real. For once.
Desperation suits you well okobserver.
You are in general a nasty dispositioned person. You’ve almost no credibility here. You’ve nothing to lose by going negative.
Probably NOT a good idea for Sarah Palin to say she is “keeping Tina Fey in business”. Fey has a razor sharp wit and is by no means dependent on Sarah Palin for work.
For all the mud McCain is slinging at Obama, there is the same amount of mud that will come back and hit McCain in the face. But I still think McCain’s infamous temper will be rearing its ugly head before the week is out and it’s not going to be pretty sight.
“Get real. John McCain’s “deregulate ’til it hurts!” economic philosophy is at the heart of the Wall Street Meltdown. And it was as an advocate of market deregulation and a friend of Charlie Keating that he leaned on regulators.”
Say What? McCain is a deregulator who has leaned on regulators to cause the market meldown? Can CF2K make a statement with any less factual support and which does not contradict itself?
For starters, perhaps someone can state with clarity which piece of “deregulation” sponsored or supported by McCain has created the current fiscal crisis?
Obama says that deregulation has caused this crisis, sooooo which step of regulation is he proposing to counter the deregulation that is to blame?
Obama’s economic plan is entirely based upon soaking the rich. If deregulation was the source of this debacle, you would think he would be emphasizing a particular act of regulation.
In reality, this whole business of accusing “deregulation” is a house of cards that the Republicans need to not tip toe around.
The federal government gave the implicit backing to lenders to lend money to those who would not have otherwised qualifed without the government backing. The government actually “over regulated” by giving the green light to lenders to lend foolishly.
That fact of how this mess happened is well known and it is not due to “deregulation”. However, if CF2K actualy wants to make an attempt at giving some logic to support his accusation, I will enjoy the entertainment.
However just keep saying the words “deregulation”, “Keating”, and “McCain” and “Wall Street Meltdown” in the same sentence without any facts to show how any of those names are connected if that helps you take the edge off.
Obama’s Plans to Unionize American Workers by Force or Obama’s plan to socialize America
If he gets his way, Obama is ready to force millions of Americans into unions by eliminating, for all practical purposes, this fundamental American right.
This betrayal of a bedrock principle of U.S. democracy can only mean one thing: America will go the way of Europe, i.e., higher unemployment, slower GDP growth, a higher cost of living, and no new job creation. That’s the history of highly unionized states like Michigan. Since the end of World War II, America has steadily moved toward a more dynamic, flexible labor market, which has resulted in huge job creation and a higher standard of living for all workers. But — if Obama and the unions have their way — that is about to change.
Obama is a strong supporter of the falsely-named “Employee Free Choice Act” (also known as the Card Check bill) sponsored by Ted Kennedy. It almost passed Congress this year and is certain to become law if Obama becomes president. Obama told the AFL-CIO this year, “I will make it the law of the land when I’m president of the United States.” (President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation.)
What’s so bad about the “Employee Free Choice Act”? The name is positively Orwellian: instead of preserving workers’ ability to make the decision to unionize by secret ballot, it does just the opposite. The bill makes it much easier to create a union at a business — the union bosses can publicly pressure a majority of workers to sign union authorization cards (thus, the name “card check”). There is no secret ballot — workers sign the cards in front of other employees and union leaders, and union officials keep the signed cards until they obtain the required number. Under the watchful eyes (and arm twisting) of union organizers, workers will be intimidated into signing.
Union supporters deny that the secret ballot is eliminated. Once the union leaders are accepted as the exclusive bargaining agent for the workers, employees can then freely vote for or against the union in a secret ballot.
The problem is that the card check process creates heavy peer pressure to support the union publicly, even if workers have misgivings privately. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized, “Unable to organize workers when employees can vote in privacy, unions want to expose those votes to peer pressure, and inevitably to public intimidation.”
Congressman John Klein (R-Minn.) has warned, “It is beyond me how one can possibly claim that a system whereby everyone — your employer, your union organizer, and your co-workers — knows exactly how you vote on the issue of unionization gives an employee ‘free choice.’…. It seems pretty clear to me that the only way to ensure that a worker is ‘free to choose’ is to ensure that there’s a private ballot, so that no one knows how you voted. I cannot fathom how we were about to sit there today and debate a proposal to take away a worker’s democratic right to vote in a secret-ballot election and call it ‘Employee Free Choice.’”
The potential for abuse is enormous. Even long-time Democrat George McGovern is opposed to the Card Check bill: “To my friends supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, I say this: We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election. We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.”
Happily, Sen. McCain opposes the pro-union bill. “I am strongly opposed to H.R. 800, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act of 2007. Not only is the bill’s title deceptive, the enactment of such an ill-conceived legislative measure would be a gross deception to the hard-working Americans who would fall victim to it.”
Business leaders should especially be alarmed about another aspect of H. R. 800. It gives unions the option to have federal arbitrators write the terms of a binding contract, setting wages, benefits, hours, work rules, and all other terms of employment if negotiations between the employer and union fail. And this contract has the force of law for two years.
Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, warns that this legislation is so harmful that it is nothing short of a “hostile takeover” of American business and will result in making the United States uncompetitive in the global world and will ship millions of jobs overseas: “When I asked CEOs if they had heard of this attack on principles that form the bedrock of our democracy — secret ballots in elections — only 7 out of 100 raised their hands. And yet, this plan has the potential to redraw the political and economic landscape of America. CEOs, and for that matter all Americans, need to know how this legislation would jeopardize our system of free enterprise.”
Spread the word: An Obama victory means a unionized America, higher cost of living, more unemployment, a static economy, and a lackluster Wall Street.
Human Events
Osama Obama, the true Kommie Socialist
A comprehensive summary of the trainwreck that is Sarah Palin:
http://mudflats.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/palin-2006-vetting.pdf
This afternoon Keating 5/McCain material will follow.
Rage:
“Blaming the media is a traditional last-ditch strategy of losing candidates.”
Thank you. The above really does say it all.
I hear John McCain plans to appoint Charles Keating to handle the financial bailout if he is elected. He noted that Keating has plenty of experience.
The only problem I have is the media doesn’t ask any question of Obama. If the media wasn’t carrying him, nobody would have ever heard of him. He has done nothing, accomplished nothing. We hear or see in the media every time Palin passes gas, but when it comes to Obama all we get is glitter and flash.
While the Deomcracy Corps poll has Pres. Bush with an approval rating of 32% and NBC News poll has Congress with an approval of 15%, we give the media an approval rating of ZERO
“Spread the word: An Obama victory means a unionized America”
This is bad news…HOW Regular?
I called it. The cons have no good news. SO when we do hear from them, they will be shrill, angry, and in denial of reality.
Regular cuts and pastes:
“This betrayal of a bedrock principle of U.S. democracy can only mean one thing: America will go the way of Europe, i.e., higher unemployment, slower GDP growth, a higher cost of living, and no new job creation. That’s the history of highly unionized states like Michigan.”
The above would be different from the deregulated, union busted America that has emerged from so many years of Republican rule, HOW eactly?
Are you able to keep a straight face when you post?
John McCain: Crisis Enabler By Mark Sumner
In 1982, the same year John McCain entered the Senate, a bill was put forward that would substantially deregulate the savings and loan industry. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was an initiative of the Reagan administration, and was largely authored by lobbyists for the S&L industry–including John McCain’s warm-up speaker at the Republican National Convention, Fred Thompson. The official description of the bill was “An act to revitalize the housing industry by strengthening the financial stability of home mortgage lending institutions and ensuring the availability of home mortgage loans.” Considering where things stand in 2008, that’s enough to make you wince. It should.
Seven years later, the S&L industry was collapsing. What was the cause? Garn-St. Germain had handed the S&Ls a greatly expanded range of capabilities, allowing them to go head to head with full service banks, but it hadn’t handed them the bank’s regulations. Left to operate in an anarchistic gray area, S&Ls had chased profits, indulged in amazing extravagances and cranked out enough cheap mortgages to fuel a real estate boom. They had also experimented with lots of complex, creative–and risky–investments, even though they didn’t have the economic models to really determine the worth of the things they were buying. The result was a mountain of bad debts and worthless “assets.” Does any of that sound eerily (or nauseatingly) familiar?
It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. In 1985, three years after the deregulation of the S&Ls, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board saw that the situation was already looking bad, with potential to get much worse. To try to head off disaster, he instituted a rule to limit the amount and types of investments S&Ls could carry on their books. However, many savings and loans–among them Lincoln Savings & Loan Association of Irvine, California, which was headed by a fellow named Charles Keating–promptly ignored these rules.
Now enters a familiar cast of characters. First to pop up was the universally beloved Fed-chief-to-be Alan Greenspan. Greenspan argued against the loan board’s new rules, and persuaded Reagan to appoint one of Keating’s pals to the board to blunt the requirements. A quintet of senators, among them John McCain, began having meetings with both the management at Lincoln and the regulators at the loan board. With their help, Lincoln was able to stay in business an additional two years, at the end of which they failed–taking the life savings of 21,000, mostly elderly, investors with them.
How involved was John McCain? McCain and Keating had known each other since 1981 and had become fast friends. Of all the “Keating Five,” it was McCain who really moved into the life of the Lincoln S&L chief. The two men vacationed together multiple times, with the whole McCain clan (babysitter included) heading out for Keating’s private Caribbean property on Keating’s private jet. McCain didn’t think to actually report these trips, or pay for them, until the investigators were breathing down his neck. And McCain took payment in more than just vacations. Keating and other members of Lincoln’s parent company padded McCain’s pockets with $112,000 in campaign contributions.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/sumner
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StevenEDavis
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:06 am | Permalink
Are you able to keep a straight face when you post?
———————
Absoluletly!
And, I keep both hands above the desktop unlike yourself.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html
The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind
By Sharon Churcher
Palin has a standing invite to be interviewed by both Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow.
I’m thinking David Letterman is not a place she would want to go after the way McCain punked out on Dave.
So, bth and mom…exactly what was McCain convicted of during this Keating episode?
Was he censured by the Senate?
Or, has he been re-elected several times since then?
Hey Ben, maybe you can tell the ‘wheelchair’ story again under another nick.
(chortles)
McCain keeping company with a druggie …
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/drugs/
How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction
When an attempt to get tough with a whistleblower backfired in 1994, the McCain spin machine went into overdrive, and the candidate’s wife confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal.
- – - – - – - – - – - -
By Amy Silverman
Oct. 18, 1999 | PHOENIX — GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on “Dateline”) and Diane Sawyer (on “Good Morning America”) the tale of her onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief organization.
It was a brave and obviously painful thing to do.
It was also vintage McCain media manipulation.
“Regular
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:12 am | Permalink
So, bth and mom…exactly what was McCain convicted of during this Keating episode?
Was he censured by the Senate?”
And has Obama been convicted or censured?
(chortling right back)
Hi Regular. Isn’t Sarah Palin’s husband a union man? Was she for it before she was against it? Is all this talk about the evil of collective bargaining power what caused McCain to lose Michigan?
And if anyone knows anything about Rezko or Ayers that hasn’t already been repeated a hundred times, please let us in on it! Saying “I don’t believe he’s come clean” is just an empty insinuation. If you want to convince the majority of voters who now favor Obama, you’ll need to do better than that. Give us some details about how Obama “pals around with terrorists.” Give us some concrete proof. Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?
Or we can talk about what we are going to do about the economy. That’s what Obama seems to prefer. That’s what I think will do the country a better service.
Hey Regular, McCain wasn’t convicted as you know. He was found to have “poor judgment” when it comes to the economy. Something he himself has readily admitted on many occasions.
So you’re going to vote for him?
And Irregular – your “Osama Obama” meme gives you away as a fringie.
Close-up on juvenile justice
Author, former offender among speakers
By Jennifer Vanasco
News Office
Children who kill are called “super predators,” “people with no conscience,” “feral pre-social beings” — and “adults.”
William Ayers, author of A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (Beacon Press, 1997), says “We should call a child a child. A 13-year-old who picks up a gun isn’t suddenly an adult. We have to ask other questions: How did he get the gun? Where did it come from?”
Ayers, who spent a year observing the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago, is one of four panelists who will speak on juvenile justice at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, in the C-Shop. The panel, which marks the 100th anniversary of the juvenile justice system in the United States, is part of the Community Service Center’s monthly discussion series on issues affecting the city of Chicago. The event is free and open to the public.
Ayers will be joined by Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who is working to combat legislation that would put more juvenile offenders into the adult system; Randolph Stone, Director of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic; Alex Correa, a reformed juvenile offender who spent seven years in Cook County Temporary Detention Center; Frank Tobin, a former priest and teacher at the Detention Center who helped Correa; and Willy Baldwin, who grew up in public housing and is currently a teacher at the Detention Center.
The juvenile justice system was founded by Chicago reformer Jane Addams, who advocated the establishment of a separate court system for children which would act like a “kind and just parent” for children in crisis.
One hundred years later, the system is “overcrowded, under-funded, over-centralized and racist,” Ayers said.
Michelle Obama, Associate Dean of Student Services and Director of the University Community Service Center, hopes bringing issues like this to campus will open a dialogue between members of the University community and the broader community.
“Students and faculty explore these issues in the classroom, but it is an internal conversation,” Obama said. “We know that issues like juvenile justice impact the city of Chicago, this nation and — directly or indirectly — this campus. This panel gives students a chance to hear about the juvenile justice system not only on a theoretical level, but from the people who have experienced it.”
=====
Working together
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/971106/justice.shtml
Ben you will never find anywhere that I have defended McCains actions in his personal life. But today we are judging him and Obama on their relative merits for the office of POTUS.
One has broken from his party on several issues. He has zero earmarks. He has worked many years to bring together both parties on important issues. Several times when I disagreed with him. A long military history. Admits to not having an economic background but is know for seeking good advisors.
On the other side we have a young untested man with no/little leadership experience. In three short years has a record dollar amount in his earmark column. Never deviated from the party line. Questionable men who started his political career. No military experience. No economic experience but has as his advisors Johnson and Raines both failed directors of corps that brought down our current economy.
Who should we choose.
Which is best suited for the task ahead.
Absoluletly!
And, I keep both hands above the desktop unlike yourself.
*****
That’s only because nothing below your desktop works. Chortles.
#
SFreader
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:18 am | Permalink
Hey Regular, McCain wasn’t convicted as you know. He was found to have “poor judgment” when it comes to the economy. Something he himself has readily admitted on many occasions.
So you’re going to vote for him?
——————
I’m voting for Pat Paulsen, post mortem write-in candidate.
#
bth
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:18 am | Permalink
And Irregular – your “Osama Obama” meme gives you away as a fringie.
——————–
Naw! Just repeating one of my heroes, Senator Ted!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APx2YJ-_jos
#
StevenEDavis
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:23 am | Permalink
Absoluletly!
And, I keep both hands above the desktop unlike yourself.
*****
That’s only because nothing below your desktop works. Chortles.
========================================
Your wife disagrees!
Ben would this be the same man who demanded $250,000 to keep silent about Cindy McCain. Sounds like extortion. She has admitted to her adiction problem.
Your prez candidate used blow and smoked funny cigs by his own admission. Where is your outrage?
Again, I ask:
What relation is the Keating 5 scandal involving S&L to the practice of goverment backed mortgages made by Fannie Mae to unqualified lenders?
Barack Obama
RNC to File FEC Complaint on Obama Fundraising Practices
By Matthew Mosk
A lawyer for the Republican National Committee today said the party will ask the Federal Election Commission to look into the source of thousands of small-dollar contributions to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.
The RNC is alleging that the Obama campaign was so hungry for donations it “looked the other way” as contributions piled up from suspicious, and possibly even illegal foreign donors.
“We believe that the American people should know first and foremost if foreign money is pouring into a presidential election,” said RNC Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross.
Cairncross alleged there was mounting evidence of this, and cited a report in the current issue of Newsweek magazine that documents a handful of instances where donors made repeated small donations using fake names, such as “Good Will” and “Doodad Pro.”
The Newsweek report says that earlier this year the Obama campaign returned $33,000 to two Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip who had bought T-shirts in bulk from the campaign’s online store — purchases that count as campaign contributions. The brothers had listed their address as “Ga.,” which the campaign took to mean Georgia rather than Gaza.
“While no organization is completely protected from Internet fraud, we will continue to review our fundraising procedures,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told the magazine.
At the heart of the RNC complaint is a federal fundraising rule that lets campaigns accept donations under $200 without itemizing the names and addresses of the donors on its campaign finance reports. The rule was intended as a matter of practicality — it did not seem reasonable to ask a campaign to gather that information from every five-dollar donor.
But the Obama campaign has raised more than $200 million this way, a staggering sum for donations that will not be subjected to outside scrutiny.
Obama campaign aides said today that a number of steps have been taken to safeguard against foreign or illegal contributions coming in in smaller increments. The measures include: requiring donors to present a passport at fundraising events held for Americans overseas, ending contributions to the Obama Store from contributors with addresses outside the U.S. or its territories, and requiring donors to enter a U.S. passport number when contributing via the Americans Abroad page.
“When we were made aware of an ad for a Nigerians for Obama fundraiser in a Nigerian paper, our attorneys sent a letter to the paper making it clear the event had nothing to do with our campaign, and that we would not accept contributions from the event,” one Obama aide said.
And aides note that Sen. John McCain had his own foreign fundraising issues, having been forced to refund about $50,000 in donations solicited by Jordanian Mustafa Abu Naba’a, who was raising money on behalf of one of McCain’s top Florida bundlers.
“One has broken from his party on several issues. ”
Very little since Bush went in.
“He has worked many years to bring together both parties on important issues.”
Like he did with his own party on the financial mess last week?
“Your prez candidate used blow and smoked funny cigs by his own admission. Where is your outrage?”
The difference is that it is YOUR side that wants to focus on this sort of thing instead of the issues.
As my OneNewsNow link way above noted – McCain might regret Palin’s decision to take thinsg in this direction.
McCain/Feingold, McCain/Liberman, McCain/Kennedy, and on and on and on..
The facts speak for themselves. In McCain/Kennedy he actually was with Bush … and the demo party. His own constituents didn’t like the bill and he changed his backing of the bill.
Obama Top Fundraiser on Wall Street
Obama loves that WallStreet Cash
Change!
By Kristin Jensen and Christine Harper
Bloomberg News
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The Democratic candidates for president tallied more than $1.3 million in contributions from employees of top Wall Street investment banking firms in the period.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ran ahead of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) on their home turf in the first quarter, raising cash from the biggest investment banks on Wall Street.
The Illinois senator raised $479,209 from employees at the banks in the quarter, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Giuliani collected $473,442, and Clinton got $447,625. The figures are based on employers listed by the donors; in some cases, names are incomplete or missing.
The employees of Goldman Sachs and UBS gave Obama more than $260,000 combined. His top fundraisers include David Heller, a managing director at Goldman, and Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Americas.
Obama also got money from the private-equity world, receiving a combined $35,000 from employees of the leveraged-buyout firm Blackstone Group and from the Carlyle Group, a global private-equity firm based in Washington.
Employees of Goldman, the world’s biggest securities firm by market value, donated $120,250 to Obama, who addressed Goldman’s annual partners’ meeting in Chicago last year.
U.S. employees of Zurich-based UBS gave more than $140,000 to Obama.
Using the rw own argument, Ayers was never convicted.
Okobserver?
McCain’s first, most important decision was his choice of VP.
The person who takes over should he be unfit for office?
Particularly relevant in light of McCain’s age and health?
His choice of Sarah Palin demonstrates a decided failure in judgment.
I’ve been thinking about someone forgotten in all this.
McCain COULD have chosen Mike Huckabee. That choice would have won all the same voters that were pleased with the choice of Sarah Palin. Huckabee is folksy but not painfully so as Palin is. Huckabee is DEFINITELY better spoken and a deeper thinker than Sarah Palin.
But McCain passed over Mike Huckabee ( and many other more qualified people) to pick Palin.
This invites folks to wonder just what it was that was behind McCain’s rather poor decision.
RFL, the issue isn’t government-backed mortgages, the issue is a $65 trillion unregulated securities market, thanks to Phil Graham and his “reforms.” These weren’t government-backed mortgages, they were CDS-backed mortgages. The CDS instrument specifically kept government out of the way. You might remember a certain political party talking about letting the market regulate itself? Well, this is exactly how the market regulates itself. With years of hidden exploitation followed by sudden collapse.
I don’t know about you, but the thought of more of this naive economic philosophy has a lot of us scared for our future.
BlueJay,
You know that if Huckabee were on the ticket there would be the same amount of loathing if not more from your side of the political spectrum for the McCain ticket as there is right now.
After all Huckabee is a former Baptist Preacher. If that doesn’t fire up the hatred from the angry left, nothing will.
Biden is an idiot.
Biden does not know the difference between Article 1 and Article 2 of the Constitution.
Biden does not know the difference between Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO.
Biden does not know the difference between the West Bank and Gaza.
Biden thinks that Hamas is in control of the West Bank.
Again, Biden has made FAR, FAR more mistakes than Palin —
But the media is liberal and the media gives Biden a pass.
Even when Biden claims that FDR got on TV after the 1929 stock market crash. (Hoover was President. TV was not invented yet.)
The dims were pushing this failed policy bill. Bush is a lame duck prez so we will try to lay it all at his feet but the do nothing congress will get their share of blame when it all shakes out. The likes of Maxine Watters who are on record as pushing unregulated lending to homeowners who couldn’t afford it. The Raines, Johnsons, Moses’ and their ties to high ranking demos will become more visible as the failure happens despite the cureall bill that passed with demo applause.
“Phantom
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:40 am | Permalink
Using the rw own argument, Ayers was never convicted.”
And I think McCain’s good buddy Keating WAS convicted.
“Biden thinks that Hamas is in control of the West Bank.”
Show where he said that. As I recall he said that Hamas won the election in the West bank. WHICH THEY DID!
Meanwhile, Sidney doesn’t know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.
Bluejay as a republican I see nothing wrong with McCains’ VP pick. I agree wholeheartedly and so do the majority of the repubs. Three conservative pundits and a lot of libs like yourself are trying to show her in a bad light. Hasn’t worked.
You have Biden and good luck wth that choice. Quit trying to set the conservative ticket. That is one thing you don’t have to worry about.
“Biden does not know the difference between Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO.
Biden does not know the difference between the West Bank and Gaza.”
PROVE IT.
And Obama didn’t know how many states are in the union.
RFL
You are telling me Mike Huckabee would have been a similar choice.
I am asking you why it was McCain saw Palin as a better choice.
And I am questioning McCain’s judgment in making that choice.
And Obama didn’t know that fallen hero couldn’t be in his Veterans Day audience.
I am saying BJ why are you worrying about the republican ticket. Did he fail to run her by you before the announcement?
SFReader,
YOu have not explained how the CDS backed mortgages has cause the entire world markets to meltdown. Would you mind doing the honors?
If Obama has picked Hillary you would have a solid ticket instead of a weak one. Does Obama have a problem with strong women?
Fuld, former CEO of Lehman, says we need More Regulation!
What this crisis has in common with the S&L crisis hinges on the deregulation mantra of the Republicans, and their successes at obtaining same.
Ben
Bill Bennett, a DEMOCRAT, and in charge of the Keeting 5 investigation, tried to drop McCain from that investigation.
Bill Bennett, a DEMOCRAT, said that “John McCain is an honest man”.
McCain was the ONLY Republican “member” of the “Keeting 5″. Democrats included McCain for purely political purposes.
McCain should not have “reached across the Aisle” on this one. Of the 4 Democrats involved, one was cleared, just like McCain was cleared. The others were sanctioned.
“Cranston: reprimanded
The Senate Ethics Committee ruled that Cranston had acted improperly by interfering with the investigation by the FHLBB.[45] He had received more than a million dollars from Keating, had done more arm-twisting than the other Senators on Keating’s behalf, and was the only Senator officially rebuked by the Senate in this matter.[46]
Cranston was given the harshest penalty of all five Senators. In November of 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee voted unanimously to reprimand Cranston, instead of the more severe measure that was under consideration: censure by the full Senate. Extenuating circumstances that helped to save Cranston from censure were the fact that he was suffering from cancer, and that he had decided to not seek reelection, according to chair Heflin. The Ethics Committee took the unusual step of delivering its reprimand to Cranston during a formal session of the full Senate, with almost all 100 Senators present.[24]
Cranston was not accused of breaking any specific laws or rules, but of violating standards that Heflin said “do not permit official actions to be linked with fund-raising.” The Ethics Committee officially found that Cranston’s conduct had been “improper and repugnant”, deserving of “the fullest, strongest and most severe sanction which the committee has the authority to impose.” The sanction was in these words: “the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, on behalf of and in the name of the United States Senate, does hereby strongly and severely reprimand Sen. Alan Cranston.”[24]
After the Senate reprimanded Cranston, he took to the Senate floor to deny key charges against him. In response, vice-chair Rudman charged that Cranston’s response to the reprimand was “arrogant, unrepentant and a smear on this institution,” and that Cranston was wrong to imply that everyone does what Cranston had done. Alan Dershowitz, serving as Senator Cranston’s attorney, alleged that other Senators had merely been better at “covering their tracks.”[24]
Riegle and DeConcini: criticized for acting improperly
The Senate Ethics Committee ruled that Riegle and DeConcini had acted improperly by interfering with the investigation by the FHLBB.[45]
DeConcini later charged that McCain had leaked to the press sensitive information about the investigation that came from some of the closed proceedings of the Ethics Committee.[7] McCain denied doing so, although one congressional investigator and several press reports concluded that McCain had been one of the main leakers during that time.[7][47]
Glenn and McCain: cleared of impropriety but criticized for poor judgment
The Senate Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of Glenn in the scheme was minimal, and the charges against him were dropped.[45] He was only criticized by the Committee for “poor judgment.”[48]
The Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of McCain in the scheme was also minimal, and he too was cleared of all charges against him.[46][45] McCain was criticized by the Committee for exercising “poor judgment” when he met with the federal regulators on Keating’s behalf.[7] The report also said that McCain’s “actions were not improper nor attended with gross negligence and did not reach the level of requiring institutional action against him….Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate.”[49] On his Keating Five experience, McCain has said: “The appearance of it was wrong. It’s a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do.”[7]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
McCain was CLEARED of all wrong doing.
Phantom why do you and the left try to paint this as a repub problem? We can sit and fire arrows all day long and nothing will change. Listen to what happened when the black leaders shot down McCains attempts to regulate back in 2005. Let actually do something productive.
What will stop the bloodbath on wall street today?
It speaks to McCain’s judgment okobserver.
His first, most important choice was an uninformed, poor choice.
Palin and McCain have many serious problems.
Not the least of which is that Palin is almost compelled to do something other than rallies and friendly interviews. She gains no ground for the ticket going in front of people who are already on board.
Meanwhile, a large portion of the American public will only know Sarah Palin as played by Tina Fey.
It’s lose lose. Palin cannot do a coherent interview unless the interviewer is in the tank for her.
“McCain was CLEARED of all wrong doing.”
And has Obama been CONVICTED of any wrong-doing?
Remember Paul – the game here is “Guilt by Association”.
Oh, and by the way, Ayers has never been convicted of anything either.
OK
Actually, of the 3 conservative pundits/columnists who questioned the Palin choice, 2 have changed their minds.
Peggy Noonan wrote a very nice piece, about Palin’s debate performance.
The Michigan situation is interesting. Remember, how Palin apparently wasn’t told, sharply disagreed, and offered to campaign there?
I’m not sure about the immediate aftermath, but the past few days Palin has been sent to the critical battleground states of California and Nebraska.
The honeymoon is over, and further confirming what McCain really thinks of her. Palin won’t respond in kind; she’s shallow, but she’s not that dumb.
But if McCain somehow manages to win, he’d better watch his back.
RFL,
“Say What? McCain is a deregulator who has leaned on regulators to cause the market meldown? Can CF2K make a statement with any less factual support and which does not contradict itself?”
“For starters, perhaps someone can state with clarity which piece of “deregulation” sponsored or supported by McCain has created the current fiscal crisis?”
Easy: the 1999 repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, a repeal spearheaded by–wait for it!–Phil Gramm, McCain’s economic adviser. Tearing down the walls between commerical banks and investment banks, and the ensuing bonanza of leverging assets into credit futures, all follow in lock step.
And I see, RFL, that you’re still pushing the “dark-skinned folks and illegal immigrants are the ones who crashed the mortgage industry,” I see. Do you Wingnuts EVER give up on racist “stabbed in the back” narratives that are meant to innoculate them–and their ideology–from taking responsibility? Evidently not.
Ben
Do your own google search.
The fact is, Biden made AT LEAST a dozen factual mistakes in the debate.
Bluejay –
You have to be kidding, it is simple.
McCain picked Palin because he thinks a woman would gain votes.
Besides that, his wife is probably the one that did the picking.
“What will stop the bloodbath on wall street today?”
I wish I knew. I wish THEY knew.
“Phantom why do you and the left try to paint this as a repub problem?”
It is a bipartisan problem. However, I think some on the ‘left’ will respond to attacks from the right claiming that it is a 100% Democratic problem.
Joe Biden’s 14 Lies in the V.P. Debate
1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.
2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.
3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”
4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.
5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.
6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.
7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people’s health insurance coverage — they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false
8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska — she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it’s not a windfall profits tax.
9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.
10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation — he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.
11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.
12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.
13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”
14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won’t pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.
johnmccain.com
No Paul – YOU made the allegation; YOU back them up.
Your gal Palin made at least 5,642 factual mistakes in the debate. If you don’t believe it then do your own Google.
Phantom
Lehman gave huge sums of money to DEMOCRATS.
Also, the Lehman exec, that you quote, was a Democrat supporter, I believe, in his personal contribuitons:
“FULD, RICHARD
GREENWICH, CT 06831
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (CBC-PAC)
07/01/2004 2500.00 25970140726
LOWEY, NITA M
VIA NITA LOWEY FOR CONGRESS
02/09/1998 500.00 98032940759
FULD, RICHARD
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS
DODD, CHRISTOPHER J
VIA 98 FRIENDS OF CHRIS DODD
06/17/1998 1000.00 98020130575
06/17/1998 1000.00 98020130576
DODD, CHRISTOPHER J
VIA FRIENDS OF CHRIS DODD
06/21/2000 1000.00 20020241045
07/30/2003 1000.00 23020382248
07/30/2003 1000.00 23020382248
LIEBERMAN, JOSEPH I
VIA FRIENDS OF JOE LIEBERMAN
03/30/2005 2000.00 25020162542
03/30/2005 2000.00 25020162541
FULD, RICHARD
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS INC
TORRICELLI, ROBERT G
VIA TORRICELLI FOR U S SENATE INC
03/27/2002 1000.00 22020242251
03/27/2002 1000.00 22020242251
FULD, RICHARD
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CHIEF EXECUTIVE O
LOWEY, NITA M
VIA NITA LOWEY FOR CONGRESS
08/07/2002 1000.00 22991682995
03/26/2003 1000.00 23990716588
FULD, RICHARD
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CHAIRMAN AND CEO
REED, JACK
VIA REED COMMITTEE
01/28/2008 2000.00 28020180177
FULD, RICHARD
NEW YORK, NY 10285
LEHMAN BROTHERS
BYRNE, BRENDAN THOMAS JR
VIA FRIENDS OF TOM BYRNE
05/27/1999 1000.00 99020091241
CORZINE, JON S
VIA CORZINE 2000 INC
02/23/2000 1000.00 20020130922
04/24/2000 1000.00 20020161030
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
10/29/1998 2000.00 98020270096
07/19/2000 10000.00 20020260252
03/26/2004 25000.00 24020273408
LIEBERMAN, JOSEPH I
VIA FRIENDS OF JOE LIEBERMAN
10/26/1999 1000.00 20020050906
FULD, RICHARD
NEW YORK, NY 10285
LEHMAN BROTHERS/MANAGING DIRECTOR
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
04/09/2007 10000.00 27020170447
FULD, RICHARD JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
COORS, PETER
VIA PETE COORS FOR SENATE
07/08/2004 2000.00 24020593131
FORD, HAROLD JR
VIA HAROLD FORD JR FOR TENNESSEE
10/16/2006 2000.00 27020072056
FULD, RICHARD JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CEO
LIEBERMAN, JOSEPH I
VIA JOE LIEBERMAN FOR PRESIDENT INC
03/27/2003 2000.00 23990743323
FULD, RICHARD JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/INVESTMENT BANKER
GEPHARDT, RICHARD A
VIA GEPHARDT FOR PRESIDENT INC.
04/17/2003 2000.00 23991412534
FULD, RICHARD JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CHIEF EXECUTIVE O
LOWEY, NITA M
VIA NITA LOWEY FOR CONGRESS
09/28/2005 1000.00 25971190336
FULD, RICHARD MR. JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS
BRADLEY, BILL
VIA BILL BRADLEY FOR PRESIDENT INC
06/11/1999 1000.00 99990046461
FULD, RICHARD S
GREENWICH, CT 06831
CEO/LEHMAN BROS.
KERRY, JOHN F
VIA JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC
03/04/2004 2000.00 25971241707
FULD, RICHARD S
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS
DNC SERVICES CORPORATION/DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE
10/16/2000 10000.00 20036390522
FULD, RICHARD S
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CHAIRMAN AND CEO
CLINTON, HILLARY RODHAM
VIA HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT
05/29/2007 2300.00 27990275451
FULD, RICHARD S
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CEO
CRAPO, MICHAEL D
VIA MIKE CRAPO FOR US SENATE
09/02/2005 1000.00 25020452733
FULD, RICHARD S
NEW YORK, NY 10285
LEHMAN BROTHERS INC
SCHUMER, CHARLES E
VIA SCHUMER ‘98
06/14/1997 1000.00 97020083708
06/14/1997 1000.00 97020083708
FULD, RICHARD S JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS INC
SCHUMER, CHARLES E
VIA FRIENDS OF SCHUMER
03/26/2003 1000.00 23020181346
03/26/2003 1000.00 23020181346
FULD, RICHARD S JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CHAIRMAN AND CEO
CLINTON, HILLARY RODHAM
VIA HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT
10/19/2007 2300.00 28930334005
FULD, RICHARD S JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/FIANCE
OBAMA, BARACK
VIA OBAMA FOR AMERICA
05/30/2007 2300.00 27990257321
FULD, RICHARD S JR
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROS HOLDING/CEO
FEINSTEIN, DIANNE
VIA FEINSTEIN FOR SENATE
11/18/2005 1000.00 26020110607
FULD, RICHARD S JR
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS
CLINTON, HILLARY RODHAM
VIA FRIENDS OF HILLARY
03/09/2005 1000.00 25020180401
FULD, RICHARD S JR
NEW YORK, NY 10285
LEHMAN BROTHERS INC
SCHUMER, CHARLES E
VIA FRIENDS OF SCHUMER
10/04/2000 1000.00 21020041218
10/04/2000 1000.00 21020041218
FULD, RICHARD S JR
WASHINGTON, DC 20566
KENNEDY CENTER
CONRAD, GAYLORD KENT
VIA FRIENDS OF KENT CONRAD
06/08/2005 1000.00 25020251559
FULD, RICHARD S JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
FREEDOM FUND
09/20/2005 -1000.00 25971349927
FULD, RICHARD S JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROS. INC./CFO
FREEDOM FUND
08/25/2005 1000.00 25991039480
FULD, RICHARD S JR.
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CEO
DRISCOLL, JOSEPH E
VIA DRISCOLL FOR CONRGRESS
07/08/2004 2000.00 24962521234
FULD, RICHARD S MR JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE
10/22/2007 10000.00 28020111847
FULD, RICHARD S MR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS INC./CHAIRMAN & C
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION FUND B, THE
02/27/2004 5000.00 24990801924
FULD, RICHARD S MR. JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS INC./CHAIRMAN & C
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION FUND B, THE
03/15/2005 5000.00 25971345497
06/26/2006 5000.00 26950315373
FULD, RICHARD S MR. JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/CEO
DODD, CHRISTOPHER J
VIA CHRIS DODD FOR PRESIDENT INC
03/31/2007 2300.00 27930604382
03/31/2007 2300.00 27930604348
FULD, RICHARD S MR. JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/INVESTMENT BANKER
BUSH, GEORGE W
VIA BUSH-CHENEY ‘04 (PRIMARY) INC
07/03/2003 2000.00 23992053632
FULD, RICHARD S MR. JR.
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS INC./CHA
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
03/27/2007 5000.00 27990017165
FULD, RICHARD S.
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS INC./MAN
ACTION FUND OF LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS INC.
10/09/2003 5000.00 23992274675
FULD, RICHARD S. MR. JR.
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS/EXECUTIVE
MCCAIN, JOHN S.
VIA JOHN MCCAIN 2008 INC.
03/31/2007 2300.00 27990297504
FULD, RICHARD S. MR. JR.
NEW YORK, NY 10019
LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS INC./CHA
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
05/07/2008 5000.00 28931956735
Total Contributions: 158800.00
Joint Fundraising Contributions
These are contributions to committees who are raising funds to be distributed to other committees. The breakdown of these contributions to their final recipients may appear below
FULD, RICHARD
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS
NORTH CAROLINA VICTORY FUND
10/25/2004 2000.00 24021021116
Total Joint Fundraising: 2000.00
Recipient of Joint Fundraiser Contributions
These are the Final Recipients of Joint Fundraising Contributions
FULD, RICHARD S JR
GREENWICH, CT 06831
LEHMAN BROTHERS
BOWLES, ERSKINE B
VIA ERSKINE BOWLES FOR US SENATE
10/22/2004 2000.00 24021080728
Recipient Total: 2000.00
ANTI
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:21 am | Permalink
Close-up on juvenile justice
Author, former offender among speakers
Thanks for the post, ANTI. This shows the terrible hateful ideas that Ayers and Obama shared. Imagine: they both appeared on a panel to discuss the wisdom of putting more juvenile offenders into the adult prison system! The nerve of these people!
You’ve convinced me, ANTI. Clearly Obama and Ayers wanted to protect juvenile muslim terrorists from getting what’s coming to them and, since this was before 9-11, it only follows that they were shielding these terrorists so they could help perpetrate 9-11.
STOP HUSSEIN OSAMA OBAMA AND WILIAM “WEATHERMAN” AYERS NOW, BEFORE THEY STOP MORE 15-YEAR-OLDS FROM GOING TO PRISON! 9-11! 9-11! USA! USA! 9-11!
Thank you. sarcasmOFF
Economists Raise Concerns About Bailout Plan
Thursday, October 02, 2008
By John R. Lott, Jr.
“The economists offered a range of explanations for the problems, but they did agree on a few things. All were concerned about the way that the government set up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, though they did not all agree that it should be fixed immediately as part of the bailout. Jon Berk pointed out:
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — all of us knew it was going to happen. You don’t have an implicit agreement where you cover their losses and don’t expect these types of problems (their large financial losses).”
=============================================
SFReader, CF2K, bth,
This crisis is caused by “deregulation” right? Did the Government’s implicit backing of Fannie Mae loans constitute “deregulation” to you?
Deregulation
Government backed mortgages made by corporations with private returns.
synonyms?
Not quite.
So
A DEMOCRAT, who happens to be an executive at Lehman, a DEMOCRAT, who give lots of money to Democrat candidates and to the Congressional Black Caucus, who all FIGHT regulation of Fannie and Freddie, A DEMOCRAT whose firm fails, says we now NEED the “regulation” that he has fought so hard?
Well, WELCOME ABOARD, Mr. Fuld!
Why did you FIGHT John McCain, when McCain tried to regulate Fannie and Freddie, back in 2005?
On Feb. 21, 2003 McCain talked about the soon-to-begin Iraq war on Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes” . He seemed to think Iraq would be a cakewalk, predicting that the war “will be brief.”
Biden was right: “McCain was dead wrong.”
Multi-nic’d Regular posted October 6, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Joe Biden’s 14 Lies in the V.P. Debate
8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska — she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it’s not a windfall profits tax.
——————
‘Windfall tax lets Alaska rake in billions from Big Oil‘
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008103325_alaskatax07.html
“Then last year, Palin introduced a graduated tax pegged to increased oil prices. The state Legislature modified her proposal to increase the state’s take even further.
…
The tax is set at its highest rate in Prudhoe Bay, where the state takes 25 percent of the net profit of a barrel when its price is at or below $52.
The percentage then escalates as oil prices rise over that benchmark. Alaska gets about $49 of a $120 barrel, not counting other fees.”
———–
Also from above link — every Alaskan gets $3,200 this year.
“Palin’s administration last week gained legislative approval for a special $1,200 payment to every Alaskan to help cope with gas prices, which are among the highest in the country.
That check will come on top of the annual dividend of about $2,000 that each resident could receive this year from an oil-wealth savings account.”
————
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/02/news/economy/palin_oil/?postversion=2008100316
“In late 2007 Palin succeeded in raising the tax on oil companies from 22.5 to 25% of net profits. Alaska also added a clause increasing the tax for each dollar oil goes above $52 a barrel – essentially, a windfall profits tax.
Oh the pressure on John McCain tomorrow night!
His running mate Sarah Palin is dead weight now. She can’t help him, only hurt him.
His campaign is in a slip that is going into a slide. Michigan is gone. Missouri and Indiana are going.
This is McCain’s last chance to be President. And he sees it slipping away.
Right now, John McCain is a very angry man. We may see that anger tomorrow night.
And then? It WILL be over.
Has any CON said anything positive about John S (for Senile) McCain the Third (for Shrub’s 3rd term) in the last six weeks?
All they can do is distract, detract, and distort.
You guys aren’t voting for anybody.
“Nattering nabobs of negativism.” It’s the Republic Party way.
bth
Posted October 6, 2008 at 11:59 am | Permalink
“Biden thinks that Hamas is in control of the West Bank.”
Show where he said that. As I recall he said that Hamas won the election in the West bank. WHICH THEY DID!
Meanwhile, Sidney doesn’t know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.
Chirp, chirp …
Mutli-nic’d Regular posted October 6, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Joe Biden’s 14 Lies in the V.P. Debate
11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.
—————–
http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2008b.html
BIDEN: John McCain and Dick Cheney said while I was saying we would not be greeted as liberators, we would not – this war would take a decade and not a day, not a week and not six months, we would not be out of there quickly. John McCain was saying the Sunnis and Shias got along with each other without reading the history of the last 700 years. John McCain said there would be enough oil to pay for this. John McCain has been dead wrong. I love him. As my mother would say, god love him, but he’s been dead wrong on the fundamental issues relating to the conduct of the war. Barack Obama has been right. There are the facts.
…
With regard to Iraq, I indicated it would be a mistake to — I gave the president the power. I voted for the power because he said he needed it not to go to war but to keep the United States, the UN in line, to keep sanctions on Iraq and not let them be lifted.
I, along with Dick Lugar, before we went to war, said if we were to go to war without our allies, without the kind of support we need, we’d be there for a decade and it’d cost us tens of billions of dollars. John McCain said, no, it was going to be OK.
…
The truth of the matter is, though, let’s go back to John McCain’s strategy. I never supported John McCain’s strategy on the war. John McCain said exactly what Dick Cheney said, go back and look at Barack Obama’s statements and mine. Go look at joebiden.com, contemporaneously, held hearings in the summer before we went to war, saying if we went to war, we would not be greeted as liberator, we would have a fight between Sunnis and Shias, we would be tied down for a decade and cost us hundreds of billions of dollars.
John McCain was saying the exact opposite. John McCain was lock- step with Dick Cheney at that point how this was going to be easy. So John McCain’s strategy in this war, not just whether or not to go, the actual conduct of the war has been absolutely wrong from the outset.
cosmos the ignorant does not know what a ‘windfall profit tax’ is.
“Palin’s tax was not a tax on profits. It was an excise tax . . . imposed on the difference between the market price of oil, which was technically referred to as the removal price, and a statutory base price.”
Franklin,
“Criticized for poor judgment” is you being dishonest: John McCain was issued a REBUKE by the Senate Ethics Committee.
“In written rebukes to four other Senators who were also investigated for their ties to Charles H. Keating Jr., a savings and loan executive and contributor to the Senators’ campaigns or causes they supported, the committee asserted that their behavior reflected poor judgment at the very least.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED61F30F93BA15751C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
And notice that final clause, Paul Rosell: “…their behavior reflected poor judgment AT THE VERY LEAST [emphasis mine].”
But rather than hide behind a Wikipedia entry, Paul Rosell, let’s look at precisely what we DO know about John McCain’s relationship to Charles Keating and advocacy on his behalf.
-”Ethics Committee Special Counsel Said McCain Had Closest Relationship to Keating. Robert Bennett, the Special Counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee said during the 1990 hearings: “of the five senators here before you, Senator McCain had the closest personal friendship with Charles Keating. Their friendship predated Senator McCain’s political career. Senator McCain also was the only one who received personal as well political benefits from Charles Keating.” [Senate Ethics Committee Hearing into the Keating Five]
-McCain Received $166,000 In Campaign Contributions from Charles Keating and his Associates. “Together with friends and associates, Keating contributed $56,000 to McCain’s first House race, another $56,000 to the second and $54,000 to his 1986 Senate campaign,” contributions that were key to early success as a politician. [New York Times, 5/25/97]
-McCain Used Keating’s Private Planes on Nine Occasions. “From August 1984 to August 1986, Sen. John McCain and his family flew across the country and to the Bahamas on at least nine occasions at Charles H Keating Jr.’s expense,” often to stay at the Keatings’ exclusive Cat Cay getaway. [Arizona Republic, 10/8/89]
-McCain Had Direct Financial Ties To Keating. Keating brought in McCain’s wife and father-in-law as the largest investors in an Arizona shopping center investment. Fountain Square Shopping Center was a no-risk investment that virtually guaranteed a 25% return and a “significant tax write-off” through a tax shelter technique available to the wealthy that was soon outlawed. When reporters first questioned the deal, McCain said to reporters “It’s up to you to find that out, kids.” [Arizona Republic, 10/8/89]
-McCain Originally Denied Reports of Connection. “When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. ‘You’re a liar,’ McCain said” when asked about the investments. He challenged reporters saying, ‘It’s up to you to find that out, kids.’” [Arizona Republic, 3/1/2007]”
http://keatingeconomics.com/
“You’re a liar,” and “it’s up to you to find that out, kids”; chew on THAT, folks. If John McCain thought he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide, quite extraordinary that he had to eat his words and come clean later on.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/02/news/economy/palin_oil/?postversion=2008100316
“In late 2007 Palin succeeded in raising the tax on oil companies from 22.5 to 25% of net profits. Alaska also added a clause increasing the tax for each dollar oil goes above $52 a barrel – essentially, a windfall profits tax.
CF
So what?
Lots of us know people who have gotten into trouble.
The fact is, McCain was CLEARED of wrong doing.
There were Democrats, like Cranston, who were found GUILTY Of actual ethical lapses.
Bennett, the PROSECUTOR, said, “McCain is an honest man”.
The 1980 Windfall Profits Tax
The tax was technically misnamed because it was in fact an excise tax, not a “profits” tax. The tax was imposed on the difference between the market price of oil and a government-determined base price. For example, a 70 percent tax was levied on the difference between the market price received by oil companies and the average base price of $12.81 per barrel. Independent producers, stripper wells and heavy oils were taxed at different rates.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1168.html
cosmos is still showing his ignorance and using ignorant sources.
Should have said, “Bennett, the Investigator”
Multi-nic’d is still flailing his arms wildly, nit-picking the use of a commonly accepted label “windfall profits tax”.
CF
Look at it this way:
McCain had a friend, Keating, who got into serious trouble.
There were other Senators who were strongly rebuked, by the Senate, for their dealings with Keating.
McCain was simply warned about his “judgement” in his voluntary association with Keating.
Ok. Fair enough. McCain had a friend who got into trouble, and there is NO finding that McCain, himself, did anything wrong, other than avoid this character.
Compare this to Obama:
Obama was an attorney for ACORN, a criminal organization involved in voter fraud and involved in civil disobedience to FORCE lenders to make risky loans.
Obama was an EMPLOYEE of William Ayers, a terrorist! Ayers held Obama’s first fund raising event, in Ayers own home.
Obama has taken MORE money from Wall Street, than any other candidate in history.
Obama has taken more money, from the mortgage industry, than any other politician in history.
Obama, as a member of the “Congressional Black Caucus” was called, “The Conscience of Fannie Mae”
Dan Mudd, the person who took over as CEO, after Obama advisor Franklin Raines was forced out, in disgrace, spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus, practically BEGGING them to support Fannie Mae, against the Republicans who wanted to regulate the mortgage industry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0
Obama’s associations are RECENT.
Obama’s associations DID impact Obama’s votes and policy decisions.
Back on topic. . . another excuse from Sarah Palin.
“And though she conceded that her interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric last month was “not too successful,” she feels a need to explain why her some of her answers seemed befuddled.
“I just kind of lost my patience,” she told a gathering of California donors. “
—————
Do we want a possible president who easily loses “patience”, and becomes befuddled? What would happen during a difficult crisis?
One thing I did not hear Fuld say, is, “It’s all Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac’s Fault!”
That’s only for wingnut dissemination.
Regular should email CNN, Seattle Times, and all the other media outlets, and convince them that their usage of “windfall profits tax” is incorrect.
Good luck, multi-nic’d. . .
cosmos
By many accounts, Obama was an idiot at the White House meeting, before the bail out.
Obama is not know for being able to negotiate.
Most of the claims that Obama makes, about the Illinois legislature, are bogus.
Obama used a tactic called “Bill Jacking” — the Democrat leadership “stole” legislation from “lessor” Democrats, and “gave” that legislation to Obama, to sponsor, in order to make Obama look good.
Obama has never really negotiated anything on his own, of any merit.
I haven’t been able to find out which party fuld is registered with but I did find this:
“Lehman Brothers chief Dick Fuld also seems to be spreading a wide net. He has given $11,500 to Democrats Chris Dodd and Clinton and Barack Obama and to McCain.
Phantom
Fannie and Freddie RAN the mortgage business.
Nothing got through Congress, without the support of Fannie and Freddie.
Fannie and Freddie pushed risky loans, and, at first, Fannie and Freddie promised to BUY UP all of those risky loans, until, of course, Fannie and Freddie ran out of money.
Also Phantom
FULD is one of the guilty, and Fuld is a die-hard DEMOCRAT!
FULD will not admit that the legislative agenda, that he, himself, paid for was wrong.
Why not bring a member of the CRIPS to a hearing, and ask how to solve gang violence?
Phantom
Check upthread
Fuld gave HUGE amounts to Republicans, as compared to Dems.
Also, Lehman Brothers, itself, heavily favored Dems.
FULD gave huge amounts to Democrats, as compared to Republicans
Sorry
If the Republican Party handlers of Palin have not yet trusted her ability to answer media questions (like every other candidate) do you think we can trust her ability to be the second-in-command of the United States of America?
There were Democrats, like Cranston, who were found GUILTY Of actual ethical lapses.
Cranston is running for president?! I must have missed that!
Ben
Everything is relative.
There were FIVE members of the “Keating 5″
Bennett, the investigator, wanted to drop McCain from the investigation, but the Dems in the Senate would not allow that move, since the other 4 Senators involved were Democrats.
The Senate simply told McCain he should be more careful in his associations and dealings.
They NEVER said that McCain did anything illegal or unethical.
Compare this to Obama:
Obama is PART of the mortgage scandal. Obama pushed for risky loans, through his relationship with ACORN. Obama takes more campaign money, from the mortgage industry, than any other candidate.
And Ben?
Is BUSH running for President?
Shut up about Bush and I will shut up about Cranston.
It’s unethical for a senator to meet with a regulator, make him feel pressured, on behalf of a friend and major campaign contributor, it should even be illegal.
Not poor judgement. If his judgement is that poor, he has no place in politics, or the W.H.
Smart people favor dems., what’s your point?
Phantom
By your post, above, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the Congressional Black Caucus should all resign.
Democrats in Congress prevented the regulation of the mortgage industry.
Paul – you are basing your entire Obama-bashing on guilt by association. Obama has met a man who was convicted of NOTHING and you have run with that at least 100 times. McCain is good buddies with a felon and you claim that doesn’t matter. Sorry Paul – that dog don’t hunt.
As for Bush – he is also good buddies with McCain.
BTW – any proof yet for those other allegations about Biden above? Still waiting.
“Obama is PART of the mortgage scandal. ”
Convictions? Censures?
Phantom
The mortgage industry caved in to pressure from ACORN, Congressional Democrats and other liberal radicals and made loans to poor people.
Then, the mortgage industry gave money, heavily, to Democrats.
If you want to paint this as the action of “smart people” it only reflects YOUR ignorance.
Ben
Tony Rezco WAS convicted, of quite a bit, actually.
Rezco helped make Obama’s political career possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOFT8jtuVpo
Another Acorn Nut.
And Ben
Terrorist William Ayers BRAGS about blowing up 30 different buildings, including the Pentagon.
Terrorist William Ayers was Obama’s BOSS, Ayers gave Obama a JOB! Ayers hosted Obama’s FIRST political fundraiser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=talF7A-7MyM
Meanwhile – the markets are crashing today – down over 100 points.
make that 700 points
Ben, try down 600+ POINTS
Paul – any progress in proving your allegations against Biden I asked you about? Did you make them up or did they come from your handlers at McCain headquarters?
Would Franklin please post links to where Obama was convicted of a crime?
ok — i see — damn typos
Chas – can’t type – 700+ now
Ben
Politically, Obama IS responsible for a large part of the mortgage problem.
ACORN protested at banks that refused to make risky sub-prime loans.
Obama was an attorney for ACORN.
Obama, when he worked for Terrorist William Ayers, directed contributions to ACORN.
Since when do we need convictions or indictments or lawsuits to prove that a public policy decision was a mistake?
By the way, the last time you asked me to “prove” that someone did something wrong, I showed you that Franklin Raines, and Obama advisor, had to pay back millions of dollars after he looted Fannie Mae.
You are clueless on the mortgage issue. That you did not even know Franklin Raines history proves you are not up to speed on this issue.
Go study and come back when you can play with the grown ups.
Or where Biden claimed that Hamas ruled the West Bank?
Good joke Paul – thanks for the laughs.
mx
HUH?
So, Obama can hang around with terrorists like William Ayers, convicted criminals, like Rezco, and racist nuts, like Rev. Wright, and you think it is ok?
“Vote for me, I have not been convicted yet”
I thought she said O’Biden LOL
So, McCain can hang around with convicted criminals like Charles Keating and Paul thinks it is OK?
Chas – I put the ‘OBiden’ thing in the same catagory as typos – insignificant.
Okie – while McCain was putting his Superhero cape on to fly down to Washington to solve the economic crisis (BTW he NEVER did solve it), Obama was meeting with economic advisers like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and several former Treasury Department officials to discuss the economic crisis.
Who did McCain have as advisers? Phil Gramm and Rick Davis or maybe Charles Keating?
Biden said that we spend more in Iraq in three weeks than we have in the past seven years in Afghanistan. That is absolutely false.
Biden said people will not pay more under Obama’s taxes than under Reagan’s taxes. False again. Reagan 28% – Obama 39.5%
Biden said McCain voted the same way Obama did on budget resolutions this year. False. Obama voted yes, while McCain voted no.
Biden said it would take 10 years to get any oil from new drilling. False. It would only take about two years in some cases.
Biden said that the use of force resolution was not a war resolution. False again Joe
Biden said that McCain opposed Clinton on Bosnia. False
Biden blamed the mortgage problems on Bush’s deregulation mentality. False – The real blame can be found in the socialist agenda of the Democrats since the Clinton Administration, wherein they turned the FHA into a high risk lending nightmare. The mentality that everyone should own a home is what got us here.
Joe calls redistribution of wealth “fairness.”
The final thing that just makes him look bad is this accusation that John McCain doesn’t want to talk to Spain. To be making this assertion just ruins any credibility to anything else the guy says. But we know there isn’t much there either. (See above) If you listen to the interview, it is clear to anyone listening that John McCain could not understand what the interviewer was saying.
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=2152
Friday, October 03, 2008
A couple of notes on Biden and Hamas
Last night, during the debate, Joe Biden claimed:
[Bush] insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, “Big mistake. Hamas will win. You’ll legitimize them.” What happened? Hamas won.
Practically no one expected Hamas to win those elections, and I cannot find any record of Biden or Obama saying any such thing. All polls from before the elections has Fatah winning by double-digits.
But here’s what I did find:
There was a letter with 73 Senate co-signers urging Bush to press Palestinian leadership to bar terrorist groups from participating in Palestinian legislative elections in December, 2005. Joe Biden did not sign it (although Obama did.)
And Joe Biden helped monitor the 2006 elections, and was quoted as saying:
I have just returned from observing yesterday’s Palestinian legislative elections. The process was free and fair. But the apparent results – a victory by the terrorist organization Hamas – are very sobering.
If he was so certain that Hamas was going to win, why would he have been so eager to legitimize the elections by monitoring them (as he did the previous year with the 2005 elections that Fatah won?)
But Franklin – not everybody on this blog is a paid shill working for those 30 pieces of silver.
When will Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign adviser, come clean about the millions he has been paid for his part in the Wall Street crisis?
For those who want the REAL DEAL on ACORN,
Please READ the following web site, and its accompanying pages….
Franklin, how many Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers are you going to have to recite, after all the LIES you post here, as just another PAID SHILL???
https://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2703
“Biden Lied About Obama Not Supporting Hamas Election
Little Green Footballs ^ | 10/3/2008 | Charles Johnson
Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 11:29:44 AM by mojito
That’s right—not only did Biden confuse the West Bank and Gaza, he blatantly lied when he said that Barack Obama did not support the Palestinian elections that put Hamas in control of Gaza.
During His 2006 Trip To The Middle East, Obama Met With Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas And Said The Election Represented An “Opportunity…To Consolidate Behind A Single Government.” “Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s journey to the Middle East took him to the West Bank Thursday for a meeting with the man elected to replace Yasser Arafat. … For a time Thursday in the West Bank there was only the clatter of cameras as the newly elected president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, met with Illinois Senator Barack Obama. At a meeting with Palestinian students Thursday, Obama said the U.S. will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel, and Obama told ABC7 he delivered that message to the Palestinian president. ‘Part of the opportunity here with this upcoming election is to consolidate behind a single government with a single authority that can then negotiate as a reliable partner with Israel,’ said Obama.” (Chuck Goudie, “Obama Meets With Arafat’s Successor,” ABC 7 News, http://obama.senate.gov, 1/12/06)
The Palestinian News Agency WAFA Reported That Obama Was Supportive Of The Palestinian Elections Being Held At Their Scheduled Time. “President Mahmoud Abbas met Thursday with the U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), in the Presidential HQ in Ramallah…President briefed the U.S. Senator about the latest developments in the Palestinian territories including the preparations for the legislative elections…. Abbas and Obama discussed the means of underpinning the American-Palestinian economic relations…Obama asserted the US supports and eager that the Palestinian legislative elections on its proposed time (January 25).”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2096720/posts
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081020/ames_berman
McCain’s Kremlin Ties By Mark Ames & Ari Berman
Over the course of the presidential campaign, John McCain has repeatedly emphasized his willingness to stand up to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as proof that only he possesses the fortitude and judgment to become the next leader of the free world. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, McCain lashed out at Putin and the Russian oligarchs, who, “rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power…[are] reassembling the old Russian Empire.” McCain rushed to publicly support the Georgian republic during its recent conflict with Russia and amplified his threat to expel Moscow from the G-8 club of major powers. His running mate, Sarah Palin, suggested in her first major interview that the United States might have to go to war with Russia one day in order to protect Georgia–the kind of apocalyptic scenario the United States avoided during the cold war.
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Yet despite McCain’s tough talk, behind the scenes his top advisers have cultivated deep ties with Russia’s oligarchy–indeed, they have promoted the Kremlin’s geopolitical and economic interests, as well as some of its most unsavory business figures, through greedy cynicism and geopolitical stupor. The most notable example is the tale of how McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, advanced what became a key victory for the Kremlin: gaining control over the small but strategically important country of Montenegro.
According to two former senior US diplomats who served in the Balkans, Davis and his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, received several million dollars to help run Montenegro’s independence referendum campaign of 2006. The terms of the agreement were never disclosed to the public, but top Montenegrin officials told the US diplomats that Davis’s work was underwritten by powerful Russian business interests connected to the Kremlin and operating in Montenegro. Neither Davis nor the McCain campaign responded to repeated requests for comment. (Davis’s extensive lobbying work, especially on behalf of collapsed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has already attracted critical media scrutiny.)
At the time, Putin wanted to establish a Russian outpost in the Mediterranean, and Montenegro–a coastal republic across the Adriatic from Italy–was seen as his best hope. McCain also lobbied for Montenegro’s independence from Serbia, calling it “the greatest European democracy project since the end of the cold war.” For McCain, the simplistic notion of “independence” from a country America had gone to war with in the late 1990s was all that mattered. What Montenegro looked like after independence seemed not to interest him. This suited Putin just fine. Russia had generally sided with Serbia against the West during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but for the Kremlin, cutting Montenegro free from Serbia meant dealing with a Montenegro that could be more easily controlled. Indeed, today, after its “independence,” Montenegro is nicknamed “Moscow by the Mediterranean.” Russian oligarchs control huge chunks of the country’s industry and prized coastline–and Russians exert a powerful influence over the country’s political culture. “Montenegro is almost a new Russian colony, as rubles flow in to buy property and business in the tiny state,” Denis MacShane, Tony Blair’s former Europe minister, wrote in Newsweek in June. The takeover of Montenegro has been a Russian geostrategic victory–quietly accomplished, paradoxically enough, with the help of McCain and his top aides.
In mid-September The Nation’s website published a photo of McCain celebrating his seventieth birthday in Montenegro in August 2006 at a yacht party hosted by convicted Italian felon Raffaello Follieri and his movie-star girlfriend Anne Hathaway. On the same day one of the largest mega-yachts in the world, the Queen K, was moored in the same bay of Kotor. This was where the real party was. The owner of the Queen K was known as “Putin’s oligarch”: Oleg Deripaska, controlling shareholder of the Russian aluminum giant RusAl, currently listed as the ninth-richest man in the world, with a rap sheet as abundant as his wealth. By mid-2005 Deripaska had already virtually taken control of Montenegro’s economy by snapping up its aluminum plant, KAP–which accounts for up to 40 percent of the country’s GDP and some 80 percent of its export earnings–in a nontransparent privatization tender strongly criticized by NGO watchdogs, Montenegrin politicians and journalists. The Nation has learned that Deripaska told one of his closest associates that he bought the plant “because Putin encouraged him to do it.” The reason: “the Kremlin wanted an area of influence in the Mediterranean.”
In mid-2005 Ambassador Richard Sklar, the former lead US official in the Balkans, ceased advising the Montenegrin government (he’d worked as a pro bono adviser after leaving the US diplomatic service) when it became clear the plant was being handed to Deripaska under heavy Russian pressure. “I quit because it was a bad deal, not for any political reasons. The Russians scared all the other buyers off. They offered far too little money and got themselves a sweetheart deal.”
Russia’s virtual takeover of Montenegro was well under way by January 2006, when Rick Davis introduced Deripaska to McCain at a villa in Davos, Switzerland. They met again seven months later, at a reception in Montenegro celebrating McCain’s birthday, as reported in the Washington Post.
The story of how Oleg Deripaska, 40, rose from a Cossack village to become a Putin-blessed aluminum tycoon with an estimated $40 billion fortune does not begin with a lemonade stand and old-fashioned elbow grease. Like most post-Soviet success stories, Deripaska’s rise began abruptly and violently, during the chaotic reign of Boris Yeltsin. Among all the battles for control of valuable state assets in the 1990s, none were as bloody as the “aluminum wars,” in which organized-crime gangs hired by competing interests assassinated dozens of executives, shareholders and bankers. During a visit to the United States in 1995, Deripaska threatened the lives of two aluminum rivals, Yuri and Mikhail Zhivilo, according to a RICO lawsuit filed against Deripaska in New York district court in 2000. The RICO case is just one of many lawsuits, including one filed in Israel by a former business partner claiming that Deripaska illegally wiretapped an Israeli cabinet minister. In addition, German prosecutors have begun a criminal money-laundering investigation in Stuttgart. (Deripaska did not respond to requests for comment.)
Deripaska understands that success in Russia today comes from a mixture of brute force, political influence and personal connections. In 2001, about a year after Putin signed a decree granting legal immunity to Yeltsin’s family, Deripaska married Yeltsin’s granddaughter, thereby cementing his own immunity and power. Throughout Putin’s reign, Deripaska has adhered to an unwritten understanding between Putin and the oligarchs: as long as they support the Kremlin, they can operate with impunity. Deripaska has thus taken on numerous projects dear to Putin, such as building a new airport in Sochi for the 2014 Olympics and buying out Tajikistan’s aluminum plant to help Putin reassert control over that key ex-Soviet republic. Deripaska openly admits that his RusAl holdings are subservient to the Kremlin’s wishes, telling the Financial Times last year, “If the state says we need to give it up, we’ll give it up.”
Yet Deripaska faced a serious obstacle to his business ambitions, hampering his duties as a Putin surrogate. Because of numerous accusations of involvement in death threats, extortion, racketeering and money laundering, he had been barred from entering America since 1998. Putin has lobbied for Deripaska’s US visa. In an interview with Le Monde earlier this year, Putin complained, “I have asked my American colleagues why. If you have reasons for not delivering him a visa, if you have documents on illegal activities, give us them…. They give us nothing, explain to us nothing, and forbid him from entry.”
The visa ban was costing Deripaska billions: for years he and fellow RusAl shareholders had sought to cash in their wealth by launching an IPO in London, which could have netted up to $10 billion for RusAl’s owners. However, finding institutional buyers would be difficult if not impossible as long as RusAl’s primary owner was barred from entering the United States.
Despite rampant Russophobia among Republicans, Deripaska turned to powerful GOP figures to solve his problem–especially to Republicans connected with McCain. In 2003 Deripaska hired former presidential candidate Bob Dole, who had nearly picked McCain as his running mate, and Dole’s lobbying partner Bruce Jackson (also a McCain aide) to lobby the State Department to overturn the visa ban, according to Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby of the Wall Street Journal. Over the next few years Dole’s firm, Alston & Bird, was paid more than $500,000 to push for Deripaska’s visa.
Deripaska also reached out to a Washington-based intelligence firm, Diligence, chaired by GOP foreign policy hand Richard Burt, McCain’s top foreign policy adviser in 2000 and an adviser in ‘08 (Burt left Diligence in 2007 to join Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm). Deripaska’s business partner in London, Nathaniel Rothschild, an heir to the English Rothschild fortune, bought a stake in Diligence, according to the New York Times and confirmed by a Rothschild spokesman. The firm offered Deripaska many useful services: corporate intelligence gathering, visa lobbying through considerable GOP connections and, crucially, help in obtaining a $150 million World Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for a Deripaska subsidiary, the Komi Aluminum Project. Getting the loan was useful in providing a layer of comfort to Western investors skittish about RusAl. So Diligence, now partly owned by Rothschild, provided a “due diligence” report to the World Bank, which the Bank then used to approve its loan to Deripaska.
Not surprisingly, the lobbying worked: in December 2005 Deripaska was issued a multientry US visa, according to the State Department. During his brief stay he signed his World Bank loan, spoke at a Carnegie Endowment meeting and attended a dinner for Harvard University’s Belfer Center, where, thanks to a generous donation, he became a member of its international council.
However, Deripaska’s trip did not end well. Under the visa’s terms, he was forced to endure lengthy FBI questioning. According to the mining-industry newsletter Mineweb, the list of his enemies had grown from jilted former business partners to the heads of powerful US metals companies and government officials unhappy with RusAl’s control of key Third World bauxite mines, which threatened beleaguered US aluminum giants. The interview went badly–according to people who know him, Deripaska had little patience for prying bureaucrats. When he left the country, the visa ban was reinstated. Once again Deripaska turned to powerful Republicans–this time, to McCain and campaign manager Davis, who arranged the January 2006 Davos introduction. The McCain campaign later claimed that “any contact between Mr. Deripaska and the senator was social and incidental,” but afterward Deripaska thanked Davis for arranging “such an intimate setting.” The Washington Post reported that Davis was “seeking to do business with the billionaire.” Indeed, Deripaska’s subsequent thank-you letter mentioned his possible investment in a metals company Davis represented through a hedge-fund client.
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mom
You are an idiot.
The paranoid JR/BJ does not believe that anyone can have views opposed to him, without being “paid” to hold those views.
I never claimed that anyone paid me to post here.
I never denied that anyone paid me to post here.
I played into JR/BJ’s paranoid fantasy.
You read people, every day, who are “paid” for their views. The Eagle Editorial staff is paid, for the opening post of each thread, on this Blog.
The “holy Book” that JR quotes all the time, “Wrecking Ball” was not given away for free.
My point is, and always has been, that the conservative viewpoint is valid, based on fact, and has proven to be correct.
Disagree all you want, but to claim that NOBODY could agree with me, without being paid to agree with me, is nuts.
I wanted to get past that argument, so I asked, “So what if I am paid”?
And you paranoid nuts went for it.
You are an idiot mom, just like JR/BJ.
Franklin asks >>>>
“If he was so certain that Hamas was going to win, why would he have been so eager to legitimize the elections by monitoring them (as he did the previous year with the 2005 elections that Fatah won?)”
Franklin, thats so simple a cave man could answer it… Biden monitored those elections, so BUSH couldnt later come back and say it was a bogus election!!
Wanna try for another???
And it was INDEED sobering, to think that the Palestinians would vote for Hamas in free and open elections!!
But, perhaps for those folks, Hamas looked like the “lesser of two evils” that so many Republicans say they are voting for by voting McCain!! LOL
Paul – you are changing your story. You claimed that Biden said Hamas ruled the West Bank. They do not and never have. They do have limited control in Gaza.
And all your latest shows is that Obama joined with Bush in supporting elections and urged Abbas to form a unity government based on those elections.
“Franklin
Posted October 6, 2008 at 1:50 pm | Permalink
mom
You are an idiot.”
But remember – Paul never talks down to anyone.
Yea, Franklin, and after the debate the other nite, you very cooly said “WE already have commercials being made” to counter what Biden said to Ms. Piggy in lipstick….
Who is that WE Franklin??? And how would YOU know personally that commercials were already being made at THAT time???
Hmmmm???
Re: Franklin
PAID SHILL!!
mom
You are ALSO a LIAR
Rick Davis was NEVER a lobbyist for Freddie or Fannie.
Rick Davis has not received any income, from his former lobbying firm, in several years.
Rick Davis was NEVER in charge of any wall street firm.
Rick Davis was NEVER in charge of any mortgage lender.
The mortgage crisis is a DEMOCRAT scandal. Every CEO, at the firms that have failed, have given HEAVILY to Democrats as compared to Republicans.
Obama has received more money, from the mortgage business, than any other candidate in history. Why?
Franklin Raines is an Obama friend and advisor. Franklin Raines was forced, by legal authorities, to return millions of dollars to Fannie Mae that he had looted, through corrupt accounting practices.
Franklin Raines was protected by Obama, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
To hold a lobbyist to the same standards as a CEO is nuts.
Do you hold BTK’s attorney responsible for the crimes of BTK?
Besides, Rick Davis had very little to do with Fannie or Freddie, directly.
“Chas
Posted October 6, 2008 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
And it was INDEED sobering, to think that the Palestinians would vote for Hamas in free and open elections!!
But, perhaps for those folks, Hamas looked like the “lesser of two evils” that so many Republicans say they are voting for by voting McCain!! LOL”
There were two factors at work. Abbas’ Fatah organization (I refuse to say government) was horribly corrupt. Also, it was too much like Vichy France which I also doubt could ever have won an election. Remember, Abbas does not rule so much as one square inch of territory.
“Rick Davis was NEVER a lobbyist for Freddie or Fannie.”
Homeownership Alliance
In 2000, Davis became the head of a group called the Homeownership Alliance, a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac advocacy group. Its website said that the organization was dedicated to “exposing and defeating trends that would harm consumer access to the lowest-cost mortgage option.”[4] He was head of the group for five years, being paid more than $30,000 per month. At the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decided that Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it was closed.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Davis_(politics)
Payments from Freddie Mac
On September 24, 2008, the New York Times reported that Rick Davis’ firm, Davis Manafort, had been paid $15,000 per month by Freddie Mac, for “consulting”, from the end of 2005, when Davis stopped being head of the Homeownership Alliance, until August 2008. Payments stopped when Freddie Mac was taken over by the federal government. The Times said that “Davis took a leave from Davis Manafort for the presidential campaign, but as an equity holder continues to benefit from its income.”[14]
The McCain campaign responded on September 24 with a statement that Davis had separated from Davis Manafort in 2006, and that “As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.”[15] On September 28, Newsweek reported that Davis had joined the campaign in January 2007, not in 2006, and that he specified that his $20,000-a-month salary be paid directly to Davis Manafort.[12]
The Times reported that “No one at Davis Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.”[14] Newsweek reported that during the period of the payments, Freddie Mac had no contact with Davis Manafort other than receiving monthly invoices from the firm and paying them.[16] The only thing that Freddie Mac officials could recall Davis doing for the company, the Times said, was speaking at an October 2006 forum attended by midlevel and senior executives who contributed to Freddie PAC, the company’s political action committee.[14]
Good catch, Ben!! WTG!!
Rick Davis, McCain’s Campaign Manager, Benefited As Unregistered Lobbyist
Sorting out the lobbying entanglements of his campaign advisers is proving to be a messy business for Senator John McCain….
In 2005, Mr. Davis was registered as a lobbyist for corporate clients like the telecommunications company Verizon. Under the campaign’s new rules, issued by Mr. Davis on Thursday, lobbyists who are currently registered either for American companies or for foreign governments or businesses cannot be employed by the campaign. They must also disclose their lobbying work even if they are working for Mr. McCain on a part-time, voluntary basis.
But while Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis Manafort in 2006, the company has developed a specialty in recent years in a type of lobbying for which firms do not have to register — namely, representing the interests abroad of foreign politicians and businessmen.
Read the whole story here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/20/rick-davis-mccains-campai_n_102714.html
Ben
Do you ever get tired of being wrong all the time?
Biden CLEARLY confused the West Bank and Gaza.
Biden CLEARLY confused Hamas with Fatah.
“Read through this fact checking article at the AP where five writers….count them….FIVE….fact checked the VP debate and they missed this:
Here’s what the president said when we said no. He insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, “Big mistake. Hamas will win. You’ll legitimize them.” What happened? Hamas won.
West Bank? Try Gaza Joe…..there ya go again Joe.
Lets say that is what he meant to say…cough bulls%^t….but lets just say that. Please someone find me a quote from either of these two where they said “watch it…Hamas will win if your not careful”. The polls didn’t say that. Check it out here and here and here.
All of them had Fatah winning.
Hell, Biden didn’t even sign this when he had the chance:
December 2005,Talent/Nelson Letter Urging Pres. Bush to Press Palestinian Leadership to Bar Terrorist Groups from Participating in Palestinian Legislative Elections, 73 co-signers: Sen. Biden did not sign this letter barring terror groups from participating in Palestinian elections which ultimately had 73 co-signers.
Ya think if he was soooooo sure Hamas was going to win he would of signed on to it huh?
Obama wasn’t too upset about the win anyways:
During His 2006 Trip To The Middle East, Obama Met With Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas And Said The Election Represented An “Opportunity…To Consolidate Behind A Single Government.” “Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s journey to the Middle East took him to the West Bank Thursday for a meeting with the man elected to replace Yasser Arafat. … For a time Thursday in the West Bank there was only the clatter of cameras as the newly elected president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, met with Illinois Senator Barack Obama. At a meeting with Palestinian students Thursday, Obama said the U.S. will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel, and Obama told ABC7 he delivered that message to the Palestinian president. ‘Part of the opportunity here with this upcoming election is to consolidate behind a single government with a single authority that can then negotiate as a reliable partner with Israel,’ said Obama.” (Chuck Goudie, “Obama Meets With Arafat’s Successor,” ABC 7 News, http://obama.senate.gov, 1/12/06)
The Palestinian News Agency WAFA Reported That Obama Was Supportive Of The Palestinian Elections Being Held At Their Scheduled Time. “President Mahmoud Abbas met Thursday with the U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), in the Presidential HQ in Ramallah…President briefed the U.S. Senator about the latest developments in the Palestinian territories including the preparations for the legislative elections…. Abbas and Obama discussed the means of underpinning the American-Palestinian economic relations…Obama asserted the US supports and eager that the Palestinian legislative elections on its proposed time (January 25).”
Lets move onto this doozy:
When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said, and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it
What alternative universe are we talking about here Joe? There ya go again Joe.
Neither France, nor NATO, nor the US ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Check it out, they are still there.
Did he goof again and mean Syria. We can only guess. But if he did then yes, France, the US, pretty much all of western Europe helped by urging them to leave but it was ultimately the Lebanese who did the job. As for his assertion…again…that Biden and Obama had a hand in getting the help over there, puhlease.
As for NATO going in after the 2006 debacle, well, I’m the one who rounded up 8,000 French and Italians and a few thousand other Euros to go into Southern Lebanon along with an assortment of others in August 2006 and while working that issue for about 40 straight days I don’t remember a peep from Biden or Obama about NATO – which wouldn’t be budged despite our intense pressure in Mons. So, we went straight to Rome and Paris. Que sera, sera.
Michael Totten isn’t giving Biden the benefit of the doubt:
But he clearly meant to say Hezbollah, not Syria, because he correctly notes just a few sentences later that Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s government. He wasn’t talking about Syria. He was talking about Hezbollah all the way through, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of his outlandish assertion.
Another one the “fact checkers” forgot about:
BIDEN: Can I clarify this? This is simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say sit down with Ahmadinejad.”
Click here to find a video:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/10/03/msm-missing-bidens-mistakes-liesshocked/
McCain Strategist: “If We Keep Talking About The Economic Crisis, We’re Going To Lose”
McCain’s course correction reflects a growing case of nerves within his high command as the electoral map has shifted significantly in Obama’s favor in the past two weeks.
“It’s a dangerous road, but we have no choice,” a top McCain strategist told the Daily News. “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”
Read the whole story here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/mccain-strategist-if-we-k_n_132179.html
McCain on the economy – flip-flops
The Empty Campaign of John McCain
About a year ago, I had a memorable chat with a high-ranking Republican operative. The presidential primaries were revving up, and he asked me which Republican candidate I feared the most. Without hesitating, I answered McCain.
My rationale was simple. While he was increasingly out-of-step with the public on the war, so were all the other Republican candidates. But unlike them, McCain had repeatedly stood up to his party on matters economic, especially the Bush tax cuts, and he did so with resonant language.
In 2001, when the richest one percent of households held 18% of all income, he said he could not “in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans.”
In 2003, when we had gone through a recession, were waging an expensive war, and the federal budget had flipped from surplus to deficit, he voted against another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest, this time arguing that “At a time of war, at a time of economic stagnation, at a time of rising national debt…one might expect our national leaders to pursue policies calling for shared sacrifice to achieve shared benefits. Regrettably, that is not the case.”
The most recent data show that in 2006, 23% of all income is held by the richest 1%, the highest level on record but for one year: 1928. Spending on the war has not abated, and the budget deficit is on the rise. Middle-class Americans, who allegedly weighed so heavily on McCain’s conscience circa 2001, are much more squeezed now than they were then.
The economy is surely in recession. Financial markets are deeply screwed up, and on Friday we learned that the job market contracted by another 159,000 last month, the ninth month of consecutive job losses.
In other words, if the Bush tax cuts didn’t make sense in 2001 and 2003, they make a whole lot less sense now.
Yet McCain doesn’t merely want to extend these cuts forever. He wants to expand them dramatically, by cutting the corporate tax rate by about a third, at the cost of $735 billion over 10 years, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center (TPC). As Biden effectively emphasized in last week’s debate, that move delivers $4 billion in annual tax cuts to the Exxon-Mobil’s of the world.
What happened? How does McCain’s erstwhile good conscience countenance this policy? The answer, or at least the spin, was revealed to me a few weeks ago in a debate I had with his top economist, Doug Holtz-Eakin. When I pointed out that these cuts do nothing to help the middle class, while needlessly raining more wealth on the “haves,” Doug disagreed. Based on the fairy dust of supply-side, trickle-down economics, he asserted that these cuts would lead to more jobs and income for middle-class families. Contrary to McCain’s position a few years back, the campaign now frames a cut in corporate taxation as their middle-class tax cut.
(Fact check: Data from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office show that middle class people get a mere 3% of their income from corporate sources, compared to 88% for the top fifth, and about 60% for the top 1%. In our new State of Working America, we show that an important factor driving the almost unprecedented level of inequality right now is the double whammy of a) the growth of corporate income, like dividends and capital gains, versus labor market income, i.e., earnings, and b) the increased concentration of corporate income among the richest households.)
The only way McCain can implement this fiscal policy without generating unsustainable debt levels is to cut deeply into government spending. His and Palin’s hated earmarks won’t get you there (in Palin’s case, of course, the hatred is newly founded). His promise to freeze certain aspects of discretionary government spending gets you even less savings than the earmarks. They’ll have to go after the entitlements, and since Social Security is actually a relatively small problem in this regard, for their plan to work, they have to cut the heck out of Medicare and Medicaid.
This brings you to their truly unfortunate health care plan, which I wrote about last week in this space.
So, my first point is that McCain and his team have crafted an economic plan that contradicts the candidate’s recently held fundamental views and is far out-of-touch with the needs of the country. That might not have posed a big problem except for the fact that a series of events, including the middle-class squeeze generated by stagnant incomes and rising prices, recession, and financial meltdown, have made the economy front and center in this campaign.
How did McCain end up with an economic platform, especially on taxes, that is so out of sync with his past views as expressed in the above quotes, an agenda that is anything but “mavericky.”
The answer comes from the Palin debate last week. Since Ms. Palin is a newcomer on the national scene with scant governing experience, little knowledge of the major issues, and few deeply held views, she serves as a talking head for the people behind the curtains, the staff and advisors running the campaign. When McCain spouts this stuff, he’s filtering it through years of intense experiences, as a veteran, a former POW, and member of the Senate for 26 years. With Palin, it’s unfettered, thin, talking points.
What we learn–and yes, I fully grant you that we knew this well already, but the debate was a strong reminder–is that the same neocons that wrote the Bush agenda wrote McCain’s. Despite the fact that the electorate has moved on, they can’t help themselves.
For example, they briefed Palin to spout the supply-side, anti-government, Reaganisms that are so deeply out of sync with where things are at right now. As we speak, the economy is reeling from market excesses and lax oversight, driven by an ideology that guaranteed us that unchained from its government overseers, the invisible hand would guide us to the economic promise land. Instead, it’s guided us over a cliff.
Yet, here’s how Palin reminded the audience about the true meaning of patriotism: “Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you’re not always the solution. In fact, too often you’re the problem so, government, lessen the tax burden and on our families and get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper.”
That recipe has certainly worked wonders over the past eight years.
Palin channeled the other great neocon tactic: talk it, don’t walk it. I don’t think she mentioned “Wall St.” without the preface of “greed and corruption,” but she failed to offer one concrete proposal to address that. To the contrary, she and McCain still want to turn part of the dollars flowing into Social Security over to the stock market.
Obama, on the other hand, back in March articulated a six point plan that had it been in place, would arguably have prevented much of what’s going wrong in markets today.
The campaign’s fondest hope is, of course, that the economy would just go away so they could get back to arguing foreign policy, where polls are more favorable toward their guy. But it’s too late for that, and anyway, most people scored the first presidential debate a draw in matters of foreign affairs, as Obama effectively tied McCain to Bush’s failed Iraqi policy.
More importantly, as the election nears, the undecided voters who will decide this thing seem to be recognizing the importance of the Obama “change” mantra. Unlike myself, most people don’t have the time and interest to track the income shares of the top 1%, but for a while now, vast majorities have recognized that the country is on the wrong track, and for all its verbiage, the Obama campaign is really quite simply about getting it back of the right one.
We can have great arguments about whether his plan to end the war, his tax policies to favor the middle class while raising taxes on, and only on, the very high end, or his health care plan are, in fact, the right ones. But at this point, one of their key selling points is that they take us on a different path than the one we’re on.
That’s largely policy wonkery, I grant you, but let’s close out with some reflections on character. Lo those many months ago, when I chatted with my conservative counterpart, I feared McCain because I viewed him as having the character to stick to his convictions, many of which I disagreed with, but that’s not something you see enough of in politics these days.
He’s lost that. It started with the policy reversals discussed above, was amplified by the outright lies of the campaign, and culminated in the cynical, reckless, and politics-over-country choice of a running mate who is dangerously unprepared to step into the presidency.
At this point I really wonder: what’s in it for him? Why does McCain want to be president? Those who have followed him for years don’t recognize his agenda, his tactics, his positions (e.g., the great populist regulator!). How could a man of seemingly deep conviction morph into this caricature? His campaign is empty, with no spiritual or intellectual core; its tactics have devolved into a series of crass surprises and Hail Mary passes.
I get Obama in this regard. To get the country back on track, to reconnect middle-class living standards and growth, to rein in market fundamentalism, to rectify a series of unjust and even fatal policy choices, to restore America’s standing in the world, he seeks to implement his change agenda.
But I don’t get McCain. I hope the country doesn’t get him either.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/the-empty-campaign-of-joh_b_132049.html
ben
Rick Davis has gotten NO income from his former lobbying firm, this year or last year.
So the NYT story is FALSE:
“Posted at 1:57 AM on 9/24/2008 by Michael Goldfarb
A Partisan Paper of Record
Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.
In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.
Further, and missing from the Times’ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.
Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with…Paul Begala.
Again, let us be clear: The New York Times — in the absence of any supporting evidence — has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain’s long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.
To the central point our campaign has made in the last 48 hours: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.
Therefore this “report” from the New York Times must be evaluated in the context of its intent and purpose. It is a partisan attack falsely labeled as objective news. And its most serious allegations are based entirely on the claims of anonymous sources, a familiar yet regretful tactic for the paper.
We all understand that partisan attacks are part of the political process in this country. The debate that stems from these grand and sometimes unruly conversations is what makes this country so exceptional. Indeed, our nation has a long and proud tradition of news organizations that are ideological and partisan in nature, the Huffington Post and the New York Times being two such publications. We celebrate their contribution to the political fabric of America. But while the Huffington Post is utterly transparent, the New York Times obscures its true intentions — to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama — under the cloak of objective journalism.
The New York Times is trying to fill an ideological niche. It is a business decision, and one made under economic duress, as the New York Times is a failing business. But the paper’s reporting on Senator McCain, his campaign, and his staff should be clearly understood by the American people for what it is: a partisan assault aimed at promoting that paper’s preferred candidate, Barack Obama.
Statement by Senator John McCain, May 25, 2006:
Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.”
http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainreport/Read.aspx?guid=74063c9d-7cb5-47c9-acf6-53c0c2d88376
McCain’s Tax Returns Hide Gambling
Senator John McCain is a gambler. If I’d known that right away I would have immediately seen what was wrong with his tax returns.
I am a tax attorney, so a tax return means more to me than it would to most. I reviewed McCain’s tax returns as a basic check on the candidates. You can look at McCain’s 2006 and 2007 tax returns for yourself. The tax returns are below a lot of verbiage about his charitable activities.
According to a New York Times article of September 27, 2008 “For McCain and Team, a Host of Ties to Gambling,” reported by Jo Becker and Don VanNatta Jr., McCain gambled at the MGM Grand in May 2007.
Apparently McCain is a habitual gambler; he usually plays craps. He even says, “I am a gambling man.”
Gambling has tax implications. According to IRS Publication 17, “Your Federal Income Tax”, 2007 edition, page 89 “Gambling Winnings. You must include your gambling winnings in income on Form 1040, line 21. If you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), you can deduct gambling losses you had during the year, but only up to the amount of your winnings.” In other words, you can’t subtract your losses from your winnings and just not report. You have to report the winnings, and then claim the losses.
But McCain’s tax returns say nothing about gambling winnings or losses.
As a casino gambler, McCain is likely to have lost more than he won. But by not reporting his winnings, the different percentage calculations built into the tax calculation are thrown off, and if he gambled much at all, he has underpaid his tax. The amount of understatement of tax may be minimal, but that’s not the point.
The real purpose of preparing his tax return and omitting the gambling winnings is so that people would not know how much he gambled. If he won $200,000 playing craps in Las Vegas, it would make a difference in the way voters viewed his suitability as a presidential candidate.
There are circumstances under which the tax returns could be correct, such as McCain gambled once in 2007, not at all in 2006, and lost everything the one time he gambled. Such an explanation is unlikely in light of McCain’s alleged long history of gambling.
I think we are looking at tax returns calculated to hide an aspect of the candidate. My 35 years of experience in taxes tells me these tax returns are wrong, and we do not know the true scope of McCain’s gambling or of his potential obligations to gambling enterprises.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-miller/mccains-tax-returns-hide_b_131675.html
Paul – do you have anything other than ya’ll’s (yours and McCain’s) denial?
Rick Davis is the ONLY Republican that you can even hope to link to the mortgage industry.
However, Obama was an attorney for ACORN, ACORN Forced risky loans on the lending industry.
Barney Franks LOVER worked for Fannie Mae.
Obama took more money from the mortgage industry than any other candidate in history.
And you keep yammering about the very weak link to the mortgage business — because that is ALL you got.
“Franklin” –
Watch this and get back to us.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/keatingvideo
Franklin —-
https://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2703
Would you care to show WHERE ACORN forced risky loans??? They got assistance from HUD to take over VACANT HOMES… houses that could be fixed up… houses that had extremely low value attached to them….
I am NOT a big fan of ACORN, but at least stop LYING about them!!! Geez!!
Chas – I seem to recall Paul claiming the Bush’s bailout bill had payoffs for ACORN. I did a pdf search for ACORN in the bill and found nothing.
Barney Franks LOVER was at Fannie Mae:
“Media Mum on Barney Frank’s Fannie Mae Love Connection
Democratic House Financial Services Committee Chair promoted GSEs while former ’spouse’ was Fannie Mae executive.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
9/24/2008 4:00:57 PM
Are journalists playing favorites with some of the key political figures involved with regulatory oversight of U.S. financial markets?
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews launched several vitriolic attacks on the Republican Party on his Sept. 17, 2008, show, suggesting blame for Wall Street problems should be focused in a partisan way. However, he and other media have failed to thoroughly examine the Democratic side of the blame game.
Prominent Democrats ran Fannie Mae, the same government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that donated campaign cash to top Democrats. And one of Fannie Mae’s main defenders in the House – Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a recipient of more than $40,000 in campaign donations from Fannie since 1989 – was once romantically involved with a Fannie Mae executive.
The media coverage of Frank’s coziness with Fannie Mae and his pro-Fannie Mae stances has been lacking. Of the eight appearances Frank made on the three broadcasts networks between Jan. 1, 2008, and Sept. 21, 2008, none of his comments dealt with the potential conflicts of interest. Only six of the appearances dealt with the economy in general and two of those appearances, including an April 6, 2008 appearance on CBS’s “60 Minutes” were about his opposition to a manned mission to Mars.
Frank has argued that family life “should be fair game for campaign discussion,” wrote the Associated Press on Sept. 2. The comment was in reference to GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter. “They’re the ones that made an issue of her family,” the Massachusetts Democrat said to the AP.
The news media have covered the relationship in the past, but there have been no mentions since 2005, according to Nexis and despite the collapse of Fannie Mae. The July 3, 1998, Reliable Source column in The Washington Post reported Frank, who is openly gay, had a relationship with Herb Moses, an executive for the now-government controlled Fannie Mae. The column revealed the two had split up at the time but also said Frank was referring to Moses as his “spouse.” Another Washington Post report said Frank called Moses his “lover” and that the two were “still friends” after the breakup.
Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation along with its sister organization Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) – all recently participants in government bailouts. But Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk. Frank’s office has been unresponsive to efforts by the Business & Media Institute to comment on these potential conflicts of interest.
While the relationship reportedly ended 10 years ago, Frank was serving on the House Banking Committee the entire 10 years they were together. The committee is the primary House body which along with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) has jurisdiction over the government-sponsored enterprises.
He has served on the committee since becoming a congressman in 1981 and became the ranking Democrat on the committee in 2003. He became chairman of the committee, now called the House Financial Services Committee, in 2007.
Moses was the assistant director for product initiatives at Fannie Mae and had been at the forefront of relaxing lending restrictions at the company for rural customers, according to the Feb. 23, 1998, issue of National Mortgage News (NMN).
“Herb Moses, who helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs, has left the mortgage industry,” Darryl Hicks wrote for NMN. “Mr. Moses – whose last day was Feb. 13 – spent the past seven years at Fannie Mae, most recently as director of housing initiatives. Over the course of time, he played an instrumental role in developing the company’s Title One and 203(k) home improvement lending programs.”
Hicks explained in his story how Moses orchestrated a collaborative effort between Fannie Mae and the Department of Agriculture.
“The Dartmouth grad also played a crucial role in brokering a relationship between Fannie Mae and the Department of Agriculture,” Hicks wrote. “This led to the creation of Fannie Mae’s rural housing program where the secondary marketing agency agreed to purchase small farm loans insured through the department.”
While Moses served at Fannie Mae and was Frank’s partner, Frank was actively working to support GSEs, according to several news outlets.
In 1991, Frank and former Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., lobbied for Fannie to soften rules on multi-family home mortgages although those dwellings showed a default rate twice that of single-family homes, according to the Nov. 22, 1991, Boston Globe.
BusinessWeek reported in its Nov. 14, 1994, issue that Fannie Mae called on Frank to exert his influence against a Housing & Urban Development proposal that would force the GSE to focus on minority and low-income buyers and police bias by lenders regardless of their location. Fannie Mae opposed HUD on the issue because it claimed doing so would “ignore the urban middle class.”
Moses left Fannie in 1998 to start his own pottery business. National Mortgage News called Moses a “mortgage guru” and said he developed “many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs. Moses ended his relationship with Frank just months after he left Fannie.
Even after the relationship ended, however, Frank was a staunch defender of Fannie Mae even as other experts suggested there were serious problems building in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
According to an article by Kathleen Day in the Oct. 8, 2003, Washington Post, Frank opposed giving the Bush administration the right to approve or disapprove business activities that “could pose risk to the taxpayers.” He told the Post he worried the Treasury Department “would sacrifice activities that are good for consumers in the name of lowering the companies’ market risks.”
Just a month before, Frank had aggressively thwarted reform efforts by the Bush administration. He told The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems were “exaggerated,” a gross miscalculation some five years later with costs estimated to be in the hundreds of billions.
“These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” Frank said to the Times. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Frank has also reaped campaign contribution benefits from Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac. According a front page story in the Sept. 19, 2008, Investor’s Business Daily by Terry Jones, Frank has received $40,100 in campaign cash over the past two decades from the GSEs.
Frank is ranked 16th on a list that includes both houses of Congress and fifth among his colleagues in the House. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, political action committees financed by both Freddie and Fannie have contributed $3,017,797 to members of Congress since 1989. And according to the July 16 issue of Politico, the two entities have spent a whopping $200 million to buy influence – including not only campaign donations to members of Congress, but also presidential campaigns and lobbying efforts.
In a July 23 op-ed, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot put the blame for the GSEs’ collapse firmly on the members of the liberal establishment who took money from Freddie and Fannie. “Fan and Fred also couldn’t prosper for as long as they have without the support of the political left… This includes Mr. Frank and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Capitol Hill, as well as Mr. [Paul] Krugman and the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein in the press.”
Frank was asked by CNN’s John Roberts on the Sept. 22, 2008 “American Morning” about this and his opposition to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Originally, he claimed he didn’t think the two GSEs were facing any problems when the issue first surfaced in 2003. He instead blamed the Republican-controlled Congress for their ultimate fall, failing to mention his friendly relationship with Fannie Mae and the contributions it had made to his campaign over the years.
“Yes, I did not think we were facing a crisis in 2003, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have to have reform,” an animated Frank said when confronted with the question. “Here’s the deal, the Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 through 2006. They did zero to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”
However, on Sept. 17, 2008, former Bush administration Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove elaborated on the Bush administration’s efforts to curb abuses at the two GSEs in 2003. He told Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” that Frank was among the most aggressive opponents of White House attempts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“All of this bad stuff on Wall Street happened because people got greedy and the greed started at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Rove said. “And I know this because five years ago, the administration was alerted by the regulator, James Lockhart, that there was insufficient authority and that these institutions – particularly Fannie – were out of control.”
Rove said the Bush administration’s efforts to reform Fannie and Freddie were opposed by congressional Democrats – specifically Frank and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
“And I got to tell you, for five years, I was part of an effort at the White House to fight this and our biggest opponents on the Hill who blocked this every step of the way were people like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. And Fannie and Freddie are the $200 billion contagion at the center of this.”
Frank has been quick to blame deregulation for some of the problems in the financial environment, as he did on Bloomberg television’s Sept. 19 “Political Capital with Al Hunt.” However, as earmark crusader Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. pointed out – it’s not deregulation, but it was the structure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that had been guarded by Frank and other members of Congress.
“Some people point at deregulation,” Flake said to the Business & Media Institute on Sept. 23. “It’s not deregulation at all. We have for far too long shielded Fannie and Freddie for example, with the implicit and now explicit guarantee. I just found it humorous.”
Flake specifically named Frank as one of the members behind letting allegations of transgressions at the two GSEs for slipping by without oversight from Congress.
“Just a few minutes ago, a reporter was asking me about this and saying, ‘Barney Frank is saying that’s just – because there were allegations,’ correct ones – ‘that Fannie and Freddie have been the playground for politicians for years and now the other side is saying Fannie and Freddie were just a small part of this and this goes far beyond.’ It does, but these same people a couple of weeks ago said, ‘You got to bail out Fannie and Freddie because they touch everything out there. They touch nearly every mortgage out there.’ And because of that explicit guarantee – that we would come and bail them out, nobody has been subject to market discipline.”
Frank claims differently, according to a letter to the editor published in the Sept. 17, 2008 Wall Street Journal. Frank noted that in 2005 he supported regulating compensation for Fannie and Freddie executives.
“In fact, my reform efforts had begun when we were still in the minority. In 2005, I joined Michael Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in supporting legislation to increase the regulation of Fannie and Freddie that passed the House by a vote of 330 to 90,” Frank wrote. “When former Congressman Richard Baker proposed to examine the compensation structure of Fannie and Freddie’s top executives, and some members of Congress tried to block him, I explicitly spoke out in support of his right to do that and our right, as a Congress, to examine the GSE’s compensation practices.”
The red flags were raised long before the government bailed out the two GSEs in August 2008. The first egregious scandal involving Fannie Mae occurred in 2004. A 2004 Wall Street Journal editorial was first to point out claims in an OFHEO report that showed accounting malpractices by the GSE.
“For years, mortgage giant Fannie Mae has produced smoothly growing earnings. And for years, observers have wondered how Fannie could manage its inherently risky portfolio without a whiff of volatility, the Oct. 4, 2004, editorial, “Fannie Mae Enron?” said. “Now, thanks to Fannie’s regulator, we know the answer. The company was cooking the books. Big time.”
Ben that was in the original house bill. It was taken out of the senate bill that finally passed. in the first bill 20% of the paybacks would have gone to ACORNS and others like it who would be financing ‘affordable housing’. The very thing that got us where we are today.
Ben this was what was in the original bill that the republicans stood up against.
———–
(The Politico) Earlier today, when House Republican leadership framed its opposition to the bailout bill as it currently stands, a principal objection focused on the group ACORN, which the e-mail alert called “the scandal-tarnished ‘community organizing group’” — with scare quotes in the original.
They’re referring to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group generally allied with Democrats and derided by the GOP as corrupt, inefficient and a front-group for Democratic efforts on the ground.
In issuing the statement, House leaders are reflecting — and also feeding — a reaction to the provision that has exploded in the last day or more. Our colleague Ben Smith says he’s gotten more than a dozen anti-ACORN e-mails in just the last few hours. The viral uprising is both organic and institutionally driven. Prominent bloggers have fed the flames and so has the Wall Street Journal editorial page; several of the e-mails sent to Smith reference a House leadership alert on the “ACORN Slush Fund” and others refer to the Journal opinion. On Thursday night, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told The Crypt that his friend Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) opposes the provision.
“The draft bill includes a left-wing giveaway that would force taxpayers to bankroll a slush fund for a discredited ally of the Democratic Party,” reads one leadership alert. “At issue is ACORN, an organization fraught with controversy for, among other scandals, its fraudulent voter registration activities on behalf of Democratic candidates. Rather than returning any profits made in the long-term from the economic rescue package, Democrats want to first reward their radical allies at ACORN for their (often illegal) help in getting Democrats elected to office.”
In the end, how much of the bailout’s potential profits are earmarked for ACORN? “None. Absolutely none. All funds would go to state and local governments,” said Steven Adamske, spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee and a lead negotiator.
The opposition has grown so intense that critics refer to the measure in arcane legislative lingo. Erick Erickson titled a Friday morning blog post at RedState: “Section 105(d) of the Bailout Must Go.”
Here’s the relevant language:
TRANSFER OF A PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS.
DEPOSITS. Not less than 20 percent of any profit realized on the sale of each troubled asset purchased under this Act shall be deposited as provided in paragraph (2).
USE OF DEPOSITS. Of the amount referred to in paragraph (1) 65 percent shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4568); and 35 percent shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund established under section 1339 of that Act (12 U.S.C. 4569).
REMAINDER DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY. All amounts remaining after payments under paragraph (1) shall be paid into the General Fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt.
And here’s Frank’s one-page summary of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and to find the relevant bill go here and search for H.R. 2895.
State and local governments can then dole out the funds and could send money to ACORN if they so choose and if the organization’s efforts meet the standards set out in the law. For their stand against the provision, Adamske tweaked House Republicans, who have long called for more state control of federal funds.
“Are they worried that the Governor of Alaska and the Mayor of Wasilla will give money to Acorn?” he asked.
Regardless, House Republicans are saying that unless the possibility of ACORN seeing any money from this bailout is eliminated, there’s no deal. “Doling out favors to ACORN and other liberal special interest groups are a non-starter for House Republicans,” said Behner spokesman Kevin Smith. “If Rep. Frank wants to keep ACORN in the bill he can secure the necessary Democratic votes for passage because he’ll need every one of them.”
Obama is up to his neck, in ACORN, and ACORN is up to its neck, in scandal:
“ELECTION 2008
Obama disguising ties to radical leftist group?
Organization convicted of voter fraud, pushes ‘authoritarian socialist’ agenda
——————————————————————————–
Posted: August 24, 2008
8:45 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
JAFFA, Israel – Did Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign attempt to hide a paid working relationship with a radical leftist organization that has admitted to major financial improprieties and has been convicted in numerous major voter fraud scandals?
That question is being openly asked by the Republican National Committee after it was disclosed Obama’s campaign paid more than $800,000 in services to Citizen Services Inc. (CSI), a nonprofit organization that is an offshoot of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
ACORN is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families. It has held violent, disruptive protests, seeks to regulate banks, supports left-leaning education policies, is accused of working on urging partisan voter turnout for elections, and seems to promote driving businesses from cities.
CSI is headquartered in New Orleans in the same building as ACORN. The three directors of CSI are also top leaders of ACORN. The two groups have close financial ties.
The Obama campaign’s payments to CSI – first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – raise questions about the nature of Obama’s current relationship with ACORN. Obama has been closely linked with the radical group and may have even helped drive large amount of money to the organization.
According to FEC records reviewed by the Tribune-Review, the Obama campaign paid CSI $832,598.29, from Feb. 25 to May 17, including $564,342.21 for “stage, lighting and sound.”
That payment immediately stood out after a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger contacted CSI Director Sunday Alabi, who also serves as an ACORN leader. Alabi said CSI doesn’t perform stage, lighting or sound services.
Also unusual was payment to CSI of $63,000 and $75,000 for advance work. Excluding the large payments to CSI, the average amount the Obama campaign spent on advance work paid to other organizations was $558.82.
The Obama campaign on Friday announced it was amending its FEC filings to indicate it hired CSI for “get out the vote” projects instead of stage, lighting and sound.
FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger told the Tribune-Review it is not unusual for campaigns to amend FEC reports, even in the case of large sums of money.
The RNC immediately pounced, accusing Obama of hiding a deeper relationship with ACORN:
“Barack Obama’s failure to accurately report his campaign’s financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign’s interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud. For a candidate who claims to be practicing ‘new’ politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the ‘old-style’ Chicago politics of yesterday,” stated RNC Spokeswoman Blair Latoff.
Obama’s camp fired back, accusing the RNC of “outlandish conspiracy theories” and pointing out Sen. John McCain was forced to return $50,000 “raised by a foreign national through a number of contributors who weren’t even supporting McCain.”
Group promoting Obama has history of major voter fraud
But the Obama campaign did not address the larger issues of the presidential candidate’s ties to ACORN and why Obama would hire for a “get out the vote” drive a reported subsidiary of an organization whose leadership was convicted in multiple voter fraud cases.
WND calls to the Obama camp were not returned before press time.
Last July, ACORN settled what was described by the Washington Secretary of State as the “largest case of voter fraud in the state’s history.” Government prosecutors had filed felony charges against seven ACORN workers, who ended up receiving jail time.
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Hobbs said in the case the workers had admitted filling out registration forms with names they found in phone books. The ACORN canvassers filled out the forms while sitting around a table at the downtown Seattle Public Library, Hobbs said.
ACORN was also investigated in 2006 for submitting false voter registrations in St. Louis. Nearly 1,500 fraudulent voter registrations were identified in the case, which was tied to at least one campaign, that of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Four ACORN workers were indicted in the case.
Also in 2006, four part-time ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., for voter-registration fraud after being caught, fired and turned in by ACORN.
In January 2005, two Colorado ACORN workers were sentenced to community service for submitting false voter registrations.
In Ohio in 2004, four ACORN employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter-registration forms.
ACORN has been accused in multiple other voter fraud cases in other states. Some investigations are still pending.
Although the connections between ACORN and CSI are well documented, ACORN says it is not doing work on behalf of the Obama campaign, which may be accurate on the technicality that CSI, hired by Obama, is legally a different organization.
Asked about his group’s relationship with CSI, ACORN spokesman Charles Jackson told WND, “We’re an ally organization of CSI. We work with them on various projects. CSI is a different company altogether. Acorn is a community organization.”
Jackson said ACORN “doesn’t do work on behalf of Obama.”
CSI executive vice president Jeff Robinson, an ACORN activist listed as a director for ACORN election campaigns, did not reply to a WND e-mail asking whether CSI is a nonprofit front for ACORN.
He told the Tribune-Review, “ACORN is a client of ours. ACORN has a lot of different partner organizations. We are a partner, but we are separate.”
In a 2006 ACORN publication, Citizen Services Inc. is described as “ACORN’s campaign services entity.”
ACORN has been accused of financial improprieties.
The New York Times last month quoted ACORN officials admitting Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000. A small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group’s board members and not to alert law enforcement, the Times reported.
ACORN is organized into more than 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico and Peru. The organization was born out of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
ACORN strongly lobbies for gun control, leftist education policies, and the regulation of banks, targeting the lending practices of major financial institutions it sees as “predatory.” It has a strong anti-capitalism agenda.
National Review Online writer Stanley Kurtz, who conducted a thorough review of ACORN, wrote the organization’s primary goals are “municipal ‘living wage’ laws targeting ‘big-box’ stores like Wal-Mart, rolling back welfare reform, and regulating banks – efforts styled as combating ‘predatory lending.’”
Sol Stern of the City Journal, who also wrote an extensive piece on ACORN, stated the group’s “radical agenda” occasionally broke through to “undisguised authoritarian socialism.”
He wrote ACORN works to drive big businesses out of cities and force companies that want to move to obtain “exit visas.”
Intrusive, radical protest tactics
ACORN protests have turned violent, at times as soon as the rallies began. Some protests disrupted Federal Reserve hearings and busted into closed city council meetings.
Stern noted that in 2003 that in Baltimore ACORN underlings piled garbage in front of City Hall to protest lack of services in poor neighborhoods, wielded huge inflated rubber sharks to disrupt a bankers’ dinner, and even staged a profanity-laced protest in front of the home of the city’s mayor, Martin O’Malley.
“They unloaded a busload of people shouting pretty ugly things and scared the daylights out of my wife and kids,” O’Malley told the Baltimore Sun. “I thought it was a pretty cruddy thing to do.”
Obama has deep ties to ACORN, including with Ayers
ACORN is very active in Obama’s native Chicago, where in 1997, some 200 members attempted to storm a City Hall meeting, resulting in six members being arrested, including Madeleine Talbot, ACORN’s Chicago director.
In the early 1990’s during Obama’s community organizing days, Kurtz notes Talbot invited Obama to help train ACORN activists, beginning what seems to be a long-term relationship between the presidential candidate and the radical group.
Obama and other Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit on behalf of ACORN, forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill.
While Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit, it channeled millions of dollars to ACORN and affiliated groups.
Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund’s website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000.
He served on the Fund alongside William C. Ayers, an unrepentant member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.
Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns.
In the Social Policy Journal, Toni Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN leader, documents what he terms Obama’s “long service” with ACORN, which he said led many of the organization’s members to help in voter campaigns for Obama’s early Chicago campaigns.
Foulkes said Obama and ACORN were “old friends.”
As a state senator, Obama touted many of ACORN’s lines.
Writes Kurtz: “Sure enough, a bit of digging into Obama’s years in the Illinois State Senate indicates strong concern with Acorn’s signature issues, as well as meetings with Acorn and the introduction by Obama of Acorn-friendly legislation on the living wage and banking practices.”
ACORN endorsed Obama’s presidential campaign, an endorsement touted on Obama’s official website.
“What it came down to was that Senator Obama is the candidate who best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about like stopping foreclosures, enacting fair and comprehensive immigration reform, and building stronger and safer communities across America,” said ACORN’s Maude Hurd of the group’s Obama endorsement.
Obama met numerous times in recent months with ACORN leaders.
Sam Graham-Felson, Obama’s official website blogger, noted when Obama met with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of his history with ACORN and his beginnings in Illinois as a Project Vote organizer, a nonprofit focused on voter rights and education. Project Vote was connected to ACORN.
“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work,” Obama told ACORN members in November.”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=73335
Ben
The ACORN money was removed.
Try to Google ACORN BAILOUT and you will see the battle that was fought, to remove ACORN from the bill.
Ben
It appears that the EAGLE has now posted a thread about Biden’s debate mistakes.
Good for them.
More on the ACORN/Obama history. Corrupted to its very core and our erriudite Chas hasn’t heard of this corruption or the investigations of ACORN.
———————–
Once again, No Quarter USA comes through with more facts about the real Obama and the Obama campaign. There are many documented ties to crime and corruption. Obama’s legal retainer setup with Robert Blackwell “smelled” like money laundering. The No Quarter blog has uncovered what looks like “the Obama Campaign falsifying its FEC disclosure reports by using a front company to disguise its relationship with ACORN, a controversial group” Here are some exerpts from the article:
“According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) financial disclosure reports filed by the campaign earlier this year, between February 25th and May 17th Obama paid $832,598 to Citizens Services, Inc. (CSI), one of the nearly seventy Not-for-Profit companies registered at the ACORN New Orleans headquarters on 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue [SEE IMAGE OF THE NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS of CSI as well as 20 other businesses.]. CSI now also shares an office with ACORN in Chicago at 209 W. Jackson St., home of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union).
On the surface, the 11 separate payments to CSI appear to be for services typically useful to a campaign. However, as confirmed by one of its directors, CSI does not offer the services listed on the Obama campaign expense reports. According to the director, and as found in various disclosure reports from other candidates, CSI specializes in field operations, specifically grass roots organizing for get out the vote efforts. The Obama expense reports list the following payments to CSI: $564,342 for Stage, Sound, Lighting, $138,000 for Advance Work, $18,417 for Polling and $98,451 for Travel/Lodging. There is no “get out the vote” expenditure to CSI in the reports.”
“According to the FEC, in a situation where a campaign committee reports that they paid a company for services that the company says they do not provide, there is reason to be suspicious. It was irregular. And, it was inappropriate. To wit in 1997 Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar (OH) was prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department for conspiracy to deceive the FEC as to the true nature of the campaign contributions and expenditures that she was required to report. Falsifying federal disclosure reports is a serious matter and it is a crime. If the FEC chooses to exercise equal enforcement then Senator Obama could very well be subject to prosecution.”
“Title 11: Federal Elections. § 111.4 Complaints (2 U.S.C. 437g(a)(1)).
(a) Any person who believes that a violation of any statute or regulation over which the Commission has jurisdiction has occurred or is about to occur may file a complaint in writing to the General Counsel, Federal Election Commission, 999 E Street, NW., Washington, DC 20463.”
Chas just for you more on the ACORN corruption:
————–
It’s the corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) that will get some of the bailout money.
That’s what Dems are championing.
Here’s how this corrupt entity will get its dough. Twenty percent of all profits from the bailout will slide into goodwill agencies via the Housing Trust Fund.
The Fund has been manipulated by Congressional Dems. For example, ACORN has got some of that money.
And what is the rotter core of ACORN?
This so-called “community organization of low-and moderate-income families that addresses housing, schools, neighborhood safety, health care, job conditions” and so forth sounds American apple pie.
ACORN, further, has a national membership rostered at 350,000 with 850 neighborhood conclaves in more than a hundred cities, not only in the US but Argentina, Canada, Mexico and Peru.
Wade Rathke, George Wiley and Gary Delgado founded ACORN in 1970.
B. Hussein Obabma was at the center of ACORN. As a community organizer he was right there with the corruption. He trained ACORN workers and they in turn worked on his campaign in Illinois.
Now to voter fraud. ACORN submitted false voter registration forms. “ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State.
“Seven ACORN workers had submitted nearly 2,000 bogus voter registration forms. According to case records, they flipped through phone books for names to use on the forms, including ‘Leon Spinks,’ ‘Frekkie Magoal’ and ‘Fruto Boy Crispila.’
‘Three ACORN election hoaxers pleaded guilty in October. A King County prosecutor called ACORN’s criminal sabotage ‘an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls’” per Michelle Malkin’s “The ACORN Obama knows.”
There is more:
In Ohio in 2004, four ACORN employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms.
In January 2005 two Colorado ACORN workers were sentenced to community service for submitting false voter registrations. ACORN’s regional director said, “we find it abhorrent and do everything we can to prevent it from happening.”
On November 1, 2006, four part time ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City, Missouri for voter registration fraud. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation. ACORN said in a press release that it is in part responsible in these individuals being caught, has fired them, and has cooperated and publicly supported efforts to look into the validity of the allegations.
ACORN was investigated in 2006 for submitting false voter registrations in St. Louis, Missouri. 1,492 fraudulent voter registrations were identified.
In 2007, five Washington state ACORN workers were sentenced to jail time. ACORN agreed to pay King County $25 000 for its investigative costs and acknowledged that the national organization could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again. According to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, the misconduct was done “as an easy way to get paid [by ACORN], not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections.”
In 2008, the Michigan Secretary of State office told the Detroit Free Press that ACORN had been submitting a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications to vote.
On September 17 2008, the Bernalillo County clerk in New Mexico notified prosecutors that the office had received fraudulent registration cards per Wikipedia.
——————-
Dirty money, dirty workers, dirty campaigning – do you need more ‘facts’ that you can’t find on your own.
Looks like those REITS were big sellers today, wasn’t Franklin enamored with REITS not too long ago?
Did we see capitulation today, Damn, I sure hope so!
I don’t care what party is involved. I want the dirt swept out and all of those involved out the door. Dodd would be the first to go and Barney Frank right behind him. Maxine Watters should be held accountable for her words in defending fannie and freddie when the light was on them and no action was taken.
I know I have only named dems and if they are repubs inplicated I will call for their removal also.
Acorn, does not bother me, does your conscience bother you. Tell me true.
Hate to leave when I have a good mad on but grandmother duties are calling.
Call for removal for all who voted specifically to get rid of glass-steagal, then.
Phantom whose conscience should be bothering them?
Phantom there are none so blind as those who will not see. This is why the dems should never be in charge. They are shown to be almost completely responsibility for the meltdown and you point back to Glass/Steagal. Wallow in your blindness. Maybe Obama will throw you a lifeline. Don’t count on it though.
Nice try, Granny… so where is your friggin link??? Or did you make that one up all by yourself???
ACORN isnt in the LOAN business!! Geez!!
Phantom
Posted October 6, 2008 at 2:53 pm | Permalink
Acorn, does not bother me, does your conscience bother you. Tell me true.
—————
If ACORN doesn’t bother you after what I have posted and I haven’t post even a small part of what is out there then man you are just too stupid to vote. Please stay home and blog on 11/4.
Ben was RIGHT…. Any “so called” bailout for ACORN was NEVER in the bill…. And not even mentioned in the Senate version, which DID pass!!
I wish you people would stop LYING to try to get your way!!
Granny, I already said WAY upthread, I AM NO FAN OF ACORN!!! I JUST WANT YOU FREAKIN IDIOTS TO POST THE TRUTH!!!
I know, thats a lot to ask, but Geez!!!
“if they are repubs inplicated I will call for their removal also.”
I am sure that there is much shaking in shoes on the hill.
Okobserver’s piqued!
Meanwhile it was her and such as her and her party with their greed made the mess. America knows it too.
No mention of ACORN in the proposed bill:
“Dodd proposal:
“TRANSFER OF A PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS.
DEPOSITS.Not less than 20 percent of any profit realized on the sale of each troubled asset purchased under this Act shall be deposited as provided in paragraph (2).
USE OF DEPOSITS.Of the amount referred to in paragraph (1)
65 percent shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4568); and
35 percent shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund established under section 1339 of that Act (12 U.S.C. 4569).
REMAINDER DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY.All amounts remaining after payments under paragraph (1) shall be paid into the General Fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt.
https://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2703
PLEASE READ, give it time to soak in, and then come back and tell us your “expert” opinions of what it is ACORN does!!
AGAIN — I AM NO BIG FAN OF ACORN…. having once applied to them for employment, and then finding out some of their voter registration tactics…. Wasnt something I could do in good conscience….
Unless and Until Grnny good witch can include proper links to her Elongated posts, I shall IGNORE them, based on the “intricacy” of what has been copy/pasted above….
And another SHILL strikes again!!
ACORN is a CRIMINAL enterprise.
There is no way to get around this fact.
ACORN was trying to get funding, out of the orginal bail out bill.
Also, libs, the statutes and federal agencies you list, that were to get these funds? These are the agencies that give money to ACORN NOW!
Do your homework.
Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending
By David M. Brown
Friday, August 22, 2008
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.
An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. — a subsidiary of ACORN — worked in “get-out-the-vote” projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.
The Ohio primary was March 4. According to FEC records, the Obama campaign paid Citizens Services Inc. $832,598.29, from Feb. 25 to May 17.
Citizens Services Inc. is headquartered at the same address as ACORN’s national headquarters in New Orleans.
Early in his career, Obama worked as an organizer for Project Vote, an ACORN offshoot, and represented ACORN in legal actions, according to various published reports, including Associated Press articles. ACORN’s political action committee endorsed Obama in the primary.
Under the bill, ACORN would have received 20 percent of asset sales.
““It’s more than 20% of the profits from all asset sales. It’s 20% of the profits from each profitable transaction. As the portfolio will likely have a significant number of loss transaction, the proportion of the profits allocatable to the “housing trust funds” will be much more than 20% of the aggregate profit.”
I noticed that language … AWFUL was my reaction. We could have $100 billion in gains on some assets, $200 billion in losses on other assets, and the bill language would force $100 billion loss on the taxpayer AND add on $20 billion bill diverting money to ACORN, for a wallet-grab of $120 billion to the taxpayer.”
Folks, Obama is dangerous and tried to rob the American people blind with this funding of ACORN by some slippery tactics.
Obama is in bed with ACORN.
ACORN’s Housing wing
http://www.acornhousing.org/index.php
Article reference
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-hid-800k-payment-to-acorn
“Here’s what the president said when we said no. He insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, “Big mistake. Hamas will win. You’ll legitimize them.” What happened? Hamas won.”
Paul – Hamas DID win. However, they were not allowed to exercise that victory in the West bank.
Regular,
What is the source of the 2 paragraphs begining with,
——–
Under the bill, ACORN would have…
I noticed that language … AWFUL was my reaction. …
——-
In your copy/paste at
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/10/blaming-media-doesnt-fly/#comment-440993
Did Regular just add some fictional garbage to his copy/paste, like he did with the New Orleans levee post?
The earlier paragraphs were from,
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/election/s_584284.html
but those other 2 paragraphs were NOT.
Regular posted October 6, 2008 at 3:59 pm
(Appropriately, on the ‘If you thought the campaign was negative before’ thread.)
“cosmos worrying about hyperlinks, the information is from bonafide websites and investigator bloggers and reporters.
Perhaps cosmos is mad he is not privy to some information. :)”
—————-
Translation: Those 2 paragraphs Regular posted are fiction, and Regular cannot post his source.
Chas and Ben if you refuse to see the truth that is right in front of you then this would be a pointless argument. If Obama does win then I more than anyone else hope that I am wrong about what I think will happen. I will just be guarding my wallet.
Okie — if you dont ha income (taxable) over $250,000, tiy dont need to hang on too tight!! If not, then you can probably AFFORD IT ANYWAY!!!
Regular I read it too:
Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending
Had Obama been installed as king, this bill surely would have created a federal handout to the best thing that’s happened to the democratic party since Bill Clinton. ACORN would become a quasi government agency with the money and power. ACORN is a political action committee for blacks and black power. They have hijacked the democratic party for their own purposes.
Regular, this info needs to come out in the news. It may take a grassroots email effort to do so. I’m off the blog it world wide.
The Relationship Between Barack Obama And Bill Ayers Is Much More Extensive Than Obama’s Campaign Is Willing To Admit
Obama’s Top Campaign Staff Have Attempted To Downplay The Relationship Between Obama And Bill Ayers:
Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs Said That Obama And Ayers Weren’t Close And That Obama Was Only 8 Years Old When Ayers Was Bombing Buildings. Robert Gibbs: “If you read the article … it says these two men weren’t close, this man isn’t involved in our campaign. Bill Ayers is somebody that Barack Obama said his actions were despicable and these happened when Barack Obama was 8 years old.” (FOX News’ “FOX & Friends,” 10/6/08)
Gibbs Has Also Limited The Relationship Between Obama And Ayers To Serving On Two Boards Together. John Roberts: “Barack Obama knew Bill Ayers and had contact with him between 1995 and 2005. Exactly what was the nature of the relationship?” Robert Gibbs: “Well, John, as The New York Times reported this weekend, they served on two boards together during that time period.” (CNN’s “American Morning,” 10/6/08)
Even Obama Has Previously Referred To Ayers As “A Guy Who Lives In My Neighborhood” And Not Someone He Exchanges Ideas With “On A Regular Basis.” Obama: “George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about. This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense, George.” (Sen. Barack Obama, ABC Democrat Candidates Presidential Debate, Philadelphia, PA, 4/16/08)
But Obama’s Connections With Bill Ayers Are Much More Extensive Than He Or His Campaign Staff Is Willing To Admit:
In 1995, During Obama’s First State Senate Campaign, William Ayers And Wife Bernadine Dohrn Hosted A Meeting Of Chicago Liberals At Their Home For Obama, Which One Attendee Said Was Aimed At “Launching Him.” “In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement. … ‘I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,’ said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the info rmal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. ‘[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.’ … Dr. Young and another guest, Maria Warren, described it similarly: as an introduction to Hyde Park liberals of the handpicked successor to Palmer, a well-regarded figure on the left. ‘When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the living room of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn,’ Warren wrote on her blog in 2005. ‘They were launching him — introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread.’” (Ben Smith, “Obama Once Visited ’60s Radicals,” The Politico, 1/22/08)
From March Of 1995 Until September Of 1997, Obama And Ayers Attended At Least Seven Meetings Together Relating To The Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Board Of Directors Meeting, Minutes Of The Board, 3/15/95, 3/31/95, 4/13/95, 6/5/95, 9/30/97; National Annenberg Challenge Evaluation Meeting, List Of Participants, 5/24/95; Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Chicago School Reform Collaborative Meeting, Minutes, 10/23/96)
* NOTE: Bill Ayers Was Asked To Help Obama Formulate The Chicago Annenberg Challenge By-Laws. (Chicago Annenberg Challenge Board Of Directors Minutes, 3/15/95)
In 1997, Obama Praised Ayers’ Book On The Juvenile Justice System. “The two men were involved in efforts to reform the city’s education system. They appeared together on academic panels, including one organized by Michelle Obama to discuss the juvenile justice system, an area of mutual concern. Mr. Ayers’s book on the subject won a rave review in The Chicago Tribune by Mr. Obama, who called it ‘a searing and timely account.’” (Jo Becker and Christopher Drew, “Pragmatic Politics, Forged On The South Side,” The New York Times, 5/11/08)
* Obama On William Ayers’ “A Kind And Just Parent: The Children Of Juvenile Court”: “A searing and timely account of the juvenile court system, and the courageous individuals who rescue hope from despair.” (Chicago Tribune, 12/21/97)
“[Obama And Ayers] Have Also Appeared Jointly On Two Academic Panels, One In 1997 And Another In 2001.” (Russell Berman, “Obama’s Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny,” The New York Sun, 2/19/08)
From 1999 To 2002, Obama Served With Ayers On The Board Of Directors For Woods Fund Of Chicago. “[Ayers] served with [Obama] from 1999 to 2002 on the board of the Woods Fund, an anti-poverty group.” (Timothy J. Burger, “Obama’s Chicago Ties Might Fuel ‘Republican Attack Machine’,” Bloomberg, 2/15/08)
* During The Time Obama And Ayers Served Together On The Woods Fund, Ayers Was Quoted Saying “I Don’t Regret Setting Bombs … I Feel We Didn’t Do Enough.” “‘I don’t regret setting bombs,’ Bill Ayers said. ‘I feel we didn’t do enough.’ Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970’s as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago.” (Dinitia Smith, “No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives,” The New York Times, 9/11/01)
* NOTE: Obama, Born August 14th, 1961, Was 40 Years Old When Ayers Was Quoted. (Obama For America Website, http://www.barackobama.com, Accessed 10/6/08; Dinitia Smith, “No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives,” The New York Times, 9/11/01)
* While Obama And Ayers Were Serving On The Woods Fund Together, Ayers Posed Standing On An American Flag For An Article In Chicago Magazine Entitled “No Regrets.” (Marcia Froelke Coburn, “No Regrets,” Chicago Magazine, 8/01)
Obama And Ayers Are Neighbors In Chicago’s Hyde Park Neighborhood. “Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors.” (Scott Shane, “Obama And ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths,” The New York Times, 10/4/08)
* Obama Spokesman Ben LaBolt Told The New York Times That Last Year Obama And Ayers “Bumped Into Each Other On The Street In Hyde Park.” “[Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt] said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park.” (Scott Shane, “Obama And ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths,” The New York Times, 10/4/08)
* Neighbors Have Said “It’s Only Natural” That Obama Would Know Ayers, Who Often Opens His Home For Gatherings, As Obama And His Wife “Are A Part Of Our Neighborhood And Part Of Our Social Circle.” “Since coming out of hiding in 1980, the couple have raised three boys in Chicago and become part of the fabric of their liberal South Side neighborhood. Neighbors said it’s only natural that Obama would know Ayers and Dohrn, who often open their homes for gatherings filled with lively discussions about politics, arts and social issues. Obama and his wife ‘are part of our neighborhood and part of our social circle,’ said Elizabeth Chandler, a neighbor of Ayers’.” (Trevor Jensen, Robert Mitchum and Mary Owen, “Bill Ayers’ Turbulent Past Contrasts With Quiet Academ ic Life,” Chicago Tribune, 4/17/08)
Ayers’ Organization, The Weather Underground, Was A “Violent Left-Wing Activist Group”:
“William Ayers … [Was] A Founding Member Of The Group That Bombed The U.S. Capitol And The Pentagon During The 1970s.” (Russell Berman, “Obama’s Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny,” The New York Sun, 2/19/08)
* Ayers’ Group, The Weather Underground, Is A “Violent Left-Wing Activist Group.” “Senator Obama’s ties to a former leader of the violent left-wing activist group the Weather Underground are drawing new scrutiny as he battles Senator Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.” (Russell Berman, “Obama’s Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny,” The New York Sun, 2/19/08)
The Weather Underground Produced A Manual Which Begins, “We Are A Guerrilla Organization. We Are Communist Women And Men, Underground In The United States For More Than Four Years.” “The coalition was said to be a violence-prone faction inspired by the Weather Underground’s ”Prairie Fire,” a guerrilla warfare manual published in 1974. The manual begins, ‘We are a guerrilla organization. We are Communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years.’” (Paul L. Montgomery, “2 Women In Brink’s Case Identified With Weathermen From Start In ‘69,” The New York Times, 10/ 22/81)
okob – I still have not seen any evidence – only accusations. Where’s the beef?
As for holding onto my wallet – while I DO anticipate a small tax hit it will be miniscule compared to the other financial hits I am taking (e.g. markets etc). Also, YOUR approach of simply putting the spending on credit cards for our grandchildren to pay (while also damaging US security) you are putting self first. By paying the costs now I want to put country first.
Hank,
Your stupid, long copy/pastes are wearing out everybodys scroll wheels.
‘Thirty Lies Refuted About Ayers And Obama‘
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-k-wilson/30-lies-refuted-about-aye_b_132109.html
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) (also referred to as the Annenberg Challenge to Chicago) was a public-private partnership founded in 1995 to improve school performance by what it called “on the ground” investments in the form of professional development and technical assistance. Sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, the CAC received a charter grant of $49.2 million in 1995.[1] The CAC was formally dissolved in January, 2002. It handed over its remaining assets to its successor, the Chicago Public Education Fund, on whose board sit Susan Crown and Penny Pritzker. The CAC donated its records to the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago to be made available for public research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Annenberg_Challenge
Woods Fund of Chicago is a grantmaking foundation whose goal is to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities in the metropolitan area, including the opportunity to shape decisions affecting them. The foundation works primarily as a funding partner with nonprofit organizations. Woods supports nonprofits in their important roles of engaging people in civic life, addressing the causes of poverty and other challenges facing the region, promoting more effective public policies, reducing racism and other barriers to equal opportunity, and building a sense of community and common ground.
http://www.woodsfund.org/about/mission
These are the things in which Obama and Ayers worked together. Obama and Ayers also both happened to dislike a juvenile justice system that was increasing turning young people into hardened criminals.
So, tell me, Hank, are you prepared to argue there is anything illegal, immoral, “terroristic” or “un-American” about those goals?
I realized you literally got those talking points from the GOP website. All I can say is, they’re going to have to do better than that!
Pathetic.
Rage,
The GOP’s bogus points convinced Hank — he spammed their garbage on three different threads tonight.
That’s only because nothing below your desktop works. Chortles.
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Your wife disagrees!
*****
Your honest sister ( must be a rare thing in your family) says differently! chortles,
Many people are unwilling to admit it, but there IS a definite media bias in favor of the liberals. Sarah Palin has been treated horribly by the media. She’s had to endure all kinds of nasty stuff, from lies and rumors spread about her and personal attacks against her family; and interviews by unfriendly journalists who try everything to trap her in a “gotcha” moment and then edit those interviews to try to make her look bad. In contrast, Obama is treated like a prince and you hardly ever hear a negative word against him. The people interviewing him are all nice and pleasant to him and ask him easy questions, and polls are even skewed in his favor. The media really wants Barrack Obama to win the election and seem to be doing everything they can to help that happen. We do have a very biased media and it seems that fair journalism has gone right out the window this year.
JoMarieM = no good friggin SHILL
cut/paste work = Grade of D+
Obviously JoMarieM didnt watch CNN or MSNBC today… mostly all Republican analysts, and pundits…. Lots of Obama LIES!! So, to your complaint, I call BS!! and more BS!!
Gee Hank,
I attended a blog meet-up a while back, and you were there. Does that make us associates? Perish the thought!
Chas,
Don’t be so harsh on JoMarieM.
He probably would also claim to read one (or more) newspapers — and be completely unable to name the newspaper(s) that he reads.
Just like his heroine, Sarah Palin!
We should try to be “polite” to people who can’t even remember what newspaper(s) they read.
And who misquote what they read on their coffee cup.