In the spirit of gloating, I went over to FoxNews.com to find out what all the racist Republicans are saying about the election.  This was an open thread called “Why did Obama win?”  Can you guess which responses were most common?  Here’s a hint:

Comment by Tiffany November 5th, 2008 at 9:19 am

Obama won because of all the blacks that went out to vote for him, even though the majority could not describe a single policy of his. He also won because of the homeless- who came out in record numbers to vote for Obama- they all want some of that redistribution of wealth!!
Thanks to the dems we now have a president who is also endorsed by the terrorsits and ji-had!!

 That’s right, ladies and gentlemen–Obama won because he’s black.  This is easily the case because of this country’s long history of black presidents.  *forehead smack*

 Comment by JD November 5th, 2008 at 9:27 am

I agree with Tiffany and they probably could not name who his running mate was until they seen it @ the polls. I also woke up sick to my stomach this morning and am scared what is to come………..

(emphasis mine)

What makes this day better than it already is?  Knowing that all over the country, Republicans are sick to their stomachs over this.

What was that?  The spirit of unity?  Alright, I’ll share my thoughts on America being united:

Fuck.  You.

How’s that?  Should I pull out an offensive image to make the sentiment clearer?

Republicans in this country have been political bullies since they gained power.  They’ve been corrupt and malignant in their authority.  They’ve championed the idea of preemptive war while using it to declare war on a country that posed little or no threat to us on false pretenses while letting the Taliban regroup instead of wiping them out completely.  They’ve failed to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice while inflaming the crazy and belligerent religious fanatics in the Middle East.  They’ve desecrated America’s moral authority by authorizing and defending the use of torture on prisoners.  They’ve trampled over the Bill of Rights and the writ of habeas corpus, the cornerstone of legal rights in the United States.  They’ve ruined our relationships with countries all over the world, while turning a blind eye to the atrocities and shenanigans committed by the Chinese.  Thanks to them, we’ve lost all the soft power accumulated through the Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton years, and have lost our moral authority and credibility in the world.

Among a myriad of other things, they’ve failed to regulate financial markets which, through greed and opportunism, led to the credit crisis and the downfall of our economy.  Under their leadership, gasoline prices reached record highs in an already strained economy.  They’ve boldly granted no-bid high-dollar contracts to their corporate allies in broad daylight,  with no shame or sense of responsibility.

The Republicans have pushed for a regressive social policy and have at numerous times employed authoritarian police state tactics in controlling the population.  The 2004 RNC in New York City is a brazen example, but not nearly as much as the authorization of illegal domestic spying and the excessive use of Executive Privilege to cover their misdeeds.  They’ve expanded the power of the central government to include the Department of Homeland Security, a monolithic Goliath of neverending bureaucracy to take over operations we already had agencies for, while insisting that the Executive Branch extends into all corners of the government… and yet, they deny the Vice President of the United States is a member of this branch when it suits their purposes and conceals their crimes.  Let’s not even get into the response to Katrina or their reckless approach to North Korea and Iran.

This does not end here.  Bush and his administration need to be tried for their domestic crimes and their war crimes.  They need to be pursued, they need to be punished for what they’ve done wrong so an example is set and a deterrent is present.  It doesn’t matter whether they’re Democrat or Republican–all human beings are vulnerable to corruption.  If there is not a clear, visible deterrent that shows the politicians they are not protected, we set a very dangerous precedent for future cases.

The Conservative ideology has so utterly and categorically failed.  Come January, they should be included in discussions but excluded from any type of authority whatsoever.  They are completely devoid of credibility at this point and the onus is on them to convince us otherwise.  They deserved this defeat.  The sooner they acknowledge that, the sooner America will be willing to trust them.  To do that, the dangerous Neo-Con movement needs to be stamped out of the Republican party–completely.  Cut the extremist rhetoric and come back into the mainstream, Republicans.  We miss your rational side.

While I’ve but touched the surface of their incompetence and corruption, I’d like to talk about the campaign they’ve run.  They built their campaign the way they operated during this administration:  on fear and lies.  This is positively the shadiest, sleaziest campaign I’ve yet seen waged, and yet people defend it.  Your party actively and publicly sought to intimidate and suppress minority voters, but you didn’t make a peep.  When Sarah Palin’s campaign stops turn into hate rallies, the vast majority of sycophants on the right don’t bat an eye.  At times, the campaign has been blatantly racist and divisively fearmongering as they attempt to portray Barack Obama as a Muslim terrorist and manage to keep a straight face when pushing the idea that he’s not one of us.

No, wingnuts, you’re not “one of us.”  You never were.  The hatred which motivates you had no place in this election and it certainly has no place in this country.   But things can be different for you if you let it.  Unlike you, we want you to be “one of us.”  We don’t see you as a lost cause because you think a certain way or because you vote for a different party.  We can agree to disagree, but we cannot accept the kind of hateful, vitriolic lies you’ve either spread, accepted or turned a blind eye to this year.  No matter which applies to you, you’re complicit if you did not do something about it.

My final thoughts on unity:  we don’t want it to end like this; we want to be united.  But no reasonable person will call us united while this kind of attitude exists.

Does anyone know where Republicans got the reputation for being racists?  Couldn’t tell ya.

Here’s the article that last one came from:

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of “Obama Bucks” — a phony $10 bill featuring Obama’s face on a donkey’s body, labeled “United States Food Stamps.” The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

The group’s president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club’s meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

“It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don’t want to go into it any further,” Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn’t my attempt.”

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn’t think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

“I didn’t see it the way that it’s being taken. I never connected,” she said. “It was just food to me. It didn’t mean anything else.”

She said she also wasn’t trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: “Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!”

I’m laughing my ass off as I type this.  How could anyone believe the intent behind this was innocent?

That first round was a bit out there. Let’s see how they do this round.

Issue #2 - Economy and Housing Crisis.

Jeffrey Hall

Claim: Obama supports modernizing the financial regulatory system via oversight over lenders.

TRUE - According to barackobama.com, they plan to create a 5-star credit card rating system so the consumer understands the risk involved. Additionally, they intend to create new criminal penalties for lenders who are found guilty of fraud, requiring the industry to report suspicious activity and create a loan disclosure scoring system designed to inform the borrower of all aspects of the loan.

Claim: Obama plans to help homeowners by setting up programs which can monitor lenders for what they can and cannot lend to buyers.

UNVERIFIED - Most of Obama’s policies seem geared towards borrower protection, so maybe this is just an issue of wording (I couldn’t find any information on this, though I found loosely-related statements through press releases and news articles. If anyone has information, let me know and I’ll post it).

Claim: McCain flipped on bailout issue by first saying he wouldn’t help borrowers who took risky loans, saying it was their fault. Now supports bailout.

TRUE - On March 26th, McCain indeed said it wasn’t the government’s job to help borrowers. According the the International Herald Review:

Drawing a sharp distinction between himself and the two Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona warned Tuesday against vigorous government action to solve the deepening mortgage crisis and the market turmoil it has caused, saying that “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

McCain has since expressed support for such a bailout (via abcnews.com):

Its response was to send an e-mail from domestic policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin:

“John McCain supports the steps needed to keep the financial troubles at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from further squeezing American families, and endorses the idea that management and shareholders should not benefit from government backing,” Holz-Eakin said. “While details are not yet available, the actions taken today are consistent with those objectives. Fannie and Freddie have been the poster children for a lack of transparency and accountability, and remind us of the needed reforms to financial markets in general. We need to create jobs and get the economy going — and get way from the practice of sticking Main Street Americans with these bills. If elected, John McCain will continue his crusade for the right reform of the institutions. Sen. McCain will get real regulation that limits their ability to borrow, shrinks their size until they are no longer a threat to our economy, and privatizes and eliminates their links to the government.”

Lee Newcom

Claim: The problem with Fannie Mae began with the community reinvestment act and began in the Clinton Administration when Janet Reno was threatening banks with legal action if they did not make more loans to poor people.

PARTIALLY TRUE - While it’s true that Janet Reno sought initiatives to reduce discriminatory loans in urban areas, there is a dispute over whether the Community Reinvestment Act contributes to the problem by encouraging lenders to make irresponsible loans.

Specifically, the claim is referring to a speech by Janet Reno in 1998 in which she talks about government cases against banks and requiring lenders to invest in their communities.

I give this a “partial” because of the assertion this was the origin of the crisis. There are many factors which contribute to the problem, including high amounts of real estate speculation, the housing market bubble and mortgage fraud, among a other reasons, a number of which pre-date the Clinton administration. There has not been consensus on the cause of this issue yet as it is too early to determine.

Claim: McCain’s most recent position is that the government must help buy up those loans and renegotiate the amounts owed.

TRUE - McCain recently announced at the second presidential debate a plan to spend 300 billion dollars to purchase loans and grant courts the authority to renegotiate mortgages based on the home’s current value.

Claim: Though we are in a crisis, less than 5% of loans are affected.

UNVERIFIED - (I found no direct data to corroborate or contradict this claim. If anyone wants to provide information from a neutral source, I will add it to this entry)

Claim: Bush administration tried 13 times to push regulation for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which each time was blocked by Democratic leaders in the last two years.

FALSE - From factcheck.org:

It’s true that key Democrats opposed the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have established a single, independent regulatory body with jurisdiction over Fannie and Freddie – a move that the Government Accountability Office had recommended in a 2004 report. Current House Banking Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts opposed legislation to reorganize oversight in 2000 (when Clinton was still president), 2003 and 2004, saying of the 2000 legislation that concern about Fannie and Freddie was “overblown.” Just last summer, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd called a Bush proposal for an independent agency to regulate the two entities “ill-advised.”

But saying that Democrats killed the 2005 bill “while Mr. Obama was notably silent” oversimplifies things considerably. The bill made it out of committee in the Senate but was never brought up for consideration. At that time, Republicans had a majority in the Senate and controlled the agenda. Democrats never got the chance to vote against it or to mount a filibuster to block it.

By the time McCain signed on to the legislation, it was too late to prevent the crisis anyway. McCain added his name on May 25, 2006, when the housing bubble had already nearly peaked. Standard & Poor’s Case-Schiller Home Price Index, which measures residential housing prices in 20 metropolitan regions and then constructs a composite index for the entire United States, shows that housing prices began falling in July 2006, barely two months later.

Additionally, this distorts the truth by omitting facts, primarily that Democrats proposed a number of reform bills while the Republicans held the majority:

• H.R. 2117
• H.R. 3507
• S. 1656

After the Democrats gained the majority in 2007, Barney Frank proposed the following legislation: H.R. 1427

As for the “13 times” claim, even judging by what the White House website has to say about it, one would be hard-pressed to find 13 times the Bush administration pushed for reform that was blocked by Democrats since the beginning of 2007.

Claim: John McCain was one of the most adamant seekers of regulation over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Barack Obama did not want that regulation.

PARTIALLY TRUE - John McCain was a co-sponsor of a bill called the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005. This bill never made it out of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which Senator Obama was never a member of. Neither candidate voted on the bill.

Analysis below…

——-

(more…)

This blog is not known for virtually any kind of citizen journalism. This week I’ll be going over the Journal Star YouTube debates and fact-checking each side.

I’ll do my best to keep it clean, but will provide my own typical style of analysis below the fold. Since my own performance was an epic failure, I figured I ought to contribute to the project in some meaningful way. Just pretend you’re reading the Peoria Pundit, but with fewer typos.

Issue #1: Abortion Part 1.

Lee Newcom

Claim: Senator McCain has taken a reasonable position by saying he personally opposes abortion but supports the law in the way it’s working today.

FALSE - From John McCain’s website:

” Overturning Roe v. Wade

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, “At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level.”"

Claim: Senator Obama used his political influence to block a bill that would seek to give medical care to unwanted babies who were born alive.

QUESTIONABLE - The committee he’s referring to in the clip is the Health and Human Services Committee, of which he became chairman in 2003. The tone is pejorative and seems to suggest that power was improperly used to block a bill. There is no evidence suggesting Obama used his position to deny people the chance to give testimony, though the bill did not make it to the floor under the committee.

Jeffrey Hall

Claim: Obama’s goal with abortion is to keep it the way it is.

TRUE - From barackobama.com:

“Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.”

There is no language to suggest otherwise. His voting record in the U.S. Senate seems to corroborate this, as well as his claim that he seeks to reduce the number of abortions through legislation.

Claim: McCain flipped on the issue of abortion, first supporting, now supporting an overturn of Roe v. Wade.

TRUE - McCain has been consistently opposed to partial birth abortions, as indicated by his voting record. While he has chosen not to vote on a bill expressing Congressional support of Roe v. Wade, there’s no indication he supported overturning it prior to his 2008 campaign. This does not technically constitute a flip.

However, McCain said in 2000 that he thinks abortion should be allowed in special cases, then reaffirmed his position in 2007. Now, however, he is siding with his party’s policy and seeking a complete reversal of Roe v. Wade. My friends, that is a flipflop.

Issue #1: Abortion Part 2.

Lee Newcom

Claim: People maintain the right to have an abortion at any time during the pregnancy.

TRUE - In most cases, an abortion can be performed at any time during the pregnancy. What is not mentioned is that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 prohibits partial-birth abortions.

Claim: Mr. Hall disagrees with Barack Obama by saying if an abortion fails and there’s a chance for survival, the baby deserves medical care.

FALSE - According to Jill Stanek, which Newcom cites for support, Barack Obama has supported the federal version of BAIPA since at least 2005. The problem according to Senator Obama was not with providing care to those who survive an attempted abortion, but with the protection of abortion rights in Illinois, as outlined on his website (scroll to the bottom to see the chart). Mr. Hall and Senator Obama are in perfect agreement.

Claim: The language in both state born alive acts and federal born alive acts is identical, so there’s no reasonable explanation for opposing it.

FALSE - According to factcheck.org:

As originally proposed, the 2003 state bill, SB 1082, sought to define the term “born-alive infant” as any infant, even one born as the result of an unsuccessful abortion, that shows vital signs separate from its mother. The bill would have established that infants thus defined were humans with legal rights. It never made it to the floor; it was voted down by the Health and Human Services Committee, which Obama chaired.

The bill which passed in 2005 includes the following language:

(d) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect
existing federal or State law regarding abortion.

(e) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to alter
generally accepted medical standards.

Claim: Barack Obama supports killing babies who a born alive as a result of a failed abortion procedure.

FALSE - This is part of a smear commonly known as the infanticide claim. The facts: there were already laws on the books granting the protections described by the bill in question which, if violated (if what Mr. Newcom describes is true), would be punishable as a Class 3 felony. (source: factcheck.org) The bill was eventually passed (after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate) which contained the language claims he was looking for.

In Obama’s own words:

“Whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements of the Constitution, we’re saying they are persons entitled to the kinds of protections provided to a child, a 9-month-old child delivered to term…That determination then essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.”

Claim: Jill Stanek held babies in laundry room until they died.

FALSE - This claim is often repeated in response to Senator Obama’s record on abortion in the Illinois legislature. However, this is an unsupported claim that has only one source, that being Jill Stanek. In response to her claims, the Office of the Attorney General sent a letter in response which stated:

No other allegations or medical evidence to support any statutory violation (including the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act about which you inquired) were referred to our office by the Department for prosecution.

[…]

While we are deeply respectful of your serious concerns about the practices and methods of abortions at this hospital, we have concluded that there is no basis for legal action by this office against the Hospital or its employees, agents or staff at this time.

Jeffrey Hall

Jeff didn’t really make any claims in this section. Most of it was defending against or expressing incredulity at what Mr. Newcom was saying.

Analysis below the fold.

(more…)

First… the debates.  I caught the second half on the radio (had class last night, more on that later), then watched the first half on the replay.

Factcheck.org more or less calls it a draw in misstatements and fudging of facts.  Naturally, the Republican is nailed more times for untrue statements than the Democrat.  But since it’s pretty close, I can’t fairly (by my standards) factor that into my decision.  I declare Joe Biden the winner.  My reasons are here:

1. Declaring Sarah Palin the winner just because she didn’t completely screw it up is a pretty low standard, and not something I would ever use as a substitute for doing well in making and defending your points.
2. Joe Biden came off as knowledgeable and kept his distance when he could have cashed in on Palin’s mistakes during the debate.
3. Palin didn’t really talk about the issues much, if at all.  She kept stumping in lieu of an answer.  Her handlers ought to have made clear it was a debate, not a campaign rally.  Her breathtakingly flat response to Biden’s story on how he relates to average Americans really sealed the deal for me.
4. Like McCain, she was quite condescending.

Let me expound upon number 4 for a bit.  I’m probably not the only one who noticed her smiling politely while talking down to him out of the side of her mouth.  This “hockey mom” is going to be very disliked in the Senate if she treats her colleagues as if they’re her children.

Her shitty attitude was like a flashback for me–a flashback to Jr. High.  I detected a major princess complex last night.  Something tells me she’s gotten her way her whole life.  Has an awfully familiar ring to it, no?  Ask me why I think this is the case and I’ll tell you.

Republicans who don’t typically give a shit about women’s issues crying “sexism!!!” in 5… 4… 3…

Well, this has been an interesting-if-uneventful weekend.  First, the debates:  I checked Google news to see what they’re reporting and… well, according to the news, it’s almost a consensus in favor of Obama.  The bloggers/wingnuts will disagree, naturally.

Honestly, I was surprised to hear that.  Overall, I thought they both performed well.  I mean, some things were obviously less-than-straightforward, but the only observations I had to share were basically the same as those of others:  Obama seemed angry (it’s about damn time) and McCain was a condescending bastard.  I also noticed Obama was on the defensive much of the night, correcting this or denying that.  Today, I found out why.

From factcheck.org:

McCain and Obama contradicted each other repeatedly during their first debate, and each volunteered some factual misstatements as well. Here’s how we sort them out:

• Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks with Iran “without preconditions,” but McCain disputed that. In fact, Kissinger did recently call for “high level” talks with Iran starting at the secretary of state level and said, “I do not believe that we can make conditions.” After the debate the McCain campaign issued a statement quoting Kissinger as saying he didn’t favor presidential talks with Iran.

• Obama denied voting for a bill that called for increased taxes on “people” making as little as $42,000 a year, as McCain accused him of doing. McCain was right, though only for single taxpayers. A married couple would have had to make $83,000 to be affected by the vote, and anyway no such increase is in Obama’s tax plan.

• McCain and Obama contradicted each other on what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said about troop withdrawals. Mullen said a time line for withdrawal could be “very dangerous” but was not talking specifically about “Obama’s plan,” as McCain maintained.

• McCain tripped up on one of his signature issues – special appropriation “earmarks.” He said they had “tripled in the last five years,” when in fact they have decreased sharply.

• Obama claimed Iraq “has” a $79 billion surplus. It once was projected to be as high as that. It’s now down to less than $60 billion.

• McCain repeated his overstated claim that the U.S. pays $700 billion a year for oil to hostile nations. Imports are running at about $536 billion this year, and a third of it comes from Canada, Mexico and the U.K.

• Obama said 95 percent of “the American people” would see a tax cut under his proposal. The actual figure is 81 percent of households.

• Obama mischaracterized an aspect of McCain’s health care plan, saying “employers” would be taxed on the value of health benefits provided to workers. Employers wouldn’t, but the workers would. McCain also would grant workers up to a $5,000 tax credit per family to cover health insurance.
• McCain misrepresented Obama’s plan by claiming he’d be “handing the health care system over to the federal government.” Obama would expand some government programs but would allow people to keep their current plans or chose from private ones, as well.
  

• McCain claimed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had drafted a letter of resignation from the Army to be sent in case the 1944 D-Day landing at Normandy turned out to be a failure. Ike prepared a letter taking responsibility, but he didn’t mention resigning.

For full details, as well as other dubious claims and statements, please read our full Analysis section.

 Notice anything peculiar?  I did.  The vast majority of those points are against McCain.  Not only does the guy play dirty, scumbag politics, he lies right to our faces.  It blows because I actually want to like the guy.

 Before this morning, I would have considered it a tie.  I still think they both performed well, but now it’s clear who the victor was.  This is why it’s important to check facts.

 Ollie has a great take on the outcome.

——-

 Other than feel like crap all weekend, I ended up saving the group I was assigned to in my Saturday class from utter failure.  The assignment was to pick a state, then pick a category of statistics for that state.  In that category, we were to choose various statistics that best describe that category for the state.

 We picked our category, and our understanding of the assignment seemed to fit with what was on the sheet describing it.  Then I re-read it and while it didn’t specifically say “each person in the group gets a category,” the language in the rest of the sheet suggested it was more specific.

 Long story short, I was up until three in the morning (the night before my 8am class) pulling off the statistics for 9 other categories for our state, then comparing each of them to where Illinois ranked.  This ended up saving our ass, hardcore.  One person in the group didn’t bother showing up.  Another looked up the correct statistics, but didn’t use the website we were instructed to use.  The other looked up the stats for our category, but for the wrong state.

I ended up handing each of them a category sheet of Illinois statistics, our assigned state’s stats, and a third sheet comparing the two.   I took three categories because dammit, I did the work, might as well use it.

In other news, I picked my topic for my final report.  Fortunately, it’s interesting.  On the downside, it’s going to require tons of footwork and probably some original research due to lack of information.  Anyone know how to cite that?

I deserve a lobster.

When the news first broke, this had every appearance of being sincere.  It thoroughly looked legit.  How bipartisan and patriotic does it look to postpone your quest for the highest office in the land to deal with the immediate crisis facing the country?

Now wait just a minute…

We’re supposed to sit here and “ooh” and “ahh” over this stunt and forget that he’s a Senator and is therefore supposed to be doing this anyway?  I’m sorry, but I wasn’t aware that running for president was a reason to neglect the duties you were elected to carry out, and the same goes for Barack Obama.

But somehow McCain deserves a pat on the back for doing his job?  Color me speechless.

With that in mind, let’s look past all the polished crap surrounding this unexpected news and look at what’s really going on.

First off, there’s some definite posturing going on here.  Today, John McCain was reported to be doing worse in two polls, including a FoxNews poll (down 6%) and a Washington Post poll (down 9%).  It has been reported and confirmed that Barack Obama called John McCain at 8:30 this morning to discuss a joint statement on the economic crisis.

Initial reports stated “John McCain suspends his campaign to deal with the economic crisis and invites Obama to do the same!”

Doesn’t this look a wee bit political to you?   I didn’t hear shit about the phone call from Obama to McCain until McCain announced he was suspending his campaign.  This accomplishes two things:

1. It unfairly bestows upon McCain the “bipartisan” mantle, even though Obama was the first to reach across the proverbial aisle, something the Republicans are bound to flaunt.
2. It takes advantage of the initial proposal by putting the ball in Obama’s court and sticking him in a tough position, changing the dialogue to “Will Obama accept this generous and selfless offer, or will he be an elitist and put the election above what’s best for the American people?”

Already, you can see the negative undertones in public perception.  Don’t believe me?  Look how the McCain camp is already trying to capitalize on this announcement.

From the Washington Post:

McCain said he is calling on President Bush “to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.” (emphasis mine)

Another Post article states:

“John McCain’s leadership and experience credentials outrank Barack Obama’s,” said Sarah Simmons, a McCain campaign strategist, this morning. “[We are] walking through a crisis and people are looking to see how it is going to be handled.”

Nancy Pfotenhauer, a senior policy adviser to McCain, echoed that sentiment in an interview moments ago with Fox News Channel. “Senator McCain’s entire life is a testimony to putting his country first and that’s what he is doing right now,” said Pfotenhauer.

Apparently the Associated Press agrees with me:

McCain’s statement was an effort to show leadership on an issue that has spread economic fears across the country and overshadowed the presidential campaign just six weeks from Election Day. The economy has not been McCain’s strongest suit, and his move was an attempt to turn it into an opportunity to show he’s the candidate of bipartisanship and action. Recent polls showed Obama with an advantage with voters in handling the economy.

The move put Obama in a bind. Rejecting the idea would allow McCain alone to appear above politics, but agreeing to suspend campaigning and the debate could make Obama look like he’s following McCain’s lead.

The bottom line:  this move has the distinct appearance of being a political maneuver.  I will be following this very closely over the next few days.  Believe me, McCain knew the exact effect he was trying to create when he made these statements:

“Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis.  We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.  We just had to go there.

Funny.  The way I remember it, Congress panicked and didn’t think things through before acting.  I’m in no hurry to repeat those colossal mistakes.

In all honesty, I hope he is being sincere about this.  I hope he’s  interested only in the good of the country.  I sure as hell hope they devise a plan to get us out of this mess.  But he still won’t get my vote.  Not as long as he has an extremist nutbag like Palin on his ticket, nor while he continues to run a sleazy campaign and rely on extremist rhetoric to win the election.

Remember folks, there was a time where centrist Democrats said they’d vote for McCain.  Instead, we ended up with Bush.  I’d rather not repeat that mistake either.

If you were watching Larry King tonight, I’m sorry and I feel your pain.   Just about every one of the McCain campaign’s lies came up and instead of simply admitting “yeah, these aren’t true,” the Republican bottom-feeders on the program defended it and changed the subject every single time.

Ollie, you’re right–the gloves are coming off.  Jesus F. Christ, where do I begin?

Claim:  Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a pig - FALSE

What did Obama say?

“Let’s just list this for a second. John McCain says he’s about change, too. Except — and so I guess his whole angle is, “Watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. We’re really gonna shake things up in Washington.” That’s not change. That’s just calling some — the same thing, something different. But you know, you can — you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.”

“Lipstick on a pig.”

A 2004 entry on urbandictionary.com describes the phrase as:

A term used by many, generally in reference to someone who may be trying to make something or someone look appealing or attractive when it quite clearly will not work, or will only deceive the dumbest of people. Car salesmen are generally good at “putting lipstick on a pig” because they are always selling unroadworthy buckets of shit and try and hide their shitfulness by tarting them up.   The dude in that car yard just put a body kit on that piece of shit. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig

Gee whiz, this phrase was around in 2004?  Somebody tell Sean Hannity’s fans!

Actually, the phrase is much, much older.  Older than anyone running, that’s for sure.  The only reason Republicans are pretending to be offended is because Sarah Palin described herself as a “pit bull with lipstick,” and, being Republicans and therefor ignorant of the world outside of their narrow, delusional vision of reality, were immediately certain the remark meant Obama is a sexist and was calling her a pig.  Mind you, that’s from the “how do we beat the bitch” party.

Claim:  Sarah Palin is a reformer who is tough on wasteful spending - FALSE

Palin isn’t a pig, she’s a lying idiot.  There’s an interesting article in USA Today about pork barrel spending.  To Senator McCain’s credit, Arizona ranks last on the list.  According to the same article, Alaska ranks first:

Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the nation, will receive just $18.70 per capita in federal earmarks this fiscal year. By comparison, Alaska — with roughly a tenth of Arizona’s population — is set to receive $506.34 per capita, the highest in the nation, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group which tracks earmarks.

Holy shit!  For being the 47th most populous state, they sure are receiving the big bucks, aren’t they?  This completely debunks the claims that A) as governor, Sarah Palin was responsible about this type of spending and actively fought against it (if at all); and B) Senator Obama is corrupt and irresponsible when it comes to earmarks.  Speaking of that, why don’t we check to see what Illinois’ per-capita spending is?

Per the Associated Press:

Obama hasn’t asked for any earmarks this year. Last year, he asked for $311 million worth, about $25 for every Illinois resident.

In my neck of the woods, we’d call her a lying sack of shit.  Republicans, before you say it, the USA Today article wasn’t a Palin hit-piece.  Look at the date:  March, 2008.  This has been known for awhile, and in today’s world, with all our means of getting information, you have absolutely no excuse to remain this ignorant.

Claim:  Obama’s only accomplishment is making schools teach comprehensive sex-ed to kindergarteners - FALSE.

This is what pissed me off on Larry King tonight.  Like the others, this isn’t even open to interpretation:  it’s a flat-out lie.  CBS News has the truth:

The bill, introduced in the Illinois legislature, never became law. It called for non-mandatory sex education for grades K-12 that was “age and developmentally appropriate.” For kindergarteners, that included, among other things, “how to say no to unwanted sexual advances.”

Obama voted for the bill in committee and says he supports similar laws in other states. He said the point was to help parents teach their children how to deal with sexual predators.

Apparently, the pederast lobby is very influential in the Republican party.

The ad itself pisses me off, sure, but the Republicans on the show wouldn’t even concede on principle.  They just kept repeating “it’s not factually incorrect.”  Yes, you fucking lowlife, it is.

As I mentioned on a previous post, the Republicans would be so much more respectable if they’d just admit when they’re being shady bastards.

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The new McCain line of reasoning seems to be,”John McCain is the best candidate because he was bold and chose this bumpkin from Alaska who happens to be popular with our lowest common denominator (the Republican voting base), whereas Barack Obama is a typical politician who chose a seasoned statesman as his running mate.”  That was what one amazingly dull apologist said on Anderson Cooper tonight.  I turned off the TV afterwards because I was about to karate chop it into two half-televisions.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  being a viable political maneuver does not make one qualified to be the Vice President of the United States.   How tacky.

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EDIT–I just checked Ollie’s blog, and he apparently hit two of these points already.  Even used the same CBS link, it looks like.  Whoops.

Palin won’t back off bridge claim, despite criticism

26 minutes ago

LANCASTER, Pennsylvania (AFP) — Sarah Palin refused Tuesday to back off claims that she blocked the much-derided “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, despite mounting criticism that the Republican vice presidential hopeful is exaggerating her history of slashing wasteful spending.

The Alaskan governor has made her rejection of the federally-funded bridge project, which would have linked a handful of Alaskans to an airport at vast expense, a key part of her stump speech, and repeated the line again Tuesday at rallies in Lebanon, Ohio and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“I told Congress thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere up in Alaska. If our state wanted a bridge we were going to build it ourselves,” Palin told the cheering crowds.

Rival Barack Obama’s campaign immediately shot back with an email to reporters highlighting articles in publications such as The Wall Street Journal disputing Palin’s claim of full responsibility for canceling the project, which she initially supported, and noting that she never sent the money back to Washington but instead spent it on other projects.

“On the same day that dozens of news organizations have exposed Governor Palin’s phony bridge to nowhere claim as a ‘naked lie,’ she and John McCain continue to repeat the claim in their stump speeches. Maybe tomorrow she’ll tell us she sold it on eBay,” Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said in the statement.

McCain and his running mate have also come under fire for saying that Palin sold the governor’s private jet on eBay and made a profit. She did try to sell it on eBay but ended up getting rid of it through other channels and at a loss.

Palin continues to tell crowds that she put the jet on eBay when outlining measures she took to cut costs, including firing the personal chef at the governor’s mansion and driving herself to work.

She also fired back at Obama for daring to attack her record on special funding requests.

“Considering his record or earmark spending I was surprised he’d raise the subject. Didn’t think he’d want to go there,” Palin said in Pennsylvania.

“In just three years our opponent has requested nearly one billion dollars in earmarks. That’s nearly a million dollars for every working day” in the Senate, she said as the crowd in Ohio booed.

“So as we reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state, our opponent was requesting nearly a billion dollars in earmarks as a senatorial privilege, as I was vetoing nearly half a billion as an executive responsibility.”

Special funding requests, known as earmarks, are often for projects like roads or hospitals. The money is popular where it is awarded, but the projects have become a hot-button national campaign issue as voters become increasingly frustrated with government spending amid a worsening economy.

While Palin has cut by more than half the amount of special funding Alaska requested from the federal government, Alaska nonetheless still asks for more money per capita than any other state in the nation, according to an analysis in the Anchorage Daily News.

The paper reported that Palin has requested nearly 750 million dollars in earmarks in the two years she has been governor, which equates to about 1,100 dollars per person.

She also hired a lobbyist and travelled to Washington annually while acting as mayor of tiny Wasilla and brought 27 million dollars in earmarks to the town of 8,700, the paper reported.

Obama’s requests total about 932 million in his three years as an Illinois senator, or around 76 dollars per Illinois resident, according to figures his office disclosed.

BJStone is right–just admit you’re lying hypocrites.  We’ll all get along better once you just fess up and admit your scumbaggery… no, really, this is a sincere request. Frankly, I’m starting to feel sorry for you people on the right because the more you deny your sleazy nature, the worse you look.

How about it, Conservatives?

To C.J. Summers and Diane Vespa:  This is what we’re upset about.  Please stop trying to spin the issue.

Hat tip: blueollie.