Forget McCain’s “Fundamentals are Strong” speech, I like Sarah Palin’s “we’ll reform Wall Street” speech. This speech is interesting in that had it been delivered by a Democrat, it would have had credibility. But coming from a Republican?
“Our regulatory system is outdated and needs a complete overhaul. Washington has ignored this.” See what I mean? This would be a great quote coming from someone whose party didn’t control every branch of government for the last eight years. From someone whose party wasn’t primarily responsible for the deregulation of banking and housing markets. From someone whose CAMPAIGN employs the man who, if the housing market were a murder, would be convicted as an accessory (Phil Gramm). From anyone whose party didn’t have ties to Enron. Whose party didn’t inderectly cause the rolling black outs in California and the $5 gas at the pump. And now they want us to believe that they will bring about change. The man whose campaign is run almost entirely by lobbyists, is going to stand up to them when the time comes? Sure. This is further evidence that the McCain campaign believes it can say whatever it wants, truth be damned.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Sarah Palin pt 2
The one thing that strikes me about the RNC in general is how…deluded is not the right word but it’s the first word that comes to mind. I don’t mean they’re insane, delusional. I mean they have the ability to say something and believe it with all their heart, even though all their actions leading up to that point are in direct opposition to the statement.
Guiliani and Romney said some things I seriously could not believe. And they said it with a straight face. Guiliani had the BALLS to claim that Democrats want BIG BROTHER watching you. The party that passed the Patriot Act and still does illegal surveillance on us! Seriously! What’s the emoticon for brain exploding?
I’ll use examples from Palin’s speech, since hers was basically a … let’s use the word hodgepodge…of every other Republican’s speech. Which was nice, because if you missed Rudy or Mittens live, you still were able to hear their speech.
After going through her personal biography, where she makes it seem as though being mayor of a small town and Governor for less than 2 years, qualifies you to be Vice President, she went to the meat of the subject.
[what follows is one of my favorite ways to dissect something: Their words, then mine.]
First, she brought up the “bitterness” thing. “We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
As for my running mate, you can be certain that wherever he goes, and whoever is listening, John McCain is the same man.”
I grant her that John McCain has the same molecules and atoms, no matter who he talks to, but there’s way too much video of McCain saying, “I never said that.”, to one interviewer, while another has video of him actually saying it.
“The right reason [to run for office] is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.”
Obviously they don’t get the news in Alaska, since McCain intends to keep the status quo, and the nation is worse off now than it was 8 years ago.
“I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks," for that Bridge to Nowhere.”
This is widely reported to not be true. She said she was proud of Ted Stevens work and the infrastructure he was bringing (i.e. this bridge to nowhere). That’s Ted Stevens of the “series of tubes” and 7 felony indictments.
“With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus, and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers.
To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies ... or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia ... or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries ... we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.”
Actually this is a great reason not to be using oil and gas at all! And she apparently doesn’t know how the oil system works. Or, she’s exploiting American ignorance for political gain. Pick whichever makes your brain hurt less.
“Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already.”
I’d like to point out that she said this right after everyone was chanting “Drill, baby, Drill”, which I think makes the point that they [republicans] actually do think drilling will solve our problems.
“Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he [Obama] wants to meet them without preconditions.”
Funny, one of the bills Obama sponsored was on loose nukes. And that “preconditions” thing was debunked a long time ago. Anyway, you were saying.
For the next part let me summarize: He’ll raise your taxes. Since she was speaking to a group of rich Republicans, she was probably right. But the Obama plan is mostly for closing loopholes and rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, not to mention taxing windfall profits from oil companies, which all can be considered tax increases, but not on you and me.
“In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers.
And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”
Yes, by voting with their party over 80% of the time (check the Washington post website, it has a great congressional vote page). That’s change you can 20% (or less) believe in.
“Among politicians, there is the idealism of high-flown speechmaking, in which crowds are stirringly summoned to support great things.”
Yeah, you wouldn’t want a crowd of people to support great things.
“Senator McCain's record of actual achievement and reform helps explain why so many special interests, lobbyists, and comfortable committee chairmen…”
work in his campaign!
“…have fought the prospect of a McCain presidency - from the primary election of 2000 to this very day.”
If by fought you mean now support with millions of dollars, then yes again I concede your point.
“He's a man who's there to serve his country, and not just his party.”
Which is why he picked an uber-conservative as a running mate, and embraced Pastor “New Orleans-deserved to drown” and the other “agents of intolerance”.
She ends by talking about McCain’s P.O.W. record. This makes me really angry. What happened to John McCain was horrific and should never happen to anyone. I think the Republican party would agree. So why are they letting the U.S. do the same thing to people who may be guilty of nothing more than being turned in for money. This party with it’s torture survivor should loudly proclaim: The U.S. does not torture! And unlike the current President, actually mean it.
That’s all she had to say, and that’s all the energy I have to write.
So, Darwin bless you! And Random Chance bless, America!
Guiliani and Romney said some things I seriously could not believe. And they said it with a straight face. Guiliani had the BALLS to claim that Democrats want BIG BROTHER watching you. The party that passed the Patriot Act and still does illegal surveillance on us! Seriously! What’s the emoticon for brain exploding?
I’ll use examples from Palin’s speech, since hers was basically a … let’s use the word hodgepodge…of every other Republican’s speech. Which was nice, because if you missed Rudy or Mittens live, you still were able to hear their speech.
After going through her personal biography, where she makes it seem as though being mayor of a small town and Governor for less than 2 years, qualifies you to be Vice President, she went to the meat of the subject.
[what follows is one of my favorite ways to dissect something: Their words, then mine.]
First, she brought up the “bitterness” thing. “We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
As for my running mate, you can be certain that wherever he goes, and whoever is listening, John McCain is the same man.”
I grant her that John McCain has the same molecules and atoms, no matter who he talks to, but there’s way too much video of McCain saying, “I never said that.”, to one interviewer, while another has video of him actually saying it.
“The right reason [to run for office] is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.”
Obviously they don’t get the news in Alaska, since McCain intends to keep the status quo, and the nation is worse off now than it was 8 years ago.
“I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks," for that Bridge to Nowhere.”
This is widely reported to not be true. She said she was proud of Ted Stevens work and the infrastructure he was bringing (i.e. this bridge to nowhere). That’s Ted Stevens of the “series of tubes” and 7 felony indictments.
“With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus, and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers.
To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies ... or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia ... or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries ... we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.”
Actually this is a great reason not to be using oil and gas at all! And she apparently doesn’t know how the oil system works. Or, she’s exploiting American ignorance for political gain. Pick whichever makes your brain hurt less.
“Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already.”
I’d like to point out that she said this right after everyone was chanting “Drill, baby, Drill”, which I think makes the point that they [republicans] actually do think drilling will solve our problems.
“Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he [Obama] wants to meet them without preconditions.”
Funny, one of the bills Obama sponsored was on loose nukes. And that “preconditions” thing was debunked a long time ago. Anyway, you were saying.
For the next part let me summarize: He’ll raise your taxes. Since she was speaking to a group of rich Republicans, she was probably right. But the Obama plan is mostly for closing loopholes and rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, not to mention taxing windfall profits from oil companies, which all can be considered tax increases, but not on you and me.
“In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers.
And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”
Yes, by voting with their party over 80% of the time (check the Washington post website, it has a great congressional vote page). That’s change you can 20% (or less) believe in.
“Among politicians, there is the idealism of high-flown speechmaking, in which crowds are stirringly summoned to support great things.”
Yeah, you wouldn’t want a crowd of people to support great things.
“Senator McCain's record of actual achievement and reform helps explain why so many special interests, lobbyists, and comfortable committee chairmen…”
work in his campaign!
“…have fought the prospect of a McCain presidency - from the primary election of 2000 to this very day.”
If by fought you mean now support with millions of dollars, then yes again I concede your point.
“He's a man who's there to serve his country, and not just his party.”
Which is why he picked an uber-conservative as a running mate, and embraced Pastor “New Orleans-deserved to drown” and the other “agents of intolerance”.
She ends by talking about McCain’s P.O.W. record. This makes me really angry. What happened to John McCain was horrific and should never happen to anyone. I think the Republican party would agree. So why are they letting the U.S. do the same thing to people who may be guilty of nothing more than being turned in for money. This party with it’s torture survivor should loudly proclaim: The U.S. does not torture! And unlike the current President, actually mean it.
That’s all she had to say, and that’s all the energy I have to write.
So, Darwin bless you! And Random Chance bless, America!
Sarah Palin pt 1
I said the McCain camp would cry sexism, and once again my predictions come true sooner than I thought. But that’s not all, they also claim the media is biased, and it’s unfairly attacking them.
This is why I love Chris Matthews. When he’s riled up about something, he will not let it go. He speaks his mind. Just watch that video where he gets upset with Keith Olbermann over a perceived slight. Now Matthews is fighting back about a so-called malicious media.
This segment takes place after Chris Matthews spent his round table discussion talking about whether the McCain campaign intends to keep blaming the media for everything. Here he sends it down to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and asks this question.
[and this is word for word, I spent 20 minutes rewinding to get it just right and my ellipses leave out nothing important]
C. Matthews: Who started this fight: the media, or the ballyhoo boys behind this convention? (ballyhoo boys refers to the Taylor political machine in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Thanks Keith for pointing that out to me),
J. Scarborough: This fight was begun when the media chased rumors on the internet…and were aggressively following a story that just wasn’t true about her fifth child, the child with Down syndrome. That immediately put the campaign on the defensive…[continues]
[after Joe finishes]
Mika: …Everyone’s probably feeling sorry for her about the rumors that have been spread on the internet…
[afterwards]
K. Olbermann: We’ll see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the internet. If that’s the case Sen. Obama is probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him.
This is the perfect illustration of good media bias. Don’t let a political group get away with outright hypocrisy! The truth is Obama has had to deal with the online rumors that he’s a Muslim, that his pastor hates America and so must he, and that both he and Michelle hate white people. They had to start a frakking website to combat these rumors. And if the McCain camp thinks Obama has been getting a free ride, when he kept having to answer questions about bittergate and not wearing a flag pin (both of which by the way the McCain camp thought were perfectly legitimate stories), then I don’t know what media McCain has been watching. Perhaps along with not knowing how to use a computer he hasn’t figured out cable.
The fact that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant is noteworthy because Palin’s an abstinence only advocate. So the story is relevant. Though even I think it should be left alone. But let’s not forget that if this happened to a he’d have to drop out of the race. Yes, I said HE. If instead of Palin it were Sen. Kerry, the right would constantly make reference, if not to the pregnant teen, then to the Liberal ways that caused it. They would keep talking about the permissive ways of liberals and how “this is what happens when you teach kids about condoms, they think it’s ok to have sex out of wedlock.” This wouldn’t be done by the candidates themselves, we’d have Dobson and Focus on the Family condemning them. We’d have the religious right smearing the candidate with whisper campaigns. But since this is the Republican party, every jumps in line. It probably won’t be long before someone mentions that Mary was only 13 when she had Jesus.
I think McCain may have a bit of a maverick streak after all. I think he picked Palin just to see if he could get the party to truly turn on him. “I’m going to pick the most inexperienced person I can find and see how they like it. And then I’m not going to vet her!” If he wanted a woman, we’ve got Kay Hutchinson here in Texas, please take her before she runs for Governor! She’s super conservative and has more legislative experience. But he picked Palin and the Party went with it. “Well, I know we were making all that noise about experience before, but now we’ll talk about ‘executive experience’. “ Never mind that that experience is only 20 months old or that ITS FROM FUCKING ALASKA!
I leave now so that I can save some energy for ripping apart Sarah Palin’s speech.
This is why I love Chris Matthews. When he’s riled up about something, he will not let it go. He speaks his mind. Just watch that video where he gets upset with Keith Olbermann over a perceived slight. Now Matthews is fighting back about a so-called malicious media.
This segment takes place after Chris Matthews spent his round table discussion talking about whether the McCain campaign intends to keep blaming the media for everything. Here he sends it down to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and asks this question.
[and this is word for word, I spent 20 minutes rewinding to get it just right and my ellipses leave out nothing important]
C. Matthews: Who started this fight: the media, or the ballyhoo boys behind this convention? (ballyhoo boys refers to the Taylor political machine in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Thanks Keith for pointing that out to me),
J. Scarborough: This fight was begun when the media chased rumors on the internet…and were aggressively following a story that just wasn’t true about her fifth child, the child with Down syndrome. That immediately put the campaign on the defensive…[continues]
[after Joe finishes]
Mika: …Everyone’s probably feeling sorry for her about the rumors that have been spread on the internet…
[afterwards]
K. Olbermann: We’ll see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the internet. If that’s the case Sen. Obama is probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him.
This is the perfect illustration of good media bias. Don’t let a political group get away with outright hypocrisy! The truth is Obama has had to deal with the online rumors that he’s a Muslim, that his pastor hates America and so must he, and that both he and Michelle hate white people. They had to start a frakking website to combat these rumors. And if the McCain camp thinks Obama has been getting a free ride, when he kept having to answer questions about bittergate and not wearing a flag pin (both of which by the way the McCain camp thought were perfectly legitimate stories), then I don’t know what media McCain has been watching. Perhaps along with not knowing how to use a computer he hasn’t figured out cable.
The fact that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant is noteworthy because Palin’s an abstinence only advocate. So the story is relevant. Though even I think it should be left alone. But let’s not forget that if this happened to a he’d have to drop out of the race. Yes, I said HE. If instead of Palin it were Sen. Kerry, the right would constantly make reference, if not to the pregnant teen, then to the Liberal ways that caused it. They would keep talking about the permissive ways of liberals and how “this is what happens when you teach kids about condoms, they think it’s ok to have sex out of wedlock.” This wouldn’t be done by the candidates themselves, we’d have Dobson and Focus on the Family condemning them. We’d have the religious right smearing the candidate with whisper campaigns. But since this is the Republican party, every jumps in line. It probably won’t be long before someone mentions that Mary was only 13 when she had Jesus.
I think McCain may have a bit of a maverick streak after all. I think he picked Palin just to see if he could get the party to truly turn on him. “I’m going to pick the most inexperienced person I can find and see how they like it. And then I’m not going to vet her!” If he wanted a woman, we’ve got Kay Hutchinson here in Texas, please take her before she runs for Governor! She’s super conservative and has more legislative experience. But he picked Palin and the Party went with it. “Well, I know we were making all that noise about experience before, but now we’ll talk about ‘executive experience’. “ Never mind that that experience is only 20 months old or that ITS FROM FUCKING ALASKA!
I leave now so that I can save some energy for ripping apart Sarah Palin’s speech.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Some questions on Day 1-2 of the RNC
I just wanted to write a quick blog today.
Couple of things
1.Why do Republicans give credit to Bush for “protecting” America since 9/11, but he doesn’t get blamed for allowing it to happen?
2.how does being a former Beauty pageant winner with a BS in communications-journalism even compare to a person who graduated with a J.D. from the Syracuse Univeristy College of Law? Or, Obama who graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard? Who then taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School? Seriously?
3.For that matter, wouldn’t a constitutional law professor do a better job of upholding the constitution, than say anyone else?
4.What’s up with CNN giving better coverage of the Republican Convention than the Democratic Convention? They’ve shown all the patriotic video that the Republicans put on but skipped the same things from the Dems.
5.I heard a woman on MSNBC try to claim that Palin had more executive experience, not only because she was governor, but also because she was a mother! So my mom can run for President, now? Since my mother was a single mom who, with no financial support from our father, managed to help guide two kids to graduate from college, I think my mother is MORE qualified than Sarah Palin to be VP.
Here’s some great videos I wanted to share:
Here’s a speech Palin gave in June, with article from Huffingtonpost. From the intro, I’m not sure if Sarah Palin loves Jesus or is IN LOVE with Jesus.
Huffington post
This is a great clip of Karl Rove Trashing a possible Gov. Kaine choice by Obama for running mate, but now seems perfectly suited to Gov. Palin. Thanks Republican party we can always count on you to make the best argument for why you’re wrong, then forcefully ignore it.
Here’s CNN being a really good network for a change:
Couple of things
1.Why do Republicans give credit to Bush for “protecting” America since 9/11, but he doesn’t get blamed for allowing it to happen?
2.how does being a former Beauty pageant winner with a BS in communications-journalism even compare to a person who graduated with a J.D. from the Syracuse Univeristy College of Law? Or, Obama who graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard? Who then taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School? Seriously?
3.For that matter, wouldn’t a constitutional law professor do a better job of upholding the constitution, than say anyone else?
4.What’s up with CNN giving better coverage of the Republican Convention than the Democratic Convention? They’ve shown all the patriotic video that the Republicans put on but skipped the same things from the Dems.
5.I heard a woman on MSNBC try to claim that Palin had more executive experience, not only because she was governor, but also because she was a mother! So my mom can run for President, now? Since my mother was a single mom who, with no financial support from our father, managed to help guide two kids to graduate from college, I think my mother is MORE qualified than Sarah Palin to be VP.
Here’s some great videos I wanted to share:
Here’s a speech Palin gave in June, with article from Huffingtonpost. From the intro, I’m not sure if Sarah Palin loves Jesus or is IN LOVE with Jesus.
Huffington post
This is a great clip of Karl Rove Trashing a possible Gov. Kaine choice by Obama for running mate, but now seems perfectly suited to Gov. Palin. Thanks Republican party we can always count on you to make the best argument for why you’re wrong, then forcefully ignore it.
Here’s CNN being a really good network for a change:
Monday, September 01, 2008
At least the news slowed down.
Darwin Dammit, you miss one day writing and it spirals outta control. Do I go over Clinton’s speech? Obama’s speech was so moving and strong, I must say something about that. Mr. Obama-has-no-experience, just picked a person even less qualified than he claims Obama is to be his running mate. And now a hurricane is disrupting the Republican convention, just weeks after some guy asked people to pray to make it rain on Obama’s speech. Where does one start?!?
Well, not that anyone would want to politicize a hurricane (I mean that would be as despicable as using one of the most horrific terrorist events in US history to win an election), but the hurricane is working in the Republicans favor. McCain doesn’t want to be associated to much with Bush/Cheney, but how can you have a party convention without your current party’s leadership. Well, now they can’t attend because of the Hurricane. We all remember where the president was when Katrina hit three years ago. And in case you don’t here’s the photo from the White House website.
And while Gustav was no where near the Category 5 Katrina, I expect that the Republicans will still be patting themselves on the back for how well they responded to this crisis. And there is no real way to criticize them. In fact, this is the newest tactic of the McCain campaign: not allowing the media to criticize him.
The media always loved McCain, but now he’s being all crotchety anytime anyone has a legitimate complaint about him. When asked, he forgot how many houses he owned. Now it’s fine to be rich, ordinary people love the rich. They obsess over their lives, and hope one day to be like them. People dream that one day they too, will be able to buy a condo and when it gets used by their kids too much, buy another. But we have a right to claim you’re out of touch with the common man when not only do you buy houses like regular people buy dvds, but also when you claim the “Economy is fundamentally strong” and your economic adviser said we’re in a “mental recession” and called us a “nation of whiners”. We especially have the right to call you on it, if you jumped all over Obama because he said people were “bitter”.
But, instead of responding to the real issues, like why owning multiple houses doesn’t make him out of touch, he copped out and used the POW thing which drowned out the other point he was trying to make.
Had he left out the POW reference and just mentioned that Cindy’s dad was a great American success story, we might have forgiven him. Had he just said, “I want to get America back to that ideal. I want our troops coming home from Iraq to get the opportunity to start their own businesses and give their children and grandchildren the same great life that Cindy and I enjoy.” Of course, McCain couldn’t have said that because he doesn’t even think our soldiers in Iraq deserve a college education or adequate healthcare.
GI Bill roll call list
In fact, on the new GI Bill, 25 senators voted no, and 3 did not vote. All 25 “no” votes were Republicans. Who were the three who did not vote: John McCain, Tom Coburn, and Ted Kennedy. Kennedy had a good excuse, he was recovering from chemo due to his brain tumor, and couldn’t make it. McCain, on the other hand, just didn’t have the courage to vote no!
And now, McCain has picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. It wasn’t enough that McCain use Hillary’s campaign strategies (which lost her the contest, BTW), he had to go and pick a female running mate so he could also play the sexism card! Make no mistake the minute someone starts criticizing Palin on her experience, the McCain camp is going to claim sexism. They’ll be running on sexism and POW. For someone who was running on experience, picking Palin is at best…CRAZY!
There was supposed to be some video here, but I'm not sure what went wrong, but check out comedy central's Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Root of all Evil, for video on Sarah Palin and what I think is the Republican Platform.
Well, not that anyone would want to politicize a hurricane (I mean that would be as despicable as using one of the most horrific terrorist events in US history to win an election), but the hurricane is working in the Republicans favor. McCain doesn’t want to be associated to much with Bush/Cheney, but how can you have a party convention without your current party’s leadership. Well, now they can’t attend because of the Hurricane. We all remember where the president was when Katrina hit three years ago. And in case you don’t here’s the photo from the White House website.
And while Gustav was no where near the Category 5 Katrina, I expect that the Republicans will still be patting themselves on the back for how well they responded to this crisis. And there is no real way to criticize them. In fact, this is the newest tactic of the McCain campaign: not allowing the media to criticize him.
The media always loved McCain, but now he’s being all crotchety anytime anyone has a legitimate complaint about him. When asked, he forgot how many houses he owned. Now it’s fine to be rich, ordinary people love the rich. They obsess over their lives, and hope one day to be like them. People dream that one day they too, will be able to buy a condo and when it gets used by their kids too much, buy another. But we have a right to claim you’re out of touch with the common man when not only do you buy houses like regular people buy dvds, but also when you claim the “Economy is fundamentally strong” and your economic adviser said we’re in a “mental recession” and called us a “nation of whiners”. We especially have the right to call you on it, if you jumped all over Obama because he said people were “bitter”.
But, instead of responding to the real issues, like why owning multiple houses doesn’t make him out of touch, he copped out and used the POW thing which drowned out the other point he was trying to make.
Had he left out the POW reference and just mentioned that Cindy’s dad was a great American success story, we might have forgiven him. Had he just said, “I want to get America back to that ideal. I want our troops coming home from Iraq to get the opportunity to start their own businesses and give their children and grandchildren the same great life that Cindy and I enjoy.” Of course, McCain couldn’t have said that because he doesn’t even think our soldiers in Iraq deserve a college education or adequate healthcare.
GI Bill roll call list
In fact, on the new GI Bill, 25 senators voted no, and 3 did not vote. All 25 “no” votes were Republicans. Who were the three who did not vote: John McCain, Tom Coburn, and Ted Kennedy. Kennedy had a good excuse, he was recovering from chemo due to his brain tumor, and couldn’t make it. McCain, on the other hand, just didn’t have the courage to vote no!
And now, McCain has picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. It wasn’t enough that McCain use Hillary’s campaign strategies (which lost her the contest, BTW), he had to go and pick a female running mate so he could also play the sexism card! Make no mistake the minute someone starts criticizing Palin on her experience, the McCain camp is going to claim sexism. They’ll be running on sexism and POW. For someone who was running on experience, picking Palin is at best…CRAZY!
There was supposed to be some video here, but I'm not sure what went wrong, but check out comedy central's Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Root of all Evil, for video on Sarah Palin and what I think is the Republican Platform.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Day 2 - No way, no how, No McCain!
Hillary supporters once again dominated the news, as well as whether Hillary herself supported Obama. There was much discussion about her speech, before it ever happened. Would she show enough support? The answer it turns out was, Yes!
Hillary gave the speech she needed to give. She wasted almost no time in announcing her support of Barack Obama. “I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.” Any questions?
There did come a moment when I worried she sounded too much like she was campaigning for herself again.
“I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism, didn't have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me to fight for health care.
I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps t-shirt who waited months for medical care and said to me: "Take care of my buddies; a lot of them are still over there….and then will you please help take care of me?"
I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do.”
Then she went on to list why she ran for office. She built this up perfectly. She essentially got all her supporters to think, “Yes, this is why we wanted you as President.” Then Hillary posed the question. The same question asked by many liberals and Democrats to the members of PUMA.
“I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?”
Well, PUMA, were you? Later she points out exactly why no self-respecting supporter of Hillary should support McCain.
“Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend.
He has served our country with honor and courage.
But we don't need four more years . . . of the last eight years.
More economic stagnation …and less affordable health care.
More high gas prices …and less alternative energy.
More jobs getting shipped overseas …and fewer jobs created here.
More skyrocketing debt ...home foreclosures …and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.
More war . . . less diplomacy.
More of a government where the privileged come first …and everyone else comes last.
John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it's okay when women don't earn equal pay for equal work.
With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart. “
In thinking about these PUMAs, I’m reminded of a book I read several years back: Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist. Barabbas is the man whose life was traded for Jesus. Barabbas is set free. Jesus hangs on the cross. Barabbas wants to believe in the Messiah, but struggles throughout the book. In one of the final chapters there is a riot in Rome. People are starting these fires and trying to burn Rome to the ground, Barabbas joins in because he hears people shouting, “It’s the Christians! It’s the Christians!” Barabbas believes it IS the Christians and wants to join their cause. However, it was a Roman plot to blame the Christians as an excuse to arrest as many Christians as they could. He was duped into supporting the enemy.
There have been suggestions that the PUMAs and other organizations like them were started by Republicans to foment division in the Democratic party. After all, many Clinton supporters did say that if Hillary didn’t get the nomination, they would vote for McCain. So it’s in the Republican’s best interest to have division and keep that message out there. Whether they actually did this or not, I don’t know. But if anyone still says they would rather vote for McCain instead of Obama, well after tonight, they can no longer say they support Hillary.
Hillary gave the speech she needed to give. She wasted almost no time in announcing her support of Barack Obama. “I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.” Any questions?
There did come a moment when I worried she sounded too much like she was campaigning for herself again.
“I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism, didn't have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me to fight for health care.
I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps t-shirt who waited months for medical care and said to me: "Take care of my buddies; a lot of them are still over there….and then will you please help take care of me?"
I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do.”
Then she went on to list why she ran for office. She built this up perfectly. She essentially got all her supporters to think, “Yes, this is why we wanted you as President.” Then Hillary posed the question. The same question asked by many liberals and Democrats to the members of PUMA.
“I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?”
Well, PUMA, were you? Later she points out exactly why no self-respecting supporter of Hillary should support McCain.
“Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend.
He has served our country with honor and courage.
But we don't need four more years . . . of the last eight years.
More economic stagnation …and less affordable health care.
More high gas prices …and less alternative energy.
More jobs getting shipped overseas …and fewer jobs created here.
More skyrocketing debt ...home foreclosures …and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.
More war . . . less diplomacy.
More of a government where the privileged come first …and everyone else comes last.
John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it's okay when women don't earn equal pay for equal work.
With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart. “
In thinking about these PUMAs, I’m reminded of a book I read several years back: Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist. Barabbas is the man whose life was traded for Jesus. Barabbas is set free. Jesus hangs on the cross. Barabbas wants to believe in the Messiah, but struggles throughout the book. In one of the final chapters there is a riot in Rome. People are starting these fires and trying to burn Rome to the ground, Barabbas joins in because he hears people shouting, “It’s the Christians! It’s the Christians!” Barabbas believes it IS the Christians and wants to join their cause. However, it was a Roman plot to blame the Christians as an excuse to arrest as many Christians as they could. He was duped into supporting the enemy.
There have been suggestions that the PUMAs and other organizations like them were started by Republicans to foment division in the Democratic party. After all, many Clinton supporters did say that if Hillary didn’t get the nomination, they would vote for McCain. So it’s in the Republican’s best interest to have division and keep that message out there. Whether they actually did this or not, I don’t know. But if anyone still says they would rather vote for McCain instead of Obama, well after tonight, they can no longer say they support Hillary.
DNC convention day 1
I love watching the convention coverage. I love watching the way the different networks cover the same thing. PBS definitely has the most unbiased coverage. One thing I wanted to talk about on this first day of the convention: Hillary Clinton Supporters.
On MSNBC, the most liberal of news networks, the primary question asked over and over again was about PUMA (Party Unity My Ass, no seriously this is what it stands for) a group that refuses to support Obama, because they love Hillary so much. Every person was asked, “Do you think Obama can win over these Clinton holdouts?” The answer is, “NO”. No one said this, of course, but it’s true. Die hard Nader supporters continued to support him, even though voting for him meant a better chance of Bush being re-elected. Why? Because they’re zealots, fanatics. I don’t mean this as a bad thing. If you’re so passionate about something, or someone, you should support it no matter what. What I don’t understand are the people who say they’re going to vote for John McCain.
Let me get this straight: You loved Hillary because she was a woman, was fighting for health care, women’s issues, helping the middle class and a change from the last eight years. But because she didn’t get the nomination, you’re going to vote for an old white man, who doesn’t believe in health care for all, is stridently pro-life, has voted against giving equal pay to women, wants more tax cuts for the rich, and all but promises to continue Bush’s policies for at least the next four years. I know it’s not politically correct to say so but…THAT’S RETARDED! Rachel Maddow, my 2nd favorite Rachel, put it better when she said it was “Post-rational”. To put it even another way, “it makes the kind of sense, that’s non”
As an American, you have the right to vote however you want. But there was a gay man who said if Hillary didn’t get the nomination he was voting for John McCain. The same McCain who doesn’t believe gay people should be able to adopt a child. With the possibility that the next President will nominate a Supreme Court Justice, do you really want to risk giving McCain that power. Gay Marriage is still a state by state affair, Roe v. Wade is hanging in the balance, why risk it if you think these issues are important? Unless you don’t really care about issues and just picked someone you wanted to win. Now, like a petulant child you’re going to flip over the chess board, because you lost. You don’t have to support Obama, you don’t even have to vote for him, but if you care a lick about politics then voting against your own views is stupid. There is no other way to put it.
Though I have to say, if there was ever a chance that Hillary Voters could be won, it was tonight. Michelle Obama gave a moving speech. She brought tears to many women’s eyes. Her speech essentially said, if you’re looking for a strong, smart woman, here I am. If you want a woman who shares your values, here I am. Michelle essentially showed herself to be Hillary 2.0. Educated. Strong. A mother and a lawyer. A wife and an equal. We know you wanted Hillary, but could we interest you in a Michelle? Of course, we’re dealing with fanatics and no amount of logic will change their minds. I just had to join with Chris Matthews in showing my exasperation at these people.
On MSNBC, the most liberal of news networks, the primary question asked over and over again was about PUMA (Party Unity My Ass, no seriously this is what it stands for) a group that refuses to support Obama, because they love Hillary so much. Every person was asked, “Do you think Obama can win over these Clinton holdouts?” The answer is, “NO”. No one said this, of course, but it’s true. Die hard Nader supporters continued to support him, even though voting for him meant a better chance of Bush being re-elected. Why? Because they’re zealots, fanatics. I don’t mean this as a bad thing. If you’re so passionate about something, or someone, you should support it no matter what. What I don’t understand are the people who say they’re going to vote for John McCain.
Let me get this straight: You loved Hillary because she was a woman, was fighting for health care, women’s issues, helping the middle class and a change from the last eight years. But because she didn’t get the nomination, you’re going to vote for an old white man, who doesn’t believe in health care for all, is stridently pro-life, has voted against giving equal pay to women, wants more tax cuts for the rich, and all but promises to continue Bush’s policies for at least the next four years. I know it’s not politically correct to say so but…THAT’S RETARDED! Rachel Maddow, my 2nd favorite Rachel, put it better when she said it was “Post-rational”. To put it even another way, “it makes the kind of sense, that’s non”
As an American, you have the right to vote however you want. But there was a gay man who said if Hillary didn’t get the nomination he was voting for John McCain. The same McCain who doesn’t believe gay people should be able to adopt a child. With the possibility that the next President will nominate a Supreme Court Justice, do you really want to risk giving McCain that power. Gay Marriage is still a state by state affair, Roe v. Wade is hanging in the balance, why risk it if you think these issues are important? Unless you don’t really care about issues and just picked someone you wanted to win. Now, like a petulant child you’re going to flip over the chess board, because you lost. You don’t have to support Obama, you don’t even have to vote for him, but if you care a lick about politics then voting against your own views is stupid. There is no other way to put it.
Though I have to say, if there was ever a chance that Hillary Voters could be won, it was tonight. Michelle Obama gave a moving speech. She brought tears to many women’s eyes. Her speech essentially said, if you’re looking for a strong, smart woman, here I am. If you want a woman who shares your values, here I am. Michelle essentially showed herself to be Hillary 2.0. Educated. Strong. A mother and a lawyer. A wife and an equal. We know you wanted Hillary, but could we interest you in a Michelle? Of course, we’re dealing with fanatics and no amount of logic will change their minds. I just had to join with Chris Matthews in showing my exasperation at these people.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Saddleback Church Civil Forum Notes
There were many people who didn’t want Obama to attend the Saddleback Civil Forum. They felt he was pandering to the religious right by doing so. From a political point of view, both needed to come here. McCain has problems with Evangelicals, which are a Republican mainstay. Obama still has people who think he’s a Muslim, even though his Reverend spent nearly 4 weeks in the news. Reaching out to religious voters was what they both wanted. What I don’t think anyone would have expected was that the questions, while maybe a little more faith based, were more hard hitting than the ones George Stephanaplous asked during the Obama-Clinton debate. This forum gave you a good view of who these candidates really were.
Now as to who did better, I recommend you go online and find the video for yourself. To quote Obama Girl, “I’m in love with Obama”. I love to hear him speak. He’s thoughtful, articulate, intellectual and I feel he’s actually trying to answer a question as opposed to just telling me what I want to hear. I say this in general, but it was more apparent in this forum, where John McCain seemed to use each question to launch into his talking points. Oh, and mention his service and POW record. Now, I don’t want to diminish the great sacrifice he made for our country. For that matter, let me be clear that I respected John McCain for many years. In 2000, if he had been running against Al Gore…well, I still wouldn’t have voted for him, but I would have felt o.k. had he won. He had integrity. I say had, because you can’t tell it from his current campaign. He says whatever he thinks you want to hear. He panders. He’s abandoned everything he once stood for. McCain-Feingold was legislation he cosponsored that was supposed to reform campaign finance. And now that he’s running for President, he’s using loopholes in his own bill and has a staff filled with lobbyists. But this is a huge digression, back to the Civil Forum.
As I was saying, McCain seemed like he was pandering. Every question asked had an obvious, “this crowd will love it” answer. For instance, if you were asked what your favorite city is, the answer is always the city you’re in. Rick Warren didn’t ask one this simple, but they were close. Abortion, stem cell research, funding faith based programs: these are no-brainers. Mr. Maverick answered each of these exactly as you would expect a politician who abandoned his principles to answer: Abortion-no, stem cell research-no, funding faith based programs-yes. You’re such a maverick!
How did Obama answer? Well, first he answered with nuance. Which means he’ll get creamed in the pundit world. On abortion he did state he was Pro-choice. He actually said “pro-choice”. I almost cheered. No politician ever uses those words, they always skirt around the issue with they’re “against abortion”(these are sarcastic quotes, since they’re really pro-choice) “unless it would endanger the health of the mother, or in instances of rape” These are the only two times politicians will say they are o.k. with abortion. Not Obama, he said that women don’t make this decision lightly and that if we want to reduce abortions, why don’t we do more to help women. How about better health care, health insurance, better jobs, make it easier for women if they want to put the child up for adoption. He didn’t mention better sex education and access to birth control, but I’ll forgive him that. Still his was a tough answer to give when talking to a Minister who phrased the question, when does a baby have rights?
On the issue of marriage, Obama did disappoint me by saying marriage is defined as between one man and one woman, and then bringing up civil unions. I’ve mentioned before that I think it’s ridiculous to use the term civil union, since I can get married and I’m an atheist. My catholic church wouldn’t recognize my marriage(back when I was catholic), because it was done by a justice of the peace. But the state did. That’s all that matters. If a church doesn’t want to recognize gay marriages, they don’t have to. But until atheist marriages are called civil unions, gay marriages should be called marriages. And the church has no say in what the state or federal government decides to call a marriage. Unless we want to consider all divorced couples who remarry civil unions (since the catholic church doesn’t allow divorce) we should allow the people to decide what marriage is.
Aside from that one issue, I think Obama did a great job. When talking about religious persecution (esp., China), he mentioned that we have a difficult time talking tough to China, since we owe them so much money. He also mentioned that we have ceded the moral high ground a little since we aren’t following the rule of law and have used torture. Essentially saying that the world would view us as hypocrites if we were to demand another country stop violating Human rights or international law, since we are doing that very thing.
Finally, in a question that was loaded and obviously tilted against him, he didn’t back down and go for the easy answer. “Do you believe there is evil, and would you…confront it, negotiate with it, or defeat it?” Negotiate with it? If this wasn’t a jab at Obama, I don’t know what is. But Obama answered it beautifully. He said he believed there was evil, but that he believed we must show humility in dealing with it. He warned that too many run the risk of doing evil things in their efforts to combat evil. My mind immediately went to the horrors of Guantanamo Bay and the poor innocent people whose rights we’ve violated all in the name of keeping our country safe. Whose lives are forever shattered by our misguided attempts to deal with terrorism. I don’t know if this is what he meant to invoke or if he was speaking more generally of things like the Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, or even Al-Qaeda. But that’s what it evoked for me. Yes, Obama believes there is evil in the world, and that we should combat it, but we must make sure that when trying to destroy a monster, we don’t become monsters ourselves.
He said what he believed in a forum where it wouldn’t be popular. I believe that’s the mark of a leader. This is the man I want as President of the United States.
Now as to who did better, I recommend you go online and find the video for yourself. To quote Obama Girl, “I’m in love with Obama”. I love to hear him speak. He’s thoughtful, articulate, intellectual and I feel he’s actually trying to answer a question as opposed to just telling me what I want to hear. I say this in general, but it was more apparent in this forum, where John McCain seemed to use each question to launch into his talking points. Oh, and mention his service and POW record. Now, I don’t want to diminish the great sacrifice he made for our country. For that matter, let me be clear that I respected John McCain for many years. In 2000, if he had been running against Al Gore…well, I still wouldn’t have voted for him, but I would have felt o.k. had he won. He had integrity. I say had, because you can’t tell it from his current campaign. He says whatever he thinks you want to hear. He panders. He’s abandoned everything he once stood for. McCain-Feingold was legislation he cosponsored that was supposed to reform campaign finance. And now that he’s running for President, he’s using loopholes in his own bill and has a staff filled with lobbyists. But this is a huge digression, back to the Civil Forum.
As I was saying, McCain seemed like he was pandering. Every question asked had an obvious, “this crowd will love it” answer. For instance, if you were asked what your favorite city is, the answer is always the city you’re in. Rick Warren didn’t ask one this simple, but they were close. Abortion, stem cell research, funding faith based programs: these are no-brainers. Mr. Maverick answered each of these exactly as you would expect a politician who abandoned his principles to answer: Abortion-no, stem cell research-no, funding faith based programs-yes. You’re such a maverick!
How did Obama answer? Well, first he answered with nuance. Which means he’ll get creamed in the pundit world. On abortion he did state he was Pro-choice. He actually said “pro-choice”. I almost cheered. No politician ever uses those words, they always skirt around the issue with they’re “against abortion”(these are sarcastic quotes, since they’re really pro-choice) “unless it would endanger the health of the mother, or in instances of rape” These are the only two times politicians will say they are o.k. with abortion. Not Obama, he said that women don’t make this decision lightly and that if we want to reduce abortions, why don’t we do more to help women. How about better health care, health insurance, better jobs, make it easier for women if they want to put the child up for adoption. He didn’t mention better sex education and access to birth control, but I’ll forgive him that. Still his was a tough answer to give when talking to a Minister who phrased the question, when does a baby have rights?
On the issue of marriage, Obama did disappoint me by saying marriage is defined as between one man and one woman, and then bringing up civil unions. I’ve mentioned before that I think it’s ridiculous to use the term civil union, since I can get married and I’m an atheist. My catholic church wouldn’t recognize my marriage(back when I was catholic), because it was done by a justice of the peace. But the state did. That’s all that matters. If a church doesn’t want to recognize gay marriages, they don’t have to. But until atheist marriages are called civil unions, gay marriages should be called marriages. And the church has no say in what the state or federal government decides to call a marriage. Unless we want to consider all divorced couples who remarry civil unions (since the catholic church doesn’t allow divorce) we should allow the people to decide what marriage is.
Aside from that one issue, I think Obama did a great job. When talking about religious persecution (esp., China), he mentioned that we have a difficult time talking tough to China, since we owe them so much money. He also mentioned that we have ceded the moral high ground a little since we aren’t following the rule of law and have used torture. Essentially saying that the world would view us as hypocrites if we were to demand another country stop violating Human rights or international law, since we are doing that very thing.
Finally, in a question that was loaded and obviously tilted against him, he didn’t back down and go for the easy answer. “Do you believe there is evil, and would you…confront it, negotiate with it, or defeat it?” Negotiate with it? If this wasn’t a jab at Obama, I don’t know what is. But Obama answered it beautifully. He said he believed there was evil, but that he believed we must show humility in dealing with it. He warned that too many run the risk of doing evil things in their efforts to combat evil. My mind immediately went to the horrors of Guantanamo Bay and the poor innocent people whose rights we’ve violated all in the name of keeping our country safe. Whose lives are forever shattered by our misguided attempts to deal with terrorism. I don’t know if this is what he meant to invoke or if he was speaking more generally of things like the Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, or even Al-Qaeda. But that’s what it evoked for me. Yes, Obama believes there is evil in the world, and that we should combat it, but we must make sure that when trying to destroy a monster, we don’t become monsters ourselves.
He said what he believed in a forum where it wouldn’t be popular. I believe that’s the mark of a leader. This is the man I want as President of the United States.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Fair and Balanced
Fair and balanced
My favorite commentator, Rachel Maddow, brought up something that is very near my heart this week: the false idea of balance in journalism. Rachel was commenting on how McCain, and his surrogates, are able to say things about Barack Obama. The media then picks up McCain’s (or surrogates) comments and asks Obama to respond. The media considers this balance. The media, however, never asks if the original comment was even true.
Why doesn’t the media just call something a lie or at the very least wrong. If a person were to go on the air and say that Dallas was the capital of Texas, he would be corrected. If said person were to also claim he was an expert on Texas, he would be laughed off camera. You would not bring in people from Dallas and ask them if they were indeed the capital of Texas. You would not have a debate between Austin and Dallas! This however is how our media treats everything.
When I was a junior in High School, I had a teacher who, when preparing us for the Texas achievement tests (whose name I can’t remember because it’s gone through so many variations) explained a simple fact about writing a paper defending an opinion: facts are facts, opinions are opinions. This seems simple, but apparently isn’t. Who’s the player who scored the most touchdowns in a game? This is a simple fact. Who’s the greatest player to ever play football? This would be an opinion.
Let’s take these last two questions. As to who holds the record for most touchdowns in a game the answer is Ernie Nevers, Dub Jones, and Gale Sayers each tied with 6. That is a fact. Anyone can look it up. Now who’s the greatest player in football? That’s arguable, but even the argument has to be based on facts. If I were to claim the greatest player was Jerry Rice, I would have several facts I could point to in order to back up my opinion. Rice holds career records in touchdowns, receptions and receiving yards. So those would be evidence in his favor. However, if I claimed that he held the record for most touchdowns in his rookie season or that one of the teams he played for was Houston, I would be told that I’m wrong and my ability to participate in this debate would be called into question. In fact, people probably wouldn’t listen to me at all. I would never be allowed to comment on ESPN ever again. But that’s o.k. because I can just go into politics where facts don’t matter.
Now lets use this same analysis on John McCain. McCain claims he has better foreign policy experience than Obama, however, McCain recently mentioned Czechoslovakia as if that country still exists, confused Sunni and Shia, claimed Iraq shared a border with Pakistan, and claimed Iran was training Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Each of these items is a fact that can easily be verified and checked.
Czechoslovakia split in 1993, 15 years ago, and became the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Sunni’s are a religious minority in Iraq that held power there until the US invasion and routinely persecuted the Shia’s. Much of the fighting we see in Iraq is between the Shia and Sunnis. The reason Iran couldn’t be training Al-Qaeda in Iraq was because Iran is Shi’ite and Al-Qaeda is Sunni. And finally Iraq and Pakistan do share a border and it’s called Iran, much like Mexico and Canada share a border called America.
Now if I were on CNN and made these mistakes, no one would take my opinions seriously, however McCain is still a presidential candidate. In fact, Obama still receives more criticism of his foreign policy than does McCain. Hell, Obama receives more criticism than McCain does period.
Now what about a political opinion? Say gas tax holidays or drilling for oil? These things are opinions, but what about the facts behind them. The gas tax holiday would’ve saved no more than .18 a gallon and that money would be taken from government money that goes to support bridges and highways. Which is important, since we just passed the year anniversary of the I 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Which could have been prevented had we had more funding, not less.
And drilling for oil? One of the big myths, or non-facts, being put out by republicans is that we need to drill for more oil and stop getting our oil from foreign sources. The problem with this is, like many lies, is it operates on the fact that you and I don’t understand how the system works. You see, even if we drilled for more oil here in America, and that oil was available tomorrow. It doesn’t just come straight to us. It goes on the world market and we have to buy it back. And since our oil industry isn’t nationalized the money from selling that oil goes to Exxon or whoever drilled for it. And since there are such big loopholes in tax policy, not to mention tax breaks for oil companies, they make lots of money and we keep paying. And, of course, in reality the oil we started drilling for today wouldn’t even go to market for almost 10 years and we might not see price effects till 2030.
And another thing we don’t understand about the oil market is that the price of gas is so high, because our dollar is so weak. If oil were traded in Euros, gas would be cheaper. But since the dollar is currently worth .6 euros or .5 pounds you have to mark it up just to get a fair price. If you want to get 1 euro you need essentially 2 dollars. So if gas were traded in Euros, the cost for gas would probably be only $75 dollars a barrel right now, and our gas would be a lot cheaper. Of course, if trading were to change over to Euros now, it would crash the American dollar. And if you thought times were bad now, that would be worse.
Once again, these are facts that can be looked up and verified. The journalist shouldn’t bring in opposing viewpoints as if these opinions had actual merit, but ask these questions themselves. If a statement doesn’t pass a fact-check, it shouldn’t be presented as such.
A small list of websites I visited to write this. Not by any means comprehensive but ones that had the most concentration of points I made.
On media bias towards candidates
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-onthemedia27-2008jul27,0,712999.story.
For a short history of the gasoline tax.
http://www.artba.org/economics_research/reports/gas_tax_history.htm
For a short article on the correlation between dollar and oil
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/11/b258795.html
For info on off shore drilling (it’s an editorial, I know, but it presents the case clearest)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/opinion/19thu1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
I also used Wikipedia and ESPN.com for my research on football. Also, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann’s programs were used as performance enhancers in the writing of this.
My favorite commentator, Rachel Maddow, brought up something that is very near my heart this week: the false idea of balance in journalism. Rachel was commenting on how McCain, and his surrogates, are able to say things about Barack Obama. The media then picks up McCain’s (or surrogates) comments and asks Obama to respond. The media considers this balance. The media, however, never asks if the original comment was even true.
Why doesn’t the media just call something a lie or at the very least wrong. If a person were to go on the air and say that Dallas was the capital of Texas, he would be corrected. If said person were to also claim he was an expert on Texas, he would be laughed off camera. You would not bring in people from Dallas and ask them if they were indeed the capital of Texas. You would not have a debate between Austin and Dallas! This however is how our media treats everything.
When I was a junior in High School, I had a teacher who, when preparing us for the Texas achievement tests (whose name I can’t remember because it’s gone through so many variations) explained a simple fact about writing a paper defending an opinion: facts are facts, opinions are opinions. This seems simple, but apparently isn’t. Who’s the player who scored the most touchdowns in a game? This is a simple fact. Who’s the greatest player to ever play football? This would be an opinion.
Let’s take these last two questions. As to who holds the record for most touchdowns in a game the answer is Ernie Nevers, Dub Jones, and Gale Sayers each tied with 6. That is a fact. Anyone can look it up. Now who’s the greatest player in football? That’s arguable, but even the argument has to be based on facts. If I were to claim the greatest player was Jerry Rice, I would have several facts I could point to in order to back up my opinion. Rice holds career records in touchdowns, receptions and receiving yards. So those would be evidence in his favor. However, if I claimed that he held the record for most touchdowns in his rookie season or that one of the teams he played for was Houston, I would be told that I’m wrong and my ability to participate in this debate would be called into question. In fact, people probably wouldn’t listen to me at all. I would never be allowed to comment on ESPN ever again. But that’s o.k. because I can just go into politics where facts don’t matter.
Now lets use this same analysis on John McCain. McCain claims he has better foreign policy experience than Obama, however, McCain recently mentioned Czechoslovakia as if that country still exists, confused Sunni and Shia, claimed Iraq shared a border with Pakistan, and claimed Iran was training Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Each of these items is a fact that can easily be verified and checked.
Czechoslovakia split in 1993, 15 years ago, and became the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Sunni’s are a religious minority in Iraq that held power there until the US invasion and routinely persecuted the Shia’s. Much of the fighting we see in Iraq is between the Shia and Sunnis. The reason Iran couldn’t be training Al-Qaeda in Iraq was because Iran is Shi’ite and Al-Qaeda is Sunni. And finally Iraq and Pakistan do share a border and it’s called Iran, much like Mexico and Canada share a border called America.
Now if I were on CNN and made these mistakes, no one would take my opinions seriously, however McCain is still a presidential candidate. In fact, Obama still receives more criticism of his foreign policy than does McCain. Hell, Obama receives more criticism than McCain does period.
Now what about a political opinion? Say gas tax holidays or drilling for oil? These things are opinions, but what about the facts behind them. The gas tax holiday would’ve saved no more than .18 a gallon and that money would be taken from government money that goes to support bridges and highways. Which is important, since we just passed the year anniversary of the I 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Which could have been prevented had we had more funding, not less.
And drilling for oil? One of the big myths, or non-facts, being put out by republicans is that we need to drill for more oil and stop getting our oil from foreign sources. The problem with this is, like many lies, is it operates on the fact that you and I don’t understand how the system works. You see, even if we drilled for more oil here in America, and that oil was available tomorrow. It doesn’t just come straight to us. It goes on the world market and we have to buy it back. And since our oil industry isn’t nationalized the money from selling that oil goes to Exxon or whoever drilled for it. And since there are such big loopholes in tax policy, not to mention tax breaks for oil companies, they make lots of money and we keep paying. And, of course, in reality the oil we started drilling for today wouldn’t even go to market for almost 10 years and we might not see price effects till 2030.
And another thing we don’t understand about the oil market is that the price of gas is so high, because our dollar is so weak. If oil were traded in Euros, gas would be cheaper. But since the dollar is currently worth .6 euros or .5 pounds you have to mark it up just to get a fair price. If you want to get 1 euro you need essentially 2 dollars. So if gas were traded in Euros, the cost for gas would probably be only $75 dollars a barrel right now, and our gas would be a lot cheaper. Of course, if trading were to change over to Euros now, it would crash the American dollar. And if you thought times were bad now, that would be worse.
Once again, these are facts that can be looked up and verified. The journalist shouldn’t bring in opposing viewpoints as if these opinions had actual merit, but ask these questions themselves. If a statement doesn’t pass a fact-check, it shouldn’t be presented as such.
A small list of websites I visited to write this. Not by any means comprehensive but ones that had the most concentration of points I made.
On media bias towards candidates
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-onthemedia27-2008jul27,0,712999.story.
For a short history of the gasoline tax.
http://www.artba.org/economics_research/reports/gas_tax_history.htm
For a short article on the correlation between dollar and oil
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/11/b258795.html
For info on off shore drilling (it’s an editorial, I know, but it presents the case clearest)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/opinion/19thu1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
I also used Wikipedia and ESPN.com for my research on football. Also, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann’s programs were used as performance enhancers in the writing of this.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Iran pt 2...or how the Republicans learned Obama was right!
OK. In my last blog I posited that there would be future headlines about what Iran would get from the US in response to it's show of force. I didn't think it would come so soon.
Today, the Undersecretary of State William Burns sat in on negotiations, sorry not negotiations, MEETINGS. After all negotiating with Iran would be appeasement like what Great Britain did to Hitler before the second world war, or so our President said. So the undersecretary is going to these "meetings" and reiterating our demand that Iran halt it's nuclear program…in exchange for not passing further sanctions against Iran. I know that sounds an awful lot like negotiations: You give me X and I'll give you Y. But it's not, because the President said so.
Of course, the talks did not achieve what the West hoped, but they will speak again in two weeks. (ap wire report)
Also, the US has moved ahead with plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran, something we haven't had since 1979. This is a precursor to reopening an Embassy there. Wow! That was quick. (Guardian UK)
So when Obama suggested that we meet with Iran, it was appeasement. He was an appeaser! Now the Bush Administration has shifted to Obama's position. Of course, this won't keep them from calling Obama an appeaser. Conservatives have never had a problem keeping two conflicting ideas in their heads and thinking both are true.
..
But if they decide not to seem all hypocritical, they could just go after him on his plan for troop withdrawal. Oops! No turns out the Administration is planning for a "time horizon" for "aspirational goals". You know, a timeline for troop withdrawal. So once again the administration shifts Obama's way. And like your significant other when they discover you were right in an argument and don't want to give you the satisfaction of admitting it, they've gone to calling it something different. And quibbling over semantics. From wikipedia: A time horizon, also known as a planning horizon, is a fixed point of time in the future at which point certain processes will be evaluated or assumed to end. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_horizon). That sounds a lot like what we've been calling a timeline. But you say potato, I say bring our troops home.
This is why it's great to have a candidate who doesn't waver on his talking points, it's easier to show you were right when you keep saying the same thing over and over again. It also helps to be actually BE right.
So the administration is now in moved towards Obama on talking to Iran, and moved towards Obama on setting a timeline in Iraq. So why would you vote for McCain?
Today, the Undersecretary of State William Burns sat in on negotiations, sorry not negotiations, MEETINGS. After all negotiating with Iran would be appeasement like what Great Britain did to Hitler before the second world war, or so our President said. So the undersecretary is going to these "meetings" and reiterating our demand that Iran halt it's nuclear program…in exchange for not passing further sanctions against Iran. I know that sounds an awful lot like negotiations: You give me X and I'll give you Y. But it's not, because the President said so.
Of course, the talks did not achieve what the West hoped, but they will speak again in two weeks. (ap wire report)
Also, the US has moved ahead with plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran, something we haven't had since 1979. This is a precursor to reopening an Embassy there. Wow! That was quick. (Guardian UK)
So when Obama suggested that we meet with Iran, it was appeasement. He was an appeaser! Now the Bush Administration has shifted to Obama's position. Of course, this won't keep them from calling Obama an appeaser. Conservatives have never had a problem keeping two conflicting ideas in their heads and thinking both are true.
..
But if they decide not to seem all hypocritical, they could just go after him on his plan for troop withdrawal. Oops! No turns out the Administration is planning for a "time horizon" for "aspirational goals". You know, a timeline for troop withdrawal. So once again the administration shifts Obama's way. And like your significant other when they discover you were right in an argument and don't want to give you the satisfaction of admitting it, they've gone to calling it something different. And quibbling over semantics. From wikipedia: A time horizon, also known as a planning horizon, is a fixed point of time in the future at which point certain processes will be evaluated or assumed to end. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_horizon). That sounds a lot like what we've been calling a timeline. But you say potato, I say bring our troops home.
This is why it's great to have a candidate who doesn't waver on his talking points, it's easier to show you were right when you keep saying the same thing over and over again. It also helps to be actually BE right.
So the administration is now in moved towards Obama on talking to Iran, and moved towards Obama on setting a timeline in Iraq. So why would you vote for McCain?
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Those who don’t something, something history, something… it’s probably not important.
Talk about history repeating itself. Two years ago almost to the day (7/5/2006), North Korea test fired some missiles as a show of force. One aimed, though it fell far short, at Hawaii.
(source: CNN )
and here’s what the government said about it:
The United States strongly condemns North Korea's decision to defy international calls for restraint and proceed with the test launch of a series of ballistic missiles
"This provocative act violates a standing moratorium on missile tests to which the North had previously committed," the statement said. "Regardless of whether the series of launches occurred as North Korea planned, they nevertheless demonstrate North Korea's intent to intimidate other states by developing missiles of increasingly longer ranges."
(source: press release us embassy in Japan)
In fact, when North Korea was talking about doing missile tests we stepped up diplomacy in the months before and after. In fact, I blogged about it because it was strange we took this tact when we didn’t with Saddam, and even back then they were talking about regime change in Iran: ( my blog)
And that was a month before the actual tests.
The point is all this has happened before and it worked out pretty well for N. Korea:
We lifted the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to N. Korea, even though the president criticizes them pretty badly in his statement, why should they care, they get trade. (source: White House Press Release)
So, if we follow the steps:
- North Korea has a nuclear program
-
- North Korea test fires a missile
-
- US talks tough
-
- US opens talks with North Korea and lifts sanctions.
NOW:
- Iran has a nuclear program
-
- Iran test fires a missile
- US talks tough
- Therefore, …(waiting for article to be published later this year)
A child seeing another child getting attention for acting out, then he or she would also act out. It’s the way humans are. Can anyone blame Iran for what they’re doing? For that matter, considering how much the Republican party and it’s nominee talk about attacking (bomb, bomb, bomb) Iran, who could blame them for giving a show of force.
Granted Iran is run by a crazy person who thinks Israel doesn’t deserve to exist, and would be fine with all Jews dying. He’s not a person we want in charge of a powerful country, much less one with a nuke, so the sooner he’s gone, the better. But another occupation is not the answer.
I agree with the aggressive diplomacy Barack suggests. The surest way to ensure that Iran attacks someone, is to give them no other choice but to do so. Apparently talks worked with N. Korea (e.g.: we’re not at war). So why won’t it work with Iran? The best way to get people to embrace democracy, is to show them it’s not going to kill them. Literally.
Add avoiding war with Iran to the growing list of reasons not to vote for McCain.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
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