A political random thought
 

The most romantic display of 2008, :luv::wub::makeout: the media and Obama:makeout: :wub::luv:

Here is a summary of the American media through November : Democrats are good, Republicans are evil. Be sure and tune in to the major networks every evening for your daily programming.


I'm a Libertarian so attacking McCain in response to the statement above won't bother me at all.



:think:

Re: A political random thought
 

hmm..interesting....

Re: A political random thought
 

The media is also ignoring Obamas relationship with a terrorist William Ayers. They are associates. Obama's career was launched in this guy's house! This guy was one of Obama's mentors, taught him the ins and outs of radicalism as authored by Saul Alinsky. "The relationship between Ayers and Obama is much deeper and longer than Obama admits. They ... were partners in various entities and regularly exchanged ideas, including," according to Investor's Business Daily, "how to turn Chicago schools into re-education camps to create a generation of social revolutionaries." That's who Bill Ayers is, and he is unrepentant. And this is who Obama worked with on education.

"One of Ayer's descriptions for a course" that he and Obama designed and worked on is "called 'Improving Learning Environments'," and here's the description: "Prospective K-12 teachers need to 'be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and ... be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation. Now, Stanley Kurtz writes for National Review Online. He's a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a Harvard-educated social anthropologist who frequently does contribute to National Review and some other publications. He is widely respected.

His research is meticulous, and he has been doing for months the job the mainstream media refuses to do, and that is examine the background and the public records of Obama to try to find out what's there. He specifically is looking into his relationship with Bill Ayers -- and he has found some documents in Chicago that give some details that shine the light on the lie that Obama barely knows Ayers. "He's just a guy in my neighborhood." It's clear that Obama does not want people to know how close he is to Bill Ayers. So, the Saul Alinsky-inspired Obama campaign has engaged in a brutal sleaze and smear tactic. The Obama machine is now going after Stanley Kurtz, who is just looking into this. He was on a Chicago radio station WGN, and the phone lines were flooded and the e-mails came in, and call after call after call came in denouncing Kurtz.

"Kurtz needs to stop this. We just want this to stop." The callers were robots. They were reading an e-mail that the Obama campaign had sent out and those that got through were just reading e-mails. We just want it to stop. The host said, "What has Mr. Kurtz said that's not true here tonight?" and they would not respond 'cause they couldn't respond. They just said, "We want it to stop. The criticism of Obama is just not what we want to hear as Americans," and these people were racing through their script, and they echoed the campaign insistence that it was Rosenberg, the host, who was lowering the standards of political discourse by having Stanley Kurtz on the air.When asked, "What's wrong?" when asked, "What's inaccurate?" when asked, "Well, what's Mr. Kurtz saying here that's incorrect?" they don't answer it. They read from the script: "We just want this to stop."

It's the same old political machine with a fresh new face.

Re: A political random thought
 

Wtf?!!!

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I'm sure everyone has noticed the media constantly repeating the George Bush 31% or so approval rating. However once again the media doesn't seem to notice the Democrat controled Congress failure to reach higher than 15% approval since the beginning of the year.:wtf:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...al_performance

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This is an article from yahoo. I personally felt it was great, and dead-on. People need to wake up and quit being "hypnotized" by Obama's words. He is full of it.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpol...ers_a_beautifu

Re: A political random thought
 

^GREAT ARTICLE! The worst of all this is the media. Without their compliance this "snake oil" show wouldn't work. I hope enough voters look further than the evening news for information.

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No kidding. If this guy gets elected, I think we are all in trouble. I can't believe that people are so blind. It's like they jumped on the Obama bandwagon and it drove them stupid.

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A reporter that challenges Palins experience gets educated by Newt and the reporter has nothing to say.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8zXi90EVeg



Why is there so much controversy with republicans and so little scrutiny when the media reports on democrats? I'm not a member of either major party. I've just had with the media whores.

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Holy crap that was awesome! lol And for some reason, the fact that the reporter was black just made it funnier. I love the Einstein quote at the end.

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well with all due respect i must say with this election year Its A Joke Man Better Than Saturday Night Live :) When It Was Good Back to you chris thanks for your report

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More about Obamas ties to the terrorist William Ayers. If the evening news reports this they'll probably focus more on the "negative" tactics of McCain supporters.

Fox News -


Documents released Tuesday by the University of Illinois at Chicago shed some light on Barack Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, a founding member of the 1960s and 1970s radical group the Weather Underground.

Obama’s association with Ayers, who now teaches at the university, has become an issue in the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign. The Weather Underground took credit for several nonfatal bombings on targets that included the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, and critics accuse Obama of rubbing elbows with an unabashed 1960s radical.

Obama has said that, although he knew Ayers as a professor involved in community outreach efforts in Chicago, he doesn’t share Ayers’ extreme views.

The massive collection of newly released documents — 140 boxes full of them — includes agendas that clearly put Obama and Ayers in the same room for meetings of Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational initiative that Ayers was instrumental in starting and that Obama chaired in the 1990s.

Ayers Unrepentant for Weather Underground’s Violence in 1960s, 1970s

The initiative was funded by $49.2 million from the Annenberg Foundation with the intention of establishing community partnerships that would improve schools.

FOX News was among several news organizations that reviewed the university’s records by appointment. In one agenda, a March 15, 1995, meeting featured Obama making introductions and Ayers giving a briefing.

But more than a year later, Obama pushed the group to be bolder in its reforms, according to the Associated Press, which also reviewed the documents. Minutes from an October 1996 gathering show that Obama, a guest at a meeting of the collaborative, raised questions about what the group should be doing.

The AP reports the minutes characterized Obama’s concerns as twofold: Whether the group was raising additional money and whether money was being used “to prop up existing organizations as opposed to creating fresh educational practices in the schools?”

“At the end of five years, will we have broken the mold? Not much seems to be bubbling up that is inspiring or substantive,” the minutes say, paraphrasing Obama.

Even so, Stanley Kurtz, a contributing editor for the conservative magazine National Review, thinks Obama’s association with Ayers should raise questions in the minds of voters who wonder of Obama is as mainstream as he claims to be.

“The fact that Obama and Ayers were working together stems from the pretty sharp left-leaning ideology that both of them shared to some extent,” Kurtz said.

Ayers did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, is fighting a conservative group called the American Issues Project over a TV commercial that links Obama to Ayers. The campaign argues that the nonprofit group is violating federal laws regulating political ads by nonprofits.

The group filed a document with the Federal Election Commission last week identifying Texas billionaire Harold Simmons as the lone financier of the ad, contributing nearly $2.9 million to produce and air it. Simmons is a fundraiser for John McCain and was one of the major contributors to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which aired ads in 2004 against John Kerry.

The Obama campaign issued a response ad to the group’s ad, which says, “With all our problems why is John McCain talking about the ’60s trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers? McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes committed when Obama was just eight years old. Let’s talk about standing up for America today.”

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said if “McCain’s consultants are going to go out and make ads that are misleading about Barack Obama, we are going to make sure that they are answered we have to make sure that the truth is out there and that we are answering with force.”

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers released a statement responding to Burton that said, “It’s absurd and disingenuous for the Obama campaign to say we are running this ad. They are trying to blame us and use a straw man to take this issue off the table. If he thinks having a relationship with an unrepentant terrorist is not an issue that concerns the American people, he is deluding himself or being naive.”

Re: A political random thought
 

Wow, thanks for posting this

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Here's a little interesting info once again missed by NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN....... I found the last paragraph most interesting. I know someone who is also Mexican and he can't understand how I could not vote Democrat. What puzzles me is how he claims to be Catholic but supports a party that champions abortion and the homosexual movement. He supports the Dems mainly because they can be counted on to cut checks for the poor. My responce is, "my vote and principles are not for sale".

San Francisco Chronicle -





Sen. Barack Obama ditched his normal languid cool today, punching back at Gov. Sarah Palin as he spoke with reporters in York, Pa, hotly defending his work as a community organizer. He said he assumes Palin "wants to be treated same way guys want to be treated, which means their records are under scrutinty. I've been through this for 19 months. She's been through it, what four days?"

Obama's hackles were clearly raised by Palin's dismissal of his community organizing --a response to his earlier dismissal of her record as a small-town mayor. "Why would that kind of work be ridiculed?" Obama said. "Who are they fighting for?" The idea that community organizing is not relevant to the presidency, he said, just shows why Republicans "are out of touch and don't get it."

The Obama campaign was clearly on the defensive today, acknowledging how appealing Palin came across, and sending out surrogates hitting their talking points that Republicans have spent their time on attacks rather than substance.

Palin nearly hit Obama's record 38.4 million viewers for his Denver acceptance speech. The Nielsen ratings show she drew 37.2 million viewers, despite being shown on six networks to Obama's 10.

Obama said the "essential question" of the campaign is "who's got a better plan and agenda to move this country forward and fundamentally change it from the economic and foreign policy failures we've seen for the last eight years."

"The American people need change and want change and I'm in the best position to do it," Obama said.

Obama brushed off the attacks with, "I've been called worse on the basketball courts," and said all Republicans have done so far is dwell on "attacking me or extolling John McCain's biography."

He said the race is between him and McCain, and that he remains very glad he picked Joe Biden for his ticket, because he is "absolutely confident he's going to be able to help me govern."

The Nielsen ratings showed that Palin attracted a huge female audience of 19.5 million women, nearly 5 million larger than the third day of the Democratic convention when Hillary Clinton spoke.

The third day of the GOP gathering also attracted more Hispanic viewers than the third day of the Democratic gathering -- 1.4 million to 1.2 million -- even though Univision and Telemundo did not carry the Palin speech.

Re: A political random thought
 

thanks for posting :) i was not aware of this

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Yes, those damned liberal media, they are so biased for Obama, luckily we still have good old conservative Faux News without those doubled standards:
Double Standards? :rolleyes:

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Basically anything other than the antiquated network news liberal version of anything is a lie. Bullshit! I will question AP, NBC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, and any other liberal propaganda machine.

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Basically I find it just sad that Americans cannot watch, as it seems, an unbiased newscast, I don't know enough of the American media to know whether one station or another is liberal or conservative, what I do see now and then is reports of the right-wing-extreme Fox News.

News should be about facts on not a propaganda machine for either side.

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Your mention of Fox news is my point. All news sources outside of the establishment are ridiculed. I'm not an advocate for Fox, but the information I get from their reporting is a little different from all the other major networks. You can tune into every other major network news on any given evening and get the same perspective reporting on NBC,CBS,ABC,CNN...... I've done plenty of my own research on the events they report and have found that they often omit information to shape public opinion.

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More about the state of US-media:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-m..._b_124772.html

What I don't understand is, all of the networks are in the hands of major corporations, so what is their advantage in being liberal?

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The corporate question. The news is a business and business is about profit. The news can say whatever it wants as long as the share holders are pleased.
The liberal question. Educated elitist politicians and journalists share a misguided notion that it is their noble duty to save the uneducated "unwashed" masses from themselves. The media shares their ideals and they want a share of the power.

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You are right. I have found the BBC to be great though.

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The BBC is well worth watching.

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Just to pick up on this, first of all I never understood the negative connotation that Americans have given the word "liberal", mostly pre-empted by "bleeding heart". When I learned about liberalism in history class on school, I was totally for it and if you read the definition on wikipedia, I don't see what anyone could have against that:


I do find individual liberty one of the most important things we achieved as humans throughout history. I do consider myself a liberal as defined above.

Than on a second note, the disparagement with which you name the "uneducated unwashed masses". I suppose it's allright for you yourself to have a life of fortune, while others may starve. I am not a communist, not even a socialist, but I do feel every human being has the responsibility to try and decrease suffering in the world to a bare minimum. Ofcourse everybody able is also responsible to work for his living etcetera, but there are those less fortunate in the world or in our own countries, who may have not the earning capacity, physically or mentally, to live minimally decent life and I do feel that the government should look out for these weakest elements in our society. I am willing to pay taxes for that and also for the possibility that I some day may not be able to fend for myself, due to circumstances, god forbid (manor of speaking as you know I'm atheist).

This is what grosses me out mostly about conservatives/republicans, it's always me, me, me and let the rest of the world rot. And it's not only economically, abortion and gay marriage should be forbidden, because they (or if you like it better their idea of a god) forbids it, it doesn't matter what others think about it. The idea of "you are for or against us", I always think there are more colours than black and white, I could go on, but I've rambled enough.

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I grew up in a home with a combined income of about fifteen thousand dollars a year. That's not a whole lot of money in America during the seventies and eighties. Actually my first home was trailer or a caravan. Both of my parents dropped out of school and spent most of their lives as seasonal agriculture laborers. I have been the recipient of government assistance and I have experienced the sort of redicule and prejudice from others who had the "life of fortune" you suggest I speak from. I do understand need so there is no need imply that not being liberal is equal to having no sympathy and believing in no assistance for anyone.

I believe the main difference between both ideals in America is the qeustion of more or less government. I see it as the choice between the Democrats and European democracy or the Republicans being the most electable party that will represent and defend my CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. There's a whole lot more but time isn't on my side.

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I guess that is the real difference between the both of us, you care about more or less government, I care about good or bad government, if it's good I don't care how much of it there is, if it's bad no government is too much government.

I would like to know how the democrats threaten your constitutional republic?

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Socialism and no I'm not willing to trade LIBERTY for comfort.

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As stated before the democrats are a far cry away from socialism and by the way where do you think liberalism got its name from, it is derived from liberty, maybe some education wouldn't be that bad :rolleyes:

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^Alright insult my intelligence. That was clever and quite an accomplishment.

I'm a Libertarian -

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise SOLE DOMINION over their own lives and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

I know where I stand and why. I'm satisfied with that. I know where you stand and I respect that. You know where I stand and you have to challenge me. Is your "open mind" so insecure that you have to attack what you don't agree with.
You're a waste of my time.

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It's unfortunate the media is too preoccupied with destroying Gov. Palin to investigate this.

Co-Workers: Obama Inflated His Resume
It has been noted by Charles Krauthammer and others that very few people have stepped forward to vouch for Barack Obama.

Indeed, there would seem to be an especially conspicuous absence of witnesses to the years after graduated from Columbia and before he moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer.

Well, it turns out that one of his co-workers, Dan Armstrong, has in fact written about Mr. Obama during those days. And while he is an admitted fan of Obama’s, he claims that he has inflated his resume considerably.

Others who worked with Obama at Business International have subsequently chimed in.

First, Mr. Obama’s version as presented in from Dreams From My Father, pp 55-6:

CHAPTER SEVEN

… And so, in the months leading up to graduation, I wrote to every civil rights organization I could think of, to any black elected official in the country with a progressive agenda, to neighborhood councils and tenant rights groups. When no one wrote back, I wasn’t discouraged. I decided to find more conventional work for a year, to pay off my student loans and maybe even save a little bit. I would need the money later, I told myself. Organizers didn’t make any money; their poverty was proof of their integrity.

Eventually a consulting house to multinational corporations agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe. As far as I could tell I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool. They treated me like a son, those black ladies; they told me how they expected me to run the company one day…

Nevertheless, as the months passed, I felt the idea of becoming an organizer slipping away from me. The company promoted me to the position of financial writer. I had my own office, my own secretary, money in the bank. Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors-see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in my hand-and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself I wanted to be and felt pangs of guilt for my lack of resolve.

Then one day, as I sat down at my computer to write an article on interest-rate swaps, something unexpected happened. Auma called. I had never met this half sister; we had written only intermittently…

[A] few months after Auma called, I turned in my resignation at the consulting firm and began looking in earnest for an organizing job…

We are supposed to believe that “something happened” and the rest is history.

Here, however, is a somewhat different perspective on Obama’s halcyon days as a “spy behind enemy lines,” from a site called Analyze This:

Barack Obama Embellishes His Resume
July 9th, 2005

[by Dan Armstrong]

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a big fan of Barack Obama, the Illinois freshman senator and hot young Democratic Party star. But after reading his autobiography, I have to say that Barack engages in some serious exaggeration when he describes a job that he held in the mid-1980s. I know because I sat down the hall from him, in the same department, and worked closely with his boss. I can’t say I was particularly close to Barack - he was reserved and distant towards all of his co-workers - but I was probably as close to him as anyone. I certainly know what he did there, and it bears only a loose resemblance to what he wrote in his book.

Here’s Barack’s account:

Eventually a consulting house to multinational corporations agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe. As far as I could tell I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool.

First, it wasn’t a consulting house; it was a small company that published newsletters on international business. Like most newsletter publishers, it was a bit of a sweatshop. I’m sure we all wished that we were high-priced consultants to multinational corporations. But we also enjoyed coming in at ten, wearing jeans to work, flirting with our co-workers, partying when we stayed late, and bonding over the low salaries and heavy workload.

Barack worked on one of the company’s reference publications. Each month customers got a new set of pages on business conditions in a particular country, punched to fit into a three-ring binder. Barack’s job was to get copy from the country correspondents and edit it so that it fit into a standard outline. There was probably some research involved as well, since correspondents usually don’t send exactly what you ask for, and you can’t always decipher their copy. But essentially the job was copyediting.

It’s also not true that Barack was the only black man in the company. He was the only black professional man. Fred was an African-American who worked in the mailroom with his son. My boss and I used to join them on Friday afternoons to drink beer behind the stacks of office supplies. That’s not the kind of thing that Barack would do. Like I said, he was somewhat aloof.

… as the months passed, I felt the idea of becoming an organizer slipping away from me. The company promoted me to the position of financial writer. I had my own office, my own secretary; money in the bank. Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors—see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in my hand—and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself I wanted to be and felt pangs of guilt for my lack of resolve.

If Barack was promoted, his new job responsibilities were more of the same - rewriting other people’s copy. As far as I know, he always had a small office, and the idea that he had a secretary is laughable. Only the company president had a secretary. Barack never left the office, never wore a tie, and had neither reason nor opportunity to interview Japanese financiers or German bond traders.

Then one day, as I sat down at my computer to write an article on interest-rate swaps, something unexpected happened…. I had never met this half sister; we had written only intermittently. …[several pages on his suffering half-sister] …a few months after Auma called, I turned in my resignation at the consulting firm and began looking in earnest for an organizing job.

What Barack means here is that he got copy from a correspondent who didn’t understand interest rate swaps, and he was trying to make sense out of it.

All of Barack’s embellishment serves a larger narrative purpose: to retell the story of the Christ’s temptation. The young, idealistic, would-be community organizer gets a nice suit, joins a consulting house, starts hanging out with investment bankers, and barely escapes moving into the big mansion with the white folks. Luckily, an angel calls, awakens his conscience, and helps him choose instead to fight for the people.

Like I said, I’m a fan. His famous keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention moved me to tears. The Democrats - not to mention America - need a mixed-race spokesperson who can connect to both urban blacks and rural whites, who has the credibility to challenge the status quo on issues ranging from misogynistic rap to unfair school funding.

And yet I’m disappointed. Barack’s story may be true, but many of the facts are not. His larger narrative purpose requires him to embellish his role. I don’t buy it. Just as I can’t be inspired by Steve Jobs now that I know how dishonest he is, I can’t listen uncritically to Barack Obama now that I know he’s willing to bend the facts to his purpose.

Once, when I applied for a marketing job at a big accounting firm, my then-supervisor called HR to say that I had exaggerated something on my resume. I didn’t agree, but I also didn’t get the job. But when Barack Obama invents facts in a book ranked No. 8 on the NY Times nonfiction list, it not only fails to be noticed but it helps elevate him into the national political pantheon.

As Mr. Armstrong suggests, if Obama would exaggerate about such things as this, what else has he exaggerated or made up out of whole cloth?

The comments to this post are also quite intriguing, such as:

Comment from Bill Millar
Time: October 30, 2007, 8:17 am

Cathy Lazere [another commentor] calls Barack self-assured? That’s putting a nice spin on it. I found him arrogant and condescending.

The thing is, I worked next to Barack nearly every day he was at Business International –- on many days angling for possession of the best Wang word processing terminal.

I had MANY discussions with Barack.

I can tell you this: even though I was an assistant editor (big doings at this “consulting firm”) and he was, well, he was doing something there, he certainly treated me like something less than an equal.

Funny thing… A journalism/political science major… Writing about finance… Pretending in his book to be an expert on interest rate swaps.

By the way, there should be no doubt as to Mr. Armstrong’s bona fides on this subject. Even the New York Times has cited him as an authority for an article on this period of Mr. Obama’s storied life.

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If you want a different financial meltdown perspective that the American media will ignore then read this.
Or watch the evening news for the predictable blame Bush montage.

Investors Business Daily -

Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.

Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.

At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households.

The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

And the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact, the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great Society and New Deal in size and scope.

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.

Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.

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From the Fact Check Desk: Obama's New Spanish Language TV Ad Es Erróneo
September 17, 2008 5:53 PM

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has launched a new Spanish-language TV ad that seeks to paint Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as anti-immigrant, even tying the Republican to his longtime conservative talk-radio nemesis Rush Limbaugh.

As first reported by the Washington Post, Obama's ad features a narrator saying: "They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with…the intolerance…they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

The screen then shows these two quotes from Limbaugh:

“…stupid and unskilled Mexicans”
—Rush Limbaugh

"You shut your mouth or you get out!”
—Rush Limbaugh

The narrator then says, “John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote…and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain…more of the same old Republican tricks.”



There are some real factual problems with this ad, which is titled “Dos Caras,” or two faces.

First of all, tying Sen. McCain – especially on the issue of immigration reform – to Limbaugh is unfair.

Limbaugh opposed McCain on that issue. Vociferously. And in a larger sense, it’s unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh on a host of issues since Limbaugh, as any even occasional listener of his knows, doesn’t particularly care for McCain.

Second, the quotes of Limbaugh’s are out of context.

Railing against NAFTA in 1993, Limbaugh said, "If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs NAFTA is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

Not one of his most eloquent moments, to be sure, but his larger point was that NAFTA would mean that unskilled stupid Mexicans would be doing the jobs of unskilled stupid Americans.

I’m not going to defend how he said it, but to act as if this was just a moment of Limbaugh slurring Mexicans is not accurate. Though again, certainly if people were offended I could understand why.

The second quote is totally unfair. In 2006, Limbaugh was mocking Mexican law, and he wrote:

“Everybody's making immigration proposals these days. Let me add mine to the mix. Call it The Limbaugh Laws:

“First: If you immigrate to our country, you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor; no unskilled workers allowed. Also, there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws. No special ballots for elections. No government business will be conducted in your language. Foreigners will not have the right to vote or hold political office.

“If you're in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here: an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land, it'll be restricted. No waterfront, for instance. As a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to the property.

“And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our President or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail.

“You think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today! That' how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. Yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets!

“How do you say ‘double standard’ in Spanish? How about: ‘No mas!’”

But even if one is uninclined to see Limbaugh's quotes as having been taken unfairly out of context, linking them to McCain makes as much sense as running a quote from Bill Maher and linking it to Obama.

Asked for backup as to how Obama could link McCain to Limbaugh, the campaign provided this interview with McCain refusing to condemn the Minutemen from from the Kansas City Star:

Q: ‘Are they a good thing? The Civil Defense Corps, do you think -- do they help in the immigration fight, or not?’

A: ‘I think they're citizens who are entitled to being engaged in the process. They're obviously very concerned about immigration.’

Q: ‘Are they helpful?’

A: ‘I think that's up to others to judge. I don't agree with them, but they certainly are exercising their legal rights as citizens.’

Asked about the “lies” they’re accusing McCain of telling, the Obama campaign provided evidence that McCain in July 2008 told La Raza that he would have voted for the DREAM act, a bill that provides scholarships for the children of illegal immigrants, even thought he earlier in the campaign season said he would have voted against the bill.

Let’s delver further into this.

In the November 2007, Myrtle Beach Sun-News, McCain said of the DREAM Act, which he had cosponsored in the past, "I think it has certain virtues associated with it. And I think other things have virtues associated with it. But the message is they want the borders secured first."

The newspaper noted that McCain said he’d vote against a temporary worker program, even though he supports the idea. "I will vote against anything until we secure the borders," he said. "There is no way we're going to enact piecemeal immigration reform."

Before La Raza, McCain was asked by a young Latina if he’d support the DREAM Act, and he said, “Yes. Yes.”

The full exchange, however, goes like this:

QUESTIONER: Hi. I’m a part of One Dream 2009 and I am one of the 6 million who either have an undocumented parent or is undocumented and I wanted to know if you would support humanity all around the world and support our Dream Act that we are trying to pass.

MCCAIN: Yes. Yes. Thank you. But I will also enforce the existing laws of a country. And a nation’s first requirement is the nation’s security, and that’s why we have to have our borders secured. But, we can have a way and a process of people obtaining citizenship in this country. And, we cannot penalize people who come here legally and people who wait legally. And so, that’s a fundamental principle on which we have to operate. Thank you.

The Obama campaign also provided a number of seemingly conflicting comments McCain has made about offering greater funding for education programs in the No Child Left Behind act -- telling the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in June that he “would fully fund those programs that have never been fully funded,” while not suggesting any greater funding for the bill when he’s talked about education in front of whiter audiences.

That ignores the fact that McCain has suggested reallocating the way the $23 billion for NCLB is spent.

McCain has changed his rhetoric and his emphasis when discussing immigration after almost losing the GOP presidential nomination because of it.

He now says the borders must be secured before anything else happens. And in that, he’s opened himself up to charges of flip-flopping, though the Obama campaign is quoting him selectively and unfairly to make their points.

The greater implication the ad makes, however, is that McCain is no friend to Latinos at all, beyond issues of funding the DREAM act or how NCLB money is distributed. By linking McCain to Limbaugh’s quotes, twisting Limbaugh’s quotes, and tying McCain to more extremist anti-immigration voices, the Obama campaign has crossed a line into misleading the viewers of its new TV ad. In Spanish, the word is erróneo.

Re: A political random thought
 

I've been aware of this Ayers connection for some time, it's just amazing to me that people don't really challenge Barack Obama more on this issue. It's a big deal.

Re: A political random thought
 

This is Rush Limbaugh's Op Ed(Wall Street Journal) reply to Obamas false ads.

"The postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering.

Here's the relevant part of the Spanish-language television commercial Mr. Obama is running in Hispanic communities:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

Much of the media that is uninterested in Mr. Obama's connections to unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright have so far gone along with the attempt to tie me to Mr. McCain. But Mr. McCain and I have not agreed on how to address illegal immigration. While I am heartened by his willingness to start by securing the borders, it is no secret that we have fundamental differences on illegal immigration.

And more to the point, these sound bites are a deception, and Mr. Obama knows it. The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's the context:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

My point, which is obvious, was that the people who were criticizing Nafta were demeaning workers, particularly low-skilled workers. I was criticizing the mind-set of the protectionists who opposed the treaty. There was no racial connotation to it and no one thought there was at the time. I was demeaning the arguments of the opponents.

As for the second sound bite, I was mocking the Mexican government's double standard -- i.e., urging open borders in this country while imposing draconian immigration requirements within its own borders. Thus, I took the restrictions Mexico imposes on immigrants and appropriated them as my own suggestions for a new immigration law.

Here's the context for that sound bite: "And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."

At the time, I made abundantly clear that this was a parody on the Mexican government's hypocrisy and nobody took it otherwise.

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

We've made much racial progress in this country. Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency."

Re: A political random thought
 

thanks for your updates i must say this election year has rocked so much intenstiy and uncertiantiys :) i sware its like many shades of groovy

Re: A political random thought
 

Liberal humor sinks to an extraordinarily tasteless level.

Saturday Night Live -

SNL Jokes About Palin and Incest

REPORTER #1: "What about the husband? You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on, it's Alaska.

REPORTER #2: He very well could be. Admittedly, there is no evidence of that. But, on the other hand, there is no convincing evidence to the contrary -- and these are just some of the lingering questions about Governor Palin.

SNL ANNOUNCER: In 2009, Howland Gwathmey Moss, V was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his timed series on unproven yet un-disproven incest in the Palin family. Sadly, he was to die three months later run over by a snow machine driven by a polar bear."

Re: A political random thought
 

No humor, just straight talk about Palin and ... elitism

When atheists attack

Re: A political random thought
 

This is not a network news poll. The evening news seems to only notice polls favoring Obama.


-September 25, 2008
Gallup Daily: Race Back to a Tie at 46% EachMcCain now on equal footing with ObamaUSA Election 2008 Gallup Daily Americas Northern America PRINCETON, NJ -- John McCain has gained ground and is now tied with Barack Obama among registered voters in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update for Sept. 22-24, with each candidate getting 46% support.



This update covers interviewing conducted Monday through Wednesday, and as such includes one night after McCain's announcement that he was suspending election campaigning and flying to Washington to help seek a bipartisan solution to the financial crisis. A night by night analysis of interviewing results, however, does not suggest that McCain had a dramatically better night against Obama on Wednesday. Instead, the data show that McCain has been doing slightly better for the last three days than he had in the previous week, and with some strong Obama days falling off of the rolling average, the race has moved to its current tied position. This is the first report since Sept. 13-15, in which Obama did not have at least a one percentage point edge.

As was true during the two weeks in which the candidates selected their vice presidential running mates and held their conventions, this appears to be a time period with much going on that can affect the candidates' standings, including whatever happens regarding the three planned presidential debates and the one vice presidential debate. -- Frank Newport

Survey Methods

For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.

The general election results are based on combined data from Sept. 22-24, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,731 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Re: A political random thought
 

Gallup Poll - Election News

U.S. Leaders Not Getting High Marks on Credit Crisis NEW September 29, 2008
A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Friday and Saturday finds more Americans disapproving than approving of how most of the major national political players have handled the Wall Street crisis. Barack Obama fares best, with 46% of Americans approving of his performance.

Gallup Daily: Obama Moves to 50% to 42% Lead September 28, 2008
Barack Obama leads John McCain, 50% to 42%, among registered voters in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday -- just one point shy of his strongest showing of the year.

Debate Watchers Give Obama Edge Over McCain September 28, 2008
A USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted Saturday, Sept. 27, shows that Americans who watched the first presidential debate gave Barack Obama the edge over John McCain as having done the better job, by a 46% to 34% margin.

Re: A political random thought
 

The media is certainly working hard to promote Obama and neglecting to treat his past record(or lack of) with the same scrutiny directed toward McCain and Palin. For the most part the American major media has given Obama the same favorable coverage provided to Clinton, Gore and Kerry.
I've been thinking about the Presidential elections I've seen in my lifetime and I can't recall one where the media reported the republican candidate ahead in the polls as the election drew near.
Obama is riding a sweet wave of promotion and it may help him win. Then again Gore and Kerry had the same advantage. We'll see in November.