TERRORISM is a WORLD PROBLEM!

DON’T MODEL THE WORLD, BE A ROLE MODEL!

RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP = WORLD PEACE

WE CAN’T AFFORD REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP!

THE ECONOMY IS/WAS FUNDAMENTALLY “MCCAINED”!

PATTY VOGT

Sarah Palin told a Colorado crowd today that Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and that “he is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.” The black man as outsider who is not truly American is a tried-and-true racialism (and, indeed, until the mid-1960s, black men and women did not have the full legal rights that other Americans have), but heaven forbid that anyone say that straight out.

As to the guilt by association thing, it’s utter horseshit:

Watch: Is Obama a terrorist’s pal?

Get the facts!

The Facts: In making the charge at a fund-raising event in Englewood, Colorado, and a rally in Carson, California, Palin was referring at least in part to William Ayers, a 1960s radical. In both appearances, Palin cited a front-page article in Saturday’s New York Times detailing the working relationship between Obama and Ayers.

In the 1960s, Ayers was a founding member of the radical Weather Underground group that carried out a string of bombings of federal buildings, including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, in protest against the Vietnam War. The now-defunct group was labeled a “domestic terrorist group” by the FBI, and Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn — also a Weather Underground member — spent 10 years as fugitives in the 1970s. Federal charges against them were dropped due to FBI misconduct in gathering evidence against them, and they resurfaced in 1980. Both Ayers and Dohrn ultimately became university professors in Chicago, with Ayers, 63, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Obama’s Chicago home is in the same neighborhood where Ayers and Dohrn live. Beginning in 1995, Ayers and Obama worked with the non-profit Chicago Annenberg Challenge on a huge school improvement project. The Annenberg Challenge was for cities to compete for $50 million grants to improve public education. Ayers fought to bring the grant to Chicago, and Obama was recruited onto the board. Also from 1999 through 2001 both were board members on the Woods Fund, a charitable foundation that gave money to various causes, including the Trinity United Church that Obama attended and Northwestern University Law Schools’ Children and Family Justice Center, where Dohrn worked.

CNN’s review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told CNN that after meeting Obama through the Annenberg project, Ayers hosted a campaign event for him that same year when then-Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer, who planned to run for Congress, introduced the young community organizer as her chosen successor. LaBolt also said the two have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Obama came to the U.S. Senate in 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they encountered each other on the street in their Hyde Park neighborhood.

The extent of Obama’s relationship with Ayers came up during the Democratic presidential primaries earlier this year, and Obama explained it by saying, “This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood … the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago — when I was 8 years old — somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense.”

The New York Times article cited by Palin concluded that “the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.” Other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic, have said that their reporting doesn’t support the idea that Obama and Ayers had a close relationship.

The McCain campaign did not respond Saturday to a request for elaboration on Palin’s use of the plural “terrorists.”

Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now “palling around,” or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.

I bolded the statement, above, that Obama has never expressed sympathy for any of Ayers’ 1960s activities, because the same cannot be said for Sarah Palin and her husband Todd’s support for the Alaska Independence Party:

Sarah Palin attacked Obama’s patriotism today over his association with former Weatherman Bill Ayers — a move that makes it perfectly legitimate to raise questions about the Palins’ associations with a group founded by an Alaska secessionist who once professed his “hatred for the American government” and cursed our “damn flag.”

In Colorado today, Palin seized on the big front-page New York Times story about Ayers and Obama, which concludes that the two men “do not appear to have been close,” to launch her most vicious attack yet on the Illinois Senator — a harbinger of what’s to come.

“This is not a man who sees America as you and I do — as the greatest force for good in the world,” Palin said. “This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

If Palin is going to say this, it is now perfectly legitimate to point out that she repeatedly courted a secessionist group founded by someone who openly professed hatred of the American government, cursed our flag, and wanted to secede from the Union. Sarah’s husband, Todd Palin, was a member of this group, which continues to venerate that founder to this day, for years.

Via Oxdown Gazette.

When I vote, I want to vote for someone who I think has values similar to mine.  There are two men running for president.  One graduated from the Naval Academy and spent more than 20 years in the Navy.  One did not serve in the U.S miltary.  I spent 21 years in the Navy.

To me it is not important whether the President of the United States has ever served in the military.  Many presidents have not served, some did a good job - FDR - some did a horrible job - Saint Ronnie.

Here are some items that are important to me.  If at all possible, stay married to your first spouse.  Mrs Chief and I have been married for almost 48 years.  I am ’still’ on my first wife.

Senator Obama is still married to his first wife.

According to Senator McCain’s first wife, she said, “John was forty and he wanted to be twenty-five.” Senator McCain’s second wife is 18 years his junior.

I have never swore at or called my wife derogatory names.  If Senator Obama has I’m sure we’d heard about it.  He seems to respect women in general and the person he shares his life with inn particular, the same as me.

I’ve seen a video clip of Senator McCain calling his wife a derogatory name (slang for a female body part) when she was kidding him about his thinning hair.

Senator McCain graduated fro the Naval Academy fifth from the bottom of his class.  Senator Obama graduated from Harvard Law and was the editor of the Law Review.  You have to be among the best-of-the-best to accomplish that.

I graduated Summa Cum Laude.  Granted, I did not finish law school, but at least I got admitted and tried.

Senator McCain has joked about bombing Iran.  Senator Obama has talked about talking with other world leaders.  I certainly cannot fight with my neighbors whenever I disagree with them.  We talk and work out any problems like civilized people.

The fact that Senator Obama’s skin is a different shade than mine means nothing to me.  Race is a political construct.  We are all one species Homo Sapiens Sapiens on God’s green earth.

If I wanted a president that I could drink beer with,

I’d go down to my neighborhood bar.

There’s plenty of incurious

assholes down there.

CHIEF

She gives Fox the answers to the questions that stumped her when Katie Couric asked them:

Cameron told her that some observers, pleased with her debate performance, asked, “Where was this Sarah Palin in the interview with Katie Couric?”

“OK, I’ll tell you honestly,” Palin said, “the Sarah Palin in those interviews is a little bit annoyed because it’s like, man, no matter what you say, you’re going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try and pivot and go on to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that, too.”

Palin added, “In those Katie Couric interviews I did feel that there were a lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a vice presidential candidate stands for — what the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs, wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may, in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. … I wanted to talk about things like that. So, I guess I have to apologize about being a little annoyed, but that is also an indication of being outside that Washington elite, outside of the media elite, also, and just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for.”

“So, at the risk of annoying you,” said Cameron, “when you are asked, ‘What do you read, which papers and magazines?’ You didn’t answer it. Or, you said, ‘I have all kinds of resources.’”

“Right, right, right,” said Palin.

“Well, what do you read?” asked Cameron.

“I read the same things that other people across the country read, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and The Economist and some of these publications that we’ve recently even been interviewed through up there in Alaska. Because of everything that we’re doing with oil and gas, a lot of the investment publications, especially, are interviewing us, asking us how we are being so successful up there in contributing to our nation’s step towards energy independence…

“My response to her, I guess it was kind of flippant. But, I was sort of taken aback, like, the suggestion was, ‘You’re way up there in a far away place in Alaska, do you know that there are publications in the rest of the world that are read by many?’ And I was taken aback by that because, I don’t know, the suggestion just was a little bit of perhaps we’re not in tune with the rest of the world.”

Cameron then asked another Couric question that Palin didn’t answer: about Supreme Court decisions that she disagrees with other than Roe v Wade. “As a conservative, there are some in the Republican Party who would expect a vice presidential nominee to understand judicial conservatives and to have something that they might object to,” Cameron said.

“And that’s fair, right, and on that one, true, I shouldn’t have been so flippant and just sort of brushed aside that,” Palin said, “because it was an important question and I should have answered it, and yeah, I can cite a lot of cases that I absolutely disagree with the Supreme Court on.”

She elaborated: “A recent one, Kennedy v Louisiana, where the Supreme Court will tell a state that they can’t impose the death penalty even on the heinous crimes of repeat child rapists, that a state … its rights were taken away by the Supreme Court, and we would not be able to decide for ourselves whether the death penalty in a case like that could be implemented or not. That one, I’m certainly not a supporter of that decision.”

Palin mentioned the Kelo case, also with the eminent domain — “that affects me as governor. It affected me as a mayor, also. Property rights are so precious in this nation and for the Supreme Court to have sided with government instead of the people, the property owners on that — that was frustrating. Another one … personally affecting me also, the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The siding with the oil companies, they decimated Alaska’s coastline and much of our fisheries and much of our coastal communities’ livelihoods of people who live there, and they sided with Exxon on the punishment — the punitive damage that was to be awarded, Exxon won on that one, and in a sense, that was frustrating.”

Who does Palin think she’s kidding? Her interview with Katie Couric wasn’t an open-book test, so she finds out the answers afterward and then runs over to Fox and pretends she knew them all along?

OFFSHORE = NO TAX BREAKS

So, you think it trickled down?

WHO GOT THAT TRICKLE?

TRICKLE DOWN WAS A TRICK!

TRY SMART LEADERSHIP

- VOTE OBAMA! -

PATTY VOGT

I took this picture yesterday through the windshield.  If you are wondering the red letters on the McCain sign say “Another.”

From FactCheck.org here is summary of what the debaters fudged on.

Summary

Biden and Palin debated, and both mangled some facts.

• Palin mistakenly claimed that troop levels in Iraq had returned to “pre-surge” levels. Levels are gradually coming down but current plans would have levels higher than pre-surge numbers through early next year, at least.

• Biden incorrectly said “John McCain voted the exact same way” as Obama on a controversial troop funding bill. The two were actually on opposite sides.
• Palin repeated a false claim that Obama once voted in favor of higher taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 a year. He did not. The budget bill in question called for an increase only on singles making that amount, but a family of four would not have been affected unless they made at least $90,000 a year.

• Biden wrongly claimed that McCain “voted the exact same way” as Obama on the budget bill that contained an increase on singles making as little as $42,000 a year. McCain voted against it. Biden was referring to an amendment that didn’t address taxes at that income level.

• Palin claimed McCain’s health care plan would be “budget neutral,” costing the government nothing. Independent budget experts estimate McCain’s plan would cost tens of billions each year, though details are too fuzzy to allow for exact estimates.
• Biden wrongly claimed that McCain had said “he wouldn’t even sit down” with the government of Spain. Actually, McCain didn’t reject a meeting, but simply refused to commit himself one way or the other during an interview.
• Palin wrongly claimed that “millions of small businesses” would see tax increases under Obama’s tax proposals. At most, several hundred thousand business owners would see increases.

Go to link above for an in-depth analysis of these “mistakes.”

Posted in U.S. election   Tagged: Chief    ]]> http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/the-facts-the-debaters-got-wrong/feed/ Chief http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/did-anyone-win/ http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/did-anyone-win/#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:27:27 +0000 Chief http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/?p=4326

I watched the whole Vice-Presidential debate last night.  Given the really low expectations, I thought Gov. Palin did fairly well.  But then I did some real “thinking.”  Ya know, analytical, critical thinking.

The bottom line is: are there any undecideds and if so how many are there and who are they.

Let’s face it, if you were all ‘ga-ga’ over the Guv’nor after the Republican convention, last’s night’s performance was a winner.  And if you’re reading this, most likely you’ve already decided to vote for the Obama-Biden ticket.

The Undecideds: I think The Undecideds fall into three groups.  First we have the “Joe-Six-Pack” crowd.  These folks haven’t thought about the election all that much.  A lot of then are not registered and just don’t vote.  As far as I’m concerned, the old adage “Let sleeping dogs lie” applies here.

Second group:  People who just don’t pay attention.  They are too busy working, playing, taking care of business (whatever it is) and are “low-information” voters, if they vote.

Third group: These people are really paying attention to the presidential race, but they have never developed any critical thinking skills.  They know their dollar does not go as far but really respect the P.O.W.

Immediately following the debate, CBS polled it’s group of 500 Un-Committeds.  Two of the results matter.  First, 44% of the un-committeds thought Biden won,  33% felt it was a tie and 21% saw Palin as the winner.

Second result:  18% of the un-committeds said they have made up their minds to vote for Obama-Biden, while only 10% of the un-committeds said they have decided to vote for McCain-Palin.

In my opinion, neither ‘debater’ hurt their tickets chances of winning.  So the question really is, with 32 days until the election, is any day that McCain fails to gain ground a winning day for Obama?

THE COUNTRY’S BEEN WATERBOARDED!”

REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP NEED BAIL-OUTS!

“TRICKLE” TREAT!

BOO!

SCARED ENOUGH FOR REAL CHANGE?

MCSTUPID IS FUNDAMENTALLY "LET THEM EAT CAKE"!

PATTY VOGT