[3deroticer]

http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/election/2008/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.taxes.html

http://elections.foxnews.com/?s=proposed+taxes

http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourworld/polit...s_on_taxes.html

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/candidates/barack_obama/

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/candidates/john_mccain/

My attempt to chip away at the spin by pointing out that most of these sources are spin master.
According to CNN, Fox, and Washington Post Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim and was a terrorist when he was nine years old.

[SwitcherX]

Quote:
TheRover said:And just from my perspective, who says the federal government needs to concern themselves with every single one of these issues?  Isn't that why we have state governments with their own governors and legislatures?

Because then the federal government wouldn't be all powerful and they can't have that.

[TheZookie007]

Quote:
TruthOut.org: "The Anti-Obama Hate-Fest"

The Republican Party, which has defined modern-day negative politics, was back at it again, bashing Barack Obama and the news media in an ugly display that rivaled the old days of Nixon-Agnew - or George W. Bush's last convention where GOP operatives **89** "Purple Heart Band-Aids" to mock John Kerry's war wounds.

After a slow start because of Hurricane Gustav, the convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, has turned into an anti-Obama hate-fest with a nearly all-white gathering laughing at and mocking the nation's first African-American presidential nominee of a major party.

However, beyond the pulsating contempt visible on the faces of the GOP delegates, many of the nasty attacks on Obama - as well as the effusive praise for the Republican ticket - were blatantly false, as if testing the depths of American gullibility and bigotry.

In speech after speech, Republicans didn't so much as tell the Big Lie as they deployed Wholesale Lies.

The Associated Press, which mostly had been recycling the Republican spin about the supposedly "maverick" ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, was so struck by the litany of distortions that the AP produced a special fact-checking article describing how Republicans had "stretched the truth."

For instance, Palin said about Obama, "it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."

However, as the AP noted, Obama "worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year."

Plus, the AP reported, "In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation."

The AP's fact-checking article noted, too, that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's slap at Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden - that Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States" - was a "whopper."

The AP wrote that "Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries."

Parallel Reality
The Republican National Convention also acted as if the Republicans had not controlled the White House for the past eight years and the Congress for most of that time.

"We need change, all right," declared former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, "change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington - throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

Beyond this parallel universe of who runs Washington, there was fanciful puffery about the GOP "reformer" ticket - dubbed "maverick squared" - that doesn't square with reality at all.

For instance, the AP cited Palin's claim that "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

The reality, of course, was much different.

As the AP noted, Palin, as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, hired a lobbyist and made annual treks to Washington seeking earmarked spending that totaled $27 million, and then as Alaska's governor for less than two years, she sought nearly $750 million in special federal spending, "by far the largest per-capita request in the nation."

And as for that $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents, the truth is that Palin enthusiastically supported the project before she reluctantly opposed it, rejecting the "Bridge to Nowhere" only after it had become politically indefensible.

The Los Angeles Times discovered that Sen. McCain had specifically cited several of Palin's earmarks on his annual list of wasteful pork-barrel spending.

In 2001, for instance, McCain's list included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla, and in 2002, he criticized $1 million targeted for an emergency communications center that Palin sought but local law enforcement said was redundant and a source of confusion.

Remaking Palin
Now, however, Palin has been transformed into a maverick reformer. McCain's campaign even cites her experience as an abuser of the earmark process as part of the reason she supposedly understands why it must be scrapped.

McCain spokesman Taylor Griffin said Palin's successes in getting earmarked funds "was one of the formative experiences that led her toward the reform-oriented stance that she has taken as her career has progressed."

Nevertheless, Palin wrote in a newspaper column just this year that "the federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship." [For more details, see Los Angeles Times, Sept. 3, 2008]

Beyond the GOP's reality-challenged speeches, there was the startling image of a nearly all-white convention - where only 36 of the 2,380 delegates were black, the smallest number in at least 40 years - rollicking in ridicule and bristling with animosity toward Obama, an African-American.

With their loud chants of "drill, baby, drill" regarding energy policy and boisterous shouts of "USA, USA" about "victory" in Iraq, there was a sense that St. Paul was hosting a convention of American Falangists, rather than that of a modern national party.

The whiff of authoritarianism extended to outside where demonstrators and journalists were swept off the streets in indiscriminate arrests.

What's less clear about the GOP convention is whether the Republicans are on to something, that perhaps the United States has crossed over into a post-rational society that cares little about facts and reality or serious policy ideas and respectful debate, but rather is a nation moved by anger and ridicule, fear and nationalism.

[TheZookie007]

Quote:

OBAMA: The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET: Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family's less safe than it was eight years ago, we've lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I'm a little angry.

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that's what they are. Sarah Palin didn't say "thanks but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said "Thanks." You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I'd ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you're at it, I want the word "patriot" back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn't know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can't do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn't their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they've earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It's not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our k_ds to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It's not bad enough she's **77** her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It's not enough that a woman shouldn't have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist's baby too? I don't know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she's got the qualifications of one. And you're worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

OBAMA: Good to get that off your chest?

BARTLET: Am I keeping you from something?

OBAMA: Well, it's not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.

(the rest)

[pedonbio]

Quote:
Dearc said:
 it's going to take more than charisma and leadership to fix this.

 

After seven years of incompetence and spin, it might be good to try.

[Hugeboobfan]

Kristof had a good column in the times today.  It's very sad that a third of voters still suspect or believe that Obama is a muslim.  Pretty depressing that in this age of information outright falsehoods can have that kind of persistence.  

NY times

[DruulEmpire]

We made a miscalculation when we entered the Information Age.  We assumed it was information we were after.  We were wrong.

We didn't want information.  We only wanted ammunition -- at least, enough of us to muck up and devalue the pursuit of information for the rest of us.

[onionwriter]

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:
Kristof had a good column in the times today.  It's very sad that a third of voters still suspect or believe that Obama is a muslim.  Pretty depressing that in this age of information outright falsehoods can have that kind of persistence.  

NY times

It's sadder that -- even though he is not -- voters might fear an American Muslim president. Are we that relgiously bigoted?

I suppose no Jew will ever be president . . . sigh.

It was news that Kennedy won even though he was a Catholic. Who usually wins? Methodists? (Which I am.) Which Lutheran synod is acceptable? How high has a Baptist ever risen in politics?

Yes. Jesus was all about keeping people apart and living in fear of each other.

[Hugeboobfan]

Quote:
onionwriter said:

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:
Kristof had a good column in the times today.  It's very sad that a third of voters still suspect or believe that Obama is a muslim.  Pretty depressing that in this age of information outright falsehoods can have that kind of persistence.  

NY times

It's sadder that -- even though he is not -- voters might fear an American Muslim president. Are we that relgiously bigoted?

I suppose no Jew will ever be president . . . sigh.

It was news that Kennedy won even though he was a Catholic. Who usually wins? Methodists? (Which I am.) Which Lutheran synod is acceptable? How high has a Baptist ever risen in politics?

Yes. Jesus was all about keeping people apart and living in fear of each other.

Personally I believe a lot of it is code for concealed racism.  It's not acceptable anymore to publicly claim you don't want to vote for a black person, but saying you don't want to vote for a muslim doesn't raise as many eyebrows.  People feel very comfortable telling others that they don't want Obama to be president because he is muslim.  You can tell some people that Obama is not a muslim straight to their face and they still refuse to believe it.  If Obama had white skin would these people still be as stubborn?

But beyond that, the evangelical christian voting block has enough sway in this country to make belief in god a major requirement for public office.  It's absurd that is the case in the land of freedom of religion, but it is.  Candidates have to trip all over themselves proclaiming how important god is in their lives and how pious they are.  You think it's hard for a Jew to be elected president?  Imagine how impossible it would be for an atheist.

[onionwriter]

Sir:

You are correct.

[TheZookie007]

Quote:
Hugeboobfan:
Personally I believe a lot of it is code for concealed racism.  It's not acceptable anymore to publicly claim you don't want to vote for a black person, but saying you don't want to vote for a muslim doesn't raise as many eyebrows.  People feel very comfortable telling others that they don't want Obama to be president because he is muslim.  You can tell some people that Obama is not a muslim straight to their face and they still refuse to believe it.  If Obama had white skin would these people still be as stubborn?

People who believe Obama is a crypto-Muslim are out-and-out racists. Period. The people with whom this country does the most business are all Muslim (the Saudis); the people whose regimes we propped up before we decided we didn't like them that much any more (the Iraqis) are Muslims. We've had a so-called Christian in charge for eight years and he has royally fucked all of us, Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist,...AMERICAN. So WHO THE FUCK CARES IF OBAMA REALLY IS A MUSLIM? I don't.

[MasterDragonfly]

I'd say it's about time to inject some George Carlin for some provoking thoughts.  

George Carlin - It's Bad For Ya! (2008) - part 6 of 7

First 3 minutes.

[onionwriter]

I was in New York during 911. A very bad time, and I was angry and scared.

A little afterward I thought of a solution: give up. Tell the world, "Okay, we are now a Muslim nation and leave us alone."

And in fact we are a Muslim nation. And a Jewish nation. And a Christian nation. And a Buddhist nation. And an athiest nation. And everything else.

I'm pretty proud of that. Even if we vote in dumb ways, we have a fair amount of tolerance left; "ethnic cleansing" will never occur in our country.

[TheZookie007]

We do come close from time to time; recall what happened to the Japanese in WW II. We lost our nerve to go all the way to bumping them off though -- we saved the black prisoners in the Tuskeegee Experiment for that

[ChrisR1]

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:But beyond that, the evangelical christian voting block has enough sway in this country to make belief in god a major requirement for public office.  It's absurd that is the case in the land of freedom of religion, but it is.  Candidates have to trip all over themselves proclaiming how important god is in their lives and how pious they are.  You think it's hard for a Jew to be elected president?   Imagine how impossible it would be for an atheist . ( emphasis added )

That's the one I'm waiting for...