Tag Archives: republican

McCain Chooses Self-Described “Hockey Mom” as VP

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The McCain campaign has been relentlessly attacking Obama on not having “experience”, because, you know, he only first became a state Senator in ’97, and then McCain taps Sarah Palin, who would be the least experienced vice president in U.S. history, having only been a governor of the crowned-king of backwater states for 20 months. Only 2 months ago she said she said she couldn’t answer whether she would accept a VP nomination because she didn’t know what the Vice President did, and now she’s going to be 1 heart attack away from the most powerful office in the world. Oh yeah, and she’s also being investigated by the ethics committee on charges that she tried to get a state trooper fired for divorcing her sister. But hey, she’s perfect for Republicans, since she can pick up all the Hillary PUMAs (Party Loyalty My Assers) who wanted a woman in the White House.

http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d7ed3b72-8de4-481e-9a9c-68a2a3a12090

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/29/palin-corruption-investigation/

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/29/sarah-palin-july-2008-i-dont-even-know-what-the-vice-president-does/

http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/08/commander-in-ch.html

Also, a new report from a non-partisan military think tank says the military actions rarely solves terrorism.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html

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Also, since it’s the anniversary or Katrina and I’m going to be running away from Gustav later this evening (but really because I was talking about this with my friend Im), I’m reposting this quote from Mary Landrieu it in a Slate article about how Bush spent more time on his own damage control than Hurricane Katrina:

“So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, ‘George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can’t send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.’ So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there — people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it.” There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated.

“I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I’ve been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life.”

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/index2.html

Even the head of FEMA who Bush installed, Michael Brown, has admitted that there was no plan and that he was told by White House officials after the disaster to lie to put a more positive spin on the Federal response:

BROWN: The lie was that we were working as a team and that everything was working smoothly. And how we could go out, and I beat myself up almost daily for allowing this to have happened, to sit there and go on television and talk about how things are working well, when you know they are not behind the scenes, is just wrong.

O’DONNELL: So let me get this clear. Someone in the White House was telling you to lie?

BROWN: Well, yes. They give you the talking points. Whenever you go out to do any interviews they always have the talking points. Here’s what the message for today is and here’s how we are going to spin everything. That’s just the way Washington, D.C. works and that’s just wrong.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14570837/

Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11627394/

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And let me also repost the stuff I’ve said about the “liberal media”:

It’s a simple fact that there are a lot more conservative talk shows than liberal talk shows on basic cable and the radio, due mostly thanks to the huge tilt from Fox News. As far as I know, Countdown With Keith Olberman is the only openly liberal television news show on cable, discounting comedy shows (I don’t have reception right now, so this may not be up to date).

Here’s a comparison I did of Fox News vs. CNN/CNN Headline News pundits:

http://bahumuth.bitfreedom.com/liberalconservative-news-pundit-comparison

“Look at the op-ed pages. Compare the number of conservative columnists with liberal columnists. Listen to talk radio. Count the number of nationally syndicated liberal talk-show hosts. Watch the cable TV talk shows. Count the number of liberal and conservative pundits. Conservatives far outnumber liberals.”

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/02/21/column.billpress/

“Unlike BBC’s network of reporters and bureaus, CNN International makes extensive use of affiliated reporters that are local to, and often directly affected by, the events they are reporting. The effect is a more immediate, less detached style of on-the-ground coverage. This has done little to stem criticism, largely from Middle Eastern nations, that CNN International reports news from a pro-American perspective. This is a marked contrast to domestic criticisms that often portray CNN as having a “liberal” or “anti-American” bias.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN

“Examining the ‘Liberal Media’ Claim”

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447

“How the Liberal Media Myth is Created”

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003973.php

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003980.php

“Fox’s vitality comes as a consequence of another significant change in the media landscape. Political polarization is increasingly reflected in the public’s news viewing habits. Since 2000, the Fox News Channel’s gains have been greatest among political conservatives and Republicans. More than half of regular Fox viewers describe themselves as politically conservative (52%), up from 40% four years ago. At the same time, CNN, Fox’s principal rival, has a more Democrat-leaning audience than in the past.
The public’s evaluations of media credibility also are more divided along ideological and partisan lines. Republicans have become more distrustful of virtually all major media outlets over the past four years, while Democratic evaluations of the news media have been mostly unchanged. As a result, only about half as many Republicans as Democrats rate a variety of well-known news outlets as credible a list that includes ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, NPR, PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the New York Times, Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report.”

http://people-press.org/report/215/news-audiences-increasingly-politicized

“A new study shows that patrons of Rupert Murdoch’s brand of journalism are most likely to be misinformed about key facts of the Iraq war.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/16892/

“Survey: Daily Show/Colbert Viewers Most Knowledgable, Fox News Viewers Rank Lowest”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/16/daily-show-fox-knowledge/

Fox News Airs Altered Photos of Journalists

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807020002?f=h_top

“In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says.

By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists’ own views.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32631-2005Mar13.html

“In January 2006, Ken Jautz, president of CNN Headline News, hired conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck, giving him a primetime show which premiered May 8, 2006. Jautz stated that Beck was “cordial,” and that his radio show was “conversational, not confrontational.” However, Media Matters for America and FAIR have reported that Beck had a history of controversial statements made on his radio show, including calling Jimmy Carter a “waste of skin”, calling the people who stayed in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina “scumbags”, hoping for the deaths of Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore, [28] and telling a caller who claimed to have tortured foreign prisoners for the U.S. military, “I appreciate your service”.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_controversies

This website also provides some examples of liberal bias as well, but in my opinion, they are minor and unimportant (as are some of the “conservative bias” ones listed). For example, CNN didn’t report on Saddam Hussein’s atrocities while journalists were stationed in Iraq for the sake of their safety. Another time there was a technical glitch that caused an X to flash over Cheney’s face. I don’t consider those to be instances of liberal bias, but people I know do. As a side note, if you think someone at CNN is retarded enough to believe flashing an X over someone’s face will change their political views, you should look into the number of times Fox News has identified a Republican going through a scandal as a Democrat. But seriously, anyone who employs Glenn Beck can hardly be oozing with Leftiness.

Here are some examples of misinformation put out by CNN favoring conservative stances:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807240001?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807310011?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807310010?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807310009?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807290005?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807270002?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807270001?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807180013?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807180006?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807170006?f=s_search

The Idea of Expensive Gas is Only Psychological

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We had the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. Just wanted to make sure conservatives caught the reason why:

>Schumer said in a statement that the cause of IndyMac’s failure was “poor and loose lending practices” that should have been prevented by more active regulation.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-indymac12-2008jul12,0,6071779.story

Also, as FactCheck has pointed out, while the Republicans are spending money blaming Obama for not having an energy plan, Obama has proposed a $150 billion program on alternative energy.

>While McCain recently proposed The Lexington Project, which includes spending $2 billion annually toward clean coal technology advancement, McCain doesn’t have a plan comparable to Obama’s in scale of spending.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_false_accusation_about_energy.html

That is, if you believe there really is an energy crisis. Turns out, one of few economists that McCain actually does trust says the crisis is all in our heads and that we’re really just “a nation of whiners”:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/10/1191310.aspx

Global Warming or Climate Change?

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I’ve heard it been said that “Global Warming” was changed to “Climate Change” because liberals wanted to prepare to keep up the Global Warming scare even after temperatures start getting colder. But the funny thing is, the reason the Bush Administration started using the term “Climate Change” was because Frank Luntz advised them to:

“Luntz advises use of the term “climate change” rather than “global warming,” which he says is more frightening.”

http://www.desmogblog.com/bushs-chief-climate-spinmaster-tells-harper-how-its-done

“In a 2002 memo to President George W. Bush titled “The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America”, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, Luntz wrote: “The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science…Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz

Another email from 2004 says: “From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation’s waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment – Republicans can’t stress enough that extremists are screaming “Doomsday!” when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.'”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/apr/04/usnews.theobserver

So, even though Luntz knew the science was “closing” in on them in 2002, he continued to suggest that Republicans act as if the global warming position was “extremist” in 2004. Yet, he seems to have become an “exteremist” himself in 2006:

Luntz: “It’s now 2006. I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place and that the behavior of humans are (sic) affecting the climate.”

BBC: “But the administration has continued taking your advice. They’re still questioning the science.”

Luntz: “That’s up to the administration. I’m not the administration. What they want to do is their business. It has nothing to do with what I write. It has nothing to do with what I believe.”

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/frank_luntz_acc.php

“Although Luntz later tried to distance himself from the Bush administration policy, it was his idea to discredit the idea of global warming science to keep the issue from influencing voters in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections. Luntz has since said that he is not responsible for what the administration has done since that time. Though he now believes humans have contributed to global warming, he maintains that the science was in fact incomplete, and his recommendation sound, at the time he made it.[5]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz

Wright Comes Out

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I noticed the mainstream media was shocked — SHOCKED — to learn that Wright was going on a book tour to try and defend himself after 4 weeks of being completely lambasted by them. Chris Matthews took special offense to Wright saying that the media was attacking not Obama but the “black church.” Of course it’s not really an attack on black churches. It’s the media using the shock value of what goes on in a lot of black churches in order to get ratings and pawn it off as a campaign issue. Obama supporters are interviewed to get the message out that he needs to just shut up and go away, because, as is continuously repeated, the story was suppossedly JUST NOW starting to “die off” (har har har). It almost makes me think the media doesn’t want people to find out that there is more substance to Wright’s message than his crazy conspiracy theory about AIDS. Personally, I don’t care what he says; at least now the lazy media will have to pick off new statements to take out of context instead of re-looping the same two phrases (“God damn America” and “chickens coming home to roost”) over and over again. Of course, this isn’t an attack on the “black church.”

Here’s the FULL quote from Wright about “chickens coming home to roost”:

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”

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Compare this to the comments recently made by Rush Limbaugh:

“Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect Democrats,” Limbaugh said during Wednesday’s radio broadcast. He then went on to say that’s the best thing that could happen to the country.

Limbaugh cited Al Sharpton, saying the Barack Obama supporter threatened to superdelegates that “there’s going to be trouble” if the presidency is taken from Obama.

Several callers called in to the radio show to denounce Limbaugh’s comments, when he later stated, “I am not inspiring or inciting riots, I am dreaming of riots in Denver.”

Limbaugh said with massive riots in Denver, which he called “Operation Chaos,” the people on the far left would look bad.

“There won’t be riots at our convention,” Limbaugh said of the Republican National Convention. “We don’t riot. We don’t burn our cars. We don’t burn down our houses. We don’t kill our children. We don’t do half the things the American left does.”

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Limbaugh and Hagee are a lot alike. Both are fat, racist bigots who call for (or “dream of”) violence in order to achieve their political ends (although for Hagee, that end is the Apocalypse). Both believe that God blesses the rich and the poor only have themselves to blame (the opposite of the gospel message). And both make a lot more money off their messages and affect real world politics than their scary, black “hate-filled” counterparts.

I’ve also heard people like Buchanan say there’s no comparison between Wright and Hagee because Obama knew Wright for 20 years and McCain doesn’t know Hagee personally. But why is that better? Obama didn’t *want* Wright to become an issue yet until recently refused to disown him even though it would cost him votes. McCain *sought out* Hagee, despite the fact he had previously condemned people like him, and *asked* for his support in order to get more votes from anti-Catholic, anti-Islamic Evangelicals.