BS: Palin VP McCain choice

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 10:25 AM

"But, of course, the New York Times always gets everything wrong. "

Hardly ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 10:44 AM

Judith Miller, Jason Blair, the list is endless!

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 10:45 AM

The awesome Church talk link below is really really super...ya gotta see it cuz its gonna really really be a good good kool thing ta see y'know


"Pay for the new pipleline" "Pray for our God's plan in Iraq"   

You are all a buncha kool lookin Christians"

Lets give the Lord a hand for our Govenor pray for Sarah's great wisdom and strength.
Amen

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 10:58 AM

"Judith Miller, Jason Blair, the list is endless! "

No, it is not "endless".

As with any organization, there are problems and they are dealt with. The NYTimes has a reputation for accuracy that is above most other newspapers.   They set standards and when problems arise, it becomes news - primarly because simple minded critics love pouncing on an open wound.   That is so much easier to do then to examine the reaction the newspaper had to the issue and what they did to fix it.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:01 AM

excerpt of her cute little laugh cute little laugh



Full show
Alaska Radio show with Sarah Palin (bad language warning)


Isn't it cute they way she drops her g's on any ing word.
Its really really adorable.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:11 AM

Actually your list has two items on it. Add Bill Kristol and David Brooks and you get maybe fouor.

The facts as they have been reported are that the vetting interview occurred only the day before the announcement and that the vetting staff who do the background checks weren't even all in-state yet before the announcement was made.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Wesley S
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:13 AM

George Will had this to say on the subject in todays paper:

George Will: Experience can be a cruel teacher
07:10 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The word "experience" appears 91 times in the Federalist Papers, those distillations of conservative sense and sensibility. America's Founders were empiricists and students of history who trusted "that best oracle of wisdom, experience," which is humanity's "least fallible guide."

The Founders knew, as conservatives do, that all guides are fallible. Hence conservatism's inclination to discern prescriptions in traditions, which are mankind's slow adjustments to the accretion of experiences.

So, Sarah Palin. The man who would be the oldest to embark on a first presidential term has chosen as his possible successor a person of negligible experience.

In 1912, Mr. McCain's Arizona became the 48th state. In 1959, Ms. Palin's Alaska became the 49th. Modern conservatism has the libertarian cast of a region still steeped in an individualism natural to the frontier's spaciousness.

But American conservatism depends on what it calls "fusion," the collaboration of libertarians and social conservatives concerned that liberty unleavened by restraints creates a licentious culture. Ms. Palin supposedly is fusion in one person.

Many cultural conservatives, who are much of the GOP's base, consider Mr. McCain's adherence to their persuasion perfunctory. By his selection of Ms. Palin, he got the enthusiasm of the base. But what has he got in Ms. Palin?

In coming days he and we will learn from a stern teacher, experience.

–Excerpted from a column by The Washington Post's George Will

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:14 AM

Put yourself in McCain's shoes when Sarah takes the podium and for every TV show she does for the next two weeks.

If the guy is gonna stoke out.. it will be then.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:19 AM

This person put her finger on the hypocrisy that's been bothering me about the pregnant teen. From HERE:

In America, of course, debates about sex often mask debates about abortion. Kris Miccio, who teaches family law at the University of Denver, wonders how a party that opposes abortion rights can invoke a leave-this-family-alone mantra on a reproductive issue.

"The Republicans are saying this is a private family decision, but they don't accord the same privacy if a woman does not choose to carry a fetus to term," Miccio says. "If it's a private decision for the Palin family, it's a private decision for any family."

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:33 AM

"Actually your list has two items on it. Add Bill Kristol and David Brooks and you get maybe fouor..."


                Great, thanks, Amos, and then there's that weird publisher, I can't remember his name, and...

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 01:26 PM

From: CarolC
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 06:41 AM

I don't agree that what I am disagreeing with are necessarily facts.

"It all depends what you definition of 'is' is"-----Bill Clinton

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 01:26 PM

It strikes me that an awful lot of the posts in this thread are just the kind of thing that would make a lot of people more likely to back Sarah Palin.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 01:36 PM

McGrath, I think you're right! If it pisses off the morons, it must be good!...Right Amos??

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:05 PM

I dunno. I am not pissed off, so I guess I don't qualify. Which morons were you referring to?

I think if anything tends to irk people, it is the effort to spin things to the point of falsifying them. Calling her qualified to command because, as Governor, she was the titular commander of the Alaskan National Guard, whom she dispatched to one forest fire, Ibelieve, or the proposition that she understands international tension because she lives with fifty miles of the Bering Strait, is insultingly disingenuous.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain says his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, was already an experienced government official while his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, was working as a community organizer.

She wasn't. Palin was finishing college, getting married and working as a TV sportscaster when Obama was directing a church-based community group on Chicago's South Side in 1985-88.

McCain sought to make the comparison in an appearance on Fox News Sunday, criticizing Obama as too inexperienced to be in the White House despite his choice of a running mate who's also being called too unseasoned for that role.

Challenged about his vice presidential choice, McCain said as governor of Alaska for the last two years, Palin "has had enormous responsibilities, none of which Senator Obama had." Later, McCain elaborated that "as a governor, she has had executive experience. She didn't sit in the state legislature."

The same contrast could be made with McCain himself, whose entire 26-year political career has been spent in Congress...." (AP)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:13 PM

Well the McCain campaign is getting the word out now that Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:35 PM

Well, Obama DOES have 1/2 the experiance that Dan Quayle did... But Dan was only the VP.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:43 PM

Tucker Bounds claimed, on CNN, that Palin had international savvy having had to deploy the National Guard overseas to Iraq! I call that an outright lie.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:47 PM

As I've said for sometime now, "NONE OF THEM ARE QUALIFIED!" So let's not split hairs!
You mean, to blacks, a black man is more qualified, because he's black??...or putting a woman on as VP to get the woman's vote, makes her more qualified??..or picking Biden, because 'middle America' can relate to him, makes him more qualified?? or McCain, because he was a POW, makes him more qualified??..(even though, as Commander in Chief, he probably would be 'more sensitive, and appreciative to those in the military).   A candidate who promises that life will be easier, because the government will spoon feed is public? That's a qualification?? What exactly do we look for in qualification??...what the 'news' (read: propaganda machine), tells us???...A lot of the 'average' citizens a are downright scary, due to their half-witted, emotionalized opinions(and some on here, as well). What makes a country strong, is the values that the citizens hold within themselves that govern them.(Not the manufactured imposed on us 'values'). Looking for handouts, and government control of everything is NOT a strength! If the citizenry of a country, allows their Constitution be broken down, slowly, bit by bit, to facilitate some agenda, then IT IS A WEAKNESS. This has been going on for a while, and to continue the programs of our present administration, would do that, and the proposed programs of both candidates, will still do it, however, the Democrats, just want to focus on other parts of the Constitution, to 'Change'. It's madness! We are smarter than that!...but we do nothing...because we are also weak!..then we try to blame it on some one else!..WE let it happen!..The ones who are running, are only saying that they want to 'fix' it, but in reality, they are only extending the damage, and make it 'even more acceptable' with smooth words!....and yum-yum, we just wait to eat it up!! If you really want something on T.V., that is pretty factual, watch the Weather Channel

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:54 PM

And, what do you do besides come to Mudcat and tell us all how stupid we are? Are you running for office? Are you marching in protest? Have any videos on youtube which enlighten one and all? Since you know it all, you must have some solutions, real solutions.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:55 PM

Truth hurts, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Greg B
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:56 PM

Quoth Sinsull:

"We went through this in another thread - it is no one's business but her own."

They tried that on with the Bill and Monica show. Didn't work out too
well for Al Gore in the following election.

In this case we have a woman who's trying to tell the nation, and even
more, codify, how it's youth ought to be brought up. No sex education
in schools, save for abstinence, no contraception training, save for
abstinence, no access to public funding for contraception, no access
to abortion, period.

Is it fair to point out that those policies in her own family have
failed her own children (in the opinion of this enlightened,
left-leaning, liberal)? You bet.

That a 17-year-old headed into a 'had to get married' marriage is
statistically headed into a personal disaster? That 44-year-olds
giving birth to Downs babies are the argument both for prevention
and for pre-natal genetic screening?

But Sarah Palin, she'd deny young men and women education,
contraception, and abortion. She'd even, if she could, deny
pre-menopausal women the wherewithal to avoid conception or,
if they do conceive, the means to avoid spending their late-
middle-age caring for a developmentally disabled youngster
(or of taking on motherhood all over again with their eldest
in or on the cusp of his second decade).

She's clearly not one who's going to separate her personal moral
choices from public policy.

If she were, then I'd be a bit more sympathetic to the "it's none
of our business" argument.

But that's just not the case. She wants us all to run our private
lives the way she runs hers and those of her children. In other
words, she wants to make OUR business HER business.

She wants the power to intrude into our business.

In that case, damned right it's my business.

And it's some really bad business, indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:59 PM

Greg B, ..That was well thought out and laid out! Thank you!

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:59 PM

Well, I wouldn't know--I haven't seen any from your posts. For example, Obama has gone out of his way to make it vividly clear that his proposals will not be easy, and they will not be spoonfed.

So I am not sure who you're talking about. You and Rig have a great talent for wasting information and replacing it with your own special brands of trash.


I look forward with great interest to Palin's show tonight.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:03 PM

Well, I wouldn't know--I haven't seen any from your posts. For example, Obama has gone out of his way to make it vividly clear that his proposals will not be easy, and they will not be spoonfed.

The only thing about Obama saying it, is, What do you mean>>...he's not even vividly clear. I guess if he says it, then its beyond being bullshit, right? His acceptance speech was peppered with inaccuracies!

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:36 PM

"No sex education in schools, save for abstinence, no contraception training, save for abstinence, no access to public funding for contraception..."

Is there any unequivocal evidence that that stuff actually results in lower number of young girls getting pregnant, or lower numbers of young boys getting them pregnant?

There may well be. Common sense may suggest that there is. But common sense isn't always right. So is it in this case?

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:38 PM

PErhaps you would be more persuasive if you used specifics, Janet.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:38 PM

Greg, well-said. Thanks.

Amos, it's not worth it...self-delusions repel anything we say...time to quit feeding the troll. Laughable, really, if it weren't so pathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:51 PM

"In this case we have a woman who's trying to tell the nation, and even more, codify, how it's youth ought to be brought up. No sex education..."


             Hopefully the mother has the daughter's brilliance, for not having been taught, she seems to have caught onto this sex thing pretty well.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:52 PM

I have to say I'm not too concerned about the doom-sayers who claim that McCain and Palin are horrible right-wingers who will impose their right-wing ideology on the nation. We've had a number of right-wing people in government since Roe v. Wade, and not has been able to affect any significant restrictions on the choice of abortion. Right now, we're ruled by an absolute idiot and a pro-business megalomaniacal genious, and we're in trouble - but I don't think either McCain or Palin is an idiot or a megalomaniac. Most likely, if either McCain or Obama gets elected, there will be few and gradual changes, and nothing that is repulsive to the majority of the electorate. The extremists on both sides will squawk, but I don't think either McCain or Obama will do anything particularly horrible as president (and neither would Biden or Palin). They're all fair-minded people, not likely to try to impose a minority position on the nation.

It takes a real idiot like George W. Bush to get us in a screwed-up situation like the one we're in.

My patron saint, Alfred E. Neuman, says we have nothing to worry about this time around.

What, ME worry????

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:57 PM

"it's hard to imagine anyone who would be qualified for the raft of personal and political challenges Palin faces. Over the next months, and all at once, a list of the things she'll need to deal with:

* 0her continuing duties as governor of Alaska
* a legislature-funded investigation into questions of whether she has abused her office in a vendetta against her former brother-in-law, a probe that prompted her to hire a personal attorney
* the care of her fifth child, Trig, born this spring with Down syndrome—a condition that requires close parental attention and care, especially in the first year of the child's life
* the pregnancy and pending marriage of her teenage daughter Bristol, who is planning to wed the father before Election Day
* learning the routines and rituals of the national campaign trail, which she will be required to traverse on her own plane, with her own staff
* getting a sense of the Lower 48 states, most of which she has never visited
* figuring out how to deal with McCain, whom she barely knows
* handling whatever national press interviews the McCain campaign allows her to do—and she will have to do some to prepare herself for later events
* prep for the nationally televised vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, a legislator with 36 years of seniority, who is personally acquainted with the rulers of nations Palin may never have even heard of

At first glance, this is a little like dropping Peter Pan into the middle of Anbar Province. On the other hand, former Sen. Fred Thompson pointed out last night that Palin may be the only national candidate in history who knows how to field-dress a moose.

It's hard to see how that skill will translate into politics, but we are about to find out...." (Newsweek)

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:59 PM

sorry.

"In Alaska, Palin is challenging the dominant, sometimes corrupting, role of oil companies in the state's political culture. "The public has put a lot of faith in us," says Palin during a meeting with lawmakers in her downtown Anchorage office, where—as if to drive the point home—the giant letters on the side of the ConocoPhillips skyscraper fill an entire wall of windows. "They're saying, 'Here's your shot, clean it up'." For Palin, that has meant tackling the cozy relationship between the state's political elite and the energy industry that provides 85 percent of Alaska's tax revenues—and distancing herself from fellow Republicans, including the state's senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, whose home was recently searched by FBI agents looking for evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation. (Stevens has denied any wrongdoing.) But even as she tackles Big Oil's power, Palin has transformed her own family's connections to the industry into a political advantage. Her husband, Todd, is a longtime employee of BP, but, as Palin points out, the "First Dude" is a blue-collar "sloper," a fieldworker on the North Slope, a cherished occupation in the state. "He's not in London making the decisions whether to build a gas line."

In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Palin said it's time for Alaska to "grow up" and end its reliance on pork-barrel spending. Shortly after taking office, Palin canceled funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere," a $330 million project that Stevens helped champion in Congress. The bridge, which would have linked the town of Ketchikan to an island airport, had come to symbolize Alaska's dependence on federal handouts. Rather than relying on such largesse, says Palin, she wants to prove Alaska can pay its own way, developing its huge energy wealth in ways that are "politically and environmentally clean.""

from http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=In+Alaska%2C+Palin+is+challenging+the+dominant%2C+sometimes+corrupting%2C+role+of+oil

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:06 PM

And from the WSJ-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122039919493892941.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries


Why Obama Can't Close the Sale
By AL HUBBARD and NOAM NEUSNER
September 3, 2008; Page A23

Even before John McCain shook up the presidential race by tapping Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, polls weren't showing the late-August lead that Barack Obama (and many Republicans) expected. Why so?

It's not because of the brilliance of the McCain campaign. Rather we believe that -- despite the media's best efforts to exempt Mr. Obama's policies from critical examination -- American voters aren't sheep. They pay attention to the candidates and positions and make wise decisions about who should lead the country.

True, Mr. Obama enjoys several advantages. Republicans are struggling nationwide in head-to-head contests. Democrats lead in voter registration, and have a well-funded presidential candidate.

Yet Americans have not committed to Mr. Obama. Why?

....
But here's the thing: It's not that Mr. Obama hasn't been specific enough in his governing plans. To the contrary, he has been very specific about his tax policy, health-care and energy proposals. It's that voters are paying attention and appear not to like what Candidate Obama is saying.

Mr. Obama has proposed a massive tax increase on investors, business owners, and the "wealthy." At a time when the American people rate the economy as the central issue of the campaign, a tax hike doesn't make a lot of political sense. Voters know that a tax hike won't help the economy.

Moreover, Mr. Obama's tax plans would directly or indirectly harm U.S. investors by raising the capital gains and dividend taxes. More than half of U.S. households are equity owners, so Mr. Obama's proposal risks alienating half the population.

Mr. Obama claims to offer a tax cut to moderate-income families, but a significant portion of Mr. Obama's tax plan is a welfare giveaway costing more than $648 billion over 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center.

How so? He would authorize a hodgepodge of refundable tax credits covering everything from education, mortgage payments, child care and other items for people who do not pay income taxes now.

About 38% of U.S. households pay no income tax today. Under a President Obama (whose policies would shave 15.3 million households off the tax rolls) that share would grow to nearly half of all American households.

We have been repeatedly told that everyone should pay their fair share. So this sounds grossly unfair and like a return of tax-and-spend liberal economics. No wonder there is a lot of doubt about the wisdom of the junior senator from Illinois.

....
Again, Americans are wiser than they are given credit. They know that if you restrict supply and tax production, prices go up.

....
Mr. Obama is wondering why he can't shake Mr. McCain. His problem isn't his plans for the campaign. It's his plans for governing the country. Americans just aren't buying into them.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:07 PM

The media regularily puts McCain and Palin forward as Mavericks.

I see it in Palin.

But, is it true for the much older, career politician McCain?

Why so?

Below are some definations of the word:
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/maverick

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/maverick
http://www.developing-leadership.com/definition-of-a-maverick.html

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:09 PM

sorry- previous posted to wrong thread... can be deleted

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:17 PM

here it is:

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html



"Another ... blind spot. I'm bumping into a lot of critics who do not buy the legitimacy of small town mayorship (Palin had two terms in Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000 or so) and executive as opposed to legislative experience. But executives, even of small towns, run something. There are 262 cities in this country with a population of 100,000 or more. But there are close to a hundred thousand small towns with ten thousand people or less. "You do the math," the conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway told me. "We are a nation of Wasillas, not Chicagos.""

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:19 PM

I'm glad that you're so possitive Joe. BUT, anyone that thinks we are on God's mission in Iraq or that we'll see it through till victory of "Hell freezes over" is scary if they're at the the helm.
George W has landed US here & he's not the zelot that Shara is & McCain isn't half the idiot the W is, so with the combo of the 2 running now & the 2 that has been running it's gonna go from Gloom to Doom real fast.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:32 PM

Sarah Palin:
B.A. Journalism, U. Idaho.
PTA parent
Mayor of a town of 5,000
Twenty months governor of Alaska (a state with a population smaller than most mid-size american cities).
Chosen as mccain's running mate without being fully vetted

Barack Obama:
B.A. International Affairs, Columbia University,
J.D. Harvard, Magna Cum Laude
President of the Harvard Law Review, Harvard
Community Organizer, CHicago
Professor in Constitutional Law, University of Chicago,
Illinois State Senator, 8 years
U.S. Senator, 4 years, Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs committees through December 2006
In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.[70] He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.[71] As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Currently Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Has visited with all major european leaders including Pres. Sarkozy of France, Prime Ministers of Germany and Iraq, etc. has been fully vetted and chosen to represent his party after 25 national debates against major national political figures. fully outlined policies on education, healthcare, economy, foreign relations etc. Organized a successful upstart campaign against an entrenched favorite for the Democratic nomination and prosecuted it completely successfully.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: curmudgeon
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:40 PM

Now be fair, Amos. Do the same for McCain and Biden. Thanks - Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:48 PM

Amos,

I DID say that Obama had half the experience that Dan Quayle had, when he ran for VP.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 05:12 PM

Sighhhh.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 05:40 PM

Yes, Bruce, you did.

And it was scurrilous of you.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 05:40 PM

Well, the problem I have with Guest from Sanity's positions at 2:47 is that on one hand GfS suggests that there are too many governemnt programs and then defends Greg B's observation that if there was a more comprhensive family planning "programs" that maybe a Down's Syndrome child wouldn't have been born to a 44 year old woman and maybe her 17 year old daughter would not be pregnant...

That's the problem...

The Repubs have convinced people that they don't need these (and other) programs but when you strip them down these programs do make our society better... I was a social worker when Ronald Reagan started this bullsh*t and I saw first hand what happens when social programs get the axe... It isn't very pretty... We have more people living in poverty than any developed country in the world... It ain't like we are lavishing program after program on our least fortunate... The Department of Defense spends more in one month than is spent in an entire year on our poor... That is shamefull... Yet we still have folks spouting off about "Welfare Caddilac Moms" as if they exist... What a friggin' and cruelass joke... We should be ashamed, and not just for how little we spend on our poor but also in how we have such a large percentage of people who are completely ignorant of how little we spend yet spout off every time the issue comes up... That in itself is sickening!!!

And also sickening is the notion that governemnt has too many controls over businesses and corporations... With Ronald Reagan came not only the gutting of social programs but also the ***BIG D***, as in DEREGULATION!!! That was supposed to be the panecia to cure all of society's ills as the benevolent Fat Cats would make more money and create worderfull, well paying jobs and all would be well... Well, after 3 decades it is evident that that little experiement has been a complete flop to everyone but the upper 5%... Everyone else is going backwards or, at best, treading water...

But back to this deregulation which has made the wealthy wealthier and everyone else suffer; I find it interesting that those who still hang out around the Koolaid cooler didn't say a peep when the government--- you know, that thing they say is too big and does too much for people--- handed out $26B to the airlines after 9/11 and more recently close to $30B to Bear-Sterns??? Where was the protest from the Repubs then??? But these same people will get up on their soapboxes and proclaim, as if they actually knew anything (which they don't), that the governemnt has too many handout programs???

Give this old hillbilly a break...

So what I have deducted is that the folks who make statements that there are too many handout programs aren't informed people and in a truely ***Jeffersonain Democracy*** these people wouldn't/shouldn't be allowed to participate because they are not part of an "informed electorate"... In other words, the reason that the US is slowly sinking isn't because of too much regulation or too many handout programs... It's because we let ignorannt people vote...

                      End of Rant

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 05:50 PM

"Organized a successful upstart campaign against an entrenched favorite for the Democratic nomination and prosecuted it completely successfully."


                     Should read: Bankrolled to the hilt by a left wing activist group with questionable objectives. Out-spent opponent shamelessly to buy the nomination.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 05:52 PM

How so, Amos?


How many years has Obama been a national level politician?

How many years had Dan Quayle?


Simple facts- even you can figure this one out.




NOW, to be fair, compare the experience of the PRESIDENTIAL candidates: Obama vs McCain.

Then back off stating that since Palin has less ( arguable, but you seem to think so) experience than Biden, she is not qualified.

If you keep stating that, I will have to insist that Obama is not, as well. By your ANALYSIS of the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 06:28 PM

Experience = Red Herring...

Like I have pointed out, folks, arguing with McCain/Bishites about experience is a waste of time...

John McCain has, what, 30 years experience as a Senator yet he has very poor judegement and is a hothead... You want him sittin' accroos the table from Putin??? He'll ghet you into more wars than you can count...

Obama has, what, half a dozen years as a legislatior but knew that ivading Iraq was a bad idea... He is also thoughtful... What a concept!?!?!? Yeah, he thinks before he speaks...

So, once again I'd advise my friends here to not be lured into the Republican "experience" trap and ignore the posts here that try to suck you in 'casue when it comes down to it, it's judegement and good ideas that Repubs lack...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 06:48 PM

Experience isn't the only thing. It's what that experience reveals about you that is important.

Dubya had been Governor of the geographically largest state (after Alaska) for years and years...

Of course this gave him the opportunity to demonstrate pretty clearly that he was completely incompetent, but somehow this never registered with the people who voted for him.

I think Bobert is right there. Sarah Palin's advent should be an occasion to recognise that arguments about "experience" and "lack of experience" are dead ends. What matters is judgement and good ideas. And competence and trustworthiness.

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 06:51 PM

On the subject of the definition of "is"...

I'm more concerned with the definition of "fact", which the person who used it in the post preceding my 03 Sep 08 - 06:41 AM post appears to be torturing as thoroughly as Bill Clinton did the word "is".


On the subject of whether or not McCain would take this country down a road as disasterous as the one Bush took us down - McCain was embracing the PNAC agenda even before Bush was embracing it, as we can see in his speech from 1999 on the policy he calls "Rogue State Rollback" (which looks to me pretty much exactly like the talking points for the PNAC)...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9407EFD61E3EF93BA35751C1A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 06:56 PM

In my opinion, it was scurrilous to suggest that Dan "Potatoe" Quayle's qualities as a candidate stood in any degree against Barack Obama's. Quayle was a lousy statesman, illiterate and bumbling, and showed no sign of managerial competence, and had no particular accomplishments of merit.

He was, in all those respects, the opposite of Barack Obama.

And Rig, your refusal to acknowledge the skill that campaign took, blaming it on bankroll, is showing you up for some kinda fool. Clinton ran her campaign into a $20M hole without pulling it off. Barack Obama's funding was a LONG way from bankrolling, and your memory lapses are really shameful for one so young. His orgnaizational talents AND his fundraising talents put the veteran Clintons to shame. How d'ya like THAT experience?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 07:13 PM

600?

Subject: RE: BS: Palin VP McCain choice
From: Emma B
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 07:14 PM

a 'factual' post - at last LOL
Thanks Mary