PANTS ON FIRE

Fact Check: Palin and the Bridge to Nowhere
The Associated Press • Published September 08, 2008


WASHINGTON – A new ad from John McCain's presidential campaign contends his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." In fact, Palin was for the infamous bridge before she was against it


THE SPIN: Called "Original Mavericks," the ad asserts the Republican senator has fought pork-barrel spending, the drug industry and fellow Republicans, reforming Washington in the process, and credits Palin with similarly changing Alaska by taking on the oil industry, challenging her own party and ditching the bridge project that became a national symbol of wasteful spending.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton came back with fighting words. "Despite being discredited over and over again by numerous news organizations, the McCain campaign continues to repeat the lie that Sarah Palin stopped the Bridge to Nowhere," he said.

Burton said McCain would merely carry on supporting President Bush's economic, health, education, energy and foreign policies, and that means "anything but change."

THE FACTS: Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after she had appeared to support the bridge during her campaign for governor.

McCain and Palin together have told a broader story about the bridge that is misleading. She is portrayed as a crusader for the thrifty use of tax dollars who turned down an offer from Washington to build an expensive bridge of little value to the state.

"I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere," she said in her convention speech last week.

That's not what she told Alaskans when she announced a year ago that she was ordering state transportation officials to ditch the project. Her explanation then was that it would be fruitless to try to persuade Congress to come up with the money.

Sarah knows what Ramtha wants: A bridge to nowhere.

Can you imagine the money they are goona have to pay secret service if he gets elected. You know bullets are gonna be flying at some point and time. It's just a matter of time. I don't care what the hazzard pay includes. Obama may as well sign his will if he is elected.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the whack-jobs that try or have whacked a President are a few short of a six pack, rather than being motived buy racial hatred.

God, or the voices in their head usually tell them that the President is evil and must die at their hands.

Most true racists are so damn in-bred to begin with that they are not smart enough to kill a President.

Just your normal, average fleet of Presidential Security Detail Secret Service Officers will easily contain those fine excuses for human beings.

Don't think Obama should be any more worried or concerned than any past President (minus JFK and Reagan, or course.)

I agree with ya Parker, but it only takes a few whack jobs to turn things into caos. Don't forget the nuts who pulled off 9/11?

We often overlook what's right in front of us.

I don't think Al-KayDuh could pull off killing a president.

I don't have first hand knowledge of this, but I'm guess that is harder than it appears.

Now, if you believe that the nutjobs who pulled off 9/11 are the same nujobs who had Kennedy killed, and faked the Moon Landing, than I might have to agree with you there!

I'm making my tinfoil hat now!

I guess only time will tell what happens. We should take up this conversation in Late Nov.

Have you guys read "Legacy of Ashes" it is the entire history of the CIA. The book is all based on public record, and first person interviews about the agency. There is some pretty good evidence in there that JFK's murder was planned and orchestrated by more than a whack job.

Like I said it is on the record stuff, so you have to imply a lot, but it really isn't that hard to do.

I really don't think Obama would be in any greater danger than any other president, but I found that portion of the book fascinating.

So way back when a college roomate who was working for Lee Hamilton (IN) calls me says "Hey can get you an internship with the CIA". I wasn't very into it (fairly anti government) but came around and said "ok what's involved"?
"No problem" he said. "You've got the grades. Oh [censored]....wait a minute there is a background check....nevermind".

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."


She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story

Latest Zogby poll might tell a different story.

9/6/08

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1548

So you're telling me you thought she was the right choice BEFORE McCain announced her as his running mate? You really think she is qualified to take over as president if McCain drops from a heart attack? Not saying the Obama is the right choice here, but it strikes me how all the republicans jumped on the Palin bandwagon as soon as her name was announced, defending her as the right choice, when her name came out of the blue.

Hope you enjoy it!!

Up in the Twin Cities area folks are speaking a new language. Or, should I say Palinguage. It sounds sorta familiar because it's Latin based. But different from the plain English we're used to speaking, in Palinguage recognizable words take on new meanings. Won't you take a moment to learn some Plainguage so you can talk like a hypocritical conservative?

REPEAT THE FOLLOWING:

If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire." If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

If you live in an Urban area and you get a girl pregnant you're a "baby daddy." If you're the same in Alaska you're a "teen father." (Actually, according to your own MySpace page you're an F'n redneck that don't want any kids, but that's too long a phrase for the evil liberal media to take out of context and flog morning noon and night).

Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America. White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic." Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."

Similarly, if you name your kid Barack you're "unpatriotic." Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."

If you' re a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless." A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

If you say that for the "first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country" it makes you "unfit" to be First Lady. If you are a registered member of a fringe political group that advocates secession that makes you "First Dude."

A DUI from twenty years ago is "old news." A speech given without proper citation from twenty years ago is "relevant information."

And, finally, if you're a man and you decide to run for office despite your wife's recurrence of cancer you're a "questionable spouse." If you're a woman and you decide to run for office despite having five kids including a newborn... Well, we don't know what that is 'cause THAT'S NOT A FAIR QUESTION TO ASK.

It will certainly be an interesting election.

Not only was Palin a faithful pursuer of the very "pork" she now pretends to eschew, but even after she flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere, she didn't give any of the "pork" back that was earmarked for it...she took it and spent it on other pork projects for Alaska.

She's a liar, plain and simple...the speech she gave the other night at the RNC was moving and eloquent, and almost completely devoid of any factual material...and was rich in flat out untruths.

Do the RWWJ's care? No...they know she's a liar, and they don't care. The Reps can't even come close to winning an election on the issues, so they just make up chit instead, and the Kool-Aid drinking sheep, including many right here on this BB, eat it up like leftover meatloaf.

That's about as UNpatriotic and UNAmerican as it can get...know they're lying, and not only support them, but support their lying, too.

Fish on...

Todd

I don't hear Ron Paul telling fibs.

Well spoken Hankster!!!!

You, me, and Andy.

Ron Paul 2008