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More on the Bill Ayers issue. It appears that even CNN believes Obama has lied about his relationship with Ayers.

 

Bill Ayers is not and will never be an 'issue'. He is a distraction.

Which I suspect you already know.

 

Of course he does, which is why I did not bother with his link. I already saw a portion of it on CNN, and was not impressed. MSNBC ran the same "investigation" and came away with a little different conclusion. TGS knows that hardly anyone except the Republican base gives a flip about any of this feeble attempt to turn the public's attention away from the real issues at hand. Just like saying the Dems are to blame for deregulation. Well, I lived through those years and I can say that deregulation was a part of the political culture of the "less government" crowd (that included many voters in the mainstream public as well).

Those of us who are real liberals, and wanted more regulation, were shouted down by the minions of the Republican Revolution of '94. Any Democrat who did not go along was branded as a liberal-obstructionist, socialist, and a "big government bureaucrat," who was standing in the way of the "Revolution." We were told that liberals, like ourselves, were "out of touch" with mainstream America. And in fact, we were. But we were right.

But I never held any of this against the New Democrats, because by the time the Republicans, led by Tom DeLay (remember him?), were done painting them as "liberals and socialists" it became a matter of political survival for them. Besides, there was a convincing side to the Republican argument, that deregulation was essential for economic growth, and some of that was certainly true. Now the Republicans are asking why the Democrats didn't save them from themselves. What a riot!

And now for their next act, Sarah Palin and the "friends of terrorists" party! Is there no end to the Republican fun?

 

Republican descent, is more like it.

My biggest hope for this election is not the long-term dominance of the Democratic party, but the current incarnation of the Republican party being crushed - hard - under the weight of the mindless partisans that now dominate it, so that a newer, more intelligent, pragmatic and serious party can emerge from the ashes. One that actually takes the rule of law, fiscal conservatism and non-interventionist foreign policy seriously. One that includes "conservation" as among the brightest virtues of Conservatism. One that doesn't cynically politicize science and champion anti-intellectualism. One where people who chant "Drill, Baby, Drill," "Appeasement!" or "he (palls around with/supports/gives aid and comfort to) Terrorists!" are rightly outcast for being the morons that they are. One where people can advocate conservative values without a Bible in their hand or a loyalty test. One where it's members know the difference between patriotism and nationalism, and have too much integrity to casually question the patriotism in others. In other words, a party of thinking adults who are actually conservatives.

It's not the change Obama's bringing that I'm hoping for, though that will be a vast improvement over the last 8 years. It's real and needed change in the Republican status quo. The biggest tragedy of the 2004 election was not that Bush won, but that unscrupulous, incompetent people were rewarded for their failure with re-election. The Republican party will have to suffer a crushing defeat before they realize that they need to change. Then maybe, just maybe, I could bring myself to vote Republican again.

I know I may have better luck hoping for a new pony, but...lay off, it's my hope. Get your own.

 

DR, I've judged Obama's talking points primarily from his commercials and the stuff that comes up on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc. so I may have missed some things. I've heard him talk about job loss, though I haven't heard how he actually proposes to stop it. I based my most recent judgement off of a commercial I've seen where Obama plays the exact same card, questioning McCain's relationship with the Keating Five (what, 20 years ago?).

As for Obama's letter, McCain was a staunch supporter of actual legislation to prevent this. I'm not saying the letter doesn't mean anything, far from it, but both sides can make claims of seeing this coming. Interestingly, neither side actually stopped it. I can't help but wonder how much of that is other people and how much of that is themselves everely underestimating things/playing politics.

As for my comments on his voting record, I already said your points gave me some respect for the man, and I definitely like the Interrogation law, but again I like fair representation, and it seemed to be that Drew may have inflated his role in the tax bill a bit. Maybe not, though.

Chandos, if you think elections in America have much to do with the issues, you're decieving yourself. As I pointed out a while ago in the Canada election topic, politicians like people who don't think too much, and issues make people think, whereas scandals make people feel.

Also, Chandos, you were called liberals and socialists because, as has been pointed out by our European friends here, you were (and are). Too bad socialism is a dirty word in the US. I still feel that limited socialism is a good thing (we just tend to have the wrong kind these days).

DR, we seem to actually agree on many things. The only difference seems to be that I (perhaps vainly) hope McCain gets elected and re-works the party (not at all unheard of), whereas you hope a crushing defeat does the same (again, quite possible). My biggest fear with McCain is that he really is just as bad, or worse, and won't help any. My biggest fear with Obama is what he and the others will do while the Reps are rebuilding themselves. I think he definitely represents the wrong kind of socialism.

 

yep amaster tries to downplay it , chandos refuses to look because it goes against his mindset, typical dem response. Just like at the clinton impeachments, how many hours did the dems spend looking at the evidence? 0 Hours, none not a single one.

Oh by the way ACORN just had another office raided because of voter fraud, again.

 

martaug,
does that mean there was voter fraud?
Or does that mean there was the allegation and accusation of voter fraud? Read my reply here.

This is an investigation, not a verdict. You're quick to judge yourself.

 

Here is just a quick little list(from wiki)

In Ohio in 2004, four ACORN employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms.[20][21]

In January 2005 two Colorado ACORN workers were sentenced to community service for submitting false voter registrations.[22] ACORN's regional director said, "we find it abhorrent and do everything we can to prevent it from happening."[23]

On November 1, 2006, four part-time ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City, Missouri for voter registration fraud. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation.[24] ACORN said in a press release that it is in part responsible in these individuals being caught, has fired them, and has cooperated and publicly supported efforts to look into the validity of the allegations.[25]

ACORN was investigated in 2006 for submitting false voter registrations in St. Louis, Missouri. 1,492 fraudulent voter registrations were identified.[26][27]

In 2007, five Washington state ACORN workers were sentenced to jail time.[28]
ACORN agreed to pay King County $25 000 for its investigative costs and acknowledged that the national organization could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again. According to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, the misconduct was done "as an easy way to get paid [by ACORN], not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections."[29][30]

In 2008, the Michigan Secretary of State office told the Detroit Free Press that ACORN had been submitting a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications to vote.[31]

In 2008, the Las Vegas ACORN Office was raided due to voter fraud complaints.

Here is a nice little primer on them http://www.consumersrightsleague.org/uploadedfiles/Latest Million Dollar ACORN Scandal.pdf

Lake City Indiana just discovered that 1100 of 2000 voter registration from acorn last week were fraudulant.

There are investigations agianst them in 10 seperate states, how long does a pattern have to be before the dems actually admit it?

PS Meantime, completely ignored by the mainstream commentariat and clean-election crusaders, the Obama campaign admitted failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called "Citizen Services Inc." for "advance work."

 

NOG - Well, I have no problem with our European friends and certainly admire what they have accomplished in their systems of government. They are very proud of the way which they have embraced their democratic institutions, and they should be. Also, they have a deeper world view and a richer historical perspective than we have - generally speaking.

Nevertheless, I judge myself by American standards, since I just happen to be one and live here in the USA. That means that I don't consider myself a "socialist." But I am a liberal, and I'm very happy to be one, even though liberalism (the American variety) has not been very popular here in the US. However, in the last week, it's suddenly become a little more popular, since the conservative view the complete deregulated "free-market" has been largely discredited. That view of a "free market" was also embraced by many Democrats as well, despite being labeled as "liberals and socialists," by people like yourself. But there is a "liberal" tradition here in the US, independent of Europe, believe it or not, that is not socialist. Unless, you mean to say, that any kind of law or regulation is "socialist" by its nature.

The liberal tradition I'm speaking of includes, FDR, JFK, RFK and LBJ. Unless you think of all of them as "socialists." Some do believe that FDR was a socialist because of his policies. What they fail to see, or comment on if they do see, is that the policies of the New Deal saved capitalism and allowed for the free market to regain itself after the Great Depression. So I'm not so sure that qualifies him, or any of the above, as "socialists." Although as you point out, there is a limited socialism in some of their policies (like SS). Btw, SS is considered to be one of the most successful government programs in history and, given what's happening in the stock market, that's a good thing too.

But the new group of Demcrats I would not think of as being all that "liberal." For instance, when John Kerry wanted Ralph Nader's support in 2004, he met with him to ask for his endorsement. Nader gave him a list of issues and his solutions, and told Kerry that if he could pick just a few of them off the list, he would endorse him. It turned out that Kerry would not add a single Nader solution to his agenda and Nader entered the presidential race again as an independent.

Nevertheless, if we had the kind of oversite and regulation needed in the marketplace, there would have been no need for the government to buy AIG (which is socialistic, btw).

They didn't in the past, but they do now. Did you see the debate last night? Those were American citizens asking hard questions of substance and they were speaking directly to the issues they are most concered with, and both candidates did very well in that regard. In fact, at times a had a hard time telling them apart. McCain even wants the government to buy mortgages from private companies and have the government bailout homeowners - What's more socialistic than that?

But I do agree with you that geneally, politicians don't like people to think about the issues. Sorry for them but we live in some new times and the old cynicism has been brushed aside. The proof is in the debate last night, and that not once, at least that I could see, that either McCain or Obama resorted to the kind of negative tactics used by the RNC and Sarah Palin (and yes the DNC as well) on the campaign trail.

This will be important for you to know: This is NOT politics as usual, because of the unique crisis in which we now find ourselves. Most Americans are focused on the issues before them, at least atm. The tragic part is that the market had to tank 5000 points, a group of the largest banks and inverstment companies had to fail, and unemployment numbers shot up, before people noticed. It seems people are never willing to face a problem until it's almost too late....

Large events "change" things, NOG. And real issues do sometimes matter.

Sorry, Martaug, but I'm not a Democrat. The Dems are just too conservative for me to be a card-carrying member. But I am going to vote for Obama.

 

I think it's funny that people try to blame a "free market" for the debacle when with all the sub-prime lending forced on them by democratic & republican members of congress it was anything but a free market.

Uhh, chandos did you mean to write 5,000 points? It hasn't dropped that much(or are you just using that as an illustrative point?)

 

I thought the high this year was like 14,100, but I could be wrong....

 

Getting back to the ostensible subject of this thread, I want to recap my opinions of the two running mates.

Biden: I don't know much about him -- what little I've seen has not impressed me in terms of the man's Charisma score. It looks to me like Obama picked someone who had some federal experience to shore up any deficiency that America may have felt existed in Obama. Did it work? I really don't know, to be honest. For me, I would be just as likely to vote for Obama now as I was before he selected Joe (were I a Yank).

Palin: She looks better in a bikini -- or just about anything else -- than Biden. Or Obama. Or McCain. I would hazard to say that McCain picked her from the crowd to show that he can "think outside the box" and embrace change just as Obama has claimed to be able to do. The R. machine believed that she could inject some youth, vitality and energy into the campaign and make Team McCain look vibrant. Did it work? Hmmm. Not according to the posters here! But I don't think she is nearly the Bimbo some here and in the media would like to paint her as. She doesn't scare me as much as she scares some others.

 

She's no bimbo, just unprepared for the national stage. She's the rising star of the Republican Party, and there's little doubt that even if Mac loses, we will still be hearing from her again. Mac, not so much.

---------- Added 0 hours, 33 minutes and 51 seconds later... ----------

Well, of course it was:

Here's a bit of a different take on the subprime debacle:

Read the full take:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/162789

 

For the record, tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the Dow's all-time record high of 14,143. So yeah, it's down about 5,000 from the all-time high.

 

Chandos, trying to lay the blame at the feet of some stupid rich people is as dishonest as ONLY blaming the sub-prime practices -or- only blaming one party when both are up to their eyes in guilt.

 

martaug,
I was in a hurry this afternoon and now I noticed that I used the wrong link in my last post here. I fixed it.

This is the reply I was referring you to - about voter fraud.

 

...and my 401K is down accordingly (down ~30% this year).

 

I must be blessed, of my 23 different stocks only 2 are at a lower rate than what i purchased at. Granted 17 of the others are very close, but so far no true loss.
I tend to be picky about which ones i choose however.

 

Chandos, I don't know what exactly you propose, but generally the farther left you go in American politics, the more socialist proposals you get. I don't know if FDR was a socialist or not, but a number of the policies he implemented were blatantly socialist. Mind you, I'm not criticizing, I generally think of FDR as one of the best presidents we've ever had, in large part because of the socialist policies he implemented (see TVA for a classic example).

Ok, here's my breakdown of it: Conservatives who cry 'government is evil' are idiots. Government is not evil and should not be avoided at all costs. Government should be streamlined and efficient, as any large body is prone to corruption. Liberals who cry 'the rich and corporations are evil' are also idiots. This is where most of your liberal socialist policies come from (tax the rich and give money to the poor) and it doesn't work.

 

Really?