Political Rants

McCain Chooses Self-Described “Hockey Mom” as VP

Posted: 30 Aug 2008 03:36 PM CDT

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