Partial Retraction - Lose your house, lose your vote

Hi all. My earlier post about Republicans in Michigan trying to deny people who's homes have been foreclosed on may not be true. A friend of mine contacted a friend of hers who lives in Michigan, and there has been no mention of this anywhere there. It also turns out that the source, the "Michigan Messenger" is a very left leaning blog. Now, I know that this is a left leaning blog as well, but that does not mean that I am going let bad information pass off as the truth, even if it benefits my side.

Anyway, the "Messenger" is standing by its story. The Michigan Republican party is of course saying it is not true. Here is a link to an article about this in the Detroit News:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080912/POLITICS01/809120380/1409/METRO

I will keep looking into this story, and will post any significant updates. If this turns out to be false, I am truly sorry for passing on bad information. Lies and distortions have NO PLACE in the political process, no matter which side they come from.

As mayor, Palin charged rape victims for rape kits

From Huffington Post:

Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.

Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online.

Here is the whole story

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html

From the Boston Globe:

Alaska pols: Wasilla charged victims for rape kits

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1118416&srvc=2008campaign&position=9

Palin's record in Alaska

Seems her claims of being a reformer might be a bit of an exaggeration. Shocking, I know.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1221343324-tGxa66AkDRYq1tsNYpjoIw&pagewanted=all

McCain campaign lying about Palin crowd sizes?

The McCain camp is claiming huge turnouts for their rallies featuring Sarah Palin. They say these numbers come from local fire departments and Secret Service estimates. Problem is, neither of these groups gave them any numbers. So, where are they getting these crowd estimates from? Seems they might be just making them up.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a1J0tfV3XJYs&refer=politics

Lose your house, lose your vote

Michigan Republicans plan to foreclose African-American voters

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

Here is the whole story...
http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

Women Against Palin Rally in Alaska

Here is a first hand account of the "Women Against Palin" rally in Alaska. Seems about 1,400 people showed up, which is a HUGE turnout for any sort of Alaska rally.

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

Thomas Franks article

This is a great article about how the GOP destroys the small town America they claim to love so much...

http://www.wsj.com/article/SB122100226859616967.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

Awesome Garrison Keillor article

This is a perfect summary of the McCain strategy...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0910keillorsep10,0,7101227.column

Does McCain have the temperament to be President?

See for yourself...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/51660.html

New McCain ad hits new low

Seems McCain has a new smear ad running accusing Obama of supporting sex education of kindergarten kids. truth is, the bill he supported (but did not sponsor as McCain apparently claims) age appropriate sex ed for kids. The kindergarten kids would have learned about how to stay away from sexual predators. Is Mark Foley working for McCain, writing his ads? Here are some links debunking the story.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/09/does_the_truth_matter_anymore.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/margaret_talev/story/52169.html

So who actually vetted Palin?

Apparently John McCain's vetting process consisted of Googling Sarah Palin's name, and talking to her on the phone for 15 minutes. However, there was one group who vetted her, and they REALLY liked what they saw. Read this article and see if you want these people in the high levels of the US Government.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/1/24846/28141/Front_Page/The_Council_For_National_Policy_Meets_In_Minn_Vets_Palin

A letter from a resident of Wasilla Alaska about Palin

Interesting letter written by someone who knows Palin.

http://www.crosscut.com/politics-government/17341

Women Against Palin

This is a blog that was started as an e-mail. The people that started it sent out an e-mail to 40 friends asking them to express their concerns about the Palin nomination.
Here is the letter:

Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,

We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce—on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate—that has a real possibility of becoming fact.

Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.

Therefore, we invite you to reply here: with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.

Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.

We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against Sarah Palin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience—the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.

Thank you for your time and action.

VIVA!

Sincerely,

Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com

**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! If you send this to 20 women in the next hour, you could be blessed with a country that takes your concerns seriously. Stranger things have happened.

Here is a link to the blog. I will also include this in my links section.

http://womenagainstsarahpalin.blogspot.com/

Anti-McCain T-Shirts

This is a t-shirt my friend Chris designed. Available for sale on Cafe Press.

www.cafepress.com/triggermitten

Alaska National Guard General Changes Story; Palin Promotes

From Huffington Post:

Alaska National Guard General Changes Story; Palin Promotes

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-friedman/alaska-national-guard-gen_b_125083.html

Competition for McCain

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

Obama Hits Back

Nice to see him throw a punch.

Palin's Church is a bit much

Here is an article from Huffington Post about this as well. Scary stuff if you are not a fundamentalist Christian.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/sarah-palins-churches-and_b_124611.html

Palin says Iraq War is God's Will

Palin asking Church to Pray for a Pipeline to be built in ALaska

Bridge To Nowhere

There has been a lot of talk about the so called "Bridge To Nowhere." However, I'm not sure a lot of people know exactly what that issue is all about. At least, I didn't until recently. Basically, it involved the Alaska Congressional delegation obtaining almost $400,000,000 to build a bridge to service a very small population in Alaska and help get them to the airport. They actually had a ferry service that ran every half hour at a cost of $6 round trip. Basically, it was a way for Alaska to get a ton of free federal money. In the end, the bridge project was scrapped, due to public outcry. However, Alaska got the money for the project. Sarah Palin is making a big deal about the fact that she was against this project. Of course, this is not true. She was originally all for the project, then backed off when it was becoming a political liability. So, to paraphrase John Kerry, she was for it before she was against it.

Here is a Wikipedia article about it:

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

Palin = Bush

Here is a great article about how Palin is almost an exact repeat of George W. Bush

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/07/sarah-palin-george-bush-i_n_124654.html

Palin wanted Alaska to break away from the US

In more Palin fun, it turns out she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a political party who wants Alaska to seced from the United States. Country first? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/2667214/John-McCains-running-mate-Sarah-Palin-was-in-Alaskan-independence-party.html

More Palin Fun

Here is a very nice link to a Media Matters article about just how corrupt Sarah Palin is. Needless to say, the corporate media is not really reporting any of this:

http://mediamattersaction.org/palin_myths

Sarah Palin, the gift that keeps on giving...

Wow. Could Sarah Palin be any more unqualified to be Vice President? Kind of throws the whole "lack of experience" argument about Obama out the window, doesn't it? Sadly, the Republicans are trying to lie and spin their way out of that trap. They have actually said that she has more executive experience that Obama and Biden combined (and by that rational, John McCain as well). Does anyone seriously think that someone who, only two years ago was trying to decide what time to close the town dump (thanks to Thom Hartman for that analogy), is ready to be president should 72 year old John McCain not be able to finish his term for any reason? Foreign policy? She has no experience (despite claims made by the GOP that she knows all about Russia, because Alaska is so close to Russia, that she must be an expert. No, I'm not kidding. They said that with a straight face. Read about it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/cindy-mccain-on-abc-today_b_122759.html) She is also a very scary fundamentalist Christian who is actually looking forward to the end times. They are supportive of a group know as "Joel's Army," that is actually forming armed military groups planning to take over and enforce the rule of God here on earth. Here are some stories about that:

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/8/29/182057/888
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/29/163234/559/495/579213
http://www.alternet.org/story/96945/theocratic_sect_prays_for_real_armageddon/?page=entire

In addition to that, she is also under investigation for trying to force the Alaska Director of Public Safety to fire her state trooper brother in law, after he filed for divorce from her sister. Watch the ABC news summary here:



By the way, the person she hired to replace the Public Safety Commissioner had to resign after 2 weeks, due to charges of sexual harassment.

Think the media loves Obama?

Well, think again. Here is a link to an LA TIMES story talking about it...

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-onthemedia27-2008jul27,0,712999.story

To me, it seems pretty obvious that the corporate press is doing everything they can to undermine the Obama campaign, while covering up John McCain's blatant gaffes. For example, a few days ago CBS News was interviewing Obama, and Katie Couric actually said "people are scratching their heads about your opposition to the surge." What people? Well, you know, the same "People" that Fox News always sites in their segments. The ones that don't actually exist, but are so convenient when a news anchor wants to insinuate that large groups of people think Obama (or any liberal for that matter) is crazy. She then goes on to grill him about his policy, and after he answered the question 3 times (by the way, every time he answered he said that yes, the additional troops did help the situation), she finally moved on, but acted as if Obama had dodged the question. Okay, fine. Its a crappy way of questioning someone, and a lame tactic for someone as high up on the media food chain as Couric to pull, but whatever. the guy is running for President, so if he gets grilled a bit, then that's just part of the job. However, when McCain was interviewed by Couric the same week, he demonstrated a total lack of understanding about the history of the surge, mixing up pretty crucial dates and events while making his case that it was a success. What did CBS news do? Did they grill him repeatedly as they did Obama? No way. They actually EDITED THE INTERVIEW TO MAKE IT LOOK |LIKE MCCAIN KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT.

Here are the links to those stories:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/23/katie-couric-to-obama-peo_n_114520.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/22/mccain-gets-history-of-th_n_114419.html

27 McCain Flip Flops

From the Ed Schlutz Radio show website (www.wegoted.com)


1) Was against the Bush tax cuts; now is for making them permanent and even bigger.

2) Was against the GI Bill; now is for the GI Bill.

3) Was for immigration reform; now is against immigration reform - and repudiated his own prior position on immigration reform.

4) Opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill - which had his name on it.

5) Was for gay marriage, and then opposed gay marriage.

6) Was for Roe v. Wade, then was against Roe v. Wade; then for it, sort of; then against it, sort of.

7) Was for storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain; then was against it.

8) In 2000 was for military action against rogue states; now is against it, EXCEPT for Iran….which he sings about bombing and says it's good to sell them cigarettes so we can kill them.

9) Negotiating with North Korea; was against it; then for it, especially when Bush did it.

10) Negotiating with Castro's Cuba - in 2000 was for it, now against it.

11) No negotiating with terrorists except when Colin Powell went to Syria in 2002 and when, in 2006, said we'd eventually have to deal with Hamas.

12) Unilateral military action against terrorists in Pakistan - against it when Obama said it was good; for it when Bush did it in the spring of 2008.

13) Warrantless wiretaps - against them 6 months ago; for them now.

14) Torturing detainees - always against it; since he was tortured he should know. Now, in favor of torturing detainees.

15) Perpetual detention of detainees - bad a few years ago, good now.

16) Iraq - the right course in 2004; stay the course in 2005 and now he was always against the flawed strategy - especially when Rumsfeld was there.

17) Estate tax - for it in 2006; against it now.

18) 2004 - for privatizing Social Security; 2008 against privatizing Social Security.

19) February 2008 promised a balanced budget in 4 years. April 2008 said it will take 8 years. June 2008…..back to 4 years. [And, since he is now for the Bush tax cuts, balancing the budget EVER will be impossible.]

20) In 2008 - first glad to look at oil windfall profits tax; then it's a bad idea - Jimmy Carter's bad idea.

21) In 2000 - no new offshore oil drilling; now, just very recently, it's a great idea.

22) In 2000 - attacked Bush fundraising leaders; in 2006 had some of the same people co-chair his own fundraisers.

23) In 2000 - Jerry Falwell was an "agent of intolerance"; in 2006 McCain delivered the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University and in 2008 McCain was big buddies with Rev. Hagee and Pastor Parsley.

24) Opposed and voted against the Martin Luther King holiday; now says he was for it.

25) 1986 - opposed South African divestment to attack apartheid; June 2008, praised it.

26) In 2000 - defended South Carolina's Confederate flag as a symbol of heritage; in 2002 said it should come down and it was an "act of political cowardice to not take it down."

27) 2000 - against teaching creationism in schools; 2005 - alternatives to evolution should be taught.

AND HE'S ATTACKING OBAMA AS A FLIP-FLOPPER??!!?? Those living in glass houses……

The Real McCain

On the bottom right hand corner of this blog, you will find video clips from "The Real McCain" video shorts produced by Robert Greenwald and his company "Brave New Films." There are 4 thumbnails shown. Click on each individual thumbnail to see a different clip. Again, this is stuff you probably won't here in the mainstream press.

Take Back The Language

This is a blog devoted to highlighting the issues of the 2008 election, and doing what I can to help elect progressive Democrats to office. The ultra-conservative corporate media consistantly ignores real issues that affect people’s lives in favor of pathetic “gotcha” stories that only serve to distract the public from the policies put in place by the conservatives who have systematically been destroying this country since 1980.

In the last few years, the Democratic party has begun to move to left. With the victory of Barack Obama in the Democratic primary fight, we can see a major shift away from the corporate Democrats led by the Clintons. In the first full day since officially becoming the presumptive nominee of the party, he and Howard Dean have pledged that both the Obama campaign and the DNC will not take ANY money from lobbiysts or PACs in this election. This is a major step forward in freeing our country from the corporate interests that have long dominated our politics and culture. However, just because Obama is now the Democratic nominee does not mean we can sit back and cruise to victory in November. This fight is just beginning, and you can bet that the right wing media is going to throw EVERYTHIG they can at Obama to tear him down. We can’t allow this to happen. This blog will serve not only as a way for me to voice my oppinion about these issues, but it will also contain links to other sources of information that you probably won’t get on the evening news.