Election 2008, United States

[Raikou]

There is nothing feminine, nor even basically human, about killing a child in the womb. NARAL makes money off killing children in wombs and the advocacy thereof. Barack Obama has never wavered in his support for increasing the number of children who are killed in wombs. Barack Obama has never moved from NARALs anti-life line. Barack Obama is on the record as having blocked a bill that would stop doctors from leaving babies who survived late term abortions to die without medical treatment.

Feminists don't want to be labeled as feminine, they want equality in reproductive rights, pay and treatment in the workplace. Axing abortion and birth control undermine a woman's reproductive choice, especially in circumstances where she has no control (rape), while Viagra of all things is still covered by federal health insurance. Under the republicans, your tax dollars will be paying for a bunch of geriatric boners, but not birth control for teenagers. So much for republicans keeping their noses out of american lives, they want to supercede the opinions of doctors.

And if you are so against killing these zygote children, you better be picketing the fertility clinics with their armies of frozen "children" who are most likely destined for the trash can, instead of only choosing to attack impoverished teenage girls at abortion clinics. Or I suppose fertility clinics are all part of the "Big Abortion" conspiracy.

You should also know that partial birth abortions are already illegal unless there is a threat of life to the mother, and this extends to anything over 12 weeks in half the states. There are no babies being killed unless you include fertility clinics as agents of genocide.

For the idiot voters who will vote GOP because there is a vagina on the ticket, Palin is just another example of a woman who is only good enough to be #2. That's not change, women have been queens throughout history, it's king or nothing if you want change.

 

[Rinsting]

And if you are so against killing these zygote children, you better be picketing the fertility clinics with their armies of frozen "children" who are most likely destined for the trash can, instead of only choosing to attack impoverished teenage girls at abortion clinics. Or I suppose fertility clinics are all part of the "Big Abortion" conspiracy.

"Most likely destined for the trash can,"

Elaborate on that, please.:nerd:

 

[SSBM roy]

Sarah Palin VP pick is easily the most genius political gamesmanship I've seen in a while.

Well, I can't exactly disagree with you there. It is a pretty slick bit of cynicism that simultaneously reassures the right-wing base of the GOP and panders to low information voters who aren't actually aware of Palin's positions or think that electing a woman is more important than electing a supporter of women's causes. Inverting the GOP's own smear tactics to exempt Palin from some of the more obvious points of criticism is also rather interesting. Ironically, this sort of calculated gender baiting is exactly what right-wing pundits are eager to accuse the Democratic Party of.

By the way, she's also a creationist, which I suppose is good for a laugh.

 

[Great Sage]

She also opposes condoms.

 

[Raikou]

"Most likely destined for the trash can,"

Elaborate on that, please.:nerd:

During in vitro fertilization, sperm and eggs are combined and grown into embryos outside the womb before one is implanted into the woman for pregnancy and the rest discarded. By the definition of those who believe in life at conception, this is the genocide of babies but they are suspiciously quiet about fertility clinics, instead preferring to hound abortion clinics. These are the embryos proposed for stem cell research because they're otherwise being destroyed, but no, god forbid we cure degenerative nerve diseases like MS, paralysis and alzheimers to name a few.

 

[tea_and_blues]

"Also, tea and blues, can you describe to me just in what ways would a laissez-faire society (a real one, not "Bush corporatism") be tyrannical?"

Simple: In a laissez-faire society, money rules. It is literally economic anarchism; very primal, very efficient, very good at making a small number of 'prime movers' rich and healthy, but also progressively inegalitarian. The more money and power those prime movers have, the less control others have over their lives, the prime movers become a de facto Government, one that was never voted in. Follow the theory right to its core (not that we would) and millions of people - entire countries (albeit small, unproductive ones like Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Togo, East Timor) - are doomed to worsening and worsening poverty; a precious few people to more and more power. Without a reasonably-sized centralised state power that is free to legislate against certain profit-motivated business interests (or something akin in power to this - like uncentralised respresentative democracy), we risk handing over the globe to a business lobby who have proved themselves self-interested, uneducated, and unprincipled time and time again.

The States already has incredibly low voter turn-out, in part because it is so far to the Right. Voters have so little power there. Increasingly, the myth of a 'self-made American' is less possible - it will be less and less so throughout the recession, less and less again as China awakens and the US dwindles. Contrary to what DK says (isn't everything?), Palin has disempowered Alaskans because she is so beholden to business interests and because her education (as far as science and risk management are concerned) is appalling. People feel disenfranchised. If we must have Capitalism (and certainly for now we have it) then we have to make sure it is a less vicious Capitalism than it could be (and than it currently is) - laissez-faire Government is not going to help do that, nor is obsessive regulation. Better public education would be a good place to start, but to honest, American public education is monumentally fucked - it will take hundreds of years and billions of dollars to fix it - and the majority will not afford private schooling. This is why the representative governments need to maintain a socialised healthcare and education, because without good public schooling, the poor become trapped in poverty; without public health, sickness rampages among the poor and they die or they struggle to work. There are already hundreds of thousands of Americans who will work ten times harder than the roughest billionaire and never save enough to buy their own home, pay off their kids' school fees, or afford doctor-visits without at least running up a crippling debt. Laissez-faire government would leave those people even worse off.

Obama isn't a solution, he'll make things worse. But he will make them worse slower than McCain will.

 

[Garchomp of the Funk]

Sarah Palin has a thicker resume than Barack.

No, she doesn't. Being governor of a state that has a lower population than Brooklyn isn't much in the way of experience. In fact, it is certainly safe to say that one year in the United States Senate is MORE experience than one year as the governor of Alaska. And being mayor of a city pop. ~8000 that doesn't even run its own schools or police department (!) is even less impressive than being a state senator.

Barack "organized communities," by which I mean gave kickbacks to his unrepentant terrorist and Daley machine hack friends while his beloved communites were left in poverty and squalor.

Litttle bit of fearmongering there, eh? And how old was Obama in the 60's when this was happening. He was a minor! And how was he supposed to lift his "beloved communities" out of poverty when he was still paying off his student loans? He did what he could, but he isn't God.

Sarah Palin fought her own party insiders

Yeah. Clearly on destruction of the environment, or perhaps restricting civilian ownership of assault rifles.

...and became mayor of a town where everybody knows your name.

Well yes, because there 8000 people. They probably know all of each other's names too. And what did she do, exactly? That town's schools and police department were handled by other communities. Clearly she worked tirelessly on the city's fire department, since she actually controlled it.

...then became governor.

Of Alaska. Population miniscule.

Palin has regular dealings with Canadian officials.

Well I should hope so!

I mean hell, if it were Obama vs. Palin for top of the ticket, Palin would still be more qualified than Barry.

How? Your argument isn't persuasive, to say the least. Obama has inspired more voters to become a part of the political process than Palin governed as governor of Alaska. He is extraordinarily intelligent, an amazing speaker, and willing to defy his party (unlike McCain, who altered most of his positions to conform to Republican orthodoxy.)

As for you akuchi, pulling stuff about McCain from NARAL?

Okay, third trimester abortion is grisly and should be avoided at all costs. But claiming that "life begins at conception" is arbitrary: perhaps we should declare that all female sex cells have the right to be born as children, and imprison any women who deny these "unborn children" the right to exist.

Please, the Democratic Party is in the pockets of Big Abortion.

Clearly, the Republican party is not in the pockets of Big Oil, or Big Tobacco, or Halliburton, or Big Coal, or huge American corporations that have outsourced thousands of jobs to Asia just to make a few rich men richer. And clearly the current Republican ideology is not at all influenced by a small subset of people who believe that the Earth is only 4000 years old, and who misinterpret their own sacred document to justify horrible abuses. Its the black hole at the center of the universe calling the kettle black.

Obama himself supports infanticide.

Infanticide:
1 the crime of a mother killing her child within a year of birth.
• the practice in some societies of killing unwanted children soon after birth.

Your statement is a blatant lie. Destroying a few cells that are less intelligent and capable of feeling pain than a fly is not infanticide. Whereas sending our men in uniform to die in Iraq, a country that posed no threat to the United States whatsoever, just to make a few oil companies richer--that's worse that infanticide, much less abortion. John McCain and Sarah Palin support continuing this conflict indefinitely--and the number of thinking human beings who certainly feel the pain of the loss of a limb, or the loss of a family member is certainly greater that the number of third trimester infants who will be killed by abortion in the next fifty years.



Barack Obama has never wavered in his support for increasing the number of children who are killed in wombs.

Please actually listen to what he has to say. Barack Obama is strongly in favor or reducing unwanted pregnancies. Your statement is, once again, a blatant lie.

As I said in an earlier post, Socialism is a religion.

Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is a liberal. There IS a difference! And Supply-side Economics must be a religion too, because it clearly has always failed to benefit anyone but the richest 5%. So is continuing the war in Iraq. So is expanded drilling for oil in the United States, which will produce no new oil for AT LEAST TEN YEARS, and will not even affect oil prices significantly, because oil is bought and sold on a global market.

It has to be, because in order to believe in it, you have to have faith not just without proof of success, but with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Please apply this to your own political beliefs. It will be telling.

Sarah Palin is the kind of woman who scares the **** out of feminists.

For good reason. Anyone who supports George W. Bush's failed policies scares me, and I'm not an ultrafeminist (much less a women).

Sarah Palin is the next Vice President of the United States, and in 2016, will be the first female President of the United States.

If this actually happens, America will be irrelevant in global politics, even more bankrupt than it is now, and probably controlled by China. And in 100 years, almost all humans will be dead, due to the consequences of global warming and pollution. Enjoy your dream. It sounds awful to me. There's a reason that some liberals think that people like you are sadistic fascists who want to turn America into a Big Brother state inhabited by uneducated evangelical high school dropouts. Don't worry, at least the illegal immigration problem will be solved because no Mexicans will want to come here at all!

With all due respect (virtually none),
A patriotic and concerned American.

 

[Caelum]

I stopped reading your post after I read " In fact, it is certainly safe to say that one year in the United States Senate is MORE experience than one year as the governor of Alaska. " . That proved to me you have no fucking idea what you are talking about. Being in the Senate is a joke compared to being a governor. Governors make decisions on every issue, allocate budgets, resources, lead the states National Guard, and essentially manage EVERYTHING. Senators get to choose which votes they vote on (and Obama's senate record has been thin since he doesn't show up for over 45% of his votes ... ), spend most of the time giving speeches, and run around Washington probably fucking interns. If you think being a Governor is less than that of a Senator you have no idea what you are talking about. Take a class is government or even just watch the news before you go running your mouth about a Senator having more experience than a Governor.

 

[tea_and_blues]

I stopped reading your post after I read " In fact, it is certainly safe to say that one year in the United States Senate is MORE experience than one year as the governor of Alaska. " . That proved to me you have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

Oh, so if someone is wrong on one point, they must be wrong in general? Very shallow argument, Caelum. You shot yourself in the foot if you wanted to come off as superior...

I think you're drastically playing down the role of a senator to score points, although I agree with the gist of your post.

 

[Caelum]

Oh, so if someone is wrong on one point, they must be wrong in general? Very shallow argument, Caelum. You shot yourself in the foot if you wanted to come off as superior...

I think you're drastically playing down the role of a senator to score points, although I agree with the gist of your post.

lol. Why should I continue reading something if the very first point is wrong? If I published a scientific paper and my Abstract was factually incorrect would anyone continue reading it? Of course not. If your doctor came up to you and stated that the flu was a bacteria, would you continue to listen to that doctor? It's not a shallow argument because it's not an argument, it's just a perfectly natural response of anyone after hearing something obviously wrong.

 

[tea_and_blues]

Amateur debate on a Pokemon site does not a peer-reviewed journal make.

And incidentally, any thorough researcher reads incorrect material with a good critical eye, they don't just stop and say, "Oh shit, there's a figure wrong here, OMFG EVERYTHING THIS PERSON SAYS IS GOING TO BE WRONG!!" It's not a 'natural response', it's a lazy one.

By the way, Obama has answered some questions from the scientific community, rather well, all considered: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=40

 

[Caelum]

Amateur debate on a Pokemon site does not a peer-reviewed journal make.

And incidentally, any thorough researcher reads incorrect material with a good critical eye, they don't just stop and say, "Oh shit, there's a figure wrong here, OMFG EVERYTHING THIS PERSON SAYS IS GOING TO BE WRONG!!" It's not a 'natural response', it's a lazy one.

Incidentally, Obama has answered some questions from the scientific community, rather well, all considered: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=40

Wow, way to read what I wrote completely wrong. Being incorrect on a figure and stating something grossly inaccurate are entirely different and if you can't distinguish that than I apologize. If I opened a journal and the first sentence read "The orbits are the way they are because strings are attached to the planets and a man in the sky twirls them around" I wouldn't read it. If it said "Gravity falls at 9.86 m/s^2" I would read it despite it being inaccurate. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference.

Also, those answers from Obama on science were so prewritten it was hilarious. He could have at least tried to make it sound like he actually thought of the answers himself on the spot. I was disappointed the moron wasn't asked about MMR vaccine controversy since he is one of the morons who believes some vaccines cause autism even though most studies discredit this and those that don't are largely inconclusive. I'll have to look up later whether or not John McCain believes that bullshit as well though.

 

[tea_and_blues]

The difference, here, is that you're not talking to specialists in a particular field. Someone who does not understand senatorial versus governmental roles and what they entail needs to listened to, taken note of, and informed. They don't, generally, need to be told that everything they can and will say is necessarily wrong.

Keep in mind that McCain is also one of those morons.

 

[Doctor Heartbreak]

Also, those answers from Obama on science were so prewritten it was hilarious. He could have at least tried to make it sound like he actually thought of the answers himself on the spot.

A - are you seriously suggesting presidential candidates should make up their policy "on the spot"? Of course they're pre-written.

 

[Altmer]

If it said "Gravity falls at 9.86 m/s^2" I would read it despite it being inaccurate. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference.

this could be accurate if you specify where on earth you are

 

[SAN DIEGO SUPER CHARGERS!]

McCain met her once before choosing her. He barely knows her. How on earth is that a sound decision to make her his running mate?

McCain probably chose her because he wants to nail her. Got rid of his first wife for a trophy wife. Now the trophy wife is old and shriveled up, time for something younger.

She hates on polar bears
She supports creationism in schools.
She has a scandal involving firing some guy because someone left her sister.

If she had any right mind, that kid would have been aborted. But god says thou shall not abort children, thus retard baby is alive and wasting oxygen.

She's 44, right? The kid was born in March or May or whatever. Why would she conceive while in office? She shouldn't be opening her legs for anybody as a governor, not even her husband.

That kid probably isn't even hers. People say its a cover up for her 17 year old daughter.

Also, boobs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60053005@N00/2810238737/

 

[akuchi]

The genius thing is the rumours that the spaz kid isn't actually hers, it's her 16 year old daughter's...
http://menstrualpoetry.com/pregnant

I can't find the news website with it on, but this makes a fairly reasonable case!

 

[Deck Knight]

Oh, so if someone is wrong on one point, they must be wrong in general? Very shallow argument, Caelum. You shot yourself in the foot if you wanted to come off as superior...

I think you're drastically playing down the role of a senator to score points, although I agree with the gist of your post.

I also liked "failed Bush policies."

Is that you, Barack Obama campaign?

Which Bush policy has "failed."

Is it Iraq? Cause Bush ousted their terrorists supporting thug with a history of chemical warfare, let them set up their own society, and they are set to hand over Anbar Province entirely back to the Iraqis within the week according to the last report I heard.

Barack Obama never even voted on the war he opposes, he wasn't in the Senate at the time, yet at Saddleback he said the decision to oppose the war was the hardest decision he ever had to make. Obama is a huge fucking joke. A Democrat found it hard to oppose a war that was already unpopular when he ran for office? Real gut wrenching, and next he'll tell me throwing Rev. Wright under the bus after Wright uttered "Barack is just another politician" was a gut-wrenching choice too.

How about the economy? Bush dealt with a major terrorist attack right in the heart of the US's economic center in his first term, and a hurricane that wiped out pretty much all of New Orleans. Now people say Bush bungled it, and they have a point to a degree, but Nagin ****ed up first and Blanco sat on her hands while the storm was approaching. The people of LA didn't want to see that happen again, so Blanco got kicked out. "Chocolate City" Nagin is still in, but even if he, unlike Michael Moore and Don Fowler (DNC Delegate)
, probably doesn't want to see New Orleans wiped out again for political advantage. Jindal already gave the evacuation order, and I'm going to bet the National Guard is waiting in the very closest proximity possible without getting swept up in the storm.

Quote from link:

The hurricane’s going to hit New Orleans about the time they [Republican National Convention] start. [Chuckle] The timing is — at least it appears now that it’ll be there Monday. That just demonstrates that God’s on our side. [Laughter] … Everything’s cool.

Back to the economy directly, we had 3.3% Growth in Q2. That's something Barack's favorite audience, our European betters, would die for. Bush has dealt with at least two major economic disasters, and we still never even hit a recession. Heck, we inherited one from Bubba-Bo-Ba Clinton. The current lie being passed around by BO and his agents is that McCain said the economy is strong. McCain didn't say that, he said the fundamentals are strong. That doesn't always translate into a strong economy, but it does mean people are doing what they are supposed to do, and the market is adjusting accordingly.

I also can't believe how gullible some of our more Marxist members are. (Actually, I can, believing in Marxism is a red flag...) They've already posted about how Trig isn't actually hers and about the supposed "scandal." How many 16 year old's have babies with Down's Syndrome? Not many. However, the chance is about 1 in 20 when you have a baby in your 40's.

If she had any right mind, that kid would have been aborted. But god says thou shall not abort children, thus retard baby is alive and wasting oxygen.

This speaks for itself. Should Ancien Regime have been aborted too? After all, he wasn't born perfect and "normal" like you. What other qualifications must one have before Super Chargers considers them worthy? Blonde hair, Blue eyes, and Aryan ancestry? It's idiotic, backward thinking like yours that has enabled the worst monsters in history to come to power and commit genocide on a massive scale.

 

[Misty]

calm down lol

 

[Misty]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/31/america/31reconstruct.php

An inside look at how Palin was chosen.

 

[Caelum]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/31/america/31reconstruct.php

An inside look at how Palin was chosen.

I always hate articles whose source is "unnamed advisor" but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

 

[akuchi]

Back to the economy directly, we had 3.3% Growth in Q2. That's something Barack's favorite audience, our European betters, would die for. Bush has dealt with at least two major economic disasters, and we still never even hit a recession. Heck, we inherited one from Bubba-Bo-Ba Clinton. The current lie being passed around by BO and his agents is that McCain said the economy is strong. McCain didn't say that, he said the fundamentals are strong. That doesn't always translate into a strong economy, but it does mean people are doing what they are supposed to do, and the market is adjusting accordingly.

I also can't believe how gullible some of our more Marxist members are. (Actually, I can, believing in Marxism is a red flag...) They've already posted about how Trig isn't actually hers and about the supposed "scandal." How many 16 year old's have babies with Down's Syndrome? Not many. However, the chance is about 1 in 20 when you have a baby in your 40's.

This speaks for itself. Should Ancien Regime have been aborted too? After all, he wasn't born perfect and "normal" like you. What other qualifications must one have before Super Chargers considers them worthy? Blonde hair, Blue eyes, and Aryan ancestry? It's idiotic, backward thinking like yours that has enabled the worst monsters in history to come to power and commit genocide on a massive scale.

lol calm down dear

a quick rebuttal; my mother was a health visitor and knew several women who had Down's kids in their late teens/early twenties, astronomical chances like that do happen [my contraception failed when it had a 0.05% chance], and Iraq has not been a success - illegally occupied, stupid war, far too many people dead. and please don't say it's 'about removing a dictator' because you want to spread the virus of democracy around the planet - I notice the US hasn't done the same in Burma, or Zimbabwe..

and whilst I disagree that the down's kid should have been aborted if the mother didn't want to, I think you'll find you're the one continually asserting your authority; over gays, feminists, marxists....

 

[Garchomp of the Funk]

I also liked "failed Bush policies."

Which Bush policy has "failed."

Homeland security is a joke. The amount of money that this program has wasted on tiny towns in the Midwest that have almost no chance of being attacked. And how many people living in the United States have been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the last hundred years? Is this number greater than the number of people who have died from easily preventable causes like smoking, or drunk driving, in the last eight years?

Environmental regulation. Completely eviscerated under the Bush Administration. For the sake of your unborn children, and their children, we do need strong environmental policy.

Iraq. We should be helping Georgia, or Tibet, or Zimbabwe, or Sudan. They need us. But instead, we are squandering the lives of our loyal men and women in uniform, just to make a few oil companies richer. And private contractors (Halliburton [cough cough]).

Economic policy. The foreclosure disaster happened because of lax regulation. And we had a surplus when Bush took office. But he erased it with a few tax cuts for the top one percent. And no, trickle-down economics doesn't work. Don't even try to defend it. And look at the value of the dollar. I never thought I'd see the day when the US dollar was pennies away from the Canadian dollar.

Upholding the constitution: Whatever happened to habeas corpus? Or protections against searches and seizures without warrants?

And we seem to have lost our status as a superpower. Say hello to the new China. They certainly don't have habeas corpus there.

Want more? I have plenty of others.


Barack Obama never even voted on the war he opposes

Well, he couldn't have magically changed the past and elected himself to the US Senate to cast that one vote, yes?

A Democrat found it hard to oppose a war that was already unpopular when he ran for office?

Actually, it was hard, because if you announced your opposition to the war, then you would be attacked day and night by conservative vultures trying to portray you as a terrorist America-hater. In other words, you would probably destroy your chances for reelection.

How about the economy? Bush dealt with a major terrorist attack right in the heart of the US's economic center in his first term

How? By tricking the American people to go to war in a country that posed no threat to the United States. By weakening our civil liberties, or destroying environmental laws?

...and a hurricane that wiped out pretty much all of New Orleans.

By ignoring it, or disastrously mismanaging it? Remember those formaldehyde trailers?

Back to the economy directly, we had 3.3% Growth in Q2.

But who benefited from it? Certainly not any normal Americans: adjusted for inflation, the median income actually fell.

Bush has dealt with at least two major economic disasters, and we still never even hit a recession.

Dealt with=was president during? That's about all that you can support. And we are in a recession, and soon we'll have serious stagflation, no matter who the next president is.

Heck, we inherited [the recession] from Bubba-Bo-Ba Clinton [sic].

Contradiction? We aren't in a recession, but we inherited one from Clinton and are presumably still in it?

I also can't believe how gullible some of our more Marxist members are.

I also can't believe how gullible some of our more fascist and theocratic members are. If you call people politically charged names, can I do it too?

(Actually, I can, believing in Marxism is a red flag...)

(Actually, I can, being an evangelical of any religion is a red flag...)

No, this isn't the Obama campaign. But some of your language looks like it is copied verbatim from the Republican playbook. Are you an agent of Dick Cheney? I don't think so. But some of what you say certainly sounds like him.

P.S. to Caelum: Although being a governor is usually more experience than being a Senator, this really only applies when the governor is running a state with a larger population than, say Alaska. And bowing to oil and gas special interests isn't the experience we are looking for.

 

[Darkflagrance]

For failed Bush policies, don't forget No Child Left Behind...

 

[Deck Knight]

No, this isn't the Obama campaign. But some of your language looks like it is copied verbatim from the Republican playbook. Are you an agent of Dick Cheney? I don't think so. But some of what you say certainly sounds like him.

P.S. to Caelum: Although being a governor is usually more experience than being a Senator, this really only applies when the governor is running a state with a larger population than, say Alaska. And bowing to oil and gas special interests isn't the experience we are looking for.

Almost all of your language comes from the Obama campaign talking points memo.

Bowing to Big Abortion, Big Labor, and Big Sodomy [studies prove by adding "Big" to the front of an industry or interest makes them 20x more menacing] are hardly growing praises. Oh right, I forgot, when they support liberal causes, like investment in unproven alternative energy over proven sources, infanticide, and single-payer healthcare that ignores the sick but sounds nice on paper, its "caring for the common good."

And please, Obama was asked what the hardest moral decision of his life was, and he answered "to oppose the Iraq War." You'd think with all his personal strife and history, something less blatantly political might get top billing. His calculated political answer is pathetic, and your mindnumbingly moronic justification referencing "the right wing attack machine" is hilarious. Poor Barack Obama, the pure lamb who was so wrenched trying to decide if he would oppose an unpopular war. He agonized over it for days.... he knew the attacks would come, and they would be brutal. Why they... they might link him to the Democratic Party (DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNN)! Lord knows that was a tough bind to be in during 2004.

Sarah Palin just got announced as VP, and already the "left wing slime machine" have insinuated her Down's Baby is just a cover-up for her daughter and all sorts of other vile, repulsive rumors. People get attacked in politics all the time, and Barack Obama is hardly the innocent lamb just going out and trying to bring "new politics." He's an enforcer for the Chicago Political machine, as dirty a politician that has come around in a long time. Rev. Wright, Fr. Phleger, William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Tony Rezko all seem to come from Barack's little neighborhood. For such a "new politics guy," he sure comes from a rough neighborhood, and he seems to know all the worst players... as friends. I know of no other neighborhood with such a density of unrepentant terrorists, racist thugs, and land deal fixers, and certainly none where a Chosen One would emerge from.

The rest of it isn't worth responding to. Let's just say anyone who still tries and float the Halliburton balloon is out of their mind. I might as well be trying to explain reason to a Daily Kos reader. The Economy goes up and down, and there is only so much a president can do about it anyway, so I'm only blaming Clinton insofar as people go with President = Economy meme. About the only thing the President can do is alter tax policy. Every economic report is always a mixed bag. But only the Democrats run on a doomsayer ticket. The Economy is always bad in Democrat rhetoric, and only the government can help, so the rhetoric goes. The Democrats are no longer the party of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, they are the party of Barack Obama: Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your government can do for you. Education? Entrust to government. Environment? Entrust to government. Health Care? Entrust to government. Child Care? Entrust to government. Entire Home Protection? Entrust to government, as you cannot be trusted with firearms.

Oh, and No Child Left Behind was a horrible failure. It was also a bipartisan bill. My reasoning for why it failed: Public Education is just a boondoggle for the government. As long as the Teachers' Unions control the system and push for pay instead of performance, the public schools will always be a failing system begging for more cash inputs without more performance outputs. The solution is to put performance back into the system with school vouchers. It worked in Washington D.C. and has worked in several places in Canada. Most city leaders don't want to be noted for their crap schools, but when all the schools in the next 3 towns are crap, there isn't any motivation to do anything but keep feeding the system. Barack Obama knows all about feeding corrupt systems, he's an expert in talking about change without bringing it. He's the last man we need running our country.