Palin Chastizes Invisible Protesters

[frerottenextelway]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/13/politics/fromtheroad/entry4518952.shtml

The outdoor crowd was so massive that many were unable to hear Palin speak, so about midway through the Alaska governor’s remarks, some of them tried to take matters into their own hands, shouting in unison, "We can’t hear you!"

When that didn’t get the candidate’s attention, they tried a new tactic.

"Louder!" they shouted.

Palin appeared flustered as she stopped reading from the prepared remarks, which were coming across her teleprompter.

"I would hope at least that those protesters have the courage and the honor of thanking our veterans for giving them the right to protest!" she admonished the confused crowd.

Palin’s husband Todd tried to put an end to the awkward episode by approaching his wife on stage and telling her, "They just can’t hear you back there. That’s it."

http://i374.photobucket.com/albums/oo188/137melanie/political-pictures-john-mccain-gove.jpg

[Play2win]

I can't wait for the new SNL episode... ;D

[BroncoBuff]

Wow ... her fallback position was to be po'd? That's kinda sad ... indiates to me she's under alotta pressure if that's her first reaction.

[sisterhellfyre]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/13/politics/fromtheroad/entry4518952.shtml

Sarah's new bumper sticker:

"I have lots of enemies. You just can't see them."

Waitasec... that sounds awful close to what Pentecostals believe anyhow, what with the devil always out to get them, demons whispering bad words in their ears & stuff. She'd probably mean it literally.

Regards,
m.

[theAPAOps5]

This lady is out of her league.

[brncs_fan]

If she would just change her hair color we could have Legally Blond 3!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

If she would just change her hair color we could have Legally Blond 3!

:rofl:

[Odysseus]

Wow ... her fallback position was to be po'd? That's kinda sad ... indiates to me she's under alotta pressure if that's her first reaction.

McCain is very much the same way. McCain is Bush only angrier, stupider, and meaner.

[enjolras]

McCain is very much the same way. McCain is Bush only angrier, stupider, and meaner.

Seriously? That's what you want to contribute to this? He's Bush but angrier, stupider, and meaner?

That's just plain idiotic... it's hurtful....it's unncessary. McCain is, for the most part, a good man and a good candidate. Right now, he's just running into one of the best candidates we've had in a generation. Celebrate your candidate, but be above that type of hateful garbage.

In short: stop being part of the problem.

[Bronco X]

Palin just can't stop giving her detractors ammo. I mean in just one day she offers us this, plus her statement that she's pleased the troopergate report cleared her of any unlawful or unethical conduct, even though it found that she unlawfully violated ethical statutes. In it's own way, it's kind of amazing.

[David Wooderson]

If she would just change her hair color, I may just change my vote.

just kidding :)

[Rigs11]

Seriously? That's what you want to contribute to this? He's Bush but angrier, stupider, and meaner?

That's just plain idiotic... it's hurtful....it's unncessary. McCain is, for the most part, a good man and a good candidate. Right now, he's just running into one of the best candidates we've had in a generation. Celebrate your candidate, but be above that type of hateful garbage.

In short: stop being part of the problem.

Ah yes the righties are all using the "forget all the hate the mccane campaign spewed last week" mentality. Such gentle souls.Mccane is a schmuck, he was a decent person in 2000 when Bush ripped him apart with his smears, instead of learning from it he has done the same in this campaign..and now he is paying the price.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Ah yes the righties are all using the "forget all the hate the mccane campaign spewed last week" mentality. Such gentle souls.Mccane is a schmuck, he was a decent person in 2000 when Bush ripped him apart with his smears, instead of learning from it he has done the same in this campaign..and now he is paying the price.

McCraven has always been willing to sell his soul for power - even before 2000.

Just look at the way he sold his fellow POWs and MIAs out.

[Needa Pass Rush]

This lady is out of her league.

Better at the bottom of the ticket then the top. ^5



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[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/palin-liar-green.jpg

Link (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOTk11gvqDAgD0cY3i4WjI_2YOxwD93O2H2G0)

Excerpt:

Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday.

The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report to a bipartisan panel that looked into the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.

Palin and McCain's supporters had hoped the facts of her crimes would be delayed until after the election to spare her any embarrassment and to put aside an enduring distraction as she campaigns as McCain's running mate in an uphill contest against Barack Obama.

[Drek]

Better at the bottom of the ticket then the top.

Good thing Barack is possibly the single most qualified presidential candidate of the last 30 years, huh?

[Bronco X]

Better at the bottom of the ticket then the top. ^5



<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eDJSVPAx8xc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eDJSVPAx8xc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>


So now if he just screws up about 20 more times he might match the number of gaffes in his two years of campaigning that Palin (or McCain, for that matter) has achieved in two months.

[Needa Pass Rush]

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Fixed it for ya.

[Paladin]

I am willing to grant the occasional campaign gaffe, bit this woman is the absolute pits for carrying a coherent message. She is the consummate bumbler and a poster figure for ignorance.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Fixed it for ya.

:thumbsdow

Given your party's track record of the last eight years, I wouldn't trust you to fix a flat tire.

http://www.bartcop.com/bush-happens.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I am willing to grant the occasional campaign gaffe, bit this woman is the absolute pits for carrying a coherent message. She is the consummate bumbler and a poster figure for ignorance.

http://www.bartcop.com/palin-sarah-gogue.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Needa Pass Rush interviews Obama:

<center> http://www.bartcop.com/obama-vs-indecency.jpg
</center>

[Needa Pass Rush]

So now if he just screws up about 20 more times he might match the number of gaffes in his two years of campaigning that Palin (or McCain, for that matter) has achieved in two months.

Deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other, BroncoX? :thumbsup:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YsMWun2ktXI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YsMWun2ktXI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[Paladin]

Lol

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other, BroncoX?

If this is the best the far right can do, then this election should be a cakewalk for Obama.

:thumbsup:

http://www.bartcop.com/palin-why-ani.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

<center> http://www.bartcop.com/palin-parrot-cartoon.jpg
</center>

[Bronco X]

Deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other, BroncoX? :thumbsup:


Keep up your hopes that he can match the Couric and Gibson disasters before election day. Not that this matters much, but for the fun of it here is your man:

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<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GWRxyTTEsaI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GWRxyTTEsaI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[Needa Pass Rush]

:thumbsdow

Given your party's track record of the last eight years, I wouldn't trust you to fix a flat tire.



Yeah, the Dems have been lights out since they took control of the house. And we're all gratefull for Frank and Dodd's corruption at FMx2.

Nice bumper stickers, LABF. Where are your crayons? :thumbsup:


Democrats Were Wrong on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

October 06, 2008 05:10 PM ET | Michael Barone | Permanent Link | Print
Corrected on 10/08/08: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the year Barney Frank and Herb Moses broke up. They broke up in 1998.
Seventeen. That's how many times, according to this White House statement (hat tip Gateway Pundit), that the Bush administration has called for tighter regulation of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress has cooperated only once. In spring 2007, as House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank likes to point out, the House did pass a bill in response. The Senate did not act until 2008; Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd spent most of 2007 camped out in Iowa running for president. The legislation passed by Congress in 2008 enabled Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to put Fannie and Freddie into federal conservatorship this summer when they failed. But it didn't prevent them from spewing a huge amount of toxic waste, in the form of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, into our financial institutions from 2004 to 2007. As Stephen Spruiell points out in The Corner on National Review Online, Fannie and Freddie spewed out $1 trillion worth (face value) of subprime mortgages between 2005 and 2007. That's a whole lot of toxic waste. For more detail, consult the items referred to in my previous blogpost on this subject (most of the comments seem to have been disputes about the plot line of the movie It's a Wonderful Life, which I should think could be settled by consulting a reference work).

Much if not all of that could have been prevented by a bill cosponsored by John McCain and supported by all the Republicans and opposed by all the Democrats in the Senate Banking Committee in 2005. That bill, which the Democrats stopped from passing, would have prohibited the GSEs from speculating on the mortgage-based securities they packaged. The GSEs' mission allegedly justifying their quasi-governmental status was to package or securitize such mortgages, but the lion's share of their profits—which determined top executives' bonuses—came from speculation.

John McCain has shied away from making this an issue, for reasons my U.S. News colleague Jim Pethokoukis speculates on. This National Republican Congressional Committee Web ad makes the point McCain has been avoiding. Jim Geraghty of the Campaign Spot blog at National Review Online seems exasperated by the McCain campaign's failure to exploit this issue. Excerpts:

Why can't John McCain and Sarah Palin make the points about how the crisis was built illustrated in the "Burning Down the House" (with the revised music) YouTube video? Could McCain please, please bring up some of this in Tuesday's debate?

Don't the American people deserve to know that Democrat Barney Frank, then ranking member and now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said, "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing"? Isn't the fact that the ranking Democrat in charge of oversight of Fannie Mae was in a sexual relationship with a high-ranking Fannie Mae executive a glaring conflict of interest? Isn't it worth noting that Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters insisted, "we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines"? Shouldn't the American people know that Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks insist that "there's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong with Fannie Mae"?

If nothing else, shouldn't we salute Democratic Rep. Artur Davis for saying, "Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong."

I talked with Artur Davis in the Speaker's Lobby Friday during the vote on the financial bailout/rescue package. He reiterated what he said here, and he also makes the fair point that Republicans made some mistakes too. As for the reference Geraghty makes to the fact that Barney Frank's partner Herb Moses worked at Fannie Mae, I think we should keep in mind the fact that Frank and Moses broke up in 1998 and that Moses quit working at Fannie Mae at about the same time. As far as I'm concerned, that's ancient history. And while in retrospect it's clear that Frank was wrong about the GSEs in 2003, he did work with the administration and pushed legislation through the House in 2007, so it seemed he was open to learning from experience.

[Needa Pass Rush]

Keep up your hopes that he can match the Couric and Gibson disasters before election day. Not that this matters much, but for the fun of it here is your man:




He is my choice.... such that it is. I'll take the lib that is willing to own his past and has experience worth taking about. You stick with your eloquent telepromter reader that are scrolling empty promises.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Needa Pass Rush is still trotting out the same FM & FM canard after it has already been discredited?

Who woulda thunk?

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis <hr style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --> <!-- message --> By David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — As the economy worsens and Election Day approaches, a conservative campaign that blames the global financial crisis on a government push to make housing more affordable to lower-class Americans has taken off on talk radio and e-mail.

Commentators say that's what triggered the stock market meltdown and the freeze on credit. They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems.

Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

_ More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

_ Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

_ Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets reported Friday.

Conservative critics claim that the Clinton administration pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make home ownership more available to riskier borrowers with little concern for their ability to pay the mortgages.

"I don't remember a clarion call that said Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster," said Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

Fannie, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., don't lend money, to minorities or anyone else, however. They purchase loans from the private lenders who actually underwrite the loans.

It's a process called securitization, and by passing on the loans, banks have more capital on hand so they can lend even more.

This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.

To be sure, encouraging lower-income Americans to become homeowners gave unsophisticated borrowers and unscrupulous lenders and mortgage brokers more chances to turn dreams of homeownership in nightmares.

But these loans, and those to low- and moderate-income families represent a small portion of overall lending. And at the height of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006, Republicans and their party's standard bearer, President Bush, didn't criticize any sort of lending, frequently boasting that they were presiding over the highest-ever rates of U.S. homeownership.

Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble.

During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.

In 1999, the year many critics charge that the Clinton administration pressured Fannie and Freddie, the private sector sold into the secondary market just 18 percent of all mortgages.

Fueled by low interest rates and cheap credit, home prices between 2001 and 2007 galloped beyond anything ever seen, and that fueled demand for mortgage-backed securities, the technical term for mortgages that are sold to a company, usually an investment bank, which then pools and sells them into the secondary mortgage market.

About 70 percent of all U.S. mortgages are in this secondary mortgage market, according to the Federal Reserve.

Conservative critics also blame the subprime lending mess on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 31-year-old law aimed at freeing credit for underserved neighborhoods.

Congress created the CRA in 1977 to reverse years of redlining and other restrictive banking practices that locked the poor, and especially minorities, out of homeownership and the tax breaks and wealth creation it affords. The CRA requires federally regulated and insured financial institutions to show that they're lending and investing in their communities.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote recently that while the goal of the CRA was admirable, "it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — who in turn pressured banks and other lenders — to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity."

Fannie and Freddie, however, didn't pressure lenders to sell them more loans; they struggled to keep pace with their private sector competitors. In fact, their regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, imposed new restrictions in 2006 that led to Fannie and Freddie losing even more market share in the booming subprime market.

What's more, only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.

These private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.

In a speech last March, Janet Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, debunked the notion that the push for affordable housing created today's problems.

"Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans," she said. "The CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

In a book on the sub-prime lending collapse published in June 2007, the late Federal Reserve Governor Ed Gramlich wrote that only one-third of all CRA loans had interest rates high enough to be considered sub-prime and that to the pleasant surprise of commercial banks there were low default rates. Banks that participated in CRA lending had found, he wrote, "that this new lending is good business."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

[Needa Pass Rush]

If this is the best the far right can do, then this election should be a cakewalk for Obama.

:thumbsup:



Should be. He has tons of cash, the ear of the welfare ready and the million $$ smile. If he can't beat the broken figure of John McCain and the obvious shortcomings of Sarah Palin then he was always a pretender.

Get ready for your hand outs, LABF.

[Bronco Bob]

Needa Pass Rush is still trotting out the same FM & FM canard after it has already been discredited?

Who woulda thunk?



I was once told "you can't polish a turd"

Don't remember who made that quote. But obviously he never met a Republican.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Yeah, the Dems have been lights out since they took control of the house.

Ha ha ha! :laugh:

Why did the Dems regain control of the House in the first place?

Your party had control of the House and they pissed it away through their own incompetence, corruption, and criminality.

(But I suppose that's the Dems' fault too, right?)

Nice bumper stickers, LABF. Where are your crayons?

I loaned them to Joe Liberman - he needed them for Sarah's next lesson on foreign policy. Ha! :spit:

[Bronco Bob]

Should be. He has tons of cash, the ear of the welfare ready and the million $$ smile. If he can't beat the broken figure of John McCain and the obvious shortcomings of Sarah Palin then he was always a pretender.

Get ready for your hand outs, LABF.

Well, as much as I pay in taxes, it will be nice to have a little of it come
back my way for a change. Maybe they can pave the damn pothole
filled roads, for a start, instead of pissing all the money away in Iraq.

[Needa Pass Rush]

Needa Pass Rush is still trotting out the same FM & FM canard after it has already been discredited?

Who woulda thunk?



You mean Barney Frank wasn't banging the assistant director of fannie? Gives Fannie a whole new meaning. I'm glad you believe everything you read at www.mcclatchydc.com.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

If he can't beat the broken figure of John McCain and the obvious shortcomings of Sarah Palin then he was always a pretender.

Gee, it almost sounds like someone's giving up on his team. :D

Get ready for your hand outs, LABF.

Yeah, I'm dreading the prospect of more of that same peace and prosperity crap we had last time the Democrats controlled the WH. :spit:

[Needa Pass Rush]

Gee, it almost sounds like someone's giving up on his team. :D



Yeah, I'm dreading the prospect of more of that same peace and prosperity crap we had last time the Democrats controlled the WH. :spit:

Yup. I'm going to pull the Obama lever and give your boy a run. He's going to have all the answers. The team is the USA, BF. Someday your crayons will melt and you'll figure it out.

[Needa Pass Rush]

Well, as much as I pay in taxes, it will be nice to have a little of it come
back my way for a change. Maybe they can pave the damn pothole
filled roads, for a start, instead of pissing all the money away in Iraq.

Puff, Puff, pass.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

You mean Barney Frank wasn't banging the assistant director of fannie? Gives Fannie a whole new meaning. I'm glad you believe everything you read at www.mcclatchydc.com.

ROFL!

Yep - McClatchy Newspapers and the AP are just part of a vast left-wing conspiracy.

At any rate, it's no surprise that you go to "shoot the messenger" when confronted with the facts.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The team is the USA, BF.

The party you're shilling for isn't pro-USA - it's pro-multinational corporation.

I would have thought you'd have realized this by now.

[Bronco Bob]

The team is the USA, BF. Someday your crayons will melt and you'll figure it out.

Too bad McCain didn't feel the same way when he picked Palin to be his VP.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Get ready for your hand outs, LABF.

Yeah, we get it - you give the finger to those less fortunate than yourself.

That's precisely why the American people are running your crime syndicate posing as a political party out on a rail. :welcome:

[Needa Pass Rush]

Too bad McCain didn't feel the same way when he picked Palin to be his VP.


So you like the neophyte on the top of the ticket. Congratulations.

[Bronco Bob]

So you like the neophyte on the top of the ticket. Congratulations.

No, I like the guy with a brain at the top of the ticket. But thanks for the Congratulations. Maybe someday I can return the favor.

[Needa Pass Rush]

Yeah, we get it - you give the finger to those less fortunate than yourself.

That's precisely why the American people are running your crime syndicate posing as a political party out on a rail. :welcome:

And you give the finger to the guy who is industrious enough to get off his ass and work. We get that too.

[Needa Pass Rush]

No, I like the guy with a brain at the top of the ticket. But thanks for the Congratulations. Maybe someday I can return the favor.


Ha! Brains or just the ability to read? I'm glad you're confident, Bob.

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[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

And you give the finger to the guy who is industrious enough to get off his ass and work. We get that too.

Funny statement from a guy who supports a *president who has never done an honest day's work in his life.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

And you give the finger to the guy who is industrious enough to get off his ass and work. We get that too.

Yeah, liberals hate labor, unions, etc.

That's the ticket. Ha!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Labor Secretary Chao Rooting Out Union Corruption


Hilarious!

Stopped reading right there.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The Ugly Implications of McCain and Palin's Questions

Sarah Palin keeps asking people to ask more questions about Barack Obama. Now McCain has joined in on this refrain. But I don't get it. What more do they need to know? They keep saying he has to answer more questions about Bill Ayers, for example. But he has answered every ridiculous question on this topic a hundred times over. So, what are they really looking for?

It's not the McCain and Palin really think there is some deep and pertinent question that the media just has not gotten to yet about Obama's so-called relationship with Ayers. Otherwise, why don't they ask it themselves? Why doesn't John McCain take the next debate as an opportunity to ask Senator Obama about any profound question he has about Bill Ayers or any other disturbing connection Obama has?

The reason they don't do this is because there are no real questions there. This is a ploy to raise doubts in people's minds about Obama. They have nothing, but it's easy to say, "What else is Obama hiding?" The implication is that Barack Hussein Obama has more terrorist connections he is not telling us about. But since that is patently ridiculous and shameful, they can't say it out in the open. So, they hide behind the implications of questions like, "What else is he not telling us?"

What I want a reporter to ask Sarah Palin and John McCain is, "What is that you think Senator Obama is hiding? You keep asking the question, so you must think there is an answer. What is it? What is Senator Obama not telling us about Bill Ayers or anyone else?"


They don't have answer to that. Because they're real objective is to smear Obama as "the other." Palin has said several times in her rallies that Barack Obama is not like the Americans she knows. Someone should also ask her what she means by that. Then she brings up Ayers and "palling around with terrorists." It's not hard to see the picture she's drawing. Obama is not one of us. Look at his name; be careful, he is one of them.


They don't have the nerve to say it out aloud, so they hide behind their questions and implications. It is a despicable strategy and it has turned this into the ugliest presidential campaign (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBA7dsg5L1I) I have seen in my lifetime.

Young Turks on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TheYoungTurks)

[Odysseus]

Seriously? That's what you want to contribute to this? He's Bush but angrier, stupider, and meaner?

That's just plain idiotic... it's hurtful....it's unncessary. McCain is, for the most part, a good man and a good candidate. Right now, he's just running into one of the best candidates we've had in a generation. Celebrate your candidate, but be above that type of hateful garbage.

In short: stop being part of the problem.

I have been talking McCain down for about three years now so this isn't some new thing for me. I resent his connections to Enron, Phil Graham, Keating Five and Bushco. He is a big oil man to his bones and despite his compassion for the soldiers has voted against them and folded when the soldiers most needed him to be more than a happy warrior.

Before McCain became this "war hero" that we could not talk about he was just John McCain the guy all alone on the straight talk express. I have several friends who personally could put their Vietnam records against his and he would have to show THEM some respect. (They aren't voting for him either. One of them was part of the original green berets and the other won a Silver Star)

McCain's campaign has been all over the map. How many campaign managers has he fired or nearly fired? He was practically copying THAT ONE's every moves at one point. Is this the best the RNC could produce? Ron Paul, at least, has an original idea that matters. My hope is that after the elections his voice is heard more often. I hope McCain goes back to Arizona.

[Spider]

Seriously? That's what you want to contribute to this? He's Bush but angrier, stupider, and meaner?

That's just plain idiotic... it's hurtful....it's unncessary. McCain is, for the most part, a good man and a good candidate. Right now, he's just running into one of the best candidates we've had in a generation. Celebrate your candidate, but be above that type of hateful garbage.

In short: stop being part of the problem.

Dude McCain was a good man , or at least I thought so , but he sold that raft , he is now scootin down the river with Scum .........

[Dudeskey]

Dude McCain was a good man , or at least I thought so , but he sold that raft , he is now scootin down the river with Scum .........

With great emphasis on "was". Like I said before, if this was the same guy that ran in 2000, I probably would vote for him...™

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Labor Secretary Chao Rooting Out Union Corruption


Hilarious!

Stopped reading right there.

What's next?

"Brownie Rooting out FEMA Incompetence?"

[Bronco Bob]

Ha! Brains or just the ability to read? I'm glad you're confident, Bob.


You make the ability to read sound like a bad thing. But then what
else can be expected from a supporter of the creationist party that prides
itself on being ignorant, hates science and scientists, denies global warming,
this we can drill ourselves out of the energy crisis, and in general hates anyone
else with a brain in their head.

[theAPAOps5]

Better at the bottom of the ticket then the top. ^5



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Wow you really don't know **** about the candidates do you? I have seen that trend with your political posts.

[Needa Pass Rush]

Yeah, liberals hate labor, unions, etc.

That's the ticket. Ha!

And now you know why. Another realm for lib corruptiion and oppressing the working man.

Labor Secretary Chao Rooting Out Union Corruption


Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is a very kind and soft-spoken person. She has gone about her business at the Labor Department in such a low-key fashion that it is easy to forget she is there. Yet when all is said and done, at the end of her service in that Cabinet capacity, we may well look back to find that Secretary Chao has accomplished more principled action than any other Republican secretary of labor in history.

An example of what she is doing has to do with what is known around Washington as “transparency.”

In December of last year, Secretary Chao submitted a proposed rule to the Federal Register. Once that is done, there is a 90-day comment period where interested parties can make their views known. Sometimes those comments result in the rule being revised; other times the rule may even be withdrawn. In this case, however, the rule is moving forward, despite vehement opposition to it by organized labor.

This rule requires large labor unions to give much more detailed information about how they spend the dues they collect from the workers who belong to the unions than they ever have before. Presently, there are broad categories of expenditures listed, but the unions do not have to disclose any details about these categories.

One union last year reported that it spent $7 million on travel, but nowhere does it explain what the travel was about. I can tell you, as someone who has worked on presidential campaigns, it takes a lot of effort to spend $7 million on travel. One wonders what sort of travel was involved. Was the whole staff going to conferences? Did they all go first class to Europe?

Or are they traveling to participate in special elections or even the general election, which would be illegal.

There was a lot of applause when President George W. Bush went after transparency for corporations in the wake of Enron and other scandals. He did so in the name of workers, investors and retirees. Well, this rule simply parallels one that is now applied to corporations.

The rules and forms have not been substantially updated since 1959, following passage of the Landrum-Griffin labor reform act.

Before Landrum-Griffin was passed by a heavily union-dominated Congress, because President Eisenhower made it a priority, the unions had almost no reporting requirements at all. That was thanks to the passage of the Wagner Act during FDR's administration. That act tilted things so much in favor of the unions that they could get by with almost anything and there was no penalty for it.

The Taft-Hartley Act, passed a decade later, tilted things back somewhat, but it was Landrum -Griffin that specifically dealt with union corruption. The current disclosure forms, however, do not provide meaningful information to help members gauge the financial health and integrity of their unions.

The reforms being implemented by Secretary Chao will empower union members to root out corruption within their own unions. One observer noted that when rank and file members find out what some of their dues money is being used for, there will be a revolution.

We shall see about that.

So that smaller unions will not be unduly burdened by the new reporting requirements, only the top 20 percent of the unions, those which are the largest and most likely subject to the greatest amount of corruption, if there is any, will be required to report under the new rule. In fact, the Department of Labor is even developing new computer software which will be made available to that 20 percent free of charge. That will greatly reduce the administrative burden of having to comply with the new rule.

Secretary Chao says that the large unions would be required to itemize expenditures above the $2,000-$5,000 range. This itemization will more accurately reflect the services which unions are providing to their members, the secretary insists.

Oh, and by the way, for the first time, unions would be required to disclose financial information for joint training funds to which they contribute more than $10,000. Currently these funds have NO REPORTING REQUIREMENTS despite the billions – yes, that's billions with a B – of dollars spent every year in this category.

The secretary is convinced that this transparency rule will change the dynamic within the large unions. She believes the membership will be shocked when they find out what is going on in their own unions.

Time alone will tell if union members really care about how their dues money is being spent. If they do and if reports of widespread corruption are true, this pleasant, quiet, thoroughly decent secretary of labor may have indeed started a revolution.

[Traveler]

I'll let this story speak for itself.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/mccainpalin-supporters-let-their-rac