defeat the republicans

The House Republicans have managed to successfully block a bill which would have delayed the mandatory transition to digital TV broadcast for 4 months. The vote count was 258-168, but needed 2/3 to pass. There are an estimated 6.5 million households who are still dependent on analog broadcast and would basically lose their ability to watch TV. The argument for delaying the mandatory switch is that it would cause “confusion” to delay the transition. Instead, they leave out the fact that broadcast corporations are putting pressure to complete the transition to help with their profits.

As this humor videoclip from YouTube points out, the people who will suffer will be those who are not technically oriented and cannot afford cable/satellite so they are dependent on regular antenna-based broadcasts. This includes people out in rural areas of the US:

Click on the image for the video

Reference:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/28/national/main4760440.shtml

The last entry focused on the issues. This entry will focus on the candidates and more specifically on McCain and Palin. Again, I’ll try to make this as factual as possible. However, one of the more concerning aspects of this campaign is how unfactual McCain ads have been. (Yes, I believe I made up a new word.) While it’s true that it’s “normal” for candidates to stretch the truths about themselves and their opponents, it’s been so excessive that the excessiveness itself has gotten national attention.

References:
http://digg.com/politics/McCain_Barbs_Stirring_Outcry_as_Distortions_3
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/New_election_low_distorting_the_fact_checking
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Big_Media_Just_Say_No_We_ve_had_Enough_Lies_Distractions

As a reminder, many of the articles in Digg which are critical of McCain and/or Palin have been marked “Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate,Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.” This is not because the story is inaccurate but because there is a group of McCain – Palin digg users who are marking all such articles as inaccurate.

I’ve included specific references later in this post regarding these ads and other statements directly from McCain. How is the voting public supposed to make informed decisions if they are surrounded by lies.

What is true though is if your source of information is from “pundits” on TV, you’ll never get the straight story. The pundits will lie through their teeth to promote their positions whether it is something they believe or not. Here are a couple of examples.

Here is an example of (right wing pundits) Noonan and Murphy saying what they really think about the Palin selection when they thought they were off the air.

References:
http://digg.com/politics/Oops_MIC_s_still_on_commentators_about_Palin

Here is an example of how Karl Rove said (prior to the Palin selection) that if Obama decides to select Governor Kaine of Virginia, who prior to being governor was mayor of Richmond, a city which is “only” ranked 105th, then Obama would be making a choice based on trying to win an election, not based on trying to pick the candidate who would make the best VP for America. If that is what he thought about Governor Kaine, then what does it say about McCain’s selection of Palin, by the way, which he later misstates as the 2nd biggest city in Alaska.

References:
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/08/29/vp-picks-karl-rove-swings-and-misses-big-time/

For a humorous view of pundits who support Palin. Click the image for the link to the video:

And just as a humorous break, here is SNL’s skit of Palin and Clinton. Click the image for the link to the video.

I should have known that YouTube would quickly take down the SNL video. I’ve replaced the above link. I wonder how long it will stay up.

And finally, here is a statement from John McCain himself who says that someone who is mayor or governor does not have sufficient experience to be president. (I’m going to guess that this clip is from the Republican presidential nomination debates in 2000.) While it is true Palin is not running for president, if anything were to happen to McCain, she would become president:

References:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/John_McCain_attacks_Palin_s_experience

Speaking of pundits, you know that you should be skeptical when a question is asked about their supported candidate and the first words out of their mouth is about the opposing candidate. Here is an example of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds who kept avoiding answering Campbell Brown’s question. Tucker’s responses reminded me of a grade school boy trying to get out of trouble. And by the way, because McCain felt this interview was “over the line”, McCain later decided to cancel his Larry King interview.

References:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Tucker_Bounds_on_Palin_s_National_Security_Experience

Palin fits the Bush mold of rewarding your friends and supporters and dissing your critics. We all know how Bush put friends and friends of friends into government posts rather than placing qualified people. This has resulted in selections like Alberto Gonzales, who blatantly lied about his involvement in the US Attorney fiasco and FEMA Director Michael Brown who Bush originally complimented for a “good job” of handling Katrina. She recently promoted a General in the Alaska National Guard days after he provided positive comments about her in a TV interview. She originally sent a letter to fire the librarian in Wasilla for not supporting her position on banning books. Some people try to point out all politicians do this, but it is not a true statement. Bill Clinton selected William Cohen, a Republican, to be Secretary of Defense. If my limited history lessons serve me correctly, Kennedy used a similar tactic when picking his cabinet. If you pick all similar people, then you only hear things from one point of view. No wonder Bush was blind-sided on so many issues.

References:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_promotes_general_after_he_praises_her_on_Fox_News
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Forced_Staff_To_Resign_In_Loyalty_Test_2
http://digg.com/politics/In_Office_Palin_Hired_Friends_and_Hit_Critics_2

I know people are tired of lying politicians. However, if we vote people into office who lie, then who’s really to blame? McCain continues his approach of presenting deceptive ads about Obama:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_mccain.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/more_tax_deceptions.htm
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/snubbing_wounded_troops.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccains_small-business_bunk.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/off_base_on_sex_ed.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccain-palin_distorts_our_finding.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_convention_spin_part_ii.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_new_stitch_in_a_bad_pattern.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/context_included_obama_on_iran.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/rezko_reality.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/wind_power_puffery.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccain_links_castro_with_obama.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_full_tank_of_nonsense.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/the_truth_on_troop_support.html
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_mccain_have_a_perfect_voting_record.html

The ones I focused on the most were related to taxes where McCain continually says Obama will raise your taxes. Of course those families who are struggling to make ends meet will focus on that issue and may make an misinformed decision. In addition, another lie from a McCain ad implies that Obama did not visit troops in the hospital because he could not bring the media along. Actually, Obama has visited wounded troops in Iraq. He did not bring the media and had no plans on bringing the media on his visit to wounded troops in Germany. However, the Pentagon told Obama that the visit “is not acceptable to do so as a candidate” and so when Obama planned to bring Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Jonathan Scott Gration who is on his campaign staff, not Senate staff, they decided not to go in order to avoid making it look like they were only visiting as a campaign opportunity.

Some may then believe that Factcheck is a liberal-based website, but it is bi-partisan. It just so happens they have more entries on McCain than Obama based on the fact that there is more deception in the McCain ads. Of course, Obama ads have entries in Factcheck, too, like when Obama made a statement that McCain received $2m in donations from Big Oil when it was only $1.3m.

Palin has her own problems with facts:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_convention_spin_part_ii.html
http://digg.com/politics/Palin_s_LIE_repeated_4_times_on_MTP
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/30/palin-wanted-nowhere-bridges/

McCain and Palin try to sell Palin as a reformer as someone who says no to earmarks. However, as governor, Alaska has asked for $200m in earmarks. Just her hometown of Wasilla has received $27m in earmarks. If we were to extrapolate that to 300,000,000 million people in the US, that would be $1.2 trillion in just earmarks alone. As pointed out by Factcheck.org, earmarks actually only account for $16.9 billion per year. With our current Bush deficit at over $480, eliminating all earmarks of $16.9 billion makes little difference.

References:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtx_hOhOBrAMbgsXYxQAu3f_QvBwD935EU2G0

In addition, McCain and Palin like to credit her with saying “no” to the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” However, when campaigning for governor, she supported the Bridge to Nowhere. The earmark for the bridge was removed by congress before she became governor, but as noted in the second article, there were $24m in earmarks to build an access road to the bridge. Without a bridge, others even within the Alaskan Republican party pointed out returning the money to the federal government would be the prudent thing to do, but instead, Palin has gone ahead and kept the money to build the access road to a non-existent bridge.

References:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_touts_stance_on_Bridge_to_Nowhere_doesn_t_note_flip
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Supported_Road_To_Nowhere_Earmark

Using the word “lies” may be strong in all context. It could be that they were just “misinformed” or have a bad memory. However, if the politician does not even know the facts, how can we expect them to make informed decisions.

Some McCain – Palin supporters have complained about “unfair” treatment of Palin in the media. While it is true there are some false rumors about her going around, it is expected that when McCain picks a name out of nowhere, everyone is trying to dig up as much information her as possible. Or are we simply supposed to trust his decision? Therefore, it’s not surprising that some unfounded information is in circulation as well as the founded information. This would have happened even if Palin were a man.

I would like to also get into discussing McCain and Palin’s decision-making capabilities, but this is already quite long as it is. I’ll either amend this entry or add a comment to get into some additional topics later.

Decision-making capabilities are more subjective in nature and less factual.

The following are perspectives from people who live in Alaska. Of course, these are only the opinions of individuals but they make for interesting reading. In particular, the first entry is from someone who’s known Palin for 16 years:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/About_Sarah_Palin_an_e_mail_from_Wasilla
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/An_Alaskan_s_Perspective_on_Sarah_Palin

Some of Palin’s appeal is that she is “one of us”. That was the appeal of Bush vs. Gore that Bush seemed more like the type that the average person would feel more comfortable sharing a beer. But shouldn’t we be a little concerned if we pick someone who is the same as the average person? Shouldn’t we actually want someone in the White House who is much better than average? While excellence in education does not necessarily make a politician a better political leader, it is interesting to compare the education background of the two tickets:

Obama:
Occidental College (Los Angeles) – 2 years studying Politics and Public Policy.
Columbia University (New York) – B.A. Political Science with a specialization in International Relations.

Harvard Law School – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude, Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Law Review.

Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and a B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank 894 of 899.

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester – Business Administration.
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – General Studies.
University of Idaho – 2 semesters – Journalism.
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester.
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism.

The worst case scenario has happened in politics. McCain has picked an unknown, unqualified, extreme right person as the VP on the Republican ticket, and now McCain is leading Obama in the polls. The McCain – Palin ticket is now even more right than Bush – Cheney.

If you have the opportunity, you may want to contribute to the Obama campaign. As you may know, he decided to decline public funding for his presidential campaign. Even if it is only $10 or $25, when you multiply that by a million people, that is a lot of money. The website for Obama is http://www.barackobama.com

In comparison, McCain received over $1,000,000 in campaign contributions in one month alone from oil executives after McCain flip flopped on his position about off-shore drilling. He was originally against it, but then changed his mind in the summer. For raising money in politics, it helps to take positions favorable to corporate America even though the positions may not be good overall for us or our children. (More below on this topic.)

Even though I have many personal opinions about the McCain – Palin ticket, I’ll try to keep this as factual as possible as to why America should not want them in the White House. McCain does not offer anything new that we have not seen in the previous 8 years. In fact, here is a humorous look at what McCain said in his acceptance speech compared to Bush:

Click the image for the link to the video:

Since the version on YouTube has been removed, I’ve replaced it with a link from Comedy Central. This link is actually the entire episode. The coverage of McCain’s speech is up through the first commercial break. The piece afterwards on the “Reformed Maverick” is equally good and the segment on “Small town values” is excellent.

You’ll note that I’ll use Digg references for links when available. If you become a Digg user, you can “digg” stories you support. In addition, you can digg (or undigg) specific comments made by other users. You’ll also notice that almost any story on Digg which is critical of McCain or Palin have been marked “Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate,Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.” The marking of the story is done by Digg users, not by the people who run Digg. It seems that there is a group of McCain / Palin supporters out there who are marking ALL such articles on Digg as inaccurate, even if it is a video of something McCain said. It’s quite ridiculous at the moment, so I think Digg will need to figure out a better way of handling this.

Economy
McCain plans to continue the Bush tax cuts. What may not be known about the Bush tax cuts is that these tax cuts favor the rich. In fact, it has been estimated that anywhere between 25%-50% of the tax cuts will go to the richest 1% in the US.

References:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/wwb2000/1031/gore/mod/

If you look at Obama’s plans, he gives a big tax cut to the working people. People may not realize this if they listen to McCain who keeps telling people that Obama “will raise your taxes”. The people and families with lower incomes will benefit under Obama’s plan. Does it seem fair for the CEO of Exxon who received an 18% salary increase in 2007 to also get in addition a significant tax break under the McCain plan compared to the Obama plan?

References:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411693_CandidateTaxPlans.pdf
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/taxes.asp

As much as all of us would like to pay as little tax as possible, we also need to accept the fact that we get benefit with what we pay. With the tax cuts in recent years, there has also been a reduction in services for Americans, such as reduced protection of our food by the FDA because they are understaffed, reduced protection of our transportation infrastructure because of underfunding…

Even if you are upper middle class and your taxes go up by approximately 2% of your income, McCain’s tax plans will continue the huge deficits more so than Obama’s tax plans. As any of us know how expensive having a balance is on our credit cards, we are wasting money by paying interest on foreign investors who are supporting our US debt. Under Clinton, we actually had a budget surplus and could see the end of the debt which was accumulated under Reagen and Bush Sr. Now with Bush Jr having record deficits, we are a long ways of paying off our debt. This is a big burden on the shoulders of our children and children’s children.

The impact of the big deficit has also resulted in the reduced value of the dollar. The dollar is worth almost half as much as it was compared to the Euro in 2001. A weaker dollar means products are more expensive, such as oil, but also means foreign investors are coming into the US and buying up property and companies (such as Anheiser Busch). Is it really in the best interest for our economic assets to be owned by foreign interest?

Some people say that Obama’s plans for taxing businesses will end up being more costly to the consumers as businesses will pass on the additional taxes to consumers. This is not how a capitalist society works. If the oil industry wants to maintain their $100B profits (Exxon alone had $40B in profits), then yes, they will increase their prices. However, most other companies which are not monopolies have competition. Taxes are just an additional expense that businesses have to consider. It’s not legal for these businesses corroborate to raise prices together. Therefore, they’d have to consider the prices they feel consumers would pay for their products or services and charge the optimal price. This is what they would do anyway regardless of whether taxes are increased or not. Anyway, since expenses to running a business are tax deductible, taxes are based on profits.

Oil and Energy
We have heard the debate on off-shore drilling. I’m surprised at how high of a percentage of Americans support this effort. The government’s own U.S. Energy Department stated that “The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.” The amount I’ve heard is maybe 25c reduction in the gas of price by 2030. This is not a real energy policy, but the Republicans are trying to sell it as such.

In addition, it should not be news that the polar bears have been placed on the threatened species list because of dwindling numbers. The dwindling numbers are related to the fact that many polar bears are drowning. However, polar bears can swim, so why would they be drowning? With the melting ice cap, they have fewer months in the year to hunt. Going hungry, they have to try to continue to hunt during the months when the ice has melted. They have to try to swim longer to find their prey and many drown. From the WSJ article: “in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore.” It’s also known that Sarah Palin as governor of Alaska has plans to sue the government for placing the polar bears on the threatened species list because their status provides extra protection to their habitat.

References:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/19/MCCAINOIL/
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/offshore_drilling_candidates_c.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB113452435089621905-vnekw47PQGtDyf3iv5XEN71_o5I_20061214.html

Renewable Energy and Environment

We know that the future for energy is alternative renewable energy sources. Even oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has spent 58m in an advertising campaign for a new energy plan which would drop dependence of foreign oil by almost 40... by using wind. However, Republicans have blocked the energy bill giving tax breaks for renewable energy sources. To have a balanced budget, the tax breaks would have to be offset from other sources, so the bill was going to also have an increase of tax for the oil companies.

Regarding the environment, I already mentioned above of Palin’s preference to drill for oil over preserving the environment. In addition, McCain talks about the environment, but talk is cheap. When we look at the League of Conservation Voters review of representatives and senators voting record on the environment, McCain was dead last 535 out of 535 in his voting record. He managed to miss every single key vote.

References:
http://www.pickensplan.com/index.php
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11254622
http://www.43things.com/entries/view/2810244
http://www.capwiz.com/lcv_stage/bio/keyvotes/?id=192&congress=1102&lvl=C

Iraq War
We all know that the pretense for war were all false. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and they did not have WMDs. It’s true though that now the war has been engaged, there’s nothing we can do about the past. However, one should keep in mind that the reason we got into a war based on false pretense were based on the mindset of the Bush administration. It wasn’t just “bad intelligence” which caused the war, but the decision on how to evaluate the intelligence including not looking at the evidence which contradicted the intelligence. If you were to look at McCain or Bush, who would you think follow the same type of mindset as the Bush administration?

We all know that Bush and McCain did not want to set a date on troop withdrawal. They said it would not be possible. To me, it’s amazing though that the Iraqi government then said they want a fixed date for US troop withdrawal. Were our government officials not talking with the Iraqi government officials? Now because of the Iraqi government’s insistence, there is a fixed date for US troop withdrawal. We know that Obama supported a specific timeframe.

References:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/10/iraqis-continue-to-insist_n_111918.html

• Bush opposed the formation of the 9/11 commission
• After the 9/11 report which included recommendations, the bi-partisan 9/11 commission gave the administration a failing grade at implementing the recommendations.
• Because of our pre-occupation with Iraq, we’ve failed Afghanistan which is facing a renewed Taliban opposition, we’ve let Iran and North Korea continue to develop their nuclear technologies (only to have a tentative agreement with Kim Jong Il which is in jeopardy if there is a change in leadership), we’ve let Pakistani scientists sell nuclear technology on the black market. This does not make me feel any safer about the future.
• Global terrorism is actually up after 9/11
• Distrust of Americans is up among people in Arabs. They feel that the War on Terror is actually a War against Muslims. Even the opinions of the US among people of our allies is down. From a 2006 PEW poll, as an example, the positive feelings of US have dropped in the UK to 56%, in France to 39%, in Germany to 37%, and in Spain to 23%. Among Arab nations, it gets as low as 9%. With that many people with negative feelings towards the US, it appears we are actually increasing the pool of people who would be willing to hurt Americans or American interests.

References:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/06/politics/main1099240.shtml
http://www.comw.org/pda/0609bm38.html

I’ll plan to post other entries related to the election, but I wanted to have this post focus on issues which are of concern for most people.

From my perspective, you can generalize the failures in these areas related to lack of looking at the long-term impact of one’s decisions. All the decisions appear to be short-sighted with unexpected, undesired consequences. From my perspective, McCain / Palin offer the same short-sightedness in their decision-making as Bush.

I did not provide references to all points. If you’d like me to do research for a point you’d like more information, please let me know.

The biggest of which is the announcement of an relative unknown Gov. Sarah Palin from Alaska.

There are quite a bit of rumors about her going around, including the latest from the National Enquirer that they will expose that she had an affair. Of course, what she does in her personal life is her own personal business… unless, in my opinion, she is part of the Republican agenda to mandate to Americans how we should be morally. To me, it’s a lie for her to represent herself as morally upright but then she decides on her own what values apply to her or not.

And while some may wonder how reliable is a tabloid like the National Enquirer… It wasn’t long ago when they broke open the John Edwards affair.

Anyway, McCain is upset with all the media. If you didn’t know, he cancelled his interview with Larry King because CNN “stepped over the line” when CNN reporter Campbell Brown wouldn’t let the McCain spokesman get away with not answering the question. The McCain ticket distributed resume on Palin says she has Commander-in-Chief experience. Campbell Brown simply wanted to know what this means exactly, what did she do. The spokesman Tucker Bounds (please, don’t ever name your sons “Tucker”) would not answer the question. He kept talking either generalities or talked about Obama. And McCain considered this “over the line” and cancelled his interview with Larry King.

Click here for more information about his cancellation on the Larry King show.

This shows the type of mentality McCain has. If he gets upset with you, he’ll just shut down. Due to his known temper, this is not an infrequent occurrence. I wonder what he’ll do when other world leaders don’t do as he says.

Anyway, some of the most entertaining moments recently were when right-wing pundits on MSNBC did not know their mics were still on and gave their true feelings about the Palin selection.

Click the following image to hear what pundits really think instead of what they keep trying to feed us…

Jon Stewart, as always, has an interesting view of what pundits are saying now to defend or promote Palin vs what they have said in the past. Click the following image for the Daily Show Report.

And for pure entertainment:

Click here following for the voice mail John McCain left for Sarah Palin regarding the VP selection.

Or Click here for the video of McCain checking out Palin during Palin’s speech when he introduced her as his VP pick.

Note that I am leaving links to Digg. I’ve now started to use Digg as a means of keeping track of new events. I’d recommend it to anyone to register with Digg and start “digging” stories on the Internet (including the above)!

McCain – Spears Republican ticket:

Click the image for the video.

What is not amusing is the real John McCain. Just like the American public quickly dropped support for Giuliani when they started to find out about the true Giuliani, I also believe that the American public will also quickly drop support for McCain once they find out about the true McCain. Click the following image for a sample of the real McCain:

If you have no care about the environment, then McCain is your guy as being rated dead last among 535 senators and representatives for his voting record on environmental issues.

And McCain is well-known for his temper. Although this is a dated video, this shows how John McCain resolves issues—by walking out.

And we’ve seen in recent weeks that McCain’s tactics for dealing with Obama is by spreading lies about Obama. McCain created an ad which insinuated that Obama cancelled his visit to the hospital to visit injured US troops when he was told he could not bring along the press. Click here to find out the true facts about the story. In the meantime, most of the American public don’t hear about the errors in McCain’s ads, they only hear about the initial ad. Even if much of the American public eventually learn the truth about the story, McCain is hoping to sway a couple % of voters with each false ad to sway the election. At least, that appears to be the strategy based on the fact that McCain dropped his initial claim to run a clean (non-negative) campaign. Here are Swift Boat tactics all over again.

PS. Paris came out with her own rebuttal ad. Good for Paris. And Kathy Hilton (Paris’ mom) had the following to say: “I actually have three responses. It is a complete waste of the money John McCain’s contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country’s time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next president of the United States.” While McCain has managed to alienate contributors to his campaign (I can presume that the Hiltons will no longer be making campaign contributions to him anymore), give him enough time and I’m sure he will manage to alienate all Americans.

We already know they can sink pretty low, but now they are getting desperate because they know McCain is trailing… And for good reason. Here are 10 examples of how McCain has changed his views... but not even simply changing his views but even denying he had supported his previous view.

Anyway, back to the original topic about how low can Republicans sink: It appears the following button was for sale at a recent Texas Republican convention:

But worse than that are all the rumors flying around about Obama or his wife. It’s extremely easy for Internet rumors to spread through blogs and people forwarding e-mails. Even if most of the people realize the rumors are not true, there are those who will still believe them. But what’s even worse than that is the news coverage. I must admit that most of it is from Fox “News”. I don’t see why they are still considered a legitimate news organization. The only one who can stop this is Rupert Murdoch. If he has any integrity, he’ll shut down that organization or fire everyone and start all over again.

Anyway, Jon Stewart parodied the Obama rumors in the following video clip:

Click on the above image for the video. It’s worth viewing.

Republicans blocked a measure which would tax oil companies more… And not only that, Republicans failed to support a measure which would continue to extend tax breaks for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation.

It’s obvious which side Republicans are on… Big oil and other companies (like pharmaceuticals) who pay government officials big salaries after they leave office… So why do people still vote these type of people into office?

Source: http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20080610/D917AV880.html

Here is clip from the Colbert Report pointing out that O’Reilly is quite a jerk:

I wish I could post a humorous Daily Show video to help offset the grim reality that not only has US used torture to try to extort information out of suspects, but also it has now been recently revealed that those high in the administration were involved in the decision. And although we should be used to the fact by now that this administration thinks nothing about lying to the American public, it is disgusting to see how blatantly they do it.

Click the image for a video if you don’t mind hearing people lie through their teeth:

I would like to remind people that many held at Guantanamo Bay are not known terrorists or even “enemy combatants”. Some were “people of interest” who the government felt they needed to question without being subject to any laws. It’s well known that boys as young as 14 years old were held at Guantanamo. In addition, it’s also known that many (most?) of those held at Guantanamo who were later transferred to custody of their current home country (such as Australia and UK) were released because there was not enough evidence to hold them on any charges.

Also announced today was Pulitzer prize winning AP photographer was released after being held for 2 years by US military in Iraq. He was never charged with any crime. Can you imagine if one of your loved ones was just taken by the military/government and held in prison without charges for two years?

Reference: USA Today

Grabbing people off the street, holding them in prison without any charges, torturing suspects… To me, this sounds more like Communist Russia, not USA. Are we really so scared of terrorists that we would be willing to sacrifice our principles and become exactly like those who we criticized and ridiculed in the past? It’s a shame…

PS. And this is the same administration who received a memo on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.” and did nothing because they thought the document was “primarily historical”.

OK, for those of you would need to have a good laugh after reading this, here is the video from the Daily Show.

I’m not sure if people can imagine what $3 trillion is. I mean, we may be able to imagine $1 million… and maybe even $1 billion… but for all the $1 million things you can buy with $1 billion, can you really imagine what it would be like to have $1 trillion…? and then $3 trillion?

That is what Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war will cost our country. The cost of the war is not simply the money which is taken from our taxes to pay for sending troops overseas, but also the cost of taking care of the tens of thousands of wounded soldiers who return from the war and the cost of replacing all the equipment which is being used.

Here is a way of how you can get an idea of how much is $3 trillion. You know how sometimes you may think how great it would be to be a millionaire? Now think of it happening… and then think of your closest 1,000 friends also being millionaires. Ooops, wait, that would be: think of your closest 1,000,000 friends also being millionaires… No, wait, that would be: think of your closest 3,000,000 friends also being millionaires. That would be $3 trillion.

So if you want to try to get some humor out of the fact that General Petraeus cannot give any prediction yet when troop levels will be able to be reduced (let alone saying when all troops can come home), there’s always the Daily Show:

Per Petraeus’ chart, notice how even though costs are going up, the costs somehow take a miraculous downturn when the predicting future costs (dotted lines).