Contradictions, Misleading and Outright Lies: Speeches by Sarah Palin

Contradictions, Misleading and Outright Lies: Recent Speeches by Sarah Palin

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speeches are excellent examples of the use of propaganda, distortion and dishonesty in support of an ulterior motive.  In Palin’s case, she attempts to energize the base of her party by promising things they want to hear, while using absolutely contradictory and often false buzz words that are the currency of conservatives in this country.

This is some of what she said in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Tuesday:

Our opponents put their faith in government; John and I, we put our faith in all of you.

If they don’t put their faith in government, why would they want “all of us” to put our faith in them?  This is empty rhetoric which is contradicted by the fact that they are running for the presidency.

 

This week’s political cartoons

 

Huckabee, the Constitution and the News

Update below!

Would someone please tell me why the story about Huckabee wanting to change the Constitution and start a theocracy here is NOT in regular newspapers? I am not allowed to use AlterNet or TPM or the blogs as sources for weekly “current events in politics” assignments. And if it isn’t even news for a high school history class, then it’s really not news for the American public!

Here’s what Google News Search had for the search terms huckabee “god’s standards” constitution:

Huckabee Advocates Changing the Constitution to Live By “God’s …
AOL News Newsbloggers, VA – 1 hour ago
… means what he says, he wants the turn the US into a Christian Taliban state, where we would be ruled by what Mike Huckabee believes is “God’s standards. .

Huck, the Constitution and ‘God’s standards’
MSNBC – Jan 15, 2008
WARREN, Mich. — Huckabee’s closing argument to voters here this evening featured a few new stories and two prolonged sections on illegal immigration and …

Huckabee trades God for jobs in Michigan Guardian Unlimited, UK – Jan 14, 2008 The former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee today discarded the emphasis on conservative social values that propelled him to victory in the Iowa caucuses …

Huckabee, 3rd In Michigan, Looks Ahead To So. Carolina WCPO, OH – Jan 15, 2008 By LIBBY QUAID, AP Writer LEXINGTON, SC (AP) — Mike Huckabee, nursing a second third-place finish in northern states, looked ahead to the South where he … Mike Huckabee Doesn’t Believe in Constitution Stop the ACLU, PA – Jan 15, 2008 by Jay @ 9:42 pm on January 15, 2008. If I may quote a famouse liberal…”You say you wanna change the Constitution, well you know…we all wanna change your …

Why not the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune or a newspaper my teacher accepts as real?!?!? Here’s what Huckabee ACTUALLY said:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

He’s a FFFFing candidate for President who has already won a state! Tell me why that this shouldn’t be front page news on all the newspapers this week.

Update: It IS in a real newspaper! Just not in the United States. The UK Guardian has the story.

 

John Edwards and corporations

Corporations can be very good for a country because they employ people, create things, sell things, and provide services. But there can be problems when corporations have too much influence over government and when they refuse to negotiate with unions or use union workers. John Edwards is the democratic candidate who is talking the most about corporate greed and the problems that it can cause. Here’s part of an article from Huffington Post that explains what he said in Iowa on Friday.

While Edwards has consistently campaigned on an economically populist program, his speech today in Dubuque was marked by a noticeable ratcheting up and radicalization of his critique of corporate wealth and power.

“Why on earth would we expect the corporate powers and their lobbyists, who make billions by selling out the middle-class, to just give up their power because we ask them nicely?” Edwards asked. He made no mention of rivals Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in today’s speech; in the past, he has slammed Clinton for being too indebted to powerful Washington lobbies.

Edwards is in the midst of a final 38-county push to win next Thursday’s Iowa caucuses. Even his own supporters will concede that taking Iowa is a do-or-die must for a campaign running third in national polls, but in a virtual dead heat in the Hawkeye State with rivals Clinton and Obama.

Nestled on the gritty Illinois border, Dubuque has been hit hard by the collapse in American manufacturing jobs and offers itself as a perfect venue for Edwards’ message of economic fairness. The local Flexsteel plant has lost about two-thirds of its 800 jobs over the past decade. Paper maker Georgia Pacific, another big employer in town, has also been hit hard by job exports.

“Iowa has lost twice as many jobs to unfair trade deals than it’s won in the so-called technological revolution,” Edwards adviser Dave “Mudcat” Saunders told the HuffPost before today’s event started. “What kind of revolution is that?” Saunders said Edwards would stay on his message of opposing “unchecked greed” and that it was a theme that resonated deeply throughout the state.

 

 

Governor Perry is an idiot about terrorism

Why is it that the newspaper quotes politicians or any people without fact checking or making them justify their opinions. If Governor Perry wrote sentences like the following on a paper in my history class, he’d get a 50 for failing to provide any evidence at all for his opinions. But the Austin-American Statesman quotes things he said at a party and acts like he’s making sense.

Perry predicted too that if Democrats prevail next year, the war on terrorism will return to U.S. soil.

No evidence offered.

Then this:

And although Giuliani would keep up the war on terrorism, Perry said, “if we elect the Democrats across the board, the war on terror is not going away. It’s just going to have to happen here. And I want the war, and I want the conflict, to be over there in their country. I want to stop it over there before they get back over here.”

First of all — Mr. Governor Good Hair, which is “their country”? Saudi Arabia (like 15 of the 19 9-11 terrorists)? Iran? Iraq? Syria? Mexico?

Second of all — Dear Editor, why do you print the governor’s comments without some commentary about how outrageous they are?

Finally, who cares about the governor’s opinions about terrorism anyway?

 

Cholera and Iraqi children

Isn’t it bad enough that the republicans wanted to start a war in Iraq when Iraq was not threatening us?  And then they mismanaged the whole war and still can’t get the electricity turned on?  And they tortured prisoners.  And they let the contractors run around killing everybody.  But that’s not all.  NOW there’s a new problem with Iraq: cholera, a painful and deadly disease.

 

IRAQ: Fear among refugees as cholera crosses border

BAGHDAD, 7 October 2007 (IRIN) – Despite the efforts of the Iraqi government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to contain a recent cholera outbreak, the disease has already spread to half of the country and has also crossed the border into Iran, according to WHO and Iranian authorities.

Photo: Many children living in displacement camps are suffering from acute diarrhoea. This child, who lives in a camp near the Syrian border, is suspected to have cholera

Photo: Afif Sarhan/IRIN

Refugee camps on Iraq’s borders and inside Iran, Syria and Jordan have been warned of the outbreak by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

 

The Bushies talk a good game about valuing every life, but we can see from their actions that they are talking about UNBORN children and not sick, Iraqi children that already exist.  They don’t care, but we can.  Red Crescent and Red Cross are collecting money to fight cholera in Iraq and the countries that it borders.

 

Washington, DC and Voting

Why would anyone in congress keep the people of Washington from voting?

 

D.C. Vote Bill Dies in Senate

By Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post Staff Writer

Republican lawmakers yesterday blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. vote bill, a potentially fatal setback for the District’s most promising effort in years to get a full member of Congress.

The opposition to the bill is this, but I think that the Republicans don’t want people in Washington, DC to vote because many of them are black and most of them are registered Democrats.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the White House have strongly criticized the legislation. They maintain that, because the District is not a state, the bill violates the constitutional mandate that House members be chosen by the “People of the several States.”

“I opposed this bill because it is clearly and unambiguously unconstitutional,” McConnell said in a statement. “If the residents of the District are to get a member for themselves, they have a remedy: amend the Constitution.”

The article points that out too.

In addition to voicing legal concerns, opponents were wary of the bill’s potential political repercussions. Some Republicans feared that the measure could eventually lead to the addition of two full D.C. senators, who probably would be Democrats.

If this is a real democracy, then the citizens of our country’s capital city should be able to participate also.

 

Even newer editorial cartoons

 

new political cartoons

Freckles is back to school and hoping to get back to real blogging when the homework settles down. In the mean time, political cartoons.

 

Bush’s legacy

It seems that George W is concerned about his legacy, and he is talking to a biographer named Robert Draper:

In book, Bush peeks ahead to his legacy

from Americas – International Herald Tribune

In an interview with a book author in the Oval Office one day last December, President George W. Bush daydreamed about the next phase of his life, when his time will be his own.

The articles talks about these kinds of issues

First, Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With joint assets that have been estimated at as high as nearly $21 million, Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets – it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

and

The transcripts and the book show Bush as being keenly interested in what history will say about his term despite his frequent comments to the contrary; as being in a reflective mode as his time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue dwindles; and, ultimately, as being at once sorrowful and optimistic – but virtually alone as commander in chief, and aware of it.

Here is the worst line in the whole article:

And in apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq, he continued, “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ – there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.”

HE just wants to make money, but I think that his real legacy will include these:

1. a million people dead because of wars that we started
2. 3000 dead at Ground Zero, flight 93 and the Pentagon, with bin Ladin still on the loose and not even a suspect by the CIA
3. an unsolved anthrax terrorism case that killed five people
4. increased opium exports all around the world
5. privatization of everything from highways to schools to prisons hospitals to the maintenance of Walter Reed hospital and rehab
6. many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with no access to decent health care when they need it
7. the drowning of a city and a whole section of another state
8. hard times for poor people, and a whole lot more poor people
9. most of his administration resigning on him, and some of them being investigated and tried and convicted for crimes
10. having the whole world hate us
11. almost (I hope) starting a war with Iran
12. stealing elections
13. having hookers in the white house pretending to be reporters
14. the giant corporations having a super time while the planet heats up and regular people suffer
15. high gas prices and high prices to heat houses
16. spying on Americans without a warrant or even telling the FISA court
17. locking up Americans for years without a trial
18. locking up thousands of other people in torture camps with no lawyers and no rights
19. making students only learn stuff that is tested in April and not the important things in each subject

I bet George won’t talk about those things when he has speaking tours. (He’ll get more for one talk than my whole family has in a year!) What do you think his legacy will be? Can someone please call the Hague?

Like most of my political posts, this is cross-posted at
Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

When can we leave Iraq?

So …. If half the republican people want us to withdraw troops from Iraq, we can assume that even more of the democratic people want to withdraw troops. So when will the politicians in Washington know what the people know? When will they listen? When will they start a withdrawal?

This is from ThinkProgress:

51 percent:

Number of Republicans in Iowa who “favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months.” Just 39 percent are against a withdrawal. (via Atrios)

 

New political cartoons

 

Karl Rove and the TV media

Think Progress has a post up called

If It’s Sunday, It’s Karl Rove

and in it they have a list of questions that they want the talk show hosts to ask Rove. Here’s the list:

• Promoting the war as a member of the White House Iraq Group
• Leaking Valerie Plame’s identity
• Compiling the list of fired U.S. attorneys
• Politicizing government agencies
• Dealing with Jack Abramoff
• Violating White House email record-keeping rules
  

In addition to those, I think they should also ask him about these things:

• Who Jeff Gannon was spending nights with in the White House?
• Is George Bush drinking or doing drugs?
• Who is the real president, Bush or Cheney?
• Why did you decide to leave now?
• What gave you the idea that there are no rules for you and your friends?
• Why did you decide Congress doesn’t matter anymore?
• Did you rig the voting machines?
• Don’t you feel guilty destroying the country like this?

What else would you ask him?

 

What’s the deal with Karl Rove?

Karl Rove is resigning to spend more time with this woman. Yep. Leaving the white house and all that power to spend more time with her.

Fox News has a timeline of all the time Rove and Bush have spent together.

CNN described Rove’s resignation like this:

Emotional Rove: It has been a joy

President Bush has called him “the architect” and “boy genius.” Today, he called him “friend.” Standing next to Bush, his voice cracking, Karl Rove, talked about quitting his job as Bush’s senior political adviser. “It has been the joy and the honor of a lifetime.” full story

Or …..

• Maybe he is just getting pushed out by Cheney.
• Maybe someone has pictures of him with Jeff Gannon.
• Maybe he’s going to work from home on a laptop and a telephone.
• Maybe he has plane tickets to a country that won’t send him back and make him answer questions from Congress or the Hague or anywhere else.

Please leave a comment with your own possibility. RWCole came up with these:

1) Rove wanted to leave after losin the last election- but Clusterfuck wouldn’t let him- now it’s time to go.
2) Rove is about to be indicted
3) Rove was photographed having wild sex with a male goat
4) Rove is about to join Thompson’s campaign and insure that no dem ever gets access to the paper trail in the oval office.
5) Rove has 18 more months to sell his influence with clusterfuck to the highest bidder and become a wealthy man.

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If the White House won’t even defend this guy, why is he still Attorney General?

Even the White House won’t defend Alberto Gonzales any more. Nor will any other conservatives. So why is he still attorney general? Only because he is friends with Bush? Only because he knows all of Bush’s secrets? What a sham!

Here are some choice quotes from the interview on Fox. From Chris Wallace:

“By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales. We had no takers.”

From Newt Gingrich:

“Both the president and country are better served if the attorney general is a figure of competence. Sadly, the current attorney general is not seen as any of those things. I think it’s a liability for the president. More importantly, it’s a liability for the United States of America.”

 

Senate Dem press conference about AG Gonzales

This is Senator Schumer talking this morning about Attorney General Gonzales. I want to be a senate dem when I grow up.