U.S. Presidential Election 2008

Her's somthing to start conversations.

Obama Speech Factcheck

We'll check McCain's next week.

One disingenious thing the Obama campaign is touting under his Tax plan:

Obam will cut taxes for 95% of Americans----they fail to mention that McCain will cut taxes for all americans (it's just distributed differently)

Source? This website shows tax rates for each.

Single with 35k income:

Your Obama Tax Cut is: $481.06
John McCain would tax you $456.27 MORE than Barack Obama.

Ahhh, but go a little farther into the webpage and you'll see the deception.

look here: how they calculate the cut

It shows that while you may still pay more under the McCain plan than under the Obama plan, ALL taxpayers will get a tax decrease under McCains plan.

Notice also that they claim Obama will not actually raise taxes on the wealthiest taxpayers, but will simply allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. It's almost true.

Sanwald's argument is just more proof that we need to be very, very careful about cutting taxes, even if you pacify the doubters by putting expiration dates on the cuts. If you allow the cuts to expire at the agreed-upon date, then you're suddenly "raising taxes." So the guy who "cut taxes" temporarily is the big hero for stupid voters, while those who follow him (of whatever party) are going to be the evil "tax-and-spenders."

I don't trust simplistic tax-cut promises. Maybe because I live in a state with a Republican governor who refuses to raise taxes for anything at all, regardless of the needs or merits of a tax increase. Meanwhile, major interstate bridges fall into the Mississippi River.

Minnesota has a Republican govenor?? I nearly just fell off my chair.

I've seen Clinton spelled as Cliton twice on this thread so far. Are the two men who intentionally misspelled her name also comfortable refering to Obama as a nigger? I'm just wondering if being so disgustingly sexist is more tolerable than being racist. Both are evils.

Refering to a woman by her genitals in the context used on this thread is almost hate speech.

didn't you just answer your question? If it's almost hate speech, then it isn't the same as hate speech

I've got a dick and still find it hard to read some of the sexist and disrespectful comments on this thread. But then again, having a dick doesn't have to equal being one. Kudos to some of the guys here discussing Hilary and Palin with their minds and not with their, "we're-so-shit-scared-of-women-that-we've-retracted-too-far-to-find-balls."

Then I'll edit: it IS hate speech. Just like referring to gays as fudge packers, blacks as niggers or Mexicans as wet-backs. It's the intention behind the words that make it hate speech. Using speech to intentionally demean a person's worth based on their gender, race or beliefs is hate speech. And as we see on this thread, it can be very subtle.

I've never quite understood why it's so difficult to have a woman as president, but then again american culture is rife with contradictions and double-standards.

Upon further reflection, I've decided this Palin women is exactly what the republicans need:
She's anti-Gay, anti-science (stem cell research), pro-life (even in cases of rape that is unless it's her own daughter maybe), gun toting hunter, mother of 5 (one getting deployed next month), anti-environment. Think of O'Reilly's culture warrior books...she's perfect for them. No wonder they love her. That's a perfect fit for McCain and before I even ask my sister, I know she'll love the ticket now. Unfortunately, Palin's leadership will set back woman's rights 80 yrs and reduce women back to second class citizens.
Now, they just have to win the election.

Don't know what you're talking about JB70. There have been some comments made that are unnecessary, for sure, but your posts have been the most offensive by far. I'd appreciate if you'd get lost. Contribute something or beat it. The way it looks, you've just joined to throw around racial slurs.

How do you mean?

I think I spelled it out in that post. Maybe someone else can explain to you. Anyone?

I'm just interested to hear how you believe all women will be set back 80 years by this woman, that's all. I didn't realilze all women in America were pro-choice. If that's the part you were referring to that would make women second class citizens.

This is the think that bothers me about most Americans: they want their cake AND be able to eat it, too. The government doesn't run itself. If you want services x, y and z, you have to pay taxes. There's no way around it. I'm sick and tired of the American "give me what's [perceived to be] mine" attitude. I'm actually glad that gas prices have gone up and that people have lost their houses because of the mortgage crisis. The people with the 8 mpg SUV's deserve to be paying more that $100 a week for gas, and the people who've lost their houses shouldn't have bought them to begin with.

Obviously all women aren't pro-choice, but I don't know if it's a good thing that the vice presidential candidate is strongly in favor of the government telling a woman what they can and cannot do with their body. I see that as a step back for women's rights for sure.

It's not just pro-choice Fallen Angel...it's the whole package she represents with one contradiction. She had her down syndrome baby and returned to work 2-3 days later? That's against all mothers' thinking and beliefs. Totally shocked me that she would do such a thing. Super Mom's take at least 2 weeks off work and NO ONE would have batted an eye; but that screams selfish.

I agree. Why have 5 kids just to throw them immediately into daycare?? The more I read, the more I do NOT want this woman in office.

Apropos this thread, people should really watch yesterday's Daily Show. Wait for the Palin segment.

haha! that's so great...

best place for people like me to watch our current events.

Minnesota's governor is Tim Pawlenty, who was on the short list for McCain's running mate.


Unless you're talking about posts elsewhere on the forum, I don't think JB70's are offensive. Maybe you could enlighten me. I had actually noticed that Clinton had been spelled without the requisite number of n's, but assumed they were just typos and didn't recognize the resulting slur. So thanks, JB70.

By the way, I don't think that the feminist cache must be applied to women only. I do think that Palin's claims to being a feminist are laughable.

Posts 2806 and 2809 are offensive.

I haven't seen Clinton's name misspelled, purposefully or not, and I would most likely assume the latter.

A lot of the flippant comments regarding a woman's anatomy, if you'll check, have actually come from women.

My point to JB70 was, if he/she is offended by slurs, elevate the conversation, don't dig in the trash to spread a bunch more.

Who needs JB40 to offend you when you have Battalion Boy?


Are you still so sure this was a spelling error? I'm not giving BB the benefit of the doubt, myself (for Clinton or Palin.)

BBoy is a known jackass that isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I was trying to discourage such behavior from a newcomer. Not that I have a right to do that, but enough is enough with all the slurs.

Edit: I don't typically read his posts, even when they're quoted, so no, I had not seen that. Consider the source on that one.

ahhh yes... the English and their way with words

maybe this board needs one of those programs which changes racial, off-color or sexual words or terms into either this: *?=&!"# or maybe more acceptable ways of saying 'em...

not a bad suggestion ey?

Well, bohemka, as a newcomer, JB70 couldn't be expected to grasp Battalion Boy's general forum reputation.

I disagree that swear words should be otherwise expressed. Lots of people self-censor by filling them in with ** or whatever. But among all the different nationalities on the thread, I don't think we could come up with a list of what's a swear word, and what's not (cunt is used on the forum by the Brits WAY too often for my Yank liking, for example.) And George Carlin's dead.

Speaking of c**ts, just had a look at Expaticus' Daily Show link. Samantha Bee on Palin's candidacy: "Don't overload my lady brain, John. We all know that women don't vote with the big head. We vote with the little hood." HA!

Ok, I'm obviously just not grasping this... if a woman has a career she should not have children... or a woman who has a child should not return to work? Or what it is that you find so shocking? Who are you to dictate what is acceptable? I really don't mean that as a dig or anything- but if you're going to point fingers at her for setting women back, then who are you to frown on her for returning to work after having given birth? Shouldn't that be her choice?

That's not an excuse for posting racial slurs.

I don't think Schmitty's idea is that bad. There could be a list of 10 offensive words (not pulling from Carlin) that don't make it to the screen. Instead there would be a randomly selected word(s) from a list. For example, what you just wrote could have looked like this:

I would have found that less offensive.

It's a classic, isn't it, Fallen Angel? Women are going to be criticized no matter what they do. If Palin goes back to work so soon after giving birth, she's not an ideal mother. If she takes 6 weeks off and then goes back to work (a typical and acceptable amount of maternity leave for US women) she's not serious about her job as governor. And she's still not a good mother. A man with 5 children isn't going to be asked how he can possibly balance being VP with being a parent.

However, I feel that in this case, either Palin wants to make her kids an issue in this campaign, or she doesn't. If she wants to point out that she's got 5 children, including an infant with Down's Syndrome, and she expects that this will somehow be a plus in the campaign, then she opens herself up to fair criticism about how great a mom and role model she really is. I personally feel that allowing your oldest son to volunteer to go to Iraq for no reason but to make cannon fodder of himself and political fodder for her, isn't the best parenting, either, but no doubt others will disagree with me on that point.

I complained earlier about people posting pictures of her here on the thread. I felt this was sexist, but thefirelane pointed out that since she had been a beauty contestant, she had already made her looks an issue herself. Fair enough, and a similar argument.

bohemka, we are all adults on this forum. I'm not substituting something silly like "joe bazooka bubble gum" in place of "c**ts" to please you. Petition the mods if you want a rule change, but I don't think you're going to get one. JB70 posted his so-called by you "slurs" to make a point. As he says:


His intention was not to offend you or anyone else.

Yeah, fair point, cinzia. I haven't seen anything of the woman yet, so I didn't know if she's addressed the fact that she has kids or if that point was simply pointed out.

Her kids (except the oldest) were in Dayton to be introduced at the VP announcement on Friday. This is typical of a candidate, though, and we'll have to wait to see how much the campaign decides to make of her being a hockey and PTA mom, and mother of a child with disabilities.

Much has already been made about the point that although she and her husband knew Trig (?!?) had Down's Syndrome before he was born, they chose to continue the pregnancy. (So she apparently feels she has the right to decide for everyone else and their families that they must do the same.) But again, we'll have to wait and see how much the campaign wants to emphasize this. We'll have a good idea next week during the Republican convention.

Has anyone yet mentioned how many votes Palin had to garner to become governor of Alaska in 2006? 114,697

From the same Wikipedia article:

A subsequent Rasmussen Reports poll from July 31, 2008 showed 35% of Alaskans rated her performance as excellent, 29% good, 22% fair, and 14% poor.

John McCain's VP Governor Sarah Palin lost the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant to Maryline Blackburn .

Just found out via email. The significance of it? Who knows. Just interesting.

In more serious news:


One of these homes was housing journalists from I-Witness, a group which videotaped police behavior at the 2004 GOP Convention in New York and helped get charges dismissed against hundreds of protesters who were arrested. It's hard to tell right now from some of the confused info coming out, but it looks like the police surrounded that house to keep the journalists inside and unable to cover the other house raids while they were happening:

Six things Palin Pick Says About McCain:

1. He’s desperate. Let’s stop pretending this race is as close as national polling suggests. The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state that matters — and too close for comfort in several states.

2. He’s willing to gamble the dice. This is not the pick of a self-confident candidate. It is the political equivalent of a trick play. McCain talks incessantly about experience, and then goes and selects a woman he hardly knows, who hardly knows foreign policy and who can hardly be seen as instantly ready for the presidency.

3. He’s worried about the political implications of his age. Like a driver overcorrecting out of a swerve, he chooses someone who is two years younger than the youthful Obama and 28 years younger than he is.

4. He’s not worried about the actuarial implications of his age. He thinks he’s in fine fettle and Palin wouldn’t be performing the main constitutional duty of a vice president, which is standing by in case a president dies or becomes incapacitated. If he were really concerned about an inexperienced person sitting in the Oval Office, we would have reconsidered vice presidential nominee Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge.

5. He’s worried about his conservative base. If he had room to maneuver, there were lots of people McCain could have selected who would have represented a break from Washington politics as usual.

6. On the upside, his team did manage to play to the media’s love of drama. On the potential downside, the drama was evidently entirely genuine. The fact that McCain only spoke with Palin about the vice presidency for the first time on Sunday, and that he was seriously considering Lieberman until days ago, suggests just how erratic and improvisational his process was.

IT almost scared me that I agreed with Kitty Kat on something. Then again, I could tell by the writing style that she just cut, copied and pasted from somewhere so I'm certainly relieved about that.


Not only do I disagree Cinzia, I find your comment patronizing, insulting, and blatantly sexist. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed. You're suggesting that adult aged males can't make decisions for themselves about career or service to country without their (female) Mammy necessarily being involved. HELLO? Ever heard of age of majority? You're also suggesting that this woman is sending her "boy" off to war in order to further her own political goals. You should be ashamed of yourself. It's HIS decision, not hers. For all YOU know she may have been devastated by his decision.

And furthermore, just to give you a head's up, she couldn't have intentionally "sent him off to Iraq" since the Army doesn't ask its soldiers where they wanna go. They TELL you where to go. It could be Iraq, it could be Korea, or it could be Ft Huachuca. You never know til you get your orders.

Politics apart, bearing in mind how aged previous presidents looked after their stint(s) in the White House, even though they started as fit and jumping with energy (well ok one or two exceptions, Reagan???), do you think that McC will actually survive a term? He doesn't look that well somehow.

And Sarah Palin. Well on the one side I admire the single mindedness but otherwise she is plain scary as a future VP.

Experienced or not, capable or not, she is just too much of an unknown quantity with no big-time legislative experience.

Yes, We Can Heal This Nation.

"But the other thing about her, she does know about international relations because she is right up there in Alaska right next door to Russia"

ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahahahhahahahahhahahahha

Eurovol,

I was having a perfectly decent Sunday until I opened your video above. I now feel sick and think I am going to bring up my breakfast.

While I hope this man wins, as the alternative will probably bring about the end of the world, I would also like to keep my food in my stomach long enough to digest it. This schmalz is giving your country a bad name and does this marginally-better-of-the-two-candidates no favours whatsoever.

I shall try not to dwell on this as I eat my lunch in a couple of hours time.

Biden's time in the Senate and extensive experience do make him more qualified to be Vice President than Sarah Palin, but it also makes him more qualified to be President than Barak Obama. It's really dishonest to embrace the first part of that while rejecting the second.

and consider this, McCain's seems healthy and is not likely to kick off in the next 12 to 18 months. So, if he's elected we'll give him 12 months in office before he goes tits up. That's 12 months of experience as VP and natrional leadership on her first day as President which niether Obama or Biden can claim to have on their first day. The longer McCain lives, the greater her advantage.

He's also bringing a younger more dynamic face to national prominence for the Republican party, fighting the image of old rich white dudes.

I think this will win it.

Damn you Eurovol.

A mawkishness is me forced me to check that the video wasn't a spoof and I've lost my muesli all over my keyboard. Can I send you the bill for a new one?

The photos are good. The music is cheeseball.

Personally, I would overdub with "Rosemunde" or something recognizably quasi-german.

Absolutely, AP (although not an exact c&p, the article is much longer.)

I posted the points because I agree with the conclusions.

Wow, here's an interesting one...

Alaskan Governor's child may be her daughter's?

The linked article's picture is of the mother when she is 6 months pregnant?! There is an interesting photo of her daughter here. Her daughter was remove from school for the 4-5 months that coincided with the end of her mother's pregnancy, due to "mono"

Cindy McCain has recently echoed the same absurd statement.

Palin Has Security Experience Because Alaska Is Close To Russia



Palin has never even traveled to Russia, despite her state’s proximity. Nor has she ever had a passport until 1997, and that was when she visited troops stationed in Kuwait and Germany. And one trip to Ireland.