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It’s not stretching the truth, it’s called lying

Rachael Maddow:

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The Republican National Convention in a minute

From 23/6.

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Why do Republicans hate themselves?


© Ben Sargent

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John McCain – Reformed Maverick

Too many other fantastic new videos from The Daily Show. Check these out:

Their hilarious wrap-up of the final night of the Republican convention.

Small-town Republican values (which seem primarily to be “no gays allowed”).

Asking delegates about Bristol Palin’s ch…ch…ch…choice.

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Feeding the Lions to the Christians


© Nick Anderson

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Michael Palin for President

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Watch Out Mr. Bush!

Tom Toles
© Tom Toles

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If Karl Rove worked for the Democrats


From 23/6.

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Finger puppets – tired of political spin? try folding!

Check out this great site that lets you make your own cut-out finger puppets of the McCains and the Obamas. Are you tired of the candidates being puppets of faceless multinationals? Now you can control the candidates. Make them say or do anything you want!

From folduscandidate.com.

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Palin’s big speech

Someone at 23/6 got ahold of the acceptance speech written by Sarah Palin, before it got replaced by one written by one of Dubya’s ex-speechwriters:


© Lee Camp

UPDATE: He also found the first draft of McCain’s speech.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Governor Sarah Palin gave her speech tonight at the GOP Convention, and it gave people who didn’t know anything about her the chance to finally meet her, you know, like John McCain.” -Jay Leno

“I gotta admit, she looked very comfortable at the podium ’cause it’s kinda like Alaska: you look out on that convention floor, nothing but white as far as the eye can see.” -Jay Leno

“I don’t know if you noticed this, but at the GOP convention, the cameramen are desperately trying to find minorities in the audience they could zoom in on, ’cause this is what they do. Finally, after an hour, they found one. It was a Presbyterian standing in a group of Methodists.” -Jay Leno

“Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has many views. She says she’s opposed to same-sex marriage. Did you know that? Yeah, Palin says everyone knows marriage isn’t for gay people; it’s for pregnant teenagers.” -Conan O’Brien

“Speaking of Sarah Palin, she said she’s a life-long member of the National Rifle Association. Which may explain why she’s in favor of shotgun weddings.” -Conan O’Brien

“You know, Sarah Palin, John McCain selected her to be the vice presidential running mate on the Republican ticket, and she’s also the governor of Alaska, and outdoors, likes the outdoors, likes assault rifles, has a collection of rifles, likes to shoot assault rifles. I’ll say this for her daughter’s boyfriend: the kid’s got guts.” -David Letterman

“The whole extended Palin family arrived this morning in St. Paul. They even brought the high-school kid who knocked her daughter up along. His name is Levi Johnston. That’s gotta be a fun trip for him with the in-laws.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“Joe Lieberman? John McCain lasted five-and-a-half years in a POW camp in North Vietnam; even he couldn’t get through Joe Lieberman’s speech.” -David Letterman

“Earlier tonight, I don’t know if you saw it, Sarah Palin gave a tremendous speech to the Republicans, though some are claiming it was actually her daughter’s speech.” -David Letterman

“Delegates were captivated by Palin’s speech; at one point while she was speaking, the room got so quiet, you could hear Larry Craig’s toilet flush.” -David Letterman

“Obviously, they’re keeping the less popular Republicans out of the spotlight. President Bush gave a speech last night which couldn’t have been more than five minutes long. Dick Cheney is in Azerbaijan, which I think is the farthest possible point from Minneapolis on the globe, and they actually locked Senator Larry Craig in the convention center men’s room. Either that or he locked himself in, I’m not sure.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“I don’t want to say the Republicans are trying to distance themselves from President Bush, but did you see last night? Did you see when Bush was speaking by satellite they kept trying to change the channel?” -Jay Leno

“Joe Lieberman, who ran in 2000 as a Democrat with Al Gore, remember he was the vice presidential nominee, spoke last night at the Republican Convention. A Democrat at the Republican Convention. That’s like Bill Clinton speaking at a sexual abstinence rally.” -Jay Leno

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Is abstinence-only sex-ed working?


© Asaf Hanuka
(translated)

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Was Jesus a rabble rouser?

Last night at the Republican convention, the punch line of jokes seemed to “community organizer”:

  • Rudy Giuliani mocked that someone with an Ivy League education would work as a community organizer, bringing laughter and guffaws from the convention floor.
  • Sarah Palin also received laughter when she said “ I guess a small-town mayor if sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
  • Arizona alternate delegate Lou Munoz said “A community organizer is nothing but a rabble rouser.”
  • Republican Senator Jon Kyl said the delegates laughed at the phrase “probably because a lot of folks don’t have much of an idea of what a ‘community organizer’ just might be.”

jesus at the doorTo help educate any people who don’t know what a ‘community organizer” is, here are some notable examples from history:

  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Mohandas Gandhi
  • Cesar Chavez
  • Susan B. Anthony (without her, women — including Palin — would probably not have the right to vote)
  • Jesus Christ (see exclusive photo at right of Jesus doing community organizing)

Are these people just rabble rousers?

I know that making fun of community organizers is part of a GOP strategy of taking an opponent’s strengths and converting them into weaknesses, like Swift boating John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. But maybe people have become aware of this strategy, and won’t tolerate it any more. Or maybe the people laughing at community organizing just can’t understand why someone like Obama would pass up a lucrative job on Wall Street in order to work for a church helping the poor.

Or maybe some of the Americans they are calling “rabble” will get roused, and this attack will backfire. Already, the Obama campaign has said that they are having huge outpouring in donations and volunteers, after Palin’s and Giuliani’s speeches last night. Maybe when McCain picked Palin to energize the base, he didn’t realize that it would energize the democratic base too.

UPDATE: In his speech last night, McCain gave a call to action:

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself. 

Doesn’t it sound like McCain wants you to become a community organizer, like Obama did?

UPDATE 2: Another good example (albeit fictional) of a community organizer is George Bailey (played by James Stewart) in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I guess if the McCain campaign looks down on community organizers, does that mean that McCain is playing the role of Mr. Potter?

UPDATE 3: See button ->

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Rugged Individualism and Self-reliance in the Welfare State

Jeff Danziger
© Jeff Danziger

Is this why people say “you’d have to pay me to live in Alaska”?

In addition to being #1 in pork barrel spending, Alaska is the only state that has neither a state sales tax nor any personal income or capital gains taxes. A few weeks ago, Gov. Palin arranged a special $1200 payment to every Alaskan resident. This is in addition to the roughly $2000 each resident already receives from the state. This money comes from taxes on the oil industry in Alaska. Tax and spend?

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Palin’s speech proves she can lie

Let’s ignore for a moment whether Sarah Palin’s speech at the republican convention was well-written (it was written by a former speechwriter for Dubya) or well delivered. What bothered me about it was two things. First, other than talking about her family and attacking Obama, she didn’t really say anything. No issues, no idea of what kind of politician she is (other than a pit bull with lipstick).

Secondly, she doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp of reality. Quite a few of her statements were complete fabrications.

Probably the biggest one I noticed was that she claimed that Obama had “authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.” Say what? First of all, Obama has only written one memoir (it’s McCain who has written two). But more importantly, Obama authored 152 bills in the Senate, including several “major” ones.

Obama wrote the Lugar-Obama bill on nonproliferation (is protecting us from WMD not “major”?). As for reforms, he helped write “the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress“. He also wrote a major accountability bill  (co-sponsored by McCain) that resulted in the USAspending.gov site that tracks all goverment spending.

I suspect that this line was meant to draw attention away from the fact that not only has McCain hardly written any substantial legislation in years, he hasn’t even shown up to vote.

She also repeated the claim that she said “Thanks, but no thanks” to the federal government over pork funding for the “bridge to nowhere”, even though she campaigned for it until it became a political liability. Even after that she kept the money, but she has the audacity to claim that she turned down the money, saying that Alaska would pay for it. Palin’s claims to be against pork spending are shattered when you consider that as Governor she requested more pork per capita than any other state. Even as a mayor, she was into pork.

A new lie from last night is that suddenly she is the best friend of families with special-needs children. Then why did she slash school funding for special-needs kids by 62% as governor?

Some of her lies are not even worth responding to. She claimed that Obama is “against producing energy”. Give me a break. She also trotted out the tired old claims that Obama wants to raise taxes and spend more, when most economists say that McCain’s plans will cost more than Obama’s, and Obama will cut taxes for 95% of the population, and only raise them on the wealthy (mostly to counteract Bush’s disastrous tax cuts for the rich, which McCain opposed).

But the big question is whether the mainstream media will do its job and report on these lies, misstatements, and exaggerations.  So far, the only thing I’ve seen from them is a blog entry from CBS News. The AP has done a little fact-checking, and found that “in some cases” she “stretched the truth”. You can also find a much more detailed list from the Obama campaign.

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