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McCain Picks Gov. Palin As Running Mate
Many readers have written to tell us about McCain's choice of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP choice. "Palin, 44, a self-described 'hockey mom,' is a conservative first-term governor of Alaska with strong anti-abortion views, a record of reform and fiscal conservatism and an outsider's perspective on Washington. [...] If elected, Palin would be the first woman US vice president, adding another historic element to a presidential race that has been filled with firsts. Obama, 47, is the first black nominee of a major US political party. The choice of a vice president rarely has a major impact on the presidential race. Palin will meet Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a debate in October."
She tried to get a state trooper fired for divorcing her sister and after that failed, fired his boss for not firing him.
True, she has been accused of this. But so far, the only people implicated in trying to get this state trooper fired are members of her family and staffers in her office, without her knowledge. The only documentation of any action by her pre-dates when she was elected governor.
I don't think it's going to get traction, because the state trooper isn't exactly a sympathetic figure. He was suspended for using a stun-gun on his 10-year-old stepson, and is alleged to have threatened Palin's father (among other things).
Story here, with links to background material: http://www.adn.com/politics/story/468174.html
I don't want creationism taught in a science class
Then you're talking about something different than what other people are talking about. There are people out there, people in power, who want to teach creationism as science -- some using the paper-thin disguise of Intelligent Design, some not even bothering with that -- and that's who most of us are trying to keep at arms length.
The enemies of Democracy are
I think that the opposite of your claim is true: McCain is doomed. He just destroyed the "Obama doesn't have the experience to lead" meme. Sure Palin is a hard right social conservative. But she also happens to be an ex-beauty queen with an ethical scandal in Alaska.
Ethical scandal? Really? She pushed for the firing of some cop who tazer'd his own nephew, and then threatened the life of his soon-to-be-ex father in law? Seems like a fireable offense to me. Regardless of how she's related to the family.
The social conservatives claim that women should be at home, not running for the Vice Presidency. Of course they're a bit inconsistent on this.
Pardon, but I think perhaps you may not be qualified to speak for "the social conservatives".
We already have evidence of progressing Alzheimer's. The poor old bastard can't even remember how many houses he has.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
She's running as the VP of a 72 year old candidate who has had a deadly form of cancer, and suffers from lifelong health problems related to his extensive torture. His odds of surviving the next 4 years are vanishingly small. The odds that she is both the republican VP and presidential candidate is very high.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
What's sad is that when Democrats run women, it's looked at as somehow genuine but when Republicans run a woman it's looked at as pandering.
Because, when Democrats run women, it's based on a long history of, y'know, actually having supported women's issues.
Since Republicans have a long history of voting *against* things like equal work for equal pay, then yeah - it's pandering.
Unfortunately (Well, unfortunately for the GOP - I'm fairly happy about it), I don't think it's going to be very effective - I have doubts most of the GOP is actually familiar with her record. So the xenophobes that are going to be really ticked at a 'tacking towards the center' approach, are going to be really ticked anyway, while the moderates that might be gained by *actually* tacking towards the center will be the ones that look up her record and decide 'No Thanks'.
On top of which, we have a McCain campaign screaming about Obama's lack of experience, but anointing someone younger and with *no* national or foreign policy experience.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
For the sake of discussion Obama responded to that (in Q/A format) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX67mlUyutM
McCain very effectively put the experience issue to rest by picking Palin, which makes you wonder what the last month of crap from him and his surrogates was about. Obama as celebrity? Palin has actually won beauty contests. Obama passes legislation with his name on it in the U.S. Senate; Palin governs a state with less population than Austin, TX. Palin is also a creationist, arguing for equal time in science class.
Magoo very effectively hijacked the media cycle with this choice, but one wonders why he didn't choose from a legion of much more qualified, experienced, effective female Republicans.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
We dont know what Obama stands for except that he for the most socialist policy that i have ever read...coming just shy to that of marxism.
Yeah, Obama was totally promoting all sorts of government and worker ownership of the means of production last night. Right after he did the crowd surfing.
Read a book before you rant. And perhaps a reference on Obama's economic policy, too.
*sigh*
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
When the story broke, he was stripped of all committee assignments and asked to resign, which he refused to do. What more do you want, Nancy Pelosi to spike him in the eye with a high heel?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
For most of that time she served on the City Council and later as Mayor of Wasilla, a town of between 5400 and 8400 people, depending on which estimates you look at. She spent 2003-2004 as a political appointee on Alaska's Oil & Gas Commision before resigning due to corruption, then ran for governor in 2006.
Being a council member or mayor of a town that small isn't in the same league as even a state senator position. Even when Obama was just a state senator he was representing a little under 220,000 people (calculated from population of Illinois over number of senators). Palin's experience as governor helps, but that experience only covers two years.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Palin's elected office:
Obama's elected office:
Rounding down, that gives Palin 8 years, most of which was at the city level, and Obama 11 years, all of which is at state level or above.
I'm sorry, being a mayor of a town of 9000 doesn't qualify you to be Vice President, especially when the presidential candidate has age and a history of health problems going against him.
As for governor, Alaska has a population of 670,000, roughly twice the population of the CITY I live in.
Alaska also does not face the same challenges as other states. They basically don't have many taxes since they get all their wealth from oil, and so they don't have to deal with the budget issues other states have been stuck with. And she's only been governor for 2 years. At least George W. Bush had a lot more experience than that as governor of Texas. Also, they've been getting a huge windfall of revenue whereas most states are struggling to balance their budgets due to the high oil prices. There are no statewide income, sales, property or inheritance or state taxes (some localities have their own local taxes). Palin actually RAISED taxes on the oil companies and limited their exploration and development (which affects everyone else).
She has no international experience, or for that matter, any national experience.
Obama had millions of votes for him as a senator, several times the entire population of Alaska. Even as a state senator he represented far more people than she has as a mayor.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
She said no thanks to Sen. Ted "Internet Tubes" Steven's 100 million dollar "bridge to nowhere",
Anchorage Daily News, 10/5/06: Palin Said She Supported The So-Called "Bridge To Nowhere," But Was Concerned Money "Flow" Was "Going to Slow"
Might want to revisit your history....
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Yeah, but Quayle want creationism taught in schools like Palin does?
Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
You've missed the point that in no way was it her or her office's responsibility or duty to fire this guy. She strong-armed the guy's boss into firing him. It wasn't something she should have even been involved with. She overstepped her bounds and used her political office to gain revenge for a family member.
Point of clarification: As far as I can tell, Wooten (the state trooper) is still on the force. He was suspended for cause for 10 days, reduced to 5 days after a grievance was filed by the union.
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/510080.html
Reading between the lines, it appears that Palin's husband was responsible for a lot of the pressure.
Are you kidding? From the Christian Broadcasting Network:
Palin Pick Causes 'Elation' Among Evangelical Leaders
Palin's trying to run away from Stevens as fast as she can. She took money from the same convicted VECO guy that he did -- just not as much.
Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
Evangelicals love her because she is so firmly pro-life, but she fights her with party all the time.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
At least Palin wants creationism taught alongside evolution.
While running for Governor of Alaska, Palin supported the open debate of creationism alongside evolution in schools;[41] however, she noted that "creationism doesn't have to be part of the curriculum" and that she would not use "religion as a litmus test, or anybody's personal opinion on evolution or creationism" as criteria for selection to the school board.
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
Nary a rebellious thought in her head.
That's not quite true. She's a staunch Republican, but even so, she bucked the party on several issues, including helping kill the Bridge to Nowhere, boosting taxes on the oil industry, and vetoing a measure that would have prevented Alaska providing benefits to the partners of gay state employees. She also managed to defeat the incumbent Republican governor while much of the party actively fought her, pulling in 51% of the primary vote against two other opponents, something hard to do in US politics. She also managed to get the state's Republican Party head to resign when she reported him for working on party issues while on public time. She's apparently not willing to kowtow to the Party at the cost of her ethics.
Now, whether she's willing to cross ethical boundaries for other reasons is under investigation. McCain is in serious trouble if the independent prosecutor finds that she really did fire the state Commissioner of Public Safety for refusing to fire her brother-in-law during a contentious custody battle between him and her sister. If that ends up without a finding against her, though, she at least is unlikely to hurt him.
It looks to me like the VP candidates are balanced in terms of negatives (excepting perhaps the experience side), each with a possible black mark against them but mostly clean. I respect and admire Biden, but I'm interested to find out what Palin is like in more detail -- something I'm sure we'll be soon learning.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Such declarations get bandied about so much that one hardly bats an eye; in my opinion, though, you've just lowered yourself more than anyone else here could.
I like McCaain, but from what little I've learned so far, this VP selection pushes me away from him a little.
XML causes global warming.
she's a vicepresident candidate and has MORE government experience than Obama
Uhm, not quite:
From Wikipedia:
Barack Obama:
Senator:
January 4, 2005 to now (3.5 years)
Illinois Senate:
January 8, 1997 - November 4, 2004 (8 years)
Sarah Palin:
Governor:
December 4, 2006 - now (not quite 2 years)
Mayor:
1996 - 2002 (6 years)
Welcome to Math 101.
That said, I like her stance on corruption, but she's only the VP candidate, so being VP under someone whose campaign is pretty much owned by the special interests she spurns is going to cripple any chance she has of doing anything unless McCain kicks the bucket.
She's also a creationist, anti-abortion, anti-contraception (!), all of which adds up to someone that Hillary supporters will have a hard time with.
I dunno whether this is a smart move by McCain or not, but you rarely go wrong counting on voters to be stupid, so it may help in the end. The GOP doesn't represent Republican voters, as they're clearly not for smaller government or less government spending (see also: Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 with a vengeance), or securing America (Bush 43, again with the vengeance), but the GOP always manages to sucker the Republican populace into *believing* they are for those things by *simply* saying they are. McCain doesn't have to win over any blue states, he just needs to tip enough states that are in contention.
What were you trying to show with that link? Someone repeating a bunch of debunked talking points? Because that's what she's doing. For example, that "2000 acre" thing. The oil is not concentrated in one 2,000 acre area; it's in more than 30 deposits spread across 640,000 acres of Alaska's North Slope coastal plain (out of 1.5 million), which means stretching roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure that practically renders the area uninhabitable for large wildlife. Even if you only want to look at the "touching the ground" measure of how much land it takes up, the combination of oil infrastructure, drill sites, airports and roads, and gravel mines is *12,000* acres, not 2,000. No rivers in the North Slope? Um, BS. I mean, come on -- you think that all the water on the north side of Alaska drains all the way to the south? I could go on and on. This is a woman who thinks that an animal that spends most of its life hunting on ice flows isn't going to be adversely impacted by their imminent disappearance, and you're acting like she's some kind of environmentalist? Give me a break.
Actually it means horizontal drilling at safe distances below sea level.
It's not rocket science.
Department of Geology at Univ. of Wisconsin
http://www.geology.wisc.edu/courses/g115/oil/4.html
http://www.horizontaldrilling.org/
Natural Gas Horizontal Drilling
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/researchers-say.html
Geothermal Conference on HD
http://www.nationaldriller.com/CDA/Articles/Industry_News/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000399698
NaturalGas.org
http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/extraction_directional.asp
Obama: 7 years Illinois Senate, 3 years U.S. Senate
W. Bush (pre-Presidency): 6 years Governor
Lincoln: 8 years Illinois House of Reps, 2 years U.S. House of Reps
T.R. Roosevelt: 3 years Governor
F.D. Roosevelt: 2 years NY Senate, 3 years NY Governor
Palin: 4 years city council, 6(?) years mayor Wisilla, AK, 2 years Governor
So what you're saying the GOP will say is that you can only have a President after baking them for 30+ years in the Senate? History shows otherwise.
Well, you see, that's the beautiful thing about things like science and math. Sometimes things are simply wrong. Relativism need not apply in regard to these questions.
Science is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of fact. That doesn't mean that science is never wrong, it does mean that all scientific claims are either correct or incorrect. Further, the definition of science requires that any claim (hypothesis) that warrants consideration must be one that can be right or wrong.
By terming evolution as a matter of belief or non-belief and putting creationism, in anything but the strict deism sense, into the same camp you only reveals your ignorance of what science is and what is required to be considered "scientific".
Since there is absolutely no conflict between deism and evolution (though deism is still in no way scientific), we must assume that all anti-evolution creationists is of the strict sense.
Teaching your children that there is some sort of choice between creationism and evolution is on par with teaching them that flat earth claims are up for debate as well.
She has strong libertarian roots, has made a point to go after Ted Stevens - and the bridge to nowhere that Obama also voted for.
Obama didn't vote for the bridge. Why are you fabricating this stuff?
In fact, the media is trying to portray McCain as having aggressively opposed the the bridge, when in fact he did no such thing, and he was absent from all key senate votes on the matter: http://www.factcheck.org/outrageous_exaggerations.html
To McCain's credit he has been a reliable opponent of pork-barrel spending. But your post simply gets the facts wrong (about Obama's vote), and the media does as well when they portray McCain as having opposed spending on the bridge. In fact, you're even wrong about Palin opposing spending on the bridge -- she was initially in favor of it, and changed her stance only when it became clear how tainted the project was, and that there was no support for it in the senate.
Made a point to go after Ted Stevens - and the bridge to nowhere that Obama also voted for.
On October 22, 2006, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in response to a question specifically about the bridge:
Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.
Yeah. Using your congressional delegation's power to appropriate more money for your state. That's real libertarian right there. Her later statements to the same paper made it clear that she only killed the bridge after it was clear the federal government wasn't coming up with the bulk of the funding.
None of this means a bit to people who believe in immortal souls granted by God upon conception. I think that's where the real argument lies.
Bruce Perens.
In a science classroom, in a public school, there is no 'debate' to be had about creationism. The Supreme Court made that crystal clear years ago - creationism is religious in nature, and has no place in a public school.
(And Intelligent Design is just creationism in a lab coat.)
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
, including helping kill the Bridge to Nowhere,
Actually, she was for that before she was against it. Also she was against it only after it became apparent that the state would have to kick in serious $$$ that the feds weren't providing, *and* Alaska still got the federal dollars, just not earmarked specifically for that project anymore.
Not quite the maverick-y bucking the party line that McCain'd have you believe.
Also, she is anti-abortion (even in the case of rape), pro-creationism in science classes, a global warming denier, and has it out for polar bears.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Yes, but so is she.
Her enormous popularity in the state took a hit this summer over her firing of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, a former Anchorage police chief.
State lawmakers launched a $100,000 investigation to determine if Palin dismissed Monegan because he would not fire the governor's ex-brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten, who has been involved in a messy custody battle with Palin's sister.
A candidate complete with pre-made scandal. Outstanding.
... the most socialist policy that i have ever read...coming just shy to that of marxism ...
You have no idea what you are talking about. Let us get one thing straight right from the start: I am a socialist. Obama will not be getting my vote, because regardless of his campaign rhetoric, his platform is in fact the same capitalist, pro-corporation shit that I see every four years. I thought for a short while that he may be different (though not socialist by any means), but suddenly he's changed from wanting to throw out NAFTA and CAFTA to this vague notion of "renegotiation." He also voted for the FISA bill and telecom immunity. None of that represents anything but the same old shit that I've come to expect from our bought and paid for government.
Now a little lesson for you. Socialism is not a welfare state. Socialism is democratic control of the economy under the people who perform the real work and provide us with everything we have: the workers. Nothing more, nothing less. Any enactment of socialism would require a permanent revolution at this point, due to how deep these multinational corporations have burrowed themselves into governments all over the world.
So let me tell you, as a socialist, that the idea of Obama being some sort of Marxist savior for the working classes in this country is, in short, fucking laughable.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Creationism is a philosophy of ignorance. Ignorance has no place in a class dedicated to discovery.
Evolution:
Intelligent Design:
No recent discoveries, no predictions, no evidence, no tests that we can perform on it.
The roots of Intelligent Design mostly point to Michael Behe, a biochemist. What did he discover? Nothing. He looked at the discoveries of others, gave them a cursory analysis, and declared that God must have done it. Do discoveries, no predictions, and as far as he is concerned no falsifiability tests. God did it. That's final.
Then some folks actually took a look, discovered that the structures Behe asserted were irreducibly complex in fact were easily reducible. Any retraction from Behe? No. He had made up his mind, and no evidence to the contrary will sway him.
So I quote again, "Science is a philosophy of discovery. Creationism is a philosophy of ignorance." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
It is not even funny that there are people out there still arguing about this.
Our knowledge about vaccination, antibiotics, genetically modified crops and pure dog breeds are firmly based in the fact that species evolve by natural selection.
This is something observable today, I will not even touch the fossil record since some people don't have the mental capacity to understand why this is fact as well.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.