Politics
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- locustsloth0
Did anyone see the SNL Election Update thing tonight? As a whole, it was mediocre, but the bit with the giant touchscreen jumbotron thing was hilarious.
- goatlip0
Great article by Orson Scott Card, a democrat and newspaper columnist. He gets to the facts and nails it.
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Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott CardAn open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.
They end up worse off than before.
This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?
I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_c… ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?
Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.
And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.
If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.
But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.
You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.
If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.
There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)
If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.
Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.
But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.
If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.
Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.
Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.
Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.
So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?
Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?
You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.
That's where you are right now.
It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.
If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.
Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.
You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.
If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.
You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.
- lol... read this too... ain't a touch of sci-fi there either - it took balls for this man to speak up given who his peers are.turk_182
- side Q: will Ender's Game or any of that series perhaps ever goto film?... just wondering. :)turk_182
- Republicans + Deregulation = Collapse of the U.S. ecomomy.
http://www.mediameth…******** - Orson Scott Card is NOT a democrat. Nowhere near it. He's at best a libertarian...TheBlueOne
- ..and he's wrote shit after Ender's Game..TheBlueOne
- "These are facts." developing financial instruments that commodify loans secured by fed gov somehow escape his attention.********
- I think at the very least we can agree that media bias is out there, both for and against Obama. Which does maketommyo
- the media pretty impotent. Most of my family ONLY watches FOX news, and they believe it's fair...and balanced. Which is sad.tommyo
- ukit0
^But does he nail it? Where's the mention of McCain's campaign manager, Davis, taking money from Fannie May up until last month? And he says Bush never implied a link between 9-11 and Iraq? LOL! I'm not saying the Dems don't share some of the blame in the housing crisis at all, but that's an awful lot of words wasted on someone pretending to be "balanced" when he is clearly just another partisan.
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I'm a Little Confused
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I am against the jews lobby and for abortion rights...just to see if I will be excluded from Qbn while Jazx isn't with his racist posts....
- off with your head. //you're an anti-semite for even thinking that!********
- off with your head. //you're an anti-semite for even thinking that!
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for you rednecks and the others, a good reading : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sus…)
especially "Another World Is Possible If"
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try Naomi Klein as well
- autoflavour0
- Looks more like Guiliani in an afro wig...TheBlueOne
- //You're a total racist for posting a picture that someone else took and a product you didn't design.********
- oh man, now that is fucking funny.tommyo
- I am a total racist because why?autoflavour
- hallelujah0
Times endorses Obama
Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.
The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.
As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
•
Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.
In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.
Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain’s campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer. The differences are profound.
Mr. McCain offers more of the Republican every-man-for-himself ideology, now lying in shards on Wall Street and in Americans’ bank accounts. Mr. Obama has another vision of government’s role and responsibilities...."
- whole article here: http://www.nytimes.c…
hallelujah - Gee, go figure. I would have never guessed. When is the last time, TIME endorsed someone other than a Dem?********
- I posted it because of what it says, not who i t ishallelujah
- Again, like that open letter above. Why are we okay with our media supporting a candidate? Twisted.tommyo
- whole article here: http://www.nytimes.c…
- DrBombay0
the yen dropped 5 overnight. 92.6 per buck, that is the lowest I have ever seen it.
- TheBlueOne0
Well, Wall Street's about to have an interesting day...
"U.S. stocks would stop trading for an hour should the Dow Jones Industrial Average decline 1,100 points to 7,591.25, based on “circuit breakers” imposed by the New York Stock Exchange.
“People are scared to death,” said Ted Weisberg, president of Seaport Securities in New York, at the NYSE. “I didn’t sign up for this. Confidence and transparency are missing.”
- confidence and transparency are missing??? who the fuck knew?********
- Fuck - dropped nearly 400 points at the opening bell...TheBlueOne
- confidence and transparency are missing??? who the fuck knew?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New…
newspaper endorsements 2004
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http://www.cato.org/pub_display.…
Forty four years ago this year, Lyndon Baines Johnson traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to deliver a speech that outlined the vision that would guide his administration. The speech may be read profitably today. Barack Obama has evoked "change" and "hope" while denying he is a liberal. Yet Obama's supporters expect his administration will become the third stage of Progressivism, the two earlier being the New Deal and the Great Society.
In 1965, democrats held more than two-thirds of both chambers of Congress. As LBJ said on his inaugural night, "We can pass it all now." Democrats may gain seats in Congress this year, but they will not have the same majorities LBJ had. President Obama will not say "We can pass it all now."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gre…
BRACE FOR IMPACT!!
- Cato Institute is funded how again?********
- Does that change the point of his analogy?********
- When did Obama deny he was a Liberal?TheBlueOne
- Actually, if he wins, he might have that same majority in congress again.********
- Cato Institute is funded how again?
- ********0
1000 Mass. Ave NW.Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202-842-0200
Fax: 202-842-3490The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington DC, was founded in 1977 by Edward Crane and Charles Koch, the billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held oil company in the U.S.
- wonder what they think from a libertarian perspective about global warming?********
- wonder what they think from a libertarian perspective about global warming?
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Does anyone have a good explanation handy of why we use the electoral college? I've always been curious why popular vote isn't used. - tommyo
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Probably to create a filter between population and Presidential selection. Also, a governmental structure that allowed more power to be given to smaller states. Albeit, the small, 13 former colonies at the time.
When I say filter, the founders probably feared that some sort of tyrant would be able to sway popular opinion (media inundation) and land himself as president.
- From the Horse's Mouth:
http://www.avagara.c…
TheBlueOne - And the argument against from the ANti-Federalist Papers:
http://www.wepin.com…
TheBlueOne - Interesting stuff.********
- Ahhhhh should have known it was Hamilton.tommyo
- Of course it was Hamilton. :)TheBlueOne
- AH, knew his stuff. Amazing foresight.********
- From the Horse's Mouth:
- ukit0
Insider Advantage Georgia
O48 M47
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"Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel." - American adage about antagonizing newspaper editors
"It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody." - Richard M. Nixon
"Only two things are necessary to keep ones wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it." - Lyndon B. Johnson
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." - Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents
"When more and more people are thrown out of work unemployment results." - Calvin Coolidge
- hallelujah0
WILLIAMS: Who is a member of the elite?
PALIN: Oh, I guess just people who think that they're better than anyone else. And-- John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American. Hard-working, middle-class Americans who are so desiring of this economy getting put back on the right track. And winning these wars. And America's starting to reach her potential. And that is opportunity and hope provided everyone equally. So anyone who thinks that they are-- I guess-- better than anyone else, that's-- that's my definition of elitism.
WILLIAMS: So it's not education? It's not income-based? It's--
PALIN: Anyone who thinks that they're better than someone else.
WILLIAMS: --a state of mind? It's not geography?
PALIN: 'Course not.
WILLIAMS: Senator?
MCCAIN: I-- I know where a lot of 'em live. (LAUGH)
WILLIAMS: Where's that?
MCCAIN: Well, in our nation's capital and New York City. I've seen it. I've lived there. I know the town. I know-- I know what a lot of these elitists are. The ones that she never went to a cocktail party with in Georgetown. I'll be very frank with you. Who think that they can dictate what they believe to America rather than let Americans decide for themselves.
- lolhallelujah
- if you drink gallons of budweiser everyday of your life you'll appreciate what it takes to have a cocktail party in Georgetown********
- for Cindy Mccain********
