FactCheck.org: FactChecking Debate No. 1

FactChecking Debate No. 1

Summary: McCain and Obama contradicted each other repeatedly during their first debate, and each volunteered some factual misstatements as well. Here’s how we sort them out:

More: FactCheck.org

 

Sara Palin - the Great Hunter

 

John McCain’s health records must be released

 

Clearing up some issues

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track, you’re a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state
Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
* If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

 

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Sarah Palin has picked out an All-American set of names for her children. There’s Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

Ever wonder, What would your name would be if Sarah Palin was your mother? Well now you can find out!

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Source: Polit Tsk Tsk Tsk: Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

 

House roll call from Mich. on offshore drilling

House roll call from Mich. on offshore drilling
MI State Wire By The Associated Press

How Michigan’s delegation voted in the 236-189 roll call Tuesday by which the House voted to allow oil drilling off the nation’s coasts beyond 50 miles out if states agree.

A “yes” vote is a vote to pass the bill.

Voting yes were 221 Democrats and 15 Republicans.

Voting no were 13 Democrats and 176 Republicans.

X denotes those not voting.

There is 1 vacancy in the 435-member House.

Democrats — Conyers, Y; Dingell, Y; Kildee, Y; Kilpatrick, Y; Levin, Y; Stupak, Y.

Republicans — Camp, N; Ehlers, X; Hoekstra, N; Knollenberg, Y; McCotter, N; Miller, N; Rogers, N; Upton, N; Walberg, X.

MICHIGAN

Source: AP Mobile News

 

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : A modest proposal

It is illegal to make false claims in a TV or radio commercial unless you are running for political office.

If you’re selling toothpaste, your claims must be vetted by legal and medical professionals. But not if you’re selling a candidate.

If you’re selling a candidate, not only can you lie about his record, but more to the point, you can lie about his opponent.

Just as they once united to stamp out cigarette advertising, radio and TV stations and advertisers must get together and agree that false statements in political advertisements will not be tolerated. If you run a political ad that proves to be a lie, your network will pay a steep fine, and the advertiser will pay an even steeper one.

(Via Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : A modest proposal.)

 

McCain: Palin had “executive experience” in the PTA.

“She’s had executive experience as governor, as mayor, as a city council member and PTA.”

Via Politifaq.com.

 

How They Really Feel about Palin

Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work.

Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter: It’s over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

NBC’s Chuck Todd: Don’t you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too (inaudible)

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Murphy: They’re all bummed out.

Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political [B.S.] about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at and they blow it.

Murphy: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

 

Four more years! Four more years!

 

Why I’m voting Republican

 

TSA inspector breaks airplanes by climbing on them using instruments as handholds

A TSA inspector decided to get a closer look at some American Eagle jets at O’Hare, so he climbed up on them, using a fragile, vital instrument (the Total Air Temperature probes) as handholds. He damaged the craft so badly that the regular maintenance crew grounded them — and if they hadn’t noticed, the lives of everyone on-board could have been endangered. Remember, folks, the “S” in TSA stands for “Security.”

Citing sources within the aviation industry, ABC News reports an overzealous TSA employee attempted to gain access to the parked aircraft by climbing up the fuselage… reportedly using the Total Air Temperature (TAT) probes mounted to the planes’ noses as handholds.

“The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers,” one pilot wrote on an American Eagle internet forum. “They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder.”

Commuter Flights Grounded Thanks To Bumbling TSA Inspector

(via MeFi)

(Via Boing Boing.)

 

New Republican slogan

 

Let Us Pray

 

Air Force defies Congress, spends anti-terrorism money on “comfort capsules” with “aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings”

From the WashPo:

The Air Force’s top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on “comfort capsules” to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world … Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be “aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule,” with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.’ Congress told the USAF twice that they could not spend the money on this frivolous project, but they did it anyway…

Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240… Air Force documents about the SLICC, dated June 8, 2006, emphasize the need to install “aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings” — in addition to the monitor, footrests and a DVD player. The beds, according to one document, must be able to support a man with “no more than 50% compression of the mattress material.” The seats are to swivel such that “the longitudinal axis of the seat is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft” regardless of where the capsules are facing, the document specified…

The e-mails state that McMahon ordered that the seats be re-covered, and one e-mail complains that the contractor “would not swap out the brown seat belts for replacement blue seat belts.” The changes delayed the project by months and added to its cost.

Link

Source: Boing Boing - Air Force defies Congress, spends anti-terrorism money on “comfort capsules” with “aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings”.

 

Yes we can…

 

Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, See No Evil

 

Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers

The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a major expansion of the government’s surveillance powers. The measure, approved by a vote of 69 to 28 gives Bush what he deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Senator John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, was campaigning in Ohio and did not vote, though he has consistently supported the immunity plan.

Support from key Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, ensured passage of the measure.

NYTimes.com

 

A muskrat burrowed through the levee

The tragic Midwest Flooding has captured America’s attention (at least for now) largely because mainstream media has covered the story. The cable and broadcast networks have brought the flooding into our living rooms, while the print media have written a steady stream of articles about the cresting Mississippi River and the overtopping or failure of over 20 levees. For all the coverage, there has been scant rigorous analysis of how tens of thousands of Americans find themselves in the same boat as Hurricane Katrina victims.

Now we learn that the Army Corps has its own public relations firm to train the Generals and Colonels in how to lie to the American taxpayer. Corps press officer Kevin Quinn has boasted of the skillful message management of S&C Advertising & Public Relations.

Pierce O’Donnell Public Justice Blog

 

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency