Sarah Palin, Republican Vice Presidential Candidate

[Neosutra]

Maybe it's just me, but I would leave quitely from a voting booth after being told I couldnt vote, and return quitely with my close personal friend Ruger.

Change doesnt happen till people are shocked enough to do something about it.

Then again, I have no clue how much of this voter fraud is fact/fiction.

[Dimmauk]

Rush was trying to place the Economy failure on Dems, Obama, and ACORN today. They were working together to force banks to hand out free houses to people. He aslo talked about 5 Million Illegal immagrants that got loans they couldnt pay for.

I'd stop listening, but the LOL factor is off the charts. Scary thing is people believe his shit.

[Dimmauk]

It would rock if the had an Open Debate!!

Open Debate Coalition
www.opendebatecoalition.org Dear Senator McCain and Senator Obama,

Thank you for your recent letters affirming our coalition’s open debate principles, designed to make this year’s presidential debates more “of the people” than ever before. As we approach the final debate on October 15, we ask you to proactively implement such principles right away.

The closed nature of the recent debates has been universally criticized. The editors of Politico wrote, “The presidential debate commission’s rules are a scandal” resulting in “a format designed to limit improvisation, intellectual engagement, and truth-telling.” 83% of Obama supporters and 75% of McCain supporters agree that tough follow-up questions were lacking. Even Saturday Night Live spoofed the lack of follow-up questions in the debates, and the watered-down “town hall” questions chosen.

Therefore, we ask you to jointly announce the following in advance of the October 15 debate:

1) That the debate moderator has broad discretion to ask follow-up questions after a candidate’s answer, so the public can be fully informed about specific positions.

2) That after a “town hall” debate full of questions handpicked by the moderator, none of which were outside-the-box, you will allow Bob Schieffer to ask some Internet questions voted on by the public in the fashion outlined in our previous letter – which you agreed to. Existing technology will make this easy.

3) That, as a stipulation of the next debate, the media pool must release all 2008 debate footage into the public domain – as you agreed would be in the public interest. CNN, ABC, and NBC agreed to release video rights during the primary, and CBS agreed more recently. But Fox threatened Senator McCain for using a debate clip during the primary, and NBC invoked copyright law against Senator Obama to stifle political speech recently. The public deserves to know debate video can be reused without fear of breaking the law.

4) That you agree to work with the Open Debate Coalition after the election to reform or create an alternative to the Commission on Presidential Debates, so that the debate process is transparent and accountable to the public. Despite both of your agreement with the open debate principles, the Commission did nothing to implement them – or even to engage in dialogue about potential implementation. Also, the “31-page memo of understanding” with debate rules is nowhere on the Commission’s website, and has not been turned over despite requests.

The signers of this letter don’t agree on every political issue. But we do agree that in order for Americans to make the best decision for president, we need open debates that are “of the people” in the ways described above. You have the power to make that happen, and we ask you to do so.

Thank you for your willingness to take these ideas to heart. If you have any questions, please contact: [email protected]

Sincerely,

Lawrence Lessig; Professor, Stanford Law School, Founder, Center for Internet and Society

Ellen Miller; Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation

Craig Newmark; Founder, Craigslist

Jimmy Wales; Founder, Wikipedia

Aaron Swartz; Founder, Reddit

Patrick Ruffini; Republican consultant, former Republican National Committee eCampaign Director, and a blogger at TheNextRight.com

Mindy Finn; Republican strategist, former Mitt Romney Online Director, and a blogger at TheNextRight.com

Eli Pariser; Executive Director, MoveOn.org Political Action

Adam Green; Director of Strategic Campaigns, MoveOn.org Political Action

Arianna Huffington; Founder, HuffingtonPost.com

Markos Moulitsas; Founder, DailyKos.com

Roger L. Simon, CEO, Pajamas Media

Eric Burns; President, Media Matters for America

K. Daniel Glover, Executive Producer, Media Research Center’s Eyeblast.tv, and of AirCongress

Jon Henke; New media consultant (including for Fred Thompson, George Allen, Senate Republican Caucus) and a blogger at TheNextRight.com

Matt Stoller; Founder/Editor, OpenLeft.com

James Rucker; Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org

Andrew Rasiej; Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com

Micah Sifry; Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com

Bill Mitchell; Professor, MIT

Josh Silver; Executive Director, Free Press

Carl Malamud; Founder, Public.Resource.Org

Clay Johnson; Director, Sunlight Labs

Robert Greenwald; President, BraveNewFilms

Kim Gandy; President, National Organization for Women

Roger Hickey; Co-Director, Campaign for America's Future

Billy Hallowell, Director of Content, VoterWatch

David Colarusso; Founder, communityCOUNTS.us

[riddaraan]

I'm sure everyone has seen these, but my girlfriend and I were appalled...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itEucdhf4Us

[Churchill]

Well, Rush is partly right. The Housing issue and Fannie/Freddie etc are "more" a result of Clinton/Dems. Those institutions were set up to give loans out to people who couldn't pay them, "everyone needs a home" mentality. Now, the Republicans at the time weren't opposing that thought process, but the establishment of that system was pre-Bush and Democrat lead.

I also think Presidents have little to do with the economy but yeah. I kind of roll my eyes when this gets blamed on Bush.

[aurik]

The ACORN story is pretty funny once you see the whole picture.

See, back in the fall of 2006, during election season, a US Attorney named David Iglesias basically refused to indict the ACORN folks because he believed that he couldn't prove they had done anything illegal. So, basically, he pushed back when Republican politicians contacted him and tried to push him to file what he terms "bogus indictments".

Then, he gets fired, as part of the partisan house-cleaning of the Justice Dept. Remember that controversy?

Anyway, come 2008 election time, ACORN in Nevada gets indicted at the perfect time for the Republicans to launch a last-ditch smear campaign against Obama.

Coincidence?

[aurik]

Well, Rush is partly right. The Housing issue and Fannie/Freddie etc are "more" a result of Clinton/Dems. Those institutions were set up to give loans out to people who couldn't pay them, "everyone needs a home" mentality. Now, the Republicans at the time weren't opposing that thought process, but the establishment of that system was pre-Bush and Democrat lead.

I also think Presidents have little to do with the economy but yeah. I kind of roll my eyes when this gets blamed on Bush.

Wrong! The CRA had very little to do with the failing of Fannie and Freddie.

[Kwijiboe]

Oh that's right, it was Bush's fault.

[aurik]

Nope, it was caused by predatory lending practices and a precipitous drop in land prices.

[Kwijiboe]

That's the first time I've heard it being because of a drop in land prices.

[aurik]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or being dense, but I'll give you credit and assume the former.

[Churchill]

Not talking about the same thing though. One of the biggest fears of supporting what is at best, high risk investment/loans, in this case buying the mortgages of these people and consolidating debt etc would lead to this. These companies were allowed to lend to anybody. The CRA had little to do with it, the companies targeted poor people at the request of the government so they could all have a cottage, so once all of these mortgages were bought up all it would take is a minor market move and the bubble would collapse (as seemingly, america had its debt under control). Once the market shifted south and prices went up, inflation hit because of the Fed was still birthing dollar babies and all it would take for homeowners is that extra bill or whatever and they'd be late on payment. Land began to crash to what it should be and the people who might not have been in debt, like my parents suddenly were going to have issues because that house they paid 70,000 for that they refinanced for 150,000 and then again for 225,000 was now again maybe worth 120,000.

It was going to be bad when it was supported, RP saw this coming in 2003, Nassim Taleb in 2006, Jim Kramer in 2007, and here it is. I'm sure there were other people those are just the ones I've read/watched.


On one hand, you would say "Well capitalists took the good and wholesome idea of getting everyone a home and decided to profit from it".

On the other you would say "The government supported the leechers and allowed them to make money without individual merit or thought"

[Kwijiboe]

I've heard it blamed on predatory lending, but I haven't heard it blamed on drop in land prices. I don't think it's one single, or even two single reasons for why we're in the situation we are currently in. I'm just surprised that you pose there's no blame to be put on Government.

[aurik]

Except the problem isn't that they lent to "anybody", the problem is that they were allowed to negotiate loans that only made sense if land prices never fell.

[_chuchu]

So what exactly did they say about McCain working with an abortion clinic? Heard it faintly on the TV now as I walked by the living room (Larry King Live?)

[Haiko]

Things are getting more worse for McCain/Palin lawl
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/...ion/index.html

[_chuchu]

Things are getting more worse for McCain/Palin lawl
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/...ion/index.html

Yeah, people also booed McCain for disagreeing with an elderly woman's claim that she doesn't trust Obama because Obama is Arab. McCain quickly said that Obama is a decent man that loves his family, etc

[Remyo]

and return quitely with my close personal friend Ruger.

get a better gun, unless you're black; they all think "Rugahs" are the best.

OT: wow at t all the voter registration fraud being found, heard on the radio something like people were found registered 700+ times, the Cowboys roster registered in some podunk county, the usual mickey and donald, dead people registered after death, etc.

[Kuya]

Aurik, Roubini says this could very likely end up as a global depression if there isn't significant change in economic policy. I thought this was a serious issue, but not that kind of serious. What do you think?

[aurik]

It's possible, the US is a huge importer of manufactured goods. If the value of the currency tanks, that's going to have a huge impact on anyone who is exporting anything to the US.