I'd say it's part what happened with Katrina, and part that some people on this board are having to deal with it directly and would like a place to vent, gets words of supports, etc. So, I guess in a way, part of it may be people not wanting to deal with the political aspect of it for now.


I would hope asking people not to be political asshats in one thread wouldn't be considered unrealistic or overly optimistic, but I have been wrong before in how low I think people are willing to go...

I think I'll pass. The animus Jon has toward me is not mutual. I really don't understand why he has wished me suffering on so many occasions or why my mere presence upsets him so much, but I have no desire to make him feel worse. I'll stick to my normal posting schedule (which has been about the same for the last couple of months so I don't know why Jon blames SFL Cat for bringing me out of hiding).

Just as the absurd waste of billions of dollars in Louisiana is to others.

Katrina quickly became a political event, FOFC didn't create that, it was a national phenomenon that was simply reflected here. Gustav is more political than weather before it even reaches land (to a degree that I find absurd beyond belief with regard to both parties since yesterday). And any storms in that region almost certainly will be as well for the foreseeable future.

EDIT: never mind, the ground has already been tread by others here

SI

I agree with you completely and I'm very intrigued by the political aspects of Katrina, of the Katrina relief effort, of the decision whether to rebuild New Orleans after Katrina, and of the political take on Gustav even before it hits. And I actually *probably* agree with your views on at least half of these things.

My only point is that it seems like, much like we did with Katrina after a few boxings, it would be nice to maintain a place for people to discuss the safety of their friends and loved ones without being shouted down by all the rest of us whose only vested interest in the whole thing is politics.

I guess what I'm getting at is that, while it might be nice, I'm not sure it's particularly realistic to expect. And heavy handed moderation would not be a desirable solution either, as it would be nothing more than a narrow attempt at artificially induced political (apolitical?) correctness.

Look, I genuinely & sincerely wish EF and the others the best of luck & hope this will turn out to be ultimately nothing more than a lot of worry with no significant damage but at the same time at this point I don't believe it's particularly realistic for them (i.e. the FOFC gulf area contingent) to expect that there isn't a political aspect to the surrounding discussion. But like it or not, their choice to remain in the area leaves them living in an area that's a political football and discussion of events there realistically include that aspect of things.

I fully agree with you that this storm has become a hotbed political issue overnight and as such the discussion of this storm has a pretty large political aspect that should be expected to be discussed in a place like this.

I don't think it is too much to ask though for people to seperate out threads. 1) Gustav discussions (political, financial, etc) .. and 2) Gustav well wishes and status updates. Whether the political discussion happens here in this thread or a different one, I can understand wanting to try to seperate out the threads.

Yup.


/looks at thread...

So, uh, can we get back to discussing polling results and electoral vote projections? :D

Now i get it, astrosfan is an elephant

guffaw!

I dropped into this thread to see if anyone was talking about the "it's not her baby" rumors. I thought it would turn into a fun discussion.

This thread is not fun anymore.

Christ, some of you suck.

Aside from

1. this being her "obviously not pregnant" picture:



2. The fact that a 44-year old Sarah is about 500-times more likely to have a downs syndrome baby than her 16-year old daughter.

and

3. the two photos of her daughter already being dated at between 2 and 14 months BEFORE the daughter would have had to be pregnant.

I can see how the daily Kos came to this conclusion. Some crackpot journalism done over there.

i gotta tell ya, this supposed controversy I havnt wasted 1 nanosecond thinking about. It smelled like total and complete horseshit and I will assume it is until it blows up on TV or something. Absolute and utter horse crap and kind of a litmus test for me to see who, on both sides, is so biased to actually react to this sort of garbage, both as true or false. Just total and complete gutter that deserves no time on radar at all, IMO.

wanna make sure I understand your position: it's horseshit garbage right? :D

After the Edwards thing, nothing would surprise me anymore.

The story -- just using regular press accounts of what happened -- are just downright strange. It seemed strange to me when I first saw her on MSNBC online being introduced by McCain. I noticed she didn't go back to acknowledge the baby after giving her speech. It seemed strange to me.

Now that I notice at the campaign events in the past few days, the baby is always with the oldest daughter, that makes sense -- she's gotta be with someone, I guess -- but...I dunno, the whole thing just reeks of strangeness.

It'll get revealed in the next two weeks for sure. No way this things legs won't walk or fall off. The truth will come out and then we'll know.

But it's fishy for certain. And I thought about 10 minutes into it.

The only reason it's an issue is because she makes it an issue as part of her campaign bio. She basically says "I'm this moral person for making this decision..." when really, if it's not true, it obscures the absolute truth of what really happened and that's troubling judgment.

It won't affect my vote, it's just the principle of it.

OK, I'll bite. Let's say it is true (which I would peg at about a 5% chance). I'm not sure where the negative comes in? If true, she encouraged her daughter not to abort (and avoids becoming a hypocrite) and takes the press blows by claiming it's her child (thereby saving the 16-year old from a massive onslaught of uncalled-for attacks). Seems fairly noble to me and something that shows a willingness to take ownership for something she didn't create (a concept completely foreign to the current administration and congress).

Plus, given the feeding frenzy by the blogs when there was little (if any) to go on, I wouldn't have blamed her one bit for sparing her daughter from that spectacle.

All that said, there's virtually no chance it's true and short of a picture of the girl pregnant or giving birth, I'm not sure how anyone could prove the claim.

[captain obvious]It's almost as if politics is more about character assassination than the real issues. :( [/caption obvious]

Agree completely, I don't see how this should matter at all.

However, she(and the McCain camp) would have had to have known it would become a story too and that some people would make a huge deal about it. Given how much research and background checking goes into choosing a running mate, and knowing that any and all skeletons are going to be found and displayed in front of the media, I am already slightly surprised to see her chose in light of the investigation because of the allegations against her over her ex-brother-in-law. In fact, I actually assume that is an open and shut deal and she did nothing at all wrong because if anything else were true it would seem to show ridiculously bad judgment by McCain in making his choice. If this kid story were to somehow be true(and I agree that the chances are extraordinarily slim)... well, I just have no idea how given these things McCain could have made this selection for VP.

The brother-in-law thing seems like a reach since it was determined she had cause to fire him (and the other person involved). For this situation, as skeleton's go it seems pretty minor. IMO, anyone harping on the child issue (even if true) will likely generate more sympathy to her than anything. In the end, both these events (even if the worst is true) still pale in comparison to the documented actions by Biden (plagiarism, 7-11 comments, among others), Obama (Rezko, Wright, Ayers) and even McCain (Keating 5, first wife).

If the worst people have on Palin is that she legally dismissed someone who happens to be her brother-in-law and she helped support her daughter to have and raise a special needs child, I doubt that's going to hurt her much. In politics these days, everyone has something in their past. And this seems to be fairly tame, all things considered.

The difference to me, and the reason I see it as a somewhat suprising risk, is that its an active investigation, so it is potentially something that could make headlines multiple times if new info is revealed and is a lot more volatile than an event in the past that is long over and done with.

On the firing scandal, my understanding is that the brother-in-law is still in his job. I don't think the new public safety guy fired him.

It's going to bite her in the ass a little, especially since she's going to have to fly back to Alaska for a deposition at some point. IMO she pretty clearly stepped over the line, but the offense isn't that grave. It's another in a long line of political scandals that would have gone away had she fessed up to what she did early on and apologized.

I just think Obamamanics can't handle somebody making fun of their God.

Now Arles, your jumping on the other side of the coin when it's convenient for your cause. this absolutely has legs. The Republican legislature is investigating it so you cant say it's partisan. The people that have been interviewed generally are supporting the fact that he was wrongfully fired. Her defense is that it was done without her knowledge. It is a falsehood to say that she was found to have had cause to fire him....that's simply untrue and the Legislative investigation continues.

What's good for the goose sir, you need to play it straight and be even when it's good for you and bad. I was in Alaska and this story was all over the news (along with the massacre of 160 Moose by some native groups in the North) but this has legs, seems to have meat on it, and her defense seems flimsy as shit considering she's on record as having reported the Cop as drinking on the job but an investigation proved that not only was the report without merit but that she wasn't in a proximity ever close enough to have witnessed any drinking on the job that entire day...she was in another city!

She said she never heard of this "pressure" to fire him and that it was all of her employees and assistants making the calls from her office although there is an email from her to the public safety director that discusses the matter. I understand your spin job Arles...I just see you as red through and through and ready to go into spin mode instead of "fair and honest" mode for the next 62 days or so.

Right?

Gosh, I couldn't figure out why that stuff gets my blood boiling until you pointed that out!

so stupid, like youre not supposed to be a fan of your nominee. I guess it's better than the people who now support McCain who weren't even going to vote for him 2 weeks ago but somehow got a new jolt from Palin. I wish and sincerely hope that everyone who votes for their person truly supports their candidate. Must be a sore spot for the Republicans to have a candidate that they really dont like while the other side has a candidate that they do. so they "strike" out...kinda like a kid at the playground.

Because Palin has so little to judge her upon, I think the trooper issue is a little more important than some folks want to admit. Palin appears to have fired a capable official due to loyalty concerns rather than job performance concerns, which stinks of more cronyism. A similar issue occurred while she was mayor.

To boot, the replacement she appointed only lasted two weeks on the job because a sexual harrassment reprimand went uninvestigated and became a PR nightmare. For his two weeks on the job, he was given a $10,000 severance package, as well.

"Say your prayers, eat your vitamins, and vote Obama!" :D

SI

Hopefully you guys are done.....


Does anyone know how to get tickets for the presidential debate in MS?

Palin announced that her daughter is pregnant and will marry the father.

You didn't know? He's even more effective that we thought!

Does this kill the McCain-Palin momentum?

Not sure why it would? So her daughter got knocked up. I'm an Obama guy and this is a non-issue to me, as should all children of candidates.

I have two thoughts on this. First she and the father should be left alone. Teenagers get pregnant sometimes and it shouldn't haunt her. It also really shouldn't be a part of the presidential discussion, but I'm sure it will be.

Second, I'll love to see the conservative commentators that went crazy over Jamie Spears try to deal with this.

The announcement as I saw it was that her daughter "will keep the baby and marry the father." That they felt a need to say that the baby would be kept seems odd to me. Palin is staunchly against abortion, wanting it criminalized even in cases of rape and incest.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure why this is news, but given that this is the USA and this is how "news" is, it comes as no surprise that the so-called journalists are having a field day with it. This "news" should have no more relevance to the campaign than did Cheney's daughter being a lesbian. I suppose the only real difference in the "news" then and the "news" now is that Cheney's daughter was legally an adult, whereas Bristol Palin is not.

Nothing to see here, just move on..

/tk

It shouldn't have too much effect. They were smart releasing this news when a hurricane is about to hit Lousiana as nobody cares about Palin's daughter right now. Some people will question whether Palin's attention should be elsewhere with 5 kids, one with down syndrome and another who is pregnant but I don't think it'll be much of an issue.

This choice just gets worse & worse. Biggest questions to me are:
a) When did Mama find out?
b) Did McCain know?

If he didn't but she did, he/his team are even dumber than I thought.

McCain's camp says he knew before choosing her. I wonder, though, if he knew she used to belong to the Alaska Independence Party.

You think its a big deal? I think social conservatives have convinced themselves that she's "their" pick, so the fact that her daughter's marrying the father (anyone want to take bets on how long that marriage will last?) will be their out clause - I went to see how it was playing at RedState, and that's exactly the angle.

FWIW, the answer to 2) is yes, as per the McCain campaign. Personally, I don't think its a big deal - 17 year olds get knocked up all the time.

Personally, I don't care that her daughter is pregnant and I hope she gets left alone. It has nothing to do with Palin's qualifications for VP.

However, this is not a perfect world. So speaking from a political perspective, this was a bad choice from McCain. And I'm not sure which is worse. If he did know beforehand, then it's a stupid choice. If he didn't know beforehand, then he's got a shitty vetting process.

Yeah, but it's a story. It's a few days of talking about this instead of "America First".

I don't think that is a big issue. Many politicians switch parties just to get ahead. I don't see it being a big deal.

To be fair though, she pissed off a lot of party republicans in Alaska exposing scandals and being an outsider candidate. There is a reason why she is so popular when the rest of the republicans in the state are not doing as well.

It's not that she switched parties, it's that she used to belong to a party that wants to see Alaska as an independent nation. I didn't even know there were Alaskan secessionists.

That's part of my point. I don't think that is much of an issue to politicians. How many have we seen that have changed sides in debates when they switch from Democrat to Republican and vice-versa?

Again, you're missing the point. She, at least at one point, believed that Alaska should secede and be it's own nation. Did McCain bother to ask her what's up with that?

{shrug} If they get away with it with the rel.right then apparently not. I'm just somewhat amazed that it doesn't neutralize the supposed advantage she brought with them. Ain't often that I'm truly surprised by something from that particular contingent but I am by this (if it is indeed brushed off lightly)


Thanks, I hadn't had a chance to look for that yet & probably wasn't going to get to it soon either. Then again, WTF else are they going to say "um, we were too stupid to look into this"?

Meh, if people have issues with Palin herself, that's one thing - but her daughter having a kid isn't much of a sign of anything, IMO, and the Kossacks who try and run with it just come across as petty.

Wow. Daughter is pregnant and will marry the father, eh? All along, I've felt bad for the girl, because this whole thing is a mess. But...I still say this story isn't over yet. Not that it ought to be a political story if it's just what they're telling us it is.

I guess we disagree on that point. If nothing else, it's a sign of insufficient parental control/influence.

Combined with her questionable decision making regarding both carrying her recent child to term (my feeling) but largely abandoning it to her career almost immediately (more of an issue with the target) I'd say there's definitely some issues here that (theoretically) should not play well with the group she was apparently meant to cater to. And if she doesn't help with that group & simultaneously tosses away one of the biggest knocks on Obama, I'd say she might just be one of the worst veep choices in history.

Well the moral right don't seem to frown upon underage and unprotected sex.

Fair enough - I'm a 25 year old guy, and maybe this is one of those things that you get more once you're a parent. But to put it crudely, people are going to fuck (which is why the abstinence only BS from the right bugs me) - while a good parent can certainly raise their kid to be careful (ie, use protection) and respect themselves, hormones are just that. I think that if anything, the religous right types will rally around this girl , saying she's a better kid for keeping it and marrying the son.


PS - apparently, I'm the evil left-winger in this discussion (which amuses me to no end), and you're the evil righty - shouldn't our positions be on different sides? :D

Very much agreed.....this shows a mother who should have been more of a parent to her daughter than running around running for public office. I was so happy with this choice 48 hours ago and now it's looking bad.

The question is would we be saying these things if Palin was a man?

I doubt we'd even be talking about it at all, because if that was the case, then Palin wouldn't be the VP pick.

More than that, Palin is a big crusader for "Abstinence only" sex education. Doesn't that make this a pretty big poltical story, and sort of an "epic fail" on the part of Palin? "Abstinence only" sure didn't work in her house, did it?


I've also read she is against birth control in all forms, even for married couples. Yeah, she's a peach of a cadidate.

Wouldn't be entirely too sure about that since I've heard her described (prior to last week) as a female Bobby Jindal... unless you think Jindal is big time mostly because of his race.

We must know some really different folks in "the moral right".

Heck, I wasn't happy with it 48 hours ago but now it looks even worse to me.

As I said to a friend offline on the day of the announcement, the thing that worries me most is what we don't know yet, which is why her downside is bigger than her upside. Well ... ta-dah.

I think Jindal is much more ready for the national stage.

edut: But I agree there's a lot of sexism at work with this story.

You don't think gender played a major role in this selection? They're not targeting Hilary voters? You think a male 1st term Governor of Alaska gets selected VP? Well, I guess you're entitled to your opinion.

In the sense that people are suggesting that it's her fault for not staying home to prevent this from happening, then I agree. However, a male right wing moralist would still get heavily criticized if this happened.

It's part of it, but I think the more likely reason was that she has some right-wing chops. That's the reason Jindal was high on the list before Jindal said he didn't want the 2nd job.

I think that if you actually had a VP pool worth selecting from, she wouldn't have been the pick. When Romney is your best pick of the rest, well...

Not necessarily, see: Reagan

That was one nice thing about Dick Cheney's vice-presidency. You'd never see his unmarried daughter getting pregnant.

Not through traditional methods at least ;)

When I saw that headline daughter pregnant and the story mentioned that the reason they released this info was becuase some people were saying the youngest child of PALIN was actually the daughter's I thought wow did this choice go from 60 to 0 real fast. I am pretty surprised by evryones reaction to this. I myself don't find it shocking or anything but what little I know about the right is that this won't sit well with them. I agree it is too bad for the girl that this story got out but she should of expected it with her running for vice president. Also, it is too bad that the Dems won't have thge balls to call out McCain in this selection being a poor one as this could be veiwed as a case of bad judgement on his part. I know if this story had been reversed the GOP woul dhave no qualms going all out using it. Just my two cents.

If I was a democrat, I would take the high road. The Republicans will implode over this. No reason to piss anybody off...just take the high road and let it happen and then you dont' get your hands dirty and look like you care. (as you watch a mess develop)

I agree. No one needs to touch this.

The more time passes since the Palin pick, the more I think that McCain made a knee-jerk reaction after seeing/hearing Obama's DNC speech. It really appeared that McCain was prepared to name Romney or Pawlenty VP the day before (and both seemed to be shocked that it was not one or the other, as well), but I think McCain decided to go with the maverick selection without properly vetting Palin.

Almost any candidate will say that the biggest decision that they make in running for president is the selection of the vice presidential candidate. And right now, it seems hard to believe that, out of all of the active and retired governors/senators/congressmen/military leaders/business leaders, Sarah Palin was the best choice that John McCain could find to replace him as president.

So far no particular revelation has been incredibly damaging, but McCain has been on the defensive since Saturday. He better hope he can regain the initiative over the three real days of the convention.

dola

Maybe McCain didn't know:

I think that people on this thread and out in the world who are slamming Palin aren't understanding that this pick wasn't made for them. I see a lot of people saying McCain totally messed up and once people see what kind of beliefs Palin has, Obama will landslide this election. This, of course, is contrasted by the fact that evangelicals are giddy (I've read articles about some evangelicals hugging and crying when they heard the news) and McCain made $4 million over the weekend after he selected her.

The reason the Dems lost the last two Prez elections is that they were too confident. They underestimated their opponent and didn't fight nearly as hard as they should have. They just thought the public would realize Georgie Boy was a moron and flock to them. They were wrong.

It's one of the reasons I liked Hillary. For all her missteps, the one thing she would have done would have been to take the attack to the Republicans. If Obama is smart, he'll unleash Hillary on the campaign trail as his attack dog.

Those just mocking Palin and thinking as soon as people find out about her will magically flock to McCain may find themselves on November 5th saying "What the Hell happened?!!". Palin was a very smart political pick, as it energized the evangelical vote, who to date, where very meh on McCain. And as Bush showed in 2004, one can win by just appealing to your own base and tearing the other guy down so their base doesn't come out in as great numbers.

The big thing will be to NOT be complacent that McCain picked a woman who is very (very) right wing. He's just increased the enthusiasm and turnout of his base on voting day by a TON.

Ugh, I hate evangelicals...and that's rediculous. Link?

http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/Senate2006.asp#sec0


Pretty interesting poll that matches you up with the candidates in the race currently. Like all things like this, a grain of salt...but interesting.

sweet DC - I always enjoy doing these - I find doing a multitude can make one more informed.

FYI - I scored a 3-way tie for highest with the socialists, the green party, and Obama at 53%. No surprise my McCain-agreement was 18%.

I love polls like this. It told me 28% Mccain, 28% Obama, 28% Barr.. Awesome! :)

All it ended up being for me is evidence that there is no candidate in the race for the Left-leaning Libertarian.

clearly the solution is to vote for yourself as a write-in candidate

Barr doesn't seem like much of a libertarian from how this quiz interpreted his positions.

Well, because he's a converted Republican who says he's "changed his ways."

McCain and Obama were on the bottom of my survey. Which was affirming, but interesting. It told me La Riva was the #1 pick for me..which is strange.

Obama my #1, Hillary #2, McPain near the bottom.

Hillary #1, with 53% (81% social, 33% economic)

But then it got weird, as McKinney was my #2, followed by La Riva.

Obama is my #4 with 45% (56% social, 38% economic)

McCain is my #7 with 38% (31% social, 42% economic)

Hillary is the one who matches me the MOST socially with 81% and Barr is the one who matches me most economically with 50%.

Eh, not worth taking since a majority of the questions I had no opinion on. No one, as expected, scored high.

Barr #1 25%
McKinney and Clinton scored higher than Obama, with Nader being higher still.

None to surprising, I thougth some of the wording could've been better on a few that forced me to chose "no opinion".

#1 McCain -- 40%
#2 Barr -- 28% (I guess I live under a rock, I've never even heard of this guy before)
#6 Obama -- 20%
#7 Clinton -- 18%

Thanks to Buccaneer's wording and mine, I guess it's official...I'm old. :)

Require hiring more women & minorities

That is a pretty stupid way to word it, and the way they have candidates matched to that statement is pretty dishonest.

For example, "Ending racial profiling is part of fight for justice" is supposed to support this topic. Not to mention "Sponsored bill for a Rosa Parks commemorative postage stamp."

I mean, Tom Coburn was a co-sponsor of that postage stamp bill, so I guess that revealed his secret support of quotas.

1# Mc Cain at 60%
Barr 48%
Obama at 20%
HilRod at 13%

The funny thing as I look closer...

I am closest economically to Barr at 29%

Socially I have both Mccain and Obama tied with the lead at 50% each.

I'm not sure which is more messed up.. my political leanings, or this quiz. I'm thinking this quiz :)

For me, I think it's my political leanings.

But I hear you totally.

43% Barr
38% McCain
28% Obama

Can't say I am familiar with Barr, but the McCain above Obama but both pretty low seems right to me.

Obama agrees (and notes that his own mother was only 18 when he was born)

Obama says Palin's family off-limits

I don't think is going to be a big deal at all.

As someone else said, 17-year olds get knocked up all time. The only thing unusual about this is that there's no abortion.

Not a fan of Cindy McCain's outfit.

I agree that quiz was pretty odd. After I started looking at how they wanted the questions answered, I would have changed quite a few of my answers.

60% Cynthia McKinney
58% Hillary Clinton
55% Brian Moore and Barack Obama
53% Ralph Nader
45% Gloria La Riva
20% Chuck Baldwin
18% Bob Barr and John McCain

I guess it's pretty obvious where I lie..
/tk

You're a Communist? :D

(Grins ducks and runs)

1. Barack Obama 40%
2. Cynthia McKinney 38%
3. Gloria La Riva 35%
4. Brian Moore 33%
5. Ralph Nader 33%
6. Hillary Clinton 33%
7. Bob Barr 28%
8. John McCain 25%
9. Chuck Baldwin 18%

I am not sure what I am to make of this poll but whatever. I was leaning toward voting Obama anyway.

Uh-oh, NYT, how could you? Prepare to be eaten by your own.

eh, the only problem i have is that only Hillary had her middle name used too. Biden got a middle initial. All I ask for is consistency....this one got that wrong in my view. Should use all their middle names or none.

Hahah.

I'm surprised that I scored "higher" with Clinton than Obama. Though I preferred Clinton to McCain, I voted Obama. As much as I want a woman in the White House, I didn't want her.

/tk

mine, although the questions leave a lot to be desired:



60% Obama then Clinton