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GET THE TRUTH GO TO – FactCheck.ORG
By fred | September 15, 2008
Recently I send several e-mails to very old friends of mine – pissed off, yes your old Uncle Fred was highly pissed off. There is so many lies being spread around related to politics and friends have sent them to others without so much as checking out if it was a lie or the truth.
If you get something from someone – anyone via an e-mail, be it friend or relation before sending it to anyone else go to: FactCheck.ORG just click that address into your computer and you will get to a site that will give you all the facts.
Both sides in this election are distorting the truth, however so far it is the Republican political smear machine that is putting out about ten lies to every one the Democratic can dream up. Not nice.
I am sending below a recent article by the noted columnist Paul Krugman that relates to this issue. My buddy ‘Full Gale Dale’ sent it to me.
AGAIN – PLEASE REMEMBER – if you get something from someone – ANYONE – before you forward it to another person – CHECK IT OUT TO SEE IF IT IS TRUE - PLEASE DO NOT SEND OUR LIES about any of the candidates or the issues, you are just compounding a lie, making it worse. Too many folks are confused enough as it is.
Also – if you find that something you have gotten from a friend, a family member, anyone – that it is a lie – PLEASE send it back to that person and tell them the truth and tell them where they can go in the future to make sure they are told the truth. PLEASE tell them that you want to hear the truth but that they should be sure it is the truth before sending it to others.
GO TO: – FactCheck.ORG for the truth in this election.
Artical by Paul Krugman
BLIZZARD OF LIES
Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?
These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.
Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.
But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.
Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere, which supposedly gives Ms. Palin credentials as a reformer. Well, when campaigning for governor, Ms. Palin didn’t say “no thanks” — she was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”
Oh, and when she finally did decide to cancel the project, she didn’t righteously reject a handout from Washington: she accepted the handout, but spent it on something else. You see, long before she decided to cancel the bridge, Congress had told Alaska that it could keep the federal money originally earmarked for that project and use it elsewhere.
So the whole story of Ms. Palin’s alleged heroic stand against wasteful spending is fiction.
Or take the story of Mr. Obama’s alleged advocacy of kindergarten sex-ed. In reality, he supported legislation calling for “age and developmentally appropriate education”; in the case of young children, that would have meant guidance to help them avoid sexual predators.
And then there’s the claim that Mr. Obama’s use of the ordinary metaphor “putting lipstick on a pig” was a sexist smear, and on and on.
Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.
They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”
Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.
One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.
But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.
I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, and, in the case of the emerging Interior Department scandal, coke-snorting and bed-hopping proof to the contrary.
I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.
And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?
What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.
Topics: Political Rants | 4 Comments »
September 15th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Who fact checks FactCheck.ORG?
September 15th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Dear Uncle Fred,I have been a Republican for the last 28 years.I felt Reagan was a great man,and at one time we had a great party,As the years rolled by,I felt less and less comfortable,much less enthusiastic about my party.They had fewer ideas and no solutions.All they did was gay-bash-as if the vast majority of those folks are any threat-and question other people’s patriotism.Instead of offering anything real to the American middle class,they preyed on the ignorant and ill informed,telling folks the democrats would take their guns,staff their schools with atheistics and gays,etc.I guess what kept me in their camp the last few years was the awfullness of the American far left and the front and center status the Dem’s accorded them.Sitting a person like Michael Moore in VIP seats at Kerry’s speeches was not a good idea and made Karl Roves job so easy.Now however,we are at a crisis point so serious,every person has to evaluate what they believe and why.My former party has disgraced itself,and dishonored the legacy of Reagan,Lincoln,and Eisenhower.I do not believe the American middle class can survive another 4 or 8 years of Republican indifference and neglect.We need to radically change direction,with deficits,health care,energy policy,ALL our foriegn policy-everything.I am ashamed of Mcain-Palins campaign.Lets give Obama a chance to set things right.It really hurts me to say this,but the party I believed in and was once so proud of deserves to dissapear.As presently constituted,it offers nothing,believes in nothing,and stands for less.Mark.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Dear Mark, I have many Republican friends, many still with their heads in the sand. None that have stated their views in anywhere near the far sighted and gut wrenching way you did. For a guy that felt he was betrayed by folks in his own party that have destroyed the principals of the political party he (or she) loves, to even think about it has to hurt alot.
I again refer to my old Danish American Dad, he never voted Republican, but in most cases –way back then –he respected those that did. When he said the words I have repeated here so often “A Republican is the guy that runs the corner bank. Give him your money and a few years later when you take it out you have more money.” What Dad was saying that the guy was honest, he protected your money, he was a man to be respected. I think you, –referring to the past of the party, that you are correct. I and Dad always felt they were far too conservative, BUT, Dad and I ALWAYS respected the Republican party and those friends of ours that were Republicans, because they deserved it. That they were too conservative for us had nothing to do with it. I think Dad would agree with you –that those running things in Washington now are not Republicans. To me they have no principals, are in it for greed, and to me are outright criminals and should be shot for the harm they have done our nation.
I have two sons, if not for my oldest Rick, I would not be writing this. He has helped his stupid old Dad so much, when I screw up the computer he is here immediately to fix, it. Rick is a certified genius. He almost died a few years ago of an illness he cannot recover from – still he did not sit and mope, he has made a life for himself and has always been there for me.
My youngest son Scott, after 16 years making very good money found he had to create a new life for himself and although he is a graduate of Arizona University is back in school learning another career. Not easy when you are over 50 years of age. Fortunately he has a wife that is helping him, anyway, Scott has always been a independant thinker. He even voted Republican a few times, I did not like it but he had good reasons.
Sally and I did not raise kids that copy, they do think for themselves. At any rate, I got the following from Scott this morning. I think that it is worth reading, especially his comments about Fox and his comments about how a national health care program would benefit business. That is something I never thought of — he did. Did I say he was smarter than his old Dad?–unfortunately that may be true!
FROM SON SCOTT-
Hi Dad: I hope I’m not being too pessimistic, but if the typical republican was interested in the truth he would probably already be a democrat. I watched less than 5 minutes of FOX news, the notoriously republican biased news channel, and the blatant lies were scary. FOX was making very general comments to negate the facts about Sarah Palin’s time as Alaska governor. Typical republican crap, comments so general they contain no real information.
On the positive side, someone in Obama’s campaign is promising a big ramp up of campaigning and advertising exposing Mccain’s lies and political history. I pray it works! And a lot of crap about healthcare is swallowed by people. They can’t stand the idea of paying for someone’s else’s healthcare. They don’t want to know the facts, that it will be cheaper and better for everyone. Countries that have socialized health care have longer life spans then we do. A lower fetal death rate.
Our health care equates to roughly $4.00/hour more expense for the American worker – we lost a new Toyota plant to Canada because of this. And almost every year the American worker’s company tells the employees that their medical will cost more. But it doesn’t sink in. Hopefully the middle class has been hurt enough to pull it’s head out of it’s butt, and demand change.
Love Ya, Scott
September 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Hi Fred,
I didn’t write this, but wow….The fact that the two are even compared to each other shows the power of spin.
—————–
I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight….. 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 teach children about sexual predators, you are irresponsible and 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 hates America and advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, I’m much clearer now.
—————–
Ola