Man-o-man Quantum, you seem to have some serious anger issues.

The sad thing is that some of what you say is very true but because of your deep seated hatred for anything left of the extreme right you undermine your own argument against any leftist bias.

What really intrigues me is your comment; "Palin has a far better grasp on what it means to be an American than a bitter leftist...". As you appear to be a bitter right wing extremist, I am curious to know what you think it means to be an American? What American principals does Palin exemplify that you find so endearing as to make you believe her to be a good presidential candidate?

Except for Bush because the lamestream, liberal media was out to get him, right?

Just stop. Sarah Palin has said some ridonculous stuff that is brain numbingly moronic for presidential candidate, and it has nothing to do with gaffes or the media being "out to get her".

This isn't a gaffe:

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

She doesn't have a freaking clue what she's talking about. Or this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXmuhWrlj4

Can't name a single Supreme Court case she disagrees with?! Seriously?! She says any that takes away the states' right to determine their own laws. So Brown vs. Board of Education? Plessy V. Ferguson? Baily V. Patterson? Loving v. Virginia? Can't name a single one, huh? I totally get why she wouldn't name any of the above because of the political fallout, but then don't say idiotic stuff like any court case that infringes on states' rights is bad. She's not a moron. She's just not smart enough to be President, pure and simple.

>> ^bobknight33:

All Quaumtum was doing
is pointing out the blatant Bias the media has. He correctly points out that time after time after time after time after time the current fool called the president gets a pass every times he fucks up.
But the media will dog Palin on every opportunity they can.
When will you get your self absorbed heads out your asses and see the truth? You heads have been up you asses so long you all think you shit doesn't stink.

>> ^ponceleon:
Really quantum?
Defending her just makes you a troll. Please. I like you more than Shiny right now, just take it back and we can still be friends.

Her intellect is... just revolting... She is an absolute embarrassment... not just to Republicans... or even Politicians... or even Women... that she has risen to the point where she can even be seriously discussed as a presidential candidate is humiliating to all of us.

You said it perfectly Blank... to not do... just the tiniest margin of prep work... Her stupidity exists on so many levels.

>> ^ponceleon:

The problem is that people don't understand the mentality of the lunatic fringe. Evidence is not evidence for them, it is just "proof" of a coverup.
Basically, if they don't get the answer they want, they just continue to complain that it is all a conspiracy.


I think Obama knows this isn't going to satisfy fringe "birthers". They have long since immunized themselves against evidence; it's always been a faith-based position.

What it is going to do is make any Republican presidential candidate who persists in questioning his birthplace seem completely out of touch with reality, or like they're pandering to idiots. Mostly that was already the case, but Sarah Palin's lighter conspiracy theory that there was maybe "something embarrassing" on his original birth certificate almost seemed reasonable just by contrast with the distilled insanity of other theories. It IS a relief to know the president wasn't born with a barbed tail. I'm sure the doctor would have noted that in the comments section.

>> ^gwiz665:

The tone of politics will erupt and recede back to a less aggressive stance.

I think your predictions are all perfectly spot on, except this one.

By 2012, we'll have the Republican presidential candidate openly and unambiguously telling his supporters that if they lose the election, they need to take up arms against the islamofascist Kenyan in the White House.

And I'll sift video of it.

By 2020, the Fox-fueled right-wing crazies will be threatening the lives of Republicans because they're too left-wing, since they don't support repealing anti-lynching laws.

So it's been two years. I hope everyone is doing well. A little older, a little wiser? Better, faster, stronger, smarter?

It looks like @NetRunner and @dystopianfuturetoday are still up to their old haunts. Learn anything in the last two years? History impart any lessons? A lot has happened since then. War, recession, inflation, destruction, pollution, the devaluing of the dollar.

Maybe meet up in another two years to see if anything more has changed? That is, if it is even possible. By then, we may have already lost net neutrality and the world wide web will a corporatized splash screen. "Choose your website from the following options." Worse yet, this site could be bought out by DynCorp and transformed into another corporate puppet ala Digg.com.

That is, if any of us even have jobs or savings to pay the internet bill. What with the massive inflation from the multi-trillion dollar "bailouts," handouts, QE3, QE4, QE5 etc. Ever pay attention to your supermarket bill over the years? What will the dollar be worth in two years if it has already decreased in value by upwards of 50% in the last few years? How about employment after the looming double-dip, recession, or second great depression. How many of the posters here will even have jobs anymore?

One thing is for certain, there is nothing special about American labor. China is in the lead in education, America is barely in the top 20. The average salary in America is somewhere in the $40,000 range. In China, less than $7000. I hope you've enjoyed the run while it lasted. Be prepared to swallow your pride along with your massive pay-cut as you realize the only thing sustaining this country is reckless consumerism. What do they tell you every Black Friday? Spend, Spend, Spend? Buy what you can't afford so you can be paid what you don't deserve. Nothing exists in nature "above unity," not even the American dream.

Forget the economy, what will our government be like in 2 years? Already, we sell little boys to afghan leaders and our presidential candidates threaten journalists with murder. Perhaps worse is all of our presidential candidates are identical. "Do you want the red or blue pill? They both taste the same." We torture our own citizens with solitary confinement for 6 months without trail. We've killed over 1 million civilians in Iraq, 15% of the way to our own holocaust. Corporations lay waste to our environment with no consequence. When they commit fraud, we give them billion dollar bonuses instead of criminal charges.

The internet is the primary source of dissent and "free thought" in the modern era. Two things diametrically opposed to corporate and governmental dictatorship. You forget because your mind doesn't think on large time scales, but the internet is just a baby. How long has it really been around, 20 years? That's not even old enough to drink alcohol. You've already seen what governments can do to the internet in China. You've already seen what corporations can do to the internet in Canada. How long before that becomes the norm and not the exception? You take it for granted what you have, then they turn your head while they steal it piece-by-piece. How often did you turn your head, when it wasn't yours they took?

"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Yeah, things have been going quite well "as is." Keep you finger's crossed for the next new political "savior" and I'll see you in another 2 years...maybe.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 001258

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/22/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV CA
SUBJECT: THE U.S. IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION -- NOT!

REF: OTTAWA 1216

Classified By: PolMinCouns Scott Bellard, reason 1.4 (d)

¶1. (C) Summary. Despite the overwhelming importance of the
U.S. to Canada for its economy and security, bilateral
relations remain the proverbial 900 pound gorilla that no one
wants to talk about in the 2008 Canadian federal election
campaigns. This likely reflects an almost inherent
inferiority complex of Canadians vis-a-vis their sole
neighbor as well as an underlying assumption that the
fundamentals of the relationship are strong and unchanging
and uncertainty about the outcome of the U.S. Presidential
election. End Summary.

¶2. (C) The United States is overwhelmingly important to
Canada in ways that are unimaginable to Americans. With over
$500 billion in annual trade, the longest unsecured border in
the world, over 200 million border crossings each year, total
investment in each other's countries of almost $400 billion,
and the unique North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD)
partnership to ensure continental security, excellent
bilateral relations are essential to Canada's well being.
Canadians are, by and large, obsessed with U.S. politics --
especially in the 2008 Presidential race -- and follow them
minutely (with many Canadians even wishing they could vote in
this U.S. election rather than their own, according to a
recent poll). U.S. culture infiltrates Canadian life on
every level. 80 pct of Canadians live within 100 miles of
the border, and Canadians tend to visit the U.S. much more
regularly than their American neighbors come here.

¶3. (C) Logically, the ability of a candidate, or a party,
or most notably the leader of a party successfully to manage
this essential relationship should be a key factor for voters
to judge in casting their ballots. At least so far in the
2008 Canadian federal election campaign, it is not. There
has been almost a deafening silence so far about foreign
affairs in general, apart from Prime Minister Stephen
Harper's pledge on September 10 that Canadian troops would
indeed leave Afghanistan in 2011 according to the terms of
the March 2008 House of Commons motion, commenting that "you
have to put an end on these things." The Liberals -- and
many media commentators -- seized on this as a major
Conservative "flip flop," with Liberal Party leader Stephane
Dion noting on September 10 that "I have been calling for a
firm end date since February 2007" and that "the
Conservatives can't be trusted on Afghanistan; they can't be
trusted on the climate change crisis; they can't be trusted
on the economy." He has returned in subsequent days to the
Conservative record on the environment and the economy, but
has not pursued the Afghan issue further. All three
opposition party leaders joined in calling for the government
to release a Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on the
full costs of the Afghan mission, which PM Harper agreed to
do, with some apparent hesitation. However, no other foreign
policy issues have yet risen to the surface in the campaigns,
apart from New Democrat Party leader Jack Layton opining on
September 7 that "I believe we can say good-bye to the George
Bush era in our own conduct overseas."

¶4. (C) The U.S. market meltdown has provided some fodder
for campaign rhetoric, with the Conservatives claiming their
earlier fiscal and monetary actions had insulated Canada from
much of the economic problems seen across the border.
(Comment: there is probably more truth in the fact that the
Canadian financial sector does not have a large presence in
QCanadian financial sector does not have a large presence in
U.S. and other foreign markets, and instead concentrates on
the domestic market. The Canadian financial sector has also
been quite conservative in its lending and investment
choices. End comment.) PM Harper has insisted that the
"core" Canadian economy and institutions were sound, while
promising to work closely with "other international players"
(i.e., not specifically the U.S.) to deal with the current
problems. He warned on September 19 that "voters will have
to decide who is best to govern in this period of economic
uncertainty -- do you want to pay the new Liberal tax? Do
you want the Liberals to bring the GST back to 7%?" The
Liberals have counter-claimed that Canada is now the "worst
performing economy in the G8," while noting earlier Liberal
governments had produced eight consecutive balanced budgets
and created about 300,000 new jobs annually between 1993 and
¶2005. The NDP's Layton argued on September 16 that these
economic woes are "the clearest possible warning that North
American economies under conservative governments, in both
Canada and the United States, are on the wrong track," but
promised only that an NDP government would institute a
"top-to-bottom" review of Canada's regulatory system -- not
delving into bilateral policy territory.

¶5. (C) On the environment, Liberal leader Dion, in
defending his "Green Shift" plan on September 11, noted that

OTTAWA 00001258 002 OF 002

"both Barack Obama and John McCain are in favor of putting a
price on carbon. Our biggest trading partner is moving
toward a greener future and we need to do so too." PM Harper
has stuck to the standard Conservative references to the
Liberal plan as a "carbon tax, which will hit every consumer
in every sector" and claimed on September 16 that, under
earlier Liberal governments, "greenhouse gas emissions
increased by more than 30 percent, one of the worst records
of industrialized countries." NDP leader Layton argued
that, on the environment, PM Harper "has no plan" while
"Dion's plan is wrong and won't work," unlike the NDP plan to
reward polluters who "clean up their act and imposing
penalties on those that don't," which he said had also been
"proposed by both U.S. Presidential candidates, Barack Obama
and John McCain."

¶6. (C) NAFTA? Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative?
Border crossing times? The future of NORAD? Canada's role
in NATO? Protection of Canadian water reserves? Canadian
sovereignty in the Arctic and the Northwest Passage? At
least among the leaders of the major parties, these issues
have not come up so far in the campaigns, although they seize
much public attention in normal times. Even in Ontario and
Quebec, with their long and important borders with the U.S.,
the leadership candidates apparently so far have not ventured
to make promises to woo voters who might be disgruntled with
U.S. policies and practices. However, these may still emerge
as more salient issues at the riding level as individual
candidates press the flesh door to door, and may also then
percolate up to the leadership formal debates on October 1
and 2.

¶7. (C) Why the U.S. relationship appears off the table, at
least so far, is probably be due to several key factors. An
almost inherent Canadian inferiority complex may disincline
Canadian political leaders from making this election about
the U.S. (unlike in the 1988 free trade campaigns) instead of
sticking to domestic topics of bread-and-butter interest to
voters. The leaders may also recognize that bilateral
relations are simply too important -- and successful -- to
turn into political campaign fodder that could backfire.
They may also be viewing the poll numbers in the U.S. and
recognizing that the results are too close to call. Had the
Canadian campaign taken place after the U.S. election, the
Conservatives might have been tempted to claim they could
work more effectively with a President McCain, or the
Liberals with a President Obama. Even this could be a risky
strategy, as perceptions of being too close to the U.S.
leader are often distasteful to Canadian voters; one
recurrent jibe about PM Harper is that he is a "clone of
George W. Bush." Ultimately, the U.S. is like the proverbial
900 pound gorilla in the midst of the Canadian federal
election: overwhelming but too potentially menacing to
acknowledge.

Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

WILKINS

>> ^TangledThorns:

Why are liberals afraid of a hockeymom from Alaska? Liberals are mean haters, so very sad.


What's so very sad is someone who doesn't recognize the difference between a hockey mom from Alaska and a good presidential candidate.

First off, it's very cool that you are tackling these tough questions. If you want to hit me up with a list of your own, I'll take a shot at them. Let's hash these out one at a time for the sake of clarity.

Funding - You seem to be tacitly conceding the fact that your highly principled, anti corporate movement is funded by corporations. This is at odds with your claim that market libertarianism rises above partisan politics and special interest groups. Instead you are saying Democrats do it too. Does that make it OK?

Let's take this topic a little deeper.

It is true that corporations fund viable candidates from all parties - though more money is spent on politicians on the right - but you don't see the same kind of funding behind liberal ideology. Current corporate funding of think tanks and front groups almost exclusively favors market libertarian/right wing organizations.

In the 90's, corporations attempted to create a Liberal mouthpiece for their message, called the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council). This group had much success early on - they are credited with helping their candidate, Bill Clinton, get elected to the executive office. They also nurtured the careers of Joe Loserman and Dick Gephardt.

Obama was briefly a member as well until he parted ways on ideological grounds. I find it interesting that in the 2008 primaries, Hillary (a DLCer) used the same arguments against Obama that right wing think tanks used against him, probably because the DLC IS a right wing think tank in disguise If you remember correctly, Obama barely wrestled the nomination away from Hillary with a clever strategy that won him the states that had a particular caucasing process. (In my own opinion, I think Hillary was the 'the chosen one' to become president.)

The fact that Obama and Hillary, two DLC candidates were the only contenders in this race does raise some questions, but to take that line of questioning further means you would need to take a more skeptical look at your own politics too.

I digress...

Anyway, since the 2000 elections, the DLC has become a dirty word among liberals, and no corporately funded front groups have been able to gain any traction among the liberal mainstream since.

Beyond the fact that corporations choose to give their money to libertarian/right wing thing tanks, Koch was actually once a vice presidential candidate for the libertarian party, which seems instructive.

How do you square the fact that corporations are so intimately involved with your party, ideology and its dissemination in a way that they are not with the Democrats?

A large portion of the people I know wanted to vote for him but, ultimately, he wasn't a candidate.

A lot of people thought his ideas were too extreme (recalling all troops, eliminating income tax, etc) but I felt, overall, his choices were playing it safe. Settle down, reel things in, get back to basics. We're going in all directions right now and failing at just about everything. I think it's better to do a few things well than to do everything poorly.

Also, with every election or vote, people act like it's a permanent decision that can never be changed. Can a lot of damage be done in 4 years? Absolutely. Can the entire country be destroyed in 4 years? No. As bad as Bush was, we only got to where we are through decades of poor leadership.

Ron Paul not believing in evolution is disappointing but in the end it doesn't really make much difference. All viable presidential candidates are irrational, else they'd be atheists and, thus, not viable.

I believe 4 years of RP would have been the best of potential options given the problems we're facing. After those 4 years are up, we could evaluate again and decide if 4 more years is still the best option.

Problem: In order to get elected to office, a political candidate must promise things that they simply cannot provide. "Cannot" for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the constitutional separation of powers and system of checks and balances (which are good things).

When a presidential candidate says anything about legislation (we will pass laws providing affordable health care to every citizen, etc. etc.) they are blowing smoke up your ass. They are aspiring to enter office in the executive branch, which is specifically held at a distance from the legislative branch.

Why do they say it? First, they want to get elected, and to get elected they have to present themselves as being willing to be a proactive, trustworthy instigator of policy. And secondly, because it just doesn't sound as good to say "if the legislative branch provides me with bills that would provide affordable health care to every citizen, I promise that I won't veto them", although that would more accurately describe their role.

A majority of the president's political roles seem to me to be reactive rather than proactive. A president can make policy decisions, issue orders as military commander in chief, etc., but when it comes to actual laws that affect citizens most directly, his role is limited to putting up legislative roadblocks (veto), stalling (pocket veto), or clearing the way (signing).

When one party holds power in the Senate, House, and Presidency but fails to get things done, I don't think the president really holds the majority of the blame, beyond the simple failing of making promises which they simply cannot provide. However, I think that we as voters need to recognize those unachievable promises and base our voting on what they CAN do rather than what they would CLAIM to do.

I'm sorry, but he's a grown man, a member of the US Senate, and recent presidential candidate reacting to being told the incontrovertible truth by effectively sticking his fingers in his ears saying "lalala, I can't hear you!"

I love the deafening silence as everyone comes to terms with the fact that they are witnessing an early key speech by a vice-presidential candidate under Sarah Palin's 2012 ticket.

Background:
In August 2004, following claims by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that presidential candidate John Kerry had exaggerated his record during the Vietnam War, Malkin appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and stated that there were "legitimate questions" over whether Kerry's wounds were "self-inflicted." When host Chris Matthews pressed her eleven times over the implication that Kerry had shot himself on purpose, she said that other soldiers had made this claim. Matthews said "No irresponsible comments are going to be made on this show"; Malkin criticized Matthews and the MSNBC staff in her blog the following day. Georgia Senator Zell Miller accused Matthews of "browbeating" Malkin. - wikipedia

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Not to mention CATO. It doesn't get much more corporatist than CATO, which is funded by corporatist demi-Gods Scaife, Koch, Ford and Coors.


No, I think corporations like Halliburton and KBR are as corporate as it gets, and they're nestled up so comfortably around the government's fist. Coors and Cato didn't take us into Iraq. Besides, Cato is non-profit, and the money they make from corporations comes as charitable donations they have to hustle to raise. Is it ideal? No. But I don't see them making the same money from mom and pop. Even the ACLU takes contributions from corporations, such as the tobacco industry.

All this "democratically elected" blah blah is hollow rhetoric when the people elected are so powerful the lobbyist want to use them to get us into war with no bid contracts or change corporate law to tip the playing field in their favor. Every presidential candidate takes money from corporate lobbyists and big business. Even your beloved Obama. You want to fight corporations, you start with the entity that created them: government.

I say if you support big government then you're a corporatist.