The four things I write most about are politics, sports, music, and computers. This is about politics, sports, and music. And I am writing it on a computer. One of my favorite bands is The Zambonis. They sing about hockey, and pretty much nothing else. In honor of Sarah Palin and her nomination to the office of Vice President, I give you one of my favorite Zambonis songs, Hockey Mom, and my cover of it.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
http://www.crosscut.com/politics-government/17341
Despite talking about cutting taxes, fiscal responsibility, small government and fighting corruption, her career has been exactly the opposite of that.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
pudge on 2008-09-11T22:48:03
Despite talking about cutting taxes, fiscal responsibility, small government and fighting corruption, her career has been exactly the opposite of that.
Incorrect on all counts.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
btilly on 2008-09-12T01:03:06
There is a content free assertion. Which of the following statements are wrong?
- When she became mayor of Wasilla, the budget was balanced.
- When she left, the city was in debt. (Fiscally responsible?)
- One of her first actions as mayor was to fire various people (eg the police chief and library director) and hire her own friends. The reason she gave wasn't competence, it was because they were "not fully supporting her efforts to govern". ie not endorsing her as mayor. (This kind of political manipulation should be abhorrent exactly because it leads to corruption.)
- Under her, Wasilla hired a lobbyist to try to get more in federal earmarks. It received them to the tune of $23 million. (She says she's against earmarks?)
- This was despite raising taxes substantially. (Didn't she say she was for cutting taxes?)
- As governor, she also sought earmarks for Alaska. (She fought against earmarks, huh?)
- She was initially for the bridge to nowhere. (Yet claims she said, "Thanks, but no thanks.")
- After that project was killed, Alaska got the money anyways for other projects. (That would make her "no thanks" a lie...)
- She is currently fighting corruption charges over firing the Public Safety Commissioner. (Wasn't she supposed to be against corruption?)
- The guy she replaced him with had to resign after 2 weeks because of sexual harassment charges. (Wonderful judgment there.)
- I'm sure he would have liked her Wasilla policy that rape victims have to pay for the medical exam that establishes the evidence of rape, and collects the DNA which could be used for the identification.
I could go on, but I think that is enough negative stuff about her career that I don't want her as vice president.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
pudge on 2008-09-12T01:51:51
There is a content free assertion.
Yes, exactly. You gave a content-free assertion, so I responded in kind.
When she left, the city was in debt. (Fiscally responsible?)
All the debt was for specific infrastructure purposes, was favored by the people, and was budgeted for in advance. This is quite responsible, yes.
One of her first actions as mayor was to fire various people (eg the police chief and library director) and hire her own friends. The reason she gave wasn't competence, it was because they were "not fully supporting her efforts to govern". ie not endorsing her as mayor. (This kind of political manipulation should be abhorrent exactly because it leads to corruption.)
Utter tripe. If she can't work with them effectively to accomplish her goals, hell yes, she should fire them, and the sooner the better.
Under her, Wasilla hired a lobbyist to try to get more in federal earmarks. It received them to the tune of $23 million. (She says she's against earmarks?)
Earmarks are not a problem at all. I couldn't care less. What matters is WHAT is being earmarked.
This was despite raising taxes substantially. (Didn't she say she was for cutting taxes?)
You already addressed this exact point above: taxes were raised for specific infrastructure purposes, favored by the people. You seem to be misrepresenting her position, as well: very few tax-cutting conservatives are against all taxes, or even against all tax increases, especially at the local level. I almost always oppose state and federal tax increases, and I often favor local tax increases, if they are for a specific purpose I favor.
That you think there is anything at all inconsistent in her views proves you don't understand her views (nor the views of millions of other conservatives).
As governor, she also sought earmarks for Alaska. (She fought against earmarks, huh?)
Again, don't care. If you care about the "hypocrisy" angle, rather than the issue, fine: Obama has gotten a ton of money from lobbyists, has had lobbyists work for him, and now he's against it. Yawn.
She was initially for the bridge to nowhere. (Yet claims she said, "Thanks, but no thanks.")
Yes. Both are true, obviously. So what?
After that project was killed, Alaska got the money anyways for other projects. (That would make her "no thanks" a lie...)
The money was given to Alaska as a block grant from the federal government. The Congress killed the earmark for the bridge, but didn't change the amount of the grant. That left Alaska free to use the money for more useful projects, which is what Palin did. So no, the "no thanks" is not a lie at all; you simply don't understand what actually happened.
She is currently fighting corruption charges over firing the Public Safety Commissioner.
That is false. There are no charges. There is an investigation to see if there should be charges, and thus far, there is no evidence whatsoever that she has committed any wrongdoing, of any kind.
The guy she replaced him with had to resign after 2 weeks because of sexual harassment charges. (Wonderful judgment there.)
Yawn. Jeremiah Wright. Come on, this is just bullshit, and SHOULD be beneath you.
I'm sure he would have liked her Wasilla policy that rape victims have to pay for the medical exam that establishes the evidence of rape, and collects the DNA which could be used for the identification.
You're lying. This was not Palin's policy.
I could go on, but I think that is enough negative stuff about her career that I don't want her as vice president.
Yes, you could go on ignoring facts, bringing up irrelevant bullshit, and lying
... Re:Her record speaks for itself
vek on 2008-09-12T03:26:27
Do you believe she is qualified to be Vice President?
If so, please can you give *specific* examples of where her experience as governor and mayor would be relevant to handling facets of this country's foreign policy.
One quick note: I absolutely couldn't care less about Barack Obama or Joe Biden. I'm not interested in their record in the slightest. I'm asking specifically what you think qualifies Palin to represent this country on the world stage.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
pudge on 2008-09-12T03:45:10
Do you believe she is qualified to be Vice President?
Absolutely.
If so, please can you give *specific* examples of where her experience as governor and mayor would be relevant to handling facets of this country's foreign policy.
One quick note: I absolutely couldn't care less about Barack Obama or Joe Biden. I'm not interested in their record in the slightest.
Bullshit. If you don't care about the answer for the same question about Obama, then why should I believe that you give a damn about the answer for Palin?
I'm asking specifically what you think qualifies Palin to represent this country on the world stage.
If you're unwilling to answer the same question of Obama, then you're just being a dick.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
pudge on 2008-09-12T03:48:15
vek:
I thought your comment was from btilly. I responded that way because he is pro-Obama, so obviously, your words coming from him would be dishonest, which is why I responded that way, because I thought you were him. I apologize.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
vek on 2008-09-12T16:07:56
No worries
;-) Re:Her record speaks for itself
pudge on 2008-09-12T04:29:30
So, apology done, I'll answer your question now.
Do you believe she is qualified to be Vice President?
Absolutely.
If so, please can you give *specific* examples of where her experience as governor and mayor would be relevant to handling facets of this country's foreign policy.
Well, of course, she is commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, and lives right next to Russia, which means she's well aware of some of our serious national security concerns, whether it's Russia's claim of the North Pole, or her National Guard being involved with turning back a Russian military aircraft, or guarding our national missile defense (which, yes, are not under her command, as they are federalized in that role, but it's something she's aware of, and knowledgable of the issues involved).
I personally don't care much about experience, and I don't use this against candidates, except in contrast when my candidate's experience is attacked. What matters more to me is what you think and how you think, than what specific experience you've had. If you've been a general, or been involved with foreign affairs for many years as with McCain and Biden, we know you know a lot, because we have heard you talk AND we know you have a ton of experience. If you're Obama or Palin, we know you do NOT have much experience, so we can really only listen to what you say.
One quick note: I absolutely couldn't care less about Barack Obama or Joe Biden. I'm not interested in their record in the slightest. I'm asking specifically what you think qualifies Palin to represent this country on the world stage.
I reject the question in part, I don't think broad experience is a qualification in itself. There are lots of people with experience who I think are unqualified, and people without it who are qualified, like Obama; yes, I do think he is qualified, just not very good (Hillary has spoken to his problems in judgment as well as I could).
Experience does not qualify you, it only gives us a framework from which to judge what you actually say and do. So when McCain says something, we can see whether he's followed that over his long career, and how good he has been on that issue. We can't do that with Obama and Palin to nearly the same degree.
We've heard Obama talk, and we'll hear him more, and we're making our judgments, because he has very little experience to judge him by. We'll do the same with Palin.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
btilly on 2008-09-12T03:28:41
No I am not lying about Wasilla charging rape victims for medical exams under Palin. In case you doubt, here is confirmation from an article in 2000. It caused a controversy the caused a state-wide law to be put in place banning the practice.
On earmarks, I care about two things. First I don't like earmarks in general because they tend to be pretty much pure pork. Secondly I really do care about the hypocrisy. The McCain-Palin ticket is promising to reduce earmarks to the tune of 100 billion per year. As part of campaigning on that, Palin is trying to claim that she was a champion for reform on the issue. Her "thanks, but no thanks" comment is brought out as evidence of that, which it isn't.
If you're really against federal taxes, then you should also be against federal spending. After all if you spend money, it has to come from somewhere. Oh we can put it off (and do) with bonds, but some day we have to make good. To me it doesn't matter whether the money was going to one useless bridge versus a rarely used highway. What I object to is that large amounts of money are going to a small number of people because they have political connections.
That's what the Republican party misleads people on. They claim to be for small government. They claim to be fiscally responsible. They claim to be good for business. But in the last 50 years when we've had Republicans in office we've consistently seen enormous deficits. We've seen government grow. By contrast under Democrats we've seen smaller deficits. Government may grow, but by less. (I believe it actually shrank under Clinton.) And judging from returns in the stock market, Democrats have been consistently better at getting business to grow than Republicans have. (This is true even if you discount Clinton. And before you jump up and down about Newt Gingrich, Clinton's autobiography lays a pretty good case out that the boom was due to policies from his first two years that just took a while to get going.)
So if I care about fiscal responsibility, who should I vote for? The party that has consistently promised and under delivered? Or the one that has a better track record? I think I'll skip the one that just added a former beauty contestant for the candidate who has done a well-managed nationwide organization for the last couple of years that has several times as many people involved as Alaska.
Re:Her record speaks for itself
pudge on 2008-09-12T04:12:49
No I am not lying about Wasilla charging rape victims for medical exams under Palin.
You were lying when you said it was her policy.
Secondly I really do care about the hypocrisy.
Fine, then let's look at all the hypocrisy from Obama, on earmarks, on lobbyists, on the DC gun ban, on campaign finance
... the list is long. So, I don't care about earmarks, but if you want to discuss hypocrisy, we can do that
... If you're really against federal taxes, then you should also be against federal spending.
Again: the money ALREADY CAME TO HER STATE. Before she even took office. To blame her for taking money that she didn't take is obviously nonsense. The Bridge to Nowhere debate -- whatever your personal feelings about it -- was primarily about a specific project. She said she wouldn't spend the federal money on that project, regardless of the fact that it was no longer earmarked. She still could have tried to spend the money on it, despite no earmark. She said no.
You might think her record isn't what she's saying, and I don't know. But I still don't see how she did anything wrong as governor on this issue
... unless you wanted her to spend that money on the Bridge. That's what the Republican party misleads people on.
No. That is what ELECTED Republicans -- especially in DC -- mislead REPUBLICANS on. Which is why the Democrats won in 2006, because Republican voters stayed home. It's not the Republican, or even the Republican Party as a whole, it's that the Republicans elected people who didn't actually represent their interests.
They claim to be for small government. They claim to be fiscally responsible. They claim to be good for business. But in the last 50 years when we've had Republicans in office we've consistently seen enormous deficits.
Clinton inherited a growing economy from Bush (the recession ended in about September 1992), and then the tech boom hit. Clinton didn't give us a surplus, he just happened to be President when those things happened. And then Bush inherited a recession due to the tech bubble bursting in around March 2000 under Clinton, and then September 11 happened, and combined with loss of manufacturing etc. under Clinton and his predecessors, gave us a very slow recovery.
Similarly, Reagan had several years underwater due to the lingering effects of the terrible economy under Carter. So Carter's years in office actually look better than Reagan's first term, even though obviously the problems in Reagan's first term were due to effects caused during Carter's term.
MOST of what happens is not from what they do, including the fact that it's the CONGRESS that passes the budgets, so it's just pure bullshit to give credit and blame depending on who is in office at the time.
Clinton's autobiography lays a pretty good case out that the boom was due to policies from his first two years that just took a while to get going.
No, it doesn't. That is complete and utter bullshit. The tech boom was coming no matter what. As a geek, you should know that as well as most. It's shocking you were actually taken in by that line of crap.
So if I care about fiscal responsibility, who should I vote for?
Not the Republican Congress, sure. Nor the Democratic Congress, obviously.
But you could vote for the most fiscally responsible person in the Senate for the last 20 years: John McCain.
Or you could deceptively point to who happened to be in the Presidency at the time, or dishonestly saddle McCain with the blame for his party's policies that he has opposed for years.
I think I'll skip the one that just added a former beauty contestant for the candidate
Yeah, I agree, I think I'll skip Obama too. I don't think he is qualified just because he won the Democratic Beauty Contest, er, nomination.
who has done a well-managed nationwide organization for the last couple of years that has several times as many people involved as Alaska.
Psssst: he doesn't actually run his "nationwide organization." He has people to do that for him. Give it a rest.
The fact is Obama has no more significant qualifications than Palin. They spent about the same amount of time as mayor vs. state legislator, which are comparable. They spent about the same amount of time as governor vs. U.S. Senator (before he left to run for President), which are comparable.
You are grasping at straws.
