Tag: debates

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government

Freedom of the Press

“I am… for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.”

— Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799

So Freedom of the Press, protects even the stuff, we disagree with.

You don’t have to like it, what someone says, writes, or legislates … or tactlessly expresses.

But they have a Right to do so none the less, according to our historic icon Thomas Jefferson.  

The pen, should trump, the sword.

Funny how “Money” got all lumped in with Free Speech, though?

Must of been all those Gieco “googley eyes” commercials

A post excerpt (reprinted by permission) from our managing editor at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST:

John McCain missed the single greatest opportunity to address his most dangerous supporters directly and to repudiate their threats of violence after Senator Obama brought up the threats in the debate. McCain chose not to do so, calling them “fringe” while lauding ALL his supporters as “patriotic.”

This came after Senator John McCain made a point during the debate that Barack Obama should repudiate John Lewis’ Wallace comparison, which Senator Obama had done already, while pointing out that Lewis’ concern about violence, given the congressman’s first hand experience, was a valid consideration.

Senator McCain was not impressed. Nor was he impressed when Senator Obama directly brought up the vitriol from McCain and Palin’s rallies, citing words like “terrorist” and “kill him,” which John McCain dismissed as coming from fringe supporters, after which the Republican senator went on to laud all his supporters as “patriotic Americans.”

More below the fold…

Everything you need to know about tonight’s debate in a handy pre-debate essay.

See this?

That’s the Dow Jones for the past year in graphic form.

The Dow closed at 9447 today.  Last year on this day it was 14,198.  That means (gross over simplification coming) for every $141 dollars in your 401k, your pension account, your SEP, your stock portfolio a year ago, you now have $94 because you’ve lost $47 in the market.  That $47 is vapor.  It’s gone.  The only solace in this, if there is any, is that the Government didn’t get to put all of your social security money into this market so it could be vaporized as well.

The chart is a microcosm of what’s going on in the rest of the US economy. The credit markets aren’t functioning.  Consumer confidence is in the dumps.  With foreclosures going crazy, with gasoline and fuel oil prices still sky high, with unemployment way up at record levels, with housing prices way down, with the mortgage market in chaos, with the economy running a gigantic deficit, with a massive trade deficit, and with the dollar suffering, with 60% of the polled people saying the country is headed for a depression, what can the candidates possibly say to us about this mess?

Everything that doesn’t deal with the economy is wasted talk.  Even the wars are off the front pages for the moment.

That’s what this debate has to be about.

One heart beat away. One seventy-two year old, multiple melanoma’d, Alzheimer’s befuddled heart beat away. It doesn’t get any crazier than this.

The neocons actually have their own version of reality where a person so colossally unqualified can be president. They’ve just had eight years of a stand-up cardboard cutout of a president so they assume that we’ll just buy into another four years of their inbred belief system. This is un-fucking-believable.

I was going to put together some thoughtful essay on my first sixty years on this planet. In less than two hours I’ll complete the Chinese calendar full cycle of twelve signs and five elements. It’s a big deal in Asia. After tonight I’m thanking God for the transience of this life. I’ve lost two people very close to me over the last three weeks. Lucky them. They both went peacefully – while America is still more or less (mostly less) free. There are things far worse than death and we’re just some hacked voting machines away from experiencing them.

As tonight’s performance settles in there’s one feeling just surging up in me. Just who the fuck do these people think they are insulting my intelligence with this ticket of a semi-senile old fart with no moral center and a valley-girl airhead? Talk radio Uhmerica will be falling all over themselves tomorrow saying how great she was. A very significant percentage of the population will gladly, no- make that eagerly, buy into that bullshit. What happened to this country? I can understand the inbreeding that takes place in some remote areas of the hillier landscape being a partial rationale but 40%+ ???

People have to be willfully ignorant to buy into such insanity. What I saw and heard tonight was a US senator and a high school beauty queen on the same stage applying for the number two spot in the executive branch.

At my age I admit to having gotten in under the legal wire on the stuff Owsley made – and therefore I was grandfathered in. But every time I checked out for a few hours I always came back to the same old reality. Is it possible that 40% of the population – almost all of whom seem highly unlikely to have shared the experience – has ingested some substance which the rest of us have somehow managed to avoid so far?

The worst part is that the oligarchy, or the powers that be, or whatever you want to call the masters, must be laughing their asses off at us for eating this shit. As I said in a comment yesterday, we have two choices from here on out: we either grab our ankles or stand up. I’m too old to be grabbing my ankles for anyone.

Satya.

Original article, by Patrick Martin, via World Socialist Web Site:

Friday night’s presidential election debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain demonstrated that there is no choice in the 2008 presidential election within the confines of the official two-party system. Two candidates stood facing each other, espousing nearly identical positions in defense of Wall Street and American militarism which would, in any other country in the world, immediately identify them as representatives of the ultra-right.

McCain campaign on McCain:

"There was one man who was presidential tonight, that man was  John McCain."

Let's see … McCain never looked at Obama during the debate.

Not looking at your opponent is "presidential?"

This very much was the "don't talk to your enemies – don't look them in the eye" foreign policy expert practicing his "presidential" craft for a nationwide audience.

McCain campaign continues:

The following video ad was produced by veteran  inlookout and linked, in the replys, in an initial writeup posted at Vet Voice after the Debate.

John McCain Loves Cutting Veterans Health Benefits