Disqus - Friends of jurisnaturalist

Re: Fair Questions for Sarah Palin

justintime — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:23:34 -0000

Is she (Sarah Palin) the reformer she claims to be?
NO

What is her knowledge of the world, of foreign policy issues, of the complicated relationship between the use of diplomacy and force in conflict situations?
NEGLIGIBLE

Do her statements and positions on energy and economic policy comport with the facts and with what is needed to make major changes in direction on both?
NO

And most of all, does her experience, knowledge, and perspective give her the judgment, competence, and prudence to become the next president of the United States should something happen to the president?
NO

Sarah Palin is a mere distraction away from the real issues facing America, which the McCain campaign avoids.
Her selection as a VP running mate reflects McCain's lack of judgment and his lack of concern for America's future.

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:41:50 -0000

'Free Market' capitalism for the poor -- socialism for the rich.

The American Dream -- you have to be asleep to believe it. George Carlin

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:34:03 -0000

'Sackcloth and ashes' = cheap talk from cheap talking head Cokie Roberts.

Senator Bernie Sanders has a practical and morally correct proposal:

(1) The people who can best afford to pay and the people who have benefited most from Bush’s economic policies are the people who should provide the funds for the bailout. It would be immoral to ask the middle class, the people whose standard of living has declined under Bush, to pay for this bailout while the rich, once again, avoid their responsibilities. Further, if the government is going to save companies from bankruptcy, the taxpayers of this country should be rewarded for assuming the risk by sharing in the gains that result from this government bailout.

Specifically, to pay for the bailout, which is estimated to cost up to $1 trillion, the government should:

a) Impose a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue;

b) Ensure that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and

c) Require that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the assumption of risk is rewarded when companies’ stock goes up.

(2) There must be a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect working families from the difficult times they are experiencing. We must ensure that every child has health insurance and that every American has access to quality health and dental care, that families can send their children to college, that seniors are not allowed to go without heat in the winter, and that no American goes to bed hungry.

(3) Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999. That means re-regulating the energy markets so that we never again see the rampant speculation in oil that helped drive up prices. That means regulating or abolishing various financial instruments that have created the enormous shadow banking system that is at the heart of the collapse of AIG and the financial services meltdown.

(4) We must end the danger posed by companies that are "too big too fail," that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up. Right now, for example, the Bank of America, the nation’s largest depository institution, has absorbed Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and Merrill Lynch, the nation’s largest brokerage house. We should not be trying to solve the current financial crisis by creating even larger, more powerful institutions. Their failure could cause even more harm to the entire economy.

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:07:57 -0000

Eric,

I think Bernie Sanders' point 1)a IS logical, IS morally correct and IS NOT indiscriminate confiscation.

Here's my reasoning:

1. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, along with runaway spending for the Iraq Occupation, are the big reason for America's insolvency prior to the present debacle on Wall Street.

2. America's wealthy class is the primary beneficiary of the rampant speculation in securities and derivatives which, in large part, caused the collapse of the bubble on Wall Street.

3. You say that the responsible executives and government officials should pay for the bail out. Even if you could identify those individuals who are personally to blame (which I doubt is possible) and quantify their responsibility (which would be even more impossible), the amount recovered wouldn't even pay the lawyers' fees, let alone cover the bailout.

4. An emergency 10% surcharge on the tax obligations of the wealthy (those making over $1 million/year WOULD go a long way toward offsetting the cost of the bailout -- Sanders claims $300 billion.

5. Further taxes imposed on the middle class would make economic recovery less likely than an emergency surcharge on the wealthy.

6. A Wall Street bailout will allow the wealthy to continue to profit from their investments, while those without discretionary income have little opportunity to invest.

7. A 10% tax surcharge on the wealthy would allow them an opportunity to be responsible patriotic citizens for once.

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:16:41 -0000

I just called my two Senators and my Congressman -- told them not to cave in to the Bush administration bailout blackmail.
Also watched on CSpan an excellent speech on the subject of the bailout by Senator Richard Durbin .

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:12:49 -0000

There is no Crisis!

Things are getting a little suspicious about this "crisis."

1. Why did the Bush administration suddenly declare a "crisis" during the final two weeks when Congress would be in session during his presidency? Is it maybe because, after the election, Congress would know it wasn't dealing with Bush anymore?

2. If this is such a sudden crisis, why is it that the Bush administration was drawing up the plan for this bill for months beforehand?

3. Why is it that Congress is supposed to bail out many banks and firms that are actually quite successful and profitable right now, and not just those that are failing?

4. Why is Paulson blatantly lying to Congress about oversight?

5. Where did the $700 billion figure come from?

6. Why is Paulson urging that debate on the matter be held after the legislation is passed?

The burden of proof should always be placed on those who are demanding a huge government bailout, not upon those who are skeptical that one is needed. And yet the questions keep mounting, with no answers in sight.

I am not saying that there is no need for government intervention. I am saying that the case for a $700 billion bailout is far from having been made. Until the case is made, there is no need to go forward. We will elect a new President in 42 days. We swear in a new Congress in 103 days. What is the rush? Why does this all of a sudden need to be done while the Bush administration is still in charge? The case hasn't been made, and answers are slow in coming, if they come at all.

by Chris Bowers / Talk Left

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:20:33 -0000

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself." *

*from the Republican Party Platform of 2008, adopted earlier this month.

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:24:56 -0000

Issues/Questions over the proposed bailout

1. Transparency. Release the presentation Paulson gave to congressional leaders that supposedly has them all spooked. Give us the data and information, and let outside economists pore over the numbers and reach independent conclusions. The Bushies lie and have zero credibility. We can't trust anything they say.

2. Timing. Why the sudden rush, when the administration has been working on this plan for months? Seems more than a little suspicious.

3. Solution. We don't know what the problem is, so we really don't know if this solution addresses that problem. What we do know is that it's targeted not just at failing institutions, but any old financial firm on Wall Street that wants a piece of our money. Even those that "are very successful banks and investment houses that have done very well". Heck, did I say "on Wall Street"? I almost forgot. Any foreign bank can apply!

4. Details. Why $700 billion? Why not start off with, say, $75 billion. Is the emergency so dire that Treasury will spend all $700 billion next week? Doubtful. So put in what would amount to a bridge loan until people have had a chance to full understand the magnitude and severity of the problem. If it's truly as bad as people say it is, further moneys can be appropriated.

5. Motives. Given that the administration wants to give money to solvent financial institutions, is this just another component of the long-running conservative effort to bankrupt the government to destroy government's ability to improve people's lives?

6. Incentives: The administration is really concerned that solvent banks may not take the bailout, so it has to be as condition-free as possible. Why is the administration desperate to force taxpayer funds into these private Wall Street institutions? If they don't want our money, everyone wins, best of all, the taxpayers.

7. Politics. The American people hate this thing, and those approval numbers are only getting worse. Given all the points listed above, whoever votes for this thing, even an "improved" version, will face a world of hurt this November, and if not this year, in primaries and general elections through 2010.

by Marcos Moulitsas / Daily Kos

Re: Sackcloth and Ashes on Wall Street

justintime — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:31:06 -0000

We Need Another Choice

.....There's another approach. I'd be much more eager to hear about an approach that propped up the mortgage markets from the bottom, at the consumer level, rather than trying merely to limit the damage at the investment level. Homeowner mortgage restructuring, very steep tax rebates to offset mortgages -- there's a lot that could be done for a trillion dollars. By stabilizing and reducing mortgage losses, we establish a floor for the credit default swaps that are causing the current problem. Similarly, a few hundred billion dollars worth of on-the-street national investments would result in a tremendous economic boon.

In other words, the Paulson plan is to presume these mortgage-backed assets are steeply overvalued, and therefore purchase them in bulk in order to help retain as much of that value as possible. A bottom-up approach would be to intervene in the mortgage markets so that those investments really do have value, or at least do not represent black holes of risk. It would in theory have the same effect.

"Moral hazard", to use a now-popular term, would still exist. But instead of rewarding a handful of the largest companies for making abominable economic decisions, we'd be spreading the bailout directly to homeowners. I think that's a more economically palatable approach for many, many reasons, among them being that after the Savings and Loan crisis, the Enron debacle, then this mess, it's clear that the investment community needs to get its "creative accounting" house in order -- to bail them out yet again would not encourage that.

Perhaps this plan wouldn't work. That's fine: let's discuss why it would or wouldn't, or whether or not there are other approaches that might work better. But presuming that a trillion dollar bailout, now expanded to foreign banks, non-mortgage related investments, and banks not in particularly bad shape, is the only solution sets off warning bells. I think most people agree that there is a need for drastic, possibly astonishingly expensive measures -- the underlying problems in the economy are huge, and they're not going away. But the nature of those measures could work to stabilize the economy, or merely paper over the crisis (frankly, any workable plan likely must do a lot of both). It's worth discussing a more balanced approach -- one that would work to repair the underlying problems, rather than simply reducing the sense of imminent crisis.

by Hunter / Daily Kos

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:29:59 -0000

Greed and envy drive the market up.
Collective fear drives it back down.

Re: Obama Hung in Effigy at Christian College

justintime — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:59:29 -0000

I want to believe this was not done by George Fox students.
The Portland area (as well as other NW cities) is home to any number of skinheads and right wing nutjobs, fully capable of masterminding this outrage.

Wiki: George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers.

I remember playing on the Reed College 6 man tackle football team back in the 60's -- George Fox was the only team in the league we were able to beat.

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:24:44 -0000

Jubilee for Wall Street?

I support Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal to impose an emergency 10% tax surcharge on those who report over $1 million annual income.

Here's my reasoning:

1. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, along with runaway spending for the Iraq Occupation, are the big reason for America's insolvency prior to the present debacle on Wall Street.

2. America's wealthy class is the primary beneficiary of the rampant speculation in securities and derivatives which, in large part, caused the collapse of the bubble on Wall Street.

3. Some say that the responsible executives and government officials should pay for the bail out. Even if you could identify those individuals who are personally to blame (which I doubt is possible) and quantify their responsibility (which would be even more impossible), the amount recovered wouldn't even pay the lawyers' fees, let alone cover the bailout.

4. An emergency 10% surcharge on the tax obligations of the wealthy (those making over $1 million/year WOULD go a long way toward offsetting the cost of the bailout -- Sanders claims $300 billion.

5. Further taxes imposed on the middle class would make economic recovery less likely than an emergency surcharge on the wealthy.

6. A Wall Street bailout will allow the wealthy to continue to profit from their investments, while those without discretionary income have little opportunity to invest.

7. A 10% tax surcharge on the wealthy would allow them an opportunity to be responsible patriotic citizens for once.

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:23:37 -0000

Maybe later, if I have time, I'll explain to you how extreme fundamentalist free market religion is ruining the planet.

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:51:38 -0000

Republican 'free market' ideology is the cause of the crisis on Wall Street and
McCain's complicity in deregulating the marketplace is undeniable.
McCain has nothing to contribute to the resolution of the crisis he helped to create.

Suspending his campaign and bailing out of Friday's debate is just another desperate stunt.to take attention away from his own ignorance.
McCain is losing this election because he's 'out to lunch' on the economy.

And he'll be out to lunch for Friday's debate on foreign policy whether he shows up or not .

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:27:01 -0000

Does Sarah Palin's Pastor have a solution for the crisis on Wall Street?

"The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It's high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That's what we are waiting for. That's part and parcel of transformation.
If you look at the -- you know -- if you look at the Israelites, that's how they work. And that's how they are, even today. When we will see that, you know, that the top transporters (?) in the lands, we see, you know, the bankers, we see the people holding the parts (?), they are believers, we will not have the kind of corruption that we are hearing in our societies." Pastor Muthee, Wasilla Assembly of God

Is he saying there are too many Jews on Wall Street and the Christians need to take it over?

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:19:36 -0000

Congressman DeFazio of Oregon proposes to assess a fee on stock transactions to offset the cost of the bailout.
At 4 billion trades per day and $.25 per trade, this would raise $1 billion a day.

Makes sense to me.

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:39:00 -0000

Despite Claims Today He Warned of this Crisis, McCain in 2007 Said He Didn't See This Crisis Coming
September 17, 2008 12:24 PM

"Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. "The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.”

How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007?
....
Q: “Well the dimension of this problem may be surprising to a lot of people, but to many people, to many others there were feelings that there was something amiss, something was going too fast, something was a little too hot. Going back several years. Were you one of them? Or, I mean you’re a busy guy, you’re looking at a lot of things, maybe subprime mortgages wasn’t something you focused on every day. Were you surprised?

McCain: “Yeah. And I was surprised at the dot-com collapse and I was surprised at other times in our history. I don’t know if surprised is the word, but...

Q: “S&Ls?”

McCain: “I don’t -- what did you say?”

Q: “The S&Ls."

McCain: "Yeah, the S&Ls."

Q: "Is this bigger than that?

McCain: “I don’t know the dimensions of this. It’s hard to know what the dimensions are. As I say, I never thought I’d pick up the paper and see a city in Norway is somehow dramatically impacted by it. When I say ‘surprised’ I’m not surprised when in capitalist systems that there’s greed and excess. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption’ or something like that, that people have disputed for years.

“But so, in this whole new derivative stuff, and SIBs and all of this kind of new ways of packaging mortgages together and all that is something that frankly I don’t know a lot about.

"But I do rely on a lot of smart people that I have that are both in my employ and acquaintances of mine. And most of them did not anticipate this. Most of them, I mean I can find some that did. But, a guy that’s on my staff named Doug Holtz-Eakin, who was once the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said that there was nervousness out there. There’s nervousness. There was nervousness that we had such a long period of prosperity without a downturn because of the history of our economy. But I don’t know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said ‘wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.'

"So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not.”
....

How can you believe anything John McCain says anymore?

And since McCain brings up the Savings & Loan crisis, let's talk about his involvement in this scandal.
Ever hear of the Keating 5?

And, by the way fatlad, you misrepresented what Barney Frank has been saying.

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:14:29 -0000

150 Economists Petition in Opposition to the Bailout Plan:

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:

As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:

1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.

2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.

3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.

For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.

http://faculty.chicagogsb.e...
____________________________________________________________

But Wall Street bigwigs and speculators are cheering for the bailout.

Warren Buffet thinks the bailout is marvelous -- he just bought into Goldman Sachs for $15 billion.

When Henry Paulson took the position of Treasury Secretary in 2006, he got a bit of a "perk"... he was allowed to divest himself of $700 million in potentially toxic Goldman Sachs stock, tax free, in order to avoid "conflicts of interest."
________________________________________________

Wake up America!

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:01:31 -0000

DITE: The current crisis is because subprime lending caused a credit crunch and a mass depreciation of assets.
____________________
Where does the $700 billion number come from?

1% of all mortgages -- the amount now in default -- comes out to $111 billion. Triple that, and you've got $333 billion. Let's round that up to $350 billion. So even if we reach the point where three percent of all mortgages are in foreclosure, the total dollars to flat out buy all those mortgages would be half of what the Bush-Paulson-McCain plan calls for.

Then we need to factor in that a purchased mortgage isn't worth zero. After all, these documents come with property attached. Even with home prices falling and some of the homes lying around unsold, it's safe to assume that some portion of these values could be recovered. In the S&L crisis, about 70% of asset value was recovered, but let's say we don't do that well. Let's say we hit 50%. Then the real outlay for taxpayers would be around $175 billion.

Which, frankly, is a number that Wall Street should be able to handle without our help. After all, the top firms on Wall Steet payed out $120 billion in bonuses alone between 2000 and 2006. If they've got that kind of mad money, why do they need us to step in now? And why do they need twice as much as all the mortgages that are even likely to implode?
_________________________
DITE: "The bailout is meant to increase investment spending and thus increase economic growth. This would be good for the poor and give them more discretionary income."

"If you increase taxes on those making more than $1 million dollars, you will discourage investment, which is exactly what you do not want to do during a credit crunch."
_________________________
Hahahahaha!

We've been hearing free marketeers promote the old supply-side, trickle-down fantasy ever since Reagan.
The real world has repeatedly proven it to be a false claim.
When the wealthy get tax breaks, they invest in yachts, thoroughbred horses, expensive art and tax-free off-shore accounts, not American jobs.

DITE seems challenged by reality.
Why else would he advocate selling the land of our national parks and/or raising taxes on food and water?

Is DITE wealthy?
Maybe he expects to become wealthy some day?

Re: Jubilee for Wall Street?

justintime — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:25:43 -0000

DITE: "The current crisis is because subprime lending caused a credit crunch and a mass depreciation of assets."
__________________________________________
.... the problem is in fact not all the bad, scary subprime mortgages. Yes, a lot of people are finding themselves upside-down on their houses right now, but Paulson isn't proposing we do squat to solve that -- and even the "controversial" Democratic counterproposal, that we actually do at least a little something to help those people, after they've already gone bankrupt, is pathetically weak.

Instead, we're getting a Wall Street bailout not of the mortgages, but of the absurd, speculative, economy-wrecking derivatives based on those mortgages, derivatives that investors and banks ravenously sold each other at unsupportable and quite-probably-crooked prices. Those derivatives, generally speaking, are "bets" on the state of the underlying mortgages. And they didn't just bet wrong -- they bet irrationally, based on presumptions of near-zero risks to those underlying mortgages. And worse, the big banks even -- bafflingly -- got special permission to overleverage themselves 40 to 1, all but assuring collapse if those derivatives went south. Which they did."

by Hunter / Daily Kos

Re: Whew!

justintime — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:49:44 -0000

I'd made up my mind to vote Obama / Biden months ago and wasn't expecting to learn anything new from the debate.
I tuned in to the Biden / Palin debate just for entertainment.
I was expecting Palin's performance would reveal her to be unfit for public service, let alone a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
I was hoping this would be obvious enough to reflect McCain's lack of good judgment and disqualify him from the Presidency in the eyes of the electorate.

I suspect this is why millions of progressives besides me watched this debate.
We weren't disappointed with the outcome either.

Re: Whew!

justintime — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:18:13 -0000

I don't believe Sarah Palin is stupid -- she's crazy like a fox.
I do sincerely believe Sarah Palin is unfit for public service -- for a lot of reasons, including:

1. She's a pathological liar.
2. She abused the office of Alaska State Governor, subject of an ongoing investigation.
3. After promising Alaskans transparency and forthrightness, she stonewalls the investigation.
4. She's a tax cheat.
I could go on.

I also sincerely believe John McCain is unfit for public service.
And I can list the reasons why I believe this.

Does this mean I hate Sarah Palin and John McCain?
Not really.
But I do hate the blind obedience of far right wing supporters of McCain / Palin.

Re: Whew!

justintime — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:34:21 -0000

In my humble opinion, the Biden / Palin debate on Saturday Night Live was more entertaining than the 'real' debate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.c...

Re: Whew!

justintime — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:57:14 -0000

Hi squeaky,

As a former resident of Fairbanks and Anchorage, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner and the Anchorage Daily News are familiar to me from before the internet.
Since Governor Palin was nominated, I've been able to read my old
newspapers again every day and get a sense of Alaska's response to
McCain's desperate VP nomination.

After initial widespread approval of Governor Palin, many Alaskans have arrived at a very different conclusion, causing her ratings to decline precipitously.

New evidence of Sarah's incessant deception, fibbing, prevarication,
slander, libel and outright lying in pursuit of her personal ambition
surfaces every day in the papers, along with sufficient facts to
convince me that Governor Sarah is indeed, a pathological liar.

Abuse of office charges against Governor Palin are being investigated by an independent counsel, authorized by a substantial majority of Republican legislators.
The investigation was well under way before McCain entered the picture and much of the damaging evidence was already a matter of public record.
Alaska's Attorney General was forced by a judge to reverse his order for State employees to ignore their subpoenas to testify in the
investigation.
But many depositions had been already taken before Palin was nominated.
In spite of strenuous obstruction by the McCain / Palin campaign, the
report will be issued on Friday.
These are serious charges and the report will be damaging.

Only days after the Palins released their tax returns, several
discrepancies have been noted including that the Palins failed to report substantial income received from the State of Alaska.

There are numerous other examples of Palin's unsuitability for public
office.
No time to detail them all.
Read about it in the papers.

Re: Whew!

justintime — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:21:49 -0000

Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame by Dana Milbank, WaPo

snip.....
Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

snip.....
Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.c...

Sarah knows how to bring out the worst from her supporters.