The MSM In Desperate Mode

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The left are really looking quite foolish with their Palinsteria. The latest “scandal”:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a “per diem” allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

~~~

Asked Monday about the official policy on charging for children’s travel expenses, Garnero said: “We cover the expenses of anyone who’s conducting state business. I can’t imagine kids could be doing that.”

Oh wow! This is going to rock the election! Whatever will we do now?

But wait, in the same article:

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official “duty station” is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

~~~

Gubernatorial spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Monday that Palin’s expenses are not unusual and that, under state policy, the first family could have claimed per diem expenses for each child taken on official business but has not done so.

~~~

“As a matter of protocol, the governor and the first family are expected to attend community events across the state,” she said. “It’s absolutely reasonable that the first family participates in community events.”

The state finance director, Kim Garnero, said Alaska law exempts the governor’s office from elaborate travel regulations. Said Leighow: “The governor is entitled to a per diem, and she claims it.”

And oh, about that child thing:

Leighow noted that under state policy, all of the governor’s children are entitled to per diem expenses, even her infant son. “The first family declined the per diem [for] the children,” Leighow said. “The amount that they had declined was $4,461, as of August 5.”

The sad part? That the WaPo put this garbage on the front page and then spent 3 pages to tell us she worked within state law and per diem policy.

The best part:

Gov. Palin has spent far less on her personal travel than her predecessor: $93,000 on airfare in 2007, compared with $463,000 spent the year before by her predecessor, Frank Murkowski. He traveled often in an executive jet that Palin called an extravagance during her campaign. She sold it after she was sworn into office.

I’m waiting with bated breath for the report on Obama’s and Biden’s per diem accounting.

Keep it up guys, your sending more converts our way daily.

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Obama has made another gaff, this time it’s a logic gaff. Obama supports due process for captured terrorists because the U.S. might be capturing the wrong guy. Then he makes the logic gaff of saying we should be taking out the terrorists. So instead of sometimes capturing the wrong guys, we will be sometimes killing the wrong guys. He feels Bush is a fan false imprisonment, but then he admits he is a fan of collateral damage.
voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/08/obama_to_palin_dont_mock_the_c.html

Seems Democrats aren’t the only ones who have trouble with facts.

Factcheck.org

GOP Convention Spin, Part II
September 4, 2008

Palin trips up on her facts, and Giuliani and Huckabee have their own stumbles on Night 3 of the Republican confab.
Summary

Sarah Palin’s much-awaited speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night may have shown she could play the role of attack dog, but it also showed her to be short on facts when it came to touting her own record and going after Obama’s.

We found Rudy Giuliani, who introduced her, to be as factually challenged as he sometimes was back when he was in the race. But Mike Huckabee may have laid the biggest egg of all.

Palin may have said “Thanks, but no thanks” on the Bridge to Nowhere, though not until Congress had pretty much killed it already. But that was a sharp turnaround from the position she took during her gubernatorial campaign, and the town where she was mayor received lots of earmarks during her tenure.

Palin’s accusation that Obama hasn’t authored “a single major law or even a reform” in the U.S. Senate or the Illinois Senate is simply not a fair assessment. Obama has helped push through major ethics reforms in both bodies, for example.
The Alaska governor avoided some of McCain’s false claims about Obama’s tax program – but her attacks still failed to give the whole story.

Giuliani distorted the time line and substance of Obama’s statements about the conflict between Russia and Georgia. In fact, there was much less difference between his statements and those of McCain than Giuliani would have had us believe.

Giuliani also said McCain had been a fighter pilot. Actually, McCain’s plane was the A-4 Skyhawk, a small bomber. It was the only plane he trained in or flew in combat, according to McCain’s own memoir.

Finally, Huckabee told conventioneers and TV viewers that Palin got more votes when she ran for mayor of Wasilla than Biden did running for president. Not even close. The tally: Biden, 79,754, despite withdrawing from the race after the Iowa caucuses. Palin, 909 in her 1999 race, 651 in 1996.

GOP Convention Spin

September 3, 2008

Lieberman and Thompson make misleading claims about Obama on Day Two of the party in St. Paul.
Summary

Joe Lieberman and his former Senate colleague Fred Thompson both made misleading claims about Obama in their prime time GOP convention speeches on Tuesday. We’ve heard two of them before – many times.

Lieberman said Obama hadn’t “reached across party lines” to accomplish “anything significant,” though Obama has teamed with GOP Sens. Tom Coburn and Richard Lugar to pass laws enhancing government transparency and curtailing the proliferation of nuclear and conventional weapons.

Thompson repeated misleading claims about Obama’s tax program, saying it would bring “one of the largest tax increases in American history.” But as increases go, Obama’s package is hardly a history-maker. It would raise taxes for families with incomes above $250,000. Most people would see a cut.

Lieberman also accused Obama of “voting to cut off funding for our American troops on the battlefield.” But Obama’s only vote against a war-funding bill came after Bush vetoed a version of the bill Obama had supported – and McCain urged the veto.

A New Stitch in a Bad Pattern
September 2, 2008

A McCain ad wrongly claims Obama plans “painful tax increases” for working families. And who’s talking about deficits?
Summary
McCain’s new ad puts another stitch in what we’ve called his pattern of deceit on Obama’s tax plan. This one claims Obama and congressional Democrats plan to push forward “painful tax increases on working American families” and that they will bring about “years of deficits,” “no balanced budgets” and “billions in new government spending.”

The ad is plain wrong about higher taxes on working families. In fact, Obama’s economic plan would produce a tax cut for the majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting most. As for “years of deficits,” exactly the same claim could be made about McCain’s program. It’s unlikely either Obama or McCain would balance the budget, and both are projected to increase the debt by trillions.

Analysis
We’ve already reported on at least three other ads, in both Spanish and English, from Sen. John McCain’s campaign that distort his rival’s tax policy. The ads claim that, for example, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would raise taxes “on the sale of your home” and that he has a “history of raising taxes” and that he wanted to raise taxes on “families” making just $42,000 a year.

Claims like these have led us to say that McCain’s campaign is engaging in a “pattern of deceit” when it comes to describing Obama’s tax plan. This most recent ad fits right into the template.

Tax Counter-Spin
The ad says Obama and “out of touch Congressional leaders” plan to implement “painful tax increases on working American families,” and it shows an image of a family presumably upset about an impending tax increase. But, as we’ve reported numerous times, Obama proposes a tax cut for the vast majority of households.

John McCain 2008 Ad:
“Expensive Plans”

Crowd: Obama, Obama…

Announcer: Take away the crowds, the chants. All that’s left are costly words. Barack Obama and out of touch congressional leaders have expensive plans. Billions in government spending, years of deficits, no balanced budgets, and painful tax increases on working American families. They’re ready to tax, ready to spend, but not ready to lead.

We spoke with Len Berman, director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which has produced one of the most authoritative analyses of the two candidates’ tax plans. When we asked him if Obama’s claim that he would “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families” was true, Berman told FactCheck.org that it was “consistent with our estimates.” Overall, the TPC found that Obama’s plan would produce a tax cut for 81.3 percent of all households, and a cut for 95.5 percent of all households with children.

Under Obama’s plan, the TPC estimates that people (or couples) making between $37,595 and $66,354 a year would see an average savings of $1,118 on their taxes.

Under McCain’s plan, on the other hand, those same individuals would save $325 on average — $793 less than the average savings under Obama’s plan.

Put It on Our Tab

The ad also claims that Obama and congressional Democrats would bring about “years of deficits.” But (and we’ve reported this before, too), the fact is both candidates’ economic plans would fail to bring an end to deficit spending, and by that measure, McCain’s is worse than Obama’s. According to the TPC analysis, Obama’s tax plan would increase the debt by $3.5 trillion by 2018, while McCain’s plan would bring about a projected $5 trillion increase in the same time frame. The TPC also found that:

Tax Policy Center (Aug 28): Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.

The Obama campaign maintains that the Tax Policy Center’s estimates don’t account for Obama’s proposed spending cuts, including things like ending the Iraq war. But those cuts will not come close to balancing the budget, and Obama has avoided promising a balanced budget during his first term.

McCain, however, has said he will balance the budget by 2013. Experts remain skeptical. In early July, The New York Times quoted Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition — a bipartisan fiscal responsibility advocacy group — as saying the claim was “unlikely”:

Robert L. Bixby (as quoted by The New York Times, July 8): It’s feasible to balance the budget by 2013, but very unlikely under the policies Senator McCain has proposed. The spending cuts are far too vague to be counted on for significant savings and, even if they were more specific, I can’t see how they would come close to offsetting the level of tax cuts he recommends.

McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin sent The Washington Post’s editorial board a copy of McCain’s plan in support of the candidate’s claim. But the board concluded, in its July 14 editorial, that the plan was “not credible.”

So the ad’s claims about deficit spending and “no balanced budgets”? They could be applied just as easily to McCain as to Obama and the Dems. And we’re not sure McCain really wants to go there.

Sorry about all the cutting and pasting and yes it’s all from factcheck.org. I’m simply making the point that Republicans can be just as dishonest and loose with the fact as Democrats.

Neither side is faultless.

Ron:
How much are the Democrats and KOS paying you to spout this tripe. Everything you stated as gospel has already been proved false. I guess some people are always a day late and a dollar short.

Chuck

Really and your proof of that statement is……..? Also Chuck, scroll down a bit and you’ll notice that Curt linked to Factcheck.org for a debunking of the Palin email. If it’s good enough for debunking that lie then I think it’s good enough for debunking others. I didn’t state it as gospel I merely pasted it from Factcheck.org’s website. Chuck since you know so much, why not email Factcheck and challenge their data. Nah, that would require a brain…something you don’t have.

Also, notice they also debunk Democrats lies too. It’s called a non-partisan website. You wouldn’t know about that either.

Pity.

Here’s exactly what Curt posted:

The Left is Flailing At Sarah Palin
Posted by: Curt @ 6:52 pm in Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin
Viewed 708 times, 439 so far today

Some silly partisan hack up in Alaska is doing her best to try and discredit Palin. Anne Kilkenny is a Democrat who supposedly knows Sarah and just wanted the populace to know what a “monster” she is. So she sent out a email that went a bit viral within the lefty ranks and since the tabloid newspaper McClatchy hasn’t met a liberal conspiracy they didn’t like they ran with it and put the email up on their front page.

In the email she makes plenty of accusations about Palin and FactCheck.org went through it all and found it…well, wanting.

Gosh…it seems Curt used the same source I did. Why can he sight them and i can’t?

I also said that Democrats lie too.

Hey Ron,

Why don’t you spend some time doing some fact checking on Obama? Obama was Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 – 2001. During that time, he was responsible for giving out grants amounting to almost $160 Million dollars to help improve Chicago Schools.

This money went to ethnic and social programs like these:

$632,662 to Small Schools Workshop, started by Mike Klonsky and William Ayers, created to push their school reform agenda.

$413,000 to the South Shore African Village Collaborative for their “Celebrate African-American Holiday of Juneteenth” (celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation). Some African-Americans celebrate Juneteenth instead of the Fourth of July.

and many more…

Turned down to receive a grant:

The Chicago Algebra Project: goal to increase student achievement

The District 5 Math Initiative: goal to aid Hispanic students in the process of learning English, to further learn math and science.

and many more programs designed to advance student fundamentals.

The final findings report showed “there were no statistically significant differences between Annenberg and demographically similar non-Annenberg schools.”

$160 MILLION dollars Zero results, this is the extent of Obama’s executive experience, and he has had his minions do everything possible to obstruct this record. See http://www.globallabor.blogspot.com/ to help you start your fact checking.

I’ll take someone like McCain/Palin who have accomplished something over someone that has failed to accomplish something but talks about what they are going to accomplish in the future.

Tony

You’re right so……….

FactChecking Obama

August 29, 2008
He stuck to the facts, except when he stretched them.
Summary
We checked the accuracy of Obama’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and noted the following:

Obama said he could “pay for every dime” of his spending and tax cut proposals “by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens.” That’s wrong – his proposed tax increases on upper-income individuals are key components of paying for his program, as well. And his plan, like McCain’s, would leave the U.S. facing big budget deficits, according to independent experts.
He twisted McCain’s words about Afghanistan, saying, “When John McCain said we could just ‘muddle through’ in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources.” Actually, McCain said in 2003 we “may” muddle through, and he recently also called for more troops there.

He said McCain would fail to lower taxes for 100 million Americans while his own plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of “working” families. But an independent analysis puts the number who would see no benefit from McCain’s plan at 66 million and finds that Obama’s plan would benefit 81 percent of all households when retirees and those without children are figured in.
Obama asked why McCain would “define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year”? Actually, McCain meant that comment as a joke, getting a laugh and following up by saying, “But seriously …”
Obama noted that McCain’s health care plan would “tax people’s benefits” but didn’t say that it also would provide up to a $5,000 tax credit for families.

He said McCain, far from being a maverick who’s “broken with his party,” has voted to support Bush policies 90 percent of the time. True enough, but by the same measure Obama has voted with fellow Democrats in the Senate 97 percent of the time.

Obama said “average family income” went down $2,000 under Bush, which isn’t correct. An aide said he was really talking only about “working” families and not retired couples. And – math teachers, please note – he meant median (or midpoint) and not really the mean or average. Median family income actually has inched up slightly under Bush.

Ron:
Touche. You really got me with your rapier wit and superior intellect. Gosh, I guess I will go slash my wrists.

Clowns like you are an insidieous disease that inhabits the internet trying to make people think you are smart. Well, I have news for you: you can’t be very smart to swallow all the bilge you have regurgitated from KOS.

Chuck

Good try. I’ll help you out.

Lets suppose this, you’re Chairman of a Board for 5 years and you were responsible for providing direction to where $160 Million dollars would be spent, under what circumstances would you NOT put this on your Resume?

It would probably be because you were a failure, and didn’t want anyone to find out. Other than not putting it on a resume, what else would you do?

Probably hire lawyers whenever someone tried to associate you with someone that was involved on that board – like the Obama lawyers did when the commercial questioning his ties to William Ayers.

Then you would probably get all of your minions to call into a radio station with nonsense talking points when someone was discussing what you did as Chairman. Like the Obama did when WGN’s Milt Rosenberg had Dr. Kurtz on his show. [audio src="http://caster.wgnradio.com/podcasts/x720full-043-080827.mp3" /]

You probably would even figure out how to get some of the records sealed, by having the former Director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Ken Rolling, contact UIC and tell them not to release any of the documents. – http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/09/annenberg-gate-update-did-university.html

This is a Chicago Politician who wouldn’t endorse the reform candidate running for the Cook County Board President – Forrest Claypool – http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/06/obamas_no_i_cant_moment.html Chicago now has the highest sales tax rate in the nation.

Obama has won his previous elections by disqualifying, smearing and figuring out how to get the media to do his dirty work – David Axelrod handled Obama 2004 Senate campaign and got WLS-Channel 7 TV and the Chicago Tribune to fight to get Jack Ryan’s child custody records unsealed. After WLS and the Tribune filed lawsuits in a California court, Obama called on fellow Democrats to refrain from trying to inject the information from these records into the campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(Senate_candidate) This little wink/wink act didn’t stop the media, the records were unsealed, which resulted in Jack Ryan dropping out of the race, and Alan Keyes coming in as an outsider, allowing Obama to run almost unopposed.

By the way, do you know what race Obama Lost? – It was the 2000 primary race against Bobby Rush, Obama lost by 30 points. What did Rush say about Obama later?

“Barack is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it,” Mr. Rush told The Reader.”

Axelrod and Obama, trying to do the same thing they did in 2004 – get the media to do your dirty work. Are you going to fall for it again?.

Ron- come up stairs, dinner is ready. Your homeroom teacher called, said you were using your time on things other than school work. You know we’ve talked about this before, how do you expect to go to college that way.

All these Sarah Palin attack’s are getting sickning.

PalinParanoia!