SOCIALISM??!!! Are You Fracking Kidding Me?!

03Nov08

Why on earth are these republicans dusting off the old Socialism talking point? This isn’t the Red Scare and 1950s McCarthyism! We aren’t fighting the Soviets! We have a graduated income tax. McCain is for a graduated income tax. His hero Teddy Roosevelt was ardently for a graduated income tax. For the McCain campaign to come out and call Obama’s tax plan socialism is a complete lie. I saw John McCain on Larry King and his explanation was pure double talk.

“MCCAIN: Well, that’s spreading the wealth in the respect that we do have a graduated income tax. That’s a far cry from taking from one group of Americans and giving to another. I mean, that’s dramatically different.
Sen. Obama clearly has talked about for years, redistributive policies.”
…
“MCCAIN: But, do we want — taxes pay to keep our government secure. TO HELP THOSE WHO CAN’T HELP THEMSELVES.”

I added the capitalization for emphasis. This isn’t out of context. He supports the graduated income tax, saying that it is “not taking from one group of Americans and giving to another” and then says that taxes are used to “help those who can’t help themselves” which implies, services such as disability, unemployment, welfare, and social security. These are all taking taking money from one group and giving it to another through taxes. It is ridiculous to imply that the Obama’s tax plan is going to make our tax system socialistic. That would be implying that it wasn’t socialistic already, which is not true.

Under our current tax plan, Warren Buffet pays at a lower tax rate than his own secretary, and the McCain plan would make that permanent. We cannot afford that. It would considerably expand the deficit. “BUT cutting taxes increases revenue!” the conservatives say. However, if they actually pay attention to that theory, they would understand it’s based on the Laffer curve, and eventually, because it is a curve, it doesn’t work at the extremes.

And who are the Republicans to throw out the Socialism label? The neoconservative movement that is in control of the Republican party was founded by a bunch of Trostkyists: Straus, Kristol, etc. Trotsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Marxist! You don’t get much more Socialist than that! Moreover, Sarah Palin taxes the oil companies and gives checks out to the people of Alaska, and she has the nerve to call Obama’s policy socialist!

While I’m ranting, I might as well mention this whole Muslim crap. He’s not a Muslim, so cut it out. Read snopes.com and do your fact-checking. But even if he was, so what if he’s Muslim? This is a country founded on the freedom from persecution of religious beliefs, and the freedom to believe whatever you want. And for those who say “well, it just signals to the terrorists that they’ve won,” that is completely short sighted assessment. Electing Obama would be the exact opposite. It will say to these terrorists that we are not afraid of the other, and we refuse to be divided by fear.

To quote Dr. Cornel West of Princeton, “Plato who had the most profound critique of democracy, not the most persuasive, but the most profound; said that we would create a society characterized by unruly passion and pervasive ignorance…he had a point.”

Filed under: election   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: election 2008 socialism rant lies obama mccain

Fox News Strikes Again

14Aug07

This time online. An article at tech website oreilly.com points out that Fox News had edited a portion of Comedian Al Franken’s Wikipedia entry. A quote of all things, that changed from

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the [[National Public Radio]] program ”[[Fresh Air]]” on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox’s case against him was “literally laughed out of court” and that “wholly (holy) without merit” is a good characterization of Fox News itself.

to

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the liberal [[National Public Radio]] program ”[[Fresh Air]]” on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox’s case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales.

If you follow the link at the bottom of his page, it takes you to wired magazine’sThreat Level a wiki watch of the most egregious spin on wikipedia, where the original report can be found. Following the changes made by the listed IP address, we find edits to numerous wikipedia articles, mostly surrounding what I assume to Fox Affiliate stations and Fox News Reporters, which is all fine and dandy, BUT there are changes to entries about MSNBC reporter Keith Olbermann that attempt to discredit him, while protecting their own interests.

Protecting their own is what the person responsible for these edits seems to do best. There are deletings of sentences that would give a negative impression of Fox News, such as an entire section on Journalistic Fabrication by Fox News reporter Carl Cameron, and a healthy dose of adding the adjectives “liberal” or “conservative” to just about everything.

There are also plenty of edits to Brit Hume’s wiki entry that insert jabs at Keith Olbermann into the article. Why there is need to mention Keith Olbermann in an article on Brit Hume is beyond me.

But how can we attribute the address 12.167.224.228, to Fox News? Simple, run it through a whois database

AT&T WorldNet Services ATT (NET-12-0-0-0-1)
12.0.0.0 – 12.255.255.255
FOX NEWS CHANNEL FOX-NEWS73-224-224 (NET-12-167-224-224-1)
12.167.224.224 – 12.167.224.255

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-08-13 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

And of course, clicking on Net-12-167-224-244-1 takes us to a Kurt Foster of Fox News

OrgName: FOX NEWS CHANNEL
OrgID: FNC-21
Address: 400 NORTH CAPITOL ST
City: WASHINGTON
StateProv: DC
PostalCode: 20001
Country: US

NetRange: 12.167.224.224 – 12.167.224.255
CIDR: 12.167.224.224/27
NetName: FOX-NEWS73-224-224
NetHandle: NET-12-167-224-224-1
Parent: NET-12-0-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2005-02-06
Updated: 2005-02-06

OrgTechHandle: KFO13-ARIN
OrgTechName: Foster, Kurt
OrgTechPhone: +1-202-715-2429
OrgTechEmail: ***********@foxnews.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-08-13 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

Filed under: censorship, fox news, internet, media, Spin   |  Leave a Comment

A Survey and Maybe a Change

09Aug07

With the LSAT coming and a new Wii to occupy my free time, i’m having trouble trying to get back into political blogging. It doesn’t help that keeping up with the news can be time consuming and sometimes depressing. But I digress. The point is I surprisingly have gotten over a thousand hits and have a few comments. If anyone out there in the blogosphere would like me to continue my farcical jabs at politics and would object to me changing the format of the blog, leave a comment.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment

16 Military Wives

07Jun07

The Decemberist’s 16 Military Wives
Global geopolitics in a 5 minute music video.

Well the quarter’s over, next week is finals, and I’m going on vacation after… haven’t decided whether or not I’ll keep this up. Maybe I’ll bring back insight from the other side of the pond.

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Now That’s a Republican

06Jun07

Okay, yeah I might be kinda throwing in with Ron Paul, but really, finally a republican who is for small government and means it. But if he isn’t the republican candidate, I’m voting Dem. These other Republican candidates just don’t cut it.

Funny how the Daily Show has become a staple of political campaign stops. Although as the news becomes entertainment, I guess it isn’t surprising that some entertainment has become the news.

Filed under: jon stewart, media, ron paul   |  1 Comment

The Funny Thing About the Internet is

05Jun07

On June 4th I had a spike in web traffic. According to my wordpress blogstats, I had 108 hits on that day, nearly double my previous high total of 56. I went from around 5 hits a day,with 10 on a good day, to 108, and that doesn’t include a good average of 10 readers a day off the feed aggregators. There was a trend that started around May 21st, when traffic to my blog started to pick up a heart beat, and ever since then, it just jumped exponentially. For a moment I let my ego bask in the glory of the hit counter of my site, until i scrolled down to the details…

On May 21st, I posted an image of Dennis Kucinich and his wife, Elizabeth. That post is my most searched and viewed post. The funny thing about the internet is, even in its most obscure and mundane corners, sex sells.

Filed under: Announcement   |  Leave a Comment

Nice Try Brits

04Jun07

The British newspaper, The Independent, has this little graphic to demonstrate the spending habits of citizens in comparison to the amount of foreign aid their nations contribute. I agree that this is a very important issue. It’s ridiculous that German women spend more money on shoes than Germany spends on foreign aid… although its ridiculous how much women’s shoes cost, but thats all supply and demand. Although I don’t understand women either, nor will I understand their demand for expensive shoes that they’ll only wear no more than 5 times. But I’m straying from my point. Watch how they try to sneak in the transnational oil corporation, Exxon Mobil, and its profits as the basis of comparison for American spending on aid. Thats not fair, and very misleading. There’s no way you can compare the profits of one of the largest oil companies in the world, if not the largest, to the amount of champagne Brits purchase, they’re completely unrelated.

Filed under: media, Spin   |  Leave a Comment

In Response to Hugh Hewitt

04Jun07

Hugh Hewitt gave a lecture as a guest speaker in my blogs and politics class and I would like to respond to two claims:
1. Republicans are logical
2. Good political blogs don’t assail the other side of the aisle

1. I came across shelleytherepublican.com. At first I thought that it must have been a satirical site, and I hope it is, but then I remembered when I found the website for the Westboro Baptist Church, and that site, unfortunately, isn’t satirical.

   But lets go one further. In a conversation between Mr. Hewitt and Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, it becomes very apparent that when something disagrees with Hugh, he dismisses it as spin… That must be very convenient, good to know he thinks civil war is spin.

2. While I give credit to Hugh for following this on his own blog, the same can’t be said about his peers. The most visited conservative blog is none other than our good friend and resident X rated cheerleader, Michelle Malkin
   
   I was really hoping I wouldn’t have needed to bring up this horrid video again, but that is just immature mudslinging on a prisonplanet.com level.

Filed under: hugh hewitt   |  1 Comment

50 Politicians Who Take Money from the RIAA

02Jun07

Time to get active.
There is a list of 50 politicians who have received contributions from the RIAA at consumerist.com
I encourage everyone to contact their respective representative(s) and express their disapproval.
The RIAA has no regard for the consumer and has historically attempted to stop any form of advancement in the technology of music distribution. Get your politicians out of the pockets of RIAA execs and let the free market decide what happens to the music industry.

Filed under: issues, media, riaa   |  Leave a Comment

Finally Somebody Said It

02Jun07

I was going to post on the whole “They hate us for our freedoms” BS line that the Bush administration keeps shoving down our throats. I heard that for the first time six years ago, when I was 15, and even then I knew immediately that that slogan was so overly simplistic, it bordered on lying.

Then the Republican Presidential candidates debates came along and Ron Paul set everyone straight, although not many were really listening.

A blog post at Think Moderate goes into more detail regarding what it is about US Foreign policy that puts us in the cross hairs of terrorists. To claim that terrorists and middle eastern regimes hate us because we are free is fairly ethnocentric and jingoistic. It creates the black and white, us versus them reasoning that everyone understands. But at the same time, strips any issue of its real world complexity.

Filed under: Bush, Iraq, issues, national security, Politics, ron paul   |  Leave a Comment