Arkansas Blog

There are too many significant things that will happen over the next four years that will influence the choice of candidates to predict at this early date. Significant events that will happen in the foreign policy and economic arenas will heavily influence the expertise we will be looking for. I'm not sure that the list you provided will address those significant events.

You may be right, strangelove, but I think that the economic issues right now are part of what is driving Romney's numbers there. He has some of the best credentials for Republican contenders right now.

By the time we get to 2012, things may be different and we have to get through this election first.

I agree with you on Romney. He is the MOST qualified to address the economic issues now. I just think that in 2012 we will be facing foreign policy issues that will demand someone with that expertise as well. However, Romney does look good.

I wish I could have talked to Bush to tell him he's is destroying the republican party although the democarp party is already a zombie. As a matter of fact I think he is so shallow that he can't see past his nose. If I had done thing the way he's done I'd be in a insane asylum. But the democrap party has no sane people in it either.
How is it that scum always rises to the top of everything? !
As long as colleges are graduating brain washed kids this country is going to hell in a handbasket.
Bastard professors have no business teaching anyone! That is a fact!
Since all of our possible candidates have gone to colleger somewhere there is no one remotely capable of running our government!
Bums is all we have that only cares about getting their millions from the citizens anyway they can!

One other thing if this nation is turned over to a negro to run it that trip to hell will speed up.

You are an ignorant fool, chasv. Good thing there are some sane God-loving folk in the country...folks who take to heart all that love stuff and who can distinguish an intelligent capable human from inbred incompetent political legacies like Monkeyboy/McSame. Folk who shun racist hatred. Shame on you, chasv.

"As long as colleges are graduating brain washed kids this country is going to hell in a handbasket.
Bastard professors have no business teaching anyone! That is a fact! "
by: chasv

Redneck College Grad

A Hillbilly family's only son had saved up money to go to college and after about 3 years he came back home. They were sitting around the dinner table when the dad said, ''Well son, you done gone to college so you must be perty smart. Why don't you speak some math fer' us?''
''Ok, Pa'', the son said then, ''Pi R squared.''

After a moment the Dad said, ''Why son, they ain't teached ya nothin'! Pie are round, cornbread are square.''

Clearly the only proper solution is home-schooling all of the kids in the United States before this learning thing gets out of hand.

Looking ahead... the Republican talking points, policies, and acceptance of them within the D party must be crushed. This is just the beginning. Blue Dogs are going to fight for continued wars, continued enormous spending on all things MIC related and they are going to promote pay-go like chasv promotes bigotry. The Pryor's and Ross's are going to be fighting change at every step of the way... especially when their corporate paymasters might suffer.

It's time to think a lot about the constitution and we the people. And use taxation and the power of the budget to actually fix things. Pay-go for example, would cripple and already injured nation. Consider how bad off the financial industry is today.. and what does everyone agree on which needs to happen to fix it? Borrowing/loaning to increase/maintain economic output. Unfortunately, the very same thing needs to be done by government for the people... and that, in short, is why we must say no to pay-go. FISA , torture, renditions, to much gov. secrecy should all be dealt with. We must end a lot of the privatization of government services (especially things like intel work, that the Republicans have doled out to their buddies. Energy and the economy must be addressed as sure as health care. ANd we are going to have to prepare to del with a whole lot of incredibly ill effected troops with disabilities, both mental and physical. Reports I'm reading from old Viet Nam vets who are working with returning (multi deployed) vets today... say it's worse than they ever imagined. And there are probably just as many folks who are working over there in private contracted situations who will return with no help at all.

We must return to the fairness doctrine in media. And we must demand dramatic improvements in out internet infrastructure.

Much as I was disappointed with D's in the Cli nton years.. i think far to many in our party got soft...and we played defense while Republicans attacked all the wrong *hit, like sex and the myriad of other false flags.

This time around we have to both have the D's backs while being attentive and demanding of our folks... don't let then sit back,afraid, always feeling like they need to triangulate with the nut cases in the GOP. Obama will do it if we let him. If we leave him nothing but Pryors and Ross's as his backup.

We have got to keep Obama and the Pryors and Blue Dogs from coddling Republicans and neo cons.. Clinton did it with disastrous results. (Enter Colin Powell and Joe Lieberman's name here). Being nice to them on national scale would be like asking strangelove to tutor your children.

We should know better by now... but the Dems are going to need a lot of scrutiny from we the people to do the right thing.

beejesus that happens to be my all time favorite joke.

However, chasv 's entertainment value increases each day.

I'm thinking....The chasv Show.

Y'betcha.

In the spring of 1945 the German magazine Der Humpernickle guessulated about the up and coming Nazi candidates that might lead the pack in the 1948 German elections. The author admitted that Herr Hitler had perhaps dimmed the Nazi Party chances for the foreseeable future, but went ahead and listed 3 or four German politicians who later in 1946 were lined up and shot. So much for counting your Nazi chickens before they hatch.

I think it's possible we may see a Whig in the White House again before another Republican darkens the door.

And I need for chasv to define Bastard Professors for me so I can run up to school on Monday and see if my kids have any of those guys. And holy sweet Jesus.....I missed the parent-teacher's meeting on Thursday, so I don't even know if my daughter is being taught by any Negroes or not! Oh the horror!

Huckster may run just to get the lucrative Republican clothing allowance.

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Fairness doctrine---bull. All it is is a censorship doctrine. Air America is a bust and Rush and all the other conservatives are successful so let's make sure that they are destroyed. That is the premise behind the efforts to impose a so called 'fairness doctrine'. Sheer hypocrisy. You know that the real purpose behind that is to stop conservatives. You can't handle the truth so you are going to legislate its demise. Since you guys rule you will be successful.

Huckster may run just to get covered by the liberal Ark Times.

"In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld (by a vote of 8-0) the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in a case of an on-air personal attack, in response to challenges that the Doctrine violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The case began when journalist Fred J. Cook, after the publication of his Goldwater: Extremist of the Right, was the topic of discussion by Billy James Hargis on his daily Christian Crusade radio broadcast on WGCB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. Mr. Cook sued arguing that the FCC's fairness doctrine entitled him to free air time to respond to the personal attacks"

Suggesting Rush and truth are related... you lose.

breaking up Mitt Romney/ Bain/ Clear Channel ownership (And GE Disney Time Murdoch) of what, 95 plus percent of media outlets? Is a must! Demanding fair and balanced news be reported on both a national and local level bothers you? Giving citizens back their airwaves bothers you? All this after Bush years of placing Republican political operatives in charge of the likes of NPR.
When the few owners of a thousand plus radio stations can and do stop a dixie chick song.. for saying they simply are not ready to make nice while trying to speak out against our nation murdering and torturing millions of innocent people. Something is broken!

When half a dozen companies (a few hundred very rich people) own the airwaves... we get what we've had the last twenty years.. unchallenged lies, false wars, unfettered markets which help only the very wealthy rob our nation blind.... with no dissenting voices allowed.... not even a returning flag draped casket allowed on TV. I for one want to know when they return, want to morn and honor my fellow fallen soldiers... not be forbidden from it.

i don't want anyones voice out of the picture, but the big funders of the likes of Rush have made sure no others are allowed in.. and that has to end.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has expressed his opposition to the Fairness Doctrine; an aide to Senator Obama described the debate surrounding it as "a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible," and cited Obama's support for other proposals such as media-ownership caps and network neutrality.

So Obama is for dropping the term "fairness doctrine" as the best way to return to it's principles. I'm open to that.

The 'shut up conservative talk' doctrine is probably a sure thing with the new democratic majority in both house and senate. In order to keep control they must eliminate conservative talk radio. However, I think it will be extended to television as well. Once they have eliminated this source of irritation to the left wing their control should be complete. All that will be left is disaster.

Fairness Doctrine was instigated to cover only BROADCASTS over PUBLICLY OWNED airways.

CNN, FOX, and the rapidly rising, award-winning MSNBC are cable only.

Play with the concept. BROADCAST. PUBLICLY OWNED (as in socialism). AIRWAYS.

related to COMMONWEALTH.

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Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan
Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets

* Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
* Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Barack Obama believes that the nation's rules ensuring diversity of media ownership are critical to the public interest. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission has promoted the concept of consolidation over diversity. As president, Obama will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum.

truth on Blue

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Tell us who you aren't/haven't voted for again, Strange! The Arkansas Blog World awaits for another statement of truth from such a paragon of CCRRR apologists!

No, I want your side to win and win big. I want the American people to get a full undiluted dose of your ideology. Then we shall see.

Are you saying that a democratic controlled Congress and a democratic president will feel limited ot public airways? Come on! That is silly. There will be virtually no checks and balances on them. They can do whatever they feel like doing. Get real!!!!

We realize that extremist Republicans cannot imagine following the law. Not after
7.9 years of near Nazi assault on our Constitution helped along by ignorant self-serving
Drug addicts on the radio.

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Like Clinton followed the law?

Vote YES on Initiated Act 1. Vote yes for the children.

If Rwanda had a "Fairness Doctrine" a few years back, a million people would not have been hacked to death.

Most of those folks got ALL their information from hate radio DJ's that fueled the massacre.

The airwaves belong to the people, not the war-mongering kleptocracy that gives us Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity.

If clinton had gotten off of his progressive ass less Rwandans would have been hacked to death. However, they didn't vote as democrats in the American elections so he had no reason to get off of his progressive ass.

Question:
"Tell us who you aren't/haven't voted for again, Strange! The Arkansas Blog World awaits another statement of truth from such a paragon of CCRRR apologists!"

Strangelove's Answer:
"No, I want your side to win and win big. I want the American people to get a full undiluted dose of your ideology. Then we shall see."

Question:
"So you won't reaffirm that you aren't voting for McCain as you have stated several times before on this blog?"

Although my opinion of your veracity was formed on other postings, your refusal to reaffirm your stance on voting for McCain confirms.

Confirms what? Would you like me to send you an affidavit in triplicate signed in blood? How about a celtic covenant? What are you some kind of nut?

I've got an idea. Why don't you secretly mount cameras at every voting place and if you should catch me secretly voting you can flash it across this blog and say 'got ya'. That would really get my goat. Right?

Everything is Clinton's fault in Strangelove's Bizarro World.

He is merely a contrarian troll who enjoys pissing people off.

I doubt you believe half the shit you post.

mojo my mojo, who was president when the Rwandans were being butchered? Clinton knew it was going on and he did nothing. Wasn't he considered the first black president? Correct me where I am in error, please.

I'm not defending Clinton. He has stated he should have done more.

In a perfect world, a functional UN should have stopped it.

My original post stated that if Rwanda had a Fairness Doctrine in place, the ultra-nationalist DJ's would not have been able to spark the massacre.

"KILL THE INSECTS, KILL THE INSECTS" they screamed.

Most of the population was/is illiterate and the hate radio was their only source of information.

Are you equating the hate filled broadcasts of the ethnic cleansing crowd in Rwanda with someone like Rush on American Radio? They clearly advocated the murder of other human beings.

When has the UN stopped anything? I really can't think of one situation where they have. They are useless as a military force. The kind of monsters that exist in the world aren't going to be constrained by someone with arms that refuses to use those arms. The Canadian UN troops in Rwanda was absolutely useless in preventing slaughter.

When has the UN stopped anything? I really can't think of one situation where they have. They are useless as a military force. The kind of monsters that exist in the world aren't going to be constrained by someone with arms that refuses to use those arms. The Canadian UN troops in Rwanda were absolutely useless in preventing slaughter.

"No, I want your side to win and win big. I want the American people to get a full undiluted dose of your ideology. Then we shall see."

It will be interesting to comparing it to a full undiluted dose of your Republican ideology: 10 trillion in debt, 2 crazy wars, financial meltdown, shredding the Constitution, etc.

Republicans Are Sick: Radio Host Fantasizes Obama Murdering His Own Grandmother

We've seen and heard some pretty ugly stories recently from the Republican ranks, but just when you think the stories can't get any uglier, they get uglier. So it was Friday morning (Oct. 24) on radio station WLS in Chicago, when conservative drive-time host Don Wade imagined how Barack Obama's allegedly adoring press corps would react to a video record of the senator murdering his own grandmother.

Sadly, Wade's comments coincided with Obama's actual visit to the bedside of his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, which Wade ghoulishly turned into a fantasy murder scene captured on video. "The video clearly shows Grandmother greeting Barack Obama coming through the door...," Wade described with obvious relish, "...Barack Obama comes over, sits down beside the grandmother, and places a pillow over her face and holds the pillow over her face until she struggles no more" (CBS-2). Wade's wife and co-host Roma (picture here with Wade) expressed shock at her husband's words even as they were coming out of his mouth; and listeners expressed even greater shock in e-mail complaints such as this one quoted by CBS-2 News in Chicago: "Don Wade of WLS talk radio crossed the line this morning describing an insensitive and coded hate scenario where Obama goes to Hawaii and murders his grandmother. It was appalling, disturbing, ugly and over the top."

The Obama campaign has declined to comment on Wade's remarks. Those who would like to comment on Wade's remarks may do so at the WLS contact page ("Don & Roma" or "Don & Roma Producer" on pull-down menu). Don & Roma broadcast from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. local time Monday through Friday and take live callers at (312) 591-8900. Alternately, recorded messages for Don & Roma may be left at (312) 357-1489.

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>>dose of your Republican ideology:
10 trillion in debt, 2 crazy wars,
financial meltdown,
shredding the Constitution, etc."
by Dennis

Add
refusal to enforce immigration violations
failure to enforce border security
refusal to make ports of entry safe
refusal to make dangerous chemical plants secure
failure to protect the environment
Running the DOJ in extreme partisan manner
Tom Delay
Turd Blossum refusing to answer a Congressional subpoena
Dick Cheney threatening to arrest Federal Marshals for serving a warrant
Secret energy policy meetings.

Jack Abramhoff--Justice achieved
.

Oh, I'm more than willing to wait for you to experience the consequences of a full democratic control of government. I don't think I will have to wait long. When things start happening that I think will happen I won't have to say anything. The events will speak for themselves. I can wait.

Another reminder about the Constitution. Only the Congress can incur debt. They control expenditures and the raising of revenue. Bush isn't responsible for that. The credit crisis was brought on by a Congress that refused to exercise legal oversight of Fannie and Freddie and when warned by regulators they refused to do anything. The wars were authorized by Congress and the monies to fund them were approved by Congress. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and 1995 were approved by Congress. Now, who is responsible for what is going on?

The credit crisis was brought on by private banks. Between 2002 and 2006
eighty four (84) per cent of subprime loans were made by private banks.

When subprime mortgages were sliced and diced then securitization took place
the entire process was done by unregulated investment banks. Those institutions
(Bear Stearns, AIG, Goldman-Sachs) are no longer investment banks. Bush Administration
has converted each of them into regulated national banks.

None of this would have occurred if McCain economic adviser and then Congressman
Phil Grahman had not introduced legislation to repeal the Glass-Steagal Act which
Clinton foolishly signed into law. This allowed insurance, investment houses to enter
into mortgage industry thus creating a large, unregulated industry.

Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress for 7 years until 2006. They attempted to regulate Freddie Mac and Fannie but a powerful Republican Senator blocked
passage of the legislation. Guess who?

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Nothing like a non-answer answer is there Strange?

Read it and weep. I have documented this mess several times and that has included an article by the NY Times just to anticipate some of your whining:

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 3:07 PM

By: Charles R. Smith

One does not have to look very far to find the root cause of our current financial dilemma.

Despite the partisan political spin that it's "all George Bush's fault," the facts were well documented in 2006 by the audit report of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO).

It is the failure of the mainstream media to kick the spin and put out the facts before the American people.

According to the auditors, "During the period covered by this report - 1998 to mid-2004 - Fannie Mae reported extremely smooth profit growth and hit announced targets for earnings per share precisely each quarter. Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the Enterprise's senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management."

The audit report is specific - telling why the Fannie Mae folks inflated their books and who was responsible for the systematic mirrors and smoke game to inflate earnings.

"By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets, senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders. Earnings management made a significant contribution to the compensation of Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines, which totaled over $90 million from 1998 through 2003. Of that total, over $52 million was directly tied to achieving earnings per share targets."

So while Franklin Raines, currently adviser to Senator Obama, walks free with millions in his pockets, homeowners and taxpayers all over America are paying the price of his failed leadership.

How did this happen? The answer again comes from the audit report: Basically, the management at Fannie Mae hid the payouts from public view.

"Enterprise executives purposely obscured their official disclosures of executive compensation and failed to provide complete information on the post-employment compensation awarded to former CEOs," noted the audit report.

The whole story, as documented by the audit report, goes from one tale of falsehoods followed by another chapter on cover-ups.

"Fannie Mae senior management achieved those earnings targets by regularly manipulating earnings," notes the report.

"During the period covered by this report, Fannie Mae senior management systematically withheld information about the Enterprise's operations and financial condition from the board of directors, its committees, its external auditors, OFHEO, the Congress, and the public, or disclosed information that was incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading," states the audit report.

While the books looked great - good enough to pay out millions to Raines and others at Fannie Mae - the facts behind the scenes pointed to a crumbling empire ready to collapse.

"Fannie Mae consistently took a significant amount of interest rate risk and, when interest rates fell in 2002, incurred billions of dollars in economic losses," states the report.

Worse still, when it appeared the cover-ups were failing and the auditors were closing in on the truth, the executives at Fannie Mae combined forces with Democrats in Congress to try to replace the auditors.

"Fannie Mae senior management sought to interfere with OFHEO's special examination by directing the Enterprise's lobbyists to use their ties to Congressional staff to 1) generate a Congressional request for the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to investigate OFHEO's conduct of that examination and 2) insert into an appropriations bill language that would reduce the agency's appropriations until the Director of OFHEO was replaced," noted the report.

So who helped out the Fannie executives?

In 2007, Sen. Dodd, D-Conn., the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, called on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulators to lift the portfolio caps. He argued that allowing the two firms to buy more subprime mortgages, at least temporarily, would inject much needed liquidity into the market and calm the financial markets. Of course, that was like offering heroin to an addict.

Sen. Dodd called Bush's proposed stronger regulations on Fannie Mae "inane" and recommended the president "Immediately reconsider his ill-advised" proposals."

In 2000, when Republicans introduced a reform act for Fannie, Rep. Frank dismissed the bill, saying concerns were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."

In 2002, as alarm bells were ringing, Frank dismissed them with "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," according to a Sept. 10 Wall Street Journal article.

When the accounting scandal finally broke open, Rep. Frank acted quickly . . . to cover the whole thing up.

"I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis," stated Frank.

When the scandals began to engulf Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sending them spiraling down the tubes, Frank reacted with a comment that is enough to make one's head spin.

In the same article, Frank noted, "I think Wall Street will get over it if the two collapsed."

Oh, and where was Obama? In his short term in Congress, Obama has raked in more Fannie Mae donations than any other member of Congress in 20 years except Dodd. Obama has sought the campaign advice of two former Fannie Mae CEOs who took money based on the "purposely obscured" accounting documented by the audit report. Obama has bundlers and advisers from the collapsed institution sprinkled over his campaign like sugar over cookies.

Where was John McCain? In 2005, Sen. McCain proposed legislation that could have prevented this whole mess to reform Fannie and Freddie.

McCain's legislation was defeated by Dodd and the Senate Democrats. Since then Dodd along with Democrat Sens. Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton - the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 - actively opposed any reform measures and supported weakening existing regulations.

So while the mass media spins it all George Bush's fault, the very same people who oversaw the disaster at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now in charge of the rescue effort.

Thanks for the oldie strangelove, but several facts in Smith's article have been debunked. He's a News Max hack. Franklin Raines was not and is not an Obama adviser.

I will agree Democrats in Congress are not blameless. But it has been the constant fight of Republicans since the days of old dead Ronnie Reagan to remove every form of governmental regulation that has brought this country down. Not only has it brought us to financial disaster, the same lack of regulations and inspections have killed our pets and sickened our children.

We must have strict regulation because while 9 out of 10 Americans may be honest to the bone, that 10th one is the fly in the ointment, and there's always a 10th one who will round up more 10th ones to form rabid packs who commit every evil known to mankind.

A new day is coming. Let it....welcome it.....embrace it!

Anderson Cooper rounds up "The 10 Most Wanted Culprits of the Collapse"

/click name