FactChecking Debate No. 1

Steve Waugh: A vote for Nader is vote for ideals
Steve Waugh ??? 9/27/2008 6:48 am

Dear Editor: The religious fervor with which people embrace Obama's campaign baffles me. At once, Obama promises to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq and promises to maintain the occupation, leaving the commitment to the wars open ended. McCain will speak of staying there 100 years. On the one hand, he says he will bring home combat troops, all the while promising to maintain the U.S. military presence. Obama also promises to increase the military budget and escalate the war in Afghanistan.

Most of my friends want peace. Why not work for a candidate who says flat out that he will cut military spending and stop the war? Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzales make that commitment in their campaign.

Eighty percent of the respondents to Tammy Baldwin's survey this summer said that we need comprehensive health reform in this country. Obama's health plan resembles the plan George Bush proposed two years ago. Nader and Gonzales say they will work for a single-payer health care system. Why not work for that?

The Democrats have refused to stand up to the current administration and hold it accountable for its misdeeds and violations of our Constitution. Like a passive-aggressive teenager, they wait for the Bush administration's end and hope that the Democrats can win the election in November. That's their campaign slogan: "Hope."

Why not work for a country that we can be proud of instead of settling for the least worst option? Learn about Ralph Nader's candidacy. Why not support someone who represents your ideals?

Steve Waugh

www.votenader.org

I simply cannot understand that there could be a doubt about who won the debate .
Just by comparing misstatements it is clear that it is Obama...to take just this one example.

Were you disgusted by the sound bite debate you had to endure last night? Did you wish there was someone on stage who was actually addressing substantive issues instead of trading resumes and platitudes? Outraged by the fact that third parties are deliberately and systematically excluded from public discourse and that millions of Americans consequently don't know that they can vote for real reform?

If you are, sign up to join Freedom Writers, the Nader campaign to end media bigotry by demanding that radio, television and newspaper stations cover third party candidates. We need you to help us break through the media blockade and bring real issues and solutions to the people!

Join Freedom Writers today.

www.votenader.org

Even according to your transcripts, Sen. Obama that he was talking about direct and immediate Presidential contacts with Iran without pre-conditions.

"McCain: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who's been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama's depiction of his -- of his positions on the issue. I've known him for 35 years.
Obama: We will take a look.
McCain: And I guarantee you he would not -- he would not say that presidential top level.
Obama: Nobody's talking about that."

Why don't you point that out? It is disingenuous that Kissinger would agree wholeheartedly with McCain, when it turns out that Obama actually had gotten it right....

Even according to your transcripts, Sen. Obama that he was talking about direct and immediate Presidential contacts with Iran without pre-conditions.

"McCain: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who's been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama's depiction of his -- of his positions on the issue. I've known him for 35 years.
Obama: We will take a look.
McCain: And I guarantee you he would not -- he would not say that presidential top level.
Obama: Nobody's talking about that."

Why don't you point that out? It is disingenuous that Kissinger would agree wholeheartedly with McCain, when it turns out that Obama actually had gotten it right....

I love these fact checks. It's too bad they can't be recorded instantaneously while the debate is actually going on. If we could have ticker tapes going on the bottom of the screen while a program is on, why can't we do something like this during the debates. For people to make informed decisions, they need the truth. It's something in short supply these days in America.

First off, I want to know why very few people in the media have picked up on the fact that Obama has said on the trail he has visited 57 states with two more to go, and told an audience full of veterans of war that as he looked out at all the fallen soldiers he was thankful. Macain can't blink or cough the wrong way without this and that being said, yet Obama is getting a free pass.
Second, Obama's economic advisors have all made millions working for the very companies we are now bailing out. Also, he has been in office a little under 4 years, yet has seen the 2nd most amount of money from the lending companies. On top of that Dodd and Frank have received millions from the companies they now say were poorly run. At least twice since 2001 Republicans have voted to reform the lending industry, and were stiffled by the other party both times.
The media needs to get with it, and stop playing favorites. Neither party is perfect, and both have helped to ruin this country, but fair is fair..The media needs to stop passing their opinion as news, and start meeting their responsibility.

While camping and attending a bluegrass music festival, I took a tour of Comanche Peak Power Plant,the last nuclear power plant built in the United States. The plant is unobtrusive and is at perfect harmony with its environment. It is located near Glen Rose Texas a beautiful area that has bluegrass band festivals in the summer. It is a wonderful scenic country area and home to Dinosaur World and a state park. There are dinosaur tracks from 100 million years ago along the riverbed that can be seen some say are heading in the direction of New York City. The Brazos river flows through and the place is an environmental heaven. There is old green Sinclair Oil Company dinasour statue that stands at the park. Ironically most of the stations and assets of Sinclair Oil Company was bought by Arco Oil Company. Arco Oil Company was a jewell of an American oil company that explored and developed the Alaskan North Slope and at one time owned eighty percent of our Alaskan oil reserves. Arco Oil Company was subsequently bought out later by foreign owned British Petroleum during the second administration of Bill Clinton. The point of this comment is twofold. Democratic hostility toward United States owned energy companies has led to the sale of United States oil companies to foreign interests and that nuclear power plants can even be located next to wonderful wildlife and park areas and make good unobtrusive neighbors. Nuclear power is a friend of the environment and does not emit green house gases.

Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin understand that under the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift, 300 million years ago when oil was formed all of the continents were one supercontinent called Pangea. The continents then drifted apart. The Africa coast was right up against North Carolina 300 million years ago. Today half of the oil production of Nigeria is now offshore and the odds of large offshore deposits off our east coast are very strong. There are also huge oil deposits off of east coast of Brazil. Brazil has tied up almost all of the world ocean drilling ships in the hopes of developing those deposits. Given there is confirmed oil off of Brazil, likely oil off the Southern US east coast and there is confirmed large deposits south of Newfoundland then it is likely there is oil all up and down the entire United States east coast. The United States has the largest coastline in the world and it is simple common sense to make use of those offshore resources to achieve our energy independence. John McCain energy proposals will bring about this development that we so desperately need.

Who gives a rip about Fox news? They are at least not getting on board with most of the eastern seaboard media who have annointed Obama without even knowing him.

Speaking for some undecided voters, I am sure, when I say that Michelle Obama is a highly paid hospital bureaucrat who would be right at home with most Republicans, if she hadn't been black by an accident of birth. Obama has spent the last decade desperately trying to move up in a financial sense, too. Taking the help of shady local underworld characters with financial dealings in the Middle East. He took their help gladly to get into his own expensive home, and he took the help of many people none of you would consider mainstream, such as his own Rev., whom he has now disowned.

How many Presidential candidates have such financial dealings with underworld characters in their own neighborhoods, then in the last months, are forced to say they don't share the views of their own clergyman they've followed for the past 20 years?

Not a one, excepting B. Obama. It's a miracle of his powers of oratory -- learned at Rev Wright's knee, as well as at Harvard -- that he was chosen to make the speech at the Democratic convention that brought him to national attention. It's another miracle that the country is/was being so poorly run for the past 8 years, that people jumped on Obama as their candidate for change.

Yeah, change is good. But voters should make sure they're not jumping from extreme incompetency to extreme corruptability. Because I see nothing in Obama's background to make me believe he and his administration wouldn't be as corrupt and money-grubbing, once they're in, as the Republicans have been.
He is primed to be even more corruptible, as he started out much poorer.

Senator John McCain picked Governor Sarah Palin because he intends to follow through and make his Project Lexington for United States energy independence the dominant issue in this campaign. Governor Sarah Palin is a strong supporter of increased offshore drilling and she knows that Alaska has an offshore coastline greater than the rest of the country combined and is also comes in second among the states in oil production. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and John McCain understand that Obama and the Democrats would never consider government loan guarantees or tax breaks for a sure thing that will produce energy for the American gas tank. In fact Democrats are trying to put together a so-called windfall profits tax which will have the effect of discouraging future investment in the United States oil industry. John McCain also knows that Governor Sarah Palin family situation also illustrates that longterm Democratic leadership hostility and policies toward United States owned energy companies have caused our current energy crisis. Her husband works for British Petroleum but instead should be working for the former American owned Arco Oil Company. Arco Oil Company developed and explored the Alaska North Slope and formerly owned eighty percent of our proven Alaskan reserves. With its substantial oil reserves Arco Oil Company should have bought British Petroleum instead of British Petroleum buying out Arco Oil Company during the second Bill Clinton administration. With the right business environment and support from both political parties in the United States, Arco Oil Company might have been more successful and been able to buy out British Petroleum instead of British Petroleum buying out Arco Oil Company. Look at Apple Computer and Microsoft. Their success in the computer world have made them bullet proof to corporate takeovers. Longterm Democratic hostility and opposition to offshore drilling and periodic talk of windfall profits taxes contributed to the takeover of Arco Oil Company.

The current gas lines and closed gas stations with no gas in the Southeast including Georgia and North Carolina are just a prelude of what we can expect under Barack Obama and Joe Biden energy policies of limited offshore exploration and no new refineries. Although these gas lines are an immediate result of the recent hurricane Ike that hit Galveston and the Gulf coast, they are indicative of the tenuous nature of our refinery capacity and existing supplies of petroleum. Our refineries have been stretched to their limits for decades. Do you think, oil companies are going to invest in the future in new refineries in the United States given the tepid Democratic Party leadership support of the oil industry and their insistence on mandates for alternative energy sources. Oil companies would have to be crazy to invest even a nickel in new refineries or even do basic repairs to existing refineries. I hope all the people currently driving around looking for gas are really diehard Obama supporters otherwise they may just question the energy policies of their leader and realize their tire air pressure guage is not going to help them with an empty gas tank.
President Jimmy Carter used to say the same thing while he wore his trademark sweaters and said that we needed to turn the thermostat down and put on our sweaters to stay warm. I think a lot of independent voters are not happy with Democratic Party energy policies. People do not like to stand in gas lines or have to push their cars.

It is a shame that the gas lines and empty gas stations are mainly in the southeast which will be all Redstates for McCain/Palin next month. It would be more poetic justice that the blue states of the northeast should suffer from the gas shortages caused by their Democratic leadership. The northeast has been lockstep in their opposition to offshore oil drilling, nuclear power, clean coal, and even wind energy in the Massachusetts bay area.