Politics
Maggie, you say that Obama was never specific in his speeches? That he uses flowery, pointless language? Look at his speech from DNC. Here's some specific bulleted points I pulled right out of his speech.
- John McCain defines middle class as someone making under $5 million a year. He proposes hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companties.
- John McCain has been in Washington for 28 years and in that time he has said no to higher fuel efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to reneable fuels.
- Average American family has seen it's income go down $2,000 under Bush
- Obama will cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families... the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.
- In ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East; Obama will invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy, wind power, solar power, biofuel.
- He will invest in early childhood education, pay higher wages to teachers, give them more support, and ecpect higher standards.
- Obama will lower health care premuims, make sure everyone has health care of some kind.
- He will change bankrupcty laws so that pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses, and to protect Social Security for the future generation.
- Obama has laid out how he'll pay for everything he proposes, by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. He also plans to go through the federal budget eliminating programs that no longer work.
- He has a time frame to remove the troops from Iraq, which has been echoed by the Iraqi government. Iraq has a $79 billion in surplus while we are wallowing in debt.
- Obama argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.
- You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances.
- He talks about individual responsibility, how we each have a duty to the next generation, to ourselves, and to the planet.
- Obama's plan would include $65 billion in rebates for middle-class earners and $50 billion divided between infrastructure spending and money for states and local governments.
Okay, so the bullets are a little messy, but that's the gist of it.
Beka, so you don't like Sarah Palin, right? You really can't stand her, you say. But you say you like McCain. If this is the person McCain picks as his running mate, what makes you think he'll make decisions in the future that you support? To figure out someone's caliber and personality, and to see what other choices they'll make in a position of power, look at what they have already done. McCain has chosen a person to help him become President, a person that you dislike. How can you think that any of his other decisions will be any different? Especially for cabinet positions, if he surrounds himself with advisors who's policies you disagree with, what does that say about the choices he'll make?
Another thing Beka, you said that Iraq doesn't have a stable military? It does, and the government wants us out.
FACT: The significant drop in violence in the Iraqi capital along with a well-trained Iraqi army is likely to lead to the 16,000 US troops being withdrawn by next July.
Gen Petraeus, who was one of the architects behind the surge strategy, said Iraq had become a "dramatically changed country" since he took over command in February last year.
"There is certainly a degree of hope that was not present 19 months ago," said Gen Petraeus, who this month takes over as head of US Central Command in overall charge of Iraq and Afghanistan. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/2682776/Gen-Petraeus-US-troops-to-withdraw-from-Baghdad-by-next-summer.html)
FACT: Details of final US troops numbers are being discussed with the Iraqi government but it is expected that all cities will be free of American troops by next year and all but a handful will have left Iraq by 2011.
But if Barack Obama is elected president he has promised this date would be early 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/2682776/Gen-Petraeus-US-troops-to-withdraw-from-Baghdad-by-next-summer.html)
FACT: Details of final US troops numbers are being discussed with the Iraqi government but it is expected that all cities will be free of American troops by next year and all but a handful will have left Iraq by 2011.
But if Barack Obama is elected president he has promised this date would be early 2010. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/opinion/05nagl.html?ref=opinion)
Jen:
FACT: McCain said “fight” in his speech 43 times.
Do we really need more violence in the world today?
FACT: Obama has missed 290 votes, but that's only 45.5% of all votes.
ON THE OTHER HAND
FACT: McCain has missed 407 votes, that's 63.8%.
FACT: John McCain has voted with a majority of his Republican colleagues 88.3% of the time during the current Congress. He has voted with Bush 90% of the time.