Note From AOL: The weekly Straw Poll is restarted every Friday around 12PM ET.
This is the latest version of our poll that includes third-party voting options as well as two choices of "Undecided" and "Other" candidate.Another change: You must have an AOL or AIM screenname to take the new poll. To get a free account, sign up quickly here.
Rev Wright Tony Rezko Michelle Obama Louis Farrakhan William Ayres Bernadine Dorhn Rashid Khalidi Nadhmi Auchi Frank Marshall Davis Saul Alinsky Father Pfleger Kwame Kilpatrick Rev Meeks George Soros Raila Odingo Abongo Obama Black Panthers Ludacris Ahmad Yousuf (Hamas) Fidel, Raul Castro Hugo Chavez Daniel Ortega Kim Jong Il
Change we can 'bereave' in
Vote FOR America ... McCain/Palin '08
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swamp
1:02PM Sep 25th 2008
Some of Obama's constituent friendly votes in Illinois.
- Voted AGAINST a bill letting people argue self-defense in court if charged with violating local weapons bans by using a gun in their home in self-defense.
- Unsuccessfully sponsored measure to expunge some criminal records and create an employment grant program for ex-criminals.
- Voted AGAINST making gang members eligible for the death penalty if they kill someone to help their gang.
- Voted AGAINST giving tax credits to parents who send their children to private school.
- Voted NO on a bill to give no offer of “good time” for sex offenders sentenced to the County Jail – Obama was the only vote against the bill.
- Voted “Present”on a bill to restrict the location of buildings with adult uses (you know porn shop, strip clubs, etc…) within 1,000 feet of any public or private elementary or secondary school, public park, place of worship, preschool, day-car facility, or residential area.
- Voted NO on a bill, requiring school boards to install software on public computers accessible to minors that blocked sexually explicit material.
- Voted YES on a bill that allowed the purchase of 10 hyperdemic needles from a pharmacy without a prescription.
- Voted “Present” on a bill which established a zero-tolerance drug-testing policy for Dep’t. of Corrections Employees.
- Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions.
Nice, huh?
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swamp
1:02PM Sep 25th 2008
Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions:
1. Dodd, Christopher D-CT $165,400 2. Obama, Barack D-IL $126,349 3. Kerry, John D-MA $111,000
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swamp
1:03PM Sep 25th 2008
Have you seen the video when the teleprompter goes down during Obama's speech? He looks like a fish out of water. That's the person that some of you want leading this nation? Obama is an automaton, if you erase his programing, he's just a plastic doll.
What Is To Be Done Can McCain thread the needle? by William Kristol 09/25/2008 11:35:00 AM
HERE'S THE SITUATION we McCain-sympathizing/Paulson-plan-skeptics/populist-inclined/but we've-got-to-be-responsible-in-a-crisis types face:
1. Something probably needs to be passed soon.
2. There are almost certainly superior alternatives to Paulson or even (especially?) to Paulson-as-modified (see, for example, this).
3. There's not enough time to write a new plan, get a consensus behind it, etc.
So: 4. We need to pass Paulson-as-modified ASAP.
McCain will throw his weight behind it and help get it through. But he will also makes clear that, as president--while of course standing behind all obligations incurred and transactions committed to under the Paulson regime--he's going to take a fresh look. He's going to convene the best people, he'll take a look at all the best ideas that have been put forward (ranging from Hillary Clinton's to Newt Gingrich's, from direct aid to housing to rights offerings by banks to changing accounting rules, etc.), and he will then plan on modifying/improving/adding to the Paulson plan going forward. This is delicate: McCain needs to reassure markets about the current commitments as well as promise further and better reforms. But this is the right position substantively and, I think, politically. It combines the best of McCain's impulses, and the twin requirements of presidential leadership: taking responsibility for what has to be done now, and committing to energetic and bold reform in the near future.
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swamp
1:05PM Sep 25th 2008
Barack Hussein Obama actively sought and received the stamp of approval of a Marxist third party that operated briefly in Chicago between 1992 and 1998.
The New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats. The New Party's short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party.
Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America and the militant organization ACORN. The party's Chicago chapter also included a large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members.
Vote FOR America ... McCain/Palin '08
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Roger Trew
1:05PM Sep 25th 2008
A Profile in Cowardice Joe Biden shirked his Constitutional responsibilities on the Iraq war.
By Gene Healy
In Friday’s presidential debate on foreign policy (assuming the show still goes on), we can be sure that Barack Obama will hit John McCain hard for supporting what Obama has called a “dumb war” in Iraq. But in doing so, Obama has at least one major handicap to overcome: his running mate.
In October 2002, Sen. Biden voted to authorize the Iraq war. “I made a mistake,” he now says — he had “vastly underestimated” how incompetent the Bush administration would be in prosecuting the war.
So has Biden changed his position on Iraq? Not really. In October 2002, when the congressional vote was held, Biden, like most members of Congress, was in favor of avoiding accountability and punting the question of war or peace to the president. And Biden remains firmly in favor of avoiding accountability for Iraq today. That tells us something about Joe Biden’s judgment and integrity. More importantly, it tells us a lot about the health of Congress as a political institution, and about the erosion of Congress’s power to declare war.
As James Madison put it, “In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.” But Biden, and a majority of senators and House members, ignored that wisdom in 2002 and voted for a use-of-force resolution that handed a “blank check” to the president, as Sen. Robert Byrd rightly observed at the time. True, the resolution features some boilerplate about exhausting other options before using force, and prominent lawmakers have used that language to suggest they didn’t “really” vote for war. But the operative clause of the resolution — “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” in order to defend American national security and enforce U.N. resolutions regarding Iraq — left it up to the president to decide whether and when to initiate the war.
After voting for the resolution, prominent members of Congress insisted they hadn’t voted to use force. That was for the president to decide. Former senator Tom Daschle said: “Regardless of how one may have voted on the resolution last night, I think there is an overwhelming consensus . . . that while [war] may be necessary, we’re not there yet.” And in 2007, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe explained that Senator Clinton never voted for the Iraq war: instead, she voted “to give the president the authority to negotiate and to have a stick to go over there and negotiate with Saddam Hussein.”
Biden’s post-hoc rationalizations for his vote follow the same pattern. “If I had known this administration would be so incompetent,” he told interviewer Charlie Rose in 2004, “I never would have given them the authority to try to avoid the war,” which is an interesting way to describe a resolution titled “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.” In fact, Biden is at least as complicit in the decision to go to war as is Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Biden joined with McCain to defeat an amendment offered by Senator Carl Levin that would have forced President Bush to get U.N. Security Council approval before launching the invasion.
It’s still hard to get a firm answer from Biden as to whether he supported the invasion and occupation of a country that represented no serious threat to the United States. But he insists that he was firmly against botching the job. Well . . . who wasn’t?
Such evasiveness is all too common in Congress today. The power of the presidency continues to grow largely because many legislators want to duck their responsibility to decide the question of war and peace, delegate that responsibility to the president, and reserve their right to criticize him should military action go badly — to be for it before they were against it, or vice versa, depending on which way the political winds blow.
Congressional scholar Louis Fisher compares the Iraq vote to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that empowered Lyndon Johnson to expand the Vietnam War. As with the Iraq-war resolution, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was worded broadly enough to allow the president to make the final decision about war all by himself. Lyndon Johnson compared the resolution to “grandma’s nightshirt” because it “covered everything.” And, as with Iraq, the president waited for several months and an intervening election before using the authority granted him. In each case, it was easier for Congress to dodge the issue than to take responsibility.
That is not how our Constitution is supposed to operate. As Madison put it: “Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.”
That’s a principle that gets very little respect from today’s accountability-shy legislators. Shortly before the vote, Biden declared, “I am fully confident if the president decides, in concert with others, war is necessary, he will have to inform [the American people] before he launches it.” But it is not for the president to decide whether war is necessary. The Constitution leaves that decision to Congress. That prominent senators — and vice-presidential candidates — squirm to avoid responsibility for it, does not bode well for the future health of either branch.
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Roger Trew
1:05PM Sep 25th 2008
Dr. Jack Wheeler Regarding Obama
Jack Wheeler is a brilliant man who was the author of Reagan's strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union with the star wars race and expose their inner weakness. For years he wrote a weekly intelligence update that was extremely interesting and well structured and informed. He consults(ed) with several mega corporations on global trends and the future, etc. I think he is in semi-retirement now. He is a true patriot with a no-nonsense approach to everything.
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.
He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.
What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.
Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Therefore, he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.
It's something Hillary doesn't understand - how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Democratic nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white.
Thus, Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White. There is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed In Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because it is absurd.
Thank heavens the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior.
His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any FREE thinking American.
AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, I’M FINALLY VOTING DEMOCRAT!
1. I'm voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.
2. I’m voting Democrat because the party of “tolerance” accepts me completely, unless, of course, I disagree with them.
3. I’m voting Democrat because I don’t pay enough taxes now, I feel I should pay much more and the Democrat party will offer me that opportunity.
4. I’m voting Democrat because I feel guilty for sacrificing and working hard all my life and becoming a “wealthy” American; while thousands of others wake up late, sit around, watch tv, have multiple babies without being married, don’t bother educating themselves or actually working to support themselves. It would be so nice to help them by giving away a big chunk of my paycheck for all the social services our Democrat party provides!
5. I’m voting Democrat because I believe if you can make it into America you’re home free! Yippee! We’ll give you all kinds of goodies. A free place to live, free food to eat, a free education, free medical care, free spending money, and all kinds of rights and freedoms-and you can bring all your relatives and friends here too-just tell them you’re a friend of the Democrat and to break into America at night when no ones watching. Oh, and we’ll make you a citizen too! Welcome hombre’.
6. I'm voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.
7. I’m voting Democrat because I won’t have to do any research on anything; global warming, prices of oil, political candidates, old laws, new laws, etc., I just listen to what they say and believe it-because they’re all about “protecting the little guy” that’s me! right?
8. I'm voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the terrorists will just stay in their own little hellhole and continue to torture, rape, murder, and bomb their own countrymen. They wouldn’t even think of coming to America, cause we’re tough, darn it. [oh wait, that already happened remember 9/11/01-nevermind, it won’t happen again with Democrats in charge]
9. I'm voting Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.
10. I'm voting Democrat because I believe the scientists and meteorologists [who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday] can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years because of all the global warming we’re perpetuating.
11. I'm voting Democrat because I believe business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrats see fit.
12. I'm voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.
13. I’m voting Democrat because I believe no one needs to be able to defend themselves with a firearm and the government should start rounding up all the guns owned by citizens. After all, the police will come to our rescue after we sit down and calmly negotiate with the gun toting bad dude who’s just broken into our homes. Criminals will follow the laws and surrender their guns too, right?
14. I'm voting Democrat because they stay out of my personal life and they don't tell me what I can, and cannot do with my body.
15. I’m voting Democrat because the baby growing inside me isn’t really a person so it has no rights to anything, especially no right to live… if I decide I don't want it.
16. I'm voting Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
17. I'm voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my dog.
Tell me, why would anyone ever vote Republican?
THIS LIST OF REASONS IS DESIGNED TO MAKE YOU LAUGH AT THOSE WHO ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO FALL FOR THE PERPETUAL GARBAGE TOSSED OUT BY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. IT SHOULD PROVOKE THOUGHT AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, IT SHOULD CLARIFY, PRECISELY WHY I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!
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swamp
1:06PM Sep 25th 2008
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
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swamp
1:07PM Sep 25th 2008
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
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rosie
1:08PM Sep 25th 2008
Obama is proving that he is not ready to be president. He is looking disinterested and tired. He can't go to Washington to help this country out. He might forget his speech for Friday night. What a joke obama is.
A Presidential McCain McCain's bold move could reframe the election--and win it. by William Kristol 09/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
THERE'S A REASON voters in presidential races tend to shy away from electing senators. The primary skills of a legislator--talking, compromising, "representing"--are different from those of an executive--deciding, choosing, "executing." There are individuals who have the ability both to deliberate patiently and act energetically--but it's a rare combination. The best legislators tend not to be great executives, and vice-versa.
This year, for the first time in U.S. history, both major party nominees for president are sitting senators. The winner may be the one who can convince some portion of the electorate that he's less "senatorial," and more "presidential," than the other.
That's why McCain's action Wednesday--announcing he would come back to Washington to try to broker a deal to save our financial system--could prove so important. The rescue package that was so poorly crafted and defended by the Bush administration seemed to be sliding toward defeat. The presidential candidates were on the sidelines, carping and opining and commenting. But one of them, John McCain, intervened suddenly and boldly, taking a risk in order to change the situation, and to rearrange the landscape.
Of course his motives were partly election-related. But "the interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place." If candidate McCain, for whatever mixed motives, ends up acting in a way that results in a deal that is viewed as better than the original proposal, and that seems to stabilize the markets and avert a meltdown--he'll benefit politically, and he deserves to. For McCain will have acted presidentially in the campaign--which some voters, quite reasonably, will think speaks to his qualifications to be president.
As for the question of Friday night's debate, which some in the media seem to think more important than saving the financial system--if the negotiations are still going on in D.C., McCain should offer to send Palin to debate Obama! Or he can take a break from the meetings, fly down at the last minute himself, and turn a boring foreign policy debate, in which he and Obama would repeat well-rehearsed arguments, into a discussion about leadership and decisiveness. And if the negotiations are clearly on a path to success, then McCain can say he can now afford to leave D.C., fly down, and the debate would become a victory lap for McCain.
So the action of these few days becomes more important than the talk of that hour and a half Friday night. One could even say the contrast between the two men in action becomes the true debate over who should be president. The media, being talkers and debaters, love debates, overestimate their importance, and are underestimating the possible effect of McCain's dramatic action. In the debate itself, McCain should mock the media's greater concern for gabbing than solving our economic problems, and should associate Obama with such a talk-heavy media-type approach to politics. If the race is between an energetic executive and an indecisive talker, the energetic executive should win.
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Kathy C.
1:10PM Sep 25th 2008
Subject: What in God's name are ya lads thinkin over in the colonies?
> Subject: from Ireland . . . > > > > > Trust the Irish to see through the blarney and see > the basics of politics in just a few sentences... > > A point to ponder despite anyone's political > affiliation: > > We, in Ireland , can't figure out why you > people are even bothering to hold an election in the United > States . > > On one side, you had a pants wearing female lawyer, > married to another lawyer who can't seem to keep his > pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a > lawyer, who goes to the wrong church, who is married to yet > another lawyer, who doesn't even like the country her > husband wants to run. > > Now... On the other side, you have a nice old war > hero whose name starts with the appropriate 'Mc' > terminology, married to a good looking younger woman who > owns a beer distributorship!! > > What in God's name are ya lads thinkin over in > the colonies?
GOTTA LOVE THE IRISH!!!
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Carmac
1:10PM Sep 25th 2008
The Neocon Game:
Tell the lie, then
Repeat the lie Repeat the lie Repeat the lie
- and -
Lie any way you can Lie any way you can Lie any way you can
The Neocon Patron Saint: Joseph Goebbels
UPDATED: Added additional sources, Citizen Status, Taxes, Quotes, more on birth, additional lies debunked.
Republican, some Conservatives, Neocon equals Nazi?
Had to add that 'some' - Goldwater was a conservative, didn't lie much.
(Walk like a duck, quack like a duck, you must be a ... )
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield
the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress
dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels.
When you know you lie, you follow in Goebbels' footsteps. You should know where those lead.
(And YES - The Liars KNOW They Are LYING!)
Some don't like the Nazi reference (National Socialist Party) - but it is the infamy of their methods, including the lies (specially the lies) I'm referencing. The
same principle was also adopted and adapted by others (USSR famously) and most recently by Karl Rove and now, others on this board.
This is "AMERICA" land of the FREE and HOME of the COURAGEOUS and BRAVE. NO SOCIALIST WEENIES, DICTATOR COMMUNISTS, OR TERRORISTS ALLOWED OR NEED APPLY! IF YOU DON'T LOVE AMERICA JUST THE WAY SHE IS, THEN GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! THIS MESSAGE DIRECTLY APPLIES TO BARACK OBAMA, NANCY PELOSI, HARRY REID AND THE REST OF THE FAR LEFT LIBERAL SOCIALISTS WHO ARE INFESTING OUR COUNTRY WITH THEIR MARXIST ANTI-AMERICA AGENDA. STAND UP AMERICANS AND FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY! This message was brought to you by citizens to preserve and strengthen America. God Bless America! ..................................................
Well said. Thank you. NObama bin Biden
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Mad Dog
1:12PM Sep 25th 2008
Finally, AOL cleaned up the comments. Anyway, before this board gets flooded, I want to say that the previous poll was not done right. The 25th isn't even over yet, yet AOL restarted the straw poll with McCain for the first time I've seen losing VT and DC. Every other poll has had McCain win each and every state.
AOL you guys need to start using your own poll instead of quoting other polls that favour flip-flopping freaking loser Obummer.
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CLINTON FOR MCCAIN
1:12PM Sep 25th 2008
WHITE PEOPLE THAT VOTE FOR OBAMA IS LIKE A CHICKEN VOTEING FOR COLONAL SANDERS
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HH
1:12PM Sep 25th 2008
McCAIN/PALIN 2008!
Obama has no clue how to deal with any crisis whatsoever, nor can he priorities what is actually important. He in incompetent as a Senator (voting "present" or not answering to difficult questions because they are above his pay grade)- he will be completely unprepared, incompetent and useless.
Not to mention he is a racist, sexist, arrogant, self-righteous, anti-American con artist!