Posted by Wayne Garcia on Oct. 15, 2008, at 6:55 pm
We’re on live! Go down to comments and give us your thoughts and questions. And at any time, feel free to call “bullshit” and ask for a FACTCHECK. I will work my hardest and quickest to see what I can find out during the debate itself.
We just heard from state Rep. Michael Scionti here.
Here’s video of our interview with Rep. Michael Scionti:
And Hillsborough County Commission candidate Kevin Beckner stopped by to remind the crowd why they shouldn’t vote for incumbent Brian Blair.
The third and final round of the Barack Obama-John McCain debates is set for 9 p.m. at Hofstra University on Long Island.
I will be camped out at Tre Amici coffeehouse in Ybor City Wednesday to lead the troops in commenting and fact-checking the debates as we have Round 2 and the vice presidential. Just check back on PoHo blog sometime between 8:30 and 9 tonight.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Oct. 8, 2008, at 10:01 am
Issue: In last night’s second presidential debate, John McCain said, “My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations.” (source: CNN.com)
Facts: OK, we admit to initially being stumped by McCain’s assertion that the bailout plan, for which he suspended his campaign and went to Washington to urge lawmakers to pass, was secretly helping terrorist organizations. (Transitively, does that mean that McCain was supporting terrorist organizations? Of course not.)
But there is a possible indirect link between the bailout plan for bad mortgages and terrorism. This from Diane Francis of The National Post in Canada:
In fact, an Assyrian news website carried a story back in mid-2007 that FBI and other officials were concerned about a “growing trend of terrorist associations [involved] with mortgage fraud rings in the U.S.”
“In the past year [2007], several high-profile mortgage fraud arrests have been tied to federal terrorism investigations, most notably a ring busted up in Salt Lake City that is alleged to have direct ties to the late al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” said the story.
Money was obtained from banks fraudulently then transferred to Middle Eastern bank accounts controlled by terrorists. These cases grind through courts.
A man arrested in December at the Kansas City airport with $70,000 in his bulging pockets while trying to board a Southwest Airlines flight claiming the money was actually Muslim prayer books, a San Francisco mortgage company executive who went on the run from the FBI in November, seven people arrested in September in Salt Lake City with ties to al-Qaeda, and a co-defendant in the Sami al-Arian/Palestinian Islamic Jihad trial all have one thing in common — the growing trend of terrorist associations with mortgage fraud rings in the US.
(It must be pointed out that the Assyrian account lists Al-Arian co-defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh as part of this great mortgage fraud terrorism effort, a gross misrepresentation of the mortgage fraud charge he pleaded to in court. His fraud charges related to his concealment of his employment at the Islamic Academy, and not fraud in subprime mortgages. Oh, and Hammoudeh was not a terrorist, either.)
The UK, likewise, has suspicions that terrorists used bad mortgages:
An intelligence report by the Association of Chief Police Officers said that organised crime groups used mortgage fraud to generate income and launder money from the proceeds of their operations, such as drugs, human trafficking and prostitution.
“While there is no evidence to suggest mortgage fraud directly funds terrorist acts, this area of criminality has been encountered during investigations into UK-based terrorist groups,” it said. “Mortgage fraud can be used to finance infrastructure including safe houses.”
Given this tenuous link to terrorism (if that is indeed what McCain was referring to) and misimpression that either the bailout or Wall Street aided terrorists, we judge this statement to be Bullshit.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Oct. 7, 2008, at 8:49 pm
UPDATE: We’re open for business at 8:49 pm, here just before the start and watching “The Biggest Loser.” Appropriate, huh?
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Just a reminder for you to join us tonight as we live blog our thoughts as Barack Obama and John McCain duke it out in Round 2 of the 2008 presidential debates. This one is live from Nashville.
I’ll put up an open thread just before 9 p.m. Drinking game words: middle class, economy, tax cuts, terrorists, William Ayers (double shot), Charles Keating (double shot), moose (entire bottle or full beer), every time Brokaw mumbles.
The debate setting at Belmont University in the Music City
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Oct. 6, 2008, at 3:00 pm
Hey, I know we had a software glitch that made the Palin-Biden liveblogging last week just about as unsatisfying as my 1978 high school prom date, but we’re going to try again this Tuesday night at 9 p.m. as Barack Obama and John McCain go at it in a town-hall setting.
Expect McCain to come out blasting Obama’s character and the fact that he consorted with former domestic terrorists. Obama’s job is to keep reminding everyone of the Dow Jones Industrials Average. Expect me to ask the immortal question: Where the hell is Belmont University?
Yummy presidential debate water in preparation for Tuesday's event
Make a notation in your PDA of choice for Thursday night at 9 p.m. for the vice presidential debates between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. I’ll be here (sorry, I was on the road traveling last Friday night for the first presidential debate) ready at the enter key for the veep battle, and I will open a thread just before the show starts.
In the meantime, some reading material background for you to digest so you can have informed and intelligent comments (along with the usual barrage of partisan insults and snarky remarks). This is from the Marist Poll, full text after the jump:
Sen. John McCain has announced he will be attending tonight’s debate after all. I guess he got tired screwing up the economic bailout, grabbed a nap and upon waking realized that skipping the debate would be campaign suicide. Good to see McCain’s not suicidal.
As a reminder, we’ll be live blogging the debate tonight starting at 8 p.m. (Perhaps you’ve noticed our snazzy countdown clock at top-right.)
You didn’t think the McCain campaign’s little ploy would shut down the CL live blogging of the debates, did you? Not a chance! Tomorrow night at about 8 p.m. we’ll be opening a thread and hammering away at the candidates and the issues during the first presidential debate of the 2008 election season. Or we’ll be yakking about the most interesting town hall meeting of the campaign. Who knows, maybe even Bob Barr will make an appearance? No matter the news between now and then, bring your wit and wisdom to PoHo blog tomorrow night and let the debate begin!
Faithful PoHo readers will note the addition of a countdown clock at the top-right of the blog. The tick-tock is counting down to CL’s live blogging of first presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. The debate is scheduled to begin this Fri., Sept. 26, at 9 p.m., and we’ll have a thread open for live blogging before, during and after the main event. Expect something similar to what we did for both party’s conventions, with participants adding color commentary, instant fact-checking and the analysis with attitude that you can only get from Creative Loafing.
If you can’t make it on Friday, fear not faithful reader: We’ll be also be live blogging the other debates (two additional presidential debates, one V.P. debate), giving you four chances to add your voice to the animated conversation surrounding one of the most exciting presidential elections in American history.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 28, 2007, at 10:00 pm
Michael Para, of Orlando, is dressed as a founding father. “I want to revive the spirit of liberty that people forgot about or are apathetic to.” (Photo: Katherine Clement)
Rudy Giuliani supporters try to escape the downpour. (Photo: Katherine Clement)
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 28, 2007, at 1:50 pm
The 25-foot HDTV screen at the Mahaffey for the YouTube debate
(photo: Wayne Garcia’s crappy TREO)
Lots of stuff going on in downtown St. Petersburg with the GOP debate tonight, and Creative Loafing’s non-pack journalism truth will shine through like a beacon in the night.
Bullshit aside, we’ll have four reporters on hand at all the rallies, straw polls, protests, fat-cat parties, the debate Spin Room and most of the major restrooms in the area to give complete coverage of the real issues, e.g. why does the MSM so love Mike Huckabee, considering he was virulently anti-press as governor, even vindictively pulling one newspaper off his office’s e-mail distribution list? Or how he worked so hard to free a rapist? Or why Rudy Giuliani is loading up his campaign with dangerous war-mongering neocons like Norman Podhoretz and talking tough about Iran? Or why Big Coal is sponsoring the debate? Or what is feels like to stand near Chuck Norris in the Spin Room?
Post a comment if you have a question you want us to pursue, or if you are at one of the rallies or protests and have a perspective to add? I’ll add coverage in comments as the night progresses.
CLICK COMMENTS to read ongoing updates from CL reporters and others.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 27, 2007, at 3:01 pm
Hot off the RPOF presses:
UPDATE: CNN debate producer David Bohrman refuses to say which questions will be on the telecast tonight, except in one case. “I can actually reveal that we will not have the governor’s question,” he said during a media walk-through yesterday afternoon. “Governors already have access to these candidates,” he said.
Crist taped the question more as a publicity stunt. It was not submitted by the YouTube deadline.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 27, 2007, at 1:45 pm
Prepping today for the GOP CNN-YouTube-Snowman debate tomorrow in St. Pete when I tripped across libertarian/interwebs craze Dr. Ron Paul’s listing of his finishes in recent straw polls. Now, of course, these polls are not scientific and are largely meaningless, but that doesn’t stop him or his supporters from touting them as proof of some kind of glitch or conspiracy in national polls that show Paul running closer to the bottom of the pack.
Here’s a few of the recent straw polls in which Paul did remarkably well:
New York State Republican Straw Poll, New York City, NY
11/6/2007
1
43.3%
South Sound Ronald Reagan Republican Club, Tacoma, WA
11/01/2007
1
37.7%
Springfield Metropolitan Republican Club, Springfield, MO
11/01/2007
1
77.3%
Laramie County GOP Straw Poll, Cheyenne, WY
10/28/2007
1
48.0%
Gotta put some extra troops on the ground in Evanston, apparently.
Lower in the listings, you find he also finished first in a straw poll at the Ronald Reagan Club in Washington state. I simply must drop in one those cats next time I am in the Pac Northwest, get my dark blue suit pressed neat for the occasion. As this video shows, 43 votes will win you this much coveted title:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 4, 2007, at 2:22 pm
More lowlights from the GOP Presidential Debate:
Moderator: Governor Thompson, same theme. If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?
Thompson: I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be.
Moderator: OK. So the answer’s yes.
Thompson: Yes.
The former Bush cabinet member was the only candidate to be given a chance to respond to the question, or else, no doubt, he would not have been alone.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 4, 2007, at 2:20 pm
For those who weren’t glued to their cable-enabled televisions for what one wag has termed a 10-man simultaneous press conference (more commonly known as the GOP President Debates from California on MSNBC), there is this gem about evolution.
John McCain was asked about his views on the scientific fact that is natural selection and evolution:
Moderator: Senator McCain, this comes from a Politico.com reader and was among the top vote getters in our early rounds. They want a yes or a no. Do you believe in evolution?
McCain: Yes.
Moderator: I’m curious, is there anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution?
At this point, three proud Christian conservatives raised their hands: Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee.
Such is the power and lure of Christian voters in the Republican presidential primary that these three brainiacs are willing to turn aside all of their education and hundreds of years of evidence to please those who want to throw Darwin into the trash heap.
Even McCain felt compelled to soften his correct answer a bit to kowtow to the Christian Right:
McCain: May I just add to that?
Moderator: Sure.
McCain: I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.
