rickyp wrote:Really Tom? You'd like to go back through the vaults and review all the Palinisms to se which ones were taken out of context and which ones are "free range". The reason the majority of Americans have a negative opinion of Palin is that they've been exposed to the unvarnished (and unedited) Palin repeatedly...

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom

Before the advent of electronic media, Thomas Jefferson waged his 1800 campaign for President against John Adams with the help of widely distributed pamphlets and the support of sympathetic newspapers. In 1828, candidates Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams lambasted one another in pamphlets, often with personal attacks.

Please elucidate Ricky. How is the answer wrong?

GMTom wrote:SHE WAS TALKING TO KIDS! Her position was not 100% factual but was close enough to have them understand and that my friend is good communication is it not?

rickyp wrote:The vice president doesn't "run the senate" does he/she?
As President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3, Clause 4), the Vice President oversees procedural matters (rarely occurs in fact) and may cast a tie-breaking vote.

rickyp wrote:That the Vice President has been assigned executive duties by Presidents is a fairly modern ocurrence.

rickyp wrote:That Palin was confused there is little doubt.

Ray Jay wrote:I wonder how the press will treat Ms. Bachmann. She is every bit as conservative as Ms. Palin, and every bit as attractive (or more so). But she is a very bright woman and more professional than Ms. Palin. If she is treated more fairly by the MSM it would suggest that it is Ms. Palin's style that is the issue. If she is treated unfairly, we can attribute it to sexism against attractive women or unfair bias against the right wing by the MSM. I'm guessing all of the above.

Not that it matters but Both are attractive women but I think Palin is a bit better looking.

danivon wrote:Aye. Bachmann is better looking.

Personally, I think both should be opposed based on their policies, not their personality (or their cuteness)

Federal gun agents in Arizona — convinced that “someone was going to die” when their agency allowed weapons sales to suspected Mexican drug traffickers — made anguished pleas to be permitted to make arrests but were rebuffed, according to a new congressional report on the controversial law enforcement probe.

Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told congressional investigators that there was “a state of panic” that the guns used in the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in January and two U.S. agents in Mexico a month later might have been sold under the U.S. surveillance operation.

“I used the word anxiety. The term I used amongst my peers is pucker factor,” Larry Alt, special agent with ATF’s Phoenix field division, told investigators preparing a joint staff report for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The report will be released Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Neither of those shootings was ultimately linked to the “Fast and Furious” probe, though two weapons sold to a suspect under surveillance were found at the scene of the fatal shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Nogales, Ariz., in December.

Terry’s family will be among the key witnesses at an oversight committee hearing Wednesday on the ATF operation, under which the bureau allowed purchases of high-powered weapons in an attempt to track their progress into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. According to the report and numerous interviews with The Times, several ATF agents regarded the operation as dangerous and misguided…

Democrat Senators Dianne Feinstein, Sheldon Whitehouse and Charles Schumer – the latter whose one-time protégé Anthony Weiner has been making so much news lately on a different subject – issued a report that essentially accuses U.S. gun manufacturers and dealers of arming Mexican drug cartels. They got some timely help from Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and American gun owners are furious.

“I accuse the U.S. weapons industry of (responsibility for) the deaths of thousands of people that are occurring in Mexico. It is for profit, for the profits that it makes for the weapons industry.”—President Filipe Calderon, Mexico


The Feinstein-Schumer-Whitehouse (FSW) report offers the following remedies to Mexico’s violent drug wars:

Conclusions of the report:

It will be very difficult to successfully reduce drug-related violence in Mexico without starving the country’s drug trafficking organizations of their military-style weapons.

To do this, the United States must strengthen current firearms laws and regulations. This can be done through a number of key actions by the Obama Administration and Congress, including:

Enactment of legislation to close the gun show loophole;
Better enforcement of the existing ban on imports of military-style weapons;
Reinstatement of the expired Assault Weapons Ban;
Reporting by Federal Firearms Licensees on all multiple firearms sales; and
Senate ratification of the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking of Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA).