Obama '08?

The Big Lie

You missed the point, Okie, completely. I said that I started using Rasmussen here a year and a half or more ago. I suggested that, if anyone wants to use some OTHER poll, that is fine. But in order to have any relevance, any OTHER poll would have to be cited showing changes over a similar period of time on any given topic. Do you agree?

Just To Mess With Your Heads (Rasmussen 5/19):
81% of Americans polled view the size of our deficit as a major problem.
49% blame President Bush with 56% saying he increased spending too much.
43% say the increase in the deficit is Obama's fault.

The issue is not that Rasmussen predicted correctly ANY election but that is consistantly an outlier that elevates the popularity of the GOP, far beyond what the rest of the polling organiztions show.

My initial post was directly related to your use of suspect data sources that have been shown to be inconsistant with the other polling organizations in polling popularity, not actual elections.

In affect, you want people to use an 11 inch ruler to measure the fish you caught, so you can proclaim you caught a one foot long stripped bass.

It is dishonest, and you ought to be ashamed for attempting to sell such ****.

eoe wrote:

You know the name of that tune, Cyclo. Lie or truth, fact or fiction, all you have to do is repeat it over and over and enough dimwits will start to believe it.

Yes indeed it's a practice known as The Big Lie.

Obama is quite fond of it.

Again, I am more interested in accuracy, I don't care if you term accuracy as suspect just because it doesn't agree with your pre-conceived ideas or "polling popularity." Frankly, "polling popularity" strikes me as nothing more than bogus polling spin, not reality.

In one of the most obscene cases of members of Congress diverting Defense Budget dollars to pet projects that benefit their special-interest benefactors, members of the House and Senate have earmarked more than $1.2 billion for an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter since 2004, even though the Department of Defense has repeatedly said it does not want or need the alternate engine and both the Bush and Obama Administrations have tried to eliminate it.

The Joint Strike Fighter is a stealth, supersonic aircraft designed to replace the aging fighter and strike aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. In 2001, after a fair and open competition, the Defense Department chose Lockheed Martin to engineer and manufacture the JSF, and Lockheed’s winning bid included an engine to be designed and built by Pratt & Whitney.

However, bowing to appeals from Pratt & Whitney’s competitor, General Electric (GE), some members of Congress with GE facilities in their states and districts have been forcing the Defense Department to fund the development of an “alternate engine” manufactured by GE. (This is the same GE that recorded $10.3 billion in pretax income last year but didn’t pay a dime in taxes to the U.S. Government!)

GE and its congressional backers claim that the alternate engine will create competition and bring down costs. However, the U.S. Air Force and two independent panels have concluded that an alternate engine is “not necessary and not affordable” and that the alleged savings from creating a “mock competition” will never be achieved.

Just completing testing and getting the alternate engine ready for production is estimated to cost $2.9 billion on top of what has previously been spent -- when the Pratt & Whitney engine has already received Pentagon approval and is being manufactured and tested in JSF aircraft right now.

If the Department of Defense has to maintain two engines with different parts and technicians and requiring different upgrades over time, the overall cost of the JSF program will climb dramatically, and America’s warfighters will get fewer of these vitally needed aircraft.

In fact, Air Force General Mark Shackelford testified before a Senate subcommittee last year that funding an alternate engine would mean cutting two to four aircraft in 2009 and as many as 53 in the next five years.

This could not be a more clear-cut case of members of Congress jeopardizing the safety of our troops and this nation so that they can "deliver the bacon" back home!

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Year………………………..USA Total Civil Employed
...
2001………………..............136,933,000 [BUSH43 2001 TO 2009]
…
2007...........................146,047,000
…
2008:
August........................ 145,273,000
September……………... 145,029,000
October....................... 144,650,007
November................... 144,144,000
December.................... 143,338,000

2009: [OBAMA 2009 TO ?]

January.................... 142,221,000
February................... 141,687,000
March......................140,854,000
April...................... 140,902,000
May........................ 140,438,000
June....................... 140,038,000
July....................... 139,817,000
August..................... 139,433,000
September................ 138,768,000
October.................... 138,242,000
November................... 138,381,000
December................... 137,792,000

2010:
January (3)................ 138,333,000
February................... 138,641,000
March...................... 138,905,000

Memo from 2002 could complicate challenge of Arizona immigration law

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 18, 2010; A17

In the legal battle over Arizona's new immigration law, an ironic subtext has emerged: whether a Bush-era legal opinion complicates a potential Obama administration lawsuit against Arizona.

The document, written in 2002 by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that state police officers have "inherent power" to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law. It was issued by Jay S. Bybee, who also helped write controversial memos from the same era that sanctioned harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

The author of the Arizona law -- which has drawn strong opposition from top Obama administration officials -- has cited the authority granted in the 2002 memo as a basis for the legislation. The Obama administration has not withdrawn the memo, and some backers of the Arizona law said Monday that because it remains in place, a Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona would be awkward at best.

"The Justice Department's official position as of now is that local law enforcement has the inherent authority to enforce federal immigration law," said Robert Driscoll, a former Justice Department Civil Rights Division official in the George W. Bush administration who represents an Arizona sheriff known for aggressive immigration enforcement. "How can you blame someone for exercising authority that the department says they have?"

The Arizona law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) last month, makes the "willful failure" to carry immigration documents a crime and empowers police to question anyone if authorities have a "reasonable suspicion" the person is an illegal immigrant. It has drawn words of condemnation from President Obama and intense opposition from civil rights groups, who on Monday filed what they said was the fifth federal lawsuit over the legislation.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said the department is considering a lawsuit against Arizona, and Civil Rights Division lawyers have been studying the law and consulting with some civil rights groups.

"The Civil Rights Division has been working around the clock," said one outside lawyer who has spoken to Justice Department officials. The lawyer spoke on the condition of anonymity because the contacts are not public. "They have a lot of attorneys on it, and they're taking a really hard look at filing their own lawsuit or intervening." Justice Department officials declined to comment Monday beyond saying they are continuing to review the government's legal options.

The 2002 opinion, known as the "inherent authority" memo, reversed a 1996 Office of Legal Counsel opinion from the Clinton administration. "This Office's 1996 advice that federal law precludes state police from arresting aliens on the basis of civil deportability was mistaken," says the 2002 memo, which was released publicly in redacted form in 2005 after civil rights groups sued to obtain it.

Office of Legal Counsel documents do not have the force of law but carry great weight within the executive branch and are considered to be the Justice Department's official position on a legal or constitutional issue.

Cecillia Wang, managing attorney of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project -- which filed Monday's lawsuit in federal court in Phoenix along with the NAACP, the National Immigration Law Center and other groups -- said the 2002 memo would not present an obstacle to a Justice Department lawsuit. She said the power that the Arizona law gives to police "goes far beyond" the basic arrest authority cited in the memo.

But Wang renewed the ACLU's call for the Obama Justice Department to withdraw the 2002 memo, which she called legally incorrect. "The fact that this memo is lurking out there gives cover and comfort to people in Arizona and other states who want to pass these overbroad and extraordinary anti-immigration measures," she said.

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