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Read the full list of talking points below. THE RULES AND BYLAWS COMMITTEE DECISION * Yesterday’s results are a victory for the people of Florida who will have a voice in selecting our Party’s nominee and will see its delegates seated at our party’s convention. The decision by the Rules and Bylaws Committee honors the votes that were cast by the people of Florida and allocates the delegates accordingly. * We strongly object to the Committee’s decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan’s delegates-the decision does not reflect the votes of the people of Michigan. * The Committee...

RED LIGHT CAMERA SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND PLACEMENT FOR INTERSECTION SAFETY WEB SEMINAR Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Time: 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Eastern Credit: 1.5 PDH/.15 IACET CEU Background: Red light running is a serious safety issue at many intersections in the US and other countries. Cameras that automatically record red light violators and provide the means for issuing citations by mail have been shown to reduce the collision toll under some circumstances over the past few years. However, the success of a camera program depends upon many good decisions being made by the responsible jurisdiction and engineers. This course will...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama Monday warned of an erosion in business ethics, which he said offended US morals and endangered the might of US financial markets. In a major speech on economic policy, the Illinois Senator condemned the Bush administration's "massive tax cuts" and called for more transparency in the housing market, following the subprime mortgage crisis. "In recent years, we have seen a dangerous erosion of the rules and principles that have allowed our market to work and our economy to thrive," Obama said in a speech at the NASDAQ market site. "Instead of thinking about what's good...

Let's roll.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1747605/posts Communication Professor Examines Media Bias in President's Speeches Virginia Tech News ^ | 11/30/06 | Jean Elliott Posted on 12/02/2006 5:28:58 PM CST by LS BLACKSBURG, VA., November 30, 2006 -- Jim A. Kuypers, assistant professor of communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, reveals a disturbing world of media bias in his new book Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2006). Convincingly and without resorting to partisan politics, Kuypers strongly illustrates in eight chapters “how the press failed America in its...

(2006-09-08) — Top Senate Democrats, outraged over inaccuracies in the upcoming ABC mini-series The Path to 9/11, today said that in addition to yanking the network’s broadcast license, if the show airs Democrats might also withhold from ABC News the daily distribution of Democrat talking points. A spokesman for Disney-owned ABC News said that while the network could weather the revocation of its broadcast license, thanks to the proliferation of cable and satellite TV, the loss of the Democrat talking points would force the news division to hire dozens of new reporters to fill the void in its newscasts. Meanwhile,...

SEATTLE - An Army officer who refused to serve in Iraq because he believes the war is illegal was steadfast in his resolve ahead of a military court hearing, saying the decision was "my obligation to this country." "I made this decision a long time ago," Watada said during a telephone interview. "It is my obligation to this country. I‘m not happy about it and I didn‘t want to do it, but I had to." His lawyer, Eric Seitz, said he has lined up two witnesses to support the soldier‘s claim that the war violated domestic and international law: University...

There they go again. Hoping for a reprise of the 2002 and 2004 elections, when they rolled over Democrats by claiming they were soft on terrorism, leading Republicans are once again portraying the invasion of Iraq as brilliant, denouncing their critics as traitors and claiming anything less than enthusiastic support for "staying the course" is tantamount to saddling up with al-Qaida. Recently, GOP heavyweights used the victory of anti-war political novice Ned Lamont over three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) in last week's Democratic primary — Lieberman remains a staunch defender of the war — to portray the Democrats...

Calderon wins Mexican presidential race By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes agoMEXICO CITY - The ruling party's Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico's disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he'd fight the results in court.Calderon, a conservative who preached free-market values and financial stability during the campaign, was already reaching out to other parties to build a "unity government". His opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, blamed fraud for his narrow loss in the vote count and called on his supporters to fill...

Washington -- Democrats will introduce a domestic agenda for the 2006 campaign this week, confident that their opportunity to pick up seats is the best in a generation, yet divided over how much an agenda will matter. The Democratic program will consist of bread-and-butter priorities: increasing the minimum wage, cutting costs of prescription drugs, reducing interest rates on student loans, rolling back subsidies for oil companies, and pay-as-you-go budgeting, according to party officials. Party strategists hope the timing will contrast favorably with the Republicans' recent push on social legislation such as constitutional bans on gay marriage and flag burning. With...

Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students...There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried...Lies were told in the Iraqi matter...September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks...

I don't know if this will interest anyone, but I had an e-mail exchange yesterday with a former co-worker now working for a different company out in New York City. He was a major lib. when he worked for the company I'm with and he and I use to get into some heated exchanges. I'm providing this not to pat myself on the back, but to provide something you can use when you get similar boilerplate attacks from your liberal friends since they're all basically reading off the same script. Anyway, after first e-mailing me yesterday saying he doesn't know...

I've been around FR for 9 years. I've never posted a Vanity before. But I've had a bellyful of the dangerous rhetoric I hear and read every day. The letter below is a shout out to Republicans who purport to represent me on TV and in the press. It's probably ragged and long, but I think it's imperative for you to read it and consider it when you're developing your daily "talking points".

From Kofi Annan's press briefing today.... Q: On the tapes purporting that Saddam Hussein had warned the Americans that a WMD terrorist attack was coming, but not from Iraq. Do you take that seriously, or do you think it's water under the bridge and the whole thing should be forgotten? SEC.-GEN. ANNAN: I really haven't read in detail all these comments. At this stage, I think we should move on. We have a very challenging situation in Iraq which should be of interest to all of us to do whatever we can to stabilize. I would want to focus on...

I created this little video the other day, in honor of Kerry and Bin Laden's almost identical statements... It was spawned of my disgust at the Washington Post calling Pat Robertson and Ahmadinejad a "duo", etc. a few weeks back, and ignoring all the Bin Laden tape quotes that sound like they were ripped right out of the Dems playbook. I'm to lazy to copy everything over, so just read my post for the history, that also links to other old posts for more background, and then watch the video. This was my first attempt at using "Windows Movie Maker",...

We don't know whether the latest and much-discussed Osama bin Laden tape was recorded recently. But the harangue is still a valuable reflection of the current Al Qaeda hierarchy that broadcast it to the world. First, things must be going very badly for the terrorists to propose a cease-fire: "We don't mind offering you a long-term truce." In truth, the winning side does not ask for a reprieve. Losing autocrats--whether the officers of the German army in the summer of 1918 or Hitler's cadre in the spring of 1945--always "don't mind" sending out peace feelers in the 11th hour to...

Next Tuesday, President Bush is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union message to the nation. Not surprisingly, Democrats are already reveling in their plans for a rebuttal, in which they will no doubt repeat the pattern of past years and simply contradict everything the president says. Word is out that they intend to field Virginia's newly elected Governor, Timothy Kaine, for this task. Among Democrats, Kaine is considered to be a "rising star" (they seem to have many) with possible presidential potential. Sadly for liberal Democrats in the media and on Capitol Hill, their best talking points...

Terror - Islam Monday, January 23, 2006 - Omega Letter Editor In his first message in more than a year, Osama bin Laden made a return appearance on al-Jazeera to dictate what were, in effect, terms of surrender to the United States. Not Osama's surrender. AMERICA's surrender. The CIA has since authenticated the voice on the tape as Osama bin Laden's and time references contained within the body of the message confirm that Osama was alive in mid-December when the tape was made and is probably still alive today.Intelligence authorities were examining why bin Laden would be speaking out after...

MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews got himself into some hot water Thursday evening when he suggested that Osama bin Laden in his recently released tape sounded “like an over-the-top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore” (video link to follow). On last night’s installment, Matthews invited on MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to discuss this issue in greater detail (video link to follow). After being asked by Matthews if bin Laden was playing politician, Scarborough moved the discussion in a media direction: “You look at, like, for instance, him saying that George Bush went to war because of -- because he...

As reported yesterday by NewsBusters’ Mark Finkelstein, Katie Couric of NBC’s “Today Show” wondered aloud on yesterday’s program if Osama bin Laden might be getting information from the New York Times. It turns out that Couric isn’t the only media representative asking this same question. A just released Editor and Publisher article reported on more such media opining. First, MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson said the following on that network’s “Scarborough Country” Thursday evening (full transcript to follow): “By the merchants of war who financed Bush's presidential campaign, in the words of Osama bin Laden and many on the left...

Published: January 21, 2006 12:10 PM ET NEW YORK While much of the liberal blogosphere, and political figures such as Sen. John Kerry, remain inflamed over comments by MSNBC's Chris Matthews on "Hardball" on Thursday--in which he suggested that Osama bin Laden, in his latest video tape, sounded an awful lot like fillmmaker Michael Moore--The New York Times has also now been linked to Osama by another cable news pundit. On Friday night, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough weighed in on the subject, going beyond Moore to claim that bin Laden was also borrowing language or ideas from the likes of Howard...

Bob Schieffer: Osama bin Laden Used John Kerry's Talking Points 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden may have borrowed some of Sen. John Kerry's talking points for the audiotaped message he released on Thursday - veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer said Saturday. Asked whether bin Laden had expressed "almost the same" sentiments that Kerry did during an appearance on Schieffer's "Face the Nation" broadcast in December, the CBS anchorman told WABC Radio's Mark Simone: "Well, he did. That's exactly right." Back then, Kerry complained to Schieffer: "There is no reason that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes...

Suppose a Democratic strategist wrote an open letter to colleagues and clients analyzing this week’s election returns. “Republicans have very little to cheer about this election,” he said with some satisfaction. “But off-year elections are rarely harbingers of future performance. Democrats actually did quite well in 2003, to little effect in 2004.” Suppose further that the Democratic strategist signed his name to the letter and distributed it widely.And then suppose one more thing: that the Democratic strategist had not actually written those words but had lifted them wholesale from a liberal blog. (In fact, those words do come from such...

White House urged to 'come clean' in CIA leak case Maryland Democrat tells Bush to honor pledge to fire officials Saturday, November 5, 2005; Posted: 3:32 p.m. EST (20:32 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush should "come clean" about any White House officials involved in the leak of the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame and "honor his pledge to fire all those involved," Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland said Saturday in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "It's been one week since the vice president's chief of staff was indicted, and there are still very serious questions about how...

NUMBER ONE: Pulls "Cheap Trick" And Shuts Down U.S. Senate:The Washington Post's Dana Milbank: "Democrats Did Not Deny It Was A Stunt: A Brazen Effort To Change The Subject From The Supreme Court Confirmation Of Sam Alito ..." (Dana Milbank, "Mad About You," The Washington Post, 11/2/05) Milbank: "It Was A Cheap Trick ..." (Dana Milbank, "Mad About You," The Washington Post, 11/2/05) CNN's Lou Dobbs: "One Minute This Afternoon The U.S. Senate Was Doing The People's Business, The Next, The Senate Was Shut Down In Absolute Secrecy." (CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," 11/1/05) Dobbs: "The Democrats' Strategy Of Shutting Down...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats forced the Senate into a closed session Tuesday to pressure the Republican majority into completing an investigation of the intelligence underpinning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Democrats demanded that Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts move forward on a promised investigation into how Bush administration officials handled prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected weapons programs. The probe would be a follow-up to the July 2004 Intelligence Committee report that blamed a "series of failures" by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for the mistaken belief among U.S. policymakers that Iraq had restarted its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons...

Myth: Miers Is Not Qualified To Be Supreme Court Justice:Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law Professor: "No One That I Know Of Would Have Put Harriet Miers On Any List For The Court. She Just Doesn't Have The Resume To Justify A Position." (MSNBC's "News Live," 10/3/05)Fact: Miers Has Tremendous Legal Qualifications:"In Her Time In The Administration, Ms. Miers Has Addressed Numerous Legal And Policy Questions At The Highest Levels Of Decisionmaking, Most Recently Serving As The Counsel To The President Of The United States." (The White House, Fact Sheet, 10/3/05)"In 1985, Ms. Miers Was Selected As The First Woman...

I've criticized Chris Matthews several times this week, so it's only fair that I give him credit for doing the right thing tonight when liberal Mark Green went off on how corrupt the Bush administration is and started ticking off indictments: MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction, Mark? GREEN: Hold it, hold it. What I said was — MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction? GREEN: One second. What I said was that six people — three people have been indicted — by the way Chris, if you and I have been indicted, it doesn't mean we're guilty, but we wouldn't...

Rush transcript of NPR's Neil Conan, speaking by phone with Cindy Sheehan: NC: Very nice of you to be with us today. CS: [cheerfully] Oh, thank youuu! NC: I know that you were, uh, out in California last week because your mother was ill. How’s she doing? CS: Um, she’s doing better. They’re trying to keep her from having another stroke. And if she doesn’t have another stroke, she should be able to recover. NC: That’s good news. Now, tell us, a little bit about your son, Casey. CS: My son Casey was an amazing human being. He was gentle,...

To the editor: One would think that the president of the United States holds the most stressful job ever. Isn't it wonderful that our pompous president is in such excellent condition healthwise? And why not? His eligible daughters aren't in Iraq protecting our country like so many others, more than 1,800 who have given their lives for a war that he started. With a smirk on his face, he says, "We will stay the course." Who is "we?" Not him or his family. Heck no. He's on a month's vacation. If he's so gung-ho about this war, show us some...

Quick: What do you call President Bush’s decision to recess-appoint John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations? “Abuse of power,” says Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “Abuse of power,” says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Abuse of power,” says Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. The Democrats’ one-note response to the Bolton appointment brings to mind an article that appeared recently in The New York Times Magazine. Reporter Matt Bai looked into the party’s efforts to “frame” the political debate in Washington — that is, to come up with a new vocabulary to make Democratic positions seem more...

As predicted, President Bush’s Supreme Pick, John Roberts, is generating leftist mass hysteria. John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court is being widely acclaimed from the right to the left of the political spectrum because there’s no credible basis for doing otherwise. But then there’s the hyberbolic hysteria coming from the abortion-gay-environmental wing, which has been raising gazillions in order to wage a war against _______________ (fill-in-the-blank). Take for example: An “artfully” worded comment from the Feminist Majority: “I am extremely disappointed that the President did not appoint a centrist woman to fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme...

Talking Points on the Nomination Process The standards for a nominee are clear. A nominee must: + Protect the individual rights and freedoms of Americans, + Judge cases fairly, with an open mind, and without a political agenda, + Protect all Americans, and not side with powerful special interests, and + Meet the highest ethical standards and be free of conflicts of interest. Justices must be committed to the independence of the Court, not an ideological agenda. The next Supreme Court Justice will make decisions affecting the lives of all Americans.  It is important that the decision whether to confirm...

Headline: Houston Chronicle via New York Times: [Britons linked to attacks pious as end neared People in Leeds say tensions are based on culture and economics, not religion] ***....LEEDS, ENGLAND - In the gritty, working-class suburbs of Leeds, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, was the fun-loving, rich kid of the neighborhood, the son of a savvy, Mercedes-driving shop owner. .......Mohamed Sadique Khan, 30, was the grown-up one, with a wife and a baby daughter at home. .........Khan, who was born in Pakistan but reared in Leeds, worked with disabled students, neighbors said........Tanweer, a university-educated cricket fanatic who also excelled in soccer and...

Is anyone else troubled by the basic insanity of the latest Left wing talking point on Terrorism? The basic line you can hear or read from the Leftist talking heads runs something like this. "We have to understand why the Terrorist hate us. We are to blame for terrorism. We propped up oppressive mid East dictatorships during the Cold War. Because of that the Terrorists hate us. Now that we have removed a barabrous, murderous regime in Iraq, the terrorist really hate us. What we must do now is run and hide under our beds and pay the terrorist off...

When I began working in politics in the late 1950s, after the Republicans had been seriously beaten, I attended many meetings the subject of which was the Grand Conspiracy. Speakers, some of reasonable intelligence, tried to make the case that somewhere in Washington [no one knew quite where] was the headquarters of the Liberal Conspiracy. If the Pope made policy for the Catholic Church, and if the President made policy for the United States, there must be a chief liberal who tells all the little liberals what to say. How else could one explain that the NEW YORK TIMES produced...

This time, the hoax was on them. Still gloating over their role in unmasking CBS's faulty National Guard memo story last September, right-wing bloggers launched a new memo-based crusade against the so-called liberal media last month, one that turned out to be completely phony. But unlike CBS and its tarred former anchor, Dan Rather, who eventually admitted their mistakes in the Memogate affair, these bloggers (many of whom were also involved in the CBS campaign) haven't had the guts to apologize for their blunder. When the Terri Schiavo story became national news in mid-March, a curious subplot revolved around a...

AFTER 60 Minutes II broadcast its fraudulent story on President Bush's Air National Guard service on September 8, 2004 holy heck broke loose on the Internet. Virtually anyone with eyes to see the evidence that accumulated during the days after the report came to the conclusion that the documents on which the story was based were fraudulent; yet CBS stonewalled for 12 days before admitting that its story was, well, problematic.Perhaps no event was more instrumental to CBS's undoing than the movement of the inquiry into the fraud from the Internet to the mainstream media in general, and in particular...

From Liberal Blogger Joshua Micah Marshall: "GOP front groups like USANext (the folks now working to uncover the AARP-homosexual world conspiracy) usually change their names every couple years or hive off other outfits just to keep everyone guessing..."

(CNSNews.com) - Both before the election and now, months after it, the Republican Party is making an active effort to reach out to African-Americans. "We still have a lot of work to do in the minority community," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said at a Tuesday night gathering in suburban Maryland. "If you give us a chance, we'll give you a choice," he told a group at Prince George's Community College, right outside the nation's capital. The RNC said its "Conversations With the Community" tour is intended to commemorate Black History Month. Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, a Republican,...

NEW YORK As the U.S. military approaches nearly two years in the Iraq conflict, media training for soldiers going into the war zone has been stepped up, becoming mandatory for Army troops since October, E&P has learned. "Talking point" cards for military personnel, meanwhile, are being updated regularly as the war progresses -- often as much as once a week -- to keep up with the conflict's changing issues and the proximity of embedded reporters. Among the current talking points: "We are a values-based, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all." Soldiers preparing for deployment...

SPEAKING OF PARTY TALKING POINTS As I said ... I've been getting emails for years accusing me of getting a set of talking points every day from the Republican Party. The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto had a rather interesting revelation in Friday's column: Taranto notes that the following letter from one Nic Karlsson of Avondale appeared in Friday's Arizona Republic: "President Bush is endangering my retirement and the retirements of millions of Americans by taking the first step in his plan to dismantle Social Security. Recently, White House sources revealed their plan to cut promised benefits to retirees by...

I used to enjoy watching Bill O'Reilly on his primetime news/opinion program 'The O'Reilly Factor'. In spite of his somewhat pompous demeanor (now that I think about it, I actually like that in a person) he seemed to be genuinely concerned with being fair to his guests and the subjects of his commentary. Sure, he's been known to cut off more than a few babbling nitwits who've refused to answer his questions directly, but for the most part, he's always tried to give everyone their say, and for that I've admired him... or at least I did before last summer....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The top-giving corporate political action committees didn't hedge their bets in the fall elections despite the narrow division between the GOP and Democrats in Congress. They favored Republican candidates 10-to-1. Of 268 corporate PACs that donated $100,000 or more to presidential and congressional candidates from January 2003 through the middle of last month, 245 gave the majority of their contributions to GOP hopefuls, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Political Money Line campaign finance tracking service.

Here’s how much of an insiders’ cabal the latest Bush cabinet is. The new education secretary, Margaret Spellings, began her political career in the mid-1980s, when Karl Rove, the president’s election strategist, asked her out on a date. Somehow, he got over the rejection. Now look at Alberto Gonzales, the new attorney-general. And who replaced Gonzales as chief White House lawyer? One Harriet Miers, another under-the-radar flunky of the first term. Fierce loyalty is a prerequisite for serving Bush, as Colin Powell found out. Bush regards his re-election as a vindication of almost everything he has done in the past...

One of the most stinging criticisms of President Bush has been that he operates in a bubble where dissenting views are not welcome and genuine debate is rare. And while 51 percent of American voters reelected the president, exit polls showed that more of them felt the country was on the wrong track than on the right track. .....

While I'm somewhat of a polictical/news junkie, I'm not very knowledgeable (and probably rather naieve) about the internal workings of a political party - - especially the Democrats. OK, it's very obvious that they have all been on their con calls and/or have received their email or faxes w their talking points, but I sometimes wonder what the RNC and the Bush campaign folks do about it - - it seems to me that they don't always respond very quickly to these points and/or counter them very effectively. If it's clear to me that these spinmeisters all say the exact...

I find a lot of Kerry's talking points on this website...Here is a sample. ~snip The power of the movement to defeat Bush on November 2 goes far beyond this election. The new alliance of labor, African American, Latino, women, youth, seniors, glbt, peace and environmentalists who make up this movement holds in its hands the potential to win much bigger change. The upsurge of independent activity to defeat the ultra-right opens new possibilities toward a people’s party free of transnational domination.~ http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/589/1/27/