Where does a grandson go after dissing a loving 86 year-old grandmother suffering from severe osteoporsis?
Does he go off to her home in Hawaii to reassure her of his love and admiration for the nurturing she gave him after both of his parents left him behind?
Does he take his family to see her again knowing it may be one of the last times they have that opportunity?
Does he apologize for equating her to the radical comments of Reverend Jeremiah Wright?
Does he go to Church on Easter to commemorate the day and give thanks for the privilege bestowed upon him in his life?
Obama Skips Easter at Wright's Church
Where will Obama be for Easter?
Madelyn Dunham deserves better
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Obama Beach Bound
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Oh, Lew Waterboy posts from another Repubic Slut, Michele Malkin. If idiot Lew could ever think for himself, maybe he could post something original.
So, where will Lew Waterboy be for Easter? Changing oil, beating his wife or burning a cross?
Lets refresh Lew American Traitor Waters on the facts about his and his handler Victor(ia)'s bigotry and why they seem to hate soon to be President Barack Obama so much:
Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Put a group of people together at a party and observe how they behave. Differently than when they are alone? Differently than when they are with family? What if they're in a stadium instead of at a party? What if they're all men?
The field of social psychology has long been focused on how social environments affect the way people behave. But social psychologists are people, too, and as the United States has become increasingly politically polarized, they have grown increasingly interested in examining what drives these sharp divides: red states vs. blue states; pro-Iraq war vs. anti-Iraq war; pro-same-sex marriage vs. anti-same-sex marriage. And they have begun to study political behavior using such specialized tools as sophisticated psychological tests and brain scans.
"In my own family, for example, there are stark differences, not just of opinion but very profound differences in how we view the world," said Brenda Major, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, which had a conference last week that showcased several provocative psychological studies about the nature of political belief.
The new interest has yielded some results that will themselves provoke partisan reactions: Studies presented at the conference, for example, produced evidence that emotions and implicit assumptions often influence why people choose their political affiliations, and that partisans stubbornly discount any information that challenges their preexisting beliefs.
Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy — but only in candidates they opposed.
When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats — the scans showed that "reward centers" in volunteers' brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.
Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives."
Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study's conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases — against Republicans — noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.
"There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky," Jones said.
Nosek said that though the risk of bias among researchers was "a reasonable question," the study provided empirical results that could — and would — be tested by other groups: "All we did was compare questions that people could answer any way they wanted," Nosek said, as he explained why he felt personal views could not have influenced the outcome. "We had no direct contact with participants."
For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias that measures the speed of people's associations between black or white faces and positive or negative words. The researchers examined correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes and voting behavior in all 435 congressional districts.
The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces — evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.
"Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president," said Banaji, "but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice."
Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people.
Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation.
For example, he said, the study could not tell whether racial bias was a better predictor of voting preference than, say, policy preferences on gun control or abortion. But while those issues would be addressed in subsequent studies — Krosnick plans to get random groups of future voters to take the psychological tests and discuss their policy preferences — he said the basic correlation was not in doubt.
"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research.
Now Oregonians, because the Repubic have nothing to run on except the racism to perpetuate their hate of Senator Barack Obama, let's skip their hightech lynching tactics and get to the real issues. Like this one that Victor(ia) skipped over last week:
Congressman Walden dismisses accusations
The Associated Press and The East Oregonian
Oregon Republican Rep. Greg Walden responded Monday to accusations of incompetence from the Democratic Party of Oregon regarding his role as chairman of the audit committee for the National Republican Campaign Committee.
The committee is the party's principal tool for helping elect its candidates to Congress, and for keeping them there. At issue is whether NRCC Treasurer Chris Ward falsified audits and stole money from the committee while Walden served as its chairman in 2003 until 2006.
Ward had been with the committee since 1995, working first in the compliance department, then as assistant treasurer. He became treasurer in 2003 and held the office until the committee fired him in January.
Walden said the audits of the GOP fund appeared authentic and trustworthy, as did Ward. Walden said that's why he didn't have any reason to believe there was a systemic problem.
"This fellow was the gold standard - quote-unquote - of election law and accounting," Walden said.
The Democratic Party of Oregon has been hammering Walden on his role as chairman, and they are trying to make Walden pay a political price for the problems that occurred during his tenure.
"It took Walden's successor only one year to solve a problem Walden couldn't figure out in three," said Marc Siegel, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Oregon. "How can Oregonians trust Greg Walden to stand up for them when he can't even stand up to his own accountant?"
At the center of the controversy are bogus audits Walden and others say concealed money someone was draining from accounts intended to underwrite Republican candidates.
It's unclear how thoroughly Walden and other committee managers monitored the finances of the operation that raised $49 million last year. The problem grows more complex for Republicans, many of whom had hired Ward to manage their own campaign finances.
The committee's chairman, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said it's possible someone illicitly siphoned as much as $1 million from the committee between 2002 and 2006.
The FBI is investigating the discrepancies and Ward's possible role.
Walden, the state's lone Republican House member and perhaps a candidate for governor in 2010, said he feels "very betrayed, very angry." He dismissed the Democrats' claims.
Like other principals in the case, Walden insisted he paid close attention to his responsibility as audit chair.
"By all appearances this was a very elaborate fraud perpetrated on the committee," he said.
Although Walden chaired the committee, he described its system of operation as "a staff-driven organization" with periodic, not regular, executive committee meetings. Moreover, he said the committee gives political advice and counsel and doesn't have managerial power.
"I had no hire-and-fire authority; nobody reported to me," Walden said.
Walden said he studied the audits, and they appeared authentic. He also said he wasn't the only one Ward may have fooled.
"Other audits were submitted, not only to the executive committee or the chairman, but also to the banks - Wachovia. They reviewed them. It now appears all of those audits were fraudulent." Walden said.
Yet, drawing on his experience in private business, Walden said he asked Ward repeatedly to set up a meeting with outside auditors to discuss the reports.
"So for two years I tried to do that, and for two years he was my go-to guy to get it done," Walden said.
Ward also provided similar services over the past 10 years to as many as 80 Republican committees, Walden said.
"Those committees now are finding irregularities in their own books," he said.
The leadership learned Ward hadn't conducted any audits for 2006. Later, investigators determined "that the last year for which the NRCC obtained a completed independent audit report was calendar year 2001," the committee said in a statement.
Walden said he did everything he could to monitor the committee's finances, including trying to meet with the auditors. Now, as the scandal unfolds, he said, "I realize my gut instinct was right."
Walden said because Ward was the treasurer, he's the one legally responsible.
"So now it's about what did he do, how did he do it, how do you prevent him from doing it again, what was lost, what was stolen, what were we lied to about and where do you do from here," Walden said.
Walden said submitting false financial statements to a financial institution is a felo
Now lets talk of traitors like the Republican Cadidate for Presidency John McCain:
McCain's ties to Airbus could cost him votes in Kansas
Mar 23, 2008 (McClatchy Newspapers - McClatchy-Tribune -- As a reliably red state, Kansas has backed a Republican in each of the last 10 presidential elections. But Democrats say things could be different in 2008.
With their economy strongly tied to aviation and defense jobs, Kansans are riled over the Air Force's decision Feb. 29 to give a $35 billion aerial-tanker contract to a partnership with ties to France, rejecting a bid by Boeing, which would have done final assembly and testing of the planes in Wichita. more
abel here's a website for you. Have a nice day.
No, a guy who's had what was probably the longest and most stressful week of his life certainly doesn't deserve to take a couple of days off from a grueling travel schedule to enjoy some private time with his family.
Shame on him for thinking he deserves what every other American deserves: a break once in a while.
It's not like he's spending more than an entire year (cumulatively) on vacation in an eight-year period. Right?
What about the grandmother who cared for, nurtured and ensured he had what he needed growing up?
What about the grandmother, his last living blood relative, who protected him and supported him only to be labeled a "racist" by him, even if unintentionally?
He desires a beach vacation, fair enough. His grandmother lives in Hawaii, still.
What does the grandmother deserve?
Why all the news around his step-grandmother in Kenya who he never met until in his mid-twenties?
How can the news be, "He came here with his wife, Michelle, and the children to show them where is home," Obama's grandmother said proudly?
I'm not entirely sure what your point is, iknowhowtospell. I didn't read any criticism of Obama for taking a vacation... it sounded like Victoria was criticizing him for "dissing a loving 86 year-old grandmother suffereing from severe osteoporosis" than criticizing him for taking a vacation. Since you're apparently adpet at finding the whole story, perhaps you could include a link to it in your response to her criticism? Just a thought. :)
By the way... does anyone know what abel is babbling about?
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