Headlines For Today: September 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Headlines - Tuesday

Ouch. This from a Conservative...

Kathleen Parker: Palin Problem http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MDZiMDhjYTU1NmI5Y2MwZjg2MWNiMWMyYTUxZDkwNTE=

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As far as this whole $700 billion thing is concerned, they keep saying, "We have to act now. We have to act now." This is like a bad TV offer. "Just 10 easy payments of $70 billion each. Operators are standing by, but you have to act now!" - Jay Leno

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Bush the arrogant

The more he screws up, the more power he steals: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-bush28-2008sep28,0,5494831.story?track=rss

Bush is immune from oversight because the wet-my-pants Democrats allow him to break the law.

If we could get rid of useless, enabler-dregs like Pelosi, Reid and Leahy we could get our country back.

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Respecting the law just like Shooter and the Disaster Monkey have, subpoenaed Palin aides refuse to appear Link

This makes perfect sense to me. There's no sense in finding out if the VP is a crook until after she takes the office.

If the wet-ourselves-with-fear democrats had taken action the first time Bush disregarded a subpoena, we wouldn't have this problem.

Now, each time a Republican gets a subpoena they just laugh at us because they know that no Democrat will insist on upholding the law.

This is mostly the fault of one Bush-loving rubberstamp.

How did I get in the same party as these helpless crybaby quitters?

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Here comes martial law

Glenn Greenwald: Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the "Homeland"?

Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/24/army/index.html

Of course the media won't ask any questions, and neither will the Democrats.

Tin soldiers and the Bush bastards are coming, and we're finally on our own.

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Dear Barry,

How about instead of saying "Senator McCain is right...blah blah blah" after he's finished talking crap about you on national TV, you just say straight up, "Senator McCain is LYING..." and try to work your way back to a civil note from there.

I think headlines of "Obama calls McCain liar during debate" would lead most people to say, "You know, McCain does seem kinda full of bullcrap..."

During a debate, you do not start a sentence with "My opponent is right".

What the hell is up with that?

Pleeeeease make some feeble attempt to win.

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In case you haven't heard, the Bailout Bill failed in the House. Why, you might ask? Well, to hear Minority Leader Boner (R-Sniveling Crybaby) tell it, it was because Nancy Pelosi was a Big Mean Meanie.

Republicans said Pelosi may have lost votes with a floor speech they considered too partisan. "We could have gotten it if it were not for this partisan speech that Speaker Pelosi gave," Boehner said.

Added Rep. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican who also voted for the bill: "Nancy blew it."

"That is an absurd accusation at a time when our country is in deep economic distress," a Pelosi spokesman fired back.

"You don't vote on a speech, you vote on a bill."

That's simply amazing. The Big Tough Republicans voted against the wishes of the Minority Leader (and their presidential candidate, who was bragging just this morning that he whipped this whole thing into shape) because a girl was mean to them.

Here's the Pelosi floor speech that Republicans claim so enraged them that they decided to change their votes on the bailout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMLo7i38D58&eurl=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

Go cry, Emo Boys.

Fun fact: [the Gambler] "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked." [Politico]

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The stock market wasn't pleased with the failure to pass the bailout bill. wsj:

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 777.68 points, its biggest one-day drop in history. It ended down 7% at 10365.45, down 9.3% since since crisis erupted a few weeks ago on Wall Street following the meltdown of Lehman Brothers holdings. All 30 of the blue-chip indicator's components fell Monday…

According to Bloomberg News, "stocks lost $1.1 trillion in value, meaning the market loss was larger than the size of the $700 billion bailout."

Update: Bush sidesteps Congress? $630 billion to be pumped into economy despite House bailout rejection

Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone. Read on…

I'm not an expert on the economy or Wall St., but this sure looks like an end-around by the Bush administration to give away hundreds of billions of dollars without the approval of Congress.

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Fareed Zakaria lets his exasperation show regarding Sarah Palinocchio.

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George Bush, the unelected President of Fail, mourns his legacy - wonders if the pain hurts more than homelessness and starvation.

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Compassionate Conservatism

A couple in Florida gets a divorce so she can qualify for Medicaid to cover her cancer treatments.

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Are you better off than you were 8 years ago?

DOW January 19, 2001: 10,587.59
DOW September 29, 2008: 10,365.45

NASDAQ Jan 19, 2001 = 2770.38
NASDAQ September 29, 2008 = 1983.73

CPI, January 19, 2001: 175
CPI, September 29, 2008: 219

Dollar exchange with Euro, January 19, 2001: 1.068
Dollar exchange with Euro, September 29, 2008: .695

CBS's Mark Knoller notes that the national debt has grown 71.9 percent since Bush took office, "more than under any previous president."

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Stephen Spoonamore tells us that McBush's team -- i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons - have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.

He also talks about the major role played by the Christianist far right in the electronic rigging of the vote.

And he defines our electronic voting system as a major threat to US national security, calling for it to be junked ASAP, in favor of hand-counted paper ballots.

Since Spoonamore is a Republican and erstwhile McCain supporter, as well as a noted specialist in nosing out computer fraud, his testimony is essential--not only for its expertise, but, no less, for the impact that his views will surely have on those Republicans who have been loath to see what Bush & Co. has done to our election system.

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2008/09/spoonamore-reveals-plan-to-steal-next.html

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$763,350.

That's how much money a viral e-mail campaign, which urges foes of the Republican veep candidate to make a donation to Planned Parenthood in Palin's name, has raised.

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As we all know, federal tax law, as it relates to tax-exempt religious ministries, is pretty clear - houses of worship may not legally intervene in political campaigns, either in support of or opposition to a candidate or a party. Those who violate the law run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.

As you may recall, a few weeks ago, the Alliance Defense Fund, a prominent far-right legal advocacy group, came up with a plan to convince conservative Christian pastors to break the law, and on purpose, invite IRS punishment, then take the whole issue to court in order to challenge the law itself. They called it "Pulpit Freedom Sunday", and it was held yesterday (actually Sunday) in 33 churches across the country.

Maybe we can pay for the eventual bailout by taxing churches that are too stupid and pompous to believe the tax laws should apply to them.

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Headlines - Monday

h/t Rachel

"The prospect that Sarah Palin, a self-confessed creationist, may one day have at her disposal the firing button to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles is quite terrifying. She will, however, have to reconfigure the missiles, as they have presumably been set on the mistaken premise that the earth is spherical, whereas everybody knows that it is flat." Roger Marsh ###
MCCAIN: But there's also the issue of responsibility. You've mentioned President Dwight David Eisenhower. President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters. One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and Allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history -- still, to this day, and forever. And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation from the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Somehow we've lost that accountability. I've been heavily criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We've got to start also holding people accountable, and we've got to reward people who succeed. McCain, presidential debate 9/26/08. This is how John McCain kicked off the first debate, with two big lies. First of all, here is the second and thankfully unnecessary letter that General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of D-Day. As you can probably see, it concludes with the words, "If any blame is found attached to the attempt, it is mine alone." In other words, he never offered to resign. Where McCain got that idea from, I have no idea. Wasn't that remark prepared in advance? Of course, the funny thing is that he didn't really call for the SEC chairman to resign either. He said that if he were the president, he would fire him - even though it came out that the president doesn't really have the authority to fire to SEC chairman. He never called for the chairman (Christopher Cox) to resign. I would agree with one thing, that we've got to start holding people accountable. John McCain, I hold you accountable...for being a big fat liar. ### "What is shocking about the presentation by Bush -- and the deal that is unfolding -- is that we don't see any acceptance of responsibility for the failure of his team's stewardship of the economy. We didn't hear acknowledgment that the compulsive deregulation mantra of Bush's political and economic allies created a massive bubble where lots of billionaires were created and now tens of millions of less fortunate Americans are holding the bill. We didn't hear Bush say that..." Steve Clemmons, Link So if we're going to lose this anyway, if we're going to have to cave in and bail them out, can't we at least make Bush say, "My tax cuts caused these problems" - then we write the check?

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Racism is alive and well

Wow.

Another conservative arguing that the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act is responsible for our ills today takes it one step further:

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless.

Wow.

To paraphrase McCain from the debate, isn't that pretty much something "you don't say out loud"?

I guess we've entered an era where even the pretense of civility is gone.

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Motivational Poster -- Corporate Welfare

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John McCain on Sarah Palin's statement that invading Pakistan if there was actionable intelligence was a good idea:

"She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's—that's a person's position… This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitve policy statement made by Governor Palin."

So when the Governor answers a question, we aren't supposed to believe that's her position. And when she makes a statement about a foreign policy position we are supposed to think it's just idle chit chat. Thanks for clearing that up, John.

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Katie Couric/Palin interview SNL: http://www.teambio.org/2008/09/28/sarah-palin-on-snl-just-in-case-you-missed-it/

I hope Sarah watched this one with the sound turned on.

Almost funnier is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeMypXCUWMw&eurl=http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/

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A Shattering Moment in America's Fall From Power

The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/28

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In yesterday's editorial, the Stockton Record, an arch-conservative Republican mouthpiece in northern California, unanimously picked Obama over McCain as the more prudent and inspirational choice.

The last time they endorsed a Democrat for president was at the height of the Depression, in 1936, when they came out for the re-election of Franklin Roosevelt.

Republican presidential victories are built on endorsements from local papers like the Stockton Record. If newspapers like it in Colorado, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Indiana and other battleground states start flipping to Obama, McCain could drag the GOP down to the historic defeat they have earned.

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Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago - about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct - the teacher said. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/28/palin-claimed-dinosaurs-a_n_130012.html

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Newsweek's Sam Harris: When Atheists Attack - h/t Dave http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080

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Carl Hiassen and the Sarah Rules: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/09/28/carl-hiaasen-and-the-sarah-rules/

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The US of A is not now and never has been a "christian" nation

http://thewell-armedlamb.blogspot.com/2008/09/usofa-is-not-now-and-never-has-been.html

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Today's chuckle from Phyllis Schlafly

China Poisons Its Infant Formula

The China infant milk scandal, even though it has so far not damaged any American babies, has exposed a major defect in the concept of free trade. It's dangerous to buy products from a nation whose economy is not based on Judeo-Christian morality.

Yeah, take that, Japan, with your dangerous, non-Christian Honda Accords and your shoddy, non-Judeo electronics!

The American private enterprise system depends on honesty as normal and accepted behavior. We don't have or want a policeman on every corner, or an army of government officials to inspect every bottle of baby formula or tube of toothpaste.We do have regulations and random checks, but the majority of producers and sellers are restrained from criminality by adherence to the Judeo-Christian ethic.

It's nice to know that the 108-year-old Phyllis is just as sharp as she's ever been.

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There has been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It was committed by Americans after "Obsession" DVD hits Ohio.

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Tom Brokaw sucks: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/28/meet-the-press-brokaws-fairness-facts-pulled-out-of-thin-air-to-make-mccain-look-better/

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Yesterday in Iraq: at least 51 Iraqis killed and 138 wounded.

4,174 soldiers killed in Iraq; 605 in Afghanistan.

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Oh look - there is a new National Intelligence Estimate that calls the situation in Afghanistan "grim." .

Of course, that NIE officially won't see the light of day.

At this point, I don't see how Bush's Afghan Adventure can end in a good way. We do not have the troops, whether our own or allied, to pour into there. We do not have the money to do a serious rebuilding of the nation, not when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year in Iraq and now to bail out those greedy schmucks in the financial sector.

Heckuvajob, Chimpy.

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No Rescue For the Hungry

Our country has been told that a gargantuan government rescue of the private sector is necessary because the collapse of major financial institutions would lead to unthinkable outcomes for society. Almost as if by magic, our nation's leaders conjure up vast sums to respond to this crisis.

Yet when advocates point out that our nation is facing an altogether different kind of crisis, one of soaring hunger and homelessness, and that a large-scale bailout is needed to prevent social service providers nationwide from buckling under the increasing load, we are told that the money these agencies need just doesn't exist.

In 2006, fully 35.5 million Americans, 4 million more than in 1999, lived in households that couldn't afford enough food, according to the Agriculture Department. Those households included more than 4 million children. ...

The state slashed funding for community-based feeding agencies 16 percent in April and an additional 6 percent in August, after having ruled out a plan to avoid these and other cuts in social services by restoring previous levels of taxation on New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million per year. Other states are making similar budget choices.

We're told to simply accept these cuts because everyone is suffering. But that's just not true. According to Forbes, there are 64 billionaires in New York City with a combined net worth of $344 billion, a staggering 469 percent more than the collective worth of the city's billionaires two years ago.

Meanwhile, automakers get $25 billion: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_Congress_passes_25_bln_loan_guar_09272008.html

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Sunday, September 28, 2008

Headlines - Sunday

We all made it to the top of that big peak.

My legs hurt.

That is all.

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This is not only desperately amusing, it's an excellent political move.

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How to politicize a crisis: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-politicize-crisis.html

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Creationism: The IDiocy that just won't die

Here we go again:

The Brunswick County school board is looking for a way for creationism to be taught in the classroom side by side with evolution.

Let's be clear here. It against the law for the state to establish a religion. Creationism is a religious teaching. There is no, none, zero, zip, nada scientific evidence for creationist teaching such as "intelligent design" creationism. It cannot be be taught in the public schools in science class or in any other class as fact.

It's also incredibly expensive to try to teach creationism. The Dover school board in Pennsylvania ended up spending $1 million of taxpayer's money when all was said and done, money that could have spent educating children.

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Today's torture news: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/todays-torture-news-by-digby-do-you-see.html

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Thank you, China

FDA warns of melamine-tainted instant coffee

If the Bush-FDA is actually issuing a warning, run like hell to throw that stuff out.

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Wow...are there no depths to which the McCain campaign won't sink?

I'm not convinced that this sort of faux "White House wedding" is going to fool anyone outside of the kool-aid drinkers who think Sarah Palin is the most qualified person to be one melanoma away from leading this country:

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain's campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."

And of course, there is nothing that the McCain camp likes more than distractions from the issues, because the more we hear their guy on the issues, the more appalling he becomes. So they think they're going to dangle the shiny bauble of two attractive kids in formal wear and little Piper in a pink flower-girl dress and the media will fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

And perhaps it will, though I am almost daring to believe that the media has finally woken up from its thrall to a man in a 40-year-old uniform and realized that John McCain is no maverick and he's appallingly clueless about the problems facing this country.

But the worst part of this possibility is that having clutched their pearls repeatedly about how Sarah Palin's unmarried pregnant teenage daughter should be off-limits to public discussion, they are willing to march these two kids -- a girl clearly rebelling against her parents' religious hypocrisy and a boy who has all the earmarks of a wife-beater in the making -- down the aisle in the name of political gain. Only the most sick and twisted and cynical people would think this is "fantastic."

I don't want to hear Republicans called the party of family values ever again.

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Reward for running AIG into the ground? A cool $1 billion

Yes, billion. Not million, BILLION.

Of course, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg's ill-gotten gains were worth $20 billion when he left the firm in 2005, but what's a few billion among friends?

CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg intends to sell his AIG stock, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.

Greenberg, who ran AIG for nearly four decades, said he will sell stock in the open market, and that the sales may "materially" decrease the holdings that he controls, according to the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Greenberg, through a personal stake, family trust and companies that he controls, owns roughly 11 percent of AIG's stock, making him its largest shareholder before AIG agreed to a federal bailout that will give government 80 percent ownership.

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McCain now says he'll negotiate the bailout via cell phone

CBS News:

Even though his campaign is no longer suspended, John McCain is staying in Washington this weekend to keep working on the bailout legislation. He will not be visiting Capital Hill, however, preferring to work out of his campaign office.

"He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," said senior adviser Mark Salter. "He's calling members on both sides, talking to people in the administration, helping out as he can."

WTF? The financial crisis was SO important that he had to "suspend" his campaign to come to Washington, but now he can contribute to the negotiations over the cell phone, but he's going to stay in Washington instead of going out to campaign? Does any of this make sense?

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The first debate as seen on SNL: http://eb-misfit.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-debate.html

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R.I.P. Paul Newman

Awesome fact: "Newman's Own" company has donated something on the order of 250 million dollars to charitable causes since it was founded.

That's not chump change.

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McCain often brags that he led the Senate investigation into fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who overbilled his Indian tribal clients millions of dollars. However, the New York Times reports that lobbyists in McCain's inner circle "played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff's misdeeds to Mr. McCain's attention — and then cashed in on the resulting investigation":

For McCain-connected lobbyists who were rivals of Mr. Abramoff, the scandal presented a chance to crush a competitor. For senior McCain advisers, the inquiry allowed them to collect fees from the very Indians that Mr. Abramoff had ripped off. And the investigation enabled Mr. McCain to confront political enemies who helped defeat him in his 2000 presidential run while polishing his maverick image.

After firing Abramoff, the Coushatta tribe hired lobbyist Hance Scarborough, who had been friends with McCain since the '80s. Scarborough charged the tribe nearly $1.3 million for 11 months of work, although his firm produced few tangible results. In 2005, Scarborough also put McCain's then-chief strategist John Weaver on the tribe's payroll. The Coushattas said it was like the Abramoff scandal "happening all over again." Currently on the McCain campaign, there are 40 fundraisers and top advisers who have lobbied or worked for gambling interests.

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Bush personally directed Gonzales to strong-arm Ashcroft at his bedside: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/27/comey-gonzales-bush/

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Go Frank Rich!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28rich.html?_r=2&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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Fair and balanced Faux News won't allow guest to mention Keating scandal

When radio guy Mike Papantonio tried to remind viewers about McCain's involvement on behalf of Charles Keating, Faux Nooze's pimply weasel Steve Doocy told Papantonio to "put a cork in it" and "pipe down," called him "rude" and demanded he "cut it out." A show producer could be overheard saying "cut his mike."

As Papantonio tries one last time to explain the details of the Keating Five scandal, Doocy again cuts him off.

"This is not the History Channel," he says.

"It has everything to do with what's happening today," Papantonio said before being told to pipe down.

Raw Story has the vomit-inducing video.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Palin billed government for sleeping in her own home

What a brave and fearless, fiscal reformer. Palin regularly used the "per diem" food expenses of eating at home as well as the travel expenses for the family, including the kids. Heck, why should they pay for anything when the state can foot the bill?
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.
Now THAT’S a fiscally conservative Republican! Look how well she conserved her own funds and leveraged someone else’s!

Oh, she also revictimized rape victims when she charged rape victims for their own forensic tests as mayor of Wasilla.

Whether or not Sarah Palin agrees with abortion in cases of rape is no excuse to slap rape victims in the face by charging them to gather evidence of a crime. This goes beyond revictimization, it’s a government-sanctioned assault against rape victims. With treatment like this we wonder why rape victims do not want to go to the police.

In fact, rape victims in Wasilla may not be going to the police, because contrary to Fannon’s lament that the 2000 bill would cost Wasilla some $5,000-$14,000 per year (each kit costing between $300 - $1200 to process), SevenR at the Great Orange Satan, notes Wasilla reported only one rape during the same year (2000). So, either women are not reporting rapes in Wasilla, because they do not want to be assaulted by the agency that is supposed to protect them, or Fannon, and by extension, Palin, are greatly inflating the costs. Either way, lipstick doesn’t help these pigs.

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The dead caribou bounce:

WaPo poll has white women favoring McCain/Palin over Obama 53 to 41.
Gallup: McCain 49, Obama 44
CBS: McCain 46, Obama 44

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Rewarding bad behavior

For most Americans, it's a mystery how CEO's can fail so badly yet receive so much money.

Fun fact: Yesterday on the trail, Sarah Palin did not know that Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were private entities and instead accused them of being a burden to taxpayers. Well, not yet Sarah dear, but thanks to Bush and GOP policies, they will now. I wonder how much that will raise my taxes? Sarah, it seems, does not have a clue about much of anything but earmarks, loyalty oaths, slogans, and smears.

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Obama's "No Maverick" ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBtbG5xjFBY&eurl=http://www.americablog.com/

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You've lost that volunteering spirit since 9/11. So says someone who should know all about not showing up when needed:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush challenged the nation Monday to rekindle the volunteer spirit it had after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history, when people rushed to help others however they could.

"The truth of the matter is, the farther we've gotten away from 9/11, that memory has begun to fade," Bush told an audience of volunteers on the South Lawn. [...]
Gosh, all that work by Mr. Bush and his Republican friends shouting 9/11 9/11! every other second over the past seven years and still the memory of 9/11 has faded? I guess Americans have a worse attention span than I thought.

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The Alaskan Independence Party, whose secession work Sarah Palin has cheered for years and of which Todd Palin has been a long-standing member, has ties not just to white supremacists, but also to the Chechen separatists who in turn have ties to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. I wonder what Jim Inhofe, who demands that Barack Obama prove that he loves his country thinks of this?

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Politico: On the campaign trail, John McCain likes to brag that he went after corrupt uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff as some sort of high-minded reform crusade. Well, according to a new book by Boston Globe reporter Gary S. Chafetz, McCain’s war against Abramoff was motivated more by revenge than any sort of noble principle.

ThinkProgress has more.

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Jesus' General Speaking to the base using God's love language:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2008/09/speaking-to-base-using-gods-love.html

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Sarah Palin's secret emails:
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/09/08/sarah-palins-secret-e-mails/

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Gearing up for armageddon

The Bush administration is planning to sell the United Arab Emirates an advanced U.S. missile defense system valued at up to $7 billion that could be used to defend against Iran, people who have attended briefings on the matter said on Monday.http://rawstory.com/news/2008/U.S._plans_7_billion_missiledefense_sale_0908.html

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If you hadn't heard of last year's Free Rice site, it worked this way: you answered vocabulary questions, and for every question you got right, the site sponsors donated to the UN World Food Programme. Well, the site has now expanded subjects. You can now answer questions on:Famous PaintingsChemical SymbolsEnglish GrammarEnglish VocabularyWorld CapitalsFrenchGermanItalianSpanishMultiplication Table So go and enjoy a new time suck while also helping out others!

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This isn’t being reported in the mainstream media, but you probably know the Pentagon won’t admit it even if it’s true:
Sixteen US troops from the 57th Unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say.

Iraqi security sources have revealed that 21 US troops had committed suicide inside a former Iraqi air force base 27 days ago, Fars News Agency reported on Monday.

According to the sources, the 21 troops were treated in a hospital but only five soldiers have survived and they are in a critical condition.

Security officials said they used potent narcotics to kill themselves.

The troops’ motivations for suicide are not known but according to Iraqi sources the servicemen belonged to the 57th Unit of the US Airborne Division that was behind the massacre of several Iraqi families– mostly women and children– in northern Baghdad, said Ali al-Baghdadi an Iraqi security official.
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Congress reconvenes today from yet another undeserved vacation.

Repukelicans apparently used their time off to plan for continued obstructionist tactics:
Even that might not be easy. Republicans are threatening to block the spending bill if Democrats do not give them a vote on ending a quarter-century freeze on new offshore drilling.
Well done.

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Bushies name McCain National Finance Chairman to take over Fannie Mae:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/08/mccain-herbert-allison/

I just can't believe what's happening to this country.

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Sarah Failin has consented to have multiple interviews with ABC gelded lapdog Charles Gibson in Alaska over two days later this week. Because if he screws up and asks a toughie on the first day, there won't be a second.Remember, the self-proclaimed pitbull-barracuda has to be treated with "respect and deference," so she will not be asked about the Bridge to Nowhere, whether her son cut the brakes of schoolbuses, whether she asked a library to ban books, the Troopergate investigation, her nutty pastor, her 5 colleges in 6 years, her embrace of federal pork and earmarks for Alaska, why she uses her baby and pregnant daughter as photo ops, whether she really did say, "Sambo beat the bitch", or why she didn't have that redneck arrested for statutory rape.

Instead, we'll lhear all about how a gutsy working mother combined family with blah blah blah blah blah... what its like hunting moose... where she got those awesome glasses... how her faith in Jeebus helped her deal with family problems, the awful mean media...

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How many people do we have to kill in Pakistan before it's considered a war?

This morning two US Predator Drones attacked a small village two miles north of Miramshah in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency, killing at least 23 and wounding 20 others. Ten of those killed were said by officials to be militants, although a previous official was quoted as saying "no foreign militant was killed" in the strike. At least 4 women and 2 children were reported among the dead and most of the wounded are also reported to be women and children.

http://news.antiwar.com/2008/09/08/at-least-20-civilians-killed-as-us-drones-attack-school-in-north-waziristan/

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Monday, September 8, 2008

Here are the "Headlines For Today"

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.
"You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/06/palins-church-promotes-co_n_124536.html

They should ask Ted Haggard how well it worked out for him.

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Frank Rich: McCain vetted Sarah Palin like he vetted the Iraq war:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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How to make sure there's a "liberal bias"

A law blog points out why the police might want to re-think how they treat journalists: If you arrest student journalists and other journalists for doing their job, that will make them cover the police more critically in the future. If you arrest a photographer for "rioting" when he is in fact taking a photograph of the riot rather than participating in it, if you arrest a reporter for "rioting" when he is in fact standing in front of a camera reporting on the riot rather than participating in it, this will make that photographer or reporter less inclined in the future to believe the police when the police make accusations. After all, he now has personal experience with the police making a false accusation against him. So now he personally knows that police officers can and do lie. That has to color his future reporting. There is an old saying, "never argue with someone who buys paper by the truckload and ink by the barrel". Even in today's Internet-connected world that is still a wise saying.

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Could Maureen Dowd please just write ONE freaking column that doesn't mention Bill and Hillary?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07dowd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

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Halliburton exec pleads guilty to bribery

Well, the unthinkable has finally happened. VP Cheney's ex(hah!)-company is on the block. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Jack Stanley has pleaded guilty to charges of bribery after a 5-year investigation. (No link because it's the WSJ and subscription only; the quotes come from an actual newspaper.)
In a wide-ranging foreign corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton Co executive Albert J "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian officials. The bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquified-natural-gas plant in Nigeria.

***

Mr Stanley's agreement to cooperate with Federal investigators could breathe new life into the five-year probe, and additional charges of executives are possible. Various current and former executives of the business unit KBR, once owned by alliburton but now independent, have been subpoenaed as have other companies involved in the construction.
And one of them, could be Li'l Dick hisself. The bribery happened in '95 when Dickie-Bird was CEO. He will claim ignorance of the deal, of course, but we're talking about a micro-manager of epic proportions. The chance that something that momentous happened on his watch without his not just knowing about it but approving it is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. Whether anybody involved will have the guts to admit it was his call is a totally different matter. Especially since Dickie seems to have been Stanley's mentor. Three years later, Cheney made Stanley the head of KBR.

Nancy Pelosi has made it impossible to imagine Bush or Cheney being hauled away to jail for their crimes against this country (like lying in order to start a war over oil from which Cheney's old company and Bush's oil buddies made $$$Billions$$$), but it may be that at least Cheney will see the inside of a jail cell for his crimes against other businesses.

Alright, it's not likely. But we can always dream, can't we?

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Todd Palin's former business partner - Scott Richter, who the National Enquirer has reported as having an affair with Sarah Palin — has filed an emergency motion to seal the court records from his divorce. The motion was denied.

There's also a rumor that in the mid 90's, Sarah had a fling with another one of Todd's business partners, Brad Hanson.

How bizarre (and magically delicious) if Palin could get away with lying her ass off on national television about her record and Obama’s positions, and then succeed in ducking any serious questions from the press, only to get tripped up by some trivial infidelity.

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All the talk going around is that the McCain campaign didn't vet Palin because they're incompetent and full of fail. I bought into it for a minute too, after all, what other excuse could there be? You know, I've been at this for years now, and sometimes the sheer venality of it still takes my breath away. They didn't vet Palin not because they couldn't get it together to do so, but because they knew it wouldn't matter anyway.

Think about it. She's going around telling a bunch of lies about a jet and Ebay and earmarks and a bridge. Doesn't matter, just attack "the liberal media" and they'll shut right up, or even if they don't, people will be inclined to believe you and not the front pages.

She's being investigated for illegally interfering in the operations of law enforcement? Doesn't matter, just get some minion on the phone to put out a nasty press release decrying the politics of one government official investigating another, with no sense of irony at all, because if you shock them into breathlessness, it's harder to formulate a response. All their problems are going to go away now, because this is how they get them to go away. It's how they have always played the game.

Our party should have known this. For the last eight years at least all they've ever done is what they accuse us of doing: rampant spending, wild politically motivated illegal acts, unprovoked wars of nation-building gone horribly wrong, demeaning the troops, desecrating the flag, being ignorant about the country they purport to love (the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance? Come on). The only things they're interested in accusing us of are the things they do themselves, and I should know better by now. So should the people who, you know, have actual positions in the party and don't just write about stuff that pisses them off to a bunch of friends.

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Sarah Palin keeps health care costs under control

Faced with the prospect of so many Alaska Guardsmen and soldiers returning home after suffering traumatic brain injuries (TBI), Gov. Sarah Palin reached deep into Alaska's coffers to allocate one hundred dollars to teach health care professionals how to recognize TBI cases.

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Rebecca Nelson thought that she was helping the environment when she captured rainwater in a barrel and use it on her garden. Car dealer Mark Miller thought he was “greening” his facility with a cistern to use to wash vehicles. They were both violating the law in Utah where it is against the law to capture rain water.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4001252

Should I cover my lawn when it rains?

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Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the revelation in Bob Woodward's new book that the Bush administration has been spying on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraqi spokesman Ali Dabbagh warned of future bad relations between Iraq and the CIA if the allegations proved true. Even Kurdish lawmaker Mahmud Osman denounced the spying as a breach of friendship.
Future bad relations? They're not already furious that the CIA helped Bush fabricate the intelligence to attack their country?

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From ABC's Political Punch:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Didn't people used to have to earn respect?

I'm just imagining what the reaction would be if Hillary Clinton had ever said that.

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Let's just say the Republicans got their way; abortion becomes illegal, and every pregnant woman has to give birth. No more worries about protecting the "babies;" they will all be born.

After the cheering settled down, how do you think these same people would react if, along with their precious "Human Life Constitutional amendment," a second amendment was passed, limiting the number of children any family may have by law to, oh, say, two. No more quivers full of arrows.

Do you think they would suddenly have an opinion on government controlling a woman's right to choose? Would these same heroic, baby-saving lawmakers suddenly become "activist judges," legislating from the bench?

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If only John McCain had learned about the Internet before he chose Sarah Palin — so much “cyber vetting” could’ve happened. Instead, a bunch of hungover libtard bloggers are using their favorite friend (the Internet) to dig up all kinds of half-ass semi-comical crimes committed by that beloved Alaskan anger-bear, Sarah Palin.

From the official Alaska state courts’ website, we have learned that Sarah is basically getting arrested all the time for dumb redneck bullshit, exactly like you’d expect:
In June of 1993, Sarah was charged with C/F W/O PHOTO ID — a charge that was later, suspiciously, dismissed. “C/F” stands for “Caribou something.”
Just two days later, charges were filed against Sarah Palin for CRIM NEG FAIL REG NT, which actually translates to “criminal negligence fail register NT.” We don’t know what “NT” stands for — “Nutcase”? “Walnuts”? It probably involved destroying the environment.
And just a few years ago, in November 2004 when she was supposedly a responsible member of society with four kids, she was cited for the unforgivable snowbilly crime of TINTED WINDOWS, which is the inexplicable thing all rednecks do their vehicles, the illegal window tint film shit you buy down at the dubious car-stereo/rims shop.

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Pastor Swank is back with an unintelligable title, and a startling scoop:
Why did B. Hussein Obama dodge the topic of extremist Muslim presence? Because he is a mask Muslim.
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Marc Perkel - letter to the editor:

John McCain is running against the Republican establishment? The Republican establishment that he now admits failed the American people. John McMcain is going to take America back from people like John McCain? And that’s change we can believe in? I wonder if the Republicans running for reelection in the House and Senate are going to pick up on McCain’s theme and run against the Republican party too?

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Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, warned yesterday the US should not withdraw too quickly from Iraq and leave the country "in chaos".

"The question is, is Iraq today ready with a national army, a national police force, a national judiciary, a national educational system," Moussa said.

"If they are ready, the troops have to leave. If they are not ready and the Americans are there anyway and the mistake has been committed, I am not of the view that we just call on the Americans to leave ... It would be another mistake to create chaos in the country and then leave it in chaos."
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=228345&Sn=WORL&IssueID=31171

For a long time, I agreed with Mr. Moussa, but years have gone by, and the Iraqis are not stepping up to the plate. Perhaps the Arab League could cough up $10.3 billion a month for us to stay.

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Evolutionists flock to Darwin-shaped wall stain:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/evolutionists_flock_to_darwin

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So now the Republicans get to pick and choose who gets to cover the presidential campaign and how it is covered:
http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2008/09/msnbc-capitulates-to-karl-rove-and.html

Headlines For Today