Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Headlines - Tuesday

Get ready for Tom ["NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign"] Brokaw's tour-de-force tonight. Let's see if he'll break Stephanopoulous' and Charlie Gibson's record for bringing up the most dated, disproven and irrelevant scandals about Obama while ignoring every single thing John McCain has done in life, from his adultery to his still-not-released cancer records to his erratic behavior to the Keating Five.
 
 
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Letter to the editor from Dick
 
SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER
 
My fellow Utahans are nothing if not predictable.  Once again, in open defiance of logic, common sense, the horrific lessons of the past eight years and the natural laws of self-preservation, recent polls indicate 69% of us have rallied self-destructively behind an unprincipled Republican ticket utterly devoid of honesty, integrity and a coherent vision for the future of our country.
 
Is it something in our water?
 
 
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4,179 soldiers killed in Iraq; 610 in Afghanistan. That we know of.
 
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Faced with health care plan numbers that didn't add up, McCain's economics advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin has just announced that McCain will make up the difference with big cuts to Medicare.
 
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Did Hank Paulson (who served as Chairman and CEO of the now-failed Goldman Sachs) really just put a 35 year old former Goldman Sachs VP in charge of the entire bailout program?
 
 
 
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By Madeleine Begun Kane

McCain's very wrong about war
And on health care and taxes and more.
But he's right (though it's rare)
With his "life isn't fair,"
Cuz what else could explain Bush v. Gore
 
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Fallows gets uncharacteristically ruffled by McCain's Ayers attacks:

If John McCain has a better set of plans to deal with the immediate crisis, and the medium-term real-economy fallout, and the real global problems of the era -- fine, let him win on those. But it is beneath the dignity he had as a Naval officer to wallow in this mindless BS. I will say nothing about the dignity of a candidate who repeatedly winks at the public, Hooters-waitress style.  A great country acts great when it matters.  This is a time when it matters -- for politicians in the points they raise, for journalists in the subjects they write about and the questions they ask of candidates. And, yes, for voters.

I'm afraid that Jim is dealing with what we're all dealing with: the fact that the myth of McCain is, in fact, a lie. The real McCain - dishonest, dishonorable and despicable - is now in plain sight. To say I'm disillusioned would be an understatement. The last six weeks have shown us all something we'd rather never have found out. But we can't ignore it now, can we?

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"If you don't give a hoot about substance, and if jaw-dropping contradictions impress you, and a folksy-phony style turns you on, and you don't mind twisted English and flawed logic — and you thrill to the sight of a candidate for the second highest office of the land brazenly flirting with her audience — then 'Winky Dink' might just be your gal."
 
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It pays to have a candidate - and a campaign staff - who live in the 21st Century. Here's proof.

The terms "Keating Five," "Keating Economics," "Charles Keating," and "McCain Keating," hovered among several of the top search terms on Google Monday, as Barack Obama's campaign launched a new 13-minute online video that portrays McCain as someone who hasn't learned from his past bad judgments during critical financial crises.

The term "Keating Five" was the seventh-most searched for term on Google Monday afternoon, right after searches for voter registration information in Texas and Florida, and right before the term "Vote For Change."

"Keating Economics" was the 17th most searched for term, and keatingeconomics.com was the 18th most popular term during that same window of time.

In contrast, searches for terms related to Obama and Sixties radical William Ayers barely made an appearance among the top 100 online searches on Monday -- even as Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin continued to slam Obama during a Florida campaign rally for his "ties" to Ayers, who is now a college professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This week is off to a flying start. The only thing that could improve it is a complete McCain Meltdown at the town hall tomorrow tonight. It could be the YouTube moment of all time, and it very well could happen. You know the Old Man ain't too stable to begin with - if some Obama supporter hits him with a Keating question, he may very well lose it on national TV.
 
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I don't know what happened to the old Joe Klein, but I like the new one....
 
 
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Paper or absentee ballots.....
 
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I'm seeing a lot of spin about how McCain was 'exonerated' of involvement in Keating 5.

Well,
not exactly.

The Senate Ethics Committee did not pursue, for lack of jurisdiction, any possible ethics breaches in McCain's delayed reimbursements to Keating for trips at the latter's expense, because they occurred while McCain was in the House. The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said that it too lacked jurisdiction, because McCain was no longer in the House.

Got that? McCain's 'exoneration' resulted from both the House and Senate claiming they had no jurisdiction to punish McCain. He dodged a bullet because of a Congressional loophole, nothing more.

This is what Republicans are calling 'exonerated?' Shades of OJ calling himself 'innocent'...
 
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CLEARWATER, Fla. -- "Okay, so Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang onto your hats," Sarah Palin told a rally of a few thousand here this morning, "because from now until Election Day it may get kind of rough."

You betcha. And the person dishing out the roughest stuff at the moment is Sarah Palin.

"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day," she said.

"Booooo!" replied the crowd.

"I knew you guys would react that way, okay," she continued. "So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago."

It was time to revive the allegation, made over the weekend, that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, in this case Bill Ayers, late of the Weather Underground. Many independent observers say Palin's allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities.

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin went on to say that "Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's living room, and they've worked together on various projects in Chicago."

Stay classy, Palinites!

Charming:

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

No doubt, by this afternoon, there will be a unanimous outcry by all the right-wing bloggers decrying the jack-booted thugs and this incipient fascism. After all, these are the same guys who got their panties in a bunch because… people called a radio show while Stanley Kurtz was on. Surely whipping crowds into a froth will upset them.

Never mind.

Yesterday McCain gave a speech full of verbal assaults directed against Obama. At one point, McCain asked, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" A member of the crowd yelled out, "a terrorist!" McCain paused while the audience laughed at the comment, and then continued with his attack — without condemning or admonishing the audience member.

These people are evil, pure evil.

I'm surprised they haven't brought up the fact that Obama fathered two black children yet.

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The sinking of the USS Lehman: http://www.teambio.org/2008/10/06/the-sinking-of-the-uss-lehman/

Meanwhile, we have stories like this: :

An unemployed man with an advanced finance degree who was despondent over his own financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale home in a gated community, police said Monday.

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Keating Five

Then: "The fact is, it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so."

Now: the investigation was a set-up, a witch hunt, a partisan smear job, and he did nothing wrong. 

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It's over: why Bill Ayers won't save John McCain: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_flack/archive/2008/10/05/it-s-over.aspx 

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Ezra Klein: A campaign John McCain will regret

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Obama is turning Florida blue

A Fox News/Rasmussen Reports survey taken Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008 shows Sen. Barack Obama leading Florida with 52%, over Sen. John McCain with only 45%.

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Pope criticizes pursuit of wealth. Seriously.

The Pope in Ermenegildo Zegna robe, with Givenchy mitre and Ileana Makri staff.

The Pope, bearing his burden.

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Liar, liar, plane on fire


In the LAT report on McCain's Navy record of crashing his planes into things (bodies of water, power lines, the ground, Hanoi), what stands out isn't the high number of such incidents, or the fact that an admiral's son's career wasn't harmed by them, but that he repeatedly lied about them, blaming mechanical failures that Navy investigators found had not happened.

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When pumpkins drink - h/t Pat


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McCain spokestool Nancy Pfotenhauer yesterday proclaimed:

If Senator McCain had hung out with somebody who had bombed abortion clinics, no one would consider [raising the issue] illegitimate.

Well, there's no evidence that McCain hung out with any clinic bombers, but he DID vote to protect them from the law. It seems he has a ....

Domestic terrorist problem

In the 90's, when anti-abortion terrorists were killing doctors, John McCain voted twice against legislation that would protect doctors, women, and staff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDlpWfLyYss&eurl=http://www.americablog.com/ 

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I can not imagine why the McCain campaign would do this (via):

Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, "Can I help you?'' and turn the person around.

When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday.

Think about that, people. It was a public event in which a public official, seeking public office, spoke at a public park. Journalists, bolstered by the First Amendment, were told they weren't allowed to talk to voters. 

Fun fact: Palin has still yet to give a single press conference since being tapped as Sen. John McCain's running mate on August 29.

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Fear isn't quite the only arrow left in the Republican quiver

There's also disenfranchisement via lies and thuggery:
An anonymous flier circulating in African-American neighborhoods in North and West Philadelphia states that voters who are facing outstanding arrest warrants or who have unpaid traffic tickets may be arrested at the polls on Election Day.

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Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten won't be testifying to Congress anytime soon. Not until their Dear Leader is on an island somewhere (or on his ranch in Paraguay)http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-dont-get-your-oversight-by-dday.html

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White privilege: http://eb-misfit.blogspot.com/2008/10/white-privilege.html

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Those who do not learn from history:

http://susiemadrak.com/2008/10/07/09/08/those-who-do-not-learn-from-history-etc/ 

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Great timing, huh?

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives.

Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and operators to be aware of potential attack tactics."

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The NYT documents that John McCain is a liar.

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Sarah Palin doesn't think it's patriotic to pay taxes

Several tax experts said Sarah Palin "is required to pay federal taxes on $25,000 in reimbursements from the state of Alaska for her children's travel expenses." Palin "released her 2006 and 2007 tax returns on Friday, sparking a lively debate on tax blogs and among tax professionals over whether reimbursements and per-diem meal payments from the state should be subject to federal taxes."

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During the trial of Sen. Ted Tubes Stevens yesterday, prosecutors played tape of secretly recorded conversations between Stevens and former VECO chief Bill Allen, who has already been convicted of bribery. In the 2006 conversation, Stevens told Allen he couldn't "think of a thing of anything we've done that wrong":

The worst that could happen, Stevens told Allen, was that they would have to pay thousands of dollars in legal bills to get themselves out of hot water.

"They're not going to shoot us, it's not Iraq," Stevens said, although he also expressed some concern about having to serve time in jail. "I hope to Christ it never gets to that, but I don't think it will," Stevens said.

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QOTD

"Why is the distant history of John McCain as a prisoner of war always part of his resume, but his more recent history in the savings and loan failings of the 1980s and 1990s is never mentioned?"

SD ArgusLeader.

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