Headlines - Saturday

Feel the hate

 

Some more McCain supporters waiting in line: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPg0VCg4AEQ&eurl=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

 

As Nancy Greggs says, there are "More of Us": http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/451

 

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Looks like Dear Leader and Condi blew another one - h/t Dick 

 

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - China has assured Pakistan of help to get out of its economic crisis, the Pakistani ambassador to Beijing said on Friday, but he gave no details and did not say if China had agreed to urgently needed new loans.

 

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed U.S. ally, is struggling to come to grips with a financial crisis. Islamabad's rapidly dwindling foreign reserves are at their lowest level since 2002.

http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews/idINIndia-36022820081017

 

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A clip from the documentary that PBS doesn't have the balls to show before the election. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI2rpez3ydA&eurl=http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

You can see the whole documentary here.

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Bush abused public trust again

A federal law that "prohibits the use of public funds or resources for partisan political activities" didn't stop Bush administration officials from traveling around the country in 2006 to "to lend prestige or bring federal grants to 99 politically endangered Republicans that year."

The report traces the abuse of public funds to Sara Taylor, an aide to Karl Rove.

'Throughout the first 10 months of 2006, she sent periodic updates to the White House scheduling director, as well as White House liaisons at each agency, about which candidates deserved federal agency support.'" Link 

Sarah Taylor is the little darling that pretty much pleaded the 5th when she testified about the firing of US Attorneys.

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McCain and Palin In Their Own Words: 25 Laughable Quotes 

Excerpt:

"Sarah Palin knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America. McCain. Really John? She knows more about energy than the Secretary of Energy? More even than Dick Halliburton Cheney?

"Pray for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending soldiers out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." 
Palin. Really, Sarah? God wanted 1.2 million Iraqis killed and 5 million children orphaned? Is that why God started this war? To kill Saddam and steal Iraq's oil? What's a barrel of oil go for in Heaven? 

Read all 25 Here 

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(CNN) -- Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin plans to appear on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, multiple sources told CNN Thursday.

I don't know what she thinks she's going to get out of it. Her fundie base doesn't watch SNL. It's way past their bedtime. 

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Bernanke and Paulson

Bankers laughing it up all the way to the bank: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/17-1

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As Obama puts away one former battleground state after another, GOP front groups and the media apologists and enablers of the banksters who have raped the American economy are worried sick that Obama's message of change might actually be real. "If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants." To the far right, this is one step away from civil war. The Wall Street Journal editorial board is begging its fat cat readers to do whatever they can-- and that means dollars-- to save the filibuster" from... this:

They want to be sure the Senate will obstruct Obama's agenda for change. There is a way we can all thwart their plans and that would be by electing progressives to the Senate. You can still help in the tough races that will make the difference.

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SCOTUS hearts ACORN

It appears that after the disastrous consequences of their 2000 Supreme Court Judicial decision (Coup), the SCOTUS has ruled with Ohio's Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (and overturned one of the politicized 6th Circuit Court's decisions) that she should not have to alert county officials to newly registered voters whose records don't exactly match state records. The Supreme Court is siding with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations. The justices on Friday overruled a federal appeals court.

Had the Republicans prevailed in this case, about 200,000 new voters whose registrations don't match state files exactly could have been forced to cast rarely-counted provisional ballots.

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Meanwhile, in Afghanistan

Stars and Stripes reports on an Afghan policeman killing an American soldier and the mounting concerns  that militants have infiltrated the national force.

And AP reports al-Qaeda will weather the global economic crisis just fine because they get their money from drug trade in Afghanistan and sympathizers in the oil-rich Gulf states, and don't use banks. 

And on the glorious surge in Iraq: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/10/post-successful.html

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Not suitable for work: Leave Joe the plumber alone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk4MKgAItAg&eurl=http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/

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Everyone is waiting with breathless anticipation to see who this guy is going to endorse for president:

Who cares what he thinks? He lost all credibility long ago with the above, and more recently when he testified that Ted Stevens was a "trusted individual" and a man with a "sterling" reputation.

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Bill Donohue is at it again. He has pestered YouTube into putting age requirements on viewing videos of host desecration, and now he's claiming that "we do not object to making fun of Catholics, or for that matter Catholic beliefs and practices, just so long as they are made in good taste".

Oh really? I think someone needs to ask Webster Cook about that.

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The Great Republican Crack-up of 2008

I am pretty partial to Hemingway, but this campaign is very F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is the great Republican crack-up of 2008, and in this drama, the great truth is this: McCain is Boris Karloff, from the horror movies of old, Obama is Tony Bennett, the wonderful crooner of smooth, with one of the great presidential temperaments of our times. This election will be won by a man of great presidential temperament, against a man of great and uncontrollable temper he cannot even attempt to hide.

With markets crashing and the economy sinking, McCain shows up at another debate looking angry and nasty, his face tense with some inner contempt that dominates his presence, throwing tiresome slops of mud to voters who hunger for reassurance and substance, his face twisted and eyeballs rolling like Karloff in the horror movies. Obama by contrast is Frank Sinatra during his mellower moments, or even better, Tony Bennett by starlight, looking cool in a crisis, calm in a storm, the serious man for serious times, calmly unflappable. Obama talks about healthcare while McCain talks about Ayers. Obama talks about education while McCain talks about ACORN. Obama talks about jobs while McCain grunts and snarls and sighs in ways that are devastating to him on split-screen television.

Keep reading: http://pundits.thehill.com/2008/10/16/the-great-republican-crack-up-of-2008/

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Graeme Frost antagonist Michelle Malkin is excoriating "liberals" for attempting to destroy Joe the plumber. It isn't just the pot calling the kettle black, it's the pot wandering into the pot store and declaring all other pots black-tinged traitors to our great nation, then offering to run the pot reeducation camp to bring them in line with acceptable and decent container values.

The inherent problem with the Joe the Plumber schtick isn't anything related to scandal.  I got a little gleeful yesterday about the immediate and crushing blows to Joe's credibility, which, as I thought about it, really wasn't the issue.  It turns Joe into another (far less egregious) version of Graeme Frost (albeit one who is getting judged on his own characteristics rather than his parents). 

Where Plumber Joe became problematic was sometime between when John McCain decided that he was a perfect example of what was wrong with Barack Obama's tax policies and when McCain decided that he was perfect for everything.  It's easier for us to put ourselves in the shoes of Everyman when Everyman is a series of vague and readily applicable qualities - struggling to pay bills, dissatisfied with our health insurance, worried about the state of the world - than it is when Everyman becomes a real person, because the numerous differences between our lives and everyone else's become far more apparent. 

Keep reading: http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/10_15_changed_everything/ 

Fun fact: Michelle Malkin actually visited the Frost's commercial property and home — and said she was doing "what journalists should be doing":

Asking questions and subjecting political anecdotes to scrutiny are what journalists should be doing.

When a family and Democrat political leaders drag a child down to Washington at 6 in the morning to read a script written by Senate Democrat staffers on a crusade to overturn a presidential veto, someone might have questions about the family's claims. The newspapers don't want to do their jobs. The vacuum is being filled.

If you don't want questions, don't foist these children onto the public stage.

Fight your battles like adults and stop hiding behind youngsters dragging around red wagons filled with your talking points.

Malkin is not completely unaware of the hypocrisy of her complaints. She attempts to explain it away by claiming the media has "behemoth double standards" for calling it "journalism when they investigate, but consider it 'stalking' when those of us on the Right perform the same tasks on Democrat poster families."

The difference between what the media is doing now with Wurzelbacher and what Malkin and the right wing did to the Frosts is clear. While the media is reporting the facts as they find them, Malkin and her allies distorted the facts with innuendo and refused to believe the Frosts were "struggling" even after family friends told them so.

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Uh oh. Cuba just realized it has a whole lot of oil.

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If you can't beat 'em, hire 'em

The company John McCain has hired to make all these sleazy robocalls appears to be the same company that made what McCain called "hate calls" against him in 2000. 

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If you will recall, several of the improperly fired US Attorneys were let go primarily because they wouldn't play along with Rove/GOP demands that they prosecute bogus voter fraud cases.

Obama's campaign has written a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking for an investigation into improper leaks from DOJ officials involving their ACORN investigation and whether or not people within the DOJ, perhaps with the help of the White House, are working in concert with the McCain campaign to further the ACORN myth for his political advantage.

Brilliant.

And in a related story

By their brown shirts you shall know them

Death threats, vandalism hit ACORN after McCain comments.

Remember, it is not "domestic terrorism" or "fascism" if it is done by Republicans.

 

- A senior ACORN staffer in Cleveland, after appearing on television this week, got an e-mail that said she "is going to have her life ended."

 

- A female staffer in Providence, R.I., got a threatening call from someone who said words to the effect of "We know you get off work at 9," then uttered racial epithets.

 

- Vandals broke into the group's Boston and Seattle offices and stole computers.

 

Since McCain's remarks, ACORN's 87 offices across the country have received hundreds of hostile e-mails, many of them containing racial slurs.

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I did not have sex with that man

So says Vicky Iseman about McCain. This will refresh your memory.

I wonder why she came out with this now?

A female telecommunications lobbyist who became part of an explosive story early this year about John McCain has broken months of silence to deny the main subtext of the account — that she was suspected of being romantically involved with the Republican presidential candidate. "I did not have a sexual relationship with Senator McCain," Vicky Iseman told the National Journal magazine.

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The religious thuggery of the Chimperor 

Just because a group discriminates in hiring does not mean it cannot get Federal money, so sayeth the Tsar of the Baboons.

First off, do I need to explain why it is offensive to use my taxpayer dollars to fund a group that would not hire me because I do not pray to their brand of invisible deity?

Second, when you find proof that the Bush Administration gave Federal dollars to a group that only hired Muslims, get back to me. For it has to be obvious that the very same people who are cheering on the Quarter-Bright Prince's giving money to World Vision would be lighting up the phones to Rush Limbaugh if the Administration gave money to a Muslim group.

Third, it also has to be obvious to everyone by now that the Justice Department and more specifically, the Office of Legal Counsel, is no more than a bunch of goons who do the bidding of the Bush Administration. The Justice Department is a branch office of the GOP's legal team. There is nothing "impartial" or "nonpartisan" to the Justice Department. They are a cabal of partisan hacks with the ability to persecute political opponents by the use of the criminal justice system.

In the pursuit of the Bush Administration to bring this great nation down to the level of a bankrupt banana republic, they have done work to make sure that we have the justice system of such a nation.

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So, if I were going to make an elaborate sign clumsily implying my political opponent was either a socialist, communist, totalitarian, fascist, and/or all of the above, the first thing I'd do is make sure I knew how to correctly spell his bloody name!

This stroke of graphical genius was found hanging in the John McCain campaign office in Pompano Beach, Florida, this week.

Considering that John McCain's been whining like a full-bladdered puppy all week about being compared to George Wallace, I'd love to hear what he has to say about someone in one of his campaign offices comparing Barack Obama to Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Castro.
 

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Sound the trumpets!

 

Another Bush 2004 endorser for Barack Obama. This one from the Salt Lake Trib!

 

And this: for the first time in the 161 year history of the Chicago Tribune, the paper has endorsed a Democratic presidential nominee: Barack Obama.

 

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Faux Joe

So the GOP organizes an "I Am Joe" rally to show how they are in solidarity with  blue collar America. They dress up in overalls and everything. But it turns out that the leaders of the rally are...the head of the College Republicans, and some guy from Australia.

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League of Conservation Voters gives McCain a 0% environmental rating: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/17/mccain-lcv/

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The Military Times reports that the "Department of Veterans Affairs regional offices have been ordered to immediately stop shredding documents" after an investigation found some benefits claims and supporting documents — such as certificates for births, deaths and marriage — among piles of papers waiting to be destroyed. VFW National Commander Glen Gardner said the problem could be significant:

"The question that begs to be asked and answered is how many veterans had their disability and compensation claims disappear down a paper shredder?"

Among the records found waiting to be shredded were applications for disability compensation, education benefits, home loans and pensions for low-income veterans, officials said.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was on Hardball yesterday with some alarming suggestions for the media. Bachmann believes that the media should perform an expose of Congress to determine which members are pro-American and anti-American. Guess which one Obama is?

Pour a drink, then press play. This is ten minutes of lunacy as only Bachmann can achieve.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgLxVhYitiM&eurl=http://www.jedreport.com/

Sarah Palin made similar comments at a fundraiser yesterday, saying that she loved to visit "pro-America" areas of the country — "small towns" where "hard working" people are "very patriotic."

I wonder what the population needs to be before a town is no longer patriotic.

Paging Joe Biden: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/17/biden-blasts-palins-pro-a_n_135745.html

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Is Anybody Happy? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/opinion/18collins.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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