Daily Drumroll: Welcome, President Obama!!!!!!!

11/4/08: Obama Wins Pennsylvania AND Ohio!!

2008-11-04T17:44:00.001-08:00

Let's welcome President Barack Obama!!!!!

8:00 pm, Nov 4, 2008: A HISTORIC MOMENT!!
CNN just projected Sen. Barack Obama the winner of the 2008 election! And I'm glad it was CA and the West that put him over the top!!! In my own little way, I contributed! And I'm sure most of you reading this feel that way too!!!
I'M POPPING THE CORK NOW!!!!
And he just won Virginia - and didn't even need it - but it feels great anyway!!! Take a look at the maps above - truly, this is an unifying leader - it hasn't looked this diverse since Carter!
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WoooohooooOOOO !!!! OK I don't need the big V no more!! NO Republican (well since Lincoln) has EVER won the election without OH!!! I think this election is done!
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CNN projects that Obama wins Pennsylvania AND OHIO !!! Wow, that was an early CNN projection - with only 17% counted in OH - but the exit polls must be very very strong to project this early.
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CNN projects that Obama wins Pennsylvania!!! Yaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, I'm adding some more ice to the champagne bucket - waiting for the second and final nail to fall - you know what I'm talking about - the big V!!

11/4/08: ELECTION DAY - and Obama wins very first town called!

2008-11-03T23:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read that right!! Obama wins 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire!!

Dixville Notch has spoken: It's Obama in a landslide

This was the first time in decades that this little town has gone Democratic - and it did so overwhelmingly!! Be warned however that this town has not been a reliable predictor of the ultimate winner!!!
Well anyways, with that soothing news, try and grab some sleep so you can be prepared to party hard and long tomorrow night! Hopefully, I can soon sleep peacefully every night once more - and so can the rest of us. In the meantime, if you're having one last sleepless night and are up reading my blog (!), here's a soothing article for you to read:
Don't Panic--Reassurances From a Poll Neurotic

11/4/08: ELECTION NIGHT WATCH!!

2008-11-03T12:30:00.001-08:00

Election night watch:
The action begins at 6 PM EST when polls close in portions of Indiana and Kentucky. But for me the real action begins at 7 PM EST (4pm PST). Polls close in and Georgia, as well as most of Florida and most of New Hampshire. Then at 7:30 PM EST Polls close in Ohio and North Carolina. And finally, at 8 PM EST (5pm PST). Polls close in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri. Use the poll closing times map to the right to find the remaining times.

What this means is that this election could be over before I get home tomorrow. If Obama wins EITHER Virginia or Pennsylvania, I think it's all over for McCain. If either or both are too close to call, we could be in for a nailbiter. And if BOTH are called for McCain early, I'd call out the troops.

11/3/08: Virginia : The "Other" Key State

2008-11-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

Even if McCain wins Pennsylvania ( a remote possibility, see my earlier post), it would seem that he can't win without Virginia. And all indications are that Obama's more likely to win Virginia than any other swing state, including OH, FL and even CO. This would be great news, except for 2 factors:
1. Like PA, VA also uses primarily the "hackable" electronic voting machines (76% - PA is 82%)
2. Like PA, VA also has little or no early voting.
Actually, all the 4 reasons I stated for PA earlier also apply to VA. This is why I'm more confident in FL than I am in VA!
Since VA polls close at 7pm Eastern, if it goes to Obama early, I'm pulling out the champagne cork.

11/2/08: Pennsylvania: The Keystone State IS the key to this election!

2008-11-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

In the last week, the McCain campaign has spent enormous time, money and effort in Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, even more than in other battleground states where he was much more competitive such as Florida, Ohio or North Carolina. Why?

1. Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes are the ONLY realistic path left to McCain, given that early voting indicators are that McCain will lose many states that Bush won in 2004, including Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada & Iowa.

2. The McCain campaign believes that there is a deep thread of bigotry running through the rural areas - they're counting on the typical "Bradley Effect" (in which most or all undecided voters "break" to the white candidate, even though they may have polled otherwise). They think that Hillary Clinton's win over Obama in the primaries here gives this credibility. Hence also the Rev Wright ads that are airing here in spite of McCain's "promise" not to do so.

3. Pennsylvania uses primarily electronic machines for voting, which are prone to rigging as has been demonstrated in previous elections. Here's more info on the machines used in each state. And an analysis sent to me explaining how this could be exploited, published earlier.

4. Pennsylvania has no early voting. So unlike in many other states, votes couldn't be locked in. Plus it makes voting much more susceptible to devious rigging techniques, including broken or malfunctioning machines, last-minute voter "checks", mysteriously "slow" voting, especially in crowded urban areas (which are overwhelmingly Democratic), resulting in polls closing before thousands of voters have exercised their fundamental right.

On Oct 31st, this startling analysis published on HuffPost showed how the election could still be stolen in PA in spite of the near-double-digits leads for Obama:
So, has all this helped McCain close the gap in the Keystone State?
Not according to the polls. And here's an analysis at fivethirtyeight.com that says the same thing.
But as we know well by now, in the final tally, only the one on Nov 4 counts - all others mean zilch.

So here's some useful advice for Tuesday from the author Erica Jong:
To summarize:
Get a paper ballot if at all possible. If not, make double sure that the electronic machine shows your choice BEFORE you hit submit. Take your cellphone/camera with you and take pictures: of your ballot (or screen), of the voting clerk and supervisor and of the scene in and out of the polling station.
IF YOU PRESS OBAMA AND MCCAIN LIGHTS UP, TAKE A PICTURE. IF YOU COMPLAIN TO A SUPERVISOR AND SHE OR HE SAYS YOU JUST DIDN'T PRESS HARD ENOUGH, DON'T DO IT AGAIN AND GIVE MCPALIN A SECOND VOTE. JUST GET ALL THE INFO, THE PHOTO, THE NAME AND ADDRESS AND EMAIL AND TELEPHONE # OF THE VOTING CLERK.
Keep all records!!! BE PREPARED!!!

11/1/08: Perfect Storm Pennsylvania: the new Ohio and Florida?

2008-11-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a thoughtful analysis (sent to me by a friend) of the electronic voting machines in PA and how this could help "steal" the election there:

Perfect Storm Pennsylvania: the new Ohio and Florida?
In early October, McCain abandoned Michigan due to Obama's
double digit leads in that state. Soon afterwards, McCain
declared that Pennsylvania -- where Obama leads with double
digits -- will be won by him in November. Evidence of
McCain's simple bravado, denial, or perhaps something far
more sinister?
Pennsylvania with its 82% unverifiable electronic voting
machines and accompanying abysmal machine error rate offers
terrifying possibilities. Pennsylvania with its 21 electoral
votes remains the largest East Coast state ready to be
plundered by electronic voting. NY, with 31 electoral votes
casts its votes with paper ballots and are not vulnerable to
electronic hacking. The two other East Coast electoral rich
states -- FL(27) and OH(20) -- well, we know their part in
recent election history.
ELECTRONIC VOTING 101
In 2006, 40% of all US voters voted on Direct-Recording
Electronic (DRE) Machines. The move towards paperless ballots
began in 2002 with the deceptively named Help America Vote
Act, designed to rid the country of punch ballots. HAVA
passed with a Republican House, Senate and President, and
close to 4 billion in federal funds were alotted for this
reform. Currently NV, VT, LA, NJ, DE, MD, SC, GA are all
100% DRE machines; the states of MS, TN, IN, VA, KY range
from 74-95% DRE machines (http://dvice.com/voting/index.php).
Pennsylvania? It has 82% DRE'S, which makes its results
vulnerable to manipulations and therefore suspect.
LIVE FREE OR DIEBOLD
Consider the havoc banks would wreak if they decided to forego
giving their clients records of ATM money transactions.
"Trust us," the banks would say with a sincere smile, "We'll
get the money you deposit to your account. Don't worry."
As it turns out, our votes have been handed to electronic
voting companies who give similar reassurances. Call it
"faith based voting" since the electorate has to have a great
deal of trust that the machines are accurately tallying the
votes.
Diebold (now renamed Premiere Election Systems) remains one
of several major electronic voting machine manufacturers.
Although Diebold creates ATM Machines and their receipts,
they claim they can't provide any paper record for voters,
declare their software to be "proprietary" and refuse outside
inspection. On election day, only Diebold people can touch
machines, so they have in essence privatized that segment of
the vote. If there's a close election? There will be no
recount whatsoever since the electronic machine results will
spit out the same results it offered before.
2.
Diebold's partisan streak runs deep; in 2003 Diebold's
President Wally O'Dell expressed his desire to "Personally
guarantee the electoral votes of Ohio" to George Bush in
2003, a full year before the fateful 2004 election. Kenneth
Blackwell, who in 2004 was the honorary co-chair of the Bush
re-election committee and then Ohio's Secretary of State
admitted to holding 178 shares of Diebold stock, albeit
"accidentally"; Diebold donated $50,000 towards Blackwell's
"political interests".
775 PROBLEMS AND COUNTING
Can we as a country rely on electronic voting? In July, Ars
Technica reported a French study which compared voting systems
and found electronic DRE machines to have a 30 percent error
rate compared to the 5% found with paper. One website which
has recorded every voting error reported in the media since
2004 has now documented a whopping total of 1,070! 75% of
these errors are machine related and include an abundance of
"flipped" votes -- where votes for a Democrat or Libertarian
are cast by a voter and a Republican name flashes on the
screen instead. It has been revealed that more nefarious
methods were used in Ohio, where a "man in the middle" company
had the chance to look at Ohio votes and likely manipulate
the votes before sending them back to Ohio.
Stephen Spoonamore, a lifelong Republican and former CEO of
Cybrinth was not permitted to investigate Diebold System's
secretive software architecture recently said, "They're lying,
they're lying. Diebold is lying. There is no System
electronic in the world that cannot be hacked. I have spent
my entire life building or hacking electronic systems...
[and] secure electronic systems don't exist."
Meanwhile in an ironic twist, Florida -- the state where
voter confidence first began to get shaken -- Republican
Governor Charlie Christ ironically returned to 100% paper
ballots in the form of optical scan votes.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
With so many flaws with electronic voting systems and so few
days before the election, what can be done to insure there
are ways to check how people actually vote so that public
faith in voting doesn't continue to fade? The best answer
in a murky state such as Pennsylvania is to have a system of
scientific checks which can act the final arbiters in
contentious elections.
Exit polls are scientific and have been used for 40 years
with incredible accuracy. An exiting voter answers an
anonymous paper ballot which gets placed in a cardboard box
and later gets tallied. The accuracy between exit polls and
the actual counted ballots is high; usually there is at most
a 1% difference between the two.
3.
Exit polls are also so sensitive that a two percent difference
has been enough to detect election fraud; on that basis Colin
Powell rejected Ukranian election results in 2004. It is
ironic (or tactical?) that Karl Rove has denigrated the method
of exit polls here in the US.
So how can Pennsylvania be stopped from becoming part of a
perfect electoral storm? By keeping a sharp eye on the exit
polls, allowing exit polls to be the final arbiter, and by
relying on that science based method to challenge the
innacurate faith-based voting DRE machines with which we
have been saddled. Only when we have voter confidence will
our damaged Democracy be truly restored.

11/1/08: Palin Pranked big time! You HAVE to hear this!!

2008-11-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I'm telling you - you've GOTTA hear this! If you ever needed more proof what a moron Sarah Palin is - listen to her talking for nearly 6 minutes with a Canadian radio prankster pretending to be French President Nicholas Sarkozy! And here is the transcript - in case you missed some great lines!
Seriously, how can a potential VP be so dumb??? You don't think "I'd love to go hunting with you. We could go try hunting by helicopter, like you did, I never did that.I just love killing those animals. Mm, mm. Take away a life, that is so fun!" would make you a little suspicious?
Or how about "You know we have a lot in common also except that from my house I can see Belgium."
Or "You know my wife is a popular singer and a former top model and she’s so hot in bed. She even wrote a song for you.[sings] It’s his life, Joe the Plumber..."
Or dear God - EVEN THIS: "I must say, Governor Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life, you know, Hustler’s "Nailin Palin."
SP: Oh, good, thank you. Yes.
FNS: That was really edgy."

My forehead hurts - from slapping it so often! I mean, I'm a loss for words! They only ended it because they ran out of material!! I'm sure they never in a million years imagined they would get this far with her!!! How dumb is this woman? And she says she'll run for President "maybe in eight years?"
I don't think so! Let's see, between being found guilty of power abuse, being blessed by a witch doctor in her own church, being associated with a secessionist party, not to mention the hilarious interviews with Gibson and Couric, and now this, she's buried on the national scene.
All I can say is: O Canada! Thank you for the final "nail" in her coffin!

10/31/08: Americans agree: Goodbye Palin!

2008-10-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

For the regular reader(s) of this column, it is no secret that I think Sarah Palin is supremely unqualifed to be the VP. In fact, I think she is unfit to be Governor, or hold any public office at all. She is clearly drunk on her own power and thinks that ignorance is a virtue. She has abused her power at every level, and has left a trail of corruption, rancour, divisiveness, abuse and cronyism in her wake. OK, I think you get my drift! This is not news.
But this is big news: 59 % of Americans now agree with me that Palin is unfit for VP! Up by 9% in less than a month. This merely confirms what I've been saying for a while - that picking Palin was a huge and stupid gamble for McCain that has not paid off - in fact, all evidence says she has dragged down the ticket. Bob Cesca on HuffPost agrees:
But what's almost as thrilling [as the end of Bush] is the prospect of Sarah Palin finally going away. Next Wednesday at this time, it's entirely possible that we'll see the last of Sarah Palin on the national stage. At least for now.

Sure, she's provided us with a bottomless cup of blogging material and, more importantly, she's a huge drag on the McCain campaign. And this week, with the Conga line of McCain campaign insiders dishing out leak after delicious leak about Palin, the slow-motion McTrain-wreck has been especially entertaining. But ultimately, the schadenfreude and the hilariously inexplicable interviews are merely distractions from the truly awful things that Sarah Palin represents.

I've seriously had enough of the winking, the giant-chinned-smirking, the too-sibilant forks-on-a-chalkboard "s" sounds, the "nookyooler," the "you betchas," and especially her Romper Room-like penchant for naming and labeling everyone in her audiences: "Romper bomper stomper boo, tell me, tell me, tell me, do! I see Joe the Plumber, Roscoe the Racist, Zed the Gimp..." Yeah, she's not unserious enough as it is. Give her something really stupid to do on the stump. Good call, McCain people.

Today, Palin continued to provide evidence of her vast ignorance of the US Constitution and of her unshakeable faith that all laws were written only to serve her whim: she claimed that her "First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama." Constitutional law expert Glenn Greenwald has this to say:
Somehow, in Sarah Palin's brain, it's a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama. This is actually so dumb that it hurts.
The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.

If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.

This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional.

According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?

UPDATE: The Constitution also guarantees freedom of association. Thus, by Palin's "reasoning," when newspapers -- or Palin herself -- criticize Obama for his associations, they're threatening his constitutional rights.

All I can say is, while Palin has provided a lot of fun for me blogging here, I can't wait to toast her exit from the national stage in less than 4 days! And I hope that the good people of Alaska have the sense to impeach her and make sure she never holds public office again.

10/30/08: Obama big hit live and on TV, while McCain buses in schoolkids for rally!

2008-10-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

Obama's half-hour TV spots last night were watched by 26.3 million people last night (30 million including the Spanish Univision)- handily beating out the regular programming which would been seen by ~23 million! In case you missed it last night, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA
UPDATE: 33 million watched the Obamaercial, according to Nielsen. Rasmussen says 55% of voters watched at least some of it!
Obama was also interviewed by Chares Gibson on ABC, AND later appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart - see it here if you missed it - Obama gave the Daily Show its biggest audience ever, with 3.6 million viewers, 600,000 more than the last record set on Oct 8, when the guest was - Michelle Obama!! Obama totally dominates the airwaves! AND if you have MSNBC on your cable, don't miss Obama tonight at 8pm on the brand-new hit show hosted by Rachel Maddow! It should be fun!
Finally last night, Bill Clinton appeared on stage with Obama in Kissimee, FL, for the first time since the convention - he gave a terrific warmup speech and Obama took it from there - there was good energy between the two. Obama pointed to enthusiasm he's encountering in Florida by noting the crowd of 40,000 people who showed up for the midnight rally!

Meanwhile McCain buses in school kids to fill his rally! They actually had to bus in school kids from the surrounding area in order to fill the rally in Defiance, Ohio. A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area.
What's more, when Sen. John McCain called out for his new buddy Joe the Plumber to stand up, there was only confused silence. Even Joe the Plumber wasn't there.

10/29/08: Obama endorsed by Alaska's biggest paper and conservatives' leading thinker

2008-10-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

The latest big-name Republican to break ranks and endorse Sen Barack Obama for President is Francis Fukuyama , writing in The American Conservative, advisor to Ronald Reagan and one of the stalwarts of the neoconservative movement. This is the guy who bragged that “the End of History” was at hand when the Soviet empire collapsed, and who has now endorsed the man McCain and Palin are calling “a dangerous communist”?? Well, get in line, Francis; you’re only the latest in an increasingly long line of prominent Repubs who are so disgusted with McCain’s repulsive campaign and his atrocious choice of Palin for his VP, that they would actually turn around and endorse Obama. As Fukuyama says:

It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.

McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible.
McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.

By the way, Obama had a great comeback to McCain’s most recent allegations:

“He's been spending these last few days calling me every name in the book. Lately he's called me a socialist for wanting to roll-back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class. I don't know what's next. By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

Major newspapers endorsements for Obama/Biden have also increased dramatically since I last reported on this. Currently, the Democratic team now leads by 231 to 102,a better than 2-1 margin and an even wider spread in the circulation of those papers - the Obama-backing papers have 21 million, compared with McCain's 7 million. At least 46 papers have now switched to Obama from Bush in 2004, with just four flipping to McCain Three of the top five dailies in deep red state Texas have switched from Bush to Obama this time, as has Alaska's major newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. Concluding (reluctantly) that their homegirl Palin is not ready to be President, ADN says:

Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her [Palin] one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.
It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl RoveSen.

Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand.

Well put. I couldn't say it better myself.

10/27/08: Obama's death threat, Jennifer Hudson's tragedy, and 8-year old boy kills himself with Uzi

2008-10-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

This was a grim news day. Oscar winner and American Idol star Jennifer Hudson's 7-year old nephew was found shot dead in a SUV today , 2 days after her mother and brother were shot dead in her sister's home. The suspect in all 3 shootings is her ex-brother-in-law, a convicted felon who served 7 years for attempted murder. My question is, should this guy have been able to get a gun - to do what he did? 3 more sad and tragic deaths to add to the 428 homicides already this year in Chicago, ahead of NY's 417 and LA's 302.

Also today, this story broke my heart. An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.
There are so many things wrong with that sentence it's hard to know where to begin. An 8-year old boy? At a GUN SHOW? Firing an UZI? Is this really what the forefathers intended 200 years ago? The boy "was shooting the weapon down range when the force of the weapon made it travel up and back toward his head, where he suffered the injury," a police statement said. Police called it a "self-inflicted accidental shooting."
Really? The "adult supervisor" should be thrown in jail. He's lucky to be alive. But wait, there's more.
The club said on its Web site that the event, is "all legal and fun." People will be allowed to fire weapons at vehicles, pumpkins and other targets, it said. Yep. That's right. These are the wahoos who're screaming about "The right to bear arms in defence of our country". Oh yeah, and shoot whatever else or whoever else just happen to be around. All in self-defence, of course.
Finally, this is so scary - federal agents today arrested 2 neo-Nazi skinheads who had planned to shoot or decapitate 102 black people in Tennessee school - and assasinate Sen. Barack Obama during a campaign rally while dressed in white tuxes & tophats. The KKK is still alive and thriving it seems, with tophats replacing those ridiculous cone hats.
But these guys were serious. They had a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols when they were arrested, and were preparing to break into a gun shop to steal more. As seems to be the custom in these cases, one of the guys had a photo of himself on MySpace carrying a honking big gun. Can't the FBI or someone just go thru all the MySpace and Facebook pages with selfphotos of guys carrying submachine guns and check them out BEFORE these nuts go crazy and and whack people? Their killing spree was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, "shooting at him from the windows". Spine-chilling. Neither candidate commented on this story, with good reason.

Just some signs of the scary violence and power wielded by a few nutcases, brought to you by the NRA and the politicians beholden to them. I sincerely hope this can and will change in our lifetimes, starting this Nov 4th.

10/27/08: One week to go, Obama still leads, Repubs still talking "wardrobe"

2008-10-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

How pathetic is the Republican campaign this year? We're a week away from a huge national election during a very critical time in our nation's history, and the Repubs are tying themselves into knots and blasting each other about - Palin's wardrobe? I already reported about her ridiculous shopping spree and the tens of thousands paid to hair stylists and makeup artists, which Palin has since blamed on the RNC (Repub National Committee). Now the RNC Chairman Mike Duncan says the looks were demanded by the McCain campaign as part of a "planned" strategy.

I'm sure McCain wishes this would go away, but no - Palin keeps bringing it up again,like she did today _check out the video! - and now she has Elizabeth Hasselbeck yipping away about it too.

This article at Pollster.com says it best: Obama "won" the week again (that makes six in a row). Even in a week in which Obama took two days off to visit his ailing grandmother, McCain was a virtual afterthought, garnering very little media attention when he needs it most. And when the media spotlight shifted to the GOP it was about the cost of Sarah Palin's wardrobe.

And these Repub jokers want to run our country? Get real!

10/26/08: FIXnews still pushing "mutilation" story

2008-10-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

Incredibly, FOX(FIX, FAUX)News is still pushing the story of the "mutilated" girl who had claimed that she had a "B" (backwards!) carved into her cheek by a "6-foot4-inch black man" when it has already been revealed that the whole thing was a hoax.

The girl, a student from College Station, TX, initially said that while she was attempting to use a ATM on Wednesday night a 6-foot-4 black man approached her from behind, put a knife blade to her throat and demanded money. She told police she handed the assailant $60 and walked away. She then said the man saw a McCain sticker on her car, then punched her in the back of the head, knocked her to the ground and scratched a "B" into her face with a dull knife to "teach her a lesson".

Well, the girl has since confessed she made it all up, and is in custody, under medical treatment. I mean, take a look at the pic of that carefully carved, BACKWARD "B". It's pretty obvious who carved it.

But seriously, how desperate these FIXers must be to keep harping on an outrageous lie invented by a seriously disturbed girl - leave her alone, it's OVER!

10/25/08: News of the week: Obama still ahead!

2008-10-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

Well, loyal reader(s?)- sorry for abandoning you for the last week, I have been travelling, and yes, actually working, so I haven't been able to keep you on all updated on the latest goings-on in this crazy election. But the good news - for me, and, I suspect, many of you - is that there has been little news of major import this week. Which means, in particular, little change in the polls - Obama is still ahead by anywhere from 6-12 points in the national poll, and still leads in most of the battleground states. The electoral vote prediction at what I consider the most statistically savvy site - fivethirtyeight.com - still reads Obama 350, McCain 188. It would appear that most independents and other undecideds have made up their minds following Obama's impressive performance in the third debate, with the final nail in the McCain/Palin coffin being driven in by Gen. Colin Powell's ringing endorsement of Sen. Obama and scathing critism of McCain's choice of Palin for his VP.

One interesting change has been that Virginia has swung to double digits for Obama, higher than any of the other 7 key Bush states (CO,NM,NV,FL,OH,IA,NC) that Obama has targeted (and in all of which he leads). On the flip side, Florida has tightened up, with Obama's lead now within margin of error in some polls. But the good news there is that former Pres. Bill Clinton, who remains hugely popular in FL, will be campaigning on the same stage with Obama in Orlando on Wednesday. That should help bring FL safely in for the Dems.

So, McCain failing to take advantage of Obama's absence from the campaign trail to visit his seriously ailing grandmother in Hawaii to make any major inroads into Obama's lead, the major news of the week has focused on the infighting between McCain's aides and Palin, with a senior McCain aide calling her "rogue" and a "diva", and Palin fighting back saying she is NOT a "diva" and that she is being set up to take the blame on Nov 4th for McCain's failures. Interesting, dontcha think, y'all?? You betcha. Let's hope for the good of the nation that she is buried on the political scene once and for all.

Of course, Palin was also in the news for spending more of Republican donors' money on fancy new duds for herself, her daughters, and even baby Trig - to the tune of some 150,000 dollars (or more than Joe the Plumber's house is worth - more on this gentleman in a bit). In addition,

her celebrity stylist Amy Strozzi was the highest paid member of McCain's staff in the first 2 weeks of October, earning a nice $22,800 and handily beating out foreign policy advisor Randy Schuenemann (who only made a niggardly $12,500), or for that matter anyone else on the campaign! And this is in addition to her "regular" traveling stylist Angela Lew who made $10,000 over the same 2 weeks. Pretty classy lady, that Sarah Palin - just shows that McCain was just protecting what he really believes are her real assets.
Speaking of another classy Republican lady,Michelle Bachmann (R) of Wisconsin has been dumped by the Republican National Committee and is likely to lose her Senate seat after calling Obama "anti-American" on Chris Matthews' show on MSNBC. She, btw, has also said on TV that "not all cultures are created equal" (referring to Muslims), that Democrats are " not normal American people" and calling for a "patriotism check" of all members of Congress. Goodbye, Ms. Bachmann, and thanks for the Senate seat.

10/19/08: Obama endorsed by Gen. Colin Powell & Texas papers

2008-10-19T11:13:00.001-07:00

Gen. Colin Powell endorses Obama
In what is likely to be a very signicant endorsement, former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell said that he will break with his party and vote for Sen. Barack Obama. "He has both style and substance. I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Watch the video here - it's a great speech.

"I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities -- and you have to take that into account -- as well as his substance -- he has both style and substance," Powell said. "He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president."

Powell noted that McCain has been a good friend for 25 years, but expressed disappointment in the "over the top" negative tone of the GOP campaign, as well as in McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee.

OUR FULL ENDORSEMENT TALLY: Obama Widens Lead to 94-28
October 19, 2008 11:50 AM ET updated Sunday

NEW YORK (Updated Sunday) The Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race for daily newspaper endorsements, by 94 to 28, a better than 3-1 margin, picking up 50 or more papers in the past day, including (see separate stories), the Detroit Free Press, Buffalo News, Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, New York's Daily News, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Portland's The Oregonian, Denver Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Salt Lake Tribune, Kansas City Star, and Chicago Sun-Times.

In a real shocker, two solid Bush papers in 2004, the Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman, also came out for Obama today. So did the more traditionally Democratic the News & Obsever in Raleigh and the Orlando Sentinel, both in key battleground states.

10/18/09: The Palin Plunge! & Queen of the Know-Nothings

2008-10-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin has become a major drag on McCain's desperate bid for Presidency. This article looks at her favorable to unfavorable ratings, which have switched from a positive 40-30, according to a September 12-16 New York Times survey, to a negative 32-41 in an October 10-13 survey. You can also follow the daily trend at The Daily Kos - interestingly, this shows that the national race tightened today but WITHOUT any changes in the candidates' favorability ratings.

Palin is, additionally, costing McCain newspaper endorsements. As I mentioned earlier, Obama is leading McCain by 3:1 (66:18) so far. Many of the endorsements cited Palin as a factor in their rejection of McCain. The Salt Lake Tribune, which supported George W. Bush in 2004, commented that "out of nowhere, and without proper vetting, the impetuous McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She quickly proved grievously under-equipped to step into the presidency should McCain, at 72 and with a history of health problems, die in office. More than any single factor, McCain's bad judgment in choosing the inarticulate, insular and ethically challenged Palin disqualifies him for the presidency." The Kansas City Star, in turn, described Palin as "unqualified."

Brookings Senior Fellow Thomas Mann said "[After the initial euphoria] Within weeks, she became a liability, primarily as a highly visible indicator of McCain's impulsiveness and recklessness in picking someone who is patently unqualified to serve as president and commander-in-chief."

The reason why she's costing McCain is of course, that Palin is a moron, from everything that we've been allowed to see. This article takes a closer look.
"Sarah Palin and the Know-Nothings" by Meg White

Here's a thought: John McCain didn't pick Sarah Palin to be his VP because she's a woman. He didn't pick her because of her adeptness at winking onstage, or her folksiness, or her so-called "family values."

He picked her because she appeals to the Know Nothing wing of the GOP.

Meg White goes on to quote Paul Krugman, who just won the Nobel Prize:

"Know-nothingism -- the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant -- gratification answers to every problem, and that there's something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise -- has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party's de facto slogan has become: 'Real men don't think things through.'"

In today's political parlance, the phrase "know nothing" has taken on two meanings: nativism and ignorance. Which is why Palin is a perfect spokesperson.

Palin has expressed ignorance on a range of issues so wide, that it's hardly worth giving the scope of, but here goes:

I'm sure there's more (feel free to remind me of what I've forgotten below), but I'm getting a little worn out just thinking about it. Maybe I should take a page out of Palin's book and just stop thinking so darn much.

Sarah Palin has taken lack of knowledge to a whole new level and embraced ignorance. She's said herself that she doesn't think, er blink, when she has to make a life-changing decision.

I'm sure if you asked Palin in a friendly room if she were anti-intellectual, she'd say yes. She asked a Wasilla librarian what it would take to remove books she found offensive from the local library. She's against comprehensive sex-education. She wants schools to teach children creationism. She's anti-science.

Long story short: Palin is not satisfied with simply stemming the tide of her own informational intake. She wants to remove educational opportunities for America's children as well. And the way she drags her school-aged children around the campaign trail doesn't inspire much confidence in her educational values either.

10/18/09: Obama endorsed in swing states!

2008-10-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

Obama leads in major newspaper endorsements over McCain by 68-18! In terms of readers, he leads 9 million to 1.7 million. Most importantly, he is picking up the major newspaper endorsements in the critical swing states - Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Salt Lake Tribune (!).

In Missouri, where he had the largest rally of this election today, with over 100,000 people in St. Louis, BOTH the major papers Kansas City Star AND St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorsed Obama!
Another vital point is that he has already picked up 12 papers that endorsed Bush in 2004, and looks set for a lot more, if the 3:1 edge holds up (in 2004, Kerry and Bush nearly tied).
See the full list of endorsements at the link.

Obama leads in major newspaper endorsements

10/17/08: McCain's pet "terrorist" Exposed by Letterman

2008-10-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Letterman yesterday took McCain to task not only for skipping out on him earlier, but also for his choice of Palin as VP, for McCain/Palin’s negative attacks on Obama, and on McCain’s close association with the extremist Nazi talk show host and convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy. In doing so, he put a lot of other so-called “political journalists” to shame for pussyfooting around these issues. Watch the video – it’s worth it.

McCain Defends His Own Association With Unrepentant Criminal: It's Ok, He Went To Jail

It would be an understatement to say McCain’s pal G. Gordon Liddy is unrepentant. Read this scary 2004 interview with The Independent of London (wonder why US papers don't report this? hmm..). He is not only unrepentant about burgling Watergate, he is also adamant about wanting to kill “soft” journalists and bomb the Brookings Institution. Remember, this was in 2004 – McCain has since been on his show at least twice (in Nov 2007 and May 2008!). He is an undying admirer of Hitler. He believes the US should have bombed the Red River dykes in Vietnam, drowning millions of innocent people. He instructed people how best to shoot federal agents on his radio show. And McCain said he’s “proud” of this man??

As I reported earlier Liddy hosted a fundraiser for McCain's 1998 Senate re-election campaign and contributed to many of McCain’s Senate and Presidential campaigns. McCain has praised and repeatedly associated with Liddy in public and in campaign settings, even appearing on Liddy’s conservative radio talk show, most recently in May of this year!

An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07" includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

And McCain says it’s OK to “pal around” with this convicted unrepentant firebomber?

10/17/08: Palin thinks we're anti-American & wants to forget "Joe the Headache"

2008-10-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

McCain's plumber no ordinary Joe
After making "Joe the plumber" famous, McCain learned 3 key facts -- Joe owes back taxes, isn't licensed and Obama's plan would cut Joe's taxes. Not to mention of course that his name's really Sam. Plus it turns out he's a wingnut who's a big fan of right wing talk radio (G. Gordon Liddy, perhaps?). Maybe McCain's regretting bringing up Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher so much, or maybe he wishes he'd picked "Joe" as his VP. After all, give the man credit, he's done way more interviews than Sarah Palin, and is willing to stand up and talk about his "beliefs". Unlike Palin. Who in fact begged campaign writers not to "make her talk about "Joe the (non-)plumber" anymore"!

Way to go Sen. McCain, a product of yet another of your great gambles. Still haven't heard of vetting, I see.

"A day after making famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber's not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president. "

In other news, Palin said that she's visiting pro-American parts of the country . Great, soon the rest of us will be branded "traitors" if we don't vote for them. Palin is a moron. There, I said it. I've tried not to in this blog so far (OK, I dropped plenty of hints). But, really, there is no getting around it. She makes Bush (famously described by Begala as "a high-functioning moron") look like Einstein. Just as McCain will make Cheney look like Gandhi (see the chilling video to the right on McCain and war).

Once more. Palin is a moron. It feels good to get that out.

10/16/08: It’s Really, Really, Really Over

2008-10-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

OK, it’s the morning after. The euphoria has faded (somewhat), and the vision of a new world looks that much more real. So every news source I normally read, watch or listen to on the radio all say that Obama won, and McCain did nothing to halt the roller coaster. So I peeked over the fence to see what the other side is thinking and saying about all this. But first, I wanted to see where they got their news from, if not the NY Times or CNN like the rest of us. So I looked around.

What’s your favorite news magazine? No this is not a “gotcha” question!

I just wanted to know where people on the left and right are getting their election news from these days. And the survey says:

The Huffington Post is the most read magazine on the left and The New Republic on the right.

So I went over to the New Republic to see what they thought of the debate. Here’s what I saw:
He’s a rambling man

And my favorite:
It’s Really, Really, Really Over

Here's hoping that's right! Even Karl Rove sounds pretty pessimistic – the best he can say is “Obama hasn’t closed the sale”. Of course not, the election is still 19 days away, and it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. But as he points out, McCain needs to win every one of 7 states that Bush carried in 2004: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada. If he carries [ALL] those states, while losing only Iowa and New Mexico from the GOP's 2004 total, Mr. McCain will carry 274 Electoral College votes and the White House. It's threading the needle, but it's come to that.

And right now, except Missouri, where it’s tied, Obama is leading in all of these states.

So vote now, vote early, and let’s close the sale!

ps: Scary moment of the night - Noam Scheiber's words:
McCain on a health exception to abortion restrictions (again, in its entirety): "He's [for] health for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health.'" Yikes.

10/15/08 Obama wins – again and again and again!

2008-10-16T00:59:00.000-07:00

The third and final debate is done and dusted. McCain was dusted, that is.

Oh, he did all right, in fact, it was his best performance to date. But it wasn’t enough. He still lost, overmatched and outmaneuvered by a more skilled, polished and unflappable opponent. Obama was again judged the winner by 80-85% of the online polls on CNN, CBS and NBC. And again, he was also judged the winner in the telephone polls of people who actually watched the debate:

CNN: Obama 58%, McCain 31%

CBS: Obama 53%, McCain 22%

The CBS poll, significantly, was conducted with uncommitted voters, who, as always, are a key deciding factor in these elections.

Another significant factor in these polls was that the favorables for Obama rose slightly during the debate, while McCain’s dropped slightly. Obama also did better than McCain across the board – on the economy, taxes, healthcare, women and men. McCain only “won” in 2 categories – more negative attacks and more like a typical politician.
Obama McCain
Favorable Before Debate 66% 51%
Favorable After debate 69% 49%
Trust on economy 59% 24%
Trust on healthcare 62% 31%

Watchers found Obama more likable by 48% and a better leader by 23% over McCain!

My personal take? I thought McCain came in more aggressive and started attacking from the get go. There was hardly more than a couple sentences without a snide comment or a sneering jab at Obama. Of course I didn’t like his attitude, his constant sighs, raised eyebrows and rapidfire blinking – but you know what? The viewers as well as CNN’s uncommitted voter panel didn’t like those either – hence the negative ratings.

Obama did seem a bit defensive early on, but once he warmed up, he appeared calm, confident and unruffled by McCain’s constant interjections. McCain threw everything but the kitchen sink at him, including Ayers, ACORN, Lewis – everything he could think of – but Obama took it all in stride, and responded to each in clear concise terms, without resorting to ANY mudslinging of his own. Initially, I thought he should have responded a bit more aggressively to these, and also on Palin’s qualifications (which he simply left up to the American people to judge), but in the end, I think it was good that he took the high road and left them alone. It made him seem more mature and Presidential, and in contrast, made McCain look smaller, desperate and out of touch. Both in the polls and in live watchers reactions, McCain’s negativity did not go down well, yet he continues – maybe he really has no other strategy. Well, that’s just fine with Obama, and with me too! As I sip my wine (saving my last and best bottle of champagne for Nov 4^th!), and watch the pundits generally agree that Obama did what he came in to do, and McCain did nothing to stem the tide flowing the other way, I can finally declench and relax! I will get a good night’s sleep tonite, soon as I’m done with this of course!! Sweet dreams..

10/15/08: Millions of Americans Receive Bad News for McCain

2008-10-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

I received my quarterly retirement savings account statement yesterday, and the news is dismal. I’ve lost 44% of my savings in the past year, at least on paper. That wiped out not just the gains it had made in the last decade or so, but it’s a lot less than the hard cash I put into it. Yes, it’s no surprise, but it hits you you pretty hard when you’re holding it in your hands and thinking, boy, that just added another 5 years of work before I’m able to hit that tropical beach home retirement I’ve been fantasizing about. And that’s assuming I HAVE a job – with my company looking pretty rocky and my wife out of a job, it’s not a pleasant prospect.

I’m sure I’m not alone. Millions of Americans are probably looking at their statements this week and thinking the same thoughts. And it doesn’t bode well for the party in power that has brought us to this state –the Republicans who have been in the White House for the last 8 years and controlled Congress for 10 of the last 12. So McCain is fighting an uphill battle at the start. So what does he offer us? After weeks of dilly-dallying about the economy, seesawing from one extreme to the other ("The economy is sound. The economy is in crisis. I'm for a bailout. I am against a bailout. I am against regulation. I am for regulation"), McCain finally issued his long-awaited plan to help us through this economic crisis yesterday, let’s take a look at it:

- McCain proposed that people 59 and up who can withdraw money up to $50,000 from IRAs or 401(k) retirement plans in 2009 and 2010 pay a tax rate of 10 percent
- Reduced the capital gain tax to 7.5 percent from 15 percent in 2009 and 2010
- increased tax write-off for stock losses from $3000 to $15,000 in losses a year for 2 years
- a suspension on the tax on unemployment insurance benefits in 2008 and 2009
- a government guarantee on 100 percent of all savings accounts for six months.

OK, if you’re a wealthy near-retiree with huge investments who made a killing on the stock market and therefore have tons of capital gains (hmm.. a lot of McCain’s friends, perhaps?), boy, this is the perfect plan for you!! However, to the rest of us poor saps (oh, about 95% or so), this means nothing. Cutting the capital gains tax? What capital gains? How many middle income people would have any capital gains if they are forced to sell their stock holdings in the near future?The last 2 points might mean something – except for most Americans, their 39 weeks of unemployment have already run out or close to doing so, so no tax on it for the next 2 years means zilch. And the bailout plan already guarantees your bank accounts upto $250,000, which is enough to cover me – and probably most except McCain’s friends.

On the other hand, here’s Obama’s proposal, announced the day before McCain’s big rollout. Compare - Obama will:

-Suspend the tax on unemployment benefits
-Extend unemployment benefits
-Propose 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures at some banks
-Give $3,000 tax credit for each additional full-time job a business creates; the tax break would end after 2010
-Allow people to withdraw up to 15 percent of their retirement funds, to a maximum of $10,000, without any penalty this year and next

That makes a lot more sense to me. He also will suspend the unemployment tax, and will actually extend it for those unable to find a job in a year when a million jobs have already been lost. The moratorium on home foreclosures (plus a previously announced closing of a loophole in bankruptcy laws – opposed by McCain) to allow people to stay in their first (and for most, their only) home) will give many some room to breathe. The tax credit for business will increase jobs, as well as increased money for cities to spend on construction and infrastructure (also previously announced). And finally, if I had no option but to withdraw money from my 401k (not a good idea – I also like the sensible $10K limit), I’d rather not pay McCain’s 10% tax when I don't have a job.

So my verdict is: McCain simply doesn’t undertand the precarious position the majority of Americans are in. As always from him, note there is no mention of him helping the middle class – I really don’t know why he seems to abhor this. OK, call us something else you prefer – middle income group, the nearly-wealthy, the bourgeosie, the Great Unwashed – heck, I don’t care.

Just listen to US and help US.

10/15/08: More conservative backlash against McCain

2008-10-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I talked about the outpouring of vitriol heaped on conservative commentators Christopher Buckley's and Kathleen Parker's heads after they criticized McCain for picking Palin, the most unqualified VP candidate ever, as his running mate. Well, today Maureen Dowd succintly summarizes many other leading conservatives who have come out of the woodwork to say the same thing.

"Republicans have been slugging it out over whether Palin is dragging John McCain down or whether his campaign is mishandling her. The governor’s favorability rating is now 32 percent, according to the new Times/CBS News poll, plummeting 8 points from earlier this month, and her unfavorable rating soared 9 percentage points to 41 percent.

On Tuesday, Matthew Dowd, the former Bush strategist who offered a famous apologia for helping get W. re-elected, offered a scorching assessment of Palin’s not being ready, saying that McCain “knows that in his gut. And when this race is over, that is something he will have to live with. ... He put somebody unqualified on that ballot, and he put the country at risk.”

Christopher Hitchens endorsed Barack Obama on Slate on Monday, calling Palin’s conduct “a national disgrace” and writing: “Given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party’s right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama’s position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.”

Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama on The Daily Beast, writing of McCain’s embrace of Palin: “What on earth can he have been thinking?” (The endorsement led to Buckley’s resigning from The National Review, founded by his father.)

On “The Colbert Report” on Monday, the conservative columnist Kathleen Parker stuck by her assertion, which she said caused the base to treat her like a traitor, that Palin should have bowed out. She said she’d gotten some secret e-mails from Republicans in the White House agreeing with her.

William Kristol, a Palin fan who thinks she has been horribly managed, wrote in The Times on Monday that McCain should fire his campaign for malpractice.

David Brooks, speaking at an Atlantic Magazine event, called Palin “a fatal cancer to the Republican Party,” bemoaning the fact that she did not fit in with the late William Buckley’s desire to have a party that celebrated ideas and learning."

Et tu, Brooks?

10/14/08: The Right Wing Turns its Guns on - Itself!

2008-10-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Poor Christopher Buckley. The son of the famed hero of conservatives and founder of the National Review, Willam F. Buckley, was fired from the magazine his father founded.
What was his egregious crime?
Why, last week in his column at the Daily Beast, he said, reluctantly, that he could not see voting for the McCain/Palin ticket, and would be voting for Obama/Biden. That did it - the righteous fires were unleashed on his head.

Hell hath no fury like a wingnut scorned.

I wrote previously that Kathleen Parker of the National Review was one of many who felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. Buckley says "This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster."
As for him, National Review Online mail has "been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless."

Well, C. Buckley is not sorry. Not about his voting preference, that is. But he IS sorry that it's come to this for the modern conservative movement. He says in his column today sorry-dad-i-was-fired:

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

But other people ARE leaving the Republican Party. At the polls, in big numbers. Pollster.com this morning released several surveys that showed Obama increased his lead in 4 battleground states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. But here's the kicker: today on the Pollster map, Florida turned SOLID BLUE!!

10/14/08: McCain's Transition Chief lobbied for Saddam??!!

2008-10-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

OK, I was going to analyze McCain's long awaited and much delayed response to the economy - and I still will do that later. But this story just broke on the Huffington Post - admittedly very pro-Obama - and if there's even an inkling of truth in this, it blows McCain's Ayers strategy out of the water.
McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort

Basically, it says that "William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime." It goes on to say that for about 5 years starting in 1992, Timmons worked closely with 2 other lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, who were guilty of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government. Vincent pleaded guilty and turned informer against Park, who went to jail.

As I said, I'll reserve judgment on this till it's confirmed by others, but by golly - what is McCain thinking? Is he even thinking at all?? Does he pick his associates out of a hat with no prior thought or vetting, kinda like the way he picked his running mate?

We all know about Sarah Palin's abuse of power and also about Palin's association with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, as well as Todd Palin's bona fide membership in this wacko organization till 2002. BTW, CNN is carrying this story TODAY, so don't miss it; I heard they showed this video of Sarah Palin addressing this year's AIP conference.

But as bad as this is for a would-be VP of the United States, this just pales in comparison to some of the other unsavory characters McCain associates with. As oft-reported, his campaign manager Rick Davis was paid $2.5 million by Freddie Mac until last month; it's reported that he was a paid lobbyist for the warlord Mobutu Sese Seko, who stole $6 billion (that's right, billion) from Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), and was responsible for the ongoing bloody civil war which is estimated to have cost MILLIONS of lives.

Then we have McCain's ill-timed appearance on the radio show of and close friendship with G. Gordon Liddy, the convicted Watergate felon, who wanted to blow up the Brookings Institution, assassinate politicians and journalists, offered advice to the Waco nuts on how to shoot FBI agents, and named his shooting targets Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Then there is John Singlaub, whose U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. McCain sat on the board of this extremist organization in the early 80s and was a strong proponent of the Contras.

And now we have McCain's transition chief Timmons lobbying for Saddam Hussein.

I'm not even including Charles Keating or his various other shady mobster and financier friends - I'm just looking at these and thinking, this guy wants to question Obama's guilt-by-association with an anti-Vietnam 60s radical? I mean, come on. I think he'd best stay off that subject in the debate. Or if he doesn't, it should be interesting watching him being taken apart on his netherworld associations that he so "carefully" selected and cultivated.

10/14/08: Obama plays a team game

2008-10-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I talked about McCain’s erratic and dysfunctional campaign that appears to have no focus or local organization of the sort seen even in the Bush campaigns of the last 2 elections. Today I wanted to contrast that with Obama’s grass-roots, heavily wired, get-out-the-vote, well-staffed and unified campaign that has resulted in a daunting October lead, in both electoral and popular votes. And to find the article that sums it up best I had to go across the pond – it’s from the Guardian of London, UK! I love the sports analogy in this article:
Presidential candidates can jump
While McCain treats his campaign as a high-stakes poker game, Obama maintains his cool in a prolonged game of basketball
This article in the Washington Post provides an in-depth analysis of Obama's campaign, based on local volunteers who pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas.
The campaign has used its record-breaking fundraising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers.
In fact, the WP says that Obama’s campaign is built from the ground up compared to that of rival Sen. John McCain, whose emphasis on ground operations has been less intensive and clinical than that of his Republican predecessor(s). Further, Obama has effectively used the web in his campaign says this article from his primary days - that seem so far away now! From controlling the canvassing operations to corralling e-mail lists, organizing meetings and overseeing national phone drives, Obama's web network is the most ambitious, and apparently successful, internet campaign effort in any presidential race in the web's short history.
Part of the success is due to incredible talent that Obama has surrounded himself with, starting with the Clintons, who are setting new records in hosting events for a primary opponent, but also the many advisers and managers, several of which had worked for Bill Clinton. But the key to it all is Obama himself, who has been tireless in his efforts - and this article says it better than I ever could.
Obama Knocking On Doors Again by sweetliberty Sun Oct 12, 2008
Obama is a leader who leads by example. He is not afraid of grass-roots participation as demonstrated today.

The Obama campaign plane, with "Change We Can Believe In" on the fuselage and the Obama logo emblazoned on the tail, landed at 2:50 p.m. at Toledo Express Airport. On hand were Lucas County sheriff’s deputies and Ohio state troopers, as well as campaign and airport staff, and media.

After leaving Toledo Express, the Obama motorcade went to a neighborhood in Holland, off McCord Road. Mr. Obama then began knocking on doors and talking to residents

http://toledoblade.com/...

Sue Sekel, a 43-year old healthcare worker dressed for a day of Sunday housecleaning, opened her front door to discover Obama standing before her.

He asked her what she did for a living and how she was managing in the economic downturn. Sekel said she was doing fine and that she voted early.

Later, she declined to tell reporters who she voted for, but she said, "I told him what I did." She also said Sunday was "the one day I come home to clean ceiling fans and look like crap, and then this happens."

Obama never stops being a dad.

As word spread that Obama was in the neighborhood, a few dozen people gathered across the street to watch, as three teenage girls raced across the street in bare feet and socks, armed with cameras.

"Where are your shoes?" Obama asked them, before taking photos with them and crossing the street. There he shook hands with about a dozen neighbors, asking them what they did for a living and offering words of concern.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/...

The organization Obama has built is just short of miraculous. Never in the history of Presidential politics has anyone built the type of ground organization as the Obama campaign. Thousands of participants across the country have taken part in the campaign's push to victory.

In many states, a final statewide training session was held last week for Obama field organizers, to be followed by get-out-the-vote training for team leaders. In Missouri, about 400 neighborhood teams are set up around the state, each with a goal of getting about 4,000 votes in their area. The hope, said Missouri director Buffy Wicks, is as get-out-the-vote efforts intensify in the campaign's final weeks, the teams will have established themselves enough to deliver the backing that Obama will need.

And, Obama has been as close to the ground game as any Presidential contender can get.

At a training session in Ohio that Obama attended Friday night, the candidate wondered just how much of a strength all the campaign's efforts would prove to be.

"We've been designing and we've been engineering and we've been at the drawing board and we've been tinkering," he said. "Now it's time to just take it for a drive. Let's see how this baby runs."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I am just astonished by Obama. He has been working so hard to bring us to victory that one can feel nothing but pride being a part of it all.

10/13/08: Conservatives to McCain: Change or Lose

2008-10-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, a number of conservative writers openly agreed that McCain’s erratic and dysfunctional campaign is going nowhere. Even the arch-conservative William Kristol, who to date is the only major newspaper writer safe enough to be blessed with a Palin interview, says it’s time for McCain to fire his campaign

and start afresh. I agree – it’s not merely enough for McCain to have a penitent moment admitting “Obama is a decent family man” – he needs to disavow his negative strategy with a major gesture – say firing Sleazemeister Steve Schmidt or Lobbyist Supremo Rick Davis. Perhaps something like that, in combination with a fresh agenda focusing on specific ways he’d fix the economy or help the middle class (starting with acknowledging that there IS one) might go a long way to recovering some of the ground they’ve lost lately. It’s no guarantee, but it would return this election to a higher moral ground and offer people a real choice based on the issues that matter to them most.

In any case, it’s apparent the current muckracking strategy is going nowhere – last week’s barrage of negative ads and inflammatory rallies with Palin accusing Obama as being a dangerous terrorist had no effect on voters, even according to a FOX News poll released Friday. In fact, the timing of McCain’s penitent moment was interesting, coming as it did right after the poll was released – probably not a coincidence. And other, more mainstream polls showed the same thing – an ABC News poll released yesterday also said that there seems to be an “Attack Blowback”, ie, voters think that McCain is running a negative campaign rather than focusing on issues (59% to 35%), up from 48-45% just 21/2 weeks earlier. Obama, on the other hand, gained a little on his already high favorable rating in this poll (68% to 26%). Check the link for more numbers from this poll.

So will McCain really retool his campaign and put the “Straight Talk Express” back on its tracks? Probably not, but for the sake of his own legacy and to allow this nation to heal the deep divisive wounds wrought by the Rovian politics of the last 8 years, I wish he would. It’s becoming clear that he’s a loser in this election anyway, the only question is how he wants to go, with dignity and honor having fought a good fight, or be tossed out on his ass after a hailstorm of sleaze. From his own words “I’m going to whip the you-know-what in this debate“ (talking about the leading candidate for President of the United States!), sadly it doesn’t look like he’s going to take the first option.

10/12/08: Palin still lying about Troopergate

2008-10-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

On Friday, the results of the investigation into the Troopergate scandal was released by a 12-0 vote of the Legislative Council, with EIGHT Republicans and FOUR Democrats voting. The main finding: Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110 (a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act in pressuring her subordinates and other officials to fire Trooper Wooten, her ex-brother-in-law.

OK, so you thought that settled the issue. But no. Two days later, she’s still denying it. Not face to face with national press reporters, of course. She snapped at reporters today at a Starbucks and while running into her bus yesterday that she did not break the law.

Sorry Sarah. You DID break the law - the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act IS Alaska Law. It may not be a jailable offence, like robbery or arson. But you can be impeached. And when you return to Alaska after being humiliated (again!) Nov 4, I think chances are you WILL be impeached. Perhaps you should actually READ the report yourself, if your command of the English language will permit it, instead of being "extensively briefed" by your aides??

But in the meantime, if you’re so convinced of your innocence and this is an Obama campaign ploy, why don’t you stand up and talk to reporters instead of lying about it?

Media everywhere says she’s a liar. Here’s ABC News reporting that

“Palin Makes Troopergate Assertions that Are Flatly False”.

Down under in Australia, the Herald Sun says Palin was found guilty and has abused voters’ trust.

So why doesn’t Palin stand up and give a real press conference to clear her name? So far, she has only talked over the phone for 5 minutes with 3 Alaskan reporters – with lots of rules, of course! Only 3 reporters! One Question at a Time! No follow-up questions! Complete denial when presented with facts!! When a reporter did try to follow-up on her previous denial, here’s what he got:

"Governor, if I can follow up," a reporter said, "the report says that you did abuse your authority in trying to get Officer Wooten fired. How do you respond to that charge?"

"There was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired," Palin said.

There you go. Denial with no explanation. Sounds real Presidential material to me.

10/11/08: Palins using their children as shields

2008-10-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

It’s cowardly how both Todd and Sarah Palin are trotting out one or more of their daughters at public events all across the country, apparently hoping to lessen the chorus of boos that greets them outside of any hard core Repub rally. They hit the heights tonight (Sat) at the Flyers hockey game in Philly, where, thanks to the Flyers’ Repub owner, Sarah Palin came out to drop the puck. She was accompanied on to the ice by two of her daughters, including the 7-year Piper in a Flyers uniform. Didn’t help. She got roundly booed anyway, so they had to keep turning the music up to try drown out the boos. I just feel sorry for their children that have to be subjected to all this – it can’t be good for them. Just five days earlier, Todd Palin showed up at a rally in Anchorage, accompanied by the same 7-year-old Piper. And we’ve seen them at various rallies being trotted out by their mother. Don’t they have school? Don’t their parents care about their education? Wait, don’t answer that – we already know how much their parents value education.

10/10/08: Palin found Guilty of Abuse of Power

2008-10-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Article in TIME: What the Troopergate Report Really Says
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of a state trooper once married to her sister and by allowing her husband to use the governor's office in a crusade against the officer, a legislative investigation found.

Specifically, it states Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110 (a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin claimed today she did not break the law.
Dear Palin: The Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act IS Alaska Law. You DID break the law.

Of course, she doesn’t read newspapers, what are the chances she’s actually read the law? Heck, I’d be willing to bet she hasn’t even read the report.

Palin also claims that she and her family “feared” Trooper Wooten.
Branchflower, however, wrote that he doesn't believe the Palins were truly afraid of Wooten. She reduced her personal security detail, and she told Trooper Wheeler, who was part of her security detail, that she had no security concerns.

Doesn’t much sound like “fear” to me. Besides, she has been trying to get Wooten fired for years - these “transgressions” occurred long ago. Branchflower says it best: “I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons.”

Finally, she’s claiming that this was politically motivated by “Obama supporters”.
Hello? This abuse of power probe was initiated by the Alaska Legislative Council in July, BEFORE Obama or the rest of us in the lower 48+ Hawaii had even heard of Sarah Palin. The Legislative Council consists of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats! Branchflower’s report was released Friday by a 12-0 vote of the Legislative Council, with EIGHT Republicans and FOUR Democrats voting; one Republican, Sen. John Cowdery, did not vote because – wait for it – he’s indicted for bribery and conspiracy!

So Palin, we know you’re not too smart (see earlier post for her grades), but surely you can do this math – this investigation was initiated and concluded by a majority of REPUBLICANS!

Besides the abuse of power finding, Branchflower made three other findings in his investigation of the so-called Troopergate matter:

• Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, in July was a lawful exercise of her powers but Monegan's refusal to fire Wooten played a role in his firing.

• A Wooten workers' compensation claim was properly handled by an Anchorage firm, Harbor Adjustment Service, working under contract to the state.

• The state attorney general's office "failed to substantially comply" with Branchflower's Aug. 6 request to Palin for e-mails about the case.

Here’s an international take on this report, from the BBC: Palin abused power, probe finds

The report said a family grudge was a likely factor in the dismissal

The running mate of US Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been found guilty of an abuse of power, according to a state legislature probe.

Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin was accused of sacking a senior state official over a family feud.

The report could have an impact on Republican hopes of winning next month's US presidential election.

"I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110 (a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act," investigator Steve Branchflower concluded in the panel's 263-page report.
***********************
Excerpts from the Branchflower report:

Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act.

Such impermissible and repeated contacts create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior's displeasure and the possible consequences of such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature.

***
Governor Palin has stated publicly that she and her family feared Trooper Wooten.
Branchflower, however, wrote that he doesn't believe the Palins were truly afraid of Wooten.

Yet the evidence presented has been inconsistent with such claims of fear. The testimony from Trooper Wheeler, who was part of her security detail from the start, was that shortly after elected to office, she ordered a substantial reduction in manpower in her personal protection detail ... an act that is inconsistent with a desire to avoid harm from Trooper Wooten or others.

...It is noteworthy that in almost every contact with the subordinate employees, Mr. Palin's comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. His comments were always couched in terms that he was a bad Trooper, that he was not a good recruiting image for the AST, that his discipline amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, that nothing had happened to him following the administrative investigation, and so forth...

I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons.

10/10/08: McCain's response to hatred is "meek"

2008-10-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

John McCain began dialing back (or began trying to appear to be dialing back) the rising tide of hatred and verbal violence he and Palin have been whipping up on the campaign trail. (BTW, if you haven't seen the videos of these rallies, please do so - here's one - also click on the link above.

In recent days, McCain and Palin had taken it to dangerous (and IMHO, disgusting) heights, with most commentators calling on McCain to take control and cool down the rhetoric. CNN's David Gergen said the negative tone of these rallies is "incendiary" and could lead to violence.

Frank Schaeffer of the Baltimore Sun was one of many who said "McCain's attacks fuel dangerous hatred".

Khaled Hosseini, the Afghani-born author of best-selling novels "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", sums it up best in the Washington Post article McCain and Palin Are Playing With Fire. He says that the response from the McCain/Palin campaign to the verbal abuse towards Obama they have incited at their recent rallies has been "meek". He writes:

“What I find most unconscionable is the refusal of the McCain-Palin tandem to publicly condemn the cries of "traitor," "liar," "terrorist" and (worst of all) "kill him!" that could be heard at recent rallies.

The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage to denounce the use of Obama's middle name as an insult.

The McCain-Palin ticket has given toxic speeches accusing Obama of being a friend of terrorists, then released short, meek repudiations of some of the rough stuff, including McCain's call Friday to "be respectful."”

10/10/08: Sarah's SAT score and "foreign policy experience"

2008-10-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

Still waiting for the Troopergate report to be released today - looks like it will be late in the day. In the meantime I thought you'd like to see our would-be veep's early academic credentials (we all know about her brilliant collegiate career - six years at six no-name unis for a bachelor's in journalism - without writing or producing anything -even for any of the college rags). But the signs were there early - high school GPA of 2.2 with a "D" in Foreign Languages and SAT scores of 416/425!

Also yesterday, Palin's calendar from her time as Governor of Alaska was released! Doesn't seem to have been very busy, with lots of unexplained time off - according to Keith Olbermann, he could have performed her 2 years of "work" in 2 days! And now we can quantitate her much touted "foreign policy experience" - it amounts to about 12 hours worth of meetings over the 18 months (btw NO ONE from Russia trade or otherwise) - including meetings with "foreign exchange students" and hosting the annual "Fur & Ice" reception with international tourists..
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/...

Just happened to catch my eye on the Anchorage Daily News while surfing for Troopergate..

You know you’re in Alaska when.. a big issue in a high-stakes trial is the value of a blue-eyed husky (that’s a dog) given as a gift. I guess in CA it might have been a terabyte server or something. I hope Sen. Ted Stevens gets nailed for undervaluing his dogs.
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/stevens/story/551875.html

I was a bit surprised to read the comments to an article titled "Has media coverage of Palin been fair?" Doesn't sound like our fair governor is so popular in her home state anymore - I wrote earlier that her popularity in AK has plummeted to the 60s from the 80-85% still being quoted by McCain. From some of these comments, looks like she'll be in for some hot water when returning home after her national debacle (soon) - and this is before Troopergate, remember. Rubbing my hands with glee...

10/10/08: Bush/McCain economic policies driving countries into ruin

2008-10-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

I know it sounds funny, but this is not a joke! The economic meltdown in the US is affecting countries everywhere in the world, and Iceland and Pakistan are just the first ones teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Way to go, Mr President! Now we can breed whole generations of people who hate us (the USA) because their families are driven into poverty by this reckless administration. Even uneducated people in other countries can probably put 2+2 together better than about 40% of Americans who still have their heads buried in the sand about the uselessness of the Bush/McCain Republican economic policies, and lay the blame squarely at our doorstep. And how is John McCain going to fix all this? By assuring us "I know how, my friends". Yeah right, why don't you tell us how, instead of giving us more Ayers crap and inciting domestic terrorism. People are fleeing Florida because they can't take your non-stop sleaze ads any more. Now how are you going to get their votes?

Iceland teeters on Bankruptcy

Iceland is getting closer to becoming the first nation to go bankrupt as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis and resulting squeeze on lending.

Read at Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/10/08/iceland-sovereign-currency-markets-currency-cx_po_1008markets28.html

And at International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/09/business/icebank.php

Pakistan facing bankruptcy

http://www.truthout.org/100708R

Pakistan is reeling from the high energy prices and years of corruption and mismanagement under Musharraf. What happened to all that money being doled out by Bush for being our “ally” in the war against terrorism?

10/9/08: Blame Palin for Palin’s freefall, NOT the economy

2008-10-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

I’m just plain tired of hearing Pat Buchanan and some other Repubs defend McCain’s disastrous pick of Palin for VP, and even more sick of them claiming the reason for her (and McCain’s) freefall in the eyes of the American people is due to the Wall Street crash that cut off their rise!!! Give me a break. Sure, a bad economy always helps the challenger, but in terms of their personal popularity, Jack and Jill are tumbling down the hill because Americans got just a couple of close looks at this vapid VP pick, and THEY DIDN’T LIKE WHAT THEY SAW!!!!

To put their stupid denials to bed once and for all, I have taken the daily tracking poll of their ratings (conducted for The Daily Kos by a non-partisan pollster) and drawn lines corresponding to the major dates in Palin’s brief national political career. The top graph shows the Presidential poll and the lower one the favorable/unfavorable ratings for each candidate (Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin). The first obvious takehome is that Palin’s slide (which dragged McCain down too) started on 9/13, the day after Charlie Gibson’s interview with Palin was aired on ABC. The Dow crashes occurred on 9/15 and 9/17 and did absolutely nothing to hasten the slide (nor did the bailout failures). In fact, both their ratings recovered slightly after 9/21, but then came Couric’s interview and McCain’s ridiculous “(non)suspension” of his campaign on 9/24, and well, nothing has been able to save them since. The VP debate on 10/2 gave Palin a very tiny fillip only to continue falling the next day, and it’s only getting steeper with their sleaze-slinging of the last few days. On the other hand, people got a great look at Obama in the first debate, and said "He could and should be the Next President of the USA!" and they haven't stopped voting for him since - in the most recent Gallup poll, Obama opened up a 11 point lead over McCain (52-41), the biggest ever.

So let me say once more, in this case at least: It’s NOT the economy, stupid! In fact, it’s the stupid, stupid. The more people see of this pouffed-up, lipsticked pitbull, the less they like. Which is why the Repubs are too afraid to ever let her talk with a real reporter again, trotting her out twice a day in front of carefully preselected, commited wingnuts (with the Old Man of the Sea hovering protectively over her). Well, that’s just fine with me, in just over 3 weeks, they will both be relegated to the scrap heap of history, bearing the unenviable label of having run the dirtiest and least successful campaign in our lifetime.

Since I know that the selfsame wingnuts will deride this analysis since it was sponsored by (gasp!) an Obama-leaning website, I also took a recent graph from pollster.com, showing the average of 56 national polls and breaking it down by gender. You can see that the swing towards Obama among both men and women started right about the time of the Gibson interview, and the crashes of the Dow or the vacillations of the bailout had no effect whatsoever, supporting the detailed analysis above.

10/9/08: McCain’s Hero Gen. Petraeus Agrees with Obama

2008-10-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Petraeus Talk Seems to Bolster Obama
In an interview with the BBC about Iraq, General Petraeus was asked, "Do you think you will ever use the word "victory?" Petraeus answers: "I don't know that I will." He adds, "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade...it's not war with a simple slogan." Listening, McCain? Your hero says "Quit the Victory talk"...

During a talk Wednesday about Iraq at the Heritage Foundation
,a conservative Washington policy organization, Petraeus repeatedly made statements that bolstered the foreign-policy proposals of Sen. Barack Obama, McCain’s Democratic rival, or cut against McCain’s own lines.
Petraeus agreed with Obama about opening communications with America’s adversaries, a position McCain is attacking Obama for endorsing. Citing his Iraq experience, Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.” He added that it was necessary to have a particular goal for discussion and to perform advance work to understand the motivations of his interlocutors.
That is virtually identical to Obama’s position, when he said he was willing to negotiate without preconditions but only after sufficient diplomatic preparation. And that’s not all - Petraeus pointed to efforts by Hamid Karzai’s government to negotiate a deal with the Taliban that would potentially bring some Taliban members back to power, saying that if they are “willing to reconcile,” it would be “a positive step.”
Petraeus also said a surge identical to what he used in Iraq would not work in Afghanistan, as McCain had claimed in the Sep 26 debate. He essentially agreed with Gen. McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who Obama quoted at the debate: “The word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is the word ’surge.’ There are countless other differences between Iraq and Afghanistan”. By the way, McCain now says “The same “strategy” (not “surge” anymore, mind you, but “strategy”) - very, very different, because of the conditions and the situation — but the same fundamental strategy that succeeded in Iraq.” Very, very different, and yet the same?? Just shows why he’s McSame, he thinks “different” really means “same”.

Truth is, whether he's talking about his endless war in Iraq, trying to incite rednecks with Barack's middle name, or dredging up Ayers or Wright for the billionth time, even the
hard-core Republicans are tuning him out these days!

10/9/08: FOXnews upset - over Palin's mustache!!

2008-10-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

Times are tough, the economy is crumbling, Sarah Palin's popularity is freefalling, even in her own state of Alaska (and I'm sure it'll fall more tomorrow when the Troopergate report is released).
McClatchy: Palin's Approval Ratings Tumble -- In Alaska
Published: October 01, 2008
Palin’s approval ratings in Alaska tumble to 68%
Nationwide, 51% say Palin is unqualified to be VP. Her lack of knowledge, ability or decency have all been exposed. Now, FIX News is outraged that the Mainstream Media is going after her last "qualification" for the VP spot - her beauty!!!
Unbelievable! These people are almost rabid with outrage that Newsweek did not airbrush out Palin’s mustache before putting her picture on the cover!!
You HAVE to see this - this apparently riles them more than showing her stumbling responses to Couric!
FOX Freakout Over Unretouched Palin Photo On Newsweek Cover

10/9/08: Biden's Back!!!

2008-10-09T12:40:00.001-07:00

You may have been wondering where Biden's been for the last few days - while it's true one of my pet peeves is that the media's coverage has fawned on Palin (admittedly her comedic value is far higher!), they've mostly ignored Biden - by far the more qualified, articulate and intelligent candidate for VP. I'd rather hear what he has to say than the vicious, divisive Pitbull Palin! He has been away with his family dealing with his mother-in-law's passing. Our condolences go out to him and his family.

But now, Biden’s Baaaaack!!! And he’s smoking hot!! Listen to his fiery speech yesterday in Tampa, FL. It’s 33 minutes long and it takes him a couple minutes to get warmed up, but it’s worth it. He hammered Palin/McCain and their “shameles” campaign:

"The McCain/Palin Campaign are running a shameless campaign, one in which they will not emerge the victors in the end.
But when you don't have NOTHING to run on, your party record in shambles, your president have to be hidden, your VP Pick is a running joke, you now have to create distraction, whether true or false."

Also check out this great piece on him in Newsweek that came out (along with a 10-pager on Palin - more on that later).

Biden’s Unified Theory of Biden
A couple of excerpts from this piece:
Here's what you say when you're asked what you'll do as VP - are you listenin', Palin?
Biden, who had stayed neutral in the Democratic primaries after dropping out in January, told Obama that he was "ready to be second fiddle" and sought no specific portfolio—but only if he got a guaranteed hourlong, one-on-one session with the president every week (like Al Gore's lunches with Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush's with Ronald Reagan) and a presence at all important meetings. Obama said yes, that he wanted him for his judgment and for his help in enacting a big legislative agenda. And so the job was defined: "My role will be to say, 'Boss, here's the way I'd go about it'."

And this is what Joe Biden is all about! This is how he describes his acceptance:
Biden says Obama reminds him of Bill Clinton in his "confidence, cognitive ability, judgment" and intellectual security—that he can listen and absorb advice without having to prove he's the smartest person in the room, a critical leadership skill. He says he experienced an "epiphany" during a recent conference call on the bailout bill with Bob Rubin, Paul Volcker, Warren Buffett, Paul O'Neill, Joseph Stiglitz, Larry Summers and Laura Tyson. "He [Obama] comes on the call and says, 'Well, folks, sorry I'm late. I've got four questions.' He was in total frigging command! Here's a 47-year-old guy in one of the most complicated economic dilemmas anyone has had to face since 1929 to '33. And it was like, 'Bang! Bang! Bang!' I called him afterward and said, 'You sold me, sucker!' "

10/08/08: The Cowardice of Sarah Palin

2008-10-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

I'm reproducing this below from another blog - it really says it well. That second para just cracks me up - I've read it 10 times and it still cracks me up!

The Cowardice of Sarah Palin
by Hunter Wed Oct 08, 2008 at 02:00:01 PM PDT

I suppose it should go without saying that if Sarah Palin has been reduced to speaking to hard-right audiences, but can't do any nonpartisan interviews because they're confident she'll blow it, and can't appear without John McCain because he may have to bail her out if things get dicey, and generally can't do anything but stay in her little anti-media box, coming out twice a day like the little bird in a cuckoo clock to yell a few phrases into a crowd and leave again, she's all but useless to her own campaign. Her favorable ratings have been diving. She's still got Troopergate in the works. There's still gawd knows how much embarrassing tape from her Katie Couric interview, which is probably going to keep being dribbled out from now until the election. So far, she's been making her most indelible American impressions on the pages of the National Enquirer.

Yeah, she's firing up the wingnut base. Who cares. The wingnut base is the easiest group of people on the planet to fire up. They get fired up when they think gays might steal their marriages. They get fired up when they have to press "one" for English. They get fired up when some black guy gets all uppity and runs for president. They get fired up when their sub-sub-sub-version of Christianity isn't the dominant religious ideal of the nation. Holding Sarah Palin in front of them is like teasing a dog through a fence, but that's about it.

So ya know, McCain -- by all means, if you're going to throw this Hail Mary pass, then throw it in earnest. Let her pop on out there for interviews with real reporters -- you know, as opposed to the biting "journalism" of people like Kristol and Hannity. Have her answer questions on the stump that haven't been pre-approved in triplicate. Right now, "maverick" seems synonymous with "coward" -- if the strength of your convictions extends only to inciting crowds against Obama, and you've got nothing else to run with, then I don't think you can get too snippy when the public just starts laughing at you.

I don't want Obama to win because McCain's campaign sucks as badly as most Democratic campaigns have in previous years. I want him to win on the issues. But since McCain and Palin are avoiding even mentioning the issues -- or even appearing in locations where they might be, shudder, asked about them -- I guess we'll have to settle for the first.

-------------------
Would I settle for the first too? You betcha.
Amazingly, hard-core Democrats and hard-core Republicans apparently agree on one very important issue - that all the negative campaigning of McCain and especially Palin, is not helping them, and furthermore is causing serious damage to our nation. Here's Dave Winer writing for the Huffington Post:
Profiles in cowardice

And dere's a similar viewpoint from David Frum, a committed conservative -
writing in the National Review!

10/08/08: No Country for Old Men!

2008-10-08T19:55:00.001-07:00

I LOVE this picture! This person did a great job! McCain looks just the same grumpy old self he looked at the end of the debate when he realized he hadn't been able to reverse the tide.

10/08/08: Palin gets a high-tech protest in Burlingame, CA!!

2008-10-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

Way to "welcome" Palin to Silicon Valley! Heck, maybe they even showed her how to use email when she was here. This is very cool - Palin sneaked into the Hyatt Burlingame last Sunday for a fundraiser - in which no press, cameras or reporters, were allowed in! They didn't want a repeat of her SoCal fundraiser when she got heckled on camera - by paying, registered Republicans we have to assume, given what was probably a fine-toothed prescreening process!

The California Democratic Party came up with a brilliant way to "welcome" Sarah Palin to her rally in LA on Saturday. They rented a giant electronic billboard across the street from the rally, and posted questions for Palin submitted via text message!

BRILLIANT: Palin gets high-tech heckled at CA rally!
by djdevvydev Wed Oct 08, 2008 at 07:55:56 AM PDT
OK, it IS 45 minutes long - so you're not going to watch all of it - but take a quick look! Or if you REAAAAALLLLY don't have the time, here's some of these great photos from the rally! You’ve GOT to check these out!!

Think Baby Think !
There were lots of funny signs but also some sober ones, including this one, turning her own wicked words around:
There's a special place in hell for women who charge rape victims for rape kits.

10/7/08: And the Winner is : Obama - again!!

2008-10-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

So the second Presidential debate - in McCain's favored townhall format - just ended. And the winner this time, by an even bigger margin than in the first debate was Senator Barack Obama! In all 3 online polls within half hour of the debate, Obama was voted the winner by an enormous margin of 81-85% vs 12-15% for McCain. In the phone poll conducted by CNN after the debate, Obama was again the winner by 54% to 30% for McCain - in this poll, the voters were 38% Democrats and 31% Republican - fairly similar to the national averages.

Here are the results at 9pm:

Other results from the polls show that Obama's favorable votes went up 4% to 64%, while McCain's stayed unchanged at 51%.
And the pundits at CNN generally agree - Obama gets 2 As and 3Bs, and McCain gets 1 B and 4 Cs. All agreed that Obama looked and acted Presidential, was clear and articulate, and came across as likable. McCain had nothing new to say, came across as overly aggressive and not very likable. The online voters gave Obama a B and McCain a D.

So, what does this mean? Well, the difference between the online and phone polls shows that Democrats apparently are more internet-savvy than Republicans! heh,heh..

But snarkiness aside, what it really means is that if McCain had a hill to climb before the debate, now he has to climb a mountain. There's only more debate left, and unless he pulls some enormous rabbit of the hat, his goose appears to be cooked.

But folks, as I said before, none of this means anything, unless people actually get their ballots in one way or the other, so don't relax just yet - mobilize, mobilize, mobilize!!!

But for now, I'm off to pop the cork on my third bottle of champagne..

10/7/08: Palin WAS a member of AIP – video

2008-10-07T11:37:00.001-07:00

It's absolutely ridiculous how many articles there are on Palin on say NYT or WP - compared to Biden or even Obama. It's a very cynical strategy to use the media to spread their sleazy, untruthful propaganda without have to "face those pesky followups or rebuttals". Let this woman start giving proper press conferences with real reporters and then she can get the coverage they so desperately crave. In the meantime, the media needs to do their real job and expose the lies - such as this one.
Sarah Palin WAS herself a member of the AIP before she became a mayor, according to the AIP’s Vice Chairman Dexter Clark - speaking at a secessionist conference, no less – see the video for yourself and listen carefully between 6:00 and 7:00.
Palin was member of AIP
She has clearly lied about this! No surprise from her anymore, but still, this needs to get out there more so that someone can ask her about it and watch her lie again.

By the way, you'll see in the video that Clark and the AIP also consider the US troops in Alaska to be an "occupying force". Now, what exactly was Palin going to do when Putin "reared his head" and "came over to Alaska"? Wave her pom-pom and wink at him?

Clearly, this is an ongoing association even if Sarah Palin isn’t an official member. We already know Sarah Palin’s husband Todd Palin was a card-carrying member of the Alaskan Independence Party until 2002 - "guilt-by-association" comes back to bite them in the ass! Plus, in March 2008 (yes, THIS year!) Sarah Palin delivered a welcoming address to the AIP convention – see it at Palin speaks to the AIP

The Alaska Independence Party has advocated secession from the United States. Joe Vogler, the founder of the AIP, was murdered in 1993 while attempting to buy plastic explosives on the black market – wonder what for? - you can hear him on youtube too.
Joe Vogler, AIP & Palin
Scary. Also scary is how she whips up the people at her rallies with her lies about Obama over the past few days - they were screaming "terrorist" and "treason" and "kill him". Darn right she scares me. You betcha.

10/7/08: Polls look good & Who You Callin’ a Maverick?

2008-10-07T11:37:00.000-07:00

Heh, heh. Before I get to the "meat" of this story, I just have to share these polls with you.. have you looked over to the right and up??---->------->--------->------------->--------^

Massive Obama gains in past five days
It's looking like a blowout, guys. It's near-impossible to keep up with all the polling anymore. It's a flood, and it's all looking ridiculously good for our side. So rather than try to list them all (you can go to Pollster.com to get them), let's look at the averages of all those polls.
US Obama 364 McCain 174
But it's not a done deal by any means. Obama still has to win 2 more debates, fight off what will be undoubtedly sleazier attacks, and most importantly, get the Democratic voters to the polls! In CO for example, the ballot is loaded with 18 measures designed to get conservatives to the polls with issues ranging from abortion to anti-affirmative action, so a lead today may not mean much.

Who You Callin’ a Maverick?
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
There’s that word again: maverick. In Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point calling him “the consummate maverick.”

But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.
“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s..In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle..unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.. Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase.”

“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

10/7/08: Media's contribution to Palin/McCain's divisive sleaze

2008-10-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

The media IS finally beginning to wake up to the fact that they too have been ruthlessly exploited by the cynical Republican strategy adoped by Palin and McCain – lie outrageously and spread sleaze about your opponent without having to ever to provide any proof or give a real press conference defending their statements. And the press will lap it up and provide them with the free publicity and exposure they crave.

It’s worked – so far.

But today there were 2 articles in the Washington Post which show that maybe – just maybe – the media is waking up to the fact that they have been complicit in spreading this divisive sleaze. Here’s a call to arms from Eugene Robinson titled
The Flimflam Strategy

And here's an acknowledgement by Richard Cohen that the media gave Palin a free pass on her vacuous performance in the VP debate, perhaps because they didn’t want to seem like they were piling on after she was so thoroughly humiliated by the Couric and Gibson interviews.

Palin and McCain have received and continue to receive a free pass from the media, which is afraid of being lambasted by them (again) as being biased. So even today, even in exposing Palin's vicious, divisive lies, they have to bend over backwards and mention Obama's "negative" ad about McCain's involvement in the Keating 5 scandal!
WAKE UP!!
There's a world of difference - the S&L collapse IS relevant to today's bank collapse, and McCain WAS GUILTY - he admitted it until yesterday, when he paraded his lawyer out to DENY it!!! And this doesn't get any media coverage.

Oh and while you're at it, please examine McCain's shady associations carefully too - with convicted criminals, right-wing extremists, mafia dons, sleazy real-estate developers - he's got a closet full of them!
McCain's closet
Despite attacks on media by McCain campaign, case studies show disparate coverage in McCain's favor, including in the case of Liddy vs Ayers.
I would like equal opportunity for McCain’s questionable associations.
Why is the NY Times continuing to ignore McCain's "own Bill Ayers"?

10/7/08: McCain's radical connection: G. Gordon Liddy

2008-10-07T00:42:00.001-07:00

The McCain/Palin campaign has decided to spend 100% of their remaining money and the 29 days left to Election Day in negative attacks with their “guilt-by-association” personal attacks on Obama. Over the weekend, Palin escalated this to a new level of sleaze with her racism-tinged attacks essentially calling Obama a terrorist for “associating” with 60s "radical" (now a Professor of English) Bill Ayers. This “association” consists of attending one fundraiser for Obama’s Ilinois Senate campaign in 1995, some board meetings for the Annenberg Foundation and few chance
meetings on the street.
But McCain and Palin are making a big mistake by dragging in old association and trying to turn the discussion from real issues to character assassination, even according to conservatives. These tactics open the door on their rich closets crammed with skeletons ranging from close friendships with convicted criminals such as G. Gordon Liddy and personal involvement and Senate censure in lobbying scandals (McCain) to involvement in separatist groups and public praise of sexist witchhunting pastors (Palin).

In fact, “McCain has his own Ayers” due to his close association with G. Gordon Liddy, according to a Chicago Tribune column, which has not received much press coverage to date, and frankly, I’m wondering why.

With friends like these ...
McCain finds his own radical friend

This article examines McCain's close connections to G. Gordon Liddy, who in addition to serving more than four years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and the Daniel Ellsberg case, has also admitted that he plotted to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotted to murder fellow Republican operative E. Howard Hunt; and plotted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. Liddy also reportedly gave advice on how to shoot agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and reportedly admitted to naming shooting targets after the Clintons.

McCain’s association to Liddy has been far closer than Obama’s to Ayers. Liddy hosted a fundraiser for McCain's 1998 Senate re-election campaign and contributed to many of McCain’s Senate and Presidential campaigns. McCain has praised and repeatedly associated with Liddy in public and in campaign settings, even appearing on Liddy’s conservative radio talk show, most recently in May of this year!

An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07" includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

Despite attacks on media by McCain campaign, case studies show disparate coverage in McCain's favor, including in the case of Liddy vs Ayers.
I would like equal opportunity for McCain’s questionable associations.
Why is the NY Times continuing to ignore McCain's "own Bill Ayers"?

In an article in Pennsylvania’s Times Leader entitled Attacks may come back to bite McCain With just weeks left, Palin’s accusations against Obama may show desperation., Daniel writes that “Palin’s [most recent] attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret”.

John McCain has a very long list of questionable associations. Here's some of the more prominent ones compiled by John Lorenz
If McCain wants to mention Rezko in relation to Obama and Joe Biden, take a look at John McCain's questionable ties

Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonano:the head of the New York Bonano crime family

Charles Keating: Convicted S&L scammer - see The Keating 5 Scandal

Vicki Iseman and Paxon Telecom: See the NY Times article in a previous blog. McCain denied that he'd ever had an affair but certainly flew around with her!

Donald R. Diamond: Shady real estate developer Donald R. Diamond.

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges

Richard Quinn. South Carolina political consultant Richard Quinn, a neo-Confederate revanchist who was one of the leaders of the state's pro-flag faction.

Charles Black Jr.: Senior McCain campaign adviser Charlie Black has friends in low places. Black served as chair of BKSH & Associates, a lobbying firm.Black drew fire recently when he suggested that a terror attack would help John McCain.

“Pastor” John Hagee: John McCain has accepted the blessing of “Pastor” John Hagee, who believes the Pope is the Anti-Christ, who believes Jews are responsible for their own suffering in history due to their failure to believe correctly, and who advocates starting a war with Iran in the Middle East to ‘hasten Armageddon’; and who calls Washington “the City of Satan”. Hagee also has said “God may already have sent hurricane Katrina to punish the U.S. for its role in helping Israel remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip” I guess it is acceptable to advocate mass murder and be a religious bigot. McCain has officially distanced himself from Hagee, but only after he was severely criticized for his association and had pointed a finger at Barack Obama over Obama’s association with “Pastor” Jeremiah Wright.

Lobbyists on his campaign staff: 177 lobbyists of them including Rick Davis, who accepted 2.5 million dollars from Fannie and Freddie to stop regulation.

Jack Abramoff:Since August 2008, John McCain has stayed busy trying to escape his ties to criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his shady lobbyist colleagues, including Randy Scheunemann and Ralph Reed.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080815/pl_usnw/dnc__mccain_watch__scheunemann__abramoff__and_reed

10/6/08: McCain is no Maverick - but an adulterer and a coward

2008-10-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, McCain’s recent decision to go negative on Obama is starting to backfire on him in a big way! Almost every major newspaper today carries an article detailing some aspect of McCain’s long list of character flaws that make him unfit to be President. Here’s a sampling:
The Washington Post has an article examining McCain’s long history as an adulterer and philanderer.

The Separate Peace of John And Carol

This details how McCain met a glamorous young heiress named Cindy Lou Hensley at a cocktail reception in Hawaii in 1979.
McCain spent months flying from Washington to Arizona pursuing this new relationship. Soon, the 43-year-old naval attache and his 25-year-old sweetheart were engaged.

There was only one complication: McCain was still married.

Carol Shepp McCain, then 42, had endured much in more than 14 years of marriage to John. She had raised their three young children alone while her husband languished in a North Vietnamese prison camp for 5 1/2 years. Her tribulations grew immeasurably after a near-fatal car accident that immobilized her for months and left her scarred for life. Despite their reunion and physical rehabilitation, by the late 1970s the McCains' marriage had begun to crack, as John engaged in what he later termed "dalliances" with other women.
Now it was being torn apart by his relationship with Cindy Hensley.

It goes on to say that he and Cindy received a marriage license in Maricopa County, Ariz., in early March 1980, four weeks before his divorce from Carol was final. John and Cindy were wed six weeks later, on May 17.
Now, I'm no expert, but isn't bigamy a felony, even if only for a month? But that's really the least of his sins.

Continuing on the same theme, the NY Times published this article earlier this year about McCain’s suspect relationship with attractive lobbyist Vicki Iseman during his 2000 campaign:
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk
We don’t know what McCain and Vicki did or did not do in private, but it’s clear he displayed very questionable ethics in many ways throughout this affair – McCain was flying all over the place with this sexy telecom lobbyist, in her bosses' plane, and writing letters on her bosses' behalf . So this is about more than a possible extra-marital affair (which for McCain would not be news) – this is about ethics, abuse of power, lobbyists, political favors – all the things McCain claims to be against.

The longest and the most comprehensive article is a 10-pager in Rolling Stone magazine titled
Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

Yes, this is a long read, but a fascinating one. It puts the life of McCain under the microscope and it's not a pretty picture. As it says:
This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.
It's worth the read, but just in case you don't make it thru, here's the end:

But perhaps the most revealing of McCain's flip-flops was his promise, made at the beginning of the year, that he would "raise the level of political dialogue in America." McCain pledged he would "treat my opponents with respect and demand that they treat me with respect." Instead, with Rove protégé Steve Schmidt at the helm, McCain has turned the campaign into a torrent of debasing negativity, misrepresenting Barack Obama's positions on everything from sex education for kindergarteners to middle-class taxes. In September, in one of his most blatant embraces of Rove-like tactics, McCain hired Tucker Eskew — one of Rove's campaign operatives who smeared the senator and his family during the 2000 campaign in South Carolina.

"Always telling the truth in a political campaign," McCain writes in Worth the Fighting For, "is a great test of character." He adds: "Patriotism that only serves and never risks one's self-interest isn't patriotism at all. It's selfishness. That's a lesson worth relearning from time to time." It's a lesson, it would appear, that the candidate himself could stand to relearn.

"I'm sure John McCain loves his country," says Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar under Bush. "But loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."

Meantime, the LA Times takes a closer look at McCain’s flying record
Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator
John McCain crashed 3 planes even before Vietnam - 2 were destroyed, and in the third, flying dangerously low over southern Spain (yes! That terrorist nation whose President he won’t sit down with!!) damaged his plane and cut power lines, causing a blackout in the area.
"Three mishaps are unusual," said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force pilot with 137 (!) combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known aviation safety expert who teaches in USC's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?"
Just for comparison, McCain flew 23 missions in Vietnam for a total of roughly 20 hours in combat. A Vietnam war veterans website points out that McCain was awarded 28 assorted awards for those 20 combat hours, compared to about 7000 hours for an average soldier on the ground.

Even Conservatives question McCain’s attack strategy, including conservative columnist David Brooks and GOP Strategist Mike Murphy. Chris Wallace on Fix News, too, questioned whether the McCain camp was doing the right thing in an interview with Joe “Turncoat” Lieberman.

In response, the Obama campaign is stepping up its own attacks, but is so far staying away from personal attacks and focusing on McCain’s policies and history on issues which are relevant to Americans today. For instance, it released a 13-minute video detailing McCain’s involvement and Senate censure in the “Keating 5” savings-and-loan scandal, a situation that bears an uncanny resemblance to the current investment bank bailout. Here’s a 30-second trailer.
In this video, William Black, former deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., states, "Fraud is the creation of trust and its betrayal. The 'Keating 5' involved all the things that have brought the modern crisis. Sen. McCain has not learned the lessons, and has continued to follow policies that are going to produce a disaster."
UPDATE: McCain now denies his wrongdoing in the Keating affair after admitting it for 20 years. In the campaign in which he has already lost his honor and credibility, McCain is too much of a coward to stand up and accept responsibility for his past words and actions.
Obama said “Senator McCain and his operatives think they can distract you with smears. I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about than the economic crisis. And the notion that we’d want to brush that aside and engage in the usual political shenanigans and scare tactics that have come to characterize too many political campaigns, I think is not what the American people are looking for.”
But if McCain/Palin continue with the smears and the lies, Obama hinted they would respond strongly. "One of the things we've done during this campaign: We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," Obama said.

10/6/08 Mad dog Palin & John "Gollum" McCain

2008-10-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

A Rolling Stone article titled “Mad Dog Palin” has this awesome cartoon!!!
Mad Dog Palin

Very appropriate, since over the weekend, Palin gave up all pretense of actually having anything relevant to say to the American people about their issues, and instead went on an all-out rampage on Obama, which is in line with, and even way beyond, the McCain campaign's stated goal of diverting attention to "personality and character".
Lagging In The Polls, Palin Shifts To Fear Tactics

Palin is lamenting that the “filter of the mainstream media” has not given her a chance to do what she really wants to do: talk about the issues.
Oh really? Why don’t you pick up the phone, Palin? A hundred reporters will be at your doorstep in 5 minutes for your long-awaited very first press conference of the campaign. Heck, they’re probably there already, you just can’t see them past the 6-person deep “security” layer keeping them away.

Meantime, I thought I'd bring back this hilarious Daily Show clip that got lost because it aired on Thursday, along with the VP debate. Jon Stewart nails John McCain for claiming credit for the bailout bill while also trash talking it - in the very same speech!! Talk about the ultimate Flip-Flop..
McCain IS Gollum!!

10/6/08: Nobel Laureates for Barack Obama

2008-10-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

61 Nobel Laureates endorse Barack Obama, including Stanford’s Paul Berg, Burton Richter, Douglas Osherhoff and Roger Kornberg.

An Open Letter to the American People
August 23, 2008
This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness.
We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.

In the meantime, Palin has denied that human activities cause global warming and questioned scientists’ integrity on the subject!!
Sarah Palin puts polar bears on thin ice
Of course, a Palin/McCain administration (sic) would only continue the Bush White House’s long history of fake “science”. But even Bush these days admits global warming is real and manmade! Somehow, I doubt that a Palin/McCain administration is going to be a boon to scientific progress.

10/4/08: Get your daily Palin humor here!

2008-10-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

The Great Debate on SNL.
This is hilarious! They are just dead on with the lampooning - all the things the mainstream media can't/won't say!

And here's another of those things that would be really funny if this lightweight wasn't half a heartbeat (and an election, thank god) away from being the next President. Just when you thought 8 years of Bush and "nu kular" was about all you could take:

Sarah’s Pompom Palaver
Here's some of her non-answers from the "debate" in Dowd's words:
Talking at the debate about how she would “positively affect the impacts” of the climate change for which she’s loath to acknowledge human culpability, she did a dizzying verbal loop-de-loop: “With the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that, as governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change subcabinet to start dealing with the impacts.” That was, miraculously, richer with content than an answer she gave Katie Couric: “You know, there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, with these impacts.”

Huh? and again, huh?

Her answer to what she'd do about the nuclear race:
“Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet.” (Mostly the end-all.)

And I "reared my head" and howled at this part:
When she was asked by Couric if she’d ever negotiated with the Russians, the governor replied that when Putin “rears his head” he is headed for Alaska. Then she uttered yet another sentence that defies diagramming: “It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there.”
Reared heads reared themselves again at the debate, when she said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “were starting to really kind of rear the head of abuse.”

Finally, I liked Dowd's finish:
Palin .. uses a heck of a lot of language to praise herself as a fresh face with new ideas who has “joined this team that is a team of mavericks.” True mavericks don’t brand themselves.

10/4/08: Palin Piles on the Poo

2008-10-05T11:18:00.001-07:00

Palin has become a non-factor in this election - or so I thought until I read this NYTimes op-ed:
Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain
Yeah, you read that right. After being thoroughly humiliated by her only 2 serious interviews, and winking and "darn"ing and side-stepping her way through the debate, I was under the impression she was going to be moth-balled till Election Day, rolling her out only to carefully selected and well-heeled rightwingers to fill those fast-emptying coffers. But Rich puts forward a cogent argument that Palin and her backers have way more insidious plans in the hatching – they have decided to stop at nothing to make Palin President. It’s hard to believe that anyone, even hard core Republicans, can see this vacuous, vicious, dishonest, hockey mom as their salvation, but if there’s even an ounce of possibility to this scenario, it’s even more vital to this nation that Obama/Biden must and will succeed. This woman has the potential to be most evil and divisive force since – oh, say, the Civil War – and today she has the nerve to call Obama a terrorist!!?? She’s taking this already sleazy campaign to new disgusting depths that have never been and hopefully never will be seen again. The Palin/McCain campaign (that’s not a typo – she’s used it a few times herself) have decided to spend 100% of its money from now till Nov 4 on negative ads attacking Obama. They have decided they have nothing of substance to offer us the American people on the economy, healthcare or even the war and are hoping that offensive, disgusting personal attacks on Obama will be enough to get this douche-pair into the White House. This pitbull needs to be sent back to face the music in Alaska with her tail between her legs. As for the old guy, maybe a nice retirement home in Florida or someplace not starting with a “S” since he can’t seem to keep them straight (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain).

10/3/08: Palin is still good - for laughs!!

2008-10-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I know I announced that Palin is officially a non-factor in the election. But she's still good for a lot of laughs between now and Election Day - and god knows, we've badly needed some!

I just loved this flow chart guide to Palin's debating technique! We sure could have used this help yesterday (and perhaps Ifill too, who was browbeaten by McCain's media blitz into not following up on Palin's non-answers - she answered maybe a half-dozen of 25 questions last night)!
Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart
by adennak
Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 01:39:13 AM PDT
I know some folks out there might have had trouble following the Vice Presidential debate. Particularly, trying to parse meaning from the things that Sarah Palin said. With that in mind, I have compiled a handy resource for your perusal. I hope to update this chart, both graphically and grammatically, when it is no longer ten to five in the morning. For for the mean time. . . enjoy!
-------------------------------------------
It's also funny to watch the McCain camp flailing to explain one of Palin's worst mistakes on the night (see, this is what happens when she actually answers a question!). When Biden said that he and Obama supported closing a loophole in bankruptcy laws to help keep people in their primary homes and said that McCain was against it (because he loves to support his banking friends), Gwen Ifill turned to Palin and asked "Governor, is that so?" and Palin said "No, that is not so" and then went on to - blather about how she's such an energy guru?! Today, "The McCain campaign confirms to ABC News that Palin misstated McCain's position. "
I LOVE IT!!!!

10/2/08 Biden is my new hero!

2008-10-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

And the Winner is - Biden!!

Palin became a non-factor in this election today. You heard it here first. Oh, she did fine. But would I trust her to be President? Not on your ( or my) life. Soon she will be back in Alaska and disappear from the national scene.

But the real story today is Biden. He became a star. He was magnificent. This man I would trust to be a stand-in for President. He did better than I ever thought he would. He kicked ass today.

And a majority of Americans agree! The Quick Vote on the CNN home page reads right now:
Sen. Joe Biden 70% 138118
Gov. Sarah Palin 26% 52271
Neither 4% 7125
Total Votes: 197514

OK, this is biased because Democrats are actually thinking people who are more likely to be online at CNN! But every nationwide poll says the same thing - the CNN nationwide poll says Biden 51% Palin 36%.
CBS says Biden 46% Palin 21%
I'm pretty sure any other major poll is going to be the same (unless you only poll Repubs!). Here are some opinions:
NY Times
TIME

OK, now for my personal takes:
Biden was clear, strong and Presidential. He stayed away from attacking Palin and kept his focus on McCain - and he did a great job there. He connected most on a emotional level when he talked about being a single father after the accident that killed his wife and infant daughter. Sure, he might have planned to bring that in at some point, but I thought he seemed genuine. As expected, he blew Palin away on all the foreign policy and security issues, but he also did better on the economy, on tax cuts, on what he would do if he had to take over as President - on pretty much everything, in fact. The best thing I can say about Palin was that she did better than in her Couric or Gibson interviews, but that's a pretty low bar. She did not answer most questions directly, didn't identify a single thing that McCain/Palin would do differently (partly because Biden did a superb job of linking Bush to McCain with iron chains!). Biden also found a way to bring in my biggest fear with a McCain/Palin win - the loss of the Supreme Court to the right for the conceivable future. He just did great in every way!
Here's Biden's emotional moment:

Also, watch this - one of Biden's strongest responses of the night, in reply to the billionth reference by Palin to McCain's "maverickness": Maverick, he is not!

10/2/08 The Day of the Debate!

2008-10-02T16:09:00.001-07:00

While we wait breathlessly for the Great Debate, here's something to keep you all amused - a good 5 minute compilation of Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits so far!
Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits- Youtube
Doesn't include the Supreme moment though - you can find that here.
But this is even better - it's Jon Stewart's version of Palin's Plays!

Daily Show Oct 1

10/1/08 Palin's Party Panics!

2008-10-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Here's the link to that video of Couric asking Palin about Supreme Court cases I talked about earlier - judge for yourselves!!!!

So what’s responsible for Obama’s sudden resurgence in these critical battleground states?
Three things :

1. Obama’s impressive performance on the debate resonated well with the undecided voters – he more than held his own on security and scored much better than McCain on the economy, where he’s way more trusted to deal with this ongoing crisis.

2. McCain’s grandstanding last week (claiming to “suspend” his campaign to go back to the Senate to show his “leadership” on the bailout, both claims were bogus) didn’t go down well with voters.

3. Finally, people got to see more of Palin, and they didn’t like what they saw! She was interviewed by Katie Couric again yesterday on CBS Evening News, parts of which you may have seen on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN or other news broadcasts (here are all 5 parts that were shown). What they showed in the interview sent chills down my spine – can you believe this VP candidate could not name a single newspaper she reads regularly?
Now this is not a trick question, folks!! Scary! Also, her extreme views on abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her opposition to the morning-after pill were featured. Here’s what I dislike: she says she’s proud of her views on abortion, then why can’t come out and say she thinks it should be illegal when asked directly instead of beating around the bush? We all know it anyway.

It was probably at this point that Couric brought up the Supreme Court and Roe v Wade – because, let’s face it, Judge Stevens is 88 years old, and probably can’t survive another Republican term. And if Palin/McCain get to pick one more justice, we all know what the result will be for America. Anyways, what was not shown at this point is even more chilling than what was shown – according to a Palin aide, the unaired part included a question from Couric about whether she had heard of any other Supreme Court cases other than Roe v Wade. The answer was – total silence. Is that more or less scary than the verbal fumbling about the newspapers or the bailout or Rick Davis? You decide.

This may have been the last straw that broke the conservative camel’s back. You may have seen Jack Cafferty’s final say on Palin (if you haven’t, check it out. I don’t think it’s been said better), or Gloria Borger's, or Fareed Zakaria's (McCain's VP decision is 'fundamentally irresponsible').
But what’s even more interesting, is that in the last couple of days, there has been an outpouring from CONSERVATIVES who have come out and said Palin should withdraw from the ticket!! Now these are Republicans, who are fully aware of the consequences of a late VP withdrawal from the ticket, and yet they’re choosing to ask for her to step down!! Now that should cause all Republicans to at least pause and think about their choice.

Here’s some of their views.

While some journalists say privately they are censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they're piling on, pundits on the right are jumping ship. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says Palin "just seems out of her league." National Review Editor Rich Lowry called her performance "dreadful." Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher described the interview as a "train wreck." Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker urged Palin to quit the race, saying: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself." Other conservatives who have expressed their doubts about Palin include David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, and conservative pundits Charles Krauthammer and Ross Douthat.

To summarize, I'll quote myself from a couple weeks ago:
McCain/Palin = 4 more years of war

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of rich getting richer, poor getting poorer

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of economic crisis

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of jobless and homeless people

Scariest of all:

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye Roe v Wade, back to coathanger abortions in basements

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, hello constitutional amendments

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye USA as we know it.

10/1/08 Obama leads in Ohio and Florida!!

2008-10-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

More good news from the polls today (taken over the weekend) while we wait for news on the bailout – and this is HUGE from an electoral college perspective – Obama leads in Ohio AND Florida! There is no way McCain can win without these states. But we’re still a long way from home . IF 2 things happen: 1) this holds up in other polls 2) we can actually get these voters into the booth on election day, THEN we’ll have something to look forward to for the next 4-8 years!

So, folks, don't relax just yet - as Tim Gunn would say - "Make it work!!"

Polls: Obama leads in critical trio of states
Campaign Battlegrounds

9/29/08 Obama more trusted than McCain on all major issues

2008-09-29T23:31:00.000-07:00

Post debate voter polls show Obama is now trusted more on all major issues!! This even includes issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration and taxes, previously McCain strongholds. It appears that Obama's message that he will lower taxes for 95% of the population while McCain's taxcuts only favor the rich is getting through. Obama's traditional leads on the issues of budget and healthcare got wider after the debate as well. Obama also maintained his 50% voter support for the fourth straight day, the first time he has done so since June.

Obama Gets Post-Debate Boost in Voter Trust on All Issues
Monday, September 29, 2008

Surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters
September 27-28, 2008

Issue Obama McCain
War on Iraq 46% 45%
Immigration 43% 40%
Environmental Issues 54% 37%
Balance Fed. Budget 47% 43%
Negotiate Trade Agreements 47% 43%
Taxes 48% 45%
Social Security 49% 41%
Healthcare 54% 38%
Education 53% 36%
Abortion 47% 42%

Capping off another day of good news for Obama, former Prez Bill Clinton today gave Obama a ringing endorsement, saying he will be shocked if Obama doesn't win. He also announced he will be hitting the campaign trail for Obama this week, starting in Florida where a Rasmussen poll released today showed the candidates were tied at 47% each.

9/29/08 McCain did phone it in and took credit - before the bill died

2008-09-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, big day on Wall Street. Largest ever plunge of the Dow (but not the largest %). And of course, the blame game is on full swing. Why did the bailout not pass the House? Let’s do the simple math: 2/3 of Dems voted for it, and 2/3 of Repubs voted against it. So who do you think is most responsible for it not passing? According to McCain, it's Obama! Never mind that McCain and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

Speaking at a rally in Columbus, OH just shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines. “I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, said McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker on Fox News that the deal would not have happened “without Sen. McCain.” Sadly for McCain, the rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

It’s truly amazing to watch this man and his wild swings with the “truth” – it’s getting impossible to separate McCain’s lies from the truth – the ease with which he denounces his own statements, sometimes made the same day, is truly astounding. The Audacity of Hope? Forget it, McCain is trumping that with the Audacity of his Lies.

In the same speech in Columbus, McCain said “You know, remarkably, some people have criticized my decision [to “suspend” his campaign], but I will never, ever be a president who sits on the sidelines when this country faces a crisis. I know that many of you may have noticed, but it's not my style to simply "phone it in."

Except he did phone it in.
John McCain stayed in Washington last weekend, supposedly to keep working on the bailout legislation. But not on Capital Hill, however, preferring to work out of his campaign office
"He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," said his senior adviser Mark Salter. 'Nuff said.

9/28/08 McCain: lifelong gambler (literally!)

2008-09-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote back on Sep 18 about what a joke it was that "John "Gambler" McCain vowed to take on Wall Street's "casino culture" after the US government's 85-billion-dollar bailout of AIG. Well, I was closer to the truth than I thought:
the NY Times today reports on McCain's close ties to the gambling world, about how he has done more than any other member of Congress to build America's casino landscape today, but most tellingly, about how he personally has gambled at least once a month for most of his adult life.

"A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table" the article says. This is why he took those gambles in his campaign already: choosing the Rove sleaze machine to run his campaign, picking Palin as his VP candidate, and last week, his desperate (and also failed) gamble to postpone the debate under the guise of "leadership" in the government's bailout of Wall Street. McCain has accepted more gambling money than any other member of Congress outside Nevada and New Jersey, the biggest gambling states.

Now, I ask you again, is this the kind of man we want to be our President? One who, when confronted with tough choices, decides on impulse to go with the Hail Mary pass and damn the consequences? Or do we want a President who keeps his cool even when things look grim, and continues to make rational decisions under pressure? I think the choice is clear, and is getting clearer every day.

9/27/08 (just!) And the winner of Round 1 is.. Obama

2008-09-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

All 6 of you who voted in my little personal poll were right (OK - 5 of you, I was one of them!) - Obama did win tonite, according to both polls taken by CNN
and CBS , and also according to most pundits that I heard and read. What is perhaps surprising is the margin by which he won in the polls - 51% to 38% on CNN. I saw the debate too and I would have said Obama did better on the economy but McCain did hold his own on the security issues, so I'd have given a slight edge to Obama. The reason for the large margins are 2-fold:
1. This debate on foreign policy and security was supposed to be McCain's forte (although the first 36 minutes were on the financial crisis) and Obama held his own, and IMHO, scored points for focusing on Al-Queda and Afghanistan and the essential role of international cooperation in responding to a global threat.
2. Apparently more Democrats than Republicans were watching the debate (what a surprise!), so the poll numbers favor the Dems (41% to 27%). We'll see tomorrow if this was significant.

Personally (and I'm trying not be biased), I thought Obama came off as being more calm, rational and composed - one might say Presidential - whereas McCain seemed defensive, always looking down or at Lehrer, was arrogant and repetitive- and many times, did what he's done in the campaign - lied, even about Obama's own statements, with Obama standing right there - but never once did McCain look Obama in the eye the entire time. With this attitude, he speaks of reaching across the aisle and working with Democrats? What a joke. It's been clear that the only time any Republican, be it McCain or Bush, is interested in working with Democrats is when their house of cards falls down and they're looking for help to share the blame. Sorry, guys, not this time. Here's grading of various aspects of their performance at Time/CNN .

The most pleasant surprise of these polls for me was the huge leads among women and very surprisingly, among those 55 or older - heretofore solidly McCainLand. Most likely, this relates to the fact that they think, rightly, that their retirement money is safer with Obama. As Jon King pointed out on CNN, this is also the most reliable voting group - so that is a huge boost. Also was nice that 64% thought Obama was more likely to win the election.

But let's not get too carried away - Kerry also had pretty big "wins" in the 2004 debates, and look what happened . That might have been more due to vote and voter manipulation, who knows? But that is precisely why we need to carry this momentum and build up a much bigger, unshakeable and undeniable lead going into Election Day. So, folks (and Obama), don't take your foot off the pedal - there is more work to be done.

But for tonite, mmm... that victory is nearly as sweet as my ice wine (from Canada - according to McCain, one of the terrorist refuges we send oil money to). Sleep well, gentle folk.

9/26/08 From Picking Palin to Picking on Palin

2008-09-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

Oh my, how the cookie does crumble. The pendulum has swung so far the other way on Palin, I almost feel sorry for her now. She's now being hammered even by conservative gurus who only a month ago saw her as the second coming - for example conservative columnist Kathleen Parker who had praised McCain's "keen judgment" in picking Palin who she said was "a perfect storm of God, Mom and apple pie," now says Palin should step down from the ticket. She's not alone, the article also cites 3 other conservatives who say the same David Brooks, George Will, and David Frum.
Palin step down
But what the heck, it's still fun to pile on the pressure and watch her squirm. For today's episode, we have the clip where she rears her head and says "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. "
Anderson Cooper's double take is priceless.
Palin clips
Heck, while you're there, check out the other clips on this interview as well. It's fun, it's Friday.

More seriously, Carl Bernstein echoes exactly what I've said on this blog for the last month, that all these Palinproblems are entirely McCain's fault, she is who she is, and is probably a mighty fine governor of the state of Alaska, but in picking her for VP, he exercised a colossal misjudgement and threw away his hard-won legacy of an honest, straight-talking patriot.
The devolution of McCain

Looking back, I think maybe even the bigger mistake he made was in hiring the entire Bush campaign team (who basically burnt him at the stake in 2000) to run his campaign, including Karl Rove's protege Steve Schmidt, whose capacity for evil sleaze even gives his master pause. A decisive victory by Obama in this election would surely end these evilmongers' career once and for all, and perhaps return American elections to the democratic ideal the world once looked up to.

I'll drink to that tonite when I'm watching the debate.

9/26/08 Obama opens 5 pt lead in Virginia

2008-09-26T13:38:00.001-07:00

I wanted to take a quick look at the polls before the debate tonite. The news is overwhelmingly good for Obama, further rationale for why McCain took that dramatic gamble that failed so miserably. I think Virginia may become the critical state in 2008 as Ohio was in 2004. If Obama wins VA, he's probably home and dry. Here are 5 of the top headlines on the Rasmussen/Fox site (typically Republican leaning!):
Obama Takes Five-Point Lead in Virginia
48% Disagree with McCain, Think Debate Should Go On
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (Obama 5o%, McCain 45%)
McCain Only Ahead By One Now in Florida
Obama Takes Four-Point Lead in Pennsylvania
Ohio Now a Toss-up
And over at Pollster.com, we see that Obama has pulled to within 1 pt in Montana, and is ahead in MI (3%), NH (2%) and North Carolina (2%)! These are within MOI, sure, but the trend lines are consistent.
MO: McCain 47, Obama 46 (R2K-9/22-24); StrategicVision: MI, NH (9/22-24);Rasmussen: NC, MA (9/23)
Desperate times for McCain. I wonder what desperate measures we'll see next.

9/25/08 McCain showboating serves no purpose

2008-09-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

Boy, this sure was an action-packed day in the political world. It's midnight and I'm still catching up. McCain's evasive action on the debate which was structured as an urgent need to return to Washington to end this financial crisis has ended up being nothing more than the empty showboating of a scared man who sees the writing on the wall (and I'm not talking about his health). As I said before, I still hold that the main reason was to deflect attention from Palin's disastrous interview with Couric (have you seen it yet? it's hilarious!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Yx-RhHb4g ) and to lay the ground for cancelling the VP debate next week. We'll see about that. But more to the point, McCain's return served no purpose whatsoever. Many sources (including NY Times and CNN) report that McCain met with Republican Boehner and looked at their proposal, then sat silently for 40 minutes at the all-parties meeting called at his behest by Bush, before opening his mouth and saying - nothing of import, according to people present.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/us/politics/26campaign.htm

And we learn late tonite that all the talks collapsed and there was no deal on the bailout anyway.

So let's summarize - all McCain has achieved so far is:
1. Duck out of his debate and try to make a case for Palin to duck out of hers
2. Earn David Letterman's wrath by ducking out of his show claiming to be flying to Washington on his lifesaving mission while sitting in a room down the hall talking with Couric at the same time he was to go on Letterman's show. Moreover, he didn't leave for Washington till the next morning, and we already know all his vital work there today.
3. Confirm his image as a desperate gambler unfit for Presidency in the minds of the American public, as shown by the hundred thousand or so people who voted on a CNN poll that showed 70% of them thought his move was nothing but a political ploy.

As for his holier-than-thou attitude in "suspending" his Presidential campaign to be at Bush's side in the bailout battle, I say "more lies". What "suspension"? AP & the Huff Post report his ads continued to run, his aides were out peddling their wares on MSNBC, his campaigners were going door-to-door in 15 states, and of course Student Sarah was continuing her education by making a highly visible pilgrimage to Ground Zero. I say again "What suspension? Nothing but more lies".
UPDATE: Apparently McCain has backed off and conceded victory (?!) by agreeing to debate after all, further strengthening my suspicions that it was all a ploy to draw attention away from his floundering running mate!

I also came across what would be a particularly nasty little trick being played by the McCain campaign - if true. http://www.ickypeople.com/2008/09/mccain-sends-out-fake-absentee-ballots.html
It's claimed that the McCain campaign has sent out millions of fake absentee ballots to registered Democratic voters in battleground states, each of which contains the wrong return address or other errors designed to disqualify the vote. So far, I haven't been able to confirm this, and no major media outlet is carrying this, nor is it on Factcheck.org. I'll hold judgement on this for now - but truth be told I am hoping that that the Dems and Obama doing all they can to prevent having the election stolen by these sleazy tactics thrice in a row. Some whispers I've heard about voting machines not being ready in places like Ohio make me nervous.

Finally an interesting op-ed from the NY Times today by Roger Cohen examining America's fascination with exceptionalism (what he calls "Palinism" but could be just as well be "McCainism", or what I might call "isolationalism") and how it's not appropriate in today's world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/opinion/25Cohen.html?em

9/25/08: The real reason behind McCain's gamble

2008-09-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

Everybody’s wondering why McCain dropped his bombshell trying to squirm out of Friday’s debate. It was a desperate gamble to deflect attention away from Palin’s bumbling interview with Katie Couric on CBS Evening News at 5.30pm. It worked, but only for a couple of hours. Millions of Americans including me caught her panic-stricken, broken-record replies to questions about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ getting paid by Freddie Mac. This picture is worth a thousand words, so see it for yourself at:

Katie Couric talks to Sarah Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Yx-RhHb4g

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2008/09/couric_letterman_too_much_for.html

Now, wait for the next bombshell: McCain will demand cancellation of the VP debate and air his debate then instead. He made the biggest mistake of his life picking this inexperienced bumbler for a VP, and now his campaign is reduced to playing keep-away with the media and the American people. Well it’s not going to work.

If you want to see what a real VP candidate looks like when talking to the press and answering difficult questions (without Cliff notes), see:

Joe Biden on Meet the Press

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JRiWazVoNQ&feature=related

Joe Biden on the Today Show Sept 16

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V544QfumwUY&feature=user

9/24/08 McCain is chickening out on the debate

2008-09-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

McCain is chickening out on the debate. Plain and simple. He is unprepared and afraid. First it was Palin being cosseted and now he's running away from facing the public too. I was really looking forward to these debates - pretty much our only chance to see them unscripted before the election. No doubt there will be an "emergency" in Alaska (perhaps a bridge falling somewhere) that will tear Palin away from her debate too. I'm just disgusted with what the Republicans are calling democracy these days. Day after day more lies are exposed and now they've decided that they'd rather be elected on sleazy ads and canned scripts alone and hope never to face the public they're hoping will vote for them? NOT A CHANCE.

McCain has said he’d rather lose the election than lose the war. Now it seems he’d rather lose his integrity than lose the election. So children, what have we learnt about this man? Here’s what he cares about the most in order: the war > the election > his integrity. And somewhere down there, the American public who have to decide between these candidates in 40 days and are desperate to see them addressing their issues. McCain is not so needed in the Senate that he can't spare 90 minutes for a debate that Americans have been looking forward to for weeks. This man hasn't voted in the Senate since April, and 2 days before his biggest show, he gets a crisis of conscience and decides he'll go to work? The Congress doesn't need you now, McCain , but millions of Americans do. Don't be a chicken, show yourself.

BTW, here's what Obama said: “This is exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates,” he said.

He added: “Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my mind it’s more important than ever.”

9/24/08 More lies from McPain about Rick Davis

2008-09-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

McCain said on Sunday that his campaign manager Rick Davis has had no connection to the failed real estate firm Freddie Mac for several years, and on Monday it comes out that Rick Davis has received nearly 2.5 MILLION dollars from Freddie Mac since 2000, including $15000/month upto LAST MONTH!!! Can we believe ANYTHING McCain/Palin says anymore? Their strategy seems to be lie until you get caught, then sweep it under the rug and move on to the next lie. I think the media needs to stop beating around the bush and follow TIME magazine’s lead in calling a spade a spade – McCain/Palin are liars.

McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/us/politics/w24davis.html?em

By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

9/23/08 Run, Palin, Run!! The downside of photo ops

2008-09-25T15:48:00.001-07:00

McCain camp tries to keep reporters out of Palin meetings

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/23/media-presses-mccain-campaign-for-access-to-palin-meeting/

I’m pretty disgusted that it’s been 4 weeks since Sarah McPain’s nomination and just over to a month to the elections and she hasn’t even given a press conference - let alone answer any questions when she recaps her lies day after day. I think it’s pretty powerful when even staid TIME magazine openly calls them liars.
> John McCain and the Lying Game*
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1842030,00.html

This is their vision of the democratic process.. muzzle the press and feed that people what we want them to hear. Did someone say Vietnam? Wasn't he locked up and tortured for fighting against propaganda photo ops just like this when he was a POW? Whatever happened that John McCain? I just hope the Dems can win this thing and bring some sanity back to this country.

9/22/08 Palin blessed by witching pastor

2008-09-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

This is old news, but I needed something else after all that grim reading I've been doing on the economy and the national debt (see previous posts) - not sure if this helped but it sure is different.

This is just too funny! Or it would be if this man wasn’t such a crazy fanatic. This might be our President one day??!! Scary scary scary….

Palin says Thomas Muthee made her governor of Alaska with his “righteous” powers.

Palin’s credibility is once again being questioned after an African pastor she credits with helping her political career was revealed to have waged a witch-hunt against a woman who was said to cause car crashes with her "demonic spells."

In June, Palin told how a visiting pastor from Kenya had foretold she was destined for greater things.

She told other members of the Assembly of God church in her home town of Wasilla, Alaska, that Thomas Muthee had laid his hands on her head and prayed over her when they met in 2005.

After what the 44-year-old described as his "awesome" prayer she went on to become Alaska's first governor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx-Ka0NTgRw&feature=related

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1057181/Palin-Afric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKEpsrwyiLk

9/22/08 It’s handout time in Washington!

2008-09-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

Bush wants to make sure that all his best buddies get their cut before he leaves office. We already knew the oil companies were all running the largest profits in their history over the last few years. You may not know, but probably guessed that the defense contractors made out like bandits. Bush has handed out a total of 3 trillion dollars to them –for running an useless war - the defense budget went up 72% since he took office, compared to 0.8% during the Clinton years. Now his friends in finance are getting a trillion dollars in bailout money, rather than be held responsible to fix the problems they created). And you think this bailout is going to fix their problems? Nope, you can bet they’ll be back for more.

“So what about me?” say his other rich buddies. Just watch for the automakers, shipping companies, pharmaceuticals, airlines, health insurers etc to line up for their share. And who’s paying for all this? Why, you and me, of course – the poor, suffering American taxpayers. They just run up the tab (the deficit) and leave us to pay. Under Bush, the national debt has rocketed from 5.5 trillion to 9.8 trillion dollars. The largest previous increase was under – you guessed it – Reagan/Bush, when it went from 1 trillion to 4 trillion dollars (2-5.5 trillion in 2007 $). The interest on our $9 trillion national debt alone runs close to $300 billion (2007), or more than the entire GDPs of Thailand, Portugal, Finland or Colombia. To the tune of $5200 per year for an average family of 4 (compare that to the average $500 “stimulus” check you received, which btw you’re paying for too). And do you think it will be different with McCain in the White House? Since WWII, the Presidents who have had the largest budget deficits during their terms are:

1. R. Reagan 2. G.H. Bush 3. G. Ford 4. G.W. Bush. I think this plot says it all the best.

This plot from the Heritage Foundation, a Republican think tank. Remember, this is from December 2006, when the debt was “only” 7 trillion dollars. A more recent view of the deficit can be found at http://www.cbpp.org/pubs/fedbud.htm

The National Debt is now projected at11.2 trillion dollars, and looks like getting a lot worse. Basically, every Republican President after Reagan has enormously increased the debt. This is where your “tax cuts” are coming from. McCain is going to be no different, since this has become the Republican strategy.

BTW I didn’t make up these numbers – they’re from the President’s office. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/pdf/hist.pdf

And this article puts it in perspective – how it’s going to affect your family and your money.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=13209

And just so you can get a comparison of how vast the amounts of money we’re talking about here are - it’s so easy to say a trillion here, a trillion there - a trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. That’s one heckuva lot of money – just see how it compares to GDPs of entire (not-so-small) countries – it’s about the size of India’s GDP – a country with 1 billion people!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

9/21/08: Why I'm worried about the bailout

2008-09-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

OK, I’m getting worried about where all this bailout money is coming from – guess what, it comes out of your pocket, via the NATIONAL DEBT. In Bush’s time alone the debt has skyrocketed from less than 6 trillion dollars to 11.2 trillion dollars now, and looks set for more. We may well be paying a trillion dollars a year just to pay the interest on the debt soon.

I found this great site with some of the easiest to understand charts of the economy I’ve seen – here’s one example of our national debt since WWII:

http://home.comcast.net/~andy_dunn/budget_main.html#national_defense

Notice how it stays steady for over 30 years after WWII, but then starts to shoot up after 1980? Not a coincidence, welcome, my friends, to Reaganomics – which has become the mantra of the Republican economic policy ever since. To summarize (yes, I’ll get hammered for this, but here goes): talk big about reducing government while at the same time putting in the biggest spending increases ever seen, and don’t forget to help all our wealthy friends in oil, defense and finance, meantime appeasing the American public with talk of tax cuts (mostly for the rich), which by the way, the people pay for anyway since we’re just going to add it to the national debt, which they don’t understand anyway!!

Since Reagan, the only time the debt flattened out or actually started to go down was under Clinton, but with Dubya Bush we’re back to the spending spree again, the likes of which have never been seen before!!

There are many other excellent charts at this site that are well worth taking a gander at. Bottom line is, our economic crisis is not due to a lack in productivity- au contraire, the GDP (and the GDP per person) continues to rise steadily year after year (Americans are working harder, not less), but because of profligate, out-of-spending by our government, particularly under Republican Presidents.

Here’s a clearer picture of this:

http://www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html

I also looked into who owns the National Debt – who are we actually paying all the interest to? Turns out that a big chunk is to our Federal Reserve Bank, which contrary to popular thinking, is not an arm of the Bush Administration, although it sure seems that way now.

http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/08/an-800-billion-.html

Foreign ownership of America is perhaps more visible when a Japanese company buys the Rockefeller Center or Columbia Pictures, or a British company buys Greyhound (did you know that? I didn’t), but the truth is much more subtle and dangerous – to us and to the world economy – nearly a fourth of our national debt is owed to foreign countries or corporations; about a fifth of it or about 1.5 TRILLION dollars is owed to just Japan, China, UK and OPEC. You’re worried about our economy now? If China and our “friends” who export oil (mostly Middle East countries but including Russia & Venezuela) decide to call in their money, you will have seen nothing yet. No, it won’t happen, because they like their money too, and if our economy tanks, they’re not getting their money back either. But it’s not a happy situation that America is increasingly beholden to foreign entities.

9/20/08 Trillion dollar bailout on Wall Street!

2008-09-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Wow! Can’t believe I was worried about the AIG bailout last week, this makes that seem like peanuts! Here’s a good take on this (this, by the way, is on the website of the Mises Institute, a proponent of the Austrian School, one of the oldest economic systems based on social science)

http://blog.mises.org/archives/author/j_henderson_1/

September 20, 2008 11:40 AM by J. Henderson

The Wall Street Journal editorial page's Stephen Moore supports the trillion dollar bailout of investment banks. Stephen is the alleged champion of free markets and was formerly with Club For Growth and was a federal budget policy director at the Cato Institute. His reasoning? Taxpayers must be made to subsidize an industry to avoid a "meltdown." Wrong! The meltdown, caused by the deflation of a Fed-created bubble, cannot be avoided. The bailout is merely transferring the costs to taxpayers.

Giving $700 billion (minimum) WITHOUT any oversight or ANY review to the man (Treasury secretary Henry Paulson) who got us into this mess in the first place? Especially to a man whose personal fortune of >$500 million dollars is tied up in exactly these same financial stocks? NO WAY! I will be contacting my local Congressperson & our Senators to make sure we know how this money is going to be used and that we (or at least Congress) has some say in it! I urge you all to do the same by contacting your Congresspersons.

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

9/18/08: McCain is always McSame

2008-09-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

McCain really is McSame. Most Americans now agree - 68% of Americans think McCain will continue Bush's policies, with a full 22% believing he will actually extend them (CBS poll). He can't just shake 26 years of voting with your party and 90% voting with Bush overnight. It's very clear that right now he'll say anything, do anything to win this election. Just in the last couple weeks, McSame has said he is:

a fiscal conservative, a populist, a moderate, a reformer, an experienced Washington political heavy-weight, an outsider, a maverick, a regulator, a de-regulator and just about anything else he can think of and hope that we don't notice.

Just this week he has flip-flopped so many times:

"The economy is sound. The economy is in crisis. I'm for a bailout. I am against a bailout. I am against regulation. I am for regulation." McSame's positions on the economy are as volatile as the stock market. But Americans just aren't buying this anymore.

Goodbye McSame and whatshername.

In March, McCain told The Wall Street Journal: “I'm always for less regulation.”

Yesterday, McCain complained on CNN about regulators who were “asleep at the switch for the last couple of years.”

Here's another joke: John "Gambler" McCain vowed to take on Wall Street's "casino culture" after the US government's 85-billion-dollar bailout of giant insurer American International Group, the latest shock of a horrific fortnight for the financial industry. Maybe he's a believer in that old saying "You need a thief to catch a thief".

Obama plans to pound McCain for the fourth day in a row for his clumsy assertion that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Obama will link the two issues by arguing, “He didn’t understand it then, and he doesn’t understand it now.”

White House press secretary Dana Perino declined to repeat the “fundamentals are strong” characterization on Wednesday, saying there is “a mixed picture.”

So expect to hear Obama say that McCain is the last person to think that – that not even President Bush is arguing the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

9/17/08: Blame McCain for Palin

2008-09-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Now that Palin's lies, abuse of power, ignorance and hypocrisy have been revealed on national TV, the focus should return the to real issue: McCain picked her as his running mate.

With this pick, McCain decided to throw away his war-hero status, his integrity, and his most memorable contribution to government - his stand on earmarks. Palin's lies are really McCain's lies.. And now his first would-be Presidential decision is an outright, ignorant gamble on a lying hypocrite for a running mate. He has already become a puppet on a string - Palin's string. In fact, Palin already referred to what they would do in the “Palin-McCain Administration”. A slip of the tongue, sure, but a telling one, nonetheless. McCain is to Palin what Bush was to Cheney - a figurehead, only much weaker, and in much worse health. The comparison to Cheney, who is also fond of the “lipstick on a pig” phrase, has been noted by others:

http://www.squidoo.com/cheney_w_lipstick

The resemblance is deeper than the lipstick, as I mentioned before..she linked the "righteous war" in Iraq to 9/11 - 5 years after the Bush administration admitted there was no connection.

McCain is a confused, senile, inveterate gambler who has shown terrible judgment and thrown away his principles in selecting Palin as his VP. He is not fit to be President of this country.

9/16/08: Scary math

2008-09-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Palin is a bigger disaster than Ike, Gustav and Katrina put together.

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of war

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of rich getting richer, poor getting poorer

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of economic crisis (have you seen how many investments banks are collapsing?)

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of jobless and homeless people

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of rise in crime (people have to eat)

Scariest of all:

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye Roe v Wade, back to coathanger abortions in basements

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, hello constitutional amendments

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye USA as we know it.

9/15/08: Cheney II : The Sequel

2008-09-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

I like some movie sequels, but Cheney II?? Too scary..

On Thursday 9/11/08, while speaking to troops departing for Iraq at Fort Wainwright, Palin linked the "righteous war" in Iraq to 9/11 - 5 years after the Bush administration admitted there was no connection!! Can't believe she would do such a thing on 9/11 - shameful.

Palin Channels Cheney's 9/11-Iraq Falsehoods
When everyone's attention was focusing on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's less-than-reassuring interview about foreign policy with ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, the Republican nominee for vice president was off delivering a speech in which she suggested a dramatically greater ignorance of recent history and international affairs than was on display in the interview...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080912/cm_thenation/1359848_1

To me the real issue is one of trust: I'm just tired to being lied to by my government. And from what I've seen, McCalin/Palin are just more of Bush/Cheney when it comes to the truth: they will say whatever is convenient, whether it's the truth or not. There have already been so many times McCain & Palin have "stretched" the truth, gone back on what they said, didn't know (even on matters they're supposed to be experts on - eg McCain on the so-called Iraq/Pakistan border or whether Al-Queda is Shiite or Sunni - see http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15836.html for a list).

Yes, you can be compassionate and say he was just confused, but even then, is a confused, senile old man really who we want as the next President? I just want our next President to be honest with us: in Obama I trust.

9/15/08: Palin channels Cheney

2008-09-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

So McCain's own spokesman Rogers says "She's ready to be commander-in-chief" - which normally would be good, but given McCain's age and health, sounds foreboding. Please God, second-in-command is bad enough - long live McCain!

What is scary is that Palin's willingness to go to war with Russia and drop bombs on Iran and Pakistan sound eeriely like Cheney - and together with McCain's frequent confusion on the Middle East (see http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15836.html), McCain/Palin sounds scarily like the second coming of Bush/Cheney.

Palin Channels Cheney's 9/11-Iraq Falsehoods - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080912/cm_thenation/1359848_1

9/13/08: Student Sarah flunks her first midterm

2008-09-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

So I’m guessing now that Palin floundered on her midterm exams (the ABC interview), I’m guessing she’s going to skip the finals altogether. I suspect that other than the debate with Biden (which I’m really looking forward to), she’s done with the media (at least the real ones) – it’s back to the same old acceptance speech full of lies which is all she can spout on the campaign trail. I think it’s a real flaw in our system that someone might be “elected” President, Leader of the whole darn “Free World” with so little scrutiny.

Democracy only works if people can talk to the candidates and know where they really stand. BTW, it's been more than a month since McCain gave a press conference. Straight Talk Express seems to have derailed, it's been more like TRASH TALK EXPRESS lately. Their policy is clear: spoonfeed the people only what we them to hear and avoid the media and people like the plague otherwise. We will go to war with every other nation to "protect democracy (read oil)" but scr*w democracy in our own.

9/12/08: McCain's colossal mistake: Sarah Palin on 20/20

2008-09-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

I just watched Gibson interview Sarah Palin on 20/20 today.

I'm frankly horrified.

I think McCain made a colossal mistake in picking this right wing fanatic for a VP. She is clueless, inexperienced, and it’s downright scary to think (given McCain’s age and health) that she could be President!!! She thinks being able to see Russia counts as foreign policy experience?! She’s against abortion even in cases of rape and incest?! Forget stem cell research, we’ll all die of Alzheimers because we can’t find a cure with no tools. Freedom of speech? Only if you agree with her.

Some takes:

I'm no expert on the economy but it doesn't look like Palin knows anything either. All he's asking for is 3 things she would change from the Bush administration and after beating around the bush for a while and being patiently asked again, she says "Reduce taxes. Control spending. Reform the oversight on the agencies. " Oh right. And why is this "different" from Bush?? This is exactly what we've been getting from Bush for 8 years, and see where we are. She is so clueless. And when she has nothing to say, she goes on and on about the next level of bureaucracy. And the next level of bureaucracy. And the next level of bureaucracy.. please God, stop this madness and stupidity now.

CG: Why do you keep saying Obama will raise taxes?

Palin: I’m not a fan of Bill Clinton’s tax plan.

Hello, welcome to 2008. We were talking about Obama’s tax cuts for the middle class.

But Gibson lets it go, and stays with her.

CG: He (Clinton) created 22 million jobs, Bush 5 million.

Sarah: We have to create more jobs.

Great answer. How exactly? No idea.

Palin seems to be denying publicly known facts and rewriting history.

She denied supporting the Bridge to Nowhere though she’s on record defending it. That’s just silly.
About the books, she denied banning any books or desiring to do so, but her own campaign's spokesman said she asked about it 3 times.
"Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said Thursday that Palin asked the head librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, on three occasions how she would react to attempts at banning books."

In the interview Palin said "In our town there was an issue of if a parent came in and asked for a book to be taken off the shelf". I wonder if the "parent" was her too?
I'm just tired of these evasions and lies – and this is her FIRST interview!!! Possibly her last, on this showing.

8/30/08: McCain: which world do you live in?

2008-09-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

OK, here’s today’s issue. Does McCain have a military mind?

This is supposed be his forte, his raison d’etre, his “advantage” over Obama. But can we really trust him to deal with the rest of the world?

Just last month, talking about Russia and the energy crisis, he referred to Russia’s threat to the non-existent country of Czechoslovakia – and this is not the first time. He’s repeated this particular blunder many times over the years, including the previous day, July 14, 2008 – John, listen up good – Czechoslovakia hasn’t existed as a country for over 15 years!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/14/mccain-references-non-exi_n_112650.html

He always seems confused about vital Middle-East issues where he's supposed to be an expert : see http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15836.html

for a list. He doesn't seem to know (or care) about the difference between Sunnis & Shia and which one Al-Queda is - he has repeatedly talked about Al-Queda's (non-existent) training bases in Iran - a deeply Shia country - is this laying the foundation for bombing Iran when he's in power?

UPDATE: Video of McCain's mistakes on Iraq - I particularly like Lieberman pulling him aside to correct him on the "Iran training Al-Queda" (at 1:02)!!!

I'm also deeply worried about us getting into a war with Russia over Georgia about guess what - an oil pipeline - and I haven't heard him say anything contrary to Bush's posturing on this issue.

8/29/08: I was energized!!

2008-09-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

8/29/08

Note to readers: This was the day I started posting on various news websites. From this date to 9/25/08 when I officially inaugurated my own blog (the 10,000,001^thin the blogosphere), I am appending the posts that I had made on these websites.

Ladies and Gentlemen: That was an amazing convention! Every day, I was treated to some amazing, moving, honest speeches, detailing a vision of the America I want to live in. First it was Michelle Obama, then Hillary Clinton, then Bill Clinton, then Joe Biden and finally Barack Obama. I have not heard a better set of speakers at any one event in my life, and I make a living going to conventions and conferences, albeit mostly scientific ones! I am a news junkie , however, and I have seen many a political speech in my time, but I am now more hopeful than ever that there is light at the end of the tunnel, for me as a citizen, and for America as a whole, to end its increasing isolation and again take its place in this interconnected new world.