new day rising

some how this morning the sun seems a little warmer, the air a little sweeter, & the future a whole lot brighter. it's as if we are finally coming out of the Dark Ages into a new Renaissance, where everything & anything is possible. who would have thunk it.

call him Mr. President!

Obama Wins! We Win! We All Win!

election night results

make history TODAY

the new poll tax

this might just be Rachel Maddow's best segment yet.
her dissection of the real ramifications of the long lines
at the voting booths this year is the best.
take a minute to watch, you won't regret it.

Saturday Night Special

Stereolab - Neon Beanbag

Prince of Darkness endorses McCain

that's right, McCain racked up the less-than-coveted endorsement
of Dick Cheney today. that should help his cause some.
here's the response from Obama:

"I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn't come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington's biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney's support."

"So George Bush may be in an undisclosed location, but Dick Cheney's out there on the campaign trail because he'd be delighted to pass the baton to John McCain. He knows that with John McCain you get a twofer: George Bush's economic policy and Dick Cheney's foreign policy -- but that's a risk we cannot afford to take."

3 days out

Studs Terkel 1912 - 2008

BOO!

voter-suppression FAIL

one big difference between this election cycle & those in 2000 & 2004 is that the usual tricks pulled by the GOP to suppress voter turn out in swing states have failed.
TPM has a handy dandy list of how, why & where these efforts have occurred. it's interesting reading.

going out w/a 'nyaa, nyaa, nyaa'

even though BushCo. seems to have a serious case of Senioritis, behind the scenes they are still working hard to screw us all over. they are nothing if not consistent.

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo.

(via WaPo)

Rachel talks w/Obama

2 of my favorite people sat down for a little chat today.

file under "WTF!?!"

this is what we can expect under 'President McCain'.

"Audience members escorted out of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., campaign event in Cedar Falls questioned why they were asked to leave Sunday’s rally even though they were not protesting.

"Lara Elborno, a student at the University of Iowa, said she was approached by a police officer and a McCain staffer and was told she had to leave or she would be arrested for trespassing."

"She said McCain staffers wouldn’t tell her why she was being asked to leave and when she got outside, she saw “a group of about 20 people” who had all been asked to leave."

“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”


“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

round up & corral all the unsavory types.

Bueller...Bueller.....Bueller

just when you think that this campaign couldn't get any more embarrassing. oh, & then we find out that the crowd was padded:

"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. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses."

Colbert Endorses Obama!

the most coveted endorsement of all.

shooting for the stars

Sally Ride, the 1st woman in space, endorses Obama.
how cool is that!?!

"Our space program is at a crossroads, and it will take a new generation of leadership to inspire our children to reach for the stars. President. John Kennedy understood that by calling on our nation to shoot for the moon, he'd inspire thousands of young people (including me) to study harder at math and science in ways that would enrich our country and expand our horizons."

"...he (Obama) also sees the potential for NASA to expand its research capabilities to study things like global warming and aeronautics. And most important to me, he has included plans to integrate our space program into educational curricula around the country so students can experience the thrill of science through remotely controlling cameras on the international space station or, perhaps one day, rovers on the moon."

(h/t OW)

Communism is the new Black

"See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody. Obama, Barack Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes, and I say this based on his record... Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free. Let us fight for what is right. John McCain and I, we will put our trust in you." --Sarah Palin 10/25/08

you know things are looking bleak for McPalin when they break out this old saw.

mmmm,......pie!

with only 1 week left,
here's the latest pie chart from FiveThirtyEight.com.
looking good,
but I like mine à la mode.

down the Toobes

the GOP's latest felon is also Sarah Palin's BFF.
you betcha'!

"I have great respect for the senator…. His voice, his experience, his passion needs to be heard across America"

8 days to go

with only 8 days left, the rats continue to jump ship.
you know it's bad when even Big Daddy Rat is looking
over the ship rail.

100K+ in Denver

while McCain circles the drain w/2,000 loyalists in Cedar Falls, IA.

heartbreaking

as ecstatic as I am over the prospects of a President Obama,
I'm equally heartbroken over this story.
it just adds to the surreal quality of this campaign season.

craziest . day . EVER!

just when you thought this campaign couldn't
get any more surreal. it does.
(don't forget the cherry on top)

Sarah the Grifter

Jon Stewart hit the nail on the head last night:

Sarah Palin is pulling the biggest con in ages, on GOP campaign contributor's dime, no less.now, I don't feel too bad for those folks who have contributed $$ to this campaign.(you get what you pay for) in fact, I think we're all getting quite a kick out of this latest development. I can't wait to see what comes next out of this train wreck.

winning hearts & minds

another high profile endorsement for McCain. he's on a roll.

campaign $$ hard at work

remember when the GOP was all incensed about John Edwards $400 haircut? how could a supposed 'man of the people', a 'Joe 6-Pack' if you will, spend that much money on a single haircut. they used that issue to paint him as 'out of touch' & 'not 1 of us'. well, all I can say is payback is a bitch.

"Since her selection as John McCain's running mate, the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband, and even her infant son, it was reported on Tuesday evening."

"During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class - and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber - it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people."

just plain sad

or downright hilarious, depending on your POV.

McCain doesn't even know what he's saying from
1 breath to the next anymore.

GOP voter suppression tactics

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was talking tonight w/Rachel about the newest GOP strategy to steal this election, as they have done in the past. it's a really chilling proposition & this strategy is already in motion. this whole kerfluffle over ACORN is really an effort to suppress Democratic voters on election day.

alternative to robo calls

note to McPalin, this is how it's done:

Real America

fact follows fiction

WINFIELD, W.Va. -- Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.

This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for "Barack Obama" kept flipping to "John McCain".

In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.

They also blamed voters for not being more careful.

who could have predicted such a thing?

what about the chil'ren?

the McCain folks really are scumbags:

"My daughter answered the phone today and began listening to the most disturbing call regarding bombing and terrorists. She ran with the phone to get me, I heard just the end snippet of the call and immediately called the number cited as responsible," wrote a reader from North Carolina. "I was so angry and let them have it. I had to explain to my 7-year-old daughter that no one was bombing anyone else. This was a horrific experience."

100,000 strong in St. Louis

this was the scene today at an Obama rally in Missouri. 100,000 people showed up! in MISSOURI! truly amazing. we might just pull this thing off, despite all of the McCain/GOP shenanigans.

Levi Stubbs 1936 - 2008

Levi Stubb's Tears

Trib endorses Obama

for the 1st time in it's history, the Chicago Tribune has endorsed a Democrat for President. does this mean I have to rethink my boycott of the paper?

millions of words

what does it say about our news media today, when it takes David Letterman to put McCain on the hot seat. in regards to the 'pals around w/terrorists' remark, Letterman is the only person in the MSM to bring up McCains continuing relationship to G. Gordon Liddy. McCain's response at the end is priceless.

"there's millions of words said in a campaign".

yes, John, there are. unfortunately the majority of your words have been BS.

Friday funnies

"I must say I love the Waldorf Astoria. You know I hear from the doorstep, you can see all the way to the Russian Tea Room."

Joe McPlumber

was Joe the Plumber a McCain plant?
dailykos has some very interesting "coincidences".
even more intriguing is this from tristero:

Joe the Plumber, the star of tonight's debate, may have a very interesting connection to John McCain. In fact, Joe the Plumber (Joe Wurzelbacher) of Cincinnati, Ohio may be related to one Robert Wurzelbacher of Cincinnati, Ohio, who happens to be Charles Keating's son-in-law.

Robert Wurzelbacher was implicated in the Keating 5 scandal, and sentenced to 40 months in prison in 1993.

Wurzelbacher is also a huge Republican donor.

(more here & here)

most outrageous debate moment

"on the verge of perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy in this country."

this was by far, one of the more outrageous comments from McCain last night.
McCain uttered this phrase when describing the voter registration efforts of ACORN & then tried to link them back to Obama, who has had no dealings w/them in over 13 years.
of course, McCain conveniently forgot about this:

but beyond the hypocrisy, ACORN is not the evil band of dirty Commies that the right is trying to paint them as, & "voter registration fraud" is a far cry from "voter fraud".
Keith does a great job of spelling it out in this segment from Countdown:

McCranky FAIL

(it's probably best to view this video w/the sound off)
here's a nice little snippet of all the harumphing & crazy eye rolling
from last night's debate. McCain was in full on, Grampa McCrankypants, warpath mode. can anyone really envision this guy in the Oval Office?

mmmm,......pie!

I have to admit that over the past couple of weeks I've become obsessed with the pie charts over at FiveThirtyEight.com. I've taken particular glee in the Win Percentage chart. the tiny sliver of red has been shrinking & shrinking at an amazing rate lately. it's as though a maniacal blue Homer Simpson has been set loose upon it & won't be content until all the red has been devoured. I for one couldn't be happier over his gluttony.

Rachel v. Frum

David Frum was on the Rachel Maddow Show last night & they got into quite a tussle right off the bat. Rachel handled Frum perfectly, never raising her voice yet cutting through his BS succinctly. remember, Frum was w/BuschCo. from the start. (he did coin the term "Axis of Evil") his argument is absurd considering his background. it's a great segment & well worth watching. more pundits & news people should follow Rachel's tact when dealing with these hypocrites.

Krugman wins Nobel Prize

Paul Krugman has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. As one of the few voices out there that predicted this economic meltdown, it's well deserved, if not a little late.

here's the NYT announcement.

here he is speaking to one of my
other favorite people in the world.

you should also be reading his blog & columns regularly.

ethics schmethics

"The nation has had 102 major-party tickets covering 51 presidential elections over more than two centuries. And we've never had a ticket in which both candidates on the same ticket were responsible for ethics violations before a national election. McCain/Palin is the first."

(via Washington Monthly)

Saturday Night Special

Tramp the Dirt Down - Elvis Costello

this song was written in the late 80s in response to the brutal callousness of Margaret Thatcher's reign in the UK. It translates very well into the present by simply changing the reference from Thatcher to George W. Bush. I think in the future we will find a long, long line of people waiting their turn to tramp the dirt down on his grave.

quote of the week

digby doesn't mince words:

McCain has been a prick throughout this campaign and his crowds have been a bunch of jackasses.

Palin abused power

MSNBC is breaking the story now that Gov. Palin did indeed abuse her power in the Troopergate investigation. The bipartisan commission unanimously agreed to make this report public. this is huge, if not unsurprising. it will be interesting now to see how this is used in the campaign & how the McCain campaign addresses it.

Hresstu þig við!

in 2007, Iceland was #1 on the list of Most Developed Countries as compiled on the Human Development Index. Today, not so much. Iceland is the first nation in the world to be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy due to the recent global economic meltdown. what a difference a year makes.

surprise, surprise

the McCain campaign issued a report last night, ahead of today's
upcoming report out of Alaska, exonerating Sarah Palin of any wrongdoing in the whole Troopergate incident. the McPalins continue their free fall into farce.
what's more disturbing is watching their campaign rallies increasingly degenerate into rabid Klan rallies.
these are the people that we should all be very fearful of.

the Great Schlep

October 10 - 13

go to: www.thegreatschlep.com
& help swing the vote in Florida.

stupids will decide election

McCain refuses 'Handshake'

wtf!?
McCain refuses to shake Obama's hand after the debate.
what's this guys problem? oh yeah, he's losing.

'that one' !?!

in tonight's debate, McCain pointed at Obama &
referred to him as 'that one'.
racist much, John?
this is already being picked up by some pundits.
it should be noted by many, many more. especially
in light of the increasingly noxious tone that McPalin
has taken over the past few days.

UPDATE: here's the video:

McPalin gets FUGLY

over the past couple of days the Palin/McCain campaign has been getting increasingly desperate, not to mention ugly.

McCain was speaking today in New Mexico, doing his usual personal attack on Barack Obama, as the stock market plummeted (you can see the ticker next to McCain on the screen, an apt reminder of what McCain and his fellow Republicans represent), and McCain asked the crowd "who is Barack Obama?" Immediately you hear a supporter yell "Terrorist." McCain pauses, the audience laughs, and McCain continues on, not acknowledging, not chastising, not correcting.(via americanblog)

(huffpo has video)

but there was another incident at a Palin rally, where someone in the audience yelled
"Kill Him!" in response to her incendiary comments about Obama. seems to me that they are not only getting increasingly ugly, but are actually whipping their audiences into a violent frenzy. don't think so? here's another incident:

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

KEATING ECONOMICS

KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis

this is the new documentary produced by the Obama campaign that explains in great detail John McCain's links to the S&L bailout in the late 80s & in particular his close friendship to Charles Keating.

"The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s."

go to the site, KeatingEconomic.com, for more info.

Saturday Night Special

How Soon is Now?

drop the hammer, boyee!!

Maverick McMavericky no more,
Biden drops the hammer HARD.

she's totally into me

Joe Biden may have won last night's VP Debate, & Sarah Palin may have gotten most of her facts wrong (Gen. McClellan??) but who cares...did you see her winking at me all night!?! whatta flirt.

Ifill is not in the "tank"

there's alot of heat in the blogosphere today about Gwen Ifill's upcoming book & how this will impact her judgement as moderator of the VP debate on Thursday. wingnuts are frothing at the mouth, spewing that she is in the "tank" for Obama & therefore unfit to perform the role of moderator.

in this clip, she discusses her new book, "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama" & it is obvious that the book is about Race & Politics in the 21st century, as the title suggests. She discusses 4 African American politicians in the book, including Obama. but because Obama's name is in the title, some assume that the book is pro Obama. that is probably a wrong assumption, but far be it for the right to let facts get in the way of their ire.

never been an astronaut

contrary to what the liberal media may think, John McCain
asserts in this video that he has never been an astronaut.
that & a few other nuggets are revealed here.

more videos of McCain in full on
Grampa Simpson mode are here.

leaderless GOP

Rachel Maddow asks the question:
Who is Leading the GOP?

it's certainly not McCain or Bush. no one in
their own party is listening to them.

banned book week

September 28–October 4, 2008

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982.According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged in 2007. The 10 most challenged titles were:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

GOP already planning election theft

via Mark Crispin Miller:

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

this is just part 1 of 10 part series of videos in which Stephen Spoonamore, a computer fraud specialist & a Republican, spells out how the GOP has already put the wheels in motion to steal the next election.

unbelievable

how could this possibly be justified, other than as a complete,
& extremely desperate publicity stunt.

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

that last line of course is the key. McCain has no strategy other than distraction & running out the clock. does anyone think this strategy is anything less than complete contempt for the American people. "country first"!? Please.

dial tone deaf

before the debate last Friday, McCain rushed back to D.C. to help
w/the bailout negotiations, he claims...

“I came back because I wasn’t going to phone it in."

now that the debate & his grandstanding are over & proved fruitless for him, he decides to "phone it in."

"On ABC’s This Week, McCain said he came back to Washington DC to get involved in the bailout negotiations. “I came back because I wasn’t going to phone it in,” he said. And yet, McCain did just that yesterday. He “did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington.” instead opting to phone it in. Salter explained, “He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.” McCain did have time, however, to take in dinner at an upscale DC restaurant with Joe Lieberman (I-CT)."

Paul Newman 1925 - 2008

Obama Wins Debate!

or so the pundits think.
so do most of the progressive blogs.
oh well, McPalin can make up the lost ground
in the VP debate. *snark*

McCain Wins Debate!

or so his campaign would have you believe
with these internet ads that are already running.
Guess there's no sense in even tuning in tonight.

teh sadness

don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of top 10 lists of
all shapes & subjects (gawd knows I've wasted too much of my life mulling over desert island picks), but this list just makes me sad.

McSame wants out

of the debate on Friday, that is. he claims it's to focus on the economic crisis.
think maybe it's to direct focus away from his own culpability in creating the crisis?
I do.
or maybe it's to allow this storm to die down.

or as Ben Smith notes:

"...his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going. The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling."

Nico Pitney at HuffPo:

"John McCain has skipped more votes during this session than any member of the Senate except for Tim Johnson, who had major brain surgery. All of a sudden, McCain demands that the presidential race shut down so he can return to Washington."

"For all of his sudden urgency, McCain acknowledged just yesterday that he had not even read the administration's three-page bailout proposal."

UPDATE: Obama's response:

"I think it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once."

here's to walking & chewing gum at the same time.

gimmee more CANDEE!!

Rachel spells out this financial mess, brilliantly, speaking very slowly, & in ways that even Republicans can understand. Robert Reich gets in on the act about halfway through.

McSame

just to be clear,
WaPo has a handy dandy chart showing all the
BushCo. cronies now on the McCain campaign staff.
too mavericky.

busy weekend?

don't know about you,
but Phil Gramm was working overtime.

I say, how very mavericky

this just in...McCain has 13 cars!
Obama is such an elitist.

bad deal rising

Paul Krugman has some great posts on the bailout over at his blog.

"And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving."

as does Josh over at TPM:

"I'm quite convinced that some drastic action needs to be taken to avoid a cascading and debilitating series of crises. But the more I look at this plan, the more wrongheaded it seems. But if I'm understanding this deal, the taxpayers are going to pony up close to a trillion dollars to take bad debts off the hands of financial institutions who were foolish enough to make the deals in the first place. And in exchange, I think the tax payers get nothing?"

the last figure I saw was $2,333 from every man, woman & child. to bailout an industry that has been preying (& profiting) on those same people for years. with no hope of ever seeing that money again. that seems fair? once again we are rewarding bad behavior w/no consequences or incentive for those institutions to change that behavior.

UPDATE: Robert Reich weighs in.

Saturday Night Special

McCain's Very Bad Week

courtesy the ever fabulous Rachel Maddow:

1. fun-duh-mentals are STRONG
2. invented the Blackberry...no really.
3. Carly is 'disappeared'.
4. SPIC, SEC, FEC, EIEIO.
5. opposes bailout, endorses bailout.
6. Palin/McCain ticket.
7. fire FEC chairman?


(unfortunately, this clip ends w/ Ana Marie Cox...idiot)

Clueless, pt. 2

here's McCain on Health Care:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

& that's not some quote from the distant past. that's from earlier this month. Idiot.

pure, unadulterated contempt

isn't 8 years of this kind of contempt for the rule of law enough?

"Gov. Sarah Palin's husband has refused to testify in the investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power, and a key lawmaker said today that uncooperative witnesses are effectively sidetracking the probe until after Election Day."

1. The penalty for blowing off your subpoena is a contempt charge
2. Charging a witness with contempt requires a majority vote of at least one house of the state legislature
3. The legislature is officially out of session until January
4. Therefore, there can't be any penalty against him until it's too late and the election is over
(via DKos)

déjà vu

new film from Progressive Accountability titled 'Third Term', chronicles the Keating 5.
McCain was deeply involved w/that financial mess & the subsequent S&L bailout. sound familiar?

more Palin Idiocy

"Sarah Palin likes to tell voters around the country about how she "put the government checkbook online" in Alaska. On Thursday, Palin suggested she would take that same proposal to Washington.

"We're going to do a few new things also," she said at a rally in Cedar Rapids. "For instance, as Alaska's governor, I put the government's checkbook online so that people can see where their money's going. We'll bring that kind of transparency, that responsibility, and accountability back. We're going to bring that back to D.C."

There's just one problem with proposing to put the federal checkbook online - somebody's already done it. His name is Barack Obama."

(h/t TPM)

remember the Keating Five?

lest we forget this little bit of McCain history, the
last time we saw similar economic hard times.

McCain is up to his ears in the causes of
this current economic crisis, too.

"I'm always for less regulation. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated."
-- John McCain

fun-duh-mentals

(via ProgressiveAccountability)

The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.
-- Herbert Hoover

count the lies

McCainPedia is keeping a running tally.

the Right Palin for the job

it was only a matter of time before this happened.

dirty tricks

if it's election time, then that means Republican dirty tricksters are up to their old shenanigans. they are nothing if not consistent.

"The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day."

remember 'caging' in the last election? this is the same thing.
ahh, good times.

(more on Obama's response here)

lying liers keep on lying

Rachel rips McCain a new one. here's a hint for getting
through this final push to election day: if John McCain's
lips are moving, then he is LYING.

Richard Wright 1943 - 2008

noise annoys

Eugene Robinson in todays WaPo:

"I hear McCain's amen chorus screaming, "Lipstick on a pig! Lipstick on a pig!" But they're well aware that Barack Obama was unambiguously talking about McCain's economic ideas, not his running mate. It seems incomprehensible that the McCain campaign would make so much noise about an allegation that clearly doesn't hold a drop of water -- until you realize that
the noise is the whole point...
Any day spent arguing about meaningless ephemera is a small but significant victory for a campaign that has nothing to say."

McCain Lies

video proof of the many, many lies of John McCain.
watch it, take it, spread it around. enough is enough.

BraveNewFilms

Clueless

This should be the end of Sarah Palin.
Period.
it's obvious she has no idea what the Bush Doctrine is.
unbelievable.
Biden is going to destroy her in the debate.

numbers don't lie

ProgressiveAccountabilty.org has the numbers on John McCain.
here's just a few:

95 percent of the time McCain voted with George W. Bush in 2007.
100 percent of the time McCain voted with George W. Bush in 2008 so far.
164 lobbyists McCain enlisted to set policy and raise money for his campaign.
29 lobbyists from the oil and gas industry tied to McCain’s campaign.
$1.1 million amount of money McCain received in the month he adopted Bush and Big Oil’s off-shore drilling policy.
125 times John McCain voted against Choice ? he even said that he would overturn Roe v. Wade.

thumbs down

Roger Ebert today crystalizes what I, & many others, have been saying & thinking about Sarah Palin lo these past 2 weeks:

"She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!

My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere."

thumbs way, way down

9/11

Enough is Enough!

great push back by Obama to the latest
inane McCain 'phony outrage'.

does truth matter?

or:

"Is McCain against teaching little kids to beware of sexual predators?"

as E. J. Dionne asks in today's Washington post, in reference to the latest & most egregious ad yet from the McCain camp. it's a good question & needs to be seriously considered, but then Dionne asks;

"...I wonder if the media will really take on this onslaught of half-truths and outright deception."

that's a rhetorical question, right?
McCain is looking & sounding less & less like a Presidential Candidate & more like that rumpled, creepy old guy that follows you down the street.

night 2

the Rachel Maddow Show is shaping up to be really, really great.
(was there ever any doubt?) this is a great clip from last night's
show skewering McCain's new outrageous & shameless, "perverse" tv ad.

that is all

all this Sarah Palin nonsense makes
me want to gouge my eyes out.
instead I will watch John Hodgman
on boingboingtv.


(that's better)

Alaskanomics

(via TIME)

"Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 21/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it.
[...]
Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1."

the Daily Palin Scandal

ahh, nothing like a hot cup-a-joe & a
fresh Palin scandal to start the day.
this is becoming a habit.

"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business."

Triumph @ the RNC

how do you know McCain is lying?

his. lips. are. moving.

“American flags were proudly waved by the 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism. On the same day he agrees to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero on September 11, John McCain attacks the patriotism of Obama supporters who so proudly waved the American flag at our historic event in Denver just days ago.”
—DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney.

(via C&L)
this may seem trivial, but it is just the latest example of a recurring strategy on the right. stay tuned for more, there's still 2 months left to go.

Sarah the Barbarian

much has been made of Sarah Palin's love of mooseburgers (elitist?), but less is heard about her support of the barbaric practice of hunting wolves & bears from airplanes.

"In early 2007, Palin's administration approved an initiative to pay a $150 bounty to hunters who killed a wolf from an airplane in certain areas, hacked off the left foreleg, and brought in the appendage. Ruling that the Palin administration didn't have the authority to offer payments, a state judge quickly put a halt to them but not to the shooting of wolves from aircraft.
Detractors consider the airborne shootings a savage business, conducted under the euphemism "predator control." The airplanes appear in the winter, so the wolves show up like targets in a video game, sprinting across the white canvas below. Critics believe the practice violates the ethics of hunting, while supporters say the process is not hunting at all, but a deliberate cull"
Gordon Haber is a wildlife scientist who has studied wolves in Alaska for 43 years. "On wildlife-related issues, whether it is polar bears or predator controls, she has shown no inclination to be objective," he says of Palin. "I cannot find credible scientific data to support their arguments," he adds about the state's rational for gunning down wolves. "In most cases, there is evidence to the contrary."

(h/t TBogg)

tune in

don't forget to set your dials to MSNBC tonight
@ 8pm CST for the debut of the Rachel Maddow Show.
I can't stress enough how important it is to have someone like Rachel on the air at a major cable news channel. especially after news today that MSNBC knuckled under, once again, to complaints from Republicans & removed Keith Olbermann from anchoring their political coverage. it's rather telling that they have installed Karl Rove's favorite dance partner in his place. our liberal media at work.
(Glenn Greenwald has a great piece on this today)

Palin meets the press?

...not so much:

"If I were a McCain adviser and wanted to have Palin sit with someone who is perceived as a "journalist" while knowing that no damage could possibly occur, I'd pick Charlie Gibson, too. There are many, many other equally good alternatives, but when it comes to wretched passivity and sycophantic establishment worship, the former "Good Morning America" host -- whose career was built on oozing amiability and inoffensiveness -- is as good as it gets."

-- Glenn Greenwald

small town values

McCain contributes to Obama campaign

this story just made me laugh.
maybe there is some small justice in the world.

in hiding

Sarah Palin will be in hiding & unavailable to answer any questions for the next 2 weeks. & this is somehow acceptable??

real Joe-mentum

McCain Lies

Rachel Maddow does a great job in this clip from last night's Countdown of pointing out the blatant lying that flowed out of the RNC & right onto the McCain campaign trail.

Mr. November

Obama Responds

community organizers

(via dday)

" Community organizers, which were part of George H.W. Bush's thousand points of light, provide comfort, help save jobs, create opportunity. In a nation ripped asunder by right-wing policies, they are often the last line of defense. Leaders of this nation like Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony, even Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, were community organizers. As this fellow writes today, Jesus was a community organizer and Pilate was a governor."

so see, Sarah, they have great responsibilities.

Brilliant!

Jon Stewart skewers the hypocrisy of the GOP w/their own words. Priceless.

McCain, he's a righteous dude

seems Edie McClurg gave a real barn burner of a speech at the ol' Republican Pep Rally last night. Those who decided to show up immediately hailed her teleprompter reading skills as nothing short of AMAZING!, STUPENDOUS!, MIRACULOUS! unfortunately Miss Congeniality* is revealing herself as being cut from the same cloth as BushCo. that 'Bridge to Nowhere' she claims to have so vehemently opposed... she was for it before she was against it.. those earmarks she promises to eliminate when she gets to Washington, not so much. she even has her very own Rev. Wright in David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus. oh, & she may go down on record as the only VP nomination to have broken the law in her acceptance speech.
now that McCain has pissed off the MSM, we're beginning to see them rise from their slumbers & do their jobs. this might actually be an even more interesting campaign season than anyone could have imagined.

here's a painstakingly thorough fact check of Palin's speech sent out by the Obama campaign. it's well worth the read.


*(who in their right mind lies about winning Miss Congeniality in the Miss Wasilla Pageant anyway!?)

Rachel on Palin Selection

here's some great video from ThinkProgress of Rachel Maddow discussing the shock that is the whole, surreal Sarah Palin fiasco.

Rachel Maddow on Sarah Palin
by faizshakir

issues schmissues

new & improved details & allegations about McSame's 'Soulmate' Sarah Palin are coming out so fast that my head is spinning. there are far too many to list here, just hunt around the interwebs & you'll stumble over half a dozen w/o even trying. this remark from John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis is just too good to pass up, though:

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

(h/t TPM)
it's all about "Personalities" (Celebrity?), not substance.
goodness, what a maverick.

Amy Goodman arrested

Amy Goodman was arrested today in St. Paul when she tried to come to the aid of 2 of her producers who were being unlawfully detained. the video above is fairly unbelievable. here's more from Democracy Now.

police state USA

Glenn Greenwald has a great piece today on what is happening in St. Paul. there is evidence, as he reports, that these raids & arrests have been planned well in advance & orchestrated by the Federal government. the hurricane in the gulf has diverted the MSM's attention away from the RNC, so none of this is being covered. not that it would be scrutinized very closely anyway.

"...how is our own Government's behavior in Minnesota any different than what the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)? And where are all the self-righteous Freedom Crusaders in our nation's establishment organs who were so flamboyantly criticizing the actions of a Government on the other side of the globe as our own Government engages in the same tyrannical, protest-squelching conduct with exactly the same motives?

Just review what happened yesterday and today. Homes of college-aid protesters were raided by rifle-wielding police forces. Journalists were forcibly detained at gun point. Lawyers on the scene to represent the detainees were handcuffed. Computers, laptops, journals, diaries, and political pamphlets were seized from people's homes. And all of this occurred against U.S. citizens, without a single act of violence having taken place, and nothing more serious than traffic blockage even alleged by authorities to have been planned."

POW & PTA

(h/t jedreport)
eyes up here, buddy!

RNC08 preview

with the scene in St. Paul already kicking off to a dramatic start, here's a little preview of what we can expect at the RNC this week. good times.

there's a storm abrewin'

for those not paying attention, there's a huge storm heading toward New Orleans again.
but there's an even bigger shitstorm brewing in St. Paul already. what the hell is wrong with Republicans!? (rhetorical question)

Glenn Greenwald has extensive coverage of this today.

jesse's 1st day

well, after weeks of anticipation, Jesse finally came to his new home today. it's a brave new world for him, but he seems to be settling in fine. meeting the neighbor dogs & being completely mesmerized by the squirrels stealing pears from the tree next door. he was a complete champ when it came to conquering the stairs, too. as you can tell from this picture, he's a pretty chill fellow. which explains why the cats are still trying to figure out if the new addition to the home is animal or furniture.

UPDATE: tune in here for updates on all things Jesse related.

D'oh!

looks like someone didn't do their homework.

"A very reliable source overheard Republican spokesperson McHugh Pierre state TODAY that he had spoken to the McCain Campaign. They are coming to Alaska tomorrow to check out the "Troopergate" investigation."

(h/t FDL)

getting an early start

things are already getting dicey in St. Paul.
that didn't take long.

FTW!?!

that certainly got everyone's attention.
it's not Mittmas, but it might just be a whole lot better.

"Is this really who the Republican Party wants to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency? Given Sarah Palin's lack of experience on every front and on nearly every issue, this Vice Presidential pick doesn't show judgment: it shows political panic."
-- Rep. Rahm Emanuel

it's a present that keeps on giving & giving, & giving, & giving & giving...
ad infinitum.

here's Sarah Palin accepting the VP position today
at the Nutter Center in Dayton, OH :

*yawn*

McCain is about say something today, but really...who cares.

(fitting that this announcement will come from the Nutter Center)

THE Speech

I know, we've all seen it, but it bears repeat viewing.

"What he didn't do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again ... and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check."
-- Andrew Sullivan

UPDATE: official McCain response -

"but...but...but...POW."

the next POTUS

an unbelievable end to 4 dramatic days. I don't envy the GOP having to follow that act. their operatives are already spinning like crazy, with an emphasis on crazy.

million dollar parking lot

who's watching the DNC?

well, according to the Nation:

"Over twenty million people a night -- and the numbers are rising. In fact, on the second night of the convention, the Dems quintupled their draw compared to 2004! This Tuesday drew 26 million viewers; about 5 million people tuned in on the same day in 2004."

wow, just...wow.

ziiiiing!

"John McCain says he's a maverick. But he's voted with Bush over 90% of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick!"

--Bob Casey

Rachel R.O.C.K.S.!

listen to the cheers she got tonight
when she skewered McCain's over use of
noun, verb, POW!

here we go...

right on the heels of a truly moving & rousing tribute to & speech by Ted Kennedy at the DNC, there comes the news that Police may have broken up an assassination plot against Barack Obama.
unbelievable, really...words escape me.
(details here & here)
(thinkprogress has even more chilling details)

a noun, a verb & POW

you know this is getting ridiculous when even
the MSM begins to tire of the schtick.

quote of the week

"Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there every night after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you’re worried about being able to pay the bills. Well ladies and gentlemen, that’s not a worry that John McCain has to worry about. It’s a pretty hard experience — he’ll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at."

that about sums it up, Joe.

the text is in

(in case you blinked)
not completely thrilled, but he's just the tenacious bulldog needed for the job. can we move on now? rumour has it that McSame will pick Mittens as his VP. could the gods be so kind. stay tuned for Mittmas in August.

oh, SNAP!

"What's most notable about John McCain's confusion over the number of homes he owns isn't merely that it demonstrates that, after running his campaign based on depicting Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and himself as the all-American Everyman, McCain lives a life that is about as far removed from the Average American as one can get, and has done so for decades. What's notable is how McCain was able to live that way. McCain himself isn't actually rich. He just lives off the inherited wealth of his much younger, former mistress and now-second-wife -- for whom he dumped his older and disfigured first wife -- and who then used her family's money to fund his political career and keep him living in extreme luxury (while insisting that he sign a prenuptial agreement, which would make McCain the first U.S. President to have one)."

(Glennzilla today)