Saturday, September 6, 2008
Joe Biden Sneaks Out To Teach Class
Oh that Joe!!! (not mine, I think it's Tappers)WILMINGTON, Del.
-- With Cheney-esque stealth, Biden made a surprise appearance this morning at the Constitutional law class he had been scheduled to teach before his selection as Barack Obama's running mate.
The campaign had not publicly announced Biden's trip to the Widener School of Law this morning. In fact, Biden spokesperson David Wade seemed unaware of it himself until after the fact.
"What???" Wade said in an email when told about Professor Biden's activities. "He needs to tell me this stuff."
It was unclear if any other advisers were informed, but Secret Service did accompany the Delaware senator. A university spokesperson said they had hoped to keep his visit out of the press. Reporters were not allowed in the classroom when they arrived, but did see Biden in his SUV as he left shortly after 11 a.m.
Biden has taught the same class, Topics in Constitutional Law, since 1991. He was scheduled to begin a new semester there on Aug. 23, but had to cancel at last minute and head to Springfield, Ill., for his official unveiling as Obama's running mate.
Story on Sarah Louise Palin: "So Sambo beat the bitch"
By GottaLaff
Disclaimer of sorts: This controversial piece is from L.A. Progressive, and I cannot vouch for the source. However, I've seen this story elsewhere, too. My guess is that there is some truth in it, but that it is far from objective. That said, if anyone can track down something to buttress this, or negate it, it's fine by me. I'm just offering it up the way the Republicans offered up the flag story. Fair is fair, right?
H/t: Clancy“So Sambo beat the bitch!”
This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole. [...]
[P]eople who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.
But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.
[...]So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one. [...]
It’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. [...]
On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. [...]
“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”
“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”
Like most other people interviewed, he didn’t want his name used out of fear of retribution. [...]
But there’s ample evidence of Palin’s vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. [...]
“People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day,” states Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record, for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail letter about Palin that was verified [I posted about that here] and printed by The Nation. [...]
Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. [...]
But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.“She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids,” said the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. “I heard she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it’s nothing like you can imagine until she turns it on you.” [...]
Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get herself elected running under the false flag of a “reformer.” [...]
“Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole,” someone who thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin’s tenure in Alaska state and local politics.“She’s a bigot, a racist, and a liar,” is the more blunt assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is now a businessman in Idaho.
“Juneau is a small town; everybody knows everyone else,” he adds. “These stories about what she calls blacks and Eskimos, well, anyone not white and good looking actually, were around long before she became a glint in John McCain’s rheumy eyes. Why do I know they’re true? Because everyone who isn’t aboriginal or Indian in Alaska talks that way.”
“Sambo beat the bitch” may be everyday language up in the bush. Whether it – and the outlook, politics and worldview Palin reflects when she says such things in public – should be part of a presidential campaign is another thing altogether. The comment says as much about McCain as it does about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements (as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain.
Charley James is an American journalist, author and essayist who lives in Toronto.
Republican convention got more cable coverage than Democratic convention
By GottaLaff
Unfair and unbalanced:
On September 2 and September 3, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News each dedicated more on-air time -- significantly more in most cases -- to official Republican convention programming during the most-watched portions of their coverage than each channel dedicated to official convention programming during the same times on comparable nights of the Democratic National Convention.
So what else is new...
Florida Republican women's group to boycott Oprah
By GottaLaff
The Florida Federation of Republican Women made the decision to boycott the Oprah Winfrey Show Saturday, after the media mogul refused to have Gov. Sarah Palin as a guest on her show until after the election wraps up."Women in Florida helped build Oprah into the icon she is today," Linda Ivell, President of the FFRW said in a statement. "We are deeply disappointed in Ms. Winfrey's decision to sit out the greatest political moment in the history of women since suffrage."
The talk show host denied accusations Friday, that she was even considering the vice presidential nominee as a guest.
"At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a plat for any of the candidates," Winfrey wrote in a statement, responding to a story from The Drudge report claiming her staff was "sharply divided" on whether they should book the Alaska Governor. [...]
The Florida Federation of Republican Women, the "largest political organization in Florida," celebrating the groups 58 year anniversary is also encouraging members to cancel subscriptions to O Magazine, Ivell said.
Oh, but it's only temporary. They're just angry for now. It's just a pretend boycott:
Ivell did not say the Florida Republicans would be tuning out indefinitely, but at least until 'after the election.' Adding, she and her members respect the decision to support Obama, "as every American is entitled to their personal opinion and vote."So it's okay with them if Oprah decides not to invite Obama or McCain, but if she turns SledDog Sarah down, she has somehow betrayed them. Yeah, that makes sense.
Republican lawmaker wants Democrat removed for "politicizing" Palin investigation
By GottaLaff
Who's the politicizer again? Oh-h, it's the Democrat:
A Republican lawmaker wants the Democrat overseeing an investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's dismissal of her public safety commissioner removed because he seems intent on damaging her vice presidential candidacy.Politicizing works both ways. It's certainly no (October) surprise that Coghill is trying to have French removed.Democratic state Sen. Hollis French "appears to be steering the direction of the investigation, its conclusion and its timing in a manner that will have maximum partisan political impact on the national and state elections," state Rep. John Coghill said in a letter dated Friday.
Coghill, from North Pole, is on the Alaska Legislature's Legislative Council, the body that appointed French to oversee the investigation. The letter was sent to the council chairman, Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, whom Coghill asks to convene a meeting to discuss whether French should be replaced. [...]
Coghill wrote in the letter that French was quoted in media reports that the results of the probe were going to be an "October surprise" that is "likely to be damaging to the administration." The comments lead Coghill to believe the investigation is lacking in fairness, neutrality and due process, he wrote.
Coghill said he was not approached by the McCain-Palin campaign to draft the letter, but that he called the campaign to "apprise" them of the letter. [...]
French said he said some things he probably shouldn't have, but noted that he is not in charge of gathering the facts and writing the report. Prosecutor Stephen Branchflower was hired to conduct the investigation and the integrity of the probe remains intact, he said.
"The reason we hired Steve Branchflower was to avoid this entire discussion. Sooner or later everybody gets accused of partisanship no matter what you're doing," French told the AP.
A recent decision to not subpoena the governor in the probe was evidence that the investigation was not politicized, French said.
VIDEO: Robin Williams skewers Sarah Louise Palin
It's one of the comic's more inspired tangents of late, and one that reminded us how little the issues really matter when we can conceivably have a vice president who can play wineglasses like Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. This politics thing gets easier for us every day. [CBS]The original Mrs. Doubtfire does it again.
Chris Matthews: "Todd, Todd. Did you ever see the movie "Mrs Doubtfire"? Robin Williams plays a man who failed as a husband, failed as a father. So he dresses up as a woman to become the housekeeper for his family to get a second chance to try and get it right. Is John McCain Mrs Doubtfire?"Robin, if you're out there, you rock.
The Big Republican Invesco Anti-Patriotic Flag-Disposal LIE
By GottaLaff
But according to a senior official involved in organizing the Democratic convention, the McCain camp is simply lying about the flags.
"All of the flags at Invesco were picked up and put in bags and into storage, along with the unused flags and campaign signs. The flags were going to be donated, and the signs were going to be sent out to be used elsewhere," the official said, speaking anonymously since he was not authorized to talk to the press.
So I guess that makes the Republican liars gullible and stupid, huh?
Fox News' Carl Cameron and Bonney Kapp reported that they had "been told" that "a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign."
The Democratic convention official says that's not true.
"It's pretty reprehensible on their part," he said. "Someone made an assumption, took the flags, and essentially lied about what was going to happen to them. I mean, c'mon, we were never ever going to throw out flags."
I forgot despicable. Gullible, stupid, despicable liars.
Emails to three McCain spokespersons inquiring where the flags were found and how the McCain campaign obtained them were not returned.
Why would they be? Then they might have to actually admit they were gullible, stupid, despicable liars.
UPDATE: DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney issues a statement: "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."
UPDATE II: Another statement from the Democratic National Convention Committee: "Stories circulating about flags at the Democratic National Convention are false. We distributed more than 125,000 American made flags at the Convention - the flags removed from Invesco field were intended for other events and taken without permission. It's disappointing that someone would take American flags without authorization and then falsely describe how they were being used. We have the utmost respect for the American flag, and it's sad to see them being used for a cheap political stunt."
Several four-letter words are coming to mind. Please feel free to guess what they are in Comments.
Hillary Clinton Florida campaign event information
By GottaLaff
Campaign stops in Florida have been announced for the Obama Biden rallys featuring Sen. Clinton. For events, links, and news stories, click here.Sorry this looks weird. I copied and pasted. No screen shot, since I don't have my own (brand new!) computer for another few days.
Hillary Clinton in Tampa, FloridaChange We Need Rally with Sen. Hillary Clinton All Peoples Life Center Monday, September 8th The event is free and open to the public -- however, seating is limited and tickets are required. For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal belongings. No signs or banners permitted. | Online tickets are no longer available for this event. Please visit a Ticket Distribution center beginning at 5:00 p.m. to pick up a ticket: Tampa Campaign for Change Office Tickets can be picked up at the following on Saturday, September 6th from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. EDT and Sunday, September 7th from 12:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. EDT. |
VIDEO: Obama on mortgage giants
By GottaLaff
I posted the liveblog here. Now we have video:
Sarah Louise Palin, what is your analysis of the situation? What's that? You don't have one? You haven't been prepped yet?
And can you please finally come out from behind the highly polished mahogany doors of J Sid's 8th, or is it 9th, house, so we can, you know, ask you questions?
John Sidney McCain's impulsiveness: "A cause for concern"
By GottaLaff
"Mixed on McCain."
He went with a gut decision, a whim, in picking Palin, they said. They went on to say that the last thing you want is a surprise.
Rick Sanchez then brought up, on his own, Bristol's out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy, and Sarah Lou's small town mayorship with all of its many of earmarks... and then described her as "someone not trying to stop waste of government money".
It is cause for concern, the reporter says. The chief executive of the U.S., the CEO, shouldn't go about it in this manner, say the CEOs, etc., that he talked to. Again, he said, it's cause for concern.
Rick: And they kept it a secret. He didn't want us at CNN to know about this. History will tell us whether it worked well, especially after the REAL vetting process results come in.
I do believe this is the first time I've ever appreciated Rick Sanchez.
VIDEO: John Sidney McCain. Worst. Speaker. Ever.
By GottaLaff
And we thought Bush bungled speeches. When I posted earlier about how poorly delivered this McCain speech was, I wasn't kidding. Here is a video of part of J Sid's attempts at public speaking in Colorado Springs today:
The segment I specifically referred to in my post down thread begins at about 6:00.
Colorado scandal: "In bed with voting vendors"
By GottaLaff
The abrupt resignation Thursday of a top elections official at the secretary of state's office happened in the midst of a watchdog group's investigation into her relationship with a local businessman who has contracts with that office.
Holly Lowder, 66, resigned from her post as elections director two months before what is expected to be one of the biggest elections in recent Colorado history. She held that job since 2006. Before that, Lowder served as Alamosa County clerk for about 25 years.
Colorado Ethics Watch had been pursuing documents from the state regarding Lowder's ties to John Paulsen.
Paulsen, 59, operates a software company called LEDS, LLC from his home in Castle Rock, records show. LEDS has installed voter databases in more than 30 counties and recently got two contracts worth almost $184,000 with the secretary of state's office for data work related to the current election season.
Records show that Lowder recently lived at a Cherokee Street home in Denver that is owned by Paulsen.
Chantell Taylor, director of Ethics Watch, called Lowder's resignation "no coincidence." [...]
When asked why she resigned, she said "I retired. I did not resign."
Of course, Holly dear. The absence of a gold watch makes that so obvious.
The county bought Paulsen's voter database and also uses his system for all its electronic property records. [...]
Claudia Kuhns, a local voting activist, said Paulsen was a subcontractor on the original state contract with Accenture to develop a new state voter registration database known as SCORE. The state cancelled that contract in 2005 and then hired Saber Corp. to develop the system, which was rolled out to all the counties earlier this year. Paulsen is listed as "key personnel" with the SCORE team. [...]
As elections director, Lowder was responsible for overseeing all state elections. However, Coolidge said she was mostly involved with SCORE. [...]
Online records show that Lowder and Paulsen share the same phone number at the Cherokee Street address. That phone number is also listed at Lowder's current apartment.
And why is this extra crispy important?
[This is] what promises to be one of the largest and most important --- and potentially closest --- elections in the state's history.
Rocky Mountain high-lights of things to come.
Video: "Indiana needs to vote Barack or we'll get 4 more years of Bush"
By GottaLaff
CNN posted this video. It's a little repetitive, but isn't that what the Republicans do to get their point across? Of course, when they do it, it's a redundant set of nasty lies and smears. Take it away, John Moore!
Scorecard: Team Obama winning, 2,000,000 to Minus 344,000
By GottaLaff
In addition to these states, Virginia added 49,000 new voter registrations in August, thanks to the Obama campaign:
With time running out on its push to register thousands of new voters in Virginia, the Obama campaign is picking up the pace. State election officials told the campaign Friday that 49,000 new voters signed up in August, a sharp increase from the 36,500 who signed up in July and the 28,000 who registered in June.But there are no guarantees:
The campaign had predicted that its August numbers could lag given the difficulty of reaching residents during vacation season. But the August gain puts the Obama campaign very much on track toward its goal of signing up 150,000 new voters by the early October voter registration deadline, on top of the 142,000 new voters who registered during primary season.
There is no way of knowing how many of the newly registered will vote for Obama, especially since Virginia does not record voters by party affiliation. But the campaign is encouraged by the demographic profile of the new voters -- about 40 percent of those who registered in August are aged 25 or under.The campaign predicts that if it can add 150,000 new registrations before early October, it will net about 60,000 votes out of that in November, assuming that 80 percent of the new voters are for Obama and that they turn out at a rate of 75 percent. Those votes could add up to about 1.75 percent of the anticipated state vote -- not enough to make up for the eight-point edge George Bush had in 2004, but possibly enough to tip the state Obama's way if he can also make gains with existing voters.
Now. Let's compare enthusiasm for Democrats vs. that of Republicans:
Nationally, more than 2 million Democrats have been added to the rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation, according to the Associated Press. Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states during the same period.Scorecard: 2,000,000 to minus 344,000. BFCE!*
*Best F***ing Campaign Ever
Barack Obama press conference on Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae: Liveblog
By GottaLaff
Obama addresses the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae "intervention":
We should take action focused not on lobbyists, but whether it will strengthen economy, stabilize housing market... 3 ways:
- Protect taxpayers, not bail out investors, speculators
- Clarify status of housing policies. Investors can't invest in a heads they win, tails they don't lose situation. Washington ignored the warning signs and failed to take action that I've advocated for 2 years. No more wait and don't see approach.
- Finally, urge the administration and McCain to drop their opposition to a second stimulus package that would give immediate relief to families and struggling states. Replenish the trust fund, restore confidence in the economy.
A: We've done as well as we can in the internet age where lies travel fast and truth has to play catch up.
Q: Privatize entirely, or make it a TVA type fed agency?
A: I don't favor continuation of neither fish nor fowl approach. We can't have managers and investors who soak up huge profits in boom times, but know taxpayers will bail them out. I want to wait and see what is being proposed by the administration. We haven't had enough disclosure of the assets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yet. Then it will be a top priority of my transition/administration, should I win.
Q: Have you been briefed on specifics of the plan?
A: I spoke to Paulson, last night. Previously, with Bernanke. Today, I spoke to my advisors. I'll reach out to Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to find out what their assessments are. Right now, Paulson is comfortable that their plan is within the powers given to them by Congress, nothing additional. Let's wait and see the details of the plan, before we pass judgment.
Q: Have Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae been forthcoming?
A: I'll let Treasury Department brief you. No doubt what took place was in many instances irresponsible, but may have been legal, and took advantage of the structure, but management didn't maike decisions designed to help them reach liquidity... management bonuses, profits led to problems. How do we make sure that special interests lobbyists are not able to block basic regulation? We must change the culture in Washington.
Video: McCain rally in Colorado Springs hits snag before it begins
By GottaLaff
This video is pretty interesting, and since it's a relatively slow day...
Not as many people will be attending today's McCain/Palin road show at the Colorado Springs airport, as had received tickets. That's because after those people learned of the accommodations (or lack of) they must endure for hours while waiting for McCain to speak... they dumped their tickets.
Obama-- "They must think you're stupid": The Video
By GottaLaff
As promised, here's the video of this post:
Compare Obama's delivery, and content, to this.
UPDATE: Hillary's out there, too:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton marched for labor and stumped with Democrats on Saturday, but sidestepped questions about the woman who has taken her place as the nation's most-talked-about female leader.Hit the issues, and hit them hard.Clinton brushed aside questions about Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin during appearances at New York City's annual Labor Day parade and later during a stop on Staten Island.
"This election is about issues, and that's what's going to matter to people at the end of the day," she told reporters who asked her about the Alaska governor at a rally for a Democratic congressional candidate at Wagner College.
Clinton joined other New York politicians for a Saturday morning breakfast with union leaders in Manhattan, then marched up Fifth Avenue in the city's annual labor parade.
John Sidney McCain, stumbling on the stump
By GottaLaff
If it were about his speaking skills alone, we'd win in a landslide.
Poll-itics: Not good enough, John Sidney McCain
By GottaLaff
Read the last sentence:
The latest Gallup tracking poll shows Sen. Barack Obama's advantage over Sen. John McCain "has been shrinking since the start of the Republican National Convention, and is now down to just two percentage points -- 47% to 45% -- too close to call."This must be why they've re-started their "unpatriotic" campaign again. They resort to flag/flag pin issues when they have nothing else. And I think we've pretty much established that they have nothing else, because we know it's not about the issues.
The latest Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama barely edging McCain, 46% to 45%.
Clearly, McCain is enjoying a bounce out of the GOP convention as he closes the gap with Obama. Today's numbers include polling done from Wednesday through Friday of last week; the Sunday and Monday numbers will include the full impact of McCain's acceptance speech. It should be interesting.
Nate Silver previews the next few days: "Last night and tonight should be among the best individual nights of polling that the Republicans see all year. If the best they can do is close the race to a tie, or an Obama +1 on those nights, they are not going to win the race based on inertia alone."
Republican desperation: The patriotism card
By GottaLaff
John McCain’s campaign prepared to accuse Democrats on Saturday of leaving behind 12,000 miniature American flags after Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday in Denver.
Is that worse than leaving behind your own country? I guess they think so:
Boy Scouts have arrived with 84 trash bags full of bundles of flags at the site of a McCain rally scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. local time in Colorado Springs.
The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there, and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage for the rally.
FOX News has been told a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign.
Veterans in Colorado Springs are expected to distribute the flags to the audience at the rally.
By the way, Sarah Louise SledDog is now speaking. She has done nothing but repeat her convention speech. At the moment, it's all about Iraq and how the surge has worked. Enough. I turned the sound off, her voice was already beginning to grate on me.
Obama: "They must think you're stupid"
By GottaLaff
Barack Obama is in Terre Haute, Indiana (CNN), and he is on fire! He's mocking McCain's "change" message and hitting all the right notes. I'll get the video up a.s.a.p.
He's essentially showing is incredulity at how a McCain/Bush platform can stand for change vs. his own plans re: health care, the economy, etc.
As I said, video coming. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Here's some of the speech:
Music."Everywhere I go we've been talking about change, that's been the theme of the campaign. And we must be on to something, because I notice now everyone's talking about change now," Obama said in reciting a line that he once used against Senator Clinton during the primaries. [...]
"John McCain has said that change is coming!" Obama laughed, "Now think about this coming from the party that's been in charge for 8 years, they've been running the show! Been up in the White House, John McCain brags, '90% of the time I have voted with George Bush. He and I we we're right there' and suddenly he's the change agent!" [...]
"He says I'm going to tell those lobbyists that their days in Washington are over. Who's he gonna tell? Is he gonna tell his campaign chairman who's one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell all the folks who are running his campaign who are the biggest corporate lobbyist in Washington? Who is it that he's going to tell that change is coming?"
Obama then asked the voters in the town hall, "I mean come on, they must think you're stupid!" [...]
"I mean maybe what they're saying is 'watch out George Bush' you know except for economic policies, and tax policies, and energy policies, and health care policies, and education policies, and Karl Rove style of politics – except for all that, we're really going to bring change to Washington! We're gonna shake things up! What are these guys talking about? Do you think we haven’t been paying attention over the past 8 years?"
Obama then went point by point through education, tax policy, energy policy and health care telling voters why McCain’s version of change is not change like the kind he will bring.
Obama then opened up rare criticism on VP nominee Sarah Palin, "I know the governor of Alaska has been, you know, saying she is change. And that is great. She is a skillful politician. But when you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person. That is not change, come on. I mean, words mean something. You can't just make stuff up. You can’t just make stuff up. We have a choice to make and the choice is clear." [...]
"Don't be fooled. These are the folks who have been in charge. John McCain's party, with the help of John McCain, has been in charge."
The vanishing Republican voter
By GottaLaff
How's that inequality working for you and your 1987105 houses, J Sid?
In a must-read New York Times Magazine piece, former Bush speechwriter David Frum sounds the sirens for the Republican party.Obama, as usual, is in touch with the American people. McCain/Palin, on the other hand, are not. They seem to have failed to notice this:
"My fellow conservatives and Republicans have tended not to worry very much about the widening of income inequalities. As long as there exists equality of opportunity -- as long as everybody's income is rising -- who cares if some people get rich faster than others? Societies that try too hard to enforce equality deny important freedoms and inhibit wealth-creating enterprise. Individuals who worry overmuch about inequality can succumb to life-distorting envy and resentment."
"All true! But something else is true, too: As America becomes more unequal, it also becomes less Republican. The trends we have dismissed are ending by devouring us."
As long as all Americans were becoming better off, few cared that some Americans were becoming better off than others. But since 2000, something has changed. Incomes at the middle have ceased to rise. The mood of the country has soured. Conservatives who disregard the mood of unease may forfeit their power to defend the more open and productive American economy they did so much to build. [...]The Big Question:
With wealth comes diversity — and what is inequality but diversity in monetary form?
When asked, “Are you better off than you were five years ago?” only 41 percent of middle-class Americans say yes, the worst result since pollsters started asking the question half a century ago.Remember-- Republicans create their own reality:
It’s this pervasive economic unease that is capsizing the Republican Party, even as Americans have arrived in recent months at a somewhat more optimistic assessment of the progress of the Iraq war.
IN SHORT, the trend to inequality is real, it is large and it is transforming American society and the American electoral map. Yet the conservative response to this trend verges somewhere between the obsolete and the irrelevant.And then there's the trust factor:
Conservatives need to stop denying reality. The stagnation of the incomes of middle-class Americans is a fact. And only by acknowledging facts can we respond effectively to the genuine difficulties of voters in the middle.
Republicans have been badly hurt in upper America by the collapse of their onetime reputation for integrity and competence. Upper Americans live in a world in which things work. The packages arrive overnight. The car doors clink seamlessly shut. The prevailing Republican view — “of course government always fails, what do you expect it to do?” — is not what this slice of America expects to hear from the people asking to be entrusted with the government.Finally, Frum's advice:
Equality in itself never can be or should be a conservative goal. But inequality taken to extremes can overwhelm conservative ideals of self-reliance, limited government and national unity. It can delegitimize commerce and business and invite destructive protectionism and overregulation. Inequality, in short, is a conservative issue too. We must develop a positive agenda that integrates the right kind of egalitarianism with our conservative principles of liberty. If we neglect this task and this opportunity, we won’t lose just the northern Virginia suburbs. We will lose America.There you go. A former Bush speechwriter's p.o.v. Your turn.
Rachel Maddow tells the truth about John Sidney McCain's lies: VIDEO
By GottaLaff
Rachel Maddow was on a roll last night. These people are liars. Watch and listen:
Calling them out like that was long overdue. They lie on a regular basis. Period. Let's say it again: Liars.
Thank you Rachel, and thank you MSNBC for airing this. Honesty from a news outlet: How novel.
McCain, Obama plan joint stop at Ground Zero
By GottaLaff
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are putting aside partisan politics for a joint appearance at Ground Zero to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.Consider that a public service announcement. That is all. Over and out. 10-4.The Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, in a joint statement released Saturday, say they will appear together at the World Trade Center site on Thursday ''to honor the memory of each and every American who died'' in the 2001 attacks.
The campaigns already had agreed to suspend television advertising critical of each other on Sept. 11. The McCain campaign has said it will air no ads that day.
Change in voter registration favors Democrats
By GottaLaff
Paddy linked to this earlier, but I wanted you to revel in the actual visuals.
This chart shows the change in voter registration, by party, for the period shown, for states that have this information available.
| State | R | D | Other | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AK | 2,836 | 2,628 | 6,825 | March-September |
| AZ | 32,141 | 68,480 | 4,359 | January-September |
| CA | 46,497 | 417,793 | 117,313 | January-May |
| CO | 13,352 | 66,516 | 23,437 | January-July |
| DE | 676 | 4,428 | 2,200 | July-September |
| FL | 77,196 | 209,422 | 26,100 | January-June |
| IA | 7,515 | 69,301 | -62,922 | January-August |
| KS | 1,553 | 13,159 | -1,704 | January-March |
| MD | 4,260 | 12,338 | 5,544 | January-July |
| NV | 1,230 | 51,547 | 7,550 | January-August |
| NH | -1,285 | 1,188 | 269 | June-August |
| NY | 1,526 | 102,559 | -164 | November-March |
| NC | 20,363 | 171,955 | 123,605 | January-August |
| OR | -13,349 | 122,518 | - | January-July |
| PA | 289 | 98,137 | 15,907 | April-August |
| WY | 1,390 | 3,409 | 5,892 | January-August |
Donny Deutsch: ‘I want [Palin] laying next to me in bed.’
By GottaLaff
Sexist much, Donny?
And isnt' that what we all look for in someone who is next in line should a 72-year-old president die, who would control our nuclear arsenal, who would have to be taken seriously by friendly and unfriendly world leaders?DEUTSCH: There is the new creation that the feminist woman has not figured out in 40 years of the feminist ideal that men can take in a woman in power and women can celebrate a woman in power. Hillary Clinton didn’t figure it out. She didn’t put a skirt on! […]
She [Palin] talked about energy. Didn’t matter! Today everybody’s running in circles — we want to have her over for dinner. I trust her. I want her watching my kids. I want her laying next to me in bed. That’s the way people vote.
I'm relieved the Republicans have their priorities straight. For a split second, I thought they were seeing the vice presidency in only superficial terms, like wolf-hunting and hockey-momming.
New Yorker cover spotlights McCain's houses
By GottaLaff
This New Yorker cover also highlights the foreclosure crisis. It's about time.
US military trained Georgia commandos
By GottaLaff
This won't complicate things at all:
US military trained Georgian commandos 05 Sep 2008 The US military provided combat training to 80 Georgian special forces commandos only months prior to Georgia’s army assault in South Ossetia in August. The revelation, based on recruitment documents and interviews with US military trainers obtained by the Financial Times, could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had "orchestrated" the war in the Georgian enclave.Cheney? Orchestrate a war? That's just crazy!
Obama Quote Of The Day
Via First Draft, it seems Obama has this taken care of. Click here.
At a fundraiser hosted by singer Jon Bon Jovi last night, Sen. Barack Obama "vowed to fight Republican attacks on his character and background more fiercely than John Kerry did in his losing campaign four years ago," the Newark Star Ledger reports.
Said Obama: "We're not going to be bullied, we're not going to be smeared, we're not going to be lied about. I don't believe in coming in second."
Obama hits McCain on Social Security
About time Obama got a headline or two.
NEWARK, N.J. -- Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain's approach to Social Security on Saturday, saying it would undermine the government program aimed mainly at retirees.
Obama said McCain's campaign has suggested trimming Social Security benefits and raising the eligibility age, according to prepared remarks of his speech to a gathering of the AARP. Obama was addressing the group via satellite.
(snip)
Obama also said McCain wants to privatize a portion of Social Security. McCain has praised the notion of letting younger workers place a portion of their Social Security taxes into a package that is invested and follows them to retirement, but he has not made it a campaign promise.
The Daily Show On John McCain's Big Acceptance Speech
The Bush/McCain comparison is amazing. Someone call the BFCE and get them working on the new ads.
GOP orchestrated delegates' comments about Palin
Look at that headline. This freaking country is like Soviet Russia more and more each day.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alaska delegates to the Republican National Convention got a strong message this week from Republican officials as the media swarm kept bugging them about Gov. Sarah Palin: "STAY POSITIVE when talking with reporters."
The one-page "Republican National Convention Talking Points" sheet provided to them added: "No one is better suited to deal with the largest issue on voters minds: Energy." If reporters asked about indicted Sen. Ted Stevens, it advised the delegates: "As long as he does not receive jail time, he is legally capable of serving."
(snip)
Despite the fact that the Republicans met in Minnesota to nominate John McCain for president, there was more discipline than straight talk at their convention. Day after day, it was hard to find anyone who wasn't offering the same lines, and as delegates and officials headed home Friday, they were confident that they could answer any question about Palin or anything else quickly and cogently.
The message effort proceeded on several fronts. Party officials participated in daily conference calls with top Republicans and discussed the "line of the day," usually how to discuss energy, McCain's record, the economy or national security. Surrogates then talked to the news media and delegate meetings.
On the convention floor, the national party on Monday gave all delegates blue pocket cards listing party principles, with quick responses to constituent and media questions.
Republicans Want To Make Lieberman Switch Official
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
When Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) returns to work this week, "he can expect some arm-twisting from his Republican friends and the cold shoulder from some Democrats" for giving a speech at the Republican convention, CQ Politics reports.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), said he "intended to try to pry Lieberman from the Democratic fold, beginning with Monday's cloture vote on a motion to proceed to the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill."
Said Specter: "I would like to see him vote with Republicans in September. He's practically there. That would have the consequence of giving us a Republican Senate."
New GOP Spin: Sarah Palin's Not Ready
I thought it last night, and I'm thinking it again. She's an embarrassment to women. How the hell is the supposed high power governor of a state "not ready" to speak to the press? Video by Jed.
**Note- check out this chart on the changes in voter registration by party. McCain should be very afraid.
**Another Note- Faiz from Think Progress is on Cspan right now talking about media and the campaign. (now being 758am EST)
Friday, September 5, 2008
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Happy Pandering Picture-
VIDEO: Community Organizers
By GottaLaff
If this is code for something, then I just cracked it. "Community organizer" = pride, responsibility, care, empathy, rights, social justice, service, and apparently, Democrats only.
H/t: Ellen
VIDEO: Obama on the Billo the Clown Show
By GottaLaff
In case you haven't seen it:
And here is some reaction:
A new RNC attack file contends Obama offered “conflicting threat assessments on Iran” based on “his interview with Bill O’Reilly.”Some Democrats were also concerned about the Obama-O’Reilly exchange on Iraq. “Instead of presenting a clear definition of how he will realize the promise of change after eight failed years of George Bush, [Obama] blurred the distinction between himself and John McCain on Iraq,” lamented a former aide to Chris Dodd, who thrilled liberal Fox critics in a more combative exchange with O’Reilly during the Democratic primary last year.
“He gave up his greatest strength - opposition to the Iraq War - on O’Reilly’s show,” the operative continued. “If Obama’s lucky, he gained enough new Fox-watching supporters to make up for the Democrats he just alienated.” [...]
Robert Greenwald [...] emailed a new video to supporters today. In it, he criticized Fox’s unbalanced treatment of Democratic politicians:
O’Reilly needled and interrupted Obama, trying to get him to simplify many of his answers — a far cry from the softballs O’Reilly lobbed at many prominent Republicans like Rudy Giuliani in the past.
An Alaskan's opinion of Sarah Louise Palin
By GottaLaff
This is very long, and I cut out what I could. And you have seen some of the information before, right here at TPC. Via Snopes:
| ABOUT SARAH PALIN I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city. She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe". It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. [...] There is no She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband [...] arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She's smart. Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign. Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state. In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs. She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them. While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day. Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below). [TrooperGate post here] She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support. She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness. Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her. When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined). As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. [...] She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to. As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork." She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative. [Good story here, but no space for it. Follow the link] When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her. As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum. [She favors drilling, doesn't believe in global warming...] However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it. CLAIM VS FACT o "Hockey mom": true for a few years o pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her WHY AM I WRITING THIS? First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings. Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life. Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship. Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable. CAVEATS I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the Anne Kilkenny |
Kilkenny does exist, and she does live in Alaska. We reached her by phone and asked if she wrote the rather long note that calls Palin "smart" but also questions her abilities.
We asked Kilkenny, "Did you write that letter?" She replied skeptically, "Well, I don't know. Read me parts of it. I'll tell you if it's mine or not."
After we read it to her, she said, "Yes, I wrote that." She sent it out to
Why did she do it? Kilkenny told The Daily Journal she wanted to offer people information and her experiences. She does not flatter Palin, but she said she did vote for Palin when she ran for city council.
"How affirming it has been," she said. "I am pleased to know how idealistic Americans are. They want information not just the politics of destruction."
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