There's a new and truly frightening ending to McCain's "lost at sea" ad

McCain's got a new ad that's apparently supposed to scare Americans into voting for him. Jed re-cut this latest ad with an alternate and truly horrific ending.

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McCain campaign denying they pushed hoax mutilation story to media, even though they did

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CNN's Rick Sanchez calls out media who fell for McCain staffer hoax

That would be FOX, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Newsday.

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It's close in Arizona

Via DailyKos, the latest poll in Arizona shows John McCain has a four point lead in his home state: 44% - 40%. According to Markos, we may see a similar poll early next week from Arizona State University. Read More......

Beautiful NYT story about Obama's grandmother

It's nice. Read it.

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The Vet who did not vet

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Why didn't McCain do the cover too?

Reader GP writes:

Was in line at Whole Foods in Silver Spring and people were pointing out the latest issue of Men's Health with Obama on the cover. Every checkout aisle had two rows of the mag.

Overheard the couple in front of me say "Obama on that cover just makes you think of McCain's dodgy health."

I'm sure they weren't the only one's to think it. A great get for Obama in the final days of the campaign.

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Palin blames Steve "I worked for Karl Rove" Schmidt and Nicole "I worked at CBS" Wallace for her plunge in the polls

Yeah, it has nothing to do with Palin being a blithering idiot. This is great to see. The circular firing squad has now advanced to the very top of the McCain campaign, with Palin now blaming McCain's top strategists for her abysmal public image. Chuck Todd was apparently right, the other day, when he noticed some ill-will between McCain and Palin during their appearance with Brian Williams. It seems McCain managed to pick a running mate who's even more arrogant and self-righteous than he is. 10 more days, bitches. Read More......

Obama is beautiful world

There's a town in Japan called "Obama." Guess who they're a fan of. This is priceless:

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McCain aide: Palin a "diva" who's looking more out for herself than McCain

Let the fireworks begin, baby. You betcha.

With 10 days to go until election day, long brewing tension between Sarah Palin and key aides to John McCain has become so intense, it is spilling out into the public.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin “going rogue” recently, while a Palin associate says she is simply trying to “bust free” of what she believes was a mishandled roll-out that damaged her.

McCain sources point several incidents where Palin has gone off message, and privately wonder if they were deliberate. For example: labeling robo calls “irritating,” even as the campaign was defending the use of them and telling reporters she disagreed with the campaigns controversial decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source tells CNN she appears to now be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser, “she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.

Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

The next leader of the party?! LOL We wish! Please, please, please anoint that blithering idiot, who believes women should carry their rapists's babies to term, as the next party leader. And the GOP can get 23% of the vote for the next 50 years. My pleasure. Read More......

Big-name McCain adviser endorses Obama

HUff Post reports:

Now one of John McCain's actual advisers has switched sides:

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

More from TPM. Read More......

Norm Coleman mails "rape" comic book to Minnesota's children

AMERICAblog reader JW writes:

hey john,

I got a self-mailer from the NRSC [National Republican Senatorial Committee] today.

My wife and I have 3 small boys under 6 years old. So when I saw the cartoon cover that says "Come on in kids..." then talks about rape with a little girl on the opposite page you can guess my utter disgust.

I'm just glad I got to it before my 6 year old. He doesn't need to be exposed to this.

What the hell is going on with the NRSC?

I am absolutely livid.

How sick are the Republicans? Creating a children's book talking about rape, and then sending it to Minnesota's children, all on behalf of Norm Coleman. So much for Coleman claiming the negative advertising was going to stop. (Then again, Coleman was at a rally last week where Obama was compared to mass murderer Charles Manson.) But making sleazy campaign literature look like a children's book, then sending it unwrapped into Minnesotans' homes so their kids can find it. Not very Senatorial. Here's a mailing that AMERICAblog reader JW just got yesterday from the Republican party supporting Norm Coleman against Al Franken.

PS Anyone else think the Republicans drew Franken a bit "ethnic," shall we say? Read More......

Blithering Idiot Watch - Palin to stop federal funding for fruit fly research, the underpinning of all genetics, because she thinks it's pork

"This is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there's been a lot of competition for that prize." - Richard Wolfe, Newsweek

Sarah Palin yesterday mocked - yes, mocked - fruit fly research. In a speech about autism and disabilities, Palin had the audacity to mock "fruit fly research" as wasteful pork. Yes she did. She thinks it's pork because, to her, it has a funny name. Funny, because she's a blithering idiot who apparently never attended high school.

Now, anyone who has ever studied any science IN HIGH SCHOOL knows full well that fruit fly research is one of the underpinnings of all modern biology. She is a freaking idiot. Here is what Palin had to say, then I'll quote a science blog that brought this to my attention:

This is a matter of how we prioritize the money that we spend. We've got a three trillion dollar budget, and Congress spends some 18 billion dollars a year on earmarks for political pet projects. That's more than the shortfall to fully fund the IDEA. And where does a lot of that earmark money end up? It goes to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good -- things like fruit fly research in Paris, France...

And here is what science blog BiochemicalSoul.com had to say:

The fruit fly (Drosophila) has probably been the single most important organism for the study of genetics for over a century now. Almost everything we know about genetics, development, cell biology, neuroscience, and every other field of biology has strong roots in previous and current work on Drosophila. The fruit fly is one of a small handful of “standard model organisms” used by thousands of scientists across the world to learn how our bodies, organs, genes, and proteins work. Most of what we know about how a single fertilized cell becomes the amazingly complex beings we are comes from studies initially done in Drosophila. Vast amounts of our understanding of the brain (and brain disorders, diseases, and defects) also come from initial studies in fruit flies.
In fact, recent research from my own graduate alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on fruit fly brains has had an impact on the understanding of autism and has boosted autism research:

“[S]cientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for..nerve cell connections to form and function correctly. The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.”

To decry research in [condescending and amazed tone] “the fruit fly” is a testament to the true idiocy of this woman and to the failure of our public education system. In fact, her own father, Chuck Heath, was a biology teacher – obviously a complete failure of a biology teacher.

Keith Olbermann is all over this. Republicans don't respect science. It's one more example of the intellect, of the brain. Modern Republicans respect stupidity and ignorance. That is when, they're not respecting hatred and intolerance. Read More......

This is a defining moment

Obama asks if our country will be better off four years from now in his latest 2 minute ad:



I like these longer ads. It gives Obama the chance to appear presidential while talking to us like we're adults. Read More......

WASSUP 2008

Hysterical. First, watch the original commercial from 1999:



Then watch the new one, 2008:

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After destroying the country, Republicans are planning to rebuild and re-energize their party. They really must be crushed.

The GOP knows it's over. The Republicans are going to suffer huge losses on November 4th. And, they deserve it. That party has destroyed the country.

But, the Republicans have their priorities. They're already talking about rebuilding their party. It's going to take years to rebuild the country after what Bush and his GOP wrecking crew did:

While congressional Republicans will not publicly concede that the presidential race is lost for the GOP, they speak frankly about the real possibility of an Obama presidency. They are discussing ways to reenergize the Republican party at a time when Democrats will probably be in charge of the White House and hold larger majorities in the House and Senate.

"It's time for a fresh start. We need new faces and new people to communicate what our party stands for," said Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee. After the elections, Republicans need to develop a simple, five-point plan that gets back to the principles espoused by GOP icon Ronald Reagan, he said - smaller government, no deficit spending, and a strong national defense that does not entail making the United States the "world's policeman."

Capitol Hill Republicans say they lost their way and are now being punished for it.

They need to be punished badly. There are no simple, five point solutions. It's going to take a lot of work, not just gimmicks.

Seriously, that party must be crushed on November 4th. Badly. Crush them. Show no mercy, they never did. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

10 days.

For some good laughs and a little stress relief, Bob Geiger has the weekly compilation of editorial cartoons. Sarah Palin gets prime coverage. There's so much material there for the cartoonists.

John McCain is in New Mexico today. Sarah Palin is in Iowa today. Those are the only two states that Gore won, but Kerry lost. Obama has them locked up. But, if McCain and Palin want to campaign there, who are we to question it? They're running out of options...

Okay...let's get it started.

10 days. Read More......

More on McCain's brother calling 911 and police to complain about traffic

Considering all of the nationwide cutbacks in services due to the bad economy - including with police, fire and safety - it's hard to imagine what Joe McCain was thinking as he abused these services for a simple traffic jam. He has since sent letters apologizing, but this was a waste of expensive time and resources for people who are trying to help with emergencies. Maybe Joe thought he was something special because his brother is running for President or maybe growing up with generations of Admirals and Navy elite, he thought he was above the rest and could abuse the emergency services system.

Let them eat cake.

Joe McCain, who lives in Alexandria, Va., told Washington radio station WTOP he was returning from a campaign event in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18 when he got stuck in traffic on Interstate 495 at the Wilson Bridge. His account of the timing differed from the police, who said the call was made at 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 21.

Frustrated because of the traffic, he called 911 to find out what was going on. The operator asked him to "state your emergency."

"Well, it's not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic's coming the other way?" Joe McCain said.

The operator asked him if he was calling 911 to complain about traffic. McCain then uttered an expletive and hung up the phone.

McCain told WTOP that he thought his cell phone was on mute.

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Bush tries stripping gray wolf of endangered protections, again

Bastards until the very end.

The Bush administration is trying again to take the gray wolf of the northern Rockies off the federal endangered species list.

Having lost in court this summer in a legal battle with conservationists, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to reopen for public comment its 2007 proposal to delist the wolves.

"The position of the service is, we think the wolves no longer need the protection of the Endangered Species Act. We're asking the public to weigh in to that," Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for Fish and Wildlife, said in an interview yesterday.

Wolf advocates immediately protested.

"This is the Bush administration's last-gasp attempt to remove protections for wolves," said Louisa Wilcox, a senior wildlife advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Livingston, Mont.

"It looks like they're launching an all-out run to ram the same flawed package back through," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and a director of Fish and Wildlife during the second Clinton administration.

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It's gray and gloomy, so a summer flashback

The melon season is so short, or at least the good melon season. In July and August I can't get enough of them for breakfast or as a starter at dinner, covered with prosciutto or sliced in half and filled with sweat wine. They are out of season now so I'll have to settle for a cup of coffee and a fruit juice smoothie. Then it's time to prep for my Normandy dinner and that means butter and cream. I have a good looking guinea fowl, chestnuts and apples but I only have 500 ml of cream and that's not going to be enough. Read More......

Dumbest political ad ever

Just saw this McCain ad over at Nate Silver's site:



Putting aside the obvious come-back this ad invites (tell Senator McCain it's not 1938), what are people supposed to take away from this bizarre ad? I thought it was an Obama ad. Then I looked more closely and realized McCain is trying to play off of his line at the debate about not being George Bush (if he's not George Bush, then why does he talk about him so much?). That's the "joke" - it's not 2004, Bush isn't running for president this time.

But the problem is, all most people see is a big blue square and the words "Senator Obama" - and then they coo warmly, thinking of our next president. And if they bother to actually read the ad, they learn that it's not 2004, which they already knew, and that they're supposed to tell Senator Obama that it's not 2004, which is kind of an embarrassingly stupid thing to ask us to do, since we all pretty much assume that Obama isn't senile. Then, naturally, you start wondering if John McCain knows what year it is and whether that's why he think it's newsworthy to run an ad telling you what year it is (or what year it's not). Considering most people don't click through ads (probably 99% don't), the take-away from the McCain ad is:

1. Go Obama.
2. It's not 2004. (Is thing going to be part of a series? "Tell Senator Obama it's not 1492!")
3. Please tell Senator Obama what year it isn't.

And John McCain wonders why he's losing. Read More......

Temper, Temper

McCain campaign says "bullshit," on the record. Erratic is so ugly.

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Meet a journalist who fell for the McCain staffer's hoax, and then accepted it as truth

Hook, line and sinker.

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GOP blogger post-mortem

Jon Swift takes us on a tour of the best-of-the-worst of the Republican blogosphere, and their reporting on the campaign. I laughed out loud repeatedly. Please read it.

No matter what happens in this year’s election, the conservative blogosphere deserves to win a collective Pulitzer Prize for its election-year coverage. While the mainstream media has given Americans a very distorted picture of Barack Obama, portraying him as a thoughtful, intelligent, unflappable, decent family man who has the temperament and judgment to be President, the conservative blogosphere has been the only place where you can get the real story. Hampered by quaint, old-fashioned rules of journalism that require citing evidence and reputable sources, the mainstream media has failed to report a number of important stories about Obama and the conservative blogosphere has had to step up and do the media’s job for them. As a public service I have collected some of the most important of these stories in one place. Pulitzer Prize judges, take note!
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Obama didn’t actually write Dreams of My Father. In fact, it was ghost-written by none other than Bill Ayers!

Jack Cashill at the aptly named American Thinker found it difficult to believe that Barack Obama, who is not one of the most articulate politicians around, could possibly have written a whole book all by himself. He must have had help. Probably from someone evil. So on a hunch Cashill decided to compare Obama’s book with a book written by Bill Ayers and lo and behold, he discovered some shocking similarities, including the use of nautical imagery and the fact that a very scientific test to determine the grade level of the prose was a match. This wasn’t the first story Cashill broke. Cashill also proved that Arab terrorists and not Eric Rudolph were responsible for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta and that the Clintons covered up the real cause of the death of Ron Brown and the downing of TWA Flight 800. Unfortunately, Cashill’s overwhelming evidence wasn’t enough to convince the mainstream media to report on his theories...

There is a tape of Michelle Obama with Louis Farrakhan talking about “whitey”

Larry Johnson of No Quarter used to be a liberal until the Democrats decided to nominate an unqualified African-American for President. In a last-ditch attempt to get Democrats to come to their senses, he revealed the existence of a secret videotape featuring Michelle Obama speaking to a group that included the wife of Louis Farrakhan and maybe even Farrakhan himself in which she confirms the most feverish nightmares of some white Americans by ranting about “whitey.” Johnson claimed that Republicans had a copy of this tape, which they were holding onto until October, when it would do the most damage. Although he didn’t actually see the tape himself, he had many friends and friends of friends who did see it. Stop the ACLU wrote, "This is all a rumor, but if you read Michelle’s college thesis on race you will find it is most likely true." Macranger reported, "Too many insiders are talking about it to outright dismiss it." Jim Geraghty of National Review's The Corner initially believed the tape existed but later grew skeptical, writing, "I note that despite my readers' hopes, this fits the pattern for rumors like this — they're always simultaneously vague but hyped to be huge, and they're always coming just around the corner." Killjoy. If Johnson is right, and there is no reason to doubt him, we should be seeing that tape any day now. But you might want to send him a note and remind him that there are only two more weeks left in October so they better release that tape quick.

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Iraq has more money than they know how to spend

Tell me again why we're funding Iraq? Especially in light of the OPEC decision to screw everyone, it's time to cut their money now. As in tomorrow. What complete idiot thought of spending $339 million in US money to teach Iraq how to spend their oil wealth?

Iraq's government has an unusual money problem as much of the world grapples with a credit crunch — it can't spend its oil riches fast enough.

The U.S. is trying to change that by training Iraqi bureaucrats struggling to emerge from a centralized system in which nearly all decisions — from where to build a water treatment plant to which workers would do the job — came from the top.

Money also was scarce for more than a decade after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions to punish Saddam Hussein's regime for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"Our efforts are devoted to helping the Iraqis spend their own money," said Marc Wall, the U.S. Embassy's coordinator for economic transition in Iraq. "We've zeroed in on it in the last year or two."

The issue came to the fore this summer when the U.S. General Accounting Office predicted Iraq could finish the year with as much as a $79 billion cumulative surplus because of oil revenues and unspent funds from previous budgets.

The August report drew outrage in Congress, where lawmakers asked why the Iraqis haven't spent more of their own money on reconstruction efforts while U.S. taxpayers shell out some $12 billion a month for Iraq — most for military operations.

How about we cut the spigot of taxpayer money off and see how quickly they figure out how to spend their oil money? Something tells me they would learn pretty fast, but maybe McCain and the GOP would rather coddle that regime for a few hundred more years. I would rather give Wall Street $700 million in bonus money than spend one more cent in Iraq. Read More......

Princess Sparkle Pony is not amused

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Friday Orchid Blogging

Encyclia fragrans

I haven't had anything blooming in a while, and cut back on the orchid buying a while back - so I could winnow my collection to a smaller number of plants I really liked. This is a plant I got years ago, and it's blooming for the first time - this guy likes a lot of light, and I suspect having it outside for six months this unusually temperate year did it some good. It's called Encyclia fragrans, and it's a species (i.e., not a man-made hodge podge of various species, but a pure species in and of itself). It's a fragrant plant, more so during the day. It's a bit wintergreen scented. If you look at the pictures below, you'll see the flowers in various stages of opening on the right and left side of the photo.



And below is the entire plant. Orchids are not the prettiest of plants. Which only makes the flowers that much more stunning.



Enjoy. Read More......

McCain campaign staff member's perp walk

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More racist McCain supporters at rally in Denver

This is the most racist I've seen McCain supporters act to date. Talking about "putting a monkey in the White House." Talking about wearing turbans. About Obama being a communist. People, this is what the Republican party has been turned into. Does anyone, Republican or Democrat, really want to be associated with these people? Judging by the growing number of senior Republican leaders, and now even top McCain supporters, abandoning McCain and endorsing Obama, the answer is apparently no. Just watch these people. What a sad spectacle. What an embarrassment.

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Joe Lieberman on Palin: "Thank God she's not going to have to be president from day one."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Oh, and Lieberman adds that he "hopes" McCain lives out his term if elected. Hopes? That's the best he can do? Looks like Holy Joe is starting to see the writing on the wall. Not easy pulling those knives out of so friends' backs, is it Joe?

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McCain campaign pushed mutilation hoax, even added their own incendiary "facts"

Remember the deranged McCain staffer who made up a story yesterday that she was supposedly attacked and mutilated by a crazed Obama fan (of course a black man) while she was trying to get money from an ATM? Well, we now know the woman is a liar and filed a false police report, apparently having carved her own face in an effort to throw the election for her boss, John McCain.

Now we learn that McCain's Pennsylvania communications director pushed the hoax mutilation story to the media, even claiming that the supposed "B" carved on the victim's face stood for "Barack Obama." Reportedly, McCain and Palin both called the hoaxer to offer their support. Imagine the judgment, or lack thereof, of McCain and Plain. There's that vetting problem again. TPM has more:

This is problematic because the McCain campaign doesn't want to have been perceived as pushing an incendiary story that not only turned out to be a hoax but which police officials said today risked blowing up into a "national incident" and has local police preparing to file charges against the hoaxster.

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Wash Post: "McCain Campaign Post-Mortem"

Now there's a headline that could sink a thousand ships. These stories are devastating to McCain. To his staff. To his voters. To his donors. It's just non-stop bad news, and now "post-mortems" - that's about as bad as it can get. Here is Chris Cillizza's piece about the upcoming, or shall I say impending, New York Times story this coming Sunday (but it's out now) about how McCain basically lost the election. Here are two interesting points from Cillizza's summary of the MUCH-longer NYT article:

The germ of the Sarah Palin pick began with an interview in 2007 on "The Charlie Rose Show" where the Alaska governor faced off with Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano. The interview caught the eye of campaign manager Rick Davis; "what he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues -- energy independence and ethics reform -- and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview," writes Draper of Davis' reaction to Palin's performance. Schmidt was on board with the pick early on; Salter was convinced later after meeting with Palin personally.

Politicians hate to be publicly psychoanalyzed (who wouldn't?) but Draper deftly paints the mind of McCain. "The flipside of John McCain's metanarrative of personal valor has always been palpable self righteousness"...

I'd previously raised that last point myself. There's a certain smugness to McCain running around determining who is and isn't a good American, as he and Palin have been doing. McCain thinks an awful lot of himself. Read More......

Apple donates $100,000 to "No on 8" campaign

Excellent! I don't recall seeing a donation from Google when Google came out against Prop 8, but perhaps my Googling skills were insufficient. Anyone else know?

UPDATE: The Google execs have donated as well, good for them. Now maybe they can double their donation in order to make up for their abysmal twisted violation of their own civil rights ad policy.

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Bush casts his vote for a third term

Trying to insure his legacy, Bush cast his vote for McCain today.

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FOX VP: Race-baiting hoax means McCain's quest for the presidency "is over"

From ThinkProgress

On his blog yesterday, Fox News Executive VP John Moody, who is a Pittsburgh native, wrote that the incident’s credibility was inextricably tied to McCain’s campaign:

This incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

For Pittsburgh, a city that has done so much to shape American history over the centuries, another moment of truth is at hand.

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Google running anti-gay ads in violation of its own policy

CALL TO ACTION: If you think these ads should be pulled from Google ads for "advocating against a protected group" and causing a "chilling and discriminatory effect" on Google employees and customers, please send Google an e-mail or call them at (650) 930-3555. Ask them to stop making money from our fight for equality. Remind them that - as Sergey said - this is "an issue of equality."

I've sat on this story from Bilerico for a few hours, in order to get more information, and even possibly get the issue resolved quietly. No such luck.

In a nutshell, Google has an explicit policy for its advertising that says no ad may advocate against a protected class, and among those protected classes is "sexual orientation." Yet, Google is running ads from anti-gay forces advocating the repeal of gay marriage in California, and advocating against gays in Arizona.

That's a clear violation of Google's policy against advocacy ads targeted protected groups. Period.

I love Google. I love Blogger (belonging to Google). I love that Google, for whatever reason, decided to embrace an incredibly progressive ad policy, banning advocacy ads against minorities. What I don't love is Google acting like a typical bad American corporation, and shoving its explicit written policies out the window when things become uncomfortable.

It would be one thing if Google didn't have a policy banning such ads. But it does. And bully for Google for being so progressive. But don't tell me now that it's okay to run such ads when your own explicit policy forbids is. One argument I heard is that Google would permit ads for the anti-gays if the ads simply said "Vote YES on Prop 8" (that's the anti-gay marriage proposition that would repeal the marriages of thousands of gay couples and make their children instant bastards). That would be okay, per Google. But Google might not allow ads that say "Vote Yes on Prop 8, which would ban gay marriage."

What's the difference? They both advocate against a protected group, they both advocate for the same legislation - the first one is simply more sly about it. So ads for the Klan are fine so long as they don't tell you that the legislation they're pushing is actually to repeal the 15th amendment and a few more parts of the Constitution protecting blacks? Discriminatory advertising is fine so long as you don't tell anyone that's what it really is. Huh? One could argue that in fact it's more progressive to REQUIRE the anti-gay to tell people what the ad is about - to tell people that Prop 8 bans gay marriage, that would probabl get us more votes on our side than an ad stealthily seeking support for Prop 8 while not telling you what it does.

What is the point in having an ad policy prohibiting advocacy against protected minorities if you permit advocacy against those same minorities provided the advocacy is circumspect about its evil, bigoted, hateful intentions? We're not talking banning Wal-Mart's "buy our new clothing!" ad because Wal-Mart sometimes takes positions against the interests of the disabled - that does not per se make a Wal-Mart ad "advocacy against a protected class." But if Wal-Mart were to take out an ad advocating for legislation hurting people with disabilities, that WOULD be advocacy against a protected class. Google is trying to pretend that we're talking about generic ads since the ads don't specify what the Prop really does. That's a patently absurd interpretation of their no anti-minority advocacy policy.

I'm sorry, but this is weasely and creepy and corporate of Google. I'm frankly surprised that they have such an inclusive ad policy - I'm downright impressed in fact. And I'm heartened that Google execs are campaigning for Obama, and that they've come out against Prop 8. But how can Google come out against Proposition that Google says per se isn't advocating anything bad against gays? Would Google support Prop 8, provided the Prop8ers don't mention gays? The entire this is inconsistent.

In spite of its good work, if Google is going to start haggling over the definition of "is" when a simple mater of their own explicit civil rights policy arises, then maybe we need to reconsider whether the days of "good" Google are numbered. Read More......

HOAX: McCain volunteer admits "Obama supporter mutilated me" story was a lie

This photo is of a hoax. A McCain staffer who thought it might be cute to invent her own hate crime and blame it on black men in general and Barack Obama in particular. What a freaking witch. Of course, she's such an idiot that she claimed the mean black man carved a "B" for "Barack" on her face after he found out she worked for McCain - except the B was carved backwards, like it would be if you carved it in your own face while looking in a mirror. What a hateful, stupid woman.




From KDKA:

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

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Iraq just screwed us on oil prices

Guess who just supported OPEC drastically cutting oil production in order to artificially keep oil prices at record highs?

Our best buddy, and OPEC member, Iraq!

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani said that crude priced below $80 a barrel would force his country to rethink its spending next year.

"Our budget for 2009 is based on $80 per barrel and so any fall beyond that is going to cause a strain on our budget," he said.

Oh yes, God forbid oil prices fall below $80 a barrel. I feel your pain. Considering the fact that our country is spending $100bn a year on that hell hole you call a country. And now you think $80/barrel is a fair price? SCREW YOU.

Screw them all. OPEC, of which Iraq is a member, along with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (two more of our wonderful stab-you-in-the-back "friends"), announced today drastic cutbacks in oil production in order to keep oil prices artificially high.

Seriously, screw them all. Screw Saudi Arabia, a corrupt dictatorship whose own citizens were behind 9/11. Screw Kuwait, whose ass we should never save again. We're on the verge of a massive worldwide recession, and these SOBs are more than happy to shove us into the grave. Screw them all. It's high time we considered these countries as not our friends, and treated them accordingly. We need a long-term strategy to separate ourselves from these nutjobs and their energy. They are not our friends. And as for Iraq, what are we doing there? Read More......

Republican former Mass. governor Weld endorses Obama

Drip drip drip...

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president on Friday, citing the senator's good judgment, "deep sense of calm" and "first-class political temperament."

Weld said he's never endorsed a Democrat for president before, but in the last six weeks or so, it became "close to a no-brainer." Obama has a history of bringing Democrats, Republicans and independents together and is the best choice at a time when America's standing in the world is at a low point, he said.

"It's not often you get a guy with his combination of qualities, chief among which I would say is the deep sense of calm he displays, and I think that's a product of his equally deep intelligence," he said in a phone interview.

Other than Her Royal Highness Lady Lynn de Redneck, how many big-name Dems have endorsed McCain?

[Crickets]

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Sarah Palin Refuses To Answer Whether Or Not Abortion Clinic Bombers Are Terrorists

Ari has the transcript, and more:

Brian Williams: Back to the notion of terrorists and terrorism, this word has come up in relation to Mr. Ayers -- hanging out with terrorist – domestic terrorists. It is said that it gives it a vaguely post uh 9-11 hint, using that word, that we don’t normally associate with domestic crimes. Are we changing the definition? Are the people who set fire to American cities during the ‘60’s terrorists, under this definition? Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under the definition?

Sarah Palin: There is no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was um one who sought to destroy our US Capitol and our Pentagon -- that is a domestic terrorist. There’s no question there. Now others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or um facilities, that uh, it would be unacceptable -- I don’t know if you could use the word terrorist, but its unacceptable and it would not be condoned of course on our watch. I don’t know if what you are asking is if I regret referring to Bill Ayers as an unrepentant domestic terrorist. I don’t regret characterizing him as that.

Brian Williams: I’m just asking what other categories you would put in there. Abortion clinic bombers? Protesters in cities where fires were started, Molotov cocktails, were thrown? People died.

Sarah Palin: I would put in that category of Bill Ayers anyone else who would seek to destroy our United States Capitol and our Pentagon and would seek to destroy innocent Americans.

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Joe and Rob talk about polls

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That Palin makeup artist makes a lot of money (more than any other individual on the campaign in early October)

Via the Caucus at the NY Times, this one speaks for itself:

Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staff member. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?”, was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records. The campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi’s payment as “PERSONNEL SVC/EQUIPMENT.”

The payment on Oct. 10 made Ms. Strozzi the single highest-paid individual in the campaign for that two-week period.

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Expect a crazy day on Wall Street: "Stock markets were in freefall around the world"

Looks like we're going to keep talking about the economic crisis:

Stock index futures tumbled so sharply on Friday they had to be frozen at several points as global markets tumbled on signs the global economy is in the throes of recession.

Stock markets were in freefall around the world as panicked investors moved to liquidate risky positions. Japan's Nikkei index ended down 9.6 percent and European shares lost 8 percent.

By 7:00 a.m. in New York December Dow Jones futures were down 6.3 percent, Standard & Poor's 500 futures were off 6.6 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 6.8 percent.

All three contracts lost the maximum amount permissible before the start of futures trading in the United States.

Both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq said trading would open as normal at 9:30 a.m EDT.

Frozen? I don't purport to know how this all works, but that just doesn't bode well.

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Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

11 days.

All week, I think a lot of people have been holding their collective breaths, waiting to see if anything John McCain and Sarah Palin have been saying or doing has had an impact. Nothing has, really. The polls are holding. And as the McCain/Palin attacks have become increasingly hysterical, Obama stays steady and keeps moving forward.

Palin will be deposed today in yet another investigation of the Troopergate scandal. Todd, too. But, on Sunday, it's apparently big news that Palin is campaigning with Elisabeth Hasselbeck from "The View." ABC News actually sent a "Breaking News" email about this development yesterday. (Note to ABC News: That's not really "Breaking News.")

It's great fun to read all the articles popping up about the intra-GOP fighting. We'll see a lot more of those over the next couple weeks. Have at it, kids.

11 days.

Thread the news.... Read More......

British economy shrinks more than expected

The UK economy had been the envy of Europe for years but those high times seem to be an an end. One third of the British economy is related to banking/finance so problems in that sector along with even more personal debt than the US (shocking as that may be) spells serious trouble in the months to come. On that news, European markets are dropping hard in early trading, following negative days across Asia.

The British economy shrank more than expected and for the first time in 16 years in the third quarter of 2008, as fears grow the country could be in for a painful and prolonged recession.

The Office for National Statistics said on Friday gross domestic product fell 0.5 percent in the three months to September, the biggest drop since Q4 1990 and the first contraction since Q2 1992.

Analysts had forecast a fall of 0.2 percent.

On the year, GDP was 0.3 percent higher, the weakest rate of growth since Q2 1992.

Read More......

Federal Reserve's Bear Stearns holdings lose $2 billion

One can only imagine how much more of this is out there. It's anyone's guess whether this market is is going back up, heading down or going nowhere so more losses remain a strong possibility.

The value of the Bear Stearns' portfolio held by the Federal Reserve hase declined 9% to $26.8 billion from $29.5 billion last quarter, the Fed said.

The portfolio is now valued at $2 billion less than initial loan to JPMorgan Chase earlier this year.

It's important to remember though that even with these losses, on top of previous losses, Congress still can't find time to make Wall Street bonuses an issue. If you want nightly news TV theater, there's plenty of it in Washington but when it comes to the serious issue of a $70 billion bonus pool for Wall Street they will have none of it. Heaven forbid we ask Wall Street to sacrifice their bonus money because accountability isn't fair...for Wall Street. Read More......

AIG using up $123 billion loan

That didn't take very long. Any more Republicans want to lecture us again on the juicy terms and all the money we're going to make from this deal? Who ever would have guessed that $123 billion was not going to be enough? I need to sit down I'm so surprised.

The troubled insurance giant American International Group already has consumed three-quarters of a federal $123 billion rescue loan, a little more than a month after the government stepped in to save the company from bankruptcy.

AIG has borrowed $90.3 billion from the Federal Reserve's credit line as of yesterday, the bulk of it to pay off bad bets the company made in guaranteeing other firms' risky mortgage investments. That's up from roughly $83 billion AIG had borrowed a week ago, and the $68 billion level it reached a week before that. The news comes as the company's new chief executive warned Wednesday that the government's financial lifeline may not be enough to keep AIG afloat.

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Q3 foreclosure filings way up

Just imagine what will happen when the unemployment rate increases. AP:

The number of homeowners ensnared in the foreclosure crisis grew by more than 70 percent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2007, according to data released Thursday.

Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice from July through September, up 71 percent from a year earlier, said foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc.

By the end of the year, RealtyTrac expects more than a million bank-owned properties to have piled up on the market, representing around a third of all properties for sale in the U.S.

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Palin sports Democratic scarf

This story is a day or two old, but can we really ever get enough stories about how much of a blithering idiot our once-potential-future-president is?

It may sound silly, but keep this in mind. Sarah Palin is spending over $13,000 a month on make-up. She spent $150,000 last month on clothes. Her image is HUGELY important to this campaign. Yet she puts on a clearly Democratic scarf with donkeys on it. In the image-conscious world she and her high-paid GOP consultants live in, this is a huge gaffe. And it's just one more piece of evidence to suggest that she's a blithering idiot.

Though, a reader just pointed out to me: What staffer would have let her go out with that on? A staffer who wanted to sabotage her perhaps? Read More......

Cuomo now looking into Lehman compensation

Hint, hint. Anyone in Congress paying attention here? How many people really think American taxpayers are going to angry about investigating the massive bonuses paid out on Wall Street during this crisis period? Socialism for CEOs is hardly popular outside of Wall Street. Let's see how Lehman explains away a few billion in bonuses amongst friends, even after bankruptcy.

Now some of the same legal questions raised in AIG's case might also be applied to Lehman Brothers, the people said.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Cuomo suggested his office would investigate similar payments at other companies, although he declined to identify companies or individuals.

"It is not just compensation but incentives, perverse incentive for executives to produce short-term profit rather than long-term growth,'' Cuomo said.

Cuomo's office declined further comment, citing its policy surrounding ongoing investigations. A Lehman spokeswoman also declined to comment.

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Senior McCain aides are shopping around their resumés

Wow. Yet another devastating story for the McCain campaign. (Joe calls this story "luscious.") Politico writes about the GOP "circular firing squad" that's begun over who lost the election for John McCain. Here are a few excerpts - but please read the entire story, it's a doozy. Seriously, this story will put such a smile on your face, you'll thank me:

With despair rising even among many of John McCain’s own advisors, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering—-much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.

The candidate’s strategists in recent days have become increasingly vocal in interviews and conference calls about what they call unfair news media coverage and Barack Obama’s wide financial advantage — both complaints laying down a post-election storyline for why their own efforts proved ineffectual.

These public comments offer a whiff of an increasingly acrid behind-the-scenes GOP meltdown—a blame game played out through not-for-attribution comments to reporters that operatives know will find their way into circulation....

At his Northern Virginia headquarters, some McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisors are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.

One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides – a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.

“It’s not an extraordinarily happy place to be right now,” said one senior McCain aide. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s just unfortunate.”

“If you really want to see what ‘going negative’ is in politics, just watch the back-stabbing and blame game that we’re starting to see,” said Mark McKinnon, the ad man who left the campaign after McCain wrapped up the GOP primary....

Offered a chance to respond to the suggestion that the McCain campaign is awash in defeatism, a McCain official delivered a decidedly measured appraisal: “We have a real chance in Pennsylvania. We are in trouble in Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. We have lost Iowa and New Mexico. We are OK in Missouri, Ohio and Florida. Our voter intensity is good and we can match their buy dollar for dollar starting today till the election. It’s a long shot but it’s worth fighting for.”

....A New York Times Sunday magazine piece chronicling McCain’s campaign featured numerous not-for-attribution McCain staffers participating in what amounted to a campaign autopsy.

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Vlad and Boris love Sarah Palin

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McCain concedes

That's Markos' headline, and he's right. I posted earlier about McCain announcing that he is not attending his own election night party because of "space limitations" (I guess he can't get a ticket). Markos notes, correctly, that this is basically a concession of defeat. It's also a big slap in the face to McCain's own supporters:

McCain knows he's going down, we get that. But there are supporters of his that are still busting their ass, and he's basically telling them that he doesn't give a flying f*ck. It's a breathtaking insult to his staff, to his volunteers, to his party, and even to America. It doesn't matter if the bulk of his audience will be watching him on the television, he owes his people (and even the nation), one last rally.

So this is how the cowardly McCain wishes to go out -- not with a bang, but with a whimper.

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YesWeCarve.com

From YesWeCarve.com - check it out, there are lots more.

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Indiana election official calls Obama "black Hitler"

Indiana is a key swing state. Her job is overseeing vote counts. This woman needs to lose her job, now. More from AP:

A Republican county election clerk distributed copies of an apparent chain letter referring to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as a "young, black Adolf Hitler" to two employees but later told police she intended it to be a joke....

Doug Lechner, Republican Party chairman in the county just south of Indianapolis, said the letter was unacceptable and taints Jackson's ability to appear unbiased in administering this year's election. County clerks are responsible for training poll workers, providing all voters an opportunity to cast their ballot without influence, and overseeing vote counts.

Even the Republicans agree that this woman is now tainted. She needs to be fired NOW. Read More......

John McCain's brother called 911 this week to complain about a traffic jam

OMG

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BREAKING: Former WH press secretary, Scott McClellan, voting for Obama

It ain't Elizabeth Hasselback (or whatever her name is) appearing with Sarah Palin, but in my corner of the universe this is news. The dams are breaking.

Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary who sharply criticized President Bush in his memoir last spring, told CNN Thursday he's voting for Barack Obama.

"From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping," McClellan told new CNN Host D.L. Hughley.

All of these big-name Republican endorsements have got to hurt. They add to a sense of inevitability, and of despair. It makes it harder to get volunteers for McCain's campaign, and even harder to drum up any last-minute donors - after 40% of your life savings gets wiped out on the stock market, do you really want to invest in another sure loser? This is all very bad. And thus very good. Read More......

McCain may skip his own election night party

Mccain isn't attending the party "due to space limitations." What, did Sarah Palin invite all of her dresses? Talk about wrong message to send your supporters. It looks like he's just given up. Read More......

Maverick John McCain

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McCain thinks New Yorkers and Pentagon employees who died on September 11 are fake Americans

They're from the DC area and New York City, and according to McCain today, all of us who live in the DC area and New York City are elitists who go to cocktail parties and turn our noses up at "real Americans" - that is, when we're not being attacked by Al Qaeda. What a desperate, hateful, arrogant, shell of a real man McCain has turned into. (Not to mention, it's still funny as hell that McCain, with 12 homes, 13 cars, a wife worth $100m, and a running mate who just went out and bought $150,000 in clothing, has the nerve to accuse anyone of being an elitist. I guess you're an elitist in the McCain family when you hit your 13th home and your second $100m.)

Funny, McCain had no problem using footage of New Yorkers dying in the World Trade Center on September 11 during his own convention. That was a first for US politics, using 9/11 for political gain (well, okay, not a first as George Bush has been doing it for years). But oh how quickly John McCain tires of New Yorkers. Are they patriots or elitists? Does McCain include New York firefighters when he brands all New Yorkers as fake, elitists who aren't real Americans? He just did. And the former mayor of New York City is doing robo-calls for McCain now - are those elitist un-American robo-calls? What does Giuliani have to say about this smear of our dead and our heros?

Now watch an adult explain that we are all Americans:

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In Montana, Obama is up by 4; In Georgia, Obama is down by 2

This morning, we looked at some traditional battleground state polls, which were all very good for Obama. This afternoon, let's look at some hard core red state polls, which are also amazingly good for Obama.

Via Atrios, Obama is leading in Montana: 44% - 40%.

Via Political Wire, Obama is trailing in Georgia: 46% - 44%. Read More......

Join in the Netroots Nation auction

Good cause, and it actually looks kind of fun:

The Netroots Nation auction is now open for bidding!

Bidding will be open until October 23, 2008, with proceeds going to support that fabulous annual mecca for bloggers, Netroots Nation. We've got some amazing things planned for August 13 - 16, 2009 in Pittsburgh, PA, but in order to make them happen, YOUR ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED!

Auction items range from once in a lifetime opportunities like lunch with Lawrence Lessig or coffee wtih General Wesley Clark, to OrangeClouds115's famous Cookies of Mass Destruction. We have booty like an autographed Dwight Schrute bobblehead doll as well as super cool sustenance items like Kobe beef offered by NE Senatorial candidate Scott Kleeb and his fabulous wife, Jane! And, at the risk of sounding trite, we have SO MUCH MORE!

So, tell your friends, family, community. Let the bidding begin!

At least go to the site and check it out, it does look fun. Read More......

Greenspan joins Palin on idiot list

What can you even say about this rubbish?

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress on Thursday he is "shocked" at the breakdown in U.S. credit markets and that he sees more layoffs and a jump in unemployment ahead.

In prepared testimony, Greenspan said the current global financial crisis is a "once in a century credit tsunami" that policymakers did not anticipate.

Greenspan was to be the leadoff witness at a House hearing lawmakers called to question past key financial players about what they felt caused the most grave financial crisis since the 1930s.

The witnesses were also expected to be asked how they thought the government would deliver the nation from the economic turmoil.

Greenspan was the chairman of the Federal Reserve for 18 1/2 years. In testimony prepared for the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, he voiced shock over the present turn of events and called conditions deplorable.

He said that he and others who believed lending institutions would do a good job of protecting their shareholders are in a "state of shocked disbelief." And Greenspan also blamed the problems on heavy demand for securities backed by subprime mortgages by investors who did not worry that the boom in home prices might come to a crashing halt.

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NRSC ad assumes Obama win

Sure sounds like it. Via Ben Smith.

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Huff Post = Politico + Drudge

Some amazing new Web traffic numbers for blogs and political sites. In a nutshell, if you add up the traffic of Drudge and the Politico, who do you get? The Huffington Post.

HuffingtonPost.com led among a group of selected stand-alone political blogs and news sites with 4.5 million visitors in September, up 472 percent versus year ago, while Politico.com attracted 2.4 million visitors (up 344 percent) and DrudgeReport.com saw 2.1 million visitors (up 70 percent).

Now, the numbers aren't entirely correct. Huff Post gets far more traffic than the 4.5m visitors, and we're even listed in the story, with a claim that we had 100,000 unique visitors last month - in fact, per Google Analytics, we had 863,000 unique visitors last month. But still, the numbers are illustrative in a relative sense, comparing the various sites. And Huff Post clearly beats the bejeesus out of Drudge.

The release also points out that a number of political sites saw massive gains in traffic over the past year. Our figures show the same (again, per Google Analytics):

AMERICAblog
SEP 08: 863,254 uniques
SEP 07: 330,780 uniques
260% increase in traffic

We saw our blog traffic nearly trip the night of the 2006 election, to over 100,000 unique visitors that evening. I'm expecting a lot more with a presidential election on the line, and due to the fact that we already had 120,000 uniques in one day earlier this month - just my guesstimate, but I'm counting on 200,000 uniques that night (no promises, but we'll see).

So, anyone who's thinking of advertising on the blogs, now is the time. All of us, collectively, have never seen traffic like we're seeing in this pre-election period. If you want to get your brand out to a huge, progressive, well-educated, and well-off audience, now is the time and here is the place. You can buy ads directly via our site in the next column, to the right. (Look for the "How to advertise in this spot" link.) And to advertise in other choice spots on the blog, like the top banner, or in the box between posts, contact me directly:
americablog@starpower.net

And PS, we're days away from having our 100,000,000th visitor to AMERICAblog. Very cool timing. Read More......

Serial homophobia is a hell of a way for Mormons to seek respect

For years now, the Mormon Church has gone out of its way to gay-bash. They get involved in gay-bashing efforts far beyond Utah -- gay-bashing efforts that have no impact on their church -- dumping millions of dollars to help take away the rights of gays and lesbians in states across America. And they're doing it again in California this year.

The Mormon Church has given $8.4 million to the anti-gay proposition in California - the one that would revoke the already-existing marriages of gay couples, instantly turning their children into bastards. And in fact, other estimates show the Mormons giving as much as $17.67 million to the California gay-bashing effort - a full 77% of the homophobes' budget.

Why are the Mormons getting involved? Not because they have an interest in what happens in California - there are only 770,000 Mormons in California, a state of 38 million people. That's only 2% of the population. The real reason may be that the Mormons don't feel accepted as a "real" religion by other major faiths:

"For whatever reason, they're trying to get some respect from other religions," he told The Advocate Tuesday. "They've always been looked down upon by the Christians, the Catholics, and evangelicals."

So, the argument goes, the Mormons regularly get involved in legislative gay-bashing, in states that aren't Utah, in order to curry favor with the gay-hating religious right.

The thing is, what about the rest of us?

I don't know much about the Mormon faith. I do know that, as a Christian myself, I find some of their beliefs a bit, well, different (such as the belief that Jesus and the devil were brothers). What I do know about Mormons are three things:

1. Donny and Marie.
2. The choir.
3. Their church really seems to hate gays, a lot.

Put aside the fact, for a moment, that a people who were persecuted, and run out of their homes, for being different really ought not be doing the same to another persecuted people. (And really put aside the fact that one of the reasons Mormons were persecuted was because of their beliefs on marriage.) If the Mormon Church is so concerned about being a part of the mainstream religious club, about being loved by other faiths across America, then why are they saddling up to one of the most reviled groups of bigots in America?

Hell of a well to win friends and influence people. Read More......

Conservatives speak out about why they're voting for Obama

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Darcy Burner moves into the lead, gets hit with misleading (wrong) article in local paper

Yesterday, via Matt Stoller at OpenLeft, we learned that the Seattle Times ran an factually-wrong hit piece on Democratic candidate Darcy Burner, who is running in Washington's Eighth Congressional District. Matt single-handedly debunked the premise of the piece, which claimed Darcy didn't have a degree in economics from Harvard -- in fact, she does. (And, after Matt's criticism, the paper has already changed its headline.)

A fake last-minute story to bring down the Democratic candidate is no surprise, The Seattle Times is the conservative paper in that city. Coincidentally (or not), a SurveyUSA poll yesterday showed Darcy had moved into the lead in this very hard fought race by 50% - 46% margin. Over the past month, Darcy reversed a 10-point lead by her opponent.

Darcy Burner is a true progressive. She'll be an even better Democrat. And, the Republicans are unloading on this race. If you can help her fight back -- and win -- we've got an ActBlue page for Darcy, please donate. 100% of your donation goes to Darcy and it's 100% secure. Read More......

New states polls: "Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground"

A new round of state polls from a faculty at "Big Ten" universities shows significant movement and now solid leads for Obama in key states including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana:

Those states were key battlegrounds in the 2004 election, and last month the Big Ten Battleground Poll showed a tight race in all of those states but Illinois, which Obama represents in the U.S. Senate. The first poll was taken just as the U.S. financial crisis first intensified and before the massive decline in the stock market, when McCain was enjoying his highest poll numbers of the campaign in the Big Ten and nationally.

“In September, we saw virtually the entire Big Ten as a battleground,” said Franklin, co-developer of Pollster.com. “Now Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground. The dominance of the economy as a top issue for voters is the overwhelming story.”

The new Big Ten poll shows Obama ahead in every Big Ten state, including Indiana, where McCain held a slight edge in September, and Ohio and Pennsylvania, where last month’s poll results showed the two candidates in a dead heat.

The map now:


The map in September:
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On FOX, $150,000 for clothes isn't news, but a $400 haircut created a frenzy

This is a great compilation from Jed. There's no hypocrisy at FOX. None.



And here's the first couple paragraphs from the front page article in today's New York Times:

Sarah Palin’s wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCain’s multiple houses and John Edwards’s $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average “hockey mom” would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores.

Cable television, talk radio and even shows like “Access Hollywood” seemed gripped with sartorial fever after campaign finance reports confirmed that the Republican National Committee spent $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue in September for Ms. Palin and her family.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

12 days.

NBC's David Gregory just did a piece on George Bush. McCain keeps telling people he's not George Bush. It has become a standard line in his stump speech. If McCain has to keep invoking Bush to say he's not Bush, then he's just reminding everyone about Bush. Last March, when Bush endorsed McCain, McCain wanted Bush's help:

Q Senator McCain, given President Bush's low approval ratings, will this be a negative or a positive for you? And how much do you hope he'll campaign for you on the trail?

SENATOR McCAIN: I hope that he will campaign for me as much as is keeping with his busy schedule. I'll be pleased to have him with me both from raising money and the much needed finances for the campaign, and addressing the challenging issues that face this country. I'm pleased to have him as is -- as it fits into his busy schedule.

And don't forget what McCain said of Bush, "I did everything I could to get him elected and re-elected"

Also want to give a shout out to the amazing Van Jones. His book, The Green Collar Economy, has hit the New York Times best seller list. Nice job and it is a very timely book.

12 days to change the world. Read More......

1 in 3 delaying health care needs but Wall Street gets $70 billion in bonuses

Sure, sounds pretty fair. We wouldn't want Wall Street to be held accountable for their global failure because then they might get mad. It's much better for average Americans and the poor to do without medical care and die because they're simply not as productive as Wall Street. The sooner everyone comes to appreciate how irrelevant they are compared to Wall Street and their friends in Congress who ignore the $70 billion bonus pool the better. It's better to have TV drama for the nightly news than actual accountability.

The ailing economy is leading many Americans to skip doctor visits, skimp on their medicine, and put off mammograms, Pap smears and other tests. And physicians worry the result will be sicker patients who need even more costly treatment in the long run.

"I have to pretty much be very ill to go to the doctor," said Julie Shelley, a 49-year-old office manager and mother of three from West Milton, Ohio. "I'm probably at the age where I should have a checkup or physical. I'm not going to do it. I am last on the list."

In Lombard, Ill., Donald Hendricks lost his job over the summer at an event-planning company. When two of his six children came down with a fever and sore throat several weeks ago, he could not afford the gas money to drive them to the doctor. He gave them soup and soda instead, and they got better.

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Democrats push banks to keep lending system moving

Clearly it's a delicate balance, as the US is already in deep trouble due to lax lending standards. The problem today is that the banks now have the cash - they have also been receiving cut rate loans from the government for months as well - but they are still reluctant to loan. The longer the banks hold off lending the deeper the real estate problem will become. Senator Schumer is right to push back on the banks, though I really, really, really would like to see him step up on the compensation problem. There is no way $70 billion in bonuses should be handed out on Wall Street in this climate. No way at all.

The U.S. government in recent days has laid out a plan to inject $250 billion of capital into U.S. banks in exchange for preferred shares and some restrictions on executive pay. The program is part of a broader $700 billion market rescue plan Congress passed earlier this month.

Nine of the largest U.S. banks were essentially arm-twisted last week into signing on for the first $125 billion in capital infusions. The Treasury has set a deadline of Nov. 14 for other firms to apply and has said it has enough capital allocated for all qualifying firms to participate.

"This plan will only be effective if these funds are used to increase lending by banks, and it is Treasury's obligation to ensure that," said Schumer, who chairs the Joint Economic Committee. "The last thing these banks should be doing is stuffing this money under the proverbial mattress."

On a related note, I followed a conversation recently (in the US) where someone insisted that loans were still being made, but people had to arrive with a lot of cash. How was was a lot? Twenty percent. France had loosened up some of it's lending standards but in general the bulk of real estate loans require closer to 30% or 40% cash with 10-12 year terms. Others exist but they were still conservative by US standards and are now gone. The French bank loan system is hardly perfect or better, but what a difference. Even with the differences, loans in France have also locked up though I hear if you come with 99% cash, they will be happy to lend. Read More......

UN warns of mass starvation in North Korea

It will be a good day when the North Korean people can move on beyond this constant cycle of misery for the pleasure of one person.

The U.N. food agency has warned that millions of North Koreans could face starvation, but a South Korean official said Thursday that Seoul has not decided whether to respond to a request for food aid to the communist country.

Around 2.7 million people on North Korea's west coast will run out of food in October, the World Food Program said in a report released on Tuesday.

North Korea has relied on aid to help feed its 23 million people since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its centrally controlled economy in the mid-1990s. Famine is believed to have killed 2 million people. The country's food shortage has worsened this year following devastating floods in 2007.

The WFP also said the food shortages have especially affected urban households in areas with low industrial activity due to higher food prices, reductions in public food rations and lower employment.

The food shortage warning comes as the North has ratcheted up its hostile rhetoric against South Korea and its president amid fraying ties.

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Palin amended govt expense reports after McCain picked her for VP

That's a bit disturbing:

After Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose Palin his running mate and reporters asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed expense reports for her daughters' travel.

In the amended reports, Palin added phrases such as "First Family attending" and "First Family invited" to explain the girls' attendance.

So much for McCain being Mr. Ethics. But I'm guessing most people realize that McCain gave up any sense of honor months ago.

Another thing, apparently 7 year old Piper Palin conducts official state business in Alaska. She must be one heck of a kid.

Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.

As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor's schedule.

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So when is Sarah Palin paying $50,000 in taxes on the $150,000 in clothes the RNC gave her?

As you know, the Republicans bought Sarah Palin $150,000 in clothes last month - that's more than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. That's also a gift. And it's a taxable gift. It doesn't matter if it's for work. And it doesn't matter if the Republicans now say they're going to donate the clothes to charity after it's over.

Sarah Palin can't accept $150,000 dollars in goods, use them, then later give them away to charity and not pay taxes on the gift she received. By the time she gives them away to charity, they're used clothes - and worth about 1/3 of their original value. So, sure, she can take a tax deduction on the $50,000 in clothes she's giving away (a savings of perhaps $15k or so), but she still has to pay $50k or so in taxes on the $150,000 gift she received in the first place. That means Palin will owe $35,000 net in taxes due to her big shopping spree at Neiman Marcus and Saks. And the Republicans can't help her pay for it, or she'll be paying taxes on their help as well.

Of course, Palin is no stranger to failing to report her taxable income - she did the same thing while serving as governor of Alaska. Read More......

Asia could see widespread credit defaults soon

Anyone still want to buy the "de-coupling" economic theory? China is still growing but that number is slowing and the rest of Asia has been closely tied with that incredible growth in recent years. Bubbles do not have soft landings. They tend to crash and burn regardless of what Wall Street or their lapdog media friends say.

A big wave of defaults could be forming among small and medium-sized companies in Asia, raising the spectre of a pile of bad loans at the region's banks and a further plunge in investor trust.

Troubling signs are already popping up. Several Hong Kong companies have shuttered factories in China, including home appliance maker BEP International and toy maker Smart Union Group.

They may not be the only ones. Exporters, property, shipping and retail companies could be hit because they racked up debt and expanded aggressively in the boom times, leaving them ill equipped for the bust being seen across Asia, analysts said.

Slowing economies are crimping cash flow and profits in the region, while access to capital has been severely constrained as the global financial crisis sparks widespread risk aversion, choking off lending for smaller companies which are in most need of funds.

"It's inevitable that default rates will rise in Asia as these companies are now struggling to obtain new debt capital or simply to roll-over their repayment obligations," said Scott Bennett, a Singapore-based fixed income fund manager for Aberdeen Asset Management.

"SMEs have less access to capital, both debt and equity, and they don't have large, untapped credit lines or the sizeable cash reserves that larger and more mature corporates have."

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Cuomo announces AIG to stop millions in payments to former executives

Halting payments is the least AIG can do considering the life line they received. There is no reason to continue paying out millions to failures for failing. Why Wall Street is still on target to dish out $70 BILLION in 2008 bonus money when they need taxpayers to keep them afloat is another mystery and I sure hope that Congress decides to locate a spine and take action. Maybe Cuomo can come down to Washington and show everyone what a spine looks like.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says American International Group, which is being supported by a federal bailout, has agreed to freeze millions of dollars in compensation and bonuses for former executives.

In a letter to Wednesday to AIG's new chairman, Edward Liddy, Cuomo writes that based on his office's review of company documents, the insurance and finance giant has agreed to stop any payments under former chief executive Martin Sullivan's $19 million pay package.

Also, AIG confirmed that no payments will be made from the $600 million compensation and bonus pools of the company's Financial Products subsidiary, including $162 million in AIG shares awarded through options to the subsidiary's six top executives. The unit was the main source of the troubled insurer's financial problems.

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McCain: Palin is more qualified than Lieberman

Atrios figured out why Lieberman has a sad face. He got dissed by McCain, big time, as they say, when McCain said of Palin:

“I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president.”

That means more qualified than Joe Lieberman. Ouch, Joe. That has got to hurt. Read More......

Republicans Disgusted By RNC Spending On Palin

Yes, while you were fretting over your 401k, Sarah Palin was out buying $150,000 worth of clothes at Neiman Marcus and Saks. Gosh, she's so much like you and me, you betcha.

From The Atlantic's Ambinder:

There is already an attempt to blame the media -- as in, the liberal media would have looked askance at Palin if she wasn't clad in Neiman Marcus, but this won't wash. Republicans, RNC donors and at least one RNC staff member have e-mailed me tonight to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures.

This sort of spending is without precedent -- the closest approximation for any campaign I've ever covered is make-up expenses for television interviews and commercial shoots....

[T]he heat for this story will come from Republicans who cannot understand how their party would do something this stupid ... particularly (and, it must be said, viewed etroactively) during the collapse of the financial system and the probable beginning of a recession.

More from Politico:

The Republican National Committee’s $150,000 investment in Sarah Palin’s wardrobe has prompted some teeth gnashing among the party’s big donors about its political sensibility and a feisty debate among campaign finance specialists about its legality.

“As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,” complained one irate donor on Tuesday.

“I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,” he added. “I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.”...

"$150K is big money,” [a big Republican donor] added. “It kind of makes it worth running. Even if you lose, you’ve got a whole new closet.”

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GOP pulls ad money from crazy Bachmann and anti-gay Musgrave races

Don't let the flag hit you two on the way out.

Two of the nastiest Republicans in the House, now in serious trouble. Hu-freaking-rray. Here's the latest on Bachmann, and here's Musgrave.

A lot of folks have already raised nearly a million for Bachmann's opponent, after she accused the entire United States Congress of being un-American and called for a witchhunt, so we're focusing our energies on Musgrave's opponent, Betsy Markey. Markey is halfway towards our goal of raising her $15,000 - you can give to her via this link. And she's running against crazy Marilyn Musgrave, the woman who introduced the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (the one that ads a gay marriage ban to the US Constitution) in the House.

Musgrave is the religious right's number one puppet in the House. Musgrave thinks that banning gays in the US Constitution is the number one issue America faces today. Uh huh. I don't recall my relationships having a role in Iraq or the crash of the stock market. Here's what Musgrave told the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" (you can watch the video via that link too):

when I was in the last weeks of my last campaign, you know what I was thinking? Where’s our side? What are they doing? And I believe that when you’re in a cultural war like this, you have to respond with equal and hopefully greater force if you want to win this battle. But this battle is the most important issue that we face today, and what an honor it has been to serve in the United States Congress and carry the Marriage Amendment.

Your donation is quite literally a slap at James Dobson, Jerry Falwell (it's never too late), Pat Robertson, and all of Marilyn Musgrave's other creepy friends. Click the donation box and give to Betsy, please, and let's finish Musgrave off once and for all. Read More......

Chuck Todd: There's a "tenseness" between McCain and Palin

Watch this. Todd is a huge observer of American politics, and hugely respected. His observations carry a lot of weight. Huff Post has more, and here's the vid:

"There was a tenseness," Todd told MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "I couldn't see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said 'here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.' They are not comfortable with each other yet."

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Blithering Idiot Watch

"A vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're like the team member, the teammate to that president, but also they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better." - Sarah Palin, yesterday

At least we can be thankful she didn't add "dude."

Now watch the video, below, of McCain's press person (who looks oddly like Cindy, and Vicky Iseman, and Lady Lynn de Redneck, and even a bit like Carly Fiorina) trying to defend Sarah Palin's inane comments about being in charge of the Senate. That is not the vice president's job, as Chris Matthews so eloquently explains. Note how McCain's spokeswoman tries to explain Palin's ineptitude by saying that Palin was trying to give an explanation for a child. Huh? She was talking to a reporter, asking questions for the voters. Now we're to believe that Palin's baby talk in all these interviews iis because she thinks, what, that babies vote? That they watch NBC Nightly News?

Oh, and watch Obama spokesman Bill Burton just sitting there quitely in the background, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. The video also contains Palin's inept answer I quote above.

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Are McCain and Palin at each other's throats?

From Josh Marshall:

MSNBC just ran what we can only call an extraordinary interview with NBC News' Chuck Todd and Brian Williams. They were discussing the interview NBC just did and will soon broadcast of John McCain and Sarah Palin. We'll have the video shortly but what really stood out was the candidness of Todd's discussion of his sense that the wheels may be coming off the campaign and his willingness to discuss what he saw as the tension between the two candidates speculate that McCain may be starting to blame Palin for his campaign tanking.

This is the clip Todd is talking about. Not to mention, I'm glad to see Tina Fey is back. Sarah Palin can't string a normal English sentence together when she does a real interview.

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New flawed AP poll claims McCain and Obama are tied. Will AP's pollster take Nate Silver's challenge?

The Associated Press has released a poll that shows a much closer race than any other poll out ther. Now, Liz "I know what kind of donuts John McCain really likes" Sidoti must have been gleeful that she was chosen to write John McCain's "comeback" piece. (The infamous AP/McCain donut video is below.)

But, the poll doesn't make sense on many levels. Here's one example: 45% of this poll's respondents are evangelicals or born-again Christians (this is on page 20 of the poll's crosstabs (it's a pdf):



The problem? In 2004, evangelicals/born-again Christians made up 23% of voters. But that same group makes up 44% of likely voters in AP's poll released today. That's almost double the number - it's totally implausible.

In 2000 and 2004, there was a very aggressive push for the evangelical vote. In 2000, when the question was asked "Do you consider yourself part of the conservative Christian political movement," 14% of voters said "yes" in exit polls. In 2004, when the question was changed to "Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian?" - the very category AP uses in its current poll - 23% of voters said yes in exit polls.

Did you get that? The percentage of evangelicals/born-agains voting in 2004 was 23%. The percentage of evangelicals/born-agains that AP included in their likely voters scenario is 44%. That's almost twice as many. Consider that 79% of evangelicals voted Republican in the 2004 presidential elections, and we can assume that anyone calling themselves "born-again" might be more prone to voter Republican. This means AP disproportionately skewed its polling towards the GOP base. So it's no surprise that the AP poll shows McCain doing better than in other polls.

With such an outlier, one wonders why the brain trust at AP decided to move ahead releasing this poll. But, the AP brain trust loves McCain. It's not just Sidoti. Remember, AP's Washington bureau chief almost went to work for McCain. He's in that donut video, too.

As Nate Silver so clearly explains, the likely voter models being used by some pollsters, including AP's partner, GfK, aren't making sense. In fact, Nate has issued a challenge to the pollsters who have a wide gap in their models:

I would like to issue a challenge to those pollsters like Franklin & Marshall and GfK which in spite of all the facts above, are showing a substantial shift toward the Republicans when they apply their likely voter models. E-mail me -- my contact information is at the top of the page -- and tell me why you think what you're doing is good science.

I would like to issue a challenge to the Associated Press, too: Put aside your friendship with John McCain, please. At least for the next two weeks, be the objective new source you used to be.

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Palin personal shopper = McCain robocaller = Sen. Norm Coleman's very generous landlord

What a tangled web those Republicans weave. And, this guy, Jeff Larson, is right in the middle of all of it. The Atlantic reports Larson was Palin's "personal shopper" -- but, there's more to Larson than his fashion sense:

Does the name Jeff Larson sound familiar? It should. Larson is the Karl Rove protégé who’s a principal in the robocalling firm of FLS Connect (the “FLS” stands for Tony Feather, Jeff Larson, and Tom Syndhorst, all veteran Republican political operatives). Larson’s firm is the same one that launched the scurrilous robocalls against John McCain in 2000, and that McCain has now hired to make robocalls connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers. He’s also well known in Minnesota for leasing his basement apartment at a steeply discounted rate to embattled Republican Senator Norm Coleman. Evidently, Larson also has quite the eye for women’s fashion. Even hateful liberals would have to admit that Palin dresses awfully nicely.

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Roubini: Recession to last for two years and more surprises to come

Nouriel Roubini was correct about the Wall Street problems well before they came tumbling down. Nothing is carved in stone but considering his previous predictions related to this economic cycle, I'm listening.

The US economy is entering a two-year recession that will be longer and deeper than previously feared, said Nouriel Roubini, a well-known economist and professor at New York University.

"I believe we're going to have two years of negative economic growth," Roubini said on CNBC. "The last two recessions lasted only eight months each ... This time around this is going to be three times as long, three times as deep. This is going to be the worst recession the US has experienced since the 1980s."

A slowdown in global economic growth combined with continued problems in credit markets and housing will haunt the economy, Roubini said.

In addition, he sees hundreds of hedge funds getting wiped out, combining with earnings to provide another weight on stocks.

"I believe that the worst is still ahead of us. I think that the next few weeks and months are going to be negative surprises on the economy," he said. "I think that overall the earnings are going to surprise to the downside."

An expected short recession will be replaced by a reality of a longer and more drawn-out slowdown, Roubini said.

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Palin is dominating news today and that's not good for the GOP

There are 13 days left til November 4th. John McCain is flailing. He's dropping in the polls. The McCain/Palin campaign needs all the good news and message control it can get. But what is the media talking about today? Sarah Palin. Remember when the GOP thought that was a good thing? Not so much anymore.

There are several big Palin-related stories garnering enormous attention. None of them are good for the GOP ticket. All of them throw the McCain/Palin campaign off its message (not that anyone really understands what the GOP message is -- besides the unending negative attacks on Obama.)

But, let's review the political chatter:

First, we're all seeing the video of Palin not knowing what the vice president does. She was stumped by a third grader:



Second, there are the $150,000 worth of clothes paid for by the RNC. That story is garnering enormous coverage on-line and on TV. It's one of those stories that "everyone" is talking about and keeps giving (and will keep giving, I suspect).

Third, Palin's interview with Dobson.

Finally, the NBC/WSJ poll showing Palin is a bigger drag on McCain than Bush. I thought the McCain/Bush association would hurt Bush more than anything. In fact, it's the McCain/Palin association that's most damaging. Ironic that the McCain/Palin made such a big deal about associations and it's the association with his own v.p. that's the most damaging:



John McCain picked Palin for purely political reasons and to shake up the race. Be careful what you ask for, John McCain. Read More......

Palin: McCain favors government forcing rape victims to carry their rapist's baby to term

Is she a blithering idiot, a liar, or informing us that now McCain has ditched his earlier positions on abortion (and gays)? You decide. From The Atlantic's Ambinder:

Dr. James Dobson today asked Gov. Sarah Palin about her private conversations with Sen. McCain about the Republican platform's planks on life and marriage.

"In your private conversations with Senator McCain is it your impression that he also strongly supports those views? I know that he did not oppose that platform when it was written. Do you think he will implement it?"

Good question. A lot of social conservatives worry about this.

Governor Palin responded: "I do, from the bottom of my heart. I am such a strong believer that McCain believes in those strong planks and we do have good conversations about some of the details too, about the different planks and what they represent."

The 2008 GOP platform is a bit more conservative than it was in 2004. If McCain is going to implement it - something of which Palin is convinced from the bottom of her heart - then that means that McCain will support a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion (including those cases where the mother was raped or was the victim of incest), a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and he will oppose government-sponsored embryonic stem cell research.

Either Palin trying to mislead Dobson, equivocate, or perhaps he doesn't know what her running mate believes. McCain opposes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.... He supports embryonic stem cell research...he opposes a constitutional amendment banning all abortion. Read the platform for yourself: On abortion... on gay marriage... on stem cells...

So McCain is now in favor of forcing rape victims to carry their rapists' babies to term? This should be fun. Read More......

Meet Sarah Palin's $13,000/month beautician

Sarah is so Joe Six Pack.

Well, if Joe Six Pack were Ivana Trump.



Sarah Palin spent $13,200 last month on make-up alone (that's $158,400 a year). That's $4,000 more than John McCain spent on his beauty treatments in September ($8,672.55 a month, or $104,000 a year). Palin's one month expense for make-up is about a quarter of Joe the Plumber's annual income. Then again, it takes a lot of expensive make-up when you're wearing $150,000 in clothes. Read More......

McCain mistakenly says "c*nt" (insert a "u") at campaign event today

Watch Cindy's face.



Yeah, it's funny. And sad. But it's also relevant. Watch the video below - it's based on a true story. Oh, and the video is definitely not safe for work (the audio isn't). You can watch a safe for work version here.

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Al-Qaeda endorses McCain (seriously)

From AP:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

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Call center workers in two states quit over anti-Obama scripts

Two different states. Karma's a bitch.

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Compare McCain 18 months ago to McCain today

I was watching a video I posted earlier from TPM, and I noticed how strong, smart and energetic McCain was during one of the Republican debates. It was a McCain I'd not seen for a long while, but one I vaguely remembered. I checked the date and saw it was from May of last year, 2007. Then I watched McCain making his gaffe yesterday in Pennsylvania. They're two totally differently people. The McCain of today is less sure of himself, stumbles with his words, loses his train of thought, gets confused. He looks much older. He evens sounds older. The old McCain (of 18 months ago) had a lower voice. The new McCain has a higher raspy voice. It's kind of weird how much he's aged in just 18 months - and he's not even president yet. So I put the videos side by side. See for yourself.

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Pennsylvania???

The McCain strategy to focus resources on Pennsylvania doesn't make sense to political analysts -- and me. But, that's because there is no sense behind it. It's desperation. The McCain staffers come from the Rove school. They try to play mind games and use fake-out strategies. They like to think they can outsmart everyone watching. But, fighting for Pennsylvania exposed the reality that they are actually just bad political strategists. If they want to dump money into PA, let them. Meanwhile, Obama can keep racking up the vote in the really competitive states.

From the Los Angeles Times:

John McCain's efforts to snare Pennsylvania appear to be faltering despite a substantial commitment of his time, leaving him with a narrower path to the magic number of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

McCain is targeting Pennsylvania in hopes of winning at least one state that voted for Democrat John F. Kerry in 2004. With 21 electoral votes, a victory in Pennsylvania could offset possible losses in smaller states captured by President Bush in the last contest.

Yet by any number of measures, McCain's prospects are dimming. An aggregate of public polls shows Barack Obama with a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 1.1 million, about twice the gap in 2004, state figures show.

What's more, prominent Republicans worry that McCain's message is flawed or is being drowned out by waves of Obama ads.

The New York Times:

People are scratching their heads: Why is Senator John McCain here?

Senator Barack Obama has a double-digit lead in recent Pennsylvania polls. Senator John Kerry beat President Bush here in 2004. The previous three Democratic presidential candidates won, too. And this year there are 1.2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.

But in these frantic last weeks of the 2008 campaign, Mr. McCain has lavished time and money on this now deep-blue state — he made three stops here on Tuesday — as if his political life depended on it. And, from his campaign’s point of view, it does.

“We need to win Pennsylvania on Nov. 4, and with your help — with your help — we’re going to win!” Mr. McCain shouted to the crowd in his first appearance of the day, at a manufacturing plant in Bensalem, north of Philadelphia, where he said that Mr. Obama would raise their taxes and was too untested to handle an international crisis.

Mr. McCain’s strategists insisted that the state and its 21 electoral votes were within reach and crucial to what they acknowledge is an increasingly narrow path to victory. They say that their own polls show Mr. McCain only seven or eight percentage points behind Mr. Obama. (The state polls that show Mr. Obama with a double-digit lead, all conducted in recent weeks, include surveys by Marist, Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, SurveyUSA and The Allentown Morning Call.)

Keep it up, McCain campaign.

QUICK UPDATE @ 9:10 a.m.: I'm watching MSNBC. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell travels with McCain -- and is pretty much a McCain campaign spokesperson. The McCain people told O'Donnell that their polls show movement towards McCain. No one else is seeing it, but O'Donnell seems to believe it because surely no one on the McCain campaign would ever lie. And, Kelly wants us to know that McCain has spent an awful lot of time in New Hampshire. O'Donnell is one painful reporter. All she does is regurgitate McCain talking points.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the Pollster.com chart. It's worse for McCain than Iowa:
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