US Embassy attacked in Yemen

I did not get to this yesterday, but this was really big news. The US was very lucky that none of our embassy workers were killed. This has Al Qaeda written all over it. Yemen and Al Qaeda do share a history, and Yemen is a country that has a lot of people who sympathize with it. Gunmen dressed in camouflage uniforms drove up and began firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint outside the heavily fortified United States Embassy compound, and detonated two car bomb. Ten people were killed before six of the attackers were killed.

Seven US troops killed in Iraq chopper crash

Seven American soldiers were killed on Thursday when their transport helicopter crashed in southern Iraq, the deadliest such incident in the country for over a year, the US military said. It was a CH-47 Chinook that went down. These are old helicopters that have been put under a lot of stress over the last five years. It is actually a testament to our men and women in the military who keep those helicopters up in the air.

Enemy activity is not suspected, but I do suspect that this may be a case of equipment fatigue.

The AFP has more here.

Obama’s new Economic ad: ‘Plan for Change’

LibertyAirBlog presents Obama’s new 2 minute Economic ad: ‘Plan for Change’

This is a bit different, and I have to say I like it. Instead of the typical 30 second add, Barak does a full 2 minutes, where he is talking to the camera, no music, no graphics, just having a conversation. This allows him to talk directly to voters and gives him the opportunity to explain his positions in a more detailed fashion.

John McCain: The Deregulator

The Center for American Progress and Media Matters have come together to create a great website: Progressive Accountability.org/

Today's post hits John McCain on his supposed populism and points out he has been at the forefront of deregulation. In fact He loves to deregulate.

I don’t think anyone who wants to increase the burden of government regulation and higher taxes has any real understanding of economics and the economy and what is needed in order to ensure the future of this country.”– John McCain [McCain Town Hall in Inez, Kentucky, 4/23/08]

McCain announced that he supported a banking bill because it eliminated “The Tremendous Regulatory Burden Imposed On Financial Institutions.”

In 1999, McCain Supported Phil Gramm’s Banking Deregulation Bill

In 1999, John McCain voted for passage of the Senate version of a bill that would eliminate current barriers erected by the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act and other laws that impede affiliations between banking, securities, insurance and other firms. The bill also would exempt small, non-urban banks from the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), revise the Federal Home Loan Bank system and require that owners of automated teller machines (ATMs) provide notice on the ATM and on-screen of any charges imposed for the use of the terminal. The bill passed 54-44. [S. 900, Vote #105, 5/6/99]

The list goes on and on….

The Truth About Obama & Taxes

There is a lie that continues to bounce around that Barak Obama is going to raise taxes on all Americans. The most egregious is that he is his going to raise the taxes on someone make $42,000 a year. This is a lie. A flat out lie.

It is true that the Obama's tax plan will increase income taxes on some Americans, while McCain will give a tax cut to all Americans, but considering the debt this nation is already burdened by, and the increasing deficits, McCain's plan is insane.

Look at the chart below to see where you are and whether you can expect a tax increase or a tax decrease.



Now personally I think even Barak Obama's plan is not the right one. I do think there will have to be some belt tightening by the entire country because of the hole the Bush administration has put us in. We are a nation with an economy that is teetering because of the excesses of the Republican party. However Obama's plan is head and shoulders above John McCain's. If your personal income taxes are important to you, you might want to consider voting for the candidate that gives you the greatest tax cut.

'TROOPERGATE' UPDATE

Newsweek reports that Ed O'Callaghan, a former U.S. Attorney dispatched to Alaska by the McCain campaign, is actively trying to shut the investigation down.

The AP reports that Alaska's Republican state attorney general is blocking state employees from honoring legislative subpoenas, and explained yesterday that the officials are refusing to testify as part of the investigation.

TPM's Zachary Roth reports that Alaskan Republicans have enlisted out-of-state, right-wing lawyers to file suit, hoping to halt the investigation.

The AP reports John McCain and his campaign are trying to quell 'Troopergate' with e-mail releases.

However despite this coverage, this scandal is still relatively behind the scenes, and not getting the attention it deserves from the mainstream media. John McCain and his campaign are throwing out a full court press, out to destroy Walt Monegan. They have turned viscious to the point even conservative Alaskans are surprised by the new-found McCain-driven efforts to destroy Walt Monegan's reputation.

You really can't experience the full effect of Monday's news conference featuring Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton unless you hear it for yourself. Stapleton passionately attacked former Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan. Her rhetoric was plain, desperate, and obvious. Her tone, pure shrill.

With intensity, urgency, and alarm in her voice, Stapleton described Monegan's behavior as commissioner as egregious insubordination, full of obstructionist conduct and a brazen refusal to follow instructions.

Did Walt Monegan, former Marine, and lifetime crime fighter deserve this? Of course not.
But history has proven, get in the way of Sarah Barracuda's political ambition, and you won't know what hit you.

In a reasonable world these circumstances would create a genuine feeding frenzy among the media. In the middle of a campaign for the Presidency we have a VP pick in the midst of an ethics scandal. A scandal which involves a candidate for the second highest national office in the land, who appears to have lied, has been caught lying, who keeps changing her story, and has a history of this behavior. We have promises from the candidate of full cooperation, followed by complete and total obstinacy. We have powerful Republicans converging on the state of Alaska to shut down a legitimate investigation. We havea serious political scandal, which a presidential campaign is doing its best to obstruct. You can't write a better script. How is the bulk of the media missing this?


LibertyAirBlog

John McCain Vs. John McCain On Regulation

Think Progress's Wonk Room has a great post comparing John McCain pre-financial meltdown versus the new "populist" John McCain we have seen since last Monday.

In the last few days, the U.S. financial system has been thrown into turmoil by the failure of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, the troubles of insurance giant AIG, and the corresponding drop in the stock market.

This evidently sparked a debate regarding government regulation of the financial markets within the McCain campaign, and McCain just can’t decide which way he wants to have it.

• Here is a look at McCain’s back-and-forth on regulation during the last 24 hours:
  Deregulation: McCain issued a statement Monday morning saying that “we cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks.”
  
• Regulation: McCain’s campaign then put out an ad calling for “tougher rules on Wall Street.”
  
• Deregulation: This morning, on NBC’s Today Show, McCain said, “Of course, I don’t like excessive and unnecessary government regulation.”
  Regulation: Then, on CBS’s The Early Show, McCain said, “Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes.”
  
• Both: On CNBC’s Squawk Box, McCain said, “We don’t want to burden average citizens with over-regulation and government bureaucracy…And I’m proud to be a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, who said, ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption,’ and we’ve got to fix this.”

The video of McCain’s morning show flip-flop is available on Think Progress here.
As the New York Times wrote this morning, while McCain has “struck a populist tone” in advocating regulation, “his record on the issue, and the views of those he has always cited as his most influential advisers, suggest that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation.” In fact, in 1995, “Mr. McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds.”

Lie Counter at 56

McCain's Lie Counter Rolls On


Brought to you by LibertyAirBlog

ABC: McCain lied when he said that he warned econ crisis was coming

ABC's Jake Tapper quotes McCain just last December saying that he never knew this was coming at all. Such a freaking liar. Or utterly lost his mind.

[Jake Tapper quoting McCain yesterday]

"Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. "The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.”

How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007?....

“But so, in this whole new derivative stuff, and SIBs and all of this kind of new ways of packaging mortgages together and all that is something that frankly I don’t know a lot about.

"But I do rely on a lot of smart people that I have that are both in my employ and acquaintances of mine. And most of them did not anticipate this. Most of them, I mean I can find some that did. But, a guy that’s on my staff named Doug Holtz-Eakin, who was once the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said that there was nervousness out there. There’s nervousness. There was nervousness that we had such a long period of prosperity without a downturn because of the history of our economy. But I don’t know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said ‘wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.'

"So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not.”

By the way, Doug Holtz would be the guy who claimed that we have John McCain to thank for having invented the BlackBerry. This is who McCain relies on for economic advice. No wonder John McCain has been clueless.

Tax and Spend Palin Lies about Obama Tax Cuts

If the media is paying attention, Sarah Palin's tax record is pretty clear. A real and honest look at Palin's record tells a story of raising taxes and run away spending. And since that's not enough for the rugged individuals of Alaska, gobbling federal tax money at a rate higher than any other state in the union.

With a record like hers, it's no wonder she's lying yet again and distorting the Obama tax cuts for most Americans.

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

Under the state constitution, the governor of Alaska has unusually strong powers to shape the state budget. At the Republican National Convention, Palin bragged that she had vetoed "nearly $500 million" in state spending during her two years as governor. This amounts to less than 2% of the proposed budget. That's how much this warrior for you (the people) against it (the government) could find in wasteful spending under her control.

Carly Fiorina, we hardly knew you...

In one of the oddest moments yesterday, Yesterday, Carly Fiorina, a very prominent McCain advisor/surrogate, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, who had been seriously discussed as a VP candidate, made a monumental boneheaded statement. On TV she argued that she wouldn't trust Sarah Palin to run a large company. Soon after, hoping to make the situation better, Fiorina said John McCain wasn't qualified to lead a large company, either. Talk about needing to stop digging when your already in a hole.

The general consensus last night on the cable news shows was that we probably won't be hearing from Carly Fiornia for a while. Chris Matthews said she would be gone by Midnight.

A top McCain official contacted by CNN said, on condition on anonymity, "No big deal, but not how you get on the surrogate all-star team. Very Biden-like."

"This campaign source said Fiorina would be discouraged from additional media interviews.

Another top campaign adviser was far less diplomatic. "Carly will now disappear," this source said. "Senator McCain was furious." Asked to define "disappear," this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while -- but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party's joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.

Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have now been canceled.

Think Progress is reporting that John McCain is reportedly furious with Fiorina.
Another McCain campaign aide told CNN that "important people are mad because the timing is horrible."
My only question is what took the McCain campaign so long to grow tired of one of its top surrogates. In July, discussing consumer-driven health insurance, Fiorina proposed "a real, live example which I've been hearing a lot about from women: There are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won't cover birth-control medication. Those women would like a choice." When McCain was asked whether he agreed, it led to one of the more embarrassing moments of the summer.
Soon after, Fiorina told Bloomberg News that McCain would be open to increasing taxes on wealthier Americans. The campaign had quickly walk that back.
And soon after that, Fiorina, on NBC, contradicted McCain on No Child Left Behind policy.

Amnesty International says Iraq is being flooded with weapons

LibertyAirBlog is very concerned about what is happening in Iraq. Unlike the mainstream media, I am concerned by the news that has been coming from that war torn country.

The US and the UK are doing too little to interdict the flood of weapons that have been descending on Iraq. The calm that has fallen on Iraq belies the tensions that are still there. Adding weapons to the mix is just a rescipe for disaster. Amnesty International estimates that more than 1m small arms have been sold to Iraq. Iraq has signed more than $3bn worth of arms deals in the past two years.

The Guardian in UK has more about this story.

When the war starts again, there will be plenty of weapons to fight with. The coming war in Iraq will make the last five years look mild.

White House Hides While Seeking Money

With Wall Street in turmoil, the White House yesterday canceled all press coverage of President Bush’s meeting with his chief advisory group on the reeling financial markets. They of course were looking where they could find 85 million dollars.

George W. Bush had been scheduled to make a statement Tuesday to a pool of White House reporters after huddling with his financial working group. That didn’t happen.

Spokesman Tony Fratto said the White House had decided it would be best to limit public comment about markets. Yes, the American public will feel better the less we see of Bush. I know every time I am reminded that he is running the ship, I get more jittery.

The meeting went on as planned. The group is led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and included Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the chairpersons of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It is a good bet this is where the decision to reverse course and bail out AIG took place.

MoveOn.org: McCain No Friend of Yours

LibertyAir is proud to bring you MoveOn.org hits McCain for his Lobbyist connections. A strong punch from another liberal group. Liberal's seem to have taken the lessons of the last 8 years to heart.

Is The Media Falling Out Of Love With McCain?

Eric Boehlert thinks the bloom is off the rose…

Did you hear the media are mad? According to Howard Kurtz at The Washington ost, the press is angry at McCain for his patently untrue lipstick attack (”It’s false. It’s ridiculous”), and they’re seething over how Sarah Palin keeps telling her
demonstrably false Bridge to Nowhere tale even after members of the media
pointed out her stump-speech applause line was a lie. (A “whopper.”)

During the past week, virtually every major news outlet has produced welcomed, hard-edged fact-checking pieces about how the Republican ticket goes far beyond bending the truth and just plain snaps it out on the campaign trail.

In the past, that kind of truth-telling would have embarrassed campaigns and likely caused a dramatic change in the rhetoric. But what do McCain and Palin do in response? They pretty much ignore the press and its critiques.

Writing on The New Republic’s website, Eve Fairbanks spelled out the conundrum, capturing the dumbfounded realization that spread through the press corps. It’s like that scene in a movie when the superhero realizes his unique power (for the press, it’s collective indignation) has suddenly been rendered useless:

Reporters demolished the claim that the Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, and yet the McCain campaign insolently still uses it. Writers dismantled the McCain campaign’s untrue assertion that Barack Obama compared Sarah Palin to a pig yesterday, and yet the campaign put out an audacious ad featuring the ridiculous allegation, presumably on the assumption that Real Americans don’t care what the elite press says anyway.

Instead of recoiling, the Republican ticket seems to have adopted a post-press approach to campaigning in which the candidates simply don’t care what the press does or says about their honesty. More to the point, the candidates don’t think it will matter on Election Day.

They may be right. And that’s the media’s fault. They’ve reported their way right into the margins. Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press, I think, has damaged its ability — its authority — to referee the campaign.
Now if they would stop trying to draw false equivalencies between McCain’s repeated lies and Obama’s rhetoric…

Or if the media would just report honestly the critiques coming from Democratic Party spokespeople instead of bringing on McCain proxy after proxy. Or worse, just admitting that giving viewers fact is beyond their pay scale.

The Daily Show tackles the rape-kit controversy

LibertyAirBlog is proud to bring you another great clip from the Daily Show. The best source of political commentary today (which is actually kind of sad for America). Jon Stewart again shows the sheer absurdity that is Sarah Palin.



Seriously the crowd has the only reaction an honest caring person can have when hearing about the rape kit story.

Stewart also shows, Sarah Palin = George W. Bush with Lipstick

One More Obama ad

LibertyAirBlog is proud to bring you another right to McCain's midsection. The Obama Campaign is landing punch after punch. A Democrat fighting back, did we ever think it would happen? This ad is about McCain's stance on equal pay for equal work.

Obama ad: John McCain doesn't understand the economy is broken

A jab to McCain's face brought to you by LibertyAirBlog. Barak keeps jabbing at John McCain. Hopefully the public takes notice.



Great turn around by the Obama Campaign, a really good hard hitting ad that is in line with the headlines and in the minds of American voters. Makes great use of McCain's own words. Of course the McCain campaign will whine that this ad is unfair -- because it quotes the candidate.

BREAKING: Feds to give AIG $85 billion bailout

Americablog has a great post on the Breaking News: The U.S. government has agreed to provide an $85 billion emergency loan to rescue the huge insurer AIG, the The Federal Reserve said Tuesday.

This of course is the day after Treasurey Secretary Paulson said there would be no more bailouts. That lasted almost a whole 24 hours.

From Americablog:

Jesus Christ.

Chris commented yesterday on the wisdom of bailing out AIG, he's calling it AIG's very own "Bridge to Nowhere":

Why would taxpayers want to extend a $40 billion bridge loan to AIG? This company has been mismanaged and gambled, so good luck figuring out how to make ends meet like everyone else. Maybe AIG should have spent more time worrying about being a sound company instead of making sure their CEO was showered with riches.

More from Chris on the implications of an AIG bailout:

Also in the news late Sunday night was long-troubled insurer AIG, another failure who overextended themselves in the housing bubble. And yes, another company who showered their CEO in riches, who still has that money as the company crumbles based on his bad decisions. (Great work, when you can get it.) AIG is asking the US taxpayers to kindly pass along a bridge loan of $40 billion to help them get through tough times. Is there really a polite way to say "sod off" or do we even need to be polite with these spongers? Call in Nancy Reagan and "just say no" to them all. Let them fail or else they will drag us all underwater with bad debt. Investor Wilbur Ross is saying that we could possibly see 1,000 banks in US fail as they did after the John McCain Keating Five/S&L crisis in the 1980s. The flashy banks and financial services companies all wanted the rugged free enterprise system for those with the least but CEO socialism for those at the top. Let them go under and let them live with the consequences, just as the rest of Americans who have been on the receiving end of the credit crisis.

This past July, Chris wrote of how AIG gave its failed CEO a $47 million severance package for
his troubles:

Poor fellow.

I hope that he will be OK though he does have the advantage of having an office and secretary until the end of the year. This is a new era, where record losses are ignored and multi-million dollar golden hand shakes are given along with a nice peck on the cheek. Let's be honest, corporate America would do this for any employee, especially after years of being treated so well with no luxury too much. Just because he was paid massive amounts based on bad business and now is being paid yet again despite the company writing down billions doesn't mean he didn't deserve it. Hey, he had a contract! Legal wasn't able to find any of those famous loopholes despite AIG losing billions upon billions.

What's that? Your company won't even pay for all of your family health insurance after working there for 10 years? Well, you people are always so greedy and just ask for too much. Shouldn't you be working now anyway?

Was this a good move? Time will tell...

Lie Counter at 55

McCain's Lie Counter Rolls On

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DNC Video: Fundamentally Strong?

New DNC add hitting John McCain for his gaff yesterday.

Obama lets McCain have it on the economy.

Today Barak Obama blasted John McCain's idea of a commission to solve the economic mess, calling it a stunt and passing the buck.



Another pucn to McCain's midsection. Barak keeps up the pressure.

More on McCain's Dishonor

You know things have turned in the campaign when Richard Cohen, who has been one of John McCain's biggest fans, has now turned on McCain because of his lies:

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

But I Thought the Fundementals Were Strong?

The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department continue to struggle to contain the fallout from an upheaval among the country's largest investment banks as they moved on to their next challenge -- engineering a $75 billion private rescue of the nation's largest insurance company.

We now are learning that American International Group, faces a cash crunch that grew more severe last night. Dow futures were already struggling due to AIG cash injection problems. Then Goldman Sachs came out this morning with news that their third-quarter earnings plunged 70 percent and revenue was lower than expected as the market slump sapped almost every business, knocking down its shares.

As investors digested the news, some economists worried whether Wall Street's troubles were spilling over into other parts of the economy, renewing pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates when it meets today.

Early this morning Dow futures were in positive territory until AIG financing problems were raised. When Goldman released this news, the futures dropped from around -40 to well over -130. Goldmand Sachs is one of those names that everyone knows, so for them to have any trouble is going to cause a ripple. They have been the darlings of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, for instance, was asked by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to help AIG, a $1 trillion-asset insurance company that serves 74 million consumers in 130 countries. That they missed their number by 70%, will make a jittery market even more nervous. Goldman and J.P. Morgan Chase are supposed to be the best performing and most stable players on Wall Street. JP Morgan J.P. is currently serving as AIG's financial adviser, has to seek support for a credit line of $70 billion to $75 billion that would involve multiple lenders, spreading the risk, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

Wall Street generally dislikes small misses, 70% shortfalls is not a small miss, this is the kind of news that often causes shocks to the market. The market is looking for anything positive to grab onto to keep it afloat so between the news from AIG and now Goldman, we could see another day of selling, forcing the Dow lower and creating even more concern about the direction of the economy.

Stocks' plunge yesterday showed that investors remained nervous. Shares opened lower but generally traded in the same range until the last hour of trading -- when a 300-point drop in the Dow became a 504.48-point rout, bringing it to 10,917.51, moving below the 11,000 mark for the first time since mid-July. The technology-heavy Nasdaq was down more than 3.5 percent, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was down 4.7 percent.

The financial sector was among the hardest hit. Bank of America closed down 21 percent, while Wachovia fell 25 percent. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two remaining survivors of what were once Wall Street's Big Five, report quarterly earnings this week -- and closed down 12 and 14 percent respectively.

Palin-McCain Bridge to... Somewhere?

Let's hope that McCain's free ride on the Double-Talk Express may be at an end. Great stuff from Tom Toles.

Count the Lies

The DNC's New McCain Lie Counter is here.

Though I wish they had created an actual counter that I could embed on this site, the Democratic National Committee will count and chronicle the lies of John McCain on the McCainPedia's "Count the Lies" page.

Currently the DNC has 52 lies that John McCain and his campaign have told the American public over the last few months. To date, independent, nonpartisan fact checkers have published more than 50 fact checks debunking John McCain's lies and distortions.

Check out the site and see what you think.

You Knew It Had To Happen

Tina Fey was on Saturday Night Live last weekend in a very funny skit where she played the role she was born to play.



Now the question is whether Tina Fey will return to play Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. LibertyAirBlog sincerly hopes so.

Of course falling into their typical whine, the McCain campaign sent out surrogate Carly Fiorina to decry Tina Fey and SNL as “sexist.” Fiorina argued that the skit was “totally superficial” (she does realize it was SNL right?), “disrespectful in the extreme” (again SNL), and “sexist.”

McCain Has No Record On Economic Reform - ‘Zero’

LibertyAirBlog:
Think Progress has a post today about John McCain and the years of right-wing economic policies that have created the financial crisis we face today. The mortgage bubble resulted when Fed chief Alan Greenspan kept interest rates at historic lows for way longer than he should have or was needed, and the Republican led government failed to regulate numerous questionable practices in the financial sector.

Today the McCain campaign released a new campaign ad that states, “Our economy in crisis. Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it.”

Yet the question the media should ask, what reforms have John McCain and Sarah Palin done in the financial or economic sector.? Considering the number of lobbyists who have represented AIG, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bank of America on John McCain's campaign staff, how much change can the American public truely expect?

Think Progress notes that on Bloomberg Television this weekend, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank noted that, as a leader in the Senate Republican caucus, McCain did nothing for years to deliver reform in the face an impending credit crisis.

Check the video here:

Barney Frank on McCain's financial reform record
by faizshakir

McCain On 'Black Monday': Economy Still Strong

John McCain seems bound and determined to prove he was right when he said that he does not know much about the economy.

Despite the deluge of bad news coming out about the economy, Senator McCain declared this morning that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Yet even as he was saying how strong the economy is he went on to describe the news out of Wall Street as "tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street." Can you say "disconnect"?

Further proof that John McCain has no clue as to what is happening in his own campaign, much less the economy, the McCain campaign released a television ad this morning that began: "Our economy is in crisis."



McCain seems to be going along with the same line of reasoning that many conservatives and his supporters have been arguing for months that despite Wall Street's failings, the economy is actually on firm footing. This of course goes against the prevailing sentiment of most economists, and economic experts.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, Donald Luskin, who described himself as "an adviser to John McCain's campaign," made such an argument in Sunday's Washington Post.

Despite modest growth and relatively low unemployment rates, many economists see dire signs in today's economic landscape. On Sunday, former fed chairman Alan Greenspan said the market was the worst he had ever witnessed and predicted another major bank would close soon. Meanwhile, inflation is rising, real wages are declining, and the problems in the housing market persist.

To be fair, John McCain did acknowledge some of this in his speech this morning, when he said, "I promise you we will never put America in this position again." The odd thing is John McCain is getting a lot of his economic advice from Phil Gramm, whose policies are responsible for a lot of this mess.

This is why I take no comfort hearing McCain say, "This is a failure. We've got take every action to build an environment of robust energy supplies, lower inflation, control health care costs, access to international markets, low taxes and reduce burden of government to allow people to move forward toward a future of prosperity."

The Obama campaign has regularly tweaked John McCain for having said that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." They had used it enough that last week, the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman searching high and low for something to criticize Obama since they were being forced to point out McCain’s lies. Weisman’s criticism of Barak Obama was that he had the temerity to point out McCain’s line, insisting that the quote is "months old". Weisman didn't actually do any research since John McCain had said it again on August 20th on the Laura Ingrahm radio show.

Hopefully the Obama campaign will keep up this attack. McCain is not ready to be President.

Obama Ad: McCain's Ads "Vile," "Truth Be Damned," Distortions

As promised last week, the Obama campaign is "taking the fight" to John McCain with a tough new ad entitled "Honor."


Most of the commercial's script comes straight from editorials blasting John McCain's recent distortions on the stump and on the air, and the only live-action shot is a 2000-era clip of McCain, saying, "I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land."

McCain To Media: I'll Lie If I Want To

I was shocked to read this on Talking Points Memo yesterday, a conservative operative actually said something that was true. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers told the Politico during an interview "We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it." This was his answer to a question about the increased media scrutiny of the campaign's lies, exaggerations, and fictional claims.

So basically this McCain spokesman was saying they are going to lie their heads off if they think it will help them win. And let me tell you, they really believe that lying will win them the Presidency of the United States, and that's all that matters to them. They also believe there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. They have taken to heart the lessons of their mentor, Karl Rove.

Just how baldly is John McCain lying? He's lying so egregiously that, dday noted on the blog Hullabaloo, even Karl Rove thinks McCain's gone too far. The women of the View felt compelled to call McCain on his lies (McCain of course just lied some more). The AP which has been completely in the bag for John McCain is saying the "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak. Even Fox News' Megyn Kelly was downright indignant, on the air, about the McCain campaign's dishonesty. Columnist Paul Krugman may have summed it up best when he described the McCain campaign as a Blizzard of Lies.

To win this election John McCain has thrown away his honor and given control of his campaign to men who now are making a circus of this election, leveling unserious and dishonest accusations, and don't care if they are called on it, because they figure they can get 51% of the election before anyone notices.

It is time that Barak Obama, Joe Biden, and the entire Democratic party confront the disaster that is current Republican party head on, no punches pulled, and point out they have no honor, no integrity, no honesty, and a track record of failure so large it cannot be understood.

The media is giving the Obama campaign an opening to set the narrative. They have to seize it.

What Obama Needs to Hit Next

This Sunday I picked up the Washington Post and read their opinion section and was thoroughly shocked by an inane opinion piece by Donald Luskin. His "contribution" to economic discourse was called "Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line" It was an inexplicable, incomprehensible column that ran awfully long, whose argument is basically that the economy’s fine

It would have been an odd argument to make on any day for the past six months, but being printed yesterday while US and the world markets were collapsing, its insane. Of course Luskin didn't know that when his opinion piece was printed we were going to have a complete financial meltdown.

Look at some of the headlines being thrown out there this morning: World Stocks Sink... Meltdown Monday... US Stocks Sharply Lower... Deal: Merrill Sells Itself To Bank Of America For $50 Billion... Lehman Files For Bankruptcy... Fed Takes Measures To Aid Financial Markets... “Once-in-a-Century” Financial Crisis ... Markets Shaken as Two Big Banks Falter... Wall Street Meltdown... Insurance Giant AIG Scrambles For Cash... Banks Roll Out $70 Billion Loan Program... AIG SENDS AN S.O.S.... U.S. Trade Deficit of $62.2 Billion Exceeds Forecast... Greenspan: America Can't Afford McCain's Tax Plan... Dow Jones Plummets in Early Trading... Stocks in U.S. Drop as Lehman Bankruptcy Deepens Turmoil in Credit Markets... Banks borrow more from Fed...

Luskin did what every typical conservative "economic advisor" does when trying to make such a stupid argument in the face of reality. He presented bunches and bunches of data, most out of context, or presented without supporting information. One such argument was last quarter's growth, where Luskin explains, real GDP was up 3.3%. Yet he somehow fails to mention that this corresponded with the Congressional stimulus checks, a one time shot to the system, and that the first quarter of 2008 growth was 0.9%, and the last quarter of 2007 it was -0.2%.

The reality of we are seeing in the media is all a lie, according to Luskin all sorts of things are really very good. Luskin is obviously following the Phil Gramm view of the economy, you will remember Phil, top economic advisor for John McCain who famously told the Washington Times in July, America is a "nation of whiners" facing a "mental recession." This from the man who is most responsible for the collapse of Enron, and the financial crisis we are in today.

Luskin argues that that we're not on the brink of a recession, but really on the verge of accelerating prosperity. So why doesn't the American people recognize this? Luskin comes up with a novel answer, he blames Senator Obama. No really he says that Senator Obama is "Patient zero in this epidemic".

I was completely flabbergasted by Luskin's op-ed until I got to the end where he stated "Full disclosure: I'm an adviser to John McCain's campaign". Then I understood why John McCain has no clue about the economy, and Luskin sounded like a Phil Gramm acolyte.

America cannot afford a John McCain Presidency because men like Phil Gramm and Donald Luskin would be given power to affect the US economy. Looking at the headlines of today, I am sure we can't afford that.

McCain and His Lobbyists

Barak Obama has released another hard hitting campaign add. Looks like Senator Obama was not kidding when he said he would be ratcheting up the attacks. I like that he has not come out with hay-makers, but is starting with jabs, and getting stronger with every punch. There will not be any one knock out, but a pounding by a thousand hits.

Hopefully Senator Obama keeps this up. These are good hard attacks that everyone can understand.

McCain Campaign: Lies Don't Matter

Spokesman On McCain Strategy of Campaign Lies From NBC's First Read ...

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said this to the Politico about the increased media scrutiny of the campaign's factual claims: "We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."

This after McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis said during an interview that the 2008 campaign is not one about the issues, but rather the 2008 presidential race will be decided more over personalities. He said this during an interview with Washington Post editors, it was not an off the cuff comment.

Basing a campaign for high office on a strategy of deliberate lies is not an issue of tactics. It calls into question the character of the candidate and his fitness for office.

John McCain has no business ever being President. God help our country if he is ever elected.

McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller with a long history of deploring the kinds of negative tactics that sunk his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. However he now has a strategy cooked up by his Rovian trained advisers that uses his "Straight Talk" image to attack and attack and attack. The whole idea is to shift the campaign toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters rather than defend why he should be President.

Fact Check on Hardball

Crooks & Liars (my favorite blog) does a great job getting out there and grabbing videos about the media and politics.

A editor from PolitiFact was on Hardball this last week and in a very non-partisan manner debunked McCain’s attacks on Obama.

John McCain recently approved the most misleading and sleazy attack ad of the entire political season. The FactCheck.org website even has a new post up saying that McCain’s attack ad is distorted their finding.

Now McCain is trying to claim that the attacks and smears have been coming from Obama. Does McCain have any clue what is going on?

For McCain to say that “these misleading, offensive attacks must be stopped” is downright ridiculous. But then again, it’s becoming clearer every day that McCain’s strategy consists of lying and lying, hoping that the media and fact-checkers can’t keep up. It’s gonna be a long, tedious two months.

Buckle your seat belts.

How to Make an Issue of McCain and Palin's Continued Lying

Crooks & Liars had a very insightful blog post by Anonymous Liberal on Saturday, September 13th, entitled "How to Make an Issue of McCain and Palin's Continued Lying."

This post I believe captures the challenge before liberals and progressives, how do we change the nature of Conventional Wisdom as perceived by the mainstream media, who are to often lost in the bubbles that are Washington DC and New York City.

For years the conventional wisdom of the main stream media has been that John McCain was a maveric who was more concerned with his own honor, and doing what is right, than falling in line with his party. McCain was supposed to be country first, where as Republicans have grown into a Party of Party first, second, and third.

Anyone with half a brain who has been following this campaign knows that John McCain is not the man that the media thought he was. He has not been for a long time (if he ever was), but coventional wisdom is a tough thing to break.

I believe we have been watching the media tie its self into knots, not knowing how to cover John McCain and his campaign. At first they often chose to ignore his mistakes, his fibs, and his exagerations. Then they started to notice, but the narrative was these were just simple mistakes. Now however the sheer weight and volume of the outright lies has made it impossible for the media to ignore.

Now can the media take the next step? Can they accept that John McCain and Sarah Palin will say anything to get elected? Eight years ago the conventional wisdom was that Al Gore had a problem with lying (based almost entirely on lies pushed by Karl Rove and Fox News), then in 2004 the CW was that John Kerry was a serial flip flopper. The CW should now be that John McCain will say anything and sacrifice his honor to be President. That he will lie at the drop of a hat. The media is close, but the question is how do we in the liberal blogosphere keep pushing this line.

Here is what Anonymous Liberal has to say:

The Obama campaign is clearly a little taken aback by the brazenness of the lies emanating from the McCain/Palin campaign. Even by Republican campaign standards, this is pretty flagrant stuff. The real question, though, is how to respond to it, how to go about generating some sort of backlash.

Some are suggesting that Obama should display some genuine outrage, like Bill Clinton did from time to time in 1992 (see this clip, for example). I don't think that's a good idea. In addition to the reality that, as a black candidate, showing anger is a risky proposition, such a display would only reinforce the current Republican narrative that Palin has "gotten under Obama's skin" and he's "starting to lose it."

Obama has instead approached the problem with a light-hearted and mocking tone coupled with a message that the Republicans are trying, yet again, to distract the American people from the real issues. I think that's the right approach to take, in principle, but I don't think it's enough. In order to drive home the point that McCain and Palin are liars, Obama needs to be a little more clever. His retort needs to cut through the clatter and really stick in people's minds. And I think there's a way to do that.

Here's how I imagine Obama responding:

"You know, I was listening to the Governor of Alaska today and she repeated a claim that virtually every news organization has already disproved. She said she "told Congress 'thanks but no thanks' to the Bridge to Nowhere." Then I heard John McCain speak and he repeated that claim too, along with several others that have been disproved: she sold the plane on Ebay, she fired the personal chef, and so on . . . . and while I was listening to all that, something occurred to me. I've been doing this all wrong! You see, I've been limiting my claims to things that are actually true. But campaigning is so much easier when can just make stuff up.

So today I wanted to tell you some things I never have before. Did I ever mention that back in my Chicago days I played professional basketball for the Chicago Bulls? It's true, when Jordan retired, they wanted me to take over at guard, but I said "thanks but no thanks; I've got a job to do in the state Senate." Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned this before either, but my running mate, Joe Biden, he once wrestled a live grizzly bear...and won! He also once sold the entire state of Delaware on Ebay. I kid you not.

I don't know about you, but I feel liberated. This whole truth thing was really holding me back. I mean, John McCain keeps saying that I'm going to raise your taxes, even though every independent organization who's looked at it says that my plan gives you a bigger tax cut than his. Well, two can play at that game. Did you know that under John McCain's economic plan, if you fall behind on a house payment, his staff comes and takes your house away? It's true. I swear. How do you think he got all those other houses?"

Okay, that's enough, hopefully you get the gist. The point of taking this approach is twofold. First, the press would eat it up and play it over and over again. Second, it gets the point across in an effective and memorable way. It turns McCain and Palin's lying into an ongoing joke. And whenever they repeat these lies, they'll be setting themselves up for mockery. It would work. I'm sure of it.

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We must work to make John McCain and his campaign and his lying into an ongoing joke. No one wants to vote for a joke. You don't want to make John McCain into a sympathetic figure, but want people to not take him serious anymore.

What Real Change Means - Barak Obama

Now this is the message that needs to be transmitted to the public. If you've been looking for something to get you fired up (and judging by many of the posts in the liberal blogosphere you do), here it is:

Barack Obama went out yesterday in Concord, New Hampshire, and laid out his argument on what change really means -- from energy, which he knocked out of the park, to education, to foreign policy, to the economy.

He hits all the themes and does it with passion.

'John McCain would rather lose his honor than lose an election.'

Americablog has a great YouTube from ReidReport.com up on their blog. It is the kind of strong attack add that liberals and progressives need to get out to the public.

It's a YouTube video by someone who says that this is the ad she would do if she had a 527. But maybe we don't need a 527. This is the type of video that shows like the Young Turks, Go TV, and even Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show need to start showing. If we can get these types of videos running over and over, and make sure people see them. The Jed Report and others have put together some really great videos. The Young Turks should tap into this and start highlighting such videos. If we get them played enough, maybe we get MSM to take note, and then maybe adds like this make the news.Its all about getting the news out.The closing line of the video is especially great.

Palin - Not Ready For Primetime

Last night Sarah Palin had her first of a couple interviews with Charlie Gibson on ABC, and it really revealed that she is not ready for prime-time, and why she has been kept away from the media.

I will admit that due to the nature of doing multiple interviews, and how the McCain campaign kept complaining about the media, that Charlie Gibson was going to soft ball the interview. I figured we were going to see a "Good Morning America" style interview, and while he was no attack dog, he did ask some very good strong questions.

Even so, Sarah Palin was not ready to do a sit down interview in front of a national audience. She was nervous, uninformed, green and generally not ready for the interview. She continually used stock phrases and cliche's instead of answering the question. It looked like she was answering memorized questions, and often, especially when she was answering Gibson's questions on Russia, was just following what Gibson said. He would say "Georgia" and she would answer, "Oh yes Georgia," he would say "Ukraine," and she would say "Oh yes Ukraine," there was little evidence she would have made the points if Gibson had not brought them up.

If you watch the whole interview you will see that Sarah Palin often repeated the same answers over and over again no matter the question, especially when she looked stumped. She showed little knowledge about how Iran is run, or what is happening in Pakistan, or about al-Qaeda, and even is ignorant of the Bush doctrine of preemptive warfare. No matter how many times the McCain Campaign makes the claim, energy is not an answer to a question about her foriegn policy experience.

You can read the transcript here, though this does not convery the depth of the poor performance, the nervousness and halting way she often answered her questions. It was quite frankly a shockingly bad performance.

She is not ready to be Vice President.

The media has to push for more interviews. They cannot let this woman get into the White House without being vetted. Proximity of Alaska and Russia is not foriegn policy experience. Being from a state with oil is not foriegn policy experience. Threatening Russia is not good foriegn policy experience.

Bad News on the Economy

With the economy weakening and spending on the war rising, the federal budget outlook has deteriorated in both the short-run and the medium-term, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. In its summer budget update, the nonpartisan budget office said the federal deficit would likely double this year compared with last year, and remain at about 3% of gross domestic product for the next two years. For 2008 fiscal year (which ends at the end of the month), the CBO forecast a $407 billion deficit, or about 2.9% of GDP. The deficit should rise to $438 billion in 2009 and $431 billion in 2010. The medium-term projections now assume continued spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also assume that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will expire on schedule.

Unlike the February update, which showed the budget roughly in balance through 2018 under favorable assumptions, the September projection now sees deficits totaling $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years. Those projections assume that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire and that the alternative minimum tax is not changed. If the tax cuts are extended as the White House and the McCain-Palin ticket want, the deficits over the next 10 years would be $4.2 trillion higher than now projected, CBO said.

Palin billed Alaska for sleeping in her own home

The "reformer" Governor Sarah Palin billed the people of Alaska for sleeping in her own home.

What a brave and fearless, fiscal reformer. It has now come out that even as Sarah Palin has sought to portray her self as a budget watching, coupon cutting, small town mom, she has regularly charged the state "per diem" for food expenses while eating at home as well as the travel expenses for the family, including the kid while traveling on state business.

Heck, why should they pay for anything when the state can foot the bill?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions.

And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife even though he has no official role in the government.

Sarah Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, has claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

This all might not sound so bad if she wasn't lying to the country about being a fiscal conservative, and a reformer. However Sarah Palin's lavish spending completely undercuts the moosehunter maverick myth being spun by the McCain campaign, and repeated in every speech (by the way, when is McCain's campaign going to give Palin a new speech? Her covention speech is getting rather tired).

This is exactly the kind of politics as usual that they claim to be running against.

So again, does anyone want to ask John McCain about his so called reformer, or about the "so called" vetting process that was done on Palin? Did he know about her per diem charges? Did he even care? What kind of a presidential candidate fails so badly in his first major decision?

Charging Rape Victims

I have heard and read a little about this story for a week now, but I was not sure what to think. It was just to disgusting to believe, but sadly it is proving true.

Under the mayoral leadership of Sarah Palin, rape victims in Wasilla were charged for their own rape kits. A rape kit is a sexual assault forensic evidence kit, used to collect DNA that can be used in criminal proceedings to assist in the conviction of those who commit sex crimes. The kit is performed as soon as possible after a sexual assault or attack has been committed. It is usually humiliating and uncomfortable for the victim-imagine enduring that and then paying $1200 just so that the criminal who assaulted you might be caught. I couldn't even believe this article, it's just so disgusting. This article was published in Frontiersman which is the local Wasilla newspaper back in 2000, so it isn't a hit piece aimed at Sarah Palin because of her rise in the national media.

Feministing weighs in on this disturbing news.

Really, how can women vote for a woman like Sarah Palin who would charge rape victims for their own forensic exams?

Just so you know, Wasilla was unique in Alaska in this practice of charging victims, per a press story at the time.

And not that the story could get any worse, but apparently the reason they charged rape victims for their own police forensic exams was in order to keep taxes low. Yes, Sarah Palin's "tax cutting" policies led to rape victims being charged for their own exams, because low taxes was more important. Yes, Sarah Palin didn't want to "burden" taxpayers with having to support victims of rape. Yes, they were more interested in lowering taxes then justice or supporting the victim of a most despicable crimes. It would have cost the city between $5,000 and $14,000 a year to pay for the rape victims' police medical exams. And if the City of Wasilla, circa the year 2000, wants to go there in terms of balancing rape vs, burdening taxpayers, you should know that each and every Alaskan gets a check from the state government each year, it contains their portion of that year's oil revenues. The check would have been over $2,000. With an estimated population of 5000, the citizens of Wasilla were saved $1.00 to $3.00. I think the citizens of Wasilla had the money.

The Anchorage Daily News has some questions for Sarah Palin

The Anchorage Daily News, the big paper in Alaska, has some questions for Sarah Palin, should she ever deign to come out of hiding.

There's no polite way to say it: Sarah Palin has been hiding out from hard questions. It took 10 days from when John McCain announced his pick until the McCain campaign agreed to schedule Palin an unscripted interview with a serious journalist.

• You present yourself as a Republican maverick who took on your own party's corrupt political establishment. In November's election, your party is running an indicted U.S. Senator, Ted Stevens, who is awaiting trial on charges he accepted more than $250,000 of unreported gifts from the state's most powerful lobbyist. Will you vote for his opponent? Will you urge Alaskans to help you change Washington and vote him out of office? If not, why not?

• Sen. Ted Stevens' trial is still pending; he has declined to say whether he would accept a pardon from President Bush before he leaves office Jan. Do Alaska voters deserve an answer to that question before they cast their vote for or against Stevens in November? What is your position on a president pardoning a public official before a jury has ruled on guilt or innocence?

• Why have you reneged on your earlier pledge to cooperate with the Alaska Legislature's investigation into Troopergate?

• In spring of 2004, the Daily News reported that you cited family considerations in deciding not to try for the U.S. Senate: "How could I be the team mom if I was a U.S. senator?" What was different this time as you decided to run for vice president?

• If you were a fully qualified vice-presidential candidate from the get-go, why did you wait more than 10 days to face reporters?

• McCain spokesman Rick Davis told Fox News the media didn't show you enough "deference." How much deference do you expect to get from Vladimir Putin or Hugo Chavez?

Palin as Commander-in-Chief.

Did Sarah Palin trade a promotion for a political favor?
Sure looks like it.

VoteVets' Brandon Friedman has the story:

Sunday 31 August 2008:
Major General Craig Campbell, Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard, tells the AP that:
he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.

This quote was used against Palin throughout the media for several days, including in one of my own posts.


Then Brandon points out that three days later, General Campbell says it again, in the Boston Globe:
[T]he Alaskan governor is not in the site's chain of command and has no authority over its operations, according to Maj. Gen. Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard who commands the roughly 3,800 state militia members.

But then...

Friday 5 September 2008:
Only two days later, Campbell's story has completely fip-flopped. Now he's suddenly praising Palin, appearing on Fox News to gush about what a superb commander-in-chief she is:
"I'll tell you, in the last few days, I've been watching the press, and I've not been very pleased with what I've been seeing about the chastising of the National Guard by having it diminished by the insinuation that a commander-in-chief of the National Guard doesn't really control the military. The National Guard has 500,000 people in it around this great country, serving in states and overseas. National Guards are state military forces run by governors, and Sarah Palin does it great."
Result? Cha-ching!

Monday 8 September:
After the weekend--and after his complimentary remarks--Major General Campbell is promoted within the Alaska National Guard to the rank of Lieutenant General.

Here is the release:

The promotion is not recognized outside the state of Alaska, but he is promoted with his third star, nonetheless.

Sign on the dotted line and get a promotion, General.
Hell, you had no choice. You know she'd fire you if you didn't.

UPDATE: The plot really thickens now.

McCain’s people are coming after Senator Hollis French

The Alaskan Blogger Mudflats has an interesting post today.

Breaking Stories on KUDO Radio.

McCain’s people are coming after Senator Hollis French
State Senator French is the legislator who is heading up the ongoing Palin ethics investigation.

Republican representative John Coghill said in a letter to the chairman of the Alaska Legislative Council that comments made by Hollis French concerning Palin and the “troopergate” probe were political.

Coghill, a preacher who is a staunch supporter of Palin, said French’s comments that the inquiry into Palin’s dismissal of Alaska’s public safety commissioner could form an “October surprise” indicated he was not neutral.

Also in the show, John Cyr, the Executive Director of Public Safety Employees (PSEA) will talk about the ethics complaint that was recently filed against Palin by the union, alleging improper use of information from the personnel file of Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten - the ‘trooper’ in ‘Troopergate’.

They love hearing from out of state callers, so feel free to call in and ask questions, or share your views, even if you’re not from Alaska.

Sarah Palin is just another GOP Liar

As we all now know Sarah Palin lied about being "against" the infamous Bridge to Nowhere.
She was, in fact, a supporter of the now-mocked symbol of pork and earmarks. She was a supporter during the entire process, up until the now-magical point when the entire thing had devolved into farce, and not even Republicans could attach themselves to such a boondoggle without paying a political price.

We know that Sarah Palin lied about being "against" earmarks. Yet we know that as mayor of her Wasilla she hired a Team Abramoff lobbyist to squeeze Washington for generous funds. The lobbyist delivered $27 million worth of earmarks to the town of less than 7000 people: a fine haul, as she said so herself, in her own handwriting.

Sarah Palin has lied. Baldly and repeatedly. But she doesn't care, for there is no price to pay. Repuglicans see no problem for lying, and the MSM will not make her pay.

The McCain campaign will continue to repeat the lies about Earmarks, the Bridge to Nowhere, the palne on eBay, firing the Governor's chef, TrooperGate and a dozen other things, because there is no penalty.

The thing is Repuglicans have no moral taboo whatsoever against lying. The only relevant question for the Repugs is whether the lie is effective -- not whether it should have been done in the first place.

This is why we can watch Karl Rove go on a cable news show and rail against the inexperienced nature of one possible vice presidential candidate -- a Democrat -- and without batting an eye he can praise unequivocally, a plainly less experienced Republican pick.

For Repuglicans it's to hell with facts, there is always another election to be won.

Palin may be an unapologetic liar, but there isn't anything even slightly surprising about that; she is a tried and true Repuglican.

A vote for McCain/Palin is...

Is a vote for a Bridge to Nowhere. John Amato of Crooks and Liars has a great post today about how the media wants to make presidential elections about personalities alone and not on the issues. He writes that an election is about restoring some order to our country, and he has started a list that needs to be added to.

Please add to the list.

A vote for McCain equals more War.
A vote for McCain equals No universal health care.
A vote for McCain equals a continued collapsing economy.
A vote for McCain equals higher gas prices.
A vote for McCain equals no help for the housing market.
A vote for McCain equals a further erosion of woman’s rights.
A vote for McCain equals ideologue judges being placed throughout the country.
A vote for McCain equals more Big Oil in the White House.
A vote for McCain equals more Global Warming.
A vote for McCain equals more faith-based foreign policy.
A vote for McCain equals more tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations while the middle class continues to fund policies they don’t benefit from.
A vote for McCain equals more denial of science.
A vote for McCain equals the meteoric rise of American Fascism
A vote for McCain equals the continued dumbing down of America.
A vote for McCain equals a complete loss of hope; or a vote for McCain equals American despair A vote for McCain equals a vote for the American Taliban.
A vote for McCain equals a vote for more corruption in government.
A vote for McCain equals a vote for more power for K Street.
A vote for McCain equals perpeptual war
A vote for McCain/Palin means rightwing, extrememist Supreme Court nominees and the beginning of totalitarian America.

John & Sarah a Bridge To Nowhere - Updated

John McCain and Sarah Palin are liars. Of course the MSM will twist over backwards to avoid calling them liars, but that is exactly what they are.

Another reason that John and Sarah are just a Bridge to Nowhere.

Campaigns make dubious claims over the course of seeking office. It’s true, this happens; the campaign latches onto a piece of information that may be dubious, or stretches the facts. Usually the campaign doesn't straight out lie, because the campaign wants to have wiggle room of deniability. The McCain campaign however prefers to repeat dubious claims, even after they've been proven false. Sarah Palin came out making statements that she knew were not true, so in other words she started out her campaign with a lie.

McCain's handlers believe that voters won't either hear the truth or care what the truth is till it doesn't matter anymore. Take for example this morning; McCain's team unveiled a new TV ad, characterizing John McCain and Sarah Palin as two mavericks, "The original mavericks. He fights pork barrel spending; she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."To support the claim that Palin "stopped" the Bridge to Nowhere instead of running on a pledge to build it, the ad cites an article from December in the Anchorage Daily News. Yet if you actually look at the article, you will see that the Daily News piece doesn't support the claim. The article says nothing about Palin “stopping” the bridge.

In reality Sarah Palin supported the bridge project, and campaigned on a pledge to build it, and when the bridge was scrapped, it was not by Ms. Palin, but by an embarrassed Congress. And even though the bridge project was scrapped, Palin still took the money and spent it on other Alaskan transportation projects. Unless the McCain campaign is prepared to change the meaning of the word "stopped," the ad's claim is obviously not true.It's not just this particular ad though. McCain and Palin have repeated the same claim, over and over again, in a variety of settings, after it was exposed as a lie.As Hilzoy explained over the weekend in the Washington Monthly, after Palin once again claimed to have rejected the Bridge to Nowhere, "She is not just telling lies; she's telling lies that have been exposed as lies, and that have gotten a lot of attention. Assuming she does not actually want to lose, she must assume that her audience either doesn't know that she's lying, or doesn't care.

In either case, it's deeply cynical, and deeply insulting. I just hope she isn't right."I concur!

McCAIN-PALIN: A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE

A reader of AmericaBlog wrote the following request, and I think it makes a lot of sense, so I ask everyone to get this meme out into the general public.

"McCAIN-PALIN: A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE"Can you help get this meme out into the world at large - PLEASE???

Excuse my ego-tripping, but this is the kind of catchphrase that will stick right into people skulls once it starts spreading. It ties together that freakin' bridge she was on both sides of (hey, there's ANOTHER metaphor!) with Bob Dole's loser '96 campaign. (Remember his bridge to a better past vs. Clinton/Gore's 'bridge to the 20th century'?).

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I really love this as a tag line for McCain and Palin, as it is a constant reminder that Sarah Palin opened her introduction to the nation at large with a lie.

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