Newspaper? What's that?

Dribs and drabs, CBS. Dribs and drabs.

A commenter at DKos: "She's the love child of Forrest Gump and Phyllis Schlafly."

Lipstick on a Beee-yotch

Watch CBS Videos Online
As Dubya used to say, "Bring it on, beeyotch!"

How Does He Do It?

John McCain spent the day accusing Barack Obama of politicizing the bailout negotiations and causing the legislation's failure.

Who Knew?

DJIA up 186 in early trading.

Does any of it really even matter anymore?

UPDATE: Market closes up 489 points. Get ready for the sell-off tomorrow. It's like every market player is now a day-trader. There's no such thing as a long-term stock holding (except for us rubes with mutual funds in IRAs and 401ks).

LAT Circulates Wrong Rumor

It appears that Andrew Malcolm at the LAT got the wrong memo...and decided to run with it.

...there's been a persistent e-mail (see text below, along with Biden video) making the rounds of In-boxes all month. It's titled "Rumor Has It?" And according to this unsigned e-mail, Biden will step aside as No. 2 on the Democratic ticket shortly after....

...Thursday night's vice presidential debate against Palin, probably around Oct. 5.

Biden will, according to the unverified e-mail cite health concerns.

Uh...right. To entertain such baloney, with all the trouble currently facing Sarah Palin, is completely ridiculous. Everywhere you look this week, there are serious people discussing whether Sarah Palin will be dropping out, and this is what finds its way onto the LAT political blog?

Andrew Malcolm was Laura Bush's press secretary.

Check out some more analysis of Malcolm's Ticket blogposts here.

September 30, 1961

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

4175

I think one of the most tragic consequenses of this global financial meltdown is that people are forgetting there's a war going on that we have to end.

Sooner rather than later.

"Stoopid Cracker"

When you consider that someone like Representative Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia occupies a seat in the United States Congress, small town mayor and small state governor Sarah Palin doesn't seem half bad. Does she?

Banned Books Week

How many banned books have you read today? Here are the 10 most challenged books of 2007:

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

Gays, blacks and sex, three things our society will not abide. The Dark Ages have nothing on 21st century America.

"Huckleberry Finn"?!?

Destroy ignorance, read a book.

Wary.

I don't know about you, but my credit market is pretty tense right about now. Thank God John McCain is back in Washington helping straighten things out taking a nap and staying the hell out of the way.

Brother Can You Spare a $$$$$?

Don't ask me why, but apparently the dollar likes it when when the stock market tanks. $1.44 against the Euro today, whatever that means.

Can anyone explain? Beuller?

Big Idea!

Hey, I know! Let's privatize Social Security and let people invest their retirement money in the stock market.
.

Rhetorical Question.

How soon after Barack Obama is elected president will the right-wingers begin blaming him for all the ills that affect America?

Bonus points if your answer was phrased in minutes or hours as opposed to days or weeks.

Sarah Palin on SNL

Tina Fey nails it again. [It should be noted that large sections of Tina Fey's script were lifted verbatim from Sarah Palin's actual interview with Katie Couric.] Sometimes the comedy just writes itself.

DJIA Crys Wolf Uncle?

NEW YORK - Fear swept across the financial markets Monday, sending the Dow Jones industrials down as much as 705 points, after the government's financial bailout package failed to survive a vote in the House.

Who the hell really even cares anymore?
I surely don't know what to make of it.

Been There, Done That

I guess now would be a good time for John McCain to suspend his campaign and head back to Washington to clean up this mess.

Bailout Fails.

Republican WATBs blame Pelosi.

Next time I say "Let's go to Bolivia," let's go to Bolivia.

NEXT!

Wachovia bites the dust.

For a dose of perspective on the true depth of the nation's financial crisis, all one needs to do is take a look at the naming rights history of the basketball/hockey arena in the city of Philadelphia, PA.

Core States Center gone.
First Union Center gone.
Wachovia Center gone.

LAT No Likee Bush

Times editorial....

As the Bush administration attempts to stabilize the nation's economy, we are witness to the final chapter of a period of perverse and dishonest leadership that has used its own crises to justify the expansion of its own power. This was a president who came to office on promises of modesty -- who championed a "humble nation," scorned nation building and promised a more limited role for government in the lives of its citizens. Then he presided over a six-year attempt to tear down and rebuild the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now has embarked on the most profound expansion of the federal government's role in the private economy since the Depression.

In both cases, the pattern is the same. Ineptitude led to crisis; crisis then became the argument for the radical expansion of executive power. The administration insisted that it exercise its new authority with a minimum of scrutiny by Congress, the courts or the public.

Polls Swing Obama's Way

McGrumpy didn't help himself one bit last week. "Obama widens lead." I can't wait until Thursday.

No Bailout for You

"The Wall Street rescue deal does not include a provision allowing judges to revise loans on primary residences."

Where in the World Was Palin Friday night?

I'm a little late to the bar on this, but Sarah Palin wasn't.
Interesting choice of location for a fundamentalist Xian Republican veep nominee....but who am I to judge?

Got Hit with One of Those "Nigerian Emails"

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 700 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAMM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTING IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

MINISTER OF TREASURY HENRY J. PAULSON JR.

Yes We Can Can

Biden Rocks

Sarah Palin is in deep shit.

Psychobabble...

Why Does John McCain Hate America?

Puzzler: Spot one thing missing in the above image.

Hindsight is 20/20

In case you missed it. (Posted about 12 noon PST.)

Hit the Polls

Let 'em know who won....

Coolest web poll ever. And we don't even need to freep it. People loved Obama before we checked in.
Any other polls to freep?
AOL
Chicago Tribune
CNN
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Full list here.

Lowered Expectations?

Post-debate comment at DKos:

I thought he look well preprared
Ultimately Obama held his own but I was surprised that McCain didn't completely shit the bed.

by schof

"...creepy, fascistic jackass..."

I made sure to write my gut reaction before hitting the blogosphere, and I'm pleased to see that digby feels much the same...

It's very hard for me to gauge this debate because to me John McCain is quite obviously a crazy, intemperate, nasty old bastard. He was sarcastic, contemptuous and patronizing.

Notable Absence

In NBC's post-debate analysis, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden faced off against Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin Rudy Giuliani.

Can't freaking wait for that veep debate.

Previous Post Notwithstanding...

...Barack Obama won that debate. Barack Obama has veritas, gravitas, dignity and grace. He's a transcendent politician, the likes of which we haven't seen since FDR or JFK, with the notable exception of MLK. As I said to someone after watching the debate, "I've been fooled before...." but you know, Barack Obama moves me.

Now for the particulars.

Despite the impressive performance by Obama, I don't think McCain did anything in this debate to hurt himself with his base, and perhaps neither candidate even did enough to move any fence-sitters in either direction. In that respect, I'd call it a draw.

But for any thinking person, for anyone with half a brain and perhaps a quarter of a heart, Barack Obama is clearly the better man in this race. I don't quite know what else to say. Obama was clear, concise, definitive and inspiring. McCain was condescending, gruff, indignant and defensive.

I guess the real deep-rooted problem in our nation today is that half of America -- half-minus-one would be my sincerest hope -- watched that debate and saw things they liked in John McCain, things that made them more likely to vote for him or boosted their fervor for his candidacy.

This, my friends, is the absurd world we live in.

This Just In...

The first presidential debate isn't even set to begin for six more hours [@ 6PM PST tonight], but you'll be happy to know that John Dubya McCain has already won!

[screen shot from McCain for Prez website.]

Losing the Base

Early Palin supporter Kathleen Parker has come around...

"If BS were currency, Ms. Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

So Much for the AFC West

There were some people out here hinting that the USC Trojans were the best football team in the West, bar none. um.... not so much.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Remember back when Ed McMahon's house was getting foreclosed on? He said at the time that part of the problem was that he lived next door to Britney Spears and nobody wanted to buy his property. [In the real estate appraisal biz, we call that "external obsolsence."] Well, now Britney wants out of the neighborhood, too.

Nugget

James Rainey at the LAT finds a nut in Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin....

...promoting a troop surge in Afghanistan, casually suggested that it "will lead us to victory there, as it has proven to have done in Iraq."

His review of her performance is not kind.

Goodbye WaMu

The day JP Morgan Chase buys Bank of America, or vice versa, will be the day one of those institutions owns the world. The day after that, it will go bankrupt.

In the biggest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual Bank was seized late Thursday by federal regulators and immediately sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion.

Customer deposits will be secure, regulators said, but shareholders of the nation's largest savings and loan will see what's left of their holdings wiped out. WaMu shares have lost 88% of their value this year amid huge losses in the bank's mortgage loan and credit card businesses.

Pat Yourself on the Back...

...if you, like I, donated money to Planned Parenthood during last week's blogswarm. It seems the venerable women's health care facility [run by "community organizers", natch] caught a bit of a windfall in fundage thanks to rabble-rousers like you.

She's Going off the Rails Like a Crazy Train

They say talking in "word salad" phrases is a sign of schizophrenia. This is bad.

Colbert Suspends Show

Decent Proposals

There are some decent bailout proposals out there that are aimed at making the rich pay first, before the middle-class gets fleeced again. Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio wants to impose a new .25% "stock transaction fee" on all Wall Street trades, and Vermont's Bernie Sanders proposes a 5-year, 10% surtax on all income over $1-million for couples and $500,000 for individual taxpayers." He claims that measure along would yield more than $300-billion in revenue.

Sounds good to me.

Brave Sir John

Video of McCain enroute to the debate....


"When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled."

On with the Show!!!

Barack Obama should show up in Oxford, MS tomorrow night and debate an empty chair if he has to. It'll show the world just how afraid of discussing the catastropihc state of the nation Mr. I-was-a-POW-for-a-while-and-that's-all-I've-got really is.

What better time than now -- while our nation is in full meltdown -- to hear how each these men proposes to save the Union?

If John McCain stiffs the debate, there's only one word left to describe him: COWARD.

I Don't Think...

...the phrase "suspending my campaign" means what John Dubya McCain thinks it means.

John McCain will appear on all three network newscasts tonight, a top aide said.

No Deal

Hard to say whether cooler heads have prevailed (for the time being) or the Republicans have only succeeded (like always) in gumming up the works (again!) so they can blame the "do-nothing Democratic congress," but the bailout deal is currently OFF.

This gives you a little more time to think about whether you really want to give a bunch of rich Washington bastards another $700bn of your money. Think carefully.

Mission Accomplished

John Oliver, discussing the nation's financial meltdown with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

Finding another epic failure in the Bush administration is "like finding a vein in a failure junky."

Not Ready for Prime Time

Sarah Palin has a little trouble with Katie Couric.

She's got nuthin'.

Just Sayin'

With the economy in full-meltdown (here's today's bad news), would now not be the best time to have the two men vying for the presidency face off in a debate?

Alright

[h/t Baughb]

Twit.

Mr. 19%

Tell me, why should anyone care what this man has to say about anything?

WASHINGTON -- As negotiators raced the clock in search of a compromise, President Bush used a rare prime-time address to the nation Wednesday night to try to convince a skeptical public and rebellious Republicans that the government must put $700 billion of taxpayers' money at risk to bail out the financial system.

Putting his battered personal prestige on the line, Bush painted a stark picture of the country's financial condition: "We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis . . . our entire economy is in danger," he said. "American could slip into a financial panic."

Been there. Done that.

McCain Caught Cheating on Letterman

It's not nice to skip out on The Late Show. Check minute 6:56, when John McCain gets caught cheating on David Letterman...

LETTERMAN: "He was nice enough to call me on the phone and he said he was 'getting on a plan and racing back to Washington... And now, we've just been told, this is going on live...[video of McCain prepping for a Katie Couric interview]...This just gets uglier and uglier. I'm feeling bad for the man to have participated in this."

Mr. Irrelevant

What's the deal with McCain claiming he's needed in Washington all of a sudden? Not only is he one of the origianl architects of the nation's current financial disaster (and therefore someone who should be kept far, far away from any neogitations on a soultion), he hasn't actually been in Washington at all for months.

The prodigal son returns. John McCain has announced that America is finally confronting a crisis that he doesn't feel he can be absent for.

Some fun facts about John McCain: Of all Senators, John McCain has been the most absent. There have been 643 votes taken in the current Senate session: McCain has missed 412 of them.

McCain has not voted in the Senate since April 8th. Since March, he has missed 109 of the last 110 votes.

Calling McSame's Bluff

John McCain calling on Barack Obama to "postpone" this Friday's presidential debate because of the nation's financial crisis is about the biggest bunch of political gamesmanship baloney in recent memory. Bravo to Senator Obama for holding his ground and calling Dubya McCain's bluff.

CLEARWATER, Fla -- Democrat Barack Obama today said a scheduled presidential debate is needed more than ever, despite a move by Republican rival John McCain to delay the event so both candidates can focus on the country's economic crisis.

Obama told reporters this afternoon that he agreed that the severity of the economic problem should "not be subject to the usual partisan politics," but he appeared caught off-guard by McCain's suggestion that Friday's presidential debate be postponed.

"This is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said. "In my mind, [the debate] is more important than ever."

That sounds about right.

Priorities

If some enterprising and ambitious politician proposed spending $700-billion to fix the nation's health care system, he'd be laughed out of the room and ridiculed as an impractical, pollyanna socialist bent on tearing down the very foundation of America.

What's [Not] in Your Wallet?

How's your government bailout going?
.

Whom to Trust?

In answer to the age-old question:
Which party is the better steward of the economy?

Palin the Polar Bear

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post watched Sean Hannity interview Sarah Palin, so you didn't have to...

For all the softballs Hannity tossed her way, Palin did not come off very well, in my view. If this was a political commercial, I wasn’t buying the product.

The way she answers questions brings to mind -- I have Alaska on the brain, admittedly -- the image of a polar bear, jumping from rhetorical ice floe to ice floe, drifting some but eventually managing to get safely to dry land. No flubs, but you get the sense that she could plunge into the icy water at any moment. Palin has an odd tendency to use the same word twice in a sentence, as in, “The people of American realize that inherently all political power is inherent in the people,” or, about John McCain, “He can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.” Or, combining word repetition with another Palin verbal tic, word dropping, this about the economic meltdown: “Well, you know, first Fannie and Freddie, different because quasi-government agencies there where government had to step in because the adverse impact all across our nation, especially with homeowners, is just too impacting.”

Ok, not everyone is Daniel Webster.

Preemptive Lie

A few days back, the McCain campaign floated the notion that Franklin Raines, the former CEO of Fannie Mae, was working as an economic advisor to Barack Obama. McCain's people raised all the righteous indignation they could muster and then went to the media with this "outrage." Franklin Raines had the good sense and decency to call a press conference of his own and let the world know that he's never advised Barack Obama on football picks, tie color, the economy or anything else.

Maybe the McCain people, in classic Karl Rovian fashion, were trying to mount a preemptive strike before voters found out about this....

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

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

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections.

Who is Henry Paulson?

Robert Scheer does some digging....

...the year before President Bush appointed [Paulson] treasury secretary [he] was paid $16.4 million for heading [Goldman Sachs] the company that did as much as any to engineer this financial travesty...

Fox, meet henhouse.

There's more:

Even some Republicans on the Senate committee expressed exasperation Monday with the swindles that they had voted for with such enthusiasm in the past, as well as with giving Wall Street yet another blank check. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., condemned Paulson’s proposal as an effort to “take Wall Street’s pain and spread it to the taxpayers.” He added, “It’s financial socialism and it’s un-American.”

He’s wrong on that last point, for what is proposed is not the nationalization of private corporations but rather a corporate takeover of government. The marriage of highly concentrated corporate power with an authoritarian state that services the politico-economic elite at the expense of the people is more accurately referred to as “financial fascism.” After all, even Hitler never nationalized the Mercedes-Benz company but rather entered into a very profitable partnership with the current car company’s corporate ancestor, which made out quite well until Hitler’s bubble burst.

Plain Speaking

This week, the Bush administration is attempting to steal $700 billion and give it to Wall Street. Will they succeed?

Not Everyone is Happy....

...about Lance Armstrong's comeback....

3. The French clearly aren't ready to let those doubts go. Said Tour director Christian Prudhomme when Armstrong announced his comeback: "Suspicion has followed Lance Armstrong since 1999 [his first Tour win], everyone knows that." Added former French sports minister Jean-Francois Lamour in an interview with the French sports newspaper L'Equipe: "He is an embarrassing guest for the Tour, like a rubber band that pulls us back to a page that seemed to have turned."

Ouch!

Whoops! Wrong vid....

Making Money the Old Fashioned Way

This is just the sort of thing that reminds you we're not even close to solving the underlying problems affecting our socialistic economy...

Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.

The revelation sparked fury among the workers' former colleagues, Lehman's 5,000 staff based in London, who currently have no idea how long they will go on receiving even their basic salaries, let alone any bonus payments. It also prompted a renewed backlash over the compensation culture in global finance, with critics claiming that many bankers receive pay and rewards that bore no relation to the job they had done.

Repeat after me: "Privatize the profit/Socialize the risk..."

How We Got Here

It's a bit of a long read, but Devilstower at Daily Kos gives pretty much the full rundown on how our nation was led into the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression:

The sub-prime mortgage crisis that has not only come so close to utterly destroying the markets, but has ruined the value of many people's homes and left millions with mortgages they can't pay, was also the outcome of the deregulation created by these men. The very predictable outcome. When taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident.

This is enemy action. This is a bullet deliberately fired into the economy by men willing to exercise their ideology regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Men who have every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the public picks up the tab. John McCain may not have had his finger directly on the trigger, but he was there. He assisted. These were his personal friends and philosophical comrades. He may not be the high priest, but he has been a loyal acolyte in the cult of deregulation.

It may come as a surprise to the champions of deregulation, but nobody likes regulation. The restrictions that were placed on banks, S&Ls, and other institutions in the 1930s weren't put there because someone thought it would be fun. They were put in place because they addressed problems that had just been clearly and painfully revealed. They were put in place because they were necessary.

It's bad enough if John McCain didn't know that. It's far worse if he did.

The S&L crisis, the California electricity deregulation fiasco, the housing bubble disaster, the mortgage banking collapse, and the ruin of Wall Street can all be laid squarely at the feet of John McCain, Phil Gramm and all the rest of the "deregulators."

Now the only question is, are we going to give these same people $700-billion more dollars to play with?

Carly's Golden Parachute

John McCain doesn't know the details of Carly Fiorina's $45-million severance package. A quick Google search might have provided him with some information on the subject.

How Much is a Trillion Dollars?

DKos tackles the trillion dollar question:

In February 1981, Ronald Reagan - the President who started us on the deregulatory path that has generated the greatest upward transfer of wealth since Congress deeded a tenth of U.S. land over to the railroad barons 140 years ago - had this to say about a trillion-dollar national debt:

"I've been trying ... to think of a way to illustrate how big a trillion is. The best that I could come up with is that if you had a stack of $1000 bills in your hand only four inches high you would be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of $1000-dollar bills 67 miles high."
[...]
Compared with the current White House occupant, however, Reagan was thrifty. Mister Bush has already added $4 trillion to the debt, 12,600 miles tacked onto the imaginary stack, putting it at 30,240 miles, with 119 days yet to go in his term. And that's before adding another trillion dollars for the bailout.

Now that you're properly numbed, what is a trillion dollars besides 10% of the national debt?

It's enough to give every woman, man and child in the United States $3278, which is $9 apiece more than what each Alaskan will get from state oil dividends this year.

It's twelve times what the federal government spends each year on transportation.

Ten times what it spends on education.

Six times what Senator Obama has vowed to spend over 10 years for energy independence.

It's 19% more than NASA's budget for the entire half century the space agency has been in existence.

It's 38% more than this year's bloated Pentagon budget.

It's 60% of what's needed to renew and repair America's entire infrastructure of bridges and roads.

It's 50% of what's needed to provide universal health coverage for all Americans.

Obituary for the Ages

DOUGLAS, WY -- A celebration of life for James William "Jim" Adams, 53, will be held at a later date.

He died Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 at Memorial Hospital of Converse County in Douglas.

Jim, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle. It was primarily as a result of being stubborn and not following doctor's orders or maybe for just living life a little too hard for better than five decades.

He was born June 8, 1955 in Garrison, N.D. the son of James William and Ruby Helen (Clark) Adams.

He was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date. True to his personal style, he spent his final hours joking with medical personnel, cussing and begging for narcotics and bargaining with God to look over his loving dog, Biscuit, and his family.

He would like to thank all "his ladies" for putting up with him the last 30 years.

During his life, he excelled at anything he put his mind to. He loved to hear and tell jokes and spin tales of grand adventures he may or may not have had.

He is survived by five sons, Jeremiah Adams and his wife, Nicole, Mica Olivas, Wade Olivas, Brice Simpson and Cole Adams; sister, Jerri Giegerich; two ex-wives, Vickie Harrison and Marilyn Williams; four grandchildren; two nieces; and two great-nieces.

He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother-in-law.

In lieu of flowers, he asks that you make a sizeable purchase at your favorite watering hole, get rip roaring drunk and tell the stories he no longer can.

[h/t Baughb]

Two-Headed Monster

Obama Has Had Enough

BREAKING:

In the wake of an epic financial meltdown that threatens to derail the U.S. economy for years, Barack Obama announced he was ending his run for President of the United States, declaring to a stunned nation, “Man, this is bullshit.”

Sarah Palin, Radical Past?

Reports are surfacing that Sarah Palin may have been one of those whack-jobs that likes to block access to women's health clinics and harass patients and doctors on their way into the facilities.

In 1996, evangelical churches mounted a vigorous campaign to take over the local hospital's community board and ban abortion from the valley. When they succeeded, Bess and Dr. Susan Lemagie, a Palmer OB-GYN, fought back, filing suit on behalf of a local woman who had been forced to travel to Seattle for an abortion. The case was finally decided by the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled that the hospital must provide valley women with the abortion option.

At one point during the hospital battle, passions ran so hot that local antiabortion activists organized a boisterous picket line outside Dr. Lemagie's office, in an unassuming professional building across from Palmer's Little League field. According to Bess and another community activist, among the protesters trying to disrupt the physician's practice that day was Sarah Palin.

Big Fat Zero

Here's a public opinion poll that reports a big fat zero when respondents were asked if they thought the national economy was "getting better":

No Americans say that the national economy is getting better, 13% say it is staying the same, and 82% say the national economy is getting worse.

As an added bonus (if you care to look at it that way), the same survey reports that George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has fallen to a record low of 19%(!).

Comparative Elitism

See if you can decide who's the elitist in this campaign.

The Candidate with Experience

Political Calculus

Those Republicans are damn devious.

Whatever Happened to...?

...The Count.
.

Frisco!

Heading up to a city by a body of water for a wedding.

Funky!

The Stakes

Booman on what's at stake this November...

Come November, I'm ready to party like it's 1932. We're in big trouble, my friends, and we're going to need Barack Obama to be a regular FDR. Personally, I don't think we've had a decent president since Eisenhower, although Kennedy might have turned it around if given a chance. Obama is, without question in my mind, the best potential president we've had since Kennedy. If we screw this election up, turn out the lights.

If You Wanna Get to Heaven, You Got to Raise a Little Hell

If you haven't already heard the story about Sarah Palin and the "pay-as-you-go" rape kits, it's truly an outrage.

[...]Sarah Palin hired Charlie Fannon as the new Wasilla Chief of Police and said it was one of her best decisions as mayor. Fannon eliminated the forensic rape kits from the budget. Though the number of rapes weren’t reported, Fannon claimed it would save Wasilla taxpayers $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

When Eric Croft, a Democrat Legislator from Anchorage, learned of Wasilla’s policy, he drafted HB 270, which Governor Tony Knowles signed into law. The new law made it illegal for any law enforcement agency to bill victims or victims’ insurance companies for the costs of examinations to collect evidence of a sexual assault or determine if a sexual assault actually occurred.
[...]
Wasilla Police Chief Fannon protested the new law stating it would require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams. Really?

Now, in an inspired bit of culture jamming, there's a blogswarm going on in which people are making donations to Planned Parenthood in honor of Sarah Palin to highlight her anti-choice woman-hating ways. [The minimum donation is $5.]

I made a small donation in Palin's "honor" and asked PP to send the confirmation thank you card to John McCain's HQ at the following address:
>
> McCain for President
> 1235 Clark Street
> 1st Floor
> Arlington, VA 22202
>
Here's the link to the PP website if you want to get in on the fun (which you can do for as little as $5, tax deductible).

Sarah Quaylin

Jonathan Chait makes a funny in The New Republic...

The swift disintegration of Palin's anti-pork credentials has been especially amusing. After initially casting Palin as a dedicated foe of earmarks, and then having it revealed that she asked for and received enormous sums of earmarked projects, the McCain campaign has fallen back to the defense that she requested fewer earmarks than other Alaska pols. This is true: Even though Palin took ten times the national per capita average in earmarked spending, in this regard she still rates somewhat below average by the standards of the petro-kleptocracy of the state from which she hails. Yet this defense raises the question of why Ted Kennedy never thought to run for president on the slogan "He Never Took a Drink In His Life," and then, when challenged, point out that other members of his family are less sober than he.

Full Disclosure

Rock On!

Biden: "Time to Be Part of the Deal"

L-O-L-A Lola....

Finally found a picture of the Republican douchebag...

He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed. And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered. When (Gabriel Nathan Schwartz) awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings.

GYWO: Sarah Palin and the Rape Kits

Famous Last Words

Paul Krugman finds a nugget in a recent John McCain statement on the nation's health care/health insurance crisis:

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

Oh no he dih'ent say that. Did he?

Political Reality

The same people who got us into this mess are the ones who are going to get us out.

Allegedly.
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And subsequent to that, the same people who rode these banks and insurance companies into the ground are the ones who will soon be serving on the Federal Reserve Board and the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseeing the next round of robber-barons.

It's just the way things work in the revolving door that is the I-95 Expressway.
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Economic Certainty

You can bet that once this whole economy thing gets straightened out all these companies that we now own are going to be turned back into private sector profit making centers for the high-flying Wall Street types.

That's the way the free makret works, don'cha know?
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Welcome to the Socialist Republic of America

I'd stage a rally too, if I knew the federal government was going to come in and save my ass from all my bad investments....

Stock markets rallied around the globe today as investors cheered the federal government's far-reaching plan to shore up the U.S. financial system and crack down on speculators who seek to profit from falling stock prices.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 368.75 points, or 3.4%, to 11,388.44 on hopes that the financial crisis that began in the U.S. housing market and has steadily spread around the globe may be abating. At one point the Dow was up as much as 464 points.

Investors "are breathing a sigh of relief because there is now a concerted effort to make sure the financial markets stay open for business and function effectively (*italics mine), which they have not been doing," said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at Ridgeworth Investments in Richmond, Va.

*Repeat after me: Privatize the profit/Socialize the risk.

Checking in on the Body Count

So it goes. 4168.
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Why They Hate Us

"Today, Omar Khadr, the sole Canadian citizen in Guantánamo, marks his 22nd birthday in isolation. Seized in Afghanistan when he was just 15 years old, Omar has now spent nearly a third of his life in US custody, in conditions that ought to be shameful to the US administration responsible for holding him, and to the Canadian government that has abdicated its responsibilities towards him."

Free Fallin'

DKos tracking poll shows Palin's approval rating in a bit of a free-fall.

Crusty Hagel

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel not particularly impressed with the Sarah Palin pick...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is the nation's most prominent Republican officeholder to publicly question whether Sarah Palin has the experience to serve as president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said Wednesday in an interview. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."
[...]
The McCain campaign has cited the proximity of Alaska to Russia as evidence of her international experience.

Hagel scoffed at that notion.

"I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

I guess it's time to start printing up more money...

WASHINGTON -- In what could be the biggest bailout since the Great Depression, top government officials and congressional leaders agreed late Thursday to quickly develop a comprehensive plan aimed at defusing the nation's roiling financial crisis.

The plan would "relieve financial institutions" (quotes mine*) of the mortgage-backed securities and other bad assets that are threatening the nation's economic health.

*This is a nice way of saying, dearest taxpayer, that you are going to be on the hook for all the shit in their portfolios.

Repeat after me: Privatize the profit/Socialize the risk.

Hallmark Holiday

I think "Talk Like a Pirate Day" is a made up holiday.
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About that Road to Nowhere?

No Bridge, sure, but a $26-million road.

GRAVINA ISLAND, ALASKA -- The 3.2-mile-long partially paved "road to nowhere" meanders from a small international airport on Gravina Island, home to 50 people, ending in a cul-de-sac close to a beach.

Crews are working to finish it. But no one knows when anyone will need to drive it.

That's because the $26-million road was designed to connect to the $398-million Gravina Island Bridge, more infamously known as the "bridge to nowhere." Alaskan officials thought federal money would pay for the bridge, but Gov. Sarah Palin killed the project after it was ridiculed and Congress rescinded the money. Plans for the road moved forward anyway.

Towelheads Rule

Let me state, unequivocally, that if you believe Barack Obama is a Mulsim [terrorist] then you are an uninformed, willfully ignorant dumbshit. Please read a different blog, you fool.

Oy, the Muslim Misconception Persists

The freaking libertarian tool down at the SLO Farmer's Market reminded me tonight that when Barack Obama was sworn in as a US senator he did so by putting his hand on the Koran.
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Dead Rise

Some people I know should keep their eyes open for concert dates in their area:

Tickets go on sale Friday at noon for the Grateful Dead's benefit show in State College for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Surviving members of the legendary band announced earlier this month that it would reform for a fundraiser October 13 at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State University.

The event will mark the first time Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kretuzman and Mickey Hart have played together since 2004. Band leader and guitarist Jerry Garcia died in 1995.

They'll be joined by friends Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Jaimo, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Marc Quinones, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti.

That's one helluva a lineup. Makes me wish I lived in a swing state.

Zombies

Zombie stupidity invades Central California.

A woman at work today (a woman whom, sadly, I respected, until today) asserted that she won't vote for Barack Obama because he's a Muslim. She came over later --presumably because she saw the disbelief and consternation in my face -- to clarify her statement. It's not just because he's a Muslim, she explained, that she won't vote for him. It's because she would never vote for a Muslim over a patriot.

Christ Almighty, we are doomed.

Bloggerheads

Blogger appears to be in full meltdown. Time stamps, posting dates, all screwed up.

'Bout Where We're At

Headline of the Year

[h/t Baughb]

The New Dynamic

It's beginning to look a lot like if John Dubya McCain somehow manages to win the upcoming election, he'll do it primarily because people want to vote for his "runeen mate," not for him. I'm not sure anything like that's ever happened before in American politics.

After Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his running-mate, riveted the overflow crowd at an airplane hanger here for 16 minutes, it was McCain's turn, and people in his audience began murmuring and drifting away midway through a 14-minute speech that was flat and cheerless. When McCain made his first appearance without Palin, on Monday morning in Jacksonville, he faced an arena that was one-quarter full.

Cypher

Sarah Palin takes questions at a town hall meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Check her (non-)answer on the foreign policy experience -- and alleged lack thereof -- issue at 3:10 of the video. This was a friendly audience, pre-ticketed by the Republican Party, and still, she's got nuthin'.

GYWO: Moose Meat

Unreadable

I received an email at work yesterday that had apostrophe's in all kind's of the wrong place's. True s'tory.
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Options

Five Republican women John McCain could have picked to be his vice presidential running mate:

--Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine, 13 years in office)
--Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine, 11 years)
--Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas, 15 years)
--Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
--M. Jodi Rell (Governor of Connecticut, 4 years)

Each has a far stronger resume than Sarah Palin, yet none was chosen.

What is the common denominator? Each is Pro-Choice.

Damn Hollywood Elites

California's "No on Proposition 8" campaign gets a cash infusion...

Brad Pitt announced Wednesday that he's donating $100,000 to fight California's Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative that would eliminate same-sex couples' right to marry.

"Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8," the actor said in a statement.

Calitics has more on the Prop 8 battle here. Because these ballot initiatives are almost always written to confuse, I want to remind California voters that is you are in favor of equality, you have to vote NO on Prop. 8.

Embarrassing

I don't know what Greta Van Susteren did in her former life, but she's a 100% FOX News fluffer nowadays, that's for sure. I wonder if her contract includes kneepads?

Journalism!?

After reading some of the op-eds and witnessing some of the beat-downs on the TV shows today (witness this piece on NBC Nightly News, and here conservative columnist David Brooks hits Palin hard on the experience issue), I get the feeling there's real blood in the water around the McCain-Palin campaign.
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The 'L' Word

CNN examines McCains lies...
Any questions?

President Obama.

Barack Obama in 2 minutes.

"In the past few weeks, Wall Street’s been rocked as banks closed and markets tumbled. But for many of you - the people I’ve met in town halls, backyards and diners across America - our troubled economy isn’t news. 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January. Paychecks are flat and home values are falling. It’s hard to pay for gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card they’ve probably raised your rates. You’re paying more than ever for health insurance that covers less and less. This isn’t just a string of bad luck.

"The truth is that while you’ve been living up to your responsibilities Washington has not. That’s why we need change. Real change. This is no ordinary time and it shouldn’t be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track.

"Here’s what I believe we need to do. Reform our tax system to give a $1,000 tax break to the middle class instead of showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource our jobs. End the “anything goes” culture on Wall Street with real regulation that protects your investments and pensions. Fast track a plan for energy ‘made-in-America’ that will free us from our dependence on mid-east oil in 10 years and put millions of Americans to work. Crack down on lobbyists - once and for all — so their back-room deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans.

"And yes, bring a responsible end to this war in Iraq so we stop spending billions each month rebuilding their country when we should be rebuilding ours. Doing these things won’t be easy. But we’re Americans. We’ve met tough challenges before. And we can again. I’m Barack Obama. I hope you’ll read my economic plan. I approved this message because bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won’t solve the problems we face today. But a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will.”

Any questions?

Activism for the Not Panicky

I live in bluest-of-the-blue coastal California, so it's tough for me to get my boots on the ground anyplace that might actually make a difference. Oh, sure, we've got our share of irredeemable wingnuts around here, and I talk things up at work and around town til I'm blue in the face, but Obama is going to win California going away. It's a certainty.

I have a friend, however, who works for a big corporation in Manhattan but lives in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He was so moved (to anger) by Sarah Palin's snippy VP nomination acceptance speech that he went right out the next day and volunteered to work the PA voter registration beat for the Obama people.

His first day was last Saturday, and here's his report:

"On Saturday, I completed my first day of working for the Obama/Biden campaign. I volunteered to go into the roughest parts of Norristown and go door-to-door to get people registered to vote. I know it's hard to believe that a huge ghetto exists in the middle of the county seat of one of the richest counties (Montgomery) in PA, but it's definitely there. The blocks are full of boarded-up houses, and the sidewalks are littered with used syringes and empty liquor bottles. And with my daughter's blessing, I took [my grandson] with me.

"We had a great experience. Every single person we met was friendly and polite. We got a few new people to register. Many others confirmed they were already registered and were definitely voting for Obama. I encountered zero McCain supporters and only one undecided person. I plan on doing this every Saturday until the election."

So fear not, people are out there, doing hard work, in important places, and they're coming back to report extremely positive experiences.

I just wanna say thanks; thanks to people like Joe.

Now is No Time to Panic

Atrios sez.

A common question I've been getting from friends lately is, "Are you panicking yet?" The answer is no, I've never been panicking. I've long thought this will be a close election, that Obama will win by taking Kerry states and a couple more.

Sounds reasonable.

Sarah Palin Baby Name Genrator

Give it a try here and let us know what you come up with.

Signed,

Soup Landmine Palin

Roller Coaster

Congratulations taxpayer, that corporation you gave $85-billion to yesterday probably isn't worth half that today....

NEW YORK -- The Dow Jones industrial average plunged almost 450 points today, to nearly a three-year low, as the government's bailout of American International Group Inc. did little to soothe investors' increasingly frayed nerves about the global credit crisis.

The credit markets showed more signs of freezing up as banks hoarded cash reserves. Many shellshocked investors bought gold and Treasury bills for fear of owning anything with even the slightest hint of risk.

Why the Palin Pick Matters

There have been 43 US presidents in our nation's history. Nine of them ascended from the vice presidency to the Oval Office due to the sitting president's incapacitation (for whatever reason). That's 21%.

John Dean has more here.

In truth, the vice president of the United States is important for only one reason: He or she will become president of the United States upon the death, incapacity or resignation of the president. Nine times in our history, vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency: John Tyler (1841), Millard Fillmore (1850), Andrew Johnson (1865), Chester A. Arthur (1881), Theodore Roosevelt (1901), Calvin Coolidge (1923), Harry Truman (1945), Lyndon Johnson (1963) and Gerald Ford (1974).

Scheer Takedown

My man Robert Scheer at Truthdig.com explains why John Dubya McCain is as responsible for the current financial market meltdown as anyone....

...20 minutes of Google searches should be sufficient to convince all but the dimwits among us that John McCain has been a master of the special-interest giveaways to Wall Street that enabled this meltdown. He voted for abolishing all of the significant rules put in place at the time of the Great Depression designed to prevent a repeat. The two main bills accomplishing that, bills which McCain enthusiastically supported, were the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The Gramm is former Sen. Phil Gramm, who was chair of the Senate Banking Committee when he acted as chief sponsor of both pieces of legislation. The same Gramm that McCain picked to co-chair his presidential campaign.

Just Wondering

Does everyone from Alaska talk like they're from Wisconsin?
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US Embassy Attack

Lame duck president losing war on terror?

BEIRUT – Two car-bomb explosions and gunfire rocked the U.S. embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sana this morning, killing at least 16 people in the latest in a series of apparent attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Middle East.

No American personnel were reported hurt, and the embassy building itself was not struck, official sources said.

Details of the 9:15 a.m. attack remained sketchy. The Associated Press quoted a U.S. embassy spokesman as saying that a car filled with explosives attempted unsuccessfully to break through the front gate of the heavily guarded diplomatic outpost. A security official cited by Yemen's official Saba news agency said two explosives-laden vehicles tried to break through security barriers surrounding the embassy.

Perhaps it's time we invade Yemen. Shock and awe, y'all.

Fight the Power!

Great Ideas in Conservative Economic Theory

I know, let's take all the money out of the federal Social Security program and let people invest it on their own in companies like Lehman Bros., AIG and Morgan Stanley.
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Heartless

Compassionate conservatism you can believe in...

I sure hope baby Trig never wants to run the 100m at the Special Olympics, because his mom cut the charity's budget in half (from $550,000 to $275,000) last year. [see page page 100, line 30 of this document.]

"Fundamentals"

Joe Biden on the Stump

Likes to use the word "malarkey" a lot. I kinda like that folksiness. He's a good attack dog too, and he should get a bigger megaphone for appearances like this one....

Congratulations Taxpayer!

You're about to become the proud owner of a global insurance company.

The Federal Reserve has tentatively agreed to provide $85 billion in emergency lending to insurance giant AIG in hope of preventing a bankruptcy that could send tremors through the U.S. and global financial markets, according to two sources familiar with the plan.

In exchange, the Fed would get rights to 79.9 percent of AIG's stock, a source said. One source said the government would replace the company's management while the other source said the government gained the right to replace the chief executive and board and appeared likely to do so.

Repeat after me: "Privatize the profit, socialize the risk."

Sarah Palin Loves Jesus (Possbily a Bit Too Much)

The most frightening video clip I've seen yet. These people are insane.

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.

Whatever Happened To.....

Mickey Morandini?
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Another Lovely Racism Story

This is the sort of vicious ignorance Barack Obama is up against.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Activists at a conservative political forum snapped up boxes of waffle mix depicting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing Arab-like headdress on its top flap.
[...]
The box was meant as political satire, said Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tenn., who created the mix. They sold it for $10 a box from a rented booth at the summit sponsored by the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council.
[...]
While Obama Waffles takes aim at Obama's politics by poking fun at his public remarks and positions on issues, it also plays off the old image of the pancake-mix icon Aunt Jemima, which has been widely criticized as a demeaning stereotype. Obama is portrayed with popping eyes and big, thick lips as he stares at a plate of waffles and smiles broadly.

Placing Obama in Arab-like headdress recalls the false rumor that he is a follower of Islam, though he is actually a Christian.

On the back of the box, Obama is depicted in stereotypical Mexican dress, including a sombrero, above a recipe for "Open Border Fiesta Waffles" that says it can serve "4 or more illegal aliens." The recipe includes a tip: "While waiting for these zesty treats to invade your home, why not learn a foreign language?"

Schadenfreude

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy bigger douchebag...
From Twin Cities.com --

He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed.

And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered.

When he awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings.

The thief's take stunned cops.

"It's very, very, very rare," Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer said. "I can think of a couple of burglaries where we had that much stolen, but it's the first time I've heard of this kind of deal."

In a statement released today, Gabriel Nathan Schwartz, 29, of Denver, put the figure at much less.

"It's embarrassing to admit that I was a target of a crime. I was drugged and had about $50,000 of personal items stolen, not the inflated number that the media is reporting from an inaccurate police report," he said.

"As a single man, I was flattered by the attention of a beautiful woman who introduced herself to me. I used poor judgment."
[...]
During the convention, Schwarz wasn't shy about talking to the media. In an Associated Press article about Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech, Schwartz was quoted as saying that as far as oratorical skills go, McCain "has more experience in his little pinkie" than Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.

"Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.

"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."

A few hours after the interview, an unknown woman helped herself to Schwartz's resources.

D'oh! And the reporter goes SNAP!

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

No comment necessary.

Sarah Won't Blink

Once again, The Daily Show cuts through the BS and tells America the truth...

Comparing Health Care Proposals

Surprise! The Wall Street Journal likes Barack Obama's health care plan better than Dubya McCain's...

Sustained growth ... requires successful health-care reform. Barack Obama and John McCain propose to lead us in opposite directions -- and the Obama direction is far superior.

Sen. Obama's proposal will modernize our current system of employer- and government-provided health care, keeping what works well, and making the investments now that will lead to a more efficient medical system. [click the link for a detailed analysis]
[...]
In contrast, Sen. McCain, who constantly repeats his no-new-taxes promise on the campaign trail, proposes a big tax hike as the solution to our health-care crisis. His plan would raise taxes on workers who receive health benefits, with the idea of encouraging their employers to drop coverage. A study conducted by University of Michigan economist Tom Buchmueller and colleagues published in the journal Health Affairs suggests that the McCain tax hike will lead employers to drop coverage for over 20 million Americans.

True Confessions of the Liberal Media

Richard Cohen takes himself out behind the woodshed. John McCain gets the beating.

Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.
[...]
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.

Bad Dose of Perspective

The Lehman Bros. bankruptcy represents the collapse of a company once valued at $639-billion and the largest Chapter 11 filing in US history. By way of comparison, the #2 and #3 largest ever filings, which at the time sent shock waves through global financial markets, are those of WorldCom (at $126-billion) and the notorious Enron (at a scant $81-billion). Seems like pocket change.

Diez y Seis de Septiembre

Mexican Independence Day...and the Biggest Jim's birthday!

Wishing good times to you both.

McCain Loses the View

If people in Washington are saying things like this about John Dubya McCain, the rest of America is surely soon to follow. Isn't it?

Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.

The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergartners.

"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."

Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.

"Actually, they are not lies," he said.

Actually, they are.

Here's the clip....

Fox ------->>>>> Henhouse

Against all reasonable thought (and surely Alexander Hamilton's dying wishes), Phil Gramm would almost certainly be John Dubya McCain's nominee for treasury secretary. This is not a good appointment.

Best Place to Put Your Money

Second Best Place:


Third Best Place:

Surprise!

Dickwads.

Anchorage AM radio host Eddie Burke has been suspended for a week for broadcasting the phone number of women involved in organizing a protest against Sarah Palin.

The women later received threatening phone calls.

Time.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.

Richard Wright, RIP

FUCT!

As in, how could one team be so fuct?

Replays show there was more than one poor decision by the NFL referee.

Oy!

Worst Alibi Ever

In O.C. murder trial, boyfriend helped dump body but didn't kill, his attorney argues.

Thanks for the help counselor.

Ian W. Allen's attorney acknowledges that soon after Barbara Mullenix was stabbed and slashed to death in her Huntington Beach bedroom on Sept. 13, 2006, Allen helped stuff her body in a cardboard television box, haul it to Newport Harbor and dump it in the bay.

The 56-year-old woman's body was found covered with 52 wounds, including a slashed jugular and a butter knife from her own kitchen jammed into her eye. But during closing arguments in Allen's first-degree murder trial Monday in Orange County Superior Court, his attorney argued that the killing itself was the work of the victim's daughter and Allen's then-girlfriend, Rachael

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