1,117 Lies and Smears About Obama

Truth About Obama has listed 1,117 lies and smears about Barack Obama.

Blogosphere Rumors Debunked

Politico has a fair and balanced piece about false rumors swirling around both Obama and McCain.

About Obama, the latest smear is that he is not a U.S. born citizen and was born in Kenya. When, in fact, Obama was born in Hawaii and has the birth certificate to prove it.

Probably the most widely e-mailed Obama "tip" at the moment alleges that he isn't a natural-born American citizen and thus isn't eligible to run for president. This began in the die-hard pro-Hillary section of the blogosphere, which spent part of the summer discussing laws that deal with the citizenship of a child with one American parent born abroad. When it emerged that this challenge wouldn't hold water if Obama had been born in the United States, the focus shifted to the allegation that he had been born outside the United States.

In August, a Pennsylvania lawyer, Philip Berg, filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia. Berg, who also has been active in arguing that there was "government complicity" in the attack on the World Trade Center, demanded that the court force Obama to produce his original birth certificate. The court dismissed the lawsuit.

So why isn't this getting wide coverage? Well, first, there's lots of evidence that Obama was born in the United States, and none that he wasn't. The campaign handed over an official copy of his short-form birth certificate — the standard document produced by the Hawaii Department of Health — to Factcheck.org. And Poliltico has confirmed the authenticity of a contemporaneous announcement of his birth in the Honolulu Advertiser.

Berg fights on, though, on a website with supporters known as ChileMan, ChileWoman and MommaERadioRebels. He recently told conservative talk radio host Michael Savage that he has an audiotape of Obama's Kenyan grandmother recalling the candidate's birth in a Kenyan hospital.

"l'll release it in a day or two," he said six days ago.

A spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, Janice Okubo, said she's forbidden by state law from releasing birth certificates, but directed a reporter to the FactCheck.org item dismissing the rumors.

Read more here

McCain Admits Obama Not a Socialist

On Larry King last night, McCain admitted he was full of it, and that Obama is not a socialist.

When, exactly, is the "straight talk express" supposed to start?



Here's the transcript:

KING: You don't believe Barack Obama is a socialist, do you?


MCCAIN: No. But, I do believe -- I do believe that he's been in the far left of American politics. He has stated time after time that he believes in "spreading the wealth around." He's talked about courts that would redistribute the wealth.


He has a record of voting against tax cuts and for tax increases. And I don't think there's any doubt that he would increase spending and he would, sooner or later, we would be increasing taxes. There is no doubt in my mind that that's what his record -- 94 times he voted to cut taxes -- against tax cuts and for tax increases. He voted for -- and that's what matters. Not rhetoric. To raise taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year.


KING: Concerning spreading the wealth, isn't the graduated income tax spreading the wealth? If you and I paid more so that Jimmy can get some for him, or pay for a welfare recipient, that's spreading the wealth.


MCCAIN: Well, that's spreading the wealth in the respect that we do have a graduated income tax. That's a far cry from taking from one group of Americans and giving to another. I mean, that's dramatically different.


Sen. Obama clearly has talked about for years, redistributive policies. And that's not the way we create wealth in America. That's not the way we grow our economy. That's not the way we create jobs.
Story continues below


And when small business people see that half of their income, half of the income of small businesses is going to be taxed by Sen, Obama, then they're very upset with it.


KING: He says, it's only the personal income tax. If you run a store, if you make $250,000 or more, as a personal income, not a business income, that's where he's (INAUDIBLE).


MCCAIN: And that's where his folks just reduced it to $200,000. And then Sen. Biden yesterday said $150,000. And the fact is that if Joe the Plumber is able to buy the business that he works in, the guy that he buys it from is going to see an increase in capital gains taxes. They're going to see an increase in payroll taxes. They're going to see -- if he reaches a certain level, an increase in his income taxes. And that's what got people concerned. That's what's got Joe the Plumber upset. He wants to redistribute the money.


KING: Doesn't taxes pay for services?


MCCAIN: Taxes pay for services.


KING: (INAUDIBLE) taxes.


MCCAIN: But, do we want -- taxes pay to keep our government secure. To help those who can't help themselves. And other functions of government, which, by the way, expanded by some 40 percent in the last eight years and gave us a $10 trillion debt --


KING: Under Bush.


MCCAIN: And to the last two years, under Democrat majorities in the House and Senate.


But, that's the job of government. But it is not the job of government that I believe in, that would take a group of Americans who have some money and say, we're taking your money, and we're giving it to others. This 95 percent tax cut he's talking about for 95 percent of Americans -- 40 percent of Americans pay no income tax. So he is just going to give them some money. Where is he going to get it? He is increasing taxes for other groups of Americans. That's his plan.


KING: What are you going to do?


MCCAIN: I'm going to keep taxes low. I'm going to ...


KING: Where they are?


MCCAIN: Sure. Absolutely

NYT Poll: Palin Dragging Ticket

Sarah Palin is an increasing liability for the Republican ticket. From the New York Times:

A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

And in a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’s image, voters said they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people for his administration than they did in Mr. McCain.

What I found most interesting was how Obama is changing racial perceptions.

The survey suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy — if elected, he would be the first black president — has changed some perceptions of race in America. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said whites and blacks have an equal chance of getting ahead in today’s society, up from the half who said they thought so in July. And while 14 percent still said most people they knew would not vote for a black presidential candidate, the number has dropped considerably since the campaign began.

And that voters are crossing party lines to support Obama.

Dixie Cromwell, a 36-year-old cosmetologist from Shelby, N.C., who is a Republican, said in a follow-up interview that she had already voted for Mr. Obama.

“I generally vote Republican, but this year I voted Democrat,” she said. “I just don’t feel we can go through any more of the same old thing that we’ve been going through with the Republican Party.”

Read more here

Rachel Maddow Interviews Obama

Here's Part One of the interview:



And Part Two:

Don't Let Up!

Get out there...make those phone calls! Help Get Out the Vote for Election Day!

Don't trust anything until the contract is signed, sealed AND delivered!

Obama Campaign Ad About Sarah Palin

This is the first time I've seen the Obama campaign take on the issue of Sarah Palin as potential vice president.

Palin is definitely the weakest link in this presidential election...the soft underbelly of the McCain campaign.

I'm surprised the Obama campaign has been as restrained as it has. To me, McCain choosing Palin shows a glaring lack of respect for this country and a complete cynicism about the political process.

Sarah Palin... Separated at Birth?

Something making its way through the blogosphere....the uncanny resemblance of Sarah Palin to Peggy Hill.

Just sayin'

Palin Goin' Rogue

Also, here is Politico's media roundup on Sarah Palin goin' rogue.

McCain Camp Trying to Scapegoat Palin

Interesting piece from Politico on the turmoil in the McCain campaign:

John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.

And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”

Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”

Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?

Read more here

Live Today on BarackObama.com

From the campaign:

Below is a list of events that will be streamed live today on BarackObama.com.

Our live streams let you watch major campaign events as they happen -- without interruptions.

Please forward this email to anyone you know who would like to watch Barack Obama and Joe Biden's events live online.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Barack Obama
Sarasota, FL
11:15 a.m. EDT

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama
Virginia Beach, VA
5:55 p.m. EDT

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama
Columbia, MO
10:10 p.m. CDT

An additional schedule of events will be streamed today on our second channel.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/stream/

Change We Need Rally
with Joe Biden
Arnold, MO
10:00 a.m. CDT

Change We Need Rally
with Joe Biden
Williamsport, VA
4:30 p.m. EDT

Change We Need Rally
with Joe Biden
Allentown, PA
6:30 p.m. EDT

Start times appear as scheduled but may be subject to delay.

Thanks,

Obama for America

Nielsen Ratings Are In

The Nielsen Ratings for last night's Obamamercial:

* Overall, for the six networks that aired the program simultaneously, the spot had a household rating of 21.7% (meaning that 21.7 percent of all households watching television were tuned to the spot.)
* In comparison, the final debate between the two presidential candidates received a 38.3 household rating in the top 56 local TV markets. The candidates’ first debate on September 26 received a 34.7 household rating in the top 55 markets; their second debate, on October 7, received a 42.0 household rating in those markets.
* The last presidential candidate to air a paid simulcast was Ross Perot in 1996, which received a national household rating of 16.8.
* Last night, the Baltimore market had the largest TV audience, with a household rating of 31.3, while the Portland market had the lowest household rating: 14.2.

Click here for more information

Obama on the Daily Show

Obama spoke with John Stewart after last night's Obamamercial.

Barack Obama: American Stories, American Solutions

The video from last night's national ad.

Live Today on BarackObama.com

From the campaign:

Below is a list of events that will be streamed live today on BarackObama.com.

Our live streams let you watch major campaign events as they happen -- without interruptions.

Please forward this email to anyone you know who would like to watch Barack Obama and Joe Biden's events live online.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/


Early Vote for Change Rally
with Barack Obama
Raleigh, NC
12:00 p.m. EDT

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Barack Obama
Sunrise, FL
7:30 p.m. EDT

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Barack Obama and President Bill Clinton
Kissimmee, FL
11:00 p.m. EDT

An additional schedule of events will be streamed today on our second channel.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/stream/

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Joe Biden
Jupiter, FL
11:00 a.m. EDT

Start times appear as scheduled but may be subject to delay.

Thanks,

Obama for America

Closing Argument

Barack Obama speaks in Canton, Ohio.

Live Today on BarackObama.com

From the campaign:

Below is a list of events that will be streamed live today on BarackObama.com.

Our live streams let you watch major campaign events as they happen -- without interruptions.

Please forward this email to anyone you know who would like to watch Barack Obama and Joe Biden's events live online.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama
Chester, PA
10:00 a.m. EDT

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama
Harrisonburg, VA
5:15 p.m. EDT

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama
Norfolk, VA
9:25 p.m. EDT

An additional schedule of events will be streamed today on our second channel.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/stream/

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Joe Biden
Melbourne, FL
6:45 p.m. EDT

Start times appear as scheduled but may be subject to delay.

Thanks,

Obama for America

Chat with Sarah Palin

This chatbot spews out Palinesque responses. The only problem is it's frustratingly like the original.

Now you know how Katie Couric felt.

They Have My Vote

The students of Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta give their fair and balanced take on the national election.

McCain Girls Have Grown Up!

The election is officially over! The McCain Girls have seen the error of their ways, and are now calling themselves the Obama Mamas.

Everybody loves a winner.

Alaska's Largest Newspaper Endorses Obama

The Anchorage Daily News has endorsed Barack Obama.

Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis -- erratic is a kind description -- shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.

Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn't do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown's root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.

On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.

Read more here

Tell President Barack What You Think

Looking forward to a potential Obama administration, a group of supporters of Barack Obama’s campaign for President have developed a web site to “Tell Barack” what they want.

Tell Barack provides an opportunity for visitors to let Barack Obama know what is important to them. Most of the information available in the media and on the web is telling Americans what Barack wants to do once he is President. But to the founders of this website, people aren’t listening close enough to what he is saying. “He says it is about us. Not him. So we need to let him know what we want him to do.”


The web site includes surveys, details on several issues where visitors can comment and leave ratings, and a feature where visitors can send an email to Barack. The site is not affiliated with the official Barack Obama campaign, but the site’s founders believe that with enough input from individual Americans, the Obama staff will be interested in what they have to say.


The second goal of the web site is for people to get involved. After the election – with an Obama victory – there is going to be a tremendous groundswell of interest in the general public to get involved and do their part to change America. The energy and enthusiasm that will hopefully take Obama to the White House can be put to good use in many areas of community and volunteer service.


Tell Barack has a listing of volunteer opportunities in several categories such as education, international issues, healthcare, and more. The web site can also be used by members of the community to provide information for other visitors, posting information on their own about their own causes, volunteer and service opportunities, and related organizations.

Live Today on BarackObama.com

From the campaign:

Below is a list of events that will be streamed live today on BarackObama.com.

Our live streams let you watch major campaign events as they happen -- without interruptions.

Please forward this email to anyone you know who would like to watch Barack Obama and Joe Biden's events live online.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/

Event with Barack Obama
Canton, OH
12:40 p.m. EDT

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama
Pittsburgh, PA
5:10 p.m. EDT

An additional schedule of events will be streamed today on our second channel.

Streaming today at: http://www.barackobama.com/live/stream/

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Joe Biden
Greensboro, NC
3:00 p.m. EDT

Early Vote for Change Rally
with Joe Biden
New Port Richey, FL
7:30 p.m. EDT

Start times appear as scheduled but may be subject to delay.

Thanks,

Obama for America

Waiting 90 Years to Cast This Vote

Here's something you can tell to anyone who decides the lines are too long or they're too busy to vote. Tell them about the woman who waited 90 years for the opportunity.

From Politico:

Here's an early voting story from a medical student in Evansville, Ind.:

I squeaked in just before the 7pm deadline to find two very frustrated poll workers and a line of a couple dozen people, due to problems with the computerized voting system not accepting people's driver's licenses. It was taking about 7-10 minutes per person just to get the computer to accept them as valid and to print out their ballot, causing very long delays.

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president. Anyone who doesn't think that African-American turnout will absolutely SHATTER every existing record is in for a very rude surprise.

There were about 20 people in front of me but remarkably not a single person left the room without voting over the 2 hours it took to get through the line.

How You Lost the Election for Barack Obama

One single nonvoter tipped the election toward John McCain.



(You can customize this video to send to your friends...particularly those in swing states.)

Is Sarah Palin Smarter Than a Third Grader?

Carve for Change

Yes We Carve has an assortment of templates to make your very own Barack O'Lantern ... or Jack O'bama...(whatever you want to call it) for Halloween.

Obama Radio

Slacker radio has created an "Obama Greatest Hits" channel.

The station was programmed using songs from Barack Obama's speeches, campaign trail efforts, his own writings and interviews, including those from Rolling Stone and BLENDER magazine. The DJs at Slacker also utilized his campaign rally music and the "Yes We Can" CD available through the campaign. Some of the songs even have samples from his speeches.

John C. Reilly: Vote for Change

Actor John C. Reilly offers his take on the race issue:


Click here for more videos from Vote For Change

Integrating Democratic Headquarters in West Virginia

A very sweet story about the efforts of West Virginia Democrats to get beyond race in this historic election.

From the Washington Post:

Back in June, if you asked longtime Democratic activist Waneta Acker what she thought about merging the Obama campaign with her party's local operations, she'd just strain her neck and tense up.

For the past two decades, this 88-year-old retired insurance saleswoman has run the one-room Democratic headquarters downtown.

She collected $600 per month to rent the space, set up the phone bank, and organize the candidates' promotional material on a table: local commissioner here, prosecuting attorney there, state assessor here, President of the United States there.

From morning to night Acker held court. Factory workers, union representatives, and retirees came by to snatch buttons and talk politics. You'll all get healthcare, she assured them.

Democrats in this 50,000-person county knew Acker. And Acker knew her Democrats. Or so she thought.

Change suddenly arrived on April 12. That day, at the nearby Carpenters Union, supporters of Barack Obama staged a coup of sorts.

It was the Ohio County Democratic Party's monthly meeting. On the agenda: choosing delegates for the state Democratic Convention in Charleston, which in turn would elect delegates to the National Convention in Denver.

In place of the dozen or so participants Acker expected, at least 50 Barack Obama devotees showed up, clad in blue T-shirts, baseball caps, and buttons blaring: "PROGRESS."

"Who are these people?!" Acker demanded. She didn't know them, "And that's unusual because I know gillions of people."

Stranger still, they were "mostly dark, black, African American or what have you." That's through Acker's eyes. In fact, less than one in three of those Obama-backers were black, though that is still a relatively large ratio in this 93 percent white town. To Acker, anyway, it looked like a flood of strange newcomers.

Over her 60 years of political life, "[Black people] never got involved [in politics] never, and they didn't help us, even on our Democratic Headquarters," she said. Then all of a sudden, they came en masse.

Read more here

Watch the video:

Barack Heads Home to Be With Grandmother

Barack and his family have flown back to Hawaii to be with his grandmother, Madelyn "Toot" Dunham, who is very ill. My understanding is that she has broken a hip.

Toot (taken from the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu) was a central figure in Barack's life, because there were many years when he was separated from his mother while she lived overseas. Barack only met his biological father once. Toot and Barack's grandfather, Stanley, were his surrogate parents.

Click here to watch a slideshow of Barack and his grandparents. It's striking to me how much he resembles his grandfather, particularly in the photos where Stanley was young.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

Obama Has Record High Favorability Ratings

McCain/Palin... not so much.

From New York Times:

As voters have gotten to know Senator Barack Obama, they have warmed up to him, with more than half, 53 percent, now saying they have a favorable impression of him and 33 percent saying they have an unfavorable view. But as voters have gotten to know Senator John McCain, they have not warmed, with only 36 percent of voters saying they view him favorably while 45 percent view him unfavorably.

...Mr. Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running for a first term in the last 28 years of Times/CBS polls. Mrs. Palin’s negative rating is the highest for a vice-presidential candidate as measured by The Times and CBS News. Even Dan Quayle, with whom Mrs. Palin is often compared because of her age and inexperience on the national scene, was not viewed as negatively in the 1988 campaign.

Read more here

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama on Meet the Press today. He gave an eloquent explanation for his position:

From Politico:

Retired General Colin L. Powell, one of the country's most respected Republicans, stunned both parties on Sunday by strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president on NBC's "Meet the Press" and laying out a blistering, detailed critique of the modern GOP.

Powell said the election of Obama would "electrify the world."

"I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said. "He is a new generation coming ... onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."

Read more here

Here's the actual interview:

Sarah Palin on SNL

The Palin rap is brilliant.

The Black McCains: An American Story

Interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal about African-American descendants of slaves from the McCain plantation in Mississippi.

Evidently, they believe that they are related to the white McCains by bloodline as well. But in this case blood is not thicker than water... because these McCains are supporters of Barack Obama.

The black McCains of today were raised to believe that they were blood relatives of the white McCains, dating back to slavery times. White McCains say they're unaware of any biological connection between the families. A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to comment.

Why is it that the black families always know they're related to the white families, but not the other way around? Hmmm..

Well, if my own family is at all representative, my black grandfather had a white Louisiana landowning father "Papa Charlie," who had his own white wife. My black great-grandmother was a sharecropper on "Papa Charlie's" plantation and had six children by him.

As the laws would have it, when Papa Charlie died, the white side of the family got all the land, the black children got nothing.

(As luck and hard work would have it, now the black side of the family is full of college graduates. The white relatives in Lousiana...not so much.)

My grandfather went back to Louisiana as an adult and met his white half-brother. His brother confessed that they always knew the black siblings were around, even if they weren't supposed to.

This piece is intriguing because it shows the trajectory of two families and how they were linked through slavery.

Ms. McCain and her siblings are descended from two of about 120 slaves held before the end of the Civil War at Teoc, the Mississippi plantation owned by the family of Republican nominee John McCain's great-great-grandfather.

In a year when the historic nature of Sen. Obama's candidacy is drawing much comment, the case of the Teoc McCains offers another quintessential American narrative in black and white. For the black McCain family, it is a story of triumph over the legacy of slavery; for the white McCains, it is the evolution of a 19th-century cotton dynasty into one rooted in an ethic of military and national service.

"I think that since we can't undo what has been done, that the most effective thing for us to do is figure out how to put things in perspective and go from there," says Ms. McCain, who holds a doctorate in psychology and teaches at Mott Community College in Flint, Mich. "To harbor anger and hostility and all that is counterproductive."

Read more here

I completely agree that the time for anger and hostility is over. It's counterproductive toward achieving your goals. In my own life, I am surrounded by ALL races. I ended up marrying a white man whose grandparents immigrated here from Italy.

My family left the South and came to California in the 1930s. From there my grandfather worked as a Red Cap on the railroad. At that time, that was a very prestigious job for a black man to have because you could work for tips. My father joined the military and was able to get a GI loan to help him build a house and start a family. My parents weren't college educated, but took advantage of scholarships and loans to send us to college. And they did experience racism along the way, but they persevered and were able to make great strides.

Obama's biography is attractive to me because he is representative of this American journey and how far we've come. I'm never one to deny that racism still exists in our society. The haters are still out there. But thankfully I've encountered more good people than bad, more people who are more concerned about who I am as a person than the color of my skin.

UPDATE: Click here to watch CNN's report on the black McCains.

More GOP Racism

This disgusting turn of events took place in "liberal" California, well, actually the Inland Empire, which has its fair share of white "conservatives."

A Republican women's group sent out a newsletter to 200 people that included a racially offensive image of Barack Obama.

From the Press Enterprise:

The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

Here's the image:




I'm shocked...SHOCKED... to find racist imagery being used by the Republican party!

You gotta hand it to those Republican ladies, at least this time it's blatant. And they're not resorting to code like "Obama's not like us" or associating him with anti-American terrorists like they do at the McCain/Palin rallies.

Once again, the person sending the offensive image saw "nothing wrong with it." She got the image from an email.

This makes me scared to ask, what kind of emails are Republicans sending to each other?

The group's president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club's meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"

The only reason this has come to light is because of an African-American woman, a member of the group, who blew the whistle.

Sheila Raines, an African-American member of the club, was the first person to complain to Fedele about the newsletter. Raines, of San Bernardino, said she has worked hard to try to convince other minorities to join the Republican Party and now she feels betrayed.

"This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."

I really feel Ms Raines' pain. I mean here we are on the verge of electing the first biracial president, and we are still battling the ugliness left by slavery and segregation.

But I would give one bit of advice to Ms. Raines. You know how the saying goes honey, you lie down with dogs...

The GOP really needs to get its act together unless it wants to be known for the next 20 years as the party of the inbred. Can they afford to wait another 15 or 20 years until all the old racists die off or get Alzheimers? We are in a multicultural world, a multicultural century. Will the GOP become completely irrelevant until they have the courage to completely purge the racists from their ranks? Or will they just get older and older... and whiter and whiter?

That's up to the GOP leadership. But strong and decisive action must be taken to clean house... otherwise it's going to be a long, drawn-out, and evidently extremely ugly, decline.

SNL: Crazy McCain Rally Lady

Batman vs. Penguin: Brilliant Recap of the Last Presidential Debate

For those of you who missed last night's debate... watch this:

Clean Sweep! Obama Wins It (Again)

Well, were you surprised? Obama wins this debate by the largest margin yet.

My thoughts... well, I've already voted by mail, so I'm not the demographic the McCain campaign needs.

But, really, let's be frank. Obama represents the future... McCain the past. Obama is offering us a way out of the wilderness while McCain rages.

Here is McCain's lowest point in the debate. When he mocks saving the health of the mother in the case of late-term abortion.



I see that McCain is so deeply embedded in right-wing ideology that he is unable to see the forest through the trees. I could tell by his facial expressions that he thought he won the debates. It's too bad that he is so completely out of touch with the American people. He needs to go back to another right-wing rally where his buzzwords make sense.

To the rest of us, the ideology doesn't play. It's not resonating.

End of chapter.

Things That Make You Go... Hmmm

This one is being called "McCain Turns Into Zombie."

From Reuters:

US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008
(USA)

Video Your Vote

A new program from PBS and YouTube:

YouTube and PBS have partnered to empower American voters to upload their Election Day voting experiences to YouTube (http://youtube.com/videoyourvote). In the first presidential election since YouTube’s inception, the Video Your Vote YouTube Channel aims to gather copious amounts of polling place video, with the channel serving as an online library for Election Day footage. Complete rules, background information, educational videos from PBS and YouTube’s partners, and more are also available at the Video Your Vote site.

Registered United States voters can share their voting experiences via the channel. On November 4, the channel will serve as the premier online destination for up-to-the-minute coverage from voters contributing videos straight from thousands of precincts across the country. Some of the best videos will be showcased on PBS television as part of THE NEWSHOUR WITH JIM LEHRER’s Election Day broadcast. They may also be used throughout PBS’ election coverage, both on-air and online. More information is at http://www.pbs.org/vote2008/youtube/ .

Palin as President

This is a lot of fun. Click here and move your cursor around to see what might happen if Sarah Palin were to become President.

CNN on Palin's Association with the Secessionist Party

Finally, the mainstream media is starting to investigate Palin's shady associations with members of the Alaska Independence Party.

What most concerns me about this party is their embrace of white supremacist and pro-Confederate groups. If Palin were to become president, what assurance do I have that these extremists won't have access to the White House and public policy?

Why is it that whenever you scratch the surface of a far-right conservative, there's a white supremacist lurking somewhere nearby?

And truly, most of us are probably one association away from some scoundrel or other. Heck, we might even be related to them. But the fact of the matter is, Palin's associations I find far more threatening than Obama's.

Obama has Ayers, who it turns out is also a college professor at a well-regarded university and has been embraced and vetted by the Annenberg Foundation. He also has the Rev. Wright, who preached some incendiary sermons from his church. But to me, there's no comparison between those characters and folks who are armed, possibly racist, and want to secede from the union.

I call double-standard and cowardice by the mainstream media. If Michelle Obama were a member of party with black separatist ties, they would have jumped all over it.

Hey Sarah Palin (with Lyrics and Subtitles)

Quite clever. Has some profanity...

Olbermann on the McCain/Palin Rallies

Elect Obama (Remix)

Fantastic hip-hop video by Big Hit Buda (love the drum corps at the beginning...also love seeing the teacher gettin' PAID!)

What other candidate inspires such passion, energy, and commitment?

This song is a positive call to arms. Let's bring these votes home for Obama. Stand up!




(Watch the high-quality version on Youtube)

Barack's Economic Rescue Plan for the Middle Class

Obama's Organizing Army

Speaking from personal experience, working on the Obama campaign has been a life-changing experience. Obama's background as a community organizer grows leaders in local communities... and to me, that's what a Democracy is all about.

From Zack Exley in Huffington Post:

Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

The "New Organizers" have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

Neighborhood team leaderWin or lose, "The New Organizers" have already transformed thousands of communities—and revolutionized the way organizing itself will be understood and practiced for at least the next generation.

Read more here

Sleeping With a Secessionist

Sarah "Sleeping with a Secessionist" Palin has her own radical associations that she has never fully answered to. If Barack Obama is (in her words) not telling the "full truth" about Bill Ayers, I definitely want Ms. Palin to fully and completely answer to her views on her husband's membership in a party that still supports the Southern Confederacy and their so-called "right" to secede from the Union.

Barack Obama has denounced both his former pastor and has called Ayers' actions "deplorable." Sarah Palin has yet to answer about her views regarding the Alaskan Independence Party and whether she agrees or disagrees with them.

Joe Vogler, the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party [AIP] even took his case for Alaskan separatism before the United Nations under sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran!

From Salon.com:

The AIP was born of the vision of “Old Joe” Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. His resentment peaked during the early 1970s when the federal government began installing Alaska’s oil and gas pipeline. Fueled by raw rage — “The United States has made a colony of Alaska,” he told author John McPhee in 1977 — Vogler declared a maverick candidacy for the governorship in 1982. Though he lost, Old Joe became a force to be reckoned with, as well as a constant source of amusement for Alaska’s political class. During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. “There’s gold under there!” he exclaimed.

Vogler made another failed run for the governor’s mansion in 1986. But the AIP’s fortunes shifted suddenly four years later when Vogler convinced Richard Nixon’s former interior secretary, Wally Hickel, to run for governor under his party’s banner. Hickel coasted to victory, outflanking a moderate Republican and a centrist Democrat. An archconservative Republican running under the AIP candidate, Jack Coghill, was elected lieutenant governor.

Hickel’s subsequent failure as governor to press for a vote on Alaskan independence rankled Old Joe. With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe’s long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.

Sarah Palin's associate and current AIP chairman Mark Chryson discusses his views on AIP and the confederacy:

This has meant rubbing shoulders and forging alliances with outright white supremacists and far-right theocrats, particularly those who dominate the proceedings at such gatherings as the North American Secessionist conventions, which AIP delegates have attended in recent years. The AIP’s affiliation with neo-Confederate organizations is motivated as much by ideological affinity as by organizational convenience. Indeed, Chryson makes no secret of his sympathy for the Lost Cause. “Should the Confederate states have been allowed to separate and go their peaceful ways?” Chryson asked rhetorically. “Yes. The War of Northern Aggression, or the Civil War, or the War Between the States — however you want to refer to it — was not about slavery, it was about states’ rights.”

Chryson brags that Ms. Palin had an open-door policy to him once she got into office, and that he was instrumental in helping shape public policy in Alaska.

Read the full article here


And here's a video excerpt of the Chryson interview:



Click here to read my previous posts on the Alaskan Independence Party.

McCain's Meanderings

John Stewart of The Daily Show wonders why McCain was wandering around during the second debate.

More Right-Wing Ugliness

The Sidewalk to Nowhere... a McCain/Palin rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Evidently, right-wing anger is at a fever pitch.




UPDATE: More virulence:



Barack Obama responds:

“Even as we face the most serious economic crisis of our time, even as you are worried about keeping your jobs or paying your bills or staying in your homes, my opponent’s campaign announced last week that they plan to ‘turn the page’ on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead,” Obama said during a speech in Chillicothe, Ohio.

“So in the last couple of days, we’ve seen a barrage of nasty insinuations and attacks, and I’m sure we’ll see much more over the next 25 days. We know what’s coming. We know what they’re going to do.”

“I think that folks are looking for something different,” Obama continued. “It’s easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that’s not what we need right now in the United States.”

“The times are too serious. The challenges are too great. The American people aren’t looking for someone who can divide this country – they’re looking for someone who will lead it. We’re in a serious crisis - now, more than ever, it is time to put country ahead of politics.”

Ignorance on Display at McCain/Palin Rally

Watch this for some pretty extreme examples of ignorance, xenophobia and cognitive dissonance.



UPDATE: More video footage here

I'm Voting for "That One"

Today is a historic day for me. I'm taking my vote-by-mail ballot to the post office and casting my vote for Barack Obama.

I can't tell you how excited I am to be an agent for positive change for this country. We desperately need a new direction and new leadership.

I watched last night's debates, which I have to say were dreadfully dull... I think the format was terrible. It was like watching a townhall in a tomb.

And the only thing crossing my mind was, can we please put McCain out of his misery? God, please, let me cast my vote as soon as possible. I just want this long, long journey to be over.

McCain really showed his true colors, though, in his contemptuous way of calling Obama "That One"... not "the Senator" not "my esteemed colleague."



Was this highhanded remark thinly veiled racism?

I can't look into McCain's heart, but his remark certainly can be viewed as such. Especially coming from a man who voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday into a national holiday.

But maybe McCain is just old and rude. That happens, too. The weird jokes that sound hostile. Dissing Brokaw... even the "Bomb Bomb Iran" joke. Sometimes people when they age, their attempts at humor just don't come across the way they intend and the jokes turn mean.

And that whispery voice that McCain uses... it makes my skin crawl. Someone described it as the voice of that creepy uncle who wants you to keep a secret.

I suppose I'll watch the third debate because it's history and all. But I've really seen and heard enough... and I think the American people have, too.

Robert Gibbs Skewers Sean Hannity

Fox News' Hannity gets owned by Gibbs over the whole guilt-by-association/Ayers ploy. Only problem is, Hannity is too dumb to know it.

Obama Hits Back: New Keating Documentary to Air Today!

From the campaign:

Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.

In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.

But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.

During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.

Sound familiar?

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts -- and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.

So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we're releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis" -- it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.

Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends.

The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn't learned his lesson.

And this time, McCain's bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.

Watch the video to see why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis:

http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo

It's no wonder John McCain would rather spend the last month of this election smearing Barack's character instead of talking about the top priority issue for voters.

But if we work together, we can make sure the focus stays on the economy -- and how to fix it.

Please forward this email to everyone you know.

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

P.S. -- The documentary will be live at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th at www.KeatingEconomics.com.

McCain "Erratic in Crisis"

Obama Opens Big Lead in Minnesota Poll

From Politico:

A new Minneapolis Star Tribune poll shows Barack Obama opening an expansive lead in Minnesota, which appears to further shrink the electoral map of John McCain.

Some 55 percent of respondents said they support Obama, compared to 37 percent who back McCain. The last Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, conducted in September, showed Obama and McCain deadlocked at 45 percent.

Read more here

Obama and Ayres... Another Republican Sideshow

Well, McCain has no more gimmicks up his sleeve and has now resorted to the kitchen sink strategy in a flailing attempt to invigorate his flagging poll numbers.

And he's letting his adorable pitbull-with-lipstick Sarah Palin do the attacking.

Now, she's accusing Obama of cavorting with terrorists, namely former 1960s radical William Ayers.

Stepping up the Republican ticket’s attacks on Senator Barack Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday seized on a report about Mr. Obama’s relationship with a former 1960s radical to accuse him of “palling around with terrorists.”

“This is not a man who sees America as you see it, and how I see America,” Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said in Colorado, according to a pool report. “We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for all of us.

“Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

The article to which she referred, in The New York Times on Saturday, traced Mr. Obama’s sporadic interactions with Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weathermen who later became an education professor in Chicago and worked on education projects there with Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president.

The only thing is that there are a number of problems with the latest McCain/Palin strategy.

First and foremost, the New York Times piece about the relationship between Ayers and Obama shows that there's no there there. William Ayers is now an education professor at the University of Illinois. He and Obama sat on some educational boards together.

I guess you can use this to try to rile up the tinfoil hat crowd, but are there enough of them to win a national election?

This attempt to portray Obama as some kind of covert left-wing radical would be humorous if it were not so pathetic. From the New York Times:

“I saw no evidence of a radical streak, either overt or covert, when we were together at Harvard Law School,” said Bradford A. Berenson, who worked on the Harvard Law Review with Mr. Obama and who served as associate White House counsel under President Bush. Mr. Berenson, who is backing Mr. McCain, described his fellow student as “a pragmatic liberal” whose moderation frustrated others at the law review whose views were much farther to the left.

Some 15 years later, left-leaning backers of Mr. Obama have the same complaint. “We’re fully for Obama, but we disagree with some of his stands,” said Tom Hayden, the 1960s activist and former California legislator, who helped organize Progressives for Obama. His group opposes the candidate’s call for sending more troops to Afghanistan, for instance, “because we think it’s a quagmire just like Iraq,” he said. “A lot of our work is trying to win over progressives who think Obama is too conservative.”

Mr. Hayden, 68, said he has known Mr. Ayers for 45 years and was on the other side of the split in the radical antiwar movement that led Mr. Ayers and others to form the Weathermen. But Mr. Hayden said he saw attempts to link Mr. Obama with bombings and radicalism as “typical campaign shenanigans.”

“If Barack Obama says he’s willing to talk to foreign leaders without preconditions,” Mr. Hayden said, “I can imagine he’d be willing to talk to Bill Ayers about schools. But I think that’s about as far as their relationship goes.”

Secondly, if we're going to play the guilt by association game... then let's play.

I'm really surprised that John "Keating Five" McCain wants to open up that line of attack.

And Ms. Palin should not point fingers. She of the radical Alaskan secessionist connections.

But of course, this is all a sideshow designed to distract the American people from McCain's real weakness, a glaring lack of leadership during the biggest economic crisis in our lifetime.

The Obama campaign responded to the latest Palin attacks:

“Governor Palin’s comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign’s statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation’s economic ills. In fact, the very newspaper story Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less ‘pals,’ and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was eight. What’s clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy,” said Obama-Biden spokesman Hari Sevugan.

SNL on the Vice Presidential Debate

Once again, Tina Fey is brilliant. I love Queen Latifah's reactions as well.

The Poetry of Sarah Palin

Salon.com makes the verbatim words of Sarah Palin into poetry.

"On Good and Evil"

It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.

That's not a good guy.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"You Can't Blink"

You can't blink.
You have to be wired
In a way of being
So committed to the mission,

The mission that we're on,
Reform of this country,
And victory in the war,
You can't blink.

So I didn't blink.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)


"Haiku"

These corporations.
Today it was AIG,
Important call, there.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)


"Befoulers of the Verbiage"

It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)

Read more here

Thoughts on the Vice Presidential Debate

Well, I have to be completely honest... I have an intense visceral dislike of Ms. Palin. Her folksy schtick I find completely grating.. that wink... that WINK! For the love of God... WHY????



I feel as though my ears are bleeding when I hear her speak.

To me she is all ideology and no authenticity.

Joe Biden I thought was masterful. He didn't let her slide on her vague charges. He hit on exactly every point I thought he should have.

He spoke like an adult, like a statesman. I was truly touched by his story of being a single father after the tragic death of his wife and child.

Sarah was too cutesy, too Miss Wasilla beauty queen. The smiling, looking directly into the camera, the perkiness, the winking, she's got the dirty-old-man vote locked up!

Will it play among uncommitted voters? Evidently not. Look at the latest poll numbers.

CNN poll:

Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job in Thursday night's debate, while 36 percent thought Palin did the best job.

CBS poll:

Forty-six percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed say Democrat Joe Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Republican Sarah Palin. Thirty-three percent said it was a tie.

People can tell when someone is over their head. Sarah obviously kept to her script, and showed that she can memorize lines, no more. When she couldn't answer a question, she just changed the subject.

Also, what the media doesn't understand is that a person who is uncommitted at this point in the election, is not a person who is STUPID.

I meet them all the time, they tend to be Libertarians or Republicans sick of their own party who are REALLY asking questions about the issues, particularly the economy.

They are not right-wing ideologues. And, sadly, that is what today's Republican party has become. A party of ideology and not results. If you don't buy into the ideology, what is there for the average American in their platform? (BTW... Ms. Palin wants the Vice President to have MORE power so that she can become another Dick Cheney? Is she insane?)

Sarah Palin with her cheesy, folksy "darn tootin'" act is not going to play with people who are concerned about the economy and watching their 401Ks shrink.

Let's face it, John McCain's campaign has devolved into a campaign of gimmicks and stunts. Sarah Palin is the biggest manifestation of the gimmick and stunt strategy.

McCain Pulls Out of Michigan

McCain is cutting his losses and hightailing his campaign out of Michigan. Polls are not going his way.

Crunching the Numbers

Once again, I'm going to push my favorite site, Real Clear Politics. It becomes addictive, watching the battleground state poll numbers. It's the political equivalent of the stock market. And right now, Barack's stock is rising!

My newest toy is the CNN election calculator, which helps you do the math and figure out which states will push Barack over the top (basically if he can win Florida, it's all over).

Also, the Princeton Election Consortium is run by statistician from Princeton who models 10,000 electoral probabilities using a live feed from www.pollster.com updated twice daily. What's interesting about this is the high probability that tonight's debate won't matter in terms of being a game-changer.

You Can Interview Sarah Palin, Too!

Well, I think that Ms. Palin has been practicing at debate camp day and night to prepare for tonight's debate. The highly structured format will mean that she won't repeat the same nonsensical blizzard of words that she did in the Couric interview.

Basically, if she can put one coherent sentence together, it will be a success for her. And the right will try to spin it as though she won.

(If she still can't speak English and continues to speak in MadLibs [insert any random word in the blank space], the right will blame it on moderator Gwen Ifill.)

We know the truth, though.

So, if you want to get a gander at the REAL Sarah Palin interview style, try asking her a few questions yourself.

Go to Interview Sarah Palin and have a shot at it. (Good luck with that.)

Barack Obama Is a Socialist???

A lot of people on the right parrot talking points they've heard on right-wing talk radio... namely that Barack Obama is a socialist.

Do these people even know what socialism is? Have they ever studied political science?

They can never cite one policy of Obama's that is in fact socialist.

How are tax incentives to support the creation of new alternative energy companies socialist?

It's the same ole "Commie Pinko" smear that conservatives liked to fling around during the Cold War.

Unfortunately, they won't be happy until ALL their jobs are gone.

The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama is scary to many of them because he is a black man, and they're trying to use every ploy in the book to smear him. The fact that Obama is actually biracial, and was really raised by white people doesn't matter to those kinds of voters. The right will continue to try to paint him as "'other'... risky... foreign... I just don't *trust* him....he's a Socialist!" to stoke their fears.

We were making phonebank calls to Colorado yesterday trying to see whether people were supporters or not. One man we called said, "I'm voting for McCain, not the spook."

Liberal Media = Today's Race Card

This whole crock of crap about the evil LIBERAL MEDIA really needs to be put out to pasture. It's the 21st century equivalent of the race card.

That hand is played out and we're sick of it.

As Barack said, it's time for the right to own their failures and stop blaming everybody else.

I thought conservatives were supposed to stand for personal responsibility, but they seem utterly incapable of taking on any. Instead it's the liberal media, the minorities, the immigrants, the gays... chose your scapegoat.

Barack's Plan for the Bailout

Newsweek: How Credit Default Swaps Became a Timebomb

Very informative piece from Newsweek that helps explain how we got ourselves into this financial mess:

They're called "Off-Site Weekends"—rituals of the high-finance world in which teams of bankers gather someplace sunny to blow off steam and celebrate their successes as Masters of the Universe. Think yacht parties, bikini models, $1,000 bottles of Cristal. One 1994 trip by a group of JPMorgan bankers to the tony Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida has become the stuff of Wall Street legend—though not for the raucous partying (although there was plenty of that, too). Holed up for most of the weekend in a conference room at the pink, Spanish-style resort, the JPMorgan bankers were trying to get their heads around a question as old as banking itself: how do you mitigate your risk when you loan money to someone? By the mid-'90s, JPMorgan's books were loaded with tens of billions of dollars in loans to corporations and foreign governments, and by federal law it had to keep huge amounts of capital in reserve in case any of them went bad. But what if JPMorgan could create a device that would protect it if those loans defaulted, and free up that capital?

What the bankers hit on was a sort of insurance policy: a third party would assume the risk of the debt going sour, and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank, similar to insurance premiums. JPMorgan would then get to remove the risk from its books and free up the reserves. The scheme was called a "credit default swap," and it was a twist on something bankers had been doing for a while to hedge against fluctuations in interest rates and commodity prices. While the concept had been floating around the markets for a couple of years, JPMorgan was the first bank to make a big bet on credit default swaps. It built up a "swaps" desk in the mid-'90s and hired young math and science grads from schools like MIT and Cambridge to create a market for the complex instruments. Within a few years, the credit default swap (CDS) became the hot financial instrument, the safest way to parse out risk while maintaining a steady return. "I've known people who worked on the Manhattan Project," says Mark Brickell, who at the time was a 40-year-old managing director at JPMorgan. "And for those of us on that trip, there was the same kind of feeling of being present at the creation of something incredibly important."

Read more here

What Your Taxes Would Be Under Obama or McCain

Election Taxes has a handy tool that tells you what you could expect to pay in taxes under an Obama or McCain administration.