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Here's Something We Can DO...
from Backbone Bill...
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from Backbone Bill...
McCain, for example, conveyed himself as a highly stable candidate throughout the primary season by doing things such as taking a wide, grounded stance and gripping the sides of the podium.
"Now, he's gotten into swaying in the wind a little bit and looking around, which makes him look more equivocal," she said. "I don't know if this is making his supporters nervous or not. Voters drawn to him for his solidness might be concerned."
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_590226.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/26/11610/8558/987/611257
Please rec and comment--it's Richard's story
New home page posted today as well. Comments always welcomed.
Sorry I haven't posted so much. Internet here has been crashing.
I'll be posting Bubble in Time over at KOS later in the day. It reads like science fiction come true nowadays...
As for this crisis, I don't believe that anything that comes out of these negotiations is likely to definitively address the problem. The tangled web that these bankers weaved is far too intricate.
I'm beginning to think that the real solution is for the government to become partners with homeowners - to literally take over the bad loans, in some kind of program that will given homeowners 30 years to pay back the principal owed, plus a reasonable amount of interest. If they can't do that, they'll get to stay so for the lifetime of the principal owners (i.e, parents) so long as they can pay a minimum amount (based on the value of the mortgage) - with the house then becoming property of the government on their deaths. This is not ideal, but it addresses the underlying dynamic driving this credit freeze-up - and it will likely prove much, much cheaper to implement. Since we now own Fanny and Freddie, we can use them to implement the new program.
Repellicans eating Repellicans.
Unnattural, and yet still funny and entertaining!
McCain Camp insiders say Palin "clueless"
Capitol Hill sources are telling me that senior McCain people are more than concerned about Palin. The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as "disastrous." One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, "What are we going to do?" The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is "clueless."
http://wegoted.com/
Wall Street to GOP: Drop Dead
Economic conservatives may be horrified at the thought of a trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, but the GOPers on Wall Street seem horrified that they are being left to wither on the vine by Washington. Take a look at this email I just got last night from a money manager:
I am a lifelong ( 51 years old) "rock-ribbed" conservative.... What an eye opener this week has been! I now realize what a blowhard Newt truly is by advocating the GOP bail on the Paulson Plan. As a professional money manager I can tell you I am shocked, dismayed and depressed that the Speaker would excoriate the GOP to abandon this plan which is URGENT and necessary to avoid a financial catastrophe that once commenced may be irreversible. The level of ignorance of financial and economic reality displayed by the Speaker , Rep. Boehner, Sen. Shelby , et al, has been frightening and sad. I thought the GOP had a better grasp of such matters than the Dems. Apparently not. And if this has been pure election gamesmanship as I suspect? The willingness to play politics with the U.S. financial markets is appalling and disgusting.
I am a huge Reagan fan and admirer.I have voted GOP every election since 1976. Until now. Today. September 25, 2008. As soon as I finish this email I am going to try and get my $1000 McCain/Palin credit card donation back as I will not be voting GOP this year after watching this circus and the theatres passing as leadership displayed by the GOP. I am embarrassed to have been an erstwhile supporter of this gaggle of self-serving jerks. I hope the GOP lose their asses come November. They shall deserve it.
Ok. I finally got to see this. It was great!
I watched the debate at Kona Kitchen, since Barack is Hawaiian, & our consensus was that Obama kicked McCain's ass.
I got home too late to make it to Neighbours or the Metropolitan or Drinking Liberally at Montlake Pub and I opted not to stay up in Everett for the Barbecue House with the union people. Instead I walked a block to Kona Kitchen, a place Kayakbiker knows well from his last visit to Seattle, and which is owned by the "bad guy" from Karate Kid II. I sat with Teachers for Obama from Shoreline Community College - mostly from the Department of Communication. The African American among them (who had just taken a bunch of students to South Africa) shook my hand and said "I'm Barack Obama." His wife called across the room, "& I'm Michelle!" I said, "Despite my dark hair and glasses, I am NOT Sarah Palin," and the white guy next to me said, "& I am NOT John McCain."
Watching McCain was like being polite to the old guy who is hard of hearing and tells rambling anecdotes that don't make any sense. He was obviously trying to channel Reagan (who most young voters don't remember and most my age wish they didn't) and to stay cool, since he's known for his hot temper and Obama is known for being (as my son says) "cooler than Roy Orbison." At one point, McCain said that South Koreans are taller than North Koreans (a bizarre statement, to say the least) and Yuji (owner) walked out of the room in disgust. Obama, on the other hand, was smart and it's a damn good thing because we're in a world of pain and he needs to be a quick study. He is criticized as "naive" so why try to pretend to be a "regular guy" and actually, someone with who knows how many houses and cars and lobbyist friends is NOT a "regular guy."
After leaving Kona Kitchen, I interviewed a few people at the party across the street at the New York Pizza Kitchen and the consensus was also that Obama kicked McCain's ass.
http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com
Al Rodgers diary at DK
Great pictures there.
````
My comments:
(Look at McBush's facial expression on that one. It says most of it. I wonder if McBush will wake up and ask himself why he gave up integrity for a Rove style attack.)
I have to admit, I didn't like this debate. I know they wanted longer answer times, but I felt that they should have had a bell any time a candidate lied. (Of course during McCain's turn they'd have had to have 5 bell ringers to give them a rest period!)
These debates are hard to figure. I actually thought that McCain was pretty good (I didn't say honest...) last night, and that Barak missed a couple of opportunities to nail him - particularly on foreign policy. But that may not be how others saw their interaction.
For instance, when McCain talks about winning in Iraq, the point needs to be made that our military, at least in terms of foot soldiers, is exhausted – and Iran’s position in the region strengthened. When he talks about the surge succeeding, Obama needs to emphasize how the Sunni Awakening began at least six months before the surge – and how McCain’s attempts to conflate the two is a deliberate attempt at deceiving the American people. The straight-talk express persona need be derailed.
When McCain starts yapping about a nuclear Iran, the point needs to be made that our invasion of Iraq (and contemporary decision to instead negotiate with North Korea) sent a message that potential enemies need obtain a nuclear deterrent, if they wish to avoid Saddam’s fate. We cannot credibly object to enemies seeking nuclear weapons if we only attack those that lack a deterrent. A segment of the American people might be stupid, but the leadership of our enemies is not.
Far from being representative of how a strong America should act, Bush and McCain’s warmongering has literally destabilized several vital theatres of strategic influence. I would go so far as to publicly question whether McCain is still attempting to exorcise his demons from Vietnam – inasmuch as (as the Times pointed out in today’s editorial coverage of the debate) McCain is still talking about “winning”.
Now, that’s my view. There may be calculations being made that by going for the jugular, Obama would look too angry or undignified. Again, as someone who is primarily auditory, I pay attention to words. But as my friend Michael emphasizes, based on his experience of leading seminars across America, a majority of Americans are visual learners (rather than auditory or kinesthetic). It’s almost as if the experience of watching television has completely conditioned Americans to employ a predominant learning style that places appearance over every other component. It might work in our favor in this election, but it’s a tendency that worries me going forward.
Why do I feel like we all just ran a marathon?
I know Obama won, watched every minute of it, but... I was so tired I could not even celebrate and I still feel like I am so exausted I should be in a coma. Is it just me or yall also in some kind of Victory Slump?
For what it is worth, I think the fact he would not look Obama in the eye is a racist behavior. I have seen it too many times.
I never got the sense he was overtly racist until I saw that. It was surprising at how obvious it was.
Madame Defarge has submitted an article about the subprime debacle and the resulting bailout. It's posted on the Home Page. Please give a comment or two to Madame over there.
I'm so proud of Biden! Wow! Obama/Biden. You can tell they just really care about people and about doing right by the people in this country and globally too.
Holy Canoli. McCain DID say, "Horse sh*t!"
And Barack NAILED this! McCain should be ashamed of himself.
He and Palin are definitely war mongers!
Paul Newman dead.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/movies/AP-Obit-Newman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Christy
Here is an article about McCain - racist, bigot and homophobe
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/10086
also click on my name and scroll down a little to the "alpha male" one - there is a bit about monkey research and how the submissive monkey avoids eye contact in presence of the superior monkey - which also occurs in other primates and also animals like wolves
If you want to intimidate an animal (or person) - look them in the eye. When you are uncomfortable and unsure - what happens - eyes are unconsciously averted.
McCain was afraid to debate Obama but had to do it. The only reason he gets any good reviews is because there are plenty of people who think like him and act like him in this country (not to mention the pathetic Palin) - but their day is ending.
Just heard Spike Lee discussing his new movie about the segregated Army on Bob Edwards/NPR. My dad was part of the segregated Army but got kicked off a bus in Little Rock Arkansas for sitting with his black musician buddies.
Spike Lee says even thinking about losing is not an option. He doesn't think about failure when making movies and Michael Jordan doesn't think about failure when playing basketball.
This election is not about us. It's about our children and grandchildren. We are already paying for their future and they will be indebted for this war and bailout. You can't tell me our being bankrupt as a nation (financially and also morally) is just about bad loans - it's also a war we could not afford or sustain.
Bin Laden has now met most of his objectives.
Hmmmm....while Biden's in front of the media after the debate. Check out where Palin is.
(In case you can't tell, it's a bar with the protesters outside of it.)
My Holiday with John McCain - by Kathy Sreedhar
It was just before John McCain's last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child). It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.
He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was "if he likes this so much, why hasn't he memorized any of this yet?" I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his "readings" which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people's buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.
Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn't meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.
read the rest at http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/2008/09/my-holiday-with.html
Can it be true? I don't want his goons coming after me!
I added this disclaimer and am trying to authenticate it further -
http://thebruceblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/my-holiday-with-mccain-oh-lord-i-cant-wait-till-this-gets-verified/
You know what, I'm heartily sick of this *hero* bullsh*t about McCain. There are PLENTY of men (and women, too) in America and countries all over the world who were POWs - some truly heroic and others not so. Survival of POW status does not give licence then to be Commander in Chief of the United States military.
Hell, I'm sure my uncle endured as much or more when he and his mates were forced to build the Burma railway under the brutal, sadistic bashings of the Japanese by whom he was imprisoned for 4 long years. He returned emaciated to us, and although he badly wanted to die he outlived his 4 sisters and a brother.
His debriefing took one more dignity away from him. His own army took away his *truth*. He *followed orders* and promised NEVER to tell what happened to him. He could not break his promise. Ever. And he could not tell lies. Ever.
What makes John McCain a war hero and my uncle and hundreds of thousands, or millions of others, just survivors? And what about the dead? And what about the maimed? And what about the forever-changed? Aren't they ALL victims of their government of the day leading them into war?
There are far more heroic things done in times of war than anything I've heard so far that John McCain did. Far more heroic things done by individuals that none of us will ever know about.
ENOUGH of the WAR HERO CRAP!! Both sides perpetuate it! STOP! Please.
slugbug, to me it's believable. I find John McCain to be the surpreme megalomaniac! And we indulge it with the media reports in this country that McCain won the debate.
UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE!
Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4837644.ece
The Family Values crowd is excited about a Shotgun Wedding?
I have a feeling McCain will still hate the New York Times!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28rich.html?hp
Frank Rich
What's coming out more and more here, in the news is that now that the shock is over and the dust is settled, there are very few people who find Sarah Palin of any current value whatsoever to McCain's campaign. Sure, it will be covered by the shock FOX media but will barely make a headline elsewhere. That kind of attention just comes with remarkable celebrity and royalty. The world will be appalled at the prospect of her as president. How many Cheney's are just waiting in the wings for their opportunity to run the US as HER VP?
Dress it up any which way they will and Palin will continue to lose votes every day. I have to believe that. The alternative is too horrific.
We know how out of touch "inside John McCain's campaign" really is. The uk timesonline is simply showing how ridiculous their campaign desperation has become. I hope.
Well, at last - and more to come, I hope. Some people need to be hit with the truth - over and over and over and over and over.
Thank you Frank Rich and thanks to the nyt for publishing this op ed piece.
Great article in the NYTimes.
It's really so amazing to see all that in one article. Seems like it would be too hard to condense all that crap to one small article.
Pictures from VA rally.
more here
"Seems like it would be too hard to condense all that crap to one small article."
And yet, all they had to do was try investigating it sooner, then they would not have to try cramming it all onto 6 pages.
MUST SEE.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/27/tina-fey-as-sarah-palin-k_n_129956.html
Hmm...the embedded link above isn't showing. So click on Huffpo and then watch the video.
In the meantime, here's a bunch of videos of Biden from the other night. He did great!
Daily Kos diary
Lots of fantastic protests in Alaska over Palin's corruption! I bet you the McCain camp is totally overwhelmed. Here they thought they were picking a nice, pretty, Christian, girl who could pull in the Hillary voters.
Not bloody likely! Anyone in their right mind isn't going to vote for someone with such a track record of deceit and evil. Instead they end up with a person who cloaks herself in Christian words but doesn't follow Christian actions.
Check out the pictures and links and videos in frsbdg's diary
(here's a few teasers.)
More Alaskan articles
mudflats
blue oasis
Shannyn Moore
headed out to register voters - must be done by Oct. 4
I hear Republicans are throwing people off the rolls etc.
Palin Presidency .. the Official Trailer (by Jefferson DoGood)
Good luck, slugbug. Thanks for all you're doing. I'm glad you're able to be so proactive.
I know I haven't done as much as I should. (Haven't been feeling well, plus so overloaded with work.) But I have set a goal to work more on that too. Especially with McCain-Palin seemingly as corrupt as Bush/Cheney. And the Republicans here are still trying to stop people from being able to vote.
One good thing .. watching Obama livestream of his event in Detroit - very progressive ideas that are backed by MI Congressional delegation and Governor and Senator (D) - retooling for energy-efficient cars, better education system, de-emphasis on tv and video games & instilling thirst for kowledge - community service - the right to go to college
Big emphasis on domestic issues - linking McCain with the policies of the past and George Bush
This is amazing! Can't wait to see more! (Then we'll bus downtown inspired!)
Ohio can early-vote on Tuesday. I support the ACLU lawsuit and Dem legislation to make it ok to register on the same day. The Republicans vehemently oppose this, of course. McCain campaign sent out millions of fraudulent absentee requests for people that had a slot on them which if left unchecked, invalidated the person as a voter.
McCain is a tool of the status quo.
Barack Obama leads John McCain in the presidential race in Michigan — 51 percent to McCain's 38 percent — among likely voters, according to a recent Detroit Free Press/WDIV-TV poll.
Here Pukes try to keep those with homes foreclosed on from voting
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/09/25/voting_foreclosures.html
Great ads
Carl Bernstein
Three weeks after the 2008 Republican convention, on the cusp (maybe) of the first presidential debate, it is time to confront an awkward but profound question: whether in picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has committed -- by his own professed standards of duty and honor -- a singularly unpatriotic act.
"I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war," he has said throughout this campaign. Yet, in choosing Palin, he has demonstrated -- whatever his words -- it may be permissible to imperil the country, conceivably even to "lose" it, in order to win the presidency. That would seem the deeper meaning of his choice of Palin.
Indeed, no presidential nominee of either party in the last century has seemed so willing to endanger the country's security as McCain in his reckless choice of a running mate. He is 72 years old; has had four melanomas, a particularly voracious form of cancer; refuses to release his complete medical records. Three of our last eleven presidents (and nine of all 43) have come to office unexpectedly in mid-term from the vice presidency: Truman, who within days of FDR's death was confronted with the decision of whether to drop the atom bomb on Japan; Lyndon Johnson, who took the oath in Dallas after JFK's assassination; Gerald Ford, sworn in following the resignation of Richard Nixon. A fourth vice president, George H.W. Bush, briefly exercised the powers of the presidency after the near-assassination of Ronald Reagan.
Given that history, what does John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin -- the cavalier, last-minute process of her selection and careless vetting; and her over-briefed, fact-lite performance since -- reveal about this military man who has attested to us for years that he is guided by his personal code of honor? "Two things I will never do," McCain told me, "are [to] lie to the American people, or put my electoral interests before the national interest" -- an obvious precursor of "I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war."
snip
Above all, the John McCain I covered in 1999-2000 was -- he said -- convinced that two factors were undermining the interests of the United States: its cultural wars, causing political gridlock in Washington and civic discontent across the land; and the unbending agenda of the right-wing of the Republican party that, in his view, had been captured by the Christian conservative movement and bore disproportionate responsibility for the poisonous state of American politics. Exhibit One: the scorched-earth campaign that George W. Bush was then waging against McCain's insurgent run for the Republican presidential nomination.
Yet, McCain, is, in fact, running the kind of campaign against Barack Obama that George Bush ran against him in 2000, which he regarded rightly as dishonest, dishonorable and diversionary in terms of the truth about him and about the nation's problems.
The conservative commentator George Will has been especially incisive of late about the "dismaying," "un-presidential temperament" of McCain and the sleazy tenor of his campaign. Karl Rove (!) has responded to the incessant lying of McCain's ads (one claims falsely that Obama has promoted "comprehensive" sex education for five-year-olds -- he had, in fact, endorsed legislation to insure that kindergartners were warned about sexual predators), by saying, yes, the McCain camp's mendacity has "gone one step too far."
Meanwhile, McCain's frequent invocations of the need for bi-partisan statesmanship are interspersed with the angry themes of cultural warfare and of the Republican convention orchestrated by his handlers, the most dominant of them practitioners from the campaigns of George W. Bush: attacks on "tax-and-spend Democrats," on the dependable liberal bogeyman, on "the angry Left," on Constitution-rewriting federal judges (including, incongruously, three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold McCain's singular legislative achievement: the campaign-finance act he authored with Democrat Russ Feingold).
"If hypocrisy were gold, the Capitol would be Fort Knox," McCain once famously said. "Some of those guys," he said, referring to his fellow senators, "have they even had lives? What have they done?" He added, "Aw, jeez, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets me into trouble." Indeed.
McCain's first choices to be his running mate were former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-
snip
McCain's "Hail Mary" pick -- Palin -- was hastily decided on the next-to-last day of the Democratic convention, by which time it was evident that Obama's convention was winning over independent voters; all that remained was the final night and the opportunity for Obama to deliver a speech that would further work to his advantage, and debilitate the McCain campaign. Only by exciting "The Base" could McCain remain competitive and win, it was calculated.
snip
We have heard an awful lot in the past few weeks, especially from Sarah Palin, about John McCain "The Maverick," just as we did in the convention narrative. But what McCain has actually been doing in this campaign, rather than actually being The Maverick, is conveying the appearance of iconoclasm, and playing to the crowd. (Hence, perhaps, "suspending" his campaign -- and trying to postpone the first presidential debate while his poll numbers are sinking -- to deal with the financial crisis?) At this point, the maverick claim seems no more genuine than Sarah Palin's charade foreign-policy tour of Manhattan with no witnesses -- reporters -- permitted to observe the proceedings.
The issue of Palin's relative ignorance about international affairs and the larger world beyond America's shores (compared to previous vice presidential nominees), her attendant arrogance in seeming to revel in it, and McCain's decision to subject the country to it in choosing a possible president -- is the biggest question in this election, or perhaps ought to be. It goes to the core of who the John McCain of this campaign is.
Another conservative commentator, David Brooks, wrote last week: "Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."
The more we learn, the more we realize the vetting process was -- given the rush of the circumstances -- hopelessly inadequate: McCain didn't know many aspects of Palin's record or her reputation (none of which is to say she wouldn't be a congenial fit as, say, Secretary of Interior in a McCain administration). McCain's first choices for a running mate -- Ridge and Lieberman -- were light years ahead of Palin in the vice presidential-qualification department. But they didn't meet the ideological test, exactly the ideological litmus test that McCain has attacked his whole political career and told us he would never succumb to.
snip
And if he wins the election, Sarah Palin -- who in her first post-convention discussion of foreign policy indicated a willingness to go to war with Russia over Georgia -- stands a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Ultimately it is the choice of Palin, made in the moment when action speaks loudest, that may undermine a quarter-century of assertions by John McCain about the preeminence of duty, honor and country in his political schema.
Here's how the voter registration went. I don't have the final numbers yet from Josh and the others at Westlake Mall. I registered six people in an hour on average.
Westlake Mall
http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/2008/09/last-push-for-1.html
Pike Market
http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/2008/09/last-push-for-v.html
Thanks to all who could make it and it's not that hard to do something like this all the way up to Oct. 3.
The Record - appears to be conservative newspaper from interior of California - has endorsed a Democrat for the first time in 72 years
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/A_NEWS0801/809280302
http://financialservices.house.gov/
Some acrobat will not open the document. There are various embedded modifications to the banking system, including reducing or eliminating bank reserves. This would effectively leave the FDIC alone to insure bank accounts.
There is also discussion of increasing oversight to 25 trillion from the current 7 trillion...so its still be fleshed out.
This is bailing out the banks, not the economy. Hopefully it is stopped in its tracks and actual constructive legislation is passed
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/files/documents/Final-Bailout-White-Paper.pdf
Above is link to solution for economic issues facing the USA. This is Long Term and tough love approach, but takes into account facts and historical environment regarding the present crisis.
What is 'the crisis'... because as far as I can see it is ONLY about banks getting caught grafting..?
What is the ACTUAL CRISIS...?
Because other than hearing all about what a terrible terrible terrible 'crisis' it is, I have yet to see ANY crisis except bad businesses are about to FAIL.
And they SHOULD fail.
I am finished with this crap. I don't believe there is a 'crisis'. I simply DO NOT believe there is one.
Other than homeowners needing help readjusting morgages, I don't get it.
And I don't really feel sorry for those homeowners who got suckered either.
I have a 3 bdrm house, 3 kids full time, 2 kids part time, 2 dogs, 3 cats, and managed all of it with ZERO credit card debt and no loans.
Why in the HELL are we giving them $700 billion for again? We know it is not because they crunched the numbers and came to a $700 billion figure, no, they 'just wanted to chose a really large number'.
This is crap. There is no 'crisis'. Just like there were not any WMD.
'Crisis'
They are yelling FIRE! in a crowded theatre just so we will all stampede screaming and afraid to the ATM to pay them off so they will quit saying 'crisis'.
This is the biggest bunch of BULLSHIT I have ever seen.
Hey democrats... Just freaking STOP IT!
ANY TIME you find yourself agreeing with republicans in any6 way at any time, it is always a safe bet to autodisagree.
Iran is evil so bombing them before they evil Us is ok! NOT.
We really do need to spy on our own or else we will all die! NOT.
There is a crisis, our economy can not survive unless we give all our cronies your money! NOT.
If they say the sky is blue, BY GOD you better walk outside and check just to make sure that is still true before you agree with them in ANY WAY.
ANY TIME you find yourself agreeing with republicans in any way, try taking EXACTLY the opposite position and you will be right atleast 99% of the time.
By the way, where is the 2.3 TRILLION dollars that came up missing from the Pentagon BEFORE 911?
That is enough money to fund this 'bailout' THREE TIMES OVER.
$2,300,000,000,000.00
WHERE IS THAT MONEY? And why would any of us give them another damn dime?
Oh yeah, that is right, we don't have to 'give it' to them, they just TAKE IT whenever they like.
THIEVING BASTARDS!
OH. My. GOD! This can not be happening!
Financial-sector firms — mortgage firms, insurance companies, accountants, brokerage houses, hedge funds — are among the most generous political donors in America, lavishing more than $1 billion on candidates this decade. And in Congress, few politicians have fared better than Dodd. During the past 20 years, PACs and employees of finance-related firms have contributed more than $13 million to Dodd's election efforts, including nearly $6 million in the past two years. Among members of Congress, only leading presidential candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and John Kerry — have collected more money from the sector.
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-dodd0929.artsep29,0,1341992.story
U.S. Senator Chris Dodd
Tel: (202) 224-2823 | Fax: (202) 224-1083
The good news about the bailout is that the deal is considerably improved over what Paulson originally asked for. For instance, it's possible that half of the proposed $700 billion will not even be distributed. Congress will need to re-authorize the 2nd $350 billion, and by the time that point comes, you may have a very different Congress and a Democratic President.
The bad news is, of course, that the program does relatively little to help home owners in distress - and if job losses continue, THERE WILL ONLY BE GREATER AND GREATER NUMBERS OF HOMEOWNERS GETTING INTO TROUBLE.
This entire discussion is being distorted by the fact that we have a General Election in less than 35 days. Everyone is playing it close to the vest, and afraid of proposing the kind of outside-the-box solution that's needed to begin to reverse this slide.
Matthew
I think the unpopular truth is that they will have to cut spending AND raise taxes. We'll have to become less reliant on a service economy only and on consumer spending. We'll have to become less of a debtor nation. & we'll have to stop trying to settle everything forcefully.
Venezuela is the new Cuba but it has oil instead of sugar (not that we didn't have Sugar Wars - there is a book about that.) Russia will help arm Venezuela and they'll also be able to get nukes. We will have a new Cold War because Russia has oil wealth (as does Venezuela) and Bush has bankrupted the country and alienated our allies.
Yesterday everywhere I went I talked to merchants - those at the Indian restaurant where I ate could not all vote (not citizens) but favored Obama because he'd be more likely to engage in diplomacy. Pike Place merchants that I registered to vote were the same. These are regular working people. Many work seven days a week so that is why they were having trouble figuring out how even to vote!
Something has got to happen and it's going to take a long time but we need to get started. I too was glad that the "bailout" comes in three increments and has some oversight by Congress. Hopefully, by the second or third increment, we will have a different President who is not a Bush clone who is glad the country is bankrupt because it could mean government indeed shrinks small enough to be drowned in a bathtub (except for military, of course.)
For those who are jonesin' for my movement analysis of the debate:
http://media.www.diamondbackonline.com/media/storage/paper873/news/2008/09/29/News/Reading.The.Motions.Of.Politics-3457556.shtml
But wait... before we give them ANY money, shouldn't we atleast find out what the actual 'crisis' is?
Because other than watching all their friends go down after robbing us blind, I can not see where the actual 'crisis' is. Can someone please explain the ACTUAL crisis, and not just how we have to hand over money to 'fix it'...?
I am sorry, I just do not see those greedy theiving bastards going down as a 'crisis'. About time I say. I understand why our politicians would be in panic, because these people are their own personal ATM machines. But rewarding them for getting us into a 'crises', is crazy.
But not even being able to DEFINE the crises, before giving them money to stop saying 'crisis'.. why that is just UTTER MADNESS.
They took our congressmembers into a closed session, and scared the HELL out of them and they will not even say what they were told to all make them have a kneejerk reaction even more insane then the one they had to bomb Iraq. They scared them SO BAD all of them came out in total agreement to STEAL BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to throw at it...Whatever 'it' is.
What is IT?
This is freaking nuts.
Well, I guess it's all in the mixing pot now. AND there were more Republicans against Bush's fix than Democrats. Financial matters on a grand scale are all too confusing to me.
Much of me agrees with you, Christy. But then those who were conned into mortgages they could never afford, are victims. Whenever I've gone for a loan I've thought, "They're the experts. They'll know whether I can afford it or not if things should change - like interest rates." I'm better skilled at other things - finance is perhaps my area of least capability. So, I live poor most of the time and have to budget in a haircut.
But if I had a mortgage that I was originally able to afford; if I'd been conned into it; I'd want some redress for what was hidden in legal jargon in the 4pt print that I can't read even with my glasses on.
However, the people I've asked here say the bailout is a good thing. I'm not convinced that it is. It's like my when I've bailed my kids out in the past. It's not long before they're back in the same hole they were in before. Do I bail them out again? Not now. And guess what. They don't need the bailouts any more.
Perhaps the market works on a grand scale of this tiny domestic crisis upon crisis - missed rent - missed car payments and whatnot. Bailout now surely equals bailout next time. And the next. And the next.
My only b*tch about it right now is the millions of dollars that the CEO writers of this fiasco have successfully walked away with.
This should surely be retrieved immediately! Who is responsible for each institution? The CEO and board of directors. NO payout rewards for such catastrophic failure! NONE!
Well, do you have the power to veto this decision Mr Precedent?
And from today's Age:
It's not the end of the world
Max Hastings
September 30, 2008
MANKIND almost always gets threat assessment wrong. Politicians and sages worry themselves into a decline about a given issue — the red peril, the yellow peril, nuclear holocaust, al-Qaeda — only to find themselves facing troubles of a different nature.
The most obvious consequence of the Western financial crisis is that it makes President George Bush's "war on terror" seem footling. Of course terrorism is serious. But it does not threaten systemic disaster for Western societies.
By contrast, what generates such fear about the financial catastrophe is that nobody professes to know how bad matters can get. The US and British governments are scrabbling for palliatives rather than proposing anything that masquerades as a solution.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/its-not-the-end-of-the-world-20080929-4qcf.html
The Shadow of the Pitchfork: Elite Panic Attack as Bailout Goes Bust
The vote by the House of Representatives to defeat the Wall Street bailout plan is the first act of political courage that the Congress of the United States has mounted in the last seven years. The fact that it was due largely to right-wing Republicans afraid of going down with the sinking ship of the witless leader they have followed blindly throughout his reign is a delicious irony -- but the whys and wherefores of the vote are not important. What matters is that one of America's moribund institutions has flickered to life long enough to derail a disastrous action that would have shoved the nation even deeper into the pit of corruption and ruin where it has been mired for so long.
The New York Times called the House vote "a catastrophic political defeat for President Bush, who had put the full weight of the White House behind the measure." But this is manifestly untrue. As everyone but the nation's media -- and the Democratic Party -- knows, George W. Bush has no "political weight" to use, or lose. Yes, he still retains the authoritarian powers that the spineless Democrats have given him with scarcely a whimper of protest (and often with boundless enthusiasm); but as a political force -- i.e., someone whose opinions and statements can sway popular opinion -- he has been a dead and rotting carcass for a long time. He is the most unpopular president in American history; and I can report from first-hand, eyewitness knowledge that he is thoroughly despised by some of the most rock-ribbed, Bible-believing, flag-waving, down-home, John Wayne-loving Heartland types that you can imagine. Even his own party -- a party fashioned in his own image, the Frankensteinian melding of willfully ignorant religious primitivism and rapaciously greedy crony capitalism that he has embodied in his twerpish person -- kept him away from their convention this year.
Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- could be politically safer than opposing George W. Bush. And yet the entire Democratic leadership, Barack Obama included, lined up to support a cockamamie plan proposed by this scorned and shriveled figure, a plan that was transparently nothing more than an audacious raid on the Treasury by Big Money hoods and yet another authoritarian power grab by a gang of murderous, torturing, warmongering toadies. This was the plan and these were the people that the Democrats decided to fight for.
What's more, the Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder with the president on what is apparently the only issue that can now stir Americans to genuine anger and widespread protest: a direct threat to their bank accounts. Wars of aggression like the Nazis used to wage; elaborate tortures like the KGB used to practice; concentration camps, lawbreaking leaders, diminishment of liberty, the slaughter of a million innocent people in a land destroyed by an illegal and pointless invasion -- all of that stuff is pretty much OK, easily swallowable, worth no more than a shrug or perhaps a frowny "tsk tsk" before going on to the sports pages or flipping over to another channel. But put out an open ploy to steal their money and give it to the filthy rich -- and baby, it's pitchfork time! Yet here, as the public face of just such a ploy, is where the Democrats chose to make their stand.
So Monday's rejection of the bailout plan is not a catastrophic political defeat for George W. Bush; he has no political standing, no political future. But it is a vast and humiliating defeat for the Democratic leadership, across the board, who, as Democrat Lloyd Dogget of Texas said
“never seriously considered any alternative” to the administration’s plan, and had only barely modified what they were given. He criticized the plan for handing over sweeping new powers to an administration that he said was to blame for allowing the crisis to develop in the first place.
Now the Democratic elites have had their collective head handed to them on a platter. It is a dish most richly deserved. And although it is almost possible to believe that they will learn anything from this episode, there is now a chance -- a chance -- that we can at least have a discussion of alternatives to the Bush scheme.
I still believe it is unlikely any genuinely effective program -- one that could manage and mitigate the now-unavoidable effects of the Wall Street/Washington-induced disaster -- will ever get enacted. After all, the Democrats are largely owned by the same corrupt and greedy elites now seeking a handout. And it seems reasonable to assume that the Bipartisan Bailout Bunch will eventually find some kind of sugar to tempt away the two dozen votes they need for their next "compromise" on the Bush-Paulson plan.
Then again, who knows? There are obviously a lot of very powerful and privileged people sweating more bullets tonight than they have sweated in many and many a year. They have roused the drowsy beast of popular anger at last, and no one can say what might happen next. Probably nothing -- or rather, more of the same, in some form or another. But still, it is good to see the icy beads of panic dotting the brows of elites who have inflicted and/or countenanced so much death, destruction, terror and degradation in the past few years. Today they have suffered a very rare defeat in the relentless, remorseless class war they have been waging against us for decades. And that it is something to celebrate -- at least for one night.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1618-the-shadow-of-the-pitchfork-elite-panic-attack-as-bailout-goes-bust.html
Amen.
Excellent find Christy.
It really irritates when Democrat legislators invoke the name of JFK, and understand NOTHING of what he fought for.
Removing the power of the Federal Reserve was one of JFK's biggest goals, and was days away when he was assasinated. He was the real thing, and would have brought the greatest productive change to America, and thru that to the world.
Buckling under as Democrats did to vote on this disaster should come back to bite them in the electoral rear ends. Get rid of them, replace them with another Democrat. Maybe the next Demo will understand their loyalty is to the people of the United States, and not to the banking system.
PLEASE someone please tell me WTF she is talking about!
OMFG! Please... that can't be true.
Cynthia McKinney REVEALS THAT 5000 PEOPLE WERE EXECUTED
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x202211
In LOUISIANA. During Katrina.
last week to get people registered to vote - I am going to do it
every day after work and on Friday night for people entering bars
Christy
http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com - I just put up where McCain thinks people should go to Walmart instead of the Emergency Room. A guy claims after Katrina McCain said agencies like Walmart should have helped instead of FEMA. I'm waiting for proof (video.)
September 30, 2008
Olmert Says Israel Should Pull Out of West Bank
By ETHAN BRONNER
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on Monday that Israel must withdraw from nearly all of the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians and that any occupied land it held onto would have to be exchanged for the same quantity of Israeli territory.
He also dismissed as “megalomania” any thought that Israel would or should attack Iran on its own to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, saying the international community and not Israel alone was charged with handling the issue.
In an unusually frank and soul-searching interview granted after he resigned to fight corruption charges — he remains interim prime minister until a new government is sworn in — Mr. Olmert discarded longstanding Israeli defense doctrine and called for radical new thinking, in words that are sure to stir controversy as his expected successor, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, tries to build a coalition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/world/middleeast/30olmert.html
Isn't it special that at a moment when many Americans stand to lose their homes, the next President of the United States could be a man who has trouble remembering just how many he owns?
September 30, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
When Madmen Reign
By BOB HERBERT
Madness.
I’m not holding my breath, but I would like to see the self-proclaimed conservative, small government, anti-regulation, free-market zealots step up and take responsibility for wrecking the American economy and bringing about the worst financial crisis since the Depression.
Even now, with the house on fire, the most extreme among them won’t pick up the fire hoses and try to put it out.
With the fate of the Bush administration’s desperate $700 billion bailout of the financial industry hanging in the balance, Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, stuck to his political playbook like a man covered in Krazy Glue. He pronounced himself “resolute” in his opposition to the bailout because to be otherwise would amount to a betrayal of party principles.
To deviate from those principles, in Mr. Issa’s view, would be like placing “a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan’s coffin.”
We are in very strange territory here.
George H.W. Bush warned us about “voodoo economics” in 1980, but the ideologues clamped a gag on him and put him on the Gipper’s ticket. For much of the time since then, the madmen of the right have carried the day. They were freed of their remaining few restraints with the ascendance of George W. Bush in 2000.
These were the reckless clowns who led us into the foolish multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq and who crafted tax policies that enormously benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt. This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/opinion/30herbert.html
Krugman: Where Will the Money Come From?
In the end, the US government will rescue the financial system — not today or tomorrow, maybe not Thursday, but soon, and for the rest of our lives, or anyway until the next crisis.
But, people ask me, where will we get the money? Won’t we have to borrow it from the Chinese?
Actually, no.
Ten years days ago, I explained that the Paulson plan would actually move money in a circle. No outside financing would be needed.
What if we turn to a different and better plan, one that recapitalizes the financial system. Won’t that need outside funds? No.
- more -
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/where-will-the-money-come-from/
Kerry sent out press release re the bailout
It's end of the month so I sent in a donation to the Obama campaign. Am at lunch at work so must run. I do think McCain will suffer from trying to take responsibility for quickly saving the economy, for shoddy vetting of Palin in light of Troopergate and her shallow knowledge, the father-daughter type of tv interview he participated with and also allegations in newspapers about gambling (& now a Perot biographer coming forth with more) - very dangerous time to trust someone so erratic and unpredictable, lacking in judgment, for whatever reasons.
Here is the Kerry press release.
“This has been a volatile time for our financial system and our economy. But, I strongly believe that the Congress will soon come to an agreement on an economic rescue plan that will help restore strength and stability to America's financial system and overall economy. After the enactment of this plan, along with the recent actions taken by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, our nation will have taken a critical step to address the current challenges to our economy.
“But make no mistake about it, the Congress must come together across party lines to address our economic challenges. We must put our broken politics aside and unite to restore confidence in our capital markets and our financial institutions. Today is a time for action, not for partisanship.
“The legislation that failed in the House of Representatives yesterday was not a bailout for Wall Street. It was developed to stop the ripple effect of the collapse of Wall Street’s major financial institutions from developing into an economic Tsunami sweeping across the country. It is an effort to protect businesses and families from a serious credit crunch. The stark reality we face is that without federal assistance, our financial system may collapse. Small businesses would be unable to obtain financing and jobs would vanish. Families would be unable to borrow for new homes or to send their children to college. Retirement funds could plummet. Those are the stakes.
“I support the compromise legislation to provide up to $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury to buy mortgages and other assets from financial institutions. It will help restore confidence in our capital markets and our financial institutions. It will help our nation avert serious economic dislocation that could be the cost of inaction. Specifically, the legislation:
- Requires the Treasury to modify the loans they buy to help American families keep their homes and expands federal assistance to families facing foreclosure;
- Includes strong Congressional oversight, establishes a special Inspector General and allows Judicial review of the program;
- Requires companies that take advantage of this program provide warrants so taxpayers will benefit from any future growth of these companies;
- Includes important limitations on executive compensation for those participating in the program;
“In the Senate, I have been working to get at the root of our economic problems helping to ease the foreclosure crisis and increase access to capital for small businesses. I’m pleased that I was able to include provisions in the Housing and Economy Recovery Act that will:
- Help limit foreclosures by providing additional mortgage credit;
- Increase protections from foreclosure for our veterans;
- Provide additional funding for the Community Development Block Grant program, and;
- Create construction jobs and produce affordable housing by establishing the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
“A recent federal survey reports that more than 65 percent of banks have significantly tightened their lending standards for small businesses. As Chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee, I have held five hearings about the credit crunch and the Small Business Administration’s lending programs over the past two years. I introduced legislation to temporarily eliminate fees and double the loan limits for many Small Business Administration loan programs. This will help stimulate economic growth and job creation by increasing access to capital for small business.
“I urge the Congress to come together to enact legislation to protect our vital national interest in the continued health of our economy.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/30/obama_pushes_passage_of_wall_s.html
Obama's latest
I just watched that Cynthia McKinney video and am truly horrified and yet it has that ring of truth to it. Disgusting as it is, it seems like the truth.
October 1, 2008
Even After a War With Russia, Many Georgians Revere Stalin
By DAN BILEFSKY
GORI, Georgia — With his signature mustache, medal-encrusted Soviet marshal’s uniform and determination to be addressed as “Comrade,” the Stalin impersonator Jamil Ziyadaliev should perhaps be out of work in Georgia, a country still reeling from a war with Russia.
But Mr. Ziyadaliev, 64, an avuncular father of two who dresses as Stalin even on days off, insists that business has seldom been better. He is a frequent hired guest at weddings, where he dances to Soviet Katyusha music from World War II.
The benefits of looking eerily like the former dictator, he boasts, include free meals, free car repairs — and free passage through Russian checkpoints.
“Looking like Stalin is like having a visa in Georgia,” said Mr. Ziyadaliev, a Muslim originally from Azerbaijan, who drove a taxi, peddled vegetables and worked as an accountant before deciding on a career as a modern incarnation of the brutal, diabolically brilliant Soviet tyrant.
“All Georgians respect Stalin, because he was a great leader who created a great empire — and of course, he was the most famous Georgian who ever lived,” Mr. Ziyadaliev said.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/europe/01stalin.html
Have yall seen mcPOWs interview before the Des Moine Editorial board?
Oh, man. Just watch.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x203112
Is it just me or is anyone else still totally stunned at how bad his campaign is going?
I saw that Christy. Wow. He came off as a snotty, loser with a temper!
I'm playing catch up with work. So I'm not here much--just an FYI.
Les Gara is an Alaska State Representative from Anchorage and former State Assistant Attorney General in office since 2003 has written a great diary at Kos.
Too much to just copy so click the link.
Here's a hint of it:
Over the past few weeks we Alaskans have been scratching our heads over the interesting claims the McCain campaign has made about our Governor. A lot of them have been news to us. Governor Palin’s nomination to the McCain ticket has created unusual common ground for Alaskans. Whether we support her or not, we’ve been furrowing our eyebrows a lot lately as we watch the McCain campaign re-write Alaska history.
snip
Many campaigns spin in the gray areas, where the truth isn’t clear. But the McCain campaign’s taken a page from Karl Rove, and decided to spin past the margins. They’re pitching the verifiably false as true.
During the August Republican National Convention, Alaskans heard for the first time that our Governor opposed a national symbol of federal pork, what folks in the Lower 48 call the "Bridges to Nowhere." We didn’t know that. In her 2006 Governor’s campaign, when her opponents took the risk of telling boomers these two bridges might be too expensive – candidate Palin said she supported them – and said she’d work to get more Congressional money for them.
Now the campaign has a new line, that Governor Palin "told Congress thanks, but no thanks" for this money. That’s a problem. See, she never could have said that. Congress debated our Alaska’s request for $400 million in bridge money in 2004 and 2005, before Palin was elected Governor. A national outcry against these projects, at a time when a Republican Congress was pushing pork over effective relief for Hurricane Katrina’s victims, forced Congress to re-write this earmark. Alaska ultimately got the money in 2005, but the Congressional language requiring that we spend it on these bridges was deleted. We said thank you. Governor Palin never opposed this funding. She never offered to return it when she took office in 2007.
Then there’s the claim by Senator McCain that our Governor has been a "maverick" fighting federal earmarks. We didn’t know that either. Alaska takes more federal earmarks per capita than any state in the country. Governor Palin asks for them. She, like her predecessors, happily accepts them. Alaska’s budget contains hundreds of millions in earmark dollars. Alaska politicians love earmarks, and campaign on their ability to get them.
We also heard at the Convention that Governor Palin’s been a budget cutter. But in Governor Palin’s two years as Governor state spending has gone up by 20%. She did veto projects, and I supported those vetoes. But after vetoes, there’s still been a 20% budget hike. Depending on your views, a 20% spending increase might be defensible. It’s not defensible to make people believe you cut the budget when you didn’t.
Here’s what else I know about my state. We have the third worst children’s health insurance program in the nation. The Governor wouldn’t support cost-effective measures to extend insurance to the 10,000 children of Alaskan working parents who cannot afford coverage.
~~~~
way more at the link.
Palin had secret email account she used for gov't matters.
(If it's good enough for Bush, Cheney and Rove, it's good enough for Sarah. After all, ethics don't matter to some as long as she speaks in church-talk.)
Troopergate Witness Flips Like a Pancake
Hard evidence contradicting sworn testimony has a certain effect on people. Murlene Wilkes, faced with this situation, decided to change her testimony according to a report in The Public Record. Now, with the little extra incentive of avoiding perjury charges, she has admitted that she was asked to deny the claim - at the direct request of Sarah and Todd Palin.
*chin hitting desk* (a moment of stunned silence)
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/troopergate-witness-flips-like-a-pancake/
October 2, 2008
Poll Shows Obama, for First Time, Has Significant Lead
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE
With the first presidential debate completed and both candidates grappling with the turmoil on Wall Street in Washington, Senator Barack Obama is showing signs of gaining significant support among voters with less than five weeks left until Election Day, while Senator John McCain’s image has been damaged by his response to the economic meltdown.
A CBS News Poll released Wednesday that Mr. Obama’s favorability rating, at 48 percent, is the highest it has ever been in polls conducted by CBS and The New York Times. At the same time, the number of voters who hold an unfavorable view of Mr. McCain — 42 percent — is as high as it has been since the CBS News and The Times began asking the question about Mr. McCain in 1999, the first time he ran for president.
The CBS News poll showed that Mr. Obama has a 9 percentage-point lead over Mr. McCain – 49 percent to 40 percent. It marks the first time that Mr. Obama has held a statistically significant lead over Mr. McCain this year in polls conducted by CBS or joint polls by CBS and The New York Times. And several polls taken in battleground states released by other organizations on Tuesday suggested that Mr. Obama was building leads in states including Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The CBS News poll found that President Bush has tied the presidential record for a low approval rating – 22 percent, matching Harry Truman’s Gallup approval rating in 1952, when the country was mired in the Korean war and struggling with a stagnant economy. That finding put a new premium on Mr. McCain’s effort to distance himself from Mr. Bush, and suggests that Mr. Bush will continue to be a prominent figure in the Obama campaign’s advertisements attacking Mr. McCain.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/us/politics/02poll.html
Potential Ballot Trouble In OH: Split Contests
By Lawrence Norden – 10/01/08
By our count, at least twelve Ohio counties have split the presidential contest over two columns on their paper ballots for this November's election. This "column split" often confuses voters and results in double voting in the presidential race—and an uncounted vote. Today the Brennan Center urged election officials and advocates in Ohio to make sure that voters are aware of the split, and to make sure they vote only once for president.
The twelve Ohio counties whose ballots spilt the presidential race over two columns are: Ashtabula, Athens, Auglaize, Champaign, Delaware, Lawrence, Logan, Madison, Ottawa, Seneca, Shelby, and Wyandot.
As a quick glance will show, it's no surprise that many voters cast two votes for president when the contest is listed across two separate columns. The one on the right is from Auglaize County (click to see larger).
In July, the Brennan Center published Better Ballots, a study of ballot design flaws in the last several elections and their impact on those elections. The study showed that ballots that featured a single contest split into two columns, as seen in the illustration of Auglaize County's ballot above, frequently confused voters. A split contest like this is often seen by voters as indicating two separate tasks (i.e., vote once in each box) and can lead to unintentional overvoting.
http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/potential_ballot_trouble_in_oh_split_contests/
another way McCain resembles Bush .. can't find the way out after speaking
Obama Makes McCain Very Uncomfortable - acc/CQ Politics
Let the record reflect that Barack Obama made the approach to John McCain tonight. As the two shared the Senate floor tonight for the first time since they won their party nominations, Obama stood chatting with Democrats on his side of the aisle, and McCain stood on the Republican side of the aisle. So Obama crossed over into enemy territory. He walked over to where McCain was chatting with Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. And he stretched out his arm and offered his hand to McCain. McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss.