Sunday is the day: Will Colin Powell endorse Obama?

From the NYT Daily News:

After months of playing political Hamlet, Colin Powell is finally ready to tell America who he likes for President - and the smart money says Barack Obama is Powell's choice.

Sources close to the retired four-star general and American icon cautioned that Powell's support for Obama over John McCain might stop short of a formal endorsement when he's interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday.

Given Powell's cautious nature, he might decide to make his endorsement of Obama implied, rather than explicit. Even so, a well-informed source told the Daily News:

"After Sunday people aren't going to have any doubt who he's voting for.

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Obama has out-campaigned McCain in "real Virginia"

CNN:

McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer made a splash Saturday by drawing a line between northern Virginia and “real Virginia,” which she said is the “part of the state that is more Southern in nature,” a comment that may not sit well with the many residents of the commonwealth residing north of Frederickburg.

Using Pfotenhauer’s definition, however, Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden have out-campaigned their Republican rivals by a significant margin in “real Virginia.”

Obama has made nine campaign stops in central, southwest and southeast Virginia: in Martinsville, Lynchburg, Chester, Chesapeake, Fredericksburg, Lebanon, Norfolk and Newport News. Biden has made two: Castlewood and Fredericksburg.

By contrast, McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have only ventured out of northern Virginia twice. On Monday, the pair held a joint rally in Virginia Beach, and Palin then continued on to a campaign stop in Richmond.

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McCain crowd boos mention of Tina Fey while Palin gets to do a comedy show on NBC when she won't do a news show on NBC

NBC's Tina Fey is now the enemy of the McCain crowds, too:

Usually it’s only the mention of Barack Obama or the national media that get boos at McCain rallies, but today it was Tina Fey.

McCain mentioned that his running mate was appearing on “Saturday Night Live” tonight, and a hearty boo came up from the crowd when McCain mentioned the cast member that impersonates Sarah Palin:

“As you know she’s going to be with Tina Fey, who I think is her twin sister,” McCain said to boos from the crowd. “I think they were separated at birth, but anyway, I know she’ll do a great job.”

Those people are really scary. Which leads us to an excellent point from Dan Savage:

Why didn’t NBC insist on Palin sitting down for a real, substantive interview—or, better still, calling a full press conference—as a condition of Palin appearing on SNL tonight? Candidates don’t go on Letterman, Leno, SNL, The Daily Show, et al, to take a break from the campaign trail. Comedy programs are stops on the campaign trail. Palin is running from the press, refusing to answer any questions, lying her ass off on the stump, and attacking the people who could call her on those lies—reporters, news anchors, cable news networks—at her rallies. So why the fuck should NBC allow Palin to reap the political rewards of an appearance on SNL if Palin isn’t willing (or able) to answer questions from NBC news reporters?

Don't ever expect to see Palin on Meet the Press. She did do interviews with Gibson from ABC and Couric from CBS. I guess this counts as her NBC stop. And, it's all NBC to us -- we don't delineate between the divisions.

One last thing: Dan admits he is going to watch Palin tonight. Let's not forget, he really wanted to be Palin's gay friend. Read More......

Republican voter fraud in California

Let's not forget, the Republicans are the ones who raised stealing elections to an art form.

Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.

Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

"I am not a Republican," insisted Karen Ashcraft, 47, a pet-clinic manager and former Democrat from Ventura who said she was duped by a signature gatherer into joining the GOP. "I certainly . . . won't sign anything in front of a grocery store ever again."

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Report Negative Mailings and Phone Calls

From the Obama campaign:

The McCain campaign has orchestrated a vicious “robocall” and direct mail smear campaign against Barack.

Fight the Smears is an online resource to help correct the record. More frequently now, Fight the Smears addresses the baseless accusations from John McCain’s 100% negative campaign.

You can help fight back by reporting one or more of the smears they are spreading.

Report smear literature -- Create a digital copy

There are three ways to create a copy. Once the copy is created, upload it using the form to the right.

If you have a computer scanner, you can scan the mail piece to create a digital copy on your computer. Then upload the file using the form to the right.

Go to a nearby print shop to scan the mailing. They should be able to email you the digital versions of the mailings or put them on a CD or USB drive.

The UPS Store, FedEx, or any major office supplies store should be able to create a digital copy.

Take a picture with a digital camera.

Set your camera to its highest quality setting and take the photo in good lighting -- preferably outside in the daytime or with a flash.

Notify the campaign of "Robocall" smears

If you can create a recording of the automated phone call on your computer in .mp3 format, you can upload it directly using the form to the right.

If you have a recording of the negative phone call (on an answering machine or other device), you can report the call over the phone. Call 312-506-8685 and then replay the attack message into the receiver of the phone.

Before you play the message into the phone, be sure to clearly state your name, location and phone number so that the campaign can reach you with any questions.

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Russian oligarchs crumbling

What a difference a few months can make. Last summer the Russian billionaires were all the rage and now, they're looking as bad as any, maybe even worse. A bubble is always a bubble and soft landings are only existent in the minds of those who promote the bubbles. So let's think hard about what other bubbles have been active around the world recently. To think that those bubbles won't burst is silly.

In the current global financial crisis, perhaps no community of the superaffluent has fallen as hard, or as fast, as the brash Kremlin-connected insiders whose wealth was tied up in the overlapping bubbles of the Russian stock market, commodity prices and easy credit.

Already, Russia’s richest man, Oleg V. Deripaska, the nuclear physicist turned post-Soviet corporate raider, has ceded more than a billion dollars in assets to jittery creditors as his aluminum-to-automobile empire reels.

“Half the Russians could fall off the Forbes list” by next year, Maxim V. Kashulinsky, the editor of the Russian edition of the magazine, said in an interview.

Those most in favor with the Kremlin — who expanded fastest and ran up the largest debts — are most at risk now as borrowing costs soar.

Most of the ultrawealthy have large stakes in the mining and petroleum behemoths of the Russian economy, stakes gained through the legally questionable privatizations of the 1990s. A decade later, company ownership has still not spread to a broad shareholder base as in the West. Without a broad base of potential customers, the stock market here has tanked even faster than exchanges in the United States.

In America, toxic mortgage-backed securities sank mighty investment banks. In Russia, it is the empires of the oligarchs and the loans they took out from Western banks, using shares in their companies as collateral, that are at risk.

In a number of cases the value of shares pledged by Russia’s rich has fallen below the value of the loans, an ominous sign for the market here, where the benchmark RTS index is already down 71 percent from its peak in May.

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So long "idiots"..."throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life"

Thank you. Someone who did very well financially, has a clue and understands that the system as it stands today is not functioning. It's striking to me that we've ended up with so many serious problems on Wall Street, Big Auto, etc when in theory they've hired the so-called best and brightest. If this is what the best universities are turning out, we're really screwed. Let's be honest and admit that just like Bush's Harvard MBA, we've been handed a system that favors the wealthiest and best connected who dominate the elite schools and the elite jobs. The results speak for themselves in the US as well as Europe where the problems are the same.

After watching the tech industry become completely dysfunctional and run by some of the slimiest people on the planet I walked away (after a swift boot to the backside) and focused on what I felt was important instead of keeping up with the Jones' and being a good consumer. Joelle and I spent a year living out of a backpack and seeing the world, talking with people and living life instead of doing what we were supposed to be doing. We came back without much money, without work, without job prospects, without a year of savings but never once regretted the experience. It's difficult for either of us to look at the world in the same way after the last recession, spending time seeing how the overwhelming majority of the world really lives and then starting from scratch.

Andrew Lahde, the hedge-fund manager who quit after posting an 870 percent gain last year, said farewell to clients in a letter that thanks stupid traders for making him rich and ends with a plea to legalize marijuana.

Lahde, head of Santa Monica, California-based Lahde Capital Management LLC, told investors last month he was returning their cash because the risk of using credit derivatives -- his means of betting on the falling value of bonds and loans, including subprime mortgages -- was too risky given the weakness of the banks he was trading with.

``I was in this game for money,'' Lahde, 37, wrote in a two-page letter today in which he said he had come to hate the hedge-fund business. ``The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.

``All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other sides of my trades. God Bless America.''

Lahde, who managed about $80 million, told clients he'll be content to invest his own money, rather than taking cash from wealthy individuals and institutions and trying to amass a fortune worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

``I do not understand the legacy thing,'' he wrote. ``Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.''

Request for Soros

He said he'd spend his time repairing his health ``as well as my entire life -- where I had to compete for spaces at universities, and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management -- with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not.''

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McCain ad attacks "America's most prominent black rabbi"

Desperate, desperate, desperate. Nothing is sacred when it comes to Team McCain, no matter how far-fetched and false. Ben Smith has the details. Read More......

McCain aide says Northern Virginia isn't "real Virginia"

There's so much that can be said about a top McCain aide trashing Northern Virginia. In fact, although it only happened a couple hours ago, a lot has already been said by Politico, the Associated Press and ABC News. Probably the best commentary is from Lowell at RK in a post titled, "McCain Campaign Channels George Allen: NOVA is not 'Real Virginia'":

My god, how stupid can these McCain people be? First, they call Arlington and Alexandria "communist country." Then, Sarah Palin talks about how only the rural, "small town" (like Wasilla?) parts of America are "pro-America." Now, McCain spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer channels George Allen's "macaca" moment, when among other things he welcomed S.R. Sidarth - a lifelong resident of Fairfax County - to "America and the real world of Virginia." That, by the way, helped kick start a movement led by Annabel Park and Eric Byler known as "Real Virginians for Webb." Now, two years later, the McCain campaign has returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak, even after we saw what it did to George Allen.

Jed got the video. Note how the anchor even offered the McCainiac a chance to walk herself out of the mess she stepped in -- but she didn't:



Here's the transcript:

KEVIN CORKE: Okay. You’re talking about winning this year, but that's going to require that you win states like – well, like Virginia, for example. And as someone who is now in northern Virginia, we're both right here, we get it. Northern Virginia is increasingly strong in the state. They have more political clout. Democrats have won the statehouse; Jim Webb’s surprising victory in the Senate. It would seem to me that there could be a tipping of the balance there. Would you agree with that? And that maybe be – you know, maybe that's where he has to focus his energy now.

NANCY PFOTENHAUER: Well, Kevin, I certainly agree that northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. You know, as a proud resident of Oakton, Virginia, I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia. And that's really what you see there. But the rest of the state, real Virginia, if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message. And remember that, you know, you’ve got places in other states like northern Wisconsin, the iron range of Minnesota, south-central and southeastern Pennsylvania, the St. Louis suburbs and the rural areas of Missouri that are very responsive to our message. And again we're taking it to them in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He’s having to fight to defend there, as you can tell because he's deployed people like the Clintons out in Pennsylvania. And every speech Joe Biden gives, he says, “I’m from Scranton.” You don't know what else he's going to say, but he sure gets that line in.

CORKE: Hey Nancy, I’m going to give you a chance to climb back off that ledge. Did you say "real Virginia"?

PFOTENHAUER: I did say outside of north – well, I mean real Virginia, because northern Virginia is where I’ve always been, but real Virginia I take to be the – this part of the state that is more southern in nature, if you will. Northern Virginia is really metro D.C., as you're aware, Kevin.

CORKE: All right. I’m just going to let you -- you’re aware of that one. I’m just saying.

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McCain hires racist who told voters McCain's daughter was a "black baby" in 2000

Interesting that McCain is interested in the skills of a slime merchant who peddles racism. Now that's hate you can believe in. From ABC's Jake Tapper:

ABC News has learned that Warren Tompkins, one of the strategists of then-Gov. George W. Bush's South Carolina campaign in 2000 -- which Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blamed for his family being slimed -- is now a part of the McCain-Palin campaign team, albeit in an "unofficial" role.

Tompkins, a protégé of Lee Atwater, has been dispatched to North Carolina to assess the state for the McCain-Palin campaign, Southern GOP strategists tell ABC News.....

The news of Tompkins being brought on board the McCain campaign brings to a total of three the number of GOP operatives McCain now is using despite the fact that he once held them responsible for the ugly campaign that contributed to his South Carolina primary defeat, a campaign in which McCain's wife Cindy was attacked for her past addiction to painkillers, and the McCains' adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget was targeted as his illegitimate black baby....

Eight years ago, of course, McCain was much chattier on the subject of these types of calls.

"A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin," McCain told one interviewer. "Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying 'You know the McCains have a black baby.' I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those."

Now the people who slimed McCain's own daughter have a special place in John McCain's campaign. Way to defend your kid. Read More......

Obama compared to mass murderer Charles Manson at Palin/Coleman rally in MN

Via the Minnesota Independent we learn that a McCain/Palin supporter compared Obama to mass murderer Charles Manson during a rally for First Dude Todd Palin and Republican Senator Norm Coleman (who is about to lose to Al Franken) in Minnesota. And, as usual, no one at the McCain/Palin rally did a thing about it. It's also interesting that the person even got into the rally with his own sign - these kind of things are often stopped at the door, since the campaign doesn't want errant messages - or worse, protesters, raising signs in front of the candidates. Yet a sign comparing Obama to a mass murderer miraculously slips through. Maybe the Secret Service was busy making sandwiches for Todd.

McCain/Palin: Hate we can believe in.

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Obama talks economy to crowd of 100,000 in St. Louis

UPDATE: Got an email from Tysalpha who was at the event in St. Louis today:

Just got home a while ago. It was a crazy amount of people. We arrived about 10:30 and parked south of Busch Stadium, a fair ways away from the Arch so that getting out would be easy. The line of people was several city blocks long.. we walked from the south end of the arch up to Washington avenue, thinking that would be the beginning of the line, but turned the corner and realized it went all the way to the riverfront. Then when we got to the riverfront, the line was about another 5 blocks north. It was an exercise in patience, knowing how far the walk was and how thick the crowd was, but everyone was very happy. As we got closer, about where the Metro stops at the Arch, the police had cleared the street and the motorcade came through. This really excited the crowd. We got inside the grounds just as Senator McCaskill began speaking. A great time, and I’m so happy that the turnout here in my home town was so large.

Check out this picture from CNN. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch photos are here.
_____________________

Obama is in St. Louis at the Gateway Arch. MSNBC just reported that "police in St. Louis say the crowd is estimated at about 100,000:



Here's an excerpt from today's speech:

My opponent's been talking a lot about taxes in his campaign. But here's the truth Missouri – we are both offering tax cuts. The difference is who we're cutting taxes for.

It comes down to values – in America, do we simply value wealth, or do we value the work that creates it? For eight years, we've seen what happens when we put the extremely wealthy and well-connected ahead of working people. Now, John McCain thinks that the way to rebuild this economy is to double down on George Bush's policy of giving more and more tax breaks to those at the very top in the false hope that it will all trickle down. I think it's time to rebuild the middle class in this country, and that is the choice in this election.

Senator McCain wants to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut but absolutely nothing at all to over 100 million Americans. I want to cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 percent of all workers. And under my plan, if you make less than $250,000 a year – which includes 98 percent of small business owners – you won't see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes – nothing. It' time to give the middle class a break, and that's what I'll do as President of the United States.

Lately, Senator McCain has been attacking my middle class tax cut. He actually said it goes to, "those who don't pay taxes," even though it only goes to working people who are already getting taxed on their paycheck. That's right, Missouri – John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people "welfare."

The only "welfare" in this campaign is John McCain's plan to give another $200 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations in America – including $4 billion in tax breaks to big oil companies that ran up record profits under George Bush. That's who John McCain is fighting for. But we can't afford four more years like the last eight. George Bush and John McCain are out of ideas, they are out of touch, and if you stand with me in 17 days they will be out of time.

We need new priorities in Washington. I think it's time to give a tax cut to the teachers and janitors who work in our schools; to the cops and firefighters who keep us safe; to the waitresses working double shifts, the nurses in the ER, and the plumbers fighting for their American Dream. These workers are the backbone of our country. They are the ones that Washington has forgotten. They're the ones I'll fight for. And while Senator McCain ignores the payroll taxes you pay to score a few political points, I'll put a tax cut into the pockets of working people so you can pay the bills, put away some savings, and pass on a brighter future to your children.

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Cranky, crooked Ted Stevens, in a tight race for re-election, spent yesterday on the witness stand in his corruption trial

In the midst of all the political news, let's not overlook the fact that a United States Senator was on the stand yesterday in his criminal trial. That would be Ted Stevens, who according to Dana Milbank, wasn't quite the best witness:

A sympathetic witness Stevens was not. Indeed, it's hard to imagine why defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan thought it was a good idea to have his client take the stand -- unless, of course, it was Stevens himself who insisted on fulfilling what he told the judge was "a privilege and a duty" to testify.

Whatever the reasoning, Stevens's presence on the stand seemed to only further weaken his contention that he meant to pay for all the gifts -- the deck, the grill, the Christmas lights, the furniture, the art, the puppy -- given to him by Veco's chief executive.

Not helping himself. Ted will be back on the stand on Monday.

Stevens is in a very, very close race with his opponent, Mark Begich. We have an ActBlue page for Begich. A little goes a long way in Alaska. Begich also did a video for us over the summer:



Via Pollster.com, the state of the race:


How fun will it be when Alaskans dump Ted Stevens when Palin is on the top of the ticket? Read More......

How is Wall Street still paying $70 billion in bonuses this year?

Funny how this story is not a lead on CNBC. It's hard to think of another industry that can perform so poorly yet still be paid so well. Congress really has to step it up and crack down because as I've said before, the bonus money at the top is excessive but this mentality runs deep. For people who are bringing real business and real profit, sure, make as much money as possible. I firmly believe in rewarding success with money (if that is what makes someone tick) but rewarding people for failure - in this case we're talking about trillions of dollars of bad business around the world - is not saying much about our economic system or its chances of long term success.

Let Wall Street make their own damned money the way everyone else works and quit sponging off of taxpayers. It would be nice if Waxman would invite Wall Street to Congress *now* and have an open discussion about this and not in January after the cash has been handed out. Let's have a very public debate about these payments and let the taxpayers - who know are investors in the banks - decide if these payments are fair.

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased yesterday when Germany's Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.

The sums that continue to be spent by Wall Street firms on payroll, payoffs and, most controversially, bonuses appear to bear no relation to the losses incurred by investors in the banks. Shares in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have declined by more than 45% since the start of the year. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have fallen by more than 60%. JP MorganChase fell 6.4% and Lehman Brothers has collapsed.

At one point last week the Morgan Stanley $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank.

In the first nine months of the year Citigroup, which employs thousands of staff in the UK, accrued $25.9bn for salaries and bonuses, an increase on the previous year of 4%. Earlier this week the bank accepted a $25bn investment by the US government as part of its bail-out plan.

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On that possible Colin Powell endorsement and why it matters

There will be a lot of chatter on cable news today about Colin Powell's scheduled appearance on "Meet the Press." It's generating more attention than McCain's campaign stop tomorrow in what is really just another reliably red state, FOX News. But, the big question is why an endorsement of Obama by Powell matters. For the answer, we don't need the talking heads on t.v. to tell us. We have a real expert: Jon Soltz who explains the significance in a post at VetVoice:

If reports are true that Colin Powell will endorse Senator Obama this weekend on Meet the Press, it may be a huge moment that gives a further shot of credibility into the arm of the Obama campaign.

I know that many progressives are upset with the role Powell played leading up to the war in Iraq. And, there's no doubt that Powell showed poor judgment in believing the fudged intelligence presented to him, which he then presented to the United Nations. At the same time, however, we do have evidence that Powell tried behind the scenes to change things and even prevent going to war. In this, he can be a powerful advocate for Obama, noting that for all the talk of lack of experience, Barack Obama was right on the Iraq war, and showed better judgment than the entire Bush administration, himself included.

Powell has been open about some of his own culpability, for presenting bad information to the UN, and accepts the fact that it will be a stain on his record, telling a reporter, "Of course it will. It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

I'm not excusing Colin Powell for doing what he did. But, at the same time, him being one of the few who was in the White House during that time puts him in a unique position - to say he's been there and seen what happens when intelligence is no good and twisted, when we go into a war for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way, and that he's confident that Barack Obama is the guy to not only fix those mistakes, but to not repeat them.

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Joe, Rob and I discuss the state of the race

Part 1



Part 2

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Biden blasted Palin for saying parts of America aren't pro-America

Biden at his best:



The AP's headline sums it up: Biden mocks Palin, says entire nation is patriotic Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

17 days.

Bob Geiger has compiled the week's best editorial cartoons...hysterical. John McCain bears the brunt this week.

The poem of the week is "Coming Thro' the Rye" by Robert Burns. It's the poem from "Catcher in the Rye" but it's not about innocence. (It's about sex.)

Should be a busy weekend as both presidential candidates campaign in what have been red states. John McCain's options are diminishing, which means the GOP will only get nastier and uglier. How much lower can they go? That means we all just have to work harder.

Also, one tidbit. Yesterday, I posted a video of Rep. Michelle Bachmann's insane rant on MSNBC. It was one of the most bizarre and disturbing performances I've seen this year. When I linked to the ActBlue page of her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, his total raised was under $4,000. But, across the progressive blogosphere, there was a visceral reaction to Bachmann. This morning, Tinklenberg's ActBlue page has raised over $100,000.

Let's get it started.... Read More......

My favorite weekend "daube"

I love to cook and love to make big, hearty meals together with friends. After years of last minute stressful cooking I discovered slow cooking and daube. Daube is a typical Provencal meal that is essentially a beef stew (with cheap cuts) cooked with tomatoes and carrots though over the years I've added red peppers and eggplant because I'm convinced that anything which includes tomatoes, red peppers and eggplant is good. Anything. This meal takes a few hours though it's easy to make and can be made even a day in advance and warmed up for guests. No last minute stress and the slow cooking at a low temperature is what makes it so tasty. In this case I had enough to serve an army so we had leftovers for the week. Throw in some wild, seasonal mushrooms and you're set to go for another meal.

I have no specific recipe other than what's in the photos below but there are plenty of great recipes available online. Just ignore the ones who tell you to use red wine because it's always white wine. Adding red peppers and eggplant is "limit limit" but red wine is absolute heresy.




Take out the meat, add in the tomatoes, red peppers, onions, carrots and garlic.


After heating up, turn down for a low, slow cook. Eventually I move them to the oven at around 150C for a few hours. A half hour or so before serving, saute the eggplant and mix in to the daube. The eggplant should melt in your mouth and add a creaminess to the meal. (Too far in advance and it blends in and you will miss it.)


The final step...serving. Homemade mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and of course, lots of cream and butter. A nice Rhone wine and life is good.
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Financial analyst fired for criticizing greed

Silly guy. Doesn't he know that the financial industry needs more Gordon Gekkos and fewer analysts with common sense and honesty? Telling the truth will never get you anywhere in this industry so it's a good thing they fired him.

Han Sang-choon, deputy head of Mirae Asset Investment Education Institute, said investors ignored warnings over the past few months that trouble lay ahead for stocks and held on to funds thinking a big pay day was just around the corner.

"I reckon people haven't cashed in their funds because of personal greed and expectations (of profits)," he told an investor, according to quotes from the Friday TV show that appeared widely in South Korean media.

Even though Seoul shares ended down 2.73 percent on Friday for their lowest close since late October 2005, brokerage Mirae Asset did not like the investment advice.

"Therefore, we decided to sack our deputy head, Han Sang-choon, who gave individual views out of line with our institute's original purpose, and caused concern to investors," Kang Chang-hee, the head of the company's research institute said in a written statement.

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Erratic McCain is still talking about Joe the Plumber, even though we now know that Joe will benefit from Obama's tax plan

McCain has truly walked through the Looking Glass. Up is down, left is right. It doesn't matter any more to him. More to the point, it's not clear McCain's knows the truth about anything any more. Even after Joe the Plumber has been discredited - McCain is using Joe as an example of someone who will be hurt under Obama's tax plan, uh huh, except that we now know that Joe will benefit under Obama's plan. Yet McCain still tells his story, well, his fictional story. Just like with the Bridge to Nowhere, the lies keeps coming long after they've been debunked. The thing is, no one other than McCain's base believes the lies, so why tell them? It just furthers the rest of the country's mistrust of McCain, and suspicion that he's no longer the man he was. It's all very sad. And a little bit creepy. Read More......

House GOP Prospects Grow Dimmer

Don't get cocky, but a wee bit of gloating will be permitted.

The ongoing economic crisis coupled with the aggressive assertion of Democrats' massive fundraising advantage has significantly broadened Republican vulnerabilities in the House and made a 25-plus seat pickup a very real possibility.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, sensing the once in a generation opportunity for huge seat gains, has taken out a $15 million bank loan -- a cash infusion that will allow them to go after a far broader number of newly vulnerable Republican incumbents.

Independent political analysts like Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook have upped their predictions of Democratic gains in recent weeks -- with a 20-seat Democratic gain now seen as the floor for November.

Most strategists -- in both parties -- privately believe Democrats are positioned to pick up well more than 15 seats especially given the developments of the last few weeks. During that time, the bottom, which many GOP operatives believed had long ago been reached, dropped out further with seemingly safe incumbents like Reps. Dan Lungren (Calif.), Dana Rohrabacher(Calif.), Dean Heller (Nev.), Lee Terry (Neb.) and Peter Roskam (Ill.) now in real races.

If the likes of Lungren et al. wind up losing, Democrats could well score seat pickups of 35 or more in 19 days time -- a wave that would drop Republican into weak minority status at the start of 2009.

In other words, although we only list the 25 seats likely to switch party control in our House Line this week, the playing field has the real potential to be much larger (and worse) for Republicans.

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