Another independent ad done good

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Factcheck.org: It's true that McCain voted 95% of the time with Bush

From Factcheck.org, an independent site that both campaigns cite as a legit source:

Is it true John McCain voted with George Bush 95 percent of the time?

The Obama campaign keeps claiming McCain has voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Is this true? Is this significant?

A: Yes, it's true, according to Congressional Quarterly's assessment of McCain's voting record.

Sen. Barack Obama has attempted to use the Arizona senator's voting record against him in statements like this:

Barack Obama (June 3): It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95 percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year.

The claim is true.

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Newsweek's Jonathan Alter invokes the Keating Five scandal, says McCain getting a free ride from the media

NEWSWEEK'S JONATHAN ALTER: "[Y]ou remember the Keating Five scandal that he was a part of, which, by the way, it's crazy but there's been very little about it in the press in the last few weeks. And McCain thinks he's getting a hard time, he's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country. But his reaction to that, you would have thought, would have been more regulation of the financial services industry. Instead he moved forward on campaign finance reform after being caught in that scandal, but did nothing – nothing – to try to prevent another savings and loan crisis from happening down the road. He was missing in action when it came to even learning the basic lessons of a scandal that he said taught him all kinds of things that he would never forget."

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Sarah Palin still refusing to give interviews to the media

From ABC's Jake Tapper:

The woman seeking to be to a heartbeat away from the presidency without ever holding a press conference remains on the same relatively unaccountable path.

McCain-Palin campaign officials apparently feel the American people should trust her with the button and the world's financial markets without ever taking questions from reporters.

And considering that McCain is 72 years old, has had 4 bouts of serious melanoma in recent years, and now is showing increasing signs of mental confusion, it's a fair question to ask how long McCain is going to be around before President Palin is sworn in. It's incredibly reckless of McCain to play politics with our national security in this fashion. Read More......

Worst fall for dollar since January 2, 2001

Brace yourself for plenty more days of record highs and lows. Today was not one of the good days.

At $1.48 per euro, the dollar was down 2.6 percent, its steepest decline against the euro since Jan., 2, 2001. The dollar index was also down 2.6 percent.

It's hard to believe it was down to $1.38 barely more than 10 days ago. Read More......

Bailout feeds oil increase, dollar decrease

The dollar had been making a reasonably good recovery until Wall Street started to struggle. It's clear that the bailout is going to mean a heavy cost to the US so the dollar has started to slide once again against the euro, giving up almost ten cents in recent days. The cost of oil, which also had been dropping to a "cheap" high 90's is back up in the mid-teens and beyond. The $25 spike today was connected to the bailout. This bailout is not helping average Americans and we haven't even signed the damned thing yet.

Oil extended last week's massive gains and rose above $104 a barrel on Monday, on hopes that the U.S. government's $700 billion rescue plan would restore stability in the financial system and support global energy demand.

Sweeping government measures to rescue the financial system and restore confidence in shaky markets spurred gains across markets Friday, when oil rose almost 7 percent to cap its biggest three-day rally in a decade.

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Reader Mail about McCain's health

A reader writes:

As an emergency physician, if I were taking care of a 72-year-old man with a history of melanoma who was having episodes of confusion I would be extremely concerned. High on my priority list would be to get a brain MRI to look for metastatic melanoma. When melanoma metastasizes it commonly goes to the brain. I do not think the American people should decide whether or not to vote for Senator McCain until he has had a brain MRI and we know the results.

Here's a quote from emedicine.com on melanoma:

"Melanoma has an increased incidence among other systemic cancers in terms of metastasizing to the brain. About 40-60% of patients with melanoma will have brain metastasis. Melanoma commonly metastasizes to the brain. Melanoma cells are closely related to CNS cells due to their embryonic origin and neural crest cells, and they share common antigens such as MAG-1 and MAG-2. After melanoma is detected in the brain, median survival is 3 months. These metastases are poorly responsive to all treatments."

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WSJ: McCain to take nap before big debate

No word on whether warm milk is involved. All kidding aside, anyone else disturbed that before facing a test of his presidential abilities our possible future president needs a nap? Will Putin give McCain a time out? How about Ahmenidjad in Iran? More from Taegan:

Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain will spend much of this week preparing for their first debate on Friday night.

The Wall Street Journal notes McCain "will spar this week in mock debates" with former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele who will play Obama "and use many of his speaking patterns, tactics and body language." Obama "will practice with Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer and former official in the Clinton administration who is one of his few gray-haired advisers."

On the day of the debate, McCain "will host a town-hall event and take a short nap" while Obama "will work out or shoot hoops."

Interesting that McCain chose a black man to play Obama. Read More......

Why is the corporate media refusing to write stories about McCain's sleazy Keating Five banking scandal?

It's one thing for the media to refuse to investigate whether McCain is losing his mental acuity - it's a valid point to inquire about, whether McCain is showing signs of senility, dementia or early Alzheimer's, but it's understandable to a degree that reporters are reluctant to investigate the details of people's private medical records. Of course, when you're running for president, are 72 years of age, have had 4 bouts of melanoma, and pick an inexperienced neophyte as your running mate, the voters have the right to ask and know whether you are healthy enough to survive an eight year term in office.

But putting that aside, what has been the corporate media's reluctance about bringing up McCain's Keating Five banking scandal? It's a scandal very much like the banking crisis we face today, and it's probably the most noteworthy experience John McCain had on the job dealing with the financial industry. Yes, McCain was corrupt in his dealings with that industry, and was admonished on the Senate floor for his poor ethical judgment, but why does the fact that McCain did something really horrendous on the job in the Senate, on an issue that is again before the voters, somehow make that issue no longer relevant?

The New York Times has done zero stories this cycle, zero, about John McCain's Keating Five past. But I'll bet you the NYT and the rest of the media have reported on what they perceive as possible scandals involving Obama's past. So why the double standard? Why is John McCain's sleazy behavior during the Keating Five banking scandal off-limits as though the banks involved were his children or something? Read More......

A campaign of whiners (in addition to liars)

Steve Schmidt is the Karl Rove deputy who is now John McCain's whiner in chief (aka he's one of the top TOP guys on the campaign). Schmidt held a conference call today to whine to reporters that they'd better stop calling John McCain a liar. Only problem? Most of what Schmidt told reporters during that call was, uh, a lie. Don't take it from me. Take it from Ben Smith at Politico:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

The errors in McCain strategist Steve Schmidt’s charges against Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were particularly notable because they seemed unnecessary. Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama’s embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter’s over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when — in each case — the truth would have been damaging enough.

“Any time the Obama campaign is criticized at any level, the critics are immediately derided as liars,” Schmidt told reporters.

But as he went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

Now enjoy an interpretation of Steve Schmidt's conference call:

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Oil sets single day record increase

Inflation probably isn't going to be an issue with a failing economy and record setting debt for the Wall Street bailout and war in Iraq. Yep, that who deregulation program that McCain brags about has been a success.

Crude futures leaped more than $16 per barrel Monday to score their biggest daily gain in dollar terms since 1984 -- when crude began trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Bush administration thinks US taxpayers should bail out foreign banks too

Wow. I can't wait to hear how excited middle class communities in the heartland of America are to fund institutions such as Phil Gramm's elite Swiss bank UBS or a British bank that sends out its CEO who sounds like royalty and probably is. I don't recall my neighbors in Ohio caring much for the East Coast types so giving cash to support foreign workers who make more in a year than many in a lifetime sounds like a hard sell. Read More......

Palin budget cut money for rape exams

But we're to believe that she knew nothing about it. Nor did she know when her police chief did interviews with the local paper defending charging rape victims for their own forensic exams. Yeah, uh huh, Sarah Palin didn't even read her own local paper, and no one told her that the state was getting ready to pass legislation forcing her to stop charging rape victims for their own exams. Uh huh. So was Sarah Palin a hands-on leader or wasn't she? Not to mention, somehow the budget for these rape kits got cut when Palin came to office - the city paid for the rape exams before:

Before Palin came to City Hall, the Wasilla Police Department paid for rape kits out of a fund for miscellaneous costs, according to the police chief who preceded Fannon and was fired by Palin. That budget line was cut by more than half during Palin's tenure, but it did not specifically mention rape exams.

Where are the women's groups on this? I'm happy to push this issue, and have been, but wouldn't it be neat if a multi-million dollar organization whose mission is supposedly to care about women deigned to actually do something about this? I mean, how many times does this story have to pop up in the news before the women's groups get it? Where are the ads? Where are the press conferences? Where are the demonstrations? We progressives really are pretty pathetic as a movement. Or at least our leaders are. Read More......

A doctor weighs in about McCain's health

I've gotten a number of emails from readers in the medical profession, sharing their concerns about John McCain's health. As Sam Donaldson said yesterday, McCain's confusion on a series of issues of late raises the "age question" again. It may not be politically correct to ask if John McCain is hiding information from the public about his mental status (senility, dementia, Alzheimer's) or about his cancer, but it's really something we can't ignore, especially now that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his VP, someone who would become president if McCain dies in office or is otherwise forced to step down.

One more thing. Let's not forget the highly suspicious manner in which McCain gave the public access to his medical records. He let only a handful of reporters review thousands of pages of records for 3 hours on a holiday weekend. That was it. No photocopies permitted, and once the timer is up, it's over. John McCain is treating legitimate concerns about whether he will survive in office, as if we're playing some grocery story game show in which you only get to keep what you can put in your cart before the bell goes off. We're talking about the presidency. It's still unfathomable that the media agreed to McCain's terms. Here is what I wrote at the time:

I just read that there are 1,173 pages of documents. In the three hours alloted, that's a whopping 10 seconds a page the reporters can spend. Yes, for three straight hours, imagine flipping a page every ten seconds, non-stop. Assuming they're taking notes, and they are, the time would double, conservatively, so they'd have 5 seconds a page. Yeah, real full disclosure.

Here's the email a reader sent me recently:

John,

I've been a long-time reader of the site and I thought you'd appreciate reading the email below that my Dad sent me this morning. My father is an older dermatologist (practicing for 35+ years) and is not at all prone to political activism. I was surprised, then, when he sent this to me -- both because he sent it at all, and then by the content.

McCain should release his entire set of medical for a full review, without any restrictions whatsoever. Please feel free to share this with your readers.

Regard.

The email my father sent me:

As a dermatologist, I'm particularly troubled by the lack of information that has been released by the McCain campaign about the malignant melanoma, or skin cancer, that was removed from McCain's left temple in 2000. I have spent considerable time researching this issue in an effort to compile complete information about McCain's lesion, to no avail. While I have been able to obtain some information, I have to the inexorable conclusion that critical information about this potentially deadly cancer remains missing from the public record.

This is what I have been able to learn: McCain has had four melanomas. Three of these were "in situ," i.e., very superficial, caught at the earliest stage they can be detected, and of no threat if removed upon discovery. However, the left temple melanoma at issue here, which was excised from an area of relatively thin skin, was described as being a Stage 2A lesion that was 2cm, 2.2mm in diameter. Further, it was HMB-45 and S-100 positive; these are special stains, which, if positive confirms the diagnosis of melanoma skin cancer. Despite finding this information, I could find no mention of the Breslow level of the lesion, which describes the depth of the lesion related to the micro-anatomy of the skin, nor could I find any or data about ulceration, mitotic rate, or other common markers that help determine a patient's prognosis after a serious episode such as McCain's in 2000. Because all of this data is a part of the standard pathology report about any melanoma, I can only conclude that the actual pathology report for this skin cancer was not released last spring, when reporters were allowed a few hours to review over 1,000 selected pages from McCain's medical records. The absence of this information is very troubling as this lesion still has significant potential to be life-threatening.

The prevailing statistics suggest a 10 year survival rate of 65% from malignant melanoma. "For patients with a melanoma like Mr. McCain's who remained free of the disease the first five years after the diagnosis, the probability of recurrence during the next five years was 14% and death 9%." (Lawrence K. Altman, MD, NY Times, March 3, 2008).

Remember, however, that the true depth of McCain's lesion in the thin skin of the temple (Breslow level) is not known. Thus, the potential for metastasis (that is, spreading of the skin cancer to internal organs) cannot be determined without more information. This information must have been available to his surgeons and given that McCain had a sentinel node biopsy evaluation (reported as negative) and the removal of an unknown number of lymph nodes from the left neck, (all also reported as negative for melanoma), it strongly suggests that the information his surgeons gave them cause for concern. The steps they took were are common unless there is a real concern about the possibility of spread at the time of biopsy. Metastases in melanoma may bypass the regional lymph nodes in any case.

Given the office he seeks and, particularly, his choice of running mate, the stated odds will be unacceptable to a significant number of voters.

The American public has every right to complete disclosure and an open discussion of McCain's potentially catastrophic health history.

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About Rick Davis' cool two million

A reader writes:

I hope the Obama campaign emphasizes the severity of Rick Davis. Knowing the media, they will try to somehow say that both had lobbyists and that this simply evens it out or something inane like that (Josh Levs of CNN said basically the same thing a week ago about lobbyists in general... comparing Obama camp and McCain camp).

Obama camp needs to make 2 things obvious:

1. This is McCain's CAMPAIGN MANAGER. He's not some no name adviser who sometimes advises him on policy. This guy is a BIG FISH. He isn't someone who McCain spoke to for 5 minutes (Raines and Obama), he is someone who is trusted very much by McCain and ALWAYS has McCain's ears. He isn't some UNPAID adviser or an adviser that's one out of hundreds, but he is WITHIN the INNER CIRCLE of the McCain camp. They need to stress this. Last week, especially in light of Raine's ad, I thought the Obama camps response, by way of Dem surrogates on tv, wasn't too effective.

2. He did some SERIOUS LOBBYING. He didn't simply work for some lawfirm representing many different clients with this being just a small part of his work. THIS WAS A MAJOR DEAL. He not only collected almost $2 million in lobbying fees in 5 years, but he FOUGHT BACK HARD against regulation - the same regulation that McCain now says should have been in place for Fannie and Freddie.

You hit the points very effectively... And I do hope that they hammer the two points... basically, the first is about DAVIS' HIGH position in the McCain camp, the second is the EXTENT to which he lobbied against regulation.

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New Obama ad on McCain doing to health care what he and his pals did to the economy

Tough new ad based on McCain's own words:



McCain is a multi-millionaire. He doesn't need to worry about the economy. McCain gets government paid health care. He doesn't need to worry about paying for the doctor. It's easy to be John McCain and deregulate. Doesn't affect him. Read More......

Palin is making the Washington Post "queasier"

Uh-oh. Bush and the Republicans worked so hard to win over the Washington Post editorial page. Fred Hiatt was their biggest cheerleader. And, he loved McCain too. But, there's trouble brewing -- over McCain's biggest decision so far. They're getting "queasier" about Palin at Wash. Post HQ:

Mr. McCain's selection of an inexperienced and relatively unknown figure was unsettling, and the campaign's decision to keep her sequestered from serious interchanges with reporters and voters serves only to deepen the unease. Mr. McCain is entitled to choose the person he thinks would be best for the job. He is not entitled to keep the public from being able to make an informed assessment of that judgment. Ms. Palin's speech-making skills are impressive, but the more she repeats the same stump speech lines, the queasier we get. Nor have her answers to the gentle questioning she has encountered provided any confidence that Ms. Palin has a grasp of the issues.

You won't get any confidence because she has no grasp of the issues. That says volumes about John McCain. And, it's actually worse. Because, in Palin's mind, she's not the running mate. She's the top of the ticket:
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George Will: "John McCain showed his personality this week and made some of us fearful."

George Will and Cokie Roberts, neither of whom is awfully very friendly to Democrats, both really ripped into McCain on ABC's This Week. And Sam Donaldson repeatedly said that McCain's actions this week brought back into question "the age issue." Huff Post has a 4 minute clip, it's devastating.

"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," said Will. "The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate."

Donaldson then jumped in: "It was two days after the he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong. His talking points have gotten all mixed up. And I think the question of age is back on the table."...

The whole, painful, episode crested with Will leveling an even harsher blow.

"John McCain showed his personality this week," said the writer and pundit, "and made some of us fearful."

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NYT: McCain chief of staff/lobbyist was paid $2m by Fannie and Freddie for access to McCain and to stop regulation of banking industry

Bumped. This is a very important story.

Oh my God. They admit outright that earlier this decade they paid $2m to the man who is now John McCain's campaign manager in order to buy influence with John McCain as Senator and as possible president (they also paid him to derail legislation that would have increased federal regulation of the banking industry). There should be a campaign to demand that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, give ever penny back to the American people. There had better be an ad about this out by COB Monday, and calls for Davis' resignation.

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: September 21, 2008

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say....

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big week ahead. The first debate is Friday night. There will be a fierce effort by the McCain campaign to lower expectations. But, some initial research showed me that McCain won a lot of the GOP debates in 2007 and earlier this year. Lots of pundits, from Chuck Todd to Chris Cillizza, praised McCain's debating skills. So, they better not start buying the spin now. They're already on the record about McCain being a very strong debater.

The BIG news, and I mean BIG news, is the revelation that Fannie and Freddie paid McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, $2 million for access to McCain. The McCain campaign tried to exploit the tenuous ties between Obama and the former CEO of Fannie Mae -- a charge which has been widely disabused. Once McCain's campaign raised the issue, it was like poking a hornet's nest. Former staffers from Fannie and Freddie want the Rick Davis story told. So, it's McCain who is getting stung. Rick Davis is going to have to quit or be fired. He's fast becoming one of the poster boys for the greed and excess that has destroyed our economy. And, Davis should give that money back. NOW.

It's going to be a wild week.... Read More......

What is $500 billion? What's a trillion?

A reader asked what any of the bailout numbers represent in the real world. We know $500 billion, $700 billion or now the new Paulson plan of $1.8 trillion is a lot, but put this in terms that everyone can understand. A few examples for 2007:

* Microsoft generated $51 billion in revenue.
* Citi, who has been hit hard in the credit crisis, saw $159 billion.
* Walmart's 2007 total revenue was $388 billion.
* ExxonMobil generated $404 billion.

Those are the numbers for some of the largest businesses in the US. For the US budget, here are a few examples from Bush's budget in 2007:

* Veterans' benefits at $73 billion
* Education was $90 billion
* Interest on US debt was $244 billion
* Medicare $395 billion
* Defense was $548 billion
* Social Security was $586

In total, the 2007 federal budget was a total of $2.8 trillion. The latest updates for the Paulson bailout plan are pushing $1.8 trillion. For next year, we will start the year in a pretty big financial hole and it's going to have to be made up somewhere. Read More......

Paulson's bailout is a free-for-all for lobbyists

This guy can't say no to anyone. The bailout has become a catch all and everyone wants a piece of the action. It's easy though since they're his friends and it's not his money. All of this explains why the Paulson bailout plan has grown from $500 billion to $1.8 trillion and now includes posh foreign banks.

The group said a wide variety of institutions as varied as mortgage lenders and insurance companies should be able to take advantage of the bailout, and that these companies should be able to sell off any investments linked to mortgages.

The scope of the bailout grew over the weekend. As recently as Saturday morning, the Bush administration’s proposal called for Treasury to buy residential or commercial mortgages and related securities. By that evening, the proposal was broadened to give Treasury discretion to buy “any other financial instrument.”

The lobbying became particularly intense because Congress plans to approve a package within just two weeks, without the traditional hearings and committee process.

“Of course there will be fierce lobbying,” said Bert Ely, a financial services industry consultant in Alexandria, Va. “The real question is, Who wouldn’t want to be included in the package?”

Indeed. I'm thinking that the only people who wouldn't want to be included would be the US taxpayer, but hey, why does that matter? Read More......

Paulson's bailout now bumped up to $1.8 trillion

I never would have imagined the Wall Street bailout could blossom into such an enormous handout. If you listen closely, you can hear the Ferrari dealers around Wall Street placing orders for new shipments now that Wall Street has been saved. For those still believing that somehow, someway, we will ever see a profit from this or even a break even, have you not been watching the last few years? People had been promised plenty of profits and look how that turned out. When you overpay or set up exciting plans with big juicy returns, the end result may not be what you initially imagined. The only thing that is predictable here is that the cost has managed to increase from $500 billion, to $700 billion and now up to $1.8 trillion all within a few days. Read More......

Customer demands increase as airlines ask for more money

Imagine that. Customers have the nerve to ask the airline industry for more after being slammed with higher costs, charges for everything including water and two bailouts since 2001. American consumers really are rude that way. Why can't they be happy with their cramped seat, $5 water and surly service? Everyone ought to be more accommodating to our precious airline industry, especially since they're going to ask for a bailout, while Washington is handing out money like candy on Halloween. Read More......

Is Paulson going to bail out McCain's friend, Phil Gramm's UBS?

It just gets worse by the minute. Toxic debt traders of the world, unite. Who ever would have thought that the US taxpayer would be coughing up billions for foreign banks to save those precious, delicate little flowers trying to make ends meet on Wall Street? It's not unreasonable to ask yet again, what the hell everyone on Main Street is getting out of this deal, besides screwed.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that foreign banks will be able to unload bad financial assets under a $700 billion U.S. proposal aimed at restoring order during a devastating financial crisis.

"Yes, and they should. Because ... if a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," Paulson said on ABC TV.

So let me understand this. Is Henry Paulson talking about bailing out Phil Gramm's UBS? UBS has been one of the worst hit banks in the world and so far has written-down roughly $38 billion in bad business during this cycle. Phil Gramm already tried lobbying the US government for a bailout on behalf of his employer, elite Swiss bank UBS, so Paulson's addition does raise questions. We need to understand if McCain's friend and rumored Treasury Secretary has lobbied for Swiss bank UBS to be included in this US taxpayer bailout. Let the Swiss, the British or any other country bail out their own banks with their own damned money. Read More......

Is Palin finally dropping the "Thanks but no thanks" lie?

I'm going to guess that they took a poll and found that the Palin/McCain ticket's lies were finally starting to tick voters off. Read More......