AP: 300 National Guardsmen out of food and water in Houston

Brought to you by your Republican president, the guy who runs FEMA. Yes, let's vote for John McCain and keep the same Republican bozos in office for another 8 years of ruin. (Well, to be fair, it's possible that McCain, at 72 with 4 bouts of recent cancer, won't survive 8 years in office. But, I'm sure Sarah Palin will do a heck of a job running FEMA.) Read the rest of this post...

Want to attack someone in Denver? Just call your victim "gay" and the cops will let you go.

Really sick. Stranger calls you a faggot, then punches you in the head, for no reason. Cop arrives, let's the attacker go, refuses to file a report. The city then refuses the settlement request that the cop in question undergo sensitivity training. Amazing. (Hat tip, Prof Hex blog.) Read the rest of this post...

Today is "one of the most extraordinary days in Wall Street’s history" -- and not in a good way. Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch will be gone tomorrow.

Okay, this is what we got after eight years of George Bush. The economic news for the past couple weeks has been nothing short of stunning. This election is about the economy:

In one of the most extraordinary days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch is near an 11th-hour deal with Bank of America to avert a deepening financial crisis while another storied securities firm, Lehman Brothers, hurtled toward liquidation, according to people briefed on the deal.

The dramatic turn of events was prompted by the cataclysm of losses that has shaken the American financial industry over the last 14 months.

The moves came after a weekend of frantic negotiations between federal officials and Wall Street executives over how to avert a downward spiral in the markets. Questions still remain about how the market will react and whether other firms may still falter like A.I.G., the large insurer, and Washington Mutual, both of whose stocks fell precipitously last week.

Coming just a week after the government took control of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the magnitude of the industry’s reshaping is staggering: two of the most powerful firms on Wall Street, Merrill Lynch and Lehman, will disappear.

The weekend’s once unthinkable outcome came after a series of emergency meetings at the Federal Reserve building in downtown Manhattan in which the fate of Lehman hung in the balance. In the meeting Federal Reserve officials and the leaders of major financial institutions were trying to complete a plan to rescue the stricken investment bank.

The collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was huge, but probably a little too far removed from people's day-to-day lives for them to understand. I felt that way -- I knew it was huge but couldn't quite get my arms around it.

The collapse of Lehman and Merrill Lynch is another story. Lots of Americans invested with Lehman and Merrill Lynch. Those firms are gone. How did this happen? No one was paying attention to the economy. There was a lack of regulation and oversight during the Bush presidency. The proverbial fox was guarding the hen house -- and took full advantage.

It is the economy, stupid. And, the Obama campaign should make every day between now and November 4th about the economy. Read the rest of this post...

Sorry about that

The site was down for some people because Sitemeter, a company a lot of us use for our visitor counts, upgraded their service today - and it proceeded to stop our site from loading. Lovely. I reverted back to the old code, so hopefully this will work. I'm noticing traffic already coming back, so it should be fine now. Sorry about that. Read the rest of this post...

NYT: Palin objected to gay book in Wasilla library

Wonder what the gay REPUBLICAN sell-outs at the Log Cabin Republicans have to say about this. They endorsed McCain the other week because he was kind of good on only ONE gay issue. One. And even on that issue, his support was very conditional. Then again, when you're psychologically damaged about your own identity, even getting thrown a tiny bone can make you the happiest victim in the world. Read the rest of this post...

Lies

St. Petersburg Times (Editorial) “Campaign of lies disgraces McCain” McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were so attracted to him.

Atlanta Journal Constitution (Jay Bookman) The volume and audacity of lies pouring from the McCain campaign is startling and even historic…That’s really something, lying straight out about a FactCheck group, knowing that you’re going to get caught but not giving a damn about it. With stuff like this, the McCain camp has cut any remaining tethers to reality and integrity and is now floating wherever the winds of illusion and whimsy may take them. It’s quite remarkable, and quite insulting to the intelligence of the American people.

Pittsburg Post Gazette (Tony Norman) Where have you gone, John McCain? You once said you'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Is it worth winning an election if it means forfeiting your soul on the altar of political expediency?...Where is the honor in reciting lies for something as transient as political advantage? What are we as voters supposed to make of political ads that accuse Barack Obama of advocating sex education for kindergartners?... Despite the intellectually dishonest maneuvering of your campaign, many Americans admire you, John McCain. Before you embraced the darkness, I was among those who disagreed with your politics, but considered you honorable. Now it's hard to look at you without seeing the scoundrels who made you what you are today.

Kansas City Star (Barb Shelly) McCain stoops to deception, distortion: Maybe you’ve seen it. The campaign ad cites the authoritative journal Education Week to claim that Democrat Barack Obama has been missing in action on education reform…Shamelessly misleading the public?...These are old tricks we’ve been seeing in local elections for years. Distort. Twist. Deceive. Damage. And the winning candidate drags a load of public contempt into office. I had hoped for better from McCain…John McCain may win the presidency this way, but he will lose the respect he has acquired over the years.

Boston Globe (Scot Lehigh) Pretzel logic from the McCain campaign: Here’s the question voters should be asking themselves this week: Just how stupid does the McCain-Palin campaign think I am? The answer: Dumb enough to hoodwink with charges so contrived and cynical they make your teeth ache…As the nonpartisan campaign watchdog FactCheck.org has made clear, this is a thoroughly dishonest ad [Kindergarten]. No matter. The McCain campaign has shown it's ready and willing to say preposterous things to win.

Washington Post (David Ignatius) Stopping at nothing to win: Thinking about the Palin choice, you begin to ponder other moves McCain has made on the road to winning the Republican nomination. McCain was right a few years ago to warn that Bush's tax cuts would have potentially ruinous fiscal consequences; now he favors extending the cuts that have produced a crisis of debt and deficit. Why did he switch his position, other than political opportunism?...In May 2006, after McCain had courted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an effort to win conservative support, I asked him if he was bending his principles for the sake of winning. "I don't want it that badly," McCain answered. "I will continue to do what is right…If that means I can't get the Republican nomination, fine. I've had a happy life. The worst thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil." He was right.

Washington Post (Eugene Robinson) The Scream Machine: There was a time when Republicans campaigned on their ideas, programs and values. This year -- lacking ideas, programs or values -- John McCain and Sarah Palin are running for the White House on an elaborate fictional narrative of victimhood…Creating the false impression that Democrats and journalists are unfairly attacking Palin serves another purpose as well: It helps create the impression that legitimate and necessary questions about her record -- such as her one-time support for the Bridge to Nowhere or her history of seeking the congressional earmarks she now claims to reject -- are somehow out of bounds.

Chicago Tribune (Steve Chapman) To McCain the truth is expandable: McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe. He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul.

Chicago Tribune (Frank James) “McCain plays dirty on Obama & sex-ed” So the McCain ad, in the way it contorts the truth, is pretty shocking from a candidate who has promised to bring change and reform to Washington, a man who's urging Americans to live for a cause larger than themselves. This is an old-fashioned, unreconstructed politics whose goal, first and foremost, is to get the candidate elected, the truth be damned. McCain has said he'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war. But it appears from this ad he'd rather lose any purchase he has on straight-talk than lose this presidential election.

Chicago Tribune (Eric Zorn) `Sex ed' ad educates us on the character of John McCain: The surprise came at the end: I'm John McCain and I approved this message. With that infamous admission, McCain surrendered his integrity and signaled a willingness to say or do anything to get elected… We used to expect better from John McCain. No longer.

TIME (Joe Klein): A new rule here: Rather than do the McCain campaign's bidding by wasting space on Senator Honor's daily lies and bilge--his constant attempts to divert attention from substantive issues--I'm going to assume that others will spend more than enough time on the sewage that Steve Schmidt is shoveling and, from now on, try to stick to the issues.

TIME (Joe Klein) Apology Not Accepted: he is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it, but here's the McClatchy fact check.. I just can't wait for the moment when John McCain--contrite and suddenly honorable again in victory or defeat--talks about how things got a little out of control in the passion of the moment. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.

TIME (Joe Klein) Another McCain Flip Flop: Army Times, which is not--last time I checked--a radical left wing publication, takes John McCain to task for changing his position on the Future Combat Systems program. This is yet another example of how running for President has driven McCain off the deep end. In the past, he was one of the more consistent voices against foolish Pentagon weapon systems. Here's a program that McCain previously wanted to end. Then Obama says he wants to slow-walk it...and McCain--reflexively, it appears, and unable to recall that he previously opposed it--decides to support it.

New York Times (Paul Krugman) Blizzard of Lies: I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come…And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country? What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.

New York Times (Editorial): The most disheartening aspect of a scurrilous Republican ad falsely accusing Barack Obama of promoting sex education for kindergarten children is its closing line: “I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.” This from that straight-talker of yore, who fervidly denounced the 2004 Bush campaign’s Swift Boat character attacks on John Kerry’s military record. What a difference four years makes, especially after Mr. McCain secured the nomination by hiring some of the same low-blow artists from the Bush campaign.

New York Times (Larry Rohter): The advertisement [“Disrespectful”] is the latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the facts. The nonpartisan political analysis group Factcheck.org has already criticized “Disrespectful” as “particularly egregious,” saying that it “goes down new paths of deception,” and is “peddling false quotes.”

New York Times (Michael Cooper and Jim Rutenberg) McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions: Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer — over the strenuous objections of some longtime hands who helped him build his “Straight Talk” image — to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters.

ABC News-Political Punch (Jake Tapper): One can only imagine what the John McCain of 2004 – who called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads “dishonest and dishonorable” – would say about this ad… I suppose one could twist this stuff any way you want if your only point is to make an inflammatory charge. And win an election… The New York Times’ “Checkpoint” (“Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy “), Factcheck.org (“Obama, contrary to the ad's insinuation, does not support explicit sex education for kindergarteners”) and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker ("McCain's 'Education' Spot Is Dishonest, Deceptive") say the ad is a gross distortion. I agree -- in both senses of the word "gross."

AP (Charles Babington): The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak. Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He said Friday that Palin never asked for money for lawmakers' pet projects as Alaska governor, even though she has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead. Read the rest of this post...

McCain lied about Palin's "energy expertise"

From the Obama campaign:

In a recent interview, John McCain said that Governor Palin “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.” If anyone covering the campaign is allowed to interview Senator McCain or Governor Palin again before Election Day, it might be worth asking how, given her expertise, she managed to so wildly misstate the amount of energy produced by her own home state. Governor Palin said that Alaska supplies 20 percent of U.S. energy, and Senator McCain repeated the false claim. The correct number is 3.5 percent. Facthcheck.org called their claim “Not true. Not even close.”

And that's the issue she's smartest on. But more importantly, McCain again lied, or was so out of touch, so confused, that he has no idea what he's talking about anymore. No wonder they won't let him do a real interview. Read the rest of this post...

McCain campaign: We got sleazy to get press attention

A fascinating admission from the McCain campaign, that they chose to leave the high road, to chuck overboard John McCain's "maverick" status, because the McCain campaign thought that they could get more media coverage by being sleazy, dishonorable liars. Hell of a thing for a campaign to admit, especially a campaign centered around the honor of a former POW. Apparently when the going gets tough, the first thing John McCain sacrifices is his honor. A disturbing pattern is emerging of McCain chucking the high road, abandoning his morals and ethics, when instant gratification comes knocking. It's not the definition of hero. It's the definition of reckless. Read the rest of this post...

John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Rape Kits - A reader, his wife and kids do their own ad

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Even Karl Rove says McCain is lying

That's like the devil calling you a sinner. From FOX News Sunday, 9/14/08:

WALLACE: What does McCain do that goes a step too far?

ROVE: McCain has gone, in some of his ads, similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100% truth test.

Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Night Live does Sarah Palin

UPDATE: SNL's Web site sucks. I can't figure out how to grab the right video, so am just linking to it here.

Read the rest of this post...

Palin again cites Bridge to Nowhere lie; McCain campaign lies about crowd size

From MSNBC's First Read:

Palin has come under fire in recent days for misleadingly saying she told Congress “thanks but no thanks,” refusing an earmark for a bridge to a sparsely inhabited island in her home state. Independent groups and media fact-checkers have said Palin advocated for the federal earmark before opposing it, only ended after Congress had essentially killed it, and kept the $223 million for the appropriation after the project was killed.

Palin had cut the refrain from her speech during her three-day visit to Alaska. But she came back to it today, citing it as an example of earmark reform she and McCain would push for in the White House.

“I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere -- that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves," she said....

Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki said on stage that 10,000 people were in the crowd, but parks officials said the pavilion held only 3,500 people.

The reason McCain has embraced lying as his primary campaign tactic isn't just that he has Karl Rove's deputies at the helm of his campaign. It goes deeper than that. These aren't just Karl Rove's deputies. They're George Bush's staffers. The Bush White House embraced the art of the lie, and the corporate media didn't bat an eye at disseminating Bush's lies far and wide. We are seeing the logical next step in what happens when the media refuses to do its job, refuses to hold politicians accountable. The politicians learn the lesson - you can lie with impunity, and it works. It's not just that McCain's campaign is run by Rovies - it's run by Bushies. McCain sold his honor in order to win an election. Read the rest of this post...

"What would Todd do?"

What does Todd do?:

In the small circle of advisers close to the governor, these people say, Mr. Palin is among the closest, and he plays an unpaid but central role in many aspects of the administration of Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president.

Mr. Palin’s involvement in the governor’s office has prompted an irreverent quip by some capital staff members when decisions are to be made that might affect the governor: “What would Todd do?”

Mr. Palin has encouraged lawmakers to support his wife’s agenda, helped her review budget items and polish speeches, surprised some lawmakers by sitting in on meetings and received copies of top administration staff e-mail messages.

Todd stories keep popping up. I suspect we haven't heard all of them, yet. Read the rest of this post...

McCain economic adviser: quit complaining, the economy is great

Another strong case for a 3rd Bush term from the McCain team. Another right wing extremist economist who advises McCain telling everyone that the economy is robust, despite what your lying eyes are telling you. According to right wing theorist (and haven't we had enough of them in the last eight years?) Donald Luskin, the "problem" is purely political and of course, it's Obama's fault. Uh huh. Whoopee for the Bush/McCain economy. If this McCain economic adviser thinks the US economy is so strong, why isn't McCain making this point on the campaign trail? You would think that a proud owner of this Bush/McCain economy would want to brag about the impressive numbers, no? Do tell, Mr Luskin, do tell.

The icing on the cake by this McCain economic adviser? Phil Gramm was right! That and that we may not be on "the brink not of recession, but of accelerating prosperity." Please, please, please advise John McCain to preach this message every day. If Obama is too timid to make a strong case on the economy, perhaps John McCain can contribute and kick start the debate. Read the rest of this post...

Obama raised a record $66 million in August. Bush is raising money for McCain.

I got this news via email from the Obama campaign:

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced today that more than half a million new donors contributed to the Obama campaign during the month of August, bringing the total raised for the month to over $66 million and the cash on hand to more than $77 million. More than 2.5 million people have contributed to the campaign.

“John McCain says that he’ll take on the special interests and lobbyists, but McCain can’t fix a problem he’s been part of for three decades. The 500,000 new donors to the Obama campaign demonstrate just how strongly the American people are looking to kick the special interests out and change Washington. We are proud of the millions of volunteers and more than 2.5 million donors to the Obama campaign who are contributing to help us deliver the change we need instead of letting John McCain just continue the same failed Bush policies while middle class Americans struggle,” said David Plouffe, campaign manager of Obama for America.

From the NY Times:

While the figure is a considerable sum of money, it is a baseline for what Mr. Obama has to raise every month to meet his campaign’s goals. He is not taking public financing – an $84 million cash infusion from the United States Treasury – so his fund-raising burden is considerably higher than his Republican rivals.

Various reports indicated McCain took in $47 million in August. McCain is now receiving public funding so his campaign committee cannot raise money. But, the RNC can - and is raising money for McCain with the help of George Bush (click photo for larger image):
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The Swiftboaters are back -- with millions -- to attack Obama

You knew this was coming. The GOP side has fully funded its 527 operations -- and they're coming after Obama:

A new group financed by a Texas billionaire and organized by some of the same political operatives and donors behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004 plans to begin running television ads attacking Barack Obama, a signal that outside groups may play a larger role than anticipated in the closing days of the presidential race.

The American Issues Project has amassed a multimillion-dollar fund, and the group is putting the final touches on an eleventh-hour campaign targeting the Democratic presidential nominee, sources said.

"We expect to be doing both issues and express advocacy between now and November and beyond," said Christian Pinkston, a spokesman for the group.

If you thought the past couple weeks were ugly, hold on. It's going to get much, much worse.

The Obama campaign basically shut down the Democratic 527s and the funding of outside groups. But, there will be a Democratic counter-offensive, led my labor and MoveOn:

On the Democratic side, much of that effort appears to be falling to labor unions and a handful of well-known advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org and the Sierra Club. In the spring, a coalition of liberal groups that included the AFL-CIO announced plans to spend $350 million on political activities during the 2008 campaign season, but they have been slow in coming together.

Ilyse Hogue, the campaign director for MoveOn.org confirmed that the group will spearhead an ad campaign focused on what has emerged as the central theme of the fall campaign, the question of which candidate is better equipped to bring change to Washington.

"The fight is over whose plan for change is real, whose is genuine. And we're looking to put that in front of voters," Hogue said. "When you look at McCain and [GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah] Palin's ties to Big Oil, it doesn't pass the laugh test that they are for change."

Having spent recent elections watching conservative groups bombard Democratic candidates by taking a disciplined message to the television and talk radio airwaves, the leaders of several major left-leaning groups said they are ready to answer back.

"After years of watching the other side do this, it's finally something we've really gotten strong at," Hogue said.

MoveOn.org knows how to throw punches. The counter attack is going to have to be ruthless. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Lots of surrogates from the presidential campaigns on the shows today. There's really only one topic for discussion: John McCain's blatant lying. Seriously. That is the issue. Editorials are starting to just call McCain a liar. The political pundits all know it. It's hard for them to grasp and they can ponder how and why John McCain has become a pathological liar. But, the bottom line is that McCain's campaign is based on one lie after another. The Obama surrogates better be forceful on that point. The McCain surrogates will just lie.

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Carly Fiorina, adviser to John McCain; former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

___

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz.; Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; former acting Gov. Jane Swift, R-Mass.

___

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, R-N.Y.; Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Bob Woodward, associate editor for The Washington Post and author of a new book on the Bush administration.

___

CNN's "Late Edition" — R. David Paulison, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Govs. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and Bill Richardson, D-N.M.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Linda Douglass, adviser to Barack Obama; Nancy Pfotenhauer, adviser to McCain.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Former Gov. Tony Knowles, D-Alaska; Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, R-Alaska; Jim Laychak, president of the Pentagon Memorial Fund.

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I hate to say it, but I agree with Mr Bubble this time

McCain's radical tax cuts only mean more borrowed money and last time I checked, we have too much of that already. With more bailouts coming on the heels of Freddie/Fannie, there's only so much borrowing the US can afford. We all know that big talk about cutting spending is never, ever, never going to happen. It's always just talk and when they pull out the pen to cut, it's always too important to someone for a future vote. Heck, look at Palin and how much she sponged while governor of Alaska. If she's supposed to be a GOP example - taking ten times the per person money as Obama's home state - then it's obvious cutting will never happen to any significant degree.

Alan Greenspan says the country can't afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain — at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

"Unless we cut spending, no," the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked about McCain's proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

"I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money," Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. "I always have tied tax cuts to spending."

McCain has said that he would offset his proposed cuts — including reducing the corporate tax rate and eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax that has plagued middle-class families — by ending congressional pork-barrel spending, unnecessary government programs and overhauling entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

Democrats pounced on Greenspan's comments, in part because McCain professed last year that he was weaker on economics than foreign affairs and was reading Greenspan's memoir, "The Age of Turbulence," to educate himself.

"Obviously he needs to go back to that book and study it some more," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said during a conference call arranged by the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

McCaskill said eliminating congressional earmark spending — estimated at $17 billion annually — cannot offset McCain's proposed tax cuts.

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Right wing values voters line up to buy "Obama Waffles"

Update: Listen to the creators explain how they aren't racist and that Obama may be a Muslim.

Who would have guessed that values voters can never get enough racist stereotypes and then try to justify their actions?

Wearing white chef's aprons, Whitlock and DeMoss were doing a brisk business at noon Saturday selling the waffle mix to people crowded around their booth. Two pyramids of waffle mix boxes stood several feet high on the booth's table.

"It's the ultimate political souvenir," DeMoss told a customer.

Asked if he considered the pictures of Obama on the box to be racial stereotypes, Whitlock said: "We had some people mention that to us, but you think of Newman's Own or Emeril's — there are tons and tons of personality-branded food products on the market. So we've taken that model and, using political satire, have highlighted his policies, his position changes."

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McCain camp caught lying about crowd estimates

They are on the verge of some serious trouble. I have a real sense that the media is fed up with the serial lies coming from the McCain campaign. The thing is, they're lying because they think the media are patsies and will simply regurgitate whatever lie McCain gives them. And once upon a time, that might have been true. But McCain has now pushed the lies far beyond the exaggerations and half-truths of normal politics. This is new territory McCain has entered, and the media may finally be fed up with it. It's going to be very interesting to see if Americans care or not about a man who would rather lose his honor than lose an election. Read the rest of this post...

Alaska spending way up under Palin

What? She wasn't a fiscal conservative? You mean like the massive pork that was ten times the rate of people from Illinois and the highest in the country? Who would have guessed? And here I thought a fiscal conservative would have cut taxes and spending, but no, that was not what Palin did.

Indeed, in her 20 months in office, Palin's toughest financial decisions involved dickering with the Legislature on creative ways to spend and salt away the billions of dollars in oil revenues pouring into the state treasury.

At times, Palin has been more economic populist than small-government conservative, partly because of Alaska's unique government financing system.

With no statewide income or sales tax, Alaska funds about 90 percent of the state budget from royalties and taxes on oil producers. Soaring oil prices and a higher windfall oil profits tax - an increase pushed through by Palin, now the Republican vice presidential nominee - have state coffers overflowing with petrodollars. The Alaska oil industry calculates that its annual payments to the state doubled in a single year to $10.2 billion.

Windfall oil profit taxes, just like Obama suggested and the McCain and the GOP rejected. What a phony baloney fiscal conservative, but typical. She cut spending about as much as the GOP Congress during the Bush years. Read the rest of this post...