College Republican leader had to quit over racist writings on his Facebook page (which he didn't think was racist at all)

They teach them how to hate young in the GOP:

The leader of a statewide group of college Republicans has been forced to resign after posting racially insensitive comments about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on the Internet.

Adam LaDuca, 21, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, wrote on his Facebook page in late July that Obama has "a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)"

LaDuca, who previously had called Martin Luther King Jr. a "pariah" and a "fraud," also wrote: "And man, if sayin' someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we're ALL in trouble."

Classy. The young GOP leader thinks his little screed was just fine.

So, the College Republican had to quit, but the state party leaders in Tennessee and North Carolina still have their jobs. Apparently, one has to be more powerful in the GOP to be blatantly racist and get away with it.

(Hat tip, Alvin. Read the rest of this post...

McCain today attacked Obama for opposing same weapon system McCain railed against in 2006

One might even say McCain seems confused. In a nutshell, McCain criticized Obama today for wanting to delay a weapons system that McCain himself railed against just two years ago (and McCain's efforts slowed down production of the system, which is exactly what Obama wants to do). Oops. But in McCain's defense, you need a pretty agile mind to keep all the lies straight. Read the rest of this post...

This viral email about Sarah Palin is actually real

A reader just wrote me about this email - it's been making the rounds, I've gotten numerous copies in the past week - and I seemed to recall that this email was actually real. And it is. Check out Snopes.com - they are THE independent site on the Internet for snooping out urban myths - Snopes says the letter is real. The woman who authored it has posted her own blog over at the Huffington Post. Here is her email in full. For some reason, this email about Palin has struck a chord with people. I recommend you copy and send this post to your friends, or use the "send to a friend" link under the title of this post (it's the link that looks like a small white envelope with an arrow in it). This one you can send around with the certainly that it's for real:

About Sarah Palin
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more city council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is pro-life. She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just puts things out there and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings, which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax, which even taxed food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though. Borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years later -- to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 years without any borrowing.

While mayor, city hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow and bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal -- loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop (see below).

As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was that he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The city council person who personally escorted her around town, introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council, became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal city administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 per year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move, which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As governor, she gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects -- which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance -- but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together a package of legislation known as AGIA, which forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president.

There have to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than her.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Claim vs. Fact

"Hockey mom:" true for a few years.

"PTA mom:" true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.

"NRA supporter:" absolutely true.

Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, but vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships. (Said she did this because it was unconstitutional.)

Pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, but did nothing as governor to promote it.

"Pro-life:" mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby, but declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.

"Experienced:" Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than city council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

Political maverick: not at all.

Gutsy: absolutely!

Open and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

Has a developed philosophy of public policy: no.

"A greenie:" no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

Fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

Pro-infrastructure: no. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

Pro-tax relief: lowered taxes for businesses, but increased tax burden on residents

Pro-small government: no. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

Pro-labor/pro-union: no. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

Why Am I Writing This?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you Google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that bad things happen when good people stay silent. Few people know as much about Palin as I do because few have gone to as many city council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future. That's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

Caveats
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the city of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? For population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of city hall -- they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90s.

Read the rest of this post...

Freddie & Fannie execs to walk away with millions

If the original terms weren't bad enough, someone even added a new clause in July. For most Americans, it's a mystery how a supposed leader can perform so poorly yet become so wealthy. They may not be walking away with as much as Angelo Mozilo, Stanley O'Neal or Charles Prince, but something tells me they will be much more comfortable than most Americans who get sacked for such poor performance at work. How is it possible to fail so badly yet receive so much money? Is this really the America that we used to know?

Under the terms of his employment contract, Daniel H. Mudd, the departing head of Fannie Mae, stands to collect $9.3 million in severance pay, retirement benefits and deferred compensation, provided his dismissal is deemed to be “without cause,” according to an analysis by the consulting firm James F. Reda & Associates. Mr. Mudd has already taken home $12.4 million in cash compensation and stock option gains since becoming chief executive in 2004, according to an analysis by Equilar, an executive pay research firm.

Richard F. Syron, the departing chief executive of Freddie Mac, could receive an exit package of at least $14.1 million, largely because of a clause added to his employment contract in mid-July as his company’s troubles deepened. He has taken home $17.1 million in pay and stock option gains since becoming chief executive in 2003.

Read the rest of this post...

Rachel Maddow's new show debuts on MSNBC at 9pm Eastern tonight

Watch it and make John McCain cry. Read the rest of this post...

Wasilla charged rape victims for their own forensic exams under Mayor Sarah Palin?

(NOTE FROM JOHN: Seems some right-wingers are already out there saying that the Frontiersman isn't a real paper, and that this is a Web site pretending to be a news site in order to attack Palin. Well, there's this new thing out there. It's called "the Google." If one uses it one would find that the Frontiersman is the local Wasilla paper, and has been around since 1947. This article was published in the year 2000, so it wasn't a swipe at Palin at all - that was 8 years before she was chosen for VP. It just so happens that the article inadvertently gives us a rather nasty window into Sarah Palin and the priorities of her city government.)

I couldn't even believe this article, it's so creepy and out there. But in fact, Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from 1996 to 2002. And according to an Alaskan news article in the local Wasilla paper in the year 2000, the City of Wasilla, under Mayor Palin, charged rape victims for their own forensic tests. Most Alaskan municipalities picked up the tab themselves, but not Wasilla, the article notes. You see, the city of Wasilla, the article notes, didn't want to "burden" taxpayers with having to support victims of rape. Yes, they were more interested in lowering taxes. It would have cost the city between $5,000 and $14,000 a year to pay for the rape victims' police medical exams. And if the City of Wasilla, circa the year 2000, wants to go there in terms of balancing rape vs, burdening taxpayers, you should know that each and every Alaskan gets a check from the state government each year, it contains their portion of that year's oil revenues. The latest check, I read, was for over $2,000. I think the citizens of Wasilla had the money.

From the Frontiersman:

Gov. Tony Knowles recently signed legislation protecting victims of sexual assault from being billed for tests to collect evidence of the crime, but one local police chief said the new law will further burden taxpayers.

The governor signed House Bill 270, sponsored by Rep. Eric Croft, D-Anchorage, outside the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) exam room at Alaska Regional Hospital. In attendance at the signing were members of victims advocate groups, law enforcement agencies and legislators.

The new law makes it illegal for any law enforcement agency to bill victims or victims insurance companies for the costs of examinations that take place to collect evidence of a sexual assault or determine if a sexual assault did occur....

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.

According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.

Read the rest of this post...

Arianna says Obama should ignore Palin and hit McCain, hard

She raises a good point. Palin is a distraction, though I think a useful one. She is unqualified for the vice presidency, and with McCain being 72 years old and suffering 4 bouts of cancer, there is a very real chance that McCain's choice of Palin could make her president. Also, a point Joe Sudbay keeps making, we need to remind people that the issue isn't Palin, it's McCain's reckless selection of her and what is says about the man who used to be called maverick.

Where we agree with Arianna, unequivocally, we'd still like to see Obama let loose:

Her critics like to say that Palin hasn't accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record -- and McCain's complicity in it. My friends, that's accomplishment we can believe in.

Just look at the problem John McCain faced. George Bush has a disastrous record, and the country knows it. John McCain -- the current one, not the one who vanished eight years ago -- has no major disagreements with George Bush (and I'm sorry, wanting to fire Donald Rumsfeld a bit sooner doesn't qualify) and wants to continue his incredibly unpopular policies for another four years. The solution? Enter Sarah Palin, a Trojan Moose carrying four more years of disaster.

And the plan has worked beautifully. Just look at what's being discussed just 57 days before the election. Is it the highest unemployment rate in five years? The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The suicide bombing yesterday in Iraq that killed six people and wounded 54 -- in the same market where last month a bomb killed 28 people and wounded 72? That the political reconciliation that was supposedly the point of "the surge" is nowhere near happening? That Iraq's Shiite government is now rounding up the American-backed Sunni leaders of the Awakening? That the reason 8,000 soldiers may be leaving Iraq soon is so more can be deployed to Afghanistan where the Taliban is steadily retaking the country?

No. We're talking about whether Sarah Palin was or was not a good mayor, whether she was or was not a good mother, whether her skirts are too short and her zingers too sarcastic.

Contrary to what we're hearing 24/7 in the media, the next few weeks are not a test of Sarah Palin. The next few weeks are a test of Barack Obama.

Read the rest of this post...

Howie Kurtz: McCain "trying to steal the 'change' mantra" from Obama

From Washington Post/CNN media critic, Howie Kurtz:

McCain, with the addition of a rookie governor, is no longer running as the candidate of experience. Instead, he is trying to steal the "change" mantra from his Democratic rival, Barack Obama...

Read the rest of this post...

WHOA. This is the kind of political ad we needed to see from the Obama campaign

I haven't loved a lot of the Obama campaign ads. Til now. This latest ad, titled "No Maverick" is exactly what the campaign needed. It's crisp. It's tough. It doesn't hold back -- and right now, they can't hold back. Lots of great lines for just 30 seconds. My favorite lines, besides the "WHOA":

ANNCR: Politicians lying about their records? You don’t call that maverick…you call it more of the same.

More of this, please. McCain and Palin are lying. They need to be called out on it, just like this.

I heartily approve this message. Read the rest of this post...

An Alaskan from Wasilla talks about the Sarah Palin he knows

From TowleRoad:

My fellow Alaskans have vouched for Palin as a charming, interesting person. I can add to that that she is perfectly friendly. But now she is running for the highest office and so it must be noted that Sarah Palin the Friendly Neighbor is different from Sarah Palin the Executive. The latter is a woman with intense agendas guided by a narrow set of culturally conservative and extreme religious values. She believes that abstinence should be the only form of sex education taught to teenagers; she believes that creationism should be taught alongside science in our schools; she is against a woman’s right to choose even in the cases of incest and rape; and her church believes gay and lesbian Americans can and, one assumes, should be corrected by prayer (“pray away the gay” is their cheery slogan).

When she was mayor of my hometown, these extreme views came off as petty and irrelevant to people like me who did not share them. There seemed little cause for alarm. Most Alaskans are happy to live and let live; we don’t think of ourselves as Republican or Democrat. Besides, as mayor, it’s not like she had the power to wiretap our phones, amend our constitution, or send us to war.

But she did try to use her power to ban books. Wasilla’s popular public librarian rightly objected, and the community rightly backed the librarian. The books were never banned, though Mrs. Palin did fire the librarian for not agreeing with her political views, then rescinded the firing after it was clear she’d made an unpopular decision. Sarah Palin’s behavior is revealing: in a state as isolated as Alaska, in a town as small as Wasilla, books are vital to the culture and to the education of its residents. The small town values I learned growing up included attending story hour at the public library. Those values most certainly did not include trying to ban books that the mayor’s church friends didn’t think other people should read.

It will be interesting to see what effect Gov. Palin’s penchant for reform will have on the McCain campaign. Will she put one of Cindy McCain’s private jets on eBay? Maybe one of the McCain’s seven houses? It certainly hasn’t meant she’ll answer any questions from voters or the press. Her very first media interview won’t come until later this week. The reason is clear: she’s not ready to answer questions about the housing crisis, foreign policy or healthcare. So far she’s been allowed into public view only to deliver a speech similar to the one she gave at her party’s convention, the one in which, with the sass and smile of a punch line, she ridiculed community organizers who step up to help less fortunate communities whose government has allowed them to fall through the cracks. Her speech made for good television, something the McCain camp felt they desperately needed. And it sure fired up the folks at the Republican National Convention. Who can blame them? They finally have a candidate who can shoot a gun, drink a beer AND speak in complete English sentences. This is real change for them....

Read the rest of this post...

Please help promote your favorite pro-Obama and anti-McCain stories

Gang, one way you can seriously help Barack Obama, and us, defeat McCain is to recommend our best blog posts to others.

How do you do that?

Use the links we provide you under the title of each blog post:


For example, if you wanted to send the above blog post to friends, simply lick on the little white envelope with the black arrow in it. It's pretty obvious from there what to do.

Just as important, use the links we provide to reddit, FARK, digg, and Stumble.

Basically, these are services in which readers can vote for their favorite articles and blog posts. You sign up for a free account with each service, then every time you read a blog post that you particularly like, click the link to each of those services under that particular blog post headline. If no one has suggested the post yet, then you'll be asked to write a title for the post and maybe provide a brief summary (digg wants summaries, reddit only wants a headline that should be automatically included when you click). And, if someone else has already submitted the post, your click is your way of voting for the post. The more votes, the higher up it rises, and the more people see it. These services are hugely important for getting our stuff seen, and the more our stuff gets seen the more impact it has.

How do you sign up for a free account? Just click the link under any of our posts and it will take you to a page that asks you to sign in, create an account, etc. It's free and easy, and more importantly, it's a very easy way for you to help us and help the overall campaign. So please do it :-)

Oh, one more thing. As you know, we moved to a new comment system a few months ago, after we had what bordered on threats against Obama posted in the comments. Some users found the new service a bit tricky to navigate, but they've improved it a lot, so please try registered again (if you want to join in the comments). It's pretty easy - just click the "comments" button under the the headline of the post you want to comment on, then if you're not signed in already (or haven't created a free account yet), click the link that asks you to "log in" and then just create your account. It's VERY easy - you simply need to fill in an email address, choose a password, and one other thing I forget! But once you submit that, it's done, you're in. Then just make sure you're logged in in the future, and you can comment.

Thanks, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Anti-gay flyer circulated in Democratic primary for open House seat

An anti-gay marriage flyer is being distributed in an apparent attempt to smear Paul Tonko. He's running in tomorrow's contested Democratic primary in New York's 21st Congressional District. Tonko voted in the New York Assembly to extend marriage rights to gay couples -- and someone is trying to use that vote against him. In the DEMOCRATIC primary. The flyer is being mailed anonymously, which is probably illegal. Who is sending this? A fellow Democrat? That's the big question.

The ad features a picture of our good friend, Danny O'Donnell, who sponsored that gay marriage bill, which passed in the New York Assembly last year. Danny is supporting Tonko and is not pleased at all about this mailer. He sent this email to us:

It outrages me that a Democrat would stoop to the politics of hate in order to try and win a primary. Our party stands for equality and fairness for all and whoever is responsible --she or he -- is unfit to be our party's nominee for any office.

In 2007, Paul Tonko took a courageous vote because it was the right thing to do. All members of our community should be outraged by these tactics and deliver a vote for Paul Tonko. He was there when we needed him and now we need to be there for him when he needs US.

Really dirty politics at play in NY. This is the flyer:

Read the rest of this post...

Howie Kurtz: "Whopper" to say Palin opposed Bridge to Nowhere

Washington Post/CNN media critic, Howie Kurtz, discusses the latest Palin-McCain ad's claim that Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (she didn't):

The Arizona senator has made a crusade of battling pork-barrel "earmarks," but the whopper here is that Palin opposed her state's notorious Bridge to Nowhere. She endorsed the remote project while running for governor in 2006, claimed to be an opponent only after Congress killed its funding the next year and has used the $223 million provided for it for other state ventures. Far from being an opponent of earmarks, Palin hired lobbyists to try to capture more federal funding.

No more turkee for Howie. Read the rest of this post...

AP: Sarah Palin is a liar

The Associated Press just wrote about Palin's speech today. She lied in it. A lot. And they caught her.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are criticizing Democrat Barack Obama over requesting money for his home state of Illinois even though the Alaska governor's record is mixed.

At a rally, the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate accused Obama of requesting nearly $1 billion in earmarks.

In fact, Obama hasn't asked for any earmarks this year and last year, he sought $311 million worth.

Palin has cut back on pork-barrel requests, but in her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.

Doesn't the AP know that quoting facts is sexist? Even more from AP on Palin's lies here. Read the rest of this post...

Charlie Gibson [hearts] Sarah Palin

Charlie and Sarah, sitting in a tree...

You may have read that ABC's Charlie Gibson got the first real interview with Sarah Palin following her being chosen as McCain's VP.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. An AMERICAblog reader got the first real interview with Sarah Palin, and Palin apparently got flustered and refused to answer the question.

Anyway, as Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central notes, Gibson thinks the only relevant questions to ask Palin are about her positions on issues. No questions about her husband's membership in the fringe Alaskan Independence Party. No questions about her own membership in that party (the McCain campaign has denied that she was ever a member, but several others have said she was, and in any case, she courted the party repeatedly even though they're rabidly anti-American). No questions about what actual vetting Palin underwent. And Gibson says he's REALLY not going to get into the issue of Palin's daughter's pregnancy - you remember that issue, it's the pregnancy the McCain campaign leaked to Reuters and then turned around and blamed everyone else for writing about. Yes, Palin subsequently said she was proud of her daughter's choice in keeping the baby. So she gave her daughter a choice, but opposes giving YOUR daughters a choice. No, Charlie Gibson won't ask about that, because that would be a fact, and facts are mean. Read the rest of this post...

Obama: Palin lied

The Obama campaign is calling Sarah Palin a liar. And she is. She has repeatedly claimed that she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere. She didn't. She supported it. Her support for the bridge was part of her campaign for governor just two years ago. She's lying, repeatedly, to the American people. Read for yourself how big a supporter Palin was of the bridge. It's not just bizarre that she is making her "opposition" to the bridge part of her daily stump speech, it's a flat-out lie, and scarily telling of the way the new McCain campaign, under Karl Rove's deputy, plans to pull a Bush-Cheney and simply lie their way into the White House. Read the rest of this post...

Josh is worried

Joe and I have written before about our respect for Josh Marshall's opinions. He's worried.

The TPM email bag this morning is chock of emails saying, in so many words, is it time to panic? I'm actually not taking much summary license here. Most of the emails I'm talking about actually ends with some form of that sentence. Since a lot of you are asking this I thought I should provide some sort of answer.

First, I think the USAToday/Gallup poll is an outlier. I wouldn't put much stock in it. It's clear that McCain is getting a sizable bump out of his convention. But remember, Obama did too. It quickly subsided, as was expected. And we should expect McCain's to as well. We'll know more by the end of the week.

Polls aside though, I continue to see a campaign in which the McCain camp has a consistent and aggressive message. They're constantly on the attack and largely defining the debate. The Obama campaign is largely reactive, parrying the attacks -- sometimes rapid response, sometimes slower response, but defined largely by response. It seemed that way to me in July, in August and it seems that way to me now.

At several points over the last year, I've underestimated Obama's campaign. And I take it that their position now is that they're not going to get knocked off their game. Instead they're staying focused on the ground game in the dozen and a half states where they believe the race will be one or lost. That's difficult for someone in my position to evaluate. The messaging and air war is something that is inherently visible. The ground game is very difficult to evaluate because it's much more difficult to see. So we're left to take it on faith that they know what they're doing, without having much way of seeing for ourselves.

I certainly hope they do. But what I see is a campaign that is for some reason either unwilling or unable to take the initiative in the national messaging war. It's all reactive. And, yeah, that worries me.

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Palin makes her first gaffe. Doesn't even know what Fannie and Freddie do.

To be fair, I understand her crash "Economics 101" course isn't until Thursday. More from Huff Post:

Gov. Sarah Palin made her first potentially major gaffe during her time on the national scene while discussing the developments of the perilous housing market this past weekend.

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization."

Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.

People are so mean to her. Can't they just ask her about snowmobiling and being Miss Congeniality and stuff? (Oh, that's right, she lied about being Miss Congeniality too. Facts are mean.) Read the rest of this post...

On ads and messaging at the Obama/Biden campaign

First, Nate Silver is absolutely right. The Obama campaign needs better ads. I've been saying that for a couple months now, and things haven't improved. The D.C. market, where I live, is getting the ads because of Northern Virginia - so I've seen them. I have yet to see one memorable Obama ad -- they're the typical, generic political ads we've come to expect from Democratic media firms like GMMB. Those media types get paid a lot of money (win or lose), so you'd think that they'd come up with something original for the most interesting and charismatic candidate we've seen in decades. We've lost the last two elections following the conventional wisdom of ad agencies like this. Infuse the campaign with some original, creative thinking, please.

Also, I have a hard time understanding why "John McCain is one of my best friends" was Joe Biden's message over the weekend. Do the Democrats really think they can win by being nice guys? They can't. John McCain's campaign has been taken over by Karl Rove and his crew. Just wait to see what else they'll unleash on Obama and Biden (we've already had a taste of it). Republican Senators loathe McCain and think he's scary. Yet our v.p. nominee sings his praises and tells funny anecdotes about what a fun swell guy he is. Can Patty Solis Doyle please get her candidate on message? Is that too much to ask? We need a lot more of this from Joe Biden. Read the rest of this post...

Sarah Palin's Secret Emails

No wonder Sarah Palin isn't speaking to the press. There are even more scandals dogging her. And surprise - she's covering them up too. From Mother Jones:

The Palin administration won't release hundreds of emails from her office, claiming they cover confidential policy matters. Then why do the subject lines refer to a political foe, a journalist, and non-policy topics?

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Jim Rogers: "America is more communist than China"

He's only a famous investor who has outperformed the market and made lots of money, so what does he know anyway?

The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shows that the U.S. is "more communist than China right now" but its brand of socialism is meant only for the rich, investor Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Europe on Monday.

"America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich… it's just bailing out financial institutions," Rogers said.

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When is a political interview not really an interview? When it's with ABC's Charile Gibson.

NOTE FORM JOHN: Let's not forget that it took an AMERICAblog reader approaching Palin in an Albuquerque restaurant yesterday, for anyone to get a "real" interview with her. Yes, the first real interview, with real questions, came from a blog reader. Chew on that.

As we learn the facts about Sarah Palin's first "interview," it's pretty clear that Charlie Gibson pretty much tossed aside whatever journalistic integrity he had. Seriously, the way this is playing out, Barbara Walters would have been a better choice. At least she doesn't pretend to be a real journalist. Josh Marshall explains:

it's pretty clear this farce is going to be close to unwatchable. Set aside that this comes just on the heels of McCain campaign manager Rick Davis saying Palin would not sit for any interviews "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference." The tell comes high up in the AP story by David Bauder. The second graf reads ...

Palin will sit down for multiple interviews with Gibson in Alaska over two days, most likely Thursday and Friday, said McCain adviser Mark Salter.

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be.

No tough questions or the McCain campaign will be really mad. And, that's enough to send networks executives running for cover. Fortunately for ABC, the network has Charlie Gibson, who will be the tool the McCain campaign needs him to be. This must be hard for the real reporter to watch. Will any of them critique Gibson? Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Hold on tight, everyone. The polls are showing McCain getting his post-convention bounce. USAToday has the Republican ticket leading 50% - 46% among registered voters. The lead expands to 54% - 44% for "those seen as most likely to vote." Don't panic. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com, urges patience to poll watchers. In matters relating to polls, I listen to Nate's sage advice.

It's going to be a bumpy ride, but we all knew that.

Let's get started. Read the rest of this post...

Time to review McCain's poor judgment on the economy

As McCain is forced into talking about the Republican economy that he helped create, it's time to look back at what he said in the past including what he failed to say even last week. By August of 2007 - just over one year ago - the Dow had already lost 1,000 points in one month as British lender Northern Rock sent the first big shock to the market. Northern Rock was nationalized after a run on the bank and everyone who was paying attention was introduced to the downside of subprime lending. They were a casualty of the subprime lending crisis when banks stopped lending to other banks. Even putting aside the McCain-Phil Gramm connections to the subprime lending crisis, it's hard to imagine that someone running for President of the United States would not notice the impending crisis coming to Wall Street. You would think that any serious candidate would quickly bring themselves up to speed on this issue, unless they didn't see it as a problem.

A few months later in November while on the campaign trail, McCain was asked about the economy and he responded "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said. "I've got Greenspan's book." Again, it was obvious at this point where the economy was going as the housing crisis had already been dragging down the real estate market in many of the previously high flying areas around the US. US banks were starting to fall apart so anyone who was paying attention could not have missed the clouds building over Wall Street. For McCain, owner of 12 houses and friend of Phil Gramm, he was clueless. The crisis was so irrelevant, that he could jokingly dismiss it all and just say he would read Greenspan's book, as if a chief architect of the credit bubble would have the answers.

In April of 2008, roughly one month after the bailout of Bear Stearns, McCain told Bloomberg in an interview that the US had experienced "great progress economically" during the Bush years. He added a few words slightly more comforting than the Phil Gramm "whiners" comment but clearly he was promoting the same general idea. McCain somehow saw good news in an economy that has yet to generate positive jobs growth in 2008 and only hit the minimum 150,000 per month (to break even with incoming jobs) twice in 2007. For McCain, that's progress.

McCain can talk about his personal history as much as he likes and yes, we all appreciate his sacrifices for the US but he still does not understand the most important issue facing Americans today. If he had any understanding about the problem, he would have discussed it at the Republican convention instead of ignoring it all week. Read the rest of this post...

Will OPEC cut oil production?

And why wouldn't they? Prices have plummeted to barely over $100 per barrel so one has to wonder how OPEC producers are even making ends meet. Besides, with the world on the edge of a recession, there's obviously a few more dollars to squeeze out before the money disappears. No matter, we can surely count on our good friends, the Saudis, who believe the oil floor ought to be around $80. That would naturally be higher than the average price of oil for 2007. Thanks! Read the rest of this post...

What might be sexist is the way the McCain campaign is treating Palin

Apparently, they think she's so fragile that they don't want the media interviewing her until the big bad media promises to be nice to her and not ask her anything mean like, you know, about her ethics investigation, her lies about being against earmarks, her lie about selling the plane on eBay, her lie about traveling to Ireland - you know, mean "sexist" questions like that. And yes, at some point the campaign has now promised that she'll speak to Charlie Gibson at ABC, but only him, because everyone else is mean. So how is she going to stare down Osama, if and when she takes over the presidency from McCain, who is 72 years old and has had 4 bouts of cancer, if she's as fragile as the McCain campaign keeps saying she is? The media, if it has any backbone left (we know MSNBC/NBC certainly doesn't), ought to destroy the McCain campaign for this orchestration of lies and cover-up. Read the rest of this post...

Sarah Palin's fictitious resume

More from Frank Rich:

We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain and that she defends her own pregnant daughter’s right to privacy even as she would have the government intrude to police the reproductive choices of all other women. Most of the rest of the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction.

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

How long before we learn she never shot a moose?

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