Politico: Obama to pre-empt McCain assault by launching ads calling McCain 'erratic'

Ooooohhhhh.... maverick temper gonna go boom!

Branding his opponent as “erratic in a crisis,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is preempting plans by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans.

Obama officials call it political jujitsu – turning the attacks back on the attacker.

McCain officials had said early in the weekend that they plan to begin advertising after Tuesday’s debate that will tie Obama to convicted money launderer Tony Rezko and former Weathermen radical William Ayers.

But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: “Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.

“Turn the page on the financial crisis by launching dishonorable, dishonest ‘assaults’ against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy, and we can't afford another president who is this out of touch.”

Then Obama says: “I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
.....

“We think the McCain campaign made a huge error by telling the press that their strategy was to distract from the most important issue facing voters,” a senior Obama official said. “Every attack going forward will be easy to characterize for what it is – an attempt to distract from the Bush-McCain economic record."

This is rather brilliant by Obama. Every time McCain launches a negative ad, a negative attack, that has nothing to do with the economy, Obama can then see "see, I told you so - the man has no interest in talking about the economic crisis." This is going to be fun. Read the rest of this post...

JohnMcCainRecord.com

http://www.johnmccainrecord.com

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Can someone in Washington tell Citi to go to hell?

Is that asking for too much? The idea of another mega-merger in the US banking industry is hardly attractive in my mind but when given the choice of taxpayer money helping troubled Citi (with over $40 billion in subprime write downs) buy Wachovia or Wells Fargo, who wants to do the deal without taxpayer financing, it's pretty simple. If Citi has enough cash to throw around fighting in court so taxpayers can fund their business then there's a problem here. If only Citi would have focused more on core banking instead of funny money for Charles Prince they wouldn't be in this position today. Citi has lost all common sense and direction if they think anyone is going to be sympathetic to their complaints. Especially since it's everyone else who will foot the bill. Read the rest of this post...

Lazy Luke writes in a response to the McCain voter who thinks the economy is swell

From Luke:

I read the post about that computer engineer who said union workers are lazy, and I had to weigh in.

I'm a union worker at a rent a car company, who works his ass off for a company that, for the 4 years I have worked there, has tried every trick in the book to save every penny they could, even if it meant leaving their car washers without properly functioning equipment. I work around 9 other guys that, like myself, are NOT lazy. Not by any stretch of the imagination. We go the extra mile every time we're asked to, and often we do so without being asked.

Our union has been working hard for us, as well as the shuttlers that we work with. They haven't been able to make very much headway, but they protect us the best they can.

This punk talks about guys like me being lazy?? I'd like to see if this prick has any calluses on his hands. And I'd like to know if he has ever known a hard day in his life. People who talk like this have NEVER had to worry.

From a lazy asses union worker,

Luke

Read the rest of this post...

On PBS, Cokie Roberts falsely suggested Biden's reference to 'Bosniaks' was a gaffe

We're waiting for Cokie's apology. And interestingly enough, I heard Biden say "Bosniak," and I remember thinking "that's weird." But I'm smart enough to know that something like that is so odd coming from the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, that I'd better look it up and make sure that he's not right, BEFORE I comment on it publicly. Why didn't Cokie? More from Media Matters:

During coverage of the October 2 vice-presidential debate on PBS' Charlie Rose, Rose asked, "Did either of them make any mistakes that you noticed?" National Public Radio senior news analyst Cokie Roberts responded that Sen. Joe Biden "talked about the Bosniaks." Roberts later said: "[I]f [Gov. Sarah Palin] had said 'Bosniak,' everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know." In fact, Biden correctly referred to certain residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Bosniaks. According to the U.S. State Department, as of 2002, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisted of the following ethnic groups: "Bosniak 48.3%, Serb 34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%."

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We can't afford more of the same: Job Loss

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McCain wants Americans to forget his association with George Bush and overlook the failing economy

From the good old days, when they were seen together, John McCain waves as he anxiously awaits his good friend back in August of 2005, back when Katrina was wiping out New Orleans. Sure looks like McCain is the most excited to be Bush:

Like George Bush, John McCain has nothing to offer the American people. So, as predicted, the vicious, negative attacks against Obama are on their way. But, an AP analysis from Liz Sidoti, who has close ties to the McCain campaign (she used to ride on the bush with McCain and knows his favorite donuts) actually explains why: McCain wants all of us to forget about the bad economy. Easy for a guy who doesn't know how many houses he owns. Not so easy for people trying to hang onto their one home.

For all the talk coming from the McCain campaign about "associations," the one association that truly matters this year is the one between George Bush and John McCain. The McCain camp can't hide that one. And, they can't make people forget the economic crisis. McCain's attacks ring especially shrill and hollow when the country is worried about an economic collapse:

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton counters that McCain will try to distract voters from the economic crisis by launching character attacks.

Clearly, McCain's campaign believes that focusing on McCain's biography and record isn't enough and making Obama supremely unacceptable in voters' eyes may be the Republican's best _ if not only _ shot at winning the presidency.

The risk: Voters could be turned off if McCain goes too far.

From his national headquarters to his campaign plane, McCain's staff has been discouraged by the difficult environment over the past two weeks in which the race dynamics were largely out of their control _ discouraged but no less determined to win.

Advisers contend that McCain is rebounding following Palin's strong debate performance Thursday that quieted GOP critics who questioned her qualifications after several TV interview missteps. Independent analysts say she improved her image and staunched the ticket's bleeding.

Congress approved the bailout plan one day later, and advisers hope the issue now will fade; McCain had struggled to strike the right chord amid the crisis. But there was no indication that other campaign topics would overtake the issue and more economic woes are possible; the nation lost 159,000 jobs in September and Americans will soon open their third-quarter 401(k) statements.

McCain is counting counting on Americans to be stupid this year. But, most Americans are too pissed to fall for the same old tricks this time. Read the rest of this post...

Something just went wrong with McCain's face on national TV

UPDATE: Because the McCain campaign is still refusing to release McCain's medical records, and refuses to say a word of explanation about McCain's strange facial convulsions that have now been repeatedly caught on film in the past few weeks, I'm bumping this post. America deserves to know if John McCain, who is 72 years old and has 4 bouts of serious melanoma, and who has been acting erratically and confused of late, is physically or mentally ill and not coming clean about it.

UPDATE: There's now slow-motion video making it painfully clear that something is wrong. Here's the video. It's gotten over 100,000 views on YouTube in just 4 days. Americans are clearly interested in knowing what is wrong with John McCain's health:



You can copy and email this link to send this video to your friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haIAN02tlLM

Here are still images from the video, capturing McCain's facial convulsion. Click the pictures to see larger images.



In the post below, we showed a scene that just took place in which McCain was momentarily confused on stage, not knowing where to go. We posted the video because it was funny. But Joe just realized that literally seconds before McCain became confused on stage, his face twitched or convulsed twice. Look at the photos above and below. They're from around 5 seconds (above) and 11 second (below) into the video Joe posted below.

It happened twice. First in a rather major way at 5 seconds, then more minor at 10/11 seconds. You can see McCain's left eye twitch closed, and at the same time, the left corner of his lip twitched upwards - it's especially pronounced in the 4th photo above. What is going on with McCain's health? This isn't normal. And it happened right before he became confused and couldn't figure out how to get off the stage.

At some point, the corporate media needs to do its job and stop being a bunch of politically correct wimps. We just saw - AGAIN - something go physically wrong with McCain's face. It's not the first time it's happened, we documented it before. But the media refuses to ask McCain what is wrong with him because, well, it's not clear why. McCain is 72 years old, was tortured for five years (which couldn't have done wonders to his health), and then had 4 bouts of serious melanoma. His health is an issue, and he has never fully released his medical records in a way that permits anyone to actually peruse them correctly - he only permitted reports to look at each page of his medical records for about 10 seconds before switching to another page. And no one was permitted to copy or take with any of the records. They're now back under lock and key.

Below is the second twitch/convulsion right before McCain finished and became befuddled. Since the corporate media isn't do its job, and the McCain campaign won't release his records, we have to turn to you. Would any doctors out there please give me an analysis of what could be causing this? Here's something interesting from Wikipedia:

Several conditions can cause a facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause can be identified, the condition is known as Bell's Palsy.

Another theory being discussed in the comments is a mini-stroke. Another theory being discussed by a number of doctors who have written me is mini-strokes, or "transient ischemic attacks."

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'What does this say about the state of the McCain campain, that it's afraid to showcase its most important person -- the presidential candidate.'

Dallas Morning News blog:

Where's John McCain?

Have you visited the McCain campaign's website lately? You'd think it was Sarah Palin running for president. John McCain appears as a tiny dot on the video screen. The rest is Sarah-this, Sarah-that. It's like McCain doesn't exist anymore.

What does this say about the state of the McCain campain, that it's afraid to showcase its most important person -- the presidential candidate.

Read the rest of this post...

McCain campaign surrogate invokes the Holocaust

Wow, John McCain is now belittling the memory of 6 million Jews to help him win in November. Boy, anything to change the topic from the economy, and John McCain's role in getting us into this crisis. Interesting, by the way, that this happened right after he picked Sarah Palin, who has a rather troubling record on Jewish issues and anti-Semitism.

Let's revisit John McCain's and Sarah Palin's records on Jews and anti-Semitism.

First there was McCain supporter Pastor John Hagee, who seemed to have some kind of odd control over McCain - McCain refused to renounce the man's endorsement - even after Hagee had some rather disturbing things to say about Catholics (they worship a "whore"), about gays (they're responsible for Katrina), and Jews:

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day....

How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for His chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings He had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come.... it rises from the judgment of God uppon his rebellious chosen people."

Then there are John McCain's friends on the religious right who:

- Think that a Jewish upbringing leads to a life of crime.
- Promote Holocaust revisionism.
- Publicly claim that Jews control Hollywood.

Then there was the time Sarah Palin quoted the notorious anti-Semite.

And the question of whether Sarah Palin donated to Jews for Jesus.

And the time Sarah Palin got on stage with a preacher who had just accused Jews of running, and ruining, the banking industry.



Then there was the Jews for Jesus leader who spoke at Palin's church, with her in attendance, in August, and told the congregation that terrorist attacks in Israel are God's punishment for Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity.

Then there's known anti-Semite Pat Buchanan saying that Palin supported his run for president in 1996. McCain's campaign denies it, but then again, they lie about everything. Why would Buchanan lie? He likes Palin. He wants her to be in the White House, representing his values.



No wonder there have been so many articles in the press about Sarah Palin's "Jewish problem." From Salon, the Jerusalem Post, BeliefNet, Jewish Week, Andrew Sullivan, Tikun Olam, and Haaretz. Read the rest of this post...

AP: McCain to tax your health benefits

McCain wants to raise taxes on every working American and make you pay taxes on your health benefits. Wow. From AP:

Barack Obama launched a multifaceted attack on presidential rival John McCain's health care proposal Saturday, elevating an issue that has been on the back burner in the White House race but remains a top concern for voters.

Obama planned to criticize McCain's plan to tax health care benefits as "radical" during an event in Newport News, Va., while his campaign echoed the message in four new television ads, four separate mailers targeted to swing state voters, radio commercials and events in every battleground state.

The McCain plan would be a dramatic change to the way Americans get health insurance. The Republican presidential nominee, who makes opposition to tax hikes a centerpiece of his campaign, has proposed to tax the health benefits that 156 million people get through the workplace as income.

That's gonna go over well. Read the rest of this post...

A McCain voter weighs in about how the economy is doing great and anyone struggling is obviously lazy

JW writes:

Just want you to know I am a full time computer engineer and graduate student. I am also a republican.

It is funny how you talk about republicans wearing stupidity and ignorance like a badge of honor....

I keep on hearing about the failed policy of the last 8 years?

So I know probably a couple hundred people in my life, none of them unemployed or really struggling in any way.

I mean yeah sure, the auto industry is laying people off because Ford and GM make horrible cars due to the high business taxes and union influence creating both overpaid and lazy workers.

Honestly, let those lazy union starve for all I care. Just like your typical union, they push and push until they drive a company out of business. When are companies going to learn?

Stop dealing with the organized crime based unions and hire hard working people. At least the illegal immigrants coming into this country want to work for a living (not collect union wages or welfare.)

Read the rest of this post...

McCain wants to talk about candidate's "associations." Let's start with Charles Keating.

The banking crisis of 2008 evokes memories of the Savings and Loan crisis from the 1980s. John McCain played a central role in both crises. John McCain's good friend and campaign donor, Charles Keating, with a little too much help from John McCain, helped precipitate the earlier crisis. This means Keating is now a central figure in the 2008 elections.

As we reported below, a top McCain aide told the Washington Post "We've got to question this guy's associations." Since "associations" are an issue for Team McCain and the economic crisis is THE issue for the American people, lets combine them for John McCain and recall Charles Keating:

Way back in the late 1980’s there was a similar banking scandal involving billions of taxpayer dollars, that time in the savings and loan industry. Eventually, scores of small thrift banks failed and the government ended up creating a special unit to buy up toxic debt and slowly over years salvage what they could and get rid of the rest.

The reason why it’s topical now isn’t just because the federal government is using a similar rescue model to bail out Wall Street but also because of presidential nominee, John McCain’s involvement both then and now.

Back then, the bank at the center, Lincoln Savings and Loan, was a subsidiary of American Continental Corporation and was owned by Charles H. Keating, Jr., a prominent real estate developer who was eventually found guilty of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud and sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison. He served only 50 months before the conviction was overturned on a technicality.

Wrapped up in the debacle were a series of unusual meetings two years before the collapse between banking regulators and five prominent US Senators, including John McCain. The meeting was at the behest of Keating who was calling in chits to get the regulators to back off of the ill-fated Lincoln. The regulators who were present would later say how much they were intimidated by the entire proceeding and Lincoln ended up with a little more time before eventually imploding.

The Senate Ethics Committee held hearings over 23 days in November of 1990 to investigate the meetings and the Keating Five, including McCain, as they came to be known. There was a good slap on the wrist passed out to all concerned and the taxpayers ended up with the billion dollar savings and loan hangover. Trading cards were briefly sold displaying Keating with each of the Senators.

During that time, it also came out that the Keating Five had accepted campaign contributions from Keating topping $300,000 with McCain receiving the lion’s share. McCain had also made at least nine trips with his family at Keating's expense at a cost of over $13,000. Not all of it was reimbursed by McCain until after Lincoln was in serious trouble. And in 1985, a year before the meeting between the regulators and US Senators, McCain’s wife Cindy and his father in law invested over $350,000 in a shopping mall development with Keating. None of it was in any way criminal, just a question of judgment.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Don't forget about McCain's other "association":

Read the rest of this post...

Because McCain has nothing to offer this country, the full brunt of the ugly, negative attacks are on the way

Thursday, we posted this warning from Markos:

The GOP is desperate. Expect the worst of the worst to start hitting here soon. Jeremiah Wright is overdue for his second act, as well as Ayers, the Muslim crap, and anything else desperate Republicans can fabricate. At this point, they literally have nothing to lose.

As expected, the negative onslaught is on its way. This is round two for the McCain and his campaign. They spent July, August and early September in attack mode -- aided and abetted by smarmy tactics from State Republican parties and a slew of outside groups. But, from here on out, it's going to be nothing but negative, That is already true of McCain t.v. ads, which TPM Election Central reported are "Nearly 100 Percent Devoted To Attack Ads."

Today's Washington Post reports:

Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Change the subject. Of course McCain wants "to move the conversation away from the economy. But, one thing Team McCain doesn't grasp is that just about every family in America is having a conversation about the economy. This year, the American people are actually paying attention to issues. But, McCain is banking on the idea that negative attack ads will make us all forget that the economy is on the brink of disaster.

We've seen the Obama campaign get tougher and much sharper over the past few weeks. The candidate himself is on a roll. They're not going to set back and take McCain's attacks. The new "John McCain raised taxes 477 times" ad, which John posted last night, is a good example. None of us will take it this time. We're all going to have to fight back -- and we will.

John McCain already sold his soul to Karl Rove. These next few weeks are going to define him forever. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

We're one month from election day.

Check out Bob Geiger's compilation of the week's editorial cartoon. McCain and Palin, especially Palin provide plenty of fodder. The first one made me laugh out loud.

We're told the poem of the week is "a brutal political poem." Indeed, it is. "England in 1819" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It has shades of the United States in 2007.

One month. We can do it. Yes we can. Read the rest of this post...

Bush-FDA: a little melamine is just fine

Because they've been so right, so often about so many things. Translated to everyone else outside of the once respected organization, I think this works out to be "China is our trading partner and we'd rather not offend them or call them out for failing so miserably and in fact, our own US companies who outsource products under such conditions for a few extra pennies of profit are equally clueless and dangerous." Or something like that.

This is what happens when you leave religious zealots and deregulation extremists to run the shop and that's what we have across the entire administration. Pick your branch of the federal government and it's always the same. Read the rest of this post...

Bush cuts funding for condoms in Africa

This is really too much. The end result of such stupidity will definitely be more abortions whether the lunatic Christian right likes it or not and whether they pay for them or not. Punishing Africans because of what may or may not happen in China doesn't even make sense, but since when has that stopped Bush.

The US government is cutting its funding for the supply of contraceptives to family planning clinics run by Marie Stopes International in Africa, alleging that it condones forced abortions in China.

MSI has categorically denied that it supports forced abortions or coercive sterilisation in China or anywhere else in the world, and says that the actions of the Bush government will result in more abortions in Africa, as women will be unable to get contraceptives and will end up with unwanted pregnancies.

One of George Bush's first acts after becoming president was to stop all US funds to foreign organisations that helped women in any way to get an abortion, including providing advice. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) lost $34m that Congress had appropriated for it in 2002.

In a letter to Dana Hovig, chief executive officer of MSI, based in London, the assistant administrator for global health at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Kent Hill, noted that MSI did not currently receive any funds from the US government.

"However, we understand that in some countries, MSI receives USAID-funded contraceptives and/or condoms from host country governments that receive them from USAID," he wrote on September 26. In view of MSI's work as the main implementing agency for UNFPA's work in China - "which supports the Chinese national family planning programme" - USAID is telling its missions "to work with these governments to ensure that no such USAID-funded commodities are distributed to MSI at this time".

Read the rest of this post...

"Her biggest accomplishment was to heighten the fears that she is woefully unprepared for the job she is seeking."

Detroit Free Press columnist:

So Sarah Palin didn't indulge the critics' lowest expectations in her Thursday night debate with Joe Biden. She didn't stumble or stammer, commit any awful gaffes or make a fool of herself.

But it's only by the shallowest of standards that her performance could be called creditable or impressive.

Palin surfed through the questions by skimming over the topics, offering little in the way of depth, context or understanding. When she was asked for substance, she too often respond with clichés. When she was asked something directly, she too often dodged with a change of subject.... Palin did score some style points with her consistent efforts to connect with ordinary Americans; she kept her delivery folksy and salted her answers with colloquial phrases and jabs at Washington insiders.

If it had been coupled with any sign that she has given serious thought to the issues that face this country, it would have been a slam dunk win for her.

As it is, her biggest accomplishment was to heighten the fears that she is woefully unprepared for the job she is seeking.

Read the rest of this post...

The arrogance of Sarah Palin

Reader RG writes:

The process of campaigning is, in essence, a job interview, no?

In what universe would does the applicant (candidate) get to choose what question(s) they will be asked or deign to answer and from whom they will be questioned? That is how disrespectful of the electorate (we are supposed to be the bosses last time I checked, no?) the McCain/Palin 08 campaign has been since he put Palin on the ticket.

I think that there should be a full page ad in every paper (on every channel and website) reminding EVERYONE of these simple facts and the GOP’s standard bearer’s jaw-dropping disregard for their (potential) future employers.

As ye campaign, so shall ye govern, no?

We’ve been down this road the last two elections/terms. By adopting their tactics they have more than proven they will be Bush/Cheney/Rove redux.

Would you hire anyone who so disrespected you during the interview process? Would anyone?

SOMEONE NEEDS TO PUT THIS OUT THERE AND TO McCAIN/PALIN DIRECTLY!

Read the rest of this post...