In slip up, Palin calls Afghanistan “our neighboring country”

She's baaaaaaaaack! And for your bonus moment of zen, Sarah Palin says she went to campaign in Nebraska today not because it was strategically significant or anything - no - she went to Nebraska because she just really wanted to visit Nebraska today. In all fairness, she just got her passport last year, so maybe she thought she wasn't allowed to visit before.

UPDATE: There's more. Now she's calling herself the vice president, and she explained further why she wanted to go to Nebraska with only weeks to go before the election:

“The pundits today on TV—one of them was saying, check out the vice president’s schedule, check out where she’s going — she’s going to Nebraska,” Palin said.

“But the pundit was saying the only reason she’d be going there is ‘cause they’re scared, so they gotta go there and shore up votes. And I so wanted to reach into that TV and say no, I’m going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska.

First, she really is an idiot. Second, is it too much to ask that she speak proper English? Read the rest of this post...

KeatingEconomics.com: Obama to launch massive multimedia offensive against McCain re Keating Five Scandal

Keating Economics: John McCain and a Financial Crisis



Barack Obama is taking Sarah Palin and John McCain at their words. All weekend McCain sent the head of his ticket, Sarah Palin, out to talk about Barack Obama's "associations." What she meant was, she was going to talk about stories that CNN and AP and the NYT have already debunked. But Obama takes Palin at her word, and if Sarah Palin and John McCain want to talk about associations, then let's.

Monday at noon, Obama officially launches a 13-minute documentary about John McCain's huge financial ethics scandal, the Keating Five Scandal. The clip above is a teaser for the documentary that will be posted at noon Eastern on Monday.

Obama is sending out literally millions of emails, asking people to go to the Web site, read what's there, watch the video when it comes up tomorrow, and then send the link for the site to every one of your friends, telling them it's must-see information about John McCain's corrupt ethics. Remember, the Keating Five isn't just another scandal, it's a financial scandal in which John McCain and 4 other Senators did favors for big banker friends who then brought down 1,000 US banks. Sound familiar? And McCain did this at the age of 54. He was no spring chicken. By the age of 54, your ethics are pretty well established.

Visit KeatingEconomics.com and then send the link to all of your friends.

(And speaking of associations, don't miss Sarah Palin's and John McCain's anti-Semitic associations.) Read the rest of this post...

Poor Gwen Ifill, Sarah Palin 'blew me off'

Give me a break. Gwen Awful is now telling Tom "GOP liaison" Brokaw that Sarah Palin blew her off and she didn't even answer ten of the questions during the debate. Yeah, uh huh. 69.9 million people figured that one out contemporaneous with the debate, Sherlock. And Ifill just figured it out now? It's not a debate when you race through your questions and refuse to ask a follow-up, even when the candidate says "I'm not gonna answer your questions."

But you ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait for Brokaw on Tuesday.

Brokaw is hosting the next presidential debate. Guess what else he's doing? He's NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign to smooth relations. Yes, Tom Brokaw's other job is being NBC's point-person to suck up to John McCain and make him stop hating NBC. Yeah, no conflict of interest there. NBC is far more interested in wooing back the GOP base than playing it fair and objective.

NBC is no longer media. They lost that privilege when they let the Republicans play them for doing their job. The thing is, NBC is just as dumb as the NYT (and Gwen Ifill) and every other media outlet trying to suck up, again and again, to John McCain and the GOP. The Republican base will never, ever watch ABC, NBC, or CBS (and forget about PBS), and they won't ever be caught dead reading the NYT. So why is it you people always feel the need to suck up to the Republicans every time you do a true story that they don't like? Not to mention, the media's experience with John McCain should have taught them, it doesn't matter if you suck up to the GOP and become their bestest buddy, they will screw you in the end, they will demonize you, destroy you, if it serves their purposes.

So get ready for Tom Brokaw's tour-de-force on Tuesday. Let's see if he'll break Stephanopoulous' and Charlie Gibson's record for bringing up the most dated, disproven and irrelevant scandals about Obama while ignoring every single thing John McCain has done in life, from his adultery to his still-not-release cancer records to his erratic behavior to the Keating Five. Read the rest of this post...

When she's the president, she won't do radio interviews but we'll all get free ice cream

Who said this?

"Oh when I'm the president, when I'm the president, I won't talk on the radio when I'm the president. Oh when I'm the president, ha ha, when I'm the president, I'll show ya how I'll run the House when I'm the president. What this country is in need of is a lot of hidy-hoe, boopey-doop, and chocolate ice cream. Now we will get things for nothing, movies, cabarets and jazz. You have heard all my suggestions, and with me you all agree, now we'll have a perfect country, these improvements you will see."

Andrew has the answer, as does the video below.

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Biden's mother in law has died

From the NYT.

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Too bad John McCain doesn't care about the economy

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For our Spanish speaking friends

A Spanish blogger friend translated the infamous Sarah Palin debate flowchart into Spanish:

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When reporters first asked McCain about Charles Keating, McCain called them 'liars'

Let's not forget, John McCain was involved in the Keating Five scandal when he was 54 years old. Barack Obama is 47. That means McCain was 7 years OLDER than Obama when he had his Keating Five ethics scandal. That's not a youthful indiscretion. That's a man ten years from retirement age who's doing some pretty unethical things, showing that he has some pretty bad character flaws.

Joe and I will be exploring the Keating Five Scandal all week, and then some. John McCain likes to talk about his character. So let's talk about it. Remember, he was 54 years old when he got himself into this unethical mess.

When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. "You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating. "That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?" He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating. "It's up to you to find that out, kids." The paper ran the story.

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Palin's smear to change the subject: "False" according to CNN. AP calls it "unsubstantiated." Wanna bet Brokaw makes it a debate topic?

Sarah Palin just says whatever is on her note cards or her coffee cup. Facts don't matter. So, she launched a new attack on Obama yesterday over William Ayers. No credible news organization has ever found a link between Obama and Ayers. But, that didn't stop Palin. The reviews are in. AP calls her claim "unsubstantiated." CNN's Truth Squad, as you can see from Jed's latest video, calls the claim "False." In other words, she's lying. She's lying to distract the discussion from the economy. She wants to change the subject



Since it's false and unsubstantiated, and Palin is trying to change the subject, no doubt Tom Brokaw will make this a big issue at the debate on Tuesday night. Brokaw is already NBC's General Electric's liaison to the McCain campaign. Read the rest of this post...

There's a place in hell for women who charge rape victims for their rape kits

Sarah Palin shouldn't talk about special places in hell for women who don't support other women. I think the city of Wasilla, Alaska charging rape victims for their own forensic exams under Mayor Sarah Palin rates pretty high up in the special place in hell category. And let's not even talk about how Sarah Palin thinks raped women should carry their rapists' baby to term. Just ask her. Or maybe Brokaw should ask McCain. Or isn't abortion a political issue in America any more, especially when the Republican party makes it its number one issue? Read the rest of this post...

Palin misquotes her Starbucks cup; Madeleine Albright explains the real quote to Palin

Now we know why Sarah Palin doesn't read newspapers. She learns stuff from her Starbucks cup:

Palin regaled the cheering crowd with a story about how she was reading her Starbucks mocha cup yesterday, which featured a quotation from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“Now she said it, I didn’t,” Palin said of Albright. “She said, ‘There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.’”

The crowd roared its approval, but according to several sources, Albright actually said, “there’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.”

If Sarah is going to make a big deal about quoting her Starbucks cup, she should at least get the quote right. In fact, as CBS notes, she got the quote wrong.

Madeleine Albright wasn't amused. She wants Palin to know just how wrong she got it (no link, got it via email from Albright's office):

"Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden."

Someone would type this up and put it on Palin's next Starbucks mocha cup so she'll be sure to see it. Not that it would matter. Palin will say anything, even if it's patently false or blatantly wrong. Read the rest of this post...

Get ready for your 401k/pension statement, it ain't gonna be pretty

George Will made an excellent point this morning on ABC's THIS WEEK. Americans are about to get a mailing that is going to do wonders for Obama's campaign. They're going to be getting their quarterly statements from their 401ks and their pension plans. And it ain't going to be pretty. John McCain wants to change the subject away from the economy. He wants to pull the plug on the number one discussion, the number one issue of importance to every American, because he doesn't know much about economics. And Sarah Palin? Yeah. Imagine Sarah Palin being in charge of your 401k. Read the rest of this post...

Rabid Republicans in Rural MO: We. Hate. Her.

DKos's DavidKC:

Well, it looks like the candidate in this election who will be the ultimate uniter won't by Barack Obama but Sarah Palin. Yesterday I was booowled over to learn that some rabid, rabid Republicans who live in rural Missouri now agree with me on one thing: They hate Sarah Palin. Hate her. The final nail was Thursday night's VP debate....

It turns out that they really, really, really, really did not like the fact that Palin flat out did not answer many of the questions. They found that to be outrageous. After all, the entire reason they were watching the debate was to see her answer questions, doggone it.

They also did not like all her attempts to be folksy. To them it just came off as, um, I think the word they used was "phony." In fact, the candidate who seemed to them to be real and more like them was not Sarah Palin but Joe Biden.

The women, in particularly, did not like Palin's flirty, winky act. That went over like a lead balloon. And both the men and the women did not like her "Can I Call You Joe" schtick. They found that to be disrespectful to Senator Biden.

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Israelis for Obama

Great video. Joe and I both got goosebumps. And after you check that out, make sure you read my post from yesterday about McCain and Palin and their rather troubling connections to anti-Semites. Then send the link for the video to your Jewish friends, just copy and paste this into an email:
http://tinyurl.com/ObamaIsrael

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Social Justice Catholics fight back against the Church's elite Repubican hierarchy

The Catholic hierarchy, comprised of Bishops and Cardinals, is the elite wing of the church. They're very well off, treated like royalty -- and are also the ones who covered up the sex abuse scandal. They're the church leaders who let the anti-semite, homophobic Bill Donahue speak for them. And, they're Republicans

Then, there are Catholics who actually believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ. They believe in social justice. They try to live the Beatitudes. And, they're mostly Democrats. I grew up Catholic. I know a lot of social justice Catholics.

Every four years, for the past couple decades, the hierarchy of the Catholic church has tried to impose its political will on American Catholics. This year is very different. While the bishops are doing their usual drama, progressive Catholics are fighting back:

As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual “respect life” Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic voters is setting off a round of skirmishes over how to apply the church’s teachings not only on abortion but also on the war in Iraq, immigration and racism.

In a departure from previous elections, Democrats and liberal Catholic groups are waging a fight within the church, arguing that the Democratic Party better reflects the full spectrum of church teachings.

It is a contest for credibility among observant Catholics, with each faction describing itself as a defender of “life.” The two sides disagree over how to address the “intrinsic evil” of abortion.

The escalating efforts by more-liberal Catholics are provoking a vigorous backlash from some bishops and the right.

In Scranton, Pa., every Catholic attending Mass this weekend will hear a special homily about the election next month: Bishop Joseph Martino has ordered every priest in the diocese to read a letter warning that voting for a supporter of abortion rights amounts to endorsing “homicide.”

“Being ‘right’ on taxes, education, health care, immigration and the economy fails to make up for the error of disregarding the value of a human life,” the bishop wrote. “It is a tragic irony that ‘pro-choice’ candidates have come to support homicide — the gravest injustice a society can tolerate — in the name of ‘social justice.’ ”

In response, a coalition of liberal lay Catholics is pushing back, criticizing the bishop’s message for neglecting other aspects of “life” talked about in Catholic social teachings, like concern for the poor.

In my experience, most Catholics don't pay a bit of attention to what their bishops says. John McCain and Sarah Palin will love the message from the bishop and the media will cover it, but it will fall on deaf ears across the country.

After all, these are the same bishops who tell their congregations not to use condoms or other birth control methods -- and who think people should only have sex to procreate....you know how many Catholics listen to that? Read the rest of this post...

Obama's new ad: McCain "erratic" and "out of touch"

John wrote about this new ad last night. McCain gets served:

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Frank Rich on McCain's health

NYT

The second bit of predebate news, percolating under the radar, involved the still-unanswered questions about McCain’s health. Back in May, you will recall, the McCain campaign allowed a select group of 20 reporters to spend a mere three hours examining (but not photocopying) 1,173 pages of the candidate’s health records on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Conspicuously uninvited was Lawrence Altman, a doctor who covers medicine for The New York Times. Altman instead canvassed melanoma experts to evaluate the sketchy data that did emerge. They found the information too “unclear” to determine McCain’s cancer prognosis.

There was, however, at least one doctor-journalist among those 20 reporters in May, the CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta. At the time, Gupta told Katie Couric on CBS that the medical records were “pretty comprehensive” and wrote on his CNN blog that he was “pretty convinced there was no ‘smoking gun’ about the senator’s health.” (Physical health, that is; Gupta wrote there was hardly any information on McCain’s mental health.)

That was then. Now McCain is looking increasingly shaky, whether he’s repeating his “Miss Congeniality” joke twice in the same debate or speaking from notecards even when reciting a line for (literally) the 17th time (“The fundamentals of our economy are strong”) or repeatedly confusing proper nouns that begin with S (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain). McCain’s “dismaying temperament,” as George Will labeled it, only thickens the concerns. His kamikaze mission into Washington during the bailout crisis seemed crazed. His seething, hostile debate countenance — a replay of Al Gore’s sarcastic sighing in 2000 — didn’t make the deferential Obama look weak (as many Democrats feared) but elevated him into looking like the sole presidential grown-up.

Though CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t run a political ad with doctors questioning McCain’s medical status, Gupta revisited the issue in an interview published last Tuesday by The Huffington Post. While maintaining a pretty upbeat take on the candidate’s health, the doctor-journalist told the reporter Sam Stein that he couldn’t vouch “by any means” for the completeness of the records the campaign showed him four months ago. “The pages weren’t numbered,” Gupta said, “so I had no way of knowing what was missing.” At least in Watergate we knew that the gap on Rose Mary Woods’s tape ran 18 and a half minutes.

It’s against this backdrop that Palin’s public pronouncements, culminating with her debate performance, have been so striking. The standard take has it that she’s either speaking utter ignorant gibberish (as to Couric) or reciting highly polished, campaign-written sound bites that she’s memorized (as at the convention and the debate). But there’s a steady unnerving undertone to Palin’s utterances, a consistent message of hubristic self-confidence and hyper-ambition. She wants to be president, she thinks she can be president, she thinks she will be president. And perhaps soon. She often sounds like someone who sees herself as half-a-heartbeat away from the presidency. Or who is seen that way by her own camp, the hard-right G.O.P. base that never liked McCain anyway and views him as, at best, a White House place holder.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Sarah Palin is not on any of the Sunday shows -- again. Sarah Palin will never appear on any of the Sunday shows. She can't bring her note cards and she'll get follow up questions. Enough said.

There are a lot of surrogates on the Sunday shows. And, for some reason, Gwen Ifill is the only guest on "Meet the Press." As we all know, she moderated the v.p. debate. Brokaw does it this Tuesday. They going to swap notes? Maybe she's going to tell Tom Brokaw how not to ask follow-up questions and how to let the Republican not answer questions. We already know Brokaw won't do anything to upset John McCain.

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Govs. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., and Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; Sens. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

___

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Reps. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Heather Wilson, R-N.M.

___

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Gwen Ifill, PBS journalist and moderator of the vice presidential debate.

___

CNN's "Late Edition" — Reps. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, author of a new book on Vice President Dick Cheney; Nancy Pfotenhauer, adviser to John McCain; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Brooks Jackson, director of FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Plague and Pistou

After years of missing the village "pistou" gathering Joelle and I managed to be in the village this past August to catch the event. In 1467 the village of Roquebrune managed to avoid the plague that devastated the region and since then has celebrated with a special mass. More recently they added a procession with the stations of the cross passing through the streets (no cars are in the village, pedestrians only) followed by a village wide gathering to enjoy a homemade "pistou" (sort of like minestrone soup) prepared the day before in the village square by the villagers. For those living in the village there is no charge as they serve up massive pots of soup for everyone to share with bottles of wine being served at cheap prices, music and dancing and just plain fun.

The procession through the streets.





Pistou being served.




People bring their own bowls, but if you forget, they provide them. Fortunately for kids who don't like pistou, they sold frites.


Lots of chatting about the latest village news and yes, talking with hands. What discussion would be complete without a Gallic shrug of the shoulders? Our good friend Chantal kindly reserved us seats at the table and even brought a table cloth for the occasion.


Most people having a pretty good time.
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Shouldn't everyone see Bruce at least once in their life?

I just woke up and read an email from my mom who joined my sister and niece at the Springsteen concert in Philly last night. Besides my mom being in her 70s, she was also a Hillary supporter as was my sister. (We honored the time tested family tradition of pretending like it wasn't an issue and dodged the subject. Well, there was that one barn burner.)

More from the Philly Inquirer:

Springsteen referred to America as "a repository of hope" and "a house of dreams" in an impressively articulate speech that preceded "The Rising."

That dream house, he declared, "can't be pulled down by a thousand George Bushes or a thousand Dick Cheneys." And it provided Springsteen with a reclamation metaphor he artfully meshed with the 9/11-inspired "The Rising" and "This Land Is Your Land," the latter infused with a Bo Diddley-beat-powered "Yes we can" chant.

"I want my house back," Springsteen declared. "I want my America back, and I want my country back."

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"If we gave you $10, what would you do for someone else?"

I love it. Citi, JP Morgan, Bank of America were probably ready to do something similar but then decided to change it from $10 and made it $10 million and then gave it to their executive team. Charity starts at home, they say.

All the people have to do is answer the credit union's question: "If we gave you $10, what would you do for someone else?"

Credit union staff will videotape people's answers for vignettes hosted by YouTube but accessed mainly through the credit union's Web site www.7principles.coop.

Then, from Oct. 14, through Oct. 19, the public can go to that Web site and vote for the best seven answers.

Seven, spokesman Andy Wright said, is an important number for the credit union because it symbolizes its core principles, including "giving back" to the community and giving members a voice in its direction.

The winner -- announced Oct. 20 -- will receive $1,000 from the credit union to give to the cause, person or group highlighted in the video. It will be online democracy for the common good.

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Are Americans really upset about CEO pay?

As much as I'd like that to be the case, I'm not buying it. For years the majority of Americans have been fine with this situation provided they had their new TV, new car and were keeping up with whatever it was that the neighbors purchased. Even now, I think the economy would have to completely collapse to change the mindset of Americans who accept this odd arrangement more than any other country outside of the Third World. Europe has this problem to some degree but it's not even close to what we find in America. Pro-Wall Street articles in recent days have detailed how all previous attempts to curb executive pay have failed so we should give up and never try again. That's one theory, but I still come back to the tax code that allows this to happen.

One option is to shut down loopholes such as the Grand Canyon-sized hole that allows companies to pay for the taxes of executives. How ridiculously unfair is that? Showering bonuses and perks on the top while cutting salary, bonuses and benefits from everywhere else can be modified through the tax code. Saying it's impossible is precisely what business would have everyone believe because they're deeply focused on keeping business as it is today. There's such a large business out there that caters to executive salary plans and they're also working hard to keep this system going. Calls for adding shareholders to the decision making process is much like bringing out a garden hose to fight a forest fire. Don't even bother if that's the plan.

I'm all for people making as much money as they can but there's nothing fair about the current system. It makes a mockery of the American ideal of equal opportunity and once again is simply socialism for CEOs. Read the rest of this post...