Well, OK, so do I... but not the way
John Aravosis
says it is happening:
Verizon and AT&T provided free cell towers to the McCain ranch, and admit it's because he's running for president
John Aravosis (DC) · 10/15/2008 04:56:00 PM ET ...
For free? Move over Ted Stevens, John McCain is up to bat!
This isn't funny. That would be an illegal corporate contribution to the McCain campaign. And it's bribery of a
sitting US Senator. Especially after AT&T admits that this is why they gave McCain the free goods - BECAUSE he's
running for president. Are they mad? John McCain wasn't the Republican candidate yet - and even if he were,
corporations can't donate free favors to his campaign - McCain was one of the many men running for the GOP
nomination. (And did AT&T and Verizon offer these donations to other presidential candidates - I'll bet lots of
candidates don't get good cell coverage at one of their 12 homes.) McCain was a nobody, campaign-wise - how does
his being simply a candidate justify AT&T and Verizon giving him a huge illegal bribe? Are AT&T and Verizon
stupid?
No, they're very smart in fact. John McCain chaired the committee of jurisdiction, and now is one of the top
Republicans, on their issues. So a bribe made a lot of sense, albeit completely criminal sense.
...
There's more. Go read John Aravosis's exciting conclusion, about how McCain's senior staffers are former
telecom lobbyists. Actually, don't read it while you're eating.
Josh Marshall (YouTube video)
outlines the history of the matter, Obama's challenge, and McCain's macho response, then discusses the
likelihood of McCain's actually bringing up the one sad allegation on which he has based so much of his recent
campaign.
I admit it: I have no idea how this ridiculous matter will be handled by either candidate tonight. I just wanted
to use the post subject above.
Sean Quinn of FiveThirtyEight.com
tells us a bit about Obama's organization in Ohio and elsewhere. There's truly never been anything like it, in
scope, size or, um, organization, in the modern history of presidential campaigns. Whether Obama takes Ohio or
not (it's beginning to look possible that he might do so), the way his campaign is organized surely influences
his increases in the poll numbers today... yet again.
According to TPM,
one poll, the CBS/NYT poll, shows Obama leading McCain 53% - 39%. Various poll tracker averages seem
to show a more typical 8% difference, but wherever you look, you see a steady increase for Obama.
So what does McCain have left? Well, in the matter of Ohio's massive new voter registration, it has the
Sixth Circuit Court,
which has ruled that Ohio's "Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must use other government records to check
thousands of new voters for registration fraud."
It's another clause in the Republican Right to Rule: when you haven't got the numbers... obstruct, prevent,
deny the vote. Expect more of this. I doubt they can actually prevent Obama from being elected, but they may
succeed in setting up a basis, however improbable, for challenging the election itself. It worked for the GOP
in 2000, wasn't necessary in 2004 (they had better ways of stealing the election by then), and even if it does
not work in 2008, it may be a dandy way to interfere with Obama's ability to govern. Stay tuned.
Community organizing group ACORN is accused of padding election rolls with false registration cards, but it's
unlikely they would lead to fraudulent votes.
By Bob Drogin and David Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 15, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Over the last year and a half, paid employees of ACORN, a liberal-leaning community organizing
group, have helped 1.3 million mostly young, mostly poor people register to vote, enrolling more new voters
overall than any nonpartisan group in the country.
Why some applications reportedly were signed by Mickey Mouse and supposed members of the Dallas Cowboys, among
others, emerged as the latest campaign controversy Tuesday when John McCain and Barack Obama traded charges on
whether the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now has tried to pad election rolls with thousands of
suspect voters.
...
Well, at least they got one thing right: despite the repeated accusations of "voter fraud" made by the
McCain campaign, the crime actually being alleged is registration fraud. The one does not
typically lead to the other: even if Mickey Mouse registers, even if any other fake name or name taken from
the phone book is registered, no person actually ever shows up to vote, because Mickey doesn't know someone has
registered him.
So why does this happen at all? Why does anyone bother, if no additional voters make it to the polls? Simple:
ACORN hires people to do registrations, and pays them by the number of people they register. The hired people
pad the registrations to get more money, because it's far easier to copy names and addresses from (say) the
phone book than to pound pavement and knock on doors doing actual registrations. (I've done the latter; forgive
the Bushism when I say "it's hard work.") The main thing to notice here is that ACORN is the victim of a
fraud, not the perpetrator.
Though I can no longer pound pavement, I am still listed as a deputy volunteer voter registrar in Harris
County. In my training by the county, I was instructed to check applicants' forms for completeness, but to
leave all validation of their content for the actual county voter registrar's office. In other words, it's not
an individual voter registration worker's place to make the determination of whether a particular individual
is or is not eligible to register. I assume this is true in other counties and other states as well: the
deputy volunteer registrar has neither the means nor the authority to investigate the validity of any
particular application... and is not required to do so.
In other words, the whole thing is another steaming pile dumped on the public by the McCain campaign. To my
regret, based on the court ruling, it will probably work, at least as far as preventing a lot of people from
voting.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain, scrambling to overcome Barack Obama's lead
in the polls, will assure supporters on Monday he will bounce back even though his Democratic rival is already
"measuring the drapes" at the White House.
"My friends, we've got them just where we want them," McCain will tell a rally in Virginia, according to
advance excerpts obtained by Reuters, as he tries to reinvigorate his faltering campaign in the final stretch to
the Nov. 4 election.
With the clock ticking down on his chance to narrow Obama's advantage, McCain will unveil a new stump speech
that a campaign source said would mark a "more forceful tone" by the Arizona senator in his quest for the
presidency.
...
(Emphasis mine.)
"[J]ust where we want them"? Does McCain mean he's got Obama up 53-43 in the latest ABC/WaPo tracking poll?
McCain has always had the potential to go nuts. I think he must finally have done so.
And his promised "more forceful tone" seems a very Republican thing to do, a thing that reminds me of one
definition of insanity (some attribute the definition to Einstein): doing the same thing over and over,
expecting a different result. Ever since he started the gloves-off campaign, the tracking polls... virtually all
of them... have shown him falling behind more every day. So he's going to do more of the same. Now that
is insanity.
UPDATE: I continue to be unable to find independent verification of Wolf's
assertions. She may be right; she may be wrong. Both the domestic troop deployment and the Active Denial System,
though, seem to be real enough. Take the totality of the post below with an appropriate grain of salt.
Here is an excerpt from a truly frightening interview. I'll tell you more after the quote:
...
"If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?"
"Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to
go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders."
"But these orders are now legal?'"
"Correct."
"If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?"
"Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken."
"If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?"
"Nothing."
"What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?"
"Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq -- send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the
Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else."
...
No, it's not a work of fiction. It's part of an interview of retired U.S. Air Force Colonel David Antoon
by respected author Naomi Wolf, published in an
article on Alternet
regarding the recent deployment of the First Brigade of the Third Infantry within the United States for
crowd control in a national emergency.
Say what? What about the
Posse Comitatus Act?
Can the military really be used against American citizens within our own borders? Apparently, Bush has struck
down that limitation with a signing statement.
But what about habeas corpus? Doesn't it take a "Rebellion or Invasion" (Art. I Section 9) to allow habeas to
be suspended? From Wolf's article:
[Bush] also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely
defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the
suspension of habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial
-- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or
angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.
So none of this has been used, right? It's all hypothetical at this point? Again from Wolf's article:
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and
viewable
on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not
pass the bailout bill:
"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told
in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would
drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members
were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."
... [Emphasis mine. - SB]
I cannot help thinking that Bush could use these forced changes in law and the Constitution to effectively
appoint McCain president... or even to keep himself in office for another term. Do you really think he wouldn't
do it if he thought he could get away with it? Remember his quote about what it would be like if he were the
dictator?
After years of testing, the Active Denial System -- the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like
beam -- could finally have its day. The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But
the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the
supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.
...
Holy crap. Just... holy crap. They're equipped now for a literal coup.
Afterthought: I'm having some difficulty finding independent confirmation of much of this. Wolf's output is
occasionally controversial. If you know anything, please feel free to comment on it.
Congressman John Lewis is an American hero in his own right. His courage in the face of violent physical abuse
during the civil rights movement equals anything John McCain displayed in Vietnam, and deserves our praise as
surely as does McCain's wartime courage. Whatever McCain may think of him, Lewis has nothing more to prove to
the American people. (Lewis's book about the civil rights movement and his participation in it,
Walking with the Wind,
is well worth reading.)
Now Lewis has issued a
statement
regarding the McCain-Palin campaign's rabble-rousing by way of de facto race-baiting. The statement
is very strongly worded:
"As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply
disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing today reminds me too much of
another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and
division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.
"During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George
Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but
he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only
desired to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were
killed one Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.
"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Governor Palin are playing with
fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that
disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The
American people deserve better."
John McCain, who apparently believes he does not have to answer for the actions of himself, his vice
presidential nightmare candidate, or his campaign, issued a
testy, somewhat whiny reply,
saying he is shocked... shocked! and challenging Obama to disavow Lewis's comment; the Obama campaign in
turn (see same link) responded denying only Lewis's allegation of McCain's similarity to George Wallace but
sustaining much of the rest of Lewis's complaint.
Meanwhile, McCain seems to be explicitly
backing away
from his silence in the face of his audiences' shouts of "terrorist," "traitor," and possibly even "kill him"
(though there is dispute about that one). But his surrogates haven't backed down nearly that far, and he has
apparently not pulled his most
vicious attack ad (YouTube video),
the one about ACORN in which police lights flash in the background until one expects to hear "Bad Boys Bad Boys"
at any moment.
But McCain-Palin rabble-rousing, with its unanswered audience threats against Obama, went on at McCain campaign
events for several days. It's a bit late for McCain to pretend to require respect for Obama from his crowds,
especially as he so clearly has no respect for him himself. Let's face it: McCain loathes and detests Obama.
McCain arrogantly believes he shouldn't even have to run against someone he depicts as a street thug. And
understanding the ancient maxim that "silence gives consent," McCain consents to threats of mob violence against
Obama. We should not be calm about McCain's and Palin's behavior by way of their audiences: they ARE
largely responsible for that audience behavior.
Contrary to popular wisdom, Americans are anything but peace-loving; that applies as surely toward their
politicians as toward the nation's enemies. In my lifetime, there have been successful assassinations of a
president (JFK) and a presidential candidate (Bobby Kennedy), and an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate another
president (Ronald Reagan). There are always enough nut-cases among us to assure that a few of them will resort
to violent means to accomplish their desired political outcome. Considering the degree to which the particular
president we have in office at a given moment impacts literally every aspect of public life both foreign and
domestic, every American needs to do everything possible to prevent assassinations of presidents or presidential
candidates. But in one sense, John Lewis is correct: John McCain and Sarah Palin, while not actually picking up
a gun and shooting at a human being, have undeniably stirred the pot, attempting to provoke the most violently
radical among their supporters to a point at which they could easily pick up that gun themselves. This must end:
McCain and (separately) Palin must each make a public statement explicitly repudiating violence in our political
arena. If they wanted to apologize for having already stoked the fires, that would be a good thing, too.
McCain Campaign Now Attacks Michelle Obama Over Ayers
By Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld - October 10, 2008, 4:58PM
The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama's past association with William Ayers to include
Michelle Obama -- even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.
The attack? Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers' wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major
Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as
well.
That's the entire attack. We wish we were joking. But we aren't.
...
Have I mentioned lately how much I loathe and detest the sorry excuses for human beings that waste oxygen on
behalf of the McCain campaign? I have? Then let me mention it again.
Trooper-Gate Report Finds Palin Abused Power in Firing Monegan
By Zachary Roth - October 10, 2008, 8:42PM
The just-released Trooper-Gate report finds that Sarah Palin abused her power in the firing of Walt Monegan, by
violating an Alaska law holding that "each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to
benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."
It also finds that Monegan's "refusal to fire Trooper Mike Wooten" -- who was embroiled in a family dispute with
the Palins -- "was not the sole reason [Monegan] by Governor Sarah Paln" but "it was likely a contributing
factor". Still, the firing was a proper exercise of Palin's authority to hire and fire executive branch
department heads.
In addition, the report found that the office of Attorney General Talis Colberg failed to substantially comply
with the legislature's written request for information about the case in the form of emails.
Note that the Republican-run legislative panel's vote was 12-0 on this report. Despite the spin by the McCain
campaign, this was no partisan witch hunt. (Aside: I wonder if witches are more accepting of nonpartisan witch
hunts. The few witches I've known certainly aren't.)
TPM is all over this one. They now have a sort of
Trooper-Gate blog
of the latest developments.
This unsurprising revelation tells me that Palin's behavior as veep would be a lot like Dick Cheney's. And the
fact that the McCain campaign failed in their effort to suppress release of the report shows that Palin is a lot
less competent in the abuse of power than Cheney. But most of all, it shows that high-ranking Republicans cannot
be trusted with positions of great authority.
Will this sink the McCain campaign? If you seriously ask that, you don't understand the nature of "true
believers." Short answer: no. In the course of eight years in office, virtually continuous criminal behavior
hasn't sunk the Bush administration. This bit of illegality will have no effect on McCain's and Palin's
supporters.
Here
is the report (.PDF, about 2 mb, image file).
This is for residents of Harris County, Texas... at least. It may be happening elsewhere in the state; I don't
know. In any case, some emails (possibly deliberate dirty tricks) are going around with misinformation about the
straight-Democratic vote on the ballot. Here's the short version of the true information:
If you vote the straight Democratic ticket by checking the box for Straight Democratic Party, you ARE
in fact voting for Barack Obama. Indeed, with some voting equipment, voting the straight ticket and then
separately checking Barack Obama's name may NEGATE your vote for Obama.
On the other hand, if you live in State SD 17, you MUST separately vote for Chris Bell, because that is a
special election, and is not included in the general election Straight Democratic Party vote.
Got that? No? Read Harris County Democratic Party Chair Gerry Birnberg's version of the same information:
An Important Message from
GERRY BIRNBERG
HARRIS COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR
There is a FALSE rumor going around by e-mail telling people that if they vote Straight Democratic Party, they
must also cast a vote specifically for Barack Obama in order to have an Obama vote registered. THIS IS FALSE
INFORMATION probably initiated by Republican dirty tricksters, but now being spread by well-meaning Barack Obama
supporters.
The truth is that if you cast a Straight Democratic Party vote, you will be voting for Barack Obama and your
Straight Democratic vote will count as a vote for Obama. But if you then go down and “vote” for Obama, you may
actually be cancelling your Obama vote.
Don’t be fooled: Just cast a Straight Democratic Party vote and that will get Obama and all the Democratic
candidates up and down the ballot (except for Chris Bell – you do have to cast a separate vote for him in
addition to your Straight Democratic vote because he is in a “special election.”) CHECK the summary page at the
end of the ballot to see all the candidates you are voting for before you press the red CAST BALLOT button.
Gerry Birnberg
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
I received Birnberg's letter via two sources, both of which have been reliable: CEWDEM's list, and the list of
the local Democratic club in my seven-precinct area.
Note that early voting in Harris County begins in 10 days, on Oct. 20. I'll post a schedule and locations
closer to that date. Given the likelihood of a large turnout and possible GOP attempts at voter suppression,
I highly recommend voting early, both for your own convenience and to give some time to straighten out any
(ahem) "anomalies" that may affect your apparent registration status at the polls.
UPDATE:Fallenmonk
points out in the comment thread here that the beginning of this video is
pretty painful to watch. Let me add that a few minutes into the video, the camera turns to a row of Obama
supporters protesting the McCain event; the sheer contrast between the behaviors of the two groups of supporters
is heartening.
UPDATE: the
mainstream media
is finally starting to notice. Will McCain and/or Palin respond soon enough to prevent the inevitable violent
incident precipitated by their rabble-rousing, or will they wait until someone gets hurt, and try to blame that
on Obama as well?
Stella transacts some business from the patio, assisted by the consulting firm of Cat & Cat LLC*. Samantha
has a stipulation in her contract that any lap-sitting requires the use of a thick, luxurious corduroy pillow:
It is a fact that Samantha usually will not sit on anyone's lap without a pillow in between. She and Stella are
both fond of the texture of corduroy.
That's what McCain's campaign co-chair, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating,
called Obama
on Dennis Miller's radio show today. In addition to Obama's alleged Ayers association, the "gentlemen" involved
in this conversation discussed Obama's brief cocaine use in high school. That's no news to anyone, of course...
Obama himself revealed it in a book published 12 years ago. And I do believe George W. Bush established eight
years ago that long-past cocaine use is not a disqualifier for the office. By my reckoning, Obama must have
graduated from high school about 30 years ago.
I don't doubt some voters will respond to these irrelevant slurs, all of which are about things that have
nothing to do with fitness to serve. But it seems unlikely the perpetrators can keep it up for about three
weeks without inducing a backlash. Obama is still likely to win the presidency. And what then becomes of the
reputations of everyone involved in the character assassination? Perhaps those who drink the Kool-Aid will give
them a pass; "IOKIYAR" seems to be a signature attitude. But the larger public, the reasonable people in the
middle (in both the political and personal sense)... what will they think?
John McCain and Sarah Palin both went into this race with reputations among their respective supporters as
moderate, fair-minded people of good character. Perhaps those reputations were undeserved all along; I have my
doubts about them. But whatever their sterling credentials appeared to be, they will be tarnished when this
bloody race ends. No presidential candidate, not even the greatly and rightly criticized George W. Bush, has
ever personified the phrase "politics of personal destruction" more effectively than McCain and Palin this week.
When this is over... if they lose, as looks likely at the moment... they will be washed up,
rinsed off the national stage in the flood of slime they themselves are spraying there now. Meanwhile, all the
other participants in this sorry drama must don their hip boots.
What a wonderful ending to a wonderful eight years!
Via
ellroon,
we have a
Brave New PAC video (YouTube video)
documenting McCain's propensity to fly off the handle, out of all proportion to the provocation. This man is
so volatile that if he becomes president, we may well actually miss George W. Bush. Yes, I know; that's almost
inconceivable. But watch the video. I think you'll come to the same conclusion.
Most people have their share of anger in them, and many whose occupation involves interacting with other people
have occasion to voice that anger. I'm no exception; indeed, when I was a very young man, I got angry enough,
often enough, that it interfered with personal and occasionally even business relationships. Fortunately, it
didn't take all that long for me to realize where that behavior was taking me. For decades now, I've simply
told myself "let it go" as often as possible; most things aren't worth disrupting relationships, and even some
important things are not made better by tearing someone a new one.
Clearly, though, it's different for McCain. This man who wants to have his finger on the (figurative) nuclear
button has a history of dozens of incidents in which he completely lost it, sometimes erupting in violent
physical conflict, sometimes merely earning my name for him... The Old Scold.
Virtually every president has some history of getting angry (LBJ and Bill Clinton both had an angry streak, and
GeeDubya is legendary for his verbal abuse when annoyed), but no one ever seriously voiced a concern that they
would start a nuclear war on a whim. Some of McCain's critics, people in a position to know him and to have
witnessed his irrational behavior, have expressed fears about exactly that possibility. Watch the video.
That's the title of a
Jed Report video
(YouTube video) about Sarah Palin's direct participation in events of the Alaskan Independence Party,
participation which ended... um, it apparently hasn't ended yet, as there is a video from 2008 in which
she greets the AIP's convention-goers.
These people are secessionists. Their leadership has openly proclaimed hatred for America. This didn't happen
40 years ago when Obama was 8 years old: it is happening today. And Sarah Palin doesn't merely live in the
neighborhood or serve on a charity board with these people: she is an active part of their organization.
Why does Sarah Palin hate America?
And why is the mainstream media downplaying the undeniable Palin/AIP connection, while emphasizing the far more
dubious Obama/Ayers connection?
Will somebody. anybody, please confront Gov. Palin with explicit questions about her pernicious association with
the Alaskan Independence Party? Do we have any investigators left in our media, or have they all become
stenographers for the Alaskan Independence, um, I mean, the Republican Party?
Sarah Palin used the word "maverick" for herself and John McCain about two dozen times in Tuesday's debate.
Well, if Sarah is such a clever, unconventional thinker, why does she slime Barack Obama for being allegedly
different from the rest of us? Maybe her negative statements about him actually tell us more about her...
Maverick Palaverick
Consider Ms. Palin, the maverick:
She has the Joe Six-Packs all slaverick.
Her lovely exterior
Is truly superior...
Her brains? Well, they're far below averick!
Via TPM,
McCain, in a campaign speech, just referred to the audience not as "my fellow citizens" but as
"my fellow prisoners."
(YouTube video of excerpt.)
Face it, folks: he's losing it. And I don't mean just the election.
UPDATE: actually, he referred to the whole nation by that phrase, not just the audience.
The most surprising thing about the debate is that McCain did not, as predicted, use it to deliver personal
attacks against Obama. The least surprising thing is that, in a debate devoted mostly to substance, in a debate
in which pompous, self-preoccupied, conservative moderator Tom Brokaw appeared to give McCain more air time than
Obama, Obama still won, on the merits, hands down.
It looks increasingly likely that, absent some unspecified catastrophe, Barack Obama will be our next president.
I'd like to say I was one of his early supporters... I'd like to say that, but it isn't true. And I still have
a few issues with him, some of them significant. But I have come to believe he has everything it takes to be
a good president in what will surely be extremely difficult times. More power to him... quite literally; I now
actively want to see Senator Obama serve as our president.
Our task now is to make sure Obama is elected... and that he assumes the office to which he is elected. There
are proactive efforts in Harris County to counter the standard Republican voter suppression efforts; I presume
(or at least hope) those are in place elsewhere in the nation as well. And we have to get out the vote of all
of Obama's supporters, especially all those young people, who are notorious for having things on their minds
other than politics.
While we do our best to assure the election is fair, our other task is to survive the last days of the Bush
"preznitcy." (No, I shall never for a moment allow anyone to forget that he stole the office.) How much havoc
can Bush and Cheney wreak before they leave office? I'm not talking about pardons at the very end; I expect
those. Their buddies will get off scot-free. What concerns me is war. They can start one. Some say they already
have started one: it's just a matter of degree, and of when it will be revealed. Will that be our
evening-of-November-3 surprise?
This article by David Talbot of Salon,
"The Palins' un-American activities,"
is not, strictly speaking, news. Indeed, it might not even have been relevant to the presidential race if Palin
had not taken off the boxing shoes and put on the pointed gloves (or whatever) to accuse Barack Obama of
"palling around with terrorist[]" Bill Ayers. But damn, it seems relevant now, and unlike the alleged
Ayers/Obama relationship, Palin's relationship to Vogler and his secessionist group is well-documented and
specifically political in nature:
Oct. 7, 2008 | "My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand."
This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what
Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.
Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence
Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for
seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. ("Keep up the good work,"
Palin told AIP members. "And God bless you.")
AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. "She's Alaskan to the bone
... she sounds just like Joe Vogler."
...
I hate this. Guilt-by-association campaigning is of very little use to the American voting public in helping
them to make one of the most important decisions they are called upon to make. But I'll be damned if I'll allow
Stiletto Sarah to attack Obama on illegitimate grounds without pointing out that the same accusation applies
much more accurately to her.
Sarah Palin, in heels and without gloves? No. My sense is that their current idiocy will backfire. American
voters are susceptible to manipulation, but not through such obvious folly. If rumors and racism haven't
derailed Barack Obama's campaign long since, rumors and racism with lipstick aren't going to succeed in doing so
now.
There are so many opportunities to prevent Democratic votes, or simply steal them by recording them as votes
for Republicans (see Homer Simpson's vote for Obama stolen from him
here [YouTube video]),
that it is a miracle that any Democrat ever reaches office. Since about 2000, any election close enough to steal
is stolen. The rule is almost like the one in baseball: a tie goes to the GOPer.
There is no real solution to the problem in this election; it's too late. In the long run, the only solution
(and remember, I say this as an IT professional) is a return to paper ballots, a strict chain of custody
of those ballots, and voter registration so falling-down easy that effectively every qualified adult is
registered. Until we have those things, the best evidence is that the GOP will discard registrations, obstruct
voters from reaching the polls, reject registered voters on flimsy grounds at the polls, force some voters to
take "provisional" ballots (which are typically discarded or destroyed later), and... yes, of course...
disrupt the counting process, as was done in Florida in 2000. The only response this year is to mobilize such
vast numbers of Obama supporters to the polls that all the voter suppression in the world would not be enough
to steal the election for McCain.
That's right. If you're not registered, you have until 8:00pm tonight to get registered. What are you waiting
for? A list of state offices at which you can register in Harris County is
here.
I like public libraries myself (though they may not be open as late as 8:00pm). But there are many choices. I
doubt there will be a more important election in my lifetime... be sure you're not left out.
... if you think you want to go
here.
If McCain and Palin want to talk about a lack of trust, both of them (especially McCain, but Palin is no slouch
in that department) have plenty of untrustworthy behavior in their histories. And as you can see from this
13-minute video, Obama has surrogates willing to talk about McCain's and Palin's shortcomings if they insist on
it.
So much for all of McCain's promises of a clean campaign. I had scant hope that this could be avoided, but I
have great confidence that McCain and Palin will come out of it much the worse for wear. As McCain is a
self-proclaimed "gamblin' man," here's some advice for him: never bet against a big-city youth in a fistfight.
The servers at Keating Economics, or perhaps it was at YouTube itself, were hammered pretty hard when I
visited. It may be easier to download the .mov file and watch it locally.
The News Writer, actual journalist, blogger and (my good fortune) regular commenter on the YDD, is blogging
again, and has renamed the blog
Stop the press!. The URL is unchanged. Please read;
you will be well rewarded.
So the greatly admired, respected and believable Sarah Palin
accuses
Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists," because he lives in a neighborhood with Bill Ayers, a founder
of Weather Underground (the 1970s radical group, not the exceedingly useful weather web site). Never mind
that Obama was a young child when Ayers was associated with the group.
While it is known that Obama and Ayers live in the same Chicago neighborhood, served on a charity board together
and had a fleeting political connection, no one has provided evidence to say the pair ever palled around. And
it's simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts.
Nonetheless, Palin made the comments at two appearances in separate states.
<sarcasm>
Well, what can you expect from the negligent mother of a two-bit teenage whore.
</sarcasm>
No, I do not believe that, and
if I said it in seriousness, or in a situation in which it could harm Palin's reputation, I would be guilty of
the worst libel. And that's exactly what Palin's repeated public statement about Obama and Ayers is:
libelous.
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.
...
Here's the new Republican motto: "when the only thing you've got is shit, throw shit."
An afterthought: the fundamentalist Christians I have known regard it as a sin to tell a lie. Palin's statement
about Obama is, by any reasonable measure, a baldfaced lie. Is Palin bound for Hell?
"It was
this bad,"
I could tell my grandkids someday, if I had grandkids. Krugman:
As recently as three weeks ago it was still possible to argue that the state of the U.S. economy, while clearly
not good, wasn’t disastrous — that the financial system, while under stress, wasn’t in full meltdown and that
Wall Street’s troubles weren’t having that much impact on Main Street.
But that was then.
The financial and economic news since the middle of last month has been really, really bad. And what’s truly
scary is that we’re entering a period of severe crisis with weak, confused leadership.
...
How bad is it? Normally sober people are sounding apocalyptic. On Thursday, the bond trader and blogger John Jansen declared that current conditions are
“the financial equivalent of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution,”
while Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic Advisers says that the economy seems to be on “the edge of the abyss.”
...
Krugman said the plan is "a stinker" ... but urged Congress to pass it anyway (which they did today) because
there was no time for another round of political dancing while things got even worse. When Krugman advocates
the passage of this bad bill (now a law), you know things are really sick.
Hang on, everyone; we have almost four months of Bushism ahead to screw things up royally before anyone in
government can even attempt to repair the damage wrought by this unregulated masterpiece of the free market, if
indeed even a much-needed change in administrations will set us on the right track, something of which I am not
at all confident.
You may do that if you wish, but I'm thinking about the
hit song. Originally written by
Jimmy van Heusen and Sammy Cahn for Judy Garland, better known from the recording in 1963 by Frank Sinatra, that
song, the
New York Times
editorial board clearly believes after last night's debate, should be the theme of John McCain's
campaign. After describing Gov. Palin's endless stream of memorized chatter, often not even in response to the
question asked, the Times concludes with this:
In the end, the debate did not change the essential truth of Ms. Palin’s candidacy: Mr. McCain made a wildly
irresponsible choice that shattered the image he created for himself as the honest, seasoned, experienced man of
principle and judgment. It was either an act of incredible cynicism or appallingly bad judgment.
Or both.
If McCain's intent was to choose a woman to draw attention to the campaign, as reluctant as I am to
admit it, there are several Republican women quite capable of being president. But no... McCain chose the
pretty, chatty, "perky" soccer mom, apparently capable only of continuously spouting
conservative platitudes and tossing already-debunked barbs.
Maybe someday Sarah Palin will be a seasoned, mature
conservative leader, with a large pile of craft on which to draw (maybe I should choose another phrase). But
today it is difficult to imagine that this small-town mayor who now governs one of the wealthiest, lowest
population states in our nation could ever acquire the depth and breadth required of a vice president. McCain,
in choosing her, exhibited not only cynicism and bad judgment... he evidenced a willingness to commit an act
of destructive unkindness toward Sarah Palin, for his own political purposes. Is anybody truly surprised?
Tabitha and Samantha reminisce about the old days...
Tabitha: Remember how great it was before the carpenter bees moved in, when we got to wander in and out
the open screen door all the time? Samantha: Yeah, those were the days. Tabitha: Remember when hanging beaded curtains were really fashionable? Samantha: Awwww, gimme a break... even you aren't that old!
Tabitha may not be that old. But she may well be 20 now. Stella brought her home from Special Pals
sometime in October 1988, and we don't know her biological birthday. I've been joking that her birthday is
Election Day, but I think we should jump the gun a bit, don't you?
UPDATE: Stella tells me that she brought an approximately three-month-old Tabitha
(age estimated by Special Pals) home on a date that would make October 28 her birthday. So she has an "official"
birthday of October 28. Correct your calendars accordingly...
Via TPM,
to my surprise, the CBS snap poll shows that uncommitted voters unequivocally favored Biden over Palin as the
winner of the debate, and CNN's poll showed Biden with a clear majority of debate-watchers saying he did the
best job.
This is better than I expected, and may show that Americans have a clearer understanding of the difference than
they did eight years ago, when Bush debated Gore and won by not losing too badly.
Palin's strategy was pretty clear, and it might have worked. Hers was a staged performance of well-learned
lines; her campaign was betting on the undeniable truth that most Americans watch anything on TV with the
expectation of a polished performance. But the set-piece nature of her responses, which she trotted out with
little respect for the question asked, eventually gave the impression that she was not capable of an improvised
response in a novel situation, and I think many in the TV audience noticed. The presidency, like a well-played
jazz piece, absolutely requires improvisation in the face of changing circumstances, different players, etc.,
and we've already seen in the Couric interviews just how well Palin improvises. In a president, as in a jazz
musician, that ability to improvise is not optional.
My personal assessment: this "debate" is not a game-changer. McCain will grow more desperate, and McNasty will
resurface in ways we've not even imagined to this point.
Why do Republicans rant so much about voter fraud? After all, it's a rare crime, because it carries heavy
penalties and has no money payoff for the individual. I've always assumed the R's pursue allegations of
rampant voter fraud as a way of justifying voter ID requirements and thus introducing a chilling effect on the
more transient and likely more Democratic voting population.
But maybe there's another
reason. Maybe for some high-ranking GOPers, say,
Pete Olson,
who is Democrat Nick Lampson's opponent in CD 22 (that's Tom DeLay's old district), it's a case of
projection:
"a defense mechanism by which your own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else," says WordNet.
Yes, it looks quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Olson committed voter fraud back in the late Nineties
and early Naughties when he was living in Connecticut. Um, I mean Virginia. No, Connecticut. No, Virginia,
dammit. Whatever... why don't you read the Burnt Orange Report
chronology
of his residencies and voter registrations (plural).
Most cases of "voter fraud" are actually simple mistakes. When you're moving, you have a thousand things to
think about besides your voter registration; in Harris County, about a dozen voters slip up in a typical
election. The problem is never massive, and usually not malicious on the part of the individual voters. Even
though it is a bit more difficult to explain the chronology of Olson's registrations and votes... it looks as
if he not only was registered in more than one place, but also actually voted in elections in the new place,
then the old place, then the new place again... I would be willing to cut him some slack and assume it was an
honest mistake. Well, I'd be willing, except for the Republican insistence on regarding all such mistakes by
likely Democratic voters as shocking voter fraud. I'd rather cut everyone slack, but if the GOPers insist, I
in turn insist that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and all that stuff. Charge Olson and try him!
There's subsistence hunting. Some people need meat for the table. For example, my late maternal grandparents,
who farmed a tiny plot of land in east Texas, supplemented their diet with deer, rabbit and squirrel that Pop
hunted on their own land. Some peoples in North America have hunted game as practically their only source of
food for centuries. Even though I'm a vegetarian, I can understand subsistence hunting.
And there's hunting for sport. I have a bit more difficulty with that personally, but humans are natural
omnivores; as a species, we are intrinsically built to track and hunt game as surely as cats are. I can live
with sport hunting, if the hunt itself is in any meaningful sense "sporting"; that is, if it involves tracking,
pursuit, and some reasonable chance that the prey can get away. I doubt the prey consider it "sport," but it is
not my place to question the hunters' motives when there is an available interpretation that is not negative.
Then there's
this.
(YouTube video of aerial wolf hunt. While it doesn't show a lot of blood, I recommend not watching it while
you're eating, or just before bedtime. It may also be unsuitable for younger children.)
As several have pointed out, Sarah Palin doesn't merely issue regulations to permit such hunting, she actively
encourages it by having the state of Alaska pay a
$150 bounty
for each wolf's left foreleg brought in. She goes beyond that. From the same article:
...
In 2007, she approved $400,000 to educate the public about the ecological success of shooting wolves and bears
from the air. Some of the money went to create a pamphlet distributed in local newspapers, three weeks before
the public was to vote on an initiative that would have curtailed aerial killing of wolves by private citizens.
"The timing of the state's propaganda on wolf control was terrible," wrote the Anchorage Daily News on its
editorial page.
"Across the board, Sarah Palin puts on a masquerade, claiming she is using sound management and science," says
Nick Jans, an Alaskan writer who co-sponsored the initiative. "In reality she uses ideology and ignores science
when it is in her way." The initiative was defeated last month.
Gordon Haber is a wildlife scientist who has studied wolves in Alaska for 43 years. "On wildlife-related issues,
whether it is polar bears or predator controls, she has shown no inclination to be objective," he says of Palin.
"I cannot find credible scientific data to support their arguments," he adds about the state's rationale for
gunning down wolves. "In most cases, there is evidence to the contrary."
...
All this comes from a proactively fundamentalist Christian governor. I remember Al Gore, also a Christian,
explaining to an audience that in the Bible's statement that God granted humankind "dominion" over the earth,
"dominion" means "stewardship"; that is, we have an obligation to take care of the rest of creation. As a
non-Christian, I am no expert on the Christian theology of these matters, but I feel strongly that humankind
does have an obligation, at least not to destroy or exhibit cruelty toward other animal species. Sarah Palin, on
the other hand, thinks it is noteworthy that she can field-dress a moose she has killed. (Aside: as some of you
know, my response is, "formal or casual?") Well and good... as long as she eventually eats the moose... but I
ask you to consider how far her policy goes of arranging to kill off her competitors cruelly. In this case,
they're wolves. But her attachment to a self-serving brand of "logic" leads me to wonder just where her outlook
will lead her.
You may wonder why I use this post title every couple of years. The late great Sir Fred Hoyle wrote a science
fiction novel by that name in which some sort of time anomaly (I honestly don't remember the details) caused
Earth to become an amalgam of various periods of our own history both ancient and modern, not to mention our
Earth's geology, all stitched together and interacting in a way only Hoyle's fertile imagination could describe.
The primary difference between Hoyle's fictional Earth and our own presumably real Earth is that our Earth,
particularly our America, has transformed into an amalgam of the worst facets of various periods of its own
history, both ancient and modern, all lashed together by a deliberate perversion of our nation's founders'
intended governmental structure, the parts interacting chaotically in a way no one alive or dead could imagine
or describe, let alone want to experience by living through them.
Otherwise, they're pretty much the same. I rest my chaos.
Click any permalink below to go to the original article on a previous page.
Click a comment link below to add a comment to the original article.
Your comment will be noticed, by the YDD at least:
HaloScan has a page allowing me to view recent comments, no matter which post they refer to.
Some very recent posts may be included in their entirety.
New FBI Regs Remove Need For Suspicion
While you were checking MarketWatch six times a day to see whether you were
broker
than you were the last time
you checked, something at least as serious has been going on in the arena of civil liberties. AG Mukasey has
instituted new regulations for the FBI which would, as
Glenn Greenwald
says, "vastly increase its power to investigate and spy on American citizens, on U.S. soil, even in the
absence of any suspicion that the targeted citizen is involved in any wrongdoing." (Emphasis mine.) The FBI
has not had comparable powers since the Hoover era... that's director J. Edgar Hoover, not President Hoover.
The regs permit the kind of investigative practices that led to
COINTELPRO. In particular, they allow the
FBI to investigate anyone and any organization without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. They can now
trail you, tap your phone and email, track your internet usage, talk to your friends and relatives... just
because they don't like your looks.
I do not want to believe this will have the obvious consequences, but considering the FBI's history, how can it
not? I am seeking, in vain, an explanation of how the FBI, with this power in hand, differs from the great
secret police organizations the world has seen over the past century in various totalitarian governments. "Build
it and they will come"; create such a police organization with such powers and "they" ... presidential
administrations, shadowy secret organizations within or associated with the government, etc., will use it. Our
"right to be left alone," which the great Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and William O. Douglas
identified as the essence of the Fourth Amendment, is in peril, perhaps as much as it ever has been.
And all this is being done at the behest of the AG of a president with less than four months left to go in
office, with no congressional oversight, and with the open approval of (no surprise here) the
Washington Post.
Would an Obama presidency protect us from this invasion of privacy? Who knows. But a McCain presidency would
assure a continuation of the FBI's free rein to investigate anything it pleases. I suggest you vote accordingly.
Guard your liberties, good people, or watch them vanish.
If you've ever wondered where
