I have no words...

The GIANT Word: Why I'm Scared of Christine O'Donnell

Seriously?!

Woman denies candy to kids of Obama supporters on Halloween...



Seriously... WTF?!?

More details on the "mutilation" hoax

From KDKA News in Pittsburgh:

Campaign Volunteer Faces Charges In Attack Hoax

Ashley Todd told investigators today she "just wanted to tell the truth" -- and was neither robbed, nor attacked
Todd, 20, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― A campaign worker who claimed she was the victim of a politically-motivated attack in which she was beaten, kicked and cut, now admits that she made the whole story up.

According to Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard, Ashley Todd, 20, told investigators today that she "was not robbed and there was no 6'4" black male attacker."

Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield Wednesday night and that the suspect began beating her after seeing a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.

Todd claimed that the mugger even cut a backwards letter "B" in her check.

But today investigators say Todd confessed that the attack never happened.

At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Todd's injuries were self-inflicted.

Police investigating the report said Todd's story began to unravel early on and they administered a polygraph test.

Investigators asked Todd to return to the police station today for more questioning and to help them release a composite sketch of the suspect.

When she did, police say she admitted that she made the whole thing up and that it snowballed out of control.

Todd told investigators today that she "just wanted to tell the truth" – adding that she was neither robbed, nor attacked.

"She indicated that she has prior mental problems and that she does not remember how the backward letter B got on her face," Richard told reporters today.

Todd told police that while she did not remember how the backward "B" got on her face, she may have done it herself since she was the only one in the car.

According to police, Todd said she thought of Barack Obama when she saw the "B" in her rearview mirror.

Officials say they do not believe any other people were involved; and Todd's friends believed the story about the attack – encouraging her to call police.

Todd is now facing charge for filing a false police report.

As of late this afternoon, Todd was still in custody under observation.

(Link)

CNN exposes the "Mutilation" hoax

Is this Palin's idea of "reform"?

$150,000 on clothes?!

Jeanne Cummings writes for Politico:

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission's long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.

Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.

Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing.

“The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how financial resources available to the campaign are spent," she said.

(Full Article)



Sam Stein of HuffPo further reports:

A statement from McCain headquarters released hours after the article bemoaned the triviality of the whole affair.

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said spokesperson Tracey Schmitt. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

But even the most timid of Democrats are unlikely to heed this call for civility. For starters, the story has the potential to dampen enthusiasm among GOP activists and donors at a critical point in the presidential race. It also creates a huge PR headache for the McCain ticket as it seeks to make inroads among voters worried about the current economic crisis.

Mainly, however, Democrats (in this scenario) are not prone to forgiveness. After all, it was during this same campaign cycle that Republicans belittled the $400 haircut that former Sen. John Edwards had paid for with his own campaign money (the funds were later reimbursed). And yet, the comparison to that once-dominant news story is hardly close: if Edwards had gotten one of his legendary haircuts every singe week, it would still take him 7.2 years to spend what Palin has spent. Palin has received the equivalent of $2,500 in clothes per day from places such as Saks Fifth Avenue (where RNC expenditures totaled nearly $50,000) and Neiman Marcus (where the governor had a $75,000 spree).

Beyond the political tit-for-tat, however, the revelation of the clothing expenditures offers what some Democrats see as a chance not just to win several news cycles during the campaign's waning days but to severely damage Palin's image as a small-town, 'Joe Six-Pack' American.

"It shows that Palin ain't like the rest of us," Tom Matzzie, a Democratic strategist told the Huffington Post, when asked how the party would or could use the issue. "It can help deflate her cultural populism with the Republican base. The plumber's wife doesn't go to Nieman's or Saks."

Indeed, the story could not come at a more inopportune time for the McCain campaign. During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class -- and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber -- it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.

(Full Article)

Palin breaks with McCain on gay marriage amendment

Yahoo News reports:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin says she supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a break with John McCain who has said he believes states should be left to define what marriage is. In an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network, the Alaska governor said she had voted in 1998 for a state amendment banning same sex marriage and hoped to see a federal ban on such unions.

"I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that's where we would go. I don't support gay marriage," Palin said. She said she believed traditional marriage is the foundation for strong families.

McCain, an Arizona senator, is supporting a ballot initiative in his state this year that would ban gay marriage. But he has consistently and forcefully opposed a federal marriage amendment, saying it would usurp states' authority on such matters.
As governor, Palin vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In a debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden, Palin said she was "tolerant" of gays and said she supported certain legal protections for same-sex couples, like hospital visitation rights.

(Full Article)

McCain: "I hate the gooks"

C.W. Nevius, Marc Sandalow, and John Wildermuth wrote this article in the San Francisco Chronicle in February of 2000...

McCain Criticized for Slur
He says he'll keep using term for ex-captors in Vietnam

Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, was questioned about the language because of a story last month in the Nation magazine reporting his continued use of the slur.

Since then, reports of McCain's language have been circulating on Internet chat sites and e-mails among Asian Americans, many of whom find the the term offensive and inappropriate for an elected official.

McCain's appeal to voters has been as a wartime hero and a feisty politician who speaks his mind and damns the consequences. But his comments on the eve of the key South Carolina primary show the candidate's vaunted "straight talk" in another light.

"The use of a racist slur can't be acceptable for any national leader, regardless of his background," said Diane Chin, executive director of the San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action. "For someone running for president not to recognize the power of words is a problem."

While McCain's words may have little effect in conservative South Carolina, where few Asian Americans live, they could come back to haunt him in other states.

"Historically, straight talkers who say things off the top of their heads eventually hang themselves with those sorts of remarks," said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley.

"While it might not hurt him now, Democrats are not going to have any hesitation about using this stuff to string him up later."

TERM FOR HIS CAPTORS

McCain made no apologies yesterday.

"I was referring to my prison guards," McCain said, "and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends."

McCain made it clear that his anger extends only toward his captors. As a senator, he was one of the leaders of the postwar effort to normalize U.S. relations with Vietnam.

Campaign officials do not expect the controversy to hurt McCain, either in tomorrow's South Carolina primary or later in the campaign.

"If people understood the context, they wouldn't be upset," Mike Murphy, a senior adviser to the campaign, said last night.

But the racial slur used by the senator has a long, painful history that is felt by many Asian Americans.

The word "gook" was first used in 1899 by American soldiers fighting Filipino insurgents. During the Korean War, the term was aimed at Koreans and Chinese. It was directed at the Vietnamese when Americans were fighting in Vietnam. It is now used as a slur toward any Asian or Pacific Islander.

The Arizona senator prides himself on running an open campaign. He is surrounded by reporters, television cameras and tape recorders perhaps more than any presidential candidate in history. Reporters are given full access to the candidate between each campaign stop on a customized bus purposefully dubbed the "Straight Talk Express."

The bus, which also carries his top staff and often his wife, Cindy, is crammed with network anchors and local newspaper reporters, who endlessly engage McCain in what amounts to a news conference on wheels.

The comments are usually recorded and always on the record.

Sometimes the questions are pointed and serious. Sometimes they are not.

McCain has declared on his bus, "I hate the French." He often begins meetings with Californians joking, "I hate Californians," noting that they steal Arizona's water and lure his constituents away in the summer.

MCCAIN'S IMPRISONMENT

But those comments are clearly in jest. Yesterday's were not.

McCain was captured after his A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi on Oct. 26, 1967. During the time he was held, he was brutally tortured by his captors, finally reaching the point where he was unable to resist signing a "confession."

McCain and his fellow prisoners suffered terribly in the prison camp. In the crowd at yesterday's rally in Greenville was retired Adm. Robert Fuller, who was in prison with McCain at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton."

Fuller, who lives in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., spoke informally of the despair of living in single cells, where the only form of contact was by an ingenious code devised by the prisoners. Fuller said prisoners were sometimes tortured for as many as six days. When they returned, he said, the others would send messages of support by tapping on the wall.

"They would be put in ropes for six days, and they would confess," Fuller said. "When they came back to their cell, guys would tap on the wall, `We love you. I wish we could give you a hug.' "

The horrors of the past cannot be an excuse for hurting people in the present, said Guy Aoki, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, an anti-defamation group.

"If Sen. McCain had been captured by Nigerians, could he call those people `niggers' and think he wasn't going to offend everyone who is black?" Akoi asked. "We can all feel for what he went through, but if that's his level of sensitivity, I'm very disappointed."

McCain usually treats his experience as a prisoner of war as a terrible time in his life, but a period he has moved beyond. At times, he even uses it as a punch line for jokes.

At a pancake breakfast recently, he said he had gone with his daughter to the MTV Music Awards, "and that was the greatest assault on my senses since I was in prison."

Yesterday's comments made it clear that McCain had neither forgotten, nor forgiven, his captors.

"I will call right now, my interrogator that tortured me, a gook," McCain said. "(I can't believe that) anybody doesn't believe these interrogators and prison guards were cruel and sadistic people who deserve the worst appellations possible."

McCain said he does not consider the comment an epithet.

"Gook," he said, "is the kindest appellation I can give."

(Link)


Seriously people. This needs to be remembered.

"The blacks will take over"

To say nothing of his constituents...

(Thanks to From The Left for the link)

Et tu Chris Matthews?

So I watched the forum on service last night.
Most of it was as expected.
The one thing that stood out to me though, was McCain reiterating that somehow the negative mud-slinging from his campaign was Barack Obama's fault.
That if Obama had only agreed to McCain's insistence on joint town-hall meetings, then the campaign would have been honorable and civil.

This is ludicrous, of course. We all know that, don't we?

Apparently MSNBC's Chris Matthews didn't get the memo...



Writing for the Huffington Post, comedian Paul Reiser nails it...

Republican John McCain takes a moment to point out that even this is Barack Obama's fault.

Y'see, all the crap being thrown at Obama -- the fear-mongering, the half-truths, the full lies -- all the character assassination hurling Obama's way, is in fact, his own doing.

"I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America," the Senator from Arizona tells us.

Am I just losing my friggin' mind? Seriously. I keep looking around the room to see if I'm living in some suddenly altered state where everything we know is now called the opposite, and nobody notices. Or can stop it.

"I wish I didn't have to take your lunch money, but you should'nt of hadda brung it."

We're in the 3rd grade again. The skinny, smart kid who just moved in to the neighborhood is getting roughed-up by the asshole bully. The kid who hits you in the head with your hand and says, "Why're you hitting yourself? Why're you hitting yourself?"

"Um, actually I'm not. You're hitting me."

"You calling me a liar?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that..." SMACK!

"Why're you hitting yourself?"

And there seems to be no one to appeal to. There're no grown-ups around when you need 'em. No one to step in and say, "Alright, that's enough now. We don't do that here, fella." And in the absence of any authority, the asshole gets to keep doing it.

"Why're you hitting yourself? SMACK! Why're you hitting yourself?"

From the few minutes of the GOP convention I could stomach watching, all I could think was that Giuliani and Sarah Palin were doing some big-person, lethal version of "I know you are, but what am I?"

America: "Well, respectfully, Governor Palin, it could be argued that you are, in fact, relatively inexperienced."

Her: "I know you are but what am I?"

"Hm? No, perhaps you misunderstood. We are talking about you."

"I know you are but what am I."

"Well, Governor, just listening to your speech, you seem awfully caustic."

"You are."

"And, frankly, a little bitter."

"You're bitter."

"I mean, where's your sense of humility?"

"I'm rubber, you're glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you."

"My God - you're... dangerous."

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Maybe that's the problem. Obama treats us like adults, and McCain's team treats us like children.

Obama seeks to inspire and raise us as a nation. McCain's people want to reduce us to infants.

Obama asks us to be deep. And courageous.

McCain prays that we're simple. And cowardly.

(Full Article)


C'mon Chris. You don't seriously believe that McCain's sleazy campaign (that he promised not to sink to) is actually Obama's fault, do you?

Something's rotten in the state of Michigan...

Eartha Jane Melzer writes for the Michigan Messenger:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

As for the practice of challenging the right to vote of foreclosed property owners, Hebert called it, “mean-spirited.”

GOP ties to state’s largest foreclosure law firm

The Macomb GOP’s plans are another indication of how John McCain’s campaign stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state. McCain’s regional headquarters are housed in the office building of foreclosure specialists Trott & Trott. The firm’s founder, David A. Trott, has raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for the Republican nominee.

The Macomb County party’s plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African-Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters. More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans — the most likely kind of loan to go into default — were made to African-Americans in Michigan, according to a report issued last year by the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

Challenges to would-be voters

Statewide, the Republican Party is gearing up for a comprehensive voter challenge campaign, according to Denise Graves, party chair for Republicans in Genessee County, which encompasses Flint. The party is creating a spreadsheet of election challenger volunteers and expects to coordinate a training with the regional McCain campaign, Graves said in an interview with Michigan Messenger.

Whether the Republicans will challenge voters with foreclosed homes elsewhere in the state is not known.

Kelly Harrigan, deputy director of the GOP’s voter programs, confirmed that she is coordinating the group’s “election integrity” program. Harrigan said the effort includes putting in place a legal team, as well as training election challengers. She said the challenges to voters were procedural rather than personal. She referred inquiries about the vote challenge program to communications director Bill Knowles who promised information but did not return calls.

Party chairman Carabelli said that the Republican Party is training election challengers to “make sure that [voters] are who they say who they are.”

When asked for further details on how Republicans are compiling challenge lists, he said, “I would rather not tell you all the things we are doing.”

(Full Article)

McCain - The (not so) little boy who cried, "Wolf!"

Seth Grahame-Smith writes for HuffPo:

The man who can't remember how many houses he owns cries "elitist!"

The man who said "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should, and "I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong," cries "economy!"

The man whose running mate denies manmade global warming cries "environment!"

The man with ZERO executive experience cries "executive experience!"

The man who chaired the committee that set a record for unauthorized appropriations cries "I'll make them famous!"

The man who voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time cries "change!"

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The man who knowingly spreads malicious lies cries "honor!"

The man whose campaign is run by lobbyists cries "no more lobbyists!"

The man whose running mate has a pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old daughter cries "abstinence!"

The man who cheated on his ailing wife cries "family values!"

The man who can't tell Sunni and Shia apart cries "judgment!"

The man who picked the least experienced VP candidate in history cries "country first!"

The man who got caught in the Keating Five scandal cries "integrity!"

The man who joked about Chelsea Clinton being "ugly" cries "offensive!"

The man whose party mocks service cries "service!"

The man who supported abolishing the Department of Education cries "education!"

The man whose family was targeted by Karl Rove in 2000 cries "get me Karl Rove!"

The man who fought against the Bush tax cuts cries "permanent Bush tax cuts!"

The man who called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance" cries "I love evangelicals!"

The man who cried "no Iraq timetables" STILL cries "no Iraq timetables!"

A man who touts his running mate as a "reformer" cries "get me more Bush veterans for her staff!"

A man who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade cries "I'm the candidate for women!"

...and America eats it up.

(Link)

'Nuff said...

Note to spiteful female Hillary supporters:

From HuffPo:

WASHINGTON — Questions from the media prompted Republican John McCain to cancel a fundraiser at the home of a Texas oilman who once joked that women should give in while being raped.

The Texan, Republican Clayton "Claytie" Williams, made the joke during his failed 1990 campaign for governor against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt."

Williams' comments made national news at the time and remain easy to find on the Internet. Even so, McCain's campaign said it hadn't known about the remarks.

(Full Article)


Still thinking of voting McCain?

McCain: My religion is better than yours, and the constitution says so.

Just what this country needs... More religious fascism.

McCain's pastor problem...

Rev. John Hagee claiming that Hitler was doing God's will in the Holocaust...

McCain gets it wrong on Iran's leadership

Watch in horror as McCain demonstrates not only that he is clueless about the power structure in Iran, but is belligerent about it to boot!

Clinton on Obama’s Speech: I Haven’t Heard It

Apparently the supposedly ever-prepared HRC was hiding under a rock to avoid the speech that was covered by every major news site, newspaper, and blog.

Patrick Healy writes for the NY Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared at Philadelphia’s City Hall this afternoon, a few hours after Senator Barack Obama delivered a major speech on race not far from here. But despite the speech’s high profile and intense media coverage of it, Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference she had not heard it yet or read the text.

Many reporters muttered in disbelief during and after her remarks, surprised that a candidate as diligent as Mrs. Clinton -– who always talked about being well-prepared and doing her homework -– would not have read the speech yet. The fact that she was not prepared to comment on it, however, will keep the race issue alive for at least another news cycle, since reporters will keep seeking her reaction.

In her opening remarks, Mrs. Clinton said she was “very glad” Mr. Obama had made his speech, given that she said that race had been a “complicated” issue in America that had been marked by “pitfalls” and “detours.” Asked why she was glad, she said that issues of race and gender are “important” and twice called them “difficult issues.”

Asked if she thought Mr. Obama had done enough to denounce racially divisive remarks made by his pastor, the Rev, Jeremiah Wright, Mrs. Clinton replied, “I think that question should be directed at him” -– referring to Mr. Obama.

She was also asked if she could do anything more to tamp down the issue of race in the campaign, since some Obama supporters have blamed her campaign for stirring it up. She said she and Mr. Obama have called truces on numerous occasions, and added that “we have admonished our staffs and supporters” to avoid incendiary language.

In response to another question, Mrs. Clinton said she was not sure if she would deliver a speech that was similar to Mr. Obama’s.

“I don’t know, I haven’t read it, I have to think about it,” she said.

Unbelievable.

Geraldine Ferarro adds to the litany of racially-charged "feminist" attacks on Obama

Christopher of From The Left writes:

Hillary Clinton certainly has surrounded herself with some fascinating female supporters. One such woman is Geraldine Ferarro.

Ferarro recently uttered a statement that is so racially charged and offensive that even I was taken aback and I’ve heard just about everything from stupid politicians.

Ferarro is quoted in an interview with the Daily Breeze:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Disgusting.