The Dow is Down: Get Used to it

post from Firedoglake on 06 October 2008 06:00:10 PM. © Firedoglake

So, the Dow, after a wild ride, fell almost 400 points. I suppose I should point out that all the crying about how the bailout bill would save the Dow was ridiculous. A large part of this is because Europe had a bad weekend, with multiple financial[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/10/06/the-dow-is-down-get-used-to-it/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Caption that photo!

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 06 October 2008 05:58:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/413355669/caption-that-photo.html

Digg this

Bumblebees, terrorists, scandals, and lies

post from field negro on 06 October 2008 05:57:00 PM. © field negro

**

If I started this post by saying that Lark Voorhies called me late last night and begged me to leave Mrs. Field and get with her, I think most of you would question the field. A lie can be obvious and not so obvious. Usually the lie that a politrickster tells is not too obvious; usually. But that isn't the case with the latest McCain strategy.

The beauty queen has been all over the campaign stump talking about how the O man has endeared himself to domestic terrorist, (**And just who the fuck is that brotha in the bumble bee shirt?), and how he launched his political career from the living room of a terrorist. An assertion, by the way, which happens to be false. And that's being kind. Let's keep it real, the trick is lying, plain and simple. But she is doing what she was told to do. What we are seeing from the beauty queen on the stump is a part of Mr. Morton's new strategy.

But I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. The McCain camp has decided to launch an all out assault on the character of his O ness, and they are not pulling punches. But I remember hearing somewhere that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones", and someone needs to tell that to Sarah and the old man. I mean we all know about the Keating 5 scandal, so I won't bore you with that. Let's just say that Mr. Morton has always been somewhat good at reaching across the aisle, even when it comes to doing crooked shit. But he has been good at other things too; so war hero or not, the guy is a typical politrickster, just like all the rest of his crooked money hungry buddies in Washington.

?Well, I was reading my copy of today?s New York Times and I was interested to read about Barack?s friends from Chicago,... Turns out one of Barack?s earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes.?

First of all Sarah, had I been around when Mr. Ayers was doing his thing, I might have been blowing up shit too. All the injustice that was going on in this country? Sheeeet. How soon we forget. But I digress.

Apparently reading comprehension has never been Sarah's strong suit. Now I see why all the mediocre grades in school, and the deer in a headlight stare for the simplest of questions.Now let us see exactly what that article says, shall we?

?A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.?

Did you read that?"BUT THE TWO MEN DO NOT APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN CLOSE"

And no, Lark did not call the field last night. That, like Sarah's rantings on the campaign trail, was a flat out lie. But unlike Sarah's rants on the campaign trail, most of you knew that I was lying, we can't say the same about Sarah because no one would expect that someone running for such a lofty office would get up in front of thousands of people and just tell a flat out lie.

So most of the people listening believe her, because they want to believe. They want to believe that the skinny guy with a funny name is a secret Muslim. They want to believe that he does wish harm to A-merry-ca, and that he doesn't have that funny name by accident. He is too radical, too extreme for the rest of A-merry-cans, he does not have sound judgment---this from a lady who has a witch doctor pray over her fucking head---, and he is wrong for A-merry-ca [que in the applause and the "kill him" chant here].

I still can't get over that brotha with the bumble bee shirt. It's as if the McCain camp said: Tyrone, could you put on a really loud shirt please? We need the people to see you.........

God I love this country.

Read The Full Article:
http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2008/10/bumblebees-terrorists-scandals-and-lies.h
tml

Digg this

Wicker does not deny pay for play politics

post from Cotton Mouth on 06 October 2008 05:56:00 PM. © Cotton Mouth

Roger Wicker has had a revolving door in Washington where lobbyists walk in with contributions and lucrative jobs for Wicker staffers, while contracts backed by our tax dollars walk out. The revolving door politics of Roger Wicker is being sadly defended as helping create jobs, but let us all not see the forest for the trees. Roger Wicker's revolving door is at its core is about self-preservation rather than service to Mississippi.

From the Fort Mill Times(SC):

Wicker, who was first elected to a U.S. House seat from north Mississippi in 1994, said Monday that Democrats are wrong to say he has been corrupted by Washington and that "somehow there is a quid pro quo in terms of contributions that I received."

Wicker said he has received campaign contributions from executives of companies in the state, but he said there's nothing wrong with that.

"The things that I've been criticized for have, in most cases, created jobs for Mississippians," Wicker said. (emphasis mine)

There you have it. Wicker does not deny the accusation. He instead characterizes it as a criticism that he defends by saying "but it was good for the state." John McCain is running his whole economic strategy, and I am using that term strategy term liberally here, on cutting government spending by Roger Wicker and his ilk. This is the corruption John McCain is talking about reforming, right here on display in Mississippi.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/GsAJ/~3/413412031/wicker-does-not-deny-pa
y-for-play.html

Digg this

Obama, McCain Make Health Care A Discussion Point

post from Daily Kos on 06 October 2008 05:50:16 PM. © Daily Kos

Lost in the economic crisis, the lousy horserace numbers for McCain, and the personal attacks of the McCain camp is the ongoing health care crisis in the United States. With our current system, there remain 47 million without care and millions more who are underinsured. Cost issues exist alongside inequalities of care access. And now, with unemployment rising, the issue is becoming more acute (see What's The Effect Of Recession On The Health Care Safety Net?.)

As I have written before, this is not an easy or simple solution to solve. But one thing is clear: John McCain's idea of a solution, aimed at costs but not quality or access, is a terrible idea.

Paul Krugman:

Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (that’s what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they haven’t been able to pull that off.

So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead.

Not good. Obama's idea is different. Today, he signed on to the Health Care for America Now principles, which do not endorse specific legislation, but are compatible with single payer and other approaches. From a press release:

Today, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) signed the Health Care for America Now statement declaring that he is on the side of quality, affordable health care for all and opposed to leaving Americans on their own with unregulated health insurance.

There's still plenty of room to argue about the best way to get there, but with a recession looming and people in danger of losing their jobs, this is not an issue that can be ignored any more. Expect it to be brought up in the town hall debate tomorrow - unlike the phoney stuff being brought up by McCain's campaign and his increasingly shrill VP candidate, who caters only to the shrinking Republican base, this is an issue that all Americans actually care about.

"Health Care for America Now's goal this year is to get the next President and a majority of Congress committed to the principles of quality, affordable health care for all and opposed to policies that would tax our benefits at work and leave us on our own with the unregulated, bureaucratic private insurance industry," said Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America Now. "With Senator Obama's signature, we are taking a major step towards getting the next President and Congress to make comprehensive health care reform a priority in 2009."

John McCain's plan is anything but acceptable. Since it's all about saving money and nothing else, he proposes, according to the WSJ:

McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts
Medicare, Medicaid Spending Would Be Reduced to Offset Proposed Tax Credit

In the months since Sen. McCain introduced his health plan, statements made by his campaign have implied that the new tax credits he is proposing to help Americans buy health insurance would be paid for with other tax increases.

But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain's senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.

Let's hope we get a chance to discuss the details with the American people tomorrow night. This is something I think they'd be interested in.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/fXFX3iWBw7k/621648

Digg this

Interesting

post from Talking Points Memo on 06 October 2008 05:49:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Al Franken seems to be having some luck tying Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) to Sen. McCain's health care plan. Sounds like something other senate candidates might try. Here's Coleman's spokesman Luke Friedrich repeated ducking questions about whether his[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/EhHUbL6q3Dk/222303.php

Digg this

Appealing to Our Lesser Selves

post from Talking Points Memo on 06 October 2008 05:49:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

McCain rolls out the Scare-Talk Express: [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/rd2LpHwHpZU/222302.php

Digg this

Pickens: "There's No Way We Can Drill Our
Way Out of It"

I just got off a bipartisan blogger call with T. Boone Pickens ahead of his post-debate online rally along with Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, and to me the most interesting statement made by the Texas oil man-cum-energy independence advocate was the[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mydd/~3/7g2Xbg4wLh0/647

Digg this

Pickens: "There's No Way We Can Drill Our Way Out
of It"

Digg this

Why Is McCain Angry Because He Is Facing A
Landslide Loss

New CNN/Opinion Research poll:

A new national poll suggests Barack Obama is widening his edge over John McCain in the race for the White House. The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Monday afternoon suggests that the country's financial crisis, record low approval ratings for President Bush, and a drop in the public's perception of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin all appear to be contributing factors in Obama’s gains among voters.

Fifty-three percent of likely voters questioned in the poll say they are backing Obama for president, with 45 percent supporting McCain. That 8 point edge is double the 4 point margin Obama held in the last CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, taken in mid-September.

(Emphasis supplied.) Erratic, angry and desperate. McCain is headed to a landslide loss.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only