Brooks: McCain can't win by ignoring the economy.

post from The Osterley Times on 06 October 2008 02:11:00 AM. © The Osterley Times

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I don't agree that Palin won the debate, that's simply insane in my book.

However, I think David Brooks has a point when he says that Palin and McCain are silly if they think that the usual Republican talking points will be enough to win this year.

McCain can try to "turn the page" on the economy but it's swamping every news broadcast that I watch, and Palin popping up to call Obama a lover of terrorists seems trite. We've heard all that crap before. So, for once, I agree with Brooks, that isn't going to cut it.

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US Papers Mon: Bomber Strikes During U.S. Raid

post from IraqSlogger.com on 06 October 2008 01:59:11 AM. © IraqSlogger.com

Even as most of Iraq is seeing a great deal of security improvement in past months, the carnage in Mosul continues.

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WHY DO JEWS LIKE TO LAUGH BECAUSE LAUGHTER IS
FREE.

post from Ezra Klein on 06 October 2008 01:44:00 AM. © Ezra Klein

I'm agnostic on whether this is evidence of ideology or simply a writer's misfire, but SNL certainly dipped into some classically anti-semitic tropes last weekend. It was pretty weird. And of all the guys to blame for the financial crisis, they're really[...]

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Scandals v Negative Campaigning

post from DemConWatch on 06 October 2008 01:19:00 AM. © DemConWatch

I've been out doing voter registration just about every weekend since June, after the break taken following the primary-related voter registration. And I'm not saying I'm committed to the idea of voting, but I've been registering voters in the same place since 1992. Thankfully, I'm not out there alone -- this weekend, for example, I had 17 people helping me. We man a table, and send teams to the far ends of the shopping center to make sure we catch people who might not shop in the center of the strip mall.

Voter registrations must be non-partisan. That is, when "enthusiastic" new volunteers ask me if they can rip up non-Democratic registrations, I explain that would be immoral, unethical and illegal, and if they have any such intentions they should leave. NOW.

Yesterday, a woman who recently moved to Pennsylvania from Virginia completed her registration, and then asked me if I she could get a lawn sign. I explained that I didn't know where she could get a McCain sign. She explained that she wanted an Obama sign, and I told her that I was confused as she had just registered as a Republican. She further explained that she WAS a Republican, but that she was voting for Obama. She said she couldn't imagine doing anything else. Lucky for her, my trunk is well-stocked.

Because I've been there for so long, and am a "known quantity", people show up every weekend to ask questions. And the big questions this weekend were about whether or not Obama would hit back. As Oreo wrote, that's in the works related to the Keating scandal.

Which brings up an interesting set of questions. While pointing out that McCain is tied to Keating, Gramm, Symington, and others who directly relate to economic problems, should the Obama campain IN ADDITION, go negative? If you say something true that is very ugly, is that okay? Is that negative?

It's easy to understand that telling lies about someone is wrong -- so when Spunky Palin says that Senator Obama "associates with known domestic terrorists" she's just out and out lying, and that's wrong. If instead she said that "Senator Obama was a commmunity organizer", that's true, but to some people, "organizing" has a negative connotation, so while it may be considered negative, a lot of people are proud, and the decision is left up to the voter as to whether the action undertaken (organizing) is good or bad.

On the Keating 5 scandal, there is no doubt that McCain had ties to Keating, that Keating funded parts of John's early campaigns, that they were friends, and that John had to give back monies paid by Keating for things like vacations. All true, all bad. But not over the line.

But the Obama campaign COULD take that extra step to pointing out the REALLY BAD things: McCain divorcing his first wife because she got fat, lying on his divorce application (using lawyer Bud Day, of Swift Boat fame), his gambling, Cindy's drug problem and the cover-up, and the rumour (that I've seen but can't find a legit source for) of his relationship with Joe Bonano.

There is no doubt that the GOP is going negative. They have to, they have nothing else. But should the Obama campaign? Vote, and then please use the comments to justify your position.

Online Surveys & Market Research

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A CAMPAIGN JOHN MCCAIN WILL REGRET.

post from Ezra Klein on 06 October 2008 01:19:00 AM. © Ezra Klein

Elections have life cycles. They have beginnings, middles, and ends. The beginnings tend to be exciting. The middles tend to be exhausting. And the ends tend to be ugly. The ends are ugly because the candidates are desperate and their teams are scared.[...]

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Obama Releases McCain "Keating V" Documentary

post from TalkLeft on 06 October 2008 01:16:00 AM. © TalkLeft

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Sen. Barack Obama is fighting back against McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's personal attacks against him. Sunday night he released a web video to supporters, criticizing his role in the "Keating V" scandal. The difference: Obama's ads and attack are true...and related to Mcain's political record.

The short video, being e-mailed to millions of Obama supporters, summarizes a 13-minute Web "documentary" that the campaign plans to distribute Monday, spokesman Tommy Vietor said. He said McCain's involvement with convicted thrift owner Charles Keating "is a window into McCain's economic past, present and future."

You can watch the full 13 minute version here beginning at noon ET Monday. [More...]

From the site:

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.
John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.
At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.
When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.
The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history. Home

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Regulators in China planning next stock market
bubble

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 06 October 2008 01:07:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

While the rest of the world is adding tougher regulations to curb the abuses of unregulated stock exchanges, China is going in the opposite direction. Allowing short sales on the market could help pump extra money into the system (though I would be concerned with the long term end result) is one change but the more dangerous move is allowing margin sales, as in requiring less cash to buy stocks. In a growing market, everyone is usually fine but in a declining market such as China's Shanghai exchange (which has lost 70% since last October) this could lead to an even more dramatic decline.

The introduction of short-selling in China would contrast with regulatory moves in much of the rest of the world. In response to the global crisis, U.S. and British regulators last month temporarily banned short-selling of financial stocks, while Australia, Singapore and Taiwan restricted the practice.

But the commission said, "The launch of margin trade and short-selling is an important step in the reform and development of our capital markets, and will inject new vitality into the securities market."

China has been considering since 2006 starting margin trade, in which investors borrow money from brokerages to buy shares, and short-selling, where they borrow stocks from brokers and sell them in the hope of buying them back later at lower prices.

Its launch of the reforms has been delayed by massive market volatility: a bull run that boosted the Shanghai Composite Index sixfold between mid-2005 and last October, and then a bear market which took the index down more than 70 percent.

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BuzzFlash Mailbag for October 06, 2008

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 06 October 2008 01:04:46 AM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

BUZZFLASH MAILBAG

Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here. You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html.

Subject: An Alternative to Capitalism?

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Links for 2008-10-05 [Digg]

Interview - Naomi Wolf - Give Me Liberty
Interview with Naomi Wolf author of "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries" given October 4, 2008 on Mind Over Matters, KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle.
Jim Morrison's Ghost
The ghost of Jim Morisson
Statement on Congressional Approval of Bailout
It was incredibly irresponsible for President Bush to tell the American people on national television that the country could be facing another Great Depression. By contrast, when we actually were in the Great Depression, President Roosevelt said that, "we have nothing to fear, but fear itself."
France urges Israel not to attack Iran
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has urged Israel not to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program, an Israeli newspaper reported on Sunday Kouchner, in the region for talks with Israeli and Palestinian...
Mortgage forgiven for woman, 90, who shot herself
AKRON, Ohio – Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said it is forgiving the mortgage debt of a 90-year-old woman who shot herself in the chest as sheriff's deputies attempted to evict her.

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THAT OLD MAN SMELL

.
IT'S THE STENCH OF DESPERATION

CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT PALIN HAS THAT ODOR NOW, TOO

It's Very Unpleasant, The Republican Aroma Of Abject Failure. It Smells Like . . . Bush.

As John Sidney "POW" McCain III slowly sinks into the political abyss, his overweaningly ambitious running mate makes one last frenzied attempt to claw her way to the top. Promised a virtual or actual Presidency if she can just salvage the wreck of McSame's campaign, airhead Sarah Palin is now resorting to outright smears based on bald-faced lies.
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Still, McBush has already conceded Michigan, and Pennsylvania may be next: Poor old broke-down John "My Wife's A 'C*nt' " McCain has pulled out of the Republican-depressed Automobile State. The poor old guy went to hide in Iowa rather than show his cancerous face in the anxious blue-collar Steel State. He's trailing even in GOP-subverted Florida. McSame may lose formerly reliable-racist Republican Virginia. Can Indiana and Ohio be far behind?

The Repukelickin Party, terrified of losing its' death-grip on power, is going straight to its' last resort: The Party of Greed and Anger, is switching gears to its' old fallbacks, Hatred and Fear. "Obama is not like us" (he's black!), "Obama hates America" (HE'S BLACK!!), "Obama pals around with bad men from the Big City" (HE'S BLAAAAACK!!!). Did they mention that Barack is black? Not yet, not explicitly. They're cowardly little racist, race-baiting *ssholes; always have been. But their message has always been the same: "Law & order," "Welfare queens," "Willie Horton," et cetera, ad nauseum, always meant "We'll keep the 'n*ggers' down for ya, Bubba!" and absolutely nothing more. It's code that even right-wing morons can understand.

This year, not without trepidation, the Democrats have shown the courage and strength of character to confront racism head on, and nominate a man of African ancestry to be our next President. The Republicans, meanwhile, have shown their true colors by nominating two extremely white people, both known for their anti-African-American sentiments. McCain played the "maverick" by opposing the institution of the Federal Holiday honoring martyred moderate black leader Dr. Martin Luthor King Jr. Sarah Palin was deliberately chosen, it is now obvious, for being the living embodiment of redneck ignorance, and white-State prejudice. (Oh, and the "c*nt vote." Since McCain thinks all women are "c*nts," he must figure having a real "c*nt" on the ticket will get their votes.)

The Repukelickin' candidates are cowardly and without a shred of real character. McCain betrayed his country by collaborating with the enemy in North Vietnamese communist propaganda during the Vietnam War. When he came home from Nam, McSame dumped the crippled wife who had waited faithfully for him for five long lonely years, and flitted off with a rich drug-addicted beer queen. McCain's new wife Cindy was then busted for stealing drugs from poor, sick children. McCain himself narrowly escaped indictment during the Savings & Loan scandal. What character!

Palin flies her whole family around the country at taxpayer expense, and collects thousands in per diem for sleeping in her own bed. She fired a respected Alaska State Police commander when he refused to fire her sister's ex-husband, a decorated State Trooper. Now she doesn't dare show her face in Alaska, and the national Republican Party organisation of John McBush is running Alaska in her absence, trying to supress the investigation of "Troopergate." Let's not even talk about her under-aged, unmarried, unsafe-sexually-active daughter, or the infant Governor Palin starved in her own womb, trying to hide her own recent pregnancy. The child was born retarded, and now she uses him to gain sympathy at every campaign stop. Doesn't she worry about his health at all? Or his dignity? Or ours?

As to hating America, and terrorism: Palin wants Alaska to secede from the Union, and break up our great nation. She keeps talking about the Russians, her "neighbors": Maybe she wants to join them? Unlike most Americans she's wallowing in oil money, overjoyed at the high prices. Maybe the Rooskies will offer her a better deal. Traitor? You be the judge.

McCain has voted against going after Osama Bin Laden, and has done nothing to protect us from 9/11's past, present or future. He's so rich and out of touch, he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. And, of course, he could be a "Manchurian Candidate," programmed by the Communists to destroy America from inside the Oval Office. And none dare call it treason?

I guess McPalin fears that all this will come out in the next few weeks. After all, that's how they play the game. So far, Obama has chosen to take the high road. But it's time for the rest of us to give the Repuke's a taste of their own foul medicine. In their case, the truth about them will suffice.

[Cross-posted at blog me no blogs.]
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