McCain's Lying

From Huffington Post:

BACKLASH

GUTTER POLITICS ABC: McCain's 'Truth Squad... Full Of Half-Truths'...

Time Mag: McCain "Responsible For One Of The Sleaziest Ads I've Ever Seen"...

Washington Post: "Untrue Accusations, Rumors Have Started To Swirl ... They Become Regarded As Fact"....

MSNBC: Evidence Palin, McCain Not Telling Truth About Bridge To Nowhere...

AP: Fact Check... McCain Ad About Palin Is Misleading...

Read The Full Article:
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2008/09/mccains-lying.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Begala: No Debate About Bridge to Nowhere

video details and more



Read The Full Article:
http://www.ourrepublicblog.com/2008/09/begala-slams-media-for-failing-to.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

McCain's campaign run by lobbyists

I guess by "maverick" they mean a lobbyist's dream

- Rick Davis, campaign manager, has lobbied for Airborne Express and DHL on their controversial merger deal, as well as telecom companies Bell South/SBC and Verizon.

- Charlie Black, senior advisor, lobbied for more than 100 clients, including Yukos Oil and Freddie Mac.

- Randy Scheunemann's lobbying clients have included BP Amoco and the NRA.

- Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy advisor, is a former Koch Industries lobbyist.

- Frank Donatelli, the McCain campaign?s director at the RNC, has had 70 clients including PHARMA, Pfizer and Exxon Mobil.

- John Green, congressional liaison, has lobbied for at least 150 clients, including insurance industry trade groups, predatory lender Ameriquest, Chevron Texaco, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

- Wayne Berman, campaign vice-chair, finance co-chair, and advisor has also lobbied for almost 100 clients, including Ameriquest, Fannie Mae, the National Rifle Association and American Health Insurance Plans.

SOURCE: Lobbying Disclosures, US Senate Office Of Public Records

For more info check out McCain's Lobbyists.com

Read The Full Article:
http://www.demconwatchblog.com/2008/09/mccains-campaign-run-by-lobbyists.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Green, Baby, Green

Yesterday, the Wonk Room highlighted a new report by the Center for American Progress called Green Recovery, which lays out a plan to spend $100 billion over two years to create approximately 2 million new jobs, focused in particular on the construction and manufacturing sectors, which have been particularly hard-hit recently. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics job report released on September 5, the manufacturing lost 64,000 additional jobs in August, and construction has shed approximately 388,000 jobs since peak employment rates in February 2006, though losses in that sector have slowed considerably since the first half of this year.

The CAP report was prepared by Dr. Robert Pollin and University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute economists, and would focus investment in six separate strategies:

• Retrofitting buildings to increase energy efficiency
• Expanding mass transit and freight rail
• Constructing "smart" electrical grid transmission systems
• Wind power
• Solar power
• Advanced biofuels

The report's plan for job creation would divide the total investment between tax credits ($50 billion) to assist small business and private homeowners in retrofitting buildings with green technology, direct government spending ($46 billion) for public building retrofits and the expansion of mass transit, rail, and updated energy infrastructure, and federal loan guarantees ($4 billion) to underwrite private credit extended to perform retrofits and an expansion of renewable energy technology.

Dr. Pollian is also careful to mention that this report is not a magic bullet cure for the current economic difficulties facing the U.S. economy:

It is important to note that this recovery program does not replace the possible need for more immediate action to boost the economy. The nature of the investments described in this paper precludes their full implementation in the three to four months that are usually expected of short-term economic stimulus programs. Depending on conditions, such a stimulus may be needed in addition to this program. ("Green Recovery", p. 3-4)

Whether this plan is the right one for transitioning towards a more energy efficient and environmentally conscious economy certainly remains to be seen -- the GOP has already threatened a government shutdown over a compromise energy plan to embrace both more drilling, and renewable energy-conscious investment. If I had to (and I haven't seen numbers or a prediction on this), I would wager that the $100 billion proposed in this report would fall well short of the scale of investment actually necessary to a) update our infrastructure, b) comprehensively apply green technology to existing infrastructure/buildings, and c) stimulate large-scale job growth. That said, it is exactly this kind of government program - with a balance of offering private incentive and active public engagement - that can encourage businesses (of all sizes) and individuals to make their own investments in both our economic and environmental well-being. It is increasingly clear - obvious, in fact, if you ask me - that it is a time for bold, new ideas, and the solutions to both climate change and the changing nature of the economy will not be found a few miles underground off the coast of Florida. Reports such as this one (and also the T. Boone Pickens Plan) - and a rigorous investigation of their likely success - should be widely encouraged.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/FMhSFHhROPo/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Livin' Palin-- Trailer Trash Deserves Some
Representin' Too

When I woke up today and turned on the TV it was... like surreal. Pat Buchanan was whining that, although he knows it isn't what Obama meant, his statement about putting lipstick on a pig was coming across as a slam against Sarah Palin. Personally, I'd say that Buchanan's comments about McCain being such a complete and utter warmonger that if he ever got his hands on the presidency he'd make Cheney look like Gandhi is more relevant to the election, but today's topic seems to be trailer trash. It reminded me of a little Senate debate from when I was a kid.

I don't remember many Senate debates from when I was a kid but this one was based on a statement by Roman Hruska and I suspect not many DWT readers remember him at all-- or have ever even heard of him-- unless they happen to live in Clay County, Nebraska (pop. 7,039). In 1970 President Carter renamed the Federal Meat Animal Research Center for ex-Senator Hruska. Other than that he's remembered for one thing: his novel-- but sincere-- defense of Nixon Supreme Court nominee G. Harrold Carswell. During the debate Hruska, who no one ever accused of being one of the Senate's leading lights, jumped to defend the honor of Mr. Carswell, a stalwart Republican hack:

"So what if he is mediocre? There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters and stuff like that there."

It was a jaw-dropping stunner and helped seal the fate of the extreme right wing Carswell, who was last heard from after being arrested in a Florida public toilet trying to perform fellatio on an undercover policeman in 1976.

But it is by Hruska's defense of Carswell that the Republicans expect to enable Sarah Palin to drag John McCain's rotting old carcass into the White House. Buchanan and other GOP propagandists are all shedding profuse crocodile tears today that even if Obama wasn't signaling that Palin is trailer trash, trailer trash deserves "a little representation" too. Well... even forgetting for a moment that that's the role of scores of congressmen, from Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Steve King (R-IA) to Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Dan Burton (R-IN), haven't we already seen what happens when we elect someone who we feel comfortable having a beer with rather than striving for the best among us?

And this week's National Enquirer absolutely glories in the trailer trashiness of their newest heroine and her family. I have a good friend in, of all places, Wasilla, so none of this is news to me, but Enquirer readers are gobbling up an "exclusive" about the first family of trailer trash.

The Enquirer has learned exclusively that Sarah's oldest son, Track, was addicted to the power drug OxyContin for nearly the past two years, snorting it, eating it, smoking it and even injecting it. And as Track, 19, heads to Iraq as part of the U.S. armed forces, Sarah and her husband Todd were powerless to stop his wild antics, detailed in the new issue of The Enquirer, which goes on sale today.

The Enquirer also has exclusive details about Track's use of other drugs, including cocaine, and his involvement in a notorious local vandalism incident.

?I?ve partied with him (Track) for years,? a source disclosed. ?I?ve seen him snort cocaine, snort and smoke OxyContin, drink booze and smoke weed.?

The source also divulged the girls would do anything for Track and he?d use his local celebrity to manipulate other guys ?to get them to steal things he wanted.?

?He finally did what a lot of troubled kids here do,? the source divulged. ?You join the military.?

And as Gov. Palin has billed the state of Alaska for various expenses related to her children, as reported by the Washington Post, The Enquirer's investigation reveals that she was so incensed by 17-year-old Bristol's pregnancy that she banished her daughter from the house.

Another family friend revealed pre-prego Bristol was as much of a hard partier as Track was.

?Bristol was a huge stoner and drinker. I?ve seen her smoke pot and get drunk and make out with so many guys. All the guys would brag that the just made out with Bristol.?

When Sarah found out the teen was pregnant by high schooler Levi Johnston, she was actually banished from the house. As part of the cover-up, Palin quickly transferred Bristol to another high school and made her move in with Sarah?s sister Heather 25 miles away!

And The Enquirer also learned that Levi Johnston, the baby mamma?s future wedded dada, who was glad handed by John McCain at the GOP Convention, isn?t too happy about his impending shotgun nups either.

?Levi got dragged out of the house to go to Minnesota,? Levi?s friend told The Enquirer. ?Levi realizes he?s stuck being with Bristol because her mom is running for Vice President.?

The friend also confided that both Bristol and Levi ?broke up a few times and they definitely messed around with other people.?

Meanwhile, as members of the Palin family?s war viciously over ?Trooper-Gate? and claims of Sarah?s extramarital affair have turned the political race into a chaotic arena of threats, denials and vicious attacks by political black ops, The Enquirer has discovered shocking new details about the red-hot affair scandal!

Why not? The Bushes without the ill-gotten family wealth and pedigree! We'll see if McCain's cynicism and severe lack of judgment is echoed by the voting public.


video details and more



Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/09/livin-palin-trailer-trash-deserves-so
me.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Community Organizers Rebuffed by McCain Campaign
in Lancaster, PA

Community organizers attempted to deliver petitions to John McCain in Lancaster, PA on September 9, 2008. The petitions asked McCain and Palin to apologize for their insults to community organizers.

video details and more


Sign the petition at:
www.iamacommunityorganizer.org
www.keystoneprogress.org

Read The Full Article:
http://keystoneprogress.blogspot.com/2008/09/community-organizers-rebuffed-by-mcc
ain.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Obama: Sack the QB (Palin). The Old Guy On the
Bench Has Got Nothing!

I think it is absolutely right that our Presidential candidate go after their Vice Presidential candidate.

Why? Because, as the Republicans learned under Karl Rove, you go after the other side's strength not its weakness. You attack Kerry on his military record or Gore for being smart. The idea is that if you hit them where they are strong, the rest collapses too.

Sarah Palin has turned out to be the GOP's #1 asset this year. That is not only because she's a woman and an interesting character. It is because McCain is just so utterly flat and uninspiring.

He is now running on her coat tails and it's up to us to cut them off. Both Obama and Biden should go after her hard, laughingly rebuke the GOP's shock and horror that they would attack a mother, and let the media do the rest. Today's NEWSWEEK story could be an indication that the Palin master stroke could well end up destroying the GOP's chances. Hit 'em where they are strong and let the old white guy fade into oblivion. (Not that we shouldn't attack him too).

But, first, sack the QB. That's Palin.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/umGbaJULQsw/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Bob Barr on McCain the "Maverick".

Rachel's new show begins by studying McCain as an "agent of change". Quite, quite the most bizarre way he could attempt to fight an election.

Tags: McCain, Palin, Obama, Biden, US elelction 2008, change, Maverick

Read The Full Article:
http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/2008/09/bob-barr-on-mccain-maverick.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

John McCain's human shield

Country first? Try women and children first.

It's hard to imagine a better definition of sexism, and dishonor, than a man under attack grabbing a woman to hold in front of him. (Doesn't have to be a man, doesn't have to be a woman, roles could be switched, they could even be grabbing a child, like in the movie The Dead Zone (pictured to the left) but you get the idea.) But that's exactly what John McCain has done with Sarah Palin over the past two weeks - John McCain has found his human shield, and her name is Sarah.

Take a look at the video of Obama yesterday making the "lipstick on a pig" reference. Obama wasn't talking about Palin - Palin wasn't even mentioned. Obama was clearly talking about John McCain. And John McCain got so angry that he grabbed the first woman he could find and held her in front of him so she could take the blows. And that woman's name is Sarah Palin. Here's the video of Obama, watch it, it's only 45 seconds long - the target was clearly McCain, and McCain knows it, and it really set off his temper:


video details and more



McCain may be old and in somewhat precarious health, but he's not senile. He knows what he's doing. Following the Democratic convention, McCain was worried that Obama's rock-star status, and McCain's own now-frail appearance, would show him up at his own convention and beyond. So McCain decided that the best way to defend himself was to use Sarah Palin - and I mean "use" - to change the subject.

Remember, it was McCain who leaked news of Palin's daughter's pregnancy to Reuters. It was McCain who approved of Palin lying about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere the first day he introduced her to the public. It is McCain who then had Palin lie about those issues each and every day since. It is McCain who has suddenly become such a sensitive Alan-Alda type of guy that he now sees sexism around every corner (except when he himself berates small girls, grown women, and even his own wife).

NBC analyst Chuck Todd just had this to say about McCain's use of Palin:

"John McCain has now put his entire campaign on Sarah Palin's shoulders... He doesn't get crowds without her. She was already supposed to be in Alaska getting ready to send her son off to war, getting sort of her house in order to start campaigning solo. Now there's a lot of question: Does McCain even bother campaigning solo, or are they campaigning in a tandem because they can get the real crowds... McCain-Palin events look like Obama events a month ago."

Sarah Palin is simply one more excuse for John McCain not to have to face the press, not to have to explain why he voted with Bush 90% of the time, not to explain why, whenever faced with a difficult question about current events or his own actions, he resorts to shutting down all questioning by reminding us, again and again, that he was a POW 40 years ago. John McCain can no longer take the heat, so he's gotten a woman - grabbed a woman - to do it for him.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/388753296/john-mccains-human-shield
.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Cornucopia Wednesday

Oh, The Dangers of Blogging: Part Forty .... A New Beginning

                 

THIS PAST WEEKEND I attended the annual Drinking Liberally conference (for group hosts and co-hosts) in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a wonderful opportunity to see the city, and we could not have had more gracious hosts. While there were some attendees from afar, the majority were from the Southeast: fighting-the-good-fight in a region where it isn't always easy to do so.

Best of all: we heard a talk (at an evening open D/L gathering) by a Charlotte congressional candidate who - two years ago - attended a forum and asked The Decider tough questions. I did not know Harry Taylor before, but I do now.

Here is a link to his act of courage .......

and here is a link to Harry's webpage, where I made a contribution.

But try as I might: I couldn't stay out my blogging persona:  shaking this man's hand, I thought of a ....

SEPARATED at BIRTH - Charlotte's next congressman .......

               

and the University of Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams (who led his team to the NCAA title a few years back).

Sigh. Well, until there's a cure for me: stop in for a look at news outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    
HAIL and FAREWELL to the former Texas Western (now U of Texas - El Paso) basketball coach Don Haskins who has died at age 78. His decision to start five black players in the 1966 NCAA title game against an all-white Kentucky squad helped complete the integration of college basketball.

There were many other schools that featured black players before: the University of San Francisco (with Bill Russell, K.C. Jones and Hal Perry) started a majority-black lineup in its back-to-back 1955 & 1956 championship teams.

And Loyola of Chicago won the 1963 NCAA title with four black starters.

It was only the Southeast that integration had not yet reached by 1966. After the Texas Western 72-65 victory, that changed.

The 2006 film Glory Road detailed their story; Jerry Bruckheimer commissioned the film after talking to one of the players on the losing Kentucky squad .... future NBA coach Pat Riley.

WEDNESDAY's CHILD is named Bella the Cat - an Arizona kitty who slept in a spare tire under her owner's truck, but is doing fine ...... after a 75-mile ride.
                                             

HISTORICAL NOTES - in New York's Little Italy: the site of the immigrant-founded Banca Stabile will serve as a museum to the region's history; more than seventy-five years after the bank folded.

FOLKS - if there is a Drinking Liberally chapter within a reasonable distance from your home - pay them a visit, even if you can not attend with any regularity. Or, when traveling, seek a chapter to visit. In the words of Al Franken, "You'll be glad ya did".

ART NOTES - Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt's work Black Box is on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. through December 14th.
                                             

SIGN of the TIMES - the host of a fake news program on a comedy cable channel nonetheless merits an In Praise Of editorial in Britain.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY has a 25 Things Pop Culture Taught Us This Summer feature.

SEPARATED at BIRTH - Nathan Johnson (one of three men arrested in the Kill-Obama plot) and musician, celebrity ....well, Kevin Federline.
                             

THIRTY YEARS AFTER the poisoning death of Bulgarian broadcaster Georgi Markov - by a Ricin-tipped umbrella in London - newly-opened files may point to the identity of his killer.

DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - film stars Jane Fonda and Mischa Barton.
                             

AFTER MANY YEARS of wrangling, a monument to gay Holocaust victims is finally being unveiled in Berlin, Germany.

BUSINESS NOTES - the Washington Post's Steve Pearlstein describes "a con game in pinstripes", warning us that "These people are not your friends".

ART NOTES - a career retrospective of the works of Zap Comix creator R Crumb is at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through December 7th.
                                               

MUSIC NOTES - in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova music - Milton Nascimento releases an album this month, along with the son and grandson of Bossa Nova's greatest composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim.

DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - film star Grace Kelly and model/TV star Heidi Klum.
                               

ARCHITECTURE NOTES - Manhattan's venerable Beacon Theatre - where the Allman Brothers have performed 180 times - is undergoing an extensive renovation; leading to a re-opening in February for its 80th year of operation.

BUSINESS NOTES - the world of Islamic finance - with prohibitions against interest and speculation - results in firms having to rely on "creative financing" in a modern economy.

YOU MAY BE FAMILIAR with the LolCat phenomenon - funny photos of cats with deliberately mis-spelled captions. Well, this one:
                           
...may be the best one of all (use this link to see the full-size image).

......and for a a song of the day  ........................................ an unlikely songsmith to emerge in the 20th Century was Cole Porter - whose grandfather was the richest man in the state of Indiana. J.O. Cole was upset that his daughter first sent her son to Worcester Academy at age 14 (wanting him to stay in Indiana) and then (after graduating from Yale) that young Cole had left Harvard Law (where he was roommates with future Secretary of State Dean Acheson) to enter its music school. Along with other parts of his life, this story has never been verified, but Porter said that the school's dean (Ezra Thayer) had advised him to do so; saying that his talent for music dwarfed his potential anywhere else.

That talent was displayed as an undergraduate at Yale, where he composed 300 songs (some of which, including the football song, are still played nearly 100 years later). But his first efforts on Broadway (circa 1915) were failures, and he became part of the American expatriate Lost Generation in Paris; selling songs and living off an allowance from his family. Although officially listed as part of the French Foreign Legion during WW-I, he did only minor work for the Duryea Relief Fund. In 1919 he married a wealthy American divorc?e (fully cognizant of his sexual orientation) and they led the good life in Europe through the 1920's.

Yet he continued to write and two composers helped convince him to try again. One was Richard Rodgers who heard his work in Venice and was puzzled as to his lack of notoriety on Broadway. The other was Irving Berlin, who recommended Cole to the producers of the Broadway play "Paris" (appropriately enough) and the Porters returned to the US in 1928. That play proved a success, with "Let's Do It" becoming the first classic that Cole Porter was ever to write. And for the next thirty years, Cole Porter wrote music for scores of Broadway plays (including "The Gay Divorce", "Anything Goes", "Can Can" and - something of a comeback for him in 1948 - "Kiss Me Kate"). He had luck in Hollywood as well, with Fred Astaire films, then "High Society" and "Les Girls".

It sounds like a "Behind the Music" twist, but at age 46 in 1937, Cole Porter was thrown off a horse and was in severe pain the rest of his life. He was one of the first who underwent electro-shock therapy, and eventually had one of his legs amputated. Further depressed by the death of his mother (in 1952) and his wife (in 1958) he never wrote after 1958.

But wotta catalogue. Just a few of his songs that became classics include "What Is This Thing Called Love?", "Love for Sale", "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", "Begin the Beguine", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Just One of Those Things", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Too Darn Hot" and an unlikely hit in Don't Fence Me In that was for an unreleased film that came into the public eye a decade later via ..... Roy Rogers.

Cole Porter died of kidney failure in October, 1964 at the age of 73. An instant choice for the Songwriters Hall of Fame he was profiled in two films: "Night and Day" (a quite sanitized 1946 film starring Cary Grant)

.... and the 2004 film De-Lovely that -

despite being critically panned - I truly enjoyed despite some flaws. One of the highlights was seeing many contemporary singers (Robbie Williams, Diana Krall, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Cole and others) appearing in period dress throughout the film, singing those tunes.

                               

Of his songbook, Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye (fair-use extract below) - from a 1944 musical revue - is my favorite love song of all.

A great instrumental version by John Coltrane is at this link ...

... try a vocal version at this link - the Eurythmics' Annie Lennox.

Everytime we say goodbye
I die a little
Everytime we say goodbye
I wonder why a little
Why the gods above me
Who must be in the know
Think so little of me
That they allow you to go?

When you're near
There's such an air
Of spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere
Begin to sing about it
And there's no love song finer
But how strange, the change:
From major to minor
Everytime we say goodbye

Read The Full Article:
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=22891

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!