ABC Anchor to Biden: Deny Obama's a Marxist!!!

post from Talking Points Memo on 27 October 2008 04:40:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Biden actually holds up pretty well in front of what has to be the most nutball interviewer of the 2008 cycle, an anchor from a local ABC affiliate in Florida ...(Biden's remark at 1:05 is one of many reasons I really like the guy ... to understand the[...]

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Radio host Bob Grant repeats discredited email
smears on Obama

post from Media Matters for America on 27 October 2008 04:36:03 PM. © Media Matters for America

Rehashing several long-debunked emailsmears against Sen. Barack Obama, New York radio host Bob Grant falsely attributed severalquotes to Obama and took other Obama quotes out of context. During the October23 broadcast of his show, Grant declared: "And I'm sure that, heavenforbid, but if he should become the 44th president, that we will see the realBarack Ob -- as a matter of fact, wait aminute. What do I mean, will? We don't have to wait. Look at the quotesjust -- just the tip of the[...]

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NOT COMFORTING.

post from Ezra Klein on 27 October 2008 04:36:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

Jesus:WASHINGTON (AP) ? The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree. In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted[...]

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Najaf Forms Tribal "Support Council"

post from IraqSlogger.com on 27 October 2008 04:33:37 PM. © IraqSlogger.com

Tribal leaders and local officials aligned with the Iraq prime minister's party have launched a new tribal "support council" (majlis al-isnad) in Najaf Province, over the opposition of rival groups that oppose the formation of such bodies, IraqSlogger sources in the southern governorate report.

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Transparently Backwards: The "Common Alliance" of
Smearmongerers Strikes Again

post from Daily Kos on 27 October 2008 04:30:00 PM. © Daily Kos

Fresh off of breaking the "story" that a McCain volunteer was "mutilated" (er, scratched) by a big, bad black man (er, herself, really), Drudge continues his decent into the absurd and the McCain campaign is again willing to join him in the nosedive down the rabbit hole.

Today's false story of choice? Drudge claims this:

2001 OBAMA: TRAGEDY THAT 'REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH' NOT PURSUED BY SUPREME COURT

The "headline" links to a YouTube video of a seven year old radio interview which, as was expected, reflects the complete opposite of the screeching headline.

In the interview, Obama actually states the following:

Obama said "one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still stuffer from that."

The "tragedy" wasn't that the Supreme Court did not, as Drudge screeches, pursue the "redistribution of wealth." In fact, he states that the "tragedy" was that the civil rights movement, in seeking equalizing policies, focused too much on courts and not enough on political and community organizing.

In other words, the Drudge/McCain/Fox "News" hype of this story is as painfully desperate and transparently faux as a backwards "B" scratched into the face of a McCain volunteer by her own hand.

The legal minds over at the Volokh Conspiracy agree:

[Obama] seems to think that it was a huge error for activists to try to achieve more general redistribution through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (In the waning days of the Warren Court, there was a movement to try to constitutionalize a right to a minimum income.) Co-interviewee Dennis Hutchison even suggests that in pre-interview conversation, Obama agreed with him that Goldberg v. Kelley, establishing procedural protections for welfare recipients, was wrongly decided, or at least promised much more than it could possibly achieve.

And Cass Sunstein sets the record straight, pointing out that not only was Obama arguing the exact opposite of what the smear claims, but that "redistributive" doesn't mean what most people think it means in this narrow legal context:

Sunstein argued that Obama is discussing redistribution in a relatively narrow legal context: The discussion in the 1970s of whether the Supreme Court would create the right to a social safety net -- to things like education and welfare. He also noted that in the interview, Obama appears to express support for the court's rejection of that line of argument, saying instead that the civil rights movement should aim for the same goals through legislative action.

"What the critics are missing is that the term 'redistribution' didn’t man in the Constitutional context equalized wealth or anything like that. It meant some positive rights, most prominently the right to education, and also the right to a lawyer," Sunstein said. "What he’s saying – this is the irony of it – he’s basically taking the side of the conservatives then and now against the liberals."

Meanwhile the Obama campaign responds to the faux outrage de jour:

"This is a fake news controversy drummed up by the all too common alliance of Fox News, the Drudge Report and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months. In this seven year old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all. Americans know that the real choice in this election is between four more years of Bush-McCain policies that redistribute billions to billionaires and big corporations and Barack Obama’s plan to help the middle class by giving tax relief to 95% of workers and companies that create new jobs here in America. That’s the change we need, and no amount of eleventh-hour distractions from the McCain campaign will change that."

Update: User stef has more debunking in this diary.

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BREAKING: Ted Stevens found guilty on all seven
felony counts

post from Crooks and Liars on 27 October 2008 04:22:15 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Ted Stevens Convicted
icon Download | Play icon Download | Play

You lie, you get convicted. Have Stevens' re-election chances just gone down the "tubes"? Sorry, it was too easy.

The Hill:

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of felony charges for making false statements.
The verdict could spell the end of a 40-year Senate career for a man who rose to be one of the most dominant figures in the upper chamber and who helped transform Alaska in its 50 years of statehood. The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated since Wednesday and found the 84-year-old senator guilty of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from Bill Allen, the former head of Veco Corp., and other friends.
The jury did not seem to buy the explanation from Stevens that Allen showered him with gifts he didn't want and was unaware of, and that he believed the $160,000 he gave to another contractor covered all costs for the home renovations.

Good riddance. We'll keep you updated on the sentence when it comes down.

UPDATE: Jed has some good videos of Palin "palling around" with her BFF Ted Stevens.

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Unspeakable

post from Talking Points Memo on 27 October 2008 04:22:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

AP: ATF says it has disrupted skinhead plot to assassinate Obama, kill 102 black people.Late Update: Subsequent reporting on this story suggests that the part of this plot that involved killing Obama was much more aspirational than anything they'd worked[...]

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Head of GOP Senate Committee blames McCain for
"making it a lot more difficult"

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 27 October 2008 04:20:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Senator John Ensign from Nevada is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It's his job to help Republicans win Senate seats. Tough job this year. But, Ensign isn't too blame. No, he thinks Mccain is hurting the Republican Senate candidates:

?There's no question the top of the ticket is affecting our Senate races and it?s making it a lot more difficult,? Ensign said on MSNBC. ?It?s a fairly toxic atmosphere out there with the financial crisis for Republicans.?

Sure, McCain is a horrible candidate, but the GOP Senators held create that "toxic atmosphere." Like McCain, they blindly followed Bush's lead, which has put our nation in peril.

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MAN DATE.

It's been odd watching the McCain campaign warn darkly against redistribution. Redistribution -- which McCain says "means taking your money and giving it to someone else? -- is what the government does. It collects taxes and uses them to buy things, or[...]

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Ted Stevens SMASHED: Guilty On All Counts

Congratulations to the Republican party on their latest high-profile felony conviction.[...]

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