Take a few minutes to read this:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1853025-1,00.html
There's some audio, as well, and it's a truly remarkable look at the decision-making process behind Barack Obama.
FOREIGN POLICY * Attacking Terrorists In Pakistan * Defense Spending * Detention Of Detainees * Divestment And Sanctions * Donald Rumsfeld * Henry Kissinger * Illegal Wiretapping * Law Of The Sea Convention * Long-Term Troop Presence In Iraq * Negotiations With Hamas * Negotiations With Syria * Normalization Of Relations With Cuba * Nuclear Reactors * Nuclear Waste Storage At Yucca Mountain * Rogue State Rollback * Torture * 21st Century GI Bill
ENVIRONMENT/ENERGY * Ethanol * Everglades Restoration * Offshore Drilling
ETHICS * Criticizing The Media * Katrina Investigations * Lobbyists * The Wyly Brothers
ECONOMY * AIG Bailout * Americans Live Better Under Bush * Balancing The Budget * Bush Tax Cuts * Earmarks For Arizona * Fairness Of The Estate Tax * Job Losses In Michigan * Social Security Privatization * Tobacco Industry Regulations * Windfall Profits Tax
IMMIGRATION * The Dream Act * Comprehensive Immigration Reform
RADICAL RIGHT * The Confederate Flag * Jerry Falwell And The Religious Right * The NRA * Teaching Intelligent Design
CIVIL RIGHTS * Gay Marriage Amendment
HEALTH CARE * Abortion Exceptions * Repealing Roe v. Wade * Taxpayer Funding For Contraception In Africa
William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.
The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.
During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/mccain-transition-chief-a_n_134595.html
“The saddest thing about this is that `My Hero’ was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential,” the band said in a statement. “To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.”
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, McCain’s continual copyright infringement contradicts his campaign pledge to protect “copyrighted works.”
It's funny how six months ago Bush and his ilk were scoffing at Barack for saying he would sit down and talk to our enemies before making a decision to launch a war. Honestly, the thought had probably not occurred to them. But since then Bush has been doing just that . . .almost like in the back of his mind he thought: "Hey! That's not a bad idea!"
And now General Petraeus is saying the same thing - in contradiction to John McCain's "shoot first, ask questions never" stance.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081008/ts_nm/us_afghan_usa_petraeus
This afternoon on CNN, Wolf Blitzer replayed a portion of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) speech from Sept. 23 announcing the conditions under which he would support a bailout package. McCain said that a bill with “any kind of earmarks” would be “unacceptable” and “simply cannot happen.”
Of course, despite the fact that the bill was loaded with special earmarked tax breaks, McCain voted for it — and then suggested that President Bush should veto the bill because of the “insanity and obscenity” of the pork. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck told Blitzer that with McCain’s vote, “he lost the election.”
The Swamp reports today that “on the last day of September, the national debt hit $10 trillion plus,” as the “gross national debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product has, under the Bush Administration, hit a 50-year high. The debt grew the fastest under supply-siders Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush:
The debt was $5.7 trillion when Bush took office; the bailout legislation passed by the Senate last night would raise the debt ceiling further to $11.315 trillion. The Wonk Room has more.
Think Progress has a nice running blog on the VP debate:
http://thinkprogress.org/
Proposition 8, a California constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, has attracted an unlikely assortment of foes, including Vice President Cheney’s daughter Mary, Brad Pitt, and Steven Spielberg. Yesterday, Google also took the unusual step of jumping in, noting that because it has a “great diversity of people and opinions” at the company, it rarely takes “a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues”:
However, while there are many objections to this proposition — further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text — it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.
Today, during an interview on ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) finally admitted that his health care tax credits would not cover the costs of a comprehensive health insurance plan:
Actually, my position is that it will be, it will give people actually more money to go out and purchase tax - health insurance on their own and only those with the Cadillac gold-plated health insurance policies today are the ones who might suffer from it.
Latest polls show America waking up . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/28/75413/3350/471/612782
This is a really good clip that illustrates part of the underlying problem with America today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmCC_jasq0E&feature=related
During his interview with Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), Fox’s Sean Hannity asked Palin if she believed an investigation was needed into the “relationships between political donations from Fannie and Freddie Mac and the bankruptcy.” Hannity’s question was presumably inspired by Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) recent emphasis on the significant number of campaign contributions that the two firms have made in recent years.
Tonight, however, Palin played down the role that campaign contributions might have played in the Fannie-Freddie collapse. Instead, she emphasized “the role that lobbyists play in an issue like this”:
HANNITY: Should there be an investigation in terms of the relationship between the political donations and then of course the bankruptcy that ensued and the impact on the economy?PALIN: I think that’s significant, but even more significant is the role that the lobbyists play in an issue like this also. And in that cronyism — it’s symptomatic of the greater problem that we see right now in Washington and that is just that acceptance of the status quo.
HANNITY: Should there be an investigation in terms of the relationship between the political donations and then of course the bankruptcy that ensued and the impact on the economy?
PALIN: I think that’s significant, but even more significant is the role that the lobbyists play in an issue like this also. And in that cronyism — it’s symptomatic of the greater problem that we see right now in Washington and that is just that acceptance of the status quo.
Watch it:
While Palin blames the need for the Fannie-Freddie bailout on the two firms’ lobbyists, she seems more than willing to take those same lobbyists’ money. In fact, at least 20 McCain-Palin fundraisers “have lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” in recent years.
More significantly, the McCain-Palin campaign manager, Rick Davis, “served as president of an advocacy group led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” that worked to cripple regulatory initiatives in Congress and protect the two institution’s “healthy profits.” As the Politico reported in July:
Davis headed the Homeownership Alliance, a lobbying association that included Fannie, Freddie, nonprofit groups, real estate agents, homebuilders and consumer advocates. … [The group] worked to oppose congressional efforts to tighten controls on Fannie and Freddie.
68 percent: The number of Americans who think John McCain would either continue President Bush’s policies or enact more conservative policies, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found that 57 percent of all voters view McCain as “a typical Republican,” despite his efforts to portray himself as a “maverick.”
“I do think in a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world,” Hagel said. “I think that’s just a requirement.”So is Palin qualified to be president?“I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States,” Hagel said.
“I do think in a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world,” Hagel said. “I think that’s just a requirement.”
So is Palin qualified to be president?
“I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States,” Hagel said.
In a recent interview with ABC News, Palin explained her national security credentials by claiming, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.” Hagel said that such answers are “insulting to the American people”:
“I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,’” he said. “That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.”
Hagel, who is retiring from the Senate, concluded that Palin “doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials.” “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”
Hagel has traveled to Iraq six times, most recently accompanying Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Jack Reed (D-RI). While on the trip, Hagel repeated his calls for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. “It is now time for the United States to start accepting the sovereignty of that country in ways that are real,” he said. “And that means for us to responsibly start unwinding our military presence.”
This is a must-read article, which gives some crucially important back story on who McCain really is:
These, then, are the people -- the Republicans -- who want to run our government for four more years. John McCain isn't just one of them. He rides their jets. He takes their campaign donations. He makes them his campaign advisors. And he tells us to trust him.
He must think we are a nation of village idiots.
Hell, maybe we are.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/a-nation-of-village-idiot_b_127340.html
This is just bizarre. Check out these comments from McCain, who was meeting with Spanish media:
From the Huffington Post:
"Would you be willing to meet with the head of our government, Mr. Zapatero?" the questioner asked, in an exchange now being reported by several Spanish outlets.
McCain proceeded to launch into what appeared to be a boilerplate declaration about Mexico and Latin America -- but not Spain -- pressing the need to stand up to world leaders who want to harm America.
"I will meet with those leaders who are our friends and who want to work with us cooperatively," according to one translation. The reporter repeated the question two more times, apparently trying to clarify, but McCain referred again to Latin America.
Finally, the questioner said, "Okay, but I'm talking about Europe - the president of Spain, would you meet with him?" The Senator offered only a slight variance to his initial comment. "I will reunite with any leader that has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don't [have them]."
So what's scarier, that McCain refuses to acknowledge Spain as an ally, or that he doesn't know who the president of Spain is?
This is the Republican policy: if you're guilty, avoid the investigation, especially if it involves federal subpoenas:
The McCain campaign said tonight that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) “won’t speak with an investigator hired by lawmakers to look into the firing of her public safety commissioner” in the controversy known as “Troopergate.” The campaign declared the investigation to be “tainted,” despite the fact that the five-member committee is composed of three Republicans and two Democrats. Palin had previously agreed to cooperate and thus was not subpoenaed. Reporting the story tonight, Keith Olbermann said, “It is like installing a giant neon sign over her head saying, ‘I’m hiding something.’”
