The national press corps continues to revere John McCain despite what is widely acknowledged to be the toxic and ugly campaign he's running because they still think that this campaign is being run despite McCain's character and wishes, not because of them. The idea that someone should be judged by their actual conduct never seems to occur to them, nor do they accept what ought to be the rather self-evident proposition that someone who repeatedly does dishonorable things is, by definition, dishonorable. By their fruits ye shall know them.
SNIP
If I could be granted one small wish about our political discourse, it would be that reporters and pundits would accept -- as disappointing and unglorious as it is -- that, under our Constitution and basic government design, people who aren't in the military don't have a "Commander-in-Chief." The President isn't your "commander," and the "Commander-in-Chief" power, now synonymous in our political culture with "President," is actually extremely limited (Art. II, Sec. 2:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States").
This endless festishization of "President as Our Commander-in-Chief" is one of those small but pernicious reflections of how militarized we've become, of how we are a society in a state of perpetual and endless war. And -- though I don't think there's a strong complaint to be made that the media generally has been unfair to Barack Obama -- this "Commander-in-Chief" fetish is also one of the principal causes of the ongoing media reverence for John S. McCain.
-- Glenn Greenwald on the fact that the media remains in denial that they were wrong about McCain all these years…he’s not honorable and he’s no maverick.
ACORN RESPONDS, OBAMA TEAM READY THIS TIME!
First, the silver lining in the McCain campaign and the GOP's Klan like "Deliverance rallies", racist attacks, and the most despicable lies in political history directed towards ACORN (all so they can steal another Presidency) is that in their desperation they are showing their true colors. This, "my friends", is the face of today's Republican party.
This is the "crime family" I have been talking about for years on this blog finally crumbling before our very eyes. They are like some cornered animal, desperate, lunging, attacking, and frothing at the mouth in fear for their lives. Their 30 year reign of terror is coming to a catastrophic end for them, and their sick and twisted true colors are there for all now to see.
Granted, the media still can't get even the most rudimentary stories correct, such as their absolutely ABYSMAL, and criminal coverage of the slanderous attacks on ACORN. But, no matter, the GOP is a cancer, and they are finished.
Of course, just as they are inciting their racist and inbred hordes into violent and bloodthirsty orgies for Obama's head, just as surely as night follows day, violence is now being directed at ACORN offices and officials in the wake of the flood of right-wing demagoguery about its vote-gathering efforts:
An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.
OBAMA FIGHTS BACK ON ELECTION FRAUD!
But here's the REALLY GOOD NEWS. Obama, unlike both Gore and Kerry was ready!!! He's taking the offensive, and urging an investigation into the false attacks on ACORN, as well as the White House and McCain camps attempt to create a phony voter fraud hysteria in order to suppress votes! Everything I've been saying, is now underway, and Obama turns out to have been ready after all! Same goes for Ohio's Secretary of State Jane Brunner and her big Supreme Court victory!!
First, watch Olbermann connect the dots between the Attorney firings, phony voter fraud allegations, Rove, the White House, and the McCain camp. And watch him talk with Obama's chief lawyer who's all over it!
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/breaking-obama-campaign-calls-investi
And watch Olbermann and Maddow discuss this absolutely fantastic turn of events!! That's right, a Democrat is FIGHTING BACK on election theft!! Yeahh!!! Thank you Obama!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQLNOjLf-HE
ACORN RESPONDS - GET THE FACTS!
Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.
Fact: ACORN flags in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.
Fact: No criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes - evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities
Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.
Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered
ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves.
BRAD BLOG: 'One of the Greatest Frauds in Voter History'
John McCain Continues to Put Winning by 'Destroying the Fabric of Democracy' First, and His Country and its Democratic Ideals a Distant Second
As Some (But Not Enough) Republicans Back Away From the GOP's ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Hoax...
FL's Republican Governor Charlie Crist said about all of this ACORN "voter fraud" nonsense: "There's some who sort of enjoy chaos. That's kind of what's going on more than fraud."
Bingo, Charlie. And rather ironic, given the GOP's own far-worse-than-ACORN's record of registration form problems in California; Crist's own record of voter purges in his own state; the Republican Party's dismal history of trying to use ACORN at the last minute, just before elections, in order to wreak the "chaos" that Crist was referring to; and the outrageous statement John McCain made during Wednesday's debate...
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6522
VIDEO SECTION
Daily Show absolutely NAILS the Klan like rallies being held by McCain and Palin...and the violence and hatred they are inciting among the GOP's "Deliverance-like" base:
http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/daily-show-mccains-losing-control-mo
Obama gives a pretty damn good comedy routine at the Alred E. Smith dinner…McCain, while at times funny, I just can’t get behind his references to ACORN…they are just too offensively ignorant and deceptive, particularly being that I spent three years in the trenches working on election fraud issues. ACORN does a great service for our country…while the GOP seeks to undermine democracy:
http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/alfred-e-smith-dinner-obama-zings-mc
Yes, Supreme Court sides with Dems over GOP efforts to stop Ohioans from voting!!:
The justices on Friday overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.
Watch Maddow interview Brunner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuPmxcEVGHU
Director Robert Greenwald on Colbert…
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/103469/robert_greenwald_goes_toe-to-toe_with_stephen_colbert%21/
I’ve been saying this for a long time, but it’s the tv comedy shows that ask the toughest and most insightful questions of political candidates these days. Letterman has been leading that charge. He does so with McCain again Thursday night:
If you just want to watch the ABSOLUTE SLAP DOWN Letterman gives McCain on his relationship with Gordon Liddy watch this:
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/letterman-busts-mccain-his-ties-g-gor
If you want to watch the whole interview go here:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/103468/david_letterman_makes_mccain_squirm/
ARTICLE SECTION
Get the real story of ACORN and the GOP's brazen attempts to slander them...and steal just one more election.
A few clips:
John McCain and other Republicans making criminal allegations against the community-organizing group ACORN know exactly what they're doing. They're using alarmist allegations of "voter fraud" to fire up their conservative base and suppress the votes of some citizens who may, out of fear, stay away from the polls.
They exploit lingering unease among the poor and minorities who, with some justification, believe themselves to suffer disproportionately from unbalanced wheels of justice in America. These innocents know they don't have to commit crimes to be accused of crimes. Better to stay away from the places where the accusations might be leveled. Like the polls.
The allegations can also help cover up actual election fraud undertaken on behalf of McCain. This is the tactic Karl Rove learned so well from his right-wing predecessors: accuse your opponent of your own unethical or illegal acts.
SNIP
If media bias is not the answer to broad coverage of spurious registration fraud allegations, what is the answer?
I think it has something to do with our history. The right to vote has always been contested. In our early years, those without property couldn't vote. Neither could women, freed blacks, or slaves. It took 140 years for women to be granted the franchise. Exclusion is a tradition with deep roots in our cultural narratives and founding documents. Historically accustomed as we are to exclusion, maybe we don't judge it to be news.
Illegally crossing barriers to inclusion, however, is news. I guess. Isn't it finally time for the media to drop the habit and turn its attention to anti-democratic voter suppression tactics they know are anti-democratic? Isn't it time they dropped their complicity in voter suppression schemes? The ACORN controversy would be a good place to start.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/16-4
SAY IT AIN'T SO "JOE"
His first name isn't really Joe. It's Samuel. He's not really a plumber - at least, not a licensed one. He's concerned about increased taxes - but hasn't paid his own income taxes. He only makes $40,000 or so, not over $250,000 like he said...meaning he'd benefit from Obama's tax plan, not McCain's. The business he works FOR, only makes about $100,000, not $250,000, so it won't get taxed under Obama's plan either. This is the most sick and surreal campaign I have EVER SEEN!!
Even if he did earn $280,000 per year as he projected he might, Wurzelbacher "would pay just $773 more in taxes under Obama's plan than McCain's," hardly a crippling blow to his business. The Toledo Blade reports that Joe the Plumber currently earns well under $100,000 per year. In that case, he would save more under Obama's plan than McCain's. "Rather than a game-changing blow for the McCain campaign, 'Joe the plumber' is turning into a bad case of blowback,'' said Rogan Kersh, a public service professor at New York University.
Since Wednesday's debate, Joe 'The Plumber" Wurzelbacher has been warmly embraced by conservatives. However, he may soon fall victim to the right wing's crusade against so-called voter fraud. On Tuesday, a federal court ruled in favor of the Ohio Republican Party, allowing Ohio poll observers to force voters whose registrations don't match other state databases to fill out provisional ballots. These ballots are "used to record a vote if a voter's eligibility is in question." Provisional ballots, though, greatly increase the chance a voter's ballot will not be counted. In Ohio's March primary, the Cleveland Plain Dealer found that 20 percent of the provisional ballots were rejected, even though "many people shouldn't have lost their votes." Because Wurzelbacher is misregistered as "Worzelbacher," he may be one of the voters caught up in the misguided system. As Michael Waldman, the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice, noted, Joe the Plumber is a "perfect example" of why these voter fraud laws are more harmful than helpful. "Purging voters or blocking their registration because of data errors is disenfranchisement by typo," he said.
FROM C&L: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average income for a plumber is around $43,000. There's no question that any plumber making that much money (or 5x that amount) is better off under Barack Obama's tax plan. Furthermore, middle class folks are more likely to add that extra bathroom or redo their kitchen when they finally get some relief. In the case of "Joe the Plumber", as the Senator articulated last night, he will get tax credits for the new jobs he creates.
Also, and this is something I fault Obama for failing to mention, his health care plan will help to dramatically reduce costs for employers whereas McCain's "plan" will levy an additional tax. In other words, taxes can't simply be viewed through the prism of income taxes. There are other areas where Barack will cut taxes that will, in the end, be a net gain for someone in "Joe's" position.
OIL PRICES PLUMMET...WHAT A SHOCK AT ELECTION TIME...
Funny, notice how a couple months before EVERY MAJOR ELECTION oil prices plummet? It's almost comical...how obvious do they have to make it they both want to help Republicans, but also want to try and hurt ballot measures across the country designed to either invest more in renewable energy or penalize oil companies? Answer: Obvious! They just know people won't connect the dots.
Of course, some of the reduction is due to less demand, which only STRENGTHENS the environmental argument regarding the need for vastly more fuel efficient vehicle fleets!!
Oil prices dropped below $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months. "The decline in oil prices came after a government report showed domestic crude oil stockpiles rose more than expected as Americans use less oil, in part because they are driving less."
