“the people around [Palin] — the top-level campaign staffers crafting her message of change and reform — are almost all from the inner-circle of the same Bush campaigns and administration from which she offers that change.”
With families increasingly worried about their economic security, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is opening a major assault on what he charges is a "radical plan" by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to decentralize health insurance. Bill Burton, national press secretary of the Obama campaign, charged: "Millions [would] lose the health care that they have." Obama is unveiling his new assault at a rally in Newport News, Va., this afternoon, and the campaign is following up with TV ads, radio spots, mailers and grass-roots events in battleground states, aides said.Obama is scheduled to say today,
"So here's John McCain's radical plan in a nutshell: He taxes health care benefits for the first time in history; millions lose the health care they have; millions pay more for the health care they get; drug and insurance companies continue to profit; and middle-class families watch the system they rely on begin to unravel before their eyes."Yesterday, the Obama campaign devoted its debate-related ad to healthcare policy, and late yesterday, they went after McCain again with another healthcare ad. It tells viewers:
John McCain talks about a five-thousand dollar tax credit for health care. But here's what he's not telling you: McCain would make you pay income tax on your health insurance benefits, taxing health benefits for the first time ever. And that tax credit? McCain's own website said it goes straight to the insurance companies, not to you. Leaving you on your own to pay McCain's health insurance tax. Taxing healthcare instead of fixing it. We can't afford John McCain."Ezra Klein had a great item on this, explaining,
"It's really quite amazing. McCain has managed to build a health care plan that's a bad deal from a medical standpoint, an insurance standpoint, a cost standpoint, and a tax standpoint. Even insurers don't really win, because patient dissatisfaction with the individual market will almost certainly hasten real reforms. It is, as far as I can tell, a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose health care plan. A rare feat."What it boils down to is Obama is building on a Healthcare-through-work system that 160 million workers use and tries to improve on it. John McCain, conversely, is trying to tear down that system that 160 million use and instill the social conservative "ownership" BS because all big Government entitlement programs, regardless of how vital they are to protecting society, must be killed.
"In university terms, she was being asked to defend her doctoral thesis without having written it."On Sarah Palin's strengths a la Marge Gunderson:
"When she was on familiar ground, she perked up, winked at the audience two of three times, and settled with relief into the folksiness that reminds me strangely of the characters in "Fargo."Regarding the staged nature of her delivery, the moment Palin blew off Biden's loss of composure:
"If a man had responded in that way to such a statement from a women, he would be called a heartless brute."Source: Roger Ebert
"Because the cable and network television stations did not show a split screen of the debate, most viewers could not see that, during Joe Biden’s answers, Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin spent almost all her time looking down and studiously reading her notes. But viewers did see that when Palin delivered her answers, she would repeatedly glance down to check her talking points."Watch this video and see the gimmickry:
“on at least ten occasions, Palin gave answers that were nonspecific, completely generic, pivoted away from the question at hand, or simply ignored it: on global warming, an Iraq exit strategy, Iran and Pakistan, Iranian diplomacy, Israel-Palestine (and a follow-up), the nuclear trigger, interventionism, Cheney’s vice presidency and her own greatest weakness.”Remember what happened when Couric asked follow up questions? Her head almost exploded.
"I think he's done more harm than any other single elected official in memory in terms of shredding the constitution. You know --condoning torture. Pushing torture as a policy. This idea of a unitary executive. Meaning the Congress and the people have no power in a time of war. And the President controls everything. I don't have any animus toward Dick Cheney but I really do think his attitude about the constitution and the prosecution of this war has been absolutely wrong."Then you get Tinkerbell Palin the Republican, who thinks shooting someone in the face at close range, because she is a hunter, is funny and doggone it, that's a caricature:
"Worst thing I guess that would have been the duck hunting accident--where you know, that was an accident. And I think that was made into a caricature of him. And that was kind of unfortunate. So the best thing though, he's shown support, along with George W. Bush, of our troops. And I've been there when George Bush has spoken to families of those who have suffered greatly, those who are serving in the military. I've been there when President Bush has embraced those families and expressed the concern and the sympathy speaking for all of America in those times. And for Dick Cheney to have supported that effort of George Bush's, I respect that."The best thing about Cheney is that George Bush speaks to families? When has Palin been with Bush comforting families?
11. MCCAIN IS CONSISTENT: Palin said McCain” doesn't tell one thing to one group and then turns around and tells something else to another group,” when that is exactly what he has done on immigration, telling Hispanic leaders he was for comprehensive reform instead of the enforcement focused approach he has taken with conservatives.Source: AmericaBlob
In the face of falling poll numbers in a number of key swing states, McCain senior adviser Greg Strimple called Michigan "the worst state of all of the states that are in play. It's an obvious one, from my view, to come off the list."So McCain does know how to use a timeline for withdraw when it's his money. Has a tough race, he gives up. Why not "stay the course", little man?
If Barack voted 96% with the Democrats, and the Republicans have ruined government, why is that a bad thing? Should he have voted for bad Republican bills?And the best for last:
Biden referenced McCain 62 times. Palin mentioned Obama 18 times.
A shout out to third graders? That's presidential.
Palin just said we've got a toxic mess on Main Street affecting Wall Street. HUH? She's getting her talking points mixed up.
Biden called McCain's health care plan "the ultimate bridge to nowhere."
If John McCain sounded the bell about Fannie and Freddie 2 years ago, what did that do?
McCain knows how to win a war? The only war he was was Vietnam. Did he win Vietnam?
"It's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider" is code for I don't understand.
She eliminated taxes in Wasilla, but didn't she leave the town $20 million in debt?
Criticizing the Bush, Cheney and the current and the Republican administration, the one that runs the government right now, today, is "looking backwards again."
For a person who complained about looking backwards, Palin referenced Reagan's "Shining City Upon A Hill".
Palin falsely claimed that U.S. forces in Iraq are “down to pre-surge numbers.”
Palin would move the US embassy in Jerusalem. She did a similar thing in Wasilla when she asked the lone Jewish person in Alaska to move their car so she could park next to the Circle K. Same thing.
Palin praised Alaska politicians ability to “work together,” isn't she refusing to cooperate in Alaska legislature’s investigation into "Troopergate"?
Palin's friends make the choice to be gay. Show me her gay Alaskan friend. Please.
CBS’s Bob Schieffer: “I found it disconcerting, time and again Governor Palin chose not to answer the question.”
Palin said that she can’t think of anything on which she changed her position. And if you believe that, there’s a Bridge to Nowhere I’d like to sell you.
A weakness? Palin "quasi caved" on voting on budgets in Alaska? Sounds promising.
Palin name-checked Lieberman, Giuliani and Romney as examples as bipartisan supporters. Is she joking? Why not mention Chuck Norris?
Biden makes the obvious constitutional argument on the vice presidency, based on Article I. Palin would like to expand the VP powers, more than Cheney.
Palin keeps saying "Maverick" but Biden DESTROYED that talking point.
Palin accuses Obama of voting along party lines, ignoring the fact that McCain has voted 100 percent of the time with Bush in 2008.
Despite Palin’s claim, McCain is constantly telling one thing to one group and another thing to another group. Here’s a list of 44 flip flops.
The compliment towards Biden's wife being a teacher, "god bless her, her reward is in heaven" came off sort of backhanded.
Asked to describe her weaknesses, Palin seems to be answering a completely different question that only she heard. She delivered a rambling answer describing her strengths and what she would bring to the ticket. Ifill asked no follow-up question.
Palin keeps saying that someone named “McClellan” instead of General David McKiernan.
Palin keep pronouncing “nuclear” as “nuculur”. McCain says WaRshington. Oh well.
Palin is a Main Streeter worried about college tuition? Son is in the military, daughter is knocked up. Trig?
Palin thanks the forefathers for putting much flexibilty in the Constitution regarding the role of VP. A living Constitution is so conservative Republican. Scalia must be happy.
She's not middle class. She and the "First Tool" Todd are millionaires with assets of $1.2 million which in Alaska is Rockefeller rich.
Timeline = "White flag of surrender" was so lame. The "win" and "victory" shit is old.
"Past is prologue" blew Palin's mind.
"Filter of the mainstream media". That is a straight up buzz phrase for Righties. They all get hard nipples when they hear it. Say "culture of life" and they get a chubbie.
She warns of the future, "spending our sunsets years, telling our children, and our children's children, about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."Are we going to be slaves? Planet of the Apes?
a bill with “any kind of earmarks” would be “unacceptable” and “simply cannot happen.”Those are bold words, can you remember to live up to them? Or do you just talk a good game, but in the end just vote to save your political career? Cut to yesterday, despite the fact that the bill was loaded with special earmarked tax breaks, you voted for it. Then you told your brother-from-another-mother Bush he should veto it because of the “insanity and obscenity” of the pork. So what it is? Another senior moment for you?
Like a lot of McCain's posturing, his war on pork makes for good headlines and bad governance. If he were anywhere near as dogmatic on earmarks as he claims to be, it's impossible to imagine him passing any major legislation. Ever. Or voting for any major legislation. or approving budget bills and spending. Or having a working relationship with Congress. Or getting reelected, as every district in the country finds crucial programs and infrastructure subsidies are being cut.
Meanwhile, whenever the topic turns to earmarks, I always suggest that folks go play around the the Sunlight Foundation's interactive earmarks map. Earmarks are rarely obviously wasteful. Rather, they're small appropriations that exist beneath the urgency level that would merit federal consideration. So districts and states elect individual representatives and one of their side jobs is to push through local priorities. Those priorities may be odd, but relatively few are obviously wasteful. Type in my hometown of Irvine, and the nearest earmark is in Long Beach: $450,000 to outfit the children's hospital. Near to that is Mission Viejo, with $400,000 for the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unity. And a tick over from that is Huntington Beach, which got $50,000 for an afterschool arts education program for low income youth. It's easy to talk about cutting studies on bear DNA. It's a bit harder to explain why you want to cut children's hospitals and afterschool programs. And it's nearly impossible to then say how you're going to pass bills after you do.
In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld estimated a war with Iraq would cost $60 billion. Five years later, the cost of Iraq war operations is more than 10 times that estimate. So what's behind the ballooning figures? Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilme's exhaustively researched book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, breaks down the price tag, from current debts to the unseen costs we'll pay for many years to come.A lasting statement: "50 times the original estimate"
An analysis of the two starkly different approaches to reforming the U.S. health care system offered by John McCain and Barack Obama suggests Obama's plan has the best chance of making health care more affordable, accessible, efficient and higher in quality.So Obama's plan would help 34 million people and cost 1.6 billion and McCain's plan would help 2 million and cost 1.3 billion. Does this make the news cycles?
The report, released on Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, sized up the presidential candidates' plans for dealing with a health care system which has left nearly 46 million people uninsured and many more underinsured.
According to the report, Democrat Obama's plan would cover 34 million of the nation's projected 67 million uninsured people in 10 years, compared with just 2 million covered under Republican John McCain's plan.
Over 10 years, McCain's plan would cost $1.3 trillion and Obama's would cost $1.6 trillion, according to the report.
Obama's plan seeks to build on the current employer-based insurance system, which now provides coverage to 160 million people, or more than 60 percent of the population under 65.While over at the Legion of Doom:
McCain's plan seeks to put health insurance into the hands of individuals by removing tax breaks for employer-paid health benefits and offering tax credits of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families instead. About 20 million people would lose their employer-sponsored coverage under McCain's plan, but 21 million would gain coverage on the individual market.Do you think people who lose their benefits through work will go out and buy it on their own? Part of getting benefits through work is that it's easy to sign up, pick a plan and have it come out of your paycheck. Once you get all these companies not providing health care, I bet you will see a lot more people going without it. Part to save money, part out of laziness.
"So, I have never been an astronaut and I think I know the challenges of space".WTF does that explain? The kicker, when asked about Palin's perceived lack of experience, even among her base, he kicks up all the dickishness his tiny 5'7" frame could muster with a:
"Reeeally? I haven't detected that, I haven't detected that in the polls."Check out your polls, Holmes, you're tanking. Out of touch is too simple to describe your dementia. Contemptuous and mean, what a mixture. Check it:
COURIC: I know you're heading to Sedona to work on your debate. What is your coach advising you?"More of the same" is Obama? Lest we remind you who's balls you and John suck, Sarah.
PALIN: I don't have a debate coach.
COURIC: Well, what are your coaches?
PALIN: I have quite a few people who are giving us information about the record of Obama and Biden, and at the end of the day, though, it is -- it's so clear, again, what those choices are. Either new ideas, new energy and reform of Washington, DC, or "more of the same".
"McCain/Palin agrees with Bush/Cheney on foreign policy, national security, economic policy, taxes, healthcare, energy, education, the environment, the federal judiciary, immigration, and the culture-war issues. Indeed, McCain has personally boasted about voting with Bush 90% of the time, and has insisted, "[O]n the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush."It's bad enough they stole "change" from Obama's campaign, now they use it to describe themselves. Next Palin will be saying she's a black Senator from Chicago.
Sen. Russ Feingold [D-WI] is fighting for you. He has authored S. 3612, the Travelers' Privacy Protection Act of 2008, which would ensure that American citizens and legal residents returning to the U.S. from overseas are not subject to invasive searches of their laptops or other electronic devices without any suspicion of wrongdoing.:“Most Americans would be shocked to learn that upon their return to the U.S. from traveling abroad, the government could demand the password to their laptop, hold it for as long as it wants, pore over their documents, emails, and photographs, and examine which websites they visited – all without any suggestion of wrong-doing,” Feingold said. "Focusing our limited law enforcement resources on law-abiding Americans who present no basis for suspicion does not make us any safer and is a gross violation of privacy. This bill will bring the government’s practices at the border back in line with the reasonable expectations of law-abiding Americans.”Bush trashed the Constitution, Democrats are fighting to get it back.
WASHINGTON - When Russian bombers approach American airspace and U.S. Air Force fighters are scrambled, Sarah Palin's phone doesn't ring. The Alaska governor has no command authority over the guardians of U.S. airspace despite her recent suggestion otherwise. "She doesn't have any role in that process," Air Force Maj. Allen Herritage, spokesman for the Alaska North American Aerospace Defense Command, told the Daily News.
"Where the old Wall Street stuck to the most prestigious clients, the new Wall Street engaged in an unseemly rush to the bottom. Investment houses that once dealt only in grade-A bonds became swept up in junk bond mania in the 1980s. Firms that once snubbed companies beyond the Fortune 500 flocked to Silicon Valley in the 1990s, eager to take fly-by-night companies public. And, in the final reductio ad absurdum, Wall Street during the past decade gorged on mortgage-backed securities, tying its fate to America’s least creditworthy borrowers. Addicted to colossal amounts of leverage, the onetime arbiter of scarce capital had become the most profligate borrower.""Rush to the bottom" is a good phrase we Americans are in denial about. Ours is a race to the bottom these days. Cheap capital and cheap labor are exploited through corporations and governments who dole out tax breaks and breed anti-populist rhetoric. We're not wealthy because we are smarter, but because we are willing to reward greed and look the other way when the shit hits the fan for the little guy.
"I've never met him before," Palin said. "But I've been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in like 2nd grade."The Republican crowd seemed to think this was hilarious.
Couric: You made a funny comment, you've said you have been listening to Joe Biden's speeches since you were in second grade.Is she saying a "new face" with no clue has value just because it is new? What are her new ideas, again? Drill for oil. Creationism. And my choice, according to you, is between those "new ideas" and Joe Biden, a guy with years and years of experience. Experience that even your running mate has made the central theme of his campaign. You are a walking punchline.
Palin: It's been since like '72, yah.
Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden's been around awhile?
Palin: Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.
“I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States,”The article goes on:
Mr. Frum noted the difficulty that Dan Quayle, who was elected vice president in 1988, had in recovering from an early set of mistakes that led him to be ridiculed as an intellectual lightweight. “The story of Dan Quayle is he did probably 1,000 smart things as vice president, but his image was locked in and it was very difficult to turn around,” he said. “And Dan Quayle never in his life has performed as badly as Sarah Palin in the last month.”Read on
“marked the biggest legislative defeat of Bush’s tenure and underscored the vanishing influence of a president who could once bend a pliant Congress to his will on wars, taxes, surveillance and a host of other high-profile initiatives.”Party is over for the Republicans, have fun on Nov 4.
All it took was to ask VPIFL Sarah Palin to name another Supreme Court ruling, other than Roe v Wade, and the precocious political neophyte drew a blank. Her vast knowledge of things outside of Alaska, outside of the teleprompter, amounted to jack squat. She had no answer. She was silent, which may be better than her incoherent ramblings. "There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence."It happened during her interview with Katie Couric the other day and CBS decided not to air it. But news of the gaffe leaked and McPalin are pissed. How dare the news report the news!
On its face, this is comically stupid. House Republicans wanted to vote to prevent a financial collapse, the pitch goes, but the Big Bad House Speaker made them mad with a speech. You can read Pelosi's remarks yourself -- if it strikes you as the kind of speech that's worth risking the economy over, let me know.If you don't like the bill, say that. It wasn't the greatest bill, but to blame a speech is weak. King Bush, John Boehner and McCain wanted this bill to pass and it failed. The GOP is dead.
But more important that than is the truly ridiculous frame Republicans are establishing for themselves by using Pelosi's speech as an excuse for their own failure. The House GOP, for reasons that defy comprehension, has decided to characterize itself as a caucus of cry babies. Worse, they're irresponsible cry babies who, according to their own argument, are more concerned with their precious hurt feelings than the nation's economic stability.
It's a great slogan for the election season, isn't it? "Vote Republican -- We're More Concerned With Our Feelings Than Your Future."
"The bottom line of today, however they try to spin it, is that a Republican president failed to win more than a third of his own party in the House in what most regard as a financial emergency. The collapse of the Republican party as a coherent organization is pretty much complete - and it's silly to blame Nancy Pelosi."and Jennifer Rubin:
"...the only thing worse than the vote was the complaining afterwards that Nancy Pelosi’s speech was too partisan. So they voted against the only viable measure to prevent a market meltdown because Nancy was mean to them?!,"
Q: How will you fix the economy?Sadly, Palin is the punchline.
The economy and putting it back on the side of the leadership there. I do agree with taking the fight to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this state that I worked on as chairman of the construction bonds and the insurance carrier duties of AIG. But first and shoring up our economy. It is, somebody was saying this morning, a toxic waste there on Wall Street. Well, it certainly does because our our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the war. You can't blink. You have to second-guess what their efforts would be if they believe that what you are seeking, also? That strategy that has much to do things better.
"The geopolitical wooziness Americans are feeling isn't decline. It's realignment."From Canada to Uzbekistan, Khanna identifies the unexpected flash points, overstated threats, and hidden opportunities the next US president might confront. He breaks it down into 8 regions, here's an example:
Region 1: Mexico and CanadaRead on
Integrate, don't isolate
America's oil comes from a volatile region half a world away. That's lunacy, Khanna says. "An energy partnership with Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil could make the US much less dependent on oil from the Middle East." That's also why building a wall along our southern border is foolish. "We should treat Mexico like Europe treats Turkey — integrating, elevating, and partnering with it."
"[Paul] Krugman also makes a point I've been wondering about: What's happen to the GOP's adviser class? When Barack Obama wants to convey strength and experience on the economy, he call Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, Laura Tyson, Joe Stiglitz, and Gene Sperling. McCain calls...Meg Whitman? Phil Gramm? Carly Fiorina? Kevin Hasset? Mitt Romney? An online auctioneer, a sour deregulator, a failed CEO, a guy who wrote a book saying that Dow would hit 36,000 right before the market crashed, and an early-model android?There are simply no Republicans left in Washington to work in a McCain Administration. The Republican brand is dead.
It wasn't always like this, Say what you will about him, but Romney had serious economic advisers playing prominent parts in his campaign: Greg Mankiw and Glen Hubbard in particular. McCain has Doug Holtz-Eakin, but he's playing campaign flack rather than acting as an adviser. McCain has been in Washington for 24 years. Hes been prominent for virtually that whole period. That he's not built better or stronger relationships with serious economic minds is extremely telling. Plenty of economists and financial analysts would have happily advised him over the years and then naturally assumed visible roles during his presidential campaign. That few have done so says a lot about how little interest McCain has shown in these issues throughout his career."
"McCain looks horrible. Something is wrong with him. I'm watching McCain be interviewed by Stephanopoulos, and in addition to being even more comatose than usual, McCain's bottom lip looks swollen, his top lip doesn't even move, and he sounds like he's lisping a bit now (his "s" is whistling). Watch it. His mouth is swollen, and I'm not talking about his swollen left cheek from the cancer surgery. I wish they would tell us what is going on with McCain's health. Any readers have any expertise in this - is it botox, a mixture of that and some ailment, or what? This brings me to mind McCain's other odd health issue, his left eye and its out of synch blinking."
My boy Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek roasts the vapid Sarah Palin, and for picking her for such an important position, John McCain."Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president.To the conservative deniers, I really feel for you. You probably think Newsweek is a leftwing rag that trumpets the Democratic platform. For you, the truth is actually a Democratic value, thanks for the compliment. You must fight the Democrats and fight the truth!
Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true."
"What's more, McCain seems not to understand that earmarks are just a tiny piece of the fiscal picture. As Barack Obama pointed out during the debate, earmarks represent just $18 billion out of a much larger pie. Compare that to the projected 2009 deficit (not counting the bailout) of roughly $500 billion. Or compare it to the total federal budget of about $3 trillion."Read on
"In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's—that's a person's position… This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin."Sticking a microphone? She was asked a direct question, to which she aswered. How much are they going to protect Palin? It's getting to the point where Palin has to be kept in a literal bubble to not totally destroy McCain's chances.
"So, just because Sarah Palin says something in public doesn't mean Palin actually believes what she's saying. And for goodness sakes, no one should think that Palin's comments are a reflection of the campaign's position on an issue.Read on at CNN
Second, how are voters to know the difference between the things Palin says that are "definitive policy statements," and the things she says that should be ignored? How is the public to know when Republican candidates mean what they're saying and when they don't?"
