NY Times: McCain's Campaign Manager Received $15,000 Per Month from Freddie Mac - Even During Election Campaign

So Rick Davis wants to whine like a baby about how "biased" the NY Times is? They're not going to be bullied by him, and hey, they don't need to be biased when the facts are on their side:

WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

McCain's propaganda campaign (I'm no longer calling it a presidential campaign) seems to shoot itself in the foot on a daily basis now. I'm sure the spin on this one will be MOST amusing.

Thank John McCain

Thank John McCain

Gee, is the AP Losing Patience with Palin?

I wonder:

Palin lawyer meets with investigator in probe

By MATT VOLZ – 23 hours ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire.

Not exactly subtle. :)

Andrew Sullivan's Wordless Yet Accurate Commentary on Sarah Palin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

:)

Is Tucker Bounds THE Most Annoying Talking Head in History?

Probably not, but he's up there. The guy has a constant smarmy look on his face and can never, ever, ever answer a question honestly.

Amusing comment I read:

Is this learned behavior or is it hereditary?

Tucker: "Tucker, Jr., have you finished your homework?"

Tucker, Jr: "Well, Dad, I think a more important question is, have Barack Obama's kids finished their homework? Because John Mc Cain is such a family man, all of his kids have graduated and are no longer burdened by the rigors of homework. That's the kind of reform this country needs. That's why he's ahead in the polls, Dad."

Something is Up With Biden and the Clintons

I dunno what it is, but something is going on. I can feel it in my bones. Just look at the behavior of Biden and the Clintons of late. Something is just not right.

Biden has always had a tendency to gaffe, but he knows what's at stake here and he's just making too many gaffes too frequently. Today he made a truly boneheaded comment about coal that serves no purpose. And the comment about Hillary Clinton being a better VP than he? It just doesn't make sense.

As for Senator Clinton herself, she pledged to do everything she could to help Obama win, but so far has done almost nothing. Everyone (including me) expected her to be a big asset in fighting back against Palin, but she's said nothing about her, and in fact canceled a planned appearance a few days ago when it turned out both she and Palin would be attending, which she hadn't been told in advance. She says Obama doesn't want her to talk about Palin. Why? Are they avoiding this for some reason I can't see? Saving it for later? What?

Finally, the biggest mystery of all: Bill Clinton. He gave a good speech, almost seeming genuine -- but he's been rather lackluster in his comments about Obama since then. He met with Obama two weeks ago and said he thinks Obama will "win handily", but then has gone out of his way to make nice comments about both McCain and Palin, leading again to accusations that he wants Obama to lose because of what happened with Hillary. This is dumb behavior, and Bill Clinton is no dummy.

Obviously I don't really know what the deal is here. But the behavior of these three is getting so odd that I am at the point of hoping there is some sort of big surprise move, because the alternative is that Obama has lost message discipline with three of his most important surrogates.

McCain's Selfish War on the Media to Protect Palin Reaches Ridiculous New Heights

Now he's covering for her at the UN:

There's a battle going on right now over how the networks will be allowed to cover Sarah Palin's big day of visits in NY with world leaders. Palin is scheduled to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai shortly, followed by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and then with McCain advisor, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The networks had arranged for a "pool" camera- one camera to cover the meetings, whose video would be pooled or shared with all networks. Such arrangements are standard when dealing with intimate high-level meetings between leaders and candidates. But typically, along with cameras, there is an editorial presence-- at least one print reporter, one TV reporter and one radio reporter is standard. Today, the McCain campaign had said it would allow only one editorial person inside. Now, the campaign is saying it wants only the camera inside with no editorial presence. All of the networks are objecting. Stay tuned.

Later there was an update:

Word has come in that a CNN producer WILL be allowed to accompany the camera at these meetings. This issue appears to be resolved.

"Resolved"? My ass! This entire situation is assinine. Oh hell, Andrew Sullivan already said it well enough:

The press is beginning to resist the incredibly sexist handling of Palin by the McCain campaign. There is a simple point here: any candidate for president should be as available to press inquiries as humanly possible. Barring a press conference for three weeks, preventing any questions apart from two television interviews, one by manic partisan Sean Hannity, devising less onerous debate rules for a female candidate, and then trying to turn the press into an infomercial for the GOP is beyond disgraceful.

Fight back, you hacks! Demand access. Demand accountability! It's our duty. If we cannot ask questions of a total newbie six weeks before an election in which she could become president of the country, then the First Amendment is pointless. Grow some!

The people who support McCain doing this are traitors to this nation.

What is the Deal with Biden?

I've defended the guy here more than once, and I know he means well and is trying hard, but some of the stuff he says.. hoo boy. This time, he criticized his own ticket's ads in an interview with Katie Couric.

Is he really this bad at controlling his mouth? I dunno, but if he is, he needs to be slapped upside the head a bit. His behavior of late has been so odd that it keeps reminding me of my still-not-forgotten Hillary Screen Pass Theory. :)

Can This Country Afford Four Years of a Senile President?

McCain is getting scarier by the week -- this time, mixing up the SEC and the FEC -- and it's taking far too long for people to notice.

Good thing that if he becomes incapacitated that he has a moderate, honest, experienced VP as backup, right? Right?! *sigh*

George Will: McCain as "Queen of Hearts"

Thank the heavens for honest conservatives like George F. Will, who still understand what conservatism really means and have the integrity and bravery to stand up to the madness currently taking over the GOP:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."

...

In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17, Page A4; and the New York Times of Sept. 20, Page One.)

...

The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale.

...

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

Pretty much says it all. Too bad most Republicans are either too stupid to listen, have sold out to the fringe religious nutbars, or only care about retaining power -- whatever that takes.

My fervent hope is that McCain loses -- badly -- and this causes the GOP to take a good hard look at itself, get rid of the warmongering neocons like Bush and McCain, tell the Christaliban wackos to take a hike, and come back as a party that is actually conservative.

Are the Republicans Setting Up the Democrats on the Bailout?

The theory being put forth is that the GOP is going to get the Democrat-controlled house to cooperate with Bush on the "emergency, must-do-now" bailout, then have McCain use this as a cyncial wedge issue to demonstrate his "maverickitude":

Think of this as like one of those periodic votes on raising the public debt limit. It has to pass, of course, but there's zero percentage in supporting it for any one individual. The speculative costs of the legislation actually failing are completely intangible and ultimately irrelevant, while the costs it will impose are tangible and controversial from almost every point of view. For McCain and other Republicans, voting "no" on Paulson without accepting the consequences of that vote is the political equivalent of a bottomless crack pipe: it will please the conservative "base," distance them from both Bush and "Washington," and let them indulge in both anti-government and anti-corporate demagoguery, even as Democrats bail out their Wall Street friends and big investors generally. You simply can't imagine a better way for McCain to decisively reinforce his simultaneous efforts to pander to the "base" while posing as a "maverick."

Democrats are right to demand significant substantive concessions before offering their support for the Paulson Plan. But just as importantly, they need to demand Republican votes in Congress, including the vote of John McCain. If this is going to be a "bipartisan" relief plan, it has to be fully bipartisan, not an opportunity for McCain to count on Obama and other Democrats to save the economy while exploiting their sense of responsibility to win the election for the party that let this crisis occur in the first place.

The Democrats do have a history of being sufficiently politically inept as to fall for this sort of thing.

Sarah Palin is a Lying, Dishonorable Bitch

Sorry it's come to this, but she's pushed the envelope enough to where it must finally be said. Sarah Palin isn't just inexperienced or clueless or a bit nasty: she's a bitch. To wit:

Governor Sarah Palin accused “Obama-Biden Democrats,” of launching a series of unfair attacks against she and her family in a fundraising email sent to supporters Monday.

“Friends, in the course of a few weeks, the Obama-Biden Democrats have launched attack after attack on me, my family and John McCain,” Palin writes in the email. “They’re desperate to win and they’ll no doubt launch these attacks against other reformers on our ticket.”

Watch: Obama says discussion of Sarah Palin's family is 'off-limits'

...

“We must stop them,” Palin writes, “…before they turn these shameful tactics on others we support.”

Earlier this month when Obama was asked about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, the Illinois senator repeated previous calls that “people’s families are off-limits.”

“This shouldn’t be part of our politics,” Obama said “It has no relevance to show Governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president.”

Well, it was nice of CNN to save me the trouble of pointing out that not only has Obama never said a bad word about her family, he went out of his way to defend her family. And even a nice link, too.

Sarah Palin is a dishonorable, shameless liar -- no wonder McCain called her his "soulmate". (Isn't there some commandment that covers this sort of thing?)

McCain Camp Flailing Wildly at Media, Attacking NY Times, etc.

This is getting embarrassing.

Bush's Legacy

Read it and weep, George.

Uh, Obama Needs to Work on This

This is a "word cloud" someone did on a speech Obama recently gave. Uh, there's a bit of a problem in it.


Now don't get me wrong. I do realize that this was done deliberately to make Obama look bad, since normally those sort of "pause sounds" aren't included in a speech transcript. And I also know that when he does that it means he's thinking, and I'd much rather have a president who says "uh" and thinks than one who does neither.

But it sounds bad. It makes Obama seem not so much thoughtful as unsure. I really hope this is something he and his team are working on in prep for the debate this Friday.

Another Vote of No Confidence from the World

This is what the world thinks of how we are handling our economic affairs right now.

This is the price we will pay. Our children and grandchildren will pay much more.

By the way, gold is up another $30 an ounce today, and oil spiked a record $25 a barrel before falling back before the close.

Could it Be? Democrats Have Actually Learned from Their Mistakes? I Sure Hope So.

Democrats are starting to fight back against the Bush administration's attempts to ram a huge bailout package through Congress with virtually no strings attached for the recipients, and the mistakes made after 9/11 have been specifically cited as a reason why:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) says he’s seen this movie before: The Bush administration, citing an unprecedented national threat, puts the hammer on Congress to ram through gargantuan legislation with a minimum of review — and the murkiest of repercussions.

“We will do something this week — but if we learned anything from right after 9/11, it’s that the biggest mistake is to pass anything they ask for just because it’s an emergency,” Leahy says.

...

“They can’t get away with what they did in 2001,” Leahy said. “This will be ‘trust but verify.’ The biggest mistake they can make is holding a press conference while we’re negotiating to say there’s going to be a worldwide depression if Congress doesn’t do exactly what we want them to.”

...

"We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome. Democrats will act responsibly to insulate Main Street from Wall Street,” Pelosi said. "As we proceed to deal with this crisis, this is clear recognition that the party is over for the Bush administration's anything goes, failed economic policies that have damaged our economy, undermined the middle class and further pointed out the need for a new direction."

Wow. Do they Democrats actually have spines after all? Stay tuned.

Palin's Rape Kit Story Now Linked from Front Page of CNN

The blogosphere covered this over a week ago, but the more people that read about it among the general public, the better.

McCain's Mental State Boggles Once Again

From 60 Minutes last night:

Pelley: You're not an expert on the economy. Senator Obama is not an expert on the economy. So let me ask you what traits would you bring to the Oval Office that would help navigate this country out of the current emergency?

McCain: Never complain, but maybe I can explain. That statement about me and the economy was made in the context of a long conversation. Moral of the story is, don't have long conversations, especially with 60 Minutes. Point is, no seriously, is that I understand the economy as chairman of the Commerce Committee, which oversights all of the commercial aspects of America's economy. I've been involved in these issues for many, many years. I know the economy. I know how to fix it.

McCain has been reduced to blithering bullshit like "Trust me, I know X, I know how to fix X" on every subject. What the hell is he even talking about any more? Does anybody know? Does he?

The GOP Leads a "Socialist" Bailout

Funny how the Republicans love to label Democrats as "socialists" but have no problem being even worse in that regard when necessary to save their corporate masters:

"I'm always for less regulation," John McCain, March 3, 2008

"Casual oversight by regulatory agencies in Washington" is responsible for the crisis, John McCain, Sept. 17, 2008

Which is it, Sen. McCain: regulation or deregulation?

If a liberal Democratic administration had put hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money at risk by bailing out Bear Stearns and nationalizing American International Group (AIG), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, wouldn't conservatives accuse Democrats of "socialism"? Can Mr. McCain now square a circle by calling himself a conservative while favoring increased regulation?

...

Now I know what former Sen. Gary Hart meant when he told an audience of wealthy Republican businessmen during his 1984 presidential campaign, "I know why you are conservatives -- you favor private enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich."

...

Mr. Obama will trigger the great liberal versus conservative debate so long needed in this campaign. Is government our friend or enemy? Can the private market always be trusted? What is the best mix of regulation and private enterprise? Who pays? Who wins? Who loses?

That debate is long overdue. If it occurs, the American people will be the winners, whoever wins the election.