McCain Gets Baracked and Rolled!

The E-mails of Sarah Palin

Newsflash for Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign: Anything posted on the Internet can be accessed. I don't know why this silly woman hasn't been paying attention to the millions of data breaches that disclose of social security numbers, grades, medical records, and etc. that have been leaked, accessed, or hacked over the Internet in the past few years. Certainly the McCain campaign knows that they Patriot Act and other warrantless, wireless surveillance acts have ben supported and voted into law by Republicans.


Glenn Greenwald's piece entitled "What does Sarah Palin have to hide in her Yahoo e-mails?"

Still, it's really a wondrous, and repugnant, sight to behold the Bush-following lynch mobs on the Right melodramatically defend the Virtues of Privacy and the Rule of Law. These, of course, are the same authoritarians who have cheered on every last expansion of the Lawless Surveillance State of the last eight years -- put their fists in the air with glee as the Federal Government seized the power to listen to innocent Americans' telephone calls; read our emails; obtain our banking, credit card, and library records; and create vast data bases of every call we make and receive and every prescription we fill and every instance of travel and other vast categories of information that remain largely unknown -- all without warrants or oversight of any kind and often in clear violation of the law.

The same political faction which today is prancing around in full-throated fits of melodramatic hysteria and Victim mode (their absolute favorite state of being) over the sanctity of Sarah Palin's privacy are the same ones who scoffed with indifference as it was revealed during the Bush era that the FBI systematically abused its Patriot Act powers to gather and store private information on thousands of innocent Americans; that Homeland Security officials illegally infiltrated and monitored peaceful, law-abiding left-wing groups devoted to peace activism, civil liberties and other political agendas disliked by the state; and that the telephone calls of journalists and lawyers have been illegally and repeatedly monitored.


And the same Surveillance State Worshipper leading today's screeching -- Michelle Malkin -- spent the last several years deriding those who objected to the President's illegal spying program as "privacy crusaders" and "constitutional absolutists" and "civil liberties absolutists".


Shouldn't these same people be standing up today and insisting that if Sarah Palin has done nothing wrong, then she should have nothing to hide? If Sarah Palin isn't committing crimes or consorting with The Terrorists, then why would she care if we can monitor her emails? And if private companies such as Yahoo can access her emails -- as they can -- then she doesn't really have any "privacy" anyway, so what's the big deal if others read through her communications, too? Isn't that the authoritarian idiocy that has been spewed since The Day That 9/11 Changed Everything -- beginning with the Constitution -- to justify vesting secret and unchecked surveillance powers in our Great and Good Leaders?

Read the complete story by Glen Greenwald here.

Crowd Played Stump Palin at Michigan Townhall

One woman asked her to "rebut or mitigate" concerns about her lack of foreign policy experience by describing "specific" skills in that area.

Palin seemed taken aback. "But as for foreign policy, you know, I think I am prepared, and I know that on Jan. 20, if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice-president, certainly we'll be ready. I'll be ready. I have that confidence. I have that readiness and if you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead. You can ask, you can play 'stump the candidate' if you want to. But we are ready to serve."

Tent Cities Rebublican-villes

Like a nightmare straight out of a John Steinbeck novel, tent cities have been forming across the landscape of America. Some call them Bushvilles like the Hoovervilles from the Great Depression Era, others call them Republicanvilles. Whatever the lexiconography of the name, the foreclosures and the misrey index from total Republican tyranny has caused many Americans to fall through the cracks of life into homelessness. Even the homeless shelters have waiting lists and umemployed or under-employed American workers are living out of their cars, vans and trucks across the USA. There is always enough money to bailout billionaires and millionaires, but for everyday Americans they just get the finger from the government.

According to an article from the AP wire service, published in Yahoo News, "In hard times, tent cities rise across the country": From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.

Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening.

"It's clear that poverty and homelessness have increased," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the coalition. "The economy is in chaos, we're in an unofficial recession and Americans are worried, from the homeless to the middle class, about their future."

The phenomenon of encampments has caught advocacy groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.

Read the entire story from Yahoo News here.

The French have been covering the American homeless crisis:

The BBC have also been covering the Bushvilles or Republicanvilles in the USA:

John McCain and the Lying Game

Joe Klein writes an article entitled "John McCain and the Lying Game" from the 17 Setember 2008 Time Magazine:

Politics has always been lousy with blather and chicanery. But there are rules and traditions too. In the early weeks of the general-election campaign, a consensus has grown in the political community — a consensus that ranges from practitioners like Karl Rove to commentators like, well, me — that John McCain has allowed his campaign to slip the normal bounds of political propriety. The situation has gotten so intense that we in the media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity and inaccuracy ... or, as the Associated Press put it, "McCain's claims skirt facts." But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers, even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are calling John McCain a liar. You might well ask, What has McCain done to deserve this? What unwritten rules did he break? Are his transgressions of degree or of kind?

Almost every politician stretches the truth. We journalists try to point out the exaggerations and criticize them, then let the voters decide. When McCain says, for example, that Barack Obama favors a government-run health-care system, he's not telling the truth — Obama wants a market-based system subsidized by the government — but McCain's untruth illuminates a general policy direction, which is sketchy but sort of within the bounds. (Obama's plan would increase government regulation of the drug and insurance industries.) Obama has done this sort of thing too. In July, he accused McCain of supporting the foreign buyout of an American company that could lead to the loss of about 8,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. McCain did support the deal, but the job loss comes many years later and was not anticipated at the time. That, however, is where the moral equivalency between these two campaigns ends.

McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent—and witting—disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both. Normal political practice would be for McCain to say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore drilling, but he's always opposed it. How can we believe him?" This persistence in repeating demonstrably false charges is something new in presidential politics.

Read the entire Joe Klein article here.

Troopergate

The Anchorage Daily News reports on the Palin's Troopergate.

The McCain campaign apparently fears honest answers to those questions. Monday, two campaign operatives held a press conference to stir up partisan hysteria about the investigation and assail Monegan as “insubordinate” and a “rogue.”

It was the kind of full-frontal personal attack that is so common in Washington, D.C. While pledging to clean up the nation’s capital, the McCain campaign has brought Washington’s repulsive tactics here to us in Alaska. The McCain-Palin attack on Monegan left key questions unanswered.

Alaskans and the rest of the country need to know the truth of what happened in Troopergate. And to get the truth, they need answers from Gov. Palin, her staff and her husband — before the November election.

BOTTOM LINE: Palin and McCain are trying to ignite a partisan firestorm that wipes out the Troopergate investigation until after the election.
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Palin's Troopergate: Republicans are Corrupt and Stupid

Republicans seem to have an affinity for corrupt and stupid governance.

Troopergate shines a bright hot spotlight on how Governor Sarah Palin abuses her power and hides behind "executive privilege" to cover-up her criminal acts.

1. Sarah Palin refuses to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
2. Witness tampering and intimidation.
3. Palin and the Republicans are blocking the investigation.

Newsweeks Michael Issikoff discusses the whole Palin corrupt administration in "Can He Stop 'Troopergate'? A McCain lawyer scrambles to block a Palin ethics inquiry:

O'Callaghan emerged publicly for the first time this week when he told reporters at a McCain campaign press conference, in Anchorage, that Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with an Alaskan legislative inquiry into Monegan's firing because it had been "tainted" by politics. That new stand appeared to directly contradict a previous vow, expressed by her official gubernatorial spokesman on July 28, that Palin "will fully cooperate" with an investigation into the matter.
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But O'Callaghan (who resigned from the U.S. attorney's office at the end of July to join the McCain campaign) is doing more than just public relations when it comes to "troopergate." He told NEWSWEEK that he and another McCain campaign lawyer (whom he declined to identify) are serving as legal "consultants" to Thomas Van Flein, the Anchorage lawyer who at state expense is representing Palin and her office in the inquiry. "We are advising Thomas Van Flein on this matter to the extent that it impacts on the national campaign," he said. "I'm helping out on legal strategy." A McCain spokesman said Wednesday that, while Van Flein was originally hired last month by the Alaska Department of Law to represent Palin and her office, that arrangement has been changed over the past week and he is now being paid only by Palin and her husband — not state funds. He has not billed the state for his work, the spokesman said.

The investigation revolves around allegations that Palin fired Monegan, the state's top cop, because he rebuffed intense pressure from the governor and her aides to dismiss Mike Wooten, a state trooper involved in a messy custody battle with Palin's sister. Critics, including Monegan himself, have accused Palin of being obsessed over the Wooten matter—sending him repeated e-mails about it—in an attempt to use her public office to settle a private score.

Wall Street's Demonic Derivatives

As the markets begin to unravel, the usual suspects will start pointing their tainted fingers at the sub-prime markets; but, sub-prime is only the Genesis of the story. The real devil lies in the fancy financial instruments that the dirty dealers on Wall Street traded called derivatives. The Oracle of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett called derivatives a "time bomb, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system." Back in 2003, Mr. Buffett infamously dubbed the demonic derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal."

Oh my, here we are sobering-up from a drunken Wall Street binge. Even President George W. Bush said: "There is no question about it. Wall Street got drunk." Then Bush continued by address those nasty derivatives, when he declared: "The question is, How long will it (take to) sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?"

Junichi Abe Yomiuri Shimbun writes in his article entitled, "Lehman fall exposes fallacy Subprime debacle showed financial alchemy was impossible": Essentially, a subprime loan is just another home mortgage. In addition, it is practically "subprime," not "prime," meaning that the solvency of borrowers in this category is low. Normally, those in charge of loans at financial institutions will not extend loans to such borrowers before closely examining their financial situation, ability to repay loans and their income and assets.

With the magic of financial engineering, a combination of finance and information technology, subprime loans were turned into derivative products, which investors were willing to buy. It was claimed that the product's risk was divided up by splitting the right to claim repayment of subprime loans and securitization, under which subprime loans were combined with other credit.

If this had been true, it would truly have been alchemy, whose goal in days of old was to change ordinary metal into gold.

Yomiuri Shimbun continues by adding: Against the backdrop of the problem is the nature of derivatives products, which are designed utilizing highly complicated mathematical and statistical theories. Therefore, it is difficult even for financial experts to understand their essential nature.

Unable to set appropriate standards to rate derivatives, credit-rating agencies ended up giving lenient evaluations to such products.

Philip Klein from the American Spectator writes in "Warren Buffett Told You So": Buffett seized on the news to deliver a lecture on the danger of such investments, noting the fact that Freddie was a company overseen by a board of directors, the U.S. Congress, and a separate regulatory body, and yet nobody was able to get a handle on them. And he informed the crowd that even the CEOs whom he knew didn't understand the investments.

"I know the people that run these companies and they don't have their minds around what is happening," he said.

And then Buffett predicted: "Some time in the next 10 years, you will have a huge problem that will either be caused by or accentuated by people's activities in derivatives."

The goofy media whores will try to pin this Wall Street fiasco on sub-prime, but that was just the host of the greedy parasites that are thus named derivatives. It's easy to point the finger at some poor guy that can't pay his mortgage or is in hock up to his ears that used his home equity and collateral to stay afloat or do something mindless and silly like Bush suggested after 9-11......go shopping! Get millions of these guys that actually are the real faces behind the unemployment figures to default on their sub-prime loans after the greedy guts on Wall Street repackaged and bundled them off to unsuspecting investors and folks you're looking at the proverbial chickens coming home to roost.

But, the little guy that is now jobless and homeless will get the middle finger from the feds, while the fat cats will find US minted, taxpayer funded golden parachutes. In short, the Republicans suck wind in a big way.

Watch this youtube clip from CNBC’s Senior Economics Reporter, Steve Liesman, who knows and explains the demonic derivative market quite well.

The Blame Game

The Republicans are Running Away From Republicanism

Chris Matthews is kicking major Republican butt on Hardball. No wonder Palin and McCain are scared to death of Mr. Matthews.

Federal Bank Insurance Fund Dwindling

Marc Gordon writes: Banks are not the only ones struggling in the growing financial crisis. The fund established to insure their deposits is also feeling the pinch, and the taxpayer may be the lender of last resort.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., whose insurance fund has slipped below the minimum target level set by Congress, could be forced to tap tax dollars through a Treasury Department loan if Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest thrift, or another struggling rival fails, economists and industry analysts said Tuesday.

Treasury has already come to the rescue of several corporate victims of the housing and credit crunches. The government took over mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and helped finance the sale of investment bank Bear Stearns to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Read the entire Yahoo News article here.

Barbara Streisand, She's Like Buttah

From eonline: Not just anyone could get Barbra Streisand to sing at a hotel function. But that’s what Babs did last night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for Sen. Barack Obama. Her four-song set was followed by dinner and a reception with the presidential hopeful (with some VIP tickets for the evening going for as much as $28,500) at the nearby Greystone Mansion.

“I woke up this morning with this slogan in my head…‘McCain-Palin: Change,” Streisand said, according to a partygoer. “Change what? From bad to worse?”

Basic tickets for the Streisand performance were $2,500 a pop.

So just how much did the night raise for Obama and the Democratic Party? The grand total was reportedly a whopping $9 million!

“I can’t wait for the morning of Nov. 5 when I wake up and the people who said, ‘Yes we can,’ say, ‘Yes, we did,' ” Streisand said, according to my source.

It's The Economy Stupid

Greg Pierce of the Washington Times calls the latest economic downturn as a "Gift to Obama"

"The chaos on Wall Street that exploded over the weekend — and caused [the] Dow to drop by more than 500 points on Monday alone — is, obviously, bad news for just about everyone. But strictly in terms of the looming election, now fewer than 50 days away, the timing may be something of a gift to Barack Obama and the Democrats, who have watched in bafflement since late August as their once-dominant political position has eroded," Steve Kornacki writes in the New York Observer.

"Long before this week, the economy had already emerged as the top issue — by far — on the minds of voters. Now, Americans will be inundated with stories about the potentially devastating fallout from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch and the perilous footing of A.I.G. — thereby focusing their attention even more on the economy and their own financial security," Mr. Kornacki said.

"An election driven by economic anxiety generally works to the Democrats' advantage, simply because more voters tend to identify with the party's economic message than with the GOP's. Obviously, this doesn't hold when tough economic times coincide with Democratic leadership like in 1980, when a staggering 'misery index' helped seal Jimmy Carter's fate — but it's the Republicans who have owned the White House for the past eight years; bad economic news should only confirm the public's assumptions about their agenda.

Read the entire article here.

Obama Gets It!

As an "A" student, Senator Obama understands what the Republican "C" students don't get.

John McCain says the Economy is Fundamentally Strong

Is John McCain stupid? Perhaps graduating at the extreme bottom of the Naval Academy 894/899 is an indication of Mr. McCain's intellectual ability. McCain's dismal academic record could be held against Obama's tippity top of his class at Harvard. Obama graduated magna cum laude, which for those who are Latin challenged, this is number 1 in his Harvard Law School class. Senator Obama made straight A's all day every day in Law School, while Senator McCain managed to graduate fifth from the bottom of his class. As for Sarah Palin's transcripts and grades from her Jr. College in Idaho, complete silence. If she even had one A on her transcript, the GOP would be touting her intellectual abilities. It's just moose hunting and PTA hockey momming, not one word about Mrs. Palin's intellectual abilities. In a word, Republicans are stupid. Need proof? Look at their academic transcripts.

When Fascism Comes to America, it will be Wrapped in a Flag and Carrying a Cross

Sinclair Lewis declared, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Republican fascism is alive an well on Wall Street as the feds continue to reward their corporate cronies with tax-funded bailouts. Republican fascism got new life from the GOP Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin. McCain took the Republican mantle of a socialized financial markets and wrapped his candidacy behind the flag skirt of his bible toting, gun slinging, moose killing, self-proclaimed hockey mom.

As editorialized in the India Daily article by Pijush Lodh:

Hillary Clinton showed for the first time that blatant racism could bring White House within reach of anyone. Republicans learnt and acted fast with their version of Hillary – the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

Sarah Palin is attracting the racists of America who favors color of skin above reality, the bible over common sense, and fascism over the root cause of financial trouble for common Americans.
American democracy faces its biggest challenge. The seeds of a second civil war and perhaps outright secession are in place with racism and nepotism taking center stage of anything.

No democracy can survive without participation of people who understand the best for themselves. America is failing in its biggest challenge – it is a crumbling democracy.

One thing is good – if McCain-Palin ticket wins, they will face the consequence of eight years of totally failed policies of the Republicans. The bad thing is that the Supreme Court will be restructured to protect the racism and Christian right wing agenda for a long time.

Who is responsible for this? Yes, you got it. It is the rural American population that just cannot get over the racism and Christian rights.

Perhaps a much more financial meltdown, perhaps $20 gas price, skyrocketing food prices, and a total collapse is real estate with massive foreclosures will teach Americans a lesson on the after effects of racism.

We have seen this before. Nazi Germany crumbled into ground when Germans chose racism and fascism over common sense. We will see it again in America. The problem lies in the fact not all Germans were racists, not all American have lost common sense, but we all will suffer together as this great super power crumbles into ground because of ignorance and arrogance.

Crony Capitalism 101: Feds Bailout AIG

Socialism takes over the financial sector of the US economy. Bloomberg reports: "The U.S. government took control of American International Group Inc. in an $85 billion bailout to prevent the bankruptcy of the nation's biggest insurer and the worst financial collapse in history. "

The Globe Research in Canada says, "The U.S. Financial System in Serious Trouble": "...this major crisis has to be placed at the very feet of the Washington establishment. This is a politico-financial establishment that has pushed to the limits its ideology of deregulation of financial markets and stretched the working of unregulated corporate market capitalism to the breaking point. Now, the system is imploding under our very eyes and financial institutions are falling like dominos."

John Browne from the The Market Oracle states, "Last week, the U.S. government took the unprecedented step of effectively nationalizing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Together, the two companies hold or guarantee some $5.2 trillion, or about half, of all American residential mortgages. A substantial portion of this debt is tilting toward default. Given the size of the numbers, American tax payers should be very concerned. "

The Business & Media Institute's Jeff Poor wrote: Has America created its own variety of communism with the U.S. Treasury Department’s bailout of two beleaguered government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? According to Rogers Holding CEO Jim Rogers, the answer is yes.

“America is more communist than China is right now,” Rogers told CNBC Europe’s “Squawk Box Europe” September 8. "... you can see that this is welfare for the rich. This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

The Republicans in Washington are "not bailing out the homeowners who are in trouble, by the way,” Rogers said. “It’s not bailing out people who want a mortgage – it’s just bailing out financial institutions. This is not my idea of the way things are supposed to be, but if that’s what America wants, you know, it can elect people who are going to do it. I think it’s a mistake.

According to Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor article from RGE Monitor, The transformation of the USA into the USSRA (United Socialist State Republic of America) continues at full speed with the nationalization of AIG

Last week we argued that, with the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie, comrades Bush, Paulson and Bernanke had started transforming the USA into the USSRA (United Socialist State Republic of America). This transformation of the USA into a country where there is socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall Street (i.e. where profits are privatized and losses are socialized) continues today with the nationalization of AIG.

Media Whore Watch

John Fund is an obnoxious media whore. Watch this clip from Bill Maher's Real Time. Bill Maher can't even get John Fund to take off his partisan hat to even see how absurd this Palin schtick really is. Everytime Bill Maher says something that resembles the truth, Fund calls it sexist, elitist or something similar. Fund keeps telling Maher to watch your words. What a joke.

Joe Biden Watch

We found Senator Joe Biden! And he's fighting mad for the American people.

Here's Sluggo Joe on CBS:



And here's Joe on MSNBC's Morning Joe:

Tom Toles captures the whole Wall Street mess so well. We are such fans of Tom Toles artistry. It's amazing to see how an artist draws pictures that encapsulates the whole bloody scene of the Wall Street financial fiasco. Dan Froomkin has been singing Mr. Toles praises for quite a while.