How Obama and McCain differ on taxes

From WaPo,

Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy.


For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 - a difference of nearly $1 million.

Rightwing Boor Neal Boortz smears Obama

From Media Matters,

On the August 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Neal Boortz falsely suggested that Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim. While discussing Sen. John McCain's inability to answer the Politico's question about how many homes he and his wife own, Boortz said: "Let's ask Obama how many prayer rugs he has." As Media Matters for America has noted, Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim.

From the August 21 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:

BOORTZ: How many houses do you have?

ROYAL MARSHALL (engineer and "sidekick"): Two.

BOORTZ: OK.

MARSHALL: But I want to say one thing here. It could also be wealth envy, like you said, but it also could be a matter of age. He's so old he can't remember --

BOORTZ: Oh, jeez.

MARSHALL: -- how many houses. He forgot he's got two houses in Florida. He forgot about the house in Boca.

BOORTZ: Oh, jeez. OK.

MARSHALL: I mean, it's a possibility. The guy is 72.

BOORTZ: Senile. He's senile. He can't remember -- he goes -- he keeps going to the wrong home, too, at night.

JAMIE DUPREE (Cox Radio correspondent): Sometimes, it's the dumbest things that get you in trouble in a campaign, you know?

BOORTZ: Well, like I said, if this is it in this campaign, then this country just deserves whatever is gonna happen to us.

DUPREE: Well, just wait and see. Just watch if that thing keeps coming up in the next few days.

BOORTZ: Let's ask Obama how many prayer rugs he has.

DUPREE: See? And, you know, somebody would say that's not fair.

BOORTZ: Well, I'm not trying to be fair.

DUPREE: Well, exactly.

Olbermann and Scarborough fight on live TV

Olbermann tells Scarborough to "Get a shovel" because Scarborough was regurgitating McCain campaign's talking points.



Later, Joe Scarborough took it out on David Shuster during a discussion on withdrawal from Iraq. Joe is losing it.

Fox News slogan an insult to people with brains: Jon Stewart

Fox's "fair and balanced" slogan is an insult "to people with brains", says Jon Stewart.

from WaPo

DENVER, Aug. 25 -- Jon Stewart ripped the cable news networks Monday as a "brutish, slow-witted beast" and castigated Fox News in particular as "an appendage of the Republican Party."

Wearing a gray T-shirt, khaki pants and a healthy stubble, the "Daily Show" host told reporters at a University of Denver breakfast that Fox's "fair and balanced" slogan is an insult "to people with brains" and that only "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace "saves that network from slapping on a bumper sticker. . . . Barack Obama could cure cancer and they'd figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster."

The Comedy Central funnyman touched a nerve when he criticized journalists for having off-the-record dinners with politicians, such as a barbecue in March at John McCain's Arizona ranch. "That colors your vision of them so clearly and so profoundly," he said.

When New York Times columnist David Brooks and others protested that there was value in getting to know candidates privately, Stewart stood his ground: "I don't say access is useless. But the more you get sucked into it, the more you become part of that machinery." And when another reporter accused him of courting the press at the breakfast as skillfully as any officeholder, Stewart called the comparison "crazy."

Hypocrite Hannity ok with adulterers Giuliani and McCain but not with Edwards

Right-wing bigot and Fox News mudslinger has been attacking Edwards for the last several days in the most vicious manner possible. Hannity has been asking how Edwards can be trusted as a President when he has been cheating on his wife.

Hannity needs to be reminded of the following:

• Edwards is not running for President anymore.


• Hannity shamelessly campaigned for Republican Rudy Giuliani, a serial adulterer.


• Republican nominee for President, John McCain, is also an adulterer. He cheated on his wife while she was recovering from an accident.

So, according to Hannity's logic, can voters trust McCain as the President knowing that he cheated on his wife?

Alan Colmes, Hannity's milquetoast co-host, gathered some courage the other day and challenged Hannity. Newshounds has put together this great video of that exchange:

HANNITY: I’m not getting this. Explain to me and I’m wondering if you can’t keep
the promise to your family, can’t keep your promise to your wife, you’re having
an affair, you’re lying about the affair repeatedly, why should the American
people trust you when you say you’re not going to lie to them? Why should we
trust you?

COLMES: And by the way, that’s a great question Sean asks and
so Amanda, if that’s true and you can’t trust somebody who had an affair. How
can we trust John McCain to be President of the United States—he cheated on by
his own admission on his first wife, he didn’t keep his martial vows, he didn’t
keep his pledge to his first family…

HANNITY: Thirty years ago after
five and a half years of being a POW.

COLMES: Excuse me Sean. You’ve had
your chance to speak, I’m up. John McCain cheated on his wife, right. Amanda? So
how do we trust John McCain? He cheated on his wife, why do you have a double
standard and John McCain’s running for President? John Edwards is not. John
McCain’s wife was in a car accident. John McCain’s running for President, what
about his affair?

HANNITY: After five and a half years in a POW camp.

COLMES: That has nothing to do with it. So it’s OK to have an affair on
his wife.

Later, Keith Olbermann spanked Hannity on his show:

Douchebag Jerome Corsi set straight by Media Matters' Waldman

Jerome Corsi is the thoroughly discredited author of the book: The Obama Nation.



Barack Obama's campaign is hitting back hard against smear author Jerome Corsi's. They have released a 41 page document calling Corsi's book, "Unfit For Publication".



They are urging supporters to spread the truth about Corsi.

Friend --

Right now, vile smear-peddler Jerome Corsi is back with a new book of lies -- this time about Barack Obama.

In 2004, Corsi helped launch the Swift Boat smear campaign with a book of distortions and lies he wrote about John Kerry. We’ll need the combined efforts of every member of the Action Wire to push back against this year’s vicious Republican attack book.

Check out some facts about Corsi and his desperate fabrications in the DNC research document below. Forward this message to your friends and family and sign up for the Obama Action Wire:

http://my.barackobama.com/actionwiresignup

Together we'll show Corsi and the right-wing smear machine that we won't back down from a fight.

Thanks.

Liars at Fox News are smearing Obama. Fight the smears.

Robert Grenwald of Brave New Films has released another great video that shows how Fox News has been smearing Obama with outright lies.

Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject Fox's smears of Barack Obama and get the real facts out.

Watch the video, sign the peition and send it everyone you know.

Sexist Limbaugh attacks Elizabeth Edwards

Former drug addict and the obese right-wing gasbag, Rush Limbaugh has found a new low.

On the August 12 broadcast, Limbaugh attacked Elizabeth Edwards by saying..."It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk."

LIMBAUGH: We know -- we've been told that Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards. That's part of the puff pieces on them that we've seen. Ergo, if Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards, is it likely that she thinks she knows better than he does what his speeches ought to contain and what kind of things he ought to be doing strategy-wise in the campaign? If she is smarter than he is, could it have been her decision to keep going with the campaign? In other words, could it be that she doesn't shut up? Now, that's as far as I'm going to go.
...

I'm sorry, my friends, I just -- I can't. It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk.

Later Keith Olbermann slammed Limbaugh on his show.

Stuart Shepard prays for a Biblical Flood in Denver

From LA Times Blog:
The political arm of the socially conservative Focus on the Family religious group (headed by James Dobson) today yanked from its website a video that called on folks to ask God to open the heavens and let precipitation pour on Barack Obama just before his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 28.

[But thanks to YouTube, the video is still available for viewing]

Stuart Shepard, director of digital media at Focus Action (and a meteorologist to boot), wrote and appeared in the video (see below) that he posted in late July.

In it, he rhetorically asked if it would be wrong to ask people to join him in praying for rain two minutes before Obama takes the stage for his big moment at Invesco Field in Denver. And not just a drizzle -- in friendly, conversational fashion, Shepard said he had in mind "abundant rain, torrential rain, urban-and-small-stream flood-advisory rain."

“Well, I’m still pro-life," he told his listeners, "And I’m still in favor of marriage being only between one man and one woman. And I'd like the next president, who'll select justices for the U.S. Supreme Court, to agree."

It's not Global Warming, people are just hot for Jesus!

August 12th, 2008

Continuing her push for a comprehensive energy plan that includes increased oil drilling, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., reminded Americans that the Democrats message to save the planet doesn’t add up. The world has been saved already, she says.

“[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet,” Bachmann said. “We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.”

Bachmann said Democratic leaders are committed to stopping bills that allow drilling. Bachmann plans to join other Republicans in the House chamber on Friday to continue their protest during the congressional recess to bring members back for a vote on an energy bill.

“What does God say when he looks at you or looks at me? He wants to say, ‘she’s hot, he’s hot,’ because we are hot for him on the inside,” Bachmann said. “When you are hot for Jesus Christ, nothing is like that life.”

More here

Cokie Roberts is a Xenophobe?

When was the last time Cokie Roberts said something useful?

On NPR, Cokie Roberts asserted that Sen. Barack Obama's vacation to Hawaii "makes him seem a little bit more exotic," and characterized Hawaii as "a somewhat odd place to be doing it," despite also asserting, "I know that he is from Hawaii, he grew up there, his grandmother lives there." Roberts previously criticized Obama on ABC's This Week, stating that Obama's vacation in Hawaii "has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place."



From the August 11 edition of NPR's Morning Edition:

RENEE MONTAGNE (co-host): Now, Obama is spending the week on vacation in Hawaii. He's taking a vacation, he says, because it's, you know, good for his family, but is it a good point in the presidential campaign?

ROBERTS: It's a little rough to be doing it at this point although, he -- you know, I think he is feeling somewhat secure, but Hawaii is also a somewhat odd place to be doing it. I know that he is from Hawaii, he grew up there, his grandmother lives there, but he's made such a point about how he is from Kansas and, you know, the boy from Kansas and Kenya and it makes him seem a little bit more exotic than perhaps he would want to come across as at this stage in the presidential campaign.

Roberts again criticizes Obama for "exotic" trip home to Hawaii


AmericanBlog.com" reports that Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka's office has responsed Cokie Roberts' repeated suggestion that Hawaii was somehow a "foreign" un-American place for Obama to visit.

"Saying our 50th state is somehow 'foreign,' does a great disservice to the hard working, patriotic Americans who call Hawaii home. For months people have been asking me, 'when is Sen. Obama going to come home?' I'm so glad he found time to visit his sister and his grandmother, show his daughters more of his home state, and relax a little. Hawaii is a great U.S. destination, just ask the 5.5 million Americans who visited last year for business and pleasure."

Cokie Roberts attacks Obama for visiting Hawaii

Is Cokie Roberts looking for a job at Fox News?

On the August 10 edition of ABC's This Week, ABC News political analyst Cokie Roberts criticized Sen. Barack Obama -- who was born in Hawaii -- for "going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii," which she said "does not make any sense whatsoever."

Roberts stated: "I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place." Roberts continued: "He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time."

The Rise and (relative) Fall of Stupidity in America

After 9/11 stupidity was passed around as patriotism.

Kilmeade of Fox whitewashes Bush's lies on Iraq & Al Qaida

On the August 6 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade falsely claimed that "the president of the United States never even said there's a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq," and that "[t]hat wasn't the premise for going in there."

In fact, President Bush, and several other members of his administration, repeatedly said there was such a link, and that the United States should invade because Saddam might give his purported weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda, which could use them to attack the United States.



Media Matters has documented numerous instances where Bush tried to link Al Qaida and Iraq. Bush linked Al Qaeda to Iraq many times during the lead-up to the war.

Kilmeade made the claim while discussing Pulitzer prize winning author Ron Suskind's report in his new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (Harper), that "[t]he White House had concocted a fake letter from [Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jahil] Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq -- thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda."

Republican state Rep., Scott Muschany, charged with assaulting teen

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports

• 
  JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.
  
  The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl’s mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children -- were romantically involved, the woman said.
  ...
  In 2006, Muschany was a co-sponsor of legislation that toughened sex offender laws.
  rest of the story here...
  

Myth #532: Republicans are Fiscal Conservatives

Steve Greenberg's Cartoon




All Republicans Presidents in the last 25 years, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush (#41) and George W. Bush (#43), have been responsible for massive deficits.

One President who actually created surplus was Bill Clinton, a Democrat

McCain has another deer in the headlights moment

Great video compiled by jedreport.com...



Here is John McCain's track record on African American issues.

Will the mainstream media report this? Don't hold your breath.

Bush calls Roger Ailes 'our man' on Limbaugh's show

The Bush family (Bush 41, Bush 43 and Jeb) appeared on Limbaugh's radio show on August 1, 2008. During the nauseating love-fest where they congratulated each other and expressed their admiration for one another, Bush 41 let slip this nugget:

BUSH 41: Well, yeah. I'm kind of on the sidelines, but I can't do golf and all that stuff anymore. But life is good. It's wonderful, and it's great having the family up here in Maine, and all is well. Do you see our man Ailes at all?

RUSH: Oh, yeah. I saw Roger at Tony Snow's funeral.

BUSH 41: Oh, did you?

RUSH: And a couple of times earlier this summer.

BUSH 41: Are we on the radio, are we?

RUSH: (laughing)

BUSH 41: I didn't know that. I'll clean up my act here. I'm glad they told me.

Roger Ailes, our man? So much for Fair and Balanced.


Later, Keith Olbermann featured them on his Worst Persons list