I hope all of the Hillary-hating misogynist scum who screamed bloody murder about Clinton being soooo conservative and a Republican in Democrat’s clothing, the ones who had conniptions because SHE WAS A DLC CORPORATE WHORE WHO VOTED FOR THE WAR AND THAT MADE HER A BUSH-LOVING TRAITOR TO THE PARTY AND UNFIT FOR THE WHITE HOUSE are choking to death on the possibility of Rahm Emanuel being Obama’s Chief of Staff and Lawrence Summers serving as Treasury Secretary.
And let’s not forget the rumors that Robert M. Gates, Bush’s current Secretary of Defense, might be kept on by Obama in a display of bipartisanship — which makes so much sense in light of how the American people demonstrated their love of bipartisanship on Tuesday.
Update, 11/07/08, 08:00AM
And lookee thar, it’s not just a few DLCers from the Clintons’ circle up for top jobs in the Obama White House, it’s pretty much ALL of the Clintons’ circle. Quick, get Joshua Marshall some smelling salts.
On second thought, leave the fucker on the floor; he does less harm there.
The number of U.S. residents collecting state unemployment benefits reached the highest level in 25 years, rising by 122,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.84 million in the week ending Oct. 25, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Reid should have given Lieberman the shaft in 2006, but he chose not to. Too bloody late now, thanks to Obama’s “unity” nonsense; making an example of Lieberman now would undercut Obama’s plan to hold hands with Republicans and sing “Kumbaya” for the next four years.
The McShame campaign has thrown Palin under the bus; McCain staffers are leaking like sieves and backgrounding about Palin’s astounding lack of geopolitical knowledge…
NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books…
McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.
Remember when Palin told the Chicago Trib’s Jill Zuckerman how frugal her family was when the scandal first unfolded? I’m sure the Palins are very frugal… except when they’re spending someone else’s money.
That said, I proudly cast my vote for Cynthia McKinney this morning and then, lacking any other Green candidates on my ballot, held my nose and voted for all down-ticket Dems one last time. I figured what the hell, this is best chance in ages to hurt Arizona’s GOP.
I’m not holding my breath that a Democratic White House and Democratic Congress will be able to undo the damage done to this country and this planet during the last eight years unless both shift radically to the left — something that both Obama and the Dems’ Congressional leadership have been loathe to do.
But despite all of my misgivings regarding Obama and the Democratic Party, I can set aside those doubts and some of my rancor for a moment to say that I’m proud that my country has (FINALLY) elected an African American, a man who is the son of an immigrant. This is a moment of history that we should all take pride in.
Finally, words cannot adequately express how relieved and overjoyed I am that John McShame and Aunt Sarah will not be residing in the White House. Further, I’d like to thank Karl Rove and George W. Bush for doing more damage to the GOP brand than Richard Nixon did.
Time for some champagne and some anti-Republican Party toasts!
Just heard that Obama’s grandmother has died; want to speculate on how long it’ll take for an email to whip around the right-wing hate-o-sphere claiming she was murdered or committed suicide for her grandson’s political gain?
It’s going to be a bittersweet day for the Obama family tomorrow, but Repugnicans have never passed by an opportunity to kick an opponent while he’s down. Bastards. Can’t WAIT to see them ground into powder.
Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of felony charges for making false statements.
The verdict could spell the end of a 40-year Senate career for a man who rose to be one of the most dominant figures in the upper chamber and who helped transform Alaska in its 50 years of statehood. The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated since Wednesday and found the 84-year-old senator guilty of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from Bill Allen, the former head of Veco Corp., and other friends.
The jury did not seem to buy the explanation from Stevens that Allen showered him with gifts he didn’t want and was unaware of, and that he believed the $160,000 he gave to another contractor covered all costs for the home renovations.
I’ve lived in a very conservative and very politically-active neighborhood for quite a few years, and it’s been very gratifying to not see one McCain-Palin ‘08 campaign sign on anyone’s lawn; this is a far cry from four years ago, when every other fucking yard seemed to have a Bush-Cheney sign in it.
Unfortunately, the sign that seem to have replaced the usual GOP presidential candidate signs are those for Arizona’s Proposition 102, which would amend the state constitution to define marriage in the narrowest and most bigoted of terms. Ballotpedia has more on Arizona’s propositions coming up for a vote, if you’re interested; I’m voting “No” on every proposition except 201.
At least I know who the hardcore right-wing neighborhood scum are, thanks to 102. Rather disheartening to see that I’m surrounded by them, though.
A watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission Wednesday alleging that the Republican Party broke federal campaign laws by buying Sarah Palin and her family about $150,000 in clothes for campaign appearances.
The complaint names as defendants Palin, the RNC, Larson and other operatives associated with the RNC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act specifically prohibits expenditures for such purposes…
“As we enter the home stretch, Senator Obama is winning voter groups that no Democrat has carried in more than four decades,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Polling Institute at Quinnipiac University. “If these numbers hold up, he could win the biggest Democratic landslide since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.”
– Jane Hamsher found a really sexist cartoon she liked. Too bad Bullwinkle wasn’t holding a sign that said, “That fucking Republican shot my cousin Leon.” Palin’s political affiliation is more important than her gender, and the cartoon would’ve made the leap from, “Palin is evil” to “Republicans are evil.” Which they are.
– Barack Obama went on record a while back and called the “surge” in Iraq a success. As Chris Floyd (citing work by Michael Schwartz) notes, if this is success, then it’s a pyrrhic victory.
First the Senate does a Constitutional end-run to take up the bailout of Bush’s golfing buddies despite having no real authority to do so by tacking the bailout to the “Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2008:”
The mental health bill has passed the House before and becomes the Senate vehicle upon which everything is loaded. By constitutional mandate all tax bills must originate in the House but by attaching it to a bill that has already passed the House, that rule is circumvented and the mental health bill is so old it’s original cosponsors were Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici. Gotta love the irony that this is all on the back of keeping American workers sane.
Then, not content with looting the taxpayers’ treasury to the tune of $700 billion and completely ignoring the public outcry against that figure on Monday, the Senate plutocrats upped the price tag of this theft to $810 billion with irresponsible tax breaks:
In a historic vote, the Senate approved a massive $700 billion rescue plan for the nation’s finance system Wednesday night, but only after tacking on another $110 billion in tax breaks to lure votes from both parties.
Yes, because at a time when our infrastructure is crumbling and unemployment is at a five-year high due to the Republican Party’s criminal behavior (aided and abetted by Congressional Democrats), what we need is even more of the same tax-cut and deficit-spend idiocy that contributed so much to this overblown mess in the first place.
I’d say that there are 74 senators who should be burned in effigy, but metaphorical burning is too good for them; they should have a taste of the real thing, perhaps in the form of a “T” for “Thief” branded on their foreheads.
[Limbaugh] said Democrats never intended to pass [the $700 billion bailout] and GOPers likely realized that as they saw Democratic ‘no’ votes piling up during the vote. “It was a set-up from the get-go,” analyzed [sic] Limbaugh.
Limbaugh is projecting; the set-up was created by the Republicans on behalf of serial adulterer Newt Gingrich. I’d say that Limbaugh’s latest bevy of bullshit charges are the product of whatever prescription drug he is (most-likely) currently abusing, but he’s really just your typical right-wing fuckhead.
Barack Obama, August 15, 2007: “Obama Says He Can Unite U.S. ‘More Effectively’ Than Clinton:”
“…I can bring the country together more effectively than she can,” Obama said… I don’t think there is anybody in this race who’s able to bring new people into the process and break out of some of the ideological gridlock that we have as effectively as I can,” he said.
Barack Obama, September 30, 2008: “Obama: ‘Put The Fire Out’ on Economic Crisis:”
“I don’t think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful, I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle.”
If you think it highly unlikely that Palin — the GOP’s female answer to George W. Bush and Dan Qualye rolled into one — might become president if she’s elected Vice President, think again:
If John McCain is elected and goes on to win a second term, there’s as much as a one-in-four chance America could see its first female president — Sarah Palin.
It’s actuarial math.
The odds highly favor either McCain or Barack Obama completing a first term in good health. After that, McCain’s odds are still fairly solid, but his chances of dying go up faster than Obama’s, mainly because of his age…
Something to consider the next time (and there will be a next time, just not with Katie Couric) that Sarah Palin takes potshots at Joe Biden’s age (despite Biden being six years younger than John McCain).
Of course, the actuaries are assuming that McCain will die of old age, when most of us know that he will be assassinated by a fundamentalist Christian who wants to indirectly install Sarah Palin as the POTUS.
…It’s another Bush boondoggle. I’m especially happy that the Repugs actually whined that a speech by “Ms. Impeachment-is-Off-the-Table” was their motivation for scuttling the unnecessary bailout and Barney Frank’s response to their petulance.
The GOP’s mishandling of the publicity surrounding their killing of the deal makes them look like a bunch of petty idiots for failing to get 12 extra votes to bail-out Bush’s golfing buddies simply because Nancy was mean to them, and America’s corporate sociopaths didn’t get their corporate welfare. It’s a twofer!
Here’s the transcript of the speech, and below is the speech itself:
