OINK, OINK: BAILOUT LOADED WITH PORK

The latest version of the Bush Administration's bailout plan is yet another welfare program for the rich.

U.S. Senators quietly tucked away billions of earmarks in an already bloated bill. Who knows what the House will do.

Have you seen how many freebies, that have nothing to due with bailing out banks, are included in the package now being considered by the House of Representatives. In case you haven't seen it, let me share a few morsels of fat with you:

• $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children
• a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners
• $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry
• $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers
• $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.

• Even Hollywood got something out of the Senate bill: renewal of a tax incentive worth nearly $48 million a year for film and TV producers who produce their work in the United States.

This is how Washington, DC works folks, aint life grand!

OINK, OINKl: BAILOUT LOADED WITH PORK

The latest version of the Bush Administration's bailout plan is yet another welfare program for the rich.

U.S. Senators quietly tucked away billions of earmarks in an already bloated bill. Who knows what the House will do.

Have you seen how many freebies, that have nothing to due with bailing out banks, are included in the package now being considered by the House of Representatives. In case you haven't seen it, let me share a few morsels of fat with you:

• $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children
• a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners
• $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry
• $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers
• $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.

• Even Hollywood got something out of the Senate bill: renewal of a tax incentive worth nearly $48 million a year for film and TV producers who produce their work in the United States.

This is how Washington, DC works folks, aint life grand!

OINK, OINK: BAILOUT LOADED WITH PORK

The latest version of the Bush Administration's bailout plan is yet another welfare program for the rich.

U.S. Senators quietly tucked away billions of earmarks in an already bloated bill. Who knows what the House will do.

Have you seen how many freebies, that have nothing to due with bailing out banks, are included in the package now being considered by the House of Representatives. In case you haven't seen it, let me share a few morsels of fat with you:

• $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children
• a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners
• $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry
• $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers
• $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.

• Even Hollywood got something out of the Senate bill: renewal of a tax incentive worth nearly $48 million a year for film and TV producers who produce their work in the United States.

This is how Washington, DC works folks, aint life grand!

How Long Before Rev. Wright Comes Back

I'm taking cyber bets...

Now that the Vice Presidential debate is over and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appears to have learned to speak in half-way coherent sentences (though she didn't answer many of the questions asked of her).

And McCain-Palin has slipped in several, if not all, national polls.

And McCain-Palin has watched their lead in crucial battleground states shrink.

And realizing in all probability that they might lose the state in November, the McCain-Palin team has pulled out of Michigan.

And bad economic news proven to be a drag on McCain Palin approval ratings.

And as it becomes more apparent that McCain-Palin needs to change the subject,

How long do you think it will take for

McCain-Palin to bring back

the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

McCain Gives Up On Michigan

No wonder he didn't want to speak to Sen. Barack Obama last night...

Now THIS is news!

John McCain is pulling the plug on Michigan, a severe blow to his strategy for taking the White House.

Campaign officials confirmed the decision Thursday to pull TV ads and people out of Michigan, as they scramble to shift resources to states like Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin.

http://www.mlive.com/grpress/news/index.ssf/2008/10/campaign_officials_confirm_joh.html

Seriously, what's wrong with John McCain?

I just don't get this at all:

[Obama] walked over to where McCain was chatting with Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. And he stretched out his arm and offered his hand to McCain. McCain shook it, but with a "go away" look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama.

Finally, with a tight smile, McCain managed a greeting: "Good to see you."

Obama got the message. He shook hands with Martinez and Lieberman -- both of whom greeted him more warmly -- and quickly beat a retreat back to the Democratic side.

This was yesterday on the Senate floor, when the chamber voted on the bail-out bill. Ta-Nehisis Coates, of The Atlantic, writes that this is "pretty incredible when paired with McCain's inability to look at Obama during the debate. The only thing worse than a sore loser, is a person who's sore even before they lose."

I agree.

Sure, the polls have him trailing right now, but that can change in four weeks. And for a candidate and party who doesn't follow the polls, why should McCain care?

Seriously, what's wrong with him?

The Right's Newest Most Cynical Tactic

They hope it will undermine the moderator of tomorrow's debate and provide cover for the potential poor performance of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin

On the eve of the Vice Presidential debate, conservative operatives and their minions are going into over-drive to undermine moderator Gwen Ifill.

Ifill, the only person of color to moderate debates during this high-profile election season, is the target of character assassination by the likes of conservative huckster Michelle Malkin. You can read Malkin's drivel here, but in a nutshell Malkin charges that Ifill "is in the tank" for Sen. Barack Obama and is encouraging other conservatives to place calls to the commission that selects moderators to complain about the "conflict of interest" Ifill presents as a moderator. Malkin also wants this to be the first thing Republican veep nominee Palin brings up during the broadcast of Thursday night's debate.

Yeah, I want to see Palin attack Ifill right out the box tomorrow, that will surely increase her approval ratings. Among some, yeah, but hopefully many more will see this coded racial behavior for what it really is.

Anyway, Malkin basis her claims of "conflict of interest" on the fact that Ifill wrote a cover story about the Obama family for Essence Magazine in August (of course Essence's primary readership are African American women for my bretheren and sisters who might not know). Malkin also cites an upcoming book Ifill wrote as proof that the highly respected journalist is somehow compromised and should not be allowed to moderate tomorrow's debate.

Malkin fails to tell her followers that the book isn't about Sen. Obama in so much as it is about the new era of race in politics, the decline of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of new black power elites like Obama, Artur Davis of Alabama, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Corey Booker of Newark, NJ.

Of course, this very factual piece of information doesn't matter to Malkin and conservatives who agree with her. They just want to set-up a straw-man, or in this case a straw-woman, to take the blame in the likelihood that their beloved Sarah Palin falls on her face in the debate in much the same way she's fallen on her face in recent interviews with Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson.

Question is will such cynical tactics continue to work on the psyche of America's electorate, especially those ever-so-crucial independent voters?