August 2008 - Posts
Politico.com's reporting on McCain's odd answer to the house
question is here
(with the original audio).
Architectural
Digest Visits Senator and Mrs. John McCain - Southwestern Style for their
Phoenix Family Home
Here's a ranked
list of the greatest exporters in the world. This list includes the E.U.
even though Germany alone ranks higher than the E.U. but Keith's point on
Thursday's show holds. China already leads the U.S. in exports.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development country
productivity rankings are in this chart. The GDP per hour worked stat that
Keith described last night is the second column from the right. So again, where
John McCain specifically lists productivity as one of the strong fundamentals
of the U.S. economy, calling us "the most productive" we see that in
fact the U.S. ranks sixth.
Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org mentioned a couple of times to Keith on Thursday's
show that the plan John McCain has on his Web site "equals the
draft." On the
"National Security" issues page of McCain's campaign site, that
does seem to be a reasonable interpretation of the "Increasing the Size of
the American Military" section.
Here
are two
letters to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration opposing the
appointment of Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission. As Keith
pointed out on in Thursday's show, despite his rejection from the F.E.C.,
"the Civil Rights Commission reportedly wants him to oversee its report on
how well the Justice Department is monitoring the 2008 Presidential
Election."
Senators
raise concerns over attorney general guidelines for FBI investigations
The back cover of Chaplain Bill McCoy's book bearing the endorsement of General
Petreaus (See Thursday's Worsts) can
be seen on the Barnes & Noble site. The author does have a blog entry from a
few days ago on Amazon.com in which he says that a new back cover is being
redesigned.
McCain's Flush: There is... a house... in Sedona. And in Phoenix, another one. And five condos been the ruin of many a poor young boy... I forgot... to count... Arlington. Our fifth story on the Countdown: Elections rarely turn now on deep meaning, nor on inter-continental ballistic missile treaties, nor even on war and peace. They turn on symbolism. And John McCain just fell into a big giant steaming pile... of symbolism. When America's housing crisis hit home for him, in utterly unpredictable fashion.
CONTINUED >>
Major polls referenced in recent shows:
Judging by the MySpace page of the
East Coast Avengers they are at least aware of Keith's message to them that even in the case of people like Bill O'Reilly, "Nobody's life should be threatened." Wired has
a stream of the song.
NOTE: Headphone alert. The song probably has curses but they're not very distinct from the overall rap. However, the end of the song has the unedited audio of O'Reilly's "We'll do it live" rant which, as you know, contains distinct F-bombs.
News Corp stock chart YTD as guided by the market omnipotence of Bill-O the Clown.
Among Jerome Corsi's other great hits:
I didn't think I understood this story when it aired. Turns out it's as literal as it was reported by Keith:
Confused sea turtles march into Italian restaurant
Anyone But Cheney:
The Vice Presidential drama -- or comedy -- may yet be overshadowed by an almost off-hand response to a questioner, made by Senator McCain today at Las Cruces, New Mexico, in which he appeared to tacitly endorse the idea of reinstating the military draft. In our fifth story on the Countdown: that sea change has not happened thus so. Thus, full coverage of McCain's comment presently. First, the only shred of fact in the giant, undulating, self-inflating balloon of cotton candy that is the VP talk: Senator Obama has confirmed he will not choose... Dick Cheney. CONTINUED >>
The Veep is Coming: Breaking news tonight that one of the four people left on the Obama short-list would bet his or her life that the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate will be... Senator Joe Biden. On the other hand: Biden today said "I'm not the guy." But he said it quickly and kinda softly. Our fifth story on the Countdown: Senator Obama, returning Saturday to the city where he began his campaign... Springfield, Illinois... where, the Associated Press reports at this hour, that a "Senior Obama adviser" had revealed anonymously that the Vice Presidential choice will appear with the Senator, in front of the former state Capitol building.
CONTINUED >>
Great unofficial MSNBC news today...be sure and watch tonight for more info.
Now as promised a Special Comment on the remarks of the Senior Senator from Arizona about Senator Obama at the VFW Convention, and about NBC News and MSNBC....
CONTINUED >>
War More Years: If timing is not everything -- and tonight there is a report that may know the timing of when Barack Obama will identify his Vice Presidential choice -- if not who that person will be..Maybe juxtaposition is everything. Our fifth story on the Countdown: at the same time in the campaign that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ripped the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for "bad judgment" in Iraq... The New York Times reminded the nation that John McCain's immediate response to 9/11 was... to threaten Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
CONTINUED >>
These items follow Friday's stories reported by guest host Rachel Maddow.
McCain: Audacity Watch
President McCain Sends Secretary of State Lieberman and Defense Secretary Graham to Tbilisi
The stat Rachel quoted Friday night about Obama doing better among all faith groups other than Evangelicals comes from a recent Barna poll.
For the most part, the various faith communities of the U.S. currently support Sen. Obama for the presidency. Among the 19 faith segments that The Barna Group tracks, evangelicals were the only segment to throw its support to Sen. McCain. Among the larger faith niches to support Sen. Obama are non-evangelical born again Christians (43% to 31%); notional Christians (44% to 28%); people aligned with faiths other than Christianity (56% to 24%); atheists and agnostics (55% to 17%); Catholics (39% vs. 29%); and Protestants (43% to 34%). In fact, if the current preferences stand pat, this would mark the first time in more than two decades that the born again vote has swung toward the Democratic candidate.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would require the Department of Defense to grant the press access to ceremonies honoring fallen military personnel. The bill was introduced by Congressman Walter Jones, a Republican from North Carolina, and a member of the House Armed Services committee. It's called the Fallen Hero Commemoration Act, HR 6662 IH.
Ed McMahon's house - now Donald Trump's house. (Same photos, more snark.)
So what happened with the Bigfoot DNA test? Fail.
One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, according to Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the DNA analysis.
The Presumptuous Nominee:
This is Friday, August 15th... 81 Days until the 2008 Presidential Election. Unless, of course, they've already held the election, and the only person who knows the outcome is the winner, our new and current (secret!) president, America's 44th... President-Senator John McCain. Our number-five story, the presumption and perils... politically and geo politically... in John McCain's campaign custom of acting as if he picks up his mail at 16-hundred Pennsylvania Ave.
CONTINUED >>
The Obama campaign's corrections of Jerome Corsi's ridiculous book of lies are linked here.
The Georgetown University journalism program investigating the murder of Daniel Pearl is called The Pearl Project.
There's no free online version of the newly released Office of Strategic Services personnel records from the National Archives, which is just as well because according to the press release it's 750,000 pages.
On Thursday's show, guest host Rachel Maddow suggested viewers Google the phrase "Truman Commission." Go ahead.
This was in response to the Cooking-the-books-gate scandal in Bushed in which it was revealed that the shockingly large amount of money spent of private contractors in Iraq (as calculated by the Congressional Budget Office) is actually not shockingly high enough because it only accounts for private contractors working inside Iraq and ignored the tens of billions spent on private contractors in the U.S. on tasks related to the war in Iraq.
How Bush spent his days in office - This isn't exactly the source of the "2.5 years on vacation" stat but it's a nice clear breakdown of how the days and events tally up for the Bush years.
The details of the man who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are even more outrageous than Keith described in Wednesday night's Bushed segment. The New York Times has the full story, short version at Gothamist.
The article suggesting McCain's speech on the Georgia crisis was partly plagiarized from Wikipedia is here.
From Monday's Oddball, the emotion-enabled Heart Robot.
War More Years: As war rages tonight in Georgia...Russia's invasion of that tiny U-S ally is raising new questions not just about the wisdom and the competence, of John McCain's foreign policy... But also about the integrity and the ethics, that shaped his position toward Russia.McCain's position may in fact, have helped fuel this crisis. It certainly today left a foreign head of state, making an extraordinary appeal for help from a capital virtually under seige -- and calling McCain out by **name** for not matching deeds to words. Our fifth story tonight, the price for McCain's foreign policy... possibly, in this case, a literal price. Did the nation of Georgia think it had bought... John McCain? His rebuke at the hands of that nation's leader, presently. First, today's new details about McCain's top foreign-policy advisor.
CONTINUED >>
The much discussed Clinton campaign memos can be found here on the Atlantic Monthly site,
accompanying their piece, The front-runner's fall.
Another lobbyist in the McCain campaign compromising the integrity and authority of the Republican candidate on an important issue. To do your own lobbyist searches, the House and Senate maintain separate databases but the actual searches aren't hard at all. Search the House database here and the Senate database here. Try a simple one like Scheunemann.
"Including funding for 2008 itself, the U.S. has likely awarded $100 billion or more for contractors in the Iraq theater."
Conyers Announces Review of Allegations of Bush Administration’s Forged Iraq Intelligence - As Keith points out, "No hearings yet, no testimony, no putting members of the Administration in a stockade and providing everybody in the country with a carton of rotten eggs. Just a 'review.'"
Oldie but a goodie: O'Reilly Hit With Sex Harass Suit - Page 16 has the falafel fantasy that keeps on giving. NOTE: Graphic language! As Bill-O himself says, "Millions of dollars exchanged hands. That money must be accounted for." But that never happened in the case of Bill-O the Clown. Here's The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz on the various multi-million dollar guesses.)
Crisis Management: Within 24 hours of the revelation that during her presidential campaign, Senator Hillary Clinton was advised -- but refused -- to try to paint Senator Barack Obama as somehow un-patriotic or un-American... Comes the first clear, non-nuanced, anything-but-subtle attempt by the McCain Campaign... to try to paint Senator Barack Obama as somehow un-patriotic, or un-American. The fifth story on the Countdown: and it's all been dressed up in the guise of seeming bi-partisanship, by the politician who defines the age-old warning that there is no zealot like a convert, Republican-In-Everything-But-Name, Senator Joe Lieberman.
CONTINUED >>
War Counsel: With hundreds of Americans in harm's way... With a Russian invasion today bringing all-out war to the soil of a strategic U-S ally... With Russia blasting America for helping that ally... With thousands dead in just the past five days... We now have our first, real-time test of how the presidential candidates would respond to a serious, global crisis. Our fifth story tonight: after suggesting his opponent was acting too presidential, too soon... John McCain has done some acting of his own... While letting his top foreign policy advisor, continue to act, as a lobbyist for one of the countries, at war.
CONTINUED >>
The Edwards Affair: An election campaign that -- had John Edwards succeeded in gaining the Democratic nomination -- might tonight have been turned into utter chaos, by as great a self-inflicted political wound, as could be imagined. Our fifth story on the Countdown: the former Senator, who suspended his bid for the White House just five months and four days ago, admitting today he had conducted an extra-marital relationship that he claims ended before he announced his candidacy, but insisting he did not father the woman's child. What has tonight ended for John Edwards... according to an un-recorded telephone interview with CBS News... he says "no plans" to attend the upcoming Democratic convention. What may yet end... his prospects of serving in a Democratic Administration... and his image... and his credibility. What appears not to have ended... his marriage... Edwards insisting tonight to CBS that his wife had forgiven him... Elizabeth Edwards, in the same conversation, saying "this is really really tough" -- and described by Bob Schieffer of CBS as being, quote, "in tears."
CONTINUED >>
Source documents for some recent Countdown stories:
Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq: Iraqi Revenues, Expenditures, and Surplus - This is just the summary, the significant bit you heard about on Countdown is:
As of December 31, 2007, the Iraqi government had accumulated financial deposits of $29.4 billion, held in the Development Fund for Iraq and central government deposits at the Central Bank of Iraq and Iraq's commercial banks. This balance is the result, in part, of an estimated cumulative budget surplus of about $29 billion from 2005 to 2007. For 2008, GAO estimates a budget surplus of between $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion.
The full (41 page) pdf is here.
KFC In Fallujah? Too Finger-Licking Good To Be True
The Smoking Gun has the arrest report of the jerk who called 911 with complaints about his sandwich.
Keith noted on the show, "Under a 1991 amendment to statutes that in 1947 created the C.I.A. and that govern its actions, there is a passage that reads, 'No covert action may be conducted which is intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media.'" You can find that amendment here (see item f).
U.S. Army hopes to keep native Arabic speakers - Incentives likely to include large payments to soldiers now working as translators. Completing the picture is this from an earlier C.S. Monitor story:
Nearly 11,000 military personnel have been discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, according to a Government Accountability Office report in 2005, including about 750 personnel in jobs critical to the war on terrorism, like translators.
Here's the official Web site of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally though more appropriate to the news is The Buffalo Chip campground, host to the annual Miss Buffalo Chip competition.
Chuck Todd’s Latest Electoral Map: Obama 217, McCain 189
Transcript of Amerithrax Investigation Press Conference - And for those truly devoted to digging through the anthrax case, here are the hundreds of pages of documents released by the DoJ in connection with the case.
FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials - The portion highlighted by Keith:
After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.
"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.
In case, for some reason, you thought Keith was making it up, yes, the Wall Street Journal really did publish an article about whether Barack Obama is "too fit." An interesting note is the "correction and amplification" at the bottom. That's likely a response to the "online story research" uncovered by bloggers.
From NASCAR.com:
Tires are the Rodney Dangerfield of the automotive world. Even though they're the only component of the car that actually touches the pavement, tires "get no respect."
Apparently they're also the Rodney Dangerfield of the Republican world.
Here's the Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University Survey of Low-Wage Workers wherein it is revealed that in spite of the media hype it is in fact John McCain who has a "working class whites problem."
Tire Rotation: As metaphors go... Senator McCain just got a flat. After nearly a week which he, his surrogates and the R-N-C spent mocking Senator Obama for suggesting -- in response to a question --tire inflation as a way to improve mileage and save gas... Senator McCain has come out and endorsed... tire inflation as a way to improve mileage and save gas. Our fifth story on the Countdown: Senator McCain spinning his wheels. Another apt metaphor.
CONTINUED >>
Weapons of Mass Deception?: If you scoff at the thought that the American government would actually try to create a forged document to establish a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, and thus an excuse to invade Iraq... Some snippets of history to consider as we begin our fifth story -- our cable-exclusive interview with the author reporting this, in his new book, Ron Suskind. Fake government documents created by the Soviets were used against President Reagan, and President Carter, and President Eisenhower, and Nelson Rockefeller, and Secretary of Defense Weinberger, and the Police Commissioner of New York, and the U-S Ambassador to the United Nations. The French faked their own government documents in the Dreyfus case, and forged Napoleon's signature to use against President Madison. There were the Sisson Documents, the Tanaka Memorandum, and most pertinent to **our** purposes here: the Italian Niger Yellowcake Uranium Forgery.
CONTINUED >>
This was going to be in tomorrow's Countdown Supplemental but since Gerald Posner brought it up on tonight's show, here it is. If you're interested in following up on his recommendation of looking at the Maryland records of Bruce Ivins' therapist, Jean C. Duley, you have to start here and then put her name in the subsequent search (don't worry about the other fields).
McCain's Tire Argument: John McCain may have just had his "Let Them Eat Cake" moment. Marie Antoinette never said it -- the story was already out when she was a little girl -- so if the comparison's unfair, it's unfair to her. But in our fifth story on the Countdown: the Republican presidential candidate has devoted his nightly embittered mocking quota, to ridiculing a gas-saving suggestion advocated by his Democratic rival. A gas-saving suggestion advocated five weeks ago... by a governor, John McCain is considering as his running mate. A gas-saving suggestion advocated two years ago... by those liberal lunatics at NASCAR -- the stock-car-racing circuit. A gas-saving suggestion which President Bush's own highway department suggests could save more barrels of oil in one year than new off-shore drilling could produce in four. Keep your engine tuned... and your tires properly inflated.
CONTINUED >>
Anthrax Investigation: If reporting by The Los Angeles Times today is even remotely accurate, the questions about the anthrax attacks which terrified this nation late in 2001 would seem, tonight, to have boiled down to three. First: was the anthrax sent by just one employee of our own government, or more than one employee of our government? Second: when the F.B.I. missed an easy clue - the unreported spilling of anthrax in the federal repository of anthrax, that the suspect did not report - was it incompetence, or a cover-up? Third: how, if there was evidence of something askew at our biological warfare lab in Maryland as early as December 2001, did national news organizations in this country receive supposedly reliable leaks from the Bush Administration that the anthrax originated in Iraq. There is finally a suspect in the Anthrax Attacks, he worked for the government's anthrax lab, and, unfortunately, he's dead, as of this past Tuesday.
Politic Energy: Obama goes high-low. High? An emergency cash rebate to be paid for by windfall profit taxes on the oil industry. Low? He seems to have opened the door to some off-shore drilling.
ODDBALL: Football Players versus Cheerleaders and inter-species shenanigans.
Wal-Mart, Always Low: Written in 2003, set in the near future, "Jennifer Government" imagines a world run by American corporations so mighty, that workers name themselves after their employers. Hyperbole? Ask John and Jane Wal-Mart. They aren't being told how to name themselves. But they may have been told how to vote.
Worst Person in the World: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann battles Billo, Presidents Bush and Roger Ailes for top honors.
Fit for Office? When pollsters are willing to ask voters , and when we ask ourselves, which presidential candidate we would most like to have a beer with or which one we want driving by when we need help changing a tire, then maybe we shouldn't be surprised that there is actual serious consideration about whether Senator Barack Obama is too skinny to be President. That's right, the country has pretty much gone to hell over the past eight years, but Obama isn't eating enough junk food.
The May 2006 offshore damage assessment report from the U.S. Minerals
Management Service that Keith quoted on Thursday night can be found
here. The portion relevant to spills says:
MMS also is releasing the following tally of hurricane-related
oil/condensate/chemical spills in Federal offshore OCS waters as
reported to MMS and the National Response Center. Six spills of 1,000
barrels or greater were reported; the largest of these was 3,625
barrels of condensate reported by the Gulf South Pipeline Company in
the Eugene Island Block 51 area. A total of 146 U.S. Department of the
Interior Minerals Management Service Office of Public Affairs spills of
1 barrel or greater have been reported in the Federal OCS waters; 37 of
these were 50 barrels or greater. No shoreline or wildlife impacts were
noted from these spills.
One barrel of oil = 42 gallons. Think Progress links to a longer, more thorough report also on the MMS site:
As a result of both storms, 124 spills were reported with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products, of which about 13,200 barrels were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 4,500 barrels were refined products from platforms and rigs.
Sy Hersh's remarks at the "Campus Progress Journalism Conference" that in a meeting
in the Vice President's office, members of the Administration sat
around brainstorming ideas to provoke war with Iran can be heard in this brief YouTube clip.
The Leaky Cauldron has the latest details on the public release of J.K.
Rowling's "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" and what it may contain.
Here are the full Ted Stevens indictment documents.
"In response to a request from Chairman Waxman, the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration released a report concluding that Blackwater may have 'misrepresented' its small business status in order to win 39 government contracts worth more than $100 million."
"Meet Spencer Taylor. The Michigan man, 20, was arrested early yesterday morning for allegedly trying to steal Batman posters and other collectibles from a theater showing 'The Dark Knight.'"
The tourist video showing a rookie NYPD officer slamming a Critical Mass bicycle activist off his bike and onto the sidewalk can be seen here.
The RAND Corporation report Keith cited on Wednesday night is How Terrorist Groups End; Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida. The full report is more than 250 pages long but significant conclusions can be found in the corresponding press release.
Police and intelligence agencies, rather than the military, should be the tip of the spear against al Qaida in most of the world, and the United States should abandon the use of the phrase "war on terrorism," researchers concluded.
The LegitGov.org story cited by Keith on Thursday night in which they point out the "re-killing of another key al-Qaeda operative" can be found here.
The documentation from the House Oversight Committee hearings on KBR's responsibility for deficient electrical systems at U.S. facilities in Iraq is here. The July 8th, 2007 memo Keith referred to specifically can be read here. (The point, again, is that Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth died after being electrocuted while showering on January 2nd, 2008.)
