Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
McCain Supporters are fucking Crazy
(CNN) -- A Republican campaign worker who told police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car admitted she made up the report, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant police chief said Friday.
Police say Ashley Todd, 20, admitted making up the report she was attacked because of a McCain sticker.
Ashley Todd, 20, of College Park, Texas, will be charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges, said police spokeswoman Diane Richard at a news conference.
"This has wasted so much time. ... It's just a lot of wasted man hours," Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said at the same briefing.
The woman told investigators a man approached her Wednesday night at an ATM in Pittsburgh's East End, put a blade to her neck and demanded money, Richard said.
Police said they found "several inconsistencies" in Todd's statement and she was not seen in surveillance videos taken at the ATM. She was asked to take a polygraph test Friday morning, Richard said. The results were not made public.
Later, Todd came to the police station to help work on a composite sketch of the alleged attacker. When she arrived, Todd "told them she just wanted to tell the truth" -- that she was not robbed, and there was no attacker, Bryant said.
Todd originally told police a man "punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, and he continued to punch and kick her while threatening to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter," according to a police statement.
The woman also told police her attacker "called her a lot of names and stated that 'You are going to be a Barack supporter,' at which time she states he sat on her chest, pinning both her hands down with his knees, and scratched into her face a backward letter 'B' on the right side of her face using what she believed to be a very dull knife."
Bryant described Todd as "very cordial, polite, cooperating," and said the woman was surprised by all the media attention. Asked whether the false report was politically motivated, Bryant replied, "It's difficult to say."
"She is stating that she was in her vehicle driving around, and she came up with this idea," she said. "She said she has prior mental problems and doesn't know how the backward letter 'B' got on her face."
However, Todd was the only one in the vehicle, and "when she saw the 'B' she thought she must have been the one who did it," Bryant said.
"We're talking with the district attorney's office and conferring on just how we're going to handle it," she said. "It's been different stories through the night and this morning."
She said there was no indication that anyone else was involved.
Richard said the woman had described her alleged attacker as an African-American, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a medium build and short dark hair, wearing dark clothing and shiny shoes.
Before the revelation that the report was false, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said that McCain and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin "spoke to the victim and her family after learning about the incident."
The Obama campaign also had issued a statement wishing the woman a "speedy recovery."
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Commentary: Republican attacks show fear and desperation
CNN Contributor
Editor's note: Join Roland S. Martin for his weekly sound-off segment on CNN.com Live at 11:10 a.m. ET Wednesday. If you're passionate about politics, he wants to hear from you. A nationally syndicated columnist, Martin has said he will vote for Barack Obama in November. He is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith" and "Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America." Visit his Web site for more information.
Roland Martin says the McCain campaign is launching desperate attacks to derail Obama.
(CNN) -- Watching Sen. John McCain and top Republicans swing wildly in their attempts to slam Sen. Barack Obama, with less than two weeks ago to go before Election Day, is like watching an old fighter --clearly out of gas, his legs turned to rubber, and all he can do is grab, hold, punch behind the back, just anything to try to win.
McCain's campaign is no longer about issues. He and his supporters want to bring up anything and everything to derail Obama, and nothing is sticking, so they just keep returning to their old bag of tricks.
In the past two weeks, we've seen Minnesota Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann make one of the most audacious statements ever, suggesting that Obama holds anti-American views, that other members of Congress have the same views, and that the media should launch a widespread investigation to ferret them out.
No, seriously, she said that on MSNBC's "Hardball."
It didn't take long for the folks on the left to get ahold of her comments. After the video spread like wildfire, Democrats across the country pumped $700,000 into the campaign coffers of her opponent. The normally talkative Bachmann is now on lockdown, not granting any interviews, as she has to work hard to hold onto her seat.
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Then you have former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was caught suggesting that if Obama wins, he is going to put in place the policies of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Now, Gingrich has absolutely no clue what policies Wright advocated, but he wants to scare the dickens out of voters by literally making stuff up about Obama.
Cindy McCain, who has barely moved her lips during this campaign, is now accusing the Obama campaign of running the dirtiest campaign ever, and lighting up the New York Times and others for their viciousness. Never mind what's happening in her own backyard with all of the false and outlandish comments coming from her husband, his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, and their supporters.
They are now in full blame-the-media mode.
Then you have both McCain and Palin slamming Obama for essentially being a socialist. We shouldn't be surprised that it's come to this because we already had radio hosts like Lars Larson, Glenn Beck and others trying to paint Obama for months as being a Marxist. Now the junior senator from Illinois is a student of Lenin!
This has totally gotten out of hand, but instead of trying to castigate Obama and tar and feather him, the Republicans should look inward and look at how their actions have seriously harmed this nation.
The Republicans ran Congress for six years. The Republicans have held the White House for the last eight years. The Republicans have advanced the deregulation agenda that played a major role in creating the financial mess we are currently in.
The Republicans have led the foreign policy we have in place that has destroyed the moral authority we once held. Their president is one of the most unpopular in history, so bad that he and Vice President Dick Cheney can't even come out of the White House to campaign on behalf of McCain because they are so reviled by Americans.
Can someone please remind these folks of this?
Every campaign says they want the election to be about the issues, but when McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis made it clear that they want it to be about character and not issues, well, we should have realized we would get to this point.
That's why we're hearing so much about Bill Ayers. That's why they've spent more time blasting out statements about ACORN than real policy points.
It's pretty sad, really. It's sad that instead of making it about a vision for America, they want it to be about the castigating of a good man. It's sad that McCain can't fully articulate an economic plan that encompasses all Americans, instead of redistributing income upwards to the super rich.
It's sad that his only answer to the economy is tax cuts, when we need a much broader answer.
Much can happen over the next 13 days. I've seen campaigns won and lost with less time on the clock.
McCain will continue to throw jabs, swinging wildly, ignoring the game plan he came into the fight with, hoping something -- anything -- connects against the jaw of his younger, more fluid opponent. And like any aging fighter, as the rounds tick away, he could get even more desperate and fearful. So hold on to your seats. Lord knows what will come out of the GOP side over the next 13 days.
Palin takes heat for saying VP 'in charge' of the Senate
Watch Palin's comments on KUSA Wednesday.
(CNN) – Sarah Palin is taking heat Wednesday for appearing to overstate the role of vice president, saying in a recent interview that she would be "in charge of the Senate" should John McCain win the White House.
The comments came in an interview with Colorado TV station KUSA in response to a third-grader's question, "What does the Vice President do?”
"[T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom," she said.
The comments have drawn criticism from Democrats and liberal blogs which note the actual role of the vice president when it comes to the Senate is simply to cast a tie-breaking vote in the event of a stalemate. According to Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the vice president is the "President" of the Senate, but has no executive position when it comes to presiding over the chamber.
Donald Ritchie, a historian in the Senate Historical Office told CNN that Palin's comment was an "overstatement" of what her role would be.
"The vice president is the ceremonial officer of the Senate and has certain ceremonial functions including swearing in new senators and can vote to break a tie," he said. "It’s a relatively limited role. It's evolved into a neutral presiding officer of the Senate.
Ritchie also noted recent vice presidents have played a behind-the-scenes lobbying role on Capitol Hill for an administration's policies, but called it "somewhat limited."
"It's not comparable to the Speaker of the House who is certainly in charge of the House," he said. "The slogan that political scientists use is that the House is ruled by the chair and the Senate is ruled by the floor…the senators are in charge of the Senate."
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Palin, said the Alaska governor was simply answering the question in a way a third-grader could understand.
"Governor Palin was responding to a third grader's inquiry," she said. "She was explaining in terms a third-grader could understand that the vice-president is also president of the U.S. Senate."
In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden also said he hoped to play an influential role in the legislative branch if Barack Obama wins the White House.
"I hope one of my roles as vice president will be as the person actually implementing Barack Obama's policy. You gotta get the Congress to go along with it," he said. "And it's presumptuous to say, but I know it pretty well. And I think I am fairly respected on both sides of the aisle."
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The actress we saw walk by in the gold coast

Aimee Garcia (born November 28, 1978) is an American actress.
Garcia was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was to appear in the Global Frequency television series as Aleph, but only a television pilot was produced, and it was not picked up. She had a role on Cadet Kelly. In 2006, she appeared on The George Lopez Show as George Lopez's spoiled niece. She was only supposed to be appear in four episodes, but because of the popularity of the character, she was picked up by the sitcom for its final season, replacing the departed Masiela Lusha. She also co-starred alongside Anthony Anderson in the TV series All About the Andersons, where she played the energetic Latina med-student Lydia. She is set to star alongside actress/singer Jessica Simpson in the upcoming comedy/drama Major Movie Star set for release in late 2008. She also played a brief part in the movie Dragon Wars (also known as D - Wars) as the best friend of the lead female protagonist Amanda Brooks. The role was a momentary turn around for Aimee, who had usually starred in movies aimed at younger audiences, as in the film Cadet Kelly. She appears with Hilary Duff for only a few moments of the
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
New York Times calls McCain campaign ‘appalling’
"Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember," the Tuesday editorial said. "They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison."
Those comments come two weeks after senior McCain advisors derided the New York Times, calling the news outlet "an Obama advocacy organization" in response to an article in the paper that reported McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was still profiting from failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
The Times, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said then, “obscures its true intentions — to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama — under the cloak of objective journalism.”
Top McCain adviser Steve Schmidt also weighed in on the paper that endorsed McCain's primary bid, saying it is “150 percent in the tank” for Obama — a statement that drew a defiant response from managing editor Bill Keller, who said the paper is "is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively."
The McCain campaign appeared to make its peace with the paper over the weekend, when aides to the Arizona senator and Palin herself both highlighted a Times story that investigated the relationship between Obama and 1960's radical William Ayers. That article, published October 3, concluded Obama has played down the extent of his relationship with the Weather Underground founder, but concludes the two "do not appear to have been close."
But in its blistering editorial Wednesday, the paper's editors criticized the campaign and the Alaska governor for suggesting Obama is "palling around with terrorists," saying that Palin is implying that "Mr. Obama is right now a close friend of Mr. Ayers — and sympathetic to the violent overthrow of the government."
“We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics," the editorial says.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Palin defends what she said about Biden.
(CNN) – Sarah Palin said she was not taking a jab at Joe Biden's age or lengthy stint in Washington when recently joking she had been listening to the Delaware senator's speeches since the second grade.
"Oh no, it's nothing negative at all," Palin told Katie Couric Monday in the latest installment of her Monday interview with the CBS anchor. "He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years."
The original comments came at an Ohio rally Monday, when Palin told the cheering crowd, "I'm looking forward to meeting [Biden] too, I've never met him before — but I've been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in, like the second grade."
Watch: Palin goes after Biden
Some political observers found that comment peculiar, given her own running mate is the oldest man ever to seek a first presidential term. But Palin said she was merely contrasting the differences she sees between herself and Biden.
"He's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many, many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years," she said.
Palin was 8 years-old when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972. (Biden was 29 at that time)
Filed under: Joe Biden • Sarah Palin



