Mayor Michael Nutter on the Stakes in this Election

Presidential Polls 10.26

Arkansas Research 2000 McCain 52, Obama 41 McCain +11
Georgia NBC/Mason-Dixon McCain 49, Obama 43 McCain +6
Illinois Research 2000 Obama 59, McCain 35 Obama +24
Iowa NBC/Mason-Dixon Obama 51, McCain 40 Obama +11
Iowa Quad City-Times/R2000 Obama 54, McCain 39 Obama +15
Missouri NBC/Mason-Dixon Obama 45, McCain 46 McCain +1
Missouri Post-Dispatch/R2000 Obama 48, McCain 47 Obama +1
New Hampshire Boston Globe/UNH Obama 54, McCain 39 Obama +15
Pennsylvania Morning Call Obama 53, McCain 40 Obama +13
South Dakota Research 2000 McCain 50, Obama 41 McCain +9
Tennessee Research 2000McCain 54, Obama 38 McCain +16
West Virginia Research 2000 McCain 49, Obama 43 McCain +6
Wisconsin Rasmussen Obama 51, McCain 44 Obama +7


National Rasmussen Reports Obama 52, McCain 44 Obama +8
National Gallup Obama 51, McCain 42 Obama +9
National Hotline/FD Obama 50, McCain 42 Obama +8
National ABC News/Wash Post Obama 52, McCain 45 Obama +7

::

Arizona is now officially a toss up.

Totally Mental

“I JUST DON'T LIKE what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon.” --Larry David

Christian Nationalism and Why Sarah Palin Must Be Stopped

I TALKED the other day about the evangelical political movement with an evangelical Christian who didn't want to acknowledge the extremist elements of her religion. The Anchorage Daily News has an excellent article about it, given Sarah Palin's participation in a church that evokes witchcraft in driving out evil in the pursuit of a pure theocracy.

Here's a revealing passage, though the whole thing is a must-read:

Just why a church in Wasilla, Alaska, would adopt the language of witchcraft to express their belief in a battle of good versus evil is not clear. But even more revealing was Rev. Muthee's summary of the principles of what has come to be called Christian Nationalism, which preceded his "laying on of hands" ritual.

Extreme Christian Nationalists not only believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation but that its institutions should be run entirely by fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. They believe they have a mandate to purge our institutions of "humanists" who believe that humans are in control of their own destiny, progressive Christians and non-Christians. They believe there are seven areas of society that must be controlled, the so-called Seven Mountains Strategy: church, family, education, government and law, media, arts and entertainment and business.

Muthee echoed this Christian Nationalist strategy in his Palin blessing sermon, where he stated, "When we talk about transformation of a society, a community, it's where we see God's Kingdom infiltrate ... seven areas in our society." Muthee went on to describe his version of the Seven Mountains Strategy and when he got to politics he was praying for Gov. Palin.

Here's a audio clip where Muthee advocates violence to facilitate this takeover:



It's fair to wonder, then, that when Palin stands before angry people who are shouting "Kill him!" and "Off with his head!!" she hears a "congregation" advocating the very violence the man who she claims in her own words is responsible for his rise to power in Alaska politics and she is filled with the holy spirit.

"The more violent you become, the more committed you become, the quicker you will see things happen..."

Palin flatout refuses to answer questions about her faith. I'm sure many would say good for her. It should be off limits for politicians.

But not in this case.

If she becomes Vice President alongside McCain and these are her beliefs, there will be no war we won't fight. All in the name of Jesus.

Sunday With Sarah

Live in Berlin, 1969. I get misty just listening that voice.

Presidential Polls 10.25

Colorado Rocky Mtn News/CBS4 Obama 52, McCain 40 Obama +12
Ohio Ohio Newspaper Poll Obama 49, McCain 46 Obama +3
Pennsylvania Morning Call Obama 52, McCain 41 Obama +11

National Rasmussen Reports Obama 52, McCain 44 Obama +8
National Gallup Obama 51, McCain 42 Obama +9
National Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Obama 51, McCain 42 Obama +9
National Hotline/FD Obama 50, McCain 43 Obama +7
National ABC News/Wash Post Obama 53, McCain 44 Obama +9

This Is How You Crush a Wingnut Hack

Give 'em hell, Joe.

Wassup 2008

Eight is Enough

UPDATED: John McCain Campaign is a Fraudulent Disgrace

WATCH the video clip first. More background from Greg Sargent:

The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

The claims to KDKA from the McCain campaign were included in an early story that ran late yesterday on KDKA's Web site. The paragraphs containing these assertions were quickly removed from the story after the Obama campaign privately complained that KDKA was letting the McCain campaign spin a racially-charged version of the story before the facts had been established, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

So let me see if I got this right.

While Barack was tending to his sick grandmother (who admitted that she used to be afraid of black men) the McCain camp pushed a scam, to personify the "typical white woman" who, in their story, was attacked, and sexually assaulted and mutilated by the big blackety-black black man simply because she supported McCain, leaving Barack's campaign, while he was tending to his sick grandmother, to take on these thugs and not allow them to turn a hoax, which exploits perhaps the deepest racial, sexual, and political wounds of our history, into a Molotov cocktail just days after a Pennsylvania congressman called his fellow citizens in this very district racist rednecks and less than two weeks before the biggest presidential election in a century, all in the crucial state of Pennsylvania that the thugs have been plotting to steal for months, despite being down double digits in the polls for the last, oh, week or two.

This only days after Rudy Giuliani started calling Pennsylvania voters to tell them Barack is soft on crime.

And tonight, MSNBC'S David Gregory revealed, unwittingly, because he's too stupid and too afraid to do it any other way, that the McCain campaign was intending to run hard and heavy on race and crime and crime and race, with this racially divisive hoax as the backdrop, and their White Ice Queen held up as the Compassionate Mother and Energy Goddess, all the way through election day.

The good news? The police didn't believe the story. No black men were rounded up and brutalized and arrested for no reason. No race riots broke out all over the nation.

The young woman can get the mental help she needs.

Anybody who will still vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin after this is an unapologetic bigot. Period.

Anybody who will also still promote their vileness and try to convince others to vote for them is an unrepentant domestic terrorist. A racial arsonist.

Enough is enough.

UPDATE 10.25: The young woman said this morning that she's not sorry for what she did, claims she doesn't even remember most of it, including how the backwards B got onto her face, and she blamed the media for blowing the story out of proportion.

Let her rot in jail.

UPDATE 10.25: Here's a Monie quote (pun intended) from over on JJP:

I was very suspicious of the timing and location---Pittsburgh--- when this story broke. And especially how quiclkly the story disseminated to the press before the full investigation was allowed to take place.

But we must look back to the primaries between Obama and Clinton, from which McCain has employed many of the same tactics.

Pennsylvania proved to ba a hotly contested race that was heralded as the "resurrection" of Clinton's campaign.

Let us not forget that around the time of the Pennsylvania primary, the news cycles were bombarded with

the "bitter" comments
the Jeremiah Wright You-tube sensationalism
Geraldine Ferraro on every channel claiming if Obama was not a black man, he would not have made it this far
Ed Rendell publicly proclaiming many white Pennsylvanians won't vote for Obama because he is black
Hillary Clinton's "Rocky-esque" comeback story.

Of course, Hillary won in the Penn. primary by about 10 points...though her lead of 30 points leading up to the primary was cut drastically in the end.

Clinton, herself has roots in Scranton.....just a week before the DNC convention, Clinton's brother had a meeting with Carly Fiorina, one of McCain's economic advisor in Pennsylvania.

So make no mistake, this hoax was manufactured to be a race-baiting tool in an area that has been lukewarm to Obama. McCain hopes to capture a "comeback" story of his own there---so don't be surprised if we see Jeremiah Wright ads, mailers, and robocalls since this hoax did not pan out quite the way many would have hoped. We may also see some 9/11 references since Pennsylvania is also tthe site in which Flight 93 crashed. And we know Republicans have already politicised the tragedy at the RNC Convention. They will be playing off the same divisive politics that the Clinton camp was mildly successful at doing in Pennsylvania.