Progress Now Action

Digby says:

Have you ever watched people identified on TV as a "political consultant" and thought to yourself, "geez, I could do better than that." Well, now you can prove it...

This is a really fun concept. The ads are great and the idea that we can all contribute directly to put these ads on the air is a fantastic new empowerment tool.

And it's going to drive the insiders nuts ....

Here is the Blue America - SaysMe TV homepage to get started.

The ad will be narrowcast on cable channels NOT broadcast.

The numbers paint a picture that shows it nearly impossible for McCain to win the state at this point. Only 6% of voters are undecided, and among those who do have a preference currently only 6% say there's any chance they could change their mind. Obama's lead at this point is such that McCain would have to win virtually every undecided, keep everyone who could change their mind currently supporting him in his camp, and win over almost 100% of current Obama supporters who say they aren't totally committed to him. The chances of all those things happening? Not very good.

"George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis noted. "He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."

"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all," Lewis said today. "They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better."

This was not the one-word headline I expected to see in this morning's Foreign Policy magazine Morning Brief email.  Similarly, the Financial Times brought gloomy articles confirming the depth of the current fiscal decline.

"Falling by more than 20 percent over seven straight trading days, the U.S. stock market's recent performance now meets the standard definition of a crash."  - FP Morning Brief, 10 October 2008

Is the first attention grabbing fact from FP.  Realistically a seven point consecutively repeated 20% downward trend line is what I've always called a "death-slide." 

It's a very effective way to get the attention of executive decision-makers and mid-level managers.  I've seen motivation and attention to detail factors show a marked increase. 

"Investors have lost an estimated $8.4 trillion dollars so far this year, with the Dow Jones industrial average sinking another 678 points or 7.3 percent Thursday."  - FP Morning Brief, 10 October 2008 

My proposal is to add this figure to the existing National Debt burden enacted by the current occupant of the White House.  In addition to being a condemning legacy of this presidency, it should be a lesson in who, and how, to elect the next president.

Personally, I'm watching the value of my supposedly solid Federal employee Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account in a similar decline.  Holding a large percentage of my shares in a Standard & Poors 500 fund isn’t such a happy place at the moment.

"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," the majority wrote. "To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others."

GERGEN: Yes. There is this -- I think one of the most striking things we've seen now in the last few days. We've seen it in the Palin rallies. We saw it at the McCain rally today. And we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation. There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence.

I think we're not far from that.

One of the most disagreable experiences I've had during this year's political campaign came when national, and local, groups viciously attacked the integrity, motivations and message of General Petraeus. Yet, on Wednesday the conservative Heritage Foundation heard policies and concepts from Petraeus that confirm the campaign platform of Barack Obama.

The complete story from the "Washington Independent" is in the Extended Post Text (via Foreign Policy magazine's Daily Brief service). This is an online news outlet associated with Colorado Confidential.

This can't stay a minor story. Petraeus' comments must be shared, and the Obama campaign should advertise these policies and tactics with enthusiasm.

Part of the value in this this is seeing a competent national leader, Obama, openly discuss a strategic vision and mission for the US military.  Now we're seeing that a widely praised general is able to accept that mission and describe the operational policies and tactics to accomplish what is apparently Barack Obama's security policy in opposition to McCain's irrational Iraq fixation.

Gotta hand it to Doug Lamborn to be stand tall with Phil Graham in believing Americans are "whiners". 

Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008.

Doug Lamborn is one of 28 Republicans to vote against this bill.

Final vote tally-  Yay- 368 to Nay- 28 (all Republicans)

Hey, even wingnuts Musgrave and outgoing Tancredo voted yay.

In 1961 Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the very issue that Colorado voters will consider when they go to the polls on November 4. In 1961 (and by its proponents ever since), it was referred to as "right to work." Today we call it simply "work for less."

Dr. King observed,

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work.' It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. It is supported by Southern segregationists who are trying to keep us from achieving our civil rights and our right of equal job opportunity. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.

As we contemplate going to the polls this election, we must keep in mind that the longterm right wing agenda to drive down wages hasn't ended. Indeed, the proponents of Work For Less laws have crafted a constitutional change for Colorado that would throw people into jail for doing exactly what we (business owners and working people) do in Colorado every day.

Watching Nightline last night they had a segment on "mud slinging" by both presidential campaigns.  I could not find the entire segment on the Nightline website but could find an abridged segment in politics section of ABCNews.com. 

As many others have noted is that corporate media is still insisting on the inaccurate view of making equivalences between "a" and "b" when there are none.  Whereas McCain is utilizing "guilt by association" between Obama and Ayers (that has been debunked) the ABC Nightline segment then makes an equivalancy with Obama's website on McCain being a part of the Keating 5.

What the Nightline segment did was basically whitewash the involvement of McCain in Lincoln Savings and Loan, headed by Keating, which failed and that cost taxpayers over two billion dollars.  The Chicago Sun-Times does a fact check.

Is this informing the viewer or is it just to keep the ratings up in the interest of garning viewers and higher profits?

Colorado 10/5, 1,000 LV 3%
Obama 51, McCain 45, Barr 1, Nader 1, McKinney 1

Johne at SquareState has blogged about how deceptive and injurious this amendment would be to Colorado's working people.

Work until you die as your 401k and IRA disappear under this crisis.  I was wrong to think a few weeks ago that this was a "faux crisis" after reading extensively on mortgages and the rise of "side bets" by the financial institutions.  There is nothing "faux" about what is happening now because the crisis is global in nature now.

What is telling is that I have not read of any coordinated financial strategy with the industrialized nations, but it seems to be "everyone for themselves" to solve this breakdown in "trust" which has frozen credit markets.  What has Sec. Paulson said about international cooperation?  Bernanke?  Bush?  

Jody Shenn and Carol Sallas, Bloomberg.com, write:

European stocks fell today as the credit crisis deepened in the region and after European leaders meeting in Paris this weekend pledged to bail out their own nations' banks, while stopping short of a coordinated rescue.

Meanwhile, Sec. Paulson has named Neel Kashkari to head the  Office of Financial Stability on an interim basis, until the Senate can hold a confirmation hearing that will occur probably after the elections.

Heidi N. Moore, Wall Street Journal, notes:

Kashkari (above left) is an Indian-American who has a few things in common with Paulson (above right). Both are former Goldman Sachs bankers, though Kashkari, at 35 years old, is much younger and was just a vice president-level banker in Goldman’s San Francisco technology banking effort when Paulson tapped him to join Treasury.

I could not agree more with Josh Marshall's point:

For all I know this guy's a friggin' genius. But did Hank Paulson really just put a 35 year old former Goldman Sachs VP in charge of the entire bailout program? 

Way to instill confidence Sec. Paulson!