A grainy 2005 video has emerged from the Wasilla Assembly of God featuring a Kenyan pastor named Thomas Muthee and then-Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin.

Some commentators have mocked the moment where Muthee prays to God to protect Palin from "witchcraft."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/pastor-muthee-a.html

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said today that "For the past two decades, Americans have been lectured by educators and the chattering class that we must respect cultural, religious, racial and ethnic diversity. It seems that exceptions to the creed of multiculturalism are only made when it suits the ideological agenda of the left. ...Witchcraft is a sad reality in many parts of Africa, resulting in scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades. Bishop Muthee’s blessing, then, was simply a reflection of his cultural understanding of evil. While others are not obliged to accept his interpretation, all can be expected to respect it. More than that—Muthee should be hailed for asking God to shield Palin from harmful forces, however they may be manifested. And for this he is mocked and Palin ridiculed?

Seriously, can anyone explain to me how witchcraft has resulted in "scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades," as Catholic Leaguer Bill Donohue asserts?

All I could find from google was an article that supposed witches have been burned.  According to Keith Olbermann, Pastor Muthee actually participated in a witchhunt.  He denounced a woman as a witch, and she had to flee her village, fearing for her life (with good reason, given the AFP article).

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jJ9t5L-mEUjMX185__GCAH7uvx3g

I don't know if this will post, but here's the YouTube video:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jl4HIc-yfgM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jl4HIc-yfgM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

These two great Progessive Dem Senate candidates need your help!  We need a bigger Senate majority in order to override GOP filibusters and pass progressive legislation in case we lose the support of a few conservative Blue Dog Dems.  Please donate what you can to help put them in office!

http://www.actblue.com/page/92kforkay

http://www.jeffmerkley.com/contribute?code=www

Kay Hagan of North Carolina is locked in a close battle with Liddy Dole (polls).

Born in Shelby, Kay met her husband Chip in law school at Wake Forest. After her third child was born, Kay left her banking job at NCNB, where she had worked in the estate and trust division and helped people plan for their loved ones’ long term security and care, to focus on being a full-time mom. Like many mothers across North Carolina, she stayed active in the community, raising money for local causes, helping out at the Bell House and the Moses Cone Hospital, volunteering with the Junior League, teaching Sunday school classes and leading a Girl Scout troop.

While in the state Senate, she has proven to be an effective leader who is not afraid to do the hard work to bridge partisan divides and always put people before politics. Named one of North Carolina’s “Ten Most Effective Senators,” three terms in a row by the non-partisan North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, Governor Mike Easley calls Kay “one of the smartest, hardest working, most effective senators we have in Raleigh.”

"Ten years ago, I was a working mom who went to Raleigh because I thought the state needed a voice like mine. I’m still that same person, but my children are grown and I’m no longer car-pooling them to soccer practice while talking to the Governor on my cell phone."

Jeff Merkley is trying to knock off Gordon Smith in Oregon (polls).

Jeff Merkley was born in the small town of Myrtle Creek, Oregon, the son of a sawmill worker. He's fought hard for working families in Oregon and he's ready to help lead America.

As Oregon's Speaker of the House, Jeff Merkley led one of the most effective, efficient and progressive legislative sessions in Oregon's history - with big achievements for schools, ethics, health care, jobs, alternative energy, and protections for working families.

Merkley raced [quarter-midget cars] as a child, and once owned -- and crashed -- a Harley. He roomed with an impoverished family in Ghana as a teen, hitchhiked across Israel as a young man and went on, as he puts it, to help shut down one of Portland's worst crack alleys.

"I've lived," he says, "a pretty unconventional life."

McCain continues his plan to campaign (and then govern) by gimmick.  Here's how you can tell it's a stunt:

A senior McCain campaign official said that the “Bush package is dead. This is a serious situation. Package must be resolved by the time markets open on Monday."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/mccain-not-comm.html

Um, I've got news for you, anonymous senior McCain official:  the markets are open this week, including tomorrow and Friday.  They can react each day in real time.  There is nothing magical about this weekend and Monday morning.  This is not another Weekend at Bernanke's situation, as with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers/AIG.  You better come up with a better reason for trying to back out of the debate.  You've had time to react to the financial market turmoil and the Bush administration's bailout proposal.  Right now, you look scared and weak.

Also, when your a Republican and you lose GOP Rep. Tom Davis, due to your own administration's lack of credibility on these issues, you're in serious trouble!

"It's a tough sell to most of our members," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., after a closed-door meeting with Paulson and Bernanke. "It's a terrible plan, but I haven't heard anything better."

Compounding the administration's challenge, Republicans and Democrats both say Bush has lost credibility, particularly in cases where he argues there will be dire consequences if Congress doesn't act.

"They sold the war, they sold the stimulus package and some other things. It's the 'wolf at the door'" argument, Davis said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown;_ylt=AmXjWJEVSGTBLYnMPvs3FPWs0NUE

Geez, poor John McCain.  He just can't catch a break!  When is he going to stop getting caught telling obvious lies?

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday, Mr. McCain sought to turn that advantage against his rival, charging that Mr. Obama’s “own advisers are saying that the crisis will benefit him politically.”

The McCain campaign could not cite an example of an Obama adviser’s claiming that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/us/politics/19campaign.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

In this ridiculous "fact-checking" post by Marc Ambinder, he claims that Obama's Spanish-language radio ad linking John McCain and Rush Limbaugh is unfair because McCain and Limbaugh have appreciably different stances on immigration.

Did Ambinder not see the GOP primary and many, many debates?  John McCain was forced to admit that he no longer supported his own immigration reform bill. 

So does Ambinder think McCain was lying then, or is he just clueless? 

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/factchecking_obama.php

CORRECTION REQUIRED:

TPMm, you mangled the headline and buried the lede in the post linked below!!! You got an absolutely phenomenal quote and you should be screaming it from the rooftops!!

The headline clearly should be:

Former Palin Backer: Palin Had Absolutely No Management Skills, Couldn't Manage 5,000 Person Village of Wasilla On Her Own

Palin, he told TPMmuckraker, "had absolutely no management skills and couldn't manage the city on her own."

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/former_palin_backer_state_ag_d.php

Why, oh why, did the New York Times hire Bill Kristol to besmirch its reputation and spread garbage?

Today, he just blatantly lies to readers while discussing John McCain's Veep pick.

He could select the person he would really like to have by his side in the White House — but whose selection would cause palpitations among many of his staffers and supporters: the independent Democratic senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/opinion/25kristol.html?pagewanted=print

Sorry, Bill, but proper capitalization matters a great deal here.  Joe Lieberman is the king of his own make-believe party, and that party is the Independent Democrat party.  He is not an "independent Democratic senator."

While we obviously all know that Joe is no longer a real Democrat, he tried to fool Connecticut voters with his made up party name in order to win re-election.

Now, Bill Kristol is the one trying to fool readers of the Times, by suggesting that Lieberman is a regular Democrat who happens to be independent, rather than the only member of a party that was non-existent until he made it up in order to get re-elected after losing the Democratic primary -- you know, how real Democrats get elected, not fake Democrats who lose and then create their own party. 

I can't believe the NYT allowed this garbage to appear in print!

Rick Warren is the popular and charismatic pastor at the Saddleback Church.  Barack Obama and John McCain are having a campaign forum at his Saddleback Church on Saturday.  He seems genuinely very nice and at least somewhat open-minded on some issues.  You might think a more humble foreign policy would be one place where we could seek agreement with Evangelical leaders and voters.  Yet according to this interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, he still thinks the Iraq War was justified on humanitarian reasons:

[W]hether or not they found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is beside the point. Saddam and his sons were raping the country, literally. And we morally had to do something. If you have a Judeo-Christian heritage, you have to believe it when God says that evil cannot be compromised with. It has to be resisted, it has to be overcome.

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/the_rick_warren_interview_no_c.php

It's going to be tough to reach any consensus with that rather simplistic viewpoint.

He advances this pernicious idea that the only foreign policy option for dealing with bad international actors is to invade their countries and occupy them.  That hardly seems like the humanitarian or Christian ideal.

It's also amazing that he continues to hold this opinion after all of the death, destruction and displacement that continues to take place in Iraq.  Isn't there some idea of proportionality or a humility that suggests you should not intervene and make things worse? 

Another problem with his statement is the lack of intervention in all the other places where people live with fear for their lives.  Shall we invade North Korea and Zimbabwe tomorrow?  Saddam's regime was hardly the only terrible one in the world.  Why did we choose to invade it first?

How easily duped are the folks at FactCheck.org?  Do they now know anything about election law?  Do they not have any connections in D.C. to former FEC attorneys?  They could have just called them up for clarification.

What am I talking about?  This:

<blockquote>Much of the money given in June went to a joint fund-raising venture of the McCain campaign, the Republican National Committee and several state GOP committees, an unknown portion of which was passed through to the McCain campaign itself.  The Post said its report was based on an analysis by the Public Campaign Action Fund, a group that advocates taxpayer financing of political campaigns. That group's Campaign Money Watch project released a report July 31, titled "It's a Gusher: As John McCain Fights For Big Oil, They Open Their Wallets." That report refers to $1.2 million that went to "McCain’s Victory ’08 Fund," a joint fundraising committee. The report does not say how much actually ended up in McCain's own campaign coffers and how much went to other Republican candidates and committees.</blockquote>

This money is all <b>for John McCain!</b>  Ask anyone in politics.  100% of that money is going to John McCain.  That's how these joint fundraising accounts work.  That's the whole point of setting them up!  It's not even some sort of legal fiction.  It's specifically permitted.  Ask any political fundraiser or big donor.  Ask the campaigns, ask the FEC.  Ask anyone! 

Recommend so we can keep fact checking the fact checkers (and avoid pox on both of your houses type political coverage!).  They have a duty to their readers to put out better work product than what they have done in this case.  They should be honest and realistic, not overly superficial in their analysis of campaign financing.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_overstatement.html

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/factcheck-org8

This McCain ad actually PUT OBAMA'S FACE ON MONEY!  WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT IT?!?!?  It's a conversation changer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU

Oh, well.  No one in the media is talking about this Obama ad either, and it's probably good that they got it out there under the radar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPPLSHKH0h4

I like it.  It's a tough ad.  You may have to watch it 2 or 3 times to catch the underlying theme from the key words:

PAST, SAME, OLD, FAILED.

According to a report in Politico, Bob Novak appears to have attempted to flee the scene of the crime after smashing into a pedestrian with his Corvette (how not surprising) in downtown Washington D.C. today. 

Novak may well have escaped if not for the valiant efforts of a cyclist who witnessed the accident and pursued Novak's car, eventually stopping his bike in front of Novak in order to prevent him from continuing his attempts to drive away. 

Novak then apparently lied to reporters on the scene, telling them that he didn't know he hit the pedestrian, who the bicyclist described as "splayed" on the windshield of Novak's Corvette.

Gives new meaning to Rush Limbaugh's term, the drive-by media.  I guess for Conservatives, it's the hit-and-run media.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11985.html

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield.”

Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “The car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said. 

He said he chased Novak a half block down K Street, finally caught up with him and then put his bike in front of the car to block it and called 911. Traffic immediately backed up, horns blared and commuters finally went into reverse to allow Novak to pull over.

Bono said that throughout, Novak "keeps trying to get away. He keeps trying to go.” He said he vaguely recognized the longtime political reporter and columnist as a Washington celebrity but could not precisely place him. 

Finally, Bono said, Novak put his head out the window of his car and motioned him over. Bono said he told him that you can't hit a pedestrian and just drive away. He quoted Novak as responding:  “I didn’t see him there.”

A concierge at 1700 K Street said that she saw a bicyclist yelling and walked outside to see what the commotion was about.

"This guy hit somebody and he won't stop so I'm going to stay here until the police come," Aleta Petty quoted Bono as saying, as he stood in K Street, blocking traffic.

D.C. police confirmed that there was an accident at 18th and K streets NW at approximately 10 a.m. involving a black Corvette convertible and that the driver was a white male.

The intersection is in the hub of Washington’s business district and is filled with pedestrians who work in the law firms and lobby shops that line the corridor.

Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car.

In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking.

“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

The Evans-Novak Political Report lists some potential VP choices for Barack Obama, and speculation is mounting that Obama will pick in the 10 days after he returns from his trip and before the Beijing Olympics.  I have some different views to share, and I'd love to hear what others think as well.  Who should he pick and why?

Right now, my top four choices, in no particular order, are Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and John Edwards.  All four are familiar with the process and have been vetted by running themselves, so gaffes and blunders are hopefully less likely.  They are all very solid progressives, some better on some issues than others (Dodd on FISA, Edwards on poverty and trade, Richardson on energy, Biden on foreign policy, etc.). 

Biden, Richardson, and Dodd all have foreign policy experience.  Richardson and Edwards help reinforce Obama's message of change and can run as D.C. outsiders.  Richardson has executive and diplomatic experience and may help with the Western and Hispanic vote. 

I do think age is potentially a factor.  None of them are too old to run for VP right now, but as Dodd is 64 and Biden is 65, they might be too old to run for president themselves after serving as VP.  That has some potential upside as well, however, as it may align their interests better with Obama, without requiring them to chart their own paths in order to run in 2016.  Richardson is 60, and Edwards is 55, so they would not be too old to run in 2016.  (I realize this is getting ahead of ourselves to some degree.)

I would love to see him pick Claire McCaskill, but I think her Senate seat is too important.  I don't know enough about Janet Napolitano or Kathleen Sebelius to have an informed opinion.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I don't want Obama to pick a VP who is more conservative or less experienced than he is.  I don't think that will help him in the White House, as that person could potentially undermine some of the progressive parts of Obama's agenda, and I doubt it will really help him much in the campaign. 

Here is a ridiculously disgusting quote, supposedly a joke, from John McCain.  Please share this "joke" with Hillary Clinton supporters who may briefly consider supporting John McCain and ask them to consider what sort of a person tells such a joke:

<blockquote>Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.</blockquote>

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html

Yup, that's what John McCain said about poor Chelsea back in 1998, when she was only 18 years old.  It's so outrageously awful and so clearly beyond the pale that it makes Greg Sargent's effort to catalog unfair coverage of Hillary during the 2008 campaign look like an exercise in warm-fuzziness! 

I hope everyone can try to help spread this article around the blogosphere.  It was reported by David Corn at the time in Salon, and McCain did not deny it and apologized for it, including to Maureen Dowd in the N.Y. Times.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E6DD173CF932A15755C0A96E958260

That's what pure, unadulterated and awful sexist garbage McCain used to spew.  How comfortable do Hilllary's supporters feel about that?

As Dowd reported, things have changed little since then:

<blockquote>He is so revered by the press that his disgusting jape was largely nudged under the rug. ''It's like a return to the Kennedy era,'' said one magazine editor. ''He makes a gaffe, and we look the other way.''

...

''This is the bad boy,'' he said in a phone interview. ''It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I could give you a whole bunch of excuses, but there are no excuses. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?''

He said the Senator who spoke just before he did to the Republican fat cats made a tasteless joke about Viagra. ''So I got up and said, 'You think that was a tasteless joke? Listen to this one.' The minute it came out of my mouth, I thought, 'Oh no, this is a terrible mistake.' ''

But, he added, defensively, ''I will always maintain a sense of humor. Life is too short not to.''

Life is also too short for making the President's daughter the target of a junky, misogynistic crack masquerading as humor.

Mr. McCain said he wrote a letter of abject apology to the President. That's good politics. But where's the letter to Janet Reno? He says he doesn't think that such a letter is necessary. </blockquote>

I'm starting to think Bill Richardson is the best choice for Barack Obama to pick as VP.  I really like John Edwards, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and other folks who have been mentioned recently, but there are just so many positives to picking Bill Richardson. 

Here are 10 reasons off the top of my head favoring Richardson:

1. Serious foreign policy credentials and credibility.

2. He can say that he's negotiated with dictators and the Earth didn't melt.

2. Governor not a Congressman (although a former Congressman).

3. From a swing state.

4. From the important Mountain West region.

5. Helps with Hispanic voters.

6. Optimistic and upbeat campaigner.

7. Hopefully well vetted from his presidential campaign.

8. New face (for the public), so helps reinforce Obama's message of CHANGE.

9. First Hispanic VP, so reinforces how HISTORIC the Dem ticket is.

10. Stood up to Clintons and endorsed Obama!

Hell Has Officially Frozen Over   [Byron York]

It caught my eye as a flash on Brit Hume a few moments ago, but here is a photo from Hillary Clinton's visit today to the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In this picture, she is seen talking to none other than Richard Mellon Scaife, the owner of the paper and the man who once said that the death of Vincent Foster was the "Rosetta stone" of the Bill Clinton administration. (He also funded the so-called "Arkansas Project" at The American Spectator.) We've heard reports of a rapprochement between Scaife and the Clintons of late, and the Pennsylvania primary is fast approaching, but this is still a pretty striking picture.

The picture is right here: 

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDA2YTFkMmUxNjliNDIzODU1MWQxZmY1MjdiMDE0OGM=

I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it.  It does bring to mind the fact that Rupert Murdoch, owner of right-wing media outlets Fox News, the New York Post, and now the Wall Street Journal (op-ed is far right, we'll see what happens to news), hosted a fundraiser for her Senate campaign. 

The links in this piece will give you some background on Scaife, who is probably the one person single-handedly responsible for the absolutely worst elements of American political life through his donations to bogus "conservative" media outlets and think tanks, including the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review vanity press and The American Spectator.  He's the anti-Obama, the opposite of everything Obama talks about and stands for.  Scaife is constantly injecting more BS and venom into our politics, doing whatever he can to increase ignorance and partisanship.

What the hell is Clinton doing meeting with reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review? The Tribune-Review is a money-losing fringe publication published by Richard Mellon Scaife, a bilious and wealthy crank who spent the 1990s manufacturing vile innuendo about the Clintons. If the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" on which first lady Hillary Clinton famously blamed her troubles can be said to exist, its chairman and chief executive officer was Scaife. Scaife gave the American Spectator $2.3 million to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton, and he used the Tribune-Review to spread, among other things, the reprehensible allegation that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster, a clinically depressed deputy White House counsel who committed suicide in 1993. Scaife was quoted more than once calling Foster's death "the Rosetta stone to the Clinton administration," adding in an interview with George magazine, "Once you solve that one mystery, you'll know everything that's going on or went on—I think there's been a massive coverup. … Listen, [Bill Clinton] can order people done away with at his will. He's got the entire federal government behind him. … God, there must be 60 people who have died mysteriously."

...

For whatever reason, Scaife decided last summer to extend the hand of friendship to Bill Clinton, whose post-presidency he professes to admire. Perhaps Scaife was looking to burnish his image with the judge then presiding over his extremely nasty divorce. Maybe he wanted to get even with the former Mrs. Scaife, who apparently prefers Obama. (She gave Obama's campaign $2,300 in February.) Bill Clinton overcame whatever scruples he might harbor to raise money for his foundation. Hillary Clinton is now doing the same in the interest of her candidacy. She is free, of course, to associate with whomever she pleases. But she is not free, while paddling the sewers with Scaife, to judge Obama publicly for belonging to Wright's church. Compared with Scaife, Wright is St. Francis of Assisi. The only possible reason why any Pennsylvanian might judge Wright more harshly than Scaife is that Scaife is white and Wright is black. That must be obvious even to Hillary as she cozies up to this repulsive billionaire.

http://www.slate.com/id/2187473/