Josh Marshall writes:

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out “terrorist.”

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out “kill him“, though it’s not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn’t seem to matter.

These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.

America’s finest!

Updated 7 October:
Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame
Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 7 October 2008

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: “I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more.”

Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric‘s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

Why does Billy Kristol hate America?

Lowry’s debate review or soft core porn?

by Kim Petersen, Dissent, 1 October 2008

America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israeli Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government
by Grant F. Smith
(Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Washington, D.C., 2008)
Hardcover ISBN: 0-9764437-2-4
Paperback ISBN: 0-9764437-5-9 (only available from Middle East Books)

Grant Smith’s latest book, America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, combines probing investigative journalism with newly released documents to produce a searing expose of the Israel lobby’s¹ invasive osmosis into the seams of the US government. Readers of Smith’s previous book Foreign Agents (see review) will find it segues smoothly with his new work.

[Read the review]

VIDEO: Watch Sarah Palin Read Her Answers In Last Night’s Debate

by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Vanity Fair, November 2008

When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts debating whether it is likely to be V-shaped (short and sharp) or U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come.

Virtually all the indicators look grim. Inflation is running at an annual rate of nearly 6 percent, its highest level in 17 years. Unemployment stands at 6 percent; there has been no net job growth in the private sector for almost a year. Housing prices have fallen faster than at any time in memory—in Florida and California, by 30 percent or more. Banks are reporting record losses, only months after their executives walked off with record bonuses as their reward. President Bush inherited a $128 billion budget surplus from Bill Clinton; this year the federal government announced the second-largest budget deficit ever reported. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the national debt has increased by more than 65 percent, to nearly $10 trillion (to which the debts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should now be added, according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, we are saddled with the cost of two wars. The price tag for the one in Iraq alone will, by my estimate, ultimately exceed $3 trillion.

[Read the article]