PastaJoe

Mine...Republican Jim Walsh voted for it. But he's retiring so he could vote his conscience and not politicize it.

We have the physical evidence that McCain is not an average American from an economic standpoint. What evidence do you have that Obama is incapable of running the country? Not just to run it the way you would like, but incapable of running it.

In the meantime, JDoH (John's Dozen of Houses) McCain is selling one of his mansions in Phoenix: 13 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, 50,000 square feet, 22 flat screen televisions. Can you relate to that? http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/polit...e.for.sale.ktvx

Fox's Greta Van Susteren reports that the McCain campaign didn't know about it. "I am stunned….the campaign (actually both) should have been told before the campaign agreed to have her moderate. It simply is not fair -- in law, this would create a mistrial." But one didn't have to go the lengths of oppo research to find out about a book that was hiding in plain sight on Amazon and the Random house website. Not to mention, Ifill discussed it with Howard Kurtz last month in the Washington Post, in the only profile she's done before the debate. (And I'd imagine someone in the campaign should have read it): To the extent she can carve out any spare time, Ifill is working on a book called "Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama." She focuses on the Democratic nominee and such up-and-coming black politicians as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Newark Mayor Cory Booker. "We're very lazy when we think about race in this country," Ifill says. "We try to put it in a box. It's Jesse versus Al, or Jesse and Al versus everyone else," she says, referring to Jackson and Sharpton. "We love simplistic conflict. There's a whole group of people who have Ivy League degrees and immense accomplishments who actually benefited from the things their parents were fighting for." Regardless, the story's getting major play on cable news, especially Fox. http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalde..._no_secret.html Fox's Carl Cameron asked John McCain today if he thought that PBS journalist Gwen Ifill should recuse herself from moderating Thursday's VP debate in St. Louis. "I think that Gwen Ifill is a professional, and I think she will do a totally objective job because she is a highly-respected professional," McCain said.

Marbury vs Madison which set the precedence for judicial review. I remember that one from high school.

WASHINGTON -- Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself. Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down. Who says public discourse hasn't deteriorated? The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I'm familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced responses of a different order. Not just angry, but vicious and threatening. ****** I'm sure it is coincidence that, upon the Palin column's publication, a conservative organization suddenly canceled a speech I was scheduled to deliver in a few days. If I were as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists are, I might wonder whether I was being punished for speaking incorrectly. Unfortunately, that's the way one begins to think when party loyalty is given a higher value than loyalty to bedrock principles. http://townhall.com/columnists/KathleenPar...ld_a_big_bunker

Perhaps she'll try to appeal to mothers with an "Awww" moment by offering Gwen some moose noodle soup and putting a pillow under her foot.

When Coric asked her about banning abortions even after rape or incest, she kept referring to what she would personally do in such cases, but wouldn't say what her policy would be. The same thing when asked about teaching alternatives to evolution in science class. She needs to be pressed on what her policy recommendations would be, not on what she would personally choose.

Gwen broke her ankle earlier this week. Did the Repubs pull a Gillooly to try to get the debate delayed so Sarah had more cram time? Now they're throwing this out right before the debate to discredit the questioning. I thought both parties had to agree on the moderators. The Repubs must have vetted Gwen with the same group that vetted Palin.

I would go with Fred Taylor; you know he's going to get the ball and the Steelers haven't been world beaters lately.

How about an AMC Pacer with a driver's seat that swivels for easy access.

I suppose the Rush/Shammity/Savage/Beck crowd will flock to this. The funny thing is that there's no need to film a parody of Bush/Cheney/McCain/Palin & co., they provide enough material on their own.

Boehner knew they didn't have the votes they had promised the Dems even before Pelosi spoke: By Monday afternoon, staff members in the offices of Republican leaders were blaming one another for the failed vote. Blunt said he had come to the floor thinking 75 Republicans would support the plan. He was off by 10 — just short of the 12 that were needed to turn defeat into victory. But Boehner told a different story. He said that the GOP leaders never thought they’d get more than 68 Republicans to support the bill — and that he sent Blunt to tell Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) as much nearly two hours before the vote. “I sent [blunt] down to talk to Hoyer, 11:30, quarter to 12, somewhere in that time frame,” Boehner said. “We had a pretty good idea where we were, where we thought we could get to. And Hoyer knew.” Boehner added: “I did not talk to [Hoyer], so I don’t know what their conversation was. [blunt] and I had that conversation. We talked about ‘Should we just rise [walk out]?’ It wouldn’t have been good, but I thought it would have been better than this. It really doesn’t make any difference.” Democrats, for their part, said they assumed Blunt was lowballing his whip count to force Pelosi and the Democrats to line up more votes from their members. In the end, as Pelosi and her team tried to flip votes in favor of the proposal, there was little Boehner or his Republican leadership team could do to entice those who voted “no” to switch their tally in support of the controversial measure. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14107_Page2.html

A majority is 50% + 1. Why couldn't the Republican leadership and Bush get 14 more votes out of 133? That's only 11% of the votes against.

I expected such a response, which is why I said I hope she's asked to give specifics on her views on science and what should be taught in schools. And they can ask Obama about his meeting with you.

The Democrat leadership got a majority of their party to vote for it. The Republican leadership and Bush couldn't get even half, yet it's the Democrat leadership that was the problem.

ANCHORAGE -- Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said. After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs. Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...story?track=rss Hopefully in the debate she'll be asked to clarify her views on science and what should be taught in school.

There's been no shortage of takeoffs on Sarah Palin lately, from television skits to action figures, but Bruce Elliott has gone one step further than most. He's taken off her clothes. Elliott, whose wife, Tobin Mitchen, owns the Old Town Ale House on Chicago's North Side, painted a nude portrait of the Republican vice presidential nominee and hung it above the bar, where it's now a prime attraction among his display of more than 200 celebrity portraits and other racy art. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...0,4944201.story

The fact is that most of those that voted against it from both parties are facing tough reelection fights and wanted to vote on the side of caution so it wouldn't be used against them by their opponents. Blaming it on what anyone said or any other excuse is just looking for political cover. I heard McCain make a statement after the vote, and I still can't tell if he would have voted for or against it, he seems to be straddling the fence. I know that Obama would have voted for it.

The same argument can be made regarding offshore drilling, but the pro-drilling argument has been that we have to start sometime, and it would show a committment that may change perceptions and speculation.

The expectations for her are so low at this point that anything short of acting like Admiral Stockdale ("Who am I, what am I doing here?") will be considered a good performance, and the spin will be how she showed she's qualified. I expect that she will be trained to rope-a-dope; long on generalities and short on specifics to ensure plausible deniablity about making any real gaffes.

Obama won the debate from a political standpoint in that he looked presidential and informed on the facts in a debate on the subject that was supposed to favor McCain. It showed uncommitted viewers that he could pass the commander-in-chief threshold. For those who agree with his domestic and social policies, but may have had questions about his grasp of foreign policy, he succeeded in answering their concerns.

So you're admitting that the current tax rates that were lowered under Bush have not prevented companies from going overseas, so taxes are not the reason they're leaving. Labor costs and environmental regulations are key factors, and Obama wants to negotiate trade deals that raise labor and envirormental standards overseas, not lower them in our country. Level the playing field for our workers, and our workers productivity will be an incentive to stay.

All weekend I kept reading and hearing that Westbrook was going to play. Then right before the game they report he's out; too late to change. Other than that it was basically the bye week and Willie Parker's injury that killed me.

Where's The Phantom when you need him?