I'm starting to feel pity for McCain.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Mitt struck me as a bit of an arrogant dick too (which is not really relevant, but is simply a note)

True, but that arrogant ****er would be good on the economy. Both Obama and McCain have embarrassed themselves with their plans to fix the financial crisis.

On the other hand, I think that Obama is better on foreign policy for the US

They're both **** on foreign policy. You get neo-conservative interventionism with McCain, liberal interventionism with Obama. The worst thing Bush did was push all the realist foreign policy thinkers away from the Republican party; we could use some adults right about now.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut


Why would Palin be worried about surviving? The base loves her.

Basically Palin has Talk Show Conservatives and Social Conservatives. She doesn't have business types or foreign policy hawks. In 2012 Huckabee, being rather more intelligent and a vastly better speaker, will probably be able to peel off the Social Conservative types and that leaves her with the Talk Show types and a few men thinking with the wrong head.

She won't be able to do too much better than Alan Keyes, give her 15% of the 2012 rep primary vote tops.

[DRoseDARs]

The photographer has admitted to giving his photos to the police ... and College Republicans. Sh*t, meet Fan. There's a lot of rehashing here and lot of other new details but look towards the bottom, bolded.

McCain volunteer admits to hoax

'B' on her cheek, black eye were likely self-inflicted
Saturday, October 25, 2008
By Michael A. Fuoco, Jerome L. Sherman and Sadie Gurman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Keith Srakocic/Associated Press
Ashley Todd is led from Pittsburgh police headquarters by detectives yesterday.

Almost from the start, Pittsburgh police were skeptical about a young woman's claim that she had been mugged and a "B" carved into her cheek by an attacker who was provoked by the sight of a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.

Yesterday, their doubts were confirmed when 20-year-old Ashley Todd, a McCain volunteer from College Station, Texas, admitted that she made the whole thing up.

There was no black man with a knife, no robbery, no physical assault.

And the backwards "B" on her cheek? She's not sure, she told police, but assumes she did that herself. As for the black eyes, police assume they likewise were self-inflicted.

Her story quickly became political fodder on the Internet and spread around the world, fueled by the presidential campaign and Ms. Todd's political connections as a field representative for the College Republican National Committee and McCain volunteer.

But in less than a day, the international story of a McCain volunteer being attacked, traumatized and disfigured for her political beliefs deflated into a sad tale of a troubled woman with a history of mental problems.

Police were sensitive to that fact yesterday, saying that while Ms. Todd would face at least a charge of filing a false report with police, she would not be released until she had a mental health evaluation.

"We don't feel she should be able to walk out onto the street," said Pittsburgh Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant. "We wouldn't want any further harm to come to her."

Ms. Todd was in the Allegheny County Jail last night on $50,000 bond after her video arraignment before District Judge John N. Bova. Judge Bova requested that she undergo an evaluation by the jail's behavior clinic. She'll return to court on Thursday.

The day after the purported attack, both Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin called Ms. Todd, offering words of comfort. Yesterday, McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Peter Feldman issued a statement: "This is a sad situation. We hope she gets the help she needs."

Ms. Todd told police a black man with a knife approached her at a banking machine at Citizens Bank at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street in Bloomfield shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday. She said after she gave him $60, the robber spotted the McCain stickers on her car, became enraged, knocked her to the ground and punched and kicked her.

She quoted him as saying "You are going to be a Barack supporter," as he sat on her chest, pinning both of her hands down, and scratched the letter "B" on her right cheek.

First among the problems with her story was the fact that the "B" scratched on her face was backwards -- as it might be if she had done it herself using a mirror.

"The backwards 'B' was the obvious thing to us when we first saw her. Something just didn't seem right," Assistant Chief Bryant said. "And, first of all, with our local robbers, they take the money [and flee]. They're in and out. They're not stopping to do artwork."

Additionally, said Lt. Kevin Kraus, investigators were struck "that it was a superficial, pristine 'B,' which seemed highly inconsistent with the story she reported that it was a violent attack, basically in which she was fighting for her life."

Nevertheless, Assistant Chief Bryant said, Ms. Todd reported herself as a victim, so police began an investigation. Then they found more and more inconsistencies.

Ms. Todd underwent five hours of questioning at police headquarters on the North Side Thursday night and submitted to a polygraph. Her story kept changing -- the attack happened before she got to the bank machine; she was hit from behind and rendered unconscious; she didn't know she had been cut or robbed until she went to the apartment of a friend, Dan Garcia; the attacker had sexually fondled her.

Yesterday, she told detectives she was driving alone in her car when she looked in the rearview mirror and saw the letter on her cheek. She didn't remember how it got there but assumed she had done it because she had incidents of memory loss in the past. The letter made her think of "Barack," Assistant Chief Bryant said, so she concocted the story before going to Mr. Garcia's house.

Once she had told the story to police, "she told lie after lie and the situation compounded to where we are right now," said Lt. Kraus. He added that Ms. Todd showed no remorse for her actions but was angry with the media, saying they blew the story out of proportion.

Assistant Chief Bryant said the false report created "a huge waste of time, with many man-hours and people coming in on overtime just to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible."

"It created intensive national and international attention," Lt. Kraus said. "We've had detectives working around the clock since she made the bogus allegation. The cost to the city of Pittsburgh has been many, many dollars and resources."

Ms. Todd's job as a field representative for the College Republican National Committee brought her to Pittsburgh about two weeks ago to recruit college students. She had worked for the committee since August. Yesterday, the organization fired her.

Ashley Barbera, the organization's communications director, said workers initially were concerned for Ms. Todd's safety.

"We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit. Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions," she said.

In March, Ms. Todd was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas, group leader Dustan Costine said. He said Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies.

"She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information," Mr. Costine said last night. "We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her."

About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul.

"She's the type of person who wants to be recognized," Mr. Costine said.

Mr. Garcia, 32, a first-year student at the University of Pittsburgh law school who also is from Texas, met Ms. Todd in May at a gathering of young Republicans in their hometown of College Station. On Wednesday night, she came back to his house, bruised and battered, and told him of the attack. He contacted police.

Mr. Garcia said his immediate response was to tend to the wound on her cheek. A police officer arrived, and Ms. Todd became belligerent when the officer asked where the mugging happened.

"I don't know!" she told him, using an expletive, Mr. Garcia said. "I'm not from here."

Mr. Garcia, Ms. Todd and the officer then drove through Bloomfield until they arrived at the Citizens Bank on Liberty Avenue. She told the officer it was the right spot. Assistant Chief Bryant said yesterday police aren't even sure Ms. Todd was in that area Wednesday night.

The officer asked Ms. Todd if she needed medical attention. She declined. Instead, Mr. Garcia said, they went to eat at Ritter's Diner on Baum Boulevard. He then persuaded her to go to nearby UPMC Shadyside, where he waited for her until 2 a.m.

"I don't know why she would do this," Mr. Garcia said yesterday, after learning that she had fabricated the story. "I would think that she needs help.

"I had red flags going up, but I didn't think it was prudent of me to ask the truth. I wanted to make sure she was OK."

Now Mr. Garcia says he is furious that Ms. Todd deceived him. He has cut off all contact with her, he said.

Mr. Garcia took the widely published picture of Ms. Todd with her injuries. He said he took several photographs with a digital camera to document what had happened. He said he only gave copies of the photos to police and Ms. Todd's employer, the College Republicans. One photo appeared on The Drudge Report on Thursday, setting off a storm of media attention.

Ms. Todd was a student at Blinn College in Texas. She decided to take a year off to work in politics. Mr. Garcia said she told him she was estranged from her mother.

On her MySpace profile, where her screen name is "Italian Pajamas," Ms. Todd gives her occupation as "Being a badass." Next to her picture, she references the title of a song by the group Panic at the Disco: "Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her cloths (sic) off," but adds to it "but its (sic) better if you do."

Among the books she lists as favorites: "The Scarlet Letter."

First published on October 25, 2008 at 12:00 am

Yeeesh, the McCain campaign and College Republicans really stepped in it by pushing this story forward. And would Garcia's giving copies to the College Republicans constitute interference with an active police investigation?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
If the economy doesn't turn around by 2012 and Obama's policies are judged to be unpopular it's going to be because they aren't radical enough. Those who would be calling for free markets would be a small minority.

You just keep thinking that.

[Guynemer]

[DRoseDARs]

I could totally see Ralph Nader doing that.

...

I'd rather not, mind you, but I wouldn't put it past him.

[Naked Gents Rut]

**** like this is what worries me about Obama, Kitty.

Obama in a 2001 interview on Chicago Public Radio...

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.

To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that. ...

I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

Lame YouTube video with the audio

Call me crazy, but those don't sound like the views of a moderate (in America, at least).

[EPW]

That's not the same Obama who is running for President. I would vote for that ('01) Obama.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
Call me crazy, but those don't sound like the views of a moderate (in America, at least).

Why? Because he used the word "redistributive"? I know it's a dirty word in the US, but redistribution is alive and well in the US.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Why? Because he used the word "redistributive"?

I obviously don't approve of redistributing wealth. It's not just that, though. The fact that he criticized the U.S. Constitution for not requiring the government to redistribute wealth more equally and seems to consider it a failure of the Warren Court not to create such a right is a particularly troubling view. It's certainly one that's far out of the mainstream in American society.

It's also interesting that he views political and community organizing as the best way to actually achieve "redistributive change." That explains why he chose to become a community organizer after Columbia. It also explains how he got involved with people like Ayers and Wright and groups like ACORN and the New Party. They all share similar political goals.

[KrazyHorse]

seems to consider it a failure of the Warren Court not to create such a right

No, he seems to feel that it was a failure of the civil rights movement to angle for such changes through the court system. He says that the court system is fundamentally conservative, which is of course true. He's saying that real changes come from political and social action. Which is also true.

[KrazyHorse]

I have a hard time seeing how you read that article and come to the conclusion that he feels the Warren court should have broken with tradition.

[Ramo]

I obviously don't approve of redistributing wealth. It's not just that, though. The fact that he criticized the U.S. Constitution for not requiring the government to redistribute wealth more equally and seems to consider it a failure of the Warren Court not to create such a right is a particularly troubling view. It's certainly one that's far out of the mainstream in American society.

No. In your quote, he said absolutely none of that. What he was actually saying is that it was a failure of the civil rights movement to rely so heavily on the courts to further social justice issues.

Obama believes in a larger welfare state, which should be funded by progressive taxation. The idea that this marks him as a nefarious radical is delusional.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut


I obviously don't approve of redistributing wealth.

Really? If not, then then you should probably be aiming for an overall regressive tax system (head tax + flat tax might be pretty close) with no social welfare programs, no public health care, no public education. Is this your preferred tax and benefit system?

[Naked Gents Rut]

No, he seems to feel that it was a failure of the civil rights movement to angle for such changes through the court system.

Yes, because the court system ultimately failed to make such changes. Obama points out two failures, the first being the failure of the Warren Court to "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution" and "say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf." The second and seemingly greater failure he detects is, as you said, the choice of the civil rights movement to become so "court focused" that it neglected "the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change." Due to this choice, the civil rights movement was left without the ability to affect redistributive change when the Warren Court failed to take radical steps. Obama views this as a "tragedy" that "in some ways we still suffer from."

One would imagine Obama would try to do something about this tragedy once he's President with large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.