Wednesday: Sarah Palin speaks to a newly invigorated rightwing fringe base and promises to reignite the culture wars.

Thursday: the stock market tanks, losing 300 points and wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in value.

Coincidence? Or a sign that God doesn't like McCain/Palin?

We report, you decide.

Go say hello to Markos Moulitsas tonight. He's in town promoting his new book, Taking on the System.

September 04, 2008
7:00 PM

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Court Street
106 Court St (between Schermerhorn and State Sts)
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Subway: A, C, F to Jay St-Borough Hall; M, R to Court St; 2, 3, 4, 5 to Borough Hall

Then there's a McCain speech watching party at the Tank :
Special Guest Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of Daily Kos, will be on hand to comment on the GOP nominee's address (and sign his new book "Taking on the System") - and drinks will be on hand to help wash McCain's speech down...as Drinking Liberally offers a drinking game to toast the end of Convention fever.

87 Lafayette Street at the corner of White Street
Subway: A, C, E, J, M, Z, N, Q, R, W, Z, or 6 to Canal Street

(h/t Albany Project)

As we pointed out yesterday, the Bronx Supreme Court dismissed a suit brought against Governor Paterson's executive order mandating that state agencies recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages.

That suit was brought by several respondents, including republican Senator Serph Maltese and the Alliance Defense Fund.

One of the founders of the Fund is James Dobson, founder of the national organization Focus on the Family, an extremist rightwing group.

It's hard to imagine a figure moe at odds with our values here in New York than James Dobson. He believes that men and women are inherently unequal, and that women should not work outside the home if they have minor children.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has accused Dobson of inciting violence against gays and lesbians.

Per his book, Dare to Discipline, he believes that children should be beaten regularly.

"It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely."

Slate.com described him in 2005 as the most powerful leader of the religious right and credited him with delivering Ohio and Florida to George Bush.

It might be worthwhile for the media to ask Maltese whether he shares Dobson's views, in especially given that Maltese is the prime sponsor in this state of extremist rightwing legislation.

While Mayor of Wasilla:
The budget grew by 40% in 7 years -- after adjusting for inflation.
She raised taxes to build a stadium.
When she became mayor, the city had no long-term debt; she left behind $19 million in debt.
She hired a lobbyist to bring in federal earmarks -- that lobbyist, Steven Silver, was a former chief of staff to Ted Stevens.
Among pork that McCain has found "objectionable": A 2001 earmark of $500,000 for a public transportation project in Wasilla; $450,000 for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla in 2002; In 2002, $1 million for an "emergency communications center" in Wasilla that local law enforcement said was redundant and confusing.

As Governor:

The RNC just released excerpts of Rudy's prepared remarks to the faithful in Saint Paul.

This is not a personal attack....it's a statement of fact - Barack Obama has never led anything.

Nothing. Nada.

Strong words coming from someone who ran his own Presidential campaign into the ground and reigns supreme as the most hated mayor in New York City history, but there you have it. If you want to know how Barack Obama would run the country, look at his campaign; if you want to know how John McCain would, look at his campaign.

As the Democratic Primary draws near (Sept. 9th!) some more people are speaking out on the First Civil Court race in Brooklyn. I want to offer up the opinion of the Brooklyn Papers and Lambda Independent Democrats on Roger Adler and Devin Cohen (the two candidates running). Let me remind our readers of my standard disclaimer: one of the candidates, Devin Cohen, is a friend of mine, so I am biased.

That said, most people seem deeply disturbed by Roger Adler's anti-gay stands, ties to the Conservative Party, ties to jailed former machine head, Clarence Norman, and his public admission that he openly participates in a pay to play political system. By contrast people seem to like Devin Cohen for his even temperment and honesty. From what I can tell, Devin Cohen has practically all the endorsements while Roger Adler has more money.

The Brooklyn Paper has a pretty good rundown on both candidates. To quote:

The calypso king of the world (the Mighty Sparrow/Slinger Francisco), who was born on the island of Grenada -but lived most of his adult life in Trinidad and Tobago- opened up a famous calypso of his, with this line: “Let me tell you something, about Labor Day in Brooklyn”. That’s exactly how I start this column; by telling you something big that happened on Labor Day in Brooklyn.

Since 1967, the West Indian American Day Carnival Association (W.I.A.D.C.A.) has been holding Labor Day parades (millions strong) in New York City. One of their big events lately, is the breakfast ceremony - usually held under a large tent, in a park off Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. Politicians from every corner come to this event. In the past there have been appearances from Senators Clinton and Schumer; former governors like Pataki and Cuomo; mayors like Bloomberg, Koch and Dinkins; and electeds at all levels of the political ladder. Even wannabee electeds show up for media exposure, networking, advertising purposes, photo-ops and the like. It’s the political place to be on the morning of Labor Day.

I doubt that the current borough president of Brooklyn (Marty Markowitz) has ever missed one of these breakfasts, since he was first elected to office (senate) almost 30 years ago. Marty loves Caribs, and they in turn are reciprocal (for the most part). He loves to tell anyone within earshot, that Caribs elected him to the boro prez position. He even made a light-skinned black Jamaican-born woman his deputy borough president; her name is Yvonne Graham. She is attractive, bright, articulate and qualified. She is also a health-expert. She is a damn good candidate for any office. And I don’t just say this because I am Caribbean-American like she is. As much as I am a Carib, I try to be objective about these things.

First the Bush family Pastor slams McCain's character and endorses Obama. So McCain sure needs a pick me up when it comes to the character issue. I think that was what the Palin nomination was SUPPOSED to give him. Now the Palin decision is already backfiring on McCain, simlpy adding to his problems.

Two conservative "pundits" slam McCain's Palin decision:

Okay, this is a clear trend: scared (mainly old, always comfortable) people shying away from electoral debates presumably because they're worried about the outcomes. Now, Jack Davis, contender in NY-26, is joining a long and not very distinguished list that also includes Shelly Silver, Caesar Trunzo, Joe Robach and Ed Towns.

New Yorkers should make clear to those who'd like to represent them that seeing them argue their case against an opponent is not optional. These people - and mind you, that list includes some very accomplished names of consequence in our affairs - want to get hired by you for a job. The least they can do is give an interview to you, the voters.

But at least Silver, Towns, Robach and Trunzo aren't - yet or that we know of - publicly freaking out at their opponents. That's worth something, I suppose.

I was backstage at the convention when Obama gave his speech. I was watching him live all the way; he was probably about 50 yards from where I stood. It was an awesome moment for me (and probably anyone for that matter). One of my friends -who had crashed the floor- came back to the media area and was standing with me when Barack touched on the abortion issue. I whispered in her ear: “I hope he doesn’t dwell on this damn issue”. She agreed. We were both surprised (pleasantly) when he didn’t dwell on it. But he stayed on it long enough to shoot himself in the leg (again/on this issue).

This issue (abortion) seems to be problematic for Barack; and as a supporter I can only hope that it doesn’t add to his nagging “race” problem in this contest. In the New Hampshire presidential primary, Hillary Clinton used this issue of abortion to steal the primary at the last second. She totally fudged his abortion record, to spook pro-choice female democrats. It got them to come out in droves for her (around 61%); giving her a razor tight edge.

When the Obama campaign got wind of what was happening -during the last week of the election- they went as far as trotting out the head of the N.H. Planned Parenthood on mainstream media (MSM). The woman stated that contrary to the robot-calls, flyers, mailings, live-body phone calls, door to door whisper-campaign, and such: Barack Obama was pro-choice and not anti-abortion. I don’t think it helped much, since the die was already cast.

This came about because Barack had voted “present” on many bills relative to abortion and reproductive health issues, while he was a member of the Illinois legislature. He has said many times, that it was all part of his overall strategy -in order to reach compromises with Republicans- while trying to enact troublesome legislation. I believe him, since there isn’t much evidence to the contrary.