According to the election analysis site FiveThirtyEight.com, some Pennsylvanians have complained about a call that impersonates Barack Obama and includes racial epithets:
"Over in Indiana, PA and Northern Cambria, PA, volunteers fielded complaints of a massive wave of ugly robocalls both paid for by John McCain's campaign and those paid for by third parties. The third party call was interactive, and purported to be from Barack Obama himself. The call starts out reasonably, and then "Obama" asks what the listener thinks is the most important issue. Whatever the response, "Obama" then launches into a profane and crazed tirade using "n***er" and other shock language."
former 60s radical William Ayers. Another RNC/McCain campaign call states that Obama is a "celebrity" politician who was fundraising in Hollywood during the financial crisis.
On Friday, a recipient of one of those calls, Chris Shoff of Minnesota, said that he had tied the origins of the campaign to the St. Paul-based firm FLS-Connect, run by prominent GOP figure Jeff Larson.
This past week, Shoff, a Freeborn, Minnesota Democratic County Commissioner, received the Hollywood call while at work. Because state law dictates that any such calls be made by an actual human, Shoff demanded that he be connected to the supervisor. That official, who worked at the robocall shop King TeleServices in Brooklyn, New York, said that they had been contracted out by FLS-Connect. More HERE.
Nixzmary Brown's mother found guilty of manslaughterBY DANIEL EDWARD ROSEN
The mother of Nixzmary Brown, the 7-year-old whose death stunned a city and influenced a new law named for her, was found guilty of manslaughter but cleared of second-degree murder in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Friday.
Nixzaliz Santiago, 30, appeared unresponsive as the jury also found her guilty of second-degree assault, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child.
"The journey for justice for Nixzmary is almost over," said prosecutor Ama Dwimoh. She went on to praise the jury of 10 women and two men for ruling on the case "professionally and stoically."
"Today is a good day for the children because this jury said loud and clear that parents have a duty - it's not just what you do, it's what you don't do," Dwimoh said.
Santiago faces 25 years in prison on the manslaughter charge alone. She is to be sentenced Nov. 5.
Nixzmary's stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, was convicted of manslaughter in March and sentenced to 26 1/3 to 29 years.
Defense attorney Sammy Sanchez told The Associated Press after the verdict that Santiago should not have been looked at in the same light as Rodriguez. "Cesar was the true criminal," Sanchez said.
Outside the courthouse, Santiago's mother, Maria Gonzalez, avoided reporters as she hustled to a nearby garage.
The nearly monthlong trial brought back to the public's memory the grisly details of Nixzmary's death, including the chair to which she was often violently bound and the litter box she was forced to use as a bathroom.
Nixzmary was beaten by Rodriguez after she took yogurt from a fridge and messed up Rodriguez's printer. Rodriguez slammed her head against a bathtub as she was being doused with cold water. Nixzmary weighed only 36 pounds when she died Jan. 11, 2006.
Her death brought swift and comprehensive changes to New York City's Administration for Children's Services and helped influence "Nixzmary's Law," which charges parents of children who have died as a result of abuse with first-degree murder.
During the trial, Santiago sometimes broke down into tears when prosecutors showed photos of Nixzmary's bruised corpse, even remarking, "This is messed up."
The jurors also heard testimony from an ACS worker how Santiago kept the remains of a miscarriage of hers in a jar. Santiago told Child Welfare Specialist Vanessa Rhoden that she kept the remains because "once she saw the baby's eyes, she couldn't let it go."
Santiago has five other children. Gonzalez is seeking their custody.
The Chaffey Community Republican Women sent out a newsletter that featured a qoute that read " If Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."
The groups president Diane Fedele says she doesn't thinks it's racist although Obama's picture is surrounded by watermelon, Kool Aid, and ribs. What's sad is that it took that picture for a black member of the group to realize why the GOP has such a hard time recruiting African Americans. Read the story and see the food stamp here:
In last night's debate, John McCain claimed that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
That's quite an allegation against a group that's working to register low-income voters. You'd hope that the media would ask McCain's campaign for some evidence for the claim, or at least note that the candidate himself didn't offer any. Or that moderator Bob Schieffer would have followed up in real time.
You'd be disappointed, of course. Reporters were too distracted by Joe the Plumber to pay much attention to McCain's hyperbolic accusation.
Of course, McCain had essentially no backing whatsoever for his claim. As TPMmuckraker and others have pointed out, there's virtually no evidence that fraudulent registration forms of the type erroneously submitted by ACORN in their thousands in some states ever turn into fraudulent votes.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - Republican presidential contender John McCain on Friday used the term "tar baby," considered by some a racial epithet, and later said he regretted it.
Answering questions at a town hall meeting, the Arizona senator was discussing federal involvement in custody cases when he said, "For me to stand here and ... say I'm going to declare divorces invalid because of someone who feels they weren't treated fairly in court, we are getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions and I don't know how you get out of that."
After the event, McCain told reporters: "I don't think I should have used that word and I was wrong to do so."
Since the mid-1980s, there’s been almost no attention paid to John McCain’s long-ago association with a controversial group implicated in a secretive plot to supply arms to Nicaraguan militia groups during the Iran-Contra affair.
But now, with the Republican presidential candidate stepping up his negative blitz against Democratic opponent Barack Obama, some Democrats are hoping that the group — the U.S. Council for World Freedom, and its founder, John Singlaub — will become for McCain what Bill Ayers has become for Obama: a fleeting past association used as ammunition for political broadsides.
Over the past few days, a handful of Obama allies — none directly associated with his campaign — have called attention to McCain’s ties to the council to rebut the McCain campaign’s increasing focus on Obama’s ties to Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical Weather Underground.
“This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization; it was the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was an ultraconservative, right-wing group.”
implicated in a secretive plot to supply arms to Nicaraguan militia groups during the Iran-Contra affair.