“Mukasey, 67, had been delivering remarks on combating international terrorism to the Federalist Society’s annual meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. A lawyer in the room said Mukasey “started struggling with [his] speech, slurring” just before he collapsed. “His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits,” Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement released late Thursday evening just before midnight. “He is receiving excellent care and appreciates all of the good wishes and prayers he has received. The doctors will keep him overnight for further observations.” ” [Link]
Politics Pictures + News
“Meeting in closed session, the state high court asked litigants on both sides for more written arguments and said a hearing on the cases could come as early as March. The court also signaled its intention to decide the fate of existing same-sex marriages, asking litigants to argue that question.” [Link]
“President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former U.S. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle to be Health and Human Services secretary, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing sources close to Obama’s transition team.” [Link]
“Senate Democrats on Tuesday yielded to the wishes of President-elect Barack Obama and allowed Joe Lieberman to keep his committee chairmanship despite having backed Republican John McCain for the White House, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said.” [Link]
“Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is fighting a malignant brain tumor, is back at work in the Senate for the first time since July. He met Monday with his staff as the Senate returned for a brief session to deal with the economic crisis.” [Link]
Bill Clinton picture
“The examination of the former president suggests how seriously Mr. Obama is considering bringing his onetime rival for the Democratic presidential nomination into his cabinet. He met with Mrs. Clinton secretly in Chicago on Thursday to talk about the prospect and word quickly filtered out.” [Link]
“Exits polls indicate that Catholics backed the Democrat, Barack Obama, by a 9 percent to 11 percent margin over the Republican, John McCain, The Denver Post reported Sunday. By comparison, the general electorate gave Obama a six-point advantage, the newspaper said.” Link
“‘We will take no money from federal lobbyists,’ Podesta announced during a press conference inside the transition team’s Washington headquarters. He called the new lobbyist measures the ’strictest ethics rules ever applied.’ The transition chief said Obama called on the Democratic National Committee to curb the influence of lobbyists after winning the election. ” [Link]
“On Friday night, only nine volunteers manned the 24 phones in the McCain campaign office. The phone bank began operating on a daily basis just two weeks ago. And since then, only five people have shown up on most weekdays to canvass local neighborhoods. Obama’s campaign, in contrast, has flooded this GOP bastion with volunteers. Some canvassers first hit the winding streets of nearby subdivisions in March during the Democratic primary, and they have worked almost nonstop since in search of supporters.” [Link]
[Picture via newzgirl]
“With just three days left until Election Day, a new CBS News poll finds that the Democratic presidential ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden leads its Republican counterpart by 13 points among likely voters, 54 percent to 41 percent. That margin reflects an increase of two points in the Obama-Biden ticket’s lead from a CBS News/New York Times poll released Thursday. ” [Link]
“McCain opened the show alongside actress and comedian Tina Fey as McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin. The pair began with a joke about competitor Barack Obama’s 30-minute informercial that aired last Wednesday, saying that all the GOP ticket could afford was a spot on a fake QVC show. Fey, who looks like Palin with her brown hair and spectacles, said, ‘These campaigns are expensive,’ as she subtly striked her clothes–a joke on the reported $150,000 wardrobe purchased for Palin. ” [Link]
“Kay Hagan filed a lawsuit against Elizabeth Dole and the Elizabeth Dole Committee, Inc., after Dole declined to remove her new television ad, described by North Carolina newspapers as ‘indecent,’ a ‘gross misrepresentation,’ ‘dishonest,’ and ‘beyond the bounds of acceptable political disagreement.’ ‘Like her time in the U.S. Senate, Elizabeth Dole has made her choices here, and that’s her decision,’ said Hagan Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan said. ‘But it’s equally our decision not to allow someone to slander Kay Hagan, impugn her character, her convictions and her faith, without any consequences. Elizabeth Dole would love nothing more than to distract from the issues and her record for the last 5 days of the campaign.”" [Link]
“A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.” [Link]
“Republican John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by two points (46 percent to 44 percent) in Arizona, a margin that makes the race too close to call, according to a new Cronkite/Eight Poll. The poll of 1,019 registered voters in Arizona was conducted Oct. 23-26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.” [Link]
“U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman Friday continued to stand by Republican John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate. But when asked by The Advocate if Palin is ready to be president from day one, Lieberman said ‘thank God she’s not going to have to be president from day one. McCain’s going to be alive and well.’” [Link]
Obama @ The Beach picture
“Independent Florida voters are on the verge of killing John McCain’s hopes for the presidency. A new St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll shows Barack Obama leading McCain 49 percent to 42 percent in this state McCain cannot afford to lose. The biggest factor? Less partisan independent voters moving to Obama by a margin of more than 2 to 1.” [Link]
“‘That is really bad news for John McCain. If the rural vote is essentially split in these swing states, then John McCain is certain to lose,’ says Seth McKee, a political scientist at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. McKee specializes in rural voting patterns. ‘In 2004, George Bush won the rural parts of the battleground [states] by 15 points,’ notes Anna Greenberg, the Democratic pollster who conducted the bipartisan survey.” [Link]
“Democrats are voting early in greater numbers than their Republican counterparts in several closely contested states, reversing a pattern that favored the GOP in past elections. The trend is evident in Ohio, North Carolina and Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, state and county figures show. In Georgia, blacks are voting in greater numbers than they did in 2004.” [Link]
Tampa Bay Rays picture
“Pitcher David Price will introduce Obama, according to his campaign. Outfielder Fernando Perez, and teammates Carl Crawford, Cliff Floyd, Jonny Gomes, B.J. Upton, Edwin Jackson, and Jason Bartlett will also appear on stage. Getting the effective endorsement of the same guys who earned Tampa its first-ever trip to the World Series can’t help but give an oomph to Obama’s popularity in central Florida, where the Rays have won a large following during a miraculous season. ” [Link]
“The Arizona Senator may have Crist and a Republican-controlled legislature behind him. But Florida’s deepening economic crisis, as well as the fact that McCain passed him over for the vice presidential slot that many Floridians thought he should get, seems to have made Crist a less than ardent McCain campaigner this fall. By most accounts, McCain’s national campaign staff has done a dismal job coordinating with the usually potent GOP machine on the ground in Florida. ‘This is a Florida campaign being run out of Washington,’ says a concerned GOP official in Tallahassee, ‘and it’s remarkable how little it has its finger on the pulse of this state.’ ” [Link]
Eric Schmidt picture
“Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt will hit the campaign trail this week on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, signaling Mr. Schmidt’s push for a greater voice in politics while giving the Obama campaign a boost from a highly desirable constituency.” [Link]
Lisa Ann in Who’s Naylin Paylin…
“State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. His firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states.” [Link]
“Republicans have long dominated in the fast-growing exurbs, which President Bush won by an even larger margin in 2004 than in 2000. But Democrats made inroads in these areas in the 2006 congressional elections, part of a broader trend that has seen the party gain among college-educated suburban professionals. And this year, many exurbs that grew rapidly in the past decade are being hit particularly hard by the economic downturn.” [Link]
“Paddy Power, Ireland’s largest bookmaker, has announced that it will not wait for the results on Election Day and will pay out over a million euros’ worth of bets on Obama to become the next president. Paddy Power occasionally makes early payouts when the betting public is significantly behind a bet.” [Link]
“West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee.” [Link]
Lisa Ann as Sarah Palin In Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?
Lisa Ann will be playing Sarah Palin in Larry Flynt’s upcoming “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?”.
Lisa Ann as Sarah Palin In Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?
Continue reading ‘First Pictures Of Pornstar Lisa Ann As Sarah Palin Revealed’
“McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too ‘risky’ or too ‘liberal.’ Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. ” [Link]
Angelina Jolie picture
“Asked if she finds Obama and his background an example to her family, she replies, ‘Naturally that’s good, but it’s not a sufficient reason to vote for him. ‘Obama fights for international justice, he wants to militarily intervene in cases of genocide, and close Guantanamo Bay. These are the things that could move me to vote for him, not his roots.’ She then adds, ‘Naturally, an American president like Barack Obama would be nice for my family.’” [Link]
“‘Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin and the leadership of the Republican party have a fundamental moral responsibility to denounce the violent rhetoric that has pervaded recent McCain and Palin political rallies,’ said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Obama. ‘When rally attendees shout out such attacks as ‘terrorist’ or ‘kill him’ about Sen. Barack Obama, when they are cheered on by crowds incited by McCain-Palin rhetoric — it is chilling that McCain and Palin do nothing to object. ” [Link]
“Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so. The 263 pages of the report show a co-ordinated application of pressure on Monegan so transparent and ham-handed that it was almost certain to end in public embarrassment for the governor. The only surprise is that Troopergate is national news, not just a sorry piece of political gristle to be chewed on by Alaska politicos over steaks at Anchorage’s Club Paris. ” [Link]
Lisa Ann picture
Lisa Ann, an adult star regularly cast as a “MILF” will be appearing as “Sarah Palin” in Larry Flynt’s upcoming pornographic film, “Sarah Impalin’” according to reports…
“The defeat reflects poorly on Sen. John McCain — who made a dramatic return to Washington last week in the hopes of salvaging a deal that ultimately collapsed — as well as the Democratic-controlled Congress, which looks powerless in the face of crisis. ‘It’s ugly,’ said Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant. ‘It makes the Congress look pretty irresponsible. But the more negative the current environment, the higher the hill McCain has to climb.’” [L