Reporters: McCain Aide Pushed Mutilation Hoax Story Before The Facts Were Known

McCain spokesman hyped attack tale before truth emerged

Raw Story- David Edwards and Andrew McLemore
Published: Friday October 24, 2008

A spokesman for the McCain campaign gave reporters an inflammatory version of Thursday’s hoax story about a McCain volunteer being attacked by a man who carved a “B” into her face, Pittsburgh’s KDKA reported.

Long before any facts about the Ashley Todd case had been established, McCain’s Pennsylvania campaign communications director told reporters the alleged attacker had told the woman, “You’re with the McCain campaign? I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

The Drudge Report featured a teased story about the incident before any details about it were released. That caused KDKA reporters to contact the spokesman, confirmed as Peter Feldman.

Feldman’s presumptuous claims are “significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time,” Talking Points Memo reported.

The story could deal a sharp blow to the McCain campaign, which might be seen as having pushed an incendiary story that had no basis in fact and that nearly blew up into a “national incident,” said Pittsburgh Police Assistant Chief Maurita Bryant, reported KWTX News.

Obama’s campaign has already privately accused the McCain camp of promoting a racially-charged version of the story.

Todd, reportedly a McCain campaign volunteer, confessed she made up her story about a “big black man” holding her to the ground, carving the “B” into her face and telling her she needed to support Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

MORE HERE

This video is from MSNBC’s News Live, broadcast October 24, 2008.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Obama In Hawaii With His Ailing Grandmother

Obama Arrives In Hawaii

ABC/NYT |   October 24, 2008 12:01 PM

From The New York Times:

HONOLULU — On a whirlwind trip back to Hawaii, Senator Barack Obama spent more than an hour visiting his ailing grandmother late Thursday and is set to return to her bedside on Friday morning after arriving here on a nine-hour flight from the Midwestern battleground of the presidential campaign.
As soon as he arrived on the island of Oahu, Mr. Obama went to the Punahou Circle Apartments, where his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, lies gravely ill. She is to turn 86 on Sunday, but aides to Mr. Obama said doctors advised him not to delay his visit.
It was an unusual departure from the tug-of-war of the presidential campaign, with 11 days remaining in the race. But it was a trip that advisers said he told them was not negotiable. He missed his mother’s death here in 1995, a mistake he said he did not intend to repeat with his grandmother, who has been a stalwart in his life.

MORE HERE

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Power of the POTUS

by Geezer Power…1:33 pm

Helen Thomas reveals the true power of Ronald Raygun in this , short video, which doesn’t surprise me at all. It is ridiculous to believe the main stream media as they attribute all of the important world decisions to one man, the president of the US, especially when considering our present sock puppet, George Duhhbya Bu$h.

Helen dumbfounded Duhbya at his first press conference, where she got the usual first question. This ended a tradition that she had enjoyed since the times of John Kennedy.

On May 17, 2000, after fifty-seven years working with the organization, Thomas resigned from United Press International (UPI) the day after the announcement of its acquisition by News World Communications Inc., a company founded and controlled by Unification Church leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon. She later described the change in ownership as “a bridge too far”.

Viewpoint with James Zogby 2/14/08 – Helen Thomas

video part 1

video part 2

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Ashley Todd: McCain Campaign Volunteer Confessed To Fake “Mutilation”

Ashley Todd Fake “Mutilation” Exposed

Huffington Post|   October 24, 2008 at 01:14 PM

UPDATE: KDKA in Pittsburgh reports:

Police tell KDKA that a campaign volunteer has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.
Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car. […]

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

Authorities are expected to release more details at a news conference this afternoon.

More of the back story from AP:

A McCain campaign volunteer who reported that a tall black man robbed her and then cut a “B” onto her cheek after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car has been given a polygraph test because of “inconsistencies” in her story, police said.

Among other things, police said photos and bank card information from an automated teller machine where the college student claimed she was robbed do not show her using the machine at the time, police said.

MORE HERE

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Afternoon Jukebox… Thriller

1,500 plus CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines at practice!

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BREAKING: Palin Connected To TWO Witch Hunters And The Possibility That Palin Has Personally Participated In A Witch-Hunt!?!?!

BREAKING: Palin In My Prayer Group, Says Witch Hunter #2

Daily Kos- by Troutfishing

Fri Oct 24, 2008 at 09:25:19 AM PDT

If Mary Glazier’s claim, that Palin joined her prayer-warfare group almost two decades ago, is true it raises the possibiity that Sarah Palin personally participated in a 1995 campaign to drive an alleged “witch” out of Alaska.

[please vote this story up on Digg]

At two key points bracketing most of 2008 GOP vice-presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s meteoric rise to political prominence, we find Palin tied to self-described witch-hunters. Not one, but two.

That alone is striking enough but Sarah Palin is also closely associated with an insurgent religious movement, within Christianity, whose members claim to cure crime and addiction by casting out demons, both from individuals and from whole geographic areas, and by hounding accused witches out of cities, towns, and U.S. states.

• Troutfishing’s diary :: ::

Both of Palin’s witch-hunters are also directors, one in Alaska, the other in East Africa, of the Global Apostolic Prayer Network, originally founded as the “Spiritual Warfare Network”, which in turn constitutes a key network in the religious movement, known as The New Apostolic Reformation.

One of Palin’s two witch hunters has publicly stated, in a July 13, 2008 recorded address [see video, below], that Sarah Palin is in the Alaska “spiritual warfare” prayer network and thus Palin appears to be tied into to a U.S. and international  “spiritual warfare” network, The Global Apostolic Prayer Network, which claims that a planetary-level demon spirit blocks prayers of Catholics from reaching Heaven and whose top members boast of possibly having helped kill Mother Theresa through prayer-warfare.

[below: 73 second video documents Palin-endorser Thomas Muthee’s anti-Catholic bigotry]

Among Palin’s two witch hunters, Thomas Muthee, has received moderate media scrutiny. The other, Mary Glazier, has gone almost wholly unnoticed but if Glazier’s claim, that Palin joined her prayer-warfare group almost two decades ago, is true, it would raise the possibiity that Sarah Palin has herself personally participated in a witch-hunt.

American media has lavished considerable attention on Sarah Palin’s undeniable association with internationally famous African evangelist Thomas Muthee, who anointed and blessed Sarah Palin as a political leader, during Palin’s bid for the Alaska governor’s seat, in a strange religious ritual held at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church in Wasilla, Alaska.

MORE HERE

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Palin’s Makeup Artist Paid $22,800 For First Two Weeks Of October

Palin’s Makeup Artist Is McCain’s Highest Paid Staffer For First Half Of October

Huffington Post |  Katharine Zaleski   |   October 24, 2008 11:03 AM

If Palin’s $150,000 shopping spree had Republicans disgusted, then the report that her makeup stylist cost $22,800 for the first two weeks of October should have them livid. The stylist, Amy Strozzi, was apparently paid more than any other McCain staffer during that period.

The New York Times has more:

Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?
Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staff member. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

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Now Revealed: McCain Had A Private Visit With Chilean Dictator Pinochet

McCain’s Private Visit With Chilean Dictator Pinochet Revealed For First Time

Huffington Post- (Off The Bus) By- John Dinges

Posted October 24, 2008 | 12:54 AM (EST)

John McCain, who has harshly criticized the idea of sitting down with dictators without pre-conditions, appears to have done just that. In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile’s military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world’s most notorious violators of human rights credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians and jailing tens of thousands of others.

The private meeting between McCain and dictator Pinochet has gone previously un-reported anywhere.

According to a declassified U.S. Embassy cable secured by The Huffington Post, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet “as friendly and at times warm, but noted that Pinochet does seem obsessed with the threat of communism.” McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.

At the time of the meeting, in the late afternoon of December 30, the U.S. Justice Department was seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of terrorism in Washington DC, the 1976 assassination of former ambassador to the U.S. and former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. The car bombing on Sheridan Circle in the U.S. capital was widely described at the time as the most egregious act of international terrorism perpetrated on U.S. soil by a foreign power.

At the time of McCain’s meeting with Pinochet, Chile’s democratic opposition was desperately seeking support from democratic leaders around the world in an attempt to pressure Pinochet to allow a return to democracy and force a peaceful end to the dictatorship, already in its 12th year. Other U.S. congressional leaders who visited Chile made public statements against the dictatorship and in support of a return to democracy, at times becoming the target of violent pro-Pinochet demonstrations.

MORE HERE

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Republican former governor endorses Obama

RAW STORY | Published: Friday October 24, 2008

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican, plans to endorse Barack Obama for president Friday, The Associated Press reports.

Weld becomes at least the third prominent Republican this week to endorse the Democratic presidential candidate. Former Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Obama Sunday, and former spokesman Scott McClellan threw his support behind Obama Thursday.

AP reports:

“Senator Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America’s standing in the world,” Weld said in a statement released Friday. “We need a president who will lead based on our common values and Senator Obama demonstrates an ability to unite and inspire.

“Throughout this campaign I’ve watched his steady leadership through trying times and I’m confident he is the best candidate to move our country forward,” Weld said.

Weld planned to hold a news conference at Obama’s campaign office in Salem at 11 a.m.

At least two dozen prominent Republicans — former members of Congress, governors, government officials, academics and columnists — have endorsed Obama’s candidacy, according to a running tally at RepublicansForObama.org.

Weld was governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to ’97 after being appointed by former President Ronald Reagan to be the state’s US Attorney. Earlier this year he had endorsed Mitt Romney, another former governor of his state, during the Republican primary campaign.

DEVELOPING…

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The “Sarahpoleon Effect.” GREAT For Obama

She was the great fiscal and social conservative that would bring out all the wingtards to vote, but she was more than that. She was ALSO the skirt, the one who would grab all those depressed and discouraged Hill supporters and bring them into the McKeating fold. By the theory (presumably) developed by Karl Rove and his eager student, Steve Schmidt, with Caribou Barbie on the ticket, Johnny could not lose.

But you know, things happen that even the so-called gurus of politics can’t account for. The first, and worst, thing to happen to Schmidt and Rove’s plan was Barack Obama himself. Obama isn’t the mediocre campaigner that Gore was, and he doesn’t sit around and take the slime that the Johnny/Schmidt/Rove machine throws at him like Kerry did. The ‘tards planned for another comatose opponent, and wound up with a fighter instead.

It is pretty clear now that the second worst thing that happened to the grand (old) plan was Caribou Barbie. Every time she opens her mouth, within a few hours the internets come alive with stories that usually prove that Sarahpoleon is either too stupid to live, or a liar of Chimpy proportions, or both. I speculated slightly before McKeating picked Caribou Barbie that he was likely to pick a woman, but I saw Kay Bailey Hutchinson as his pick; I had argued with a few ‘tard blogs in their comments section that the worst possible thing Johnny could do would be to pick Sarahpoleon, because even before she was picked it was becoming clear that she had some fairly serious problems in Alaska. I am amazed at how little I knew, but I am flabbergasted at how little Rove and Schmidt knew about what kind of effect the moose slayer was destined to have on their golden boy’s campaign.

Ohio is an excellent case in point. Johnny has sent his Hitler in high fashion into Ohio repeatedly to rally the ‘tards and draw in the fence-sitters. Sarahpoleon has definitely got the Klanservatives whipped up to a frenzy in Ohio, as we’ve seen from video footage of a lot of her campaign events, but she’s done so much more than that here. If you take her appearances, and match them to Ohio polls, you cannot help but come to the conclusion that every time Caribou Barbie sets foot in Ohio, she shaves a point or two off of McKeating’s Ohio standings. Ohio has been transformed from a place where McKeating was either running even or ehead of Obama to a place where most polls now put him from 10 to 15 points behind. The economy is certainly the main factor in this, but the Caribou Barbie influence on Ohio polling cannot be overlooked; the more vigorously she campaigns in Ohio, the more McKeating’s fortune drops here. Teaming her up with a fake Ohio plumber who was posing as an independent voter in order to ask a question that he was going to use to try to make some non-existent point about Obama didn’t help either; Ohio voters largely shrugged “Joe the Faker” off.

It isn’t hard to understand why Sarahpoleon has always fallen flat in Ohio. As one of the most economically-pressed states in the country, it was going to take something more than Caribou Barbie’s fake “hockey mom” routine to energize Ohio voters, and even the Klanservative racist pandering can only get you so far here. While Sarahpoleon goes around dropping those code words about Obama being a Black man, Obama goes around talking about what needs to be done to fix what is broken. As Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania said, a drowning man doesn’t care much whether or not a Black person or a white person throws the life preserver in the water.

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