Every once in a while if you’re lucky, you can catch a moment on Milwaukee right wing talk radio that really captures it’s true essence. I present one of the most amusing, yet seriously delivered, statements from this morning’s Charlie Sykes show as he talks about declining of network TV:

[audio:sykes-fox-news-fair.mp3]

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 on clothes for Sarah Palin. It’s their prerogative of course, but if I were a donor to the RNC I’d be asking if that was really the best use of my campaign contribution in the grand scheme of things.

That red leather jacket is like, sweet, and all, but maybe it would be better spent on issue ads or something. And red? Doesn’t that just scream “socialist”?

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August. – Politico.com

Remember the uproar about a $400 haircut from a certain Democratic candidate?

I wonder how the working class American’s Palin contends she represents would feel knowing that she’s spent more on clothing in six weeks than most of us will see in years?

Nothing says “Main Street” like Saks Fifth Avenue.

A number of folks have been asking where they get the audio of this morning’s Jay Weber show where he tried to address my claims that he and County Exec. Walker have been misrepresenting the facts regarding the sales tax referendum. (You can find that post here.)

While the audio is available on Jay Weber’s website, it disappears after a day, so I’ve made it available here. Listen below.

[audio:weber-sales-tax-oct-20.mp3]

His show this morning and the points he’s attempting to make seem to be based from this post he wrote over the weekend at “The Right View”. While it’s a passionate response, it is really just repeating the same kind of misrepresentation of the sales tax referendum that I called him and Scott Walker out on originally. “Your taxes will go up despite the facts!”

Two things of interest: One point he makes is that no one is going to shop in Milwaukee County anymore for big ticket items like TVs or sofas because, to paraphrase, “The county line is only a 15 minute drive from anywhere in Milwaukee.”. His point is that fuel costs won’t be an issue because the Milwaukee County line (and a $10 reduction in price on a $1000 TV) would be just 15 minutes away.

This is a really clever statement for him to make, because it’s true that you can cross the border of Milwaukee County from nearly anywhere within it in a reasonable amount of time, 15-25 minutes depending where you’re at. What he fails to mention is that simply crossing over the County Line doesn’t mean there’s a Best Buy, Circuit City, Steinhaffles, or any other big retailer waiting on the other side. The closest Best Buy/Circuit City that I’m aware of for our $1000 TV outside of Milwaukee County are out on Bluemound in Brookfield, hardly easy or enjoyable to get to. Same for furniture stores… all the big ones for our $500 sofa are just as far out if not farther.

That’s why I made the point that it’s not just a quick jaunt out to the County Line to save the $5-$15 dollars in sales taxes on even big ticket items like TVs.

Secondly, I made the point about how if Mr. Weber and Mr. Walker were correct about this “tax island” theory of theirs, every other city in the nation with a higher sales tax than it’s surrounding communities would be void of the Best Buys and furniture stores, and that’s just not the case.

To sum up, Jay’s post and his show this morning are good examples of how he, other AM talk radio show hosts, and especially our County Executive continue to spread misinformation and confusion about this important referendum even as they attempt to defend themselves from doing so.

It’s mostly a rhetorical question, but in light of Colin Powell’s overwhelming endorsement of Barack Obama today combined with his slamming the entire McCain campaign strategy, it’s going to be interesting to see how quickly and absolutely the Right wing talking heads shun the man they once held in high regard.

No matter what the right wing radio talk show hosts and pundits on TV say in their attempts to explain this endorsement away, it’s still a massive coup for the Obama campaign. Despite his role in getting us in to the Iraq war, a lot of people – especially Independents – look to Powell as a leader and someone to be listened to.

Thanks to all who made the fundraiser for the Quality of Life Alliance a successful event last night! Here are a few pictures from the event (the cookies were amazing!):

As predicted, the repeated attack rhetoric about the “media” being the enemy from McCain/Palin has come to it’s logical conclusion. A reporter was attacked at a rally in North Carolina yesterday:

“Oh, you think that ‘s funny?! ” the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. “Yeah, that ‘s real funny…” he said.

And then he kicked the back of leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground. news-reporter.com

It’s quite a remarkable and disgusting thing if you think about it.

Local right-wing talk radio host James Harris has gotten a lot of attention in the national media over the last week. Apparently, being put in the national spotlight where you can’t simply hang up on those with opposing views was too much for him:

I took real time notes for the third debate while at a debate watch party tonight. They may be a bit jumpy, but here they are from start to finish:

Debate thoughts:

The format of sitting doesn’t favor Obama. Both candidates lack a lot of animation because they’re seated.

Joe the Plumber, John McCain is on national television so he can talk to you and get your vote!

Obama just had an excellent answer about why it’s a bad idea borrowing money from China so we can sent it to Saudi Arabia. John McCain would once again cut all spending in America with a hatchet, then use a scalpel! How would that sound if you’re in the hospital, “Yes, we’re going to first perform surgery with a hatchet to extract your kidney stone before we use a scalpel!” …scary.

“Even Fox News disputes McCain’s claim” that Obama raised taxes on those making $42,000 got a big laugh here at the watch party.

It’s good to know that with three weeks left, Sen. McCain is going to start running a positive campaign.

Glad that McCain got his Ayers and ACORN reference in at the same time, and those little tracking lines that show reaction just bombed.. Mission accomplished for McCain, he got his Ayers reference in.

Best line of the night so far is Obama saying that if you want to support special needs kids, it will require funding. Not the kind of across the board hatchet cut that Sen. McCain previously promised. Huge point.

Sailing around with a nuclear reactor isn’t the problem. It’s where to put the spent reactor waste.

Sen. Obama just said it was important to be building cars not in Korea or Japan but hear in America and the tracking lines skyrocketed. I bet the folks in Janesville heard that loud and clear.

Not to focus on those tracking lines, but Obama talking about energy policy and Detroit making the wrong decisions had the lines maxed out for about a minute. Then John McCain comes to follow up talking about depression and it all tanked.

Health care! Finally! Again, Obama explaining his plan has the tracking graphs running near the top for nearly two minutes. McCain now, talking about escalating costs making the obvious points about lowering costs and walk in clinics. And JOE THE PLUMBER AGAIN!

Abortion: I thought the right to life crowd thought abortion shouldn’t be a states right issue like John McCain just said? And you wonder why he doesn’t have the conservatives firmly in his camp.

That aside, can anyone else believe it took until the third debate for the issue of abortion to come up?

Now we’re on to education. Same question as above, it’s amazing it took us this long to start talking about this issue. Again, two entire minutes of the tracking graphs being maxed out for Obama. Sen. McCain is now talking about choice schools and allowing soldiers to become teachers without any certification? Um, why? Why should military personal be able to bypass certification and their own education more than anyone else? It’s not about the military personnel of course, but what makes them uniquely qualified to become school teachers with zero training in education?

McCain flubs it on autism vs downs syndrome that his Vice Presidential Candidate’s child has. I seem to recall that her child had downs syndrome, not autism.

Closing remarks!

Wrap up – The whole knock out punch that McCain once again needed just didn’t happen tonight. If anything, Sen. Obama made his case as a better President to the American people tonight, which will only extend his leads in the polls.

McCain still can’t seem to choose between going after the character attacks against Obama or focusing his attention on the problems Americans face.

I think I can safely say that Conservatives will be pissed off after this debate. They wanted pure character attacks and a win by McCain.

They didn’t appear to get either tonight.

If you want to hear something about real vote fraud, read this story about how the Republican Party in Ohio is trying to invalidate over 600,000 new voter registrations in Ohio.

About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January, with many doing so before the contested Democratic primary election last March between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Since then, Ohio Republicans have filed a series of challenges to the registrations and Brunner’s administration of election rules. MSNBC

The Right has done a masterful job in the past of committing real voter fraud in America by disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. This move in Ohio is just a continuation of that strategy.

Since every media outlet in Milwaukee seems fixated on the fact that once again this year, there are idiots out there stealing campaign signs, I thought add my own voice the the chorus of something everyone agrees on: it’s idiotic, childish, and illegal.

I have no ideas about the McCain inventories, but my own candidates signs are very very hard to come by this year due to high demand. In fact, for the first time that I’m aware, we as a County Party printed our own – over 2,000 at last county – to distribute to supporters across the County. The last thing you want after finally getting one is having it stolen or vandalized.

The first time I realized this was a problem was heading to the Brewer’s Saturday playoff game a few weeks ago. On Bluemound Ave near the ballpark there are two houses next to each other each with a huge 4×6 sign for the homeowners respective candidates. The Obama one had been vandalized with spray paint to include the word that rhymes with “duck” immediately preceding “Obama”.

The owner of the sign has since tried to repaint the sign, but the traces of idiotic behavior can still be seen if you look close enough.

Let’s debate the issues and by all means advocate for our candidates.