For national politics, and a few state and local issues if you live in Texas, Dallas in specific, I’ve started my own base-level "Intrade" at my blog. I'm covering Cornyn-Noriega, odds on the Texas House changing hands, and the top race in Dallas, as well as a couple of issues beyond electoral politics per se.
In today's Palin follies, I wonder if the Alaska Lege GOPers on the French committee are taking their orders from Schmuck Talk Express™  mission central, among other things.
And, Champagne Charlie Rangel shows once again that ethical issues are not just Republican issues.

For national politics, and a few state and local issues if you live in Texas, Dallas in specific, I’ve started my own base-level "Intrade" at my blog. I'm covering Cornyn-Noriega, odds on the Texas House changing hands, and the top race in Dallas, as well as a couple of issues beyond electoral politics per se.
In today's Palin follies, I wonder if the Alaska Lege GOPers on the French committee are taking their orders from Schmuck Talk Express™  mission central, among other things.
And, Champagne Charlie Rangel shows once again that ethical issues are not just Republican issues.

...politics that is.  I read a lot about politics, but I keep my distance most of the time.  I consider myself just an informed voter.  So back in '04 I was on lunch from work, and I knew the primary was tomorrow so I cracked open the paper and started reading the abstracts on all the candidates in the Democratic primary for U.S. senate.  One guy easily stood out.  He had a funny name, easily meshed with my politics, and from what I read was not the anointed Democratic candidate, a big plus in Chicago.  The next day I voted for Barack Obama. 

Now I amusingly think of voting for Obama as another minor hobby of mine, and one of the few votes I place with conviction.  I've voted for the guy 3 times, and will make it 4 in November.  I'm proud of that.  Not because I think I was on the cutting edge, but because I believe Obama could truly turn my country around on many fronts.

A president who will fight poverty, seek universal health care, a foreign policy that exceeds the simplicity of our true enemies, seek greater economic equality, adopt real energy reform, seek to bring our country together - not divide us, and will adopt a national strategy to fight HIV/AIDS (a personal cause).

I have no illusions.  Obama is not a cure all.  He probably will not succeed on all of these fronts.  But taking the first step is required to embark on a journey. 

I'm not really an activist.  I work at a non-profit I believe in.  I donate some money to worthy causes when I can afford to.  But mostly I just live my quiet life.  I believe gov't should seek to unite us, not divide us.  My concerns about my country have kept me extremely engaged in this election cycle.

I find TPM to be a site that reflects my values and asks the right questions, but also does not seek to tear our country apart for the sake of political victory.  I hope to continue to add my viewpoint on this important election and join the conversation as an informed voter.

Sincerely,
bdib

Hi, cmon in.  Sorry the place is a mess tonight, but let me get you a drink. I know she never things untidy. Hopefully she'll be back before toomuch longer. Oh thanks, that will go great with the rest of the stuff I've been thinking og making, but haven't gotten around to it. Happens that way sometimes. One of the boys slipped and hit his head on a door hinge, and started gushing blood -- nothing scarier than a baby with a bloody face. No big deal, three stickes, but he'll look like a junior Frankenstein for a while. But the beloved Gators just finished off the hated Hurricanes, so all is fundementally right in the world. I talk about football a lot, and that's because I've got a real affection for the game for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I like the undisciplined emotion of fandom. It requires nothing of you other than to cheer. Kind of like that first time falling in love, you know, the one that didn't really stick, but the one that mostly brings a smile to your face. I'v got one of those -- heck, don't we all -- whose memory brings a whistful smile and maybe, just maybe, a twinge of regret.  I can see that smile on your face you're thinking about someone. We all have one. 
Okay, here's your drink. I'm gonna plop down here for the time being. Ah, that's nice. All right now, fess up.  Who was it that brought on that smile?

Hi, cmon in.  Sorry the place is a mess tonight, but let me get you a drink. I know she never things untidy. Hopefully she'll be back before toomuch longer. Oh thanks, that will go great with the rest of the stuff I've been thinking og making, but haven't gotten around to it. Happens that way sometimes. One of the boys slipped and hit his head on a door hinge, and started gushing blood -- nothing scarier than a baby with a bloody face. No big deal, three stickes, but he'll look like a junior Frankenstein for a while. But the beloved Gators just finished off the hated Hurricanes, so all is fundementally right in the world. I talk about football a lot, and that's because I've got a real affection for the game for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I like the undisciplined emotion of fandom. It requires nothing of you other than to cheer. Kind of like that first time falling in love, you know, the one that didn't really stick, but the one that mostly brings a smile to your face. I'v got one of those -- heck, don't we all -- whose memory brings a whistful smile and maybe, just maybe, a twinge of regret.  I can see that smile on your face you're thinking about someone. We all have one. 
Okay, here's your drink. I'm gonna plot down here for the time being. Ah, that's nice. All right now, fess up.  Who was it that brought on that smile?

Very good (and scary) YouTube video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUfv0rE-m9g

I would love to see an ad showing the Abominable SnowWoman as Cruella de Vil, because this is a woman who is genuinely cruel.  She wants to take polar bears off the endangered species list (translation: kill them) to further her agenda to "drill here, drill now" and she has a wolf bounty program that the Sierra Club is trying to shut down.  Check out the video of the cruelty of aerial wolf hunting, a so-called sport that she enthusiastically endorses:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGPFPBmzRrQ 

Sarah Palin it seems has successfully started the next phase in the “Mommy Wars”.  Interestingly enough, though, the combatants have switched uniforms and I find myself watching in amusement as conservatives stand up and scream “sexism” as some progressives question her responsibilities to her family versus those of her career.  I grew up expecting to have it all – career and a family – and to think that this was not possible was heresy.  This whole discussion has caused me to reflect on my own choices and to question whether or not this issue is as black and white as I used to believe. 

As a mother of three children and a professional with a Masters degree, I understand how difficult those choices are.  After my first daughter was born, I returned to work for intellectual, professional, and financial reasons.  I was lucky enough to have a pretty stress-free job with easy hours, an understanding boss, and my husband was equally involved in taking care of our little girl.  Regardless, it was still a heart-wrenching decision to leave my daughter at 12 weeks because I knew that whether I stayed home or went to work, I was going to have regrets.  As my career took off and I watched my daughter thrive and grow, however, my doubts began to subside and I believed I had made the right decision for both me and my family.  When my twin sons were born 5 years later, I reversed course and made the difficult decision to stay at home:  I had changed jobs, my hours were long and erratic, my husband had changed jobs and was travelling a lot, and the financial burden of having to provide childcare for two infants meant that there would be no net gain from my paycheck.  On paper, the decision seemed like a no-brainer, but it was still painful because I knew that stepping away from work for a couple of years was going to effectively stomp out my long-term career goals.  I don't regret my decision (though I will admit to yearning for a bit of intellectual stimulation after a long day of chasing two 20 month-olds around) and I often wonder how I could've possibly handled the pressures of the job and the responsibilities to my family, especially with my husband's travel schedule.  The truth is that my co-workers would've had to cover for me at times - just as they did when I was pregnant and had to limit my job duties.  Is that fair to those who have to take up the slack?  I don't know...but I think that's a whole other discussion for another time.

Because of the anguish I experienced making these decisions myself, I'm a bit uncomfortable judging any other woman's decisions in this area and since these issues have arisen with Sarah Palin, I have struggled to wrap my head around how I feel and to try to remove those feelings from any political biases.  I think that we as women can at least admit that these choices are not made in a vacuum. These choices have consequences and I don’t believe that the answer to the question “Can a woman have it all?” is the same for every woman and every situation.   The environment in which I made the decision about working was far different with my daughter than it was when I made the decision with my twins.   Sarah Palin is not being promoted to head teller at a bank.  We're talking about the Vice Presidency and, possibly, the Presidency.  We're talking about an incredibly heavy travel schedule, unfathomable responsibilities, and, realistically, a 24-hr a day job.  Her situation is complicated by the fact that she will apparently have a steep learning curve and she has a 5 month-old with DS and a pregnant 17 year-old whom I'm assuming would like her mother to be around to help guide her through this.  Can she juggle the responsibilities of having 5 children?  Is any of this our business?  Does she owe us a detailed explanation of how she intends to handle this?   Are we morally obligated as mothers to provide those answers to those who hire us?  Is it flat-out sexist to raise these questions or can there be mitigating factors?  Should different questions be asked of mothers of young children vs. mothers of older children?  Would we be asking these questions of a man?  Do we believe that mothers and fathers are truly interchangeable?  Are these questions allowed because of the nature of the job?  Has she opened the door to these questions by her use of her family to shore up her image?  Would we be asking these questions of a Democrat?   

 I think that each voter is going to have to answer each of these questions for themselves based on their own experiences.  Personally, I feel that anyone with children, be they male or female, who plays an integral role as caregiver  has a responsibility to themselves, their children, and those around them to decide what is going to take precedence when push comes to shove.  From my experience, there are times when difficult choices will have to be made.  For Sarah Palin, that could mean choosing between her family and the rest of the country.  I believe that this is an extraordinary situation and I think that it is disingenuous of her to suggest that she can be president of the PTA and Vice President of the Country at the same time.  Just like I expect and want my leaders to be the brightest and the best, I also expect and want my leaders to be the most dedicated.  She may have her husband at home to help her, but unlike most mothers with careers, she won't have co-workers to step in and take up any slack.

Unfortunately, it was Todd Palin answering questions, not his wife.

While she was off campaigning, Todd stuck around the Twin Cities for a couple of extra days so that he could attend the "Hay Days Grass Drags" just north of St. Paul.

You did know that Todd is a champion "snow machine" racer, right?  Well, when Minnesotans can't wait for October's first snow, they do weird things like race snowmobiles over grass.  I don't own a sled, but this is supposedly the biggest annual event of this type in the world.

Alaska's "First Dude" was there signing autographs at a table with three other racers sponsored by Arctic Cat.  Dressed in a long-sleeve logo t-shirt, he really did look like he was having a good time with his fans.

The McCain campaign minder that was dressed in a suit and tie...he didn't look like he was having very much fun at all.

Will post video if and when the locals post it on their sites.

TPM had nailed down the true extent of Todd Palin's membership in the anti-American secessionist group known as AKIP. Previously, I had referred to them as AIP - the Alasakan Independence Party- but they seem to have a preference for AKIP. And this is more than just the membership in the '90s and attending an AKIP convention in '94 as was previously reported on, concerning both Todd and Sarah Palin, by the media when her 2006 video address to the group surfaced.

This afternoon, the director of Division of Elections in Alaska, Gail Fenumiai, told TPMmuckraker that Todd Palin registered in October 1995 to the Alaska Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States.

Besides a short period of a few months in 2000 when he changed his registration to undeclared, Todd Palin remained a registered member of AIP until July 2002 when he registered again as an undeclared voter.

There appears to be some conflicting reports on the Sarah Palin's membership which we hope to clear up soon. But there is no doubt that they both attended a 1994 convention, as well as Sarah Palin's video address to the group in 2006.

But make no mistake about the significance of this when you consider that as the "First Dude/Dunce" of Alaska, Todd Palin, has been seen having a significant hand in Alaskan politics not typically allowed for a person with the status of citizen, given his access to what is claimed as supposedly confidential information, information that Sarah Palin refuses to release to the media or any other citizen based on obviously and demostrably false claims of "executive privilege" Sounds like the corrupt bush admin. all over again, eh? Now wonder McCain likes her.

Alaskan Republican Andrew Halcro (disclosure here: Halcro ran against Sarah Palin in the primaries for the Republican Governor ticket) has attempted to document what seems to be some pretty compelling evidence for an Alaskan "Shadow Government." Some of this information may already be known to you if are following all of the developments in Sarah Palin's Troopergate scandal.

Considering just how well the McCain campaign vetted Sarah Palin before picking her as his running mate for the upcoming campaign, I wonder how Palin's "Patriotic" credibility will be viewed by his rabidly faux patriotic supporters when they find out that her idea of foreign policy experience may be in dealing with the government of the USA?

According to the AIP (Alaskan Independence Party), Sarah Palin was a member of their party and they mention this fact in videos where they outline their plans to infiltrate other organizations in order to push their platform...

Now this proves that she was once a member of the AIP, IMHO... Why would the AIP lie in that video and why else would Palin be willing to address the secessionists after being elected? Anyone outside of Alaska would consider that political suicide with those faux patriots on the right wingnut side of the aisle in the rest of the nation.

I think I may be getting closer to nailing down Sarah Palin's connections to the AKIP. But considering trying to keep up on all of the other Palin scandals breaking so fast it is hard to dig on. Added to the multiple scandal factor is the fact that the AKIP connections are very computer savvy, if I am even on the right track?

A phone number search for a number I got out of AKIP archives sent me to this dKos Diary by Ash Meerstrand... It appears he had the same lead I was on. The phone number:

The claim that the AIP held meetings in the town where Palin was mayor while her husband was a member can easily be confirmed using Internet Archive. Meeting information from that time (the first set is from 1998, the other 2000):

Wasilla ,Alaska

Country Kitchen Restaraunt,

411 W. Parks Highway, Wasilla

Tuesdays at 7:00 PM

Wasilla, Alaska

Nobody's Inn Restaraunt,

W. Parks Highway, Wasilla

Tuesdays at 7:00 PM

Call 376-8285

It's only 8pm in Wasilla, Alaska. Is it too late to investigate? Wasilla has only about 9,000 people, and about 5,500 people lived there in the year 2000, so maybe there could be someone there that would know if Todd or Sarah ever showed up.

Check out the other place I found the phone number:

Web Alaska
Wasilla
376-8285
mailto:web-ak@ak.net

I edited out the "image source" and formatting crap so you could see the plain email addy for the "same phone" number contact. I was unable to find another reference on a quick Google of that eMail BUT I did on a search of "web-ak". Info on website addy for this site

Excerpted from the website description:

Alaskan owned and operated, Web Alaska offers web services for Alaskans and outsiders alike. Compu Doc offers computer repair and services thoughout South Central Alaska.

edit Languages

English
edit Address

2140 Wolverine Cir
Wasilla AK 95654 US

edit Contact

Mark Chryson
+1 907 376 8285

Forget the phone number now... We have a name! This from a Google search for "Chryson" and "Palin":

The following is a first hand account of a gentleman who has a story to tell about his experiences with Sarah Palin. I am granting him this venue to say what he has to say because firstly, it gives us another non-press view of a soon-to-be mainstream name, and secondly, the person giving this account is a Geek with Guns (and used to host this website for me when I needed his help).

"I just wanted to let you know ... Sarah Palin who McCain just picked as the next vice president is one of the most honest people I have known. I have known her for over 15 years, been in her house and have had numerous conversations with her, in person, on the phone both for personal issues as well as political issues.

"She is an excellent choice and this might have even saved McCain from going down in history as a loser in the presidential race. Sarah is one elected official that I can’t say anything negative about. And after 15 years of knowing her if there was something that was bad I would have known it.

"This lady has contacted me personally to get help discovering how one of her co workers was abusing his state office because she didn’t believe she could trust the states department of law. The guy later copped a plea, paid a hefty fine and lost his state job but this was after she quit her 2000 / week job and was forced to go public to expose his corruption. By the way he was/is the chairman of the state republican party
"She is VERY approachable which is going to make the insiders and secret service crazy."Wanted to let you know."

Mark Chryson
Wasilla, Alaska

If you would like to know more about the personal experiences of Mark in regards to Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, Mark has given us permission to present the following contact information for that purpose, and offered his phone number up for that purpose as well (which I will decline to provide here do to the GwG haters).

mark [at] web-ak.com - Email Mark Chryson by removing the [at]

I have not verified the credibility of "Geeks with Guns," BUT remember how she hacked computers to out the Alaska Republican chairman...

Now from Jack Tapper's update at Political Punch:

But Fenumiai adds that Palin's husband Todd was a member of the AIP from October 1995 through July 2002, except for a few months in 2000. He is currently undeclared.

As part of their pushback against the charges of Lynette and Dexter Clark of the AIP, the McCain campaign says that Palin did not even attend the AIP convention in Wasilla in 1994.

But another former AIP official -- Mark Chryson, chairman of the AIP from 1995 to 2002 -- tells ABC News that "Palin was at the convention in 1994. She was there."

Was she a member?

Chryson can’t say. "She may have been, I do not know," he says. Their records don't go back that far.

"Ask Sarah," he suggests.

I'd love to. But she hasn't exactly been making herself available to the press.

Former AKIP chairman Chryson, friend and neighbor of the Palins for over 15 years. Chryson ran the Seccession meetings in Wasilla. And Todd Palin was a member almost the entire time Chryson was in charge.

Chryson can't say if she was a member of AKIP? Or he won't say it knowing it would doom her politically.

Chryson's computer expertise coupled with Palin's inside access to computers brought down the Alaskan Republican Party Chairman leaving a power vacuum. I wonder how many AKIP connected people have since been elevated in the Alaskan GOP?

Palin sounds like a woman on a super-duper-double-secret mission to me. An AKIP mission, IMHO.

This may turn into the missing link if we dig enough... heh

Previously Brewed in New Milford:
Palin's Troopergate Troubles Start To Spin Out of Control

I sent the following suggestion to MSNBC. Perhaps others here at TPM will join me .....

Sarah Paling is stonewalling the press. There are many questions demanding her response including her misrepresentations about the bridge to nowhere, trooper-gate and allegations of abuse of her gubernatorial powers in pursuit of a vendetta, and her malfeasance while mayor of Wasilla that resulted in (1) her being forced to hire a city manager or face a recall, (2) her record of managing the city finances and taking it from zero to $22 Million of debt during her two terms, despite hiring a lobbyist and bagging $27 Million in Federal earmarks for her town of 5470 people, and (3) her firing of the police chief and attempted firing of the librarian - the librarian story being particularly interesting as it involved Palin's attempt to ban books that she found offensive.

And what about Palin and her husband's close association with the radical and anti-American Alaska Independence Party (AIP). That organization was founded by Joe Volger who told his followers, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government ... and I won't be buried under their damn flag." I have not heard of Gov. Palin renouncing or even rejecting Volger. Quite the contrary. She videotaped a message for the AIP convention this year. The McCain campaign has denied the association, but little effort is necessary to find solid evidence that the denial is false.

Now it appears that the McCain/Palin team is embarking on a blatant cover up regarding the trooper-gate scandal, with Republican operatives and lawyers descending upon Alaska. They are attempting to quash the ongoing investigation or at least delay it until after the election. They may be within legal bounds as they do that, but ethically and morally it is beyond the pale.

Perhaps MSNBC should take a cue from FOX and start a PALIN CLOCK - count the hours since she was foisted on the American public as an unknown candidate who refuses to answer questions about her record. It's already been eight and a half days.

204 hours and counting.
America is waiting!
When will Sarah come clean?

I sent the following suggestion to MSNBC. Perhaps others here at TPM will join me .....

Sarah Paling is stonewalling the press. There are many questions demanding her response including her misrepresentations about the bridge to nowhere, trooper-gate and allegations of abuse of her gubernatorial powers in pursuit of a vendetta, and her malfeasance while mayor of Wasilla that resulted in (1) her being forced to hire a city manager or face a recall, (2) her record of managing the city finances and taking it from zero to $22 Million of debt during her two terms, despite hiring a lobbyist and bagging $27 Million in Federal earmarks for her town of 5470 people, and (3) her firing of the police chief and attempted firing of the librarian - the librarian story being particularly interesting as it involved Palin's attempt to ban books that she found offensive.

And what about Palin and her husband's close association with the radical and anti-American Alaska Independence Party (AIP). That organization was founded by Joe Volger who told his followers, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government ... and I won't be buried under their damn flag." I have not heard of Gov. Palin renouncing or even rejecting Volger. Quite the contrary. She videotaped a message for the AIP convention this year. The McCain campaign has denied the association, but little effort is necessary to find solid evidence that the denial is false.

Now it appears that the McCain/Palin team is embarking on a blatant cover up regarding the trooper-gate scandal, with Republican operatives and lawyers descending upon Alaska. They are attempting to quash the ongoing investigation or at least delay it until after the election. They may be within legal bounds as they do that, but ethically and morally it is beyond the pale.

Perhaps MSNBC should take a cue from FOX and start a PALIN CLOCK - count the hours since she was foisted on the American public as an unknown candidate who refuses to answer questions about her record. It's already been eight and a half days.

204 hours and counting.
America is waiting!
When will Sarah come clean?

I'm just going to be really honest here.  I can't seem to talk my own self off of the ledge.  I'd go for some counseling if I could afford healthcare, but I can't.  So instead I obsessively read and post to blogs, send money to Obama, and I try to remember that no matter what happens it will have little direct effect on my life.  Well, except for the healthcare part.  If the polls are up, I feel anxious because they aren't up enough and if they're down, I'm terrified that they're in freefall.  I visit the electoral college maps and most of them have Barack up to or over 300... and I'm not convinced of anything.  I don't think I can live this way for two more months.  I can't get my work done (self-employed) and I can't enjoy watching TV or reading books or working in my garden, because I'm so obsessed with this election.  Why does it feel so personal to me?  I can't answer that question.  I only know that this feels (please don't laugh) like a showdown between good and evil.  I even say to myself "feel the Force," and I really believe that Obama is the Man and he's got the Force... but I'm still so afraid, so afraid that I feel like I can't breathe.  I'm starting to hate all Republicans and I swear to you the next dolt that says to me they haven't made up their mind who to vote for in this election is likely to get a smackdown... and yet I am the least violent person I know, honestly.  I feel like if McCain wins this things, I don't ever again want to speak to anybody who voted for him, including my cousin and my brother.  None of this means anything and nobody can help me... but I just had to vent.

My first blog.
I enjoy this site. There is a wealth of information, a corral of committed commenters who truly care about the issues being discussed and often times well written posts about the relevant issues of the day. I appreciate this.
However, I find the use of the '-gate' suffix to anything that smells like a scandal just plain lazy. At the very least, can the real (and by real I mean those who make a living at it) journalists just use the 'thesaurus function,' Barrett's or, heaven forbid, their imagination to come up with an original phrase that captures the essence of this news story? I mean, Watergate is a freakin' hotel! It was a scandal in 1972. Have we not had any event in the last 36 years worth referencing in the last 30-plus years? Better yet, use your skills honed in writing/english/literature/journalism class or your everyday observations to come up with something original?
Trooper-gate isn't even accurate. Abuse of power-gate, if you must. The trooper in question, by all contemporary accounts, is a bad guy. The issue is her abuse of her authority, not that he was a state trooper. But that is beside the point. 
Let's put on our thinking caps and come up with something original, accurate and memorable. I am an amateur, but I suspect some professional out there can come up with a memorable, short descriptive phrase that captures the power-play that the Governor played in this instance. I wish I was witty, because I could give you an example. But, I am a physician, and thus quite un-witty. Some call us boring.
'Trooper-gate' is just plain lazy. 

I had to share this with everyone.  Thanks to the happy mutants at Boing Boing.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/06/mad-magazine-on-sara.html

This post was a bit of sunshine on an otherwise  dreary day.

Mad Magazine has leaked its satirical Sarah Palin spread to the HuffPo -- a good 'un, too.
Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin Edition

My first blog.
I enjoy this site. There is a wealth of information, a corral of committed commenters who truly care about the issues being discussed and often times well written posts about the relevant issues of the day. I appreciate this.
However, I find the use of the '-gate' suffix to anything that smells like a scandal just plain lazy. At the very least, can the real (and by real I mean those who make a living at it) journalists just use the 'thesaurus function,' Barrett's or, heaven forbid, their imagination to come up with an original phrase that captures the essence of this news story? I mean, Watergate is a freakin' hotel! It was a scandal in 1972. Have we not had any event in the last 36 years worth referencing in the last 30-plus years? Better yet, use your skills honed in writing/english/literature/journalism class or your everyday observations to come up with something original?
Trooper-gate isn't even accurate. Abuse of power-gate, if you must. The trooper in question, by all contemporary accounts, is a bad guy. The issue is her abuse of her authority, not that he was a state trooper. But that is beside the point. 
Let's put on our thinking caps and come up with something original, accurate and memorable. I am an amateur, but I suspect some professional out there can come up with a memorable, short descriptive phrase that captures the power-play that the Governor played in this instance. I wish I was witty, because I could give you an example. But, I am a physician, and thus quite un-witty. Some call us boring.
'Trooper-gate' is just plain lazy. 

http://www.andrewhalcro.com/lawmakers_to_issue_subpoenas_in_troopergate

"This week, seven key witnesses informed Mr. Branchflower through their attorneys that they would not provide depositions.  Their depositions, which had been agreed to and scheduled earlier with Mr. Branchflower, were cancelled within the last 72 hours.  Additionally, the Governor’s lawyer has stated that he represents the Governor and the Governor’s office, and has forbidden any contact by Mr. Branchflower with any member of that office.  Mr. Branchflower wishes to depose some of those employees.  The issuance of the subpoenas is intended to get at the truth and to expedite the completion of his report to the public."

This is absolutely remarkable.  Seven witnesses now refusing to honor  agreements to provide depositions, and at the instructions of the Governor's office?

Where there is smoke there is fire in these matters. 

I got an email from my very conservative (and bitter) cousin today.  He wrote, “In the interest of fairness and openness I forward the following.  But this election is a fraud.  This country is a corporate dictatorship.  Both candidates are lying to the extent that they are helping to facilitate the deception.”   What he forwarded was an email about Sarah Palin written by a woman who lives in Wasilla, AK, named Anne Kilkenny.  

A post here I read earlier today by aboyer made reference to an item on Palin, and one of the comments, by kgb999, found the source at http://thepoliticalcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/09/alaskans-speak-in-frightened-whisper.html.  This man, Charley James, noted that the information he was reprinting was confirmed by The Nation (at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354444/the_word_from_wasilla).  The Nation had reprinted the same email my cousin had sent me.

I don’t like to accept something as fact, just because it fits with what I believe—or would like to believe—is true.  So I went to Mudflats, a lovely little Website by an unnamed Alaskan, which he subtitles “Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics” [http://mudflats.wordpress.com/].  I found this (like many other people) after Palin’s nomination was announced.

It was through Mudflats that I found the document it’s amazing the McCain campaign didn’t find:  It’s a 63-page 2006 PDF compiled by the Alaskan Democratic Party from government documents and newspaper sources.  It confirms everything Anne Kilkenny asserted about Palin, but it does it in, what is to me, a much more sobering fashion.

There’s barely any commentary in the PDF, which doesn’t even have a title page but just comes up with the title tab “palin-2006-vetting.”  

This is something than anyone who does not want McCain and Palin elected needs to read and distribute.  Go to Mudflats at http://mudflats.wordpress.com/ and scroll down to “Palin Vetting Documents from 2006. For Hard Core Palin Addicts Only.”

Everything you’ve never wanted to know but now need to know about Palin is in the PDF.  I was left feeling queasy—and also worried that Palin could stand toe to toe with Cheney in a ruthlessness contest.  I’m not sure she wouldn’t win.

This is the document put together in 1996 by the Dems on Sarah Palin. 63 pages of fun and facts.

This will give you all you need to know about Klondike Barbie pre the last 21 months...

share this...

I just visited the Fox News website and told them they could go straight to hell.  This flag story is absolute bullshit.  Go to the website and show your support for Sen. Obama.

Given Palin's history of basically doing whatever she wants regardless of the rules, do we know if she even had the authority to sell a plane that, I'm guessing, was owned by the state of Alaska?

I recently read Eisenhower's 1956 RNC acceptance speech and I really feel that Obama should deliver whole swaths of that speech to show Republicans just how far their party has drifted.

Let's use Eisenhower's endorsement!

Should Obama frame his position in terms "like Eisenhower, I believe...", GOP partisans would be forced to stop and think.    Or be forced to say - I disagree with Eisenhower...

note:

"Our Party detests the technique of pitting group against group for cheap political advantage. Republicans view as a central principle of conduct-not just as a phrase on nickels and dimes that old motto of ours: "E pluribus Unum"-"Out of many one. "

It would call the Republican bluff  from a position of strength, not whining weakness.  It's not really a party that honors even its own traditions.

There are many great great Eisenhower quotes that are absolutely apropos - and would serve as fine retorts in a debate (courtesy Steve Clemons)

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking. . . is freedom.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

More Ike Quotes at Steve's Site

There are parts of Ike's acceptance speech I disagree with of course, but the solid focus on health, infrastructure, education, equal rights, smart military investment and cooperation both at home and abroad are resounding themes in both Obama and Eisenhower's talks.

"The present and the future are bringing new kinds of challenge to federal and local governments: water supply, highways, health, housing, power development, and peaceful uses of atomic energy. With two-thirds of us living in, big cities, questions of urban organization and redevelopment must be given high priority. Highest of all, perhaps, will be the priority of first class education to meet the demands of our swiftly growing school-age population.

The Party of the young and of all ages says: Let us quit fighting the battles of the past, and let us all turn our attention to these problems of the present and future, on which the long term well-being of our people so urgently depends.

<snip/>

Now, in all existing kinds of discrimination there is much to do. We must insure a fair chance to such people as mature workers who have trouble getting jobs, older citizens with problems of health, housing, security and recreation, migratory farm laborers and physically-handicapped workers. We have with us, also, problems involving American Indians, low-income farmers and laborers, women who sometimes do not get equal pay for equal work, small businessmen, and employers and workers in areas which need special assistance for redevelopment.

<snip/>

Again, the strength I speak of is not military strength alone. The heart of the collective security principle is the idea of helping other nations to realize their own potentialities-political, economic and military. The strength of the free world lies not in cementing the free world into a second monolithic mass to compete with that of the communists. It lies rather in the unity that comes of the voluntary association of nations which, however diverse, are developing their own capacities and asserting their own national destinies in a world of freedom and of mutual respect.

http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19560823%20Address%20at%20the%20Cow%20Palace%20on%20Accepting%20the%20Nomination%20of%20the%20Republican%20National%20Convention.htm

I recently read Eisenhower's 1956 RNC acceptance speech and I really feel that Obama should deliver whole swaths of that speech to show Republicans just how far their party has drifted.

Let's use Eisenhower's endorsement!

Should Obama frame his position in terms "like Eisenhower, I believe...", GOP partisans would be forced to stop and think.    Or be forced to say - I disagree with Eisenhower...

note:

"Our Party detests the technique of pitting group against group for cheap political advantage. Republicans view as a central principle of conduct-not just as a phrase on nickels and dimes that old motto of ours: "E pluribus Unum"-"Out of many one. "

It would call the Republican bluff  from a position of strength, not whining weakness.  It's not really a party that honors even its own traditions.

There are many great great Eisenhower quotes that are absolutely apropos - and would serve as fine retorts in a debate (courtesy Steve Clemons)

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking. . . is freedom.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

More Ike Quotes at Steve's Site

There are parts of Ike's acceptance speech I disagree with of course, but the solid focus on health, infrastructure, education, equal rights, smart military investment and cooperation both at home and abroad are resounding themes in both Obama and Eisenhower's talks.

"The present and the future are bringing new kinds of challenge to federal and local governments: water supply, highways, health, housing, power development, and peaceful uses of atomic energy. With two-thirds of us living in, big cities, questions of urban organization and redevelopment must be given high priority. Highest of all, perhaps, will be the priority of first class education to meet the demands of our swiftly growing school-age population.

The Party of the young and of all ages says: Let us quit fighting the battles of the past, and let us all turn our attention to these problems of the present and future, on which the long term well-being of our people so urgently depends.

<snip/>

Now, in all existing kinds of discrimination there is much to do. We must insure a fair chance to such people as mature workers who have trouble getting jobs, older citizens with problems of health, housing, security and recreation, migratory farm laborers and physically-handicapped workers. We have with us, also, problems involving American Indians, low-income farmers and laborers, women who sometimes do not get equal pay for equal work, small businessmen, and employers and workers in areas which need special assistance for redevelopment.

<snip/>

Again, the strength I speak of is not military strength alone. The heart of the collective security principle is the idea of helping other nations to realize their own potentialities-political, economic and military. The strength of the free world lies not in cementing the free world into a second monolithic mass to compete with that of the communists. It lies rather in the unity that comes of the voluntary association of nations which, however diverse, are developing their own capacities and asserting their own national destinies in a world of freedom and of mutual respect.

http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19560823%20Address%20at%20the%20Cow%20Palace%20on%20Accepting%20the%20Nomination%20of%20the%20Republican%20National%20Convention.htm

I had to share this with everyone.  Thanks to the happy mutants at Boing Boing.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/06/mad-magazine-on-sara.html

This post was a bit of sunshine on an otherwise  dreary day.

Mad Magazine has leaked its satirical Sarah Palin spread to the HuffPo -- a good 'un, too.
Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin Edition

I recently read Eisenhower's 1956 RNC acceptance speech and I really feel that Obama should deliver whole swaths of that speech to show Republicans just how far their party has drifted.

Let's use Eisenhower's endorsement!

Should Obama frame his position in terms "like Eisenhower, I believe...", GOP partisans would be forced to stop and think.    Or be forced to say - I disagree with Eisenhower...

note:

"Our Party detests the technique of pitting group against group for cheap political advantage. Republicans view as a central principle of conduct-not just as a phrase on nickels and dimes that old motto of ours: "E pluribus Unum"-"Out of many one. "

It would call the Republican bluff  from a position of strength, not whining weakness.  It's not really a party that honors even its own traditions.

There are many great great Eisenhower quotes that are absolutely apropos - and would serve as fine retorts in a debate (courtesy Steve Clemons)

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking. . . is freedom.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

More Ike Quotes at Steve's Site

There are parts of Ike's acceptance speech I disagree with of course, but the solid focus on health, infrastructure, education, equal rights, smart military investment and cooperation both at home and abroad are resounding themes in both Obama and Eisenhower's talks.

"The present and the future are bringing new kinds of challenge to federal and local governments: water supply, highways, health, housing, power development, and peaceful uses of atomic energy. With two-thirds of us living in, big cities, questions of urban organization and redevelopment must be given high priority. Highest of all, perhaps, will be the priority of first class education to meet the demands of our swiftly growing school-age population.

The Party of the young and of all ages says: Let us quit fighting the battles of the past, and let us all turn our attention to these problems of the present and future, on which the long term well-being of our people so urgently depends.

<snip/>

Now, in all existing kinds of discrimination there is much to do. We must insure a fair chance to such people as mature workers who have trouble getting jobs, older citizens with problems of health, housing, security and recreation, migratory farm laborers and physically-handicapped workers. We have with us, also, problems involving American Indians, low-income farmers and laborers, women who sometimes do not get equal pay for equal work, small businessmen, and employers and workers in areas which need special assistance for redevelopment.

<snip/>

Again, the strength I speak of is not military strength alone. The heart of the collective security principle is the idea of helping other nations to realize their own potentialities-political, economic and military. The strength of the free world lies not in cementing the free world into a second monolithic mass to compete with that of the communists. It lies rather in the unity that comes of the voluntary association of nations which, however diverse, are developing their own capacities and asserting their own national destinies in a world of freedom and of mutual respect.

http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19560823%20Address%20at%20the%20Cow%20Palace%20on%20Accepting%20the%20Nomination%20of%20the%20Republican%20National%20Convention.htm

I had to share this with everyone.  Thanks to the happy mutants at Boing Boing.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/06/mad-magazine-on-sara.html

This post was a bit of sunshine on an otherwise  dreary day.

Mad Magazine has leaked its satirical Sarah Palin spread to the HuffPo -- a good 'un, too.
Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin Edition

I got an email from my very conservative (and bitter) cousin today.  He wrote, “In the interest of fairness and openness I forward the following.  But this election is a fraud.  This country is a corporate dictatorship.  Both candidates are lying to the extent that they are helping to facilitate the deception.”   What he forwarded was an email about Sarah Palin written by a woman who lives in Wasilla, AK, named Anne Kilkenny.  

A post here I read earlier today by aboyer made reference to an item on Palin, and one of the comments, by kgb999, found the source at http://thepoliticalcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/09/alaskans-speak-in-frightened-whisper.html.  The writer, Charley James, noted that the information he was reprinting was confirmed by The Nation (at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354444/the_word_from_wasilla).  The Nation had reprinted the same email my cousin had sent me.

I don’t like to accept something as fact, just because it fits with what I believe—or would like to believe—is true.  So I went to Mudflats, a lovely little Website by an unnamed Alaskan, which he subtitles “Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics” [http://mudflats.wordpress.com/].  I found this (like many other people) after Palin’s nomination was announced.

It was through Mudflats that I found the document it’s amazing the McCain campaign didn’t find:  It’s a 63-page 2006 PDF compiled by the Alaskan Democratic Party from government documents and newspaper sources.  It confirms everything Anne Kilkenny asserted about Palin, but it does it in, what is to me, a much more sobering fashion.

There’s barely any commentary in the PDF, which doesn’t even have a title page but just comes up with the title tab “palin-2006-vetting.”  

This is something than anyone who does not want McCain and Palin elected needs to read and distribute.  Go to Mudflats at http://mudflats.wordpress.com/ and scroll down to “Palin Vetting Documents from 2006. For Hard Core Palin Addicts Only.”

Everything you’ve never wanted to know but now need to know about Palin is in the PDF.  I was left feeling queasy—and also worried that Palin could stand toe to toe with Cheney in a ruthlessness contest.  I’m not sure she wouldn’t win.

This is the document put together in 1996 by the Dems on Sarah Palin. 63 pages of fun and facts.

This will give you all you need to know about Klondike Barbie pre the last 21 months...it is a very, very interesting and in depth look at this woman.

A story was reported this week with very little fanfare from the media.  President Bush is planning on following recommendations to withdraw around 8000 troops from Iraq by January of 2009.  He would also send a small group of Marines to Afghanistan in November; No, not to add troops but to replace the ones leaving.
 
Folks, military commanders in Afghanistan are asking for ‘more’ troops, not less, not the same -- more.  President Bush and John McCain are failing their jobs.  Bush and McCain have both promised to provide everything to the generals on the ground that they ask for – they’ve failed in that mission.

What isn’t noticed as much during this news report are the words, “at least one Marine battalion will leave (Iraq) and not be replaced, as well as a few thousand support forces”.   Don’t you wonder how many ‘thousands’ that number is?  I do.

Two weeks ago General Petraeus wanted to maintain current levels in Iraq – about 146,000, including 15 combat brigades and thousands of support forces through June.

There’s no telling exactly how many troops we still have in Iraq because the news reports never match up.  We’re never told the truth.  But if it’s true that in January of 2007, before the ‘surge’, we had 130,000 total troops there in Iraq, and if it’s true that there’s been an 80 percent drop in violence – why then do we continue to have, at the very least, 16,000 more troops there than what we had before the ‘surge’?  

If the ‘surge’ worked and we have ‘victory’ why aren’t the Iraqi soldiers taking charge?  Why isn’t the Iraqi government solving its problems politically?  Last but not least, why aren’t our troops heading home by now in great masses?

That is the most important question to ask Senator John McCain.  He and his surrogates kept talking about having ‘victory’ in Iraq during their GOP convention this past week. 

Victory means war is over; Troops go home.  It doesn’t mean troops stay – in greater forces than what were there before the so-called victory.

As a side note; I predicted that Bush would be giving an announcement just in time for Election Day about troop withdraw, to give John McCain something to 'brag' about.  8000 troops is a lot of troops and I'm sure each one is estatic about leaving; but 146,000 are still there folks.  Never, Never forget that.


http://coonsey.wordpress.com/

I believe this election is on the cusp of becoming a landslide for Obama, and I believe that's why the McCain campaign panicked and chose Palin at the last minute without vetting her.

We keep seeing diaries with the latest Gallup, Rasmussen, CBS, etc polling showing a tightening or expanding race. But one thing I have not seen anyone do yet is put this in historical perspective.

Once you do that, you see just how strong Obama is in this election cycle, and why the republicans are so dispirited and downtrodden.

This, more than any other election in my 31 years, is ours to lose. We MUST keep fighting, not only to win, but to utterly decimate the republican party nationwide.

The one thing I take away from all of these polls is that an additional 2 million democrats were registered between 2006 and January of this year. The republicans lost almost half a million from their rolls.

Add on top of that the millions of new registrations of blacks, hispanics, and young people during the protracted democratic primaries, as well as the further reduction of republicans during the same time, and you have a lot of new voters in the pool that aren't typically captured in this polling.

Now as far as polling goes, I like Gallup and Rasmussen for national numbers because they do rolling averages and poll over a thousand people per night. I look at Real Clear Politics, Five Thirty Eight, Electoral Vote, and Pollster to look at the state-by-state numbers, since those are far more important than national numbers anyway.

With Obama ahead nationally by anywhere from 2-7pts depending on the poll, and ahead by a substantial margin in the electoral vote count on a state by state basis, it would take a gaffe of catastrophic proportions, or some other enormous game changer, to see McCain win. Taking into consideration all of those newly registered voters and the sheer ground game the Obama campaign has built up over the past couple of years, and I think there's a hidden cushion there that isn't necessarily shown in the polling.

I'm not saying it's a done deal and that people can sit back and relax, but the numbers are just not in McCain's favor by any stretch of the imagination.

Pollster, Five Thirty Eight, and Electoral Vote are all pointing to a 300+ EV victory for Obama going by the state polling. That is thus far translating to roughly a 3-5% popular vote win.

At this stage of the election season, it's actually comparable to what happened in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was the insurgent candidate and Carter was the incumbent. John McCain isn't the incumbent President, but he is the incumbent party. At this point Reagan was actually tracking weaker #s than Obama. Once the debates happened, however, it turned from a relatively close election into a landslide.

That's why I think the debates are going to be so crucial. Obama needs to show the american people that he can not only stand toe to toe with McCain in the debates, but that he is in fact in charge of all of the knowledge McCain and the republicans accuse him of having no knowledge of.

Given responses such as this, I have complete and utter faith that this will happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L31go6-LAs0

As we get closer and closer to election day, I believe that this will turn away from a 300+ EV victory with a 3-5% popular vote victory to something closer to 6-10% and possibly even 320-350+ EV.

The precedent for this kind of election (right track/wrong track, sour economy, sour mood of the country) does exist in history. The only precedent that I believe could keep this from being a real laugher is, unfortunately, the color of Obama's skin.

But in the end, I don't think that will be anywhere near enough to cause Obama to lose.

Now that said, let's look at some other historical information. WAPO article found, courtesy of dansac's recced diary, shows that the Obama campaign registered 49,000 new voters in Virginia, in August, alone.

Almost 260,000 new voters have registered there courtesy of the Obama campaign GOTV ground game since the primaries began. 142,000 during the primaries and another 114,000 since June. If they hold pace that will be another 90-110k registrations in September and October. They're saying that could add another 1-2% to his popular vote totals in VA and be enough, along with the general indicators that are pointing toward movement in that state, to put the state in Obama's column.

When you look at the fact that Bush won VA by 9pts in 2004, that's an enormous turnaround for Obama to even be ahead right now by 2-3pts in VA.

Here are some others. #s courtesy of Pollster, Electoral Vote, and Five Thirty Eight.

North Dakota: Bush won by 27pts. Obama tied to ahead by 3.
South Dakota: Bush won by 22pts. Obama's within 4-6.
Indiana: Bush won by 21pts. Obama's within 2-4.
Montana: Bush won by 20pts. Obama's tied to ahead by 3.
Georgia: Bush won by 17pts. Obama's within 6-7pts.
North Carolina: Bush won by 12pts. Obama's within 3.
Virginia: Bush won by 9pts. Obama's ahead by 1-2 or tied.

The story continues in every other republican stronghold.

Additionally, look at the election simulations from Five Thirty Eight:

What do you see? The highest proportion of simulations ends with McCain receiving roughly 260 electoral votes. The highest proportion of simulations ends with Obama receiving 310-330 votes.

But beyond that, you notice that the standard deviation from the magic 270 EV count EXCLUSIVELY favors Obama. You see no blue below 270 and no red above 270.

As I said at the beginning, I believe this election is on the cusp of becoming a landslide for Obama, and I believe that's why the McCain campaign panicked and chose Palin at the last minute without vetting her.

Again folks, in short this is our election to lose.

So please join with me in phone banking if you can. Join with your fellow Obama supporters in canvassing if you can. Donate to the Obama campaign if you can.

I'm phone banking and I've setup a fundraising drive just a few days ago. In that time I've been able to raise $855, so please click this link to go to my personal fundraising page and help me reach my goal of $5000.  We are on the cusp folks. Let's keep this rolling.

Lipstick.

McCain is seems to be keeping Palin away from the press. Many commentators say it is because Palin is unprepared. But from the many comments that McCain has made it does not appear that McCain really cares about  knowledge of the issues. Rather McCain is hiding Palin because he is afraid that if a reporter or reporters interviewed Palin than her ultra-rightwinged views would come out and alienate those not really informed voters that consider themselves moderate.

Lipstick.

Maverick? Try stunt politician.

John McCain is flying his campaign like a stunt pilot.

Stunt polit McCain picked an unprepared unknown on a whim, with no vetting.

He doesn't have a message, so he tries to co-opt Obama's.

He told CBS's Bob Shieffer, in an interview to air tomorrow, that he will ask his cabinet to work for a dollar a year. Does that make sense to save a little spare change and narrow the pool of qualified cabinet nominees to the super-rich who can afford to live in Washington without pay?

Stunt pilot turned stunt polit. John McCain.

Candidacy First.

Remarkably, one of Sarah Palin’s best received lines from her acceptance speech, (as judged by the applause), was her little ditty about the difference between herself and a Pit Bull being “lipstick”.
I am sure many Pit Bulls owners would describe their animals as noble, loving, and loyal members of the family. That said, if you Google the search phrase “most hated and feared dog” you will find multiple returns referencing the Pit Bull.
Sarah, I believe it safe to assume that you see yourself, and wish us to see you too, as a “rip your throat out - fight to the death - stop at nothing, adversary”. Sort of like the Terminator… with fleas.
Let’s set aside, at least for the moment, the inherent risk assumed by the McCain campaign of marrying their standard bearer, already known to be a blustery “hot-head” to a partner who is now self-described as having a temperament akin to a Pit Bull.
Instead, let’s take a minute to look a bit closer at Sarah’s Pit Bull self-comparison and see if there might be a more accurate analogy in the animal kingdom to the Sarah Palin to whom we have just now been introduced?
We know that a Pit Bull will courageously defend itself and its territory against all foes, irrespective of any disparity in size. Sarah? well, not so much.
Sarah, it seems, is afraid to personally answer any direct questions from the national press corps or the electorate:
- regarding the contradictions in her political resume.
- regarding her qualifications to be Vice-President.
- regarding her positions on the issues of this election.
Sarah, your lack of courage does not seem very “Pit Bullish” to me. In fact, Sarah, I’ll go so far as to say your fear of taking direct questions from the press and the public makes you out not to be a Pit Bull at all… just another pussy!

While I feel it is perfectly acceptable to question Governor Palin's committment to the issues she expouses as a Vice-Presidential candidate, as I've noted in comments, it's almost scary the way so many people seem to be parroting an opposition to earmarks on principle. Not only does this fly into the face of every sitting member of Congress (except John McCain) and the Democratic ticket, it also calls into question projects in every corner of the country. The whole idea of opposing earmarks has been Sen. McCain's almost singular issue throughout his career and because it's become politically expedient, it appears that a lot of Democrats have now joined his bandwagon.

Quite a bit has been made about the amounts of earmarks which go to Alaska, something partially due to the power of their Senate team and though Ms. Palin can claim that she reduced the number of requests, she didn't forego them altogether. Of course, if she had, it would've been unprecedented and Alaska would've been sitting alone among the American states because Sen. McCain's Arizona colleagues have simply taken up the slack for his refusal to make such requests.

And, if you look at the '09 data put forth by the non-partisan "Taxpayers for Common Sense", you'd see that a large percentage of Alaskan earmarks are for facilities on military bases; harbor and fishery restoration; educational grants to Native Americans; economic development, electrical power production and communications infrastructure in rural areas; rail faciities, roads and airports. Pretty much every airport in North America is built with some kind of federal assistance and because so much of Alaska is only accessible by air because there are no roads to most of the state, they take on an added signifigance in these areas.

Again, I agree that it may be proper to hold Ms. Palin's feet to the fire for what she says and how it compares to what she's done, but her responses are pretty predictable and this apparent damnation of earmarks in general isn't very helpful in the whole scheme of things. After all, not only are you attacking every member of Congress (except John McCain) and every part of the country, but you may be tying President Obama's hands, when it comes time for him to govern.
---

As for debt, it appears from the media reports that the majority, if not the entirety of Wasilla's debt is tied into this sports arena and I assume it's being paid for with growth, increased sales taxes from the proliferation of box stores and user fees.

Once again, pretty much every state, city, town, county and school system in the country issues bonds. It's how we build our roads, schools, colleges, parks, museums, civic centers and performing arts space. By themselves, they aren't bad because it's how we get things done and though the local folks should be free to question their wisdom, it's really no business of those of us on the outside, except maybe it implies a penchant for deficit spending. Though, the same can be said for pretty much every other place in the country and personally, I'm glad my local community has issued bonds and in fact, I kind of wish that they'd do more.

Remarkably, one of Sarah Palin’s best received lines from her acceptance speech, (as judged by the applause), was her little ditty about the difference between herself and a Pit Bull being “lipstick”.

I realize that the argument I'm about to make is futile in the context of an American Presidential election.  For better or for worse, we like to think that our policies dictate outcomes around the world, regardless of more influential local factors.  Our military buildup policies ended the Cold War, not the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union's economic system.  Our support of Georgia's inclusion in NATO caused the recent conflict there, not the Georgian army's mistreatment of the South Ossetian population.  Any nation as powerful as ours may be forgiven for assuming that our actions make the world go around.  In many cases, we should be more conscious of the effects of our foreign policy throughout the world.

However, there are cases where our policies merely coincide with more significant local events, resulting in a spurious causal attribution.  In the case of the recent reduction in violence in Iraq, the widely-agreed-upon success of the Surge seems like one of these spurious conclusions.  The more likely cause of the good news in Iraq is something that relatively few people have even heard of: the Anbar Awakening. 

I'm still a little fuzzy on all the details, but here's what seems to have happened: several months before the Surge began, Coalition forces began paying off Sunni insurgent groups to stop fighting, and to participate in local pacification operations.  The Sunnis responded by creating local "Awakening Councils" (a.k.a. the Son's of Iraq).  These groups operate like high-impact neighborhood watch groups.  In short, many of the insurgents were paid to become unofficial police contingents.  And it worked to reduce violence.  Which is more likely to result in a 50-60% reduction in violence: a 10% increase in the Coalition force deployment and a tweaking of strategy, or co-opting a major component of the enemy so that we align Sunni and Shiite Iraqis against transnational terror groups? 

It would be pointless for Obama to argue that the Surge is a spurious cause.  Americans tend to know very little about what's happening on the ground in Iraq, and taking this position would draw charges of "America last" from the bombasts on the right.  Furthermore, this is not to say that the Awakening is an unmitigated success.  The past few months, the Iraqi government has been reneging on its commitments to incorporate Awakening personnel, has been targeting Awakening leaders for assassination, and has promised to put them out of business.  This is unfortunate, but inevitable.  The Sons of Iraq undermine the government's monopoly on the legitimate use of force (in other words, its sovereignty).  Having a second sovereign is unworkable in a centralized-power state, but the Sunnis themselves are the most hostile to the prospect of a divided regional governance structure (since they fear losing out on resource revenues: Anbar has no oil). 

So, not only does the Surge seem an unlikely cause of the recent improvements, but the more likely cause, the Awakening, is structurally problematic.  It seems like two things could happen: the Shiite government could be positioning themselves for a final destruction of Iraqi Sunni power, or the Sunnis will abandon the Awakening and return to civil war. 

I'm trying to work through all this, so I strongly invite comments and criticisms. 

Remember all the hand wringing here during August as the polls tightened and while the Obama campaign laid against the ropes taking the McCain campaign's celebrity schtick?  Remember all of the unsolicited (largely uninformed) advice offered up that Obama should be fighting back, such advice was even offered up by the TPM "Big Dog" himself?

Alec MacGillis at the Trail blog reports that Virginia "state election officials told the campaign Friday that 49,000 new voters signed up in August, a sharp increase from the 36,500 who signed up in July and the 28,000 who registered in June."
------
"There is no way of knowing how many of the newly registered will vote for Obama, especially since Virginia does not record voters by party affiliation. But the campaign is encouraged by the demographic profile of the new voters -- about 40 percent of those who registered in August are aged 25 or under."
-------
"Nationally, more than 2 million Democrats have been added to the rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation, according to the Associated Press. Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states during the same period."

So all those predisposed toward anxiety, give the Obama campaign the credit it deserves.  Obama, Axlerod et al, who learned a lot from Dean and Trippi, know what they're doing, as the victory over the "inevitable Clinton demonstrated. 

And what the Obama campaign is doing is not just about winning the presidential election.  It's also about strengthening the state democratic parties and helping elect democrats to federal, state, and local offices.

As I'm fond of saying, unsolicited advice is worth what one pays for it.

As for those encouraging attacks on Palin, listen to what Obama is saying and follow his lead.  Attacks on Plain's religion and the propagation of rumors about a faked pregnancy and romantic affairs, I think, plays right into the McCain campaign's plans.

What I want to know is while she was mayor how did Palin both bring in $26.9 million of Ted Stevens-approved earmarks AND leave office with $19 million of debt??

Thats impressive and makes her sound even more like Bush.

Does the fact they are running a secessionist candidate mean that is Phase 2 of the Republican's Operation Destroy America?

Remarkably, one of Sarah Palin’s best received lines from her acceptance speech, (as judged by the applause), was her little ditty about the difference between herself and a Pit Bull being “lipstick”.

The Delaware "News Journal" wonders how the least wealthy senator, Joe Biden, who is worth $2 million, can afford a house valued at $2.5 million:

Though he's considered one of the least wealthy senators -- his net worth dwarfed by several multimillionaire attorneys and entrepreneurs -- Biden is a wealthy man by ordinary standards -- worth about $2 million but perhaps hundreds of thousand dollars more, a News Journal analysis found.

Like many Americans, Biden's house is his most valuable asset.

First elected to the Senate 36 years ago, the former lawyer lives off Barley Mill Road in Greenville -- northern Delaware's priciest area -- on a four-acre lakefront estate in a 7,000-square-foot custom home. Biden also owns a smaller carriage house on his property, where his widowed mother lives.

Local real estate agents said the Biden property is worth at least $2.5 million -- $1.8 million more than the couple owes. In addition, his latest Senate financial disclosure -- which lists assets and liabilities in wide ranges -- shows that Biden's net worth, excluding real estate holdings and mortgage debt, is between $381,000 and minus $55,000.

Biden and his wife, Jill, an English instructor at Delaware Technical & Community College, have combined salaries of $265,500 this year. Between 2005 and 2007, Biden also received a total of $225,000 in advances for his autobiography, "Promises to Keep."

More here: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008809060343

 

We know that McCain described the flag of Southern secession as a "symbol of heritage" that should be left to the state's to decide whether or not to fly it above their capitol.  He later admitted that this position was an "was an act of cowardice" and that he had "broke[n] [his] promise to always tell the truth" in order to try to "win the South Carolina primary" in 2000.

We also know that one of the key speakers at his convention, Mike Huckabee, said, "If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we would tell them where to put the pole; that's what we'd do."

What we don't know is how the Palin family feels about the issue.  We know that one member of her family considers himself a "f-ckin' redneck," while her husband twice registered for a political party espousing the secession of Alaska from the Union.

So where do McCain and Sarah Palin stand on the issue of the allowing states to fly the "rebel" flag?  I'm sure future equivocation will only endear the ticket to the conservative base, but I'm genuinely curious.

Interesting coincidence:

Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Silver State Bank of Henderson, Nevada was closed by U.S. regulators, the 11th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Depression.

In July, Silver State announced the resignation of Andrew McCain as a director of the bank. McCain, who had served on the audit committee and was a director for five months, is the son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain. A call to the campaign's press line last night wasn't immediately returned.

Interesting coincidence:

Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Silver State Bank of Henderson, Nevada was closed by U.S. regulators, the 11th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Depression.

In July, Silver State announced the resignation of Andrew McCain as a director of the bank. McCain, who had served on the audit committee and was a director for five months, is the son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain. A call to the campaign's press line last night wasn't immediately returned.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, when you receive an Internal Server Error message, don’t repost.  It is likely your post has gone through, so check first before reposting.  And as it say here  it may take 5 or ten minutes for your post to appear.  All of the Palin panic anxiety is overloading the TPM servers.  

I plan to continue to keep posting this message every so often, until the multiple posts end, so it remains in the list.

While I'm at it.  Read the directions above before posting and you will learn that it doesn't work well at all to paste from a Word document, as a bunch of extraneous, invisible code is also pasted.  So if you're going to paste from a Word document, paste it into Notepad first, and then into the blog post editor box.

Oh yeah, and use the buttons when posting a blog post and use tags when commenting.

There are still some incongruities with the unbelievable appearance of McCain on the lawn of Walter Reed Middle School.

If we go with a Wizard of Oz behind the curtain theory that they're too incompetent to realize the green screen problem and somebody just got the wrong picture, then how likely is it that they actually wanted a picture of Walter Reed Army Medical Center?

They claimed to be using stock Americana images all week, and they were (corn, flagpole, African-Americans, etc), but where is the logic in suddenly wanting a specific image that very few people would recognize, a particular Veterans' hospital?

Could they have possibly thought that Walter Reed Medical and McCain standing in front of it was an image they want to put up at the beginning of his speech during his thank-yous? Possibly. But the word "veteran" doesn't even appear in his speech (neither does "vet" - ha). He mentions a fallen soldier's family and bracelet, but not Veterans  themselves. At minute 7 the background incongruously changes to the cornfield, then right before minute 9 we get the sky-blue flagpole shot for the rest of the speech.

Isn't it more likely that they would have wanted images as generic as the entire convention?

Watch the first 9 minutes again. Within 30 seconds of getting Walter Reed Middle School and it's built-in green screen, we get the protester with McCain Votes Against Vets sign.

The timing and irony of the Middle School and the green screen and the protester are the elephants in the convention hall.

Consider another theory: a talented Minneapolis graphic production professional gets a frantic call from the campaign a few weeks ago to manage the mega-TV they want at their convention because the local production union won't work with them. Maybe this person is a Vet. Maybe his or her brother or uncle is a Vet. Maybe this person watches Colbert. Maybe this person knows the truth about McCain's record...

We know they're incompetent enough to put McCain in front of a green screen on Obama's primary win night. But are they possibly incompetent enough to want a picture of Walter Reed Medical (or a "generic" image of a middle school that looks like a mansion, for that matter), at the beginning of the speech, followed by a cornfield (in a speech that doesn't mention farms or agriculture), followed by the trusty flagpole with built-in blue screen for 40 minutes?

First they say it was somebody's fault, then they say it was on purpose - but maybe not their purpose.

Cindy's expression as she looks at the screen sums it up: WTF?

There are still some incongruities with the unbelievable appearance of McCain on the lawn of Walter Reed Middle School.

If we go with a Wizard of Oz behind the curtain theory that they're too incompetent to realize the green screen problem and somebody just got the wrong picture, then how likely is it that they actually wanted a picture of Walter Reed Army Medical Center?

They claimed to be using stock Americana images all week, and they were (corn, flagpole, African-Americans, etc), but where is the logic in suddenly wanting a specific image that very few people would recognize, a particular Veterans' hospital?

Could they have possibly thought that Walter Reed Medical and McCain standing in front of it was an image they want to put up at the beginning of his speech during his thank-yous? Possibly. But the word "veteran" doesn't even appear in his speech (neither does "vet" - ha). He mentions a fallen soldier's family and bracelet, but not Veterans  themselves. At minute 7 the background incongruously changes to the cornfield, then right before minute 9 we get the sky-blue flagpole shot for the rest of the speech.

Isn't it more likely that they would have wanted images as generic as the entire convention?

Watch the first 9 minutes again. Within 30 seconds of getting Walter Reed Middle School and it's built-in green screen, we get the protester with McCain Votes Against Vets sign.

The timing and irony of the Middle School and the green screen and the protester are the elephants in the convention hall.

Consider another theory: a talented Minneapolis graphic production professional gets a frantic call from the campaign a few weeks ago to manage the mega-TV they want at their convention because the local production union won't work with them. Maybe this person is a Vet. Maybe his or her brother or uncle is a Vet. Maybe this person watches Colbert. Maybe this person knows the truth about McCain's record...

We know they're incompetent enough to put McCain in front of a green screen on Obama's primary win night. But are they possibly incompetent enough to want a picture of Walter Reed Medical (or a "generic" image of a middle school that looks like a mansion, for that matter), at the beginning of the speech, followed by a cornfield (in a speech that doesn't mention farms or agriculture), followed by the trusty flagpole with built-in blue screen for 40 minutes?

First they say it was somebody's fault, then they say it was on purpose - but maybe not their purpose.

Cindy's expression as she looks at the screen sums it up: WTF?

There are still some incongruities with the unbelievable appearance of McCain on the lawn of Walter Reed Middle School.

If we go with a Wizard of Oz behind the curtain theory that they're too incompetent to realize the green screen problem and somebody just got the wrong picture, then how likely is it that they actually wanted a picture of Walter Reed Army Medical Center?

They claimed to be using stock Americana images all week, and they were (corn, flagpole, African-Americans, etc), but where is the logic in suddenly wanting a specific image that very few people would recognize, a particular Veterans' hospital?

Could they have possibly thought that Walter Reed Medical and McCain standing in front of it was an image they want to put up at the beginning of his speech during his thank-yous? Possibly. But the word "veteran" doesn't even appear in his speech (neither does "vet" - ha). He mentions a fallen soldier's family and bracelet, but not Veterans  themselves. At minute 7 the background incongruously changes to the cornfield, then right before minute 9 we get the sky-blue flagpole shot for the rest of the speech.

Isn't it more likely that they would have wanted images as generic as the entire convention?

Watch the first 9 minutes again. Within 30 seconds of getting Walter Reed Middle School and it's built-in green screen, we get the protester with McCain Votes Against Vets sign.

The timing and irony of the Middle School and the green screen and the protester are the elephants in the convention hall.

Consider another theory: a talented Minneapolis graphic production professional gets a frantic call from the campaign a few weeks ago to manage the mega-TV they want at their convention because the local production union won't work with them. Maybe this person is a Vet. Maybe his or her brother or uncle is a Vet. Maybe this person watches Colbert. Maybe this person knows the truth about McCain's record...

We know they're incompetent enough to put McCain in front of a green screen on Obama's primary win night. But are they possibly incompetent enough to want a picture of Walter Reed Medical (or a "generic" image of a middle school that looks like a mansion, for that matter), at the beginning of the speech, followed by a cornfield (in a speech that doesn't mention farms or agriculture), followed by the trusty flagpole with built-in blue screen for 40 minutes?

First they say it was somebody's fault, then they say it was on purpose - but maybe not their purpose.

Cindy's expression as she looks at the screen sums it up: WTF?

We are starting to see the press get a wee bit cranky as the countdown clock until Gov. Palin finally is finally released to meet the press keeps on ticking.  Jake Tapper at ABC News is requesting input on things we would very much like the ask her, but for now at least, can't. 

Have any really good ideas?  We're not talking softballs here...we need a really good change up, something that will leave her in a twist.  How about a question or two designed to peel away any independents tempted by her feisty, faux reformer image?

Click here to input your questions

We are witnessing the reincarnation of George Bush and Dick Cheney based on McCain's 90% support of Bush policies and Palin's media blackout, take no prisoners management style and disdain for citizens.

John Bush and Sarah Cheney must have very low intelligence, finishing fifth from the bottom at the Navy Academy and enrolling in six schools before graduating, respectively.

They are depending on low-information, uneducated voters to elect them. 

Just thinking today about the bailout of Frannie and Freddie today and reminded back to Savings and Loan crisis.

Why is it each time a Bush leaves office our Banks fail?

Flick/Palin is the Reese Witherspoon character in the movie Election

In The Speech on Wednesday night Sarah Palin listed as one of her many amazing achievements the fact that she had "...fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history:"  Sayeth Sarah:

And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

The reality, as usual, is a bit different.  What actually happend is that Palin steamrolled the Alaska State Senate  into awarding an exclusive state license and a $500 million subsidy to a Canadian energy company called TransCanada for a project that is currently little more developed than some scribbles on the back of a cocktail napkin.  Writes theAnchorage Daily News:

The license is not a construction contract, but state officials hope it will encourage TransCanada to build a pipeline to carry the North Slope's prodigious 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves....In exchange for the state reimbursing up to $500 million of the company's planning expenses, TransCanada has pledged to try to assemble the customers, financing and regulatory clearances for a megaproject that could cost more than $30 billion. If all goes according to plan, TransCanada has said it could have the first gas flowing by 2018.

In other words, Palin bet a half-billion dollars of taxpayer money on one of those "if all goes according to plan" gambles.  Meanwhile, North Slope oil and gas producers BP and Conoco Phillips have formed an alliance called Denali to pursue a gas line of their own that would have cost Alaskan taxpayers nothing.

We are starting to see the press get a wee bit cranky as the countdown clock until Gov. Palin finally is finally released to meet the press keeps on ticking.  Jake Tapper at ABC News is requesting input on things we would very much like the ask her, but for now at least, can't. 

Have any really good ideas?  We're not talking softballs here...we need a really good change up, something that will leave her in a twist.  How about a question or two designed to peel away any independents tempted by her feisty, faux reformer image?

Click here to submit your questions.

In The Speech on Wednesday night Sarah Palin listed as one of her many amazing achievements the fact that she had "...fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history:"  Sayeth Sarah:

And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

The reality, as usual, is a bit different.  What actually happend is that Palin steamrolled the Alaska State Senate  into awarding an exclusive state license and a $500 million subsidy to a Canadian energy company called TransCanada for a project that is currently little more developed than some scribbles on the back of a cocktail napkin.  Writes theAnchorage Daily News:

The license is not a construction contract, but state officials hope it will encourage TransCanada to build a pipeline to carry the North Slope's prodigious 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves....In exchange for the state reimbursing up to $500 million of the company's planning expenses, TransCanada has pledged to try to assemble the customers, financing and regulatory clearances for a megaproject that could cost more than $30 billion. If all goes according to plan, TransCanada has said it could have the first gas flowing by 2018.

In other words, Palin bet a half-billion dollars of taxpayer money on one of those "if all goes according to plan" gambles.  Meanwhile, North Slope oil and gas producers BP and Conoco Phillips have formed an alliance called Denali to pursue a gas line of their own that would have cost Alaskan taxpayers nothing.

In The Speech on Wednesday night Sarah Palin listed as one of her many amazing achievements the fact that she had "...fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history:"  Sayeth Sarah:

And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

The reality, as usual, is a bit different.  What actually happend is that Palin steamrolled the Alaska State Senate  into awarding an exclusive state license and a $500 million subsidy to a Canadian energy company called TransCanada for a project that is currently little more developed than some scribbles on the back of a cocktail napkin.  Writes theAnchorage Daily News:

The license is not a construction contract, but state officials hope it will encourage TransCanada to build a pipeline to carry the North Slope's prodigious 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves....In exchange for the state reimbursing up to $500 million of the company's planning expenses, TransCanada has pledged to try to assemble the customers, financing and regulatory clearances for a megaproject that could cost more than $30 billion. If all goes according to plan, TransCanada has said it could have the first gas flowing by 2018.

In other words, Palin bet a half-billion dollars of taxpayer money on one of those "if all goes according to plan" gambles.  Meanwhile, North Slope oil and gas producers BP and Conoco Phillips have formed an alliance called Denali to pursue a gas line of their own that would have cost Alaskan taxpayers nothing.

 

In The Speech on Wednesday night Sarah Palin listed as one of her many amazing achievements the fact that she had "...fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history:"  Sayeth Sarah:

And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

The reality, as usual, is a bit different.  What actually happend is that Palin steamrolled the Alaska State Senate  into awarding an exclusive state license and a $500 million subsidy to a Canadian energy company called TransCanada for a project that is currently little more developed than some scribbles on the back of a cocktail napkin.  Writes the Anchorage Daily News:

The license is not a construction contract, but state officials hope it will encourage TransCanada to build a pipeline to carry the North Slope's prodigious 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves....In exchange for the state reimbursing up to $500 million of the company's planning expenses, TransCanada has pledged to try to assemble the customers, financing and regulatory clearances for a megaproject that could cost more than $30 billion. If all goes according to plan, TransCanada has said it could have the first gas flowing by 2018.

In other words, Palin bet a half-billion dollars of taxpayer money on one of those "if all goes according to plan" gambles.  Meanwhile, North Slope oil and gas producers BP and Conoco Phillips have formed an alliance called Denali to pursue a gas line of their own that would have cost Alaskan taxpayers nothing.

Dead freaks unite for political change!
The surviving members of the Grateful Dead will once again play as The Dead on October 13th at Penn State. the proceeds will go to the Obama/Biden campaign.

Good for you, Rachael!  Finally someone says the dreaded "L" word.

Watch it here.

I notice that Joe Biden is running for Senate, simultaneously with running for VP.   He's just hedging his bets.  If the VP thing doesn't work out, he'll just take his senate seat.   If he wins, he'll resign the Senate and potentially hand it over the the Republicans.

Kind of chickensh*t if you ask me.  Guess he's got no faith in Obama.

People talk about Barack Obama saying this campaign is not about HIM, it's about YOU.  Well, apparently John McCain disagrees.  What's new huh?

John McCain thinks it's about HIM instead of YOU!

John McCain said during his speech at the Republican Convention the following:

I'm going to fight for my cause every day as your President

No, seriously now.

There are a bit too many overlaps between Joe Biden, 2008, and Joe Lieberman, 2000.

Look, I know that there's this whole 'Party loyalty' thing where even if our side rolls out a Turd, we've all got to put the best face on it.  And there's the whole 'Obama-mania' thing where the great man can do no wrong and we have to put the best face on it.

But Biden?

The highlights of Biden's accomplishments:   38 years in the Senate without any substantive leadership accomplishments?   Two failed Presidential bids that imploded spectacularly in record times?  A relentlessly tin ear bespeaking a genteel racism?  Favouring Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill?   Passing Scalia?  Endorsing Alito?

What real constituency did he represent?   What ethnic group, what social group, what region, what community looks to him for their leadership, or even a voice?  Seriously, could anyone choose a better poster boy for the Washingtion Insiders?   Two Senators, one a lifer, on the Dem ticket - how well did that turn out last time?  No Governors, no regional politicians, no outside real leaders, no brilliants, no following.

And this in an era when Congress is openly vilified, when the Senate's favourability ratings are even lower than Dick Cheney's?  What was Obama thinking?

That the white, male, protestant, elderly, windbag, beltway constituency needed representation...  that not the least bit of shaking to the senior citizen wasp power structure can happen without some reassurance that they'll always be in control?

Ah, bugger it.

But here's the thing.   Did you know that Joe Biden is running for the Senate the same time he's running for Vice President?

Just like Joe Lieberman.

Did you know what that means?  It means that if Joe Biden wins the Vice Presidency (possible), and wins the Senate seat (likely), he'll have to resign his seat and potentially hand the Senate over to the Republicans.

Well, ain't that a kick in the head.

Do you know what it really means?   It means that Biden's chickenshit as they come.  He's hedging his bets.  He's got no faith in Obama.  If he did, maybe he'd make a goddammed commitment.

Now, maybe you're thinking, "What's poor Biden to do?  He's gotta look after himself?  Gotta do what's best for Biden?"  "Shame on Obama for putting him in that position."

True enough.  But frankly I'm not going to sit here and applaud relentless self interest and putting his own interests before his ticket as virtues.   I can't imagine if Biden won the nomination that he'd still also run for the Senate.  The fact that he's hedging his bets now, is craven and contemptible... 

And it's just what Lieberman did, back in 2000.  And we all saw what a big frakking contribution Lieberman was to the ticket.

Sadly, the similarities don't end there.   They begin.

Biden 2008, shares Lieberman 2000's, history of unctious moral posturing.   "The last virtuous man in Washington."   Hell, these guys would strip naked and wrestle in an oil pit for that title.

Well, here's what it is:   Having no constituency to speak of,  speaking to or for no one in particular, having no actual ideas, having no particular Senate profile or accomplishments, and having been part of a Congressional Democrat caucus whose performance swerves wildly from sub-mediocre to plunging abyssal...  what else did they have to run on?   Their character.  

Their elevated and pristine character as 'very good and serious men of high moral calibre and proprietry.'  For both Lieberman and Biden, that's all they had.

And for both Lieberman and Biden, it's a trap for the Democrats.   All that 'character' is a straightjacket.  You can't be mean.  You can't be an attack dog.  You got to stand 'above the fray.'   This means hectoring your own side, slamming your own supporters to show people you're impartial.  And it means praising or kissing ass for the enemy, to show you're utterly evenhanded and fair.  What it means is that they get to be utterly ineffective.

And of course, there's that whole Beltway Insiders vibe that Lieberman 2000 and Biden 2008 share.   Both of these guys were long time permanent pols, Washington boys from way back.  What does that mean in real terms.   It means that they both go to a lot of cocktail parties, that they both shared a lot of restaurants, and committees and social occasions.  The truth is that the Republicans are a lot more a part of their social world, their life, their milieu than you and me.

Remember Lieberman 2000's revoltingly testicle slurping exhibition when allegedly debating 'Dick Cheney.'

Lieberman knew Cheney.  They knew each other socially, they went to the same parties, they both worked in the same town.   Dick Cheney was a part of Joe Lieberman's world in a way that you or I never will be.  So of course Joe's going to be friendly and ineffectual.

Fast forward:   Biden knows McCain.  They know each other socially.  They go to the same parties.  They work in the same town.  John McCain is a part of Joe Biden's world in a way that you or I never will be.   The result:

<blockquote>"John McCain is my friend," said Joe Biden. "I admire John McCain. I know of no man or woman I have ever met that has more personal courage than John McCain. We have been friends for over 33 years. We have traveled together. When John was Navy liaison he staffed me for three or four years everywhere I traveled in the world.

"Jill and John are good friends," Biden said, referring to his wife Dr. Jill Biden, who had just introduced him. "Matter of fact there’s a best-selling book written about us called The Nightingale's Song about John and some of his graduating class from Annapolis that references Jill and John in the book as good buddies.

"She doesn’t like the reference,'" Biden added, "but John, John’s a great guy. John was staffing me in Greece. I was meeting with the Prime Minister Papandreou and we were supposed to go to this fancy dinner and Jill said 'Do we have to go to this dinner?' And John said, 'No, no, no I know this great place for dinner.'

"And there was a place literally down on the docks, where Zorba lived I think, and so I had to go to the fancy thing and I come back down and I find it, and we’re wandering through these alleys on the dock -- you’re gonna get very angry at this Jill -- but I walk around the corner and there’s these cement tables like down at the shore you know, the cement base ,the cement table, and I walk in and Jill and John are standing up on the table drinking ouzo dancing with one another, and I’m thinking, 'I’ve never trusted John since then, Jillie.'

"But he’s a great guy," Biden said, "and if John called me today and said 'Joe -,' like when they went after John McCain, when Bush went after him in South Carolina with the scurrilous comments they made about his character, I called him and said, 'John, where do you want me? I’m an Al Gore man but where do you want me? I will show up anywhere in America to testify to the kind of man you are.' And he is a good man, he is a good man."  (thanks to Digby)</blockquote>

Jesus H. Christ on a Crutch!   Feel free to vomit.  And don't give me any yak about taking it out of context.  It was Biden, he said it, and if the Republicans have a brain, they'll run it on TV a million times as the Democrat VP's endorsement of the Republican ticket.   And if that ain't a kiss of death, I don't know what is.

Biden and McCain have all sorts of happy, friendly, reacharound, touchy, feely history together.   Hell, back in 2004, Biden lead a major but quixotic effort to recruit John McCain to the Democratic ticket, because you know... not enough maniac to go with the bore.

So, I think we can all go into this election expecting less than nothing from Biden.   The most we can hope for is that he'll be a genial bobblehead, avoiding gaffe's, offending no one, a smiling, empty suit occasionally saying the right things at the right times.  That's the most we can hope for.  That's it.  It won't get better than that.

Because the other side is that he's going to be a huge cast iron and concrete anchor, dragging the whole campaign down, killing momentum, making the ship list badly to one side, turning the campaign in ineffectual circles.

Biden don't care.   He doesn't lose either way.   Obama/Biden goes down, he still gets his Senate seat and the prestige of being a heavy duty mojoman.  

Hell, it might even be to his advantage if Obama/Biden goes down.  After all, if he wins, he goes into VP hell.  Sometimes not a good place - ask Dan Quayle or Spiro Agnew.   

The best he can hope for is a lame duck shot at the big ticket in 2004 if Obama flops hugely, or a senior citizen's discount shot at the big ticket in 2008, if Obama carries a couple of terms.  Neither of those seem attractive.

On the other hand, if the ticket loses, well.... guess who gets to be the frontrunner:    The Last Virtuous Man in Washington, Honest Joe Biden!

Well, ladies and ghentlemin, let me lay out Honest Joe's future career for you:

1)   After the Obamaflop of 2008, Biden tries again in 2012, just like Lieberman, 2004.   And just like Lieberman, 2004, Joementum 2012 will stink on ice.

2)  But suddenly, being a mediocre New England Senator and unctious busybody won't be enough.   Joe wants the limelight.  He's crafted his Honest Joe persona.  He wants to be important and influential.   So he's going to work Honest Joe for all he's worth.

3)  Honest Joe is going to stand above the political frey, calling it as he sees it, telling the truth, fair and impartial to one and all, the bipartisan's bipartisan, the man with no enemies and friends on both sides of the aisle.  That's the path he's going to take.

4)  Honest Joe is going to find that there's a lot more advantage to criticizing his fellow Democrats than there is to criticizing Republicans.   After all, a Democrat tilting at Republicans... that's the bridge that don't collapse, it's not news, no one cares.   But when a Democrat savages their own side, well, that's man bites dog, that's altruism and integrity and standing tall and above the fray.  That gets the television coverage, it gets the pundits warmed up, it gets the invitations to the TV shows, the interviews, the journalists, the cocktail parties.

5)   So Honest Joe finds himself attacking Democrats a lot.  Maybe he rationalizes that he's not really singling out Dems.  He goes after Republicans too.  Only that doesn't get as much notice, and it doesn't get as much reward.  So, by incremental steps, he becomes the Democrats scold.

6)   Of course, a lot of Democrats outside the beltway, and some inside, start to get tired of Honest Joe's perpetual scolding.  His reputation starts to suck ass, he gets a lot of 'not-love.'   He feels hurt and betrayed.   To him, it seems like all his (negligible) good work is forgotten, and he's being attacked by lefty radicals as cheap theatrics.  Can't they see that he's only pointing out the high road for them?  It starts to get nasty.   After a while, the only people saying nice things about Honest Joe are Republicans.   They're becoming his people.  But Honest Joe is Honest Joe, a Democrat he was, and a Democrat he'll stay.

7)  But still, irrelevance hurts.  And hostility can get out of hand.  Can we rule out a primary challenge, or some other traumatic insult to that endless ingrained entitlement?   And of course, his career is winding down.  He's old.  No more shots at the Presidency.  He's surely not going to rise high in the Democrat caucus.  But that limelight is hard to give up.

8)  It's 2016 and Joe Biden is giving the Keynote Address for the Republican National Convention, telling everyone how great the Republican ticket is, ignoring the Democrat ticket, and whining how he never changed, it was the Democrat party that moved away from him, whipped by negroes or feminists or latinos or pakistani's or progressives or whoever.

They say history repeats:   First time tragedy, second time farce.   Well, the first time wasn't tragedy, the first time was inflamed haemorhoids of the political body.   The second time won't be farce, it's going to be rectal bleeding, but mostly it's going to be tiresome and tedious, like all of Biden's speeches.

Good for you, Rachael!  Finally someone says the dreaded "L" word.

Watch it here.

Its good to see that now the RNC convention is over, Sarah McCain continue to congratulate themsleves with their recycled acceptance speeches.  To paraphrase Mr. Biden, this kids isn't your daddy's Buick anymore.

Why are all polls national when the electoral vote is what counts?  The repubs are happy to report national polls because they look close, but I believe Obama is showing much stronger electorally than McCain. 

Also, why is there limited to no coverage of the protesters arrested at the RNC.  Press were arrested and war protesters outnumbered delegates...

Why the Race is Close

Obama should be winning right now, yet the polls have him even with McCain. The problem for Obama is very, very simple: The Republicans are lying about Obama, lying about the issues and lying about how they plan to govern if elected.

The Republicans are lying. Got that? Good, because I'm going to tell you how Obama can win, and the solution also is very, very simple: Impress on the American public that Republicans are lying, and the truth will set Obama free.

"Oh, but Obama and Biden are already doing that!" you say, and "Oh, but the Obama campaign already has ads that do that!" you protest.

Shhh. Stay with me here.

The Winning Strategy

On the stump and in his ads, Obama has to accomplish two basic things. He has to tell the public how he will govern and why he should. His message has to be so clear and compelling that the majority of voters in most states have to believe it and agree with it. Yes, I just oversimplified the electoral map, but the point is, Obama's message has to 1) be delivered and 2) taken as Gospel truth.

It won't be believed if the McCain/Palin campaign has its way. Obama is certainly delivering his message, but it is not being taken as Gospel truth. The Republicans are doing everything they can to undermine Obama's message with GOP "ground noise." They're lying, remember?

How can Obama cut through the noise so he can deliver his message and win? Easy, really. He has to reinforce his message and reveal McCain, Palin and the GOP as the lying scum they are. Yes, it can be easy. I'm dead serious.

McCain's entire appeal — repeated in every GOP convention speech, looped in his ads and regurgitated in every introduction of his stump speeches — boils down to one single idea: he is a man of integrity. Always and only, his central message is his integrity.

He's a maverick (a man of integrity). He's an ex-POW who served his country (a man of integrity). He refused to leave the Hanoi Hilton before his turn (a man of integrity). He wants to change Washington, party loyalty be damned (a man of integrity). He opposed George Bush at times (a man of integrity).

The same idea holds true for Palin's public image, that she is a self-reliant reformer, a woman of integrity.

How can liars be people of integrity? They can't.

The core message of integrity is the Achilles heel of the McCain/Palin campaign. It is the very point at which the Obama/Biden campaign must target the magic arrow of Truth.

If they can cast doubt on the GOP candidates' integrity, the Democrats will accomplish several objectives at once. They can erode McCain's and Palin's credibility, arouse voter backlash against GOP hype and hipocrisy, disrupt Republican messaging, strengthen credibility of the Democrat's message, put the Republican ticket on the defensive and win.

Here's how to do it.

The Magic Arrow

You'll think I'm joking, but I'm not: Obama and Biden must call McCain and Palin liars, at least in essence. They should not use the word "liar" itself, because that would create too strong a backlash from their opponents, from the press and from voters, who would feel name-calling is below the belt.

So Obama and Biden have to use the root form of the word: Lie. And that will do very nicely to show up the Republicans as liars without ever calling them that.

And the Truth Will Set Them Free

In every press release, every surrogate's talking points and every stump speech Obama and Biden deliver, there has to be repeated references using these constructions: "the Republican lies," "the McCain lie," and "the Palin lie." And those words have to  be followed with specific lies and the truth.

And finally, the Obama/Biden campaign must use its advertising dollars to accomplishes two important tasks. First, it must continue to deliver the message of Change clearly and with policy examples tied to people's lives. Second (here's the magic arrow part), a portion of advertising must deliver the message that their opponents are lying.

For the Magic Arrow portion of advertising (perhaps half the ad budget), the campaign will need a coherent ad campaign that constantly rotates multiple spots targeting multiple lies: A Top 20 list of lies, if you will, with each ad addressing a different lie and building to election day with the focus on the most damaging lie of McCain and Palin: that they will bring Change instead of more Republican policies. Voters should be treated to television spots like this:

SAMPLE AD: "Lie 26"

Announcer: "Lie Number 26."

Video clip of McCain saying how he supports troops, superimposed with text: "Lie #26" Freeze frame on McCain.

Announcer: "The truth is, our troops returning from overseas got substandard health care, lost their homes to foreclosure and saw their sacrifices dishonored. While John McCain voted 19 times against veterans' benefits. And John McCain calls that putting country first?"

Video of Obama visiting troops.

Announcer: "Barack Obama pushed through the largest increase in veterans benefits since World War II, so those who served our country can keep their homes, receive the medical care they need and know that a grateful nation honors their service. We don't need more lies from the White House. We need change we can believe in."

Obama voiceover: "I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message."

END

Take an issue, tear McCain and Palin apart on it, call a lie a lie. Rinse. Repeat. That's how Obama can win. Hands down.

If , as it appears, the McCain camp is obstructing justice by interfering with an ongoing investigation, this issue needs to be raised:

McCain and Palin may have disqualified themselves from seeking office with this obstruction.

The Obama camp has to be willing to entertain this possibility and take appropriate action.

I do not believe, pending what transpires in the next few days, that this will be a legitimate election.

And the rule of law must be returned to our country.

Obama and camp cannot take this matter lightly.

Because frankly I am FUCKING SICK of PASSIVE DEM WIMPS allowing Republicans to get away with IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES.

And trust me our beloved Dems will not have the spine to stand up to McCain/Palin if these right-wing puppets get into the White House.

 I don't trust Obama to do anything..

But he damn well start thinking about it.

Because there is every sign that this will not be a legitimate election..

My one major take-away from the Republican Convention was simple: the Republican Party hates me.  I know for many of you this seems has seemed obvious for eight to 30 years, but as a former Republican, and a long time McCain supporter (prior to the beginning of this election season), it came as a surprise to me.  It came as a surprise because I expected the Republican Party would be trying to court my vote, rather than piss me off.  

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing they could have said that would have changed my mind during this convention.  Yet, it is surprising how well they know this.  My profile would be an educated white male, whose main issue is foreign policy and doesn't really think either side has it exactly right.  I'm pro-choice, but abortion isn't an issue that I'm likely to vote on (although after this convention, you can just add it to the list).  

More importantly though, I'm willing to listen.  I've switched parties in the past four years and am not totally comfortable with all Democratic positions.  I agree with the Republicans on stressing nuclear power, on the idea that teacher's unions are holding back progress in education, on most issues of free trade and am skeptical of both sides' plans to get us out of Iraq.  

And like most voters in the middle, I hate negative campaigning.  I hate seeing my candidate do it, and hate it even more when it comes from the other side.  I think negative campaigning is for dumb people and I don't think I'm dumb.  I've seen where the negative campaigning mindset leads while briefly working for McCain's 2000 campaign, and being stung by what happened in South Carolina.

Yet, at the Republican National Convention, which I watched closely, there was absolutely no effort made to woo my vote.  All I heard was them trying to belittle every reason I support Senator Obama.  They told me I was dumb for following a cult celebrity.  They told me I was dumb for thinking that Obama being a community organizer is an extremely positive indication of his character.  They told me I was dumb for thinking that we need a more reasoned direction in our foreign policy.  They told me I was dumb for thinking that drilling isn't an answer to our energy problems.  They told me I was dumb for wanting some real solutions to our economic crisis.  

It's not only that they told me I am dumb, they obviously genuinely thought so.  They pretended like the media frenzy around Sarah Palin was anything new.  As if I don't remember Rev. Wright, Bitter-gate, "for the first time in my life ..."-gate.  They told me left wing bloggers were trying to destroy an innocent woman by finding facts about her.  As if I haven't spent the past year and half seeing the "Obama is a Muslim" emails or reading right wing blogs that happily pass on any fantasy that might scare one more voter.  

They pretended like I wouldn't notice when they continuously attacked Senator Obama, while laying out no new solutions that might show they've chosen a new direction.  They pretended like there was any logic to the idea of them retaking Washington from themselves.  As if their convention somehow existed in a time vacuum that didn't include the last eight years.  

They lied to me about Senator Obama's tax plan.  They lied to me about Senator Obama's record in the US and Illinois Senate.  They lied to me about Senator Obama's energy plan.  They lied to me about Senator Obama's health care plan.  They lied to me about Senator Obama's views on foreign policy.  They lied to me about the reality in Iraq.  They "forgot" to mention there's a war in Afghanistan.  

They told me I was sexist for wondering who the hell Sarah Palin is.  They lied to me about the "Bridge to Nowhere."  They told me I was unpatriotic for ever questioning America's perfection.  They told me I should love their candidate based on one speech, but that I should dismiss mine because of hundreds of speeches, policy proposals and interviews.  They told me the media doesn't need to talk to the possible future vice president, while unabashedly using the media to spread this message.  

They tried to use Sarah Palin's family to make me relate to her character, while crying foul at any mention of her family outside their talking points.  They told me John McCain was a POW every few minutes, while forgetting to tell me about his 26 years in Congress.  They pretended like there is no person named Dick Cheney.  

They blatantly tried to reignite the "culture wars" that were the first thing to push me away from the Republican party.  As if any social issue is going to make me forget that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are about to be taken over by the government, as the Dow and dollar continue to drop.  They blamed the Democrats for high gas prices.  As if I don't remember who held secret meetings with energy companies that led us down this road.  

They told me that experience isn't a big deal.  As if I don't remember the last three months of them screaming at the top of their lungs, "no experience."  They told me judgment mattered most, but wouldn't answer a single question about the judgment of the Bush administration, the judgment of the Iraq war, the judgment of Republican economic policies, the judgment of picking a vice presidential candidate in two days, or the judgment of vetting a potential future president of the United States.  

Finally, they told me that the Republican party of the future is going to be the Republican party of the past by proclaiming Sarah Palin as their future.  As if I don't realize this means a greater focus on social issues, a continuation of neo-con foreign policy and continued disregard for anyone who has need of help from their government.  They passed the torch to a new leader, while bringing in the same handlers who ran their last two hate-filled campaigns.  As if I can't recognize their tactics from South Carolina in 2000.  

So I guess what I'm saying is (and don't take this the wrong way), I always knew they hated most of you.  It came as a bit of a surprise to see how much they truly hate me.  Well, I don't hate.  Their example shows so well how that emotion clouds out reality and common sense.  But man, I'm sure a whole lot more pumped up to beat the the hell out of them on November 4th!

If you didn't see the Daily Show Sept. 5th, it is a must see!

After this week of being reminded of what it means 'to be a republican' i.e.do as I do not as say not as I do, don't you dare question me... lie, lie, distort, lie, play victim, and act outraged, etc.,

I decided to watch the will.i.am video again.

Yes We Can!

pass it on...

(I cry every time I watch this...)

EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH AND HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THIS VIDEO.

Very Creepy promotional video for a Wasilla Assembly of God entitled Master's Commission (whatever the hell that means)
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJnhRhJW35o


When you watch this video REMEMBER...this was Sarah Palin's church for nearly her entire life.

The man with in the leather jacket donning a goatee was Sarah Palin's pastor from 1999 till 2002.

She continues to have close ties to this church and is involved with workshops there.

Gov. Palin trumpets her $1200 per person rebate to Alaskans, while continuing to seek federal money for infrastructure, programs, etc.

Can someone in the media please ask Gov. Palin just how much of MY taxes have gone to offset this rebate?

John McCain is tagging himself as 'one of the guys', someone you can identify with, someone you can sit with over a beer and discuss your mutual problems . He tries to sell Obama as an elitist, not in touch with the everyday ordinary folks, not having any idea of the problems they must deal with. 
Obama has one house which he acquired, after paying off educational loans.by being a best selling author. As a guess, like most people, he probably knows how many houses he has, spontaneously. No research needed.
How above the frey do you really have to be to not only not know how many houses you have, but also to have to refer the question to your staff for research to ascertain the number.
If like Senator McCain you have trouble keeping track of your abodes, then Republican is really the only way to go, And that's just houses. Let's not even get into planes and yachts.

McCain promised a VP who was ready on Day 1.

It's Day 8 and she's still not ready.

John McCain is tagging himself as 'one of the guys', someone you can identify with, someone you can sit with over a beer and discuss your mutual problems . He tries to sell Obama as an elitist, not in touch with the everyday ordinary folks, not having any idea of the problems they must deal with. 
Obama has one house which he acquired, after paying off educational loans.by being a best selling author. As a guess, like most people, he probably knows how many houses he has, spontaneously. No research needed.
How above the frey do you really have to be to not only not know how many houses you have, but also to have to refer the question to your staff for research to ascertain the number.
If like Senator McCain you have trouble keeping track of your abodes, then Republican is really the only way to go, And that's just houses. Let's not even get into planes and yachts.

A reader post linking to the allegations by the virtually unknown "LA Progressive", whose circulation is so low that I can't even find the data in google, that Sarah Palin once said of Obama and Hillary "So Sambo beat the bitch," and that she refers to Alaskans as "Artic Arabs" and "f**ing monkeys" rests on the following sourcing:

*Allegation: Palin said of Obama and Clinton: "Sambo beat the bitch."
Place of occurrence: "a restaurant" (no name provided).
Source: A waitress whose name is said to be "Lucille", who feels compelled to hide her last name.

*Allegation: She calls Alaskans "Artic Arabs"
Source: "People who know her."


*Allegation: She refers to Alaskans as "f**ing Eskimos."
Source: "A number of Alaskans interviewed for this article."

*Allegation: She is vindictive and mean.
Source: "Alaskans interviewed for this article"

Note that the only named source is the one who makes an credible allegation, specifically the one accusing her of outsting a librarian and having her opponents in her "list of enemies." The gist of this one allegation is known from respectable newspapers and media outlets to be true.

But the rest of the allegations are so thinly sourced that it's impossible not to conclude they're garbage.

The criteria to recommend diaries here seems to be: "If it makes you hope the allegations are true because they would hurt a rival, recommend it!"

Would you recommend an entry linking to a guy named "Peter" who claims Obama once admitted to being a Muslim?

Aren't we better than that?

I know this is a loaded question, because of all the animosity in the primaries and our collective reunion during the convention. But, now that Palin is picked and seems to be, at the very least, an evil phenomon, is anyone else mad at the Obama campaign for not putting HRC on the ticket? 
With HRC as the Democratic VP, Pailn dosn't happen. McCain picks Romney or Pawlenty or Leiberman and the Rs go through a boring, unwatchable ane unexciting convention and move into a serious, conventional campaign. By leaving the window open, the Obama campaign left a card on the table. Are a lot of HRC supporters going to back mccain/PALIN? Probably not. But there may be some who are impressed wiht her spunk and still carry resentment towards BO. 
But more importantly, and as much as we've had fun patting ourselves on the back about how bad she is, the base loves her. She's the overwhelming favorite to be their next nominee, whether it's in four years or eight. Listen to them talk -- she's the future of the Party. She's got the kind of kick-ass, Constitution-be-damned, U-S-A mentality and demanor that their base loves and leaners nod approvingly at. For every youth that Obama mobilized, there's another one listening to Keith Urban's latest diatribe, waiting to sign up for Sarah -- she's already first-name with them. 
We're watching her scandals, hoping one of them sticks. But they won't, because the country won't care about them, and even if they do, all can be explained by the same mentality. If Trig really is the daughter's baby, is anyone going to condemn her for raising her special-needs grandson, and then tryng to cover it up to make life easier for all concerned? Say Troopergate shows something -- they'll just say she was watching out for her sister -- whose husband tasered their son -- taking things into her own hands because she could. She won't talk to the press?  They'll say who could blame her after what they put her through the week after her selection. She fibs about her record -- they'll say, basically, who doesn't? And she'll be out there, with her barbs and her zingers and her small-fucking-town sensibility, and enough people will eat it up until she's in charge of everything. 
Joe Biden is a good man. He'll, hopefully, make a great Vice President. It was always going to be a tight election. But we're in a dogfight now, not just for the presidency, but for the soul of the country. This person and what she represents has been unleashed on us, and didn't have to be. HRC on the ticket keeps Palin in Alaskan obscurity. She could never have run a national campaign from there. But now ... she's the future of the Repulican party.  
And, I gotta tell you, that makes me a little mad. 

...whiteout is very cheap when you buy it in bulk and he needs lots to implement his plan to eradicate uninsuredness by removing the term from the census papers. After all, everyone can just go to the emergency room.


...last time he went to the store himself instead of paying his servants to feed him, butterscotch swirls still cost a penny a piece and Steve Schmidt told him to be prepared to pretend to be a regular hard-working guy at a moment's notice.


...he has maxed out all his credit cards again, but no worries, the next generation can pay for it.


...he has not learned to log on to the ATM yet.


...Barack Obama's taxcut for the average family is measured in hundreds of dollars instead.


...he would like to tip that nice young black man on his way out.

All the political media outlets, Hardball, Anderson Cooper 360, Countdown, Campbell Brown Election Center, Rachel Maddow Show, Inside Edition, etc.. should begin their own Count Down for an appearance by Sarah Palin to their shows.  She is John McCain's running mate.
 
Just as Fox News Sunday did to complain about Barack Obama not appearing on their show, these shows should create a countdown in the corner of their screens waiting for their first interview of Sarah Palin - she could be after all, the next Vice President (and God forbid, the next President) of the United States.

Start the countdown as of September 5, 2008.  Just 8 weeks before Election Day.

Don't get me wrong.  I love TPM, and view it as one of the most intelligent and focused liberal blogs on the internet, and that's exactly why I am so utterly confused at the focus on the Republican convention's use of the image of Walter Reed Middle School.

Sure it was an absurd mix-up, but the level of attention that it has drawn from this site is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with the candidates, the speakers, or the leaders of the Republican party. It has nothing to do with their issues or their ideological faults. It was the error of an insignificant operative who was lazy. Period. And it could have just as easily happened to the Democrats in a bad moment (and I don't want to hear the argument that our party doesn't make stupid mistakes).

And while I delight at the quips that are posted on the front page about these hilarious mistakes, I don't actually view them as politically substantive, or indicative of anything with regard to the true problems with the Republican party.

Check out this Sarah Palin parody at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdRrqkgTGNk

Back in 2004 I wrote a sort of Ten Commandments Report Card for George Bush. He didn't score very well.

Right now, I'm just thinking about one commandment - the one about "bearing false witness." See, with education going down the tubes in this country, I think the religious right has forgotten what it means to "bear false witness." In other words, they don't know that lying is considered a sin.

How else could we explain the Republican penchant for lying, and lying, and lying some more. Blatantly and bald faced, they lie. Do they not realize the mortal peril they are putting their sorry souls in? Do they not realize that Satan is egging them on?

I feel sorry for them, for when they reach the Pearly Gates, they will, no doubt, be denied admission. They will have to suffer in the district of Hell reserved for liars, though some will take up residence in the Killer Zone, and others perhaps in zones of various other sinful infractions.

If only they were serious about their so-called faith. If only they really were committed to telling the truth. But such is not the case, and they will pay for it with their everlasting souls.

If you believe in all that. I don't. I just want them out of office, and I want some of them in jail.

Close to Home...

"Until recently, the son of Republican nominee Sen. John McCain sat on Silver State's board and was a member of its three-person audit committee, which was responsible for overseeing the company's financial condition.

Andrew McCain left the Henderson, Nev., bank July 26 after five months on the board, citing "personal reasons." He is Sen. McCain's adopted son from his first marriage."

Link

Sarah Palin is unpolished, rambles and can't read.  Let's have the media show us that Sarah Palin.

Yesterday I was watching MSNBC in the morning and they showed a rally with Sarah Palin and John McCain.  She read a prepared speech (not much different from what we've already heard).  While giving this speech she was clearly reading from a prepared text.  When she got past the personal part she started reading in a stumbling manner.  It was clear that she has trouble reading coherently and that she had no understanding of the words.  She also has a strange guffaw under her breath that she releases when she thinks she has said something clever.

Later in the day we saw clips of this speech on all the major networks.  None of them showed the pathetic stumbling or the guffaws.  All of them showed the Bridge to Nowhere line, which she has practiced so much she can deliver it with (lying) conviction.  I realize the bridge to nowhere stuff is "news" in the sense they have caught her in a lie (that means nothing to her admirers).  However, maybe it would mean something to them that this woman, who would be a heartbeat away from the President, cannot read aloud with the fluency of a competent third grader.  They wouldn't feel so comfortable about her poise if they saw the guffaws and paid attention to them.  (This kind of shallow stuff matters more in our culture than actual political substance).

Another sample of Sarah Palin's speaking is here on the Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG1vPYbRB7k.  Most of the comments about this video have focused the scary substance of these remarks.  (Of course we haven't seen any of these videos on TV).  However, the style of the delivery is pretty interesting too.  She rambles on in a very disorganized way, and the guffaw is clearly heard here too. She also rocks around on her feet.  We see in this video, not a poised performance, but the performance of a bad high school speaker.

This is the real reason the campaign doesn't want us to see an uncoached performance.  She tends to ramble incoherently.  She has a really unappealing guffaw.  She nervously moves around while speaking.   She can't read aloud very well.  (And her opinions are way off the chart outside the mainstream).

Not even John Stewart or Keith Olberman has picked up any of this video.  Let's see some juxtaposition of how she acts when coached and not coached.

So, after four days of coaching with professional speech coaches, Sarah Palin comes on national TV and reads a 47 minute speech written by a professional speech writer.  She gives a performance worthy of a mediocre high school thespian, complete with poorly modulated high pitched voice and garbled words from not understanding  the script.  After this joke of a performance, the media trumpet her as a success lauding her poise and charisma.  OK, expectations were low, she didn't drool.

Of course substance should prevail over style.  But it doesn't in our culture.  One might argue that George Bush has built a career out of talking like an uneducated rube.  That's true, but he doesn't ramble, he doesn't have a nasty guffaw under his "clever" statements, he doesn't wobble around while he speaks.  Many of the same people who would be OK with a President with extreme political views would be embarassed by one with an unpolished presentation.  So, trivial and shallow as it seems, it needs to be seen.  But then again focusing her he poor presentation is trivial and shallow, so is declaring the woman, a total unknown, a national icon after a 47 minute coached speech.

A picture is worth a thousand words Levi, the self proclaimed "redneck" who did "not want kids"
and who would "f*ck you up" if you messed with him pictures here with his fiance and kissing his "brother in law"?

It could happen....

This looks like a very nice young couple, their baby and a young Dad....but what do I know

From Andrew Sullivan: "I'm simply staggered that someone who could be president in an instant next January has been in her position for a week and cannot be asked questions by the press corps. Has this ever happened before in American history? Again: unbelievable. And terrifying."

Waiting to expose Palin to questions excites while reducing expectations, and attracts attention for the inevitable rollout. Her eventual press conference will attract more viewers than her nomination speech.  And for that event, if they are capable of it, they will give Palin some real and specific policy rollouts to frame the press conference. Since the evangelical right already knows she is one of them, everything else you see from her will be picture perfect moderation.  She is studying very hard now, but she's a very quick study, and a gifted politician--her rise from Mayor of Wassila  to Governor  cannot be attributed to the quirky electorate or small talent pool in a frontier state.  As an Alaskan who has been watching her, I assure you, she may never be up to the vice-presidency, but she is certainly up to the campaign. She will surpass expectations, which will reinforce the very compelling fairy tale that any American can become President,  She is the anti-Obama, and her story is just as powerful.  While Obama is an Ivy league graduate that elevates the aspirations of every American, she embodies the aspirations of every American. She is everything that Bush pretended to be. Terrified? You bet.  Open your wallets and hold on to your hats for a very tight race.

First, let's admit that John McCain is a maverick.  He likes to make his decisions as quickly as possible and then live with the consequences.  He's independent and he thinks with his heart instead of his head. He has a temper that he isn't afraid to show.  He's a maverick...Just like that other cowboy who rode into town 8 years ago to be a uniter not a divider and get rid of the Old Boy way of doing things.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KzkAZC40a_U&eurl=http://thatsrightnate.com/

Here is an admittedly incomplete list of Bush Outrages of the last eight years.

I sure wish Obama would pick a few and make the case that these are the result of REPUBLICAN policies and ARE NOT going to change under McCain.

But that would take courage not typically found in Democrats ...

My incomplete list of Bush assaults:
 
-Fraud in Florida, Bush Selected
-Had Enron's "Kenny boy" Lay assist in selecting administration staff in 2001
-Formulated US energy policy in secret -Cheney with oil and energy CEO's
-Allowed, through the FERC (Fed Energy Regulatory Commission), the bilking of California by Enron and others of $9Billion in electricity overcharges in summer 2001
-Refused to fund embryonic stem cell research, despite majority of US being in favor
-Instituted tariffs on imported steel for political purposes, later rescinded, cost US citizens $Billions
-Unsuccessfully interfered in Oregon's voter approved assisted suicide law
-Interfered, and continues to interfere  in California's medical marijuana law
-Reduced tobacco settlement won by govt by $100Billion as giveaway to big tobacco companies
-Unnecessarily gave $7-$45Billion tax credits to oil companies for exploration
-Governing mantra from day 1: Anything But Clinton
-No retaliation to Cole attack even tho Bin Laden was found to be responsible on Bush's watch
-Pre-9/11 threats ignored, ignored, ignored - Bush goes on vacation for a month
-Bush reads "My Pet Goat" during and after WTC is attacked
-EPA under Bush alters results of air quality tests in NY after 9/11-many are now sick
-9/11 widows and others had to fight Admin to have 9/11 investigation
-9/11 commission stonewalled at every turn - preventing true investigation
-Condoleezza Rice promoted to Secretary of State after 9/11 failure
-Rice continues to the present to lie about her (lack of) attention to terrorism leading up to 9/11
-George Tenet awarded Medal of Freedom after 9/11 failure ("hush money"?)
-Halfhearted, incompetent effort to get Bin Laden results in failure: he's still out there
-Bush says of Bin Laden: "I don't know where he is - I just don't think about him that much"
-Facts are fixed, document(s?) forged and lies told to the country and Congress to attack Iraq
-Colin Powell fed concocted WMD evidence to justify Iraq invasion
-Convinced more that half of Americans, falsely, that Saddam Hussein involved in 9/11
-No war plan; no postwar plan; dismantled the Iraqi army; incompetent execution
-No bid contracts to favored corporations; massive war profiteering and fraud ensues
-Nine to twelve $Billion in CASH MONEY unaccounted for in Iraq
-Iraq rebuilding efforts headed by political friends without qualifications, resulting in failure, massive waste
-Multiple tax cuts for the wealthiest while war costs soar
-$250Billion Clinton surplus becomes $500Billion Bush deficit
-National debt has increased 49% under bush from $5.7 Trillion to $8.5 Trillion or higher 
-Iraq war creates "Mad-Max" environment in Iraq - the payoff for spending $500Billion (and continuing)
-Cost of Iraq war not accounted for in budget
-4000 + Americans killed, 25000 wounded in Iraq, increasing daily
-Veterans benefits cut as war continues
-50,000-100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, increasing daily
-Iraq providing terrorists a training ground that didn't exist previously
-Bush not aware of differences between Sunni / Shiite sects until war well under way
-Army and entire military in dire condition, worst in recent history
-Troops redeployed to Iraq 2, 3, 4 times, often extended
-National guard in most states is badly weakened - equipment has gone to Iraq
-War in Afghanistan is failing - Taliban and Opium are resurgent
-Used taxpayer money to pay journalists to propagandize for administration policies
-Medicare prescription drug program a giveaway to drug industry - price negotiations not permitted
-Bush Administration lied to Congress about cost of prescription drug benefit, hiding $300Billion or more cost
-Slowest job creation since 1962
-Real wages have declined over eight years
-Health care coverage has declined
-Political hacks running federal agencies - FDA, EPA, FEMA, Nat Parks ETC
-Bush policies have been instrumental in increase in price of oil from $25 to $147 high
-Infrastructure ignored - electric grid, transportation, bridges, -No effort to increase broadband Internet access
-Eroded the wall between church and state with govt grants to favored fundamentalist christian organizations
-Dept of Homeland Security is a mess
-Airport Security a mess, constantly changing
-Terrorist Watch List causes constant problems for thousands of innocent people
-FAA is a mess, understaffed
-Terrorist alerts are used for political purposes
-Illegal wiretapping of Americans - breaks law by ignoring FISA Court
-Has issued 750 (and counting) "Signing Statements", in lieu of vetoes, stating he can ignore laws
-Torture - Abu Ghraib - no high level consequences, no accountability
-Guantanamo - court has ruled it illegal
-Has sent "detainees" to other countries to be tortured - secret rendition
-No preparation for hurricane Katrina
-FEMA response to hurricane Katrina bungled;  FEMA damaged by political hacks
-Workplace enforcement of illegal immigrant hiring virtually stopped for first 6 years of Bush Administration
-Republican Congress pork increased dramatically - no vetoes by Bush
-Bush spends $millions of taxpayer dollars on political fundraising
-Massive increase in govt secrecy - reclassifying documents, sealing Bush 41 records etc
-Ran political operation under Karl Rove out of White House
-Had Jack Abramoff, confessed felon/lobbiest, to White House 485 times ("hardly knew the guy")
-Bush's own National Intel estimate says Iraq has increased terrorism - Bush says anyone who believes that is "naive"
-Allowed North Korea to process enough uranium for an estimated 8 nuclear weapons, up from 1
-Habeas Corpus revoked for first time in US history, for anyone Bush decides is an "enemy combatant"
-Mortgage crisis, credit crisis, (partly a result of bank deregulation 2002), bank bailout, Fannie and Freddie bailout, dollar plummeting
-Politicized justice department (and other departments), fired US Attorneys for failure to toe the republican line
-Don Siegleman imprisonment in Alabama, Karl Rove involvement
Income inequality highest since 1920's

I sure wish Obama would dig deeper into this Treasure Chest of horrors and give us angry Americans a little satisfaction by bringing them to light.

Steve Chambers

Anne Kilkenny - now there's a story!!
http://www.andrys.com/palin-kilkenny.html

I can't wait for the world, and yes, the "elite media" to get past the RNC spin and BS. What a load of crap! Country First? Seems like Politics First. The RNC lackie's (Sean and Bill - two angry white men) at Fox/Faux News can out shout and interrogate their "liberal" guests if the don't get the answers they want (fair and balanced??) yet know one can even question the RNC spin meisters on Palin. But wait - let's make it and issue about why Oprah won't invite her!

Barack is right when he says this election is not about him nor his opponent. It is really about the people. I think all of America believes this and there are some interest groups in the US that really need a wake up call.

The Christian Right really does need someone to sit them down and lecture them on values, the tolerant lifestyle of Jesus and their need to honor truth and integrity.

How does the Christian Right justify support the McCain ticket? This gang openly pushes and preaches lies and distortions. They are blatantly dishonest and yet people purporting to be stalwartly christian can support them this way. Somehow this scenario does not reconcile very well with my perceptions on what Jesus would expect of anyone who professes to follow him.

In all of this I do not blame the McCain camp. They are politicians and hence there is some unwritten rule hidden somewhere in the Bible that allows them to be anything they want to be, say anything they want to say and Christ would be pleased about it. That's the way it seems to me.

I think we in bloggersphere need to make a concerted effort to call out these right winged Christians for their blatant hypocrisy and show-case them as the liars and deceivers that they really are.

It seems to me that many in this right winged christian world do not think for themselves. So they rely on the Dobson's, Hagees and the likes to make the calls and they simply follow. If some of these leaders can be shown-up for their decietfulness and lies I am sure lots of their followers would take a second look and amend their beliefs.

We need to callout the Christian Right and hold them accountable to the standards that they set for all other groups. I think they are hypocrits, mostly.

Cheers

Barack is right when he says this election is not about him nor his opponent. It is really about the people. I think all of America believes this and there are some interest groups in the US that really need a wake up call.

The Christian Right really does need someone to sit them down and lecture them on values, the tolerant lifestyle of Jesus and their need to honor truth and integrity.

How does the Christian Right justify support the McCain ticket? This gang openly pushes and preaches lies and distortions. They are blatantly dishonest and yet people purporting to be stalwartly christian can support them this way. Somehow this scenario does not reconcile very well with my perceptions on what Jesus would expect of anyone who professes to follow him.

In all of this I do not blame the McCain camp. They are politicians and hence there is some unwritten rule hidden somewhere in the Bible that allows them to be anything they want to be, say anything they want to say and Christ would be pleased about it. That's the way it seems to me.

I think we in bloggersphere need to make a concerted effort to call out these right winged Christians for their blatant hypocrisy and show-case them as the liars and deceivers that they really are.

It seems to me that many in this right winged christian world do not think for themselves. So they rely on the Dobson's, Hagees and the likes to make the calls and they simply follow. If some of these leaders can be shown-up for their decietfulness and lies I am sure lots of their followers would take a second look and amend their beliefs.

We need to callout the Christian Right and hold them accountable to the standards that they set for all other groups. I think they are hypocrits, mostly.

Cheers

Barack is right when he says this election is not about him nor his opponent. It is really about the people. I think all of America believes this and there are some interest groups in the US that really need a wake up call.

The Christian Right really does need someone to sit them down and lecture them on values, the tolerant lifestyle of Jesus and their need to honor truth and integrity.

How does the Christian Right justify support the McCain ticket? This gang openly pushes and preaches lies and distortions. They are blatantly dishonest and yet people purporting to be stalwartly christian can support them this way. Somehow this scenario does not reconcile very well with my perceptions on what Jesus would expect of anyone who professes to follow him.

In all of this I do not blame the McCain camp. They are politicians and hence there is some unwritten rule hidden somewhere in the Bible that allows them to be anything they want to be, say anything they want to say and Christ would be pleased about it. That's the way it seems to me.

I think we in bloggersphere need to make a concerted effort to call out these right winged Christians for their blatant hypocrisy and show-case them as the liars and deceivers that they really are.

It seems to me that many in this right winged christian world do not think for themselves. So they rely on the Dobson's, Hagees and the likes to make the calls and they simply follow. If some of these leaders can be shown-up for their decietfulness and lies I am sure lots of their followers would take a second look and amend their beliefs.

We need to callout the Christian Right and hold them accountable to the standards that they set for all other groups. I think they are hypocrits, mostly.

Cheers

Barack is right when he says this election is not about him nor his opponent. It is really about the people. I think all of America believes this and there are some interest groups in the US that really need a wake up call.

The Christian Right really does need someone to sit them down and lecture them on values, the tolerant lifestyle of Jesus and their need to honor truth and integrity.

How does the Christian Right justify support the McCain ticket? This gang openly pushes and preaches lies and distortions. They are blatantly dishonest and yet people purporting to be stalwartly christian can support them this way. Somehow this scenario does not reconcile very well with my perceptions on what Jesus would expect of anyone who professes to follow him.

In all of this I do not blame the McCain camp. They are politicians and hence there is some unwritten rule hidden somewhere in the Bible that allows them to be anything they want to be, say anything they want to say and Christ would be pleased about it. That's the way it seems to me.

I think we in bloggersphere need to make a concerted effort to call out these right winged Christians for their blatant hypocrisy and show-case them as the liars and deceivers that they really are.

It seems to me that many in this right winged christian world do not think for themselves. So they rely on the Dobson's, Hagees and the likes to make the calls and they simply follow. If some of these leaders can be shown-up for their decietfulness and lies I am sure lots of their followers would take a second look and amend their beliefs.

We need to callout the Christian Right and hold them accountable to the standards that they set for all other groups. I think they are hypocrits, mostly.

Cheers

Sarah Palin seems to be enjoying this reputation as tough, strong and feisty.  But really - how can you be those things if you are afraid of the press?  I think we all need to be out there pointing this out.  Not just on our blogs - comment on mainstream blogs and MSM news sites.  Say it over and over again. 

She is not tough.  She's not capable of being out there on her own.  She is hiding behind her handlers.  And if anyone criticizes her, she hides behind her teenage daughter and special needs baby. 

Being snide and sarcastic towards community organizers is not being strong.  So - get out there and organize - talk about this - make this the narrative. 

A pit bull cowering from the media.

 

Guys, I'm running this post again due to the snafu that took it off the page yesterday after two hours.  Sorry for the inconvenience.


Up is down.

Right is left.

Black is white.

Change is the same and the same is change.

This is the Republican convention message from Bush/McCain.

Arianna Huffington calls it the "Amnesia Platform." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/mccain-is-running-on-the-_b_124135.html

"Listening to McCain, you'd think it was the Democrats who occupied the White House the last seven-plus years and it was time to throw the bastards out.

"Given that 82 percent of voters believe we are heading in the wrong direction, it's a logical position to take. But for the American people to buy into the notion that McCain, who has raced to Bush's side on tax cuts, on off shore drilling -- even on torture -- is this campaign's agent of change, it's going to require an incredible suspension of disbelief. Or a serious case of amnesia.

"And this is clearly McCain's campaign strategy: inducing amnesia about the past and confusion about the future, attempting to hoodwink the American people about what he has become. Which is where Sarah Palin comes in. As a major distraction. In the effort to divert attention from the matter at hand -- McCain's embrace of all things Bush -- Palin is the perfect storm...

"Forget worrying about the economy or health care or the housing crisis -- think about how many people live in Wasilla, whether Bristol and Levi will live happily ever after, and if Sarah and her 'First Dude' really want Alaska to secede from the union."

When they found that mocking their opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, lying about him, spiraling whispering campaigns through the Internet about him, attacking him, and savaging his message of "change" and his inexperience--STILL did little to diminish his popularity or turn the American people against him--they decided to co-opt his message, plaigerize it as their own, and then fog up the TV screen with enough rippling flags, sad war-hero stories, frightening 9/11 video, and pretty running mates to confuse people into believing that THEY are actually the REAL change agents, after all.

And oh, the pretzel-twists they must contort themselves into in order to accomplish this sleight-of-hand.

Michael Kinsley writes in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/31/AR2008083101553_pf.html

"It seems like only yesterday that the Republican Party was complaining about Barack Obama's lack of foreign policy 'experience.' (As a matter of fact, when I started writing this, it actually was yesterday.) Even now, the Republican National Committee's main anti-Obama Web site has the witty address http://www.notready08.com. The contrast in experience, especially foreign policy experience, between John McCain and Obama was supposed to be the central focus of McCain's campaign.

"But that's so five minutes ago, before Sarah Palin. Already, conservative pundits have come up with creative explanations for McCain's choice of a vice presidential running mate with essentially no foreign policy experience. First prize (so far) goes to Michael Barone, who notes on the U.S. News and World Report blog that 'Alaska is the only state with a border with Russia. And it is the only state with territory, in the Aleutian Islands, occupied by the enemy in World War II.' I think we need to know what Sarah Palin has done, in her year and change as governor of Alaska, to protect the freedom of the Aleutian Islands before deciding how many foreign policy experience credits she deserves on their account."


Somehow, the Republicans seem to think that the American people will just forget all about the past eight years.

No.  Let me rephrase that.

They think they can MAKE the American people forget all about the past eight years.

In fact, in McCain's speech last night, when he got to the part about foreign policy, I stared gape-mouthed as he completely failed to even MENTION Afghanistan, where the Taliban has regained a foothold, they are encroaching in power and territory into Pakistan as we speak, (which DOES have nuclear weapons and a very shaky brand-new government), and where more American troops have died in recent months than in Iraq, which was the FAKE war on terror they started six years ago.

He did not mention Afghanistan, but he went on and on about big bad Russia kicking the ass of poor little struggling Georgia (who he also failed to mention, started the fight in the first place by dropping cluster bombs on Ossetia)--and IRAN.

What the hell?

Those Republicans--they throw around all kinds of glory-words in relation to Iraq, words like VICTORY WITH HONOR.

I remember vividly when Richard Nixon got himself elected president by using those exact same words in relation to Vietnam.

But just as with Tricky Dick, there was no explanation as to just exactly what the hell any of that MEANS.

McCain spent literally HALF of his speech touting his own heroism in Vietnam, but FAILED TO EVEN BRING UP veterans returning from multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with horrific injuries and post traumatic stress--only to be shipped back AGAIN before even a year is out.

As the New York Times put it in an editorial:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/opinion/04thu1.html?_r=1&ei=5070&oref=slogin&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print


"The difficulty for the Republican ticket in talking about change and reform and acting like insurgents is that they have been running Washington — the White House and Congress — for most of the last eight years...

"As hard as he tries, Mr. McCain cannot escape the burdensome shadow of President Bush because his policies offer no real change. On the all-important issue of the economy, Mr. McCain has no prescription for ending the mortgage-driven crisis or for fixing the huge fiscal problems Mr. Bush has bequeathed the nation. He wants to make even deeper cuts in corporate taxes, eliminate the alternative minimum income tax and make permanent the Bush tax cuts that vastly favor the wealthy and that he once correctly opposed.

"His only idea for balancing the budget seems to be controlling earmarks, which Republicans now denounce with the sort of single-minded fervor they used to reserve for Democratic-appointed judges.

"Permanently extending the tax cuts would reduce tax revenue by $1 trillion over four years. If Mr. McCain eliminated every earmark (including money for the gas pipeline that Ms. Palin wants to build in Alaska), the savings would total about $18 billion a year. He hasn’t offered any idea of where he’ll get the rest of the money.

"He has not explained how he plans to rein in out-of-control financial firms and avoid a repeat of the mortgage disaster. Mr. Bush’s ideological opposition to sound government regulation is in large measure to blame for the economic crisis, but when Mr. McCain talks about fixing Washington, that subject never comes up.

"Mr. McCain also has yet to explain to voters how he intends to go on paying for the war in Iraq — and also fix a dangerously stretched and overburdened military. Mr. McCain talks about energy independence. But his primary solution is not a solution: drilling and more drilling.

"Mr. McCain says he is the candidate who will better protect the country from terrorism. But about all he has to offer is his pledge to continue the war in Iraq. We have yet to hear an explanation for how he plans to do that while also salvaging the war in Afghanistan — the real front line in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban."


Watching McCain's speech last night--and Palin's before it--I felt as though I had entered Jerry Seinfeld's "Bizarro World."

In the episode, "Bizarro World," Elaine gets mixed up with a group of friends who eerily resemble her usual gang of Seinfeld, Kramer, and George.  One of the guys is a laid-back wise-cracker, one is tall and clumsy, and one is short and bald with glasses.

For a while, it looks as though Elaine has found a whole new gang that is just like her last one, only somehow better.  They are nicer to her, she thinks, and for a while, she toys with the idea that she might just REPLACE the old gang with the Bizarro World gang.

But things begin to unravel for Elaine when she starts to treat the new gang in the same way she had the last.  When the Kramer-replacement guy says something outrageous, she says her usual, "Get OUT!" and shoves his chest with her hands--a funny little habit she'd developed with Kramer that always made him smile.

Instead, the guy stumbles and falls, crying out, "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" and whining that she hurt him.  The others race to his side, help him up, and turn on Elaine, accusing her of being crazy and irresponsible for attacking their friend.

And that spells the end of the Bizarro World friendship.

This past week, we have witnessed a Republican Bizarro World.

Don't be fooled.

For one thing, everything out of their mouths is a lie.

If you want to know the truth about how Sarah Palin actually EMBRACED earmarks, squandered a surplus as mayor and left a deficit after first building huge projects the town didn't need and neglecting sewage treatment and other projects they did; if you want to read her REAL record of Alaska, and if you would like a primer on just how UNreal a state government Alaska is compared to other states, (huge oil revenues due to the high prices on the marketplace right now have given it a big surplus when most states can barely function), check these out:

"About Sarah Palin: An E-Mail from Wasilla," by Anne Kilkenny in the Seattle Crosscut:

http://www.crosscut.com/2008-election/17341

and, "The Unusual Challenges Palin Faced in Alaska," by Kirk Johnson, New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/us/politics/04alaska.html?adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1220619913-D/wo38r3FSRX9wZigbtPIA&pagewanted=print


But I don't want to talk about Sarah Palin.  As Obama said in a press conference yesterday, http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/  (scroll down to find it):

"I'm not running against Sarah Palin.  I'm running against John McCain."

And John McCain is not change.

If my mind didn't already know this last night, my body informed me, when I got so upset at McCain's speech that I burst into tears and then threw up.

Before watching the speech, my moderate Republican-turned Obama supporter husband had told me that when I posted my blog later about the speech, "Don't get emotional."

He said that journalists had to deal only in FACTS and that I should present only facts in my blogpost and that, furthermore, I should not get emotional watching the speech.

"Before battle," he said, "one of the most important things you have to do is get to know your enemy."

To that end, I was to stuff down any emotional reaction I was having and concentrate on what was going on on the screen.

And I knew my husband was right.  I knew he was saying that if I wanted people to listen, really listen, to what I had to say, I had to present it in such a way that was non-emotional and therefore non-threatening.

But almost as soon as the Republicans cued up their own powerful emotional video of McCain's POW experience, I found myself screaming at the TV screen.

Even my cat jumped up in my lap, checking to make sure I was all right.

It kind of went downhill from there.

And I knew, once the speech was over and I had burst into tears and finally gotten sick, that this was way over the top, that something was WRONG with me, and what the hell was it?

Why couldn't I just sit down and calmly analyze the speech like everybody else?

And then it dawned on me.

I thought, "It's post traumatic stress."

You see, it's not just soldiers and Marines who suffer the trauma of war, it is also their families who must endure endless ongoing agonies of anxiety, fear, and anguish every day for months on end, and then, go through it all over again.

It changes us, we combat moms and dads.  It does something to our minds.  All that stress rewires something in the brain, and we can get triggered into over-the-top emotional reactions by things as surely as our boys and girls can by, say, sitting through fireworks demonstrations on the Fourth of July.

Even when they are home now and safe, as is my own son.

And for me, all those rippling flags...all that stirring patriotic talk about VICTORY and HONOR and WAR-HERO...it brought back to me my own dismal despair as I had watched them do the same damn thing in 2000 and in 2004--perverting patriotism into some twisted political pandering--twisting suffering into sloganism, and attacking anyone, anywhere who DARED to question their party line.

Let me put it as bluntly as I know:

WHEN REPUBLICANS LIE, PEOPLE DIE.

It is that simple.

They sent fine young men and women off to DIE for their LIE that was Iraq, and they did it year after year, and they manipulated their way into power by waving flags and draping troops across the stage like props--much the same way the Palin children are being handled today. 

In 2004, my son and thousands of other Marines were forced to congregate and wait outside Fallujah before the biggest urban combat battle since World War II.  They had to wait until AFTER the elections that year, because it would have reflected badly on the Republican incumbent when hundreds of those Marines fell in the bloody, horrific battle.

And three days after George W. Bush was re-elected, to the backdrop of many rippling flags, the battle began.  It lasted the better part of a week, and the casualties were awful, but that was okay, because the Republicans had held the White House, so it didn't matter anymore.

Politics is personal when it can get you or your loved one killed.

So I don't give a flying damn how big of a war hero John McCain might have been 40 years ago, not if he uses that experience as a springboard to keep sending American troops into more meaningless wars with no end.

In his nomination speech, McCain said, "I hate war."

We were supposed to believe him because he's been a POW in another war, but at the same time, we are supposed to trust him that it's okay to drag this moderan war on for DECADES.

I don't care how red white and blue their soundstage is if they are going to ignore the soldiers and Marines when they come home exhausted and broken, as McCain has done numerous times,  http://deaniemills.com/2008/08/06/bikers-may-love-mccain-but-veterans-do-not.aspx  or if an entire war on another front is going to be completely left out of a nomination speech before the American people, as though they're not dying there right now.

Why would they leave out Afghanistan? 

Because it's not a "good war" for the Republicans. 

Because they blew it by pulling out troops and materiel that was desperately needed there.  Because now we're in trouble in Afghanistan and we HAVE to draw down in Iraq in order to FIX YET ANOTHER MESS THE REPUBLICANS GOT US INTO.

But that's okay.  In Republican Bizarro World, we just pretend it never happened.

In Republican Bizarro World, we are asked to believe the foxes when they say, "Who better to protect the helpless little chickies from big bad foxes?  Let US guard the hen house!"

You know what I say to that?

Get OUT.

My 16 year old son Shane attended Walter Reed Middle School and now files this scathing investigative piece...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKI4M24AneM

Palin's pairing with McCain has emboldened his campaign to issue a new battleground states ad proclaiming the GOP ticket as the harbinger of "change."  She's a fresh, cheerful face on the scene and has put a whole new spring in McCain's step.  Together, they're the reform ticket now, don't you know.  And that other celebrity guy, Obama...hell, he and his Democratic cronies in Washington are just "more of the same"...

Galling, oh yeah.  We could fulminate into a frenzy over this latest GOP crookery, but with only 60 days to go, we've no time to waste.  Don't get mad, get even, claimed one of our own many years ago.  We really must heed the call.   And Palin's downsides give us a whole new opportunity to seriously recast this "new" Republican ticket.

The public is very aware of how McCain moved to the Right to keep his campaign from diving deep. Now, with Palin, he's gone there even further, but her extreme views are just starting to become known.  He wants folks to think of his team as a fresh new face of change - the face of the future.  But, in fact, we can cement him to both the past and a more frightening future by stoking an already-established and not very flattering image of him as a captive right-winger - and then add Palin's beliefs to the mix.

McCain/Palin: The Right Wing Ticket, goes straight to the heart of their ideologies, and the best part about it is the public will know this to be true.  This GOP team is not only about voting with Bush 90% of the time (which is one message the GOP can't cop from us), it's still about giving tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and overturning Roe v. Wade and prohibiting abortions even in the case of rape and incest and putting Scalia/Thomas Supreme Court justices on the bench and drilling the hell out of our Alaskan national park and teaching creationism in our schools and….

American voters like to hew to the center; extreme ideologies one way or the other are too frightening.  And, frankly, the McCain/Palin ticket IS frightening when you really think about it.

Let’s think this one aloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DshaTkR3ZY4

He shows EXACTLY the kind of "change" John McCain will bring to the whitehouse.

Although I agree with Obama on a bunch of things, I could not disagree more with him when he confessed to Papa Bear O'Really that 'The Surge has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams!"

Really?

McCain, himself, has put so much faith into the myth of the Surge that he now proposes a surge to fix all problems;

Global Warming? A surge in alternative battery research.
Urban Crime? A surge in police activity.
Bank Closings? A surge in Treasury printing activity.

But what was the Surge? The original idea was to send a bunch of additional troups to Iraq to overwhelm the insurgents with additional military force. Like a Hurricane Surge. On top of that, they turned strategic management over to an expert in counter-insurgency tactics. At the same time they flooded the country with additional troops, they hired the inSURGEents as security forces, and commanders and Maliki were authorized to walk around handing out money to people on the street--up to 8k. Millions and millions of your money and mine was handed out to pacify crowds.

The violence diminished from previous levels--but there is no evidence that there is a cause and effect relationship between the original Fantasy of the Surge, and the increase in ground forces--and that decrease in violence. Many other factors emerged, concurrently, which may have operated as strange attractors to channel the chaos into manageable patterns of order.

And according to Bob Woodward's new book, he believes the biggest factor  was careful US intelligence activity

Woodward claims  that "groundbreaking" new covert tactics provided US military and intelligence officials with the information needed to locate and kill insurgent leaders and other key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008 claims the Bush Administration ran a spying operation against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, his staff and  the Iraqi Government.

<a href='http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-spies-not-surge-reduced-iraq-violence-book-20080905-4app.html'>click here</a>

Some people, like John Kerry, and many other experts in intelligence, have suggested for many years that military force is the wrong approach to take in dealing with organized violent extremists--that was is needed is covert intelligence gathering, and operating quietly behind the scenes. Kerry was derided and belittled for 'reducing' the War on Terror' to 'police work'. But he was right. And history proves it.

Of course, the cooling of violence in Iraq is a welcome development, but it hasn't dissipated entirely, as daily news reports demonstrate. And the political equation still has not moved beyond stalemate and gridlock.

But there is no evidence that 'the surge worked beyond anyone's wildest dreams'. This is an unprovable claim, and a worthless opinion, yielding no useful lessons.

Watching Obama interacting with OReally, his body language, to me, suggested that he was starting to squirm under the relentless assault of Billo the bully: SAYIT, SAYIT damnit! But it was a trap. And Sarah Palin, the Barracuda/Pit Bull/lipstick hybrid, was beating up Obama with it the very next day. But Palin was wrong, and mistated the facts, consistent with her record in the public eye, thus far.

Obama's original perception about the efficacy of the Surge was correct--it yielded no political solution. And McCain is not only wrong, but mono-maniacal about the mythical Surge. And Sarah Palin is some kind of new model of Stepford Wife, chatty Cathy--you tape some attack slogans, upload them to her head, take her out on the campaign trail pull her string, and she dutifully mouths the words, without the slightest understanding or consciousness of what she is saying.

McCain graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at Navy.  Palin went to 5 or 6 colleges over 6 years.  Meanwhile, Obama went to Columbia undergrad and Harvard Law School.  Shouldn't our President be smarter than us?  Why does much of America look at an Ivy league education as if it's a negative?  Obama represents the best of America but, to the Republicans, going to a top college makes you part of the "elite."  Should we be aiming high?

August 12, 2008

Saturday, September 06, 2008
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while McCain earns 45%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 49%, McCain 46%

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0905/1220544890619_pf.html

Excellent article.

Read it please.


Excerpt:

Sarah Palin is not a famous reformer. She did oust Governor Frank Murkowski, and Alaska is better because of that. But it's the Federal Bureau of Investigation who took on and jailed corrupt politicians - all Republicans bar one - who accepted bribes from oil company types. She is far from being the Mother Teresa of anti-corruption.

Sarah Palin is a tremendously ambitious woman. She has been in the right place at the right time; her fairy-tale timing is remarkable. As mayor of Wasilla she ruled in a time when the sales taxes from all the ugly strip-malls in the commercial town gave her a big budget. She cut spending for the museum - God knows why - perhaps just to keep her socially conservative reputation intact.

Then she became governor of Alaska in more fairy-tale times - when a barrel of oil soared to a ridiculously high price, filling the state coffers with plenty. She could have replenished weakened social services programs, but she didn't. She has promoted no social agenda in Alaska.