from YouTube via ConservativesForChange.com
10/14/08
10/12/08
Rachel Maddow On Leno: Politics, Palin, And Pat Buchanan
Rachel Maddow appeared on "The Tonight Show" Thursday night, where she discussed politics, personal stories, and Pat Buchanan with Jay Leno. Leno introduced Maddow as the host that "doubled the ratings" of MSNBC's 9PM hour, and also made sure to mention Maddow's stint as a Rhodes Scholar (which Maddow simply referred to as "I went to grad school in England"). Maddow described Barack Obama as "presidential" and said McCain "looks like the guy who doesn't want Barack Obama to be president." She also said that she finds Sarah Palin "entertaining," and that she once felt like Pat Buchanan's culture wars were directed at her, but now she enjoys debating with him. Leno and Maddow also discussed the ways the political framework have changed. "Liberal and conservative don't map all that easily onto our politics anymore," she said. Watch:
10/9/08
10/8/08
Out of Touch Weekly: Meet John McCain!
Sure, we’re all looking forward to tonight’s presidential debate. But let’s not forget about John McCain’s first foray into tabloid superstardom. VF.com presents a preview of what’s sure to be the talk of supermarket aisles across this fair land.
Click on the cover to view at full size.
from vanityfair.com
10/6/08
Makin Momma Proud? You betcha!
Makin' Momma proud? You betcha! (click the pic to see!)
Read the column from Heather Mallick that outraged Fox News!
Heather Mallick
September 5, 2008
I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.
So why do it?
It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. They're unfamiliar with our true natures. Do they think vaginas call out to each other in the jungle night? I mean, I know men have their secret meetings at which they pledge to do manly things, like being irresponsible with their semen and postponing household repairs with glue and used matches. Guys will be guys, obviously.
But do they not know that women have been trained to resent other women and that they only learn to suppress this by constantly berating themselves and reading columns like this one? I'm a feminist who understands that women can nurse terrible and delicate woman hatred.
Palin was not a sure choice, not even for the stolidly Republican ladies branch of Citizens for a Tackier America. No, she isn't even female really. She's a type, and she comes in male form too.
John Doyle, the cleverest critic in Canada, comes right out and calls Palin an Alaska hillbilly. Damn his eyes, I wish I'd had the wit to come up with it first. It's safer than "white trash" but I'll pluck safety out of the nettle danger. Or something.
Doyle's job includes watching a lot of reality television and he's well-versed in the backstory. White trash — not trailer trash, that's something different — is rural, loud, proudly unlettered (like Bush himself), suspicious of the urban, frankly disbelieving of the foreign, and a fan of the American cliché of authenticity. The semiotics are pure Palin: a sturdy body, clothes that are clinging yet boxy and a voice that could peel the plastic seal off your new microwave.
'Turn your guns on Levi, ma'am'
Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?
I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don't the Palins? I'm not the one preaching homespun values but I'd destroy that ratboy before I'd let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. Palin's e-mails about the brother-in-law she tried to get fired as a state trooper are fizzing with rage and revenge. Turn your guns on Levi, ma'am.
Palin has it all, along with being vicious and profoundly dishonest. Just hours after her first convention speech, the Associated Press did a good fast listing of her untruths and I won't dwell on them.
I did promise to watch the entire convention so you wouldn't have to, but I discovered a neat trick. I switched between the convention and the 2003 folk music mockumentary A Mighty Wind on Bravo.
They were indistinguishable. Click on a nervous wreck with deeply strange hair doing a monologue on society today and where it all went wrong. Are you watching Christian belter Aaron Tippin singing Where the Stars and Stripes and Eagle Fly in the Xcel Centre in St. Paul or the actors from Spinal Tap remixing the 1966 version of Potato's in the Paddy Wagon?
Who delivered this line: "To do then now would be retro. To do then then was very now-tro, if you will." Was it Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family talking about Bristol Palin's shotgun wedding or was it a flashback to the Kingston Trio?
The conventioneers are nothing like the rich men who run the party, and that's the mystery of the hick vote. They'd be much better served by the Democrats. I know Thomas Frank answered this in What's the Matter with Kansas?; I know that red states vote Republican on social issues to give themselves the only self-esteem available to their broken, economically abused existence.
Lie works for Palin
But surely they know Barack Obama is not planning to finish off the ordinary hillbilly when he adjusts tax rates. He's going to raise taxes on the top 2% of Americans and that doesn't include anyone at the convention beyond the Bushes and McCains and random party management. So why cheer Palin when she claims otherwise?
Is it racism? I'm told that it is, although I find racism so appalling that I have difficulty identifying it. It is more likely the dearly held Republican notion that any American can become violently rich, as rich as those hedge funders in Greenwich, Conn., who buy $40-million mansions unseen and have their topiary shaped in the form of musical notes.
When Palin and Rudy Giuliani sneered at Obama's years of "community organizing" — they said it like "rectal fissure" — the audience ewww-ed with them. Republicans dream of a personal future that involves only household staff, not equals who need to be persuaded to vote.
So I'm trying to imagine the pain of realizing, as they all must at some point, that it is not going to happen for them. It's the green light at the end of the dock. It's the ship that never comes in, gals, as Palin would put it. But she won't because the lie works for her. It helps her scramble, without compassion, above all those other tense no-hoper ladies in the audience.
American politics isn't short of smart women. Susan Eisenhower, Ike's granddaughter, who just endorsed Obama, made an extraordinary speech at the Democratic convention (and a terrific casual appearance on The Colbert Report as Palin was speaking). The Republican party has already consumed nearly all of its moderate "seed corn," she said aptly. Time to start again.
Eisenhower, a scholar and journalist, has a point. Or am I only saying that because she's part of the thoughtful demographic that I'm trying to reach here? Think, Heather, think like a Republican! The Skeptics, shall I call them, are my base, and I'll pander to them as ardently as the Republican patriarchs tease their white female marginals.
10/5/08
Thinking of voting for McCain? READ THIS FIRST!
Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
By TIM DICKINSON Posted Oct 16, 2008 7:00 PM
At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It's the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.
McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.
There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."
On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.
"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."
"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.
"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.
"Why? Where are you going to, John?"
"Oh, I'm going to Rio."
"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
"I got a better chance of getting laid."
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."
McCAIN FIRST
This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.
In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.
In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.
Continue reading here (there is much, much more!)10/3/08
SAY IT AIN'T SO, SARAH
SAY IT AIN'T SO, SARAH!
PALIN SMEARS OBAMA WITH YEAR-OLD DISCREDITED ATTACK
During an appearance on Fox News this Friday, Sarah Palin claimed that Barack Obama should be disqualified from serving as president because he had once proclaimed that troops in Afghanistan were "air raiding villages and killing civilians."
If the charge seemed oddly and painfully familiar it's because it has been levied at Obama - and subsequently dismissed - several times before during this election season.
Read the full article here10/1/08
NO WAY! NO HOW! NO McCain!
McCain Supports ‘Non-Discrimination In Hiring For Gay And Lesbian People’ In ‘Concept’ Only
After turning down an interview with the Gay History Project earlier this month, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently provided written answers to the Washington Blade, which “marks the first known time a Republican presidential nominee has agreed to an interview with a gay publication.” Though, as Marc Ambinder notes, it was really “a quasi-interview” since “the campaign drafted answers with McCain’s assent.”
Asked whether he would “support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) if elected president” — which passed the House last year and stalled in the Senate — McCain said that he supports “the concept of non-discrimination in hiring for gay and lesbian people,” but not legislation that would protect against discrimination:
BLADE: Will you support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act if elected president?
MCCAIN: Gay and lesbian people should not face discrimination in the workplace. I’ve always practiced that in my hiring. I select the best people, regardless of their sexual orientation. I support the concept of non-discrimination in hiring for gay and lesbian people.
However, we need to make sure legislation doesn’t lead to a flood of frivolous lawsuits or infringe on religious institutions. What I can say now is I will give careful consideration to any legislation that reaches my desk, and confer with Congress before making decisions.
McCain’s campaign says that he would “give careful consideration” to ENDA legislation if he were president, but his record indicates he would not support it. In 1996, when the Senate rejected ENDA, McCain was the deciding vote that defeated it. In November 2007, McCain reiterated his opposition, saying that it would “open the door to endless litigation and court cases.”
McCain’s support in “concept” for non-discrimination towards the LGBT community is similar to his support in “concept” for equal pay for equal work. In both cases, McCain says he supports the “concept,” but he opposes any legislation to make the “concept” a reality.
Pam’s House Blend has more from McCain’s Blade interview.
from think progress
9/28/08
OMFG!
McCain Wins In New Obama Video
Voter registration deadlines are a week from Monday in many states, and the Obama campaign is taking a dramatic step to encourage its supporters to make sure they're eligible to vote on November 4.
A new video guiding viewers to VoteforChange.com features a mock MSNBC newscast showing John McCain winning the election, 51 percent to 49 percent.
"'John McCain elected 44th president' and 'Voter turnout lower than expected' are the mock captions with an MSNBC 'Breaking News' headline under a smiling Mr. McCain."
Check it out: VoteforChange.com is an Obama campaign website, but anyone can use it to check their registration status, request an absentee ballot, or find their polling station. Check it out here.
9/24/08
John McCain Cancels Letterman Appearance, Keith Olbermann To Fill In
"In the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"
Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."
"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sarah Palin. Where is she?"
"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"
from HuffPo
9/21/08
A $25 million gravel 3.2 mile road?
A $25 million gravel 3.2 mile road?
you've got to be fucking kidding me... this from a Republican governor?
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Alaska may not have a "Bridge to Nowhere," but it now has a "Road to Nowhere."
This week, the state completed a $25 million 3.2 mile gravel road that was intended to lead up to the bridge linking the city of Ketchikan to its airport on a neighboring island.
The bridge project became the symbol of federal largess, and Congress eventually dropped the earmark for the bridge.
The state still received the money, but last fall, Gov. Sarah Palin killed the project, valued at nearly $400 million.
Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein said the 3.2-mile road now is ideal for road races and hunting and possibly some commercial development. But with no bridge to serve it, that's probably about it.
The bridge has also become a focal point in the presidential race with Palin, now GOP presidential nominee John McCain's running mate, repeatedly telling crowds that she told Congress "thanks but no thanks" for that Bridge to Nowhere.
The state is considering cheaper designs for a bridge. State lawmakers made a brief attempt at securing funding for a bridge during this year's legislative session. The two-bridge project would have connected the town's airport on Gravina Island to Revillagigedo Island, where most of the 13,000 residents of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough live. The airport is separated from its users by a quarter-mile-wide channel of water, forcing travelers to catch either a ferry or a water taxi...
WAKE UP AMERICA!
9/17/08
BREAKING NEWS: Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account hijacked, e-mails posted online
Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account hijacked, e-mails posted online from ZDNet
On the heels of media reports that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was using a private Yahoo e-mail account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) to conduct Alaska state business, hackers have broken into the account and posted evidence of the hijack on Wikileaks.
An activist group calling itself ‘anonymous’ claimed responsibility for the compromise and released screenshots, photographs and the e-mail addresses of several people close to Palin, including her husband Todd and assistant Ivy Frye.
Here’s the announcement from Wikileaks:
Circa midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST) Wikileaks’ sources loosely affiliated with the activist group ‘anonymous’ gained access to U.S. Republican Party Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account gov.palin@yahoo.com. Governor Palin has come under criticism for using private email accounts to avoid government transparency mechanisms. The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin’s inbox, example emails, address book and two family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name, appears to re-enforce the criticism.
The list of e-mails include an exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress and an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
Wired’s Threat Level reports that McMcCorkell confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.
Following the release of this story, both Sarah Palin’s better known account gov.sarah@yahoo.com and the gov.palin@yahoo.com account have been suspended or deleted as revealed by a test email sent to these addresses by Wikileaks. Although the reasons for the deletion of both accounts can not not yet be established, one interpretation is that Palin is trying to destroy her email records.
Wikileaks said it may release additional e-mails should they prove be of political substance.
Here’s one screenshot of an e-mail released by the group.
* Hat tip: Chris Wysopal, Veracode. Image via CBS News.
9/15/08
Lies, lies, and more lies from McShame
Found this on Pam's House Blend... click the image to go to McCainPedia..
9/14/08
Palin's 'Heretical' Church: Censored Videos the McCain Campaign Doesn't Want you to See:
from AlterNet's Palin's 'Heretical' Church: Censored Video the McCain Campaign Doesn't Want you to See:
Gay Author Of Book Palin Targeted Lashes Back: She's My Mortal Enemy
The author of the book Sarah Palin reportedly tried to have removed from her hometown library blasted back Saturday evening, saying the Alaska Governor had a "small-town mind," was an enemy of intellectual freedom and a "disastrous choice" for vice president.
"I rather suspected one of my books might be the one she targeted," said Michael Willhoite, author of "Daddy's Roomate" and several other children's books. "I can tell you right now, Ms. Palin is a very good mother and everything. But she is my mortal enemy. She is one of the enemies of the First Amendment and I can hardly [organize] my thoughts here, I am so offended by this."
Reached by phone, Willhoite was ultimately not surprised he had once been Palin's target. In fact, he admitted to being "strangely flattered" that he was "on her list."
"I wasn't on Nixon's enemies list," he said, "I was too young for that."
After all, Willhiote has been at the center of religious conservative complaint ever since his work - which is about a young boy discussing his divorced father's new, gay roommate - was first published in 1989. The book was the no. 2 "most frequently challenged book" between 1990 and 2000, according to the American Library Association. But that didn't make him any less critical of Palin, who he saw as a dangerous politician, both on issues of press and literary freedoms as well as gay rights.
"I don't think Ms. Palin will care for me, but that is fine," said Willhoite, who is openly gay. "I don't really care for her, not at all. I think John McCain made a disastrous choice. Unfortunately she seems to be doing well in the polls but I would think the honeymoon period will be ending soon."
On Sunday, the New York Times fleshed out rumors that as mayor of Wasilla, Palin had asked the town's librarian to remove certain books from the library's shelves. Citing contemporary news accounts and witnesses - including Palin's predecessor, John Stein, and her former campaign manager, Laura Chase - the paper reported that:
[I]n 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book "Daddy's Roommate" on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it."Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff," Ms. Chase said. "It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn't even read it." "I'm still proud of Sarah," she added, "but she scares the bejeebers out of me."
Palin, in an interview before the Times' article, dismissed the charge that she had fired the town's librarian for banning books as an "old wives' tale." The McCain campaign, too, has called the entire matter a smear attack on the vice presidential candidate.
"This is categorically false. The fact is that as Mayor, Palin never asked anyone to ban a book and not one book was ever banned, period," McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said.
Asked how he feels about his book being thrust back into the political fire 19 years after it first caused waves of outrage, Willhoite fancied himself quite fortunate.
"The fact is my book did very well in the first years of publication," he said, "and the lot of the reason it did as well as it did is because of the challenges from the right."
But Willhoite expressed a sense of shock that a vice presidential candidate could harbor such positions, even if he predicted that issues of books and censorship would no longer be on Palin's radar.
"To tell the truth I don't think it is something she will attend to," he said. "There will likely other more damaging things she will attend to. As a mayor of a small town she was attending a small town issue for small town minds. She has a small town mind, you see."
9/13/08
from Can O' Whup-Ass
Hey! It's Governor Palin's Book-Mobile!
*** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***
A big "how the heck are ya" from the gorgeous hamlet of Wasilla, once just a podunk bedroom community to the Mecca that is Anchorage. Now, after the mayorship of a certain born-again pitbull with hockey lipstick (wink, wink), Wasilla is over-run by debt, big box stores, homo-hating mega-churches and the worst meth problems in the state! I am, after all, an agent of "change." LOL!
Oh, don't get your long-johns in a bunch, there's nothing wrong with Wasilla that can't be solved by a good community organizer.
Now a lot of you may have read the rude email that some dreadful democrat lesbian eskimo's been sending hither and yon, spreading all that flapdoodle about some totally rhetorical chit-chats I had with our uppity town librarian (yet another lesbian eskimo—we should call them "lezkimos") in which I rhetorically asked her the following rhetorical question: "If Jesus tells me to hold a book burning in your library, would you bring a zippo or the ACLU?" Well, we all know how a lezkimo's going to answer THAT question. So I rhetorically requested that she pack up her dog sled and mush back to her igloo so she could worship satan on her own dime. Well! You'd have thought I went doody on her mother's grave! Folks made such a fuss!
So I, Sarah Palin, am proud to read this TelePrompTer which announces the creation (NOT the evolution) of the Governor Palin Book-Mobile! Inside, you will find tasteful books about Jesus and guns and period romances about buxom damsels pledging abstinence with their swarthy bodice-ripping boyfriends!
And just to clear up any confusion, I've included a sampling from my ever-growing list of devil-books that we most certainly will NOT be offering (and the reasons why Jesus wants them banned):
CATCHER IN THE RYE: This is the story about a young man who is nice to a hooker, sleeps in a park, eschews materialism and dreams of saving his generation from lives of phony complacency. That's not very Jesus-like, is it?
WHITE FANG: Written by a commie, it's the story of the misbegotten creature born of the unholy union of a wolf and a doggie. Jesus hates unnatural unions. What's more, wolves are messengers of beelzebub, which is why I offered $150 to anyone who could shoot one from an airplane.
CINDERELLA: This pernicious tale encourages our young daughters to shirk their chores, fraternize with fairies, tart themselves up, attend un-chaperoned socials and break curfew. Thank God Bristol never read this story, heaven knows what sort of mischief she could have gotten herself into!
THE LORAX: Dr. Seuss is suspiciously fond of children. Here, he fills their impressionable noggins with poppy-cock about how we should be nice to the environment and fibs about how unfettered industry can destroy the earth. Only a homosexual tree-hugger who hates Jesus (and therefore opposes drilling in ANWR) could concoct such drivel.
FAHRENHEIT 451: This book is chock full of nonsense about how censorship is bad and stuff. Jesus cries when people read this pile of moose-puckies.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Written by some men who pranced about in wigs and tights, this dangerous work of fiction claims that all men are created equal and dares to suggest that Jesus does not preside over Congress.
Page One NY Times: Palin's Record
PALIN'S RECORD AS MAYOR OF WASILLA AND 2 YEARS AS GOVERNOR
Personal Vendettas... Censorship... Cronyism...
Secrecy And Lying...
Here are some excerpts from the NY Times Article:[...] So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency. Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages. [...]
[...] Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records. [...]
[...] Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that it would cost $468,784 to process his request.
When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.
“Their secrecy is off the charts,” Mr. Steiner said. [...]
[...] Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.
But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.
“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.” [...]
[...] As she assembled her cabinet and made other state appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear. She surrounded herself with people she has known since grade school and members of her church. [...]
[...] While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.” [...]
[...] At an Alaska Municipal League gathering in Juneau in January, mayors across the political spectrum swapped stories of the governor’s remoteness. How many of you, someone asked, have tried to meet with her? Every hand went up, recalled Mayor Fred Shields of Haines Borough. And how many met with her? Just a few hands rose. Ms. Palin soon walked in, delivered a few remarks and left for an anti-abortion rally. [...]
The full article is here: In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics
9/9/08
The 5 McCain Videos Everyone Needs to See
The Real McCain 2 reached an astonishing 4 million views last week, just as the McCain campaign was trotting out lie after lie at the Republican National Convention. Coincidence? We don't think so. To us, this unprecedented number suggests that the public is desperately seeking the truth about John McCain -- a truth the corporate press still isn't providing.
We're hearing reports of a lot of hand-wringing from people who are scared and don't know what to do. So we came up with a way to put that nervous energy to good use! Join the McCain Truth Squad and a couple of times a week we will send you McCain videos for you to forward on with a personal note to your friends, colleagues and family members.
Join the McCain Truth Squad: http://therealmccain.com/squad?utm_source=rgemail
To get you started, below are five videos that present the Real McCain: an elitist out of touch with hard-working Americans; a double talker who supports a costly war in Iraq but won't support our veterans. Forward this email on. This is the McCain everyone should know.
1. The Real McCain 2: Watch as McCain's YouTube problem became his nightmare in the video that received over 4 million views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
2. Less Jobs. More Wars: What is this 'Iraq war' charge on my bill?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh-T2iGkLJY
3. John McCain vs. John McCain: Tell McCain to get off the Double Talk Express.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI
4. McCain's Spiritual Guide: The video that caused McCain to renounce Rev. Rod Parsley's bigoted endorsement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXZbIGJrDkg
5. Why Won't McCain Sign the GI Bill? Presenting the most blatant hypocrisy of the McCain campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK_9sI7hzAc
Imagine how differently people would regard McCain if they saw all five of these videos and learned the truth. That's why we want you to forward this e-mail to everyone and anyone with a personal note at the top from you. Why send these videos individually when you can send them all at once? Also, get them on all the blogs and traditional news sites you can. Make sure you're doing everything you can to educate the public about the Real McCain.
Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New team
Palin Billed Taxpayers For Nights At Home, Travel To NCAA Game, Sled Race
Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home
Taxpayers Also Funded Family's Travel By James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, September 9, 2008; Page A01
ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.
Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.
The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.
Gubernatorial spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Monday that Palin's expenses are not unusual and that, under state policy, the first family could have claimed per diem expenses for each child taken on official business but has not done so.
Before she became the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee, Palin was little known outside Alaska. Now, with the campaign emphasizing her executive experience, her record as mayor of Wasilla, as a state oil-and-gas commissioner and as governor is receiving intense scrutiny.
During her speech at the Republican National Convention last week, Palin cast herself as a crusader for fiscal rectitude as Alaska's governor. She noted that she sold a state-owned plane used by the former governor. "While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for," she said to loud applause.
Speaking from Palin's Anchorage office, Leighow said Palin dealt with the plane and also trimmed other expenses, including forgoing a chef in the governor's mansion because she preferred to cook for her family. The first family's travel is an expected part of the job, she said.
"As a matter of protocol, the governor and the first family are expected to attend community events across the state," she said. "It's absolutely reasonable that the first family participates in community events."
The state finance director, Kim Garnero, said Alaska law exempts the governor's office from elaborate travel regulations. Said Leighow: "The governor is entitled to a per diem, and she claims it."
The popular governor collected the per diem allowance from April 22, four days after the birth of her fifth child, until June 3, when she flew to Juneau for two days. Palin moved her family to the capital during the legislative session last year, but prefers to stay in Wasilla and drive 45 miles to Anchorage to a state office building where she conducts most of her business, aides have said.
Palin rarely sought reimbursement for meals while staying in Anchorage or Wasilla, the reports show.
9/7/08
Republican VP Nominee Sarah Palin's Church Promotes Converting Gays
RACHEL D'ORO | September 6, 2008 05:18 PM EST |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Governor Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.
"You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.
Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.
Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the "Love Won Out" Conference in Anchorage, about 30 miles from Wasilla.
Palin, campaigning with McCain in the Midwest on Friday, has not publicly expressed a view on the so-called "pray away the gay" movement. Larry Kroon, senior pastor at Palin's church, was not available to discuss the matter Friday, said a church worker who declined to give her name.
Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. At the time, less than one-half of 1 percent of state employees had applied for the benefits, which were ordered by a 2005 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court.
Palin reversed her position and vetoed the bill after the state attorney general said it was unconstitutional. But her reluctant support didn't win fans among Alaska's gay population, said Scott Turner, a gay activist in Anchorage.
"Less than 1 percent of state employees would even apply for benefits, so why make a big deal out of such a small number?" he said.
"I think gay Republicans are going to run away" if Palin supports efforts like the prayers to convert gays, said Wayne Besen, founder of the New York-based Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group. Besen called on Palin to publicly express her views now that she's a vice presidential nominee.
"People are looking at Sarah Palin as someone who might feasibly be in the White House," he said.
from the Huffington Post...
9/6/08
Palin is Racist, Sexist and she hates queers?
Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean”
September 5, 2008 from The Progressive Curmudgeon via the LA Progressive
by Charley James –
“So Sambo beat the bitch!?”
This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”
Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.
Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.
But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.
No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.
Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk
It’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. I should think a state that’s been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.
On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.
“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”
“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”
Read the rest of the article here9/3/08
Republican VP Pick Sarah Palin on Gay and Lesbian Issues:
UPDATE: CNN.com, UPI advance Log Cabin Republicans' false suggestion that Palin supports benefits for same-sex couples
In reports that the Log Cabin Republicans have endorsed Sen. John McCain for president, CNN.com and UPI falsely suggested that Gov. Sarah Palin supports benefits for same-sex partners of state employees. In fact, while Palin did veto a bill in 2006 that would have prevented state officials from granting spousal benefits to same-sex couples, Palin has stated that she did so because the Alaska attorney general had advised her that it was unconstitutional, not because she supported spousal benefits for same-sex couples. Read More
Palin Opposed Supreme Court Ruling Giving Same-Sex Couples Benefits. Asked if she would support the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling that spousal benefits for state employees should be given to same-sex couples, Palin responded, “No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution.” [Eagle Forum questionnaire]
Palin Opposed Expanding Hate Crimes Laws. Asked if she would support an effort to expand hate-crime laws, Palin responded, “No, as I believe all heinous crime is based on hate.” [Eagle Forum questionnaire]
Palin Said She Supported Ban on Gay Marriage and Denying Benefits to Gay Couples. “Palin said she’s not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay, but that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment [to ban gay marriage]. Elected officials can’t defy the court when it comes to how rights are applied, she said, but she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to homosexual couples. ‘I believe that honoring the family structure is that important,’ Palin said. She said she doesn’t know if people choose to be gay.” [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 8/6/06]
Palin Said She Supported a Constitutional Amendment Overturning Supreme Court Mandate of Benefits for Same-Sex Couples. Asked if she would support a Constitutional amendment to overturn the Alaska Supreme Court decision mandating public employers to provide benefits equivalent to same-sex couples, Sarah Palin responded “yes.” [Alaska Family Council Voter Guide, 8/22/06]
thanks and a hat tip to POLITICO.com
Governor Sarah Palin: A Champion for Brutal Aerial Hunting
As Governor, Sarah Palin has championed aerial hunting of wolves and bears. Please watch our new video, learn more about Palin's record and help us spread the word about her awful record…
Have you ever heard of aerial hunting? It's a brutal practice. Wolves are shot from low-flying aircraft or chased to exhaustion, then killed at point-blank range.
Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, promotes this barbaric practice, exploiting a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to allow private wolf killers to shoot down wolves using aircraft. We have to get the word out about this!
Please watch this powerful video by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and then share it with every wildlife lover you know:
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