Palin's selection as McCain's VP candidate raises questions - lots of questions.

According to Paul Kane, writing at WashintonPost.com, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group. McCain is proud of his recent opposition to earmarks, though. Is that not what he wants from his Vice President, too?

Well, you could point out that Palin has also decried earmarks, citing her opposition to a $223 million bridge in Alaska. "As governor, I've stood up to the old politics-as-usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-ol'-boy network," she said on Friday, yet she favors fostering those same big oil companies desires to drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Is that really standing up to big oil and politics as usual?

Wasilla, a town of under 7,000 people, did not receive any federal earmarks in the first few years of Palin's term as mayor, but after she checked off on the retention of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm that lobbies in D.C., the earmarks started rolling in. The account was handled by partner Steven W. Silver, the former chief of staff to Senator Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican Senator, coincidentally indicted in July on charges of accepting illegal gifts. Is that McCain's idea of standing up to special interests and the good old boy network in D.C., or Palin's?

In FY 2002, Wasilla took in $6.1 million in earmarks, on the heels of the $15 million rail project, in 2001 intended to connect Wasilla with the town of Girdwood, where Senator Stevens has a house. Is Sarah Palin really all that worried about change, or is she a savvy Republican working the system for all it's worth?

Sarah Palin, who would possibly be in line to become President, was once been a member of a group that advocates secession from the United States. Is that who we want as our potential Commander in Chief?

How much do you know about Sarah Palin, and what motivated McCain to pick her? Do you think there's likely more to it than pandering for women's votes? Naturally - there must be, right? I think we'd all like to learn more about this first-term Governor. So follow the money.

Meanwhile, in the interest of fairness, I'd like you to meet Joe Biden, too.

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RNC - Senator Joe Lieberman and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson Speak

The Hurricane Gustav crisis seems past, so the Republican National Convention is going to reboot its program starting today with this schedule posted on the RNC website:

The 2008 Republican National Convention today announced the program of events for Tuesday, Sept. 2. The program will feature speeches by U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson. Their remarks will reflect the convention's overall theme, "Country First," and the theme for Tuesday's events, which is "service." 

"We are excited to announce Tuesday's featured speakers, who will share John McCain's remarkable record of leadership and service with millions of Americans tonight. We are looking forward to showcasing John McCain's life-long record of putting his country first," said Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan.

"From his days as a POW who refused early release to his 20-year career in the U.S. Senate, John McCain has always put country first. Tonight's program will reflect his unmatched commitment to service and his vision for increasing Americans' participation in service and volunteer activities," said Rick Davis, McCain 2008 campaign manager.

Among the other speakers announced today are President George W. Bush (via satellite), First Lady Laura Bush, U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio), U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.), and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.).

Sarah Palin's Daughter Should Not Be Blogger's Focus Or Perez Hilton

In an earlier post, I wrote that the family of Alaska Governor and Presumptive Republican VP Nominee Sarah Palin should not be the focus of bloggers.  Then someone associated with Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol put photos of her -- or someone who looks like her -- up showing the young lady holding bottles of alcohol.

And PerezHilton picked it up. 

That's news.

It's news because Palin has preached "family values" and abstenance of sex before marriage, yet her own girl is the living example of how both ideals are violated on a daily basis.

The question is what will Governor Palin do about this?  There will be questions from the press; she can't hope to escape them.

This whole episode has served to throw the GOP message off it's foundations.  Instead of the party platform, we get a steady diet of the past alledged activities of "The Palin Bunch."

I write that because it's fair to ask of the photo is authentic.  Stay tuned.

Sarah Palin's Church Video Webpage

I was reading this Huff Post article on the way Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's Church impacted her life when I saw a link to a page with other videos from the Church.

This is the link:  http://www.wasillaag.net/all.html

Check it out.  Let me know what you find. 

Barack Obama Tops 50 Percent In Today's Gallup Poll

After a historic Democratic National Convention and the subsequent major misteps of the John McCain annoucement of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, today, Gallup's Daily Tracking Poll finds Senator Barack Obama at 50 points for the first time, with Senator McCain at 42 points. 

If one looks at the Gallup Graph, it shows that Senator Obama picked up a point over 24 hours, and Senator McCain lost a point over the same time period, and as more negative information comes out about Governor Palin. 

Gov. Sarah Palin Will Resign Or The GOP Is Toast

On Friday, Governor Sarah Palin was the selection of Senator John McCain to be his running mate as the presumptive Republican Vice Presidential Nominee.  Already we have problems.

1) TrooperGate, where Gov Palin is accused of using her position to fire a state trouper, who's still on the job as of this writing.

2) The news that Palin was part of a group that wanted Alaska to leave the Union.

3) Palin was fundraising director for Senator Ted Stevens' 527 committee.

4) Palin was almost recalled as Mayor of Wasalia, Alaska.

5) She says the Iraq War, costing over 80,000 iraqi lives and several thousand American lives is a war for oil -- she's right, but Republican, so she should not say that.

6) She took earmarks totalling over $197 million, while saying she did not.

Why Palin? Senator McCain could have picked from five Republican female senators, but failed to do so. Why?

More questions than answers. It's my prediction that Palin will be forced to resign as this steady stream of negative information continues to come in.

Hurricane Gustav and Twitter - Updates Reveal Folks Still In New Orleans

After checking out Twitter "tweets" from New Orleans a day ago, I decided to go back and see what New Orleans' Twitter users were writing after Hurricane Gustav hit land in Louisiana. 

Here's what I found...

dubtea
Name Will
Location New Orleans
Recently At molly's on decatur. Quarter has no power, mollys has partial due to generator. 21 minutes ago

Molly's is a bar in the French Quarter. That means he was at least able to make it down there for a cocktail.  It also means that conditions aren't as bad as feared as of this writing. 

tracam
Name tracam
Location New Orleans
Recently We made it to Vero Beach. Got groceries, internet and CNN. Oh, and a few bottles of wine, chips and salsa. Let the future unfold. about 16 hours ago

Vero Beach is Florida.  About a five hour drive from New Orleans. 

wavyhairgirl
Name wavyhairgirl
Location New Orleans, LA
Recently Tornado threat over apparently 19 minutes ago

aliciammyers
Name aliciammyers
Location New Orleans
Recently So the worst is over? When can we come back? when will power be on? about 1 hour ago

eswanny
Name eswanny
Location New Orleans
Recently And rather than provide information, the weather channel would prefer to show pictures of flying debris. Fail, weather channel... about 4 hours ago

amberdodd
Name amberdodd
Location New Orleans, LA
Recently Just walked around. Windy! Lots of trees/branches down. Ready for electricity now, thx. 6 minutes ago

Wow.  Amderdodd walked around.  So that confirms it's not as bad as three years ago. 

GraceWilson
Name GraceWilson
Location New Orleans    Web http://www.NewOrleansOnline.com
Recently The worst of the wind is over... the rain is light and misty.... I see where they say the levees are overtopping in the Upper 9... VIVA NOLA about 3 hours ago

LaJuneBaby
Name LaJuneBaby
Location New Orleans, LA
Bio Sleepless in New Orleans
Recently Cooking out with friends....and playing the music LOUD!! No neighbors around so LET'S ROCK!!!! about 20 hours ago

There's more at Twitter.

Sarah Palin's Family Should Not Be Blogger's Focus

I have a simple standing rule that I will write about what the candidate does, but not what the elected officials family does.   What the family says is different, but even then the only words that matter are what the person says about the candidate's performance or actions.  John Edwards is a great example.

I wrote about his actions of infidelity and how it was unfair to his wife.  But the focus was John Edwards, and no one else to start.

Thus, I take issue with the look at what Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's family does.  They're not running for office; she is.  I do hope this frenetic pace of attention her family's getting passes quickly so we can go back to looking at Sarah Palin herself.

If you keep looking at her family, you will not know Palin's not ready for her 3 AM phone call.

John McCain Checks Out Sarah Palin's Butt In First Speech Friday - Video

Ok.  Now, I've seen everything, and I mean everything.  Here's the jedreport with the video to end all videos in this political season -- at least so far -- and shows Senator John McCain taking glances as the butt of Governor Sarah Palin as he's listening to her speak.  If you think I'm kidding, look at this photo:

Are you kidding me?  The video shows this over and over again, and not the same one.  But several times.  It looks like Senator McCain's about to burst with excitement.  At some points in the video, McCain's fingering his wedding finger as if to remind himself he's married.  

And so we see the real reason he picked Governor Palin: sex.  He's only met her once and from all of the Internet buzz about her problems and beyond the Trouper-Gate Scandal, it seems McCain's staff either did their homework and McCain ignored them or they did little home work at all.  

But look at this jedreport video for yourself:

Post DNC Convention Thoughts - AshPolitics

So I've had a few days to consider my overall impression of the Democratic National Convention. While it was certainly a fantastic experience (excellent networking, exceptional star gazing, fantastic speeches, interesting panels and round tables), I think, for me, it boils down to an almost catastrophic waste of resources.

Let me say at the outset that I recognize the need to rile up the base for the election season. I understand that without an energized, hardcore set of volunteers, the party would be sunk. I'm not sure, however, that the party needs to spend the millions of dollars it did to achieve that effect. I sat in the Pepsi Center on Wednesday night watching the multi video screens scrolling text and flashing stars wondering if we really needed all of that? The party spends four years raising money from major donors just so they can spend a chunk of that money to throw lavish parties for said donors at the Convention. It seems a little nuts.

Yes, it all looks great on TV and that certainly is another goal. Yes, more people watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech than the Olympics. What those people don't see is all the wasted money behind the scenes: the piles of speech copies left at the end of each night (even though they had also been emailed to all press members); the concerts and parties thrown for donors; the lavish (yeah, I'll admit it) party thrown for the media. Certainly, much of the money to fund this was donated by major corporations, but doesn't that introduce another issue with which we should be uncomfortable?

Hats off to the Dems for throwing the "greenest" Convention ever. Heck, the beer cups at the media party, which appeared to be generic plastic and were emblazoned with the Coors logo, were actually made of corn and compostable. But in light of the interview I had with the taxi driver from the Sudan, maybe all that money would be best spent somewhere else.

Hurricane Gustav: Twitter "Tweets" of New Orleans Residents Show They're Leaving

I just happened to check out the Twitter "tweets" -- messages -- left by New Orleans residents, or at least those who listed as living in that city which seems to be the target of yet another Hurricane, this one called Gustof.  How I did it was by simply typing "New Orleans" in a search on Twitter.

Some of the messages are from people who have already departed, like aliciammyers, who reports that she's "Driving towards Nashville. Want eggs so badly. Traffic is non-".  Then sarahmparks writes that she's "keeping an eye on Gustav".   Emmaleigh3 reports that she's "Watching pirates of the carribean and waiting for the storm".  


She'd better get out of there!!


Twitter's a good way to determine the mood and place of people in a region during a disaster like Gustav.  I'm going to follow the New Orleans people via Twitter in the days to come.  

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska In Mini-Skirt

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska In Skirt , originally uploaded by thisiswar3005.

Cementing the perception that Alaska Governor and now Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin is a hottie, we have this photo of her in a mini-skirt.  It's not real; as it turns out, it's photoshopped.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin in a swimsuit shows legs.

UPDATE: COMMENT ON PALIN SPEECH

But with this, comes another perception: as one who's not ready to be Vice President, let alone President of the United States.

For example I present this article that was posted on the "Writers for Obama" web listserv. I don't know who the person is, no one does, but it's worth reading:

From a Classmate...the word on the GOP VP Candidate.

[I'd feel better publishing this if I knew the author's name, and could
verify it, but assuming this is not ghostwritten, it is very telling and
very insightful....This came from the most interesting Yahoo! group, Secular
Humanist, from the Moderator, Greg Dempsey]


Dear classmates -

As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on Sarah
Palin, Senator McCain's choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I know more than
most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that he picked her.

The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in the
oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life time member
of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow indiscriminatehunting of
wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and bears. She has spent millions of
Alaska state dollars on aerial hunting of these predators from helicopters
and airplanes, dollars that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska's
failing school system.

We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the country. Not all of
you may think
aerial predator hu nting is so bad, but how anyone (other than Alaska wolf-
haters, of which there are many, most without teeth), could think this use
of funds is appropriate is beyond me. If you want to know moreabout the
aerial hunting travesty, let me know and I will send somelinks to
informative web sites.

She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet the
McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has "green" policies. The only
thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She hasconsistently
supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power plants (as I write
this, a new coal plant is being built in her home town of Wasilla), strip
mining, and almost anything else that will unnecessarily exploit the
diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy
its environment.

Prior to her one year as governor of Alaska, she was mayor of Wasilla, a
small red neck town outside Anchorage.The average maximum education level of
parents of junior high school kids in Wasilla is 10th grade.

Unfortunately, I have to go to Wasilla every week to get groceries and other
supplies, so I have continual contact with the people who put Palin in
office in the first place. I know what I'm talking about. These people don't
have a concept of the world around them or of the serious issues facing the
US. Furthermore, they don't care. So long as they can go out and hunt their
moose every fall, kill wolves and bears and drive their snow mobiles and
ATVs through every corner of the wilderness,
they're happy. I wish I were exaggerating.

Sarah Palin is currently involved in a political corruption scandal. She
fired an individual in law enforcement here because she didn't like how he
treated one of her relatives during a divorce. The man's performanceand
ability weren't considered; it was a totally personal firing and is
currently under investigation. While the issue isn't close to the scandal of
Ted Steven's corruption, it shows that Palin isn't "squeaky clean" and
causes me to think there may be more issues that could come
to light. Clearly McCain doesn't care.

When you line Palin up with Biden, the comparison would be laughable ifit
weren't so serious. Sarah Palin knows nothing of economics (admittedly a
weak area for McCain), or of international affairs, knows nothing of
national government, Social Security, unemployment, health care systems -
you name it. The idea of her meeting with heads of foreign governments
around the world truly frightens me.

In an increasingly dangerous world, with the economy in shambles in the US,
Sarah Palin is uniquely UNqualified to be vice president. John McCain is not
a young man.

Should something happen to him such that the vice president had to step in,
it would destroy our country and possibly the world to have someone as
inexperienced and inappropriate as Sarah Palin.

The choice of Palin is a cheap shot by McCain to try to get Hillary
supporters to vote for him. When McCain introduced her today, Palin had the
nerve to compare herself with Hillary and Geraldine
Ferraro. Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton.

To those of you who, like me, supported Hillary and were upset that she did
not get the nomination, please don't think that Sarah Palin is a worthy
substitute.

If you supported Hillary, regardless of what you think the media and the
democratic party may have done to undermine her campaign, the person to
support now is Obama, not Sarah Palin.

To those of you who are independent or undecided, don't let the choice of
Palin sway you in favor of McCain. Choosing her shows how unqualified McCain
is to be president. To those of you who are conservative, I guess you have
no choice for president.

But please try to see how the poor choice of Palin tells us a great deal
about McCain's judgment.

While the political posturing inherent in the choice of Palin is obvious,
the more serious issue is the fact that the VP is, literally, a heartbeat
away.

I have to disagree with the perception of Governor Palin as "redneck" as she's said nothing but good things about Senator Obama and his Energy Policy Proposal.