The Sarah Palin Files, Pt. 67

The John McLiar campaign is finally coming clean about the Sarah Palin debacle:



Sorry, but I don't find much virtue in all of this. This isn't "honesty." This is scapegoating. Not that I feel sorry for Sarah Palin for a second. Nope, that witch deserves her fate. But at the same time, I'm sure as hell not going to give McSwine and his crew any "credit" for telling us the truth about Sarah after the fact.

True, McCain's concession speech, from what I've seen and from all I've read, was as classy as his campaign was classless. Nevertheless, they lied to us for over two months. And to paraphrase the McCain campaign itself: underneath a pretty speech is the ugly truth - John McCain is a dishonorable liar.

The Sarah Palin Files, Pt. 54

Duh!!

Nothing shocking here. The Alaska Legislative Panel overseeing the Troopergate investigation of Sarah Palin voted unanimously in favor of releasing the Troopergate Report authored by independent investigator / counsel, Steve Branchflower. The report can be read in its 263 page entirety here.

After all, it might be raining where you are now.

For those of you twelve readers who want to cut to the chase, here it is. Quoting from the report:

Finding Number One

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.

Somewhat surprisingly, Finding Number Two says:

I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

The McCain campaign, as only it can do, reads this as exoneration. Yes, really.

I was glad to hear the news. But as someone I know is fond of saying, I will not tarry on the details here.

I'm glad that the whole process didn't become corrupted by the politics surrounding Palin's ascention to the VP candidacy. Because, folks, this is an absolute no brainer. Here's the deal, this is what is known in the law as a "retaliation" suit. When an employee can otherwise be terminated for any damn reason is terminated because he refuses to do something illegal at his employer's behest, that makes the employer liable for "retaliation"(I'm generalizing, but humor me).

If Walt Monegan walked into my hypothetical law office with all of the facts involved in Troopergate, to wit:

Governor pressured him to abuse her executive power to settle a family score;
He refused;
He is fired;
Governor gives 5 or 6 different explanations for the move ...

There are only two words to describe the strength of that case:

Slam. Dunk.

The conclusions of this report shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. And that is true whether Obama operatives influenced the proceedings (as Republicans claim) or not (as is, -er, well, the reality). I'm telling you, somewhere there is a dude who finished last in his class at the worst law school in America and had to take the bar 4 times before he passed it. Even that hapless motherfucker could not fuck this case up. A trained monkey could make this claim against Sarah Palin stick.

But enough with that. The question is politically what will this mean. I think nothing. McCainiacs and Paliniacs will be hopelessly inclined to outright dismiss the report's validity. Everyone else is convinced she's unfit for office already. So, this doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Still, it was welcome news. The Hot Rodette even cheered when she heard Rachel Maddow announce it on MSNBC, which was the first we heard of it. Momentarily, I thought someone had just scored a touchdown.

John McChump

Obama:

Well, I am surprised that, you know, we've been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days that he wasn't willing to say it to my face.

John McChump, that's not an attack we can believe in!

The Dabblings of the Plastered Trollop

As has been widely reported, John McCain's ghastly wife, the Plastered Trollop, has been attacking Obama lately.

Cindy McCain:

“The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote to not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body let me tell you,” Cindy McCain said in introducing the GOP ticket. “I would suggest Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day. I suggest he take a day and go watch our men and women deploying.”

Of course, this is like the waterboy talking smack to the 250 linebacker. But it's even more absurd. Talking Points Memo points out:

Here's the thing, though. If Obama's vote against that supplemental can be said to constitute a vote not to fund Cindy's son, as she put it, McCain, too, can be said to have voted to defund his own son.

McCain, of course, also opposed an Iraq troop funding bill in 2007 -- the one that did include a withdrawal timetable -- and voted against passage of the bill in the Senate.

It's important to be as clear as possible about this. If we accept Cindy's implication that Obama's vote constituted a danger to the McCains' son, then John, too, put his own son at risk -- all because the bill he voted against would have brought his son and his fellow troops home and ended the war McCain wants to continue.

Has she gone back to stealing painkillers from her charity? Memo to Cindy McCain: stick with the Vicodin and leave the politics to the pros.

The Sarah Palin Files, Pt. 39

It seems that McCain's senior staff has concluded the obvious as well:



"Palin is clueless."

John McCain, Liar; Dick Polman, Translator

McCain "suspending" his campaign (and dodging the debate) purportedly to be a statesman, in plain English:

McCain's statement, after it is scanned by the hogwash detector:

"It's clear that my poll numbers are crashing this week - even the Fox News pollsters have me going south - so I've got to try to do something, anything, to stop the slide. Which is why I want to stage a retreat from the first debate. Politically, the timing is very bad for me. I sure don't want to stand at some lectern and watch that upstart mock me for saying that 'the fundamentals of the economy are strong.' I don't want to be asked why I switched overnight from my long-held belief in deregulation to my newly-held belief in regulation. And I don't want Obama to remind people that he gave a speech, way back in March, talking about lax oversight of the sub-prime crisis and calling for major reform of regulatory policies. Heck, this economy thing is so big right now that my whole foreign-policy message is going to get drowned out. The polls already show that Obama is more trusted on the economy by double-digit margins, so why would I want to appear in front of the American people on Friday night and risk further erosion? That's why I'd rather go back to Washington, play the 'country first' card, try to look like a statesman, and if Obama doesn't do the same, maybe I can flail him for putting 'country second.' So that's my message: I want to cut and run from the presidential debate. I wonder if I can get away with this. Or, failing that, I wonder if they'll let me bring Gov. Palin on stage to stand beside me at the lectern. The crowds seem to like her."

Quote of the Day

The New York Times Bob Herbert today:

Does anyone think it’s just a little weird to be stampeded into a $700 billion solution to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by the very people who brought us the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

I am not going to pretend like I completely understand the current financial crisis, its causes, and all of its implications. And that is why what is going on right now scares the shit out of me.

The one thing I do know: I am getting a very, very queasy feeling in my gut as the architects of the Bush's Iraq adventure, and the authors of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" put their point person, an ex-Wall Street insider, out in front of this mess:

(a) to ask for $700,000,000,000 from taxpayers ...
(b) to buy junk securities for well above market value, and also ...
(c) pay the crooks from Wall Street who got us into this clusterfuck to administer this ingenious plan.

And if that weren't enough ...
(d) to pay the ransom, -er, I mean, pass the law by Friday ...
(e) with no strings attached, and further ...
(f) to prevent regulatory oversight, and, capping it all off...
(g) giving the middle finger to the branch of the federal government set up under Article III of the US Constitution: preventing any review by the courts.

And why should we agree to this? "Trust." Just trust us.

Yeah, right. What was that cliche that Dubya Bush mangled about getting fooled once and so forth ???

Ah yes...



Trust??

One of my fave's, The Rude Pundit, draws some eerie Iraq parallels here.

The Twelve Lies of Sarah Palin

Andrew Sullivan's making a list, checking it twice .....

Quote:

So for the record, let it be known that the candidate for vice-president for the GOP is a compulsive, repetitive, demonstrable liar.

No wonder she's John McCain's soulmate.

The Latest on George Michael

On Friday, George Michael, formerly of Conway Bangs' favorite band, "WHAM!" was arrested in a public toilet down the way from his English mansion where gay men are known to meet up for sex (calling Sen. Larry Craig (R- Id.)) in possession of crack cocaine and marijuana. He was arrested, taken to the police station and given a "caution," and has now declared that he's sorry about the whole incident. And that's it. No further legal problems.

Christ almighty - the jokes write themselves on this one!

My only question is when is John McCain's campaign going to release an ad blaming Barack Obama for this? That would really rile up the radical right. At least until some a member of Sarah Palin's family gets caught doing exactly the same thing, at which point the religious leaders of this country will deem it a "blessed event."

Ugh.

Quote of the Day

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings:

I won't say anything about [McCain's] saying "that's not country first, that's Obama first", beyond agreeing with Steve Benen: no one who puts Sarah Palin on his ticket has any right to lecture anyone about putting country before ambition.

The Sarah Palin Files, Pt. 31

So this is why I keep hearing the phrase "I told Congress 'thanks but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere. If we wanted a bridge we'd build it ourselves..." as I drift off to sleep each night.

GOP: "The Buck Passes Here."

God Bless Chris Matthews.

Updated: 9/18 with longer video from MSNBC. Note at about the 6:56 mark - Rep. Cantor starts talking about how it's time to stop pointing fingers and start fixing things. Yeah, funny how that works - when the Republicans fuck something up (i.e., the economy, Iraq, Katrina, heeding the pre-9/11 warnings, or hell everything since January 2001) THEN finger-pointing has no place; rather,the protocol is to break out magic healing crystals, sit in a circle, sing happy songs, and, I don't know, do some transcendental meditation. Anything except take (to quote Gov. Palin) "actual responsibility."

Gutless.

John McCain, Liar (Wikipedia edition)

The DNC has apparently set up a Wikipedia-style page collecting and counting John McCain's lies.

See: here.

Hmm.... maybe before they dedicated any resources to this, they should have just read the Tricky Trail Times. We've been on this mofo* from the beginning.

(*) Note gratuitous use of word, "mofo"! It totally rules!!!

Drill Baby Drill? - Pt. 2

Dick Polman:

Nor was any concern voiced about her Bush-style aversion to factual reality. At another point, she told Gibson that Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy," which comes as quite a surprise to the folks who work at the U.S. Energy Information Administration - and who say that Alaska actually produces 3.5 percent of all domestic energy. And if she meant to say "oil" instead of energy, she got that wrong, too, because Alaska produces 14 percent of the nation's oil output. All told, her inability to recite the most basic facts doesn't speak very well for McCain, who recently boasted on TV that his running mate "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States."

John McCain, Liar

Now an official campaign ad for Obama:

Drill Baby Drill?

To solve what, exactly?

Ezra Klein, points out:

This, it should be noted, is the primary solution emphasized by the woman John McCain says "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America." At least he left a "probably" in there as a hedge.

Hollywood Commentary of the Day

Paul Reiser, on the absurdity of what this campaign has become:

"I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America," the Senator from Arizona tells us.

Am I just losing my friggin' mind? Seriously. I keep looking around the room to see if I'm living in some suddenly altered state where everything we know is now called the opposite, and nobody notices. Or can stop it.

"I wish I didn't have to take your lunch money, but you should'nt of hadda brung it."

We're in the 3rd grade again. The skinny, smart kid who just moved in to the neighborhood is getting roughed-up by the asshole bully. The kid who hits you in the head with your hand and says, "Why're you hitting yourself? Why're you hitting yourself?"

"Um, actually I'm not. You're hitting me."

"You calling me a liar?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that..." SMACK!

"Why're you hitting yourself?"

And there seems to be no one to appeal to. There're no grown-ups around when you need 'em. No one to step in and say, "Alright, that's enough now. We don't do that here, fella." And in the absence of any authority, the asshole gets to keep doing it.

"Why're you hitting yourself? SMACK! Why're you hitting yourself?"

Quote of the Day, II

Daniel Larison:

The GOP candidates are the ones who want to make the earmark “game” a central issue of the campaign, while simultaneously pretending that the fresh outsider member of the ticket had nothing to do with said “game.” To that end, they have repeatedly made false and misleading statements about her actual record on the bridge and her willingness to accept earmarked funds. If Palin was simply taking advantage of a broken system, there’s not much reason to be outraged by that, but there is good reason to take issue with her decision to engage in a pattern of deceiving the public about her record, which she has clearly done in the hopes that her past obscurity will shield her from being held to account for making false claims. More to the point, once you strip away the hostility to earmarks Palin’s “reform” credentials become pretty thin, and the more it becomes apparent that adding Palin to the ticket really was as much of a P.R. stunt as the critics said it was.

For my part, I think the Republican preoccupation with earmark reform reveals a truly bizarre view of what is wrong with the federal government and how its dysfunction might best be fixed, as if pork-barrel spending were the main problem with Republican governance over the last decade. Still, this is the field where McCain and Palin have chosen to fight, and this is what they are choosing to lie about, so it seems fair that they pay some political price for that.

The Sarah Palin Files, Pt. 27

I know, I know.

But seriously, this is just too rich:


Courtesy of the Minnesota Independent.

This is McCain after the August 2007 I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis. And I quote:

“Maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it.”

Hmm. Maybe.

Governor Palin, your thoughts please:

"Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.”

- Gov. Sarah Palin, September 21, 2007.

That's right - fuck the lipstick! We goin' all PIG, all the time! Oink - muthafuckin'-Oink!!

John McCain, Liar (Sexy-Time Edition)

Is it news anymore that John McCain is floating bald-faced lies? I suppose not, especially since he's doubled down on mendacity with Sarah Palin.

But even so, this seems like a bit much:



I mean, come on! "Comprehensive" sex ed for kindergarteners? This isn't news, number one. But more... um, I don't know, logically, ... you're talking about an entire legislative body that passed this law, not just Barack Obama alone. If the law was as McCain says it was, does anyone really think that the law would have passed?

McCain's contempt for the intellect and common sense of the American people is staggering.

The Obama campaign's response:

"It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls - a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn't define what honor was. Now we know why,"

My response to McCain personally:

Fuck you, asshole.

The Jed Report on John McCain, -er, defending sexual predators:

In fact, the vote in question was actually about (among other things) providing school districts educational tools to protect young children from sexual predators. Moreover, there was no requirement that school districts use those tools. The legislation merely required that if a school destrict chose to offer such a program, the program could not be mandatory.

This guy McCain is a total joke. Only a guy with his complete disregard for the truth would be willing to attack his political opponent for supporting a law designed to protect youngsters from sexual predators.

Update (4:50PM): I should note that McCain's ad doesn't outrage me as much as it amuses me. I mean the truth is, John McCain is starting to make Elmer Fudd look dignified.