Senator Palin Stevens Loses in Alaska

Look, I never went in for the fables the right wing told about Sarah Palin. Every single trope they threw up was easily dispelled by facts. The right loved to tout her resume as a corruption buster. Yet in the middle of the Ted Stevens Corruption Affair she would not commit to condemnation of his activities until the court rendered its verdict.

As grown ups we know that there is a valley vast and wide between the truth and what is actionable in a court of law. I believe that in ethics circles (not recently traversed by republicans) the term is impropriety or the APPEARANCE of impropriety. Palin could have, ball buster she's supposed to be, declaimed Stevens merely on the appearance of impropriety.

Well not only did Stevens get busted for felony indictments while our Sarah did nothing, now it seems the angels have found way for Stevens to lose his election bid.

There will be a D behind the name of the Senator from Alaska, one Honorable Mark Begich, which means that Mrs. Palin cannot dismiss Stevens and claim the job for herself.

Now, lets all sit back and see how she (retroactively) tackles this corruption.

Little things you should know

It's election night. Here in my area there was a bomb threat that sent all the voters in a 75% dem ward to a new polling place. I volunteered at the office where ALL of the Wisconsin voters who needed voting assistance or a ride to the polls had their phones mysteriously fail this afternoon.

Think the republicans love a clean campaign?

(FYI: calls were not being received at the Statewide Obama campaign number today. BUT- people who called and asked for rides to the polls and were disconnected by phone failures, we got their numbers and we called them back.)

Maybe in four years from now we will welcome everyone's vote. Maybe by then Americans won't hope that the way to power is through suppression of the will of the American people.

We Voted.

The alarm went off at 5:30, but I was already awake. (The end of daylight saving time helped). I made breakfast, coffee, got the paper. Woke the kids. We did our usual morning routine, just an hour earlier than we normally would.

Then we went to our polling place to be there when the doors opened at 7 am.

The line was long, but our volunteers were organized. We saw lots of neighbors in line too. Some who've got McCain signs out, but others who we know are Obama supporters.

Lotta came to my booth with me. I showed her the ballot and pointed to Barack Obama's name. We have a paper ballot thats marked with a number two pencil. You fill in the center of an arrow that points to the candidate's name. My votes all went to democrats, but I fill each one out anyway.

My daughter saw me cast a ballot for the first black candidate. She saw me vote to re-elect our openly gay congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin. None of these votes were probable, if not impossible, when I was seven years old.

I took the girls door-to-door canvassing on Sunday. I really want them to remember this election. Even when they are 95 years old, I want them to tell their great-grandchildren that they helped elect Barack Obama. Lotta will say she saw my vote. She'll say she put it into the counting machine for me.

Ima went in the voting booth with her father. "Who'd he vote for, Ima?" I asked.

"I don't know" she said, rolling her eyes. "I can't read!"

"Well did the name start with an 'O' or an 'M'?"

Ben, the republican in the house, laughed. "That's why I took her with me. So she wouldn't know."

"This is a historic vote, Ben. Don't you want your girls to know how you voted?"

After telling us he voted for a man, that he voted for a man with an 'A' in his name, that he voted for a man with an 'A' in his name who is running for president, he broke down and told us he voted for Barack Obama.

I hope many many more of us vote for Obama than for the other candidate with an 'A' in his name.

Peace, friends. I hope tomorrow brings us joy.

Hope.

Presented Without Comment

But I'd love to see yours.

(Just don't pick on the lady's woman's weight, kay? There's enough material there without going down that drive-thru.)

The Onion Nails the Care Bear

Watch clip. You may be tempted to believe it's true, but it is from the Onion.

Obama Runs Constructive Criticism Ad Against McCain

Help Shape the Debates

Free Press is looking for a few good men and women to provide instant feedback on how the media is presenting the debates. If you sign up you'll be asked to watch whichever debates you want and respond on how you feel the debates are being covered. The data will be used to provide media and moderators with a scorecard on their own performance. If you don't sign up a horrible recession, war, famine and a Britney Spears comeback will surely follow! Help.

Here's the link: www.freepress.net/debates

A Quick Note About Ratings

I saw someone on the intertubes worrying that Palin and McCain got higher television ratings than Obama and Biden for their respective speeches. If someone mentions this to you remind them that many regular venues are not included in ratings. PBS, C-Span and the Democratic National Convention feed are not included.

Considering that republicans tend to need to have their ideas formed for them by talking heads on the news channels and networks and democrats tend toward PBS, I'm fairly certain more of us were watching than were counted. I started the dem con week on PBS until the fantasy images I had of a waterboarded (not torture! just a nice spa treatment like at Gitmo!) David Brooks made me tune into the jackass-free DNC feed.

Auntie Jess wants you to be in the know.

Four More Years!!! (for Jack Abramoff)

Jack Abramoff was sentenced today to an additional (sort of) 4 year sentence for corruption charges. You know I bet those Maverick reformers working hard to convince us to vote for them up in St. Paul have no links to Abramoff.

I shall now consult my magic Google ball:

Oh, um oops. It looks like John McCain tried awfully darn hard to keep Abramoff isolated as a rogue player in the whole lobbying scandal. And he suppressed 750,000 documents. Way to go Mr. Clean!!!

Yah but Shotgun Granny Palin der hey, she's a real reformer who takes on her own party ta fight tha c'ruption, yah?

Oh notso fast der youse. It seems Shotgun Granny hired a lobbyist to secure federal funds for her 2nd biggest town in the country's largest state*. That lobbyist was Steven Silver. Steven Silver listed Abramoff's lobbying firm as his client. Together they worked on "issues relating to Indian/Native American policy," "exploration for oil and gas" and "legislation relating to gaming issues"

Additionally, for those of you who enjoy a little extra icing on your cupcakes, Silver yoostabee Senator Ted Stevens chief of staff.

*I'm using the republicans own geographical facts. Palin was, you know, governor of the country's largest state. According to John McCain.

Jack Booted Thugs.

Here is your press freedom, America. This is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now, a credentialed journalist at the RNC. She is being arrested at the convention for what seems to be "probable cause for a riot".



UPDATE: Washington Post has this story.

Best Line of the Night at the Convention

Bob Casey, Jr: "John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick."

Good News

Read "The Myth of a Toss-Up Election". It's good news. However, I'd like to cynically piss in your cheerios by adding that I think the reason we need to believe the race is close is so that the GOP can pull a steal aka 2000. I'm guessing General Electric and Rupert Murdoch agree.

Then again, Gallup has Obama at 9 points ahead of McCain following his European tour.

Better Diplomacy, (brought to you by grown-ups)

Fancy New Urinals

Just in time for the Republican Convention: Customized outdoor urinals. Indoor bathrooms have been deemed too risky for use by younger GOP'ers.

Jonah Goldberg is a big fat moron

But you knew that.

I will never cease to be amazed that some of these right wing nutjob pundits get to keep their jobs. Wait, did I say some? In yesterday's column Goldberg says that he is shocked that Obama would tie federal college grants to some form of compulsory community service. This, Goldberg claims, is exactly like slavery, something a black man, and our constitution, should be against.

Well, I guess even white overstuffed idiots who write books in which they don't even understand their own premise (Nazis were liberals because they had "socialist" in their title) should be against slavery.

But it seems to me that when a democrat makes a proposal that a Republican ought to love - spending government money with an expectation of a return on that investment - the Republican talking point machine has to melt down and what it spits out need not make any sense whatsoever. It should invoke racial tensions, a fabricated air of fiscal intelligence where none actually exists and use all the hotpoint words.

Jonah Goldberg could easily be replaced by a machine. Or, more cheaply, his job could be off-shored to a ten year old Indian girl with a list of handy phrases next to her computer.

Perhaps that has already happened.

I got nothin'.

But this.

I need to find something to feign sadness and gravitas all at once so that people will think it is not allergies, but some tragedy. Yet with the GOP in a tidee-bowl death spiral I'm coming up pretty happy.

Except for the damned allergies. Screw you, ubiquitous green pollen!

John Asscroft Can't Say "Obama"

John Asscroft former AG (the one who didn't love torture as much those who came after him, and who saved his special ire for titties on statues - remember?) "accidently" called Barack Obama "Osama". Then he said we all make little slips like that.

We sure do, Asscroft.

BTW, whoever he was speaking to soundly booed him for being such an...ass.

You can watch it. Warning: this video contains scenes of John Asscroft. Who's better off forgotten.

In case you want to check out Senator oBama's floor statement on the Patriot Act Reauthorization bill you can look at it here. Lest you forget that oBama wasn't in the Senate when the first Patriot Act was pASSed.

Into the fray.

Upfront: I support Barack Obama.

Also: I'm not calling for Hillary to step down right now.

However, I understand that Hillary has said she will take her campaign all the way to the August convention. That, Mrs. Clinton, is a sure way to a republican presidential win in November.

Here's why: In 2004, John Kerry didn't set up his campaign office in Wisconsin until sometime in late July, early August. And Wisconsin was (and still is) a swing state. Wisconsin stayed blue by the very narrowest of margins due to the hard work of outside groups like MoveOn. I can allow that we could hit the ground running here in June if the superdelegates vote immediately after the last primaries are held on June 3, but we cannot get the apparatus in place for a presidential campaign that begins at the end of August.

I worked on three campaigns in 2004: Feingold's, Kerry's and the GOTV effort of MoveOn. (I kept the three distinctly separate-according to campaign law btw). Russ Feingold has a great machine. MoveOn used an intensive precinct-centered get out the vote effort that was highly organized and highly effective. Campaigning for Kerry was like being given a few brochures and told to walk around some neighborhoods handing them out.

We democrats know how to get our people elected. But first we need to get organized. And the time to get organized is now. And, Hillary, we need a nominee and a campaign much earlier than August to do it. Howard Dean's 50 state strategy is a good one. It worked in 2006 and is working this year (Dennis Hastert's seat comes to mind). And we need the coat-tail victories to keep the congress. There's so much more at stake here than Hillary's personal aspirations.

But statements like these don't lead me to believe that Hillary Clinton has the best interests of anyone but Hillary Clinton in mind. I'm sorry about that.

Something seems familiar...

Where have I seen this lady before?



Here?





Kinda.

Here?


Oh, crap.

The Huffington Post is there far before me pointing out the similarity between Cindy and Vicki. Just Weird.

For the record, I agree with smarter bloggers that this is not a story about an affair or sex. It is a story about how 1/5 of the Keating Five gang is still actively corrupt. Dr. Zaius is all over that.

It's the environment, stupid.

Why isn't the environment even being discussed in this election? I just voted and then filled out a two-page exit poll, which had the question "which issue is the most important" and then gave only three possible answers 1. the war in Iraq, 2. the economy and 3. I don't remember three. You could only choose one answer.

In what can only be seen as an improvement, there was no talk about "values" on my poll. Of course, it was tailored for democratic voters and we all know we have no values. Which reminds me, "atheist" was not listed as a religion choice, even though right-wing fundies would like to have you believe we get together every full moon to worship satan.

Last night at Blue Gal's Saloon, Morse Tengrain [thank you DCup] said that he received a push poll call wondering if he knew that Barack Obama fathered a black child. He swears it was not a joke.

No, I did not post this video last week.

McCain is just not as inspiring somehow. Pretty dang true.


Here's the original.