Day: August 26, 2010

AK Sen: Palin’s Pick Joe Miller Surged After $550k Ad Buy by Tea Party Group with Racist Ties

Jon Ponder

In the wake of Tuesday’s primary in Alaska, the “lamestream media,” as Sarah Palin calls them, has been crediting Palin and a tea party group with driving the surge in support for GOP underdog candidate Joe Miller in his race against incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

What Beltway pundits do not mention, however, is that the tea party group that ran ads against Murkowski has been in the news this summer because of its racist activities — nor do they mention that the group may have financial ties to Palin, who has been engaged in a junior-high school level feud with the Murkowski family for years. Via OpenSecrets.org:

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Rick Scott Is Running Against Barack Obama for Governor of Florida

Buck Banks

The Republican Party of Florida has tipped its hand and revealed its campaign strategy that will catapult Rick Scott into the governor’s mansion — simply recast the election from a choice between Scott and Democrat Alex Sink, and instead position Scott as running against President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

I know, it sounds unbelievable, but here it is in a press release sent Wednesday by RPOF Vice Chairman Debbie Cox-Roush, chair of the Hillsborough County (Tampa) Republican Party:

I am pleased to congratulate our Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott. The stakes are high this election cycle and electing a Republican to the Governor’s Mansion is an important part of our mission to keep taxes low and fight for less government and more personal freedom.

I’m energized by Rick’s commitment to conservative values and am looking forward to working with him and contrasting his new ideas with Alex Sink’s record of support for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

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Costume Co. Unveils BP Oil Spill Halloween Getup

Buck Banks

BP Halloween Costume

If you’re trying to decide whether to go trick-or-treating this year as either media phenom Lady Gaga or erstwhile fight attendant Stephen Slater, here’s a third alternative — oil-splattered BP rigger with a dead fish and wrench in hand. Pretty doggone clever, eh?

The outfit is the brainchild of New York-based Fun World, a costume-manufacturing company that has dubbed the getup the “Bad Planning” costume to fend off the trademark lawyers should they be attracted to the familiar green-and-yellow BP logo on the suit.

Nobody is expecting the oil company to send a deluge of cease-and-desist orders to the small costume company, though, as BP has enough bad press without stepping into a David-and-Goliath media mess with a little mom-and-pop costume company.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life. Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.

— Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who recently told family and associates that he is gay, and is now an open advocate of gay marriage.

Ken Mehlman, Manager of Bush-Cheney’s Anti-Gay 2004 Presidential Campaign, Finally Comes Out

Jon Ponder

FLASHBACK: Here’s a clip of from CNN’s “Larry King Live” from 2006 in which Bill Maher outs Ken Mehlman during the live broadcast:

CNN edited out Maher’s mention of Mehlman’s name in the re-broadcast.

The fact that Ken Mehlman is gay was one of the worst kept secrets in modern politics — now he has come out of the closet in an interview with the Atlantic’s Mark Ambinder:

Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” Mehlman told Ambinder. Mehlman also said his friends and family have been “wonderful and supportive,” and that coming out has made him a “happier and better person”

“It’s something I wish I had done years ago,” Mehlman said.

You and a few million others, Ken.

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