In La-La Land
It might violate the constraints of etiquette
To say the Republicans are full of it,
But when they offer their plans
And their pledges and programs,
It’s clear they’re running a reality deficit.
It might violate the constraints of etiquette
To say the Republicans are full of it,
But when they offer their plans
And their pledges and programs,
It’s clear they’re running a reality deficit.
On CNN Friday night, CREW, the nonpartisan Washington ethics watchdog group, announced it will file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission on Monday charging that Delaware’s new Republican U.S. Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell lied on forms she filed when she launched her candidacy and misappropriated $20,000 in campaign funds from two prior failed runs for the Senate.
O’Donnell became the right wing’s latest overnight celebrity when she defeated Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware’s Republican primary on Sept. 14. She promotes herself as a Christian whose morality forbids her from lying. “A lie, whether it be a lie or an exaggeration, is disrespect to whoever you’re exaggerating or lying to, because it’s not respecting reality,” she said in a televised exchange years ago. When asked if her adherence to the truth would have prevented her from lying to protect Jewish families who were hiding from Nazis during World War II, she demurred. “You never have to practice deception,” she said. “God always provides a way out.” (In other words, “no.”)
The funds in question were donated to her two previous Senate campaigns, first in 2006, when she came in third out of three in the Republican primary, and then in 2008, when she won the GOP nomination but was soundly defeated by Sen. Joe Biden in the general election.
On AC360 Friday night, CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan told Anderson Cooper that witnesses had come forward who had firsthand knowledge that O’Donnell had illegally put donated funds to personal use in 2009 and early 2010 when she was not an active candidate for any office:
Disgraced HCA Columbia Healthcare CEO Rick Scott (who was forced to resign rather than face criminal charges in the nation’s largest Medicaid fraud case, resulting in a $1.7 billion fine) sums up all the Republican lies about the Islamic Center in New York in one TV spot, going FOX News one better by tying construction of the facility to health care reform. Why Scott, who is running for governor of Florida — a state which will have little if any say in the issue — would chose this as a campaign platform is unclear.
Are people finally growing weary of chronically aggrieved snark? Or do they just not care to toss hundred dollar bills at Sarah Palin anymore?
Slow ticket sales have bumped Sarah Palin’s appearance next week in Jacksonville to a smaller venue.
“An Evening of Hope with Sarah Palin” was moved from the 2,936-seat Moran Theatre to the 609-seat Terry Theatre…Mark Nelson, Florida director for Heroic Media, said the event was moved to the Terry Theatre because there weren’t enough tickets sold to hold it in the larger Moran.
“We would rather have a packed theater than a theater that’s not so packed,” Nelson said.
Yes, I just imagine those 600 people sharing that 3,000-seat theater would feel a little silly at the money they wasted. Money? Let’s talk. Preferred seating is $100 but a few general admission tickets are also available for $50. But if you’re willing to be a sponsor, you can buy all the Palin you want.
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It’s just a shame that he had to spend so much time establishing the duty to protect religious freedom. That should be a given.
Here’s a story we doubt you’ll see reported on FOX News. AlterNet recently completed a year-long investigation into so-called “gaming the system” at the content aggregator, Digg. A Yahoo group calling itself the Digg Patriots (whose site has since been taken down) figured out how to rig Digg’s voting. If you don’t know, at Digg and many similar sites, you can vote for the stories you want to see featured prominently, or in this case, those you want “buried.” As AlterNet reported:
Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content).
The immensity of the impact is commensurate with the reach of Digg. Again, according to Alternet:
It is ranked 50th among US websites by Alexa (117th in the world), by far the most influential social media site…Digg generates around 25 million page views per month, over one third of the page views of the NY Times. Front page stories regularly overwhelm and temporarily shut down websites in a process called the “Digg Effect.”