Day: September 11, 2008

Porky Palin Sought $197 Mil in Earmarks This Year

Jon Ponder

The way of Rove is to distract voters from the real issues by carpetbombing your opponent with lies: “We reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state, and it was while our opponent was requesting a billion dollars in earmarks as a senatorial privilege. What I was doing was vetoing half a billion as an executive responsibility.”

On the trail, Palin never actually claims that she hasn’t asked for earmarks. But she definitely leaves the impression that she’s every bit as passionate a fighter against the practice as McCain is, and certainly more so than Barack Obama, who didn’t endorse a moratorium on earmarks until this year.

“I championed earmark reform, also, to help Congress stop wasting money on those things that do not serve the public interest,” Palin said this morning at a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia. “We reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state, and it was while our opponent was requesting a billion dollars in earmarks as a senatorial privilege. What I was doing was vetoing half a billion as an executive responsibility.”

That speech touched off some unusually outraged media coverage, which noted that Palin had, in fact, asked Congress for nearly $200 million in federal earmarks just this year. Could it be? Where’s the evidence?

Fortunately, if you’re curious, you can look them all up, thanks to the Web site of Alaska’s earmark king, Sen. Ted Stevens — who was thoughtful enough to list all of the earmark requests he got and who asked for them. Sure enough, Palin’s office submitted 31 requests, totalling approximately $197 million. You can read the list here.

In 2008, Alaska got more earmarked federal funding per person than any other state.:

Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the nation, will receive just $18.70 per capita in federal earmarks this fiscal year. By comparison, Alaska – with roughly a tenth of Arizona’s population – is set to receive $506.34 per capita, the highest in the nation, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group which tracks earmarks. The state of Alaska receives about three times as much as Arizona receives in actual dollars, $346 million to $119 million. [USA Today, 3/22/08 ]

The response by the McCain campaign is classic disinformation:

In a memo e-mailed to reporters this afternoon, the McCain campaign said Palin’s requests were a significant reduction from the record of the previous Alaska governor, Republican Frank Murkowski, whom Palin unseated in 2006. Murkowski’s final request asked for $350 million in earmarks, according to the campaign.

Meanwhile, McCain’s claim that Obama earmarked $1 billion in pork was also false:

In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor — which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation.” [Wall Street Journal, 9/9/08]

The trick is to lie so often that the Obama campaign and, occasionally, the media, fill the news hole with debunking.

Works every time.

H/t: Buck

McCain Son Follows Dad Into Financial Scandals

Trish

In timing that Martha Stewart could totally get behind, one of John McCain’s sons bailed off the board of Silver State Bank just before the FDIC shut it down. The $2 billion asset financial institution got in trouble because of risky real estate loans.

Andrew K. McCain sat on the board of Silver State Bank starting in February but resigned in July citing “personal reasons”

Silver State Bank ran into difficulty because of a substantial amount of “poor-quality loans primarily related to real estate development” in southern Nevada and other distressed markets, FDIC spokesman David Barr said…

Silver State Bank has operated 13 branches in the greater Las Vegas area and four in the greater Phoenix-Scottsdale area of Arizona as well as loan offices in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California and Florida.

Let’s see, the quality of your loans seems like something the members of your board’s audit committee should keep an eye on.

Andrew K. McCain, a son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, sat on the boards of Silver State Bank and of its parent, Silver State Bancorp, starting in February but resigned in July citing “personal reasons,” corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Andrew McCain also was a member of the bank’s audit committee, responsible for oversight of the company’s accounting.

Andy jumped off the sinking ship just before it went under. A good auditor would have seen this coming and recommend a more prudent approach by the bank. Then again, why not just let the little people pay for rich people’s gambles? That’s what Andy’s dad did, after all.

John McCain was one of the “Keating Five,” five senators who were in the pocket of Charles Keating, chair of the board of Lincoln Savings and Loan. Keating exchanged campaign contributions for help in keeping regulators from doing their job and stopping similar risky gambits. The unhappy ending, of course, cost the taxpayers nearly $125 billion when the savings and loan industry shut down.

I doubt Andy’s worried about a job though.

The younger McCain, who is the chief financial officer of Hensley & Co., the beer distributorship of which Cindy McCain is chairwoman, is the Arizona senator’s adopted son from his first marriage.

It’s nice to have a rich mom. Or in John McCain’s case, a rich wife.

Woodward: Quiet in Iraq Is Due to New Top Secret U.S. Weapon, Surge Played Only a Minor Role

Jon Ponder

In an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” about his new book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, Bob Woodward said that his reporting had uncovered a top-secret new weapon introduced by U.S forces into Iraq that is primarily responsible for the current period of stability there.
“We are killing them all. We are killing all of the people who are the leaders.”
— Bush, on the effectiveness of the newU.S. secret weapon
The Bush/McCain Surge is just one of four factors that have tamped down violence, according to Woodward. The other factors include the Anbar Awakening, in which the Sunnis rejected Al Qaeda’s extremism; the stand-down of Muqtada al Sadr’s Shiite militia; and this new top secret weapon:

BOB WOODWARD: The fourth [element] is very top secret. And that is a series of operations that have been developed that allow U.S. forces to locate targets and kill extremists, al Qaeda members and members of the insurgency.

On Friday [Sept. 5, 2008], the White House in responding to the book for the first time confirmed that there were “newly developed techniques and operations which helped the situation stabilize in Iraq.”

TERRY GROSS: At the request of the military and the White House, you’re not revealing any of the details you found about what these top-secret operations are. What can you tell us?

BW: That it’s like any war. There’s always something — there’s a game-changer, a new development. In the early 20th century, it was the tank or the airplane. World War II, the Manhattan Project and the development of the Atomic Bomb. These [new] operations and techniques are not something where you’re going to see an explosion like an Atomic Bomb but they are incredibly effective. They are something that — as Pres. Bush said to people that I quote in the book, “We are killing them all. We are killing all of the people who are the leaders.” Now, it’s not literally “all,” but they are killing hundreds and hundreds of key people on the other side in this conflict.

So what could this new weapon be? Sharon Weinberger at Wired.com has a guess:

[…]

Poll: D.C. Insiders Mixed on Reaction to Palin Pick

Buck Banks

National Journal’s PollTrack queried 76 Washington Beltway insiders about what they think of John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his vice presidential running mate. Most thought the pick was just McCain expressing his usual mavericktude, his maverickosity, as it were.

Q. How does John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin affect your assessment of his judgment?

Much more respect for his judgment 22 percent
A little more respect for his judgment 24 percent
A little less respect for his judgment 13 percent
Much less respect for his judgment 12 percent
No change in my assessment 29 percent

Much more respect
“The choice showed guts, energized a still-suspect base, and shows once again his independent streak.”

“Guts for choosing a woman who’s not part of the establishment; guts for choosing someone who will attract more attention than he.”

“He is putting his issue agenda of shaking up Washington ahead of conventional politics.”

A little more respect
“Shows he’s not politically tone-deaf by acknowledging Republicans need diversity on the ticket.”

“McCain knows he’s behind and is willing to take a calculated risk.”

“It seems to be a remarkable political move, but I cannot make a final call on this until all revelations are finished: The vetting question is problematic regarding judgment.”

[…]