Month: September 2008

Photo, Past Statement Prove Palin Lied about Opposing Bridge to Nowhere

Pensito Editors

The McCain campaign is brazenly promoting the lie that Sarah Palin consistently opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere pork project in 2006 that they even included this false claim in a new ad.
We’re not going to “allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”
— Palin
It ought to be problematic for them that the record shows that Palin wholeheartedly supported the Bridge to Nowhere when it was first proposed. Evidence of this includes the photo above showing Palin holding a T-shirt promoting the giant pork project, as well as this statement to a local paper:

“I’m hearing from a lot of Southeast residents who believe that maybe they haven’t been given their due respect,” she said. “Part of my agenda is making sure that Southeast is heard. That your projects are important. That we go to bat for Southeast when we’re up against federal influences that aren’t in the best interest of Southeast.”

She cited the widespread negative attention focused on the Gravina Island crossing project.

“We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative,” Palin said…

“There needs to be a link between Ketchikan and its future and its future opportunities and progress, opening up land in this area,” she said.

It ought to be problematic for them to promote Palin as Maverick when the record shows she has egregiously flipflopped on one fo the most controversial issues of the day — but it probably won’t hurt them at all.

This is another instance of Republicans setting ground rules for Democrats and then flagrantly breaking their own rules when it suits them.

For example, it is permissible for Republicans to impeach a Democratic president over something as minor as lying about an extramarital affair in a civil deposition, but it is outrageous to suggest that a Republican president might be impeached for falsifying his reasons for taking the country to war, or for treasonously exposing a CIA program tracking WMB in order to enact political revenge.

In 2004, Republicans used John Kerry’s two opposing positions on the war — he was for it before he was against it — to disqualify him from the presidency. But now that they have a vice presidential candidate who has taken two diametrically opposed, but both politically expedient, positions on the most controversial pork project of all time, they’re simply ignoring her strong support in the beginning while they promote her as a maverick for opposing it after the political winds changed.

Obama Calls Out McCain Campaign on Palin’s Lies about Opposing ‘Bridge to Nowhere’

Jon Ponder

On Monday, the McCain campaign released an ad that repeats the false claim that Gov. Sarah Palin opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. In fact, she supported it 100 percent, when it was first introduced as a “pork” earmark on a bill by her mentor, Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska’s senior senator who is currently facing bribery charges.
“You can’t just recreate yourself. You can’t just reinvent yourself. The American people aren’t stupid.”
— Obama
At a campaign stop, Barack Obama took aim at the claim:

“Well, now, let’s get the facts clear here,” Obama said. “When she was mayor, she hired a Washington lobbyist to get earmarks — pork barrel spending –- all the things that John McCain says is bad, she lobbied to get! And got a whole lot of it. When it came to the Bridge to Nowhere, she was for it until everybody started raising a fuss about it, and she started running for governor, and then, suddenly, she was against it!

“You remember that?” Obama asked the Flinters. “‘For it before you were against it’? I mean you can’t just make stuff up. You can’t just recreate yourself. You can’t just reinvent yourself. The American people aren’t stupid.”

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Barack Obama repeated the attack, as you can see in the video at the top, and the second cut below:

[…]

Sarah Palin’s Secret E-Mails

Buck Banks

e-mails_dont.jpgThere’s yet another potential scandal dogging Gov. Sarah Palin as she continues to avoid speaking to the media. Seems she is refusing to release about 1,100 e-mails between herself and her aides that a Republican activist claims violate ethics and hiring rules. Of course, Palin and her cronies are crying “executive privilege,” but what is undermining that argument is that the governor’s husband Todd Palin was copied on many of the e-mails. Since he has no position in state government, but is just another upstanding Alaskan, the argument for privilege is moot.

But the real reason the e-mails are being withheld is likely because they contain a whole lotta wrongdoing that might further tarnish Palin’s halo:

The list of confidential emails includes a number of communications related to the Public Safety Employees Association, a union for the state’s police officers and state troopers, and the headings refer to PSEA ads and a “PR campaign.” Many of these PSEA-related emails were CC’ed to Todd Palin—and were also withheld under the deliberative process and executive privileges. (Recently, John Cyr, the PSEA executive director, told The Washington Post that Sarah Palin held a grudge against the state troopers and held down their salaries and other funding because her ex-brother-in-law-the-trooper had not been fired.) A separate email sent from Frye to Bailey and Todd Palin and headed “I may be in trouble here guys” was withheld because it involves a personnel matter. In April, a series of emails with the subject line “from Sheila Toomey” zipped between Sarah Palin, Bailey, Frye, other Palin aides, and Todd Palin. Toomey writes the “Alaska Ear” political gossip column for the Anchorage Daily News. These emails were also withheld under the deliberative process and executive privileges. And a string of emails titled “Racism on the Radio” that went back and forth between Governor Palin and her aides was blocked from release on the same grounds.

Andreé McLeod, the person who originally requested the e-mails and who used to work for Palin in Alaska government, is continuing her efforts to shake loose the secret e-mails:

“I’ve known Sarah for years, ” says McLeod, who moved to Alaska from New York in 1978. “When the finger is pointed at somebody else, she’s all for accountability. When it’s pointing at her, it’s different. Sarah Palin was elected on the basis of providing open and honest government. She has failed miserably.”

“Executive privilege?” Withholding e-mails? Sounds like Palin subscribes to the Cheney School of Vice President (emphasis on the “vice”).

Dick Cheney with Lipstick

Jon Ponder

Double McSame Dick Cheney took a moment off from his European tour to offer his opinion about his prospective replacement, Sarah Palin:

“I thought her appearance at (the) convention was superb. I watched that with great interest. I loved some of her lines: ‘What was the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? It’s lipstick,'” he told reporters…

“I think she is a good candidate and I don’t see any reason why she can’t be an effective vice president,” he said.

Cheney should be thrilled with the choice of Palin for the ticket. Ironically, he and Palin appear to be more similar in character and ideology than the men who were on John McCain’s short list, including Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Tim Pawlenty or even Mitt Romney.

This is not just about the fact that Cheney and Palin both wear glasses, confuse sarcasm with humor and like to hunt, they have some fundamentally frightening traits in common:

[…]

McCain’s Economic Non-Plan (Just Do What Bush Did) Is a Disaster

Trish

If you think the economy is bad now, just wait, according to the Daytona News-Journal. And if you want to make it unimaginably bad, vote for McCain.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office will release its summer update to the budget and economic outlook. The report will include grim numbers that aren’t being talked about much on the campaign trail, including a budget deficit near or beyond the record $412.7 billion deficit recorded in 2004…

How does McCain intend change that helps 15 million unemployed and underemployed Americans when his economic plan not only adopts Bush’s policies, but digs the hole deeper?

Unemployment gets the headlines. But deficits matter just as much in the long run. When they’re small, the government has more room to borrow and smaller payments to finance the debt. Interest rates can go down…allowing businesses to invest more and consumers to buy more on credit.

..When deficits balloon, everything eventually goes in reverse. Interest rates rise to finance the deficit, and auto loans, mortgages, credit cards, college loans and business investments all become more expensive to finance.

The problem with the job losses of the past eight months is that they happened before the effects of much larger deficits take their toll. That doesn’t speak hopefully of the future when, by the White House’s estimate, the next president will inherit a $500 billion deficit.

…John McCain’s plan is sheer folly: Make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and cut taxes and reduce federal revenue even more by abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax, reducing the corporate tax and doubling the child tax credit. That’s a recipe for trillion-dollar deficits on top of a national debt approaching $10 trillion.

One thing is clear. President Bush’s economic policies failed. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 did not produce the promised economic growth. Growth in Bush’s eight years did not produce the promised jobs. It did not lift wages. After inflation, household income has fallen below 2000 levels despite the few years of economic growth between the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Artificially lowering interest rates boosted the housing market artificially, leading to a very real crash. Changing Washington would be nice. But how does McCain intend change that helps 15 million unemployed and underemployed Americans when his economic plan not only adopts Bush’s policies, but digs the hole deeper?

Georgia GOP Rep. Lynn Westmoreland Outs Himself As a Racist

Jon Ponder

Rep. Westmoreland, who co-sponsored a bill to post the 10 Commandments in the Senate and House, can’t recite the Decaloguge. (Transcript below.)

Any notion that the segregationist mindset died with former N.C. Sen. Jesse Helms this summer should be dispelled with news that in an interview with the The Hill newspaper in Washington last week, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia referred to Michelle and Barack Obama as “uppity“:
“I’ve never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense.”
– Rep. Westmoreland

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

Republican have been using the label “elitist” to describe Obama as a codeword for “uppity” throughout the primary season.

As if more proof were needed that Westmoreland is not only an old-fashioned hater and a class A dumbass, now he is denying he knew that “uppity” is a epithet historically used by bigots to refer to African-Americans who dare to try to rise above servitude:

[…]

The Existential Meaning of Palin’s Hairdo

Trish

Palin’s head: Proof of evolution?

We’re not the only ones wondering about Sarah Palin’s hair thing. And yes, before I go on, I know that no one criticizes mens’ hairdos, at least aside from the price of them, if as in John Edwards’ case, they cost $400.

Palin’s bun screams, “tiara holder!”

Sarah Palin’s updo is a mixed bag. The bangs are modern: not too thick and nicely swept to the side. But the bun, to us, screams “tiara holder.”

“It doesn’t look presidential, or even vice presidential,” said Christopher Hopkins, author of “Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45” (HCI Books, $22.95). “Hair pulled back can be very sophisticated, but the way she’s doing it is more Frederick’s of Hollywood, like ‘I’m going to pull my glasses off and let my hair down and look sexy.’ “

Exactly! But what really bothers me is that bump at the back of her head. What’s that all about? Weirdly misshapen skull or fashion statement? Or is there finally evidence that dinosaurs are part of the evolutionary chain?

Harrop: Dysfunctional Palin Family is Poster Child for Conservative Values

Trish

Just as black people using the N-word is different from white people using it, so criticizing a woman is one thing when a man does it and something else when a fellow female does. So we’re giving columnist Froma Harrop a pass on pulling no punches over Sarah Palin.

Besides that, we agree with her.

Harrop: “Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate with many American families. Yes, if they’re from Mars or perhaps on welfare.”

Until now, one could counter the Democrats’ argument that a McCain presidency would amount to a third term for Bush. After all, McCain is a deficit hawk…Many pro-choice voters were willing to overlook McCain’s generally anti-abortion stance on the belief that he didn’t really care about the issue. And the widespread concern regarding McCain’s age could have been assuaged by the choice of a competent vice president.

Then who does McCain pick for vice president? A 44-year-old who parades her dysfunctional family as a poster-child for conservative values. Who has virtually no foreign policy experience. Who as mayor of an Alaskan town of 6,700 hired lobbyists to reel in $27 million in federal pork. That’s $4,030 of the U.S. taxpayers’ money per resident. We thought McCain wanted to close down the trough.

But let’s face it, Palin wasn’t selected for her policy stands, she was chosen for her social ones. And they deserve some scrutiny.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she waited until they were grown before she ran for high political office. Palin returned to the job three days after giving birth to a special needs child, all the while her 17-year-old is entertaining a lover. And what about plans to have the girl wed the stud, author of some very unromantic remarks on Facebook? Note that she’s been pregnant for five months and still no matrimony. These nuptials couldn’t be a last-minute political move, could they?

Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate with many American families. Yes, if they’re from Mars or perhaps on welfare.

Ouch! But Harrop’s larger point is a good one.

What a McCain presidency now promises is another four years of Terri Schiavo and other artifacts of the cultural right. You remember Schiavo’s husband having to fight the Bush administration and Republican Congress to remove his wife — in a vegetative state for 15 years — from life support. It’s four more years of national humiliation as our leadership undermines the teaching of evolutionary science, and if something happens to John McCain, opposes stem-cell research.

One tries to untangle McCain’s political calculations. The Schiavo case, creationism and similar excesses appeal to a passionate but small slice of the electorate. They are one reason voters are booting Republicans out of power. So while some religious conservatives may be “energized” by the Palin pick, most everyone else is revolted.