Month: January 2009

Sarah Palin Just Won’t Go Away

Buck Banks

sarahpac.jpg

Former vice presidential candidate and governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has created a political action committee named — are you sitting down? — SarahPAC. On the Web site, which features some beautiful panoramas of Alaska’s snow-topped mountains and a kind of disturbing image of Palin who, by the look on her face, is up to something, Alaska has been moved from the neighborhood of Russia to the center of the Lower 48. Indeed, the entire Midwest is obliterated by an Alaska-shaped hole.

What’s that message? That Midwesterners and Alaskans share a common vision that is Palinesque? Or does it say that Palin is in charge of a state that’s a third the size of the rest of the states put together? Or is it just a weird, unsettling graphic?

Although the site is slim on info about what SarahPAC is up to, indeed, it seems t be aimed mainly at capturing e-mail addresses and contact info, it probably won’t surprise you that SarahPAC is anthropomorphized into a thing that believes stuff:

SarahPAC believes America’s best days are ahead. Our country, founded on conservative principles and the fight for freedom, must confront the challenges of the 21st century with integrity, innovation, and determination.

SarahPAC believes energy independence is a cornerstone of the economic security and progress that every American family wants and deserves.

SarahPAC believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of an historic renaissance that will build a better future for all. Health care, education, and reform of government are among our key goals. Join us today!

Overall, my takeaway from the site was: CREEPY!

Please, someone, make SarahPAC go away …..

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Drinking to excess is what separates us from the Greeks. Being drunk is what separates us from the beasts. And what’s more, drinking makes me happy. Not drinking makes me unhappy. Which means if I do as I’m told by Gordon Brown, I’ll be sad all the time.

— Columnist Jeremy Clarkson, in the Times of London

Hate Moves to Facebook – Anti-Gay Group Seeks Friends

Jon Ponder

Wildmon

Don Wildmon, the leader of the Mississippi-based, virulently anti-gay group, the American Family Assoc., joined Facebook recently, and has sent an email blast to his followers urging them to sign up so that they can use the social networking platform as an outlet for propagating hatred and intolerance of gay people.

“I have joined Facebook. Please join me on Facebook and become a friend of AFA,” reads the email’s headline. In the body, Wildmon explains what Facebook is and hints at how his followers can use it to promote the homophobia agenda:

Every day new technologies are emerging on the Internet. For several years now Internet “social networking” has been the preferred choice of many for keeping in touch with friends and family. From Yahoo! 360 to MySpace to Facebook, people of all ages are enjoying quick, easy, and inexpensive ways of communicating with others near and far. And best of all it’s FREE!

I have joined Facebook. I hope you will join, too, and become a friend of AFA. Facebook allows users to send and receive emails, add comments, post photos and videos, share links, and join groups or causes. You can also learn about the people you meet or would like to meet. And you can network with like-minded people concerned about America’s moral decline. Once signed up, you can invite your family and friends to visit or join your homepage. You can also search the entire Facebook site to see if relatives, friends, acquaintances, and classmates are already members. Facebook is informative, fun, and easy to use. There simply is no reason not to join!

Take Action!

It’s likely that most Facebookers are not familiar with the AFA, which is among the wealthiest of the groups that raise money based on gay-hate mongering. In fiscal year 2006, the last year for which figures are available, it claimed net assets of $37 million. The AFA generates almost all its revenue in advertising campaigns designed to raise the specter of hatred of gay people, mostly among less educated, low-income whites.

The AFA is known for its “off with their heads” approach to boycotts. It even targets companies that exercise free speech — and free enterprise — by marketing to gay consumers. The list of companies boycotted by AFA is a who’s who of American brands, including 7-Eleven, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Airlines, American Girl, Blockbuster Video, Burger King, Calvin Klein, Carl’s Jr., Clorox, Crest, Ford, Hallmark Cards, Kmart, Kraft Foods, S. C. Johnson & Son, Movie Gallery, Microsoft, MTV, Mary Kay, NutriSystem, Old Navy, IKEA, Sears, Pampers, Procter & Gamble, Target, Tide, and Walt Disney Company.

The group is not just opposed to gay marriage, it even attacks companies that provide partner benefits for their employees:

[…]

Cook: One President, Two Nations

Buck Banks

The National Review’s Charlie Cook had a very interesting column today that gives a pretty good overview of where we are as a nation in relation to our new president. It’s worth a read:

John Edwards was right when he spoke about there being “two Americas.” The way Edwards framed it, there was an America of “haves” and an America of “have-nots.” My version is a bit different. There is an America that watched with hope and excitement as Barack Obama took the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States. And there is an America that watched with dread and skepticism.

It’s not exactly that they want Obama to fail but more that they feel they have little reason to believe that he will succeed in a way that helps them personally.

In the first and much larger group, there are many people who have a deep appreciation for the historic nature of Obama’s presidency and a sense that he is the right person for the job and will do well. A subset of this group is so worried about the nation’s economic problems that they hope Obama succeeds even though they didn’t vote for him.

The second group is profoundly pessimistic. Because of his race and education, Obama is very different from any of their friends, neighbors, or co-workers. The people in this group are deeply suspicious of his motives. Some are afraid that he will dismantle our nation’s military and leave America vulnerable. Others fear he will tax away everything they worked hard to accumulate. It’s not exactly that they want Obama to fail but more that they feel they have little reason to believe that he will succeed in a way that helps them personally. Voters in this group rarely support a Democrat for president, but their pessimism about this particular Democratic president is especially acute. I doubt that Obama will ever be able to win these people over. The bigger question is whether they will ever accept him as president.

Recent poll results are fascinating and confirm that the first group is substantially larger than the second. Gallup found that 83 percent of Americans approved of the way that Obama handled his transition, compared with 12 percent who disapproved. This favorable rating is significantly higher than those of Presidents-elect Clinton or George W. Bush. In two Gallup Polls taken after Election Day, Obama’s approval numbers were 78 percent and 75 percent. Clinton’s final pre-inaugural Gallup approval rating was 68 percent; Bush’s was 61 percent.

[…]

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

We’ve been impressed by the mastery of public policy, newshound-like familiarity with the events of the day, and remarkable facility with banter displayed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich … In all probability the governor will soon be unemployed … and frankly, he could use a good medical plan to defray the expenses of psychiatric care.

— WGN Radio program director Kevin Metheny, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, on the station’s offer to the likely-to-be-impeached Illinois governor to host its afternoon time slot.

Turley: Failure to Prosecute Bush on Torture Would Make Obama an ‘Accessory’ to War Crimes

Jon Ponder

Before they left office, both George Bush and Dick Cheney defended their administration’s practice of torturing of suspects in terror cases. Bush characteristically attempted to deflect responsibility for what his operatives euphemistically called “interrogation techniques” on the grounds that a lawyer in his employ said the practices were legal.

“[Failure to prosecute Bush officicals] wouldn’t make Obama an apologist, it would make him an accessory. He would be preventing the investigation of war crimes.”
– Turley

“I firmly reject the word ‘torture,’” Bush told Fox News. “Everything this administration does had a legal basis to it; otherwise, we would not have done it.”

Cheney freely admitted his role in approving torture. “I was aware of the program, certainly,” he said, “and involved in helping get the process cleared.”

Semantics aside, earlier this month, Susan Crawford, a Bush Pentagon appointee who served as the “convening authority” — apparently a role that has aspects of both judge and prosecutor — for the Guantanamo military commissions told a reporter that Mohammed al-Qahtani, the “20th hijacker, had, without a doubt, been tortured.

These admissions present Pres. Obama with a problem. Torture is not only illegal in the United States, it is also banned by international treaties that the United States has signed. Under these treaties, prosecuting torture is not an option. It is required.

On MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, told Keith Olbermann that these treaties compel the president to investigate all allegations of torture, and that failure to do so would be obstructing justice, which would make him complicit in the crimes.

A rough transcript, follows…

[…]

Grand Jury Says Hell Yes, We’ll Investigate Florida House Speaker

Trish

Florida Rep. Ray Sansom, center, has ‘splainin’ to do

I haven’t wanted to bore you non-Floridians out there with the details of our House speaker’s misuse of power and conflicts of interest, but his case just got way less boring. Unless you consider being investigated by a grand jury and your fellow legislators dull.

A grand jury decided Monday to look into allegations that House Speaker Ray Sansom abused his position by taking a six-figure job at his hometown college.

“From this point on, we’ll be calling witnesses,” State Attorney Willie Meggs said at the Leon County Courthouse.

Troxler: Sansom predicts he will be found “clean, innocent.” And, what the heck, maybe he will be. This is Florida.

The trouble for State Rep. Sansom (R-Destin) began on what should have been a Very Good Day. After all, how often do you get sworn in as speaker of the House and find out you’ve been selected for a $110,000 a year job? Not only that, but the job is a newly created position pretty much tailor-made for you, at the community college you once attended, and to which you just steered $25 million in state funds, even though only $1 million was in the original appropriation. But wait, it gets better.

Although college officials dispute it, public records show that the airport facility Northwest Florida State College plans to build with tax money secured by House Speaker Ray Sansom is the same hangar Sansom’s friend wanted for his jet business…

Indeed, the hangar that [Developer Jay] Odom had proposed using $6-million in state money to build is virtually the same as what Northwest Florida State plans to build with $6-million Sansom obtained during the 2007 legislative session.

There’s one other little problem (that we know of so far).

[…]

Citigroup Using Bailout Money to Buy $50 Mil Jet

Jon Ponder

Is it time to sharpen the guillotines yet?

Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a brand-new $50 million corporate jet – only this time, it’s the taxpayers who are getting screwed.

Even though the bank’s stock is as cheap as a gallon of gas and it’s burning through a $45 billion taxpayer-funded rescue, the airhead execs pushed through the purchase of a new Dassault Falcon 7X, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The French-made luxury jet seats up to 12 in a plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center, according to Dassault’s sales literature. It can cruise 5,950 miles before refueling and has a top speed of 559 mph.

There are just nine of these top-of-the-line models in the United States, with Dassault’s European factory churning out three to four 7Xs a month.

Citigroup decided to get its new wings two years ago, when the financial-services giant was flush with cash, but it still intends to take possession of the jet this year despite its current woes, the source said.

The bank owns two 10-year-old Falcon 900EXs that are reportedly for sale.