Tag: Sarah Palin

John McCain Can’t Catch a Break – Brother Calls 911 to Report Traffic

October 25, 2008
ElectionsJohn McCain
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John McCain can’t catch a break: all the news coming from the McCain campaign is bad news these days.  From reports that Sarah Palin’s makeup artist is McCain’s highest paid staffer for the first part of October, new reports surface that John McCain’s brother called 911 to complain about traffic.

From the CBS 2 Chicago:

The brother of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain says he’ll withdraw from campaign activities after calling 911 to complain about traffic. Joe McCain says he’s sorry about the call.

The GOP candidate’s brother, who lives in Alexandria, Va., told Washington radio station WTOP he was returning from a campaign event in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. Saturday when he got stuck in traffic at a bridge.

Frustrated, he called 911 to figure out what was going on. He also called the Alexandria Police Department.

Say it ain’t so, Joe!

For the record, if you had been lucky enough to land the job packing makeup onto Sarah Palin’s face, you would have earned a whopping $22,800 for the first two weeks of October.

Obviously Palin’s $150,000 shopping spree wasn’t enough.

Republicans must be thrilled at this responsible use of campaign funds.

Sarah Palin on SNL – Not Too Funny

October 18, 2008
Humor
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After almost a week of hype, the real Sarah Palin’s few minutes on the opening of this week’s Saturday Night Live concluded with a whimper.

She really wasn’t that funny.

She took some clever ribbing from Alex Baldwin during the opening scene.  Tina Fey began the show with her spot-on impersonation.

The spot on Weekend Update was a bit better, but the cast really carried the show.  Amy Poehler rapped and danced with other crew members while Palin sat at the desk, dancing a bit in her seat.  The beginning of this sketch showed Palin seated at the desk apparently refusing to do the bit they had rehearsed.  Poehler took up the rap while Palin sat uncomfortably and listened.

Her appearance fell a bit flat.

All in all, I think Tina Fey does the better Sarah Palin.

Que Sarah, Sarah

October 11, 2008
Barack ObamaJohn McCainRepublicans
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Sarah Palin on the cover of NewsweekWill this be the beginning of the end of Sarah Palin’s close-up, or will the voters ignore her ethics violations?

First, it is very difficult to prosecute ethics violations, especially where there was no direct monetary gain procured by the offending party.  Voters, on the other hand, should read between the lines.  What Gov. Palin did was wrong – ethically, legally, and morally.  Whether she ever faces prosecution or censure for her actions is irrelevant.  The governor of the state of Alaska used her influence in a radically inappropriate manner to give her former brother-in-law the boot.

That says it all.

Do we want this person within a heartbeat of the presidency?  And why do the Republicans want this person within a heartbeat of the presidency?  What does this say of the Republican Party?

From the New York Times:

Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded. The inquiry found, however, that she was within her right to dismiss her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who was the trooper’s boss.

A 263-page report released Friday by lawmakers in Alaska found that Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had herself exerted pressure to get Trooper Michael Wooten dismissed, as well as allowed her husband and subordinates to press for his firing, largely as a result of his temperament and past disciplinary problems.

“Such impermissible and repeated contacts,” the report states, “create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of that displeasure.” The report concludes that the action was a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

Look, I’ll not bash Republicans here.  “Some of my best friends…,” blah, blah, blah.

But the truth is, Republicans have allowed their party to be raped by the extreme right, and that’s a shame.  Was it a shameful lust for power that led the “Party of Lincoln” to slide so wickedly to the right?  Was it an utter disregard for consequences that caused them to look the other way while their president took the nation on an insane and reckless spending spree while slashing the country’s income?

What was it that caused Republicans to look the other way?  How are their stock portoflios now?

Here’s the thing:  Now everyone, whether Republican or Democrat or Independent, is suffering.

Did John McCain really vet Palin?

Read between the lines:  It’s gotta be Obama.

Tell the Media to Call Sarah Palin a LIAR

September 9, 2008
ElectionsJohn McCain
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From our friends, the Democrats:

Democrats.com, the Aggressive Progressives - 500,000 strong and growing! email the democrats

Tell The Media to Call Sarah Palin a Serial Liar

email the democrats It is now thoroughly documented that Sarah Palin supported the $398 million “Bridge to Nowhere” when she ran for Governor in 2006, even though Congress cancelled the earmark in 2005.

She only opposed it in September 2007 after her final efforts to get $329 million more from Congress failed. Yet she kept the partial funding from Congress!

So when Palin repeatedly says “I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ on that bridge to nowhere,” she is repeatedly lying.

It is long past time for reporters to call Sarah Palin exactly what she is – a serial liar.

Sign our petition to the Media:

http://www.democrats.com

Why Obama Must Win

September 7, 2008
ElectionsJohn McCainRepublicans
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From Andrew Sullivan:

This decision is not worthy of a great power. Whatever skills Palin may turn out to have, however fabulous a person she may turn out to be, even if she becomes the Eva Peron of Christianism, McCain had no idea when he picked her.

He winged this. That’s the critical, unavoidable, devastating point.

John McCain has demonstrated with this insane decision that he is unfit to be president of the United States. This was an act of near-criminal negligence. If he can behave this recklessly and impulsively with this decision, the idea of allowing him to become president of the United States is only a smidgen less terrifying than thinking of Palin in that position.

Whatever few doubts I may once have still had about this election, they are resolved now.

Obama has to win. The alternative is unthinkable.

John McCain is actually suggesting that Palin is qualified to be President of the United States because Alaska is near Russia.

Yes, I called it.  But never in a million years did I think the Republicans would try to sell that malarkey.  Republicans don’t think too highly of Americans if they think the majority will fall for that noise.

Any way you look at it, it’s gotta be Obama.

Jon Stewart Takes On Sarah Palin

September 6, 2008
ElectionsJohn McCainRepublicans
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Jon Stewart takes on the sanctimony of Karl Rove, Bill O’Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Nancy Pfotenhauer, and, ultimately, Sarah Palin.

Enjoy.

Sarah Palin Lied About Selling Jet on eBay

September 5, 2008
ElectionsJohn McCainRepublicans
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Sarah Palin lied

So it turns out Sarah Palin told a lie when she reminded America that one of her best qualifications to serve in high office was putting a jet for sale on eBay. “I came to office promising major ethics reform to end the culture of self-dealing, and today that ethics reform is the law. While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the Governor’s Office that I didn’t believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay,” she said.

Turns out eBay was really a bad move on Palin’s part — poor judgment. Yes, she put the plane on eBay, but she did not sell it on eBay, and she did not sell it for a profit, as she and John McCain claimed.

I know — she never actually said she sold the plane on eBay.  She did, however, infer it.  And we were supposed to be happy being duped.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

The state has tried selling its unwanted jet online four times and failed. So last week, the Palin administration signed a contract with an Anchorage aircraft broker who thinks he can succeed where eBay couldn’t The eBay thing didn’t work out very well, said Dan Spencer, director of administrative services for the Department of Public Safety. He’s the person charged with trying to get rid of the infamous Westwind II.

The administration made a deal last week with Turbo North Aviation, promising the broker a 1.49 percent cut of the selling price.

The New York Times tells the story of the sale:

It grounded one governor and did not exactly fly off the shelf on eBay, but the jet that came to symbolize the troubles of the former Alaska governor Frank H. Murkowski has landed with a new owner.

A businessman from Valdez, Alaska, Larry Reynolds, paid $2.1 million this week for the state-owned Westwind II jet that Mr. Murkowski’s successor, Gov. Sarah S. Palin, promised to purge from the state inventory when she ran against Mr. Murkowski last fall in the Republican primary.

Mr. Murkowski’s office tried to obtain money from the Homeland Security Department to buy the jet, saying it would help “defend, deter or defeat opposition forces.” He was denied. Later, in 2005, against the wishes of the Legislature, Mr. Murkowski used state money to buy it for $2.7 million.

So the state of Alaska bought the jet for $2.7 million and sold it for $2.1 million.  That’s well over a half-a-million dollar loss.

I learned this by doing a few quick searches on Google.  This isn’t exactly national security information.

Did the McCain campaign vet Palin at all? Did they even go online to see if perhaps she was telling the truth?

One final note: several times this week we heard from the McCain campaign and from John McCain himself that one of Sarah Palin’s qualifications for the vice presidency is the fact that Alaska is right next to Russia.  Maybe that’s supposed to be national-security-knowledge-by-osmosis — I don’t know.

If Alaska is so critical to our national security, isn’t it strange that Homeland Security would deny the governor a jet to help patrol the nation’s borders?