Old Vetting on Palin

In O6 the Democrats compiled a lot of information on Palin in the runup to the Alaska Gubernatorial race. Gee, she comes off as authoritarian, profligate, and doctrinaire. What else is new?

Sarah Palin

Palin Used Part of the City’s Funds from the Alaska Revenue Sharing Fund to Fund Anti-Abortion Center.

Palin’s Management Style is to Bully and Demand Political Loyalty.

Palin left Wasilla in debt.

Long-Term Debt Was $3000 Per Capita When Palin Left, Compared to None Before She Was Mayor.

The Republicans who accused Obama of being the teleprompter master and not focusing on issues are singing the praises of this empty skirt.

New Yorker Cover

McCain is up to his knickers in the housing crisis.

Fannie and Freddie

1. Housing bill passed recently contained a provision for bailing out Fannie and Freddie.
2. Paulson (lied) when he said there was no immediate plan to use this authority.
3. Fannie and Freddie go into conservatorship.
4. The US taxpayer is now on the hook for the housing mess.

Privatized profits, socialized risk. The Republican way.

John Stewart: Right Again

John Stewart juxtaposes segments of John McCain's speech last night with G W's speech in 2000. Crazy sameness! His overall coverage of the Repub Convention has been right on.

Lying Numbers

Reports that 500,000 more people watched McCain's speech than watched Obama's did not include either PBS or CSPAN viewers. With those inclusions Obama was significantly ahead.

John McCain is Confident

According to Christine Todd Whitman, McCain is confident that Palin will be a good president, if necessary. Of course, why would he worry. He would be dead.

Palin Won't Do Press

So as we wait to see how Palin will do with real questions from real reporters, I am telling you she won't. After a week or so she may do some "interviews" with soft interviewers like Larry King or Faux ones like Hannity. But she won't ever do any real ones. Expectations for her in the VP debate will be low, so she may do OK. She may even wear a wire like Bush did in one of his. But no one will ever get anything from her but talking points and lying self-serving stump speeches before the elections. The Republicans can't afford to have her screw up, so they won't let the press have any access to her.

Why Is Dumb Better?

We need to quit with wanting a president just like us. We see where having a C student president has gotten us. Why do we need another president who was at the bottom of his class with a VP who had to go to 5 schools to get a degree in Journalism. We deserve a president who is not only a great leader and a great communicator but who is also smart. Read a funny take on this from Bill Maher.

Spreading Some Palin Dirt

Todd Palin’s former business partner, Scott A. Richter, who allegedly had an affair with Sarah Palin (according to the National Enquirer--remember they were right about Edwards) filed an emergency motion 9/3/08 to seal his divorce records, but it was denied yesterday.
The Palins own a few undeveloped properties on Safari Lake and Big Lake, Alaska in partnership with Scott A. Richter and his ex-wife Debbie under “Richter Investments LLC.” Debbie Richter was Palin’s campaign treasurer. Richter was awarded a job as the Director of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Division for her service. The State of Alaska gives its citizens “free money” checks every year out of this fund. This “free money” comes from oil royalties collected and investments. The Fund is currently worth $35 billion. Under Sarah and Debbie’s leadership, all Permanent Fund claims from residents (you have to make a claim for your check) were lost in a computer data entry failure according to courtrecords.alaska.gov.

Negativity

I have written about this before. Democrats say that people do not like negativity and do not do character assassination themselves. But the negativity and character assassination that Republicans do every four years does work. The average voter does believe the character assassination. McCain has said this will be a personality contest.

Every four years, the GOP unleashes unrestrained personality attacks on Democrats and exploits cultural resentments. Every four years, Democrats tell themselves that such attacks don't work and are counter-productive. And every four years, that belief is disproven. These "character" issues end up mattering largely because Democrats, in election after election, allow wars over "character" to be waged in a largely one-sided fashion.

Glen Greenwald

I think the Democrats at least need to point out the shear volume of lies and smears that the Republicans spout with every breath. I think they need to point out that Palin is Bush in a skirt! She is Phyllis Schlafly running for VP.

Bogus Poll

The latest CBS Poll that shows the election 42/42 is bogus in that the sample includes 1/3 Republicans, 1/3 Democrats and 1/3 Independents. The Nationwide distribution of voters is 51% Democrats, 37% Republicans and 12% Independents. Imagine how the survey would look if the true proportion of voters was included. Duh.

Moore Film for Free

Michael Moore plans to release his new film for free online starting on September 23rd. To receive the download, people can sign up at SlackerUprising.com.

Give Until It Hurts

Give if you value Freedom.

Are You Ready For Four More Years

More Republican years will mean first of all the criminalization of all abortion via the addition of one or more right wing justices to the Supreme Court. This will lead to more unwanted, abandoned, abused children and more future criminals. More death from illegal abortions. More women criminalized for having abortions. Doctors won't be doing abortions any more. You will find back alley practitioners with little medical skill dealing in the death of all involved. Death will be the penalty for a mistake or a rape. And with the designation of many common birth control measures as abortion--birth control pills, coils, shots--there will be many more unintended pregnancies. With the use of condoms derided as ineffective and the teaching of abstinence as the only way, there will be even more unintended pregnancies. The poor will drown in children with no help.
Because Republicans believe you should help yourself and get no help from the taxpayers, these unintended children will get no support. AFDC will be cut away. Forget Food Stamps and any help for teen pregnancy. Remember how Sarah cut teen pregnancy programs. Help yourself. And if you cannot you can just starve and die. Maybe a church will help you.
Republicans want to have the ultimate laissez-faire state. Deregulation. That is what business thinks it wants. Just cook your food well-done. Just read the fine print on your mortgage, loan, insurance, and other financial papers. Do your own investigation of the safety of what you buy. Now that's a hard one.
Laissez-faire means more free trade. Fewer jobs at home. Most people's wages go down. A few people get rich and pay less in taxes. Laissez-faire would mean the total destruction of the middle class. There would be rich, super rich, and poor.
The elderly on fixed incomes are slipping into poverty. Inflation in energy and by extension food and everything else is hitting the elderly hard.
But the ultimate plan of the Republicans is to privatize Social Security. That will flush it down the toilet. Along with the elderly.
Medicare will be next on the chopping block. The cost cutting measure will be to drop the payments to MD's and hospitals until doctors will not accept Medicare patients--seen in some areas right now. Then Medicare will be worthless and seniors will have to pay high prices for medical care or go without. So the rich and super rich will have access to our superior medical system and the poor will just die. Go to the ER to be pronounced Dead. How will the powers that be blame the poor for our worsening longevity? "Damn poor people don't take care of themselves."
The Republican's health care plan for the nation includes the plank that the portion of your health care insurance paid for by your employer will be added to your taxable income. WooHoo that is some tax increase. Then we get a $2,500 tax credit to buy insurance? I just added up what we pay for health insurance including LTC insurance right now--over 6K and this will increase as we begin to fully pay for Medicare B for both of us. And the amount we pay for our pretty good insurance is subsidized by Wm's former employer by about 1/2 or maybe more. We will pay taxes on all that?
And this is just a bit of the problem. Small businesses will suffer as only large corporations can weather this type of economy.
What is the answer from Republicans? Drill, Drill, Drill.

the sooner Americans realize that Governor Palin is just the latest floor model representing everything loathsome and menacing about Reaganomics and the failed policies of the Bush administration, the sooner voters will be equipped with the proper evidence to prevent the same disasters from happening all over again.

Bob Cesca

Men's Camping Trip

Bill, Frank, Barry and Eric are off on the annual men's camping trip. This year they chose Butte Lake in Lassen Park. Looks like a lovely spot for the kayaks. We did not do any camping this year. One problem was all the smoke from fires. The air looks clear now, but fire season is not really over yet. There has been no rain since March or so and won't be any until probably November.

McCain Comedy

Listen to a funny audio from 23/6: McCain's Voice Mail Message to Sarah Palin.

Wildlife in Colorado

A reminder that Colorado is wild country: While we were down in the basement watching TV in Boulder the night before we left, Cyndi went out to the garage to feed Maggie the cat. When she came down she had quite a story for us. A raccoon had gotten in the garage. She chased it out herself and then it stuck its head back in the cat door wanting back in. She had to lock the cat door, trapping Maggie in for the night. We all had wondered why Maggers had been howling so loudly. We thought she was just very hungry. I think Cyndi was very brave to chase off the raccoon all by herself.


The night before, Cyndi and I were sitting on the back deck when we heard an owl hooting. Cyndi said it lived in the trees/bushes at the back of their lot between their house and Billie Blue's. According to the Daily Camera it is probably a Western Screech Owl, a small owl common in suburban neighborhoods.

Bye-Bye

Axel waves bye-bye to Grandma as Robbin and I prepare to depart. We took the bus to the airport and had a good flight back to Sacramento on Frontier.

Colorado Rockies Game

Today we saw the Colorado Rockies demolish the SF Giants, umpteen to nothing. We took the bus as the Subaru is on the fritz. So Robbin, Leah, the baby and I took the little car to the bus stop and Jon and Cyndi rode the bikes. On the way home in the car Mr. No Nap Axel was just muttering "baseball game, baseball game."

No Right Wing Musicians?

Now Van Halen is mad about the use of their song "Right Now" in the intro to Palin. Why can't the Republicans use their own musicians or get permission to use music? Why not just use some Christian Rock? There is a lot of that.