Over at Blackfive, Uncle Jimbo is hyping Sarah Palin’s position as Commander in Chief of the Alaskan National Guard to give her pretensions of national security experience befitting a Vice President.
He says that because of an Alaskan National Guard unit operating a missile defense base in Alaska she has a “unique role in our national security and homeland defense” and approvingly cites an email from one of his readers to that effect. He goes on to claim in comments that “she’s privy to military and intelligence secrets no other governor is. She has to be. There’s no way she could function as governor if she weren’t.” It’s a story approvingly accepted by the likes of Jonah Goldberg and Kim Priestap.
Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin “extremely responsive and smart” and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder.
But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.
A couple of Jimbo’s commenters pointed this out to him and he his readers (EDIT: corrected attribution) went apoplectic, going so far as to denigrate the officer in charge of the ANG.
He’s the commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. The fact that he has no role in national defense activities is a given. All you have to do is read his title.
And to claim that just because the Alaska National Guard’s Strategic Plan for 2008-12 was written “in line with Governor Palin’s priorities”, Palin herself drew up the criteria for that plan - even though that phrase is the only time Palin is mentioned in the whole document.
What a rotten milblogger Jimbo is - or simply dishonestly defending his thesis by focusing on only one of the Adjutant General’s duties. Perhaps Jimbo should have corrected his readers, but he didn’t. Here’s the relevant part of Gen, Campbell’s bio:
Major General Craig E. Campbell is the adjutant general for the State of Alaska, commander of the Alaska National Guard and the commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. He is responsible to provide Army and Air National Guard military forces, a State Defense Force, and a Navy Militia that are fully prepared to protect Alaska from any threat, disaster, or emergency. He is also responsible to ensure that Alaska’s National Guard forces are ready to deploy worldwide and accomplish military missions in support of the national defense strategy. As adjutant general and commissioner for the State of Alaska, he is responsible for emergency services, homeland security, veteran affairs, a Counter-Drug Support Team, a Civil Support Team, and a Youth Challenge Program.
What a great way to support the military…by boosting your wingnut Veep candidate at the expense of a general with 34 years in uniform. Classy.
(Note: Jimbo emailed to note that I’d wrongly attributed words from his commenter “Tom W” to Jimbo himself. As of this writing, Jimbo hasn’t corrected his commenter, but he has my apology for the wrongful attribution anyway. The post has been edited accordingly.)
We learned last month that the Associated Press’ DC bureau Chief Ron Fournier (pictured above, right, enjoying donuts with John McCain) is a huge fan of Karl Rove and the Bush administration and considered taking a job with the McCain campaign so when he stepped up to the plate for the GOP candidate this morning, it came as little surprise. The headline of his article says it all:
DENVER - The candidate of change went with the status quo.
In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness - inexperience in office and on foreign policy - rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.
He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate - the ultimate insider - rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t even make his short list. Read on…
As if it were written by Rove himself and it begs the question - with the cloud of suspicion over Fournier’s head, why did AP run with him? The Associated Press has a real problem on their hands. They can no longer be seen as an objective news outlet and Fournier is slipping easily into the role of poster child for media corruption and failure. He may not have taken an official job with the McCain campaign, but he sure doesn’t mind donating his time and international platform to him. Contact the AP and let them know what you think about the article — remember, be nice.
UPDATE (Nicole) I’ve been given a new contact for AP: Contact the Associated Press … Kathleen Carroll (Fournier’s boss) at kcarroll@ap.org or (212) 621-1500. Be POLITE, but be FIRM. Let them know that you don’t want to see them serve as stenographers and amplifiers for pure spin by the McCain campaign.
UPDATE #2 (Nicole) FireDogLake has employed their LTE widget to make it even easier to complain about AP and Fournier’s bias.
UPDATE #3 (Nicole) Majikthise asks if Fournier’s extracurricular paid speaking engagements violate AP’s rules for outside appearances of their journalist pool.
Next week, John McCain will attend the fundraiser for his campaign, which is being hosted by a close ally of Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed:
“John McCain believes in a strong national defense, a smaller, more accountable government, steady economic growth and opportunity, the dignity of life and traditional values,” wrote Reed, whose 2006 campaign for lieutenant governor sank under the weight of evidence detailing his relationship with Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff — much of it uncovered by McCain’s Indian Affairs Committee.Read on…
The CREW article goes on to mention the damning e-mail correspondence between Reed and Abramoff and wonders if John McCain should reconsider being associated with Reed, (pictured above, center with Jack Abramoff and imprisoned ex-Rep. Bob Ney) who was knee deep in the Abramoff scandal and is a shining example of Republican corruption during the Bush years.
So according to political hack Ben Stein, Barack Obama is responsible for the Paris Hilton “response” ad, and the hotel heiress is not merely a socialite party girl, but a bona fide hard core porn star (he knows! he’s seen the tape!) and a little “tramp” who “isn’t even close to being pretty.”
Now, this is perfect. First of all, Paris Hilton was a total nobody party girl in West Hollywood until she and her boyfriend made AND then “someone” SOLD a hard core video of Paris Hilton having sex. So basically, she got her start as a porn star. And she’s being trotted out by the media barons to smear John McCain, as brave and patriotic a man as lives in this nation. This little tramp, who isn’t even close to being pretty, is belittling a man who spent six years in brutal captivity for defending his country.
Paris, get this: in modern day America, we don’t mock people because of things they have done that are unavoidable and not in any way blameworthy. We don’t make fun of blacks for being black. We don’t make fun of women for having breasts. We don’t make fun of old people for being old. This is uncool from any source. It is downright disgusting coming from a porn star — and not a very good porn star at that (yes, I have seen the tape). And we especially don’t like being told how to vote by porn stars. If this is the best the Hollywood pals of Barack Obama can do, maybe John McCain has more of a shot than I thought he did.
Wow. So not only is Ben Stein psychotic and petty, he’s a creep, too.
WASHINGTON — Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.
Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain’s decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.
A former FEC official said that it’s possible that the Rocchios had the means to make those hefty contributions — their first reported donations to a federal campaign. But the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that their donations also could trigger a complaint or otherwise catch the eyes of the agency’s enforcement staff, tasked to ensure that companies or wealthy individuals don’t illegally circumvent contribution limits by using employees or other third parties as “conduits” for cash. Read on…
TPM has been all over this story and it now appears that the Rocchios aren’t the only ones who are under the microscope for questionable donations to McCain and the RNC. And is it a coincidence that only a week after donations from a major American oil company low level employee, Flip Flop McCain changes his attitude on off-shore drilling? On top of that, in a TPM update, the Rocchios are renters and that their donations exceed the median household income for the area they live in.
Late Update: There’s a bit of dispute over whether Flushing, Queens, should be described as “middle class” or “lower middle class.” It turns out that the median household income in the Rocchios’ zip code is $58,069. Read on…
When the Norman Hsu story broke, Hillary Clinton was pounded day after day by the media, so we should expect them to be all over this story — right? Perhaps Keith Olbermann will run with this story and give it the national scrutiny it deserves.
A man sneaks into the press area at a presidential campaign event, interrupts him with heckling and attempts to make him look unpatriotic, and how does FOXNews frame the story? Obama SKIPPED the pledge of allegiance! He hates America, don’t you know.
Since when is the pledge of allegiance required to be recited before all campaign events?
When you are in Washington D.C. for forty years, you develop bad habits. You start to think there is only one way to compete in a close election - and that is to personally attack your opponent with t.v. ads full of half-truths and misleading statements. Is it really that hard to run on your ideas for the future? Or stand by the votes you’ve been casting and explain them to voters? Apparently Pat Roberts believes his record is so indefensible that his only option is to attack Jim Slattery.
Fact: Pat Roberts has accepted over $300,000 from Big Oil companies to fund his campaign and voted for tax breaks for those same companies. Kansans pay for that at the pump.
In his latest ad, Roberts uses some creative language to suggest Jim Slattery had something to do with the Big Oil lobby in D.C. This, despite the fact Jim released a list of his lobbying clients long ago and big oil is not on the list. Jim’s lobbying and legal work was largely focused on assisting Kansas City and Midwestern companies compete in the global economy. End of story. Read on…
Check out the Slattery campaign’s Blog For Kansas and show them a little love if you can.
The House has sent articles of impeachment against George Bush to the House Judiciary Committee, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that an actual impeachment VOTE isn’t on the table. On Wednesday’s Countdown, Jonathan Turley gives his expert analysis on this epic fail as well as the latest attempt by the president to obstruct Congressional oversight by claiming executive privilege in the CIA/Plame leak investigation.
As for Bush’s executive privilege claims, Turley goes right for the jugular. Attorney General Michael Mukasey all but begged the president not to make him testify about Dick Cheney’s role in the Plame case and has ignored a subpoena to appear to testify about the matter before Congress — which Turley says should prompt Congress to charge him with Inherent Contempt. That’s not likely to happen, and as Jonathan points out, Democrats who voted for Mukasey are now getting what they paid for:
“…This is why, when Senators Shumer and Feinstein saved Mukasey’s confirmation, this is what they purchased. And, what Congress needs to do, the only thing they can do, is bring back Inherent Contempt and to say they’re going to start to exercise contempt on their own, that the deal is off. Attorney General Mukasey has broken a very long standing promise to be a faithful broker, to bring these cases to the grand jury - he won’t. And Congress has a right to now say we’re going back to doing this stuff ourselves.”
There are billboards up and down busy Orange Blossom Trail, but this at John Young Parkway (see map) one sticks out.
“Just looking at it, I’m not thinking about Democrat or Republican, I’m thinking about the twin towers and all the people killed,” resident Mary Anderson told Eyewitness News. The ad went up last week and is causing quite a reaction.”Why use the twin towers for that purpose?” Anderson questioned.
The man behind the billboard is Mike Meehan, a St. Cloud businessman and musician. His website advertises a CD and music video titled “The Republican Song,” with the chorus, “Don’t vote for a Democrat.” He’s selling CDs for $5.
“This is a blatant exploitation of that terrible tragedy for political and, perhaps even worse, personal gain,” said Bill Robinson, Orange County Democratic Party Chair. Read on…
Like most Republicans these days, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough doesn’t mind taking pot shots at George Bush. Hell, it’s easy to do with the worst president in modern history, but jumping into the anti-Bush column certainly isn’t an act of bravery or a sign that he’s moved to the left. It means he knows which way the political winds are blowing and he needs good ratings. I truly believe Joe is unhappy with the direction the GOP has gone in recent years and angry with W for leading his party to its demise, but at the end of the day, heisRepublicantohismarrow.
Where else could a red-meat, right-wing congressman like Joe Scarborough reinvent himself as the liberal’s favorite talk-show host?
Scarborough admits that he is courting a new constituency. “Once we started Morning Joe, Phil Griffin said to me, ‘You can cut out this regular-Joe crap. Our audience is from Boston to Washington, D.C.’” In fact, he seems to be right at home on the Upper West Side. “The thing I hear all the time,” he says, “when people come up to me on the street, is ‘I love your show,’ and then there’s a hesitancy, and I’ll finish their sentence: ‘And I’m a liberal?’” Scarborough beams, pleased with his own apostasy, before adding, “Republicans aren’t as gracious.”
Wait…wait, here’s the money shot:
“I was totally skeptical, and now I’m totally won over,” says Time editor-at-large Mark Halperin, a political analyst at ABC News. “I was a huge fan of Imus, but Joe has taken that real estate and turned it into something—and I say this without hyperbole—revolutionary. There’s no other show that does what they do. They’ve really found a new form.” Read on…
Because we all know that Mark Halperin, who said John Edwards thought Barack Obama was a p**sy and recommended John McCain use racist attacks against Obama, represents the views of Democrats and liberals everywhere. Either this fluff piece was bought and paid for, or the people at NY Magazine have never heard of people like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow or Amy Goodman. Ok, libs, let’s give them suggestions. Which talk show hosts do you really like?
Perhaps Turdblossom got a little nervous that Democrats might actually locate their spines and charge him with inherent contempt and have him arrested? Video and more from Alternet:
Karl Rove was scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. He didn’t show. Not only that, the Committee was told that Rove had left the country on a “long scheduled” trip.
In this video clip, Rep. Linda Sanchez explains that Rove never told them about any trip.
Someone in John McCain’s campaign needs to tell him that he’s not funny and that making crude jokes about killing innocent people is not presidential and inappropriate.
Most of you have heard of McCain’s Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran gaffe, and now the GOP presidential hopeful has made another crude joke about killing Iranians and again, its wholly inappropriate. The title of this AP story is “Wife Pokes McCain In The Back”
PITTSBURGH — Cindy McCain’s jab to her husband’s back came a second too late Tuesday to keep him from making a wisecrack about the health impact of Iran’s main import from the United States: cigarettes.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.
“Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain told reporters, smiling as he waited for a cheesesteak sandwich at the Primanti Brothers restaurant. His wife, sitting next to him at the counter, poked his back without looking up.
Over at Blackfive, Uncle Jimbo is hyping Sarah Palin’s position as Commander in Chief of the Alaskan National Guard to give her pretensions of national security experience befitting a Vice President. 
So according to political hack Ben Stein, Barack Obama is responsible for the Paris Hilton 
WFTV
