• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2008-10-12

    • It's hard to blame Sarah Palin for her booing on the ice in Philadelphia this evening. It's almost a truism of politics that if you send a pol to a sporting event, he's going to get booed. Politicians, as a class, aren't all that popular, and it's what sports fans do. According to legend, Eagles fans once booed Santa Claus. Still, not a great moment.

      The Times hockey blog says the boos were "resounding." The Wilmington paper says it was an "avalanche."

      The booing of Palin (and her young daughter) was also predicted by sports types who spoke to my colleague Ken Vogel before the game.

      “I am surprised that the candidate would go on the ice in Philly — Philly fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus and booed Beyonce(*) because she was wearing a Michael Jordan dress," said Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals, a conference rival of the Flyers. "This is dangerous territory.”
      +++++++
      Flap will have more on this but at least Palin had the guts to showe up.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Gawker—the same online rag that called me a "Crazed Christ-Loving Re-Virgin"—is engaging in some craziness of its own: It's asking readers to judge the validity of what it says may be "Sarah Palin's High-School Grades"—but is in fact a forgery made from my SAT scoresheet, which I posted in January 2004.

      A sleuth on the Straight Dope message board identified my scoresheet as the source of the forgery.

      The forger lowered the grades and scores on the printout to make Palin, an honor-society member, look like a mediocre student—but wasn't smart enough to hide the obviousness of the Photoshop job. Still, Gawker publisher Nick Denton—who earlier published e-mails stolen from Palin's personal account— asserted the fake was credible: "The grades are mediocre—appropriately the small-town girl scores a D in foreign language—but not so dreadful as to immediately stretch credulity. And the first five digits of the social security number do match Sarah Palin's."
      ++++++++
      Smear Palin at all costs

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Civil rights icon and Georgia congressman John Lewis is accusing John McCain and Sarah Palin of stoking hate, likening the atmosphere at Republican campaign events to those featuring George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate. McCain's campaign has responded with a statement in the candidate's name, urging Barack Obama to repudiate Lewis's comments.
      +++++++
      John Lewis has seen nothing yet if and when Barry is elected President. Obama undoubtedly will be criticised and it will be all racism all of the time. Yada Yada Yada
    • After consulting with Barack Obama, Democratic leaders are likely to call Congress back to work after the election in hopes of passing legislation that would include extended jobless benefits, money for food stamps and possibly a tax rebate, officials said Saturday.

      The bill's total cost could reach $150 billion, these officials said.

      (tags: democrats)
    • Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin today denied any abuse of her powers as governor, as a state legislative inquiry into her firing of the state's public safety commissioner has found.

      "If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member," Palin said as boarded her campaign bus in Pittsburgh, Pa., today. "You got to read the report."

      The report says this: Palin violated state ethics law by attempting to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police. "Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda," the report concludes.
      ++++++++
      The report is more of a political gotcha than anything else.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Gov. Palin's office and the McCain-Palin campaign have each put out press releases making some of the same points I've made in this post. And Gov. Palin's lawyer has issued a five-page response to the Branchflower report which notes, among other things, that "[e]very prior reported Ethics Act violation involved financial motives and financial 'potential gain, or the avoidance of a potential loss.' … Here, there is no accusation, no finding and no facts that money or financial gain to the governor was involved in the decision to replace Monegan."
      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • That brings us to the main point of this exercise. It will produce no certainty whatsoever, thanks to the Legislative Council’s inaction in the face of Hollis French’s efforts to turn this investigation into a present for Barack Obama. The LC should have bounced both French and Branchflower after the “October Surprise” comment and replaced them with people of less partisan temperament. Instead, we have a report that both clears the Governor and indicts her spouse in a contradictory, confusing judgment that appears to have been looking for some self-justification for all of the time and money spent on it.
      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Sen. John McCain's 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below.

      McCain's letter — signed by nineteen other senators — said that it was "…vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]…operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either…should fail."

      Sen. Obama did not sign the letter, nor did any other Democrat.
      ++++++++
      What do you know…..

    • (tags: daybyday)