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    links for 2008-12-03

    • Some of the criticisms of Sarah Palin are fair. Some of them are unfair. There’s no question about the category into which this latest criticism falls: Blatantly unfair. Historically dishonest. If the Anchorage Daily News wants to complain that Sarah Palin’s spent too much time away from her state already, fine. But by lending her star power to Chambliss’s reelection-runoff bid, she’s not campaigning for “a reprehensible Republican chicken hawk.” If you want Jim Martin to win, fine. But you do him, your readers, American politics — and, yes, your governor — a disservice by keeping a political lie alive.
      +++++++++
      The MSM will continue to attack Sarah Palin because she is a threat.
      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Could Sarah Palin's celebrity appeal be the thing to push incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) over the edge in the statewide run-off?

      Chambliss seems to think so.

      "She — she truly is a rock star,” Chambliss said on FOX. “I mean, she came into town to help us electrify our base, make sure that these folks get fired up and turn out tomorrow, and she did exactly that.”

      Palin rallied for him in Augusta, Savannah, Gwinnett County and Metro Atlanta.

      "We had huge crowds,” he said, “and they were enthusiastic and very electrified.”
      ++++++
      Indeed Sarah Palin is a Rock Star

    • The Capitol Visitors Center, which opened this morning, may have tripled its original budget and fallen years behind schedule, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found a silver lining for members of Congress: tourists won't offend them with their B.O. anymore.

      "My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true."
      +++++++
      Good ol' Dingy Harry

    • Mr. Holder had more than a half-dozen contacts with Mr. Rich’s lawyers over 15 months, including phone calls, e-mail and memorandums that helped keep alive Mr. Rich’s prospects for a legal resolution to his case. And Mr. Holder’s final opinion on the matter — a recommendation to the White House on the eve of the pardon that he was “neutral, leaning toward” favorable — helped ensure that Mr. Clinton signed the pardon despite objections from other senior staff members, participants said.
      +++++++
      There is no way the GOP should vote for Holder as Attorney General
      (tags: eric_holder)
    • A troubled economy is casting a shadow over the country on this Thanksgiving weekend, and thousands are opting to stay home instead of embark on costly voyages to see loved ones. Airport terminals were eerily empty Wednesday, devoid of the typical chaos on the day before a holiday. It was the same on the roads, where traffic breezed along even though plummeting gas prices made it much cheaper to drive.
      (tags: economics)
    • A terror suspect arrested in Pakistan by the FBI in recent days provided authorities with details of a bomb plot against the Long Island Rail Road and other information that led to series of high level intelligence and law enforcement conference calls over the past 24 hour and the issuing of a bulletin warning of an unspecified holiday attack on the New York City region's commuter rail system, ABC News has learned.

      The suspect – according to some reports the arrest took place in Pakistan – recently met with Al Qaeda leaders and was able to provide authorities with significant detail as to how the plotters would have carried out an attack if their plans had gotten beyond the so-called "aspirational" stage.

    • The world's economic fears were violently pushed aside on Wednesday by another global threat — terrorism.

      A massive coordinated attack was launched in Mumbai, India just hours after the FBI warned that Al Qaeda may be targeting New York's subways and railroads.

      If Al Qaeda terrorists have their way there will be chaos and mayhem here this holiday season, a mass transit bomb plot that would probably affect all the subway and train lines at Penn and Grand Central stations.

      "The threat is serious, the threat is significant, and it is plausible," said Congressman Peter King, R-Long Island, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
      +++++++
      A perfect time for a terrorist attack is during the transition

    • Western intelligence services have been expecting an al-Qaeda spectacular terrorist attack in this crucial period between the end of President George Bush’s administration and the succession of Barack Obama.

      Signals intelligence “chatter” in recent weeks indicated that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organisation might be plotting an attack “to grab the headlines” before Mr Obama takes over in the White House on January 20.

      British security and intelligence sources said there had been increasing concern, particularly in the United States, that a “terrorist spectacular” was on the cards.

    • Holder was involved, passively or not, in just the sort of inside-the-Beltway influence peddling that Barack Obama was elected to end. He is not one of Obama's loathed lobbyists; he was merely their instrument — a good man, certainly, who just as certainly did a bad thing. Maybe he deserves an administration job, just not the one he's getting.
      ++++++
      The GOP should oppose the nomination of Eric Holder as AG
      (tags: eric_holder)
    • Fox News journalist Chris Wallace on Monday evening defended President Bush against criticism by Hollywood filmmaker Ron Howard that the president has abused his office in a way similar to President Richard Nixon.

      "Richard Nixon's crimes were committed purely in the interest of his own political gain," Mr. Wallace told Mr. Howard before an audience of a few hundred after viewing the filmmakers new film "Frost/Nixon," which is about the only U.S. president to resign from office.

      "I think to compare what Nixon did, and the abuses of power for pure political self preservation, to George W. Bush trying to protect this country — even if you disagree with rendition or waterboarding — it seems to me is both a gross misreading of history both then and now," Mr. Wallace said.
      +++++++
      Opie should go back to making movies and leave the politics to Brad Pitt and Matt Damon