Category: Corruption

Why State Secretaries of State Matter

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Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat who replaced the Uncle Tom Republican Ken Blackwell, has just moved against voter caging, “Brunner issued a release last week directing that 60-day notices sent by boards of election to voters that are returned as undeliverable cannot be used as the sole reason for canceling an Ohio resident’s voter registration.“

This is why having a Democrat as the chief election official in the state, and why Republicans try for these positions.

Republicans take a page out of Stalin’s book,* “Those who cast the votes, they decide nothing. Those who count the votes, they decide everything.”

*Actually, it’s not his book, it was the memoirs of his secretary, who quoted Stalin as saying this.

Sorry if it Seems All Palin, All the Time…..

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But each time someone turns over a rock, we see more evidence of corruption, self-dealing, etc.

It appears that Sarah Palin collected per diem payments for times when she was at home:

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official “duty station” is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor’s daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

I’ve done per Diem deductions, and if I did it that way, the IRS would take my house and throw me in jail.

Republicans to Use Foreclosure Data in Black Neighborhoods to Suppress Votes

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Because, as we all know, the real motto of the Republican party is, “N*gg*rs should not be allowed to vote.

The thing is, this is illegal:

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

Once again, the Republican’s cynicism exceeds my capacity to be cynical.

So, Now it Appears that John McCain Used His Office to Support His Sugar Mama Dope Abusing Wife

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We know the basic story: Cindy McCain used a charity that she set up to steal Percocet and Vicodin to feed her habit.

One of the principals in this matter is Tom Gosinski, who discovered the abuse, and discovered that Cindy McCain was using his name to get the drugs, so he went to the DEA, and John McCain used his office to call in political favors to get the US Attorney to go after him.

While it is clear that Gosinski is no fan of the McCains, they got an investigation ginned up claiming that he had tried to extort them after he had been talking with the DEA for months, the picture that he is painting, both of McCain and of his family is unbelievably grim

Well, he’s now releasing his journals to the public, and among other things, there are allegations that the McCains medicated their kids unecessarily.

Gosinski details a conversation with Jeri Johnson, Cindy McCain’s aunt, regarding Cindy’s nanny, Diane, in a July 28, 1992 entry.

Diane voice concerns regarding Cindy’s use of drugs and the effect it is having on the kids. Diane told Jeri that Meghan recently told her to “f$#@ off” after trying to discipline her. She also told Jeri that she is concerned that Cindy is giving the kids drugs which unnecessarily sedate them. I hope that is not happening.

Concerns that Cindy McCain is unnecessarily drugging her children appear again in a July 31 entry — “Cari (Cindy’s adopted daughter) told the three that she fears Cindy gives the kids prescription drugs they do not need,” Gosinski wrote.

Republican family values, my ass.

What more, it appears that the Washington Post had an article about this recently, but it was scrubbed from the web site.

Talk about the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations!

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Because, seriously for Bush and His Evil Minions™ to try to spin the continued breathing of Osama bin Laden with this:

Q: But Osama bin Laden is the one that — you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 —

MS. PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and he’s sitting in jail right now.

I guess that bin Laden was some 6 foot 6 inch tall dude suffering from Marfan’s related kidney failure who occasionally attended meetings of the Ladies Sewing Circle & Terrorist Society, or some such.

Every time I think that I’ve grown too cynical to be shocked, they kick it up a notch.


The mendacity of these folks, even after 7 years, continues to stun me.

Republicans Looking to Make Lieberman’s Party Change Official

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This is no surprise, but he won’t change caucuses unless kicked out of the Dem caucus, which he should be, because Joe Lieberman is all about Joe Lieberman, and as a kinda-sorta Dem who spews Republithug talking points, he has more power, gets more face time, and is lauded as a bipartisan by the Beltway Gasbags, so I do not believe that Republicans will be successful in getting him to switch parties.

It’s a pity, because it would be good for the Democratic party and the nation.

Oh I Give Up! Let’s Just Call it the Sarah Palin Clown Show

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I’m sick and tired of coming up with new medical sounding names, OK? It takes more time than it does to write the articles, because this sh%$ really writes itself.

First, it appears that Palin is taking a week or so, the nominal explation is that she is spending time with her son before he ships out to Iraq, but the real reason is that she is taking time off to “get ready”, and you have to love the snark from Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo

Isn’t Palin supposed to move to Cheney’s undisclosed location after she gets elected, not before?

The good Mr. Marshall owes me a screen cleaner…big time.

Howard Finemannotes that senior McCain officials have said that they are using the time to bring her up to speed, and Todd Harris, who is working with the McCain campaign admits that she is not ready, and probably needs two weeks to get her act together, explaining that, “If she goes out and makes a mistake, that is something that [voters will] care about, and that’s something that will haunt [McCain] for awhile, so I think this is a smart move.”

Jed, or the Jed Report has even created a “where’s Sarah” widget for inclusion in your web site.

On earmarks, even the Moonie Times is calling out Palin on her double-talk on earmarks….And when you’ve lost the Washington Times on this issue…….Well, you’ve lost the Moonie Times.

And we still have the gift that keeps on given, Troopergate, we have

CREW saying that Palin is attempting to subvert the investigation of her through back door channels, the Anchorage Daily News says that she is stonewalling the investigation, and Newsweek is reporting that John McCain allies are throwing up roadblocks into the investigation too.

Meanwhile, it appears that the bipartisan committee investigating the matter will push up the date of its report from October 31 to around October 10, which is not an unreasonable response to stonewalling.

Additionally, Alaska lawmakers will plan to issue subpoenas to seven witnesses, though not to Palin, because the seven canceled interviews with the investigator, reportedly after, “Ms. Palin’s lawyer, Thomas V. Van Flein, had forbidden members of her administration to have any contact with the investigator.”

We also have the State Police Union filing a formal complaint that Palin and Her Evil Minions&trade improperly released information from Wooten’s (the guy she wanted fired) private personnel records.

Finally, Mikew Wooten has finally gone public in this matter, talking to CNN and giving a brief interview.

Let’s Be Clear on This: There is No Autism-Vaccine Link, Just Scientists On One Side and Liars On the Other

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That’s the truth and Washington Post reporter Shankar Vedantam manages to ignore the fact that there is no correlation between vaccines and conditions on the autism spectrum.*

The author mentions that the new study contradicts a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, but ignores the fact that he was accused of, “suppressing and falsifying data”, that his co-authors of this study have disavowed his reasearch, and at this time is under investigation for serious professional and financial misconduct.

He faces removal of his medical license as a result.

If there is any justice in the world, he will end up in to jail too.

*There is some dispute as to whether Aspergers is mild Autism, or a different condition on the Autism spectrum, a distinction which I would generally expect a reporter to miss.

Just a Moment, While I Perform a Quick Palinoscopy

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We have the former head of the Alaska State Police calling Sarah Palin a liar over “troopergate”.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out, as a former Alaska Attorney General has categorized her legal defense strategy on the matter, that only the state Personnel Board (whose members she has appointed) has exclusive authority to investigate the matter as bogus.

We also have Palin’s own handwriting showing that she was lying over her opposition to earmarks, where we have margin notes in her own handwriting saying that, “We Did Well!!!,” in securing earmarks, and that John Sidney McCain III criticized the very earmarks that she had hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington, DC to get.

Meanwhile, her story of bravely persevering in her speech in the face of the dangers of a broken teleprompter is also a lie. Jonathan Martin of the right-winger funded Politico notes that he was standing where he could read the teleprompter, and it was working as intended, and he confirmed this with a convention organizer.

Of course, this goes along with the Anchorage Daily News’ analysis of her speech, where she is described as stretching the truth.

It seems like we have Alaska’s own Dick Cheney here, only she appears to be a better shot then “Deadeye Dick”.

Meanwhile focus groups of Hillary supporters in Michigan and Nevada were significantly more tepid on her speech than the crowd of mouth breathing Neanderthals* in the convention center, with a number of fairly brutal complaints about her.

Bummer of a birth mark, Hal.

*No offense intended to Neanderthals, or those Geico guys.

The Sarah Palin Clown Show

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Well, first we have updates on troopergate, we have documentation from the fired state police head Walter Monegan that Palins husband and senior staffers pressured him to fire Michael Wooten, who had been involved in a messy divorce with Palin’s sister.

He also claims to have emails from Sarah Palin on the matter, additionally, the Anchorage Daily News quotes him as saying that Palin talked to him personally on the matter twice.

Also, we have the Juneau Empire* is no reporting that a political appointee of the Alaska State Troopers reversed an internal investigation by professional staff in order to take disciplinary measures against him.

What’s more, this is not the first example of blatant cronyism and retribution by Palin. In 1996, while mayor of Wasilla, she fired the chief of police and directory of libraries because they suppored her opponent, which leed to an abortive recall campaign.

It also appears that the McCain campaign had not vetted Palin at all before her selection. It appears that her local paper, The Valley Frontiersman, does not have its archives online, and a Democratic Party Opposition researcher was informed by staff that their inquiry was the first such request.

It appears that Obama gave a good speech, and the sick old man, John Sidney McCain, panicked.

Even better, her mother-in-law says that she might not vote for her.

I have to agree 90% with Barack Obama when he says that a family should be off limits, so the story of Bristol Palin, her 17 year old daughter being pregnant out of wedlock should be generally off the table.

However, I will argue that the situation does point to a problem with Sarah Palin’s policies: She is strongly opposed to comprehensive sex education, and her daughter’s situation indicates that her position is wrongheaded and stupid.

In any case, this appears to be a Thomas Eagleton moment.

*I spent 4 Years in Juneau growing up, and I always thought of the paper as the Vampire…It was, at least in the 1960s, kind of right wing.

John McCain Picks Dick Cheney in Drag*

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What we know about Sarah Palin, McCain’s VP pick is that she’s less corrupt than you average Alaska Republican. That’s not saying all that much.

She does have a scandal all her own though, specifically that she ordered the head of the Alaska state police to fire her ex-brother-in-law after a messy custody battle with her sister, more details here.

That is Valeria Plame without the national security aspects.

I hope that the Democrats are talking about 24-7 for the next few days, but it’s unlikely.

*Don’t complain. My first thought was, “Dick Cheney with t*ts“, which is even a worse image.†
†Oops….sorry for that image.

Talk Harriet, Talk

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A federal judge has denied a stay on the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena to Harriet Miers.

I still say that they should send out the House sergeant at arms, and take her to the House basement prison cell in handcuffs, and let her sit there until she testifies.

Truth be told, there is a part of me that wouldn’t be averse to water boarding, temperature extremes, stress positions, and sleep deprivation either, but that would be wrong, that’s for sure.

It’s Always Florida Isn’t It?

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Yes, it’s a story from February, but once again, the state of Florida is f$#@ing with the right to vote.

A little-known legal opinion issued days before Florida’s presidential primary has slammed the door on public oversight of the final vote tally in Florida elections.

The closure comes because of questions posed by Sarasota County Election Supervisor Kathy Dent, whose controversial District 13 congressional race drew national scrutiny in 2006.

Attorneys for the Florida Department of State say county election supervisors can eject outside observers from central computer rooms as they receive and add precinct results.

Their ruling hinges on where votes are actually counted, a process that state law requires be open to observers. They contend that “tabulation” occurs at individual precincts and that computers in the central room are merely “accumulating” those results.

What is more, the opinion states, observers and the public can be excluded from watching the local canvassing boards that must certify those vote counts — as long as there is alternative access, such as listening over a speaker system.

Florida: still a banana republic.

And Now Phil “You’re All Whiners” Gramm Will Bankrupt the FDIC

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It appears that Gramm-Leach-Bliley created an instrument called a Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service (CDARS) that allows you to deposit money in a one bank, and the CD is divided across a network, allowing for, “FDIC insurance on deposits of up to $50 million.”

Yet another way that Phill Gramm is a cancer on the body politic and the economic fabric of America.