What has McCain found in Sarah Palin? by Conservative George Will

Washington Post

George Will: What has McCain found in Sarah Palin?

By GEORGE F. WILL

Thursday, Sep. 4, 2008

The word experience appears 91 times in the Federalist Papers, those distillations of conservative sense and sensibility. Madison, Hamilton and Jay said that truths are "taught" and "corroborated" by experience. These writers were eager to "consult" and be "led" by experience. They spoke of "indubitable" and "unequivocal" lessons from experience, the "testimony" of experience and "the accumulated experience of ages."

"Accumulating" experience is "the parent of wisdom" and a "guide" that "justifies," "confirms" and can "admonish." America's founders were empiricists and students of history who trusted "that best oracle of wisdom, experience," which is humanity's "least fallible guide."
George F. Will Logo

A telling touch, that "least fallible." The founders represented the sober side of the enlightenment. They knew, as conservatives do, that all guides are fallible. Hence conservatism's inclination to discern prescriptions in traditions, which are mankind's slow adjustments to the accretion of experiences.

So, Sarah Palin. The man who would be the oldest to embark on a first presidential term has chosen as his possible successor a person of negligible experience.

Any cook can run the state, said Lenin, who was wrong about that, too.

America's gentle populists and other sentimental egalitarians postulate that wisdom is easily acquired and hence broadly diffused; therefore, anyone with a good heart can deliver good government, which is whatever the public desires. "The people of Nebraska," said the archetypal populist William Jennings Bryan, "are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later."

Sen. John McCain's opponent is by far the least experienced person to receive a presidential nomination in the 75 years since the federal government became a comprehensively intrusive regulatory state and modern weaponry annihilated the protection the nation derived from time and distance. Which is why McCain's case for his candidacy could, until last Friday, be distilled into two words: Experience matters.

McCain, who at 72, is 22 years older than Alaskan statehood, is 27 years and six months older than his running mate, who was 8 when Joe Biden was elected to the Senate. But in 1856, James Buchanan, 65, was 29 years and eight months older than his running mate, John Breckinridge, who was 35. Buchanan could run with that stripling because Buchanan was the most qualified person to run for President, before or since.

At least he was if varied experience in high offices fully defines who is "qualified." But it does not. Buchanan had been a five-term congressman, then ambassador to Russia, then a two-term senator, then secretary of state, then ambassador to Britain. Buchanan then became, perhaps, the worst President.

Clearly, experience is not sufficient to prove a person "qualified" for the presidency. But it is a necessary component of qualification.

So are two other attributes. One is character. Richard Nixon was qualified by his experience as congressman, senator and vice president, but disqualified by character. The second is a braided mental rope of constitutional sense and political common sense.

In his Denver speech, Barack Obama derided the "discredited Republican philosophy" that he caricatured in four words -- "you're on your own." Then he promised to "keep ... our toys safe." Among the four candidates for national office, perhaps only Palin might give a Madisonian answer -- one cognizant of the idea that the federal government's powers are limited because they are enumerated -- if asked to identify any provision of the Constitution, other than the First Amendment, that imposes meaningful limits on congressional or executive authority to act.

If so, she would be a good influence on Washington, including McCain. But is there any evidence that she has thought about such matters? McCain's selection of her is applied McCainism -- a visceral judgment by one who is confidently righteous. But the viscera are not the seat of wisdom.

In 1912, McCain's Arizona became the 48th state. In 1959, Palin's Alaska became the 49th. Western conservatism has the libertarian cast of a region still steeped in an individualism natural to the frontier's spaciousness. But American conservatism depends on what it calls "fusion," the collaboration of libertarians and social conservatives concerned that liberty unleavened by restraints creates a licentious culture. Palin supposedly is fusion in one person.

Many cultural conservatives, who are much of the GOP's base, consider McCain's adherence to their persuasion perfunctory. By his selection of Palin, he got the enthusiasm of the base. But what has he got in Palin? In coming days, he and we will learn from a stern teacher, experience.

George Will's e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Sarah Palin Voodoo video (short version)

Paulson and the end of Posse Comtatus

This week the Bush appointed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sat before the United States Congress and asked for a "line of credit" to keep the country from falling deeper into a recession (the same recession that up until about a week ago BushCo denied we were in). To me, he looked like the proverbial rich kid who spent all of his hefty allowance, wrecked the family car and is now asking dad to give him the credit card. I think he should be grounded and sent to his room.

This crisis was in part created by the former Goldman Sachs-CEO. In his last report at Goldman Sachs, Paulson received a compensation package of $38 million.

Also yesterday, John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said he is "suspending" his campaign in order to focus on the economic crisis. Apparently, doing more than one thing at a time is too taxing for the elder statesman. Yet I see a deeper and much more sinister game plan starting to take shape. There will be no presidential debates, and ultimately no election all based on this man-made disaster called the failing economy. Rumours have circulated also, that if Obama is not elected the Bush Administration foresees rampant public outrage. There will be chaos and fighting in the streets. Therefore, we come to the next news item.

You tell me, do these disparate factors have anything in common?

The end of Posse Comitatus preventing U.S. Army operations inside the United States.

Read the Army Times article here

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

The command is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., but the soldiers with 1st BCT, who returned in April after 15 months in Iraq, will operate out of their home post at Fort Stewart, Ga., where they’ll be able to go to school, spend time with their families and train for their new homeland mission as well as the counterinsurgency mission in the war zones.

Stop-loss will not be in effect, so soldiers will be able to leave the Army or move to new assignments during the mission, and the operational tempo will be variable.

Don’t look for any extra time off, though. The at-home mission does not take the place of scheduled combat-zone deployments and will take place during the so-called dwell time a unit gets to reset and regenerate after a deployment.

The 1st of the 3rd is still scheduled to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan in early 2010, which means the soldiers will have been home a minimum of 20 months by the time they ship out.

In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds.”

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).

“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones.”

While soldiers’ combat training is applicable, he said, some nuances don’t apply.

“If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it’s kind of a different role,” said Cloutier, who, as the division operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.

Some brigade elements will be on call around the clock, during which time they’ll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other deployment training. That’s because the unit will continue to train and reset for the next deployment, even as it serves in its CCMRF mission.

Should personnel be needed at an earthquake in California, for example, all or part of the brigade could be scrambled there, depending on the extent of the need and the specialties involved.
Other branches included

The active Army’s new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD response package.

Active-duty soldiers will be part of a force that includes elements from other military branches and dedicated National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams.

A final mission rehearsal exercise is scheduled for mid-September at Fort Stewart and will be run by Joint Task Force Civil Support, a unit based out of Fort Monroe, Va., that will coordinate and evaluate the interservice event.

In addition to 1st BCT, other Army units will take part in the two-week training exercise, including elements of the 1st Medical Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C.

There also will be Air Force engineer and medical units, the Marine Corps Chemical, Biological Initial Reaction Force, a Navy weather team and members of the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

One of the things Vogler said they’ll be looking at is communications capabilities between the services.

“It is a concern, and we’re trying to check that and one of the ways we do that is by having these sorts of exercises. Leading up to this, we are going to rehearse and set up some of the communications systems to make sure we have interoperability,” he said.

“I don’t know what America’s overall plan is — I just know that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are standing by to come and help if they’re called,” Cloutier said. “It makes me feel good as an American to know that my country has dedicated a force to come in and help the people at home.”

Read it and weep

700 billion fluffy nothings
Staggering bailouts? Body counts? Global warming stats? They're just numbers, silly

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Relax, people, it's just a number.

It's just a bunch of zeroes. It's merely 700,000,000,000, and if you look closely and blur your eyes just right and then hit yourself in the face with a brick, you'll soon see that each and every one of those cute little circles is filled with goodness and candy and the sweet sighs of puppies and pie.

Really, what could such a ginormous number possibly mean to everyday hard-workin' plebes like you and me? What does all that wild speculation about imminent recessions and the total collapse of the U.S. economy and "the end of Wall Street" actually mean for us all on a day-to-day basis? In a word, nothing. In five more: happy safe terrorist-free nothing. After all, "the fundamentals of our economy are sound." And besides, we're all just "a nation of whiners." There now. Better?

Don't you already know? If eight miserable years of Bush have taught us anything, it's that numbers like these don't actually mean anything, or have any real effect or significance, be they astronomical bailouts, soldier body counts, the costs of a lost war, evidence of global warming, insane oil profits, you name it.

This is what you must remember: When you see all kinds of frightening data flit across the screen, when you hear all sorts of dour forecasts and prognostications and when you're hammered by endlessly grim pie charts and downward-pointing arrows and scowling rich white men sitting before congressional panels, well, just remember you are simply in the realm of the gods, that the swirl of terrifying numbers is merely how they rearrange the furniture up there on Mount Olympus.

In other words, it has absolutely nothing to do with your hopes and dreams or future tax bills or the price of a double latte at Dunkin' Donuts. OK, it actually does -- disastrously so -- but it's best not to think about it too much. Fair enough?

I know, it's tough not to feel a little shaken, unnerved, openly disgusted. A $700 billion bailout of a Bush-gutted economy by an already nearly bankrupt U.S. Treasury? Two trillion for a failed war in Iraq? Ten trillion in national debt and a $480 billion budget deficit (not counting the $700B for the bailout and it could be much more) and a record trade deficit, with all those numbers nearly double (if not far more) of what they were in 2001? Why, you'd almost think someone -- or maybe an entire administration, perhaps the most irresponsible in modern U.S. history -- was largely to blame. But they're not! Because they're just numbers!

Like these: 47 million Americans without health insurance (up 30 percent from eight years ago). The U.S. dollar now worth roughly half of its 2001 value. More than 150 signing statements challenging over 1,100 provisions of federal law from a president who could give a flying constitutional crap for legal precedent. Oh, and yes: 4,170 dead U.S. soldiers (so far), 100,000 brain damaged and wounded, and tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians. But again, who's counting? Not Bush or McCain, that's for sure. So why should you?

Remember this, citizen: Numbers are intangibles, totally inconsequential, wispy insubstantial things to be fawned over by liberal scientists and math geeks and tax accountants and people who care about, you know, stuff. As such, when those numbers turn really dark and frightening and dangerous to the stability of your job and your life and your future, well, we can't really hold anyone accountable.

Certainly not Bush and his cronies, who've handed every tax break, gutted old law, nefarious new law and contorted FDA/EPA regulation over to Big Energy and the military suppliers and the same cretinous Wall Street players who mangled your money in the first place. Certainly not crusty, untouchable Alan Greenspan, now deemed to be the master architect of this collapse, whom John McCain once worshipped like a god.

And certainly not those greedy Wall Street cretins themselves, many of whom knowingly manipulated a flawed system and floated trillions in worthless paper so as to better make their boat payments. Who cares if that paper had little pictures of your kids' futures on them? Personal note from Wall Street bankers: F--k you for caring.

(By the way, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested, it's probably best not to threaten all those Wall Street CEOs and upper-tier execs with yanking their multimillion-dollar golden parachutes, because they might balk and choose not to participate in the riskiest bailout in U.S. history. Don't forget the golden rule, abused citizen: The gods always win.)

Wait, what the hell do you think you're doing, staring in justifiable panic as your stock portfolio and your 401K and your nice, sturdy bank's own valuation shudder and slip by 10, 20, 40 percent in the space of a week, or maybe collapses altogether? What are you doing, suddenly discovering your home is worth a fraction of what it was or that you can't really afford to send your kids to college anymore or that you can't get a loan for your small business and your credit rating is suddenly meaningless? Get away from the screen, citizen. Remember: It's just numbers. This isn't about you, whiner.

Here's a fun number: Nearly $40 billion in profit for Exxon in 2006, the biggest of any U.S. company, ever. By the way, the price of a barrel of oil just jumped its highest amount in history -- $25 in a single day -- thanks to all the violent instability in the U.S. market. Turns out, given the bizarre machinations of How It's All Set Up, the energy markets are loving this meltdown, and Bush's oil cronies (among others) are getting richer than ever. Go figure.

It just keeps going. The Dow, for the first time in history, moved more than 350 points four days in a row. The value of the U.S. dollar just sank even lower, which now means a cup of coffee in Paris will cost the average American about $147. And what about the $600 billion Congress is about to rubber-stamp for Pentagon spending and Homeland Security? Best not to think about it. They pray you don't.

Here's an idea: Maybe we can force all the oil companies to bail out the U.S. economy, given how, thanks to Bush administration's unchecked rapaciousness and Dick Cheney's oily sneer, their total profits for this year will likely outstrip the combined value of the "war" on drugs, terrorism, God, country, megachurch DVDs, and your children's children's future. You think?

I know, it's all a bit confusing for the everyday plebe, all these massive sums and baffling lexicons of financial jargon and sullen overlords of finance and government slapping each other around like nervous children. Best you don't pay too much attention. Best you don't ponder too deeply much how all those numbers intertwine and feed into and off of each other.

And best you don't contemplate the biggest number of all, the one that sums up the overall odds that you, the average wary Bush-ravaged tax-paying American, will emerge largely unscathed from this historic debacle.

That number? Oh, about one in a million.

Presidential Candidate John McCain's Nightmare Just Began

Jukebox John keeps changing his tune

Flips Flops

It’s obvious that the McCain campaign and the RNC have decided to go after Barack Obama as a flip-flopper. What’s equally obvious, though, that Republicans couldn’t have chosen a worse narrative.

McCain & Co. seemed to stumble on this line of attack almost by accident. They’d experimented with a variety of memes in recent months, none of which had any real salience. The right settled on “flip-flopper,” in large part because it’s the closest available, already-written Republican narrative, and in part because McCain staffers haven’t been able to think of anything else.

The irony, of course, is that the McCain campaign couldn’t have picked a more hypocritical line of attack. Below you’ll find a comprehensive list of reversals from the Republican nominee, numbered and organized by category for easier reference.

Remember, McCain recently said, “This election is about trust and trusting people’s word.” Just a few days prior, the McCain campaign admonished Obama for trying to “have it both ways” on issues.

I should note that there’s nothing offensive about a political figure changing his or her mind once in a while. Policy makers come to one conclusion, they gain more information, and then they reach a different conclusion. That is, to be sure, a good thing — it reflects a politician with an open mind and a healthy intellectual curiosity. Better to have a leader who changes his or her mind based on new information than one who stubbornly sticks to outmoded policy positions, regardless of facts or circumstances.

So why do McCain’s flip-flops matter? Because all available evidence suggests his reversals aren’t sincere, they’re cynically calculated for political gain. This isn’t indicative of an open mind; it’s actually indicative of a character flaw. And given the premise of McCain’s presidential campaign, it’s an area in desperate need of scrutiny.

The perception people have of McCain is outdated, reflective of a man who no longer has any use for his previous persona. What’s wrong with a politician who changes his or her views? Nothing in particular, but when a politician changes his views so much that he has an entirely different worldview, is it unreasonable to wonder whether it’s entirely sincere? Especially when there’s no other apparent explanation for six dozen significant reversals?

McCain has been in Congress for more than a quarter-century; he’s bound to shift now and then on various controversies. But therein lies the point — McCain was consistent on most of these issues, right up until he started running for president, at which point he conveniently abandoned literally dozens of positions he used to hold. The problem isn’t just the incessant flip-flops — though that’s part of it — it’s more about the shameless pandering and hollow convictions behind the incessant flip-flops. That the media still perceives McCain as some kind of “straight talker” who refuses to sway with the political winds makes this all the more glaring.

Here’s the list.

National Security Policy

1. McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.

2. McCain insisted that everyone, even “terrible killers,” “the worst kind of scum of humanity,” and detainees at Guantanamo Bay, “deserve to have some adjudication of their cases,” even if that means “releasing some of them.” McCain now believes the opposite.

3. He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

4. In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.

5. McCain was for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay before he was against it.

6. When Barack Obama talked about going after terrorists in Pakistani mountains with predators, McCain criticized him for it. He’s since come to the opposite conclusion.

Foreign Policy

7. McCain was for kicking Russia out of the G8 before he was against it. Now, he’s for it again.

8. McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.

9. McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.

10. McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.

11. McCain is both for and against a “rogue state rollback” as a focus of his foreign policy vision.

12. McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.

13. McCain was against divestment from South Africa before he was for it.

Military Policy

14. McCain recently claimed that he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as “a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.” In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”

15. McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions, concluding, on multiple occasions, that a Korea-like presence is both a good and a bad idea.

16. McCain was against additional U.S. forces in Afghanistan before he was for it.

17. McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”

18. McCain has repeatedly said it’s a dangerous mistake to tell the “enemy” when U.S. troops would be out of Iraq. In May, McCain announced that most American troops would be home from Iraq by 2013.

19. McCain was against expanding the GI Bill before he was for it.

20. McCain staunchly opposed Obama’s Iraq withdrawal timetable, and even blasted Mitt Romney for having referenced the word during the GOP primaries. In July, after Iraqi officials endorsed Obama’s policy, McCain said a 16-month calendar sounds like “a pretty good timetable.”

Domestic Policy

21. McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)

22. On Social Security, McCain said he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Soon after, asked about a possible increase in the payroll tax, McCain said there’s “nothing that’s off the table.”

23. McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.

24. McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.

25. He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.

26. In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.

27. McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.

28. McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.” His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.

29. McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.

30. McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.

31. McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.

32. McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.

33. In 2005, McCain endorsed intelligent design creationism, a year later he said the opposite, and a few months after that, he was both for and against creationism at the same time.

34. And on gay adoption, McCain initially said he’d rather let orphans go without families, then his campaign reversed course, and soon after, McCain reversed back.

35. In the Senate, McCain opposed a variety of measures on equal pay for women, and endorsed the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision. In July, however, McCain said, “I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work. That … is my record and you can count on it.”

36. McCain was against fully funding the No Child Left Behind Act before he was for it.

37. McCain was for affirmative action before he was against it.

38. McCain said the Colorado River compact will “obviously” need to be “renegotiated.” Six days later, McCain said, “Let me be clear that I do not advocate renegotiation of the compact.”

Economic Policy

39. McCain was against Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy before he was for them.

40. John McCain initially argued that economics is not an area of expertise for him, saying, “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues; I still need to be educated,” and “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” He now falsely denies ever having made these remarks and insists that he has a “very strong” understanding of economics.

41. McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal. And soon after that, McCain abandoned his second position and went back to his first.

42. McCain said in 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and falsely argued that he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.

43. McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.

44. McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a “‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”

45. McCain has changed his entire economic worldview on multiple occasions.

46. McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off economically than they were before Bush took office.

47. McCain was against massive government bailouts of “big banks” that “act irresponsibly.” He then announced his support for a massive government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Energy Policy

48. McCain supported the moratorium on coastal drilling ; now he’s against it.

49. McCain recently announced his strong opposition to a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.

50. McCain endorsed a cap-and-trade policy with a mandatory emissions cap. In mid-June, McCain announced he wants the caps to voluntary.

51. McCain explained his belief that a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would provide an immediate economic stimulus. Shortly thereafter, he argued the exact opposite.

52. McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.

53. McCain was for national auto emissions standards before he was against them.

Immigration Policy

54. McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. In 2007, he announced his opposition to the bill. In 2008, McCain switched back.

55. On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own bill.

56. In April, McCain promised voters that he would secure the borders “before proceeding to other reform measures.” Two months later, he abandoned his public pledge, pretended that he’d never made the promise in the first place, and vowed that a comprehensive immigration reform policy has always been, and would always be, his “top priority.”

Judicial Policy and the Rule of Law

57. McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.

58. McCain’s position was that the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.

59. McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.

60. In June, McCain rejected the idea of a trial for Osama bin Laden, and thought Obama’s reference to Nuremberg was a misread of history. A month later, McCain argued the exact opposite position.

61. In June, McCain described the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush was “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” In August, he reversed course.

Campaign, Ethics, and Lobbying Reform

62. McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.

63. In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.

64. McCain supported a campaign-finance bill, which bore his name, on strengthening the public-financing system. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.

65. In May 2008, McCain approved a ban on lobbyists working for his campaign. In July 2008, his campaign reversed course and said lobbyists could work for his campaign.

Politics and Associations

66. McCain wanted political support from radical televangelist John Hagee. Now he doesn’t. (He also believes his endorsement from Hagee was both a good and bad idea.)

67. McCain wanted political support from radical televangelist Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.

68. McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.

69. McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.

70. McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.

71. In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.

72. McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.

73. McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.

74. McCain believed powerful right-wing activist/lobbyist Grover Norquist was “corrupt, a shill for dictators, and (with just a dose of sarcasm) Jack Abramoff’s gay lover.” McCain now considers Norquist a key political ally.

75. McCain was for presidential candidates giving speeches in foreign countries before he was against it.

76. McCain has been both for and against considering a pro-choice running mate for the Republican presidential ticket.

If and when you learn of a reversal that has not yet made the list, I hope you’ll let me know.

Obama vs. McCain on taxes

by: Joe Bodell
Mon Sep 22, 2008 at 07:30:00 AM CDT

The Washington Post created a great graphic recently comparing the tax plans of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain -- and the differences are stark:



There are a few pieces of information worth calling out here -- one is that the bottom three brackets comprise 60% of the taxpaying population. The other is that McCain's plan looks a whole heck of a lot like the tax cuts that George Bush pushed through in 2001 to questionable effect (how's that deficit doing, fellas?) while Obama's plan restores some of the balance in tax payment between rich and poor that existed before the start of the millenium.

Shorter version: one need not believe the spin to recognize that John McCain is more of the same while Obama represents change. Just look at the damned numbers.

Who's the elitest?

Ninja Cat

In his own words

Thanks....but no thanks.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day

John McCain Debates Himself on Supporting Bush

GOP senator: A 'stretch' to say Palin is qualified

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/hagel_palin

WASHINGTON - Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said his party's vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, lacks foreign policy experience and called it a "stretch" to say she's qualified to be president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

Could Palin lead the country if GOP presidential nominee John McCain could not?

"I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States," Hagel said.

McCain and other Republicans have defended Palin's qualifications, citing Alaska's proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

Hagel took issue with that argument. "I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

Hagel, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In July, Hagel traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Though he didn't expect to be asked, Hagel had said he would have considered serving as Obama's running mate.

Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 6,500, before becoming Alaska's governor in December 2006.

Palin visited soldiers in Kuwait and Germany last year and said in an interview with ABC News that her only other foreign travel had been to Mexico and Canada. She also said she had never met a foreign head of state.

Hagel told the newspaper that other governors have been elected to serve in the White House without experience in Washington. He said judgment and character were also important for the job.

"But I do think in a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world," Hagel said. "I think that's just a requirement."

Six women's rights groups endorse Barack Obama

Associated Press • September 17, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Women's rights groups endorsed U.S. Sen.Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president Tuesday, asserting the historic selection of a female Republican vice-presidential candidate does not make up for U.S. Sen. John McCain's lack of support on issues important to women.

"We don't think it's much to break a glass ceiling for one woman and leave millions of women behind," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Smeal was among leaders from six organizations that announced their endorsement of Obama at a news conference.

Obama also won the support of the National Organization for Women, which said it has not endorsed a candidate for president since Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro shared the Democratic ticket in 1984.

Gary Hart on Palin

Barack Obama, Plain-Talking Populist

by Jason Horowitz, New York Observer

15 September 2008

PUEBLO, Colo.—Barack Obama is definitely taking the be-more-aggressive directive to heart.

Picking up where he left off hours earlier, Obama told a 13,000-person crowd in Pueblo that the party of John McCain had failed to prevent the crisis roiling Wall Street.

After again forcibly characterizing McCain as out of touch with regular Americans and the difficulties that face them – especially when it comes to securing fundamental economic needs such as jobs that pay the bills, savings for retirement and housing – Obama went after McCain’s remarks today that the economy remained fundamentally sound despite the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merrill Lynch.

“Now, a few hours later after he said this, a few hours ago, John McCain’s campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks because they thought well maybe that’s not going to work out too well,” said Obama, smiling. “He explained that what he really meant, what he really meant to say was that American workers are strong.”

“Now come on, Senator McCain,” Obama said mockingly. “We know you meant what you said the first time because you’ve said it before. You said it just a few weeks ago. And your chief economic adviser – the man who wrote your economic plan – said that we are in a ‘mental recession;’ that this is all in our heads; that we’re a nation of whiners. That’s what he called you a nation of whiners.”

He added, “Now don’t get me wrong, don’t get me wrong– when Senator McCain says that American workers are the backbone of our economy, and that they aren’t getting a fair shake from Washington, he’ll get no argument from me. In fact, my attitude is that it’s about time that he figured that out. Because I’ve been making that case for nineteen months.”

He then congratulated McCain on his new recognition of American workers.

“I think it’s good that Senator McCain is celebrating the American worker today. But it would have been nice if over the last twenty-six years that he has been in Washington that he actually stood up for them once in a while. It would’ve been nice if he didn’t vote against the minimum wage nineteen times; or if he didn’t vote to privatize Social Security and hand it over to Wall Street. It would’ve been nice if he had opposed the tax cuts for corporations that have shipped jobs overseas, or the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate tax giveaways that have helped plunge our country into crippling debt. It would be nice if he had a plan to lower the health care costs of American workers – or get them any health care whatsoever; and would have been nice if he had championed a single plan to make college more affordable.”

The crowd erupted.

“Senator McCain,” Obama continued, “You can’t run away from your words and you can’t run away from your record. When it comes to this economy, you’ve stood firmly with George Bush and a failed economic theory, and what you’re offering the American people is more of the same. And that’s why we can’t afford John McCain because this country can’t afford another four years of failed philosophy.”

Damon Speaks of Palin

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean"

Frightened Whispers

"So Sambo beat the bitch!" ~Sarah Palin

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean"

September 5, 2008
by Charley James

"So Sambo beat the bitch!"

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat's primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

"It was kind of disgusting," Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the "lower 48" about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, "But that's just Alaska."

Racial and ethnic slurs may be "just Alaska" and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N'-Fetch-It, "darkie musical" swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska's Aboriginal people as "Arctic Arabs" – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful "mukluks" along with the totally unimaginative "f**king Eskimo's," according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We're talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it's in their genetic code. So much for McCain's pledge of a "high road" campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk
It's not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that "all circuits are busy" or numbers just wouldn't ring. I should think a state that's been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.

On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they're afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.

"The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here," an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. "It's corrupt and arrogant. They're all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to."

"Once Palin became mayor," he continued, "She became part of that inner circle."

Like most other people interviewed, he didn't want his name used out of fear of retribution. Maybe it's the long winter nights where you don't see the sun for months that makes people feel as if they're under constant danger from "the authorities." As I interviewed residents it began sounding as if living in Alaska controlled by the state Republican Party is like living in the old Soviet Union: See nothing that's happening, say nothing offensive, and the political commissars leave you alone. But speak out and you get disappeared into a gulag north of the Arctic Circle for who-knows-how-long.

Alright, that's an exaggeration brought on by my getting too little sleep and building too much anger as I worked this article. But there's ample evidence of Palin's vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.

Ironically, Palin was pushed into hiring the administrator by the party poobahs who helped get her elected after she got herself into trouble over a number of precipitous firings which gave rise to a recall campaign.

"People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day," states Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record, for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail letter about Palin that was verified and printed by The Nation.

For good measure, Palin booted the Wasilla police chief from office because, she told a local newspaper, he "intimidated" her.

Running on Extreme Fringe Evangelical Views
Sarah Palin drew early attention from state GOP apparatchiks when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her extreme fringe evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans tossed some money behind her campaign.

Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be anything but.

"She's doesn't like different opinions and she refuses to compromise," Kilkenny notes. "When she was mayor, she fought ideas that weren't hers. Worse, ideas weren't evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them."

Sound familiar? Palin may well be Dick Cheney's reincarnate.

Something else has a familiar Republican ring to it: Her tax policies, and a "refund surpluses but borrow for the future" attitude.

According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as Juneau, Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually benefited large corporate property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny insists that many Wasilla home owners actually saw their tax bill skyrocket to make up for the shortfall. Two other Wasillian's with whom I spoke said property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin regime.

To an outsider, it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with $22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor – especially since nothing was spent on things such as improving the city's infrastructure or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend the taxpayer's money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?

For starters, she remodelled her office. Several times over, as a matter of fact.

Then Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next, Sarah doled out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is still in litigation and lawyer fees are said to be close to at least half of the original estimated price of the facility.

She also worked hard to get voters approval of a $5.5 million bond proposal for roads that could have been built without borrowing. Anchorage may not be the center of the financial universe but, like good Republicans everywhere, Sarah Palin knows how to please Alaskan bankers and bond dealers.

For good measure, she turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.

Sarah Barracuda
En route to the governor's igloo, Palin managed to land what Anne Kilkenny says is the plumb political appointment in the state: Chair of Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC), a $122,400 per year patronage slot with no real authority to do anything other than hold meetings. She took the job despite having no background in energy issues and, as it turned out, not liking the work.

"She hated the job," an OGCC staff member who is not authorized to speak with the news media told me. "She hated the hours and she hated what little work there was to do. But she couldn't figure out a way to get out of the thing without offending Gov. Murkowski" and the state Republican Party regulars, some of whom were pissed off they didn't get appointed.

But ever the opportunist, Palin quickly concocted a way. First, she waged a campaign with the local news media claiming that the position was overpaid and should be abolished – despite the fact that she lobbied Murkowski hard to get it. Then, mounting what she saw as a white horse, Palin raised a cloud of dust by resigning from the OGCC and riding away with an undeserved reputation as a "reformer."

But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.

"She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids," said the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. "I heard she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it's nothing like you can imagine until she turns it on you."

Not surprising since some of her high school classmates still openly call her "Sarah Barracuda," Kilkenny insists.

Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get herself elected running under the false flag of a "reformer."

And what did she bring to the job? No legislative experience other than a city council of a village of 5,000 people, which is smaller than some high schools in Chicago. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; after all, she needed to hire a city administrator to run Wasilla. No executive experience, except for almost being recalled as mayor. A philosophy of setting public policy based on one word: No.

And what has she done since winning the job?

According to Kilkenny, nothing. Well, nothing other than suggesting the state's multi-multi-million dollar, oil-generated surplus be distributed to residents and finance future state needs by borrowing money. Gee, doesn't that sound precisely what George Bush did with the surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton in 2001 and we all know in what great shape Bush's economic policies left the nation.

It may explain why, when asked by reporters, including me, what she thought about Palin being picked to be McCain's running mate, her mother-in-law replied with a sardonic, "What has Sarah done to qualify her to be vice president?" Of course, when the woman – said by many I spoke with to be well-respected in Wasilla – was running to succeed Palin as mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her, so that may explain the family tension.

As Governor, Palin gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, according to the chair of a legislative committee. But then she staged a huge grandstand play of line-item vetoing countless projects, calling them pork. "They were restored because of public outcry and legislative action," the aide said. "She vetoed them mostly because she had no idea what they were or why they were important."

But it was enough to get the McCain, who is mostly unobservant of the world around him anyway, to think Palin has a reputation as being "anti-pork".

In fact, Juneau observers note that Palin kept her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork ladled out by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be politically unwise to keep supporting it, these same insiders assert. Then, Palin fell back on her old habits and publicly humiliated him for pork-barrel politics.

As for being "ready on day one" to be commander in chief, despite the repeated public claims she's made, the Alaska National Guard commander said that, "she has made no command decisions, other than sending some troops to help fight a few brush fires and march in parades at county fairs."

"Sambo Beat the Bitch"
"Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole," someone who thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin's tenure in Alaska state and local politics.

"She's a bigot, a racist, and a liar," is the more blunt assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is now a businessman in Idaho.

charley-james.jpg"Juneau is a small town; everybody knows everyone else," he adds. "These stories about what she calls blacks and Eskimos, well, anyone not white and good looking actually, were around long before she became a glint in John McCain's rheumy eyes. Why do I know they're true? Because everyone who isn't aboriginal or Indian in Alaska talks that way."

"Sambo beat the bitch" may be everyday language up in the bush. Whether it – and the outlook, politics and worldview Palin reflects when she says such things in public – should be part of a presidential campaign is another thing altogether. The comment says as much about McCain as it does about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements (as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain.

Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin

Note: Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill Drill Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate

American Idol

BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic

I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!

My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to "study" global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. The returns are convincing enough that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in agreement.

I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when referring to "people who go to the Ivy League." When I was a teen I dreamed of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me, "Boy, we don't have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in Urbana and can go to the University of Illinois right here in town." So I did, very happily. Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions the "elite" Ivy League, she sure did attend the heck out of college.

Five different schools in six years. What was that about?

And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My dad had died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at the local newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter flight to Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm, started in London, even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of Rome. A few years later, I was able to send my mom, along with the $15 a Day book.

You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You need curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person (who has the money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of the country once, on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal with global issues.

But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa, South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She didn't go to Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who haven't seen London, but most of them would probably love to, if they had the dough. And they'd be proud if one of their kids won a scholarship to Harvard.

I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic in November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.

Lies over Palin visit to Iraq

Lies

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The question of whether Sarah Palin has ever been to Iraq pushed Obama aides Saturday to accuse the McCain campaign of outright lies, distortions and distractions to the American people.
ADVERTISEMENT

Since Republican presidential nominee John McCain tapped the Alaska governor to be his running mate on Aug. 29, questions about her experience have been fueled by her relatively brief tenure in office, as well as a dearth of foreign travel.

Palin made a well-documented trip to Kuwait and Germany last year to visit U.S. troops, and over time, the governor and her staff have revealed she also visited Canada and Mexico. Meanwhile, her aides clarified that a purported visit to Ireland was little more than a refueling stop during her trip to the Middle East.

On Saturday, a Palin aide told The Associated Press the governor also traveled one-quarter mile into Iraq during her July 2007 trip to participate in a re-enlistment ceremony for a member of the Alaska National Guard. Palin did not mention the excursion when asked about her foreign travels last week during a two-part ABC News interview because the bulk of her trip was elsewhere, said spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.

That answer appears to contradict one provided to The Boston Globe, which reported Saturday that McCain-Palin aides had twice revised their description of Palin's visit to Iraq.

The newspaper said unnamed aides initially explained that Palin had visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The Globe said campaign aides and members of the Alaska National Guard subsequently explained that she did not venture beyond the Iraq/Kuwait border when she visited the Khabari Alawazem Crossing on July 25, 2007.

Lt. Col. Dave Osborn, commander of the 3d Battalion, 207th Infantry of the Alaska National Guard, who was in charge of the 570 local troops serving in Kuwait and Iraq, said Palin did not cross in Iraq.

"You have to have permission to go into a lot of areas, and (the crossing) is where her permissions were," Osborn told the newspaper during a telephone interview Friday.

But Schmitt said Palin was accompanied by a Pentagon general who oversees National Guard matters.

"According to the general who traveled with her, while she was there she presided over a re-enlistment ceremony of an Alaskan National Guard soldier," the spokeswoman said.

The discrepancy prompted a blistering memorandum to campaign reporters by aides to Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The Illinois senator and his staff have been criticized in some party circles lately for not responding forcefully enough to McCain and Palin since her surprise addition to the Republican ticket.

"Since naming Gov. Palin as their vice presidential nominee, the McCain campaign has distorted, distracted and outright lied to the American people about her record in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that a McCain/Palin administration would be nothing more than a continuation of the failed Bush policies of the last eight years," the memo read.

Among other things, the memo cited the Iraq-visit dispute, as well as Palin's claims to be a fiscal conservative despite significant growth in the Alaska state budget.

Freedom Fighter

Freedom Fighter
Alaskan Independence Party chairwoman Lynette Clark talks about why she doesn't identify herself as an American, and about her kindred spirit Sarah Palin.

By David Talbot

Sep. 10, 2008 | "Country First!" That's the Republican battle cry this presidential season. But don't try selling that slogan to Lynette Clark, chairwoman of the Alaskan Independence Party, whose motto is "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

Clark -- a blunt-spoken, gravel-voiced pioneer in the Alaska independence movement -- spoke with me from her home outside Fairbanks, where she and her husband, Dexter, another veteran Alaskan freedom fighter, work a gold mine claim. Clark was born in Illinois, moving with her family as a child to the Alaska territory in 1951. But, she says, "in my heart and mind, I'm an Alaskan. I don't identify myself as an American."

The Alaskan Independence Party burst into the national spotlight when Clark released a statement reporting that Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, were both members. After the ensuing uproar, Clark issued an apology and correction, declaring that only Todd was an actual member of the AIP. (He belonged from 1995 to 2002.) The McCain campaign put out a statement denying the vice presidential nominee had ever been a member, but it said nothing about Todd Palin. Since then, other AIP members have offered conflicting information about Sarah Palin's affiliation with the party. And earlier this year, as governor, Palin addressed the AIP convention, stating that she shared the party's "vision."

"Keep up the good work," Palin told party members. "And God bless you."

Whether or not Palin herself was an AIP member, Clark makes it clear that the GOP vice presidential candidate is a kindred spirit.

"I've admired Sarah from the first time I met her at the 2006 (AIP) convention," which Palin also addressed, says Clark. "She impressed me so much. She's Alaskan to the bone; she's a damn good gal.

"As I was listening to her, I thought she sounds like what we've been saying for years. I thought to myself, 'My God, she sounds just like Joe Vogler.'"

Vogler was the craggy, fire-breathing secessionist who founded the Alaskan independence movement in the early 1970s. Among the colorful Vogler quotes now in circulation are "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." Then there's "The fires of hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American government." And "The problem with you John Birchers is that you are too damn liberal!"

Vogler ran unsuccessfully for governor three times between 1974 and 1986, on a platform promoting an "Independent Nation of Alaska." By the 1990s, Vogler had built party membership to about 20,000, and the party scored its first major electoral victory when former Republican Governor and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Wally Hickel joined the AIP and won the gubernatorial race.

By then, Vogler was close to achieving one of his major goals: speaking before the United Nations (despite his antipathy toward the international body) on Alaska independence. According to the AIP, Iran had offered to sponsor Vogler's appearance -- which surely would have been an unsettling moment for the United States in the U.N. assembly.

But in May 1993, Vogler disappeared. The following year, his remains were found in a gravel pit east of Fairbanks, wrapped in a blue tarp with duct tape. A convicted thief named Manfred West, who had worked as a campaign volunteer for Vogler, confessed to the crime, telling authorities that he had murdered Vogler in a plastics-explosives deal gone bad.

Lynette Clark doesn't buy the official version of Vogler's death. She calls his murder an "assassination."

"He was executed," she says. And other past and present AIP leaders agree with her. Jack Coghill, who served as Governor Hickel's lieutenant governor, declared that Vogler's murder was "the cleanest takeout" job he had seen.

"I will never believe that Fred West put a bullet in the back of Joe's head all by himself," Clark says. "Fred is a liar, cheat and thief. But he wasn't smart enough to pull it off alone."

Who does Clark believe was behind Vogler's elimination?

"I can only speculate. And I don't want to speculate because I don't want to catch a bullet the same way."

Clark asserts that the timing of Vogler's murder was suspicious, on the eve of his appearance before the United Nations. "The United States government would have been deeply embarrassed. And we can't have that, can we?" she says with a wry laugh.

Clark also points out that an independence movement that aims to wrest control of Alaska's enormous natural resources is bound to threaten powerful corporate interests. "Alaska is an incredibly resource-heavy republic. There are lots of pressures on us."

After Vogler's murder, Clark feared that she could become the next target. She claims that convicted murderer West had a list, with her name under Vogler's. "I left the party for 12 years after Joe's death. But after wrestling with my cowardice, I finally returned to the party in 2006 and became chairman."

Now, says Clark, she carries a loaded gun for self-protection. "A Colt .45, full clip. I call it my little pony."

Despite her affection for Sarah Palin, Clark says she won't be voting for the Republican ticket in November. "She's aligned herself with a man who has campaigned aggressively against allowing Alaska to develop our own resources."

Clark charges that Alaska's vast treasures have been plundered by Washington and its corporate allies. "My mother used to say we should have been kissed first before they did the rest to us."

If Palin is elected, "I can only hope that she doesn't get chewed up and spit out in Washington. The powers that be know how to beat up a gal."

Last October, at a gathering of various anti-U.S. groups in Chattanooga, Tenn., called the Secessionist Convention, Clark's husband, Dexter, expressed hope that Palin's political rise was a positive sign for their independence movement. "Our current governor, who I mentioned at the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected," Dexter, a homespun-looking man in jeans and suspenders and a ZZ Top beard, told the assembly of secessionists. "There's a joke -- she's a pretty good-lookin' gal -- there's a joke around, that we're the coldest state with the hottest governor. And there's a lot of talk about her moving up. She was an AIP member, before she got the job as the mayor of a small town. That was a nonpartisan job. But to get along to go along, she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics ... And she's pretty well sympathetic, because of her former membership."

Dexter Clark added that secessionists should "infiltrate" the two major parties when they could advance their cause this way.

But Lynette Clark makes it clear that she does not believe in working within the American political system. Clark, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, says she once believed in America. But no longer.

"My God, our country's been completely whored out to the highest bidders." We no longer live in a democracy, she says. "We have a partnership between a powerful state and powerful corporate interests. By any other name that's fascism. It certainly isn't a democracy. Mussolini must have a grin as wide as the Yukon River, looking at what the United States has become."

To A Buddha Seated On A Lotus

Lord Buddha, on thy Lotus-throne,
With praying eyes and hands elate,
What mystic rapture dost thou own,
Immutable and ultimate?
What peace, unravished of our ken,
Annihilate from the world of men?

The wind of change for ever blows
Across the tumult of our way,
To-morrow’s unborn griefs depose
The sorrows of our yesterday.
Dream yields to dream, strife follows
strife,
And Death unweaves the webs of Life.

For us the travail and the heat,
The broken secrets of our pride,
The strenuous lessons of defeat,
The flower deferred, the fruit denied;
But not the peace, supremely won,
Lord Buddha, of thy Lotus-throne.

With futile hands we seek to gain
Our inaccessible desire,
Diviner summits to attain,
With faith that sinks and feet that tire;
But nought shall conquer or control
The heavenward hunger of our soul.

The end, elusive and afar,
Still lures us with its beckoning flight,
And all our mortal moments are
A session of the Infinite.
How shall we reach the great, unknown
Nirvana of thy Lotus-throne?

~Sarojini Naidu