Trooper Says Election Delayed Alaska Drug Case December 27, 2008
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Courtesy The Washington Post:
WASILLA, Alaska — The mother of Bristol Palin‘s boyfriend sent text messages discussing drug transactions less than a month after the young woman’s mother, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was nominated as the Republican vice presidential candidate, according to court documents filed this week.
An affidavit from an Alaska state trooper, filed Monday, states that Sherry L. Johnston referred in her messages to two police informants to “coffee” as a code for the drug OxyContin.
Johnston, 42, was arrested on felony drug charges last week after state troopers served a search warrant at her Wasilla home. She allegedly sold OxyContin tablets to the informants on three occasions this fall, the affidavit states. Police said two of the meetings were recorded by a hidden camera and a microphone.
-Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
An Additional $30,000 Spent on Palin Wardrobe, RNC Reports December 5, 2008
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Courtesy Rawstory:
The price of Sarah Palin’s RNC-provided wardrobe is approaching the price of an average American home.
As the price of median US home prices continues to fall, the price of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe continues to rise.
“The Republican National Committee is scheduled to file a campaign report with the Federal Election Commission Thursday disclosing that the committee spent additional funds to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin,” the National Journal reported late Wednesday.
“In October, Politico revealed that the RNC had spent approximately $150,000 on clothing and accessories for Palin and her family after she was selected as Sen. John McCain’s running mate,” the magazine added. “The story provoked a storm of criticism of the Alaska governor, a mother of five and favorite of the conservative wing of the GOP.”
GOP officials wouldn’t provide many details.
-Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Christian Right Regrouping After Obama Win November 10, 2008
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Courtesy Huffington Post:
Pundits declared evangelicals among of Election Day’s losers. Conservative Christian leader James Dobson confessed he was grieving. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said religious right leaders “kept their own flock in line, but the majority of Americans were unmoved.”
But few are writing obituaries this week for the Christian right, which has been wrongly considered dead after setbacks like the demise of the Moral Majority and crumbling of the Christian Coalition.
White evangelicals remain a large, loyal and organized Republican voting bloc that delivered Tuesday for John McCain but could not offset the battery of factors working against Republicans in 2008.
One pressing question in the wake of Barack Obama’s historic victory is whether the Christian right can grow its own ranks or take positions with broader appeal. Some Republicans believe a tight embrace of social conservative values turns off independents and moderates, but many Christian right leaders resist compromise and contend that, if anything, the GOP has strayed too far from its principles.
Once again, conservative evangelicals engaged in politics find themselves at a crossroads.
“Do they want to be an oppositional force, lambasting the administration at every turn, which can help their organizations raise money?” said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University. “Or do they find ways to intersect with new leadership and either try to minimize damage to their agenda or move forward issues where they can find consensus? It’s an important turning point for the movement.”
Exit polls showed McCain carried white evangelicals 74 percent to 24 percent _ not far off George Bush’s 79 percent to 21 percent margin over John Kerry in 2004.
Six in 10 white evangelicals ranked the economy as their most important issue _ slightly less than the voting population as a whole. One difference that emerged was over terrorism: 14 percent of white evangelicals identified that as their top issue, compared with 7 percent of all other voters.
-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.
Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama November 8, 2008
Posted by trouble97018 in Domestic Terrorism, Lies, McCain, News, Obama, Palin.add a comment
Courtesy Telegraph (UK)
The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.
Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: “Why would they try to make people hate us?”
The revelations, contained in a Newsweek history of the campaign, are likely to further damage Mrs Palin’s credentials as a future presidential candidate. She is already a frontrunner, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to take on Mr Obama in four years time.
Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: “Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues.”
Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama’s patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.
Article Continues Sourced Site.
Presidential Campaigns’ Computers Hacked November 6, 2008
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Courtesy Slashdot:
“As the election ends, news is coming out from both campaigns on what happened behind closed doors. During the summer, the Obama campaign had their systems hacked, but so did McCain — and not by each other, but bya third party.
‘… both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: “You have a problem way bigger than what you understand,” an agent told Obama’s team. “You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system.” The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: “You have a real problem … and you have to deal with it.” The Feds told Obama’s aides in late August that the McCain campaign’s computer system had been similarly compromised.'”Also from the article:“Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps’ policy positions — information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration.”
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
A scary Halloween with Sarah Palin November 1, 2008
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Courtesy Salon:
Nov. 1, 2008 | YORK, Pa. — On Halloween in central Pennsylvania, fear wasn’t just in the air, it was along the highway. “A vote for Obama is a vote for Socialism,” read a big sign alongside Route 22, about 18 miles outside of York, Pa., where Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was making a stop on Friday afternoon.
After her monster rally in Williamsport, Pa., on Thursday evening, Palin spent All Hallow’s Eve on a mini bus tour of the Keystone State, another expenditure of valuable pre-election days that suggests that Palin is convinced they can steal the state from the Democrats. On Friday, Palin spoke before a crowd that had started lining up at 11 a.m. at the York Expo Center to hear Palin scare the bejesus out of them. Though definitely not the Jesus.
Former Gov. Tom Ridge, who recently stated the obvious, that “the dynamics would be different in Pennsylvania” if he’d been tapped as McCain’s running mate instead of Palin, had the task of introducing the Alaska governor to about 4,000 of her rabid fans, many of them sporting “Joe” stickers meant to bolster John McCain’s recent assertions that we — or they — “are all Joe the Plumber.” Sarah and Todd Palin, along with youngest daughter Piper (dressed for Halloween as a snow princess), took the stage to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Article with Video, continues @ Sourced Site.
Sarah Palin speaks on the First Amendment November 1, 2008
Posted by trouble97018 in '08 Election, Free Speech, Obama, Opinion, Palin, Politics.add a comment
Courtesy Glenn Greenwald
Somehow, in Sarah Palin’s brain, it’s a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama. This is actually so dumb that it hurts:
In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by “attacks” from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”
Maureen Dowd recently made an equally stupid comment when she complained that her First Amendment rights were being violated by the McCain campaign’s refusal to allow her on their campaign plane.
The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether you’re free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don’t like what you’ve said.
If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.
This isn’t only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it’s inherently unfair when they’re criticized. And now, apparently, it’s even unconstitutional.
According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be “attacked” in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathtaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?
UPDATE: The Constitution also guarantees freedom of association. Thus, by Palin’s “reasoning,” when newspapers — or Palin herself — criticize Obama for his associations, they’re threatening his constitutional rights.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Palin’s 2012 talk leaves McCain aide speechless October 30, 2008
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Courtesy Rawstory
Vice presidential contender Sarah Palin told ABC in an interview to air Thursday that she’s not going to leave national politics if she doesn’t enter the White House in January, fueling speculation that she’s considering running for President in 2012.
“I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we’ve taken…I’m not doin’ this for naught,” Palin told ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas on being asked.
CNN’s Dana Bash told cohort Wolf Blitzer that a senior McCain advisor was rendered “speechless” by Palin’s comment. “There was a long pause, and then I just heard a ‘Huh.’ on the other end of the phone. I mean, this is certainly not a surprise to anybody who has watched Sarah Palin that she is interested in potentially…a future national run. Certainly she is being urged to by a lot of people inside the Republican Party if they do lose.”
Article with Video Continued @ Sourced Site.
The Vote Grab: Voter purge could swing result to McCain October 29, 2008
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Courtesy The Independent (UK)
Around 13 million US voters have been purged from the electoral rolls since 2004. That’s 10 per cent of the 120 million votes cast in 2004 and twice as many voters as have been added through recent massive voter registration drives.
The proportion of electors dropped from the voters’ lists is staggering: 17 per cent in Colorado, 15 per cent in Washington State, 14 per cent in New York, 13 per cent in Nevada and 10 per cent in Missouri.
This means that millions of Americans will not be allowed to vote on 4 November. It could cost Barack Obama the White House, even if he is ahead in the opinion polls on 4 November.
This sensational claim is confirmed by the New York Times (NYT). Its researchers have found that in some states for every new voter registered in the last couple of months, two voters have been removed – negating Obama’s massive voter registration drive. This voter purging could mean fewer people voting in 2008 than voted in 2004.
In Colorado, for example, which has seen a significant population increase since the last presidential election, the state has recorded a net loss of nearly 100,000 voters from its rolls since 2004.
The NYT also reports that Louisiana, Michigan and Colorado are deletingregistered voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is illegal except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.
Deleting voters who have died or moved inter-state accounts for only some of this purge. The NYT discovered that in Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan the number of people removed from the election rolls since 1 August exceeds the number who may have died or relocated during that period by 300 per cent to 400 per cent. And people who have failed to vote in two or more previous elections are being dumped from the voter rolls, often without being informed. They may decide to vote this time, but when they turn up at the polling booths they will find their names erased and their eligibility voided.
Meanwhile, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama and Georgia areimproperly using the less reliable Social Security database to verify registration applications for new voters, instead of using the more accurate and up-to-date state and local records. Vote applicants whose Social Security data doesn’t match their electoral registration data are being denied the right to vote.
According to analysis by the NYT:
Under federal law, election officials are supposed to use the Social Security database to check a registration application only as a last resort, if no record of the applicant is found on state databases, like those for driver’s licenses or identification cards.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
WVA Vote Flipping Caught on Tape October 29, 2008
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The Central Tabulator 