Officer Wooten is deserving of forgiveness, is he not Sarah? Are we not also to forgive you? Yes, we are. We are also admonished by Jesus to pray for you and hope that you can understand what Jesus actually preached in his short time on earth.

Right-wing, so-called Christian fundamentalists are rabid about voting for John McCain, an adulterer, liar, and thief, who never goes to church, and against Barack Obama, a faithful husband and father, who is accused of being a Muslim, while at the same time being criticized for sitting in Rev. Wright’s Christian church for twenty years. Even Saturday Night Live pointed out this hypocrisy last night. Of course, attendance at church is hardly a qualification by itself to be a Christian.

The Sarah Palins and their kind are the Pharisees of our time. Jesus did not have very many kind words for the Pharisees. From Matthew, NIV version:

Mat 23:27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.

Mat 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Even Barack Obama is enough of a Christian to say he is not a perfect man, and will not be a perfect President. John McCain, on the other hand, claims that he has been 100% truthful, all of the time. Human perfection is not a Christian concept.

Here’s Ellis Weiner:

Dear Sarah:

I would ask, “How are you, child?” but for two things. One, who knows better than I, Who Am That I Am, how you are? And two, my purpose in communicating with you here is not to ask how you are, but to tell you how you are.
You are a disappointment to Me, Sarah.

You seem to think, as do many of your co-religionists, that what you profess to believe — and, indeed, what you may actually in fact believe — is more important than what you do. You seem to be under the impression that advertising an ardent belief in Me (or Us, if you prefer) absolves you of any responsibility to act in accordance with what you know — or, at least, what you should know — constitute My values and precepts.
The list of your transgressions is extensive, and includes:

- That, while you know full well My admonition to Love Thy Neighbor, you spread calumny and derision about half of the population, presuming to declare who is and who is not “the real America.”

- That, while you are fully aware of My Commandment forbidding you to bear false witness, you utter lies and deceptions on a routine basis, verily, you seem unable to speak publicly without lying. You have lied about opposing the Bridge to Nowhere; you have lied about firing the librarian and police chief of Wasilla; you have lied about your previous statements regarding climate change; you have lied about Alaska’s contribution to your nation’s oil and gas production; you have lied about Barack Obama’s position regarding habeas corpus; you have lied about your use of a TelePrompter at the Republican convention; and in manifold other ways have you lied, and lied, and lied.

- That, while you are entirely acquainted with My intention to bestow upon Man dominion over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, yet you play fast and loose and get cute with, and otherwise wink at, the danger posed to all living creatures (including Man) by climate change; and you profess to be unsure as to whether these perils are caused by Man, while all reputable study affirms this analysis beyond dispute.

- That, while you are surely acquainted with My Son’s admonition that you “beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye,” yet you persist in criticizing Obama’s (modest, progressive) taxation plans as constituting “socialism,” and abjure it as an evil, whilst never acknowledging that your own Republican Party put in place laws that have resulted in the most egregiously “socialistic” takeover of the nation’s banks in history; moreover, your own state of Alaska–particularly under your administration–is the most socialist of all the fifty states, in its collective taxing of the oil industry and its distribution, to every man, woman, and child in the state, a check upwards of three (3) grand each year.

- That, while you proudly profess to believe in “freedom,” you have lately complained that if newspapers criticize you for “negative campaigning,” they are abridging your First Amendment rights under the Constitution–as though “freedom” means only your ability to say anything that enters in unto your head (regardless of how baseless or slanderous) but does not apply to the press.

Of the sheer stupidity of this last assertion I, Who Am Eternal, shall say nothing, for I love all my creations, regardless of how ignorant, unsophisticated, or just plain dumb. Similarly, I will pass over your inability to answer the simplest question in a coherent sentence, your meanness of spirit, and the great selfishness and want of taste you display in subjecting your poor children to the travails, exhaustion, and abuse of a national presidential campaign.

Rather, Sarah, it is your hypocrisy and mendaciousness that mightily offend Me. I am, as you know, a just and compassionate God. But even I (blessed be Me and blessed be My Name) have a limit to My patience. Thus, I find not only that you are unqualified to be Vice-President of the United States. I find that you are a human person deficient in those basic qualities (honesty, decency, compassion, modesty, personal integrity, a respect for knowledge, and a concern for truth) that are pleasing unto Me and which ought to constitute the character of the righteous woman.

You are not just a bad candidate. You are a bad person. I only hope you will awaken to this fact, acknowledge the error of your ways, and take steps to atone for these transgressions before the Day of Judgment, when I shall be forced to render a decision concerning your eternal fate.

Ellis Weiner: A Letter to Sarah Palin from God.

Voting machines are flipping votes from Obama to McCain. Unlike Acorn, where registering a voter named “Mickey Mouse” does not mean that Mickey will actually show up and try to vote, this is real voter fraud.

ES&S Touch-Screen Votes Now Flipping in TX Too!
Sunday, 26 October 2008, 1:16 pm
Article: Bradblog.Com

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 10/24/2008 5:04PM

Touch-Screen Votes Now Flipping in TX Too!

Obama/DNC Attorneys Still AWOL!

State After State, ES&S iVotronics Are Flipping Democratic Votes to Republican!
What You Can Do About It, And Where the Hell Are Those ‘Thousands’ of Obama/DNC Attorneys?…

This is just getting worse and worse. Now it’s happening in Texas. (And in MO, if you read to the end of the article). And the vaunted “thousands of attorneys” from the Obama campaign and the DNC are still nowhere to be found.

With every incident so far reported of touch-screen vote-flipping during early voting in this year’s general election — from county to county in WV and in Nashville, TN) — it’s been the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machine that has failed, flipping votes from one candidate to another not chosen by the voter. In every instance [see update below], it’s been an attempted Democratic vote, flipped to a Republican, or another party.

These are the same machines that lost 18,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Sarasota County in the 2006 U.S. House Race for Katherine Harris’ old seat. The Democrat, Christine Jennings, was declared the loser to Republican Vern Buchanan (whose own wife had trouble voting for him that day), by just 369 votes. Several academic studies, and even the GAO, have been unable to rule out either tampering or hardware/software error for the disappeared 18,000 votes.

Yesterday, election integrity experts Emily Levy from VelvetRevolution.us’ and Kevin Zeese from TrueVote.us suggested that when this problem occurs, voters should first tell officials, and ask them to remove the machine from service.

Then…Alert everyone else in line waiting to vote which machine caused the problem, and warn everyone else not to use it!

These are among the steps recommended, with which I strongly concur:

• Call poll supervisors to observe the problem
• Fill out a problem report
• Refuse to vote on that machine
• Request that the machine be taken out of service
• Get a serial number of the machine if possible (may be unlikely in many cases)
• Tell other voters not to vote on that machine
• Call county/town election office
• Call local reporters
• Call voter problem hotlines (eg. 866-MYVOTE1 and 866-OUR-VOTE)
• Contact bloggers and Election Integrity websites.
• Raise holy hell.

VR has more details here on what to do if you see your vote flip. [Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us.]

Also, before you go to vote, bring a video camera (a cell phone video camera will do), to document the vote-flipping when you vote, and then upload it to VideoTheVote.org and YouTube, etc.!

Unfortunately, Lona Jones — who did contact our associates at VotersUnite.org with the problem earlier this morning (they instructed her to contact the media, which she did, leading to the report we’re quoting here) — was not the only one to have the same problem, with the same failed ES&S iVotronic touch-screens, in Palo Pinto:

Teresa Crosier, an alternate election judge and office manager of the Palo Pinto County Democratic Headquarters, called Jones to remind her to vote early.

“She told me she had already voted and had problems,” said Crosier. “She told me her story and I told her I had the same problem Wednesday morning.”

Like Jones, Crosier tried to cast a straight party Democratic vote at the courthouse annex, “and it came up straight party, Republican party.”

Crosier recognized her election trainer, who was helping to monitor the polls, and called him over. “We went back through the process and it did it again,” she said of the third time the touch-screen machine suggested she vote Republican.

This has got to stop. Paging Barack Obama, the DNC and the “thousands of attorneys” we’ve been told for months that they “have on the ground, ready to move in as soon as any problems are reported.”

Are your pagers not on yet?! What are you waiting for? Concession Day on November 5th?

Oh…and this just in from an Election Integrity advocate in swing state MO:

Hi Brad,

Just wanted to let you know that Missourians for Honest Elections is in the process of confirming five separate reports of vote flipping — from Democrat to Republican — on the iVotronic machines that are the only means the Board of Elections is providing for in-person absentee voting at its headquarters in Maplewood [St. Louis County, MO].
–Cynthia Richards

We’ll try to offer more details on the problems in MO when we get them. No doubt, thousands of Obama/DNC attorneys are on their way…

Scoop: ES&S Touch-Screen Votes Now Flipping in TX Too!.

Obama for president
Palin’s rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand

(10/25/08 19:37:58)

Alaska enters its 50th-anniversary year in the glow of an improbable and highly memorable event: the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. For the first time ever, an Alaskan is making a serious bid for national office, and in doing so she brings broad attention and recognition not only to herself, but also to the state she leads.

Alaska’s founders were optimistic people, but even the most farsighted might have been stretched to imagine this scenario. No matter the outcome in November, this election will mark a signal moment in the history of the 49th state. Many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.

Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency — but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis — erratic is a kind description — shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.

Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn’t do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown’s root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.

On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.

Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn’t show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years.

It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl Rove. And while Sen. McCain points to the fragile success of the troop surge in stabilizing conditions in Iraq, it is also plain that he was fundamentally wrong about the more crucial early decisions. Contrary to his assurances, we were not greeted as liberators; it was not a short, easy war; and Americans — not Iraqi oil — have had to pay for it. It was Sen. Obama who more clearly saw the danger ahead.

The unqualified endorsement of Sen. Obama by a seasoned, respected soldier and diplomat like Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican icon, should reassure all Americans that the Democratic candidate will pass muster as commander in chief.

On a matter of parochial interest, Sen. Obama opposes the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but so does Sen. McCain. We think both are wrong, and hope a President Obama can be convinced to support environmentally responsible development of that resource.

Gov. Palin has shown the country why she has been so successful in her young political career. Passionate, charismatic and indefatigable, she draws huge crowds and sows excitement in her wake. She has made it clear she’s a force to be reckoned with, and you can be sure politicians and political professionals across the country have taken note. Her future, in Alaska and on the national stage, seems certain to be played out in the limelight.

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

adn.com | Obama for president.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Republicans want to perform an end run by asking the U.S. Department of Justice to look into the Ohio voting issue. At stake are 200,000 voters who have minor discrepancies between their registration and the voter database.

As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., used as an example, if he signed his driver’s license Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but the database had his name as Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., then he would be disqualified to vote. Voting is the primary privilege of a citizen of a Democracy. The Republicans would like to take this right away from as many voters as possible. 

For the White House to use the Department of Justice to interfere with voting again, just as in the last election, is an outrageous act that only Republicans without any sense of shame would dare pursue.  This will end badly for Republicans.

The White House has asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 new Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before Nov. 4, taking up an issue that Republicans and Democrats in the battleground state have been fighting over in court for weeks.

The voter names are in dispute because their registration information conflicts with other official data.

The action comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by the Ohio Republican Party over the same issue. Republicans have argued that the mismatched information could signal fraudulent registrations, but Democrats have countered that eligible voters could be knocked off the rolls over discrepancies as minor as a transposed number in an address or birth date.

Voting rights advocates, however, immediately raised concerns. “This is taking the politicization of this to a new level, and the last thing we need is for the elections officials and voters of Ohio to be put in a chaotic situation in the last days before the election,” said Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Brunner this week directed local elections boards not to eliminate voters solely on a mismatch, and yesterday issued orders urging boards not to force voters to use provisional ballots over minor issues.

“The statewide voter database was never intended to be a litmus test for voter eligibility,” said Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Brunner. “Every Ohioan must provide ID to prove their identity before their vote is counted. Ohioans can be completely confident in our preparations for a successful November election.”

Intervention on election matters has been a troubling issue at the Department of Justice and figured in the controversy over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

t r u t h o u t | White House Asks DOJ to Intervene in Ohio.

However, Barack Obama says all that needs to be said, and closes the deal best with his video, “Defining Moment”:

Republicans run on the premise that they will lower taxes and create more jobs.  Not very many people remember that while Reagan brought about the largest tax cuts in history, he also presided over the largest tax increase in history.

Reagan ran up the biggest deficits ever seen.  To his credit, his defense spending helped bankrupt the Soviet Union (along with their ill-advised war in Afghanistan).  But putting aside the international consequences, the country was put in a precarious position with Reagan’s “borrow and spend” budget deficits.

George H.W. Bush continued Reagan’s deficit spending and, coupled with a recession, introduced even higher budget deficits.  Bush was forced to raise taxes, thus breaking his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge.

The “tax-and-spend liberal”, Bill Clinton, got the deficit under control, and created a budget surplus.  George W. Bush has been a disaster, with the bailout of his economic failures costing us over a trillion dollars, along with his Iraq war, which will likely run another 1.5 trillion dollars, if we are lucky.  We now have the most severe recession since the 1930’s with millions losing their jobs and homes.

George W. Bush said that Wall Street acted like it was drunk.  What an apt description for his whole administration.  That is the reason that John McCain’s promise of jobs and prosperity are nothing more than a feeble punch line, as depicted below:

Read this excerpt of Barack Obama’s interview with Harry Smith and see if you come away with the same notion that I did, that Barack Obama has “The Right Stuff.” I think his steady hand and coolness under pressure would make Chuck Yeager proud:

Barack Obama: Yeah, well - the - yeah, I think most people understand - that if you’re not - caring for your family - then - you’re probably not - the kind of person who’s gonna be caring for other people.

Harry Smith: I want to talk about some campaign issues, not the least of which is - your running mate, Joe Biden. … (He) talked about, ‘Well - Barack Obama’s gonna be tested, within the first six months.’ John McCain jumped on that and said, ‘I don’t need to be tested. I’m ready.’ Are you more ready to be president of the United States than John McCain is?

Barack Obama: I tell - all I can say is this: We’ve had, over the last couple of months, I think, an interesting series of tests. And - I think that I have been steadier. I think my advisers and my team and my organization, what we’ve built, has - has performed - with the kind of calm resolve and deliberation that the White House needs right now. Any president is gonna be tested - by the enormity of the challenges that we face.

Harry Smith: The rancorous tone of this campaign - I was with John McCain on Monday, and I said, ‘Our poll data shows that it’s actually hurting you.’ He says, ‘I wouldn’t be doing it if he weren’t doing it.’

Barack Obama (laughing): Well, look. I - I mean - politics is tough. … But I will say this: I don’t think there’s any equivalence between what we’ve been doing and what John McCain’s been doing. … Witness some of the comments that have been made just over the last several months, his last several weeks, ‘Socialistic.’ You know, ‘Pals around with terrorists.’ I mean, just - the kinds of stuff that - that I can’t imagine saying about an opponent of mine.

Harry Smith: Whoever gets elected president somehow has to put their arm around the whole country and say, ‘We’re in this together.’

Barack Obama: Yeah.

Obama Can’t Imagine Saying those things about his opponent .

She could have Googled “Vice President” or have an aide give her an executive summary of the details of the office. Instead, she has not looked it up and therefore gives a very incorrect response to what her job description as Vice President would be.

The Vice President cannot go in there and mix it up with the members of the U.S. Senate and make any type of policy. That is about as “fairy tale” an answer as Sarah Palin has ever given.  Ultimately, the embarrassment is John McCain’s for having selected her.

Palin Claims The Vice President Is ‘In Charge Of The U.S. Senate’

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sat for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. In response to a question sent to the network by a third grader at a local elementary school about what the Vice President does, Palin erroneously argued that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate“:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

Watch it:

Indeed, while Palin suggests that questions about what the Vice President does is something only her daughter Piper would ask, Palin herself asked this very question on national television in July. Apparently, she still hasn’t learned the correct answer.

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.” ThinkProgress contacted Senior Assistant Paliamentarian Peter Robinson, who also disputed Palin’s characterization of the Vice President’s role:

In modern practice the Vice President doesn’t really control the Senate. … If anyone has a responsibility to try to govern the Senate, it’s the responsibility of the two leaders.

Think Progress - Palin Claims The Vice President Is In Charge Of The U.S. Senate.

Their conclusion: Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama because Barack is black. The intelligent and accomplished Republican has decided that the percentage of melanin in a candidate’s skin is the reason to vote for or against a Presidential contender.

The corollary of that conclusion is that the people who endorse John McCain do so because he is white. I’m afraid that even in these last stages of the campaign, where racism is appearing more frequently in speeches and rallies, most Americans are not voting for one candidate or the other solely because of race.

Ideology remains the number one determinant of voters selections, although Republicans can no longer recognize in McCain the “small government, fiscally conservative” Republican values of traditional Republicans. Because McCain has abandoned his roots, and adopted the policies and politics of the Newt Gingrich/Bill Kristol branch of the Republican Party, true Republicans do not see McCain as a viable choice.

That is why conservative newspapers and conservative pundits are endorsing Barack Obama. As much as they would detest having a Democrat in the White House, they would prefer that to the heretical brand of Republicanism that John McCain represents. They know that John McCain,  would take the George W. Bush damaged Republican brand, and destroy the Republican Party forever.

Here are Colin Powell’s comments as presented in the Huffington Post:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that he will break with his party and vote for Sen. Barack Obama. “He has both style and substance. I think he is a transformational figure,” Powell said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance,” Powell said. “He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.”

Powell noted that McCain has been a good friend for 25 years, but expressed disappointment in the “over the top” negative tone of the GOP campaign, as well as in McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee.

“Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president,” Powell said. “And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.”

He also harshly criticized some of McCain’s campaign tactics, such as the robocall campaign linking Obama to former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.

“Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have the robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate. Now, I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another and that’s good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It’s not what the American people are looking for.”

Powell also spoke passionately against the insinuations by some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim.

“Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian,” he said. “But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, ‘He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.’ This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

Colin Powell Endorses Obama.

This results in such statements as “Senator McCain does not speak for the McCain campaign”. You have a campaign which is promoting so much racial hatred from white supporters that, in rallies, the crowds have been shouting that Obama deserves to die for opposing McCain.

When John McCain attempted to reign the hate-filled mob back in by claiming that Barack Obama was a decent man, John McCain himself was booed. Now McCain has to try to put the genie back in the bottle, which is most likely impossible.

Like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, the xenophobic mob has taken on a life of its own, and is not listening to its creator any more. This makes them particularly dangerous. Barack Obama’s life has been put at risk by a man incapable of controlling his own rage, and is now impotent to control the raging wildfire he himself ignited.

Seemingly, McCain cannot exert control over anything. He cannot control his own campaign. He cannot control his own supporters. He cannot control his surrogates, who one after one have had to be “disappeared”, as they committed embarrassing blunders.

McCain is even incapable of controlling the media, which is quite remarkable since he had the media wrapped around his finger with barbecues at his ranch, and AP members bringing McCain his favorite pastry adorned with sprinkles, just the way he liked. He had every pundit that considered themselves objective ignoring gaffe after gaffe, calling them senior moments or simply answering critics with recitations of John McCain’s prisoner-of-war history.

Yet, John McCain began attacking the media and even angered them. Yes, that whipped up the Republican base, but John McCain forgot that, even he has said earlier in the campaign, that “the media is my base”. The media can make you or break you in a campaign. How can a veteran of so many campaigns be unaware of that? His refusal to let Sarah Palin be vetted by the press has caused members of the press, such as Campbell Brown and George Will, to speak out against the once-revered McCain.

Then you have John McCain lurching from position to position during the financial meltdown. The fundamentals of the economy were strong. No. Wait. He didn’t mean the economy when he said “economy”, he simply meant the American workers were strong, and that they were fundamentally sound, therefore America was strong.

His explanations failed to win over voters, so to dramatize what a leader he was, much like in the Georgia invasion, McCain jumped into the middle of the fray ready to fight someone. Even in that, he bungled it, alienating popular late night TV host, David Letterman.

How awful it must have been for McCain to tell a TV host that he was going to have to cancel his appearance to to back to Washington, D.C. to save the economy which “was about to crater”, only to have David Letterman reveal in front of a national audience that, in fact, John McCain had stayed in New York to appear on a different program.

Insult David Letterman at your own peril, especially when you show disrespect for the importance of his show. John McCain did not go to Washington, D.C., for another 22 hours, meanwhile appearing on multiple television shows.

David Letterman did not take that lightly. As you no doubt know, David has chided McCain about McCain’s “political lie” to him on multiple late-night shows, making John McCain seem like an untrustworthy, lying fool. Again, McCain blew it with the media.

So, what happened when John McCain failed to rush to the aid of the economy and stayed in New York for those extra 22 hours? Well, Congressional leaders announced that they had come to an agreement on the bail-out package. That was Thursday, at noon. John McCain arrived in Washington D.C., later that afternoon.

While Obama cautioned against injecting presidential politics into the bail-out debate, McCain, who had previously delayed, lurched once again into the middle of the fray, like some Tokyo-hating Godzilla. Trampling over all the negotiations that had gone before, the McCain campaign entered the picture and behold, there no longer was an agreement!

After dissolving the previous agreement, McCain could now lay claim to the “financial savior” mantle. All of McCain’s life had been leading up to this moment where he could exert his leadership skills and bring Congress together on this all-important issue. The House Republicans indicated that they would not have been for the bill except for the exceptional leadership of John McCain.

The stage was set for McCain to pull off a game-changing moment in his campaign and in the well-being of each American’s pocketbook. That weekend, John McCain, rather than appearing on Capitol Hill, made phone calls from his posh residence. He said that nothing more was needed. The result? The vote on Monday failed, and even while on the campaign trail, McCain had prematurely congratulated himself, and derided Obama for not doing enough to make sure that the bill passed.

Why did the vote fail? The Republican House members had received phone calls from their supporters that this was a bad bill, and ignoring how embarrassing it might be to McCain, they voted “no” on the financial bail-out. That left John McCain trying to back-track and later saying that the initial bill was a bad bill, but the damage had been done.

Americans had seen this lurching back and forth before. They no longer believed, nor trusted, John McCain that what he had said had been misconstrued, that he was taken out of context, that the mainstream “media filter” had misinterpreted his actions. They saw a weak, addled, angry old-man, who lurched between the advice from his Bush campaign minions, and what his gut told him was his best move.

Unfortunately for McCain, both sources of advice have proven wrong.

The Alaskan Independence Party can be summed up in just two words:
ALASKA FIRST!

Until we as Alaskans receive our Ultimate Goal, the AIP will continue to strive to make Alaska a better place to live with less government interference in our everyday lives.

The Alaskan Independence Party’s goal is the vote we were entitled to in 1958, one choice from among the following four alternatives:

1) Remain a Territory.
2) Become a separate and Independent Nation.
3) Accept Commonwealth status.
4) Become a State.

The call for this vote is in furtherance of the dream of the Alaskan Independence Party’s founding father, Joe Vogler, which was for Alaskans to achieve independence under a minimal government, fully responsive to the people, promoting a peaceful and lawful means of resolving differences.

Alaskan Independence Party.

As if driving a business that was “too big to fail” into the ground was not enough, the AIG executives threw themselves a lavish party after the Federal government approved their bail-out, which therefore, was at the taxpayer’s expense.

These men are stealing from the United States treasure and the American people – why are charges not being pressed?  Oh, that’s right.  It’s okay if you are a Republican:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on the expenditures:

Have you heard of anything more outrageous - a week after taxpayers commit $85 billion dollars to rescue AIG, the company’s leading insurance executives spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at one of the most exclusive reports in the nation…

Let me describe for some of you the charges that the shareholders, taxpayers, had to pay. AIG spent $200,000 dollars for hotel rooms. Almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill. And they spent another $10,000 dollars for I don’t know what this is, leisure dining. Bars?

The Gavel Blog Archive Rep. Elijah Cummings: They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill.

So much for John McCain’s statement from the debate that he loves the veterans and they know he will always take care of them. He has a strange way of showing his affection:

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People who have broken the law can always say that an investigation will do them “irreparable harm”. However, it is not the investigation, nor the report that will do harm to Palin. Instead, it is her own actions that led to the investigation that have caused her harm. The investigation, which was initiated after a bi-partisan, unanimous vote is simply a natural consequence of Palin’s own actions.

We recently learned that Sarah Palin hopes to model herself after Dick Cheney.  With her secrecy, ignoring subpoenas, using her office to punish enemies, and constant spin instead of ever adhering to the facts means that she has that part of Cheney’s character down: a lying, lawless politician who answers to no one.

At one point, Sarah Palin said that no member of her staff had applied pressure to get Wooten fired.  That was her position until she found out that Frank Bailey, who works on Palin’s staff, had his conversation urging the firing of Wooten audiotaped.

The Alaska Supreme Court has agreed to hear an emergency appeal from lawyers seeking to shut down the Legislature’s Troopergate investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin.

The action comes the day after Anchorage Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski threw out their lawsuit attempting to halt the Legislature’s investigation of what’s known as Troopergate. The suit was filed on behalf of a group of Republican state legislators who oppose the investigation.

In a written order issued about 4:30 p.m. today, the Supreme Court said it would hear oral arguments on the appeal at 3 p.m. Wednesday, and agreed to rule by the end of the next Thursday.

The urgency on timing is because Steve Branchflower, the investigator hired by the Legislative Council, is set to release his report next Friday. Branchflower is looking into Palin’s dismissal of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, and whether she improperly pressured him to fire a state trooper divorced from her sister.

Texas-based Liberty Legal Institute and Anchorage attorney Kevin Clarkson, representing the group of anti-investigation legislators, filed the emergency appeal.

“The plaintiffs and Alaskans will suffer irreparable harm if the investigation at issue continues and if the resulting investigative report issues as planned on Oct. 10, 2008,” they wrote in their appeal.

adn.com | Supreme Court to hear Troopergate appeal.

Then, during the debates, John McCain took credit for putting a deal together with House Republicans, so that the bailout would pass.

This morning John McCain again prematurely congratulated himself on his work to get the bailout passed while criticizing Barack Obama, saying that he was standing on the sidelines.

Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain were on the Senate banking committee responsible for producing a bail-out package.  John McCain wasn’t even allowed into the committee chambers, and did not arrive in Washington until an agreement had already been reached, yet he was taking credit for the bailout.

Well, after all of his bragging, chest thumping, and ridicule of Barack Obama, the financial bailout measure failed to pass today, leaving McCain looking more sheepish and childish than ever.  He had no statement as he got onto his Snake-Talk Express airplane a few minutes ago.

While the Democrats produced two-thirds of their caucus to vote for essentially a Republican plan, John Boehner was only able to muster one-third of his Republican caucus to vote for the plan. 

Yes, it was a failure of Republican leadership, but the egg is on John McCain’s face, and he knows it.