Know your BFEE: The Corrupt Bastards Club… with Lipstick

[Octafish]

Along with lipstick-wearing pitbulls, the dogs of war need gouge themselves at the trough of Big Oil. Black Gold, as modern history has so bloodily demonstrated, is both the reason and the means for Bushco and the Military Industrial Complex to run roughshod over the world and the American people.



That reality also is why the Greedy Oil Perverts have foisted upon us one Sarah Palin. To do so first required the support of a particular set of circumstances and individuals from the Last Frontier State, The Corrupt Bastards Club. Its members come from Alaska government and Big Oil. I wish that I’d given this particular BFEE division that moniker, but the honors go to CBC members who gave it to themselves as a sort of “barroom joke.”



Some joke. Above, far left, is one of the club’s biggest members, if not biggest bastard, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), at work, shaking hands in the Oval Office with George W Bush. They’re in a happy mood, just having signed legislation protecting overfishing the sea and benefitting that industry in Alaska – a bill that conceivably helped Stevens’ son, Alaska Sen. Ben Stevens (R-Anchorage), continue to get a leg up in the business.



But didn’t Sarah Palin say she helped clean-up all this corruption? Yeah, but saying so doesn’t make it so. The fact is Palin and Stevens are very close political allies. Proof for the skeptical:

Palin served Ted Stevens’ 527 Group, “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.” (sic).

Palin Was a Director of Embattled Sen. Stevens's 527 Group
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post

ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began building clout in her state's political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.

Palin's relationship with Alaska's senior senator may be one of the more complicated aspects of her new position as Sen. John McCain's running mate; Stevens was indicted in July 2008 on seven counts of corruption.

Palin, an anti-corruption crusader in Alaska, had called on Stevens to be open about the issues behind the investigation. But she also held a joint news conference with him in July, before he was indicted, to make clear she had not abandoned him politically.

Stevens had been helpful to Palin during her run for governor, swooping in with a last moment endorsement. And the two filmed a campaign commercial together to highlight Stevens's endorsement of Palin during the 2006 race.

Shortly after Palin was announced as McCain's vice presidential pick, the ad was removed from her gubernatorial campaign web site. It remains available on YouTube.

CONTINUED…

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/01/palin_was_a_director_of_embatt.html

Neocon Approved

Gee. I bet that “swooping in with a last moment endorsement” must’ve really been something.

But that small fry’s the little story. The big-game story involves the really big money in Alaska. And like a lot of the rest of the world, that means Big Oil.



And big petroleum reserves means demand for oil-services companies. No, I don’t mean the now-kaput VECO. I mean Halliburton.

The Veep’s Pipeline Push

Michael Isikoff and Tony Hopfinger
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:08 PM ET Aug 23, 2008

A two-year-old letter by Vice President Dick Cheney that pushed a controversial Alaska natural-gas pipeline bill is getting renewed scrutiny because of recently disclosed evidence in the Justice Department's corruption case against Sen. Ted Stevens. In a conversation secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006, Stevens discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits. According to a Justice motion, Stevens told Allen, "I'm gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, 'Look … you gotta get this done'." Two days later, Cheney wrote a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to "promptly enact" a bill to build the pipeline. The letter was considered unusual because the White House rarely contacts state lawmakers about pending legislative matters. It also angered state Democrats, who accused Cheney of pushing oil-company interests. The former executive director of Cheney's energy task force had gone to work as a lobbyist for British Petroleum, one of three firms slated to build the pipeline.

Stevens confirmed to NEWSWEEK last week that he asked Cheney to write the letter. "We wanted the federal government to tell the state to act quickly on it," he said. (A spokesman for Alaska's other senator, Lisa Murkowski, said her office also had contacts with Cheney's office.) A Cheney spokeswoman said his office does not comment on pending legal matters.

In the motion, prosecutors said they want to show that Stevens, who has pleaded not guilty, used his political clout to benefit Allen's business interests while the oil exec was paying for renovations on the senator's home. As an example, the motion points out that Stevens discussed contacting the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about the pipeline; soon after, FERC issued a report on the project "similar to the message delivered by Stevens." But the Justice motion made no mention of Cheney's letter. A department spokesman did not respond to requests for comment about why prosecutors did not also include the letter or whether they expect Cheney to come up at Stevens's trial, now slated to begin next month.

SOURCE: http://www.newsweek.com/id/154916

It seems to me, Palin doesn’t have either the critical faculties or the financial resources for her own Palin Family Evil Empire. Like W the Crazy Warmonkey, Karibu Barbie seems content to work as a soldier for the BFEE. Maybe that’s why Stevens and Cheney endorsed her candidacy for Veep.



Why are good DUers not surprised? Read our lips: “We told you so.”

Crude Sarah

Sarah Palin: A Champion For Big Oil

ThinkProgress.org

Our guest bloggers are Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and James Kvaal, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

With the choice of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his running mate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is not backing down from oil drilling. Palin is a champion for drilling, the Bush-Cheney approach to energy policy that brought us $4.00-per-gallon gasoline and the rising threat of global warming.

Like McCain, Palin believes that oil drilling is the only solution to our energy problems. “I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem,” she says. She supports more drilling in protected areas of the Outer Continental Shelf and the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge, once attacking McCain for his “close-mindedness on ANWR.”

But the Department of Energy believes that offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.” Moreover, about three-quarters of all the oil in public lands in the continental U.S. are already open to drilling – and yet only one quarter of this oil is under production. Opening the Arctic Refuge would cut gasoline prices by two cents in 17 years. For that, Palin would destroy the home of America’s native polar bears. Not even T. Boone Pickens still thinks we can drill our way out of this crisis.

Palin rejects clean renewable energy that is an alternative to oil. Earlier this month, she claimed that “alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent and would require more than 10 years to develop.”

Alaska has become the “poster state” for the threat of global warming as the climate gets hotter and dryer and sea levels rise. More than 100 towns are vulnerable due to eroding sea lines. Polar bears are threatened by the melting ice floas, and this month bears were spotted swimming as much as 50 miles offshore.

Nonetheless, like many other oil champions, Palin is skeptical of global warming. During her gubernatorial campaign, she said she was unconvinced about how much human emissions contribute to current global warming trends. Palin also opposes listing our polar bears as a threatened species because it could require action on climate change.

As Carl Pope of the Sierra Club says, “No one is closer to the oil industry than Governor Palin.” Sarah Palin has taken positions that would ensure a continuation of the Bush-Cheney energy policies. She supports drilling everywhere and ignores the need for binding reductions in global warming pollution even though her state is melting. The continuation of these policies will continue higher energy costs, more severe hurricanes and droughts, and despoiled natural treasures.

SOURCE w Loads o’ Links:

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/08/29/palin-oil-champ/

Alaska - The Corporate Collective State

So, Alaskans get a check for $2,400 or $3,000 or whatever the heck it is. The oil companies doin’ bidniss in their state pay a royalty on the black gold. With all that spreading of the state’s wealth socialism, it’s a demi-miracle right-wing nutjobs like Grover Norquist don’t call the place the People’s Republic of Alaska.

The thing is, when the price of oil skyrockets, oil companies skyrocket, but taxpayers’ stake stays about the same. While the price of oil goes from $20 to $140 a barrel, taxes only go up pennies on the gallon, or a few bucks a barrel. Palin did her bit to get a big jump of oil revenue into the public purse, but it wasn’t anywhere near as much as what Big Oil’s getting on the skyrocketing price per barrel. So, it’s the transnational oil companies what get the lion’s share – and their owners, of course.



Here’s one more major point we need to make:

Palin is unfit for Second Banana.

(My personal reason for not liking her politically is because Pat Robertson is for her.) From Dan Payne in the Boston Globe comes an excellent summation of the case against Ms. Palin:

Unfit to stand so close to presidency

Dan Payne
The Boston Globe
September 11, 2008

TODAY, on the anniversary of the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, we should recall what happens when an unqualified candidate captures the presidency. An incurious western governor, George W. Bush, arrived in Washington unprepared for the job. And it showed every day of his presidency.

John McCain's health could kill us. It's conceivable that a 72-year-old hot head who has had four bouts of cancer might not make it through his first term as president, leaving the country in the hands of a person whom McCain (a former POW) met one time. One time! I've spent more time shopping for a car than he spent choosing a potential president. Yet Sarah Palin could be one heart attack, one stroke, one metastasized melanoma away from becoming president of the United States.

Sarah Palin is Clarence Thomas, completely unqualified but cynically chosen for being a member of a demographic group that usually votes Democratic. No wonder so many women are insulted by the choice.

Will Hillary voters buy Palin's extreme antiabortion stance that allows no exceptions, not even for incest or rape; her belief in "market- and business-driven healthcare"; her support for teaching creationism in public schools; her rejection of global warming as man-made?

Stopping the Russians. In a goofy attempt to give Palin foreign policy credentials, McCain (an ex-POW) said Alaska is near Russia. Come to think of it, there haven't been any Russian invasions since she's been governor.

The day she was picked, she called herself "commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard." This is so preposterous even Mitt Romney didn't try it. The head of the Alaska Guard told the Associated Press that he and Palin play no role in national defense.

God is in the pipeline! Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States invaded Iraq as a "task that is from God." While she was there, she urged them to pray for a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

CONTINUED...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/11/unfit_to_stand_so_close_to_presidency/

Clear as Cruel

What this means for the future is clear as crude.



Here’s hoping Ol’ Maverick has a good doctor he can trust.

We the People can do something big about them. It only requires that we tell and spread the truth:

Palin and her friends in politics are members of the biggest Corrupt Bastards Club the planet has ever seen. It’s called the BFEE.

And that makes her a corrupt bastard, too. Lipstick or no.

[G_j]

1. thanks Octafish! here is something put up by the afcio

http://aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm?source=mccainrevealed

[Octafish]

3. You're welcome, G_j! Thank you for the great Resource Book on McBush.

McSame and the lying pukes are so afraid of reality
they kept the crazy monkey out of their convention in Minnesota.
Twin Cities, indeed.



Our best weapon is the truth. And we'd damn better use it
or otherwise ours will be a continuation of the current
dismal political reality.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

4. self-delete

[unkachuck]

2. Excellent!!....K&R....n/t

[Octafish]

7. Sarah Palin's Preacher Problem - End Times Coming

Thank you, unkachuck! I didn't include an important part...



... the Religious Right has become totally energized by Palin's candidacy.
They think a prezzydent McBush won't last out his full term.

Here's background on her Big Religious Thinking:

Sarah Palin's Preacher Problem: End Times Coming

Mudflats
Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaska Politics

Good Lord. Another ‘gate’. Just talked to one of our local progressive radio talk show hosts (yes, we have them in Alaska!) and she said her head is spinning. Mine is too. No one knows where to turn. Keeping up with the tidal wave of what’s hitting the fan in Alaska is fast becoming a full-time job. It feels like that old-time video game “Centipede”. It’s easy at first to blast those little centipedes as they work their way down the screen, but the longer you play the faster they come and bigger they get, and the more you have to work to keep them in check.

There’s fundraising for indicted senator Ted Stevens’ 547, not actually knowing “what the VP does all day”, her affiliation with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, earmarks after earmarks for her small town projects, zero international experience, Troopergate, Babygate, Dairygate, Bridgegate, Toddgate, and now…..Churchgate.

I’ve picked this particular centipede today, (shall we call it the Jesus-pede?) because this is something that crosses the line between a candidate who is unqualified, and a candidate that is not using the same play book as most of the rest of us.

I did a drive-by of Palin’s church when I was traveling through Wasilla yesterday, not realizing the furor that would be churning the blogosphere less than 24-hours later about a speech Palin delivered there only three months ago. Here’s what she said regarding the war in Iraq.

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending out on a task that is from God.”

Let that sink in a minute. A task that is from God. Sarah’s war is a holy war. It’s not, apparently from the God that says “turn the other cheek” or “I am my brother’s keeper” or “the greatest of all these is love”. It’s not about diplomacy, international relations, figuring out why we are so despised in the Middle East, keeping Israel secure, revamping how the U.S. deals with its unsustainable dependence on foreign oil, combating poverty and desperation that leads young men to terrorism. Nope. This war is God’s will. It’s God’s holy war. She went on:

That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.

So the plan is to pray for a plan? Perhaps it would have been better to pray for a plan beFORE we went to Iraq. Better still to sit down and create a plan - a thoughtful, intelligent, human-type plan.

CONTINUED...

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/sarah-palins-preacher-problem-end-times-coming/

A Palin Presidency would move us all one giant leap closer to Chimpageddon.

[bobthedrummer]

10. "The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party"

http://www.theocracywatch.org

I know you have that resource in your massive links, sir. Some others may benefit by adding it to theirs before they start posting in ignorance, at best.

[Karenina]

23. These whackos are quite serious...

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/ConstitutionRestorationAct.htm

We wrote about it before it happened, we called them by their own name, Dominionists, and we told you that Dominionists in Congress were about to fire their first guns for reformation of the American government.

On January 6, 2004, the Yurica Report published “America Stands on the Edge of a Grave Constitutional Crisis Linked to Pat Robertson.” In that article we reported that televangelist Pat Robertson devised a number of ways of limiting the power of the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of America. To quote from the article, Robertson said as early as March 24, 1986, “Congress could say, ‘There’s a whole class of cases you can’t hear’ and there’s nobody can do anything about it!”

On February 11, 2004, we published “The Despoiling of America” by Katherine Yurica. To quote Robertson from this article, “God’s plan is for His people, ladies and gentlemen to take dominion…to reign and rule…There’ll be a reformation….We are not going to stand for those coercive utopians in the Supreme Court and in Washington ruling over us any more. We’re not gonna stand for it. We are going to say, ‘We want freedom in this country, and we want power…’”

Both these articles reported a crisis in our government and revealed the plan of the far right Dominionists who control Congress to reconstruct our constitution and “restore” it to subservience to a theocratic religion under God and under biblical law. It is the first step in a series of steps to take over and control the government of the United States of America as outlined in “The Despoiling of America.”

[nolabels]

24. I wonder if anyone else has a take on this news-blurb

Those who think what they are doing is powerful and important things will often cite others doing similar things to try and pump up whatever they are doing themselves. This is a hyposis i am thinking of why that spy vs spy mentality seems to permeate so much of what seems to be a manufactured war on terror. Sounds all like so much subterfuge of what really is going on. Anyway the bottom link has a nice multi-part Youtube that has much going for it and covers a lot ground for anyone interested

from another thread started earlier
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4002744

The info seems kind of suspect considering many different things

Wikileaks obtains 10 years of messages, interviews from Osama bin Laden translated by CIA
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikileaks_obtains_10_years_of_messages,_interviews_from_Osama_bin_Laden_translated_by_CIA

YouTube - ZERO : An Investigation Into 9/11 - PART 1 of 10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kBn1usddI&feature=related

[Octafish]

25. Palin And The Enduring Christian Right

Chip Berlet's pegged the issue:

Palin And The Enduring Christian Right

Chip Berlet
Huffington Post

What McCain is attempting to do by selecting Palin is to close the God Gap by solidifying the base of the Republican Party in the Christian Right, while at the same time appealing to a broader base of White Christian evangelicals. And Palin will appear quite mainstream to most moderate Republicans and independents.

McCain was considering Romney and Huckabee as ways to woo the Christian Right, but Romney was coming across as too slick and elitist, and was still being dragged down by antipathy among some Christian evangelicals for his being a Mormon.

Last February, I wrote here: “Huckabee Fails to Keep Southern Evangelical Base United.” So while many in the Christian Right voted for Huckabee in those southern primaries, not enough other White evangelicals voted for Huckabee. In other words, Huckabee would scare away too many moderate Republicans and not attract enough of the White Christian evangelical base outside the Christian Right.

Remember, the Christian Right is only 15% of the electorate, but it votes overwhelmingly Republican with little change over the last 30 years. One study found that 40 percent of the total vote for Bush in 2000 came from Christian Evangelicals, making it the largest single voting bloc in the Republican Party.

But some White Christian evangelicals are swing voters. Palin will be attractive to this constituency where Huckabee and Romney failed.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chip-berlet/palin-and-the-enduring-ch_b_122524.html

Most importantly: Thank you, bobthedrummer. You have no idea how much you giving a damn means to me. I think I would've quit this game a long time ago without you and a number of good DUers.

[unkachuck]

11. thank you Octafish....

....for the great job you do....keep up the good work, I love it!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. Outstanding!

Love the layout and pics that always accompany your brilliant OPs.

Recommended.

[Octafish]

9. Alaska may be to the north, but its politics is purely Old South.

There's something un-American about Slavery, then. And Fascism, today.

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sat, 09/13/2008
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
By Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

SNIP...

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

CONTINUED...

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1755

Most importantly: You are most kind, BushDespiser12. I truly appreciate what you do to fight these lying thieving murdering warmongering traitors.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. Octafish, you are the best!!!!

:hug:

[Octafish]

12. Palin talks tough on Iran, Russia in ABC interview

She certainly sounded like a certified nutjob warmonger -- definitely pals of Bush.

A good friend of mine says Palin's interview exposed her newly-minted neocon positions.

Palin talks tough on Iran, Russia in ABC interview

Her interview with anchor Charles Gibson isn't without stumbles as she discusses foreign policy.

By Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 12, 2008

Sarah Palin took a hard line on Russia and Iran on Thursday as she fielded questions on foreign affairs for the first time since Republican presidential candidate John McCain named her his running mate two weeks ago.

The Alaska governor also reversed her stand on the cause of climate change, telling ABC News that she believes "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming." Less than a year ago, she said the opposite.

SNIP...

"Are we fighting a holy war?" he asked.

After Palin disputed his characterization, she paraphrased Abraham Lincoln, saying she meant, "Let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side."

Gibson went on to take a second part of her comments out of context. Palin had asked the group to pray "that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan."

But Gibson dropped her reference to praying -- and instead quoted Palin as saying the war was God's plan. He asked if she believed the country was sending her son on a task from God.

"I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie," she responded, adding that she was proud of Track for "serving something greater than himself."

Palin's most visible stumble came when Gibson asked whether she agreed with the Bush Doctrine.

"In what respect, Charlie?" she asked the anchor, who sat directly across from her in a matching upright armchair.

Gibson then asked what she interpreted the Bush Doctrine to be.

"His worldview," she answered.

Once Gibson explained that the doctrine meant preemptive wars, Palin used the opportunity to take veiled shots at President Bush, whose unpopularity has weighed on McCain's candidacy.

"I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hellbent on destroying our nation," she said. "There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made."

With new leadership "comes opportunity to do things better," she said.

CONTINUED...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-palin12-2008sep12,0,3693136.story

She is uneducated. And insane.

Most importantly: No. No. YOU are the best, OmmmSweetOmmm!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

42. I saw the interview and yes, she's insane. I really believe that in

some form, the Obama campaign should resurrect this scary but so effective ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKs-bTL-pRg

In the case of Goldwater, I think it was extreme but in regard to Palin, dead on.

Hugs again for all that you do and all that your are!

[hootinholler]

8. You didn't even broach the batshit crazy Dominionist angle.

Nice piece Der Fishie!

-Hoot

[Octafish]

13. Who can forget Joel's Army? A peek inside Palin’s Pentecostal church...

I am a man of Faith and recommend it to everybody.
But, I don't force it on anyone.
Unlike some people we know...

A peek inside Palin’s Pentecostal church

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Sep 10, 2008, 00:22

Of all the stories that have crossed my computer screen on Palin, Jim Kuhnhenn’s AP article Attacks, Praise Stretch Truth At GOP; the Washington Post’s Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home, to mention a few; by far the strangest article comes from Bruce Wilson’s Talk To Action blog, specializing in faith and politics. This eye-opening piece is called Weird Theology in Wasilla: A Look Inside Sarah Palin’s Pentecostal Church. It sounds less like a religious congregation than a 60s group acid trip.

Here’s Wilson’s first paragraph, “On June 8, 2008, Palin was publicly blessed, with the ‘laying on of hands’ before six thousand Wasilla area church members, by Head Wasilla Assembly of God Pastor Ed Kalnins and on the same day both Kalnins and Palin described, at a ‘Masters Commission’ ceremony at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, how she had been blessed prior to winning the Alaska governorship by an African cleric known for driving the ‘spirit of witchcraft’ out of a town in Kenya, after which town supposedly crime rates dropped ‘almost to zero.’” Yawsuh.

An African witchdoctor to drive down the crime rate and hopefully Palin’s government expenditures. Now that’s a novel if not bizarre approach. Wilson continues . . .

“Sarah Palin’s churches are actively involved in a resurgent movement that was declared heretical by the Assemblies of God in 1949. This is the same ‘Spiritual Warfare’ movement that was featured in the award winning movie, ‘Jesus Camp,’ which showed young children being trained to do battle for the Lord. At least three of four of Palin’s churches are involved with major organizations and leaders of this movement, which is referred to as The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit or the New Apostolic Reformation. The movement is training a young ‘Joel’s Army’ to take dominion over the United States and the world.”

“A young ‘Joel’s Army’ to take dominion over the United States and the world?” Gee, I thought that the Bush-Cheney hegemonic US Army, aided with at least 100,000 mercenaries from Blackwater and other high-priced psychopath sources, was enough. Yet they seemed to be blowing it in Iraq as in Afghanistan, despite Sarah’s vision that sees victory there. Where? Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul? Beats me, honey.

But then Wilson rejoins . . .”Along with her entire family, Sarah Palin was re-baptized at twelve at the Wasilla Assembly of God in Wasilla, Alaska and she attended the church from the time she was ten until 2002: over two and 1/2 decades. Sarah Palin’s extensive pattern of association with the Wasilla Assembly of God has continued nearly up to the day she was picked by Senator John McCain as a vice-presidential running mate.” Gee, I wonder if that had anything to do with Citizen McCain’s choice.

Wilson writes, “Palin’s dedication to the Wasilla church is indicated by a Saturday, September 7, 2008, McClatchy news service story detailing possibly improper use of state travel funds by Palin for a trip she made to Wasilla, Alaska to attend, on June 8, 2008, both a Wasilla Assembly of God “Masters Commission” graduation ceremony and also a multi-church Wasilla area event known as “One Lord Sunday.” Well, perhaps she was trying to get more bang from a boosted buck. Still, it’s a naughty thing to do, especially on Sunday.

And Wilson points out, “At the latter event, Palin and Alaska LT Governor Scott Parnell were publicly blessed, onstage before an estimated crowd of 6,000, through the ‘laying on of hands’ by Wasilla Assembly of God’s Head Pastor Ed Kalnins whose sermons espouse such theological concepts as the possession of geographic territories by demonic spirits and the inter-generational transmission of family “curses.” Ooops, here comes the witchdoctor again . . .

CONTINUED...

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3728.shtml

Thanks for your kind words, Hoot!
These are interesting times, my Friend.
I pray we may yet luck out and survive.

[Wilms]

14. The irony is McCain is even more an inept tool than the one he hopes to succeed.

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/1/12/Talosian_action-figure,_Futures_end_I.jpg

[Octafish]

16. 'Tool' is the right word. They're mere vehicles for moving money offshore. Take Barbados...

Smirko said one thing that makes sense, the rich know how to skip out on taxes:

Bush Sees the Rich Skipping Out on Taxes

By: Steve Benen on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 5:22 AM - PST

There were quite a few interesting gems in the president’s Fox News interview over the weekend, but this one stood out for me:

WALLACE: How does overcome all of that and…

BUSH: Because there’s two big issues. One is, who’s going to keep your taxes low? Most Americans feel overtaxed and I promise you the Democrat party is going to field a candidate who says I’m going to raise your tax.

If they’re going to say, oh, we’re only going to tax the rich people, but most people in America understand that the rich people hire good accountants and figure out how not to necessarily pay all the taxes and the middle class gets stuck.

We’ve had — we’ve been through this drill before. We’re only going to tax the rich and all you have to do is look at the history of that kind of language and see who gets stuck with the bill.

Does this make any sense at all? Wealthy people hire accountants, so the government should leave their tax rates alone?

CONTINUED...

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/11/bush-sees-the-rich-skipping-out-on-taxes/

His family has a lot of experience in money laundering. When it comes to Alaska Oil, some runs through Barbados.

VECO’s “Corrupt Bastards Club” Has A Barbados Chapter

August 20, 2008...9:23 am

Alaska Politicians Made CBC Caps!

Source: At Least Two Barbados Politicians Received Undeclared “Campaign Donations” From Corrupt Alaskan VECO Corporation

Alaska’s VECO Corporation is now infamous for using bribery of politicians as a standard operating procedure. In the United States, numerous US politicians and corporation executives are facing criminal charges or are under FBI investigation for receiving gifts, loans and outright payments from VECO.

Several people have already plead guilty or been found guilty, including VECO CEO and founder Bill Allen, VECO Vice-President Rick Smith and political big-shots Bill Bobrick, Tom Anderson, Pete Kott, Vic Kohring, Jim Clark and Bill Weimar.

The VECO Barbados Connection

VECO also did over half a billion US$ worth of business with the previous BLP Barbados Government - building the oil terminal and the new prison. Barbados citizens are unclear on the exact amount of tax dollars that was paid to VECO because under both the previous Arthur/Mottley BLP government and the current Thompson DLP Government, citizens have no right to know how much of their money the government spends and what for.

To give you an idea of how VECO typically operated, another one of Alaska’s senior politicians has just been charged by the FBI with various corrupt offenses. It is alleged that Senator Ted Stephens received considerations from VECO Corporation in return for sweetheart government contracts and for pushing through tax laws and other regulations that favoured VECO. Stephens also arranged for VECO to have an inside contact at the World Bank and to receive favourable treatment in an oil deal in Pakistan. Here is what he received that we know about…

- A job for his son.

- The ability to invest US$5000 in a Florida condo which was later sold for a profit of over US$100,000. (Not a bad return on $5000!!!)

- A new Jeep Cherokee vehicle for his daughter.

- A Land Rover for himself discounted by US$20,000 under list price from the CEO of VECO.

- A free generator for his chalet.

CONTINUED...

http://barbadosfreepress.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/vecos-corrupt-bastards-club-has-a-barbados-chapter/

Switzerland has the money. Paraguay has the water. How's your Spanish, Wilms?

[Wilms]

20. I was thinking more about Venezuela.

LOL!

[Karenina]

15. ANYONE who believes that after 45 YEARS of preparation

the Christian Reconstructionists will allow a mere election to thwart their takeover is in serious denial.

[Octafish]

18. God, Oil and Guns - A Palin Theocracy?

You know it, Karenina. These people are not just driven. They're true believers.

God, Oil and Guns

A Palin Theocracy?

By MARJORIE COHN
CounterPunch
September 11, 2008

John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate has invigorated a lackluster campaign. The media can’t stop talking about her. Given McCain’s age and state of health (his medical file was nearly 1,200 pages long), Palin would indeed be a heartbeat away from becoming President. But what would a Palin administration really look like?

Palin is a radical right-wing fundamentalist Christian who would love to create a theocracy. She believes we are living in the “end times” which will result in a bloody inferno from which only true Christians will be saved. Palin recently attended a service in her Wasilla Bible Church run by David Brickner, who runs Jews for Jesus, a group the Anti-Defamation League criticizes for its “aggressive and deceptive” proselytizing of Jews. Those who don’t accept Jesus as their savior will burn in Hell, according to Palin’s brand of theology.

As Governor of Alaska, Palin asked her congregation to pray for the natural gas pipeline, which she characterized as “God’s will.” She thinks the war in Iraq is a “task that is from God.” Palin has pushed for creationism to be taught in schools, and she opposes stem cell research.

Palin’s choice to have a Down syndrome child and her teenage daughter’s choice to continue her pregnancy have made evangelical Christians ecstatic. But while she chose pregnancy, Palin would deny a woman victimized by rape or incest the right to choose abortion, and then criminally punish both the woman for having one and her doctor for performing it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn09112008.html

Have Faith, Karenina. And take the money and run...

[lonestarnot]

17. Never a doubt about that corrupt big oil bastard pig in lipstick!

:applause: as always! Another bookmark!

[Octafish]

21. Sarah Palin "takes on" big oil? Hardly.

When it comes to taking money: Sarah's a uniter, not a divider.

Blogger Left In East Dakota spills the beans, er, barrel:

Sarah Palin "takes on" big oil? Hardly.

Left In East Dakota
Monday, September 08, 2008

Alaska has natural gas under its North Slope region. Forget about the environment for a second and lets assume, for the sake of argument, that it is in our long-term interest to get that gas to the lower forty-eight states. The obvious question is: What is the the best way to do that? Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin would have us believe she took on big oil to push forward her plan for a pipeline. Not quite.

Palin's pipeline is not so much about taking on big oil as it is about opportunism and stereotypical smoky backroom politics. It is well known the republican party in Alaska is corrupt. The former governor, along with disgraced Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, backed a deal that would give the companies that control the gas in the North Slope (BP, Conoco Phillips, and Exxon Mobil) a tax break if they built a pipeline. It wasn't a strong enough agreement, however, and many thought the companies would gain the reward of a tax cut and not build the pipeline. The Alaskan people were disgusted. In steps Sarah Palin. She wants TransCanada, a big energy company in their own right, to build the pipeline. She offers them 500 million of the Alaskan people's dollars. This is very similar to the democratic position. In fact, it seems she co-opted the dems position, as her and her challenger in the 2006 election essentially agreed on this issue. It doesn't bode well for your party if "taking on" entrenched interests in your state means taking the position of your opponent.

But here's the kicker: It doesn't matter who owns the pipeline, because big oil owns the gas. It doesn't matter if the state of Alaska, TransCanada, or anyone else, builds the pipeline- they must sign an agreement with the big three in order to move the gas. Big oil, who is not hurting for money and would have no problem sitting on the land as long as they have rights to the gas, will no doubt dictate the terms of the agreement. Sarah Palin knows this, the big three know this, and Sarah's husband Todd, who worked for BP for nearly two decades, knows this. Individual states simply don't have the power, or resources, to take on companies like BP, Exxon Mobil, and Conoco Phillips. As recent campaigning has shown, Palin has no qualms about reducing the few barriers left in the way of big oil, as she has adopted the McCain position of "drill now, drill everywhere," even though there is little evidence to suggest that would have anything other than a small affect on oil prices many years from now.

Sarah Palin is a good politician, better than many, including myself, thought. She is a godsend for big oil. She took a wave of sentiment that was clearly against oil's interests, used it to get elected, and "challenged" big oil on an issue they couldn't care less about. From the big three's perspective, let TransCanada build the stupid pipeline. What are they going to put in it? Oil holds all the cards. They are even talking about building their own pipeline, without Alaska's involvement. Yawn. Sarah Palin didn't take on big oil. She just borrowed a trick from the dems, basically, govern for big business while giving lip service to "everyday people."

SOURCE:

http://www.graemesblog.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-takes-on-big-oil-hardly.html

Not THAT's what I call analysis. Where's Corporate McPravda?

Most importantly: Thanks for everything, lonestarnot.

[lonestarnot]

28. Big oil and nothing but!

[Hubert Flottz]

19. K&R

Thanks...

[Octafish]

22. Palin got help from corrupt oilman during her first run for state office

Sarah Palin has selective memory when it comes to stoppin' corruption:

Palin got help from corrupt oilman during her first run for state office

By Tony Hopfinger
AlaskaDispatch.com
September 04, 2008

In 2001, Sarah Palin drove from her Wasilla home, through the downtown streets of Anchorage, to a large home near the bluffs of muddy Cook Inlet. The home belonged to Bill Allen, one of the most influential businessmen and Republican donors in Alaska history. Allen ran the state’s largest oil-contracting firm, the ominously named VECO Corp., which contracted with some of the biggest oil producers in the world.

Palin was wrapping up her last term as mayor of Wasilla. She had higher political aspirations. She wanted the second-most powerful job in Alaska: lieutenant governor. In those days, there was virtually only one road to the state capital, and it passed through Allen. A foul-mouthed oilman, a high-school drop out, the son of fruit pickers, Allen was one of those “good ol' boys” who Palin touted taking on in Alaska when she gave her vice-presidential speech last night at the National Republican Convention.

Allen, then in his mid-60s, shaped Alaska politics through campaign contributions and sometimes flat-out bribes. He and his VECO executives, employees and family members gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Republicans and Democrats, lawmakers Allen believed would support the oil industry. He was so steeped in politics that he co-chaired the Alaska finance committee during the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign.

A year later, a young hometown mayor was on his doorstep.

Palin sat with Allen in his den and sipped wine, according to a former VECO employee who says he personally fetched the bottle of wine for the two. The worker asked that his name not be printed because of the sensitivity of the matter. It’s unclear why Palin was hanging with Allen; the governor’s spokesman, Bill McAllister, refused to ask her. “This is a silly story and I’m not going to take any more time with this. Goodbye,” said McAllister, hanging up on a reporter.

Whatever the case, after Palin and Allen met, VECO contributed $5,000 to Palin’s campaign for lieutenant governor. The contributions came at $500 a pop over a two-day period in late December from Allen, his executives and a couple of their spouses, representing 10 percent of all money Palin raised in her 2002 campaign.

CONTINUED...

http://alaskadispatch.com/tundra-talk/1-talk-of-the-tundra/92-palin-relied-on-corrupt-oilman-when-she-made-her-first-run-at-state-office.html

Most importantly: You're welcome, Hubert Flottz. I very much appreciate you give a damn.

[earth mom]

26. K & R!

:kick:

[Octafish]

30. From Cow Lover to Dairygate: Scandal Piles Up in Alaska

Hey, TheGoldenRule! It'd be hard to make this stuff up. Palin's pals are into cows, big time.

From Cow Lover to Dairygate: Scandal Piles Up in Alaska

Did you hear? Being a cow lover is a requirement for a top job in Alaska's state government:

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

Now, as the originator of Friday Cow Blogging, and a noted bovine lover, I'm thrilled to hear that loving cows is apparently the main requirement for a high-paying state job in Alaska. Hey, maybe...nah, I couldn't stand the cold.

But wait a minute, you say. Surely there's more to running a state agency than simply a childhood love of cows? How can a woman with no experience in government run a large state agency?

Fortunately, I can answer that question, because in addition to being a cow lover, I'm also a political junkie. A couple weeks ago I remember reading a well-sourced Daily Kos diary about that very same Franci Havemeister and her tenure at the Division of Agriculture, and how she ruined the state dairy.

CONTINUED w Links:

http://whatdoiknow.typepad.com/what_do_i_know/2008/09/cow-lover-to-dairygate-scandal-piles-up-in-alaska.html

Thanks for giving a damn, my Friend!

[formercia]

27. Scary people.

This country is fucked if they get in power.

K&R.

[Octafish]

33. Walt Monegan: Governor Sarah Palin Did Not Tell the Truth to ABC

One couple springs to mind when it comes to abusing more power than a corrupt bastard.

Fired Official: Governor Sarah Palin Did Not Tell the Truth to ABC

Walt Monegan Says He Was Called to Gov.'s Office Over a "Private Family Matter"

By RHONDA SCHWARTZ and JUSTIN ROOD
ABC News
September 15, 2008

"She's not telling the truth when she told ABC neither she nor her husband pressured me to fire Trooper Wooten," said Walt Monegan, the Alaskan official whose dismissal by Sarah Palin is the focus of a state investigation known as "Troopergate". "And she's not telling the truth to the media about her reasons for firing me."

In an exclusive interview with ABC News.com, former Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan said he resisted pressure by the First Couple to re-open an old case against a state trooper, who was in a hotly contested divorce and custody battle with the Governor's sister Molly.

Alaskan lawmakers are investigating whether Palin and her husband used the power of the Governor's office to conduct a personal vendetta against their former brother-in-law, whose behavior during the 2005 divorce was described by the Palin family as " threatening."

In a 20/20 interview, Palin told ABC's Charles Gibson she dismissed Monegan for poor job performance and that neither she nor her husband pressured Monegan to fire State Trooper Wooten. "We never did. I never pressured him to hire or fire anybody," Palin said.

But Monegan told ABC News.com he was summoned to a meeting with Todd Palin in December 2006, shortly after Sarah Palin became governor.

"I was called to her Anchorage formal Governor's office to talk with Todd Palin about an issue that was a private family matter," recounted Monegan. Todd became "upset," Monegan recalled, when told the allegations had already been investigated and the case would not be re-opened.

CONTINUED…

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5804703&page=1

Add nutjob preachers telling Todd 'n' Sarah they've been chosen to lead America throughout the world and we have some serious problems.

[HughBeaumont]

29. Shall we start a countdown as to when civility gets tossed out the window?

I'm thinking when these two bastards get selected ought to do it. If not during the massive amount of layoffs that are about to happen, pushing Bewshonomic's "win" streak to nine straight months of job loss.

The perfect ad for Obama should be McCain's recent statements of "The Economy is fundamentally sound" and after today's meltdown, he had this to say:

'I promise you, WE will never put America in this position again'

Yes, that's right. Mr S&L Scandal, Keating Five, pro-just-about-every-free-trade-agreement-in-the-book, rated 100% by the CATO Institute, Grand Cyclops John McClown said this.

President Sarah Palin.



I mean, DOES THIS NOT SCARE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE, let alone the moose and squirrel????

[Octafish]

35. Sarah Palin: The new paladin of Christian fascism

You know things are getting bad when a Great Depression II sounds pretty good compared to living under a Palin administration for eight years.

Sarah Palin: The new paladin of Christian fascism

By Mel Seesholtz, Ph.D.
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Sep 15, 2008, 00:20

Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky was correct: “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” When she was mayor of Wasilla, the recently anointed heroine of Christian fascism tried to ban more than a few books.

John Stein, mayor of Wasilla before Palin, noted that “as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. ‘She asked the library how she could go about banning books,’ he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. ‘The librarian was aghast.’ . . . news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving ‘full support’ to the mayor” .

Dictatorial behavior, to be sure. But then again, fascists are dictatorial. Why not just ban dictionaries? That makes fascist “sense.” Information and critical thinking are anathema to fascists, especially today’s home-grown crop of Christian fascists hell bent on eradicating all knowledge since Joshua stopped the earth-orbiting sun in the sky and replacing “thinking” with “obeying” without question or comment. For Christian fascists a dictionary is the Devil’s Book: it informs people that they’re being suckered and suffocated by logocide and the lies it produces.

Chris Hedges described “logocide” in his 2006 book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America: “Dominionists and their wealthy, right-wing sponsors speak in terms and phrases that are familiar and comforting to most Americans, but they no longer use words to mean what they meant in the past. They engage in a slow process of ‘logocide,’ the killing of words. The old definition of words are replaced by new ones. Code words of the old belief system are deconstructed and assigned diametrically opposed meanings.”

In the Christian Right’s war on knowledge and critical thinking, Paladin Palin has some other medieval “educational” ideas to go along with banning books. She wants creationism taught in public school science classes.

Said Jerry Falwell, “The Bible is the inerrant . . . word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.”

Perhaps Gov. Palin would like to have Falwell’s “wisdom” inscribed above the entrance to all public school science classrooms. We can close all the science labs. No need for them anymore. Just check the Bible. And if by chance the answer to a question in science, geography or history classes isn’t in the Bible, well, then it’s really not worth considering, is it? And just think of all the money school districts would save on books. The Bible would be the only textbook needed for science, geography, and history courses.

The Paladin similarly has plans to resolve those pesky social issues of abortion and equal rights for gay Americans. No abortions, no exceptions. Gays and lesbians are sinners -- by choice -- and therefore deserve to be shunned, second-class sub-citizens.

CONTINUED..

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3743.shtml

Your ad idea is oustanding, HughBeaumont. It should be sent to the Obama campaign.



"I love Moose and Squirrel. I mean, I really, really really love Moose and Squirrel." "Keel Moose."

The thing is, too many Americans have had false ideas inserted into their heads from the right for decades -- most every minute since 1:30 p.m. EST on November 22, 1963. Putting the truth into these citizens requires hours of reading and discussion and programming to drive them out. Thank you for being one of those actively doing so.

[bobthedrummer]

31. Kick + a link to the DU Research Forum "Gathered information on Palin with sources"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x5061

The "mavericks" are going to be in Green Bay Thursday, but since the former Brown County Republican Chairman and Treasurer, Donald Fleischman, resigned after being arrested for sex acts (masturbating on feet was documented) with a runaway adjudicated boy I wonder who is going to introduce them? The Republican Brown County DA sat on this case for almost a year and it is still unresolved. Several other Brown County Republican Party officials have resigned but Brown County is still a RW stronghold.

Here's an old WisPolitics blog post about Mr. Fleischman's case-another Republican leader with a secret life.
http://blogs.wispolitics.com/legal/2007/10/brown-county-gop-chair-charged-with.html

[Octafish]

39. Alternet: 8 More Stories About Palin the Public Needs to Know -- Palin Promotes Sychophant General

More fuel for the bonfire:

8 More Stories About Palin the Public Needs to Know

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet
Posted on September 10, 2008, Printed on September 16, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/98228/

It takes most politicians years to rack up the kinds of scandals, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies that have plagued Sarah Palin's candidacy in the week and a half since she catapulted to national attention. But the disturbing revelations about Palin's record as mayor and governor, and her positions on the issues, inexplicably just keep coming.

EXCERPT...

4. Palin may have rewarded serviceman with promotion for his about-face on her candidacy.

When the McCain campaign first announced that Palin would be joining the Republican ticket, most people thought they had just undercut their best attack against Obama: his supposed lack of experience. The McCain campaign was quick to answer concerns by parading Sarah Palin's position as Commander in Chief of the Alaskan National Guard as an example of executive leadership. But few bought the sale, knowing enough about the National Guard to realize that being Governor doesn't exactly make you a general.

This idea was backed up when the Adjutant General of Alaska's National Guard Major Craig Campbell reportedly told the Boston Globe that the Alaskan governor is not in the chain of command and has no authority over its operations. But Campbell's thoughts on the matter quickly changed, as Brandon (Friedman) reports for the Huffington Post:

But suddenly -- and strangely -- the commander of the Alaska National Guard, Major General Campbell, changed his story. By the end of the convention, he was praising Palin's experience, talking on TV about how she had taken control of Alaska's National Guard operations and how she was a "great" leader.

Interestingly enough, Palin promoted him with his third star -- to the rank of Lieutenant General -- only three days later.

Essentially, Campbell had been unhelpful to the campaign at the very least. But all of a sudden he became one of Palin's biggest supporters. And he was then promoted to be one of the two highest-ranking state National Guard officials in the country.

The timeline that Friedman lays out in his piece shows Campbell's full metamorphosis from a critic to a preacher of Palin's executive experience with the National Guard. Buying off a service-person with a quick promotion in order to get them to change their tune? Maybe the McCain Campaign is right -- maybe Palin does have the chops of an executive after all.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/election08/98228/8_more_stories_about_palin_the_public_needs_to_know/

Thank you, bobthedrummer. The DU un-lie-bury is an excellent resource.

Regarding the GOP turd in Wisconsin: Perhaps he'll talk about his connections. Remember the "aspens."

[bobthedrummer]

44. This one's for you and our friends (and enemies too) that use open sources for information warfare

in the battle for the Truth about these criminal monsters.

From what I selectively have gathered from the "political news" recently John McCain's original choice for VP was Joe Lieberman, Sarah Palin was inserted with the hearty approval of the Cheney/Rove/RW religious cultists-she is as corrupt as any of these lying bastards and quite an asset of the BFEE.

OK, Alaska geopolitically is a critical region, there are things up there besides oil-things like HAARP, many "research" and military bases etc. Any student of military history (or what Chalmers Johnson terms "amateur intelligence analysts") is aware of the many clashes between opposing forces in that region historically.

One of the goals of these folks is "full spectrum dominance".

Most of the prominent Alaskans are "retired" military/other government service members that embrace authoritarianism and statements like "money trumps peace sometimes".

Something has happened to our planet's climate in the past couple of decades as well as to the rest of our environment regardless of where we reside. This fact is vigorously denied by the BFEE. The Exxon Valdez disaster and aftermath, the BP/Shell N slope "problems", and many other environmental changes are being perception managed with the use of the corruption and coercion.

If anyone finds these opening generalized statements basically correct (and is reasonably politically astute about the RW) let's take a small slice of political reality about the allies of McCain/Palin and examine them IN DEPTH (warning: time consuming reading and political analysis required).

The mavericks want to develop all kinds of energy, anywhere and are lying when they talk of being green.
They rely on professional operatives, corrupted skeptics for talking points.

One of the premier world climate change skeptics is Robert Balling. Is it another "coincidence" that Robert Balling is also the Director of Arizona State University's Office of Climatology and that Robert Balling and that institution have received major funding from private sources including Exxon?

Here's a trio of links from ExxonSecrets.org that documents where Exxon invests some of it's obscene profits to fund "skeptics" of climate change and other energy prostitutes .

Arizona State University Office of Climatology
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=15

International Republican Institute/IRI
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=48

Organizations in Exxon Secrets Database
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php

Ever hear of the International Republican Institute/IRI? Exxon sure did. John McCain became its Chairman in 1993.

The current Board of Directors includes corporate RW/PNAC/RW religious cult corrupted leaders with names like Bremer, Eagleburger, Skowcroft and John McCain is still listed as Chair-take a look at their entire official site, there's war criminal Henry Kissinger getting hugs from his old neonazi friends...

International Republican Institute/IRI Board of Directors
http://www.iri.org/board.asp

The mavericks were always part of the RW and BFEE assets, why do you think McCain's first choice for VP was Lieberman?

Here's Right Web's profile of the IRI-it is rich in history (and links) about this organization
International Republican Institute
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1481

Yep, now I'm under time pressure so I'm going offline for awhile (politics is local) but I hope this somewhat disjointed post (by design) helps others that are taking that lifelong course we call Know Your BFEE--these aren't mavericks at all are they Sir?

[Solly Mack]

32. in the summer of 2007 Palin hosted a reception for Robert Bork John Bolton, Lowery, and Dick Morris

Palin meets with Robert Bork,John Bolton, Rich Lowery , and Dick Morris


in the summer of 2007 Palin hosted a reception for Robert Bork (yes, that Bork), John Bolton, Rich Lowery , and Dick Morris


with Bork

Just to add a little more info

great thread!!!!

[Octafish]

41. Palin And The Enduring Christian Right

Wow, Solly Mack! What an, uh, eclectic crowd. Bork, neocon brains and Toesucker in the same room must've made for big laughs.

Palin And The Enduring Christian Right

Chip Berlet
Huffington Post

What McCain is attempting to do by selecting Palin is to close the God Gap by solidifying the base of the Republican Party in the Christian Right, while at the same time appealing to a broader base of White Christian evangelicals. And Palin will appear quite mainstream to most moderate Republicans and independents.

McCain was considering Romney and Huckabee as ways to woo the Christian Right, but Romney was coming across as too slick and elitist, and was still being dragged down by antipathy among some Christian evangelicals for his being a Mormon.

Last February, I wrote here: “Huckabee Fails to Keep Southern Evangelical Base United.” So while many in the Christian Right voted for Huckabee in those southern primaries, not enough other White evangelicals voted for Huckabee. In other words, Huckabee would scare away too many moderate Republicans and not attract enough of the White Christian evangelical base outside the Christian Right.

Remember, the Christian Right is only 15% of the electorate, but it votes overwhelmingly Republican with little change over the last 30 years. One study found that 40 percent of the total vote for Bush in 2000 came from Christian Evangelicals, making it the largest single voting bloc in the Republican Party.

But some White Christian evangelicals are swing voters. Palin will be attractive to this constituency where Huckabee and Romney failed.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chip-berlet/palin-and-the-enduring-ch_b_122524.html

Most importantly: Thanks for all you do, Solly Mack!

PS: Really like the photo. My wife's family is somehow related to his wife -- he married a former nun. Poor Judge Bork still hasn't recovered from his fall, I see. I wonder if he won his suit?

[mother earth]

34. Fantastic work, Octafish. Everyone needs to read this.

I will def. pass on this info. Well done!:kick:

[Octafish]

45. For Palin, It’s a (Christian) Man’s World

There was something, eh, unsettling about Todd and Sarah.

For Palin, It’s a (Christian) Man’s World

by Chris Hedges
Published on Monday, September 15, 2008 by TruthDig.com

Sarah Palin may be a governor and a vice presidential candidate, but in the hyper-masculine world of the Christian right she is subservient to a male hierarchy that claims to speak for God.

A cult of masculinity defines the Wasilla Assembly of God Church and the Juneau Christian Centre where she worshipped. This cult propagates a vision of the world where believers are warriors. They are taught to ready themselves to engage in a final cataclysmic clash with the forces of Satan. This cosmic struggle, infused with the language of war, death and violence, leads inevitably to the slaughter by the righteous of all non-Christians. The photos of Palin hunched over dead animals she has shot are not simply images of a woman who is a member of the National Rifle Association. They are images of a woman who believes violence against nonbelievers is ultimately part of her religious life.

The cult of masculinity is used to banish ambiguity, especially sexual ambiguity. It fosters a world of binary opposites: God and man, the saved and the unsaved, the church and the world, Christianity and secular humanism, and male and female. All in life is rigidly defined. Disorder and chaos are banished. Reality, when it is defined in these absolutes, is predictable and understandable, something deeply comforting to believers who have often had trouble coping with the messiness of human existence.

All configurations of human life that do not conform to the rigid Christian model, such as homosexuality, are forms of disorder, tools of Satan, and must be abolished. This is why Palin opposes gay marriage and calls for gays to be cured. A world that can be predicted and understood, a world that has clear markers, can be made rational. It can be managed and controlled. The petrified, binary world of fixed, immutable and established roles is a world where people, many of them damaged by bouts with failure and despair, can bury their chaotic and fragmented personalities. They can live with the illusion that they are strong, whole and protected. Those who do not fit into these narrow definitions must be proselytized and converted.

The decline of America is ascribed to the decline of male prowess. This decline has led to weakness and moral decay. It has resulted in a bewildering human and social complexity that, often seen as feminine, is the work of Satan. This is why Palin consistently celebrates “male” values.

James Dobson, one of Palin’s most ardent supporters, has built his career on perpetuating these rigid male stereotypes. On his Family.org Web site he discusses “the countless physiological and emotional differences between the sexes.” The article “Gender Gap?” on the Web site lists the physical distinctions between man and woman, including strength, size, red blood cell count and metabolism. For a woman, Dobson writes, love is her most important experience: Love gives woman her “zest,” it makes up her “life-blood,” it is her primary “psychological need.” Love holds less meaning in a man’s life than a woman’s -- though a man can appreciate love, he does not “need” it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/15

Most importantly: Thank you, Mother Earth. You understand "why." Infinite thanks to you and yours.

[Initech]

36. Corrupt Bastards Club... yup, I'd say that's a fitting name.

They can all go eat shit and die.

[Octafish]

46. NYT: Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

If she uses the powers of office to reward friends and punish foes, she's ready for prime time in the BFEE.

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

by Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell.
The New York Times
September 14, 2008


WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?bl&ex=1221624000&en=afcd714ae3b553ae&ei=5087%0A

Thanks for giving a damn and for putting it into words, EOO.

[Initech]

50. Hey, I like money. Maybe Palin could appoint me as treasury secretary!

:rofl:

[OnyxCollie]

37. Kicked and bookmarked. (Too late to recommend.) nt

[Octafish]

47. Some video of General flip-flopping for Farah. I mean, Sarah.

Tell me this isn't 1984, blackops.

Video: Alaska N.G. General Criticizes Palin, General Then Supports Palin and Gets Promoted

More on the subject:

Alaska National Guard General Changes Story; Palin Promotes

by: Brandon Friedman
Tue Sep 09, 2008 at 11:40:45 AM EDT

When John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, the campaign immediately began touting her experience--both foreign and domestic--as "commander-in-chief" of the Alaska National Guard. But the reality of the situation--that Palin actually had little to do with the National Guard quickly became apparent. In fact, the idea was undercut severely by comments made by the actual commander of the Alaska National Guard--its Adjutant General, Major General Craig Campbell. When that happened, it eventually turned into somewhat of a national joke, culminating in the humiliation of McCain/Palin campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds on CNN when he tried to promote Palin's "foreign policy" experience during the Republican National Convention.

It was getting bad for the McCain campaign because they couldn't afford to lose the "experience" argument to the Obama campaign.

But suddenly--and strangely--the commander of the Alaska National Guard, Major General Campbell, changed his story. By the end of the convention, he was praising Palin's experience, talking on TV about how she had taken control of Alaska's National Guard operations and how she was a "great" leader.

Interestingly enough, Palin promoted him with his third star--to the rank of Lieutenant General--only three days later.

Essentially, Campbell had been unhelpful to the campaign at the very least. But all of a sudden he became one of Palin's biggest supporters. And he was then promoted to be one of the two highest-ranking state National Guard officials in the country. See if this timeline is as eyebrow-raising to you as it is to me:

CONTINUED (please follow to VetVoice) w Loads o' Video:

http://www.spartacuslives.org/node/20552

Oh yeah. It's worse.

Thank you for giving a damn, my Friend!

[madfloridian]

38. Too late to recommend...so kicking it.

Great post.

This board is moving so fast I am missing stuff.

[Octafish]

48. Fiorina: Palin Lacks Experience to Run a Company

Queen Carly pegged McBush and KKKaribu Barbie:

Fiorina: Palin Lacks Experience to Run a Company

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post
Sept. 16, 2008 Updated 3:17 p.m.

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina amended her comments from earlier today that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin could not run a major corporation like HP.

How? By saying that Sen. John McCain couldn't run one either.

In an interview on NBC with Andrea Mitchell, Fiorina was asked about her comment. In response, she said, "Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

Not exactly on message. But she went on to explain that the question is a red herring.

"I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don't think Joe Biden could," she said. "But it is not the same as being the president or vice president of the United States. It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company, so of course, to run a business, you have to have a lifetime of experience in business, but that's not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Barack Obama or Joe Biden are doing."

Earlier, Fiorina was asked about Palin by a host of the McGraw-Hill Show on St. Louis KTRS Radio: "Do you think she has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?"

"No, I don't," Fiorina responded. "But you know what? That's not what she's running for."

CONTINUED...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/16/fiorina_palin_lacks_experience.html

Gee. If they can't run a company, they don't sound so hot when it comes to running a country. Consider what happened the last time an idiot got selected...

PS: Thank you for the kind words, madfloridian! Very much appreciate that you give a damn, my Friend!

[seemslikeadream]

40. Got milk?

I had to change a letter to comply with DU rules

[Octafish]

51. Some Girls...

...don't get it. Some girls do.



Desecration by Renata Palubinskas


But, they sure know where it comes from.



Playground II (Chicken on Pig) by Renata Palubinskas


How's that for symbolism the average television voter can get?



Real Circus I by Renata Palubinskas


PS: I kid you not. This weekend, there's all sorts of stuff happening in good old Milford, Michigan.

You get it, seemslikeadream.

[mtnsnake]

43. Awesome post!

[DevonRex]

49. Hey mtnsnake. You've been on your very best behavior lately.

I loved that rant you did last week (I think it was last week). Wish I'd bookmarked it cause now I can't find it. This board moves so quickly that if you don't bookmark something right away it's lost forever. Oh well. I'm sure you have a good rant or two left in you. :)

[Octafish]

52. Palin Feasted On Earmarks

Thank you, mtnsnake. Busting the BFEE is a sort of pasttime of mine. It's modeled after the old Dick Tracy Crimestopper's Notebook. Each Sunday, there'd be a tip about the badguys and how to stop 'em. Instead of fictional bankrobbers, chiselers and murderers we have mass-murderers, warmongers and traitors.

Palin Feasted On Earmarks

by Wayne Francis
RejectMcCain.com
September 14, 2008

During an appearance Friday on ABC’s “The View,” Sen. McCain said Gov. Palin shared his views, and hasn’t sought congressional earmarks. “Not as governor she hasn’t,” he said.In fact, in the current fiscal year, she is seeking $197 million for 31 projects, the records show.

In the prior year, her first year in office, she sought $256 million for dozens more projects ranging from research on rockfish and harbor-seal genetics to rural sanitation and obesity prevention. By comparison, her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, sought more than $350 million in his last year in office.The McCain campaign said Sunday that Gov. Palin’s overall record is one of fiscal discipline. “Her record is cutting the number of earmark requests from the previous administration sizably,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, and she has vetoed wasteful state spending.As for Sen. McCain’s televised comments on Friday, Mr. Bounds added, “If he gave viewers a mistaken impression, it certainly wasn’t intentional.”

In an interview with ABC News on Friday, Gov. Palin herself suggested she no longer seeks earmarks for her state. “The abuse of earmarks, it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and it’s not going to be accepted in a McCain-Palin administration. Earmark abuse will stop.”When pressed about her record as governor, she said: “We have drastically, drastically reduced our earmark request since I came into office. This is what I’ve been telling Alaskans for these years that I’ve been in office, is no more.”Alaska’s success with earmarks is due in part to the power of Sen. Ted Stevens, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The state’s earmark requests stand out in part because its state government is among the wealthiest in the U.S. Flush with oil and gas royalties, it doesn’t impose income or sales taxes. In fact, money flows the other way: Every man, woman and child this year got a check for $3,200.The McCain campaign has also come under fire for saying on the stump and in TV ads that Gov. Palin killed the controversial “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $223 million earmark linking the mainland to a sparsely populated island. In fact, she supported the project initially and killed it after it was widely criticized and Congress allowed the state to use the funds for other projects.

SOURCE

http://rejectmccain.com/?p=888

[bobthedrummer]

53. And tonight we are hearing that all of the State of Alaska employees

as well as Todd Palin are not going to respond to the subpoenas to testify in Troopergate, unless the entire Alaska State Senate and Assembly order them to.

Oh she has plenty of executive experience, people, and she uses it just like her BFEE mentors have instructed her to do (using the proven model of their Decider).

With them it isn't Justice-it's Just Us.

[Octafish]

54. Citizen Palin -- Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler

Looking up from their fiery domain, Prescott and Allen must be soooo proud, the Reich's found their new Nixon -- spouts populist rhetoric, believes self a member of the master race:

Citizen Palin

Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler

By TIPHAINE DICKSON
CounterPunch
September 16, 2008

EXCERPT...

As Scully sat with Palin, many of the McCain campaign's most senior staff were most likely called upon to review and comment the emerging speech's leitmotiv: small town values of decency, service and integrity, facing off against the unreliability of the community-organizing urbanites in truly fighting for the interests of the people, or for the nation's war efforts. The novelty of a relatively young woman speaking to the RNC was offset by a retro feel: something from bygone days when things were simple, and moral response to enemies something that one didn't have to think too hard about. Something harkening back to the Truman years.

One passage from the speech made it explicit:

"Long ago, a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri, he followed an unlikely path -- he followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency. And a writer observed, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity," and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.

I grew up with those people. They're the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, and run our factories, and fight our wars. They love their country in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America."

Who are these people who "fight our wars", love their country "in good times and bad", and who-ostensibly, contrary to some people-are "always proud of America? They are the people observed by the anonymous "writer", the people "grown" in small towns, people like Harry Truman, described in that passage by Westbrook Pegler, Hearst Newspapers' bellicose cold-warrior.

This quote appears in Patrick Buchanan's Right From the Beginning:

"When Harry Truman came into the presidency, Pegler welcomed him. "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity," he wrote; but earlier, Pegler had told his readers the man from Missouri was someone to watch out for. "This Truman," Pegler wrote, when Harry was nominated for vice president, "is thin-lipped, a hater, and not above offering you his hand to yank you off balance, and work you over with a chair leg, a pool cue, or something out of his pocket."

Pegler's earlier description of Truman lacks in homespun integrity what it more than makes up for in grit: Truman is portrayed as a pit bull, another of the strongest notes in Palin's speech.

Westbrook Pegler was not just a Hearst populist, he was a raving McCarthyite whose hatred of communists ultimately turned his prose into anti-semitic bile, much like that of the German fascists he'd most reviled in his earlier days. Before Truman, say.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/dickson09162008.html

Another Cold War or two and who knows? These turds will cement their positions as the world's slavemasters forever.

Thank you, Sir, for understanding the situation and doing so much about it -- in Blogtown, Realworld and the difficult-to-see dimensions in-between.

[bobthedrummer]

55. You nailed it, Sir: "believes self a member of the master race"

Eugenics wears so many shades of lipstick here in HOMELAND (tm), but it's still eugenics.

"January 1, 1934: 'The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring' took effect" (started January 1, 2008)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2570336

[Initech]

56. Hey Octafish, what do you know about this "Troopergate" scandal on DU's front page yesterday?

[Octafish]

57. In TROOPERGATE and in life: No one is above the truth, even Palin

Sorry I missed the DU article on TROOPERGATE, EOO. Do you have a link? I'm not familiar with navigating that part of DU...

What I know is the GOP is scared to investigate. To me, that indicates they are afraid of what they’ll find. And that is an ugly truth: Palin abuses power to punish her enemies. The corollary is that she would use power to reward her friends.

A republicon talking head, of all people, put it very well in The Anchorage Daily News:

No one is above the truth, even Palin

DAN FAGAN
COMMENT
The Anchorage Daily News
(09/16/08 22:52:37)

EXCERPT...

The governor has given so many different reasons for firing Monegan I’ve lost count. From the “we need new direction” and “new energy” to “he wasn’t hiring enough cops,” to “he wasn’t doing enough about alcohol in the bush” to “he lobbied for budget increases” to the latest version, which is a doozy; Monegan displayed “egregious rogue behavior.”

The governor also originally said that neither she, Todd nor anyone from her administration pressured Monegan regarding Trooper Wooten. Palin then was forced to admit there was serial contact once the Frank Bailey tape surfaced. But she insisted she was just learning of it. But e-mails have surfaced detailing Palin complaining to Monegan about Wooten.

The governor also originally said an investigation was needed and promised to cooperate. Then she instructed her employees not to talk to the investigator and has herself refused to be interviewed.

Palin can’t constantly change her story and expect us to believe her each time she does.

SNIP...

My question to my conservative friends is simple. Does the truth still matter?

SNIP...

Parnell knows eight Republicans along with four Democrats voted to launch this independent investigation.

SNIP...

No politician is so popular and charismatic that they should be above accountability and telling the truth. Not even Sarah Palin.

CONTINUED...

http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/528420.html

Sorry it's so, eh, snippy, my Friend.

What this means for America: We have the GOP nominate a woman for vice-president who’s willing to abuse her position to extract revenge on personal enemies.

Imagine what she’d do to political enemies. Don Siegelman knows.

[Initech]

58. This was the article I was referring to:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5804703&page=1

I dont live in Alaska so I dont get coverage of this scandal on the local news.