I Can't Take This Campaign Anymore

Transparency (defined as an amount of public disclosure sufficient to limit officials from abusing state mechanisms for their own interest) is a hot topic in government ethics. Opening meetings to the media and private citizens, publicly releasing budgets and financial statements, and providing referendums on laws, rules and decisions—these are all seen as government gestures toward being transparent.

This is a different kind of transparent:

David Blane on John McCain

It's funny because David Blane is irrelevant.

McCain Suspends Campaign

UM?

Indecision 2008: McCain Has No Comment on Economic Bailout

McCain declines to say if he will back bailout plan

Just consider: if the nation were a final exam, McCain would check yes for every war and leave the economic questions blank.

Alaska Used to Be Beautiful...

but, now is a little less so, thanks to Sarah Palin's leadership. Salon, an awesomely persistent watchdog for digging up Palin's buried bones so far, has investigated the pollution of Lake Lucille, Wasilla under her mayoral watch.

Among the environmental casualties of Wasilla's frenzied development was Palin's own front yard, Lake Lucille. The lake was listed as "impaired" in 1994 by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and it still carries that grim label. State environmental officials say that leaching sewer lines and fertilizer runoff caused an explosion of plant growth in the lake, which sucked the oxygen out of the water and led to periodic fish kills.

"Sarah," a recent biography of Palin by Kaylene Johnson, features a photo of a beaming Palin, sitting in a rowboat on Lake Lucille clutching a fishing rod. But, according to local fishermen, the Republican vice-presidential candidate would have to be very lucky to reel in something edible.

The Palin Aerial Wolf Hunting Ad

This is going to change exactly zero minds.

Unless, "making me laugh at what is, honestly, a serious issue" counts.

Awesome Person Releases Damning Emails From Gov. Palin's Secret Yahoo Account

Thanks, Anonymous. [Via Gawker]

Let's stop caring about that Palin nonsense and start focusing on the economy...

Well, after we read this: Palin linked electoral success to prayer of Kenyan witchhunter

76 McCain Flip-Flops

It's like an end of summer liquidation sale! So many flip-flops! We're just giving them away!

Under Palin's reign, women foot the bill for rape

Circulating around the Web today, is the news that during the time Palin was mayor of Wasilla, women were charged for their own rape kits, which cost between $300 and $1200 a piece.

The Wasilla police commissioner, whom Palin personally appointed, opposed litigation to overturn the policy. It's unclear yet how involved Palin was with this issue--if she was performing her job adequately, she certainly was aware of it--but, hopefully Charles Gibson is paying attention as he composes his hard-hitting (yet not hitting so hard as to appear sexist (or worse, Alaskanist) questions.

Of course, maybe this is all part of McCain's master plan to distinguish his team from those wimpy sexual-assault-victim-protecting liberals. As NY Magazine notes,

Joe Biden was a sponsor of the 2005 Senate bill requiring states to foot the bill for rape exams. Barack Obama was one of 58 co-sponsors; John McCain wasn't.

Jason Bourne Calls Palin VP Pick "Disasterous"

Near as I can tell, it seems assured that Matt Damon read these articles before he made this rant, "McCain and the politics of mortality" at Politico (re: "actuary tables") and any one of Maureen Dowd's recent NYT's columns on Sarah Palin "Vice in Go-Go Boots?" or "My Fair Veep" ("bad Disney movie" joke). Other possible sources cited include: on the book-banning or "library censoring" issue, the Boston Herald; and on the question of whether or not she's a creationist, Wired Science.

This Joke Is An Oldy, But A Misogynistic-y

It's been over a decade since McCain made this nasty (and jokebook-level dumb) gag at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, but we might as well relive it, a comment the Washington Post thought "was too vicious to print" — and they printed Cheney saying "Fuck yourself!" Wipe away any expectations, it's not clever or interesting:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

All together now: That's not change we can believe in.
[via a Salon.com article, so old it's in the previous HTML layout]

McCain Gets Tough On Veterans' Biddies

From McClatchy's Washington Bureau:

Back in Washington, families of POW_MIAs said they have seen McCain's wrath repeatedly. Some families charged that McCain hadn't been aggressive enough about pursuing their lost relatives and has been reluctant to release relevant documents. McCain himself was a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years during the Vietnam War.

In 1992, McCain sparred with Dolores Alfond, the chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen and Women, at a Senate hearing. McCain's prosecutor-like questioning of Alfond — available on YouTube — left her in tears.

Four years later, at her group's Washington conference, about 25 members went to a Senate office building, hoping to meet with McCain. As they stood in the hall, McCain and an aide walked by.

Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.

As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.

"McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.

Fannie and Freddie should just get married and get off welfare, right?

Saturday in Colorado Springs, Colo., Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said, "The fact is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."

"Too expensive to the taxpayers?"

They're private entities.

Palin's not pro-(wild)life

Still love your wolf-eared copy of "Julie of the Wolves"? One wonders if Sarah Palin would consider banning it on the basis of fraternizing with the enemy.

Salon magazine posted an article today about Palin's gung-ho support of gunning wolves from planes:

Wildlife activists thought they had seen the worst in 2003 when Frank Murkowski, then the Republican governor of Alaska, signed a bill ramping up state programs to gun down wild wolves from airplanes, inviting average citizens to participate. Wolves, Murkowski believed, were clearly better than humans at killing elk and moose, and humans needed to even the playing field.

But that was before Sarah Palin took Murkowski's job at the end of 2006. She went one step, or paw, further. Palin didn't think Alaskans should be allowed to chase wolves from aircraft and shoot them -- they should be encouraged to do so. Palin's administration put a bounty on wolves' heads, or to be more precise, on their mitts.

In early 2007, Palin's administration approved an initiative to pay a $150 bounty to hunters who killed a wolf from an airplane in certain areas, hacked off the left foreleg, and brought in the appendage. Ruling that the Palin administration didn't have the authority to offer payments, a state judge quickly put a halt to them but not to the shooting of wolves from aircraft.

A video of the (be warned: horrifying) wolf killing here.

McCain Plans to Overturn Roe vs. Wade

This is taken directly from John McCain's website.

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, "At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level."

McCain Speech Interrupted by Iraq Vet Protester

John McCain was caught off guard this evening when an Iraqi War Veteran interrupted his speech.

"Service" is the theme of the Republican National Convention. Isn't John McCain all about military service? Watch the video.

Cindy McCain $300,000 Convention Outfit

Oh, Vanity Fair. It takes one to know one, doesn't it? Here's their breakdown of Cindy McCain's super elitist and out of touch RNC convention outfit — which at my old salary would take me over 6 years to afford! (If I never paid taxes, ate food or did anything else ever!)

Cindy McCain

Oscar de la Renta dress:
$3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch:
$4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings:
$280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace:
$11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown:
$600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

I don't want to raise anyone's ire, but it does at least look good. Let's also mention that it's only 6k shy of the starting MSRP for the most expensive Volvo on the market: the XC90. It's also worth 30,000 cups of the most expensive latte in the world, or 23,077 pounds of Organic Baby Arugula — based on a $3.99/ 5 oz price tag (feel free to check my work). There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's being chairwoman of Hensley, the nation's third-largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products.

Sarah Palin Provides McCain Campaign with New Opportunities -- for Truth Stretching

The Associated Press has a great breakdown of some of the factual errors in Palin's RNC speech and the various speakers' comments about her.

Some particularly juicy whoppers:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

A Walking Tour Of The Homes Of Washington DC's Plutocratic Overlords

I know this isn't exactly McCain related, but it is a great example of why anything resembling four more years of the same is genuinely terrifying.

McCain Can't Handle Media - Reaches For Crying Towel

On Monday night, CNN's Campbell Brown asked Tucker Bounds, McCain spokesman a tough question for which he had no answer:

Can you tell me one decision that she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, just one?” Ms. Brown asked.

Mr. Bounds responded, “Any decision she has made as the commander of the National Guard that’s deployed overseas is more of a decision Barack Obama’s been making as he’s been running for president for the last two years.”

Ms. Brown pressed again, saying: “So tell me. Tell me. Give me an example of one of those decisions.”

To which Mr. Bounds said, “Campbell, certainly you don’t mean to belittle every experience, every judgment she makes as commander.” The argument devolved from there, with no real resolution.

In response to this questioning, McCain has cancelled his interview tonight with Larry King. It seems that McCain would rather 'punish' CNN for asking his spokesman tough questions than reprimand or fire Bounds. It's unfortunate because this action leaves no opportunity for McCain to answer the above mentioned question.

Will we ever find out if Palin had experience leading the National Guard? We have the answer.
Regarding Sarah Palin’s National Security experience, here is Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard’s comments:

“Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin “extremely responsive and smart” and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder.
But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.”