Link, as per usual, is in the Top Headlines Sidebar.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:40 AM | Comments (9)
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The most striking thing about the first real night of the Republican convention was the stark contrast it provided with the Democrats who gathered in Denver. The chants of O-BA-MA were replaced with U-S-A. I love how they makes skin of liberals crawl because they just don't get it.

One other notable difference was the treatment of Iraq, Afghanistan and our veterans in general. They were hailed heroes who are to be honored and revered, not as stupid children who need to be protected and pitied.

If you missed it, you can watch the video tribute to Medal of Honor recipient, Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor here.

I donÂ’t recall seeing anything like that in Denver.

Tonight is Palin's big night. I doubt there's anything she can do to win over the media (short of aborting Bristol's child on stage and with her own hands. Boy they'd love that!) but she can go over their heads and show America what a good conservative believes in and in the process she'll expose the media for the frauds they are.

If she should happen to mention that she's proud of America, we'll all know it won't be for the first time in her life and that to will be a stark contrast to last week's festivities in Denver.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:50 AM | Comments (38)
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BUMPED and UPDATED: The WaPo's ombudsman is on vacation.
Please forward your retraction requests to: corrections@washpost.com
Thanks to Exurban John.

Many Layers Of Fact Checking At WaPo

It's over at Malkin's and in the sidebar headlines here, but really deserves a post because it's a lie that has legs running all over the internet now.

In their mad rush to smear Palin for something- anything- the WaPo fails to notice that their evidence actually refutes itself.

Here's the hack's headline: Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms

Proof:

Check out the description right on the appropriation.

Covenant House Alaska- Covenant House Facility Expansion (HD-1732)

Emphasis me. The amount appropriated for EXPANSION was reduced.

Paul Kane. "Journalist" for the Washington Post.

You. Are. A Fucking. Retarded. Douchetool of an Obama Ball-gargling Cunt of a Hack of a Fake-ass journalistic dick.

Why do people like life insurance salesmen and carjackers better than they like journalists?

This.

Furthermore, according to this link and accompanying text provided by a commenter named 'Washington Post Lies Again' on the original article (which still has not been retracted), this is a pretty generous EXPANSION.

This is an increase over previous years. See prior funding.
______________________
IRS Form 990
http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsReport.do?partner=justgive&npoId=332976

2006 REVENUE for Covenant House Alaska

Contributions $1,667,796
Government Grants $1,194,788
Program Services $0
Investments $67,947
Special Events $271,980
Sales $0
Other $11,139
Total Revenue $3,213,650

Gov. Palin didnÂ’t slash anything from anybody. In fact, it seems that cutting from $5.0MM (Proposed) to $3.9MM (actual) wasnÂ’t too bad a deal for Covenant House Alaska, seeing that in 2006 their revenue from the govt was only $1.2MM.

Posted by: Washington Post Lies Again | September 3, 2008 9:42 AM

Still no retraction, and the DU pinheads are still claiming it's true and propagating the lie.

You guys know I never ask you for anything. I give. I'm a giver.
But we need to smack this mendacious bitch with an AOSHQ moron-swarm.

As at Michelle Malkin's, the WaPo ombudsman's email addy:
ombudsman@washpost.com

Posted by: LauraW at 09:18 AM | Comments (95)
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On the night of Barack Obama's speech, John McCain released an advertisement congratulating him on his achievement.

On the night of John McCain's speech, Barack Obama is going on Bill O'Reilly's show in an attempt to grab some headlines.

Again, compare. Contrast.

Posted by: Slublog at 07:09 AM | Comments (39)
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Qwinn's found some of the holdouts, hiding in their caves, still carrying on the good fight for Mother Nippon.

Here's a twist. Maybe Trig is... tiny little Piper's baby.

Maybe Bristol is not Trig's mother ...but there are 3 other adult children in the Palin family ...maybe one of them? I find it hard to swallow that a woman who already had 4 grown children would elect to have a 5th at the age of 44 ! It seems logical that a 4 month old baby would belong to someone much younger ...Am I making sense ?

Perfect sense. Please, do go on.

But, may I ask: Where is the person or persons who... care for you? Are you allowed to access a computer without... proper supervision?

And, okay, this doesn't exactly prove I'm gifted with psychic foresight, but yeah, as scheduled, the comparisons of Sarah Palin's form to fat-suits has begun:

If the 6 and 7 month photos are to be believed of the Governor, but so too are the ones online at 8 months (provided by Republicans bloggers), I think there is a prosthetic device being employed here that could just as easily be worn by the daughter now to continue the story-line. (See sample here: http://www.empathybelly.org/home.html)

Sure, Sarah Palin slips out of the pregnancy suit, slips it right on to Bristol. Like passing down an engagement ring. Awwwww...

Hey, here's a question:

How do you know Trig is even real?

Kinda small. Doesn't talk much... I think you're missing the obvious: Trig's an animatronic babybot.

Let's just remember: These are the people the MSM read and exchange comments with. The MSM is keenly aware of every "scoop" "reported" on leftwing blogs; they don't read right wing blogs at all. If they did, they'd have stopped repeating the lie that Sarah Palin belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party this morning.

They're fair and neutral, objective and impartial. It just so happens that all of the blogs they read for both work and pleasure are left-wing.

Even for work, even to keep tabs on "the other side," they can't manage to force themselves to read any right-leaning blogs.

Think about that. They're so fucking left-wing they can't bear to read a right-leaning blog even if they're being paid for that time.

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 AM | Comments (71)
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A good point and I'm surprised Slate is making it.

Although it would be unnecessarily cruel and invasive to wonder about which specific daughters of previous presidential and vice presidential candidates may have had an "invisible pregnancy" -- that is, one terminated by abortion -- it's less invasive to simply take the cohort as a group and play the percentages game.

Saletan here, for reasons I would call "mystifying" but are anything but, restricts the possible candidates to those between ages 17 and 30 when their fathers stood for election, rather than stood for election and then served, which is an utterly contrived parameter designed specifically to exclude Chelsea Clinton (who was of course dating during her dad's term, and was 16 when he ran for re-election) from consideration. Note how they yet bend over backwards to refrain from smearing a child whose parents they like.

Nevertheless, that's a minor quibble, and if Saletan had to do that to get his piece published and/or not send liberals screaming blue murder, fine, we'll work with his transparently contrived parameters. There's no particular reason we need Chelsea Clinton in the cohort.

Doesn't matter. Might be even better if we didn't name any particular names listed at all (just ages) and just dealt with the presidential daughters as pure actuarial abstractions, anyhow. We don't care which of the presidential and vice presidential daughters may have become pregnant; that's their business.

We only care about the likelihoods that one or several of them have been pregnant, "invisibly," at some point, whomever they might be.

An unintended pregnancy rate of 6 to 7 percent, in a population of 37 women, means two to three pregnancies per year. Even if you discount the rate further, on the grounds that these are the wealthiest and best-educated families, the notion that none of these young women got knocked up before their parents' nominations or elections is—pardon the term—almost inconceivable....

Most unintended pregnancies in the higher income and education brackets end in abortion.

Remember that before you judge or poke fun at Sarah Palin. She's not the candidate whose daughter messed up. She's the candidate who didn't get rid of the mess.

Have all the presidential and vice presidential daughters really all been either abstinent, infertile, or extraordinarily well-disciplined in using birth control properly, even during those fumbling and reckless late teenaged years? Extraordinarily doubtful.

Bristol Palin is an anomaly, and is a first, and is noteworthy. And she is, I suppose, therefore worthy of media commentary, but not for the reason they insist--

She's the only one who decided to have her baby rather than abort it.

She's not the first one with a little secret. Just the first one whose little secret was allowed to grow into a bigger secret and then into something not a secret at all.

Why Restrict This to Daughters? All of the sons, too, would have been involved in unintended pregnancies at equal rates. Their pregnancies, too, have remained "invisible."

Why Restrict This to Presidents and Vice Presidents? Congress is a big, bustling place, with hundreds of families and one or two thousand sons/daughters of sexually mature age at any time.

And yet the institution seems remarkably pristine of embarrassing, distracting, "punishing" (as Barack Obama might say) out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

Is it just the super-duper deluxe contraception available in the congressional commissary? Seems unlikely.

And Hey... Since we're opening up the question -- and since it is the media, specifically, that is descending upon this girl like ravenous jackals -- Why not consider all of the media's rather exceptional good fortune at not conceiving except precisely when they wish to, and how that great fortune is equally visited upon their sons and daughters as well?

Hey, Campbell Brown--

You seem to have had good luck in the conception-at-convenient-times lottery.

Obviously you're a lucky woman.

Were you lucky before the fact or lucky after the fact?

Assuming this Story Gets Any Media Play... and I think it will, actually, given that the media is hungry for stories about the Great National Bristol Palin Pregnancy Crisis (Day 3: America Waits), how much you want to be the media illustrates this only with pictures and video of the Bush twins?

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 PM | Comments (30)
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Takes a lot of money to equal Bambi's in-kind donations from the media.

Heh: More scandals on the way!

There is solid evidence that Sarah Palin may have been fully naked (aka nude) at certain times during her term as Governor, may have worn scandalous lingerie at other points, and may have even engaged in wild sex acts in private that would be positively scandalous in public. Although the full details are still unavailable, it's come to light that Sarah Palin repeatedly exploited a blue-collar Eskimo worker for her own private amusement in the bedroom, and that she had sex with him on at least four separate occasions. It's also well-known in Alaska that Sarah Palin got pregnant by a young snowmobile racer (see photo at right). (The snowmobiler openly admits he is the father of Palin's child. Palin claims her husband "Todd" is the father.)

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 PM | Comments (33)
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Really, Mark? How about you just observe the hands-off rules you observed with Chelsea Clinton?

Do we know the first time Chelsea Clinton had premarital sex? Of course it happened during Clinton's term -- and yet you weren't all hot to get that scoop, were you? You didn't dig to find out how many cocks she'd sucked before she gave up the cherry, nor if she ever tried anal.

Is she good in bed? This was a scoop that was out there, you know, and something Bill and Hillary had exposed her to... and yet they really didn't, because they knew the media would not assault their daughter. Because they liked the Clintons.

It's a whole different ball game when it comes to Bristol Palin. Or the Bush Twins.

Funny how we heard so very much about those crazy Bush Twins -- doing wild stuff like going to parties, puffing on a cigarette, drinking underaged as college students -- and yet the Gore Girls and Chelsea Clinton were permitted to enjoy their youths without intrusion.

When a Democratic candidate himself is caught engaging in bad behavior -- having an affair with an intern, siring an out-of-wedlock "love baby" while his wife dies of incurable breast cancer -- that candidate need only say "Please respect my and my family's privacy" and the media cools it on the overkill. Necessary stories come out, but only when absolutely necessary, and then the philanderer is let alone.

In order to spare his family.

On the other hand, if a Republican woman says "Please leave my daughter alone, she's 17 and not running for anything," the media seems to take that as a challenge, and sets out to destroy that child.

Funny how "Please respect my family's privacy" has stopped all reportage on John Edwards, even though John Edwards was saying Please leave me alone, and he was the bad actor. But the "family privacy" thing worked for him, despite being such an obviously self-serving pretext even the media called it such.

Here we have a 17 year old girl who didn't even technically do anything wrong, but her privacy can't be respected.

And you know whose fault that is?

Sarah Palin's.

She's making the media attack her family savagely.

After all, she's threatening their candidate.

Protect Elizabeth: Ah, remember the days when the media admitted (partly in order to avoid copping to straight-up partisan bias) they deliberately tanked the Edwards story to avoid hurting poor Elizabeth?

After all-- she was an innocent. She didn't deserve this.

Apparently the media don't like Bristol. We see how they treat people when they like them (by their own admission).

So here's what Bristol needs to do:

Begin posting unhinged partisan screeds on Daily Kos and Huffington Post, the way St. Elizabeth did. Voila! Suddenly the media will find a great and sudden need to protect this poor girl, who after all didn't do anything wrong, and certainly does not need the added pain of media scrutiny in her own delicate condition.

More: The WaPo's Gail Marcus also frets terribly at how she is now forced to attack Bristol Palin. And Geraghty notices the oddly yet predictably flexible rule the media has about attacking candidates children.

As a parent, I sympathize. But as a parent in the media, I also know that the Palins assumed this risk. Anyone who watched coverage of the Bush twinsÂ’ barroom exploits knew the avert-your-eyes stance towards candidatesÂ’ children has its limits.

Hey, Gail? Their "barroom exploits" consisted of quietly having a margarita in a Tex-Mex restaurant. We only know of their "exploits" because a nasty bitch of a partisan recognized them, dropped dime on them, and then alerted the media -- and you in the media ran with the story of those out-of-control Bush Girls (Margaritas! the "gateway drink" to 'Bama Slammers!) rather than asking what the fuck this little partisan Nazi whore was doing calling the press because she happened to see two college girls drinking in a college town.

Here's Geraghty:

That limit seems to hit the partisan line. You’ll never see the Saturday Night Live sketches that dealt with Chelsea Clinton ever again. There was cursory coverage of Al Gore’s sons troubles on the road, and Howard Dean’s son’s run-in with the law. Nobody’s dared look into the lives of the Obama girls, nor should they. But the media’s self-control seems to evaporate when it comes to Republican officials’ children – I'm thinking of several news outlets' decision that the voting preference of Giuliani’s daughter was newsworthy.

Beyond that, if Marcus is really that bothered by the media spotlight on young Bristol Palin, she could have, you know, found something else to write about.

The message being sent is simple: If you're a Republican, you had either be childless or not like your children very much, because we in the media are going to savage them.

Your call, Republican candidates. You "assumed the risk." Do you want to hold office, or do you love and wish the best for your children?

We in the media will not permit you to have both.

And I was wondering about this. Geraghty delivers:

Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, was arrested for DUI back in back in 1986.

It occurred about seven years after Obama's last use of cocaine, to the best of our knowledge, and five years after his last use of marijuana.

Todd Palin, the husband of someone running for office, had a DUI. A presidential candidate himself did "some blow" and smoked a lot of weed.

But only the former seems to be some sort of rap against the candidate. Bear in mind the media keeps repeating "...and there are all these questions about her husband..."

What's the question? He got a DUI. I don't see a question there, exactly. I see a simple fact.

Obama did blow. I don't keep hearing about "all of these questions about Obama's drug use..." now do I?

Posted by: Ace at 09:48 PM | Comments (95)
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A vicious fight between Palin and Bristol!

Actually, Sarah Palin wanted Bristol to get married shortly after the Republican convention, the National Enquirer claims, and Bristol didn't.

My God. A mother and daughter fighting over wedding plans. And "pressure" involved in the whole situation!

Next coming scoop: Bristol doesn't think Levi is taking an "active enough" role in their wedding plans; thinks he spends too much time playing X-Box; couple fights about getting a 1988 Camaro Levi swears he'll "totally restore" or a "cute little Mini Cooper [she] saw listed on Craigslist."

Not sure what she's waiting for, but unless the Enquirer has a bit more than this, they really don't have much at all.

More tabloid nonsense, as Us Weekly, which didn't have any interest in the Edwards baby scandal (a real scandal, note), suddenly seems very interested in political baby stories.

Check that out. . Sarah Palin has taken exactly one bad picture in 25 years, and it just so happens that Jann Wenner used that for his "scoop."

By the way, Us Weekly is published by Jann Wenner, ultrapartisan Rolling Stone has-been best known for publishing reviews of Black Crowe albums written by college students, and one of its parent company's (Time-Warner) executives has been sending out helpful little emails to everyone pushing this US Weekly scoop. That executive used to work for the Clinton White House.

Hit Michelle's link above to see how they covered Barack Obama a couple of months ago. Layers.

Thanks to Allah and AQ.

The Tabloidization of Palin: The strategy is to deny her any credibility or gravitas by turning her into a tabloid soap-opera star.

Could it work? Sure, it could. But they have a lot running against them, too.

Let's sort of remind them:

Bristol Palin, a 17 year old girl, is not, in fact, running for Vice President, and probably is not even eligible for the position until she successfully passes Civic Studies.

I know Obama would like to run against Bristol Palin. He might actually have more experience and gravitas than she does.

Then again, she's quite young. In a few years, Barack will be salivating to run against Willow.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 PM | Comments (42)
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Christopher Orr shouldn't be at TNR, and I mean that as a compliment. He's one of the few movie reviewers who seems to know his ass from his elbow.

He has a post up called "The Case Against the Case Against Palin." (No, not a typo, read it carefully.)

I'm not done reading this yet because I want to get it up quick but let me just be a hypocrite and say read the whole thing, even though I haven't, yet.

This is actually his friend's testimony-- "one of the smartest" people Orr knows. Orr himself takes Palin lightly, he admits. His friend counsels against that.

At the end of 2005, a close friend called to say that he begun writing speeches and talking points for a certain gubernatorial candidate.

"Remind me," I asked. "Who is Sarah Palin?"

I was dismayed at my friendÂ’s choice of political entree. Why was he wasting his time on a relative nobody, trying to beat an incumbent governor (and former three term senator) in the Republican primary? It was utter folly. "Wait until the big money starts coming in for Murkowski," I said. "Wait until the party machinery goes to work on Palin. They will eat her for lunch."

Murkowski, for his part, expressed a similar view. "If I decide to," he said, "I will run and I will win. It's that simple."

The folly, of course, turned out to be my own (and Murkowski's), as Palin slaughtered the incumbent in the primary--posting a 30 point margin of victory--and went on to win the general (over a former Democratic governor) without seeming to break a sweat. She then quickly fulfilled an implicit campaign promise by slapping down ExxonMobil, BP, and ConocoPhillips in negotiations over a proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline, even though they, too, by all accounts, were well prepared to dine on her tender little frame. Not bad for a lightweight.

Listening to the Democratic leadership respond to John McCainÂ’s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, one hears echoes of the Alaska Republican leadership from just a few years ago. Barack ObamaÂ’s spokesman, Bill Burton, put it this way: "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency." Former mayor? If you're going to skip over her job as governor and, before that, her job heading the commission that oversees production of the largest petroleum reserves in America, why not "former high school student"? Bah, what does it matter: She's just a small town mayor, just a hockey mom, just a beauty pageant queen. Palin has never shunned these belittling monikers, in part, I imagine, because the camouflage has served her so well. Soothed by the litany, her opponents tend to sleep too late, sneer too much, and forget who it is that hires them.

Watching Palin operate over the past few years has been like witnessing a dramatic reading of All the KingÂ’s Men. In 2002, Murkowski had interviewed but passed over Palin in selecting a replacement for the senate seat he vacated to become governor. In a grand act of nepotism, he chose his own daughter instead. Palin was tossed a bone: She chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which oversees the production of petroleum in Alaska. When she reported conflicts of interest and other ethical violations by another commissioner, she was ignored by MurkowskiÂ’s chief of staff and ultimately resigned in frustration. One can imagine how the quick double dose of corruption--insiders having their way with the polity and its resources--sickened the young Palin. It also fired a savage competitiveness that is not, perhaps, apparent at first glance.

And the Good Time Charlies at Reason seem to reach out for someone to slam Palin, and fail rather spectacularly.

This guy is a Democrat... but loves her.

Let me tell you all the nice things about Sarah Palin: Sarah Palin has been a pretty freaking awesome governor. She came in saying that the entire system was corrupt, and that Republicans were evil, and she was going to just mix everything up and get us a gas pipeline and end of story. And she got to power, she was elected overwhelmingly by independents, beat Tony Knowles, who had been governor before.

The Republicans hate her. If you go and talk to the Alaska delegation here, they despise her.

Q: Really?

A: Hate her. Oh my god! This whole thing about her retarded son really being her daughter's was started by Lyda Green, who is president of the senate, a Republican. [...]

She gave a two-finger salute to Conoco Phllips and Exxon Mobile, raised their taxes on their oil, put in place a transparent way to bid for the seed money and the licenses to finally, finally, put in a natural gas pipeline in Alaska. And it was won by a Canadian company. And she went to the mat and made it happen. She has been systematically pulling the drilling licenses of Conoco Phillips and Exxon Mobile for areas that they haven't touched. I mean, they've been hoarding reserves, and she says, you know, use it or lose it, and she has been sending the attorney general time after time to revoke these things. It's absolutely fascinating.

Now, this guy seems to think there's going to be some huge scandal that will take her off the ticket. I rather doubt that. Palin is the ticket at this point.

But note his joy over her leaving the ticket. It's not for the reason you might guess:

[M]y personal prediction is that I give her two weeks... And look -- I love her so much that I'm really looking forward to having her back in 63 days. [...]

She is what McCain would like to be: She really is a maverick. In two years she stuck it to the two largest oil corporations in the United States of America. That's pretty fucking impressive, you know, that she has antagonized her party to the point that they despise her. And her ratings are still in the 80s.

She's against the Real ID act, which is something I simply do not get but I understand, of course, it's part of mainstream (or mainstreamish) Republican/libertarian/paranoid-survivalist-off-the-grid-Mad-Max thinking.

I don't know much about the socking it to the oil companies, except that their demand to build their own pipeline which they'd control was pure ass, and she said "Fuck you next question" and negotiated a proper deal to build a shorter pipe just to connect to Canada's already-existing network. Whether it was right to slap a windfall profits tax on them I don't know (she may have figured, as Alaska is leasing them their land, the state had a right to capture some of those unanticipated windfall profits), but I do know that's going to play well with the public.

I retract... My previous suggestion that she should only briefly tout her accomplishments. As her experience is being challenged, and she seems to have picked a lot of big fights with big players and won walking away, she should talk about that a lot

Hey, Barry: How many state political parties and gigantic oil companies have you challenged and whooped up on? How many international multibillion dollar pipeline deals have you negotiated?

Jesus, Barry: You can't even stand up to your own fucking pastor.

The Eagleton Scenario: Um, the trouble with that theory is that Eagleton was a sissy.

Not a Windfall Profits Tax at All: I'll leave it to Beldar to explain it properly, but apparently this isn't a tax per se but actually simply a charge for the state's oil and gas, which they sell to the oil companies. It's a "fee," really, paid for the gas and oil, but it's called a "tax."

The state gets paid for its property via "a tax," called a "severance tax" or "production tax," but it seems really to simply be an agreement as to what fee the state will charge for its oil and gas.

The scenario seems to be that the oil companies negotiated an overly-advantageous "tax" for themselves with the corrupt ruling class of Alaska (not a hard thing to manage, I'm guessing). Palin stepped in and said that previous deal wasn't fair to Alaskans, and negotiated a more favorable deal.

Rockmon--

That little old gas pipeline that Sarahcuda finally got done is the largest infrastructure project in the nation's history, and it is going to create a ton of jobs. So she has actually created jobs, unlike Barry "Oh"bama or Joe Hairplugs. I bet she mentions this tomorrow. This job of hers is a big fucking deal, and there aren't a handful of politicians in the country that could hve done what she has done.

Maybe, maybe not. But I know two politicians who coudn't, one named "Barack" and one named "Joe."

Posted by: Ace at 08:13 PM | Comments (76)
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