West Virginia Blue
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WASHINGTON - An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.
Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.
Comments right out of Heat of the Night directed to a sound man, probably a union guy, at one event. A blogger/reporter trying to interview Obama supporters at a Palin rally kicked to the ground by a big bearded fan of Mooselini. The Secret Service's reaction: stop reporters from interviewing the crowd.
We moved to California in 1963 after the end of the school year. Pres. Kennnedy paid a visit to the Naval Ordinance Test Station China Lake in June of that year. I really don't remember much of that event when I was nine. Moving from the East Coast to the desert was too much of a shock to my psyche.
He was assassinated that November. Being a self-absorbed fifth grader, I did not understand why all the sixth graders were so upset that day at school. It eventually sunk in at home. Kennedy had to overcome resistance to his Catholicism in 1960 to get elected. It was just 36 years before that the Indiana KKK went to the Notre Dame campus to rumble.
The memory comes to the surface when I hear of the kind of things being shouted out at Palin rallies. Hate is not helping my 401k. John "Country First" McCain takes no responsibility for these outbursts. Remind you of "No one could imagine . . ."? The traditional media was mostly silent as this was being built on weeks of dog whistles and drum beats. John McCain never lost his base. How did we get to this point?
Sarah Palin landed in West Virginia - and the Hate Talk Express was gone in 25 minutes.
KENOVA, W.Va. -- Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin made a pit stop in West Virginia on her way to battleground state Ohio.
The Alaska governor and her family spent about 25 minutes in the state Sunday as their two-engine plane touched down at Tri-State Airport in Kenova. She made no remarks.
A dozen supporters greeted her? Her soap opera-esque family was probably bigger than that.
So let's compare. We get the glass shattering Hillary Clinton stumping in Charleston for Anne Barth and Barack Obama. We get the McCain's Hate Talk Express hitting the state and fleeing as quickly as possible.
Like the song says, Hit the road Sarah. And don't ya come back no more no more no more no more.
Update
I should give Sarah Palin credit where credit is due. She did fire up the rallies - for Obama.
Palin's stop in West Virginia, her first since becoming John McCain's running mate, spurred several impromptu weekend Obama rallies. One drew about 100 people Sunday outside the United Mine Workers' Charleston district office.
I heard the crowd was 150, but Ron Fournier's AP (I bet he's really glad he didn't take that job with McCain now) can't make it look took bad for the scandal plagued, authority abusing Alaska governor.
Update 2
Wow! I'm honestly speechless. I didn't realize the McCain-Palin camp had scheduled her airport landing to be a rally.
And it only drew a dozen people? We had as many Palin's not wanted in West Virginia rallies as Palin drew supporters.
Sarah Palin will be coming to the Bob Evans farm festival tomorrow, according to a reliable source. We have to make sure we have a good presence there, and respectfully tell her we want her nowhere near the white house, or near the "Nucular" codes, lol.
What is the best way to deal with this situation? I don't want to be one of those jerks who ruins her speech, but I do want people to realize she is wrong for ohio, and west virginia. If anyone wants to come here is the info:
http://www.bobevans.com/websit...
Sarah Palin tries to say she's regular folks, but when it has come to her work in government, she's no friend to the working man.
On the campaign trail over the past two weeks, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been courting the working-class vote.
A close examination of Palin's record on such issues as health care, the minimum wage, taxes and retirement funds shows that she has remained silent on proposals that would channel public money to programs beneficial to working-class Alaskans. In other instances, Palin supported programs that favored wealthy Alaskans over low-income families.
The woman who would be a 72-year-old man's heart beat away from the presidence should the McCain-Palin ticket prevail. Her solution to solve the global economic crisis - launch false accusations against Barack Obama. That doesn't sound like a good solution to the problem to me.
This race has not disappointed us who are junkies for presidential politics. I am not going to review here all the twists and turns the primaries took. Neither will I rehearse even the surprises that have occurred during this astonishing general election campaign. But for those of us fascinated with the narrative of presidential politics, yesterday was not a day that let us down, and it is that to which I wish to address myself.
Just checked the Charleston Gazette and it turns out Sarah Palin isn't coming to West Virginia on a bus tour afterall.
Contrary to previous reports, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will not take a bus tour of West Virginia on Sunday, according to the head of the state McCain-Palin campaign.
Ben Beakes said Palin would fly into Huntington, then cross the Ohio River into Ohio and take a bus tour through that state on Sunday.
snip
Obama's challenger in the Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton, visited Charleston on Friday and urged state residents to vote for Obama and Anne Barth, who is challenging Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.
I suspect the McCain camp looked at the latest poll numbers and decided to just give up on West Virginia.
We're got Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigning in the state. Sarah Palin can't compete and can't come close to her.
Just in time for Sarah Palin to be asked about this when she shows up in West Virginia, a Republican dominated state legislative committee in Alaska issued a unanimous report (293 page pdf) that Palin broke state law. Here's some excerpts:
"For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin Abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, Page 8]
"The Attorney General's office has failed to substantially comply with my August 6, 2008 written request to Governor Sarah Palin for information about the case in the form of emails." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, Page 8]
"I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as commissioner of Public Safety." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, Page 8]
"While in Juneau working and talking to legislators about the state's proposed new crime lab, Deputy Chief Glass ran into Todd Palin at the top of the stairs on the third floor of the state capitol building near the Governor's office. This time it was Glass wo raised the Wooten issue with Mr. Palin. Glass testified: ...Todd was adamant that Wooten was a very poor example for a trooper and needed to be fired,...I went through the same exact conversation that I had had with Mr. Bailey, in that Wooten had already been penalized for his actions that he had taken. It was two and a half/three years ago, we could not fire him. ...I also warned him that it was going to cause some extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment for the Governor if they continued to pursue this and it should have never become public. That it would just be not good for the Governor if it continued, and that they needed to cease and desist. He persisted in telling me that Wooten needed to be fired, he should not be a trooper." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, pg. 63-4, 10/10/08]
"The terms of my contract with the Legislative Council establish the framework within which I have been required to conduct my investigation and make my findings....Todd Palin is not an employee of the executive branch, so his conduct is not a violation of AS 39.52.010 - 39.52.965. Given the terms of the contract, I make no findings as to Mr. Palin's conduct." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, pg. 67-8, 10/10/08]
"Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 65]
"The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in 'official action' by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation. She knowingly, as that term is defined in the above cited statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor's office and the resources of the Governor's office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 65-6] (emphasis added)
"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 66]
"In this case, Governor Palin has declined to provide an interview. An interview would have assisted everyone to better understand her motives and perhaps help explain why she was so apparently intent upon g Trooper Wooten fired in spite of the fact she knew he had been disciplined following the Administrative Investigation." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 66]
"Governor Palin has stated publically that she and her family feared Trooper Wooten. Yet the evidence presented has been inconsistent with such claims of fear." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 67]
"Finally, it is noteworthy that in almost every contact with subordinate employees, Mr. Palin's comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 67]
"I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palin's real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons. [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 67]
"The Attorney' General's Office failed to substantially comply with my August 6, 2008 request to Governor Sarah Palin for information about the case in the form of emails." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 74]
The Palins saw their elected office as an opportunity to settle a personal, family grudge and to enrich themselves by abusing the state's per diem pay for meals and staying at home.
The other troubling issue is how John McCain selected her as his vice presidential nominee after talking to her for 15 minutes.
That is not a job interview. I was vetted better to drive a dump truck yet alone to be a 72-year-old's heart beat away from the most powerful job on the planet.
Should she be coming to West Virginia when she should be returning to Alaska to answer questions about the allegations raised unanimously by the Republican-led legislative committee?
Sarah Palin is spending a lot of time in states that just a couple of months ago looked like they were going to be reliably red. She's been defending the Republican ticket in places like Nebraska and northern Florida. In another sign that West Virginia is on the table to turn blue, Sarah is coming to the Mountain State.
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