Arkansas Blog

The first word that came to my mind was "fertile."

Johnson grass for president!

At least the Aliens know it's a very important election.

At least the one above is not predicting 'end times' like the ones on my name.

at the very bottom of Neptune Cafe is an entertaining video of crop circles
with great video and sound.

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http://sarahpalin.typepad.com/

Even better -- an Alaskan blog on politics that was all over this story early on:

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

"Word of advice liberels- GET A BRAIN. "
Sarah Palin
Aug 31, 08
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Here's another little nugget about Ron Fournier, former Little Rock AP guy. Click my name for the AP talking points. Hopefully his job is running down his leg like baby goo too!

AP issues talking points over Fournier

AP Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier has been targeted by MoveOn, Media Matters and many liberal blogs this campaign cycle for what they consider light treatment of John McCain at the expense of other candidates - especially Barack Obama.

In July, I reported that Fournier had discussions with the McCain campaign in late 2006 - while not at the AP - about taking a senior level communications job with the campaign. Fournier spoke with Mark Salter, Rick Davis, John Weaver and other campaign staffers, but did not take the job. He returned to the AP in March 2007.

So with the blogosphere enraged over Fournier, FishbowlDC writes today that Ellen Hale, the AP's vice president for corporate communications, has e-mailed talking points to managers on how to deal with questions about the wire's D.C. bureau chief. But the contents of the memo were not yet revealed.

I've now obtained the full talking points which are after the jump (and include a mention of "Politico.com, the blog").

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Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have been arrested while covering a protest at the Republican National Convention in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.

Neo-Nazi tactics are firmly in place at RNC

click blue name to see the action and to HELP OUT.
TY
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Hey, Mr. El, I hope you realize the Palin typepad is bogus but maybe closer to truth

http://sarahpalin.typepad.com/

Posted by: Republicans for Obama<<
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's a fake.

Fun times in the Twin Cities!

Yes, I've missed you, A-T bloggers, but I'm actually at the GOP convention in Minneapolis! Long story. But I'm here and having a fabulous undercover time! Nobody knows the real me because I've brought along a lot of Ann Taylor and Carlisle (which is hipper than Ann Taylor but if you can't afford it you never heard of yet it too is fabulous) and fit right in.

Guess what? I'm on YouTube! Yes, that's me, dancing at the party thrown tonight by the National Rifle Association, Lockheed-Martin and the American Trucking Association. And what a great band! "Hookers and Blow!" The shizz! You have to look quick or you'll miss me. Here's the link.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/girls-republicans-just-want-to-have-fun.html

I feel like Agent 69! First, a friend sneaked me the invitation list in advance so I could Google the most important names. MEN'S names.

And since I don't wear panties, I was able to spend most of the evening sitting around the dance floor and strategically crossing and uncrossing my legs depending on the net worth of the men sitting opposite me. Kind of "Basic Instinct-y."

So I got some great dish which I'll be sharing here on the blog in future.

Now that I'm back in my room, alone, thank you, and making notes . . . I've saved my best link for last.

It's Vincent Bugliosi. And if you don't know who HE is, don't waste my time.

I don't know, but whilst we're obsessed with the Palin family's wombs, and who got into them and who came out of them and when . . . it seems to me there are more important matters.

Click my dish.

Thanks for the links Norma.....I gots one thing to say before I go to bed.....high road my ass! Fill your hands you sons a bitches!

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinassess2-2008sep02,0,3826591.story

SNIP
One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate's closest supporters as "keeping their fingers crossed" in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.

SNIP

I've just returned from a nightcap at the hotel bar here at the GOP convention, where all the talk was about the Palin women, naturally.

What did they know, when did they know it? Whom did they fuck, when did they fuck him?

There was lots of talk at the bar about "ruggedly handsome" hockey puck, Levi Johnson, 18, self-described as "a fuckin' redneck," and the shell-shocked five-months pregnant Bristol, 17.

Who was apparently 16 when she got boned by puck Johnson, who COULD have been 18 at the time, in which case, according to all this late-night bar talk, constitutes statutory rape but really, who cares, because these are Republican kids without sex education and not gay Democrats who know all about it.

And of course the conversation shifted tastefully to, "What's the motherfucker doing WAITING so long to marry the bitch?" Which I, personally, felt was rather coarse.

Except this well-connected lobbyist was paying for my drinks and trying to feel me up and so I let him.

Pay for my drinks, that is. Because they're $9.95 at the bar and even MORE in the room. The drinks. NOT the lobbyists.

So, when the barkeep shouted, "Last call!," I said, all wide-eyed Dumb Blond and shit, and just loudly enough to be heard over the Muzak, "You know: they could end all this bullshit speculation about the baby with a simple DNA test! Why don't they just DO it and get it over with! What are they afraid of! We already know it's Sarah's kid! Just like she said!"

Dead silence.

Apparently, Sarah Palin's line has failed to convince these late-night imbibers.

Lobbyist withdrew his hand from my thigh.

Hostile glares from barstools. ALWAYS the mark of a liar publicly caught.

Except for the hunky bartender, who grinned and offered me another Long Island Iced Tea on the house, to go, and his phone number. I whispered my room number.

I think that's him knocking softly at my door right now.

Hysterectomies, thought temporarily painful, are SO freeing. For SO many reasons.

But back to this simple DNA test that would instantly quell these vicious rumors about the Palin baby.

Sarah, SARAH darling! Just DO it and put America out of its misery!

Norma, personally, I'm skipping your humorous soap operas. I'll wait in line for you to sign your book,
and
It's always good to see a girl from Arkansas aiming high, Bugliosi, clever you.

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Palin secured earmarks for town As mayor,
VP pick obtained millions in funds, a tactic McCain has criticized
By Paul Kane
The Washington Post
updated 2:47 a.m. CT, Tues., Sept. 2, 2008

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group.

There was $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project -- all intended to benefit Palin's town, Wasilla, located about 45 miles north of Anchorage.

In introducing Palin as his running mate on Friday, Sen. John McCain cast her as a compatriot in his battle against wasteful federal spending. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, hailed Palin as a politician "with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies -- someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past, someone who's stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money."

McCain's crusade against earmarks -- federal spending sought by members of Congress to benefit specific projects -- has been a hallmark of his campaign. He has said earmarks are wasteful and are often inserted into bills with little oversight, sometimes by a single powerful lawmaker.

Palin has also railed against earmarks, touting her opposition to a $223 million bridge in the state as a prime credential for the vice presidential nomination. "As governor, I've stood up to the old politics-as-usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-ol'-boy network," she said Friday.

As mayor of Wasilla, however, Palin oversaw the hiring of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm with close ties to Alaska's most senior Republicans: Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, who was indicted in July on charges of accepting illegal gifts. The Wasilla account was handled by the former chief of staff to Stevens, Steven W. Silver, who is a partner in the firm.

Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 on a campaign theme of "a time for change." According to a review of congressional spending by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, Wasilla did not receive any federal earmarks in the first few years of Palin's tenure.

Senate records show that Silver's firm began working for Palin in early 2000, just as federal money began flowing.

In fiscal 2000, Wasilla received a $1 million earmark, tucked into a transportation appropriations bill, for a rail and bus project in the town. And in the winter of 2000, Palin appeared before congressional appropriations committees to seek earmarks, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News.

Palin and the Wasilla City Council increased Silver's fee from $24,000 to $36,000 a year by 2001, Senate records show.

Soon after, the city benefited from additional earmarks: $500,000 for a mental health center, $500,000 for the purchase of federal land and $450,000 to rehabilitate an agricultural processing facility. Then there was the $15 million rail project, intended to connect Wasilla with the town of Girdwood, where Stevens has a house.

The Washington trip is now an annual event for Wasilla officials.

In fiscal year 2002, Wasilla took in $6.1 million in earmarks -- about $1,000 in federal money for every resident. By contrast, Boise, Idaho -- which has more than 190,000 residents -- received $6.9 million in earmarks in fiscal 2008.

Savvy to Washington ways
All told, Wasilla benefited from $26.9 million in earmarks in Palin's final four years in office.

"She certainly wasn't shy about putting the old-boy network to use to bring home millions of dollars," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "She's a little more savvy to the ways of Washington than she's let on."

Silver, reached by phone at his Vienna home, declined to comment. Wasilla's town offices were closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

Maria Comella, Palin's campaign spokeswoman, said Palin sought the Wasilla earmarks because she was "working in the best interests of Alaska, working within the confines of the current system."

Palin became a staunch reform advocate after her 2003 appointment to the state's Oil and Gas Commission. She accused another commissioner -- Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich -- of raising campaign contributions from industries he was regulating. "She realized that the environment around her was no longer what it once was, and elected officials were abusing their power," Comella said.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, used to secure earmarks for public nonprofits in Illinois, but he announced last year that he would no longer seek earmarks for any entity. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Obama's running mate, co-sponsored $85.6 million in earmarks for 2008, according to one study.

The Palin earmarks came when Stevens was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Young was a senior member of the House transportation committee.

In hiring Silver, Wasilla found someone who was a member of each lawmaker's inner circle. Silver has donated at least $11,400 to Stevens's political committees and $10,000 to Young's reelection committee in the past decade, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Sliver's firm employed Stevens's son, Ben Stevens, in the late 1990s as a federal lobbyist, according to multiple media accounts. Ben Stevens was not listed on lobbying disclosure forms as having worked on Wasilla earmarks.

Probe into Alaska Republicans
The firm became ensnared in the wide-ranging federal investigation of corruption by Alaska Republican officials. Federal agents reviewed records about its other municipal clients, as well as fishing companies represented by Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh that were close to Ben Stevens.

The investigation has increasingly focused on Veco, a now-defunct energy services company whose chief executive, Bill Allen Jr., pleaded guilty in May 2007 to bribing Alaska officials.

Ted Stevens is awaiting trial on charges that he accepted more than $250,000 in unreported gifts from Allen. Ben Stevens, who has not been charged, has been identified in court documents as having accepted more than $240,000 in consulting payments in exchange for legislative favors while he served in the state Senate.

A Veco executive testified last year in a criminal trial that Allen had ordered him to arrange annual fundraisers for Young. The congressman has not been charged with any crimes.

After becoming governor, Palin became a critic of Young and the Stevenses. She endorsed Young's opponent in a Republican primary last week that is still too close to call, and last year she demanded Ben Stevens's resignation as Alaska's member of the Republican National Committee. She has also criticized Ted Stevens.

In addition, Palin has reversed course on at least one major earmark: After initially supporting the $223 million bridge, which was to connect the town of Ketchikan with a remote island, she reversed course last year and canceled the project because of cost overruns. Critics have dubbed the project the "Bridge to Nowhere."

But her administration remains eager for many other earmarks.

In February, Palin's office sent Sen. Stevens a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of new funding requests for Alaska.

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

Thank you, reallawyer.

If anybody doubts the importance of the blogs, stop right now.

The silly right-wingers here NEVER cite facts, NEVER cite links, NEVER cite articles.

Just blather on with uninformed opinions and adolescent name-calling.

We likee stuff like yours.