folo

A congresswoman on Anderson Cooper’s show, just now, defending Sarah Palin, said, “You don’t speak with your mind if you want to appeal to the American people, you speak your heart.”

Right.  Maybe that’s where I’m just not on the right page here.

Sarah Palin cannot name one newspaper or news source she reads.  Not one. She’s just totally unable to respond when asked what she reads.  She’s never talked to anyone else who disagrees with her view that life begins at conception (ever.  She said this to Katie Couric, on tape). She has no idea how to connect the dots on the things that have happened in her life to politics at large.

So let’s put her in a friendly context.  Hugh Hewitt gave her the biggest softball interview imaginable, and her responses are appallingly bad.  Blathering.  I challenge anyone to read this and see any sign of intelligent life.  It’s as barren as the moon.

[Read more →]

PBS’s Frontline will run “The Choice,” a look at Obama and McCain, on October 14, 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central.

[Read more →]

Robust thanks to reader AS for directing my attention to Mudflats today, where the headline is “Troopergate Witness Flips Like a Pancake.” Recall that McCain-Palin has worked mightily to shut down the Alaska legislature’s “Troopergate” investigation de facto by convincing witnesses (including the Palins themselves) not to co-operate, and Palin even opened an alternative “investigation” under a three-person panel of her own appointees. But now (emphases Mudflats’) . . .

Murlene Wilkes, owner of Harbor Adjusting Services, and holder of a $1.2 million/yr. contract with the State of Alaska to handle workers compensation claims, apparently told a big fat fib. When Branchflower [independent investigator of the legitimate probe] asked her if the governor’s office had ever asked her to deny a workers compensation claim for Palin’s ex-brother-in-law Trooper Mike Wooten (the trooper in "Troopergate"), she said no. Never. Really.

Mike Wooten, of course, is involved in a bitter custody dispute with Palin’s sister Molly. The Palins do not like him. Some say they have made a vengeful and personal sport out of ruining his career.

Problem is, that there are actually honest people in the world….and one of them works for Murlene Wilkes at Harbor Investments. This unnamed worker made a little phone call to the tip line that Branchflower set up at the beginning of the investigation. According to the tipster, yes indeed, the governor’s office DID put pressure to deny the claim.

Hard evidence contradicting sworn testimony has a certain effect on people. Murlene Wilkes, faced with this situation, decided to change her testimony according to a report in The Public Record. Now, with the little extra incentive of avoiding perjury charges, she has admitted that she was asked to deny the claim – at the direct request of Sarah and Todd Palin. …

More details there, all of them tending to support the conclusion, “Worker’s compensation claims may not be ’sexy’, but some say this may end up being the final nail in the coffin of Palin’s political career.”

Branchflower’s report is due for release on October 10.

[Read more →]

Oh dear. Benen explains:

At a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio yesterday, Sarah Palin told a crowd she’s looking forward to meeting Joe Biden on Thursday. “I’ve never met him before,” Palin said. “But I’ve been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in like 2nd grade.” The Republican crowd seemed to think this was hilarious.

Immediately the speech, CBS’s Katie Couric met up with Palin and asked about her comments. CBS just sent over the transcript of what we’ll see this evening:

Couric: You made a funny comment, you’ve said you have been listening to Joe Biden’s speeches since you were in second grade.

Palin: It’s been since like ’72, yah.

Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden’s been around awhile?

Palin: Oh no, it’s nothing negative at all. He’s got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we’ve been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he’s got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I’m the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he’s got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

I believe in soccer this move is known as an “own goal.”

UPDATE:

[Read more →]

Ben Smith at Politico introduces a YouTube,

A Democrat sends over this clip from John McCain’s economic forum just now, in which McCain, talking about energy policy, stresses the importance of “ensuring that America is secure, and not dependent on oil from people like Hugo Chavez or other parts of the Middle East which is, we know, could be destabilized under certain sets of circumstances.”

[Read more →]

Barack Obama has released another one of his two-minute ads. Jonathan Stein thinks it’s boring, Kevin Drum thinks that’s the point, and I think it’ll go down smooth with the peeps.

What do you think?

[Read more →]

Back in May, I posted about some federal grant money ($44 million) that the City of Jackson, and most of all JPD ($21 million), let slip through its hands via carelessness. Now hapless JPD has done it again.

The mismanagement of grants has cost the Jackson Police Department $242,000.

The City Council on Monday approved the transfer of money from JPD vacancies to pay for the $242,000 in grants “confiscated” earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“We have to file federal financial statements to show the federal government how we spent the grants, and we didn’t file them on time,” City Administrator Rick Hill said. “If you don’t file the statements, the government assumes you didn’t use that money, and they take it back.”

Hill said the Police Department used the money properly but city officials did not submit the paperwork on time. The funds in question are government reimbursements for ongoing grant programs.

According to this account, Hill and the acting city auditor (what happened to the real one?) told the council that years of poor recordkeeping are the problem. Without marking incoming grants, the city just dumped them all into a single large cash account. In April DoJ sent the city delinquency notices on two grants totaling more than $200,000, including collection fees and interest.

Mayor Frank Melton has the solution, though: says he’s hired a grants manager to start work on Wednesday. “He could not be reached after the meeting for more details.” But Hill says, “Dialog with the Department of Justice has been encouraging. Hopefully, we can get a large portion of that money back.”

Another piece of the story illustrates the swuftness of city processes.

Also during Monday’s meeting, council members held off on voting on an emergency item placed on the agenda that would have approved a new multimillion-dollar wastewater management contract with United Water.

Public Works Director Thelman Boyd told the council the city has until midnight today to approve the contract because the existing 20-year contract expires then.

Several council members said they had not had enough time to digest the thick proposal Boyd gave them Monday. There also were several concerns about the bidding process and whether the proposal met the requirements of the Equal Business Opportunity Certification Program.

Assistant City Attorney Carrie Johnson told council members there were stipulations in the existing contract that could extend it up to 90 days.

You have to go a long way to match this incompetence.

Oh, and there’s another story about Melton today — the federal prosecutors have filed motions to disallow any trial testimony about drug use at the duplex he and his posse busted up in August 2006. In the state trial last year, the defense made hay with witnesses on the location’s neighborhood reputation as a crackhouse.

In the motion, federal prosecutors said they anticipate Melton’s defense team will try that approach again.

"Evidence or arguments concerning drugs being used in, or sold from, this address should be excluded because such evidence is irrelevant, highly prejudicial, and likely to confuse and mislead the jury, and it is aimed solely at a defense effort to convince the jury to ignore the evidence and nullify," the motion states.

Prosecutors also have filed motions to exclude defense testimony of the defendants’ "good conduct" prior to the Ridgeway Street incident or references to the state court acquittal.

So it goes in the fair City of Jackson.

[Read more →]

Last week, I asked for bets on whether the presidential debate would happen or not.  “On” prevailed by about 2-1 and turned out to be correct.

This week, I’m asking:  What will the main headline be for the VP debate on Thursday? I’ll post mine as the first comment.

[Read more →]

Dan Froomkin’s column today is headlined “Put a Fork in Him” and begins,

President Bush put what was left of his influence on the line in his push to get Congress to pass a massive financial bailout. So yesterday, when House Republicans killed his proposal, it wasn’t just the stock market that took its biggest tumble in history.

Bush is now wiped out. …

Very satisfying reading . . . until you get to this part:

“The episode underscored that Mr. Bush’s credibility and political clout, long gone among Democrats, is lacking among Republicans as well. ‘There is a fair number of people who believe we’re not staring into the abyss as has been represented,’ [Florida GOPer Adam] Putnam said. ‘And some people do believe we are facing a market collapse and something needs to be done, but they would rather not be the ones who have to vote for it.’ …

but they would rather not be the ones who have to vote for it

I believe we can arrange an accommodation for those invertebrates in a little over a month, hm?

[Read more →]

Hot dawg, according to PPP, FLORIDA‘s wandered into the Obama column now too. Their new Florida poll has Obama up 49-46 (±3.2% margin of error). Three weeks ago, PPP’s polling had McCain up 50-45, about in line with others then.

But now with 64% of voters ranking the economy as Issue #1, Obama has a 55%-40% lead among them. With the 15% of Floridians who call Iraq their biggest issue, Obama leads 54-43. McCain leads only among the few Florida conservatives who rank taxes, moral values, or immigration as their top issue.

[Read more →]