Court Says No To Airport Troll

I thought this imbecile dried up and blew away.

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig (R) lost his latest attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in the Minneapolis airport men's room sex sting that effectively ended his Senate career. A three-judge panel of the MN Court of Appeals rejected his bid to toss out his disorderly conduct conviction. Craig said he was considering the option of appealing to the MN Supreme Court.

Craig was arrested June 11, 2007, by an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation against men cruising for sex at the Minneapolis Airport.

[Photo and complete article at Yahoo! News.]

I don't know which is worse...that he's a toe tapping, dick sucking, hypocritical Mormon, airport bathroom trolling closet case or the fact that he's wearing an Anastasia Beaverhausen campaign button.

Obama Notches A NH Landslide!

I just spotted this over at The Bum who found it at CNN:

Dixville Notch has spoken: It's Obama in a landslide

DIXVILLE NOTCH, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious in the first election returns of the 2008 presidential race, winning 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

People in the village in New Hampshire's northeast corner voted just after midnight Tuesday.

It was the first time since 1968 that the village leaned Democratic in an election.

Obama's rival, Republican John McCain, won 6 votes.

A full 100 percent of registered voters in the village cast ballots. And the votes didn't take long to tally.

Is this a sign of things to come today?

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Redistribution Of Wealth

This, hopefully, will be my last post ever in the Beaverhausen Chronicles series.

Sometimes I sit and seethe when I watch the candidates giving their stump speeches. Over the past week, the McCain/Palin Muttley/Beaverhausen campaign used the "distribution of wealth" talking point to capture the votes of independents.

Yet, they don't seem to see their hypocrisy. Or do they, but they know that most Americans are sheep and believe what people tell them rather than thinking for themselves?

• The GOP tax cuts reduced the tax rates for those earning the most — shifting more of the tax burden to lower income ranges. Isn't that a redistribution of wealth?
• The GOP champions tax credits for oil companies while these same companies are reporting the highest quarterly profits in history. Isn't that a redistribution of wealth?
• The $700B financial rescue plan, which takes working-class contributed tax money from the federal government and bails out the investor class. Isn't that a redistribution of wealth?
• Alaska takes way more from the federal government than it pays. Isn't that a redistribution of wealth?
• Alaska has a windfall profits type tax on the oil companies that is passed on to residents. Isn't that a redistribution of wealth?

I am so ready for this whole thing to be over.

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Log Cabin Does Fifth Avenue

Okay, so I usually get off on bashing Sarah Palin Anastasia Beaverhausen. But this story of the big bucks wardrobe is pissing me off. This should have been a 1/2 day story and it's blown into a week.

• People in the public eye, particularly women who have to give three speeches a day that appear on television and are running for office, need nice clothes and lots of them
• Fashionable clothes for women are expensive...$500 per pair of shoes
• The clothes aren't hers, to end up in her closet at the conclusion of the race; they are the RNC's for her to wear

Sure she could get by with less, but if she did, would we criticize her for that? Don't we always need to know who the first lady's designer is?

The only part of the story that I think would have been worth the 1/2 day coverage is if they had compared and contrasted the images that the public forms in their collective mind's eye about such things i.e. Hillary's pantsuits, "Breck Girl" John Edwards's $400 haircut.

I chalk this up to a bunch of Log Cabin queens taking advantage of spending sprees at Needless Markups to dress up Caribou Barbie on the GOP's dime.

Enough.

Alaskans For Obama

The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's largest newspaper, endorsed Barack Obama after declaring Gov. Sarah Palin "too risky" to be one step away from the Oval Office.

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: More VP Power

I love the little guy at the bottom left.

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Magic 8 Ball

From a commenter on Political Wire:

You betcha'!...I've come to think of Palin Anastasia Beaverhausen as a human "Magic 8 Ball." Shake the noggin and just wait to see what canned sound-bite pops to the surface, in no particular order or even response to the question.

I spotted this before the debate but it still holds true. The answer is, "Betcherass, Bubba"! [Wink.]

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: How To Win A Debate

They're already laying the groundwork for Friday's spin on the vice presidential debates:

Hours ahead of the vice presidential debate, Sen. John McCain Muttley criticized the selection of PBS's Gwen Ifill as moderator because she is writing a book called The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

“Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn’t writing a book favorable to Barack Obama — let's face it," McCain Muttley said on Fox & Friends. "But I have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will handle this as the professional journalist that she is. ...

"Life isn’t fair, as I mentioned earlier in the program."

Ifill is moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She is viewed as one of Washington's fairest journalists.

The propriety of her selection as moderator for tonight's debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Anastasia Beaverhausen and Sen. Joe Biden was questioned by conservatives after the Drudge Report drew attention to her book, to be published in January.

McCain took a different tack the day before, telling Fox News in another interview: "I think that Gwen Ifill is a professional, and I think that she will do a totally objective job because she is a highly respected professional. Does this help that if she has written a book that is favorable to Senator Obama? Probably not, but I have confidence that Gwen Ifill will do a professional job. And I have that confidence.

Here's how the spin unwinds. If Beaverhausen does well, it's because she's qualified, brilliant, a maverick, and ready to lead. If she does poorly, it's because the mainstream media is out to get her.

See how easy it is to put lipstick on a pig?

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Foreign Policy

I just spotted this reader comment over on Rosie O'Donnell's site:

"If I can see the moon from my backyard, does that make me an astronaut?"

A great retort to the whole "I can see Russia from my house so I've got more international experience than Obama" argument.

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Scary Russians

[Image via Boing Boing via Andrew Sullivan via Joe.My.God.]

Tina Fey Back On SNL

"Katie, I'd like to use one of my life lines."

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Resumes

I found this over at roblog (I modified it a bit):

We have two leadership teams to choose from, which would you hire?

FORMAL EDUCATION [1]

Barack Obama
• Occidental College, 2 years
• Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations
• Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joe Biden
• University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in political science
• Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

Muttley John McCain
• United States Naval Academy

Anastasia Beaverhausen Sarah Palin
• Hawaii Pacific University, 1 semester
• North Idaho College, 1 year
• University of Idaho, 1 year
• Matanuska-Susitna College, 1 semester
• University of Idaho, 1.5 years - B.S. in Journalism

EXPERIENCE [2]

Barack Obama

Obama, 47, has been a U.S. Senator for Illinois for the past four years. Prior to that, he was a state senator for eight years, from 1996 to 2004. He also was a civil rights attorney for four years full time, and he practiced law part time during the eight years he was in the state legislature.

Obama also taught law school part-time and wrote a couple of best-selling books. Right after college, Obama spent three years working as a community organizer.

Community organizer: Three years.

Professional/legal experience: Four years full-time and eight years part-time.

Teaching experience: 11 years part-time.

State legislative experience: Eight years.

Federal legislative experience: Four years.

Joe Biden

Biden, 65, was elected to the U.S. Senate representing Delaware at the young age of 29. He was not old enough to hold the office on Election Day, but he turned 30 before it was time to take the oath of office. This means Biden has been a U.S. senator for close to 36 years.

Prior to his service in the Senate, Biden was a member of the New Castle County Council for two years, and he was an attorney in private practice for four years.

Professional/legal experience: Four years.

County government experience: Two years.

Federal legislative experience: 36 years.

Muttley John McCain

McCain, 72, has been a U.S. senator from Arizona since 1986, for a total of 22 years. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Congress for four years, from 1982 to 1986. He also served for 22 years in the U.S. Navy.

Federal legislative experience: 26 years.

Military experience: 22 years.

Anastasia Beaverhausen Sarah Palin

Palin, 44, was elected governor of Alaska in 2006 and will have served two years by the end of 2008. Prior to that, Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, for six years, from 1996 to 2002. She was on the city council for four years before that.

When she was in her 20s, Palin spent about two years as a TV sports reporter from 1987 to 1989. She has also been part-time small business owner with her husband while she held office in Wasilla. The Palins had a commercial fishing operation and a snow machine, watercraft, and all-terrain vehicle business.

Reporter: Two years.

Small business co-owner: Nine years, part-time.

Municipal legislative experience: Four years.

Municipal executive experience: Six years.

State executive experience: Two years.

CONCLUSION

In the business world, you would hire the more educated, knowledgeable and experienced of the two teams. But in the political world, being highly educated and knowledgeable results in right-wing ideologues branding you as an elitist.

[1] Wikipedia Obama, Wikipedia Biden, Wikipedia McCain, Wikipedia Palin

[2] Politifact.com Truth-o-Meter

Whenever I hear people say that Palin is more qualified than Obama to lead the country, I just want to scream.

I keep hearing women say that she's qualified because she's such a great mother. Being the parent of five children, while admirable and something I'm not sure I could do myself, does not qualify you to be the president of the U.S. It means you're fertile and don't use birth control. Ummm, like your daughter. (Meow!)

How many people in your life have a lot of children? Would you consider them presidency-ready because of it?

Saturday Sh!ts And Giggles: Anastasia Beaverhausen Alice The Goon In Alaska

"Wont wont wont wont" = "I love Muttley"

Letterman Trashes Muttley

I found this clip over at Joe.My.God.

John McCain Muttley canceled his appearance on Letterman, personally phoning Dave to say he was rushing to the airport in order to get down to Warshington and solve the financial crisis.

Half way through the clip, Letterman busts Muttley sitting down to do an impromptu interview with Katie Couric.



Letterman disses Sarah Palin Anastasia Beaverhausen, too, implying she isn't capable of stepping up and filling in for Muttley on the campaign trail.

There's something fishy going on.

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Alaskanomics

Anastasia is at it again. Whitewashing her fiscal conservative record. As I've said before, is the Muttley/Beaverhausen so out of touch with technology that they think we can't look this stuff up immediately? That there's a record of almost everything they've ever said and done?

Michael Kinsley over at Time magazine wrote an interesting article on Alaska economics. Here are a few excerpts:

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

—SNIP—

Although Palin's words side with McCain in this dispute, her actions side with Obama. Her major legislative accomplishment has been to revamp Alaska's windfall-profits tax in order to increase the state's take. Alaska calls it a "clear and equitable share" tax. The state assumes that extracting oil from the tundra costs about $25 per bbl. and takes as much as 75% of the difference between that and the sale price.

Why is a windfall-profits tax good for Alaska but not for the U.S.? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? People in Alaska are better than people in the rest of the U.S. They're more American. Although there are small towns and farms and high school hockey teams in the lower 48, there are fewer down here, per capita, than in Alaska. And there are many more journalists and pollsters and city dwellers and other undesirables who might benefit if every American had the same right to leech off the government as do the good citizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Read the full Alaskanomics article at Time.com.

Reading Roundup

I've been cutting back on the amount of political news I'm ingesting. Frankly, I've already made up my mind, and there really isn't anything that Muttley/Beaverhausen can say to sway my vote away from Obama/Biden.

However, despite my serious efforts, I can't get away from the news completely because I'm a current affairs junkie. I always tear out the pages of periodicals or print out web pages and then circle the critical points to emphasize their importance. The clippings then sit on my desk and I end up trashing them as the news cycle moves on to the next topics.

I'm clearing off my desk, and here's what I've found that's still worth mentioning.

---

From Newsweek magazine's Letters column, September 22, 2008 issue:

"I couldn't believe that Anastasia Beaverhausen Sara Palin ridiculed Barack Obama's years of work as community organizer during her convention speech. The suffragists who earned Palin the right to vote were community organizers. So were the feminists who agitated to improve job opportunities for women and made it possible for Beaverhausen Palin to play high-school basketball. Abolitionists who fought against slavery, workers on the underground railroad guiding slaves to freedom and civil-right workers were community organizers. So are union organizers who help improve the lives of workers. Finally, we owe the very existence of our country to a dedicated group of community organizers, more commonly know as our Founding Fathers.

— Jane Cameron, Piscataway, NJ

Eight years ago the GOP noimated a short-term governor of a large, oil-rich state to be president. They described him as a regular guy and said his lack of international experience wouldn't be a problem Now it has nominated a short-term governor of a large, oil-rich state to be vice president and see no problem with her inexperience. For me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

— Hilton Weiss, Rhinebeck, NY

You can always count on interesting perspectives and getting a feel for where the country is at by reading the letters to the editor.

---

From Newsweek magazine's Perspectives column, September 22, 2008 issue:

"Until...the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference...it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment."

— McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, on why vice presidential candidate Anastasia Beaverhausen Sara Palin is giving so few interviews to the press

She's going to be one heart beat away from being president. Gee, if she can't handle the U.S. press corps, how is she going to handle our relationships with Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Chavez. They aren't going to show up to the White House bearing candy, roses, and a Miss Universe sash.

---

From Time magazine's Verbatim column, September 29, 2008 issue:

"Maybe he thought he was going to have a more folksy ride."

— Barbara Walters, cohost of The View, after Cindy McCain accused the show of attacking her husband during an appearance.

See my comments on the Beaverhausen clip above Ditto here.

---

Now my desktop is ready for next week!

Just When You Thought You Were Free Of 'Nucular'

Honestly, I'm a pretty easy going guy. But when I hear President Bush say "nucular," it's like fingernails on a chalkboard, and I want to go all nuclear on his ass. What makes it even worse is that he knows it's wrong and says it anyway. Then again, that's completely in character for him, isn't it?

About a week ago, Mike reported that Anastasia Beaverhausen says nucular, too.

As if that isn't bad enough, Muttley keeps saying "Warshington." If I have to listen to Warshington and nucular for eight years, I'm going to go all apeshit on the "English is the official language of the United States" crowd.

'Road To Nowhere' Leads To Non-existent 'Bridge To Nowhere'

Want to know why your taxes are so high?

Alaska now has a Road to Nowhere going to what would have been the Bridge to Nowhere.

Alaska Gov. Anastasia Beaverhausen's Sarah Palin's transportation department has completed a $25 million gravel road leading to the site of a bridge that Palin, as John McCain's vice presidential candidate, now boasts that she stopped, so as to save taxpayers money. The road was built with federal tax dollars.

Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein said the 3.2-mile road will be useful for road races, hunters and possibly future development. But with no bridge to serve it, that's probably about it.

"I think it will be good for recreational things like a 5K and a 10K," Weinstein said. "And instead of people walking through brush, it may be used for hunting in the area."

Great! A $25M hunting trail. Moose beware!

The Beaverhausen Chronicles: Earmarks

More lies from the Muttley/Beaverhausen/Shrub campaign. As reported in today's Wall Street Journal:

What Muttley/Beaverhausen Say
• Sen. John McCain said his running mate hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. McCain said Gov. Palin shared his views and hasn't sought congressional earmarks. "Not as governor she hasn't," he said.
• The McCain campaign said that Palin's overall record is one of fiscal discipline. "Her record is cutting the number of earmark requests from the previous administration sizably," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, and she has vetoed wasteful state spending.
• Gov. Palin herself suggested she no longer seeks earmarks for her state. "The abuse of earmarks, it's un-American, it's undemocratic, and it's not going to be accepted in a McCain-Palin administration. Earmark abuse will stop."
• The McCain campaign has also come under fire for saying on the stump and in TV ads that Gov. Palin killed the controversial "Bridge to Nowhere," a $223 million earmark linking the mainland to a sparsely populated island.

The Facts
• State records show Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years. These projects include more than $130M in federal funds that would benefit Alaska's fishing industry, $9M to help Alaska oil companies, and $4.5M to upgrade an airport on a Bering Sea island that has a year-round population of less than 100.
• In the current fiscal year, she is seeking $197 million for 31 projects. In the prior year, she sought $256 million for dozens more projects ranging from research on rockfish and harbor-seal genetics to rural sanitation and obesity prevention.
• By comparison, her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, sought more than $350 million in his last year in office.
• Alaska's state government is among the wealthiest in the U.S. Flush with oil and gas royalties, it doesn't impose income or sales taxes. In fact, money flows the other way: Every man, woman and child this year got a check for $3,200.
• She supported the Bridge To Nowhere project initially and killed it after it was widely criticized and Congress allowed the state to use the funds for other projects.

So What About Senator Obama?
• Sen. Barack Obama requested a total of $860 million in earmarks in his Senate years. That doesn't include $78M for projects that were national in scope and had been requested by many lawmakers.
• Sen. Obama halted all earmark requests in fiscal 2009.

Using the same calculation that the McCain campaign uses, the total amount of earmarked dollars divided by the number of working days while each held office, Gov. Palin sought $980,000 per workday, compared with roughly $893,000 for Sen. Obama.

I guess this is where McCain's lack of computer knowledge comes into play. Everything, I mean everything, is available on the Internet. Plausible deniability is no longer a campaign strategy.

Read the complete article here.

Tina Fey Returns To SNL

In case you missed it...

"I can see Russia from my house!"

and

"Ask this one about dinosaurs!"

Fey has Beaverhausen down pat. Love it!