One of the reasons we voted Monday instead of Tuesday (when the library’s One-Stop will be open until 9 instead of 5) is because of what happened to Obama supporters in Fayetteville on Sunday. Not only were McCain/Palin supporters stationed to shout epithets and harass the long voting lines after Obama’s speech, but about 30 of the attendees of that rally got their tires slashed. Very ugly.

When I had finished marking my ballot, I fed it into the second of two machines there to take ballots. I don’t know why there were two, perhaps they switch them off day to day. It’s the first time I early voted at the library instead of journeying to the County Seat to vote at the courthouse. There are just two precincts at this end of the county, both actual polling places are in churches. I don’t like to vote in the First Baptist Church.

I noted the number on the machine (like a glorified copier) when I fed my ballot in, so I’d see it counted. It was. Number 445, in fact. This particular machine had received 444 votes since early voting opened last Thursday, and it’s not open on Sunday. That number reflects what must be extremely close to all the duly registered voters in both precincts of our town! Even if we’re up to maybe 900-1,000 people by now, there probably aren’t more than 500 of ‘em old enough to vote.

My husband made small talk with the poll ladies (who were all very nice and helpful) while we waited for grandson to finish registering and vote.  They said turnout had been surprising, and that new young voters had been registering in droves even though there’s only one high school and community college in our county, both in the seat. They’d apparently heard nothing about the Fayetteville rally on Sunday or the ugly antics of McCain supporters. We were the only voters there so close to closing, so it’s not like the conversation would have upset any other voters.

Now, I remember when Jesse Helms ran this state with an iron-fisted “machine.” Back when our poll was in the train station I’d see ambulances lined up to wheel elderly people in from nursing homes to vote, many of whom didn’t look able to punch those cards and couldn’t see well enough to know which to punch. They got a lot of help, of course, but to me it was quite the spectacle. Back in those days (early ’90s) you had to ‘prove’ you were out of state (or would be) on election day to vote absentee, otherwise you had to physically show up no matter how disabled you were.

After the 2000 election fiasco (when about a third of voters got ‘lost’ and a lot of dead people were on the rolls), they went to no-excuse absentee. Then after the 2004 fiasco when Diebold’s glorified Etch-a-Sketches threw state races into turmoil, they came up with early One-Stop voting and paper ballots. This year I expect there may be no more than a dozen voters who put it off until November 4th.

So… I am now wondering what it will be like when “election day” comes and nobody shows up… because they’ve already voted.

The parties may have to play catch-up with the voters this time. It’s entirely possible that this state will have been firmly decided well before November 4th. Wouldn’t that be a gas?

The news from the Alaska State Legislature on their investigation of governor Sarah Palin’s abuse of power was not good. The Branchflower report [pdf] was released last week with some damning conclusions about the Palin’s personal vendetta against her ex-brother in law and Todd Palin’s immediate misuse of state resources and personnel to further their attempt to get Trooper Wooten fired from his job and denied worker’s compensation for an on the job injury. Beginning the very day after Sarah was elected governor.

Sarah Palin, now John McCain’s vice presidential candidate, spent the weekend expressing how happy she is that the investigation showed that she broke no laws, even though the actual report demonstrates clearly that she did violate ethics regulations – which is illegal. Especially in terms of allowing her husband, who was not elected to any office, to use state resources and personnel to pursue his family feud.

The situation is currently up in the air as to what the Alaskan legislature will do with the findings, state law seemingly requires that Palin be impeached for her violations. That of course cannot be accomplished before November 4th, but on November 5th Palin will be heading back to Wasilla, merely the governor again and not the VP of the United States. I predict she will be impeached by the time Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20, 2009. At which point she will be free to spend more quality time with the family she’s been so eager to exploit for her own personal gain.

Check out DKos front-pager Kagro X’s overview of the report and its findings in Todd Palin, Creepy “First Stalker”. These are not people we want in any position of real power over all of us, even if you happen to be John McCain. Who, despite his desperate desire to be President, was hoodwinked into allowing Dobson & Co. to pick his running mate sans vetting, and is finally coming to realize as their appearances become uglier and uglier that he’s been had big time. I think he’s purposefully throwing the race at this point. Possibly the most honorable thing he as a patriot has ever done for his country.

Now if he could just rein in his gangster-affiliated wife and HER thirst for power… This country absolutely doesn’t need a Cindy-Todd administration!

Ahoy, mateys! Ye olde Jolly Roger is flying high o’er the poopdeck this blustery Talk Like a Pirate Day, sun’s high atop the meridian and it looks like clear sailing from here to Zanzibar (where we get to meet the Zanzibarbarians)!

Of course, that flag’s been flying off the deck atop the mizzen gib since the Fourth of July, our old Old Glory having been ceremoniously burned on the beach at Tortuga some time ago due to unraveled edges and holey star-field. Roger was the only flag we had left to fly, so we did.

As it looks like those scurvy bilge rats privateering for effete Frenchies have managed to once again rob the Armada blind by stealing the fabled treasure of Wall Street, we of the honorable fellowship of brigands and pirates vow to take it back in the name of Good King Barry-O, our one-eyed Cap’n, in his bid to earn full knight-ship by saving the fleet from mass plank-walking.

Arrrr! Un-pantaloon yer blunderbusses, mates! We be makin’ for those Outer Banks before dawn! Weigh anchor, unfold the sheets – it’s on to glory and booty!

Financial news of Wall Street meltdowns, Fed takeovers of big insurers and mortgage giants, and some serious death and destruction on the Texas coast from Hurricane Ike (which we’re finding out about piecemeal after 6 days of “Heckuva Job, Skeletor”), it has become more and more obvious that the country is in such terrible trouble that this will be one of the most important Presidential elections of our lifetimes.

So perhaps it’s not so surprising that both friends and enemies of Republican candidate John McCain are beginning to become alarmed at what appears to be some sort of serious mental decline that has taken hold and accelerating rapidly. What’s going on?

Since McCain – a 72-year old man who has survived four bouts with malignant melanoma – has refused to release the results of his most recent medical check-ups and testing, we aren’t likely to find out what’s actually wrong during this election cycle unless (God forbid) he suddenly becomes gravely ill. In which case it’ll still be All About Palin, since the ballots are already printed. John Ashcroft, it must be remembered, lost an election to a man who died during the campaign. So yes, that CAN happen in this country, on this level of politics.

Now, I don’t want to have to live through either a McCain or a Palin presidency. I think they’re both more dangerous than Junior Moron, and Palin’s definitely in line as heir to the Cheney “Imperial Vice-Presidency.” But I also don’t relish the thought of anything awful happening to any of the candidates, or having to watch as McCain painfully slides into some kind of overt dementia. This is a guy who really has had a long and storied career of public service, and who really has had a strong grasp of various foreign policy issues on a much higher level than merely being able to see Russia from the kitchen window. He’s looking sick, exhausted and is scarily losing his mental acumen – why have his handlers not checked him in for a few days of serious rest and medical attention?

It’s more than just not remembering how many houses and condos he and his heiress wife own. That can be understandable if you’re that rich and she’s got her own games going. It’s more than stupidly echoing failed Republican economic pablum on a day when the whole world suffered massive economic meltdown. Now McCain has lost touch so seriously he can’t remember who is running Spain – a NATO member and strong ally of the US – and even confuses things so badly that he thinks Spain is a South American dictatorship!

That’s just not right. And it’s not John McCain, who (in his younger days and in his right mind) knows all about Spain as a European country and NATO ally.

If it’s just jet lag and the stresses of hard campaigning, then he needs a few day’s R&R and nobody in his corner needs to apologize for it. If it’s more than that, they’re risking his very life forcing him to keep going in his obvious state of ill health and mental confusion.

Somebody please do the right thing. Help this man – whatever he loses by being out of the loop for a few days isn’t something that wouldn’t have been lost anyway if he keeps on demonstrating that he’s too old, sick and mentally unfit to be President. He deserves more just for having served so long. From his wife, his erstwhile “soul mate” in the Veep slot, his campaign lobbyists and his party.

Give him a rest. He obviously needs it.

Anything for a Vote by Joseph Cummins

We get a lot of insults these days when pundits, pontificators and political apologists for one side or the other toss accusations and innuendoes around like parade candy. If you disagree with Mister 22% (Bush) you’re a traitor. If you’re a soldier and you disagree with the way the war’s being managed, you’re a “phony soldier.” If you’re trying to get Democrats elected you’re “soft on terror,” and if you object to the shredding of the Constitution you’re “Islamofascist” or “feminazi” or just the standard commie pinko hippie scum. It just never seems to get old.

My 85-year old Mother, who watches Fox News religiously (I don’t know why) gets very upset lately whenever the subject of politics comes up among the brothers and sisters. Which is a shame, because we all love to talk politics, even if we don’t agree about everything. It wouldn’t be so bad if her blood pressure didn’t rise so visibly just before she goes into the O’Reilly rant about “hate, hate, hate!”

So I’ve decided the best thing I could do for her at this stage of her life (besides go spend some quality time just being with her, taking care of things for her, and listening to her stories) is buy her a copy of a new book by Joseph Cummins, entitled Anything for a Vote.

Cummins traces political campaign name-calling and insults through the entire history of our nation, from George Washington to G.W. Bush, with lots of juicy stops in between. If politics is too mean and nasty to talk about in polite company, that means it’s as American as Mom and Apple Pie! In other words, politics has always been thus.

In what Cummins calls “one of the top five dirtiest elections of all time” – Thomas Jefferson versus John Adams in 1800 – Jefferson’s hired political hack called Adams “a repulsive pedant,” a “gross hypocrite,” and, strangely enough, “a hideous hermaphroditical character who has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” Whoa.

Not to be out-slimed, the Federalists attacked Jefferson right back in the most personal ways. “Jefferson is a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia Mulatto father.” A Connecticut paper mentioned the excesses of the French Revolution against Jefferson: “Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames … female chastity violated, children writhing on the pike? Thomas Jefferson was just sure to bring the Reign of Terror to American shores! History, of course, demonstrates quite differently.

Which is the point of this book, and the point I think Mom needs to reconnect with if she can. It’s just hype and hyperbole. How the game is played, and if you care to participate in the process you sure shouldn’t be taking any of it too seriously. Other choice tidbits:

• Congressman Davy Crocket accused candidate Martin Van Buren in 1836 of wearing women’s underwear: “He is laced up in corsets!”

• Teddy Roosevelt got shot in the chest while preparing to make a campaign speech in 1912, but decided to deliver it anyway: “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose!” Very effective.

• Former President Harry S. Truman told voters in the 1960 campaign that “if you vote for Richard Nixon, you ought to go to hell!”

I figure it might give Mom a giggle, remind her of her love of politics, and reassure her that all is not lost just because politicians disparage each other and the people think they’re all crooks and liars. That’s traditional Americana raw, just as it is. Which is pretty much just what it’s always been.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. An old adage of folk wisdom akin to not buying a pig in a poke, not happening until pigs fly, and teenager’s bedrooms likened to a pig-sty. It’s been a coon’s age to a gnat’s ass, he needs to buck up and take it like a man, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

Republican John McCain’s campaign flunkies are all over this observation about the situation in Iraq, claiming that Obama called VP hopeful Sarah Palin a “pig” because she likened herself to a “pit bull with lipstick” in her RNC acceptance speech. What a total load of hooey! Looks to me like John McCain’s campaign thinks of Sarah Palin as a pig wearing lipstick, and wants everyone to notice.

When Joe Biden talked about funding for stem cell research in hope of treatments and cures for genetic diseases, the McCain campaign insisted the subject of people with ’special needs’ is off the table because Palin has a baby with Downs Syndrome. Huh!??! That’s like saying the subject of health care is off the table because Sarah Palin flew 2,000 miles and drove an hour across the tundra after her water broke so she could have a baby with Downs Syndrome at her local stitch-em-up. Or…

The subject of sex education is off the table because Sarah Palin’s 17-year old daughter is pregnant. The subject of co-mingling church and state is off the table because Sarah Palin’s a dominionist holy-roller. The subject of reproductive rights is off the table because Sarah Palin can’t keep from getting pregnant. The state of the union is off the table because the Palins have secessionist ties. Science education is off the table because Sarah Palin believes Adam and Eve rode to church on a dinosaur. The subject of family law is off the table because Sarah Palin’s in the middle of a blood feud with her ex-in-laws…

Wow. Who’d have thought at the beginning of the summer that the Republicans would succeed in taking all issues of national concern and policy off the table just by picking a whiny, self-described pit bull wearing lipstick as Vice-Presidential running-mate? Thaaaaat’s some clever new 21st century Politics!

There is hope that the Tabloid Press can manage to reach the millions of low-information voters at the grocery checkout lines with lurid details of the Palin family’s dysfunctional soap operas in the not-so frozen northland. But then, those same low-information voters might vote for McCain/Palin just to keep themselves in cheap entertainment for the next four years. There is hope that Americans with 3-digit IQs will wake up and smell the frying bacon… er, mooseburgers, vote the nation’s best interests this fall instead of their own boredom.

You never know… we might be pleasantly surprised.

Well, I was going to report on the St. Paul RNC this week like I did the DNC in Denver last week, but it never quite caught my attention. Hardly anybody went (including the President and Vice-President of the United States, who are the party’s figureheads), Weather was lousy in Louisiana so the first day got put off altogether, and Fred Thompson makes me go to sleep.

But I’ve honestly gotta say, this whole Alaska Momma mooseburger beauty queen thing with Sarah Palin has me utterly and completely befoozled. Bamboozled. Conundrumated. WTF???

First thing out of the gate was that she’s been governator for less than two years, and before that was mayor of a town the same size as Wilburton, Oklahoma (where Granny lives). Then she violated military regulations and operations security by telling everybody her 18-year old son is deploying on September 11. Then she lied about her close relationship with indicted AK senator Ted Stevens and his “bridge to nowhere”, and ‘forgot’ to tell anyone that her own state Senate has her under current investigation for abuse of power. Oops.

Then she threw her pregnant 17-year old daughter under the bus to ‘prove’ the Downs Syndrome baby is really her son and not her grandson, even though just showing his birth certificate would have done the trick fine. Then she denied ever being a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, but only addressed their conventions occasionally as some sort of ‘courtesy’. Before it came out that her hubby indeed was a member of AIP – and its “plastic explosives deal gone bad” characters until 2002. Then… then…

It’s just a scandal a minute, I can’t keep up! Obviously, no one from McCain’s campaign – or the government – ever vetted Ms. Mooseburger. Well, there’s a reason for that too, now that the mainstream media’s awake and paying attention. Turns out she was vetted by James Dobson & Crew, who apparently got carte blanche from the McMansions campaign to pick the V.P. And I’m guessing the only vetting CNP did was to call her hometown preacher. Just… Wow.

So. Since I’m too fascinated by this soap opera to bother with the RNC, here’s the icing on the cake:

Via NRO, Enquirer reporting Palin Adultery

Another incredible allegation emerging from the family war is that Palin, a mother of five, had an affair with a former business associate of her fisherman husband, Todd.

“Todd discovered the affair and quickly dissolved his friendship and his business associations with the guy,” charges an enemy. “Many people in Alaska are talking about the rumor and say Todd swept it under the rug.”

Who knows if that one’s true? It *is* the Enquirer, which isn’t noted for its journalistic standards. But then again, they’re the ones who busted John Edwards, so it might be. I’m not taking any odds at this point, given how completely bizzaro this whole thing is so far.

And it’s been less than a week since we first heard of her. Just… Wow.

The Democratic National Convention wrapped up last night with the most inspiring, detail-filled, well-delivered acceptance speech ever, and I can remember all the way back to Ike’s. Obama looked, as usual, cool and collected as he ran down the list of what needs doing, while hitting hard on the past 7+ years of failed leadership, insane paranoia of the American people, legalized torture, and their bid for a third term with Lt. Commander McMansions.

Presuming that readers wouldn’t have missed it for anything, the speech needs no quoting here. I’d just like to remind everyone that on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech, Barack Obama amply underlined his soaring rhetorical skills in front of 84,000 people in Mile High Stadium and millions worldwide. The Repuglicans are right to be afraid of him. The dream lives on, might even become a reality in November.

As if to attach yet another exclamation point to that piece of serious history, John McCain announced his Veep pick – it’s Alaska governor Sarah Palin. I know, I know. You’ve never heard of her, have you? She’s a real piece of work, probably chosen by McCain’s ‘handlers’ rather than he himself in a desperate bid for the PUMA plants, all dozen of ‘em having spent all week whining that the ‘Pug’s first opponent choice didn’t get the nomination. Who is this person, you ask? Well…

Palin is a 44-year old anti-choice Mom of five with a newborn son who has Downs Syndrome and another son soon being deployed to Iraq. That will probably work to blunt attacks on her wingnut positions, but she’s got another problem too. She is under current investigation by the Alaskan legislature’s Joint Legislative Council for abuse of power after she summarily fired Walt Monegan from his job as Public Safety Commissioner, apparently because he refused to fire Palin’s ex-brother in law Michael Wooten. Palin’s sister and Wooten had been through a “messy divorce,” and the Council is unanimous in its suspicion that the firing came as retribution.

Now that she’s the Veep nominee, though, we can all be reassured that the DOJ will probably move in to quash the investigation by late this afternoon. Here’s some juicy tidbits from a KTVA story dated Thursday [8-15] entitled Governor and staff’s latest explanations leave more questions. In the left hand sidebar are links to various documents pertinent to the investigation.

I suppose she’s lucky that John McCain has offered her another, better job just as this situation threatened to explode and end in her own summary firing by impeachment. Hahaha!!! Oh, my. Maybe there simply aren’t any honest Republicans to choose from. Sort of makes me feel a little sorry for McCain. This election is definitely not going to be close enough to steal.

I’ll admit I was a little worried that Bill’s baton-passing might be as empty of discernible passion as Hillary’s, or that he just might express his personal pique at Democrats’ rejection of his wife’s bid for power. So I was greatly relieved to once again experience Bill Clinton’s utter mastery of the art of political rhetoric – his legendary ease with the forum, his self-assured ability to speak his heart effectively, and his sometimes magical talent for drawing trust and confidence from his listeners. Best speech of the convention so far, though John Kerry hit some righteous points as well.

Here are some particularly good quotes from the speeches thus far that definitely should be replayed regularly in You Tube viral clips, in television and radio ads, and in print campaign literature through November…

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid:

“For over a quarter of a century, the Republicans have sold their magic beans with a promise of a giant beanstalk and gold over the horizon. Look what they’ve done to our country. Look what they’ve done to our planet.”

Pres. Bill Clinton:

“And so, my fellow Democrats, I say to you: Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world. Barack Obama is ready to honor the oath, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.”

“People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”

Hillary Clinton:

“How to we give this country back to them? By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her life to bring slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. On that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of advice: ‘If you hear the dogs, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.’”

Sen. John Kerry:

“…the flag doesn’t belong to any ideology. It doesn’t belong to any political party. It is an enduring symbol of our nation, and it belongs to all the American people. After all, patriotism is not love of power or some cheap trick to win votes; patriotism is love of country.”

Soon-to-be VP Joe Biden:

“Let me make this pledge to you right here and now. For every American who is trying to do the right thing, for all those people in government who are honoring their pledge to uphold the law and respect our Constitution, no longer will the eight most dreaded words in the English language be: ‘The Vice President’s office is on the phone.’”

Quite the nice build-up to tonight’s Big Speech in Invesco Stadium by Barack Obama. I’m expecting some especially great quotes to come from that one, so again, stay tuned!