Politics: September 2008 Archives

One of the most offensive things that a politician can say to you is that it's OK for government to take what's yours because "you can afford it." Obama's used that exact language, and it's, in simplest and most direct term, decisively anti-liberty.

How could they know what you can afford? It's quite conceivable that the people who make more than $250,000, or even $2.5 million, a year -- that Obama wants to raise taxes on -- cannot afford to pay more taxes, because they are already using all their money. Maybe it's on investing in businesses, maybe it's on a nice house for your family, maybe it's on a hobby you love, maybe it's just buying as much gold as possible because you think the dollar-based economy is going to completely collapse.

Oh, you reply, but they are spending their money on things they "don't need." But in a free country, who are you to authoritatively tell anyone what they don't need? Why should your opinion that I don't need something have any effect on me at all? If I think I need to spend all my spare money on gold, who are you to tell me I am wrong?

On what objective basis can you assert that I can afford to not use my money how I want to use it?

There isn't one, of course. In order to make the claim you have to either claim that there is no private ownership of anything, and give government the ultimate power to decide what everyone should have, or else draw a completely arbitrary line based on your subjective (and often religiously motivated) belief that there's more important things to use my money for than what I want to use my money for, and that you can force that belief on me.

Obama and Biden say they don't want to force their religion on people when it comes to abortion, but when it comes to "charity," they will force whatever they can on whomever they can. Neither hypocrisy nor assaults on liberty are new in politics.

Fareed Zakaria said today that we must have candidates for President and Vice President who know how to govern, who are capable of getting us through this financial crisis. He says we cannot have people who are "unqualified," who are merely "charismatic," who when pressed on the economy engage in "a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics" that come into their head.

He says such candidates should drop out. He is purporting to talk about Palin, but everything he says applies equally to Barack Obama.

Obama is pitifully ignorant when it comes to the economy. He is better, I agree, than Palin at memorizing talking points, but then again, he's had a lot more practice. But he has no more intelligence, knowledge, insight, or ability than Palin does.

Oh, and Zakaria -- who also likes to portray himself as something of an expert on foreign affairs -- also made light of Sarah Palin's experience with Russia. He says, "Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus?" I don't know, Fareed, are you regularly briefed on military exercises involving Santa Claus? She never claimed to be an expert; she was asked about experience. She hinted at some of that experience, and it's not insignificant, and it's real. It's as real as any foreign experience Obama has: he had a summer vacation in Europe and met with some people.

What Zakaria is doing is both ignoring the fact of her actual experience, and then pretending she said something she never did. Terrible stuff.

What's really pathetic is that professionals like Zakaria who should know better have been sucked in by slickness. Obama is more slick, so therefore he's qualified. This is Zakaria's implicit message, and it doesn't speak well for him.

I have to think the editorial board of The Herald is simply unaware of Fred Walser's history.

I cannot believe that The Herald would have endorsed someone who was recently sentenced to a year in jail for lying to public servants; who faked a public document to cover for his friend; who interfered in a state patrol investigation of that friend; who filed a false sexual harassment complaint to protect that friend's job; who tried to get Sheriff Rick Bart to violate public records law; whose misdeeds as Police Chief of Sultan and at the Wasington State Patrol have cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.

The Herald surely isn't aware of the facts, because they say they believe something which even Fred Walser himself admits the evidence doesn't show: that it was a mere "clerical error."  In filing his guilty plea, he explicitly stated that he believed that the evidence would show he was guilty of lying.

Walser has lied repeatedly, and about almost everything, including his opponent, Senator Val Stevens.  He is unfit to serve in any elected office.  All of the facts are available at http://www.fred-walser.com/.  Since The Herald refuses to do the research of the facts, the public should read about it for themselves.

Three weeks into its new season, Saturday Night Live has had two sketches attacking McCain and two attacking Palin, and not a single sketch attacking Obama or Biden.

Obama's only shown up in one sketch, in a spoof of the first debate, in which McCain was portrayed as an unhinged nut and Obama as a serious politician. There were two token jokes thrown out about Obama -- one about Chicago corruption and another about playing the race card -- but the rest of the eight-minute sketch was poking at McCain. There were almost as many jokes about Hillary Clinton, who showed up at the end of the sketch, as about Obama.

I remember the good old days when SNL would attack all sides, and not pick sides. Sketches like the spoof of the three-way debate between Bush, Clinton, and Perot (with Dana Carvey playing both Bush and Perot) were the reason why people tuned in each week: to see funny parodies, not lame attack ads against one party's candidates.

These are not those days for SNL. It's too bad that just when they get a cast that is really putting out some good stuff, after several years in the wilderness, that they are undermining their own bread-and-butter: political spoofs.

It sounds crazy, but it's true.

Ohio law allows anyone to request an absentee ballot on any piece of paper they wish, as long as they include certain information. You include that information, and it checks out, then you get an absentee ballot. Period. That's the law.

The McCain/Palin campaign has provided forms which has all that information, a form that has been used in Ohio many times in the past. In addition to the required information, there's a checkbox next to the statement "I am a qualified elector." This checkbox has nothing to do with Ohio state law.

But Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State said that the forms shall not be honored if the checkbox is not checked. Even though the box is unneeded, by not checking it voters are essentially admitting they're not eligible, Brunner said.

Perhaps the voter is simply aware of the law that does not require that checkbox? Or perhaps the voter is confused about what "qualified elector" means? Or maybe they've filled it out in the past, and know that it has been accepted without the check?

Her argument is basically that the law requires a "statement that the person requesting the ballots is a qualified elector." She is arguing that if the checkbox were not there, it would be a legal form, but since it is there, it needs to be checked to be legal. Even though the law doesn't require it.

It's absolute insanity. She is an elected Democrat clearly trying to disenfranchise explicitly Republican voters ... and doing so at a huge cost to taxpayers, as the state officials are required to notify each voter who left off the checkbox and mail them a new form.

Thankfully, the McCain campaign is suing her.

(Oh, and if you're a Democrat thinking "well, the Republicans stole Ohio in 2004!," no, in fact, they didn't.)

Republicans generally want less regulation. Democrats generally want more.

This is -- generally -- true.

So if people (generally) believe that in a specific case there should have been more or stricter regulation, it's obvious that the Democrats were right, and the Republicans wrong ... right?

This is the Democratic talking point, and it's nonsense. It's barely worth mentioning how stupid this line of reasoning is, because it's so obviously nonsensical, but it's repeated so often that apparently some people think it's true.

We know, for example, that both Bush and McCain have pushed for tighter regulations on Freddie and Fannie for several years, and we know that Democrats have blocked and opposed it.

Being generally against increased regulation does not mean being for or against all regulations anymore than being generally for increased regulation means you are for all regulations.

The Democrats know that if they talk about the specific regulations at issue, they will look bad for having opposed regulations such as those proposed by McCain (and worse, make McCain look good). So instead they talk about generalities in an obvious attempt to deceive the public.

Despite what some local leftists say, and despite that Governor Gregoire won't let the "D" word cross her lips (although she is at least now admitting we will have a "shortfall" coming into next session), we do have a coming deficit.

Gregoire's own appointee to her Council of Economic Advisors, Jeff Chapman -- in writing the brief local leftists are basing their claims of "no deficit" on -- explicitly confirms we have a looming deficit of over $3 billion.

Deficit is when you don't have enough to pay your obligations. That's what we've got. Now, by the time the budget is completed and passed, we almost surely will have it balanced, no thanks to Gregoire. She has said on several occasions that "We spend when we have a surplus and we struggle to make painful cuts when the economy slumps. ... By treating our budget like a Washington family budget we will ensure stability and avoid tax increases or Draconian cuts tomorrow."

This is of course, precisely what faces us now, regardless of Gregoire's claims that we were "getting off that roller coaster."

So which is it? Cuts or tax increases?

Of course, being a Gregoire appointee, Chapman recommends tax increases, including an increase of the state sales tax by one penny per dollar (pushing the sales tax to 10 percent in some places, like in Seattle), rejecting new tax breaks, and a spending increase to offset the sales tax increase with greater payouts for poor families.

That's just in the short term. In the long term, of course, he recommends an income tax, and more handouts to poor families.

Of course, the best way we know that Gregoire will raise taxes is that she won't say she won't raise taxes. In 2004, she said she wanted to try to do everything without raising taxes. She, of course, raised taxes immediately. "Now is not the time to talk about taxes" is code for "I am going to raise your taxes, but I want you to vote for me, so I won't say it."

It's hard to imagine a more clear difference between two candidates. Gregoire thinks that our 33 percent budget increase during her years in office is appropriate and that we need all this spending by government in order to help people, and that we need to raise taxes to keep that spending. Rossi thinks that tax increases hurt families and businesses, and that the best way to help the most people is to not increase their taxes, and to reduce spending to avoid that.

In a revealing article in today's Herald, Jerry Cornfield looks into the slimy lies told by the Democrats against Senator Val Stevens.

It's been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the ads were lies, clearly accusing Stevens of something she never did, but Democratic challenger Fred Walser said, "I'm OK with them, absolutely. In my opinion, those statements are accurate."

Note that Walser does not say how the ads are accurate, in the face of evidence proving the contrary. Since Walser himself is a convicted liar with a long history of lying to protect himself and his friends, however, this should come as no surprise.

Of the ad run against him that points to the Fred Walser web site I run, I said, "No one's accused us of misrepresentation." I meant, of course, specific claims of misrepresentation. Walser says, "I was highly offended by the Republican Party ad that wasn't even accurate," but he is completely incapable of saying how any of it is inaccurate, because none of it is.

I'd like him to tell us how it's inaccurate. Which part? That he was convicted of lying and sentenced to a year in jail, 240 hours of community service, and $20,000 in restitution? That if he doesn't fulfill the obligations of his parole, that he could be in jail even before election day? That he is, literally, a crook? Nope, all of that is true. And everything else on there is a quote from the news media.

I think a lot more voters will be offended by your crimes and history of lies, Walser, than will be offended by the Republicans telling the truth about you. But right now I make an offer: Fred Walser, come on to Sound Politics and explain in what way the ad against you was inaccurate. I promise to let you have your fair say. You could just send me an e-mail and I'll publish the whole thing verbatim. And if you won't do that, then go on to one of the liberal web sites, like Goldy's. I'm sure he'd welcome you.

Will you do it, Walser? I won't hold my breath.

Senate Democratic Campaign Committee chair Karen Keiser echoed Walser's latest lies, saying, "There's a bright line between personal attack and political speech. I thought that (Republican piece) was a personal attack and totally a misrepresentation. Telling the public that someone's political opinions are extreme is not a personal attack."

Again, she cannot say how it is a misrepresentation, and if she thinks informing the public about Walser's proven -- and admitted -- lack of integrity is a "personal attack" then she's in the wrong business.

And yes, it is perfectly fine to attack Stevens' political views. The problem is, of course, they didn't do that: they attacked views she doesn't hold, and pretended they were hers.

Attacking a Republican for what they didn't do: perfectly fine. Attacking a Democrat for what is proven they did: personal attack.

Sounds a lot like the Obama campaign, frankly.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the modern Democratic Party.

The Senate Democrats have put out another mailer lying about Senator Val Stevens.

They also gave Walser another $10,000 in cash, so they've funded 39 percent of his campaign, not including whatever money was spent on this mailing.

The mailings were sent by a brand-new PAC called "Better Future for Washington," fully funded by the Senate Demoractic Campaign Committee's Roosevelt Fund, to the tune of $100,000 even. Yet no expenditures have been reported yet, even though the law requires that a postal mail ad that identifies a candidate, appears within 60 days of the election, and costs $5,000 or more must be reported electronically within 24 hours. Unless they somehow kept the cost to under $5,000 -- which is very unlikely -- they are in violation.

Regardless, SDCC chair Karen Keiser (D-33) and her committee have completely lost it. The majority of Democratic Senators can't want to see their money and their name going to waste by supporting a criminal like Fred Walser, let alone being used to spread terrible lies about a Republican colleague.

My latest song is "I Hate You." I wrote it last week while witnessing an intense Palin-phobic hatefest. I recorded it tonight.

I don't know about you, but I personally believe that it is a pretty terrible thing to hate people just because they disagree with you. This is a pluralistic society, necessarily. There's nothing you can do to change that. And you shouldn't try. Embrace it. It's part of the reason we have the system we do. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 10:

"There are ... two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests."

If you lash out at everyone who supports McCain/Obama/Rossi/Palin/Gregoire/Universal Health Care/tax cuts/oil drilling/tax increases (by no means an exhaustive list) as some moron/idiot/scum/evildoer, then, friend, you're part of the problem.

I Hate You

I hate you
You are nothing like me
I hate you
We can never agree
I hate you
We have different beliefs
And that's reason enough
I hate you

If not for you we'd all be fine
All problems would be solved
It really ought to be a crime
For you to be involved

You threaten what I want to have
Coz you want something else
You cause all of my problems
You destroy my sense of self

Someday I pray the world can see
That you are not at all like me
We need to always all agree
To be forever truly free

You don't have to change all you are
Just all that's meaningful
I'll tolerate you just as soon as
You are tolerable

Democrat Fred Walser's campaign against Senator Val Stevens in the 39th LD has been filled with lies. But the latest lie, told on his behalf from his campaign's largest direct contributor, the Senate Democrats, is perhaps the worst yet.

In a mail piece, the Senate Democrats falsely accuse Val Stevens of "condoning or excusing domestic violence" and "blaming the victim" of domestic violence. But it's a lie: they rely on an out of context comment about something completely different.

Stevens said that women, in a random telephone survey, can "have PMS" which results in them saying they were the victim of domestic abuse, even if it never actually happened. The Senate Democrats claim she was saying that women can "have PMS" which results in them being abused.

As usual, we have all the evidence, including the complete comments in context, and scans of the mailer.

Raise your hand if you're surprised the Senate Democrats are lying on behalf of Fred Walser, a convicted liar. Yeah, me neither.

Senator Dino Rossi and Governor Christine Gregoire face off in a live, one-hour Washington State Gubernatorial Debate on KOMO Channel 4 (and on komonews.com) Saturday, September 20, at 9 p.m. It's sponsored by Fisher Communications, the League of Women Voters, and the Seattle P-I.

There's a college football game on right before the debate, and I don't know what the plans are, but if you're setting your TiVo, then make sure you set it to record an hour longer or so, just in case.

It'll be interesting to see how Gregoire tries to explain away the new revenue shortfall forecast.

I ordered my copy of Flunked: The Movie. Have you?

I have high hopes for this documentary from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, hosted by Joe Montegna. It's a nonpartisan look at what's wrong with our public education system and how to fix it.

(Psssst: the answer isn't "more money.")

I said I thought the projected budget deficit for Washington would soon be $3 billion. I was wrong. Now it's up to $3.2 billion.

Never fear, we have a rainy day fund, which will cover almost a quarter of that!

Let us remember what Governor Gregoire said in her 2006 State of the State address:

Our state budgeting has been a roller coaster. We spend when we have a surplus and we struggle to make painful cuts when the economy slumps. It is time to even out the ride. While the roller coaster is fun at the amusement park, it is no model for state budgeting.

By treating our budget like a Washington family budget -- we will ensure stability and avoid tax increases or Draconian cuts tomorrow.

And then in her 2008 State of the State, she said something similar:

For too long, state government spent in the good times, and then made painful cuts when the economy slowed. We are getting off that roller coaster, and we're making progress!

So in 2006, we were supposed to keep spending low so that when tough times came, we'd be able to weather them without tax increases or program cuts. In 2008, well, we want to make sure we don't have any program cuts. Notice in 2008, there's no mention of avoiding tax increases, because there's no plan to avoid tax increases.

We didn't keep spending low. We didn't "get off that roller coaster." We added 33 percent to the budget, and our revenues and savings couldn't come close to keeping up, and if Gregoire is re-elected, we will have massive tax increases.

Rossi has met this challenge before, and emerged victorious. Spending must be cut, without causing significant harm, and without raising taxes. Gregoire and the Democrats caused this problem, and they want to sink our economy even lower to try and tax and spend their way out of it.

I've been idly following the Real Clear Politics electoral map. I think some of it is kinda silly. Yesterday Virginia was "leaning Obama." I wondered when the last time Virginia went Democrat was.

I went back to 1968 (as far back as RCP's maps go, plus, since Nixon was the first President I was alive for, seems like a nice round election) and couldn't find a single example: it went Republican every time. I thought, what other states go Republican every election? Since 1968: Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Indiana. Plus Virginia.

How many have gone Democrat every time since 1968? None: just the District of Columbia. Of course, without the Republican blowouts in 1972 and 1984, there'd probably be more.

As George Will likes to remind us, the future is just like the past right up until the point where it's not, which is why I call this "trivia." Still, I think Indiana and Virginia are not likely to go Obama this year, despite close polls.

"Baby Doe" is a song by Steve Taylor about a baby left to die in 1982 because it had Down's syndrome.

I've updated the lyrics slightly in reference to the (now illegal) practice of allowing children who survive botched abortions die in a similar fashion, some of them perfectly healthy, some of them surviving for hours before finally dying.

Barack Obama voted to defend this practice. While this issue alone should be enough to sink Obama from ever winning any election anywhere for anything, we unfortunately know that our society is far too depraved for that.

Taylor asks toward the end of the song, "where will it end?" We're not there yet. (As to where my posts on this subject will end, this will likely be the last for awhile.)

Unfolding today
A miracle play
This Illinois morn

The father -- he sighs
She opens her eyes
Their baby is born

"We don't understand
It's not like we planned"
The doctor shakes his head

"Aborted" they cry
And so they decide
This child is better dead

    I bear the blame
    Believers are few
    And what am I to do?

    I share the shame
    The cradle's below
    And where is Baby Doe?

No hearing is sought
No lawyers are brought
They just won't let him eat

They wrap him up tight
And turn out the light
This child is getting weak

They're drawing a bead
Reciting their creed
"Respect a woman's choice"

I've heard that before
How can you ignore
This baby has a voice

    I bear the blame
    Believers are few
    And what am I to do?

    I share the shame
    The cradle's below
    And where is Baby Doe?

Where will it end? Oh, no, no ...

It's over and done
Nobody has won
And no one gets a prize

Behind your disguise
Your rhetoric lies
You watched a baby starve

    I bear the blame
    The cradle's below
    And where is baby ...

In my previous post, last night, I mentioned the fact that Obama voted to keep infanticide legal. This morning I see that Politico writes about a new 527 group called BornAliveTruth.org. Here's their first ad, playing in Ohio and New Mexico.

Personally, I don't find the ad to be too powerful. I think most viewers will link it too closely to children who survived abortions but were not immediately born, and will disregard it because of that. I think it plays into the hands of Obama who wants to make this about abortion, instead of live births.

And I find the claim that "if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here" to be specious at best: Obama was not saying every born child resulting from botched abortions should be left to die, only that doctors should be allowed to let them die, and I see no evidence that Gianna Jessen's doctor chose to let her die, but was stopped because of any law.

What Obama voted for is horrific enough without misrepresenting it. I hope future advertisements from BornAliveTruth.org are more powerful and more accurate; if so, they may elicit a donation from me.

No, I am not talking about abortion, though that is what Obama wants you to think. I am talking about a vote that came up in the Illinois State Legislature that forbade the practice of letting born children die.

FactCheck.org has some of the facts, as does National Review Online.

At issue is a practice of children being born alive, with vital signs separate from the mother, and being left to die. Literally. They would not be provided any care, but just left alone until they were dead. Human babies born alive, and intentionally ignored so that they would die.

Infanticide.

Nurse Jill Stanek tells of how she cradled one Down syndrome child -- who was being taken to be left all alone in a soiled utility room -- for 45 minutes until the child simply stopped living.

Obama said he opposed the legislation banning this practice because it didn't, in his opinion, protect abortion rights: he thought it could be used as a back-door to banning abortions. When a provision -- the "neutrality clause" -- was added to the federal legislation banning the practice, which explicitly protected all abortion rights, it passed the U.S. Senate unanimously, and was not even opposed by NARAL.

Obama said he would support the federal statute because it contained the neutrality clause. And when it came time to add the clause to their state bill, he voted for it. But then he voted to kill the bill anyway. (Incidentally, Obama argued for years that he only opposed it because it lacked the neutrality clause, and only last month admitted that was false.)

There's really no way around it: Obama voted for legal infanticide. Not that he voted for infanticide, but he did vote to keep it legal. When his sole objection -- protecting abortion rights -- was eliminated, he still voted against the bill banning the practice. Why?

NRO's Andrew C. McCarthy has our answer. Digging into the debate on the subject, he finds Obama arguing that live children are not being left to die (he says he trusts an abortion doctor to not let a born child, who was intended to be aborted, die!), and asserting that the bill is designed not to protect those lives, but to burden women who are trying to have an abortion with legal threats to their doctors.

As McCarthy said: When it got down to brass tacks, Barack Obama argued that protecting abortion doctors from legal liability was more important than protecting living infants from death.

Don't let Obama and his supporters get away with saying this is something other than it is. It's living human children being left to die in soiled rooms simply because they are unwanted. They are not fetuses, they are not pre-humans, they are live, born, human infants. And Obama voted to allow them to be killed.

A cover of The Byrds' classic, "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician." Sound like anyone you know? (Do you think it's a Rorschach test?)

Thus Spoke Annekornblutra:

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 -- Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

Also: the idea that troops headed to Iraq in September 2008 are on their way to fight Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government has been rejected by every sane person on the planet.

And for that matter, the Bush administration never promoted that view. Anne's lying about that, too.

This is a little video I made today. Enjoy.

Last week the Democrats feigned offense at the Palin remarks about "community organizers." This week the Republicans are feigning offense at Obama's remark about "lipstick on a pig." And now Obama is feigning offense at the Republicans' feigning of offense about the lipstick remark.

There is very little actual offense out there. It's mostly people pretending to be offended, in the hopes that other people will become offended by force.

There is some real offense out there, and when that happens, people need to be careful. People really were offended at how Barack's campaign treated Hillary, and many people are really offended at the treatment of Palin and her baby, and her daughter, and her daughter's baby daddy (see, I can take, and even make, a joke about my side!). That offense is very real; there's little feigned about it.

Subtopic: what else is commonly feigned, other than offense?

Many people on the right are angry at the Republican party and simply will not vote for John McCain. In protest, some of them have even said they would vote for someone almost diametrically opposed to their views: Barack Obama.

Thanks to Ron Paul, however, these disaffected rightwing voters -- and leftwing voters, too -- will be more likely to not vote for Obama.

These disaffected voters on the left and right were not going to vote for McCain anyway. So this doesn't hurt McCain at all. It does hurt Obama, though, and that helps McCain.

Thanks, Ron Paul!

About a half hour ago I went to this story on CNN, via a link from the CNN.com home page, which reads that Palin was being criticized for "cutting programs for people with disabilities -- a group she's vowed to defend."

I go to the story itself, and this claim is repeated in the bullet points at the top of the story, but there's no detail: just one line in the penultimate paragraph saying she was criticized for it. I figured a claim like this, that CNN deems important enough to highlight on their home page, would be backed up by some sort of detail. There was none.

As of a few minutes ago, the claim is still on the CNN.com home page, but is gone from the article itself.

Videos from the Washington State GOP about Gregoire's failures on transportation, and a Republican Governors Association slam on "Casino Chris" over the tribal casino deal.

My award-winning* song, Osama Bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday, is available online and on physical CD. It's less than a buck from Amazon.com and iTunes music store! Honor September 11th by being irreverent toward OBL.

Speaking of September 11th, the History Channel had a fantastic truther-debunking documentary on last night, where they completely slammed the documentary Loose Change with actual, you know, facts.

* I got a Schrammie!

There's a lot of lies out there about Palin: that she was a member of a secessionist party, that she tried to ban books, that she cut special needs funding, and so on. Newsweek is doing its job to debunk them.

I've written many times about the problems with our presidential debates. This year, as before -- but unlike 2004 -- the debate contract between the two campaigns is being kept secret.

Long story short -- and you can find out much more at Open Debates -- a private, nonpartisan organization called the Commission on Presidential Debates is given control of the debates by the candidates of the two parties, and the CPD decides how the debate will be run.

Well, that's what they want you to think. In fact, the CPD was started in 1986 by the RNC and DNC (it's still co-chaired by then-chairs of the DNC and RNC, Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf, today) to take away control of the debates from the League of Women Voters, and it is the candidates' campaigns themselves that come up with all the rules.

So, for example, when Ross Perot was kept out of the debates in 1996, it was because Dole's campaign demanded it, and Clinton's campaign agreed. The candidates are the ones who agree on everything -- from the number and format of debates, to who will moderate each one, and even the size of the podiums and number of TVs in the dressing rooms -- and the CPD just rubber-stamps it. If you feel like the debates are set up to be commercials for the campaigns ... you're absolutely right.

Bush and Kerry made their memorandum of understanding (PDF, 7.3MB) public in 2004. The MOU negotiated by Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Rahm Emanuel for McCain and Obama, unfortunately, has not been made public.

Of course, making the MOU public is just one small step. Really, control of the debates should be relinquished to an actual independent party, such as the League of Women Voters.

The unhinged left is going ga-ga over Tom Ridge responding to a question about John McCain showing he is different from George Bush, and he said "John Bush." This, they tell us, was a clear Freudian slip, proving that Ridge does seem them as the same.

If that's the case, then I suppose Ted Kennedy really believes Barack Obama is the same as Osama Bin Laden.

I would ask if we could stop being stupid now, but I unfortunately know the answer.

The leftwing Media Matters lies. A lot. And their page of Palin Myths is no exception.

There's several objectionable claims included in their list of "myths and falsehoods" in the media coverage of Sarah Palin, but the most obviously and clearly false is: "Media fail to challenge McCain camp talking point that Palin is 'commander in chief' of the Alaska National Guard."

It is true that the media fail to challenge it, of course, just as the media also fails to challenge the claim that Bush is the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the claim that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Every governor is the commander-in-chief of their national guard, when not in active federal service. And as Alaska Statute 26.05.060 states, "The governor as ex officio commander of the militia of the state has command of the Alaska National Guard and the Alaska Naval Militia while they are not in active federal service."

Obama made fun of Palin's job as mayor a few days ago, cracking that he has more people on his campaign staff than she had in her town as mayor. And now he is feigning offense about her cracks about him being a community organizer (which, contrary to the lies of the left, were not attacks on community organizers, any more than Obama was attacking majors of small towns).

Then he says it's not a big deal, after spending several minutes complaining about. Riiiight.

If Obama can't handle this, how could he handle it when a foreign dictator comes into his backyard and calls him a devil?

And then he complained, as Biden did, that the Republicans presented "not one idea" in their two nights of convention, again adding it's not a big deal, they can do what they want with their convention time.

I think along with being the most inexperienced Presidential candidate in 68 years, in terms of experience in state executive, federal executive, or federal legislative office, he may also be the most passive-aggressive.

The four things I write most about are politics, sports, music, and computers. This is about politics, sports, and music. And I am writing it on a computer.

One of my favorite bands is The Zambonis. They sing about hockey, and pretty much nothing else.

In honor of Sarah Palin and her nomination to the office of Vice President, I give you one of my favorite Zambonis songs, Hockey Mom, and my cover of it.

In memory, I have never seen the left this scared about anyone on the right before. Yes, I said "scared." How else to explain this sort of hatred? How can you hate her? Her face is "offensive"? And this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's pure venom out there.

Palin said nothing objectionable, other than political lines that at least half the country agrees with. Oh right, she took some sarcastic jabs at The Obama. None shall criticize Him, for He is Good. Biden can criticize McCain, because, well, he's just plain old McCain, not The McCain. Snark and meanness are acceptable from the left, because the left is on the side of goodness, light, and virtue, forever and ever amen.

I figured this would happen but it is so much more pathological than I anticipated. It's the most remarkable thing I've seen in politics for a long, long time. They know that Palin did great, they know that she could make Obama lose Pennsylvania and Ohio and Colorado and other states -- and therefore the election. They are completely shell-shocked by the events of the last week and the only thing they can do in response is Hate.

As some of you may know, the WFSE -- Washington Federaation of State Employees -- is currently, as reported in The Olympian, suing about 1900 state employees for nonpayment of dues.

Some of the stories are ridiculous, like people being sued for dues they weren't ever obligated to pay, and we could devote much to the discussion of how inane the whole thing is.

But my favorite part of the story is that the lawsuits literally have no legal merit. The contract is between the WFSE and the state government, not the individual employee, and nothing in the contract gives the WFSE any right to go after the individual employees.

The WFSE can sue the state for not enforcing the contract, but they don't want to alienate their base -- Democratic politicians -- especially in an election year. The state can fire or reprimand or take other action against the employees. But the WFSE has no legal right to sue the employees, since the employees have no agreement with the union.

Further, the money they are spending on these lawsuits is probably going to end up being more than what they get back from the employees.

It's clearly a bullying tactic by the WFSE to maintain power. They won't make money off this and they can't go after the state: they just want to scare public employees into paying.

David, the man who runs a local liberal web site bemoans the lack of liberal advertising on his site (warning: not safe for work), as well as the complaints he gets for allowing conservative advertising.

He says he will re-evaluate the future of his site in November 2008. But I am not sure how he can lose: if the Democrats win, then he, like other people who can't make money on their own, will be fully cared for by government; that is the exact agenda David pushes, and that his candidates support. If the Republicans win, then the self-righteous anger of the left will fuel the site for many months to come.

So either way, he can feed off the misery of others for as long as he wishes.

It is illegal in Washington state for public school teachers to strike.

Why do we let them get away with it?

The WEA says the strike isn't illegal. They're wrong: it covers all public sector employees, unless otherwise noted.

I am working with CNN with Wolf Blizter on, and I half-hear longtime news reporter Linda Douglass talking about the Republican Convention. She speaks like a reporter, but the words she's using are like they are coming straight out of the Obama campaign's talking points, saying Obama's experience in the U.S. Senate and with foreign policy is "vast." I was incredulous. So I looked up and I see no caption about her, but I rewind and see under her name: "Obama Campaign Advisor."

Apparently she left the journalism business a few months ago.

Someone actually could have assumed it was a reporter giving these lines as part of a news report, and that's pretty disturbing. I am not saying anyone did anything wrong -- maybe CNN should have kept the caption with her position up for the entire time, or something -- but the line between journalism and campaigns is terribly thin sometimes.

Karl Rove has orchestrated the greatest political maneuverings in political history, and I am proud to have been a mere witness to it.

The story goes back quite awhile, but to cut that part of the story short: as we all know, Karl Rove has been largely responsible for global warming in this world, working since the 1970s to destroy the planet.

But what we didn't realize until now was just what the whole point of it was. Many thought the endgame was simple greed and avarice. But as usual, the truth is far more insidious. And it's complicated, so bear with me.

Rove had a plan even in the 1970s for a permanent Republican majority. That was the real goal: simple power. In order to do that, he decided, he would get us addicted to oil -- which would cause global warming -- and use that oil as a political basis for Republican rule.

In order to do that, though, he needed to colonize the Middle East and steal its resources.

He knew that eventually he could get Republicans in control to wage his war in the Middle East, most likely against Iraq. But he also knew that this would seriously harm the Republican Party in the short run, as no one likes war, so he needed a plan to regain control with a new Republican President, for this really-really-permanent majority.

Oil was the solution there, too: once we were addicted, he could use the promise of more oil to regain the majority. He could do this by putting an Alaskan on the ticket, but there was two problems.

First, the Republican President in power would be unpopular, and this would cause significant harm to the next Republican President. Second, as everyone knows, Alaskans get pregnant out of wedlock, and this could threaten to derail everything.

This is where the pure genius of Karl Rove really shines. The global warming was not a mere side effect of the oil addiction, it was part of the point. It would be the key to the whole plan.

Through global warming, Karl Rove would create a hurricane that would, in one fell swoop, give the unpopular Republican President cover for not attending the nominating convention, and allow the Alaskan to bury the news of her daughter's pregnancy, thereby leading to another Republican victory.

Now, granted, I've oversimplified quite a bit. For example, Hurricane Gustav could not be so devastating that it would ruin the convention, so he needed a reason to make people overprepared for it. This was accomplished with Hurricane Katrina. He also was able to cause that hurricane, and of course he did everything he could to make the effects of Katrina as catastrophic as possible, not because he hated black people, but so that people would overreact to Gustav in 2008.

And I left out the whole part about his social controls of the population that would lead both to high teenage pregnancy rates and the resulting accusations of hypocrisy, which would lead both to the Alaskan's daughter's pregnancy and the need to bury the story.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying Rove knew all of this in advance. He didn't know what names the hurricanes would be given.

All I have to say is Bravo, Karl, Bravo.