• CLIMATE CHANGE AND GOP STUPIDITY

    Jon Stewart Rips Right-Wingers A New One
  • RIGHT-WINGERS BLAMING THE VICTIMS

    When Unarmed Blacks Are Killed By Cops
  • STILL NO SCANDAL

    No Wrongdoing With Benghazi
  • EBOLA AND ISIS

    Right-Wingers Fuel Racism And Paranoia

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Sarah Palin Resigns - Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

And it's even happier now that Sarah Palin has resigned.

And it's probably because Sarah Palin faces federal indictment for embezzlement.

This helps explains things a bit:

The sports complex is a $12.5 million boondoggle in Wasilla. And it was Sarah's baby.

The architect at the design firm that was awarded a $500k contract to design the complex is the son of one of Saray Palin's mentors.

Palin then named that architect to a committee that then chose a contractor owned by a guy who contributed $4,000 to Palin's campaigns -- which was a lot of money for the level of politics she was at at the time. The other bidding contractors protested the bidding process.

One of the subcontractors, a company called Spenard (remember that name), was a sponsor of Todd Palin's snowmobile team (which would have allegedly brought the Palin family 10,000's of dollars). Spenard had also hired Sarah to do a commercial for them a couple of years earlier. While the sports complex was being built, Spenard supposedly supplied the Palins with some of the materials for their new house.

Todd Palin claims he built their house with help from some "buddies," but he won't say who they were. And Sarah blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in Wasilla, which ensured that Todd's "helpers" remained a secret.

Tangentially, around the same time that the above was happening, Palin was running for Lt. Governor. About 10% of her campaign funds came from the execs (and their wives) of an oil field service company called Veco.

Veco is at the heart of the Sen. Ted Stevens scandal. The company's top execs have been indicted for bribing Alaskan politicians. They allegedly had paid $250k for an extensive remodeling job on Ted Stevens' house in 2000.

Spenard was also involved in the work on Stevens' house. (Seeing a pattern?)

Shortly after the new Palin house was built, Sarah took over as head of Ted Stevens' PAC.

And here's where it comes together today: The indicted Veco execs are supposed to be cooperating with the Feds. June 30th was a deadline set for the prosecutors to report on the extent of their cooperation. Three days later Sarah Palin suddenly resigns from her office as governor, with so little warning that even local media in Alaska has trouble making it to her press conference in time, and her head spokesperson is in NYC, apparently unprepared and with no coherent cover story.

Right-wing mouthpiece Thomas Lindaman stuck up for this moron repeatedly, which was funny. But now it's gotten even funnier.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Franken Wins - Right Wingers Butthurt

Many butthurt right-wingers are still feeling the sting of Franken's victory.

Naturally, Lindaman does the normal right-wing technique of trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing, right before he begins foaming at the mouth.

And in spite of his WHARRRRGARBLE, nothing will change the fact that we now have 58 Democrats and 2 Independents that normally vote Democrat. Naturally, they're not always going to vote the same way. But the simple fact of the matter is this: there's not enough cohesion in the Republican party to stage a filibuster anymore. Sorry, not yours.

On election night it was Coleman. The count was too close to call and a mandatory (by MN law) recount was ordered. After the recount Franken came out ahead. Then, Coleman started the appeals process and court bullshit. This, after saying shortly before the recount that Franken should do for the MN voters and concede to not have a drawn out process.

It amuses me that Coleman wanted Franken to somehow not accept the LEGALLY REQUIRED recount on election night, but is willing to go to such lengths to thwart the electorate himself.

And naturally, like most right-wingers, Lindaman's talking vote fraud conspiracy (again). Yawn!



And naturally, he doesn't back up anything he says with specifics.

Current MN SC:

Chief Justice Eric J. Magnuson, appointed by Pawlenty (R)
Justice Christopher Dietzen, appointed by Pawlenty (R)
Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea, appointed by Pawlenty (R)
Justice G. Barry Anderson, appointed by Pawlenty (R)
Justice Helen M. Meyer, appointed by Ventura (I)
Justice Paul H. Anderson, appointed by Carlson (R)
Justice Alan Page, elected (R).

There was only one Democratic governor of the past 30 years (Perpich), and none of the Supreme Court were appointed by him.

Throwing around implied accusations of wrongdoing without proof is irresponsible, and typical of a right-winger like Lindaman.

The reason why the Republicans have dragged this fight almost 8 months is because they have some strange belief that they were wronged by the electoral system here. I don't mean "they lost", I mean that they claim election fraud because they lost, even though such claims have been disproved repeatedly. They claim that votes were not counted properly or counted for the right people, despite the fact that the recount was broadcast live on the Internet (and, I imagine, some TV stations in Minnesota...not sure), which showed every single vote that was cast.

The problem isn't just that they lost and are crying about it. It's that they are selectively picking information that they know has been disproved and using that as the basis for their argument. That's the only fraud that occurred in this election.

Keep ignoring the facts, you right-wingers, and keep hoping they'll eventually go away. The canvassing board (bi-partisan leaning toward republicans) did nothing but painstakingly recount the vote, giving the win to Franken by 312 votes (give or take a few dozen). Coleman lost when all the legally cast votes were counted. He might've won if he'd managed to get his cherry-picked and possibly fraudulent absentee ballots counted. But justice prevailed. Suck it up.

Lindaman also took a few moments to complain about the Cap And Trade bill. Too bad he didn't complain about it when the last cap and trade was implemented by Bush in 1990. Sorry: It is a market solution and it has been amazingly successful.