The Associated Press: Shop, baby, shop? GOP spent $150K on Palin clothes

The Associated Press: Shop, baby, shop? GOP spent $150K on Palin clothes

$400 out of the candidates' pocket for a Haircut (Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards all were accused of this) seems like pocket change compared to GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin's $150,000 shopping spree.

Freaking ridiculous!

EMPEROR BLOOMBERG | Weekly World News

EMPEROR BLOOMBERG | Weekly World News

From the people that brought the story "Batboy Enlists to find Osama in Afghanistan" Weekly World News reports the Mayor of New York Mike Bloomberg to declare himself Emperor of New York City. As likely within Bloomberg's wheelhouse as this statement; the location and timing of the announcement disproves this journalistic nugget of the Weekly World News (Cipriani's is not a likely Bloomberg announcement location especially since he was in London Monday morning).

Joe Biden Has Lived Through Real Tragedy

Joe Biden actually is Joe-Six Pack that Palin keeps talking about. Real Americans have suffered and suceeded in life despite (or maybe because) living through real tragedies. Americans are not nancies that run to daddy after their business crashes and burns like W did repeatedly. Americans do not abandon their spouses just because they are less attractive than the day they were married, like John McCain did to his first wife. Americans know themselves enough to know what they are good at, and if like the Governor form Alaska you received your passport within the last 24 months foreign policy is not in your wheelhouse and you have to admit it. The Executive branch has too have expertise in foregn policy, and the Vice President is part of the Executive branch (despite what Cheney thinks.)

Bloomberg announces intention to run for a 3rd term

Shocking that Bloomberg could state that he is for term limits, while announcing he is intending to run for a third term anyway!

The financial crisis is the rationale that he gave for changing the term limits, and that it was too close to November to be put on the ballot for a third referendum to reject it again. Why would the the single instance of the credit crunch and Wall St implosion change the term limits law for time and memoriam? If there was desire for a third term, and a rationale for third terms it wouldn't change because of the last couple of weeks financial downturn.

Congressional Bail Out -- RIP

Nays = 227
Yeas = 206

My solution is to make available the $700 billion loan directly to the CEOs, members of the corporate boards personally. The repayment would have 30% annual interest and a balloon payment after 5 years. If they don't make the payment (which they inevitably couldn't at such a high interest rate) the government would then take every asset from these individuals forcing them into destitution, thus wealth re-distribution on such a grand scale that would give Mao Zedong a hard-on.

Billionaires no more!

John McCain Owns VoteForTheMILF.com? | GOVGAP

John McCain Owns VoteForTheMILF.com? | GOVGAP

McCain Campaign bought the domain name www.VoteForTheMilf.com the day that Sarah Palin was announced to be the GOP's Vice Presidential nominee. Objectifying women is certainly the best way I can think of to get former Hillary Clinton supporters on your side.

Below is the official listing for the VoteForTheMilf domain. Though the address listed is in Arizona it is simply the address of hosting company Go Daddy (whose past advertising has gotten the holy rollers's panties in a bunch due to the ad's racy content).

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: VOTEFORTHEMILF.COM
Created on: 29-Aug-08
Expires on: 30-Aug-09
Last Updated on: 29-Aug-08

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration VOTEFORTHEMILF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

Technical Contact:
Private, Registration VOTEFORTHEMILF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

Domain servers in listed order:
NS57.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS58.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

M.T.A. Seeks Contingency Plan to Cut Service if Economy Worsens - NYTimes.com

M.T.A. Seeks Contingency Plan to Cut Service if Economy Worsens - NYTimes.com

Seriously... the MTA will find any excuse screw the city. After a year of record revenues, and ridership on every service (bus, subway, LIRR, Metro North, and NJ Transit) and the MTA is  giving the hackney cop-out that because of the financial collapse will cause them to cut services. Then did they have cyrtal ball back in June when they said they were going to increase fares?

Will There be a GOP Primary for Mayor?

Will There be a GOP Primary for Mayor?

Despite this post on Urban Elephants yesterday declaring the unlikeliness that Bruce Blakeman will not run for GOP nomination for Mayor. I just saw an ad for for him on NY1's morning news. It seems to be a year early but it probably is dirt cheap today the day after primary day.

Why Do Football Coaches Hate Democrats? | The New York Observer

Why Do Football Coaches Hate Democrats? | The New York Observer

"Prominent football coaches. For whatever reason - a natural sympathy for autocratic leadership, perhaps? - the G.O.P. has had no shortage of sideline generals to showcase through the years, a tradition that the party will renew tonight when former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs addresses the convention just before 9:00."

So the Republicans can have sideline generals, Democrats will keep the actual generals

$10 Billion A Month in Iraq

McCain/Palin campaign spokespersons have been touting Sarah Palin's executive experience, managing 24,000 employees, proximity to Russia and Alaska's $10 billion annual budget. What is Sarah Palin going to do the second month? Why bring attention to Palin's budget decisions (she severally cut special education in her first budget before giving birth to a son with Downe Syndrome)? Sarah Palin did not even have a valid passport 2 years ago, is she really the best person to be a heart beat away from the oldest nominated presidential candidate who has had cancer, and heart disease?

John McCain has no executive experience, so why make the argument that Senate experience doesn't count? The difference between Democratic and Republican conventions was the GOPers couldn't stop booing, and the speakers couldn't stop blaming the media, the congress, and the rest of the world for anything and everything. Victimhood does like look good on the elephant, whether Senator Phil Gram calling Americans whiners, Sarah Palin complaining about the liberal media and the Washington establishment stating she doesn't have any experience, or John McCain kvetching that we would have lost Iraq if we had listen those people that wanted to withdraw 2 years ago (the people he is referring to... the American people).

$10 billion a month
What does the US get in return:

• $3.89/gallon gas,
• a huge national deficit,
• 4,000 plus service men and women dead,
• 50,000 military casualties,
• 6 billion inhabitants of the world that justifiable do not trust us as far they can throw us,
• American citizens committing war crimes then having it rebranded it as "enhanced interrogation,"
• a crippled and stretched-too-thin military,

So I'm going have to say 'thanks, but no thanks' to McCain's offer of providing judgement and values.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

McCain unsure how many houses he owns - Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen - Politico.com

McCain unsure how many houses he owns - Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen - Politico.com

McCain is so wealthy (more accurately his wife is so wealthy) that he doesn't know how many houses he owns. This story seems to really have gotten a foot hold amongst the political press. Obama certainly has taken advantage of it producing an ad with the politico.com interview already.

What I think about when I hear this story is Kerry flubbing this exact issue in 2004, he brought up Bush's tax returns and stated how much money Bush got refunded for owning a lumber company that made capital purchases. Kerry should have jump all over Bush's joke ("got wood?") by replying "I know where most of money comes from, and so does everyone in the room, because there is a bottle of ketchup on everyone's kitchen table. This guy is so wealthy and so out of touch that he doesn't have the faintest clue where his money comes from."

I know fighting the last battles is not productive, but indulge in my cathartic rant. Kerry should have used humor in that instant, it could have won him the election. It would have cast Kerry in a new light and would have shown Baby Bush as exactly what he is, which is a silver-spooned brat.

Faith-Based Presidency Part 2

The Republican presidential debate last night had NBC anchorman Brian Williams asked all the candidates "whether or not the invasion of Iraq was worth the loss of lives and treasure?"

Born-again Christian Mike Huckabee answered that it was worth it, and "that Iraq probably did have weapons of mass destruction" giving as an example that "if you haven't found all the easter eggs, doesn't mean that the eggs haven't been planted."

Only the guy that doesn't believe in evolution and ignores the geological evidence that proves the earth is older than 6,000 years old, would be the lone guy to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of the even five years of occupation where our guys have looked in every nook and cranny of Mesopotamia and couldn't find them. Only Huckabee could believe that despite all evidence proving otherwise that either our Armed Services are incompetent (which I do not believe) or Saddam Hussein is the world's greatest illusionist. Its same sort of conservative idiocy that thinks John Kerry didn't deserve any medals while he was serving in Vietnam (possibly because Republicans believed the Nixon Pentagon handed them out like candy) that can see things that aren't there . Idioacracy that has put Bush into the Whitehouse, that allows fairytale believing idiots to control the GOP, and is central to Mike Huckabee's presidential run; needs to be stomped out.

Competency within our government depends on a strong attachment to reality. I obviously would never vote for Huckabee, or Bush or any other looney right wing-nut, but I am mature enough to realize that not every candidate I vote for will win so the important thing is that the loyal opposition should be at least be fact-based. If have people in charge that are faith-based that could care less about the results of their policy (infrastructure failings in New Orleans and Minneapolis, invading a foreign country because of a gut feeling, trickle-down economics while believing greed is good) we will all suffer under their rule as we have seen with current Bush administration.

Nevada Polls

Electoral-Vote.com has listed some public polls that shows Saturday's Nevada Caucus much closer 3-way race than I would have imagined. Given that the Casino workers union endorsed Barack Obama, and the second most powerful union in the state the teachers union endorsed Hillary; it is a little surprising that Edwards is within the margin of error of winning the state in the Research 2000 poll and Edwards is plausible to win in reality if we take the pollsters' track record (ie NH polls) into account. Obviously we will have to see what happens this Saturday.Just a point of order about political reporting premature electoral obituaries: Chris Mathews the weekend before NH's primary asked 12 of his regular contributing pundits and unanimously agreed that Barack had the nomination in his back pocket.

There should be serious discussion within the fourth estate that
we will see a brokered national convention. As long as Edwards gets 15% in most states and Clinton and Obama continue to fight it out splitting up most of the Feb 5th state the delegate count will never reach a majority.

Brokered Convention

We could see the first televised brokered convention one maybe even both national parties this summer. With the GOP so scatter-shot four or even five candidates that are plausible to be nominees (plausible= Giuliani; Huckabee; Romney; McCain, and much less plausible Thompson). On the Democratic side Obama and Hillary are unlikely more than 45% of the delegates except in their respective home states. A brokered convention is probably what Edwards is banking on, because when Denver rolls around and head-to-head match ups are the only thing the political press can write about Edwards will certainly look better than Hillary, and Hillary will probably start slinging mud at Obama to take the shine off him. Saving grace for Hillary and Obama are that some states have winner-take-all primaries, I couldn't find a list of them on the net , but thenattering-nay-bobs of negativity (aka the media) will get around to talking about it by Febuary 5th.

Likelyhood of a Bloomberg Campaign

Over the holidays I spoke with family and friends living and working in the beltway and they seemed to have a surprising consensus that if Hillary is the nominee, then Bloomberg will not run for president. They seem to believe that because Mayor Mike's personal friendship with the junior senator he will hold back his national ambitions and desire to rollback hyper-partisanship that is occurring in DC, but if a less polarizing candidate like Obama or Edwards he will jump in. It is my opinion that Bloomberg is probably going to jump in the race no matter who the nominees of the parties are.